Thursday, November 26, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!

This week Travis' First Grade class put on their annual performance. They were all so cute up there dressed in "farming attire". Here is Travis after he was done. He was so proud, he got to play the sticks in the final performance. He did a great job! Of course the grandparents, parents and baby brother were all there to cheer him on!
Yesterday was Daryle's birthday. For our celebration we took Travis on the Polar Express ride. For those of you unfamiliar, The Polar Express is an awesome book that was turned into a movie a few years ago. (If you haven't read the book or seen the movie, I highly recommend it!!) I have had a Polar Express Day in my classroom for years, the current movie has made it more fun to teach since the kids are so familiar with it. There is a place here in AZ where you can actually ride on the train and it takes you to the North Pole! It is just like the book, you drink hot chocolate and eat cookies on your way to the North Pole. The kids even wear their pajamas, just like in the story. (Some adults even wear them too.... not us though!)Then Santa comes on board and gives each child a bell. On the way back everybody sings Christmas carols. It is an awesome ride! People come from far and wide for this one hour "trip". It was our first time and I am sure it won't be our last. One year we will get Connor on there too. It was a four hour ride up for us and the train ride was at 8:00, way past Connor's bedtime. Although we missed him, we had a great time and didn't have the worry of dealing with a fussy baby who doesn't want to sit still!
This is Travis with Buster (he is visiting with us for the weekend from Travis' classroom, he got to come along for the ride too!) on the train.
Travis and Mommy. Poor Travis has had trouble keeping his eyes open for pictures, so that is why his eyes are so wide open.
"The birthday boy" and Travis awaiting the night's adventure.
Travis got to wear the chef hat, he felt so special!
Santa gave Travis a bell from his sleigh!!
It was SOOOO cold!!! We got a little family pic after the ride (well, minus Connor... he stayed with the grandparents for the night. His first night away from us!)
Here is our little family on Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for and we feel so blessed to have such a wonderful family.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Life Is Flying By

I can hardly believe that Connor has been home with us for five months now. Amazing. It seems like we waited a lifetime for Travis to get home. With Connor it was such a faster process, sometimes I feel like I blinked and he was here. Now it seems like he has always been here. Just today I was talking to my mom about last Thanksgiving and I said, "Remember it was Travis and Connor..." Oops. It just felt like he must have been there! He was there in spirit though. We are so blessed to have both of these boys in our family. I count my blessings every day that we were led to our boys through the miracle of adoption. Even though some days we have our rough patches, in the end we know they were both destined to be part of our family. Who doesn't have rough days and challenges??

We are all getting excited to be celebrating Connor's first holidays here at home. I know at this age they don't remember much, but we know and we remember. I hope the first Santa picture goes better than Travis' did. He screamed and carried on so much that I am in the picture too!! Connor is the opposite of Travis in just about everything, so it will be interesting to say the least.

Right now the weather here is GORGEOUS! This is why we live here. Connor LOVES his swing out back, he could stay there all day if you let him. I am so glad we have the swing set in the backyard, they love to be out there every afternoon when we get home from school.
This picture is cute, if only that darn rope wasn't in the way!
Here is Connor in his swing eating a cookie. (He still eats anything!)
Love the look on his face!! He is sucking all of the chocolate out of the middle of his cookie. We can't waste anything around here!
LOVE this little face! Life is pretty good for this little dude. ;-)
Travis enjoys his "clubhouse". Here he is peeking out through the slots.
We have been lucky enough to have Grandpa be in town since Halloween. I just love this picture I got of the two of them. Can't you just hear the laughter??
I heard Travis laughing this morning, I turned to see what it was and Connor was riding around on this firetruck! It was so cute, but of course by the time I got the camera out he started to get off. I sure hope Santa brings this child a ride on toy to scoot around on for Christmas!
On Saturdays my mom picks up my grandma and they go to lunch and do some little errands. Today they stopped by our house to pick up some cookie dough my mom bought. It was so nice spending some time visiting with my Grandma, we don't get to do it nearly enough! Whenever we are together there is so much going on that I don't have much time to sit and just visit with her. It sure brings back lots of fond memories! (Life was so different before I had kids of my own! I wouldn't have it any other way though!) Travis and Daryle were at a baseball game, so it was just Connor and I at home. Here is a picture of Connor with his Grammy and Great-Grandma. My camera is so slow I couldn't capture Connor's smile. He was full of smiles, my camera is just a bit slow! We had a lovely afternoon together.
I have much so be thankful for, even though there are days when I want to bury my head in the sand. I have two beautiful children, a great husband who helps me out around here (with minimal prodding anyway, wink, wink!), parents who love us and their grandchildren even more, our faith, our health, a house, and our jobs. (I could go on and on, but you get the picture.) I am so blessed that each day I see smiles and hear the laughter of children in my house. It doesn't get much better than that. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Saturday, November 14, 2009

What A Week

Boy oh boy has this been a week at our house. No longer do I wonder what it is like to be a mom of two boys. Now I know. It is wonderful most of the time. Double the laughs, kisses, hugs, smiles, and joy of my kids. However, when they get sick it is double the tissues, dr co pays, coughs, and now breathing treatments. Yes, Connor now has his own machine too. We are hoping he doesn't end up having asthma like Travis does, he is too young to diagnose that for now. I was told we need to "keep an eye on him." The good part is that we have been there and done that. We are prepared, or so we think.

Here is a picture showing how my boys are starting to find things they can do together. Connor loves the computer, he will probably pass us all up with his skills by the time he is 4! He is watching EVERYTHING Travis does, I can just see he is soaking it all up. It is amazing to watch him grow and change so quickly. He has two new molars in the back and there are more on the way. He is such a sweetheart and so laid back. Grandpa watched him on Wednesday morning while I took Travis to the ENT and again on Friday. They had so much fun, Grandpa said he would do it anytime! Connor is just so easy to take care of. To quote Grandpa, "Connor was an angel". Of course once in a while he does have an occasional melt down or temper tantrum (they only last about a minute, thank goodness!). He has these when you have to take something away from him or if Travis has done something to him. I have noticed I have to be careful not to jump to blame Travis, there have been times when Travis has actually been innocent! Another joy of being a mom of two. (Those of you with more than two, I marvel at how you do it!)


Here are a few pics showing how our week has progressed. First, Travis had to go back on the albuterol treatments for his cough, he is such a pro now! He can do it all on his own now.
By Tuesday night, Connor was so "lucky" to join big brother with his own albuterol treatments. He gets to use a little ducky for now. This was in the first few minutes, the happy face didn't last long though. Now I have figured out Connor needs to sit in his high chair with some toys for distraction while we do his treatments.
Here is Connor, all smiles!

Daryle has also been sick all week, he finally went to the dr today and has a sinus infection. I just hope and pray that by Monday all of my boys are feeling back to normal! Thank goodness sinus infections and asthma are not contagious, I think I am safe for now!
Yesterday we had to take Travis in for a CT scan of his sinuses. He continues to have issues. The dr wants to look in there and determine if he needs another surgery (he just did that in March 2008) or if we can try some steroids. I vote for the steroids. Although, I have no idea what kind of crazy child it might make him. Right now he is on some strong medicine and it has made him quite irritable. Anyway, the CT scan itself was a nightmare. We talked about it, how easy it would be, etc. He seemed like he would be fine. He is a 6 year old you know. (wink, wink) Once we walked in that room he didn't want anything to do with it. He just started to freak out, got really nervous and was being SOOO difficult. It took Daryle, me and the tech 50 minutes to finally get him to do it. I was so thankful he did it in the end. If we had to put him under anesthesia for this it would have cost me a fortune. (That is what we had to do the last two times when he was younger.) Near the end Daryle and I just walked out of the room, I told him let's let the tech try on her own. We had pulled out all of the stops, made every bribe and tried everything we had up our sleeves. (Wouldn't you think a phone call to Santa or a trip on the Polar Express would make you cooperate??) Our patience was depleted. Daryle stood there with his arms crossed (not feeling well mind you) and just kept saying, "He's not going to do this!" I took the other route. I quick said some prayers to my guardian angel and asked the angels to PLEASE get him to sit still and do this. Within a few minutes HE WAS LAYING THERE STILL AS COULD BE!! As far as I am concerned, that was an awesome early Christmas gift for me! (It's the little things in life!) ;-)

Saturday, November 7, 2009

5 Years

This week it will be five years since we moved into our house here in Queen Creek. A lot has changed in this small town of ours. When we moved here there wasn't even one stop light, now there are MANY! I used to have to travel at least 30-40 minutes to the nearest Target, now I have Super Target and Super Wal-Mart less than 2 minutes away. Life here is great. Or so I thought. Today made me wonder... is 5 years the magic number when things start to fall apart?? Just today the garage door broke (we were so lucky to have this happen on a Saturday, we got to pay extra for that!), my kitchen faucet sprung a leak (literally, a mini-fountain in my kitchen) and I could have sworn I saw the dishwasher leaking some water on my floor. UGH!


Happy Birthday little house of ours! We really do love you!

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Halloween 2009

Thank goodness I found a new cord and was able to upload my pictures! This was Connor's first Halloween, he didn't really understand but I do think he had fun. It was also extra special because Grandpa came in from California and Grammy and Grandpa came over too. We had Daryle's homemade chili and cornbread to start off the evening. It was delicious! As you can see, Connor was Lil' Frankenstein and Travis was Darth Vader. Connor would not sit still for anything, so his pictures are "on the move" ones. They both got way too much candy and had a blast! I think the evening was a success!
Here is Connor checking out my ceramic pumpkin.
Darth Vader!
Trying to get that annual pose with two kids doesn't work out too well when a 16 month old is involved!
We couldn't get him to keep on his head and hair, so this had to do!
All "three" of my boys loved dressing up for Halloween!
Travis is checking out his light saber.
This was perhaps the highlight of the evening! Daryle and Travis found this idea online. We told the trick-or-treaters that this was our first trick-or-treater, we had a hungry pumpkin this year! Some of them just stared and looked at it while others were really scared! It made for a lot of fun.

Happy Halloween!