Baby C is officially a walker, though he chooses to crawl most of the time since it's faster. He loves his newfound mobility!

Wearing daddy's hat

With Nonno

This picture makes me laugh so much. A has a new fear of the vacuum cleaner since he says it hurts his ears. So, when I vacuum, he insists on wearing C's winter hat which is much too small (why? I don't know). Since it covers his ears, apparently it makes the vacuum so much less noisy. Then he gets out his toy vacuum and helps me do my chores. He is such a funny kid with so much spunk and creativity.

Most of my family after running/walking the Fighting Hunger 5K to benefit Matthew 25: Ministries It was a gorgeous day, and a lot of fun. They even had a chocolate fountain at the end of the race! Now that's my idea of great exercise :)

Thanksgiving week

We are back and settled after a great vacation week. We took off last Sunday to head to South Bend to visit great friends of ours. It was a very encouraging and refreshing time for all of us, and A and C had a blast playing with their 5 kids. Then we drove to Cleveland to visit P's family. The 4 1/2 hour trip ended up to be 3 1/2 hours since the speed limit was 70 and we made NO STOPS!! The kids were such troopers.

We were met at the door of Gramma the Great's house by P's cousin MG. She's 9 and couldn't wait for the boys to arrive. So, A had an instant friend who even spent the night so she could be there as soon as he woke up. And we had a built in babysitter. It was great! We enjoyed time with family, ate a TON and then the boys did great on the trip home. We almost didn't have to stop, but about 20 min. away, C started melting down. He hadn't eaten lunch, and I decided it's too messy to try to feed babyfood to an infant who's facing backwards in his carseat. So we took a brief 5 min. stop, fed C really quickly and headed home.

It was so much fun and it was nice to have the weekend to recoop and readjust to the "real world." A and C miss their friends and P and I miss our babysitters.

Amazingly with all that traveling, I forgot to take any pictures! We were just enjoying ourselves too much!

I was putting A to bed last night. As I was leaving the room, I said, "Sleep well, and sleep in. " He just looked at me with this super excited smile and said, "Tomorrow I have a muffin for breakfast!" It was so random, but reminds me how simple life is for a child. Is that why Jesus asks us to be more like children?

One other random story. Neither of my boys have a "lovey" (special animal or blankey that they sleep with). Instead, they both like playing with my hair to calm down. Keeping that in mind, I had this conversation with A the other day.

A- "God is powerful"
Me-Yeah, He is. Where did you learn that?
A-Ms. Connie taught me that at church.
Me-Oh. Do you like Ms. Connie?
A- (then he got this really goofy, shy smile as though he was a young boy in love) Yes, She lets me play with her hair!

I can just picture him sitting on the lap of this lady he barely knows playing with her hair. It made me laugh so hard just picturing that. No wonder Ms. Connie is his favorite teacher at church!

C is feeling better. They gave him some medicine at the doctor's office that helps him breathe easier. He no longer sounds like a barking seal. He's still congested and a little clingy to mom, but he's had two good nights of sleep in a row. It's been months since that happened!

We leave tomorrow am for South Bend to visit some good friends. I'm so excited to see them and get to catch up. Then Tuesday we head from South Bend to Cleveland to spend Thanksgiving with P's extended family.

We are excited about both of these, but are really praying that C does well in the car. He's got about a 45 min. max of being content in the car. That doesn't bode well for a 5 hour car ride, then a 2 hour car ride then a 4 hour car ride. Could be painful. We'll see.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

sorry it's been so long.
c's got the croupe...again. poor kid just can't catch a break.
sick kid = short or no naps = tired momma with no time to blog. i'll try to update soon.

Just had to post this picture of my boys. What a great daddy!

Fall 2009

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quick update

The antibiotic did it's job, and the ear infection is gone. For now. We ended up at an ENT with baby C this week, and have decided to have tubes put in his ears. The ENT looked in his ears and said the infection was gone, but there was still fluid in his ears. It's basically just a matter of time until he gets another. Pretty much every time he gets any congestion, he'll most likely get an infection. So, tubes it is. November 11th is the big day. They say it's the fastest surgery in existance and that the parents won't even have time to drink a cup of coffee before they are called back. We'll see. Not looking forward to it, but I am excited for the prospect of having my happy C back. The poor kid has had a rough start to this life.

I'll post some new pics soon. The boys dressed up for Halloween (A - soccer player, C- lion). We made it to one house before A saw some big kids in scary costumes and wanted to go back home. So the night was cut short and P carried him home with his head burried in P's shoulder. But, at least we got him in his costume and out the door this year, which beats last year.

I also have some cute pics of the boys playing in leaves. It's been fun to see them enjoying the fall, and we have one tree in the front yard that has provided enough leaves for many, many piles. And there's still more to come.

Alright... I'm off to read in bed. The boys haven't adjusted to the time change, despite having tried to keep them up later this week. They went to bed at 9:00 last night but C was up for the day at 4:45 am with his big brother not far behind at 5:45. Made for a long day. I'm praying hard that they'll sleep in tomorrow, but I'm also going to bed early just in case :)