going quackers :)

Well, internet since we last talked it's been over a week. We're still alive without Rob (sad, missing him, but we are ok.) Last week I sat down with my school calendar for Joel and realized, no, he doesn't go back to school on the 3rd, he goes back on the 9th. Hmmm. Another week of sitting home and watching tv. Luckily my sister came back from Utah and we've been having a great time. So, here's what we've been up to. Kelcie and I took the kids to feed the ducks and to Pratt's Feed Store. Holy cow, they were happy. There are pictures of the feeding-the-ducks adventure below, but Joel and Charlotte both squealed with glee for about two hours straight. Teach me to try and spend money on them, feeding the ducks and going to the store are free!

Charlotte is trying desperately to walk, but when she does her chubby little legs start to quiver and I think she's still a little scared. I tell her to take her time, we waited 18 months for Joel to walk, so I've seen it all. As for Joel, his pediatrician wants him to start all these new therapies-- feeding therapy, a habilitation program designed and run by a master's student, more occupational therapy, physical therapy (for jumping, if you can believe that) and music therapy. Setting aside the fact that I have hardly even heard of most of these, it should be interesting. If we can get everything going, our house will be one crazy therapy station zoo.

Joel's always been a favorite with the chicks. What a ladies man :) He loved these little "cheep cheeps" and I had to pry him away before he loved them a little too vigorously.

After 2 years of growing it out (and 1 year of having my children constantly pull it out by its roots) I chopped my hair on a whim. I'm not a huge fan of it, but it's hair and will grow back,

Time for school, time for school! Joel has been soooooo excited to get on the bus this week. He runs to the bus with his backpack on and says "hi!" to the driver and basically is ready to leave me every day. The kid loves the bus and I have had to go on and remove him myself a few times when he comes home for the day and wants to keep on going. "We go, we go!" is what he'll say.

Our favorite game, "Wake up sister with jumpy-jumpy".  I found him sitting in Charlotte's crib with her still sound asleep. Then Joel yelled "Jumpy jumpy!!" and pretty much scared Charlotte awake. They spent the next 10 minutes happily jumping in the crib while I wondered just how long we have with this thing before my kids break the bottom. And yet, he still needs physical therapy for jumping, go figure.

Our favorite days with Aunt Kelcie end this way. Such sweet kids. This is as close as I can get to having a picture of the two of them.

Aunt Kelcie has a huge germ thing and never shares her drinks (a source of contention around here considering every cup with in a 5 mile radius is Joel's and he'll drink it before you know what's going on.) So of course little Charlotte would be sneaky and steal Aunt Kelcie's drink. Silly girl.

Joel feeding the ducks. I have honestly NEVER seen kids so excited to see ducks before. We pulled up to the park and before we could even get out of the car both kids were wildly flailing and begging to be let out to play with the birds. Joel's favorite part was throwing bread at the ducks and then running away before they could catch him, Charlotte's was attempting to eat grass, mud, duck poop, and moldy bread. When I told Rob about this he said "You guys are having too much fun without me!"

Not my best look, but Charlotte cracks me up. I let her sit in the sand and "play" while Joel burned off some energy on the slide.

Apparently I don't feed her enough. Sand and rocks are delish.

In other news, I got food poisoning on Monday. I have never been that sick to my stomach before, and that includes both pregnancies and beyond. I'm feeling worlds better, but Monday was not pretty. Other than that, we're doing great and happy. We're counting down the days till we get to see Rob again!

back to reality

We have had a wonderful week with Rob, and today is the bummer day where we stick him on a plane and say goodbye for another month. Actually, if I'm being honest it will be 6 more weeks before he sees the kids again. I'll hopefully be flying out to Kansas City later in the month to see him, but we'll see if that happens.

What's happened this past week? Well.....

We found out I have a severe reaction to raw shellfish. As in, my eyes swelled shut and my tongue got puffy and sent Rob running for a box of Benadryl on Christmas Day when no stores are open. Luckily, we got me some Benadryl in time, and I just spent the next two days looking like my husband walloped me in the eye. I had had a reaction to crab legs a couple of years ago, and now I know for sure: no raw lobster/crab/shrimp handling for me!

This is the worst picture I have EVER posted on here. Both eyes swelled completely shut shortly after this.

We had the weirdest Christmas ever with it being a Sunday. We whisked the kids out the house to church, bypassing all presents until we got back. By the time we came home, it was pretty anticlimactic and Rob and I ended up unwrapping most of the gifts because the kids just weren't into it.Our favorite toys this year include more Lightning Mcqueen, a Rock'n'roll Elmo, and 7 or 8 dolls for Charlotte.

We had an appointment (finally!) with a developmental pediatrician for Joel. There were some good things that came out of this and some bad, but overall not much has changed. We're still looking at an autism diagnosis, and he's still improving with therapy and preschool, so we'll continue that holding pattern. We'll also be starting some new therapies: feeding therapy, music therapy,  and a habilitation program designed by a master's student (this is supposed to be 10 hours a week and scares me a little). Obviously, I still struggle with all of this, but it is what it is and the only thing we can do is go forward, so.... here we go.

Most importantly though, we've been able to have some fun with Rob around! We've been to the mall, the children's museum, and played with friends. Just thinking about dropping him off today makes me weepy. Here's hoping the next 6 weeks go fast!

December happenings...........

Yes, of course that's a candy cane ornament in her mouth. We live on the wild side here, what with our vacuum cords and perilous stunts while wearing tights. And I'm actually surprised she spit this out instead of trying to swallow it while I took pictures of such a safe environment.



My baby is trying to stand all by herself. I keep telling her to knock it off so she can show off for Rob when he gets home, but as usual, she doesn't listen to me. Instead, she climbs up the stairs, stands, and tries to walk while I chase after her thinking "Please slow down!".

She ate two berries and spit one out. I'll give you one guessas to where the other showed up....

I don't know why I bought my kids Christmas presents. They are fascinated with gift bags and the holiday wreath hanger made out of plastic. And clothes hangers. And... the berries on our tree which I found out the hard way are not coated with lead paint and will most likely be pooped out if ingested.

The kids at the nativity activity last night. Notice Joel's oh so fashionable pajama pants, as he decided to exercise his veto power on wearing normal clothing. He wanted to push the baby and kept ramming people the whole night. I felt sorry for those in our group thinking "This kid is so loud, and OW MY ANKLE HE HIT ME WITH A STROLLER!" Joel would just yell "Jesus!" and really, who can argue with that logic......

We were lucky enough to go see a live nativity last night. I'm sure he was influenced by this and the "baby Jesus" of the season, so my son has not stopped saying "Jesus". I'm hoping he doesn't use it for all of his expressions, but our congregation today at church was lucky enough to hear "Oh boy, Jesus!" during the sacrament prayer, and at 15 second intervals for the next five minutes until he was taken out into the hall. While I was paying attention to that, Charlotte open-mouth slimed a boy sitting next to her. Good times.

"Where'd all the presents go?" Yeah, I'm onto you! This fascinaton with the tree as a special hiding place is new for our family, but so funny to find Charlotte trying to scale it in the morning.

I thought for sure my kids were too young for all this Santa and presents business. (SAYS THE WOMAN WHO BOUGHT WAY TOO MANY PRESENTS.) It was a rookie mistake from the first day I put gifts under the tree. I found Joel and Charlotte gleefully ripping them open within about five seconds. At Walmart, Joel points to anything Disney-related and says "Please, Santa". Wow, that started young. Right now, all the presents are hiding in our favorite spot-- the boat. It's finally good for something :)


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Tis the season for sugar, Mom! And I am not sleepy-- watch! I will prove it! You will be powerless against my adorable face and Cars pajamas.

 

Yup, still not sleepy.

Looks like Rob will be home for Christmas. Words can't express how grateful i will be when that man comes home for a few days. The kids are missing him and so am I.

She had shoes on. I swear. They might still be out there in the field..... and that's not our teddy bear. I have no idea where that came from.

And here's our holiday photo for this year. If I don't get on here again before then, happy holidays to all!

if I had known....

If I had known that we would be sick so much this year, I would have bought stock in mucinex. We have been sick at last 8 different times this year. Not sure what is up, but I believe I will be dedicating 2012 to beefing up this family's immune system. It seems like just about perfect timing that every one of us is sick (including Rob) while Rob is off in Colorado. Hopefully the poor guy gets feeling better soon, and I can step up our game here and keep the kids alive at least until Christmas :)

well, that was fun

Sorry about the blogging hiatus, but life gets in the way most days. As was the case for most of November for us. We traveled up to Utah for Thanksgiving and for Rob to interview with a couple of Utah programs. Then it was over to Colorado for a few days to get a feel for the area before Rob started his away rotation there. He'll be home for Christmas, I hope. That's the plan, anyway. So we are here and happy to be back in our house with all of our stuff. You know how it is, it's just hard living out of a suitcase for weeks at a time. Some recent developments with us:

*My sister had her baby just before we went up to Utah. He's an adorable little stud, and I know she and Tyler will be awesome parents to this little guy.

*Joel has started a ritual of ending his naptime by stripping off all of his clothes and diaper and running around naked in his room yelling "Cold! Cold!". It never ceases to make me laugh.

*Charlotte is trying very hard to pull herself up to standing. I may or may not have set her back down on the ground because I don't want Rob to miss her walking and it's really just a matter of time with this girl.

*On a random and totally awesome whim (and after 3 months of paint swatches on our walls) Kelcie and I decided to paint my living room yesterday. Painting till midnight is never the best, but with your sister it is still awesome.

And now for some awesome pictures.


Adorable nephew Benson. Such a cute boy.



Our little thanksgiving turkey.

Kandice made herself and Joel matching indian headdresses. Obviously, one of them disagreed with the color scheme.....

And the traditional mashed potatoes for our little turkey. She really enjoyed these, obviously.

The main course, of course. Charlotte grabbed a huge piece of prime rib, and went to town gnawing at it. Sure, we wathced to make sure she didn't choke but she was SO happy to have meat, it just made me laugh.

the rundown- halloween edition

Our house looked like this:



We went all out this year-- two spooky ghosts, two red eyed monsters in the bushes, a spooky doormat that howls, a spooky wreath, ghost lights, and our pumpkin cacti. Here's a picture that doesn't capture it all.....



Our pumpkins:

Rob's evil monstrous pumpkin who eats baby pumpkins :(

I had fun crafting a clever monogram with a power drill.

Kelcie gave us a silly pumpkin face.

Costumes:

So we started with the potato head costumes, plus Jessie and Woody.

We continued on with a Nemo-meets-Little Mermaid-meets Rob wanted to be a fisherman. As you can probably guess, I like as many opportunities to dress up (IE MAKE MYSELF CRAZY) as possible. So for our ward trunk or treat we ended up with Mama Shark, Baby Shark (who was very good at saying "rawr" and "num num num"), Ariel, and a fisherman who caught Ariel. Costuming success.  

But wait, there's more. Halloween night we ended up having a "Ok, let's put a random costume together right now, Go!" contest. It turned out pretty good. Joel used his glow-in-the dark pajamas to be a spooky skeleton ( Joel says "ooooky"). Charlotte transformed into a Princess Kitty Ballerina Halloween Girl. I came up with Rosie the Riveter, and Rob came up with a judge costume, complete with white wig.


Oh excuse the tired face. It was a long, kind of awful day and I was exhausted by this point.



Judge Rob and skeleton Joel

Charlotte and me. She sure loves her pink tutu.

I have to laugh, it happens every year and this year was no exception. After trips to pumpkin patches, corn mazes, hay rides, pumpkin carving, ghost towns, ghost stories, and spooky movie nights I once again had nothing really planned for actual Halloween eve. And I'm usually too pooped to care :) We trick or treated a bit, handed out candy, and gaped in horror when we realized Joel had eaten SIX of those sugar coated Lofthouse sugar cookies while we were handing out candy and eating dinner. Guess who was literally bouncing off the walls until 11 pm....... I went in to say good night to Joel and try to get him to calm down a bit. After I turned off the lights and laid down with him, he started poking his pajamas and giggling. I realized that he just discovered the joy of glow-in-the-dark pjs. He grabbed his tummy with the glowing rib cage and said "Wow! Cool!". It was one of my favorite moments of the night, that crazy sugar hyped up kid is so cute.

Hope you had a happy Halloween. I've got to do something with all this sugar before I eat it all......

here we go Halloween!

Little Miss Charlotte loving the pumpkin patch.

Can you tell someone is teething? Right after this her first tooth popped through.

Joel was fascinated with the pumpkins and lots of room to run around, but looking at the amera was not high on his priority list at this point.

Found my pumpkin Mom!

My favorite people :) Ignore the solemn faces, they really are happy. I think they are just focused....



Classic Joel. Here mom, I'll look at the camera..... and stick out my tongue. Sigh.

I dragged everyone to a pumpkin patch this past week. I had bought the tickes about a month ago and was running out of time to get "Halloween Fun" in. So off we went, and made it on the hayride to check out the pupmkins befor it rained. Ah well, we still had fun. We brought my sister with us, and after we gathered over at our place to carve pumpkins.