Like Father, Like Son

So, Elijah loves to play any type of video game...I wonder where he got that from. Thanks, Mike. :D He plays the Mario Kart on the Nintendo DS all day (he's actually really good!), and he LOVES when we play Mario Kart on the Wii...especially when we're downstairs, and it's on the huge screen! I should probably start limiting the amount of time he's on the DS, but he's so quiet and still when he's playing on it...hey, I'll take a moment of peace from him any way I can get it. I mean, really, right now as I'm typing, he's doing laps around the kitchen table as fast as he can...

Sitting so still.

Don't mind me...carry on with your game...

We're thinking about taking a last-minute trip to Mike's parents' house in Denver for Thanksgiving. It's very bittersweet though, because his sisters won't be there. They'll be there for Christmas, which is when we were originally supposed to go, but Mike just found out that he isn't working Wed., Thur., and Fri. of this week, and he's using the rest of his vacation days for it, so he won't have any left when Christmas rolls around. I figured we might as well go when we are able to.

I should probably start packing.

Book Parade

Last Friday, the girls had a book parade at school. They dressed up like a character in a book, and the Kindergarten and first grade classes parade around the halls in their costumes and with their books. Laney took a Christmas/Winter book and wore a scarf and a hat, and Chloe took a Noah's Ark book and dressed like a kangaroo! :) Parents are invited to attend, and I was able to make it to Laney's last year, but this year I told them that I wasn't going to be able to go. Chloe was a little bummed because she remembered going to Laney's with me last year, and she wanted me to be there for hers. Anyway, Mike ended up leaving work early and he snuck over to their school to watch the parade as a little surprise for the girls! It was towards the end of the day, so he was just able to bring them home with him. They were very excited that Daddy got to be there! He rarely gets to attend special things like that, so it was a treat for him too. :)

Here's some pictures! (sorry they're so blurry...Mike's not the photographer in the family ;D)

Here's Chloe's class lining up

There's my little Chloe-roo!

Laney in her hat and scarf

Chloe at her desk

Lessons in sharing

Last night, Mike and I were out running around trying to get a little more Christmas shopping done (we're almost there!) and noticed that we needed gas. Mike gets out to fill up the tank (at $1.61/gallon...thank you very much!) and I looked back at Elijah and noticed he was playing with one of his cars he just got. I said "Hey Eli, that's a cool car!" and proceeded to look at Isaac who was asleep. I then said to Isaac something along the lines of, "Poor baby, are you tired?" To which Elijah replied "Uh-uh mommy...I not share!!!!" We have a little more learning to do in the whole sharing department. Elijah is very protective of his cars, and Isaac loves playing with them too...well, gnawing on them really...so we have frequent talks with Elijah about sharing, and apparently he gets it, he just doesn't want to do it.

Here they are...just look, don't touch.

Mine...all mine... (Please excuse Mike in the background shoveling the food in.)

And here's the attitude I normally get when I make him share. It's a work in progress...like all of us, I suppose.

Videos of my boys

Here's Elijah saying his letters. I think we had most of them...who knows where the rest of them are. I'm sure they're around this house somewhere.



And Isaac singing and dancing to the fridge phonics. He always sings along with it! It's so cute! :)Not sure why it's so blurry...and what Elijah is doing in the background. There's always noise in this house. Always. And I wouldn't change a thing!

The afters

LaTisha made a good point on my last post. I should have posted after pictures of the rooms. So, these are for you LaTisha! :) The first two are of the girls' Christmas tree in their room. It's so cute...you can't tell from the pics, but the ornament are all little lipsticks and purses and things like that.

It looks really cool when it's lit up. It actually used to be a fiber-optic tree and they had it on so much that the lights burnt out. We just put regular lights on it this year.

The girls' closet after the overhaul. You can see their gi's (karate outfits) with the yellow belts at the top of the closet. They are really close to getting their green belts!!!

Their "dream BIG" letters :)

The boy closet. I got rid of a TON of stuff from their room!!!

The after picture...no more clothes all over the floor!!!

Here's Elijah's bed. I don't like how the wall hangings are so close to the E (they're temporarily covering up some holes till we get them patched up :D). I'm still trying to figure out what to do with this wall...

And I wanted to throw this in. It's Laney's first spelling test and she got a 100!!!

Overwhelming

This is exactly why I HATE season changes.

Thankfully, the whole nightmare is over. I have 4 boxes, 2 trashbags, and 1 plastic tote full of clothes, shoes, bibs, hats, toys, and costumes. I didn't take a picture of the girls' room, but it was worse than this. They keep alot of their toys in some plastic drawers in their closet, so we went through all that too. And I just have to say...Chloe has the weirdest shaped body ever! She's 5 years old and she's into all size 6's, which isn't weird in itself, but the way her clothes fit her little body is very odd. She has to wear mostly size 6, some 7 shirts, and size 6 pants. Her torso is extremely long! And the way she wears her pants have something to do with it, I'm sure. She wears them so low, you can see her little butt cracking (those are her words :D). I constantly have to tell her to pull her pants up. She says they're uncomfortable if they're not hanging off her hips....I don't know what I'm gonna do with her. She's something else. I'm definitely happy to have all the reorganizing done, but sheesh...it's hard work!

Elijah

We took Elijah and Isaac to the dr. on Tuesday, and they checked Isaac first while Elijah fell asleep in daddy's arms. When it was Elijah's turn, we had a hard time waking him up, and when he finally did, he was so cranky! He didn't want the dr. to touch him at all...he kept yelling "No! Stop! Leave me alone!" But the doc did say that it sounded like he did have a seizure when he held his breath. He said that (after he checked him as best as he could) he looked fine neurologically to him, but we could still have an echo ran on him and if anything came back abnormal, then they would try to get him into a neurologist. The nurse called today and said that we need to take him to Children's Mercy downtown on the 17th at 7:30am. She also said that we have to wake him up at 4:30 that morning and not let him have caffeine or let him go back to sleep before the appt.!! How are we gonna do that?? Obviously we need 2 people to go, to keep him awake in the car, but I don't know if Mike can take off another day of work so soon (he took this past Tuesday off). I mean, of course, if he really had to, he could. But I don't want him to use up all of his vacation....we're planning on going to Denver for Christmas, and he needs his vacation days for that. I'm thinking about cancelling the whole thing. Does he really need this? He hasn't had another episode since then, and he seems to be doing fine. And it's just another hospital bill to pay for. I just don't want to overlook anything that could be serious. I don't know...

On a happier note, the Christmas music has started! Laney shares my passion for Christmas music, so she's happy when the stations start playing it too! :) And I'm halfway done Christmas shopping for the kids!! I think we're going tonight to possibly finish up! Fun!

Is it November?!?!

And if it is, where's the Christmas music? Yeah, I'm one of those Christmas music junkies. My husband dislikes that about me. I was hoping KUDL would have started playing it already, no such luck though. Okay, maybe it is just a tad bit early for it, but what can I say? I just love it! :)
The kids had a great time trick or treating! I don't know how it happened, because I only let them have 3 pieces of candy a day, but all of their candy is gone!!! Usually I would be tempted to sneak a piece here and there, but having so much of it in the house just made me feel sick when I would look at it...which is a good problem to have, I guess :) My mom came to our house to watch Isaac so we could walk the kids around the neighborhood. We were originally gonna go over to a friends' house, but I didn't feel great, so we just stayed near our house. My sister brought her girls over to our house for a while and when they arrived, I walked into the living room, and here's what I saw...

My niece Autumn and her friend were dressed as Wayne and Garth from Wayne's World. My first reaction was Who in the world is that boy? It took me a second to realize who she was. :D

I'm so happy the weather was so nice!!! They had such a fun time! In fact, after Chloe collected her candy at a house and was walking back to me, she said "Mommy, I'm having the best trick or treat ever!"

Here's the 50's girl, the scarecrow, the cheerleader, Nemo and Yoda! :)

My sweet little Nemo! I got this costume when Elijah was about 9 months old and he wore it 2 years in a row and Isaac will possibly wear it again next year. Yeah, I'd say we got our money's worth out of it!

Okay. Laney and Chloe are 2 years apart and Bailey is only a year older than Laney. Something's not right. :)

I just had to put this in. I thought it was so sweet. Laney and Chloe were off of school last Thurs. and Fri. for parent-teacher conferences, and instead of watching TV all day, Laney wanted to read her Junie B. Jones book! She's just like her dad...she definitely doesn't get it from me. I'm one of those people who will read a sentence over and over like 15 times before I ever figure out what it's saying. My mind wanders. Is that ADD? I think I may have it. Oh, and I'm a hypochondriac.

Ugghh...I'm so tired just thinking of everything I have to do tomorrow.

Here's my schedule: (thank goodness Mike is taking the day off work)

8:30 - Make-up teacher conf. with Laney's teacher

8:45 - Make-up teacher conf. with Chloe's teacher

9:30 - Parents as Teachers visit

10:00 - 11:00 - Mike and I will go separately to vote (we vote at the girls' school right across the street, and I'm hoping the rush of people going before work will be gone and people coming on their lunch break won't be there yet!)

12 - 12:30 - Eat lunch with the girls at school

1:00 - Laney dentist appt.

3:00 - Possibly get nails done (this is probably just wishful thinking)

4:00 - Isaac dr. appt.

4:20 - Elijah dr. appt.

sometime before dinner - Make dinner for a girlfriend who just had a baby

6ish... - Deliver the dinner

Whew....that's alot of running around for a stay at home mom who usually goes absolutely nowhere during the day! :)

I'm praying the dr. can figure out what is wrong with Elijah, because everyone seems to think he may have been having a seizure. If that's the case, I'd like to know so I can be prepared for it if it happens again. I'm hoping it was just a one time thing...ya know?

Wow, this entry was all over the place. Sorry about that. My mind does that when I'm exhausted. Good night!