If this doesn’t get you itchin’, I don’t know what will.

A child in Little Bear’s preschool has the chicken pox, despite being vaccinated.

A child in Belle’s grade has lice.

YUCK!!

I’ve never had lice and I’ve never had chicken pox. They are recommending a booster shot of the varicella vaccine for kids now, but there isn’t enough supply this year.

Aren’t you glad you stopped by?!?

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oh the pain!

In an effort to regain my “groove” I’ve started working out again in the mornings. Except I’m having to get up at 5am to do it. That way J is still around if one of the little kids wakes up while I’m working out and I still have time to get everyone ready to take Belle to school by 7:30. When I was working out before I was doing a fairly basic Pilates disc. I’d up the reps by a few here and there, but it wasn’t too tough. Due to various physical issues with my back and legs, I can’t run or do the stair stepper. This time I’ve started a Cardio Pilates disc. Wow. I’m definitely feeling my stomach muscles. I just choked a little on some cereal and nearly died in pain from coughing.

It’s a good pain. Right? That’s what I keep telling myself.

I’ll try to get back later today with some birthday pictures. Little Lamb is so adorable right now, I just want to kiss her all over!

Hershey Park fun!

We had a great trip this weekend to Hershey, Penn. We drove up on Friday after school, played all day in the park on Saturday, visited Chocolate World on Sunday and then drove home. We all had so much fun. The pictures say more than I can right now.

Here’s J and Little Lamb on the carousel horse together.

Little Bear LOVED the train ride!

Here’s J and the kids tailgating for lunch.

Little Bear really got into the kiddie rides. They have LOTS that the kids can ride without an adult.

I packed an extra set of clothes for each of the kids just in case. J and Belle rode on a rapids ride and, of course, Belle got soaked. After a quick change she was ready to ride again!

Here we are at Chocolate World. Yummy!!!

We stopped at a rest stop for lunch on Sunday. Little Lamb loves being outside! Little Bear slept in the car through most of lunch, but he woke up at the very end for a quick bite. Notice his silly hair! 🙂

**I forgot to size the three vertical photos correctly so I left them as thumbnails. You can click on them to get a bigger view.

As you can see the kids had a fantastic time. J and I were so happy to get away for the weekend. It was a great way to finish his week of vacation.

Tomorrow, my baby girl turns one!! She still has many of her firsts yet to come-first teeth, first steps-but it really is amazing how much they change in just one year. This time last year J and I were on our way to the hospital. My mom was at home with the kids. Little Bear was tucked safely in bed and Belle was making cinnamon rolls in her Easy Bake Oven with Grandma. She (Belle) cried when we left. It was so hard leaving her, but so great seeing her the next day and showing her our beautiful baby girl. I’m off to survey the kitchen for cake making supplies! It’s gonna be a busy few days.

You’ve thrown off the Emperor’s groove!!

Hey guys! I’m still here. Just trying to get a grip on this life. I feel a bit like a fish out of water. I wish I could be like Kuzko (sp?) in The Emperor’s New Groove and just toss out everything and everyone that has thrown off that nice groove I established back in August. Ever since I started keeping JS and JT I just can’t accomplish all the house work I want on any given day. It’s been weighing heavily on me the last week or so-among other things-and I’m about ready to kick them to the curb. Except that eating is nice. So that won’t be happening.

Anyhow, I’m trying to get back to life where I get to read and comment on blogs here and there as well as write on my own, but I just haven’t gotten there yet. Don’t give up on me yet!!

I’ll be back soon with fun pics from our weekend trip to Hershey Park. Thanks Ken and Terri!!! We had a blast. Also, my girls celebrate their birthdays this week.

That’s all I got tonight. Gotta get in bed now.

Too much to say

And not enough time to write it all. So here’s some quick little thoughts.

My mind has been thinking and thinking lately…I can’t make it stop!

Little Bear is running around in underwear with a full belly of milk. He seems to understand when he needs to go, but doesn’t yet know how to make the pee-pee come out. :0

I’ve been thinking about something I read the other day. Are you a tidier or a cleaner? I am definitely a cleaner while my husband is the tidier.

Also, how do you handle stress? I get really tired and all I want to do is curl up in bed and go to sleep. J, on the other hand, likes to get lost in his music.

That’s all I can muster right now. Suffice it to say I’ve been really tired lately.

33 months or 2 years and 9 months if you’d rather

Little Bear is getting so big lately. Ok, he isn’t really getting very big literally. Although, his 18-24 month pants are finally getting a little short and some are even little bit tight in the waist. We had a follow-up appointment with his ENT doc last week. (More details on that in a bit). He’s up to a whopping 26 pounds. Won’t be changing him over to a booster seat any time soon. That’s alright with me. Belle didn’t hit 30 pounds until she was 4 years old. I do hope he’s a little bigger than that, given that he’s a boy and all, but I’m happy with his sweet little self. It keeps him looking young and I’m just fine with that!!

We went to meet his preschool teachers last week. He’s so funny. He walked right in the classroom, over to the kitchen and started playing with the corn. Then he settled down in a chair and made a little drawing. I asked him to make a “B” and he was like a little robot, making B after B. He also made a drawing of Batman. It seems all his drawings start off as Batman. Sometimes he’ll change it later and call it someone else, but usually only if I’ve told him the drawing is for someone. I’ve attempted to scan the drawing in for you guys because it’s just that cute! Yes, he makes all his “B”‘s backwards. I’m told that’s because little kids view all of life as completely reversible, so they see no difference.

He is making great strides in his talking with only a few sounds that aren’t quite what they should be. I’m not talking about the usual kid stuff, but more like speech issues. When we saw the ENT last week, he said his left ear is completely healed (Praise God!) but his right ear still has some fluid. I believe his words were the ear drum is retracted, if that means anything to you. Basically he still hears things like he’s in a tin can or an airplane, however you like to think of that feeling. The doc said kids with these kinds of ear issues tend to have trouble with S, T, and Sh sounds. Little Bear does fairly well with S, great with T, but his Sh sounds are all weird. So are is Ch sounds. I got the feeling that the doc was tempted to go ahead and repeat the surgery-he is a surgeon after all and that’s what they like to do. But he said-and he’s said this to me each visit-“I like to think of how I’d treat him if he were my son, and I’d like to wait and see how he does in the winter.” So, we go back at the end of November when we’ve surely had a cold or two. The doc also said he was “drawing a line in the sand.” If he’s not completely healed in Nov, we’ll be back in for surgery. Then I suppose we have to wait and see if the speech fixes itself or if he needs some kind of speech therapy. I worried about it for a while. But he’s making so much progress, I’ve pretty well let it go. Plus I’ve realized that most of the kids we’ve been around the last few years have been doctor’s kids. And well, that’s not exactly the most diverse section of the gene pool, you know? The more we’ve been around all kinds of kids from school, I’m realizing that he’s not that far behind.

As I mentioned this morning, he had his first day of Preschool today. He was so precious kissing Little Lamb and I goodbye and walking his tiny little self into class. He sat right down and began working a puzzle as if he’d been there hundreds of times. Little Lamb and I got there a little early to pick him up. We parked and I watched him playing on the playground. He was so cute holding on to the little rope when they walked back in the building. When I asked him about his teacher he’d say “Teacher. Be quiet” and he’d hold his little finger up to his mouth in a shushing motion. I’m guessing she said that a lot today! All afternoon he played school, not letting his lunch box out of his sight. I fear he’s going to cry tomorrow morning when we take Belle to school but he doesn’t get to go to his own class.

Here’s a picture of my little guy all ready to go.

That’s the latest on my boy. Just absolute cuteness.

Do you hear that???

Yeah me neither. It is the sound of silence! Belle is at school. Little Bear had his first day of Pre-School today. Little Lamb is asleep in her bed. It’s the weirdest feeling. And I get to repeat it for three hours twice a week!

Helps make up for all the times I’ll have extra ones running around so I can earn a little money.

I’ll be back later with pictures of his big day!

Ahhh September

I love the changing of the seasons. I enjoy each season individually, but I’m always ready for the next one to come along. I love fall with its cool, crisp mornings, trips to the apple orchard, evening walks, being able to play outside throughout the day, and of course the leaves!!

September is especially fun now that I have two little ones with birthdays this month. I cannot believe that Belle will be 6 years old and my baby will be one! Nevertheless, there are parties to plan and cakes to bake. The fun thing about having two little girls born so close together (they are one day apart-4 years and 364 days apart to be exact!) is it’s so easy to compare stages when they are happening in the same time frame. Also, having Little Lamb the same age during the same seasons makes hand-me-down clothes so wonderful. I can’t wait to dress her in Belle’s special birthday outfit from Gymboree! I’m not sure the shoes will fit, but they aren’t the best crawling shoes anyway.

Little Lamb doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to take those first steps nor has she gotten any teeth. Seems she’ll be on a similar time line as her brother on those milestones. He was 12 months and 14 months, respectively. She does wave and say Bye-bye. She can also say lots of her consonant sounds and she still loves to growl. It seems that 11 months is the new 6 months around here. You know, the point when the needless crying slows down and playing happily on the floor commences. You can still count on at least one bout of screaming in the car if you take her more that 20 minutes away from the house. It’s difficult to tell how many of those are sparked by her brother, because he tends to look guilty whether he’s had a hand in it or not!

And now I have a cool picture I took last week after a warm afternoon rain shower.

The steam was billowing up in columns that reminded me of New York City subways.

Have a wonderful and safe labor day weekend!