Halloween fun

We had a great Halloween with great weather, a little cold, and great company. My next door neighbor always cooks a pot full of chili and we bought over chips and cornbread. Our city celebrated it on Thursday, which I disagree with, but I guess the point is to not have the kids running and out on the streets during a weekend. Anyway, the kids went as a 70's hippie chick, a cowgirl and a Star Wars figure and I went as a pregnant women and D was a dad. Mallory woke up on Thursday morning at 4 in the morning and threw up she threw up again two more times. Needless to say she did not go to school that day and I was a little bummed because I knew she was going to miss her school parade and party. She was better in time for trick-or-treating. D stayed home with her since I had a conference and he worked on Friday and I stayed home half day.

Nathan was really cute while trick-or-treating. The first 5 to 10 houses he kept up with the kids as they ran between houses. After that he complained that his stomach hurt and wanted carried but only for a few seconds before he saw the other kids running up to another house. He hung in there for most of the night. Julianne went the entire time with our neighbors and Mallory and Nathan stayed with me at our neighbors house.







Off they go...

A neighbor's display

The high school band came around and played on our street. It was great and definitely added to the community theme.

I took Nathan to the zoo this week and we had a great time. He loved it and he talked the entire time. He was not as into the animals and wanted to leave each animal after about 30 seconds of viewing the animal. I on the other hand wanted to stay and watch the animals but I guess he was the boss that day. He really loved the train and was really excited when we got to ride it. It was a great morning at the zoo and it was nice to spend some one on one time with him.

Cheesy face


I tried to get him to lay on the floor and have him looking up at the bear like the bear was about to eat him but he was not into that picture. I think he was afraid that the bear would actually take a bite out of him.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-getting good looking maternity pants.
-my new spinning bike now located in my basement.
-Watching my kids run between houses gathering treats

Wow it has been awhile

Well I have been slacking on my blog. It is harder the longer I go between posts because I dread having to write a long post to cover everything that happened. But I always feel great after I do it and it kind of releases some memory in my brain because I was finally able to write all these activities/thoughts down.

So... the last few weeks... where do I start. Well I can start with our trip to the local state park in the southern part of our state. It was great. We stayed in a cabin near the area and took the kids. It was nice to be in the wilderness and to appreciate it more than we usually do. The kids loved the cabin because it had a loft where they all slept in. It was also made of real wood so they were interested in the process of making a real log cabin. Outside there were some trails, fire pit, corn hole and woods. The kids made a house sign made out of twigs and rocks and we decorated acorns to look like little people. I forgot to take pictures of these activities but they really had a great time creating art with nature. We took the kids to see some caves and a waterfall, which was dried up. They really enjoyed the hike and we had minimal complaining.




Nice face Mallory.

Here is another try, but Julianne and Nathan are looking the other way. I can never get a great picture of all three of them together.

Julianne in a dark spooky cave.


Large pulled up tree.


Nathan did not get into the highlighted area. Not enough time to edit.

Nathan fell asleep on the way home so I brought him in the cabin and he slid down the futon. He stayed like this for quite some time.

The kids were obsessed with these caterpillars. We had lots of them in plastic containers before we convinced them that they would not like to be stuck in a plastic room.


Log cabin joints. Pretty cool how they are stuck together and what prevents them from slipping out.

The "men" tending to the fire.

On Sunday, our departure day, Nathan began his barky cough. He coughed pretty much the entire morning and afternoon. I did not bring his nebulizer since he just had one a few weeks before so I felt bad that I did not have anything for him. We were on our way home so I knew that we could do a treatment around lunch time. He was coughing so much and so hard that he threw up in the car like 5 minutes after we left. We got him home and gave him a treatment and went to Mallory's game. He was hot and tired at the game from coughing so much and having his body's antihistamines all revved up that he took a nap on the way home. We gave him another treatment and some Zyrtec and that seemed to help. He still had a little bit of heaving breathing that night but not too severe. So I think it was all the fall leaves and the surroundings that may have triggered his asthma. There is definitely a difference in his episodes of when he has a barky cough and just a regular cough. I am not going to make an assumption but I do have a hypothesis that his barky coughs are due to allergies and the regular coughs are due to colds/viruses. So I am going to observe this and see if it is true. I seem to concentrate on his heaving breathing and trying to figure that out but there is also some differences between the coughing that occurs beforehand.

Julianne had her soccer tournament last weekend and they played really well. They ended up winning second place within their little division. The great thing about that was she really earned her first trophy. She loves it and will not let Nathan touch it because she does not want him to break it. I think that all the teams get a trophy but she is especially happy about hers. She played defense most of the time and really likes that role. She was playing goalie for the first 5 games and she started to not like soccer. I kept thinking that the coach would switch her around but he did not so we finally talked to him and told him that she does not like play goalie every single game. Since they are so young we want her to still really like the game and to move to different positions. This talk did not go as we planned and the coach came back and said that he will not put her on goalie anymore. Which was not our point, and we tried to emphasis that, but she has not played goalie since that talk. So we are not really worried about it she still enjoys it and likes that she is not goalie anymore.


Some pictures of the kids while at Julianne's game.


My little nature girl.

She is cleaning out the pond.


More pictures of Julianne (she's white number 10).

Mallory's soccer is going well. It is great to see her play. She really enjoys it and still bounces all over the field with a smile on her face.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Hearing Nathan say, "It's froggy outside." (instead of foggy)
-Enjoying nature with the kids.
-Having my husband home after 5 days of not seeing each other.

Mallory is growing up

Well we basically initiated Mallory participation in two new activities this year. She was hesitant about both of them but now she loves them both. Both her activities started within the same week. She is now a Daisy Scout and a new soccer player. She is really funny on the soccer field. She is actually very fast but she is kind of bouncy and she is surprisingly aggressive. She was not afraid to go out there and get into the game. She just keeps her leg kicking and follows the ball. She was a little clumsier this last game then her first game but she always has fun. She seems to always have a smile on her face. She also like Daisy's. She has only had one meeting and she actually chose to go to soccer and not Daisy's so she has only had one informal meeting. But she will like it because most of the time they make crafts and do other artistry activities.




She's a little distracted here.

The kids had an impromptu sprinkler party. D was watering his new seedlings and despite the colder weather the kids wanted to run through the sprinkler. The had fun and I am glad I grabbed the camera.






After two months of asthma free bliss Nathan had another episode last week. So it was time and this one made up for the several months of not having one. It started as the usual and ended within a few days. The bad part was that his worst day was on Wednesday with our babysitter. Our sitter is great and I knew that she would be able to handle it but I think that it did surprise her a little. The other bad part is that I had a prepaid conference that day that I had to attend so I could not meet her and talk to her about it. So D went over the basics and then I called her on my way and filled in the details. She also had to deal with Tucker. We took Tucker into the emergency vets that Sunday because his other eye was acting up. Sure enough he had a ulceration in is left cornea. So we caught it earlier enough that we did not have to do surgery but the bad part is that he now has 5 medications that need to be given 4 times a day 5 minutes apart. So it is basically a revolving eye medication door where all day I feel like I am putting drops into his eyes. So along with Nathan, our sitter had to deal with Tucker. She was a trooper and got it all done and seemed to do well with the extra chaos.

I took the kids to their first home football game a few weekends ago. They had a great time and they did not really pay attention to the game but enjoyed the food and the before the game activities.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Mallory enjoying her own individual activities
-watching Julianne try her hardest at soccer
-Nathan's individual independence