Apples

On this day, my 13,031st day on this planet, I realized that I prefer red apples to green ones!

Mike is 12,594 days young
Liam is 1210 days young
Rowan is 490 days young

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT HOW MANY DAYS YOUNG YOU ARE

I came to this realization this morning because Liam was up late again last night. Last week at school his teacher told me that Liam was darting out of the class room, and we think it's because he was in his loopy phase, which means he's so tired he doesn't listen, and he acts crazy...it's the stage right before he gets really cranky. Anyway, today is a school day, and since I had a little extra time from working later yesterday, we decided to let Liam sleep in. Rowan was already awake, and she was downstairs in her chair watching Elmo, she can say 'Elmo' now BTW, sooo cute!! And I decided to eat an apple, but all we had left were green ones. Maybe it was just a bad apple, but I did not enjoy it at all! Anyway, Liam woke up around 8 am, and he was well rested! Last night before bed Dad told him to dream about Georgie riding Thomas the Tank Engine, and the first thing Liam told me was he had a good dream about Georgie and Thomas!! Their minds are like clay! It's crazy.

Movies, Liam and School

So Liam has had a hard time with the time change, no shocker there. Even before the time change he was having problems going to bed at bedtime. He now wants his light on, and that makes it hard for him to fall asleep. He will call me several times after I say good night to him. And he's not falling asleep till past 10pm?! It is also really frustrating because now I have even less time to get anything done before we get ready for the next day, have dinner, and go to bed. Our dinner time has been pushed from 9pm to 10pm!! Then he has a hard time getting up in the morning, and is tired all day, and crashes in the car on the ride home, and it's just a vicious cycle!! I know he needs his naps, and I need them too...but this schedule just isn't working. Anyway, so since he's been up later on the nights he takes a nap, we let him watch a movie last night. He picked out Snow White. Well, now that he is 3, his imagination is at full swing, and he is also very good at following what is going on in the story, so he ended up having bad nightmares last night. I didn't even hear him wake up, but Mike did, and being the really good dad that he is, slept on his floor for much of the night because Liam was scared and asked him to stay. Most of the time I just tune out what the kids are watching, but really I need to pay closer attention, cuz duh, I knew that the story of Snow White was scary, but when it has the Disney name on it you kinda forget it's not ALL cute animals and dwarfs...there is a scary forest scene and a scary witch too! He also recently watched Bambi and cried so much when the Mama was killed. Poor kid!

He is a 'Tender Heart' for sure. That is a term his teacher Miss Farrah used to describe him. And speaking of her, we had a parent/teacher conference with her yesterday, and she says that he has made a very good improvement from the fall. And she asked if he was coming back next year. And we said, for sure, and we also requested her to be his teacher. She was very thrilled to hear that, and even said she wanted to request that Liam was in her class, but wasn't sure she could do that. Anyway, if that doesn't make a parent feel good, I don't know what does!!

Outdoor Fun

Well, to make a long story short...

'Tax refund=the largest, sight unseen, online purchase we've ever made...a swing set for the kids!!'

We are not going to tell Liam about it because we don't want the same thing happening to the swing set as it did with Riding Thomas. It will just have to be a big surprise, and aren't those the best anyway?!

We have thought of getting a swing set for a while now. But, we really didn't want the maintenance of a wood set, and all the metal ones we had seen were a bit of an eyesore. I happened upon Costco's site yesterday, and found a really nice, attractive metal one. It has really great reviews on all the sites we looked on, and is $400 less than the manufacturer's site...gotta love Costco! It will get here in about 2-3 weeks, and we are very excited. Our yard is pretty, but is also pretty boring for kids...so hopefully this will get us out enjoying fresh air and our yard more!

VIDEO

Correcting a Parent's Mistake (Hopefully)

Liam is TOTALLY obsessed with Thomas the train right now. And I made the mistake of telling him that we got tickets to go ride on him over 2 months in advance. He wants to go 'RIGHT NOW!', and because he's only 3, he doesn't fully understand the concept of time, and that he won't be here for a couple more months. Lately, he has been waking up and wanting to go 'RIGHT NOW!'. And after I explain to him that it isn't till May, he gets very cranky, and is not happy for a long time. I got the brilliant idea (I hope) this morning to print out Thomas's schedule and a map of the U.S. and put stars on the state he's in...I hope it works, otherwise the next 2 months are going to be miserable ;)


SCHEDULE


MAP

We Got Our New Lens Today!

And Mike took this beautiful picture of Rowan...

Birthday Party!!

So today Liam's cousin had her 4th birthday party. They rented a bounce house, and Liam had an absolute blast!! That kid played for 90+ minutes strait. He crashed about 5 minutes after I got him in the car and fell back asleep right after I got him in the house and changed him...Looks as though he will sleep through the night (if we are lucky).

Since I know how hard it is to get pictures when you are in charge of an event...I went crazy taking pictures (233 to be exact!!) Family you are welcome to visit the link and upload any picture, or the whole lot. Sorry they are unedited, so if you like them you are on your own in that department :) The password is the initials of the guest of honor...if you are unsure of her middle name, just email me :)

CLICK HERE FOR THE LINK TO THE BIRTHDAY PICTURES

If you want a specific picture, just run your mouse over the picture, a pop up menu shows up...there is a yellow folder at the bottom of the menu that says save photo. It will save that file at full resolution. If you want a zipped folder of the whole lot, just let me know and I can forward it to you...I'm still learning how this site works, so just let me know if you have any issues or questions. Thanks!!

Spring is around the corner...

I think the kids are on the mend as well as myself...sadly Mike seems to be feeling worse, but his started later, so that is to be expected. For the past 3 days Liam has slept really hard at nap time, but then was up really late, close to midnight?!?! Today we stopped at the store on the way home, so he did not take a nap. I'm hoping this will get him back on track. But then another whammy...daylight savings this weekend...not really looking forward to that!! Last year it took us about a month to recover from it. It never really affected me that much until we had kids. Only time will tell, but I'm hoping it will be easier this time.

Below are a couple of my favorite recent pics of the kids.

Rowan 14 months


Liam 3 yrs


And here is cute one of them around Christmas:

Sick day AGAIN.

Liam started to have a fever last Monday evening. He started with a fever and cough. His cough was so bad that he gagged up his food and sometimes his medicine. Usually when he gets a fever it breaks after about 3 days. This one was not going away, so by day 5 we took him to the Dr. The Dr. listened to his lungs, and heard a crackle. He checked his Oxygen too. He wanted to determine for sure if it was a bacterial or a viral infection, so he had us go to the hospital to get an x-ray. While we were waiting to be seen, Liam was getting anxious waiting. We walked around a bit, and we came across a vending machine. He wanted the Doritos, and so I checked my wallet, and there was NO CASH! I called my mom, since she wasn't too far away and asked her to bring some cash. They took us to the back before she arrived, but they told her where we were when she got there. Liam was happy to see Grandma. Liam did really awesome getting the x-ray. He listened to direction, and wasn't scared at all. We got him the Doritos and went home 2 hours later! The Dr. called later that afternoon, and told us that it appeared as he thought, as a viral infection. He thinks it's RSV, so no meds for that...just have to wait it out. Now it's a week after his fever started, and his fever seems to have broke, but his appetite is still gone. And poor Rowan has a fever, and me and Mike are sick too! Ugh, hope this thing clears up soon!!