Happy Halloween!

Justin was so excited while trick or treating this year. He immediately shouted "let's go to the next one" after each house. 

He thought I said we were going home at one point and started to have a meltdown- I told him that isn't what I said and he immediately snapped out of it and said "oh- I'm sorry" in the most chipper voice. He cracked me up. 

Looking forward to taking both boys next year! And can't wait to see what Justin decides to be..he was SO insistent on the pumpkin this year!

Our pumpkins took a turn for the worse..

YUM!

Hey- what's in there!?

Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop!

Dick and Sue are here for a visit! Yesterday we left the kids with a sitter and went to the Temple/SMU game; today we are hanging around the house watching some football and will head to the Light the Night walk later on! Tried to get a couple photos - of course the boys take turns smiling..

Pumpkins!

It's pumpkin central! Justin loves pumpkins..so much that he wanted to be one for Halloween. We tried on the costume this weekend...and carved pumpkins!

Justin wouldn't stick his hand in there..

They took pictures at school and it cracked me up - Justin would NOT smile for them. And even Kyle is usually all smiles didn't give them one!

Justin had a school field trip last week. They loaded the kids up in the vans and took them to the arboretum. I wasn't able to go- but another parent sent me a picture. Sounds like they had a good time - and Justin points out to me every day now the route the vans took to the arboretum - and he has it right. The kid is very aware of his surroundings!

Justin brought this home from school last week. The teachers got a kick out of the fact that he answered this question like this.

And finally- a little video of Kyle from the weekend. He loves the keyboard. 

Harvest time trip to the farm!

We spent a few days in Iowa - hoping to meet the new baby while we were there- but sweet Cadence decided to wait until after we were gone to make an appearance.

Fascinated with the airplanes

Justin was able to help Uncle Jeff pick beans!

On Friday we went to Jana's house to meet up with Jana & Seth, Sarah & Mike and Andrea & Nate and all the kids! It was fun to see everyone -though hectic of course with all of the children!

Future Hawkeyes

Cousins!

We went out to a pumpkin patch with Brenna, Walker and Hayden. The kids had fun running around- it was COLD though!

I was able to join Lily at her horseback riding lessons - and began a new tradition. I gave her one of the Breyer horses that Dad gave me growing up. I used to get one for my birthday and Christmas - oh how I loved them! After her lesson I gave her Man o'War - one of my favorites. She probably wondered what was wrong with me- I gave it to her and burst in to tears! 

Looking forward to heading back to Iowa over the summer sometime- I have a feeling Kyle is going to be all over the place the next time!

Cough cough

My sweet baby has had a rough few days since we got back from Iowa. Lots of breathing treatments and an antibiotic for an ear infection. Hopefully he'll be better by the weekend and we can get him back to daycare on Monday!  My trip to Western Iowa to see Connie this weekend is still up in the air - we will see how things are going here tomorrow!

Pics from our Eastern Iowa trip to come soon!

A few days with one kid- was supposed to be a break..

Foolish me- I thought that Dave taking Justin to Philly for a few days would be a little break and that I would get a ton of work done. How stupid of me.

Justin was on day 9 of diarrhea when Dave got on the plane with him. The doc had said- no reason not to take the trip. So we had already been juggling work, babysitters and taking turns staying home with him for a week. 

Kyle had been on three breathing treatments a day for a week and has a terrible cough and had been up at night with it. I took him to the doc Wednesday afternoon (couldn't get our doc so saw his colleague). Doc thought we needed to just keep doing what we were doing and gave a steroid prescription and said he wasn't really sure it would help. 

What? Me? Coughing?

I was foolishly waiting until morning to give the steroid because the previous night Kyle had slept till 4 without waking. Well at 12:30 he was having coughing fits. I went in his room and there was puke in his bed. He proceeded to cough so hard he threw up again. I gave him a breathing treatment. He had coughing/throw up fits a few more times. Tried to give him the steroid and he basically coughed and threw it up on me. 

I finally decided it was time for the ER. So off we went. The nurses and doctors loved him - everyone who walked in said "that's one good looking baby" - so either they say that to all the moms- or my kid is super cute..

Outfit number five...for both of us..

They did an additional treatment there and gave him an oral steroid. He had a reaction to the breathing treatment and threw up. Sigh. We got settled and they had me feed him as the reaction to treatment could cause him to still be nauseous. Sure enough- thought we were in the clear and up came the whole bottle - so anti-nausea meds were given and we had to hang out a bit longer. We finally arrived home at 7am.

We saw his doc last night and talked through it all. They did a whooping cough test -just in case - as there are quite a few cases down here and vaccines aren't 100%- but doc doesn't think that's what it is. So we are continuing steroids and breathing treatments..and hope it starts to get better! Poor kid!

So two more days home from work with a different sick kid..who also now has Justin's diarrhea bug on top of the breathing issues.  I just hope Justin's bug is cleared up by the time they get back tomorrow..it's been a long couple of weeks around here! Every time we hit one of these rough patches I'm extra grateful that these are the only problems we're dealing with - I realize many parents out there are dealing with much worse situations!

Having fun while home with Mommy..

Go Hawks!

We had fun watching the Hawkeyes yesterday!  

Winnie is not so excited that Kyle has discovered he can climb in the crate..

Sporting Eagles colors today.

It's hard work getting a good picture..

Weekend with the Madsen's in Tyler, Texas!

Some of our favorite friends left Dallas a couple months ago and moved out to Tyler, Texas. We took advantage of the long weekend and went for a visit! We had 5 kids age 5 months to 5 years under one roof. Justin practiced his swimming skills, Dave and Shad golfed, and Shannon and I managed to escape for a few beers.  Oh - AND we went to the circus. How could I forget the circus. It was a small little circus..they did have Tigers. Shannon thought the tiger-dude was also the motorcycle daredevil...it's likely everybody had two jobs at this circus ;)  Justin liked the tigers...and then proceeded to ask where they were the rest of the time. We left at intermission -the kiddos had their fill by then.

We're looking forward to visiting Tyler again! (And Shannon and I are really looking forward to October when we sneak away for a weekend to visit Connie in Iowa! - NO KIDS!)

At the circus!

The grocery store had a bar..and live music so our trip took a little while.

Molly and Justin - out looking for fish.

Swim practice...wearing him out before the drive home!

Two minutes down the road...
we had said we were going to get ice cream...he couldn't make it!

Family Photo

Finally - a picture of the four of us! When daycare asked for one for Kyle's room...I couldn't find one since our Christmas Tree Hunt in November!

Check it out

Look who stood up in the middle of the room all by himself at daycare yesterday! The sweet teachers took a picture!