Happy Halloween!!!!!

TRICK OR TREAT!!!!!


Giddyup Hannah!


Elijah using his proper Montessori posture (it looks like it's become pretty automatic for him now)


Hannah putting together a puzzle. Wow, look at that dining room table, and that's AFTER I cleared off a bunch of stuff! It's a wonder we have room to eat each night.


Leah climbed up on the stroller by herself. I guess she was trying to tell me she wanted to go for a walk.


I was trying to take a picture of Leah's pigtails, but this is the best I could get. She really hates the flash on the camera.

Elijah's Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

This was taken last week, but I hadn't gotten around to sharing it yet. The work Elijah is doing is butter spreading. After he spreads the butter on the bread, he gets to EAT it!! It's one of his favorite works :)


Here's a new work where the kids pound golf tees into a pumpkin! Ms Theriac, whose class is next door to Elijah's class, invented this work. Apparently, it's a big hit with the kids (no pun intended).


This is today's field trip to the pumpkin patch. Elijah is first in line for what looks like the hay bale maze.


Yep, he's about 3 feet tall!


Elijah is the kid in the blue coat next to the teacher in gray. The pumpkin patch is pretty sparsely populated this late in the season.


Here he is on the way home... fast asleep on Miss Sarah's arm. But, it looks like he wasn't the only napper!

Halloween Costumes 2008 and couple of other pictures

The kids had their school Halloween party on Saturday, so I took some pictures of them in their costumes (Leah was napping, so I didn't dress her up... poor baby had to hang out in the Ergo backpack during the party)

Here's Princess Hannah (that's 3 years in a row that she's been a princess!) and Thomas the Tank Engine.


Earlier in the day, I gave Elijah some "sticky up" hair (yes, Vanessa, I totally stole your word!)


Here's Dr. Sticky-up-hair checking his patient's heartbeat. Look at Leah staring into his eyes!


This is from today. Leah has another fat lip :( She was busily destroying the house and climbed into a box where she was playing happily... then she tried to climb out. I heard the thunk and the scream, and I must have picked her up before the bleeding really started because I didn't see any blood until it was all over my shirt. She was, of course, wearing a white shirt, but managed to only get a drop of blood on it. Now that I've gotten a decent look at it, it looks like the boo boo is a cut lip (as opposed to a busted labial frenum like Hannah got when I was hugely pregnant with Elijah). The bridge of her nose was red and a bit swollen as well, but she was acting fine not long after. It's a good thing that babies bounce back so quickly!!

Happy 6th Birthday Hannah!!

Dear Hannah,
Today you are SIX years old. I can't believe it. You are a young lady now!! You are definitely past the pre-schooler stage and well into kid-hood :) Most of the time you seem much more mature than a six year old, but it's still hard to believe you are so grown up. I remember the second you were born, and the doctor put you on my belly. I cried because I was so happy to finally meet you! You were so tiny and helpless, and not terribly pleased to be out in the cold world. Everything I thought I knew about motherhood flew out the window the second I met you. You demanded much more than I thought I could ever give, and yet I did it without a second thought. You NEEDED certain things and you certainly let me know when I got them wrong :) I never planned on having a child sleeping in my bed, and yet those are some of the sweetest, most special memories I have of you... cuddled up next to me snoozing away. I planned on weaning you on your first birthday, but when that day came I knew you were much too young. Even your second birthday came and went before you stopped nursing. I'm so glad that you demanded more out of me because it helped you to grow into such an amazing girl!! You are smart, kind, sweet, caring, helpful, and possibly the best artist I've ever known. I love you SOOOO much Hannah, and I can't wait to see what the future holds for you.

Mouse Trap, The Game

Hannah got the game Mousetrap for her birthday, and Elijah and I decided to test it out while Hannah was at school today :) I always wanted this game as a kid... my aunt had it, and I remember begging my much older cousin to let us play it just about every time we visited. Looking back, I don't think we ever actually PLAYED the game, we just built the mouse trap. I think my kids will be several years older before we attempt to play it as well. We were all perfectly happy just building and setting off the trap.

Aacckk! I've Been Tagged

Hmm... I've never been tagged before, so thanks a lot Renee :)

5 years ago
1. I only had one child, and it was her FIRST birthday!!
2. I worked full time as a speech pathologist, but I took a sick day today to spend with Hannah
3. We lived in a 525 sq ft garage apartment!
4. We only had one car (okay that was true until about 18 months ago!)
5. We lived in Stillwater, OK (GO POKES!!!)

Things on my to do list today
1. Go to the bank
2. Shop at Dollar Tree
3. Pick up Elijah from pre-school
4. Do a minimal amount of cleaning
5. Pick up Hannah from kindergarten

Snacks I enjoy
1. chocolate
2. chocolate
3. chocolate
4. chocolate
5. chocolate

Things I would do if I were a millionaire
1. Pay off the house
2. Pay off the van
3. Pay off Pete's student loan
4. Buy my Mom her dream house
5. Invest in low risk investments and SAVE for the future.

Places I've lived
1. Oklahoma City
2. Stillwater
3. San Diego
4. Evansville

Jobs I've had
1. Assistant to an academic advisor (go-fer stuff)
2. Computer lab monitor (a pretty great job, that's how I met Pete)
3. University Mailing
4. Speech-language pathologist
5. Stay at home mom (the BEST job ever!)

TAG, your it!!
1. Vanessa
2. Tasha
3. Britta
4. Tara
5. Ems

More Montessori Pictures of Elijah - October 22, 2008

Here is Elijah working on the map of the world. He can name 6 of the 7 continents with ease!! He has trouble remembering North America :)


Elijah is removing water from the lake landform. Montessori teaches the different landforms like island, lake, gulf, peninsula, cape, bay, etc. It's a lot more fun to learn when you actually get to put the water in the right place!!


Elijah is working on a sewing activity. He looks pretty excited about this new work!


Elijah is matching numeral cards to the red and blue rods.

Unfortunately, the pictures that Hannah's teacher took last week were eaten by her memory card :( Today, Hannah is celebrating her birthday at school, so hopefully there will be a picture of that!

Hannah's 6th Birthday Party

We survived a morning at Chuck E Cheese! Actually, it wasn't bad at all. I'd never been to CEC, but the other parents told me that usually it's so crowded you can barely walk. However, I chose to have Hannah's party at 10am, and guess what, NO CROWD!!

I took a ton of pictures, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum.


Hannah, the birthday girl


Here's the cake. Hannah wanted a Littlest Petshop birthday party, but when you go to Chuck E Cheese everything has CEC on it... so, I brought the LP cake topper with us and just set it on top of CEC.


Hannah and Nadia


Ty, Kelly, Kate, Hannah, and Elijah


Braxton


Nadia entraced by the game


Walker playing pinball


Ty with a big smile because I just gave him extra tokens.


Ben on a ride that my kids wouldn't even THINK about getting on. Call them cautious, fearful, whatever... they are scared of just about everything.


Hannah and Daniela playing air hockey.


Pizza time!! Walker and Hannah


Jesse, Braxton, Ty, and Elijah


Jesse and Braxton


Elle, Kate, and Ben


Ryan, Jack, and Elle


Ben and Darby


Daniela and Hannah


A great picture of Hannah when the hostess was announcing her birthday over the intercom.


Me "protecting" Elijah and Leah from Chuck E. Remember that I said that my kids were scared of everything? Well, Elijah just couldn't take the overgrown rat that showed up and marched around the party area with the rest of the kids.


Hannah blowing out the candles (with a little help from Seamus)


This is the closest we got to getting a group picture.

We opened the presents at home, and boy did she did well! Now, we get to write thank you cards!! Thanks to all the kids and parents who came and celebrated Hannah's birthday with us, we had a great time :)

Baby or Dustmop?

There will be NO picture since I don't want the world to actually see the proof of what a terrible housekeeper I am.

Leah was sick for about 10 days, and the last week of that she didn't crawl around the house at all. Since I was typically holding a sick baby, I didn't sweep (sure blame the baby, I probably wouldn't have swept anyway!!). Yesterday was one of the first days where she really crawled around like usual, and her pants got FILTHY! Not just a little dirty, but really, REALLY dirty. She was covered in dirt, dried grass & leaves that had been tracked in, and who knows what else. I never realized that my crawling baby was actually a pretty decent dustmop who kept the floor a little cleaner just by crawling on it.

Today, I swept and swiffered the downstairs (upstairs is carpet), and yes, it was a disgusting pile of hair, dirt, crumbs, etc! Hopefully, Leah will stay a bit cleaner today.

Nap and Hair pictures

This picture was taken on Monday, after Leah's doctor visit. She ended up falling asleep a few minutes later. Elijah doesn't nap very often any more, but he woke up an hour early on this day, and ended up crashing after lunch. Leah is cuddled up with Hannah's jacket, of all things :)

The hair pictures need a little intro, I think. I've started reading a couple of hair blogs, like She Does Hair and The Story of a Princess and Her Hair. A few weeks ago, I didn't even know there WERE hair blogs... however, Hannah is one of those girls who loves to be pretty, so I thought I'd try my hand at one of these girly styles. Now mind you, this is a first attempt, AND I didn't use any product in her hair (I didn't HAVE any gel or whatnot).


Here's the top.


The side (she slept with the top part done, so it's kind of messy already)


The back.

It was pretty cute, if I do say so myself :) Today, she requested "twisty braids", but I didn't take a picture. I did use gel in those!!

***
Leah is getting back to her old self... destroying the house and whatever is within her reach. She still wants to be carried alot, and hasn't even tried to climb the stairs. I know she's still pretty tired because she took a 90 minute nap this morning! I'm glad to have my healthy baby back, even though it's more difficult to watch her this way :)

And the Winner Is.... Roseola! Plus...

a secondary ear infection!

Okay, so Leah has been sick for about 10 days now. It started off with the world's snottiest nose for a few days, then on Wednesday she developed a fever. I typically let fevers run their course since the heat helps kill off the virus. Well, 24 hours later, Leah's fever hadn't broken, so I gave her a dose of Motrin. Apparently, Leah was under the impression that I was trying to poison her because she spit most of it out and gagged on the rest. It didn't do much either. I think she was fever-free for about an hour... Motrin typically lasts a good 6-8 hours. Friday morning Leah seemed a bit more chipper and less feverish, so I packed the kids up and took them to the Fall Festival as promised. However, by Friday night she had relapsed and even started throwing up! Saturday I got another dose of Motrin in her, and it lasted about 10 hours... but she still wasn't really her normal chipper (destroying) self. The fever came back overnight, along with a nice rash. I was happy to see the rash because normally once you see the rash, the kiddo is a) no longer contagious and b) back on the mend. I went ahead and took the kids to church on Sunday after another dose of Motrin. Since Leah stays with me, I wasn't too worried about her infecting anyone else and she had the rash so should be contagious anyway. Only she was crabbier than I've ever seen her! Her fever didn't return when the medicine wore off, so I was sure that today (Monday) was going to be the day that she perked back up. BUT as I was on the internet trying to identify her rash, I came across scarlet fever (caused by the strep bacteria), and it was a definite possibility since we've been battling strep throat in the past month. So, I called the doctor, and got her in this morning. We went through all the symptoms, but once he saw the rash, he pronounced "ROSEOLA!" So, I countered with, "So, why isn't she better? Shouldn't she be better now that the rash has appeared?" He looked in her right ear and said, "Ew! I think the red, bulging ear drum could be the problem!!" Thankfully, her left ear was fine. A round of antibiotics was ordered and I requested a shot of rocephin (a miracle drug in my opinion) since my little baby thinks that oral medicine is akin to poison. I've had the shot and it HURTS!!!! However, it's usually effective in 12-24 hours, and well worth the pain.

So, now you know why I haven't blogged in a while.... I've been holding a crabby, sick, clingy baby.

Montessori pics

cutting


matching shoes


writing color words with markers (his FAVORITE!)


On the school bus going on his first field trip.


building with foam bricks at the children's museum







Elijah is walking with a brace to learn what it's like to have a disability.


working on the map of the world