10/30 - Brad's work Halloween party

I don't have too many pictures to post of randomness because I haven't taken many lately. Aiden was sick last Friday evening, and we kept him home all day Saturday. He missed a friends birthday party that Eli still went to (with Brad) and it was hard for him to understand why he couldn't go. It was a good teaching lesson for being sick and spreading germs and also realizing being sick isn't just about him but spreading it to others. We did let him go to Brad's Fall Festival for work. It's is a big show that they put on and we figured he wouldn't spread too many germs. He's actually really good at using his germ busters and thankfully, he hasn't been coughing all that much. He's just had no energy, hasn't been eating, and an occasional cough. When he does cough though, it's been sounding nasty. Aiden dressed up as a Biker Boy and Eli dressed up like a pirate.

Here is a little picture of Eli in his costume. Unfortunately, he lost the hats within 10-15 minutes of getting there.

They had 6 rooms decorated on each floor (there were 2 wings, 2 floors on each wing) and they had 3 different kinds of rooms: friendly, spooky, and scary. Scary was definitely out for us and some of the spooky rooms were just a little ... too spooky. Below the boys are in a friendly room, fishing for candy.

They did a great job decorating most of the rooms. Here is one in which the boys had to duck down to avoid cob webs which is why Eli is crouching down.

The one room was pretty cool. I was wondering why it was so crowded and why it was taking so long ... then we figured out why: angry birds. They had 2 stations set up and let the kids each take a couple turns hitting the cups they had set up. I don't think Aiden or Eli actually hit anything but they still gave them candy.

It was pretty cold outside but Aiden was determined to play golf. He got to hit the ball through three holes and then Eli got a turn. They had lots of fun. Look at the leaves everywhere ... I'm enjoying the seasons as much possible right now knowing that we are heading back to Florida.

Eli was pretty tired by the end of the night. Here he is resting on daddy while we go down the steps. He then realized I had the camera and perked up for a picture. Eli is just the best little snuggled. He just leans into his hugs and cuddles. I love it.

Overall, the night was a success. We got home late and Aiden fell asleep right away. He's finally starting to feel better which is very good news but it sounded like Eli was getting the cold this morning. This evening he was okay so we are just praying the rest of the family stay healthy.

10/29 - Aiden's therapy

So I'm almost a week behind but I'm catching up. Here are some pictures from Aiden's therapy last week. I think I post therapy pictures to 1) show other people what happens in occupational therapy with a child and 2) to keep record and give me ideas of things I can do with Eli as he gets older. We started off with feeding therapy last week. I brought some turkey (which Aiden won't eat) and cheese to make a sandwich. He ended up putting just the cheese on it but he won't even take a bite of that at home. He did take a couple bites and even touched the turkey a few times. As a reward, he got to wind up this little seal that walks around and he thought was pretty funny.

Here is Mrs. Rusty and Aiden having a fun time watching the seal dance around with the ball.

We've been working on putting socks and shoes on. It's a slow process but he's getting it. The stronger his fingers and hands get, the less he complains about it. He has to work so hard at it now that it's still difficult to get him to do it but he's at least getting the strength to be able to.

We even bought him a special stool last week so he can be positioned a little better to try and put his shoes on. He normally just likes to stand up and shove his foot in but then the tongue goes back down inside the shoe and he gets all upset. He's working so hard in the picture below; look at his little tongue sticking out. That what he does when he's really concentrating.

He practiced putting rubber bands around little pegs in this board. It was great for his hand strength and he felt so accomplished making this big triangle.

Here he riding the tricycle out to the waiting area. I bought him one like this and ended up selling it because he would never ride it. The little booger loves to ride it in therapy. He did so well he even earned a therapy dollar (you can see it on the back of the bike - he was trying to ride fast enough to hear his money flip around from the wind). Overall, he had a good therapy session last week and is making huge strides!

10/29 - Zoo Boo

So the night I got home last week we went to zoo boo. It was fun although we had to wait forever to just get inside. I didn't even think about dressing up the kids in their costumes but thankfully there was a mix of dressed up and non-dressed up kids. Here are the boys saying by a giant scarecrow.

We went on a tractor ride and the kids got to play numerous games. My camera wasn't working so great (actually, I don't know how to work it great) so I didn't get too many pictures. They played basketball, bowling, and a few other games and earned prizes and candy. They loved the hay ride and even got to play in the bounce houses for a bit.

Here are the boys doing the limbo. They were cracking me up. We'll eventually have to tell them the right rules.

Brad entertained them while we were in line waiting for some of the games. He's such an awesome daddy. He had them giggling and laughing all night.

They were wired by the end of the night but still having fun.

There is no doubt that these little boys love each other dearly. The are best buds.

10/23 - While mommy was away ...

It's been a crazy week. Here a picture that Brad took of us last week making a silly face as Aiden calls it.

Last Wednesday morning (very early) I drove to Birmingham to catch a plane to Tampa to see my mom. It was a quick, but productive visit. Here is a picture of us on the day I got there.

Mrs. Jennifer, Aiden's teacher, was nice enough to send me a picture of my boys that afternoon. I have a picture where Aiden's eyes are open but Eli's smile is too darn cute here so I have to use this one. 

On Thursday, I sent this picture to Mrs. Jennifer and asked her to show it to the boys. They told her about Bronco. It was good to see Bronco again. Him and Nana are getting along really well and it's a great relationship. He gets her outside to socialize and walk; two very important things that are healthy.  I got to Skype with the boys on Thursday night for a few minutes. It was good but Aiden was so sad and wanted to "cuddle" with me. My heart was breaking for him but daddy tried to comfort him and snuggle with him.

I was busy getting mom organized with the office and medical stuff. We met with an insurance agent and I was on the phone quite a bit with SHINE (the Florida assistance program for the elderly with insurance-related questions). She is not considered elderly but because she is on disability, she qualifies. They gave us some good ideas to help us find the right insurance plan for her given her medical conditions. On Friday afternoon, I got to see my dad. He came and picked me up and took me to lunch out at the Pier. I haven't been down there in ages. We had a yummy lunch although I was struggling to stay awake. I hadn't slept in a few nights and was beyond exhausted. The Pier is getting demolished in May 2013 so I'm not sure I'll be able to take the boys there and show it to them. They would have liked it.

Here is a picture that Mrs. Jennifer sent me on Friday. I sent her a picture of me holding a wind-up alligator and Aiden saw what it was and got excited. He said he had an alligator on his shirt too.

On Friday, Brad picked the boys up early from daycare and took them to Bass Pro Shop with 2 other daddy's and their kids. It sounded like they all had lots of fun. Here are some pictures that Brad sent to me. Of course they had to go check the boats out:

Here they are trying out different chairs. I love the little tiny chairs and would love to get the boys one someday.

Here they are in the tents and Aiden is reading to Eli. I am so so so so so blessed to have such an awesome husband who can do such a great job taking care of the boys.

I got lots of stuff done while at my mom's. She will be moving this summer to Jacksonville to live with us or near us (we aren't sure of all the details yet). I came home on Saturday morning and by the time I drove 1hr+ from the airport, got home around 10:45am. It was so great to see the boys. We played until lunch time and then got up after naps and played some more. That night, we went to Zoo Boo. I'll post pictures tomorrow or later today about that. Also, hats off to an awesome husband who helped with Cubbies on Sunday night. We were down one leader and needed another adult so I asked him and he didn't bat an eye. He had schoolwork to catch up on too and still came to help out. What a blessing to me and those Cubbies he was.

Here are two final pictures. Brad took these last night after he picked up the boys from daycare. Aiden has full pads on for his skateboarding experience! He's so safe.

Both of our boys could spend an hour playing with the air pump. It's an air pump ... it cracks me up how they think it's the coolest thing around.

I was late getting home yesterday because I had to return to the GI doctor and get the results of my colonoscopy and biopsy. The good news: no cancer. The bad news: I have ulcerative colitis, a chronic irritable bowel disease (not to be confused with irritable bowl  syndrome). It's an autoimmune disease and will probably never go away. I have to start taking a medicine 4 times a day and then hopefully can move to taking 2 pills 2 times a day. I cannot even entertain stopping the medicine until I go at least 5 YEARS without any symptoms. That's a long time!! I'm sad but hopeful to get this under control so I can start feeling better. I felt fine for 2.5 weeks after the procedure while I was taking a different medicine the doctor gave me, but as soon as I stopped it, my symptoms came right back.

I'll be updating again soon with pictures from Boo Zoo and Aiden's therapy session today. Have a great week.

10/15 - The Pumpkin Patch

Here are the pictures from last week when I went to the Pumpkin Patch with Aiden's Preschool. The first stop was of course the potty! Aiden is on the far right in a dark blue and red track suit. It's so funny to see him at daycare because he walks with his hands behind his back all the time which is a rule there I think.

Once they all went potty, we went over and the kids played in a giant sandbox while we waited for the grown-ups to order their lunch. The line was taking forever and we ended up being here quite a while. Aiden didn't want to play in the sand so he sat on a swing and played with my phone for a while. 

The first thing the kids did was go on the Tractor Train Ride. I'm shocked we fit all the kids in there but we did. They had fun doing a giant circle. As you can see in the background, there were quite a few big bounce houses available too.

We stopped to take a few pictures after the train ride. The kids really just wanted to go run and go to the bounce houses but this place was pretty big and we would definitely have some lost kids if we did that. As the time passed, it got much, much busier with lots of schools brining kids. I had fun with Aiden getting to see him interact with his friends.

There were 20 kids who went from the 4-yr old classes. I drove and had 4 kids and 1 other adult for the 45 min trip. The one little boy didn't stop talking ... at all. I even put Bob the Builder in the DVD player. Aiden told him to be quite a few times and even asked if he wanted to watch the DVD. It was pretty funny.

I wasn't sure if Aiden would actually get up on a horse but he was very excited about it. He got right on up there and loved riding around.

He had such a cute look on his face; it was like he was enjoying it so much and he wasn't sure he was supposed to. It was too cute.

We then went to the petty zoo part. Aiden said he didn't want to feed any animals but I bought a cup of seed and told him just to hold his hand flat and the animals wouldn't bite him (which is what he was worried about). He was scared to do it but after 1-2 times, he got more relaxed about it and then started picking out the animals he wanted to feed and asking them if they were hungry. Too precious.

 

We finally got to go to the bounce houses! Aiden was pretty excited. Here he is getting ready to go down the big slide. It was pretty steep and I was a little nervous for him.

He had a slightly panicked look on his face but went down the slide a couple times.

He then wanted to go in the tiger bounce house. It was a very steep climb up and mid-way through, you loose sight of the person. I didn't like not being able to see Aiden because sometimes there were extremely long pauses and no one was coming down and you couldn't tell what was going on. You can't see the kids coming down either until the last half of the steep slide.

I snapped a few pictures because I was interested to see if Aiden would be terrified or if he enjoyed it. I think he actually liked it!!

It was finally lunch time. The standard lunch the kids were served was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich pocket, chips, fruit roll-up, and juice. Needless to say, Aiden had yogurt and tried a fruit roll-up for the first time. Of course he liked it since it's all sugar but it was good therapy for him to have to tear the roll-up apart into bite size pieces.

After lunch it was pumpkin patch time. We got to go pick our own pumpkins. Unfortunately, the other child I had (all the grown ups had 2 children to watch) was scared to death of the pumpkin patch. He kept thinking things were crawling on him and was screaming. Needless to say, we were not able to explore much. Aiden ended up needing to pee while I was trying to deal with a screaming kid and we had taken a tractor hayride to get out to the pumpkin patch. I just yelled at Aiden to pull his pants down and pee and thankfully that's all he had to do.

We finally picked out pumpkins and were just waiting on the tractor to come back and pick us up. One of the little boys was playing around and took his pumpkin and "crashed" it on mine and he broke my stem off!! I didn't care at that point. I didn't have enough time to go find another nice bigger pumpkin but I ended up trading it out for one of the pumpkins sitting by the hay bails and such back at the main area. I'm not real sure that was legal but .. that's what happened. Here is a cute picture of Aiden with his pumpkin.

It was a great day although I was completely exhausted by the time we got home. I dropped Aiden back off at daycare and went home for a bit to take a nap. After a nice nap, I went back and got him. We had a great time and I am so thankful I had the opportunity to go.