Only one more week!!!

There's only one more week before my photography class starts and I can hardly wait!
It's a nine week course called The Photographers' Workshop . . .
I don't have any plans on making a career out of photography, but I do love to take pictures and scrapbook. The two go hand in hand. I've scrapbooked too many "bad" pictures and want to have nice photos to look back at.

Yesterday, we went to a "Sip and See" out at the Wenzel's house in Lakeland Township. There were lots of kids there and a whole room downstairs full of kids toys. Emily and Louie both had a great time playing with the other kids and all the toys. The party was for friends and family to meet Charlotte. She has really changed since arriving here in Minnesota. She is very mobil and loved to watch all the other kids. It was so different to be around a child that is so quiet . . .
We had a good time! Everyone was exhausted when we got home last night.

What a week!

I guess the best part of the week, the political ads are FINALLY done and we're all on the mend at our house.

Emily went to the doctor on Tuesday to get some antibiotics for her minor ear infection . . . we're hoping the they also combat the upper respitory infection that she clearly has. She's got a terrible cough.

We also had conferences at her school. We met with all four of her teachers and got an excellent report on her progress. They have see her improve since last spring tremendously! We were so glad to hear all the good things that they have to say about her. She loves school and they love having her there everyday.

We had a great time on Halloween and now Emily and Louie want to trick or treat every night.




As soon as it starts getting dark out, Emily thinks that it is time to go trick or treating.

Right now, Emily and Louie are having a conversation about which Backyardigan they are . . .

Emily: I'm Tasha

Louie: You not Tasha, you Niqua

Emily: I'm not Tyrone, you're Tyrone.

Louie: You have Pink, you Niqua and I'm Pablo.



All this, while they are wearing the cowboy hats they got at Bailey's birthday party. (they watched a episode of the Yardigans that was about cowboys today).

Tomorrow, Dan is heading up to Concordia Moorhead for his frozen football game. It will be me and the kids from sun up to sun down and everything in between . . .

We're going to make Grandma Jansen's sourdough pancakes for breakfast for a special treat. YUMM-O. I can't wait for them to have them. We've never made them before. My mom's had that sourdough starter going since our trip to Wind Cave, South Dakota(?) in 1974! That's a long time! Now, we have some of that same starter at our house, who knows how long we'll have it going . . . hopefully for another 34 years!

Happy Halloween!

It's Halloween, what better than a little funny photo! More later . . . .

Another setback

Dan went to bed last night feeling as bad as he did on Monday afternoon. Not good.
Louie did end up sleeping through the night and seems to be feeling better. Emily went off to school with a Pull-up on, just in case. . . .
I'm working at home today. Louie is glued to the TV watching his new fave, CARS. He is absolutely crazy about car racing. He LOVES NASCAR, much to his Florida cousins delight.
We have flu shots scheduled for Saturday morning at Dr. Tuohy's office. Hopefully, we'll all be well enough to get one.
Oh and as for Halloween, we'll go trick or treating, but may have to sit out from the party we were invited to this year, HUGE bummer. Emily and Louie were looking forward to it!
I'm off to Lunds to buy more Jell-O. Yum!

Louie's new nickname . . .

We've had a rough few days at our house.

It started on Monday afternoon, Dan called to tell me that whatever Emily had over the weekend was now his. He was feeling a bit under the weather. I got home from work and sent Dan directly to bed. I made the kids some dinner and they were sitting down at the kids table to eat it. Louie came over to me sitting at the end of the table and said "my freckle hurts." He's got a single freckle on his belly that he's quite proud of. So, his belly hurt. I picked him up to give him a hug and he tossed his whole day of food down the back of my sweater. Yes, you read that right! Down the back. I sat there holding him and he did it again, this time down the front. Poor kid. Much to my surprise, I didn't immediately lose mine. That is a customary thing when there is even a hint of puke around . . . nasty stuff.
Well, the evening was downhill from there. Louie's new nickname is "the vomit comet." I felt so awful for him he couldn't keep anything down all night. Even a sip of water came right back up.
At 4am, I figured that it had been 12 hours, no wet diapers and no liquids staying down. I called Children's Emergency Department and talked to a nurse. He said that generally, if there's no wet diapers in 12 hours and vomitting on top of that, they generally want to see the kids to make sure they're not dehydrated (he threw in a little teaser, "right now would be a good time, there's NO ONE here!) We quickly packed up and Louie and I were off to Childrens at 4:30am. It's a good thing we went in. He was very dehydrated. They gave him some Zofran and monitored him consuming fluids for an hour. We watched a Thomas and Friends video. All was well. We got home and he took a 4 hour nap at 8:3o.
Back up to Walgreens, we were picking up his prescription for Zofran and all the other stuff that the nurse at Children's suggested we arm ourselves at home with (adult anti-nausea, immodium and Pepto Bismol). Good thing, I started feeling crappy around 9am. I went to bed only to wake up a few hours later with the evil demon. It was horrible!
Thankfully, we were all feeling better today, after 13 hours of sleep for all last night! It was wonderful. Today, we all just recouped and took it easy.
This afternoon, we went over to Menards (yes, we're are boring married folk, a trip to Menards is the highlight of the day!) We had to go and get the missing parts to the leaf mulcher/bagger/blower thing that I picked up on Sunday.
We got home from Menards and had a major setback! Poor Louie tossed his cookies when we walked in the door . . . I quickly shoved some more Zofran in his mouth and gave him his new favorite, a popsicle. Little did I know, when kids are sick like this, they shouldn't have more than 2 ounces every 30 minutes for 6 hours . . . who knew. If I'd known that, we wouldn't have a huge stain from blue Gatorade on the dining room floor! Live and learn.

We're all keeping our fingers crossed and the anti nausea medication handy, that we'll be feeling better soon.

Halloween revisited

I was looking through some old photos from Halloween and though we should share them . . . .

Halloween 2005

Halloween 2006

Halloween 2007

Puke and Snot . . .

No, we're not talking about the two characters out at the Renaissance Festival. I'm talking about what is going on at our house right now.
Apparently, this weekend is payback time for me. Louie's got a bad cold and has been sleep deprived. Wednesday night, he was up every hour all night long. Consequently, that meant that I was up every hour because he didn't want his Daddy. He only wanted his Mommy. It is so nice to be loved, but not all night long, when I have to go to work the next day.
He's had a bad cold and icky cough and nose since then. Last night, I had the brilliant idea to dig out his humidifier and set it up in his room. It worked like a charm for two reasons: it really eased the congestion and the white noise did wonders for his 12.5 hours of slumber! I was so thankful for the humidifier.
Like all good things around here, they must come to an end. The humidifier came to a very quick demise; it was DESTROYED like everything else in our kids bedrooms . . . they cracked the tank and it doesn't know when to stop letting the water out of it. Sigh, the floor was covered with water! Well, my quick internet intuition told me that to check the internet for a replacement tank because we need that white noise back in his room, STAT! I found the repair parts website in about three clicks of the mouse and had a new tank ordered in record time!
Now for the rest of the story . . . Emily woke up from her nap, sat up in bed and threw up all over the floor next to her bed. She told Dan that she "spilled from her mouth, sorry Daddy. I spilled." She has been telling us all night that her tummy hurts. I really hope that there is no more of that. I will gladly clean up anything, except for vomit. It is the one thing that I physically can not handle! Just the smells and I'm done.
It's going to be a long weekend.
Grandma is coming over tomorrow for a ride to the airport. She's heading to Florida for the week to visit with the Jansen Cousins. Auntie Stacy is going to Houston to check in on her parents. DeeDee had her stem cell transplant on Wednesday. We're all praying for a speedy recovery for her! Grandma is going to help keep the three boys in line down there!
Dan has two football games tomorrow and won't be home until late tomorrow night. It's going to be a long day. . . . no playdates or visits to Cousin Becca like we planned. So sad. We haven't seen Becca for a long time and we were looking forward to playing with her.
That's all for now.

Good News!!

Emily went to Gillette for her physical therapy evaluation today. She is supposed to be evaluated for progress every 6 months. The therapist was very positive and said that she's really shown improvement since the last time.
When she was there in May, her evaluation put her motor skills at a 24-28 month old. Today, she was evaluated at 43-45 months old, which is great, since she is 47 months old (that's how they state her age).
Dan told the therapist that she's getting 1:1 physical therapy at school two times a week. It is clearly helping her. She's not nearly as clumsy as she was 6 months ago.
Potty training, oy vay! That's a whole different story. Most days, she doesn't have accidents all day long, which is awesome. Then there are days like last Friday where she had 4 in one day. #1 is moving in the right direction. #2 is a totally different story. We just need to be patient with her. This is truly testing all of my patience though. . .sigh . . .

Sneak peek!

Here's a little sneak peek of Halloween! Emily's costume arrived today. I thought it would be less stressful to get a few pictures of the kids in their costumes tonight than try and get pictures on Halloween.
Louie hated wearing the chicken when we first put it on, but then when I said he could go out and jump in the leaf pile it was all good. I'm pretty sure that he'll be all over wearing the chicken when he can actually get candy! The kid loves candy. . .

fall colors