Drama Drama, I love my mamma.

I sure didn't mean to not post in so long, but we've had a bit of drama here. As many of you probably know, mom was in the hospital over the weekend until Tuesday. Very scary, but all turned out well. I'm sure mom would not appreciate me telling the whole story, but after an ambulance ride and a million tests run, she's gonna be just fine. As long as she follows some basic rules. Eat more salt - yes, they actually told her she does not have enough salt - huh - could have sworn salt was the enemy! Well, Bring on the french fries baby!! Gatorade is also going to assist her. And most of all we are going to find some new blood pressure meds so this doesn't happen again. As much as we enjoyed the good looking firemen, and Ambulance guys, we would prefer to see them in passing, not assisting us to the hospital. Mom - we are so thankful you are ok and love love love you!!!!

On to some more happy news - we have officially had our first snow -kids were pumped up too. Unfortunately it's not a real good snow - can't make a fort, or a snowball, or a snowman, so the kids weren't as excited as they thought. Not to mention it's like 10 degrees out - way too cold for them to play more than about 10 minutes. It took me 30 minutes to get them into their snow gear yesterday and they were back inside in 8 minutes ready for hot cocoa.

Lucas is almost taking some steps! He can stand on his own, and is starting to put that foot forward, so shouldn't be long now! He is so ornery and so stinkin' cute. Love this age. And I can't believe he is almost 1!! Wow, how a year flies by when you have a baby. GOODBYE formula!! Next stop...diapers!! Can't wait to stop buying those things.

Now, please let us have an uneventful weekend....
Hope you are having the time of your life!
ST
ps - I LOVE YOU MOM!

Lovin' the Bird.

I love Thanksgiving. I mean, really, how can you not? Food? Yes, please. We had such a great break this last week. It was nice to have the kids off school and stay in our pj's all day - and yes, we did that - never got out of our pjs at all. Loved it. We got to spend time at the farm with Shawn's family which was perfect. This kids had a blast as always and had so much fun playing with their cousins. Shawn's parents and his sisters family offered to watch all 4 kids while shawn and I conquered Black Friday. We left the farm Thursday night with no kiddos and got to spend the day together on Friday doing some Christmas shopping. It was awesome - I love shopping on Black Friday! There weren't really any deals that were all that great this year, but it was still fun to go out in the madness. Then Friday night my brothers family came in town and we spent the weekend hanging out with them. The kids had fun playing with their cousins - there's 8 little guys running around now! My 4 and Craig's 4 - crazy - can't wait til they are big enough to play some basketball and flag football. We have enough to have subs!! Shawn got to go to the KSU basketball game on Saturday for his b-day which he was ecstatic about and I think they guys had a great time. As much fun as we had all week, I think I was still looking forward to getting back to some normalcy. The kids are exhausted from staying up late every night and playing non-stop. What a fun holiday! Now it's about time I get some Christmas decs out - haven't even hardly thought about it yet. I prefer to get Thanksgiving done first - crazy people getting their trees out a month ago?!?!? no way man - not me! But now - I'm ready.
I must go do a head count now....
Hope you are havin' the time of your life!
ST

Manhattan Bound!!

Yes - we are off to Manhappenin' at 6:30am tomorrow. CAN NOT WAIT! Shawn's b-day is coming up and I surprised him (well, kind of - he found out early, but oh well) by getting us some KSU football tickets (thanks to David - you rock!!). The Hudson's will be joining us since Lee's b-day was this week too. We are heading out of town in the morn with NO kids - yipee!! The best part - besides getting to spend some time with the hubs and no kids, is that we get to stay with Callie while we are there. All the boys are going to go to the game while us gals have some girl time. Some time away is MUCH needed. Austin and Ashlyn got to go to the farm for the weekend and Lucas and Gabriella are at my mom and dads. So, the kids will get plenty spoiled and have a blast with the grandmas and grandpas. I love when they get to spend time with them. And now we are off to bed since we are going to be up early to go cheer on the Cats!!
Hope you are havin' the time of your life!
ST
ps - I am SOOO havin' the time of my life this weekend!

Conversations from the backseat...again.

I love the in-depth conversations Austin and I have (actually, any of my children for the matter). Yesterday while driving to the park here's what we chatted about...

Austin: "Mom, when I grow up I want to be the guy that sews up your belly after you have a baby".
Mom: "That would be a fun job"
Austin: "I think I'm gonna be the guy that gets it out too."
Mom: "So you want to be a doctor? that's great! Takes a lot of school to be a doctor - gotta work hard."
Austin: "What takes longer, going to school to be a football player or be a doctor?"
Mom: "To be a doctor."
Austin: "Huh."

I thought it was better to not tell Austin that if he's really good at football his schooling could be even shorter...

For those of you that don't know Shawn very well let me tell you a few things. He loves to quiz you. For example, in the car he is constantly quizzing me on who sings what song. Loves to play name the capitols of states, etc. He loves playing these little games with the kids too. His best games usually occur during dinner or at bath time. Bath time is where all three kids have learned their letters and numbers and is probably the reason Gabriella can say the whole alphabet at the age of two and even write some of those letters and identify many of them. Here's the latest game Shawn invented especially for Austin. They played "Fruit or Mammal". Which is exactly how it sounds - Shawn says the name of something and Austin says if it is a fruit or a mammal. Well, Shawn said whale. Austin says, "fish". (which was not one of the choices) Shawn says, no it's a mammal because it has live babies, and fish lay eggs. Austin sits...thinks...and then says, "well, if it has babies, where is the whale doctor that sews her back up after she has a baby?" So, apparently Austin is of the belief that since I, his mom, have had 4 c-sections, that every mom has c-sections in which the baby gets cut out and the mommy gets sewed back up (this totally seemed like a good and easy explanation at the time). So, Shawn says, "the baby doesn't get cut out, it comes out on it's own." Austin replies, "how does it come out on it's own?" Shawn says, "It comes out the "baby hole"." At that, there was silence and Shawn decided to play a new game called, "Vegetable or reptile."
I suppose we are going to have a LOT of explaining to do someday in the future when puberty hits. How do people do this????
Hope you are having the time of your life!
ST

October in Review

So I have totally neglected blogging during the month of October. Where did the month go?? I can tell you we haven't just been sitting around watching tv (although we did get cable back for basketball season...or as Gabriella put it, "that lady gave us Dora back!) Let's see if I can recap October happenings for you. We all got to go to the pumpkin patch - both kids went on the same day with their preschool classes so that was fun. Lucas and Gabriella both got to have the swine flu (oh sorry, H1N1.) As soon as Gabriella started showing symptoms they put the whole fam on tamiflu ($$ x 6). Although, Lucas was too young for tamiflu so he got to take some steroids that make him a JOY to be around. He also got the flu, but never did have a fever. His asthma just got horrible. We were back and forth every hour on whether we needed to get to the emergency room, but luckily stayed out of the hospital this time. He had tons of breathing treatments and with the steroids he seemed to battle it ok. His sleeping was horrible since he couldn't breathe (I suppose that's a good excuse). So we spent a few nights in a row with a lot of rocking and extra bottles to try and get him to sleep. He seems to be back on track now (we had to wean him off the rocking) and we are all good now. Could be a long winter though with this asthma junk, but as long as we are good about staying on the breathing treatments we seem to do ok. The tamiflu did wonders, although Shawn had a light case, Austin, Ashlyn and I stayed in the clear. This whole swine saga lasted about a week. Gabriella was over it in a day and a half, and it took Lucas about a week to get his breathing back on track. Shawn was down for a day or so, but not bad - I think because of the tamiflu. Just about everyone I know has had it now, so I think we should be in good shape and I am not planning on getting the vaccine (after much debate). So here's some pics instead of my rambling...
Lucas LOVES to be standing at all times...isn't he cute??

Here's daddy and Ashlyn just hangin' out.

Lucas standing of course, starting to learn to move those feet and cruise around.
Surprise! I'm standing again!
And here's Lucas with his future bride, Taylor...Cal came in town and we had to have some playtime - she's soooo cute!! Love ya Cal!!
Austin lost his first tooth!! Little early if you ask me. He didn't even lose it here, he was playing at Joey's. Sounded like a typical Austin moment..."Ms Jennie - my tooth fell out." At this point I can here Jennie do a little high pitched scream of excitement as Austin just went on about his business as though it was no big deal. Hilarious. I will say he was quite proud when the Tooth Fairy dropped him 5 bucks!
And of course...Halloween. Not may personal fave as far as holidays go, but the kids sure love it. Hmmmm wonder why? I have horrible pics from it, but Austin was Darth Vader as seen above, and if you look below there is a much better pic of the girls.
Here's grandma settle posing with Ashlyn, the K-State Cheerleader, and Gabriella - our own little Dora! How cute is that wig! The kids had a great time at the Trunk-or-Treat up at church Friday night, and then we had a party with some friends on Halloween night and did the "real" trick-or-treating house to house. The kids had a blast, stayed up WAY too late, and ate WAY too much candy. And to top it off, they totally did not understand the concept of Day Light Savings. Let's just say they were not too keen on "getting an extra hour of sleep".

I think that pretty much sums up our month of October. Oh, I just thought of something else - the kids had their parent-teacher conferences and both did fabulous. Ashlyn is doing great and not "shy" in class anymore. And Austin's teacher said more good things about him than I could ever count. The first thing she said to us was, "So, Austin is ready for 1st grade!". I'd say that means he is doing well. But, the thing she said that really stuck was that Austin was the kind of big brother anyone would want to have. He's very protective. I'd say if Shawn and I can teach our kids anything, it's to take care of your family. So, for his teacher to say that, I'd say Shawn and I would get an A+ so far, huh? Or at least an A-....Now, do you think all our conferences will go that well in the next 20 years??? I'll keep you posted.
And now, it's time to snuggle with the hubs. He has worked on the yard and cleaned out the garage this weekend - he deserves a little rest with his lovely bride don't you think?
Hope you are having the time of your life!
ST
ps - and I promise not to go a whole month without writing again!

Proud Parent

I know there are a million things going on in the world right now...but to me (and Shawn) today was one of the best days ever. Austin read a whole book!! 2, actually. I can't believe it! Well, that's not totally true - his personality sort of fits the fact that reading just makes sense to him. He is our little learner and very very focused on whatever task he is doing. He hears nothing else around him when he is concentrating on something. It would be a miracle if he could ever be a multi-tasker like me. Anyway, I told his teacher from last year that he had started wanting to read words - she was so excited. I told her that I was a math major and had no clue as to how to teach him to read, so she gave me these Bob books that are good to start with. He can already read the first two all by himself. So cool. I would say this could be the proudest moment in my short years as a parent. I was pretty stoked when he peed in the toilet (or at least in a 10 inch radius of the toilet), and I was pretty pumped up when I saw him learn how to throw a spiral with the football, but it is amazing to watch him read. Unless you have kiddos of your own, I'm not sure I can describe it. I am sure it will not compare to how proud I will be when he does long division for the first time, or realizes "pi" is a never ending number...but it's still pretty dang cool. Here he is - doesn't daddy look proud too!?!?

Now, bring on the weekend.

Hope you are having the time of your life!
ST

Birthdays...and...Reading??

Birthday week is finally over. Exciting as it is, it is quite tiring to have 2 birthdays within 3 days of each other! Austin turned 5 and Ashlyn turned 4. I try really hard to make each day special for them. We had a really fun week even though all 6 of us had colds and weren't really feeling all that great. Luckily, we all had new toys to play with! We had a big party for the kids on Sunday last week which I will post some pics of when I get the computer running upstairs (as usual). We went out to lunch with a bunch of friends on Monday for Austin's "real" b-day and Ashlyn had a couple girlfriends over on Thursday on her "real" b-day. Such a fun week. Austin refused to have a b-day cake, all he wanted was root beer floats - so that's what we did!! We even stuck the candles in the ice cream. Ashlyn insisted on a Barbie cake - and thanks to my cake-baking sister, she got one! And it was amazing. After b-day craziness came to an end, I headed out for the weekend to do some scrapbooking. Shawn went to the farm with all the kids and I went with a couple friends to do some scrappin'. I have not scrapped in SO long so it was a real treat. I didn't accomplish much, but I did get a whole weekend with no kids (which was much needed after a week of colds and asthma issues), and I got to relax with my girlfriends. I got 7 pages done and also started a photo album for the kids - for some reason they love to look at pics of themselves...wonder if they will ever outgrow that. Anyway, it was a great weekend and I have a great husband to give me a whole weekend off and great in-laws to let him hang at the farm for a few days!
Now, onto the reading....Austin has started to read words! How cool is that??? It's definitely one of the "proud parent" moments. Shawn was showing him how to sound out words and he was totally getting it! Then today after we got home from school he wanted to practice words again - so fun!! I guess Shawn and I will have to find a new "code talk" since we won't be able to spell things like we used to.
That's all I got for now -
Hope you are having the time of your life!
ST