Cameron lost his first tooth! When did he get so old? He has been waiting and waiting for this day for quite some time, because apparently EVERYONE in the 1st grade has already lost at least one tooth. Slacker parent I am, I almost forgot the tooth fairy, but Keith came to the rescue. He woke up randomly at 3:30 the next morning and miraculously remembered to take care of it - way to save the day!!
We had some visitors over Thanksgiving - Keith's brother Ryan and his wife Molly, daughter Jada, and also Keith's youngest brother Scott. It was so fun having them around. Some of the highlights were a Bucks game, the Harley-Davidson museum, and of course Thanksgiving dinner!! Yum. Keith deep-fried a turkey and it was SOOO good. So then I took care of the rest (with help from our visitors.) I tried to simplify where I could: Stove Top stuffing (honestly I like it more than any homemade stuffing I've ever had), Rhodes rolls (frozen and then all you have to do is let them rise and pop them in the oven, practically as good as homemade.) Two store-bought Marie Calendars pies, and then I made two pies, but I chickened out on the crust and just used premade dough. Anyway, I'm saying all this because I thought the meal turned out really nice with very little stress - I love that!!
It has been the looooonnnnnnggggeeeeeessssstttttt week eeeeevvvvvvvveeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrr. Maybe that's a little dramatic but it's really been crazy. I am pretty sure I had the swine flu, and then Cameron has had some crazy stomach virus that has had him throwing up for 3 days. So far the amazing thing is that no one else has caught either the flu or the stomach virus. I am praying for a miracle here!!!! Anyway, I have decided that the hardest thing about being a mom, besides seeing your kids sick and suffering, is when you get sick. Who takes care of me????? And then I have these darling kids who need me 24-7 and don't seem to understand that I just need to take things easy for a little bit. Anyway, enough of that.......
As I am trying to focus on the positive, here are a few cute things the kids have been saying/doing lately:
Kate can't say her own name, she calls herself "cake." Which I probably would too, who wouldn't want to be called "cake"?!
Another cute Kate thing: Her favorite, most stated phrase is "I help you!" Phonetically it's more like "I hep you-oooo!" I think it speaks volumes about her personality, she is a very helpful child.
We saw some flags at half-mast for Veterans Day so I asked Cameron if he knew what a Veteran was. His respsonse: "Someone who used to work in the army or at Old Navy." I love that kid!
Last Friday we ventured to Legoland in Chicago. Calling it "legoland" might be a little misleading for anyone who's been to the one in CA......bascially it's more like a museum with some fun activities for the kids. For anyone who lives around here, I'd recommend it with one caveat....DO NOT PAY FULL PRICE. It's a total rip-off, luckily they had an afternoon special going on where we got in for $8 a person. MUCH more reasonable.
Lucky us, we had 3 opportunities to dress up and beg for candy this year. In our neighborhood last weekend, then at church during the week, then at a party on Halloween. We had a good time, but I'm glad it's over. Now we've just got to eat all the candy.....
Last year after Halloween I thought I was being so practical in buying a few costumes on clearance for the kids to use this year. I got Batman, Transformers, Incredible Hulk, basically all the cool superheroes. But a year changes a lot of things and this year the boys are all about Star Wars and wouldn't be caught dead in a lame Superman costume. Why can't I ever get it right?
This clone trooper is pretty serious about his job....
(Connor's costume from last year......) Isn't she cute :)
I took, actually dragged the kids to Discovery World on Saturday for a Star Wars exhibit. How the boys could not be excited about going , especially considering their intense love of Star Wars, is a mystery to me (???) It was funny though because as soon as we walked in there, we caught a glimpse of Darth Vader taking pictures with a bunch of kids, and both Cameron and Connor turned white as ghosts. I thought Connor was going to bolt out of there! So being the sensitive, nurturing mother that I am, I started laughing and tried to get them to go over and get a picture with him. I told them not to worry, it wasn't the REAL Darth Vader, plus he didn't even have his light saber on him, so what was he going to do? I then realized that these poor boys were really truly legitimately scared, as they made a run for it, Connor grabbing the stroller out of my hands and pushing Kate to safety as well. What a good big brother :) So needless to say, we didn't get a picture with Darth Vader that day, but we did get some other fun shots, with R2D2 and a few other droids (I think that's what they're called, I am not up on my Star Wars terminology like I should be....)
The funny thing is that Darth Vader just seemed to keep "popping up" the whole time we were at Discovery World, one time following us down a hall, another time standing there as we were getting off the elevator. It WAS kind of creepy.....
Just his size!
Just her size!
Cameron with a naked C3PO
I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR. Always so much to do in the fall, with all the apple picking, pumpkin carving, football games, getting into all the back-to-school activities, etc. I'm even ok with the cooler temperatures, I am just happy there hasn't been any snow............yet.
Here are a few pictures of one of Cameron's flag football games. He's having a good time with it, I think he's finally figuring out how to play!!
Yes that's Cameron with the ball. Go Cam!!
He's somewhere in the middle of that lineup, just thought it was a cute picture....
Hanging out with his friends (he's second in from the right.) I think Cameron actually has more fun on the bench :)
OK, I am turning into a very lame blogger as of late. It's just that I always seem to find something more interesting to do, and blogging has just turned into one of those things on my to-do list (the never-shrinking always getting longer to-do list....) But I did really want to mention a couple notable things that have happened this month. First of all, my little baby Kate turned TWO!! It is still hard for me to grasp the fact that Kate is growing up. She is such a sweet little girl, always concerned about everyone else around her and making sure everything is in it's place (Seriously, she is way more organized than I am.) She loves her big brothers and misses them so much when they are at school. Every afternoon when we go pick Connor up, she says "Boy!" so excitedly the entire way over to the school. Cameron is also "boy," I don't know why she doesn't use their names???? But anyway, she had a good birthday. Keith brought her a bouquet of flowers and she LOVED the fact that they were just for her (he got this idea because she was so enamored with the flowers he got me for our anniversary last month.) So sweet!
First week back to school! Cameron started the 1st grade on Tuesday and Connor started 4K (4-year-old kindergarden for you non-Wisconsinites.) Does it make me a bad mother if I say it was a glorious week??? I figure I am due for this, as the last two years I spent the first day of school crying my eyes out. I don't know what was different this year, maybe because not much is changing - Cameron is still going all day like last year, and Connor was in pre-school last year, he'll just be going more often now. So my day consists of getting Cameron out the door to the bus by about 7:40, then I have the entire morning to exercise (uh, that's my intention anyway), get showered and ready for the day. Connor eats lunch at 11 and then I drop him off at school by 11:30 and Kate and I can embark on any adventure we wish.....Target, the mall, the park, whatever we want!! And even when she starts melting down in the grocery store, I can always remind myself that it is only one child melting down, not three (yes, that has happened before...)
We have started on the mad dash of trying to cram in everything we want to do before school starts. It has been so crazy I can hardly keep up with it all. So instead of feeling the stress of not posting about everything going on, I have just decided to throw on a few random pics and call it good for now.
