Happy 4th Daniel!

Today is Daniel's 4th birthday. To me he will always seem like a 2 year old. He is quite a character as well as mischievous and is growing so fast. He continues to be very snuggly and needs wuvs a lot which I love. He is involved with a playgroup and Karate and loves them both. Here's the birthday interview with Daniel:

1. Favorite Food: Nuggets--no surprise there!!

2. Favorite Movie: Dora the Explorer

3. Favorite Thing To Do: Play with Ellie and Chloe (the neighbors)

4. Favorite Color: Orange

5. Fav. Dessert: Candy--loves Skittles and Starbursts

6. He wants to be a Dad when he grows up.

7. How many kids do you want? 7 kids--all I have to say is good luck with that.

8. Fav. Book: Mickey Mouse

9. Two things he could never be without his blanket and thumb.

10. One of his favorite activities is going to playgroup and Karate.

That's about as many questions as he would answer.

Happy Birthday Daniel! Love You!!

Thankful

Yesterday Matthew was invited to go to a birthday party. I am so grateful for the wonderful people we live around. Knowing that Matthew is not a "typical" child I am always thankful for those willing to include him whether it be in scouts, birthday parties or any other activity. I know this won't always be the case when I see the developmental gap widen between Matthew and his peers as they get older. So for the here and now I am so grateful for these acts of kindness extended toward him. Matthew had a very good time at the party and was happy to be there with his friends.

In other randomness I always like to sign up for the continuing adult education classes offered in our county. I, unfortunately, waited a little too long to get into the class I really wanted to take for this fall so me and my sister settled for a Belly Dancing class. Last night was our first class and it was interesting, but also fun. Believe it or not we are some of the younger people in the class. It really showed me how uncoordinated I am, but I was glad to see I wasn't the only one. The teacher's main goal is for us to have fun and it shows. I am supposed to be practicing some of the 25 moves we learned last night, but I can't seem to remember any of them this morning. We'll see what happens next week.

Yesterday a barrel full of Mommy Guilt finally started spilling over. Matthew has patiently been waiting for me to paint his train on his wall since the other kids got their murals painted already. I have put painting the mural off over the summer because I didn't think leaving 4 little kids unsupervised for that amount of time would be wise. The kids are back in school and Matthew keeps asking me when I will paint his train. The guilt finally got me so yesterday I painted a blue base coat on the all the walls in his room to get it ready for the mural. Now I have to work myself up to painting the actual mural...I guess that will happen when the next barrel of Mommy Guilt washes over me--hopefully, sooner than later for Matthew's sake.

The Corn Maze Birthday Party

Since Daniel's birthday happens to fall around Fall time we try to take the kids to a corn maze for some fun every year. We went Saturday to Cornbelly's and had a pretty good time. We did the corn maze and all the other activities, grabbed some dinner then went back to G&G T's house for cake and presents. Here are some of the pictures: Here is a picture of Daniel's cake that I made. I was a little disheartened when Josh told me it looked like a ghost. Sometimes kids can be brutally honest. If you really can't tell what it is--it is a karate guy doing a cool kick with a yellow belt on. Daniel got some Transformers stuff and was pretty excited. Before we left for the corn maze I had done Sarah's hair, but was worried that the parts in her head would get sunburned. I sprayed sunscreen in the parts, but it disintegrated the elastics so she ended up looking like she stuck her finger in a light socket and of course I didn't bring any spare elastics so I could redo her hair. They had some duck races, but we were with some pretty competitive people so the kids' didn't get to play too much with them. About half way through our visit Josh and Matthew found a huge corn kernel pile you could play in. They played and gathered as much dust as they could spreading it all over their faces, cloths and shoes. When we finally made it home they also had pockets full of dried corn kernels. Daniel and Sarah fell asleep while we trying to figure out the maze. I guess you can get too tired when you are CARRIED everywhere!! While we were in the corn maze we even had a cheat sheet and we still got lost--How do you like that? The corn was pretty tall. You couldn't see over the tops of it unless you were on the bridge. They had some tractor races, but those didn't go over so well. The kids rode the tractors about half way down the track until they gave up, got out and just left them in the middle of the track. I am sure everyone appreciated that. They had a tractor train that we rode. The kids all wanted to ride with G&G T so Aaron and I had a car to ourselves and of course Sarah. Grandma even got in on some of the action when the boys pleaded with her to go down the slides with them. There is a huge air pad you can jump on. Since Daniel is so little he got thrown around and didn't like it too much.
We had a pretty exhausting, but fun day. Until next year...

Death By Toothpaste

We have two bathrooms upstairs. Ever since I can remember the boys' preferred using our master bathroom for all their needs. Well after having a horribly messy bathroom with long forgotten unflushed toilets for as long as I can remember I got sick of it. How hard is it to remember to flush the toilet?!? I finally insisted they use the other bathroom and stop using ours to try and keep ours clean. After a week of this I have finally seen a huge difference. Their bathroom looks like a murder scene only instead of blood spatters it is toothpaste spatters EVERYWHERE. The pictures don't even do it justice. There is toothpaste on the door, the mirror, the walls, the shower curtain, the toilet, the door jam, the cupboard, and even the ceiling and I really don't want to know how that happened. Here is the scene of the crime...keep in mind it has only been a few days since it was last cleaned--YUCK!! I didn't include pictures of the used to be white but now it's yellow toilet because we all know what three little boys with no aim can do. I think I have a pretty good idea of the whodunits. Now I know why my stash of toothpaste has been depleting so rapidly. Good thing I still love them.

Sarah's Practicing for the Teenage Years

We have a toy telephone Sarah has figured out how to use. Even though she doesn't have any words yet, she knows how to carry on a conversation on the phone. She knows how to make the phone ring and answer it.

Another note to this story, if you look at Sarah's hair all the pig tails have been pulled out. This happened while I was picking Matthew up from scouts last evening. When I got back Josh told me to look at Sarah's hair. That's when I noticed it had all been pulled out. I was not too happy since I had just done Sarah's hair with much protesting and crying that morning and I had done it super tight so it could stay in for a few days. I asked what happened when Josh told me he did it. I asked him why and he said he didn't like Sarah's hair like that so he pulled it all out. Grrrrrr.

Daniel's Playgroup Birthday Party

Yesterday it was our turn to host playgroup. Since Daniel's birthday is in a week I decided to have a birthday party to celebrate. The kids had Daniel friendly cupcakes or as Daniel says "puck-cakes". I made some frosting and everyone got to choose what color they wanted to frost their cupcakes with. Then we had all kinds of sprinkles to choose from. Everyone even got their own candles to blow out. I think Daniel and everyone else had a pretty fun time.

Busy Day

Sunday we had a family party to celebrate my Mom's birthday. My parents have a ton of fruit trees and a huge garden in which, thankfully, they love to share their extra produce. After the party it was like visiting the farmer's market. We were all sent home with a ton of pears, nectarines, plums and tomatoes. I hate to let it go to waste so yesterday I tried to make what I could with what I had. It did take me two visits to the store to get everything I needed because I can't seem to remember everything the first time. I think it's my kids fault for making all my brain cells disappear--at least I am hoping that's it and that I am not going even more forgetful and crazy. I made a bunch of fresh salsa that I froze because I have a nice big empty freezer that I have yet to fill up after all the food in the old one went rotten when the old freezer died. I also made some plum jam which I had never done before. It actually is pretty good--I guess anything would be good if you added enough sugar to it. I have given half the nectarines away and if anyone else wants some feel free to come and get them. They are huge, juicy and yummy. I am still waiting for the pears to fully ripen until I can do something with them. And, as my sister in law said, no self respecting blogger would forget to add a picture of their bounty...at least I am not that crazy and forgetful--yet, anyway.

I'm a Big Girl Now

We finally made the transition between backward facing car seat to forward facing. I thought Sarah would love it, but she was non-plussed. I think she even preferred the backward facing one, but that's too bad so sad. She is now too big for it. All my other kids loved the forward facing because they could see what was going on, but Sarah didn't seem to care--she just cried and played with the chest strap.In other big girl happenings after much wailing and gnashing of teeth from me and Sarah, I finally was able to do this hairdo on Sarah. I am hoping it will stay in for a few days, because it will take me that much time to work up the nerve and patience to try it again.

Daniel's New Toy

Daniel's Allergist doctor also manages his asthma. There is a very nifty tool they gave Daniel to monitor his lung function daily. Whenever Daniel gets a cold it always knocks him down in the asthma department so this will help me to keep a closer watch on him. The new tool is called a Peak Flow Meter. Daniel breaths in it as hard as he can three times and he needs to hit a certain range to show his "normal" lung function. The neat thing about this tool is it gives a couple days warning before he is about to go downhill. Our bodies can compensate for a lot, so problems don't usually show up until they are severe. This tool gives me a few days warning before Daniel becomes really bad respiratory wise. It will show Daniel's lung function start to go down before he gets symptomatic which means I can start the nebulizer treatments a few days before things get severe. It also lets me know how bad he is respiratory wise to see if it requires a doctor's visit or an ER visit. I think it is wonderful because now I will have a couple days warning before things get too bad. Hopefully it will save me a few ER visits. Another plus is that Daniel thinks it's pretty fun to do so I don't have to fight with him to do it daily! YAY!

Charge It!!

Aunt Jill has been teaching my kids some great things. One of these things I failed to post up until now. On one of our MANY trips to Lowe's during our painting kick, Sarah grabbed Jill's credit card and refused to let go. When Jill tried to make a purchase she had to pry it out of her hands to use it while Sarah screamed. Sarah immediately stopped screaming as soon as the card was returned to her. When we got out to the car Jill tried to take the card to put it away and she screamed again. Jill had an old card that had been cancelled that looked exactly like the card she was holding so we tried to trade it out. Sarah didn't fall for it and threw it as soon as the replacement card was given to her. I guess she sensed the value in holding the real card. I guess kids learn the value of a good card early. We did eventually get the card away from her, but not after much protest. You can see the tight, white knuckled grip she has on it in the first picture. In the second picture she has magically stopped crying because she got the real card back in her hand.

Daniel's Allergist Visit

We went to the Allergist last week for one of Daniel's semiannual visits. Each visit they evaluate his lung function and asthma. They also alternate each visit with the skin prick test and the blood draws. Unfortunately, this visit was for the blood draws. They had to stick him twice to get all the blood they needed. Daniel had a pretty hard time, but he stayed pretty still even while they were digging around to find the vein both times. Since we are starting in the cold and flu season the doctor started him on a daily inhaler of preventive medication to help Daniel not get the asthma reaction to the cold or if he does lessen the severity of reaction.

I just got the results of the blood test. He is still quite allergic to most everything he was allergic to before, but a few things are starting to go down. Milk is still WAY out of the question as well as eggs and most tree nuts. However, pecans and coconut have disappeared and peanuts are starting to decrease, but they still tell me not to introduce any tree nuts until all of the nut allergies have disappeared. They also reassured me that most kids, not all kids, have overcome their allergies by the time they are 5 or 6 years old. That gave me some hope. I guess we will wait until next visit in 6 months. The saga continues...

Sarah's Lovin' the Knobs

Sarah has figured out how to get the kitchen cupboards open using the new drawer pulls/knobs. So I walk into the kitchen to find the contents of my cupboards scattered EVERYWHERE! I have not had to deal with this with any other kid because none of them could get the cupboards open. So any ideas how to stop her without attaching child safety latches to each cupboard? What makes it worse is she has figured out how to go up and down the stairs without help so she makes a beeline for the cupboards every chance she gets.

Finally, the Befores and Afters

After a crazy week of barely any sleep--we only averaged about 2-3 hours a night--Jill and I finally finished painting the house--with "help" from the kids occasionally. We got plenty of use out of the ladder, unfortunately! This project only started out as painting one wall, but grew to exponential proportions! However, it turned out awesome!! I will say that if I ever see another paint can again it will be too soon!! THANKS Jill--you are AWESOME!! Here are the before and after pics: I forgot to take the before pics of the bathroom, but these two are the after pics

Here is the family room before and after:

The picture wall before and after and yes we did change the ceiling fan

I think the kitchen is the most dramatic in the before and after

The living room before

after:

Thanks again Jill for having to put up with all my indecisiveness--it only took me four days to finally pick out drawer knobs for an example!! Now I am going to go veg and enjoy my "new" house.