Zdanowski Family Web Site

We're BACK!

kari_zdanowski@yahoo.com (Kari) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 01:47:21 GMT

Okay, really, I think we are finally back on this website thing. I finally found the directions on how to do this. Yes, yes, I could have asked David or Justin how, but that would have made sense and I wouldn't have one of the many excuses that I now have on why this site hasn't been updated in 6 months! More excuses: laptop was acting up, too much to do, no time, busy, . . . . and finally, the truth - LAZY! I will honestly try to keep up better with this.

I do have this great new laptop that David bought me the other day to work on. Our old one was acting up and instead of waiting until it died and losing pictures and other documents like we did last time, David bought me a new one. I called him at lunch time and he said he was in the check out at Best Buy getting my laptop. Wow! He's the best!

So, what's new you might ask . . . where do I begin . . .
Peyton was baptized in May
School ended for GOOD in June
We went on our 1st annual Nepple Family Beach Vacation
David got a new job in June with Segovia. He'll have to get you up to speed.
I went on a girls weekend to Atlantic City in July with my friend Sarah
Turned the BIG 3 - 0
Had our 8th wedding anniversary
Started my own business - Home Child Care
Finally after 1 year bought furniture for the basement

That pretty much sums up the last 6 months. I will have to take a few minutes of the next week(s) and go into more detail. The Atlantic City trip could be lots of fun to read about.

As for now, my plan is to begin Christmas shopping and updating this site. Now I will say, that I am not sure when I will get pictures on. David said last time he tried, just a couple weeks ago, he couldn't get it to work. We'll have to see if I can get it to work, but I have to upload all the pictures onto this new computer for I can do that. I'll just add it to my 'To Do List'.

Hugs and Kisses to you All!

Spring is finally here....

kari_zdanowski@yahoo.com (Kari) — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 16:53:55 GMT

Well, it is a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon here in Virginia. Looks like it going to be almost 80 degrees today.

Kari is off with Colleen today at some sort of Animal rescue thing thing to sell their stuff. Colleen with her jewerly and Kari with her hand made bows. That means Ainsley and I are spending the day together today. We have already been on a walk in her wagon, played at the playground, drew on the drive way with her big chalk and had a snack. She is currently taking a nap and after while we are going to go and play with Uncle Justin and Gavin.

We also wanted to congratulate Andrea and Eric on the birth of Peyton Michael. He is getting bigger already and is a cute guy. He came right on time and grandma and grandpa got here that same day. Everyone is very excited.

Kari finally has got all of her ducks in a row and will be staying home and running a day care out of our house next year. She has at least three, possibly four kids already confirmed and is looking for probably one more. She is really excited and I am happy for her. I still am a little iffy on the idea, but I think she has proved with all of her research and work that it will be ok.

Anyway,just wanted to catch everyone up. Need to get some pics up and will hopefully will have them up soon.

Dave

Ainsley's 2!

kari_zdanowski@yahoo.com (Kari) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:31:34 GMT

Well I can't believe Ainsley is growing up so fast! She's 2 already! It is amazing how quickly time has gone! We have new pictures and I will try to remember how to put them on the web page.

We took Ainsley for her 2 year check up and found that she weighs 26 pounds, this puts her in the 50%, and that she is 35 1/2 inches tall, in the 90th%! According to history, you are about 1/2 your height at age 2. . . this makes Ainsley 5 foot 11! We're making a supermodel!!!

Ainsley got her big girl bed this past weekend, and it doesn't seem to have changed anything. She has not wanted to go to bed lately, and that has continued. She wants you to stay in the room with her. We do for about 5 minutes and then leave and she goes to sleep. Let's hope this continues. Easy transition - I just hope they all are.

We have been prepping Ainsley to give up her pacis for months now. The big day is just around the corner, March 30. We have big plans and hopefully this transition will go like the bed. Ainsley will be giving all her pacis to her soon-to-be new baby cousin. Stay tuned to see how that goes.

As far and David and myself, we are still doing the same. David isn't a huge fan of his job and would really like to find something new. I continue to try to find ways to stay home. We keep working on making ourselves happier.

Don't even know what to say...

kari_zdanowski@yahoo.com (Kari) — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 00:51:21 GMT

Surprise!!!!

I know that I said we would be doing a better job of updating the site and adding pics, but what can we say. We just aren't very good at this. Both Kari and I are not very good at making time for the extra stuff. Actually, we are not very good at making time for everything.

Anyway, let’s see what is new since last time we put forth an effort. Ainsley is getting very big and is really starting to try and talk a lot more. We still are working on the baby sign language, but she is really trying to repeat a lot of the things say.

Signs she knows now:
• Please
• More
• Thank you
• Milk
• Cheese
• Help
• Daddy
• Aunt
• Uncle
• Horse
• Frog
• Pig
• Duck
• Stars
• Bird
• Cat
• Dog
• Flower
• Bath
• Toothbrush
• Telephone
• Sleepy
• Baby
• Pacifier

Words she says:
(Or says, but only a few people could tell what she is saying)
• Mommy
• Daddy
• Uncle
• Khali
• Duke
• Duck
• Yuck
• Stuck
• Boo boo
• More
• Please
• Cheese
• Hi
• Bye
• No
• Uh oh
• Up
• Down
• Dip (as in dipping food in sauce)

The 18 month pictures were again the Picture People weekly contest winner. We will get these pictures posted here soon.

I think everyone knows but Kari transferred schools this year. She is again only a couple of miles from home which makes for a nice commute. The new school is named Victory, but I am going to work on getting them to change the mascot. I just don't think that the "Westies" as in the little fluffy dogs, is intimidating or tough enough. If you want to see what I am talking about, look at this site. Victory Elementary School. I hope to have the PTO and school board convinced by the end of the year. Oh, I forgot to tell you the names of the dogs. This really puts it over the top. But Vic and Tory are just a little too cute for me.

I was going to say I promise to add more soon, but by our track record, we will be checking back in around Thanksgiving.

See ya soon....Ha Ha Ha

We're Back!!!!

kari_zdanowski@yahoo.com (Kari) — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 02:20:19 GMT

Hello all. I know, you can't believe that we are actually updating the site. We stink. That is all the excuse I am going to give. We did have some laptop issues which is where we loaded most of the pictures, but beyond that, we are just lazy.

Let's see what is new since last time. Andrea, Eric, Kari, Ainsley and I went up to New York for a long 4th of July weekend to go to the lake. Did a little boating, visited the Orange County Chopper's shop and said good bye to Brad who is off to Switzerland to study for a year.

We also went to Wisconsin to for Kelley's graduation from high school. It was a nice weekend and we got to see basically everyone from both sides of the family.

Beyond that nothing else is really going on. Ainsley is getting really, really tall. She had her 16 month check up, and shots, and is off the chart again in height. She is currently 33 inches tall. They say that on average you are roughly one half your adult height at age to so if she keeps growing at the rate she is now, she will pass me up probably by the time she is 16.

Anyway, she is in a great mood most of the time and is still learning new baby sign language signs all the time. Kari is really good at trying to teach her new signs. I think we are up to about 15 or 16 different ones.

Anyway, I will be adding a bunch of new pics in the next couple of days, so be on the look out.

Dave

Hello There

kari_zdanowski@yahoo.com (Kari) — Thu, 18 May 2006 02:27:28 GMT

I am going to make yet another excuse for the amount of time in between posts, but I swear this one is true... Anyway, Kari and I usually do all of the updates and adding of pictures from our laptop computer from the comfort of our couch. However, the laptop crapped (Technical term) out on us and we still are not yet back up and running. Hopefully will have it back up and running by the end of the weekend.

Anyway, we have been pretty busy around here. Ainsley is getting to be such a big girl. She basically runs all over the house and gets into everything, which is cute at times, but tiring when all you want to after a long day at work is sit on the couch and relax. Oh the joys of being a parent. Anyway, she is still working on getting her teeth in, which she seems to be a little behind. Normally kids get the bottom two middle teeth then the top to and then they kind of just fill in. Nope, not our kid. She has had the bottom two teeth for months now and decided to get the back teeth next. The dentist said that happens and not to worry, but still seems a little strange to us.

Ainsley is also becoming quite the talker, if you consider sign language talking. I think the last time we tried to figure out how many words she knew we counted 11. I was totally a skeptic when Kari first talked about teaching her, but it is really neat and I am a believer now.

The basement is coming along very nicely. We had the ceiling, doors and trim finished two weeks ago and all of the lights and bathroom fixtures put in last week. I have lots of touch up painting as well as painting all of the trim and doors to do, but we are almost there. It looks great and we are excited to finally be finishing up.

Well, I normally put pictures up at the same time that I write an article, but again, the laptop is delaying that. I can't seem to find the cord that goes to the camera, but Andrea and Eric gave us a few CDs of pictures, so I am going to see what they have. If nothing good, I will have some posted soon.

Take Care for now.....

Look, another new story

zando75@yahoo.com (DavidZdanowski) — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 03:19:12 GMT

Can you believe it? Two articles in two weeks. We really are trying hard to not be such big slackers.

Anyway, we have been keeping busy around here. Ainsley is up and walking some finally. She still crawls a lot since she can get around much quicker, but we are working hard with her and she is getting better everyday.

The basement is coming along nicely. The entire basement is primed and ready for paint. The bathroom has been painted and I installed the tile floor today. I have to put in the grout tomorrow and then it will be finished.

The Rummels came over for dinner last night and we cooked out on the grill. Kari and Colleen decided that both kids needed baths, so we put them in together. There are some really cute pics of them in the photo gallery.

Ainsley also has a new hair style that is also on display in the pics that were added. Her hair is just all over the place these days and there isn't much we can do with it, but this will do for now.

First Birthday Weekend

zando75@yahoo.com (DavidZdanowski) — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 05:02:20 GMT

See, I told you it wouldn’t be another two months again before we posted. I swear we really are busy.

Anyway, the big day was here last Saturday. We can hardly believe that our little one is one already. All of the Grandparents came to town and we had a big party on Saturday. Lots of friends and family made it a really nice day. It unfortunately was a little overwhelming for Ainsley. She did pretty good, but got a little crabby at times. You will see a bunch of pictures that we took and a number of pictures that I stole a bunch off of Justin’s site, so thanks for those J.

We all then spent a nice day visiting the local wineries. We have found a couple of new spots to hang out this summer. This Sunday we visited Piedmont Vineyards and Crysilis. I think that we all agree that we like Piedmont better.

Anyway, it is getting late and 24 is starting, so we will add more soon, we promise.

Look a new article

kari_zdanowski@yahoo.com (Kari) — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 04:33:00 GMT

We won't even try and make any excuses for why we haven't updated the site in oh two plus months. We are always busy but we really need to take a few minutes every once and awhile to update the site.

We are in full Birthday planning mode with only a few weeks left until the big 1. Looks like family will be coming in starting on Wednesday or Thursday of next week. Grandpa will be flying in from his new winter home in Florida. Grandma and Grandpa will be driving in and staying at Andrea and Eric's house. Not sure exactly how many people are going to be attending since if you couldn't guess Kari has been making most of the arrangements. It should be a good time as long as no one buys Ainsley anything that makes noise.

Ainsley is getting so big we can hardly believe it. She has the bottom two middle teeth, but we haven't seen any others yet. We keep thinking she should have more already, but I guess they come in when they are ready.

Ainsley has taken her first couple of steps, but doesn't seem all that interested at this time. She is a crawling speed demon and doesn't want to waste her time practicing.

We have also been really busy as we are in the middle of finishing the basement. We are at the priming and painting stage, so I will be very busy in the coming weeks. Kari will be busy taking care of Ainsley and I will be busy working down there. Hopefully we will have the bathroom done first in the next couple of weeks and the rest of the basement shortly after that. As soon as we are done painting, our contractor/friend from work will come back out to the house and install all of the doors and trim. I would say in the next two months we should be completely done

Anyway, we have a bunch of new pictures that I will get uploaded soon. Please excuse out laziness as we promise to try harder in the future. (I think you have probably heard that before)

Been a while

zando75@yahoo.com (DavidZdanowski) — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 05:17:07 GMT

Well it has been a little while since we posted. We have just been really busy lately with a lot going on. If you read Justin Rummel's website Rummel Family site, you will see that I finally hit the big XXX (30 for those who don't read roman numerals. I am still a little depressed, but I guess there is not much I can do at this point. Kari did a great job of surprising me with a great gift. She arranged, planned and got everyone to help buy two tickets to the Chicago Bears vs. Carolina Panthers football game at Soldier Field. We had everyone over to the house on Friday night and the whole crew surprised me with the tickets and long underwear. Took me a minute to figure out what was going on but it was a huge surprise.

Kari and I flew out at noon on Saturday and arrived in Chicago around 3 pm. We caught a cab and headed to the Hard Rock Hotel on Michigan Avenue. Hard Rock We did a little walking around on Saturday night and then headed to the game on Sunday. It was a little cold, but we had awesome seats 17 rows off the field on the 25 yard line. And to top it all off, the Bears won and looked really good.

Grandma and Grandpa came out to Virginia for Thanksgiving and HAD to baby sit. You can tell by looking at the pictures from their visit that they really didn't have all that much fun, but they put up with Ainsley for a couple of days.

We had a very nice Thanksgiving at Andrea and Eric's house. Andrea did most of the cooking and did a really nice job.

The other big news is that we are finishing off our basement. I have a couple of guys at work that do this type of work in their spare time and are doing a great job. At this time, the basement is totally framed out, electric has been run, HVAC has been run and Justin and I ran speaker wire this past weekend. The plumber we hired will be here on Wednesday of this week to do the rough in and then we will be ready for drywall. Can't wait to get it done.

Anyway, we are going to spend Christmas in Texas this year, so I guess it won't be a white one, probably a little brown. We will be there until New Years Day, so it should be nice.

Ainsley had her 9 month check up today. Of course she is perfect. That is what the Doc said, not me. She is now 18 pounds 10 oz and 28 1/2 inches tall. She has two little teeth and is really a lot of fun. She is crawling all over the place and getting into everything. She is really fond of pulling all of the movies and video games off of the TV stand. Last week she figured out how to wave and has been showing everyone that she can. I am starting to think that she takes after her mother because she is constantly talking, just kidding honey.

Anyway, we will get all of Ainsley's first Christmas pictures up as soon as we can.

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year.