Our Family Blog

A fall update

2010-11-25T08:49:00.003-06:00

Since it's Thanksgiving it seems appropriate to journal about what has happened this fall.

Nick started first grade, he has glasses. He gets spelling words each week. Most of the time he is able to get the all correct on Monday during the pretest so he gets 5 challenge words. He loves math and doesn't enjoy reading as much....he still loves to be read to so we are working on getting him to enjoy reading to us.

Hadley is in 4 year old preschool. She loves to play babies, dance and sing. And most of all she rules the roost...that's not a good thing :)

Both kids are active in sports which keeps us on our toes...they participated in Soccer, Basketball, Gymnastics and Swimming lessons.

Aaron continues to work for ProGas trying to start an electrical division for this company. I started working in the Radiology department at the University of Iowas Hospitals and Clinics. The commute is reallllly long and the kids certainly miss me and I them! It's been a hard transition on all of us but we continue to push through. I also just finished Data and Decisions and stats class that's part of the MBA program...Yucky is all I can say and I am thankful it's over with. I am enrolled in a marketing class and I hope I enjoy it much better.

Nick lost his two bottom teeth and he is working on the two top teeth now...He will likely be able to sing "all i want for Christmas is my two front teeth" by the time Christmas is here. He also just grabbed the gallon of milk out of the fridge took a big swig and then saw me walk into the kitchen he grinned and said, oh my dad says you're not supposed to see that.

Stitches-June 30, 2010

2010-08-09T21:23:00.003-05:00

I was in San Diego attending the SHRM conference. On my way home, I caught a connecting flight in Denver. I called home from the Denver airport to tell my kiddos goodnight and Hadley informed me she was in the Emergency room getting stitches! I honestly thought she was kidding me. She was so calm. Aaron finally got on the phone and told me she was telling the truth.

Hadley was holding the front screen door open talking to one of her friends that was walking by our house. When she was finished talking, she turned around to walk in the house and caught her foot/ankle on the door. We still cannot figure out what she scratched it on but she did get 7 stitches.

When the doctor came in to get started, Nicholas said, "Is it okay if I wait in the hall?" One of the nurses took him to the waiting room and watched t.v. with him. Aaron said Nick gave Hadley a great big hug when it was all over with and said, "it's okay sissy, you will be alright"

Izzy and Hadley

2010-08-09T21:12:00.002-05:00

We went and played at Todd and Tracey's, grilled hot dogs and played on the water slide. Ben and Christa brought their new puppy Izzy. Now Miss Hadley wants a new puppy! She invited herself to go spend the night with Ms. Christa so she could play longer with Izzy.

9 quiet kids-Lake of the Ozarks

2010-08-09T21:09:00.002-05:00

The children all ate and then Aunt K turned on the Disney Channel so the adults could eat in peace and quiet. Great Idea! Nine kids really sat and watched t.v. quietly! Amazing!

Lake of the Ozarks

2010-08-09T21:05:00.004-05:00

Lost second tooth in the Ozarks at Aunt K.

2010-08-09T20:56:00.002-05:00

We were hanging out at Aunt K and Uncle S house at the Lake. A little girl that was also visiting pulled out a loose tooth. Nick has been working on wiggling and wiggling his second loose tooth. Shortly after the little girl pulled her tooth out Nick and Aaron pulled his second loose tooth out.

The Inevitable

2010-08-09T20:42:00.004-05:00

Earlier in the summer Nick had his school physical. Unfortunately he had trouble reading all of the letters on the eye chart. The eye doctor recommended waiting to order glasses until right before school starts. -One so he wouldn't leave the glasses at the pool or run over them with his bike and -secondly, we could ensure we ordered the right prescription to see the chalkboard perfectly! Nick waited very patiently all summer long. Today, we drove home from the Ozarks and went straight to pick up these. He is so handsome!

School Physicals

2010-06-08T18:34:00.003-05:00

School is officially out tomorrow. Much later than normal but with all of the snow days this year here we are. Who would have thought that Nick would still be in school on June 8th? I took a day off work for the kid's physicals and dentist appointments as well as my routine eye appointment. Unfortunately, it seems as though Nick will now have a routine eye exam too.

The pediatrician believes Nick's vision in his right eye is 20/50 and his left 20/40. We see the ophthalmologist next Friday and will find out definitive results. Nick thought this was fabulous news! He is very excited to wear glasses. I think this excitement may wear off quickly but we'll see.

Since Nick lost his first tooth the dentist did a panoramic x-ray to make sure all of the adult teeth are in the gums where they should be and ready to come in. Unfortunately it does not look like one of the lateral adult teeth (next to his front tooth) is there or could possibly be underdeveloped. This is hereditary and I have the same problem.

It stinks to find out news like that but they are both easy fixes. I thank my lucky stars for their health each and every single day. There are certainly worse things and I am so happy that I have two beautiful healthy babes!

At age 6, Nick is 46" tall, & 46.5 lbs, with glowing reviews otherwise!

Miss Hadley's vision was 20/30 in her right eye and 20/20 in her left. We couldn't tell if she was being her normal dramatically cute self so we are going to wait a year to have her eyes checked.

Unfortunately she had to have her four year old immunizations. I never like these days. Four year shots are definitely the worst...when they are babies they cry for a second and then it's done and over with. At four they wonder if it's coming....the six year old big brother sure does not help...you try not to answer the question, you know so you aren't lying. Just keep avoiding eye contact because this big pile of guilty sadness is laying on your mama heart...ugh! and then after it happens she is showing plenty of anger and madness so of course there is and even more mommy guilt. But it's all for a good reason, right?

I think she cried and whimpered for an hour. I even tried bribing her with a roll of life savers from the pharmacy afterwards. She wanted no part of it.

At age 4, Hadley is 37-1/4" tall and 29.5 lbs, still pretty small but she is following her own petite growth curve so they are happy enough.

First Lost Tooth

2010-05-30T20:37:00.008-05:00

We sure are having a fun spring and I have lots to write about but we have an exciting story to tell tonight, oh do we ever! While helping Nicholas brush his teeth on Wednesday I hit a spot that really made him flinch and writhe with pain. Upon closer inspection I found two new molars coming in on top. The gums looked very painful...the kind of thing where you could feel a heartbeat pulsing there on that very spot. I felt so sorry for my little boy. As I moved to the bottom row and started to brush we found a loose tooth and another huge bulging spot on his gums where the new tooth was trying to peek through. Nicholas was so excited. He has wiggled that tooth non-stop this week. Tonight (Sunday May 30, 2010) we had a few friends over for supper and each of the dads took a turn trying to get a hold of the tooth. I was really shocked that Nick was willing to let them try. This morning when Grandma tried to give it a tug before she went back home Nicholas was not up for it.

Joe took a try

Tyler took a try

Dad took one final attempt and the tooth came right out. There were no tears. Ms. Jenny took a paper towel and applied pressure for 20 seconds and had Nick take a drink of water and there was no more red stuff. Ms. Jenny told Nick that anytime he lost a tooth he would have to hold a paper towel right on the spot and count to 20. Nick doesn't quite understand why...he was not aware of any of the red stuff. Thank goodness!

And just like that it's out!

Even sissy is excited!

And now the new tooth is already breaking through so I am sure it won't be long before we have another loose tooth. The new tooth is growing in quite a bit behind where the old one used to be. I am curious to find out what the dentist has to say about that on June 7th. I am not sure how much the Tooth Fairy brings good little boys but Nick is excited to find out!!

Correction, I guess he does know about the red stuff...as I am typing this Nick is talking on the phone to my bestie telling her all about his big event, he just said, "Ms. Jenny said hold a paper towel on the spot and it will make the blood stop."

Skinned up knees

2010-04-17T11:06:00.002-05:00

Hadley was playing in the driveway. She went running in her flip flops and bit the dust pretty hard. Aaron was watching from the living room window and saw the whole event transpire. He was getting ready to go out and give hugs and kiss the boo-boo when Hadley sat down on the front step (no tears or whimpering at all) she looked in the direction of her brother who was playing in the yard. Nick came running. When he met Hadley on the porch she said, "it's okay broder I will be alright I don't have to go to the nursing home". Pretty cute.

Duped by a 5 year old!

2010-03-13T07:15:00.004-06:00

We are EXTREMELY excited for Spring. Both kids want to wear shorts and tank tops everyday...Nicholas wanted to wear a Super Mario Bros t-shirt to school on Friday. I told him it wouldn't be warm enough for only a t-shirt so he would have to wear a long sleeved shirt under the T. He didn't choose that option, instead he wore a long sleeved black Tony Hawk shirt with navy blue Nike pants...his new selection didn't match but I decided to choose my battle as 6:30 am yesterday.

Skip ahead to after school/work...

We dropped Hadley off at dance class at 5pm, and Nicholas and I went to go get an oil change. When we got to the store Nicholas took his coat off and to my surprise had a short sleeved Super Mario Bros t-shirt on!

I said Nicholas how did you get that t-shirt on? That's not what you wore to school!

He grinned the biggest grin and said I packed it in my bag and when I got to school I put it on. I didn't even zip my coat up today!

One nation under God

2010-02-27T11:47:00.001-06:00

Hadley said mom do you know what "one nation under God means"? I said yes, it means that we are all God's people and we love each other and get along no matter what the color of our skin is or what we believe in. She said, "oh Alexis at daycare is brown but I like her".

Imaginary friend-Julie

2010-02-27T11:43:00.002-06:00

Hadley has a "friend" named Julie. We have not been fortunate to meet this friend but she talks about her all the time! The stories she tells me about this little girl are hysterical. Aaron and I noticed this week that we haven't heard much about Julie lately so we asked Hadley where she has been and she said, "oh she was messing around and fell in the toilet so now she doesn't want to be friends anymore."

Sounding it out

2010-02-27T11:39:00.002-06:00

Nick is learning to read something new every single day. I truly love listening to him read to me. I have once again been reminded of how odd the English language truly is. He does a really good job trying to sound out words, it's just hard because the rules of the English language don't always make sense. He was helping me type the grocery list. He wanted pizza and little marshmallows. He wrote:

Pesu
Lidl (for little marshmallows)

Too cute!

YouTube - Lost Generation

2010-02-23T20:12:00.000-06:00

YouTube - Lost Generation

Jan 31 - Feb 6

2010-02-07T19:16:00.016-06:00

Quick recap ~ busy week. Sunday afternoon Nicholas decorated his Valentine bag to take to school next week. I think we had every craft item we own out on the table!

I had my first Organizational Management class. The first week was cancelled due to the snow. Thank goodness, I certainly didn't want to drive 1.5 hours in the white stuff. Winter break was nice but it is nice to get back into the swing of things. I really liked the class. I love my Kindle I listen to it on my drive back and forth!

The kids were so excited for Ground Hog Day. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUNI!!

Nick celebrated his 100th day of school. He had to take "100 of something" to school to make a large trail mix for his class to share. He chose raisins.

Aaron and I started a Love and Respect seminar at Jeff and Carrie's church over in LaHarpe. We really enjoyed it. I highly recommend the book!

Nick had to take his favorite book to school for sharing this week. The little stinker took Underwear Do's and Don'ts! Probably not the most appropriate choice for 5 year olds. I had no idea he had it in his bookbag until after school. It is one of his favorites since he can read it himself.

Hadley had dance practice.

Nick brought a teddy bear home in a fancy gift bag on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning he decided he would take the girl $1 and 2 Reese's p.b. hearts. I talked him out of the $1 so he borrowed his sister's beads and made her a bracelet instead. Cute. She called Thursday night and invited him to attend Family Fun Night at her church. We went and it made her night! She's adorable!

Isn't she cute?! When I picked the kids up from daycare on Friday night, Nick pulled $6 out of his pocket. I asked him where he got it and he informed me Boyd owed it to him for borrowing his crayons at school. Little Stinker!!! Of course I instantly called Boyd's father to tell him Mr. Nicholas would be returning the $6 on Monday. At Family Fun Night the girl's mom told me she talks non stop about Nick and Boyd. I have a feeling these three will be having all kinds of fun together over the 12 years!

We volunteered at the Red Cross B-ball tournament on Saturday and Sunday. The kids had a great time using a Sharpie to mark an X on the spectators hands so they could go back and forth between the two schools for the tournament. I am pretty sure each person was afraid to put their hand out for an X via sharpie from a 3 or 5 year old. Here's Hadley in action!

Saturday I went to the movie Dear John with great friends. Enjoyed margaritas afterwards, yum!

The kids enjoyed a few minutes outdoors Sunday. We all needed it! We are praying for little Audrey to come through her major surgery this week. I'm looking forward to Naomi's Kitchen next Saturday. My freezer needs replenished.

Little Miss crashed at 6:30pm. I hope she does not wake up at 4am. This is exactly how I feel right now...I think she's wearing the tank top praying for Spring.

January fun...a few firsts

2010-01-31T14:10:00.012-06:00

Roller Skating...

Early in January Favorite boy was invited to 2 birthday's on the sameday. First he went to a local indoor swimming pool to celebrate Charlie's 6th birhtday and then went to a sleepover at his buddy Hunter's house to help him celebrate his 5th birthday! So much fun.

The week after that, Favorite girl was invited to Ellie's 4th birhtday party at Happy Joe's! Lot's of celebrating! The kids are thinking up some great ideas for their birthdays this SPRING!

We attended our first High School basketball here in SE IA. Kind of funny to me that this was our first game since that is all I had to do when I was younger. We used to attend every sporting event!

Last Saturday we went roller skating for the first time. The kids did so well. I was really amazed at how quickly they caught on! I was really afraid that I wouldn't be able to do it anymore. I am so thankful Carrie and Adam invited us along!

We had so much fun last weekend, that we decided to do it again this weekend. Favorite Boy called Grandma at 8am on Saturday morning and begged her to join us for the fun. And she did! She drove 2 hours just to go roller skating with us! We went out for dinner at Gator's and then enjoyed the movie Up! at home. A very nice relaxing weekend.

Favorite boy is already asking if we can go again next weekend!

GyMnAsTiCs!

2010-01-19T19:05:00.002-06:00

Both kids are in gymnastics at the YMCA and really loving it. I can't wait to capture pictures of their somersaults. They really want take swimming lessons but I don't want them going out in the cold weather with wet hair. Hopefully they are still as excited to participate next session when the weather warms up. I hope to post some recent pics very soon. FG accidentally dropped my camera in September and I finally replaced it! I have been going crazy without a digital camera for 4 months!!

We got the bug!

2010-01-19T18:51:00.003-06:00

CAUTION THIS IS ABOUT VOMITING YOU MAY NOT WANT TO READ THIS POST...

Favorite Boy woke up Sunday morning around 2am vomiting in his bed, yuck! Every hour or so he had another episode, poor guy! This lasted until 11am. I really can't complain because we have been so fortunate this year. Other than a few sniffles and coughs we have been very healthy!

As soon as dad was up for the day he was off to the gas station for 7UP. Both kids enjoyed sipping soda for the day. Favorite Girl was happy as could be all day so we sort of wondered if FB got sick on Saturday at his first ice fishing trip with dad, grandpa, and uncle Chris because uncle Chris was very sick on Sunday as well...but we could be confusing his with brown bottle flu...you can never be to sure???

We couldn't be so lucky, Favorite Girl came to my room at 445 Monday morning and in her most excited voice said, "Mommy I throwed up in my bed just like broder!!!!!" I could hear the glee in her voice even at 445am. Aaron and I jumped out of bed to go clean up the mess and we asked her why she was happy to be sick. She said she was happy to be sick like her broder. She remained happy the whole day. She also was sick until 11am and then took a five hour nap and woke up feeling good. Aaron stayed home with her and when I got home from work he told me she was the happiest puker he'd ever met. She even made it to the bathroom every single time (unlike her brother who insisted on having a bowl right by his side the whole day).

Seriously, do they do this stuff on purpose?

2009-12-12T20:14:00.002-06:00

Aaron was on his way home while I am home baking away. We are serving refreshments tomorrow at church and I am trying to get things made so I am ahead of the game for the holidays. I called and asked him to pick up more butter, eggs, chocolate chips, vanilla, sweetened condensed milk and brown sugar. Okay now that I have typed that you are probably wondering what the heck I started with, but it's been a baking marathon day so I've made a lot and obviously ran out of a lot.

I love my husband dearly and I am happy that he stopped at Hy-Vee for me but he brought home Double Strength Vanilla, Dark Brown Sugar, and Fat Free Sweetened Condensed Milk.

Last week I added mascara to the grocery list because I kept forgetting it when I went to Target...I showed him the tube, wrote the exact brand and exact color on the list and specifically said, "it is expensive, so don't buy it if you can't find the exact one"...what do you think the outcome was?

I think he does this on purpose just so he's never asked again.

I am really on-line looking up a good frosting drizzle recipe, got to go.

First Early Out due to Snow

2009-12-08T21:31:00.003-06:00

Nicholas woke up yesterday (Monday) at 6am, he bounced into our bed excited to give an update that it had snowed! I am not sure what prompted him to pop out of bed at 6am and look out his bedroom window because we had not discussed the possibility of snow but he was SO excited! He told me that he had to wear a hat, gloves, snow pants and boots or he wouldn't be allowed to play in the grass for recess and that his leg might turn red and fall off. I laughed and asked him who told him that. He told me that his teacher told him his leg might get bitten and turn red and fall off if he didn't dress warm.

Needless to say he got all bundled up and stood around in the hallway patiently waiting for me to get ready for work in hopes that I would give him permission to wake his sissy. When I finally gave in he jumped up in her bed, said sissy, sissy it SNOWED! He opened her curtain and let her look outside. They both squealed with delight and begged to play outside after school.

Today was favorite boy's first early out day due to the snow. He was so excited to get to leave school early and eat an afternoon snack at daycare.

Unfortunately, Favorite Girl's Holiday program was scheduled for this evening and it was postponed due to the yucky weather. We are patiently waiting to hear when it will be rescheduled for. We are excited to watch her and her best buddy Adam perform on stage.

I can't post any pics because FG accidentally dropped my camera in September and I still haven't replaced it. I hope Santa is good to me!

My son is a kindergartner who sits with a first grader!

2009-10-16T22:40:00.002-05:00

One of the very first pieces of paper to come home off the bus said,

POOP and PENS

FB was very proud.

He said mom do you know what that says?

I said yes, poop and pens.

He said no it doesn't say Pens!

I said oh well what does it say?

It says poop but it doesn't say PENS! Mom guess what it says!

It says PENS, and then I use Jolly Phonics with him to sound out the word (fully aware that the little stinker left the "I" out of the word he was so proudly trying to write. He dropped it and went running off to play. My heart broke into a MILLION pieces! Of course I made him tell me who taught him how to write those dirty words.

Master Manipulator

2009-10-16T22:23:00.003-05:00

So Favorite Boy has not been the best (lunch)eater since he has started school. He tells me he doesn't have enough time to eat his school lunch. His dad has been kind enough to pack him a lunch every single day since the third day of school. FB says this allows him time to go directly to the lunch table and eat instead of standing in the long lunch line. Great except, all that was eaten out of his lunch box each day were carrots and ranch dressing...We had to bribe him with a reward, so we made an "I ate my lunch chart". FB puts a sticker on it each day when he eats at least 3 items out of his lunch box. When he earns 15 stickers for his chart he gets to take a friend swimming at the indoor water park here in town. Perfect solution, accept the poor boy still comes home ravenous every single day? I don't think he's quite smart enough to throw the food away (or give it away) YET. And besides the empty wrappers are in his lunch box.

One particular day we had breakfast for supper. This boy ate 6 pancakes (normal size pancakes, not the little silver dollar ones), a whole helping of scrambled eggs, and five pieces of bacon, he probably would have ate more but I stole a piece off his plate. My stomach would have hurt so bad if I would have ate that much food. He jumped down from the table and begged to go down the street to play with his buddy.

A little while later I receive a call from my friend Joyce who proceeds to tell me that when FB arrived at her house they were just sitting down for supper. FB decides to stay and eat supper with their family but specifically tells Joyce, "let's just keep this a secret from my mom, okay?"

Joyce says, "well now FB, why would we need to keep it a secret if you eat with us?"

FB, "my mom would be very upset if she knew I ate supper again at your house"

Um, Yep!

But Joyce laughs and says he must be growing! Must be, he ate a full size soft shell taco at their house in addition to his full size meal at our house. ORNERY!

Jenny Apple Seed's Birthday

2009-10-16T22:12:00.003-05:00

This story is a little old but one I definitely want on the books. Favorite Boy informed me that he needed to take an apple to school on Monday to celebrate Jenny Apple Seed's Birthday. I said honey I think it's Johnny Apple Seed. He said, "no mom, my teacher said Jenny Apple Seed I know she did...I wonder if Jenny will come to our classroom so we can sing Happy Birthday to her and help her eat her cake."

I said Johnny Apple Seed is no longer alive, so no you will not get cake tomorrow. The look on my little man's face was priceless...I'm pretty sure I will be getting a few 14 year old eye rollin's...he knows EVERYTHING! He said to me, "Now mom, why would we be celebrating a birthday if HE's DEAD?!?

My five year old made me feel pretty small at that moment because all of a sudden I had no idea if Johnny Appleseed was even a real person or just some made up fairy tale...and yes I'm admitting this on the Internet for the whole world to know. I still haven't bothered to google the answer.

Favorite Girl's First Day of 3-Year Old Preschool

2009-08-27T18:07:00.008-05:00

Today (Thursday August 27, 2009) was a big milestone for my Favorite Girl. She went to preschool for one hour to meet her teacher's, find her cubbie, and begin to make new friends. She gets to go all by herself on Tuesday. Apparently she knew the drill since we prepared brother for Kindergarten this week. She hopped out of the car, started running for the door and said by mom. I know how to go you don't have to walk me! This little girl's independence is quite admirable. She definitely will go far in life with her can do attitude. I am so proud of her. (I hope I still feel that way when she's 14 and laying claim to her independence, we shall see).

Off she marched straight to the door. She didn't want a hug or kiss. Little did she know I was staying for the hour ;)

Here she is with her best buddy Adam. Adam's daddy will take them to school everyday. Adam and FG loved putting sand in each other's hair all summer long while their mommies and daddies played sand volleyball. They were such a MESS every Tuesday night. If you notice the picture above FG is playing at the sand table. I pray they mind their manners while at school :) No Sand Fights!

I can't believe our little princess is old enough to be going to school. She is doing GREAT considering she just had her tonsils out on Monday. Her voice seems to have changed a little bit but she's still adorable as can be. She needed a family picture to take to school with her so we ran downtown and snapped a few last night. There wasn't a single pic on my digital camera where we are all looking at the camera. Thank you so much for running down there with us Brandi!!

Tonsillectomy and Adenoidectomy

2009-08-24T14:36:00.013-05:00

After a previous post, my good friend Carrie informed me what the other meaning of T&A is, so I guess I better use the technical terms. Favorite Girl had her tonsils and adenoids removed this morning. We had to be at the hospital at 6am for her 7:10 surgery. Here she is in the waiting room waiting to go back for surgery watching the end of Mickey Mouse Playhouse and Special Agent Oso.
She was such a big big girl and went right with the doctor once we were finished signing all of the required forms. As far as FG knew the only thing she was doing today was getting her ears pierced! She particularly liked Dr. B's Pooh hat. I don't know why I look so ticked. I guess I was tired from the 4 hours of sleep I got. Here we are back in her room recovering. She had to go potty right when we got back into her room. That was a good sign. FG was required to drink the whole glass of apple juice there on the table before we could go home. She tried her best but she vomited at 8:30. She was such a little trooper. She didn't cry once. The only thing that made her mad was the I.V. in her arm. She kept whining for them to take it out. Around 9am we tried some orange jello but she threw up again at 9:30. So she received a shot of Zofran to help with the nausea and then a shot of morphine to help with the pain.

The drugs really livened her up. Carrie came to visit and brought a Dora balloon. That really made her happy!

We watched Dora, Diego, and the Bunny Rabbit show while we were sitting in her room trying to recover. Once the drugs kicked in Favorite Girl was a new woman! She drank her apple juice, ate all of the jello, a purple Popsicle, an orange Popsicle, and all of the marshmallows out of a container of Lucky Charms. Once she ate all of the food and kept it down she ripped off the gown and said I'm all better, please take the I.V. out so I can get dressed.

The nurse gave FG Tylenol with Codeine and then released us. The CNA that transported us back to the front door did not want to be in the picture of FG in the wheelchair, but I caught her.

First Day of School! 08 . 21 . 2009

2009-08-23T19:08:00.012-05:00

Mom made a yummy breakfast of pancakes and sausage to fill his belly so he would be full and prepared to learn.

Mommy's tears started the second we pulled out of the driveway. She tried and tried to be so strong.

This looks like a face of worry. This is getting out of the car heading to the playground. From here he can see all of the kids lined up waiting to go inside.

Thank you America for the freedom to go to school and learn!

Here all of the kids are lined up by grade waiting for the teachers to walk them inside.

Favorite Boy twists things when he is nervous. It used to be that he would twirl his mommy's hair. Since he is too big to be held (especially on the first day of school) he stood and twisted his shirt. This made mommy cry harder.

He is interested in what's going on around him.

Ms. H found Favorite Boy and gave him a name tag. In addition to his name, it also said K-H meaning Kindergarten-Ms. H in case he got lost during the day and couldn't remember his teacher's name whoever found him in the hallway would know where he belonged (more tears), it also said how he would get home at the end of the day.

This was obviously a bad shot because she looks a little mean but she is very very nice!

This was on the door to his classroom.

Here he is at his Red Circle table. Unfortunately he saw the tears in mommy's eyes and started to get butterflies in his tummy.

He started to cry so mommy left the room. Dad stayed to try to calm him down. Finally dad joined mommy in the hallway and all they could hear was FB frantically screaming at the top of lungs "DADDY, NO DADDY! DADDY DON'T LEAVE ME HERE, DADDY!" It was absolutely awful, and all the drama because mommy couldn't keep it together. As we turned to leave we ran into Mrs. K. She shared a few reassuring words with mommy. She told us she would be the the teacher's aide in FB's classroom. FB really likes Mrs. K so that put mommy's mind at ease.

At the end of the day Mrs. K called mommy to give her an update. She said FB had already stopped crying by the time she walked in the classroom. She said he chose to sit alone at his table for a few minutes to calm down before he decided to join the group. (Only half the class started on Friday the other half started on Thursday so there was a small group).

Later in the day all the children were sitting on the carpet learning about bugs. FB was holding a plastic cockroach. He informed his teacher, "I really like this kind of bug, I like to let them crawl on my arm." Ms. H. said, "you do? Where have you held one those bugs?" FB's response was, "at home, we have these kinds of bugs at home!" (I could hear him saying this in his matter-of-fact nonchalant voice, like duh everybody has these kinds of bugs at their house Ms. H! --ornery!!)

I am so very thankful that Mrs. K knows us and could set Ms. H straight. I am so happy that the Kindergarten stories started on the very first day of school! I wish I could be a fly on the wall! No pun intended.

When I picked Favorite Boy up from school we saw our friend D and his mom. We all went to Dairy Queen to celebrate the first day of school. When I asked FB about his day he said that he played outside for recess two times, ate his salad all gone, 20 bites of pizza, and that he has a special 3 digit number he has to remember to buy his lunch. That's all he could remember. He is excited to go back.

Unfortunately Favorite Girl has to have her tonsils out in the morning (Monday 8.24.09). We have to be at the hospital at 6am. Since we have to be up so early favorite boy went to spend the night with gma and gpa tonight. Gma will take FB to his second day of school in the morning.

Our one and only day at the pool this summer

2009-08-23T19:02:00.006-05:00

Taylor Whitehead Benefit

2009-08-23T18:31:00.003-05:00

Aaron and I bid on quite a few things at the Silent Auction for Taylor Whitehead. We were lucky enough to walk away with two fabulous cakes decorated by M.D. We we the BEST parent's ever when Favorite Girl woke up Sunday morning to a DORA cake!

Water Fight at Grandma's House

2009-08-23T18:10:00.010-05:00

There weren't that many nice days this summer. We happened to be at Grandma's on one really nice day and Favorite Boy thought it would be fun to have a water balloon fight.

He has a pretty good arm. Ferentz might want to keep an eye on him. :)Favorite Girl stole the ball and kept it safe in her swim suit. I guess she was finished playing.

Enjoying her Nerd Wrap too

2009-08-23T18:08:00.001-05:00

Nerds Wrap Up

2009-08-23T18:01:00.002-05:00

Favorite Boy loves dessert on taco night. He likes to spread butter on a tortilla shell, sprinkle cinnamon and sugar, wrap it up and ENJOY! On this night he was pretty inventive! He had this box of Nerds from our recent trip to the theater to see Ice Age 2 and he decided to jazz up his wrap with a sprinkle of Nerds. (yuck!)

Carnival at Daycare 07.31.2009

2009-08-23T17:58:00.001-05:00

Wednesday Night Open House

2009-08-20T21:24:00.005-05:00

FB had gymnastics so daddy picked him up at the Y and rushed him home and fed him a lunchable. I picked up sissy and we rushed home to pick up the boys and we were off to school. The parking lot was packed so we had to park across the street and walk. FB was so excited but I could tell there was a little bit of apprehension there too. As we turned down the hallway heading towards the kindergarten classroom we met our good friend D. He was our neighbor that lived across the street but unfortunately he moved right before summer started. We miss him terribly but seeing him in the hallway really put FB at ease.

The second that we walked into the classroom Ms. H met FB at the door. She bent down on her knees and said, "HI! What's your name?!" FB shyed away for a second and at that moment a huge lump swelled in the back of my throat and my eyes instantly filled with tears. I couldn't say anything to encourage him to answer her question or he would hear the tears in my voice. I just held onto his shoulder and thankfully he answered her within a few seconds. She asked him if he could find his cubbie and hang up his bag and told him that he could unload his Kleenex and napkins on the table and she would put them away for him. Thankfully that bought me a minute to pull it together.

Next he said Mom let's go find my desk. He did a fabulous job finding his table. He sits with three other people at a rectangular table. In the middle of the table Ms. H had a red laminated circle taped down. She asked him if he knew what shape it was and what color it was, and of course he answered correctly. She said yeah, you are going to be at the Red Circle table. As I looked around I noticed a Purple Star table, Green Rectangle, Blue Diamond etc...It's kind of funny because during FB's first year of preschool he was a Blue Diamond and during his second year he was a Purple Star so I guess Kindergarten will sort of continue the "Lucky Charms" theme. We played with a few toys, looked at all of the wonderful books, checked out the restroom and then FB started to beg to go to the gym so off we went.

First we stopped by the book fair in the "Media Center" aka Library. FB and FG each picked out two new books and then we went to find the gym. The gym teacher was impressed that FB was wearing tennis shoes and not flip flops and commented that he was wearing the perfect shoes for her class. Our final stop was the playground and then we were off to home.

Today has been a very rough day for mom. I knew that half of FB's class started school today (FB starts tomorrow, Friday) so I sat and thought about two of his classmates that I knew started today and I cried all day long. I emailed the two moms and told them I was thinking of them which only made matters worse because then they wrote back about how "it" went. B's daddy bent down to give him a hug and he said, "B are you crying?" B answered, "no daddy I'm not crying, the tears just won't stop flowing but I'm not crying". B's dad gave him a pat and away Mom and Dad went. Dad did not tell mom about the incident until this afternoon when her baby made it home safe and sound from his first day of Kindergarten.

I know I have to be strong. I know this is a good thing but why do I feel like I just tucked my precious baby boy into bed for the last time and nothing will ever be the same again?????????? Why does it sting so much?

It killed me so badly when I put my kids in a public daycare center and after one week of attendance a teacher told me, "oh your kids have already changed, it's so weird to see how quickly they transition and pick up on the ornery behaviors of other kids, they were so sweet and innocent but they toughened up quick". OUCH! Who tells a mom that?!?

I took tomorrow off of work. I think some of the people I work with think I'm crazy. But the tears wouldn't stop flowing all day today so I'm pretty sure I would be quite unproductive if I tried to work tomorrow. FG and I will hang out, go get her haircut and wait very patiently until we can go rescue brother. I know he's going to love it, I know he's so eager to learn, he wants to be a big school boy, he wants to learn how to read, he wants to run laps in the gym, he can't wait to carry a lunch tray and most of all he can't wait to meet new friends...he's ready (wait I had to go blow my nose) I know he's going to do GREAT! but why don't they allow me to go with him? Do you think anyone would notice if I hide in the bushes all day? I promise I will be quiet.

Parent night at Kindergarten!

2009-08-17T21:32:00.003-05:00

The parents were invited to a special meeting held tonight to meet Favorite Boy's Kindergarten teacher. We had Kindergarten round up before school let out last spring and we met all four of the teachers, but FB's teacher got married over the summer and resigned before this school year started. Last Monday the school hired FB's new teacher-Ms. H. Needless to say all of the parents were going in to tonight's meeting with a lot of anticipation. Ms. H was very very nice I think FB will really like her. Since Ms. H is new to the school she did not run the parent's meeting for FB's class. Instead we joined with another classroom and the "tenured" teacher ran the meeting for both classes. We went over basic rules: a folder will be sent home each day-one side will contain papers we can keep and the other side will be papers that require our attention and most likely will need to be sent back to school. The teacher strongly encouraged that we send our children in tennis shoes instead of flip flops :) We learned that FB will have "sharing" day on Thursday's. The teacher discussed Jolly Phonics (which was also the program used in FB's preschool). She shared that each one of her students were able to read by the end of the school year last year. FB will be so excited. He tries so so hard to read now. I'm amazed at how much of the Dr. Seuss books he can "read" verbatim from memory. The little stinker! So I will save the "mushy I love you post and how badly my heart is aching right now because it feels like it is being ripped out of my chest post" for the First Day of School. I don't think I have the emotional energy to live through it again right now. And besides that I'm supposed to have my happy go lucky game face on right now for FB!

But I do have to post this...I just need to remember this night...I don't consider myself a naive person but I must admit I was quite shocked that the truancy officer made an appearance this evening. He spoke about the Iowa law that requires every child to be in school from the age of 6-16. He explained the difference between an excused absence and an unexcused absence and what it means to be tardy...kind of felt like I was at work... commonsense stuff for the average Joe. I think my mind started to wonder and I sat thinking wow I really can't believe we are having this discussion in Kindergarten. And you would think that with my job nothing would amaze me, AND THEN, parents started arguing with this man?!? The truancy officer actually called out one parent by name and told him to stop rolling his eyes at him...apparently this is not his first rodeo. So it all started to become crystal clear to me why the truancy officer was needed at this meeting and WELCOME TO PUBLIC SCHOOL smacked me hard square in the face. I know it will do no good to try and shelter my children from the reality of life...but honestly I don't know that I was prepared for that reality.

Anyway enough about that rant. On to happier things, I found FB's desk and it looks as if he will sit at a table with four girls. GIGGLE! Poor boy, he can't run, he can't hide, he will have his "mom and sister" sitting right next to him meddling in his business right there at school too!

I love you more than you'll ever know little man! I can't wait for your Open House on Wednesday. I know you are going to do GREAT!

4th of July

2009-07-25T17:50:00.002-05:00

This one lonely picture is all I have on my camera. How sad. The 4th of July is my second favorite holiday. We have always spent the entire week at my mom's and attend all of the Freedom Festival activities. This year I was off the week before for a work trip to Minneapolis and a mini family vacation to the Ozarks (no pics of that either) so I didn't take time off for the 4th. Friday the 3rd we went to a local tree farm and saw the best show I think I've ever seen. Saturday was rainy so we rented a few movies and then watched the Golf Club's fireworks from our house. Sunday, we celebrated Aunt Alaina's birthday with a picnic, and homemade ice cream.

Calgon take me away!

2009-07-25T17:19:00.010-05:00

We have all been a little under the weather lately. A few weeks ago Favorite Girl went to spend a few nights with Grandma for her very own special one on one time. Unfortunately, her first morning there she woke up with a fever of 102. We went to an Urgent Care Clinic near Grandmas and they diagnosed her with strep. Big yucky pussy tonsils. Poor Baby!!

This week the fever was back. We went to visit her Pediatrician and he said if she is better in two weeks he wants to see her again and we will discuss having her tonsils out. I was shocked to hear this. I anticipated having a rough winter and having to beg for the T&A. He said her tonsils are so huge that he believes she probably has obstructive apnea, thus the restless sleep. I also believe that is why she does not eat well and why she gags on everything...they are HUGE!! and always have been. The doctors have assured me her tonsils have nothing to do with the eating (I'm not a doctor but I still have my own opinion. She is my daughter!) SADLY, this has been my favorite time of day for the past two weeks.

We were not sick at all last winter. This was a first for us!! I am happy that we will have the T&A before school starts and before both kids are exposed to all new germs. Pray for us!

There is something about sleeping children. I love taking their pictures while they are asleep. I think it reminds me of going in just to stare at them when they were small babies.

Dad Night

2009-07-25T17:01:00.004-05:00

Aaron understands that I have been trying to get the blog updated. This feat is requiring time at the computer. It's driving him crazy so last night he decided it was going to be "craft" night. He took the kids to Hobby Lobby and let them each choose a craft and a treat. Here is what they came home with.

Favorite Girl picked out a necklace and bead maker with a zillion beads! Pretend I'm smiling right now.

Favorite boy picked out a plaster mould "Build your own Race Car" kit complete with paint!

They are the luckiest kids, with the most patient daddy on earth. Needless to say this is not a virtue their mother is blessed with nor does she enjoy messes such as these. Good job daddy, you are their hero!

Dippin' It Down In B-Town! RAGBRAI '09

2009-07-25T16:52:00.003-05:00

This morning we went to the Mississippi to watch the RAGBRAI riders dip their front tire in the river!

The Airforce Team was incredible. I can't believe how many people were on their team. They are in the white and blue.

2009 June and July Favorites

2009-07-25T16:37:00.008-05:00

We apparently like to eat around here. Here are just a few more favorites from summer. Favorite Girl is covered in chocolate after a trip to DQ!

We love sweet corn around here!

I have enjoyed picking berries at Grandpas while Aaron and the kids fish and drive around on the golf cart. Our trips to Grandpas typically include a few frogs coming home in Favorite Boys pockets. After about 4 days on my counter in their "bug cave", I let them loose in the front yard. I can't bear to think about them starving in there. Favorite Boy hasn't quite figured out how they are disappearing yet.

June 2009 New Bike

2009-07-25T16:30:00.002-05:00

Most 5 year olds are just learning to ride their bikes without training wheels. NOT THIS ONE! Last year during the Flood of 2008, when Daddy was living out of town, Favorite Boy asked the neighbor guy to remove his training wheels. That dad said, no buddy, I think your daddy would want to do that. After a few more begs and insisting that he knew how to ride a bike without training wheels the neighbor took one training wheel off. FB made me so dizzy driving around in circles on the side without the training wheel that I begged that dad to take the other one off too. Away Favorite Boy went. Nobody held on to the back he just rode off into the sunset...okay not really but you get my drift. This year he insisted that he was too big for last years model so he got this one. It is a little bit too big but he does great. ORNERY!

June 2009 Jule's Bakery, yet another excuse!!

2009-07-25T16:19:00.002-05:00

So I have a tiny sugar addiction and it's a little known fact among my friends and family that we may have to drive a few miles out of our way if we are "close" to one of my favorite bakeries or coffee shops...it's just this little problem I have. And while I'm not proud of it a lot of people play into this for me. One person in particular happens to be my MOM!! She's the greatest! If you read my earlier post you found out why she couldn't make it Favorite Girl's birthday party nor Favorite Boy's Graduation Party. In June, when she was feeling all better, she made it up to them, uh hum...ME. She came down to visit us and brought us a Jule's Bakery cake!!! Never mind that they spelled FB's name wrong it was still delicious!! YUMMY!

Big Girl Bed

2009-07-25T15:40:00.009-05:00

Sissy turned 3 and although she still is not big enough to crawl out of her crib we decided it was time to graduate to a BIG GIRLBED! I wanted to buy her a pretty white bed to match her other bedroom furniture but brodder found a race car bed he HAD to have! We already purchased a nice mission bedroom set for him so sissy is experiencing a hand-me-down from her brother. She is borrowing his bed until he outgrows the race car one. I still think her room turned out cute. She insists on keeping the glider in her room. Secretly mommy and daddy still really enjoy rocking her before bed each night, she calls it, "ockin-ing my sissy". We say prayers and read a book and then she crawls up in bed. She still insists on having her "darker and darker pink blankie". She holds onto it and sucks her thumb all night long. The dentist said she must quit sucking her thumb. He wants me to put her to sleep in a long sleeve t-shirt and sew the sleeves shut so she can't get to it, I haven't had the heart to do this yet.

Favorite Boy Graduates May 2009

2009-07-25T14:58:00.011-05:00

Favorite Boy attended Preschool two years in a row. When he was 3 he was a blue diamond with Ms. Diane, this year he was a purple heart with Ms. Nikki and Ms. Margie. Favorite Girl is anxiously awaiting her turn to go to school.

I will insert pics here as soon as I can get my scanner installed....I purchased a new laptop and I'm have a few technical difficulties...go figure!

Here is his Fall 2008 school picture and his May 2009 graduation picture. Words cannot even describe how handsome I think this old soul is. He amazes me every single day! I know in 12 very short years it will seem like "just yesterday" that he graduated from preschool when I will be comparing his high school graduation pictures to this one. Where does the time go?

Happy Birthday Favorite Girl May 2009

2009-07-25T14:45:00.003-05:00

Favorite Girl celebrated her 3rd Birthday in May. We had a party at our house for a few friends and our family. Unfortunately Grandma Andria was very very sick with kidney stones and was unable to make it to the party. When Grandpa Bob inquired where she was N answered, very matter of factly, "that she couldn't make it because she had a rock stuck up her pee!" OMG! I could tell this conversation was going downhill quickly. Grandpa kept the conversation alive by asking N how she got the rock stuck up there and he answered, "I think she musta sat on a pile o' rocks with no underwear on!?" So a word to the wise for all of you adults that frequent quarries without underwear????...be careful!

Great River Bridge Race May 16, 2009

2009-07-25T13:51:00.006-05:00

In January I started running again. It is sort of addicting, I'm having a lot fun. I am happy to have Michele as my running partner. We help keep each motivated. We ran in the 10k Great River Bridge Race on May 16th. This was my first competitive race since high school track. Needless to say I was not trying for a particular time, I just wanted to finish the race. I was excited for this race all Spring but then the morning of the race it was very cold and extremely windy. I finished the run but the last 1/2 mile back over the bridge was pretty brutal. The wind was so bad it felt like I was running in place. I finished 30th out of 60 females with a time of 56:13 , not to great, but I'm still very glad I did it. Here I am with my first race bib. Also this Spring, Michele, Mike and I did the YMCA 5k during Steamboat Days. I thought 3 miles would not be a problem even though I had not ran in a few weeks. I was wrong. It was quite embarrassing!!! A group of 16-18 year old track and XC boys also did this run. The race started unexpectedly while I was still going through my pep talk silently in my head...you know the one: keep your pace, just run for you, pick em up and put em down, don't concentrate on anyone else... well I took off out of the starting gate like I was going for the W. When I finished my first mile in 8 minutes I knew I would be in trouble. I had to walk a few times since I did not start off with diaphragmic breathing, oops! It was a good lesson though.

It is funny that I am posting this today. Today was the Bix 7 in Davenport. I really wanted to run in this race however I have not been running near as often as I need to so unfortunately I skipped the race. Our good friend Mike participated today and I hope he did great! We watched the race on tv this morning and the first place female finished in 37:37. Looks like I have quite a bit of training to do!! I just registered for the Quad City Half Marathon on Sunday September 27th. Michele and I are following a 10 week training program to prepare. Wish us luck! In the mean time we plan to run the following 10k's: West Point Sweet Corn Festival, August 15, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation run in Burlington, September 12, and the Harmony Bible Church run in Danville, October 3.

May 2009 First Signs of Spring and Favorite Things

2009-07-25T13:45:00.003-05:00

When I think of the song "Favorite Things" I wonder how they could make Morel Mushrooms fit into the jingle! It is so funny that my parents went "mushroom hunting" my whole life and I wouldn't touch these things. I think Aaron all but held me down and shoved one in my mouth and now I can't get enough of them! Yum is all I can say.

April 2009

2009-07-22T21:53:00.008-05:00

A group of our friends went out to eat and to watch dueling pianos. It was fun. We didn't pay $20 to hear the Iowa fight song like we (or I) did in Vegas.

For Lisa's birthday we went and ate at Gator's and had a drink at Fun City.

April 2009

2009-07-22T21:41:00.004-05:00

Favorite Boy decided to spend his birthday money to buy one of these. I think it was a little bittersweet for him. As we were loading the box in the back of the car he asked me, "Mom, if I decide I want my money instead can we take this back and they'll give it back to me?"

It made me sad but I knew we were doing the right thing by making him save to buy something he really wanted. Aaron and I took the Dave Ramsey course in March and April and we have decided we want to instill good financial values in our children. Nicholas has a chore chart and he has to do everything on his list each day.

It is a laminated picture chart. In the morning he has to get dressed, put his p.j.'s in the dirty basket, brush his teeth, and put his cup in the sink. In the evening he has to put his shoes on the rug, feed Emma, put his dishes in the sink after dinner, pick up his toys and books before bed, and brush his teeth. He receives a dollar per day M-F. He is required to put $2 in his spending envelope, $2 in his savings envelope, and $1 in his giving/church envelope.

April 2009~EASTER

2009-07-22T21:08:00.016-05:00

We celebrated Easter quite a few times this year.

The week before Easter we went on an Easter egg hunt at a local church with our friends. I was quite impressed. I think half the town was there and each child received a Bible and Easter Eggs galore! I thought it was organized very well. Sections of the playground were designated for each age group. So even Lil Miss found plenty of eggs!

We decorated eggs at home. FG annoyed FB because she wanted to take the eggs out of the dye too soon. But we got the job done!
We headed to Grandma and Grandpa's for the actual Easter holiday. We prayed this guy (or gal) would be able to find us.

He was a tricky bunny this year. He left a clue inside an egg on the kitchen table and we had to read it and really use our thinking caps so we could find the next egg with the next clue.

It was hard but we had a lot of fun!We must have been a little bit good because eventually we found these!

We went to Aunt Gwen's for lunch and guess who was there?!

Even the sisters were having fun!

March 2009

2009-07-21T22:08:00.012-05:00

We made another trip to North Liberty to visit Naomi's Kitchen. Of course all of the meals were fabulous once again! This time I went with Connie, Lisa, Christy, Carrie, & Cindee. Tasha and Shawna couldn't join us.

I had two mom-days-out in March! I went out in the beer drinking capital of SE IA, aka West Point. I thoroughly enjoyed myself with my two friends Cara and Michele. I am happy to report Michele is the only one that walked away with a disease that night :) Don't worry it was only conjunctivitis! We're pretty sure she caught it from Cara's couch...okay maybe not, but we had a fun time nonetheless! The funny thing is Michele is the only one without a child to catch this from :)

At the end of March we celebrated cousin Dillon's Birthday with a pirate party.

And what kind of party would it be without a sister self portrait. We have been famous for these since we were small little children...giggle!

March 2009

2009-07-21T21:49:00.006-05:00

After we returned home from vacation in Florida we celebrated Favorite Boy's 5th Birthday! We celebrated with friends and family at our home. I cheated and ordered pizzas and made a few finger foods. We had delicious cake and ice cream and a fun baseball pinata! FB is certainly my son (and I LOVE it!!). We couldn't get away with having one kind of ice cream to celebrate. FB insisted on having mint chocolate chip and neapolitan (isn't he great)!

The week after FB's birthday he and I attended kindergarten round up. FB went into a classroom with a few teachers and soon-to-be-classmates. He was a little more hesitant than I anticipated. Once I convinced him he would be okay I went into another classroom to meet his teachers, the principle, and the librarian. I know he will do GREAT! I, on the other hand, may need some help on the first day. Yes, as you might have guessed I am crying right now.

March 2009

2009-07-21T21:44:00.003-05:00

I am going to back track a few months and get myself dug out of my blogger hole. Bear with me, hopefully by the end of the week I will be finished with my marathon blog and be caught back up to July.

Our children are the best bedtime procrastinators I have had the privilege of meeting. One night when I hollered for them to come brush their teeth, Favorite Girl met me in the bathroom dressed like this. Favorite Boy obviously dressed himself too, I love the dinosaur pants and Superman shirt!!

Innocence lost before Kindergarten

2009-07-15T21:53:00.002-05:00

Ouch. Today has stung. Two things in one day. I certainly can tell the school aged children are spending time with my son.

This is our conversation on the way to daycare today:

N: Mom [a boy] at daycare told me the tooth fairy isn't real, is that true?
[N told me the little boys name but he will remain nameless since this is the Internet, however I think it's appropriate to admit I have had my first feelings of wanting to strangle a child and it's not a good warm happy mommy feeling]
Me: Do you know what the tooth fairy is?

N: No but [he] said he pretended he was asleep so the tooth fairy would come and it was really his mom.

Me: Hmm, Well when you loose a tooth you put it under your pillow and then in the middle of the night the tooth fairy comes and leaves you 50 cents for your tooth.

N: Oh, but it was really his mom?

Me: Well maybe he wouldn't fall asleep because he was excited for the tooth fairy to come. And maybe lots of other little boys lost their tooth that night so she had many homes to visit... so mybe she gave the 50 cents to his mommy and asked her to put it under his pillow when he fell asleep.

N: Maybe

TONIGHT

FB and FG attended Vacation Bible School tonight. This is N's second round for the summer. He attended our church's session in June and now both N and H are attending at our friend's church. They are really enjoying themselves and they have been able to repeat the message back to us at the end of the evening. It has been a lot of fun for Aaron and I. We love the energy both kids have as they reiterate the message and walk us through the exciting evening events. I was so proud of N tonight as he told me God never lies, and he does what he says he will do...(never mind the small fib I told driving to work) so then we get home at 8:30p.m. which is well past bedtime. I am a little frazzled trying to rush to get the kids their baths, brush teeth, set out clothes for morning...I have my happy mom face on since we are getting the chores accomplished and I don't want the kids to drag their feet...N and I are standing in the kitchen getting a piece of co-jack cheese for his bedtime snack (the kid's new favorite). N is chewing on his piece of cheese as I'm tidying up the kitchen and he comes walking towards me with a humongous grin on his face and then he proudly displays his middle finger. He held it up really high as if to announce this is for the whole world to see. Flabbergasted

I say: N what are you doing?
N: a boy at daycare told me this is a cuss word.
Panicked I say: oh?, what is a cuss word?
N: I don't know.
Me: well is a cuss word a good thing or a bad thing?
N: I don't know I was holding up my finger because it got bent backwards and it was hurt. I was crying and [the little boy] said mmmm I'm gonna tell..... that's a cuss word.

Me: Well it's okay to hold that finger up if it's hurt or you need to show the teacher something but let's not put it up otherwise okay?

Dad walks in the kitchen, the finger goes down and Mister N goes about eating his cheese like nothing ever happened. I will say that child has a pretty good idea that a cuss word is a bad thing and is smart enough to know dad would not be proud.

Tuesday March 3

2009-03-03T21:41:00.022-06:00

Finally, we were able to make it on a boat ride to see dolphins! We were extremely disappointed that Tony had to leave and couldn't join us but we had a wonderful day! N and H were able to share the Captain's seat for awhile!

It was still pretty cold today. I think it made it to 50+degrees but with the wind out on the boat we definitely needed jackets.

Destin certainly deserves it's nickname the Emerald Cost isn't it beautiful? I don't ever want to leave! Today N told me we could go home for one day and get some "stuff" and come back to live with Uncle Tony.

The dolphins were so close to our boat.

And here they are doing a few tricks for us.

We went out on the boat at 12:30 so Miss H missed her nap today but she still did so well! I am so proud of both of them. While we were out on the water First Mate Glen pointed out the homes of Garth Brooks, John Grisham, Faith Hill & Tim McGraw. A little bit of envy set in!

We ended up at Harbor Docks for a late lunch / early supper and of course had crab cakes and sushi again! Yum. N enjoyed lemons?!?

Then we went and picked up a few cleaning supplies so we could whip uncle Tony's house back into shape. Even N found a few spots to clean. Here he is dusting each individual vent on the cold air return. He was so proud of himself. And before you go calling DHS on me he chose to do that on his own?? But yes he is my child!

After cleaning we went to the beach for another hour of play time! I really really do not want to go get on an airplane tomorrow. I hate goodbyes. I just tucked the kids in tight and said their prayers. We thanked God for yet another PERFECTLY wonderful, safe and healthy day! I went downstairs to gather a few of my things to finish packing my suitcase and did this.........

Are you freaking kidding me?! That is beautiful pink fingernail polish all over my brother's clean kitchen floor (that my mom just scrubbed). Ugh! Yes, I am cleaning up my language dramatically living through this the second time. My mom was out on the back deck and came flying inside when she heard the F bomb. It all cleaned up with a bottle of finger nail polish remover. But I think I will fail to mention this to Tony. We'll see how often he reads my blog. giggle.

Monday March 2nd

2009-03-02T23:13:00.016-06:00

I was up at 6am to see Tony off on his trip to Texas. It was very sad for me. I always have to tell him goodbye and he leaves and I'm left there crying my eyes out wondering when I will see him next. So I come to his house so that this time, just this once, I will get to leave him, and it still doesn't happen that way! We found out last week that while we would be here "visiting" him he would have to leave for Texas in the middle of our trip for a training. It is awful. I am wondering why the Air Force did not consult me regarding my social calendar before shipping my brother off on his next assignment? I am ready to move wherever he is stationed and live right next door. I am sure he will tell you differently but that is what I'm ready to do! H is ready to. These are her two favorite things about uncle Tony's house. She keeps taking me outside to see the funny tree and she says, "here lizard lizard!" It is hysterical!

Today we went to Fudpucker's and the kids were able to hold an alligator if they wanted to. They each decided just to give him a few quick pats and forgo holding the alligator. They enjoyed seeing the other alligators peeking up out of the water but had no interest in holding one.

In the afternoon we went to a state park and played for awhile. They really enjoyed swinging on the swing set and stomping some more in the Gulf. We had truly hoped to make it to the Gulfarium but they are closed on Monday's and Tuesdays.

After dinner we went and had Cold Stone Creamery and enjoyed a relaxing evening at uncle Tony's house. Here's N's footprint in the sand. I can't stop taking pictures of their footprints nor their sandy feet. I love them! I don't ever want to leave!

Sunday March 1st

2009-03-02T22:55:00.006-06:00

Unfortunately we woke up to 40 degree weather so the boat ride was off for Sunday. We went shopping instead. These are pictures of the kids in the play area in the court yard of the mall. I talked myself into the Under Armour store so that I could get back on the bandwagon again in the very near future. After a few hours of shopping and two cranky kids we went to P.F. Chang's for lunch and then headed home for a nap.

H loves her uncle Tony so much! He sat and watched Dora with her on her travel t.v. and patiently tried to learn all of the star's names! She was in heaven. I think she even let him hold her blankie!

Saturday February 28th

2009-03-02T22:34:00.010-06:00

This was really a recovery day. I think I made my mom drive me around for an hour looking for a Starbucks just to help the pain go away. Once we got back to Tony's (and found him sleeping like this on the sofa) he informed me there was a Starbuck's two minutes from his house inside the local Target store. Oh well, we ended up at a mall so I walked away with four Godiva truffles too. I truly wonder how many calories I have consumed in three short days?

We went to a local marina to inquire about fishing or Dolphin cruises. Once we got there we decided we probably couldn't stand to get on a boat and would be better off trying again on Sunday. The kids were disappointed but only until we walked around the corner to find this jolly ol pirate. He knew how to make swords and butterflies out of balloons so the world was a happy place again, thank God! My mom and I walked around another corner straight into a margarita bar. Thankfully, mine was not any good so I threw my $10 margarita away and we went home.

Friday February 27th

2009-03-02T21:34:00.013-06:00

Tony and I started our day off with a nice jog on the beach, followed by some "Bad Ass Kona Coffee" from one of the beach vendors, extremely enjoyable! We went back to his place and picked up the family and then we were off to Eglin Airforce Base for a tour. Once we were inside we were able to go to one of the hangers and go inside one of the C-130s that Tony works on. I found the climactic lab particularly interesting. They have this huge hanger where they can change the weather conditions to test their planes. When we drove by the sign said it was 120 degrees inside. Hmm, wonder what country they could be trying to replicate?

We also visited the Air Force Armament Museum. In addition to the much needed history lesson I figured out that I want this star as my next tattoo. I think it will cover the current M&M, a.k.a. cigarette burn quite nicely. My mom is having a heart attack right now listening to me rant about it so I'll post more once I consult Betsy :)

Next, we went to The Crab Trap for lunch. Yummy! We had Calamari which even H was fond of, GO FIGURE, the girl will not eat anything and then she gobbles down Calamari like it's her job?!? She wasn't as fond of the crab cakes. Everyone really enjoyed their meals. I had grilled tuna, Tony had shrimp po boy, Aaron had grouper, and Grandma had Mahi Mahi. The kids settled on corn dogs and more calamari.

If you are catching on that all we have done is eat you are correct!

For dinner we wanted to celebrate Tony's birthday at a sushi bar. The first one we choose was way too busy considering it was Friday night so we went to Camilles. It was amazing. I can't even begin to guess how many different rolls we tried. In addition, we ordered the kids a sausage pizza. I will use the word amazing for that too, and Grandma ordered something really yummy Thai dish. I am still completely dumbfounded as to how one restaurant could seem so authentic in three different ethnic cuisines?

We went back home and got N & H put to bed for Grandma and then we were off for the grand opening of The Swamp! This is a local bar that was re-opening for the Spring Break crowd. There was a live band here from Atlanta, Georgia and I sure wish I knew their name because I would be begging Carrie for that c.d. next! Or maybe just the picture of the lead singer I don't know. I really wish you were here with me! I tried really really hard not to embarrass my brother, but I'm pretty sure I was unsuccessful! The bars stay open until 4am here!

Happy Birthday Tony! Friday February 27th

2009-03-02T18:33:00.007-06:00

Happy 26th Birthday Tony!

This was really why I wanted to go to Florida. I wanted to be able to celebrate another birthday with my brother. I don't think he has spent one with our family in ~8 years. My guess would be he likes it that way! Jodi and I came up with a list of 26 reasons we love our baby brother.

26. I love him because he loves me more cause I'm the favorite sister!
25. I can confide in him, and often times do
24. Tony and Jodi are only one year a part in age so they mostly torment each other and leave me alone
23. He got in his truck and drove to Iowa immediately just to be with his sister in her time of need
22. He has a great sense of style
21. He was kind enough to teach Jodi how to drive a stick with HIS truck
20. I love him because he loves me more cause I'm the favorite sister!
19. He has a really cool motorcycle
18. He is the best uncle to N & H
17. He has been practically everywhere
16. He tries really hard to be healthy
15. I love him because he loves me more cause I'm the favorite sister!
14. He loves to workout and we all need the extra boost of motivation every now and then
13. He takes life way less serious than me
12. Tony would do anything for anyone
11. Tony is an awesome listener
10. I love him because he loves me more cause I'm the favorite sister!
9. He knows when to tell me to shut up
8. Tony is honest and sincere
7. N appreciates that he and Tony look so much alike and he's not just a mini-me of his mom but his uncle too
6. N loves how Uncle Tony throws him up in the air
5. Tony is extremely kind hearted
4. Tony took me to a bar that stayed open until 4am on his birthday! After 7 hours of drinking with his friends he still doesn't hate me! (they might but he doesn't, the hottie lead singer might too, oops!) At least one of his friends still think I'm cool even if I beat them to 30, thanks James!
3. I'm loving the king size bed and bamboo sheets he gave up for me and my family while he took the couch...I'm thinking Aaron wasn't planning to buy me a new bed when we returned from vacation.
2. He let us visit him in Florida for an entire week and didn't go crazy
1. We love him for proudly serving his country

Thursday February 26

2009-03-02T17:12:00.014-06:00

We were off to the airport by 6:30am to catch our 9:25 flight. We found our way to the airport through rush hour traffic before the gridlock hit and still had plenty of time to eat breakfast at Burger King and Cinnabon even allowing mommy to find a mocha :) The kids did so well I couldn't be more proud of them. The pictures above show them patiently awaiting boarding our plane. They were extremely excited but still they did so well. I admit that I was very nervous about them screaming the entire ride because their ears hurt or worse puking on me either because of motion sickness or excitement. Chris and Alec convinced me Benadryl was the way to go so we gave them each half a quick-melt tab and they flew like champions. Now I just need to remember that for the ride home. Favorite Girl enjoyed watching Dora and snuggling her blankie most of the ride. When we landed in Texas she had to go potty so bad but we could not get up until the plane made it all the way to the gate. I was very afraid I was going to have a wet girl to contend with but she was able to hold it for about five minutes until we safely made it to the gate.

We had to make a connecting flight in Texas. We landed in Texas at 11:25 at Gate D and had to high tail it to Gate B for take off at 12:05. It is appropriate to say I was sweating it a tad bit. We all ran to the tram to be shuttled across the airport and we made it with time to spare. Whew! At 1:45pm we landed in Pensacola and Uncle Tony was right there waiting for us.

When we got in the minivan and started driving to Uncle Tony's, N was amazed by all of the pelicans in the Gulf. The picture below is of him showing me his best pelican face after catching a fish! He's the greatest! H didn't make it to see the pelicans. The second her body hit the car seat she was out.

Wednesday February 25

2009-03-02T17:01:00.002-06:00

Today we started our vacation trek. I took the kids to daycare hoping that I would have us packed up and ready to go by noon. That was wishful thinking! I hadn't put a single thing in a suitcase at noon. You know that map that has been passed around through e-mail that shows the woman multi-tasking? That was me on this day. I would go into a room specifically to get something to put into a suitcase and then pick up four other things and clean something else. Ugh! These are the days I wish I could be more like my husband and have a one track mind. Did I just say that out loud?!

I went and picked the kids up from daycare at noon, knowing that Favorite Boy nagging, "Mom are we ready yet, can I get in the car NOW?" would kick it into high gear for me. Finally, I packed three suitcases and we were off to Missouri for a night with the Goddard's. By the time we stopped for dinner and got lost on Route N three times we made it to their house a little after 8pm. The kids of course wanted no part of going straight to bed when we arrived. They were so excited to see Mia and Brooklyn and discover all of their toys. Luckily I think we were all in bed by 10pm so we could be up and off to the St. Louis airport at 6:30am.

Updates

2009-02-15T20:55:00.006-06:00

I will start with Favorite Girl's update since it's the best news! She had another check up at the University on Tuesday 2/10 and she grew 1.45 inches and gained 1.54 lbs. Overall the doctor and dietitian are very pleased with her growth however they are not happy that we are hand feeding everything that goes in her mouth. There are still some behavior adaptations we need to encourage. We are going back in May and they said if she does well again we won't have to continue the visits. Aaron and I are very scared to quit feeding her since it has been what's worked but we know we need to make the changes and that she is prefectly capable of feeding herself. She does just fine at daycare so we realize it is us.

June 2008 she was 20 lbs 31.4 in

Sept 2008 she was 20.46 lbs and 32.09 in

Nov 2008 she was 21.56 lbs and 32.17 in

Feb 2009 she is 23.10 lbs and 33.62 in

Hooray I couldn't be happier with that news! On the same day Aaron was called back to work. He was called by name to be the foreman on the job so we have so much to be thankful for. He was 30 something on the list here with no job prospects in sight. And we all know how well I did at the single mom thing last summer.

January 30th my girlfriends came over and we watched the movie Fireproof. The movie itself was a tad bit corney with some low rate acting but the message itself was good. I think all married couples should watch it together. The movie seemed to follow the same storyline as the book Love and Respect which I am (slowly) reading so I'm thinking they have something figured out here about marriage. Of course we enjoyed some yummy snacks, wine and strawberry margaritas. A fun time was had by all.

On Saturday the 31st our Girl's Night Moms got together at my house and we had a shower for Carrie. We had baked potatoes and snacks, a yummy cake to celebrate Baby and lots of nice gifts. We also played the game Apples to Apples. And for the record, Mike I still think "Pulling Weeds" was quite fitting for the word "Sultry"!!

Februay started off extremely busy and it hasn't slowed down one bit! Monday the 2nd I had a recruitment fair in Ottumwa. After that I drove back to B-town to pick up some collegues and we were off to Davenport for three days for an OSHA conference. FUN TIMES! Okay so I throughly enjoyed shopping, all of the yummy food, starbucks and wine but my diet did not!

And by the way I love Biaggis! Anyway, work has been crazy busy but I still manage to squeeze in a workout each day which I am proud of. Since December, I have lost 5 lbs and 1% body fat. I am still hoping to loose 15lbs total but we'll see. I'm feeling a little stuck right now. I need to get back in my groove. I was doing so well waking up early going in before work and then Aaron got called back to work, HALLELUJAH!!! But it is really cutting into my morning routine :) Okay just kidding, of course I want my husband to have a job but I was so much more motivated to go workout before work and now that I have to get the kids up and off to daycare I have to workout in the evening and it is much harder for me. I also feel like I am loosing valuable time in the evening with the kids.

So since I have been working out I have wanted to buy new workout clothes, an ipod, a heart rate monitor, bike shorts (with the padding built in), new bike shoes....and the list goes on. Obviously with our new president in office and Aaron laid off it hasn't seemed responsible to go buy myself anything especially not the list I just rattled off. I did splurge on the bike shorts which has saved my ass literally :) And my charming husband bought me an ipod for Valentine's Day. So my weekend has been consumed with trying to load music onto it. I am so happy that I at least try to live in this century :) I had to call a twelve year old to get me started! Thanks Tanner.

Aaron and I are taking a Dave Ramsey course right now on Tuesday nights and we are learning a ton. I have to thank my employer for offering this to all employees and for offering such a deep discount! It's great and I highly recommend everyone look into this.

Careful what you wish for - Prayers needed!

2009-01-17T13:10:00.002-06:00

Thursday night I wrote that I wish Aaron would start working out. Well Friday he was laid off from work so it looks as though he will have plenty of spare time on his hands to begin that work out regimen. Damn! This came as a shock. Everyone got it on the crew except the foreman. With this economy it appears it may be quite awhile before anyone has any work. Please pray that he goes back to work soon. I am most upset that I just purchased our tickets to FL and planned a week vacation. Oh well. We really do want to go see my brother but if I had to choose between food on the table in a few months or a nice leisurely visit with Tony I suppose food would win. Please pray for our family.

N was invited to his best friends birthday party last night. The celebrated with a pool party at a local hotel, stayed overnight in the bunk bed room with three other little buddies. This morning they ate breakfast, took another swim, and then played arcade games until their hair dried. He had a great time but he's a little sleepy right now from staying up way past bedtime so I am trying to convince him to lay down with me for a little nap. I am afraid of lying down because I got up and went to spin class and boot camp this morning. I'm thinking my legs may be really sore if I sit in one place too long. Wish me luck!

Frigid Cold

2009-01-15T21:03:00.003-06:00

Well today seems like a very appropriate day to show our appreciation for our upcoming family vacation!! I think it felt like -40 below yesterday, YIKES! We leave for Florida to visit my little brother in 40 days! We are so excited. N and I made a calendar similar to the advent one(Santa's beard that was posted earlier). We place a jack-o-lantern sticker in one of the squares on the calendar each night after supper. I don't know how we ended up with an abundance of Halloween stickers but since they are in great supply that's what we are using. I wanted to post a picture of it but my usb cable is missing ????? Not sure how that went missing exactly but it is MIA. Anyway, we are counting down the days until we take our first airplane ride as a family to visit uncle Tony as well as the days until N's 5th birthday! We will be in Florida the last week of February - the first week in March, we will return and then N turns 5 on the 14th. It is so hard to believe that my little baby will turn 5 and will be going off to Kindergarten this year!

Besides staying warm nothing too exciting is going on. I started a spinning class last Friday during lunch, I did it again Saturday morning and again Tuesday during lunch and my bottom is sore!! If this continues I will definitely be purchasing shorts with padding built in. :) I am trying to get Aaron to the gym...I'm hoping that all of the exercise will cause him to begin hacking up disgusting yellow and green stuff so he will quit smoking. He would KILL me if he knew I wrote that but oh well, it's still my wish.

Uneventful week

2009-01-11T15:20:00.003-06:00

We have had a pretty uneventful week other than hearing the news about baby Taylor and Sally Mae. Please keep both of these dear little girls in your heart, thoughts, and prayers.

We took the kids out to eat Friday night on a gift card we received at Christmas from uncle Chris! Yea! Always nice when fun is free! We rented a few movies (Eagle Eye, Fool's Gold, The Happening and Diego). N had a friend from preschool spend the night Saturday night. This was the first sleep over he has had and it was great. They played so well. I didn't sleep very sound, I kept waking up...listening to make sure our friend didn't wake up scared. But no need to worry. The boys went to bed about a half hour after normal bedtime and slept in a little this morning.

N has to take treats to school tomorrow. He is taking carrots with ranch, cheese cubes and crackers...nothing to creative but at least it's healthy. In addition it's his sharing day so he has to choose something that begins with the 'sound of the week' to take to school and show his classmates. I better go find his newsletter to figure out what the 'sound of the week' is.

Please Pray for Taylor

2009-01-11T15:14:00.002-06:00

Taylor is the 4 month old daughter of Jeff and Tammy, she needs everyone praying for her. I went to school with her father and I am friends with Tim (Jeff's younger brother) and his wife Jaime. Please click over and read Taylor's story and pray for her. PLEASE pass this along to all of your prayer circles.

Finishing up December

2009-01-04T20:20:00.006-06:00

The kids enjoy going outside for five minutes while mom or dad shovels the driveways. This is N teaching H how to make snow angels. And N sitting on the sled (probably pushing sister off).

We have gone to the "Lighted Holiday" parade the last two years. We enjoy dinner afterwards with Grandma and Grandpa, Aunt Alaina, "George", and Great Grandma and Grandpa! It's always an enjoyable evening.

Here's H sporting her favorite gift! A PUPLE princess dress from Uncle Tony! She received it in the mail right before we had to leave for N's Preschool Christmas program. I had to pry it off of her.

For New Year's Eve Aaron and I went to dinner at La Tavola, a little Italian restaurant, here in B-town and then had a few friends over to play games. New Year's Day we watched the Iowa game! What a game! I hope Ferentz does not leave. I also enjoyed text message pictures from my brother who was at the game. Overall we lounged around, played games and took naps. Later in the evening we went to visit the Stimpson's and little M, ordered pizza, and played Wii. A great start to a New Year!

We enjoyed a very happy, healthy, and safe year. We are extremely blessed with wonderful, family and friends. Not to mention our absolutely adorable children. They light up our day. I love the great snuggles, kisses, and funny things they say! They are becoming little buddies which brings tears to my eyes every time I catch them playing nicely together or snuggling. I hope this lasts a lifetime! This year I hope for more of the same. I pray for our HEALTH, I pray that H continues to eat well and grow, with those two things life couldn't be any better.

Well except I do strongly pray that we get more on track with Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover so we can live debt free! Watch out student loans, you should be afraid! It is a lot of fun to have so many friend's and family members that are Ramsey fans too. Oh yea, and just one more thing...15 lbs. lighter too!

Holiday Baking Fun

2009-01-04T17:43:00.007-06:00

We made goodies galore. The kids and I made red velvet cake balls (YUM!), puppy chow and then we baked sugar cookies, and chocolate star cookies. Yes, our frosting is fushia, aqua, purple and neon orange. I let go of my OCD long enough to let them enjoy the holiday season too :)

This little gadget was awesome for the kids. I found a four pack of them at a Pampered Chef party. I just filled it full of frosting and let the kids squeeze it on!

We only had a few cookie misfits that made it to "cookie heaven" aka "Mom's Belly"

I think they did an outstanding job. I definitely need a better sugar cookie frosting recipe. I have tried several different recipes and nothing seems to be stiff enough so if you have any great recipes to share please send them my way!

We had our second annual "girls baking night" at our house on December 19th. A group of my good friends and I get together once a month and hang out. We started this tradition last year in December and we got together each month for fun and laughter. This year we started baking around 5:30 and finished before midnight. Aaron and the kiddos stayed all night at Grandma and Grandpa's so we could stay up late and get everything accomplished. We made cake balls, puppy chow, chocolate star cookies, Special K wreaths, chex mix, snicker doodles, and monster cookies. It seems like I am forgetting one other thing. But anyway we made enough so we all had goodies to take to our holiday festivities. We plan to do it on Saturday next year. Since we are getting "older" it is hard to stay up that late.

We made a Gingerbread house. This was our first attempt. It was a ton of fun. I think they enjoyed licking the frosting and gobbling down sugar as fast as they could more than anything. Aaron was just as bad. I caught him peeling gum drops off the house for a week :)

We love the Disney commercial around our house you know the one... "I'm too excited to sleep". Well let's just say that poor little N inherited his Mom's excitement gene. I think he asked on an hourly basis when Christmas would be here. This started the day we returned home from Thanksgiving. He got pretty tricky and started to ask it in code. "When would it be baby Jesus' birthday?", "When would we go to Grandma A's?", "When could we go play the Wii at Grandpa B's"...you get the idea. We would have to count on the calendar over and over again. So one night we made this. And yes my creative gene was turned off or at least over powered by my excitement gene, but hey it worked. We cut everything out of construction paper, used an old red button off something from my Target days, and there you have it our very own Advent calendar. We made one for our cousin Sophia and Grandma A as well (we had lots of old red buttons).

Preschool Program

2009-01-04T17:31:00.007-06:00

Wednesday Dec 17th we had N's Christmas program. He did a fabulous job. He was a mouse. A cat chased he and his mice cohorts through the toy shop, they tripped on a major machine plug and all of the power stopped working. The elves were very disappointed that they wouldn't be able to get all of the gifts made in time to load Santa's sleigh. The mice had a great idea!! They would go back through the toy shop and try to plug the machine back in. Problem solved. The elves cheered and Santa was able to leave just in time to make it to all of the good little boys and girl's homes.

Here he is crying since Christmas might be ruined.

December 13th and 14th

2008-12-22T22:00:00.007-06:00

Saturday we were supposed to have Aaron's work Christmas party but he ended up getting called into work instead. So I hired a new babysitter so I could go work out and have some mommy time. The kids loved her. Saturday afternoon I took the kids to the Holiday Sing-a-long at the library. We sang all the regular Christmas songs and then watched Alvin and the Chipmunks via YouTube on the big screen. It was great fun! Afterwards we did a craft and enjoyed yummy sugar cookies and hot cocoa! For some reason I didn't have my camera so I don't have any pictures to post. The kids went home to the Ford's afterwards and Mommy raced (safely) (no accidents like last year)to Cedar Rapids for the Symphony.

This is an annual holiday tradition that my mom, aunts and I have enjoyed ever since I can remember. It's too bad we still cannot convince my sister to join us. Unfortunately, the Paramount Theatre was hit by the unbelievable destruction of the June floods so the show was held at Coe College. All I can say is I love Timothy Hankewich the new music director. I must have thoroughly enjoyed the 23 years of Symphony under the direction of Christian Tiemeyer because I kept going back but I LOVE the surprise factor Hankewich adds to each show. No remember it is the Symphony so typically there is not a lot of singing. This year he had girls come out and sing "You'll be Swinging" which he wrote himself. They were dressed in army uniforms. My camera does not do this justice at all but I loved this. Next they sang "Mele Kalikimaka" Merry Christmas in Hawaiian and again did a fabulous job.

I know I said there's not much singing but they also always include the CR Concert Chorale and the Children's Discovery Chorus which also do a fine job. I love the arts and I only hope that my children will one day possess one of these great talents.

Great Great Great time had once again. My friend Carrie said she wants to join us next year. I hope she does. She certainly won't be disappointed.

I had to drive back home late Saturday night and almost hit three deer standing in the middle of the interstate licking salt off the road. Apparently I was interrupting their midnight snack and they weren't going anywhere for awhile.

Sunday the kids and I met up with a group of friends and went to a local store to paint pottery. Each of the kids chose to paint an ornament for the tree. We were unpleasantly surprised by the weather when we came out. It was 58 degrees all day, I was running around outside with just a sweatshirt on and then when we came out of the store it was pouring down rain. The rain soon turned to ice and snow. The rest of you in Iowa know where we now stand. BRRRR Yuck!

As soon as I pick the ornaments up I will post a picture. They did a very good job. I'm proud of them.

December 5th, 6th & 7th

2008-12-10T18:01:00.010-06:00

My dad turned 50 on December 5th so the kids and I made the trek home. We had a surprise 50th Birthday Party on Saturday. Aaron stayed home and hunted all weekend. Friday night my mom, Dar, S, H, and N went to see Bolt since Madagascar was such a hit. N and S were old enough to sit and watch it. H on the other hand was not as interested. Cute movie, my mom and I laughed our butts off at the hamster.

My sister and I took my dad out to eat at Texas Roadhouse on Saturday night. We created a book consisting of pictures of us kids growing up on Snapfish.com I think my dad teared up! I highly recommend this for any hard to buy person on your list.

After we ate we drove Dad to Bushwood Bar and Grill where his family and friends were waiting to surprise him. Based on the amount of shots of tequila ordered up for this old man I don't think many people remembered my Dad turned 50 not 21! I'm quite certain he did not feel so hot the next morning. But a good time was had by all. Thank you for coming to help us celebrate.

Not real sure what was up with the color of the cake. Perhaps Jule's thought it was my Dad's baby shower?!? I ordered a black and white cake for a male and this is what I got. Great tasting none the less but a little disappointing. I won't go into the glorious gifts my dad received but there were certain a few good ones.

The kids and I got up early on Sunday so we could get back on the road. At home we went over to our good friends house for a surprise visit from...

he had gifts for all of the good little girls and boys. And my we must know some pretty good kids!

We had a wonderful time! Thank you Ford's for hosting this great get together. It was a wonderful way to spend our afternoon.

Madagascar 2

2008-11-29T21:29:00.013-06:00

We took the kids to see Madagascar 2 on Friday night. Aaron was less than impressed by my suggestion. His distaste was two fold, first he knew the theater would be crazy on the Friday after Thanksgiving and second, while his charming wife got up and went to work on Black Friday he decided to brave the crowds...okay not really he went to Sears. How many people go to Sears on Black Friday?...probably other unbrave men. JK, anyway he purchased a Blue ray DVD player and then headed straight to Blockbuster to rent videos so he was really hoping for a night at home.

When we pulled into the mall parking lot, I must admit I thought I was a tad crazy myself! The line to get into the theater was all the way out the door. The lobby was packed FULL of people trying to buy treats for the show. We waited and waited in line. N could hardly contain his excitement, I had to be the killjoy and remind him there was a possibility that we would get to the ticket window and they would be sold out. How heart broken he would have been. It was our lucky night. We walked in to an empty theater. A few more families trickled in but it was pretty much an empty show. (I think everyone else was seeing Twilight or Four Christmases, I want to see them too). We sang along and danced in our seat. The kids particularly liked, "I like to MOVE IT, MOVE IT!" It was a cute movie. Both kids did GREAT although they were both ready for bed by the time we got to the car. This makes N's third movie, he has seen:

Betsy and I took the kids to see the Wiggles live in concert in Ames. We stayed in the Adventureland Inn hotel. The next day we were super brave (or super crazy). I kind of forgot H was only 1 and thought oh yeah I can take her to see a movie no problem...uh wrong! I spent most of the time at the Bee Movie rocking her in the hallway and chasing her in the aisle. N enjoyed his first movie or maybe it was the Junior Mints he enjoyed so much...I can't remember.

Aaron and I planned a special birthday "date night" with N to see Horton Hears a Who. We got a babysitter for H and decided to take him to dinner and a movie since Horton came out in theater on his fourth birthday. Unfortunately, I had to go to CP for a funeral so Daddy and N go to have date night by themselves. N chose to eat at the Strawberry that night. That's his word for Applebee's!

Dora or Puple Broder?

2008-11-24T19:19:00.005-06:00

I need to preface this post with a little history. H-girl loves anything Dora, Princess or Purple. Dolls, clothes, plates, "braceleps", underwear, hair ties, washcloshes, towels, you name it even rocks. Yesterday she carried three puple Mancala rocks in her pocket until bedtime. Today she is carrying a puple Mega Block. Christmas should be easy this year ;)

More history...we are re-drywalling one of N's bedroom walls. We have all of his furniture, bed, bookshelf covered in plastic to help keep the dust off. The kids know they can't go into his bedroom until we have it finished. So last night N was having a mini melt down after his bath whining that he couldn't go in his room to get jammies, he would just have to sleep naked and be cold! DRAMA KING! We of course ignored his behavior wishing he would talk in a big boy voice instead of the constant whining. H turned around in her most sincere worried voice and said "Broder, you want to wear my Dora jammies?", my heart melted, I about started to cry. I thought it was the cutest thing on earth for her to offer up her favorite pair of p.j.'s especially since she has about 10+ other choices. Of course he turned around and sneered and said, "Nooo I don't want to wear your Dora jammies!" So then she said, "you want to wear my puple ones?" So sweet!

??

2008-11-23T22:15:00.001-06:00

If anyone can tell me how to post my pictures better so they aren't weird on the page please do...it's making me crazy!!

Outside Holiday Decorations

2008-11-23T21:36:00.010-06:00

I am weird, I have always had this burning desire to be like the Griswold's and go hog wild on the outside of my house with Christmas lights and decorations. I have NEVER been able to convince my husband to go along with my grand idea until today! Shh, don't tell him but we are easing into it. It started out with this little guy. Isn't he adorable? On the way home from church N kept asking us to turn up the music. We were listening to a Mannheim Steamroller CD gone techno. It put Aaron a bit over the edge. So I said we could go to Target and buy a new Christmas CD if he'd like...We went to Target (or the $100 store as we like to call it, still my favorite store but...) for a lint brush roller and maybe a CD let me repeat a LINT BRUSH ROLLER, and we came out with a bill of $234.13 YIKES. Dave Ramsey hates me right now, and truth be told I kind of hate myself..but anyway, we went to the Christmas decorations to find a stocking for H and a blow up snowman for N (for the front yard). He chose the little guy instead.

When we got home it was so beautiful out we decided to work outside for the day. I was hard at work raking 5 more bags of leaves to add to the 13 from last weekend! Aaron got stuck hanging Christmas lights (and that's not what we bought for $234.13, I have TOTES of lights I have been buying since who knows when) So Aaron got one string of icicle lights hung across the garage and came and said to me all nice and sincere...here I'll do that, I know you have always wanted the lights on the house so you can go do it...let me remind you this was as I was on the fifth and FINAL bag of leaves. Thank you honey!

Well since he worked so hard getting one strand up I decided to leave it up. So we have icicle lights over the one stall garage attached to the house and the front door

and then I finished the rest of the house and the ground with the big colored lights

Aaron conveniently went inside to put H down for her nap and "accidentally" fell asleep.

N was such a little trooper. He went and found his tool box and got out his little hammer and helped me pound all of the steaks in for the lights on the ground. He even "held" the ladder for me as I worked on the roof. As you can see our tree still needs a few more lights. We are hoping for one more nice day so we can get it accomplished.

Next year I am hoping for a snowman family and lights around each of the windows.

As I was decorating this thought popped into my head. When we were kids we would complain about doing the dishes on a nightly basis. We BEGGED for a dishwasher. I'm sure it probably even made our Christmas list a time or two. My mom's response always was, "what in the world do I need a dishwasher for when I have three perfectly good ones?" I think my blood pressure would boil. But I was laughing to myself today thinking I should have had a few more kids so that someday I could have professional rake-rs and light hanger uppers.

Mom when my kids are 12 and 14 don't even think about telling them I was plotting this since they were 2 and 4!

Make it. Take it. Bake it.

2008-11-23T20:30:00.007-06:00

So as I promised, here is my blog about this WONDERFUL experience! If you live on planet earth, and you have a busy schedule you must experience this!

But first, I made sure to leave B-town in plenty of time to reach Iowa City so I could stop here for a little taste of heaven! I love their Mochas and Sugar Daddy Lattes. It is a very good thing that I don't live any where near Iowa City. I swear to you I would weigh 200 lbs. I have never been addicted to a drug but I certainly know how it could happen. THIS IS MY VICE! If I could have a drink from here every single day of my life I certainly would make it happen. Even their cups are stinking adorable. Love it! Gotta have it! I would do anything to learn their recipes!

Okay so about our day. We selected the entrees we wanted to make from their website about two weeks ago. We showed up at 9:30a here is the entrance, you can see there's about 10 different stations set up. We put on our caps and aprons and got busy. Here we are ready to get Makin'

we went from station to station and prepared the meals that we previously selected. As we finished with one we placed it in the freezer complete with a label on how to cook it, PLUS calories, fat and fiber included! Yea!

The North Liberty newspaper was there taking quotes and pictures of us so we might even be famous sometime soon ;)

Here's Betsy hard at work at one station. We made 12 entrees before 10:45a. WOW! I selected Crock pot Chicken and biscuits, Bacon Potato Chowder, Philly Cheese steak sandwiches (complete with the rolls), Brushetta Chicken, French Toast Strata with apples, Chicken Caesar Pasta, Ham balls, Classic Lasagna, Brown Sugar glazed pork chops over mashed potatoes. I know that does not equal 12...I choose to make 2 8X8 pans of some of the same recipes.

You have to go on-line and place your order ahead of time so that they can order all of your ingredients fresh for you that day. I was very impressed. All of the products were high quality name-brand items. Very thick pork chops and chicken breast. No skimping. After our hour and fifteen minutes of hard work this is the only clean up we did...

we had to drop our aprons and caps into a crock! Naomi's Kitchen certainly gets eight thumbs up from my family!! The employees scurry around behind you and take your used utensils, and wipe up your mess. You need to be sure to wash your hands between each session or anytime you touch eggs or meat.

The owners of Naomi's Kitchen live in the front half of the business. So quaint and charming.

Naomi is their daughter. The had a son so they opened an ice cream shop called....I don't know about all of you but I hope they have more children! They said that husbands come and do this for Valentines Day and Mother's Day HINT HINT and ;) !! Naomi's Kitchen provides free soft drinks and water while you "make it" and a sample of one item on next months menu. I sampled Mexican Chicken Corn Chowder. Not something I would normally try but it was DELICIOUS! I will be making it in December for sure. So besides all of the obvious benefits, this will also allow me to try new recipes and then make them at home as well as venture outside of my comfort zone to taste new things. One person asked if we could bring wine and they said as long as someone else was driving us home and if we would still be able to finish in 2 hours. I invite all of you do to this with me in the coming months. If you can't figure out what to buy someone on your list this holiday season this is a PERFECT idea. We went to Sears last week and purchased a 5 cu ft deep freezer to store our loot! We can't wait for our first busy night so we can try one of the casseroles.

Our tree

2008-11-23T20:11:00.005-06:00

Everyone was involved! Maybe even unwillingly.

We put the tree up on Friday night. Poor Emma girl even helped. She does not look too thrilled huh? I stayed up way too late considering I had to be on the road early on Saturday morning to make it to North Liberty by 9:30. It is Sunday night and finally all of the totes are put away and we can enjoy the finished product. I slept on the couch Saturday night with the tree lights on all night. I woke up a few times just to stare at it. I love looking at the tree when all of the lights in the house are turned off. Aaron and I did the math and figured out our tree is already 8 years old! Hardly seems possible. We hope to one day have a house big enough to hold about 6 trees! I love CHRISTMAS! I am finished Christmas shopping which feels GREAT! Now I need to get wrapping. I mentioned hiring a high school girl to do it and Aaron said no way, I will help you. We'll see. Secretly I like doing it and I can probably use it as an excuse to sit in front of the tv and catch up on a few prime time shows.

For my teacher friends! God Bless You!

2008-11-23T19:59:00.003-06:00

Friday night at the dinner table N informed me that he had THANKFUL day at school. I said you did? What are you thankful for? I figured his response would really tear at my heart strings, I waited in great anticipation. His response was,

N: "My grandma" pause

Me: No surprise there (I thought)

N: "but not my alive ones just my dead ones"

It is true what they say, teachers hear EVERYTHING! I had to giggle a little bit. I could only remember this story that my friend Cara told me about her son. The kids were all in a circle at school singing a song, when the song ended he informed his teacher that he had a song and everyone should repeat after him. The song went something like this, my grandma is dead, my grandma has died, my grandma is in heaven...come on guys sing along. I don't even know how to respond to this except for my heart truly goes out to all of you in elementary education. You are very quick on your feet!

Fall Favorites

2008-11-16T20:07:00.014-06:00

Fall is by far my favorite time of the year...I am sad to see it ending so quickly but I want to share a few of my fall favorites with you.

Football

Campfires

Smores

Warm comfort foods like lasagna & garlic bread, homemade soup, chocolate chip cookies, apple pie, pumpkin bars. Yummy!

Great fall pictures at the pumpkin farm! I love ORANGE!

Cuddly sweatshirts

I know I am forgetting a few.

There is one fall activity I despise!!!

We raked the front and back yard for HOURS on Saturday. Two people called and offered us their football tickets to the Iowa game and we turned them down to do this!!! I love our massive Oak tree in the front yard. He provides hours of protection against the hot sun in the summer, certainly helping our energy bill, but this is the price I have to pay. Great exercise but YUCK! There is one thing I was sure to count my blessings for though. We were able to do it all in one day because the kids are getting older and can ride their bikes, help hold the bags, go play on the back porch and we don't have to stop every two seconds to pick them up, give them a drink, push them on their bike etc... I miss my babies and it is terribly sad to see them grow so quickly but it is nice that they could be outside right along side us and we could still have a feeling of accomplishment!

After our hard day at work we went to our cousin's house to help him celebrate his 4th birthday! A great time was had by all and we were so happy to realize that Thanksgiving is almost here so we will go back and help him play with all of his new toys in just a short while! Yippee!

KinderMusik Creation

2008-11-11T20:11:00.015-06:00

This semester N is learning about the weather in KinderMusik. He is learning about the sounds drops of rain make, we pretend we are splashing in rain puddles, etc. He has had fun homework assignments. This week he was suppossed to make a windchime. I had him go around the house and choose things that he thought would make cool noises. These are the items he choose...I found his choices quite creative.

windchime (l-r) earring, screw, belt buckle, jingle bells and a spoon

It really does make wonderful sounds! N knows Grandma Andria likes windchimes so he has the perfect place planned for his windchime at her house.

A few weeks ago he was tasked to make his own rain hat. He choose one of daddy's construction hats and a few things from the craft tote to complete his masterpiece.

And here he is sporting his digs

Not sure how dry it would keep him but great none the less!

Good News!

2008-11-11T19:53:00.004-06:00

Yeah! H had her follow up appointment today at the U. The doctor was impressed with our progress. Two months ago they asked me to put Miss H on an antihistimine that causes rapid weight gain. Of course I researched this drug and asked everyone I knew what they thought of it. The pharmacists I talked to informed me it is an age old antihistamine and should be okay, however the pessimist in me kept thinking yea but every drug has side effects. And besides that she doesn't need to be on an antihistamine - it just happens to make kids hungry. I was scared. You are talking to a girl who doesn't even like to take tylenol for a headache so I agonized about it, prayed a lot and came to the conclusion that I would do my very best to ignore H's behaviors. If she was eating good at the table I would praise the heck out of her. If she wasn't I would ignore it, not say one word, and when her 20 minutes were up we would get down from the table and move on. I gave this a try for a week and wouldn't you know...she began eating like a champ.

Now I know 2 year olds can eat great one day and then eat like birds for a week so I was a little pessimistic at first. I couldn't help but think meal times would go back to being the worst part of my day. But that wasn't the case at all, we have had a very successful two months! Miss H gained 9.97 grams per day, which was at the 90th percentile for weight gain!! Yes, 90th! Woo-hoo! The prior four months her weight gain has been 2.7 grams per day. A child her age should be gaining between 5-10 grams per day and one that has some making up to do should be gaining between 10-15 g/d. They told me those stats but still said we did a great job. They said to keep calorie boosting everything she eats and ignore any negative behaviors having to do with eating.

We still have a ways to go. She is 2 years and six months and only weighs 21.5 lbs but we are making progress! I have to celebrate that. They would be really happy with 23 lbs.

pic: She had KinderMusik tonight after a long day of traveling. She did not take a nap so she is about falling asleep eating her ice cream before bed. She is wearing her warmy cuddly favorite DORA pjs so I'm sure she'll have a great nights rest.

Naomi's Kitchen

2008-11-09T20:38:00.003-06:00

Betsy called yesterday and asked if I would like to join her and our friend Katrina on Saturday November 22nd at Naomi's Kitchen in North Liberty. I had never heard of this. However in my entrepreneurial day dreaming I have thought of such a thing! Probably wouldn't go over in SE IA but I'm certain it will make it in North Liberty anyway I recommend visiting their website but here's how it works. Each month Naomi's Kitchen posts a new menu. You log on and choose 12 meals that you want to make. You go make it all, they provide the dishes to take your meals home in, and THEY clean up the entire mess. You just bring a cooler and take it all home to your freezer for tasty quick meals! At first I thought it sounded a tad bit expensive but when you do the math it's not. Twelve meals for $200. I hate to admit it but I almost spend that much on 10 meals so I'm giving it a try. I forgot to ask her if we can bring our purees to add to the dishes or not. I'm sure they won't mind but I will certainly blog about this experience to let you now how it goes. If any of you Mom's are interested we are addicted to Jessica Seinfeld's recipe book Deceptively Delicious. We puree fruits and veggies and sneak them in to our kids favorite foods and they are none the wiser. For instance tonight we had homemade Chicken Noodle soup, YUM! I added an entire cup of pureed cauliflower to the soup that was already packed full of the veggies my kids will eat (like carrots, beans, peas, lima beans) and they gobbled it down.

Betsy and Katrina visited Naomi's Kitchen in October and they are hooked. In addition to taking the stress out of a few nights a month I will also have a standing date to visit my friends! Thank you sooo much for inviting me!

Grandma Klima

2008-11-09T19:26:00.004-06:00

This may seem inappropriate to blog about but I want to remember this so I'm going to do it. Grandma Klima passed away on October 31st after a short illness. I had originally thought we wouldn't take the kids to the wake or to the funeral because they wouldn't understand at 2 and 4. However it was a Sunday afternoon (out of town) and the entire family was at the wake so I didn't have a choice. We had explained to N that Grandma passed away and she went to Heaven. Before we reached the door of the funeral home I decided I needed to explain a little more. I told him, "N, Grandma died, her body was broken and it didn't work anymore. The doctors nor God could fix it so she is going to live in Heaven, she will be very happy there. When we walk in here Grandma will be laying in a special bed and then tomorrow she will go to heaven."

We went in and he insisted on seeing Grandma in her special bed so we went in and said a prayer and told her we loved her. N then told me he needed to go potty. We went to the restroom and this was our conversation:

N: "How long will Grandma stay in her special treasure box?"

Me: "She will stay in there for two days"

N: "Then tomorrow after the funeral, God will shut the door and she will magically disappear to Heaven?"

Me: "Yes honey"

Sabbatical

2008-10-29T22:21:00.001-05:00

Sorry, it has been a little rough with Aaron being gone most of the summer assisting with FEMA trailers. He is back and we are going to start blogging again. Yeah!

Blood work results

2008-07-17T05:59:00.004-05:00

We received the report from the University and it indicates that Favorite Girl is a healthy little girl. Thank goodness! Thank you for all of your prayers.

The speech and swallowing report state, "The Bzoch-League Receptive Expressive Emergent Language Scale , with both parents as informants, revealed that FG's receptive and expressive language skills are at expected levels. In fact they are somewhat above expected levels. FG's speech and language development appear to be as expected, at this time. Her parents reported that they thought her language development was at the same level as other same age peers at her day care. FG's oral motor skills and swallowing appear adequate."

The report from the Pediatric Growth Clinic states...

Review of Systems
"FG is a healthy girl with occasional colds as noted in HPI, all other review of systems negative."

The report then lists the results of FG's blood and the acceptable range for a girl her age. There were 40 different tests ran on her blood. The only thing that came back to "review" was her Mean Corpuscular Volume. Hers was 79FL and the acceptable range is (75-90). I looked this up in a lab book at the hospital and it stated that it may be low in strict vegetarians and people that are anemic. I guess it makes sense that she is on the lower end of the range since she will not eat very much meat...other than hot dogs, and I'm not quite sure what nutritional value comes from a hot dog.

Impression
"Twenty-five month-old female with lack of normal physiological growth and behavior concerns"

Plan
1. FG should be fed in a high chair instead of a booster chair, so that she cannot remove the back of the chair. The high chair should be far enough from the table that she cannot kick he high chair over. Mealtime should be a pleasant time, avoiding tension and fights over food. If parents feel frustrated with feeding, they should hide their frustration from FG.
2. Distraction should be limited during mealtimes. TV off and put dog in a separate room during dinner.
3. Parents and children should sit at the table together during mealtime. If children want to get up from the table, they should not be allowed to return to the table to eat until the next meal or snack.
4. Meals should be limited to 3 full meals and 3 snacks per day without grazing between meals. Meals should last 20 min, and snacks 15 min unless active eating is taking place in which meal times may be extended.
5. FG should be offered solid foods first during mealtime and a drink at the end of the meal to prevent filling up on liquids.
6. Juice should be limited to 4 oz per day.
7. Water, pop, Popsicles, Kool-Aid, and other low calorie dense foods should be avoided. Instead, FG may eat fudgesicles, fruit with Cool Whip, whole milk or other calorie dense foods.
8. Meal time recommendations should carry over to daycare, so that FG receives calorie dens meals at daycare and avoid behavioral conflicts.
9. FG's father should take responsibility for the majority of the tooth brushing times to avoid conflict.
10. A follow up appointment will be scheduled in the Growth Clinic for 2 months from original appointment to discuss progress.

Everything they told us was common sense and things we were already doing except for FG did eat in a booster at the table, we did not limit meal and snack times to 20 and 15 minutes respectively. Each meal lasted about 1.5 hours at our house. We also offered water all through out the day, and prior to this appointment our kids did not get to dunk everything they ate into some high calorie dip or frosting.

We have made the changes they recommended and I thought we were doing really really well until Monday! FG and mommy were at their wits ends with one another and then on Tuesday mommy discovered FG's 2 year molars are coming in. I can tell she is in a lot of pain and the feedings definitely are not going so well but we will get back on track as soon as the teeth are in.

Daddy continues to live in CR helping everyone recover from the flood. We miss him lots!

Update on favorite girl

2008-07-06T15:38:00.002-05:00

The day of our visit to the University I received a business card from the dietitan we met with. She told me to give her a call if I thought of any questions. I finally decided to call her since I have not heard anything yet on the blood work. She told me she would not be able to share any results with me but that she could look in favorite girl's chart and tell me if I will be cc'd on the results. She told me that some of the blood work would be "sent out" to the Mayo clinic so not to be alarmed that it is taking awhile. She looked in the chart and said that our pediatrician here locally and myself are both listed to receive the results so I will receive a copy in the mail. She said the chart had not been "closed" yet, indicating they do not have all of the blood work results back yet, so to be patient. Ugh! Easier said than done. We have our good days and our bad days. The same as all parents of toddlers. She eats really well one day and then hardly anything the next. If mac n' cheese is her favortie today it is "acky!" three days later. She was doing really well on the carnation instant breakfast in her milk but now she has caught on and if she sees me adding it to her cup she cries and won't take a drink...I have figured out that if I let her put on a Dora shirt and say drink your milk Dora is hungry she will drink it right down. I guess we will be purchasing more Dora shirts!

Fat Foods

2008-06-24T22:46:00.004-05:00

And just in case you were wondering Aaron and I spent our evening at Hy-Vee comparing labels looking for the highest calorie, highest fat content foods. This is what that looks like....and just so you know the Hy-Vee brand usually won.

For a much cuter picture of the kids check on Memories by Brandi's blog. Her link is on my page.

Picture Of Favorite Girl

2008-06-24T22:41:00.002-05:00

Here is a recent picture of our Favorite Girl. It's kind of dark. It's picture from our vacation to the Omaha Zoo. At least you can tell she is not an ethiopian child. We love you too Favorite Boy!

Favorite Girl Update

2008-06-24T21:22:00.004-05:00

I know many of you are waiting to hear an update. This is the best way I know to get the word out. As you may know Favorite Girl is off the growth charts and her Pediatrician became concerned at her well check. She has fallen to the third percentile for height and is not even on the chart for weight. She has now weighed 19 lbs for one year. We were sent to the University of Iowa Growth clinic today to see some specialists. We visited with a dietitian, a speech and language pathologist, a pediatric otolaryngologist and a pediatric speciality physician.

Overall they would not tell me what her height and weight goals are only that she needs to grow. Her diagnosis is, "abnormal physiological development for a 25 month old girl" and her perscription is, "she may not eat any naked foods". Everything she eats must be dipped in something, and whatever it is dipped in has to be the highest in fat and calories that we can possibly find. The list goes on and on but pretty much if you wouldn't eat it because you want to be healthy we should feed it to her. They said give her frosting, mallow cream, ranch, cheeze whiz, whipping cream, melted velveeta, melted butter, add jelly preserves to anything possible. If she wants ice cream she should eat it with the hot fudge, crushed peanut butter cups, oreos and cool whip with sprinkles on top, No Joke! That is really what they said. Any fruit she eats must be dipped in chocolate, pudding, heavy whipping cream. She may not drink any water, lemonade, juice, Kool-Aid. The only thing we should offer her is whole milk with Carnation Instant Breakfast added to it.

They are only concerned with her height and weight. As for her speech and language, they said she is beyond what they would expect for a normal two year old. The otolaryngologist watched her eat and drink to make sure her mouth "functioned" correctly, he said she is absolutley fine. The dietitian looked at Favorite Girl's food diary and said that we are doing well at offering well-balance meals but that she needs more than just the healthy stuff. Her other recommendation was no grazing. She said overall grazers eat less and therefore weigh less and so she has to have set meal times and then she cannot eat outside of those meal times. This is to help Favorite Girl understand that when we sit at the table we are there to eat, when we get down we are finished and we will not eat again until we sit back down at the table. They said to allow 20 minutes for a meal and 15 minutes for a snack, if she is eating well we may let her continue to eat otherwise she should get down and not be allowed to eat again until the next scheduled time. Obviously none of this is rocket science, now we just have to be very disciplined and stick to our routine.

They asked about other problems such as not sleeping through the night or not sleeping in her bed. We said she does just fine with bed and she has never slept anywhere but her crib or pack 'n play. They were very surprised by that. She thought for sure we would have other stuggles. Of course we went on to discuss other two year old struggles and behavioral issues we have and she explained to ignore all of the behavior. Walk away and do not give in to giving her any attention anytime she does something negative. Again things we all know as parents.

They asked whose personality she has and of course we told her mine. The Physician said if we can tell that Favorite Girl is trying to push my buttons that I absolutely must put on my poker face and not let her know that she is stressing me out (duh). Of course this sounds easy but we all know better that as parent's there are just sometimes when the buttons get pushed. Lord I pray for help because she is two and it sounds like she is already 14!

They also ran a bunch of blood tests, checking for a mega list of other things that could be going on. We will get those results later and I will update you.

In the meantime, we follow this plan for two months. We return to the local pediatrician here in a month for a height and weight check just as we always do and then we return to the growth clinic in Sept for a follow up. Obviously I asked about running into issues the other way with only eating "unhealthy" foods and they said we are doing this short term to get her where we need to be and then we will discuss future plans. Obviously after the roller coaster ride I have been on today I am exhausted so I am turning in for the night. At this point I don't have the energy to proof read this to ensure it even makes sense. Hopefully it gets the point across.

I need to add that I am praying that this is our only issue and it is not something larger than having an obstinate child. I feel this every single day, but especially after being in that speciality clinic today, I feel very blessed to have two happy healthy children. If all that is wrong is that she is small and we need to beef her up I promise to stop beating myself up over this and just thank my lucky stars for all that God has given me. Please say some extra special prayers for us. With love, Kelly

Power Blog

2008-03-27T21:07:00.004-05:00

Okay so I'm going to bring you up to speed very quickly on the rest of winter so we can get on with spring already!

This was my very first Christmas in all of my 30 years where I woke up in my own home with my own family. We decided to stay home since Christmas landed in the middle of the week and go to my mom's the weekend after Christmas. It was a pretty emotional one for me but I survived! My favorite holiday memory from this season is FavBoy's Holiday concert at preschool. He practiced his songs so diligently at home and he did a fabulous job. I couldn't be more proud of him. Of course I was all choked up that my little baby was old enough to be up on stage singing and doing his little hand movements but he did GREAT!

Aaron and I normally don't exchange gifts, but this year I surprised him with a trip to Las Vegas. We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary in July, I turned 30 in September and I thought it would be an awesome surprise. He loved it. We went with our good friends Jeff and Carrie and we had a blast! Okay well I think they had a ball watching the drunken Kelly do her "I love you dance" with anything that had legs. Oh well, the last time that got out of the bag was years ago at Suni and Cole's wedding so I think it was about time :) We missed the kids terribly but it was very nice to have a mom and dad break. By the way I highly recommend Cirque Soilel "O" it was magnificent!

Two different groups of my friends have formed "mom's night" groups. We meet monthly and so something fun. In one group we have a book/movie club so each month we alternate reading a book or going to a movie. It's a lot of fun. So far we have read Eat, Pray, Love. I was the only person in the group that loved the book and everyone else hated it. In December and February we went and saw movies and I'm such a loser I can't even remember the names of them. Oh well it's fun and I highly recommend setting a date on the calendar and doing something just for you once a month!

My other group is tons of fun too. We can do whatever we want there is only one rule. If it is your turn to plan the next month - you have to announce at the month prior what we will be doing. We have the entire month then to look forward to the next big event! In December we had a potluck dinner. While we ate we sat around and read fun conversation starters and took turns giving our answers. Then we baked the night away preparing all of our holiday goodies! Yum! In January we went to a comedian at Penguin's Comedy Club in the Quad Cities. He was hilarious and we had a great time! February we had another potluck and we played board games. The night was sort of cut short because of bad weather but we still had a fabulous time. Are you starting to see a theme here? Yes, we love to eat! Unfortunately, I had a funeral of a very dear friend of mine and I had to miss our March event. The girls had a baked potato bar and watched movies. I can't wait to find out what's in store for April!

So far in March we went up to Coralville and celebrated our good friend Amy's 30th birthday with her. We had a great time catching up with both Amy and Tony!! We miss you so much!

And we have had parties galore for Fav Boy! He celebrated his birthday this month. He had a party at daycare, a party at preschool, a party for our family here and a party for our family up north! I think we are partied out! We went bowling here and up north. All of the kids had a blast.

We prayed a lot for Uncle Tony while he was away on all of his super secret missions. We are so happy you are in the states nice and safe. We can't wait to see you in person this spring!

Soaked

2008-03-27T20:36:00.002-05:00

Okay so January 15th, my domesticated husband started the dishwasher and then went down to the family room to play with the kids. Lucky for us we went downstairs that night! We have a bar in our family room with a small hand sink. There was water overflowing out of the sink all over the carpet from the dishwasher up in the kitchen. We quickly got everything shut off but the carpet was ruined. We tried to snake the pipe but Aaron just kept getting black gunk and the pipe would not clear. Of course he blamed it all on me for putting coffee grounds down the garbage disposal....ooops...but to think, I had been putting coffee grounds down the garbage disposal for months and nothing happened? I was so ticked at myself thinking I had caused all this damage for doing something I knew was wrong to begin with.

We called roto rooter the next day and they came out and said the black gunk was not coffee grounds and it would probably be much better for us if it was. That didn't sound good. He told me he was hitting mud about 15 feet out. He said the pipe was broken underneath the house and we would need to jackhammer up the entire basement floor to fix the pipe. Ugh! Of course we went round and round with the insurance company. First they were covering everything except the $80 broken pipe then the next day they were not going to cover anything. I found their next rebuttal quite interesting, they told me that because it was an act of nature and probably a result of the home getting older they would not cover it. However, if I accidentally drove my car into my yard and caused the pipe to break they would cover all of it. Hmmm, I would think I have some sort of responsibility to be a better driver than that but since you can obviously view my car insurance claim from exactly one month prior, I guess you know better - BASTARD! I was raging mad at this point.

Lucky for me, the lawyer that works with me, overheard my predicament and asked me to call back and have a copy of the home owner's policy faxed to her...oh what a novel idea Kelly, why not read the black and white policy before you die of high blood pressure! The insurance company complied with my request asking if there was some kind of problem...oh I don't know dumb ass? What do you think?

Not knowing about my day, Aaron called the claims department that evening to see what the status of our claim was. The operator that answered said just a minute I need to put you in to a manager. Apparently they flagged our account "wife is a psycho, lunatic b#@%&!, get the big guns"

The "manager" picked up the phone and said, "let me just start off by apologizing to you Mr. A______ I think your wife was given wrong information earlier this afternoon. We will pay for everything except the broken pipe"

Amazing what those lawyer types can accomplish...love you Cole!

Anyway, we packed up our entire basement so everything wouldn't be covered in cement dust. We did dishes in the bathtub for a week since it was the only thing we could use that would not cause more water damage. The plumbers jackhammered up the basement and fixed the pipe. Of course it was another two weeks until the insurance company told us how much we could spend on new carpet. Everything is all put back together, the new carpet has been laid and we even received a free Dyson vacuum out of the deal (it was an add on when we purchased the carpet!) Yippee. All I can say is that I am so so very thankful for home owner's insurance. But I hate crooked people!

I'm alive!

2008-03-26T20:39:00.002-05:00

Check out my friend Brandi's blog if you want to see some really cute pictures of my kids. She is also my photographer and since I'm TERRIBLE about keeping up to date you can view last year's Easter pics and Favorite Girl's first b-day pics. ADORABLE!!!

I know I have been so terrible at this! So much has happened in this loooong cold winter too. We started the winter off dreading the 15ths (if that's even a word)

December 15th we were in a car accident. I just read my friend Jenni's blog and let's just say I felt the same way she did...if I would have been able to blog about it after it happened I would have used the same profanity she used to describe her awful Monday. Mine happened on a Saturday. The whole family was loaded up in the car headed to Cedar Rapids for the Holiday concert at the Cedar Rapids Symphony. We were minding our own business driving about 55 in a blizzard! Of course my charming, loving husband was sitting in the PASSENGER seat next to me NOT driving saying things like, "you should probably slow down...I'm pretty sure it's getting slick...I see other cars swerving..." Me being the loving, obeying, calm wife that I am...listened to him (for a second) and while "white knuckling" the steering wheel responded, "will you please shut the f* up" (okay because the kids were in the car I did leave out the f* part but I really wanted to say it) "I know how to drive, if I get us in a damn accident you can say I told you so when we are sitting in the ditch, and then you can drive!" And two seconds later that's what happened. Smart wife!

We were heading northbound on 380. A car heading southbound did a complete 360 in their lane. It freaked me out and I slowed down to 55. A car went racing by me going about 75 blaring on his horn. Aaron asked me what that was all about and before I could answer a semi went blazing past me. The wind caught my tail end and I started fish tailing. I tried my hardest to correct it. The car was sliding on a piece of ice. It felt like slow motion and we were about to slam into the side of the semi. Aaron yelled to crank the wheel so we wouldn't hit the semi, I overcompensated and we flew into the ditch. The light reflector on the side of the road scraped up the entire passenger side of the car and took off the passenger side mirror. It was awful. An off duty police officer stopped to help us. He was trying to tell me how to turn the wheels to drive myself out of the ditch. I was so shaken up, I had just watched my life flash before my very eyes, I could hardly breath, Favorite Boy was an absolute wreck. I told Aaron he was going to have to do it. I opened the car door and got out, Aaron got out to walk around to the driver's side. The "off duty police officer" hopped into the drivers seat of our car. Aaron started screaming, "hey get the f* out of our car!" (Unlike me, he went ahead and dropped the f* bomb nice and loud for our children's virgin ears). I thought I was going crazy. Here was this nice guy trying to drive our car out of the ditch for us and Aaron was yelling like a maniac at him. Thankfully the nice guy was really a nice guy and not a lunatic pedophile who could have easily drove off with our children. He drove us out of the ditch and then we were on our way. We were all safe. We were able to have the trailblazer fixed good as new. Our fun filled weekend did not end there. We went to the symphony and then went to Olive Garden to eat.

I forgot about my son's anxiety-belly problems. I have never blogged about this but he pukes every time he eats tomato based things like spaghetti, pizza, ravioli, etc...and has excitement in his life. So he eats a nice big bowl of spaghetti at the Olive Garden, we go home to my Mom's house and he hears me telling someone on the phone about our accident. He went running for the bathroom, but missed and well did his business all over my Mom's white carpet in the doorway of the bathroom and remember it was spaghetti, yippee! So I'm thinking sleep cannot come fast enough. This day has got to be over with and a brand new has got to begin right?

Well the new day starts and we go all the way back home. After we get all packed and settled back in I decide to go downstairs to the family room to wrap presents. Favorite Girl decides to come with me. I was not paying very close attention to my little darling and well she stuck an entire Styrofoam packing peanut up her nose. I don't know how she did it but obviously if it can be done she will find a way and that she did. The week before she stuck two peas up her nose. Aaron and I had become pros at nose surgery with tweezers and toothpicks (which I don't recommend). The tweezers and toothpicks did not work this time and so off to the Emergency room we went. I thought for sure DHS would be coming to visit my home after this but interestingly enough the Doc had fabulous stories to tell about what he has had the pleasure of pulling out of babes noses. Finally at 9:30 pm on Sunday evening we were back home safe and sound.

I know you are dying to know what happened on January 15th. I will tell you tomorrow night.

Blue and Blue II

2007-12-14T22:01:00.000-06:00

In between my nightly routine of getting supper on the table I thought I probably had enough time to sneak in cleaning out our blue Beta fish's tank. I worked like a mad woman while the hamburger was browning to get it all finished. Normally, I keep Blue in a little bowl for a few hours after I clean the tank to be sure the new water is back to room temperature. However, Favorite Boy kept on saying he wanted to hold Blue just one time and that he really missed Blue couldn't he just give him one kiss? I sat and debated for quite awhile about leaving Blue in the little bowl vs dumping him back in the tank. Then I remember my friend Jenni's post about her "helping hands" and how Ruby didn't fare so well. I normally clean the tank when favorite boy is taking a nap, but since I was doing it during dinner he was infatuated with Blue in the smaller bowl. I got scared thinking about little Ruby so I just dumped Blue back in the tank thinking he would be safer that way.

We went about our nightly routine and after we put the kids to bed Aaron and I were cleaning up the kitchen. Aaron said uh-oh, I don't think Blue's doing so well. I think he's been laying on the bottom of the fish tank since I got home tonight. I took one look at the tank and knew it wasn't good. I turned around and started washing off the table and of course started crying. I killed my son's fish! I could only wash the table for so long before I was going to have to turn around. Aaron said well should we go get Favorite Boy up and have a funeral? I said no, I knew I was overreacting and I didn't want Favorite Boy to see me that upset. Aaron said well what are we going to tell him? I said I don't know yet. Of course Aaron's suggestion was that we could tell him Blue grew wings and flew away. In between my blubbering I told him we could not lie about the fish. He started laughing and said well it's worked with all the caterpillars we've had this fall. Aaron took care of Blue and I thought about what to do. The next morning Favorite Boy woke up and his newest caterpillar was dead in his caterpillar hut and he was a pretty upset about it. Ugh! He decided to put the caterpillar in the front yard so he could go to Heaven with his other caterpillar friends. It was Saturday morning and we had some errands to run so we headed out the door. We were gone pretty much all morning long and for our last stop I pulled into the pet store. Favorite Boy asked what are we doing here? I told him we were going to get a new fish. He said oh good now I will have two Blue fishes!! I said no honey I'm sorry Blue went to Heaven to live with God last night and so we are going to get another one. He smiled and said, okay can I show you the bird that says "Polly want a cracker first"?

WHAT?!

I said sure and we hopped out of the car and went inside. Sure enough there was a parrot that said "Polly want a cracker" Favorite Boy and his dad frequent the pet store and humane society often threatening to bring home all kinds of little creatures. I was amazed that Favorite Boy had any idea about the bird. I was still wondering if the whole fish thing was really going to go that smoothly. He marched right over to the Beta's picked out another blue one and carefully carried him to the counter. He then proceeded to tell the man at the counter that his other Blue fish died and went to live with God but it was okay because he was going to get a new Blue.

2007-12-14T21:47:00.000-06:00

I know it's been forever but I have a few minutes so I thought I would write. I have to get this in writing so I can remember the story but I'm warning you ...you might find out more about my undergarments than you ever wanted to know. So if you don't want to know don't read any further. Back in October my boss turned 40. All of us in our office decided to wear black to work to "celebrate" the occassion. I'm a very boring person and have started to wear all white undergarments because it is easier that way. When I'm racing around the house in the morning getting ready I don't have to worry if bright red underwear are showing through my khaki pants. Well I decided since I was wearing all black clothing it would be okay to stray a little away from the norm and wear a black bra and black underware. Normally my three year old child does not watch me get dressed but on this particulare morning he stopped watching Diego long enough to come into my bedroom and catch me putting on said undergarments. In his most amazed voice he asked, "Mommy you are going to wear black boobies today?!?" I responded that I was and turned around. I then quickly grabbed my underwear and put them on (mortified) and then he said, "oh mommy!!! you're going to wear black panties too?!" I told him I was and then sat for a second to decide just how many people we would encounter that day who would now also know about my undergarment selection. I can hardly imagine what his preschool teachers must hear.

Favorite Boy's First Day

2007-09-27T11:44:00.000-05:00

Okay so I have been very very bad about keeping up with the blog. I don't know what has happened to me. I have become this very fat lazy blob for about the last month. All I want to do is make dinner, and go straight to the couch to watch CSI reruns. I guess it comes from not having cable for the past 8 years and now I'm playing catch up. Anyway I will play catch up on the blog now.

Favorite Boy had his first day of preschool on Thursday August 23. It was a very bittersweet day for me. My brother left for Iraq (AGAIN) the night before which is always so devastating for our family. I went to bed that night thinking how crazy is it that I am laying here praying that my baby boy will be brave and that he will get peaceful, restful sleep and wake up well-rested ready to face his BIG day. And my poor mom was laying in her bed thinking the exact same thing but on a much grander scale? Then I started bawling, rolled over and eventually cried myself to sleep. But I had to wake up and be happy, happy, happy. Favorite Boy woke up full of empty threats. He told me, "mommy if you don't stay there with me I will be sad", "I won't play with any of the other kids if you don't stay and play with me", "I will just sit at a table all alone and listen to the other kids having fun" Okay so he pretty much tore my heart out and handed it to me on a silver platter, but I just kept validating his feelings, telling him it was okay to be scared and that he would eventually want to play with those other kids and they would want to play with him too.

We arrived a little early so he was able to play outside on the playground equipment for awhile. Then I took him in and did just as they taught as at "parent orientation" I bent over gave him a kiss (and this big bottom lip stuck out and the water works started to flow) I told him he was going to have a great time, handed his tiny little hand to his teacher and turned around and sped out the door. AWFUL! My waterworks didn't start until I turned around which was a very good thing.

I went back to pick him up and he was full of smiles and wonderful stories! He loved it! He was even ready to go back the next day! Too bad he would have to wait 5 days until Tuesday.

Preschool Open House

2007-08-25T11:13:00.000-05:00

We have been busy so the journaling kind of was pushed to the way side. I will try to be better for Favorite Boy and Favorite Girl's sake!

Mommy and Daddy attended parent orientation for preschool on Tuesday night (without Favorite Boy). It was pretty exciting! Each of the teachers introduced themselves and told about their family. Then each parent was asked to say their child's name, something about their child and what their favorite ice cream flavor is. I of course did the talking, while choking back tears...I said that Favorite Boy absolutely does not know a stranger, he is quite fond of the grandparent types and anyone slightly older than Daddy and I are automatically "grandma" or "grandpa" which can be quite embarrassing out in public when he runs up and throws his arms around anybody's leg and yells "hi grandpa"...everyone giggled as if they could relate. I said that he will eat just about any kind of ice cream but his new favorite this week is Blue Raspberry Mr Misty from Dairy Queen (which we frequent quite often) and again everyone giggled. It was fun to hear about all of the kids personalities. I can't wait to hear about the kids.

Next we went thorough the parent handbook, schedule of events, and policy and procedure. It about broke my heart to hear that they don't get to go on many field trips since each child is required to be in a carseat and they just don't have transportation accomodations. I think my all time favorite memory from preschool was going to the pumpkin farm and apple orchard. They do get to go to the firestation and learn about the fire trucks. Favorite Boy will love that!

On Thursday Mommy and Daddy got to take Favorite Boy to preschool for one hour. We introduced him to his teacher, checked out his classroom, showed him where to hang his coat and bag and where the bathroom is located. He really enjoyed himself. Daddy took the rest of the day off work for a Favorite Boy day! They visited a toy store, came to the hospital to eat lunch with mommy, took a nap together and then went to a water park and swam the rest of the afternoon. Favorite Boy was on cloud nine all day. He strutted around like he was King! It was the cutest thing. We can't wait for Tuesday when he goes to preschool all morning by himself.

Corruption

2007-08-03T11:12:00.000-05:00

Favorite Boy came with me to the office the other day. I had to go in to my boss' office to take care of a few things so Favorite Boy went and played with some of the other ladies in the office. They thought it was really funny to let him put this terrible mit on his hand and take pictures!

Lion vs Little Boy

2007-08-03T11:00:00.000-05:00

This is a funny conversation Favorite Boy and I had the other day. The conversation reminds me how little he still really is. He is a little sponge but everything is still very literal to him.

He loves how the power button glows on the computer, he cannot help himself, he pushes it each time he walks by.

Me: Favorite Boy did you turn off the computer?
Favorite Boy: No mommy
Me: Favorite Boy are you sure you did not push the button and turn off the computer? It was on just a minute ago?
Favorite Boy: No mommy, I didn't push any buttons?
Me: Favorite Boy are you lying to mommy? It is better to tell the truth.

He looked at me a little confused.

Favorite Boy: No mommy I'm not a lyin' (I hadn't caught on yet what he was talking about)
Me: Favorite Boy when you don't tell the truth that is lying. If we lie we can't go outside and play when mommy is done with her work. Are you sure you didn't push it?
Favorite Boy: Mom, I am not a lion...I am a little boy!

Duh!

Favorite Boy Preschool Papers

2007-07-31T21:54:00.000-05:00

I know many of you will read this on August 1. I promise not to dwell on this for the next 28 days but I just thought I would share how bittersweet this day has been for me. We received Favorite Boy's preschool orientation papers in the mail today. His first day of preschool is Tuesday August 28! We are very excited. Although I did pull out Favorite Boy's first photo album and of course I am sitting here typing away through very blurry tear filled eyes. Not to seem too cliche but it certainly feels like "just yesterday" when I brought this itsy bitsy teeny tiny little baby home. I remember the nurse walking us out to our car and checking the carseat to ensure it was properly installed. Once she gave us the okay Daddy and I just looked at each other dumbfounded like what do we do now? Are they really going to let us take this baby home with us?! We instantly decided I would sit in the back seat with him. Daddy started up the car and the Dixie Chicks started playing on the radio...well at least I thought it was the radio so the water works started flowing. (For the duration of my pregnancy I had been working in Waterloo and we lived in Cedar Rapids. I would listen to three different Dixie Chics cds on my drive back and forth everyday. I would sing at the top of my lungs and talk to Favorite Boy (in utero) to keep myself awake. Of course I thought it was quite a coincidence that Dixie Chicks was playing on the radio for our ride home). Daddy looked at me and kind of smiled and then told me it was the cd. During our ride home I remember us talking about how small he was. We talked about the mistakes we would probably make as parents. Daddy asked if I could imagine putting our little baby on a bus in five years saying "bye love you please come back safe, remember to get off here...at our house...we'll be waiting for you...right here... at 3:30" I think it goes without saying that the waterworks continued to flow. Although five years have not yet passed us by it certainly seems amazing that three already have. All we have to provide for daycare are 2 bottles of antibacterial hand soap and 100 drinking cups (seems like a weird combination). I think it's best that we don't have to go full fledge-school supply shopping quite yet. I already bought him a Cars backpack and bawled from the back of the Target store all the way to the checkout register.