Pumpkin Patch

Here are some pics from our recent trip to the pumpkin patch. We brought Stevie along, and he & Lily had a great time playing together.

They fell asleep on the way TO the pumpkin patch!

Playing in the shelled corn pit - we are STILL finding corn in the car & house...

In the patch


Jake's first encounter with a pumpkin


I think she found the perfect one!!


On the hayride

We found our friends Kylie & Kheal there too!

Lily & Kylie


Lily & Stevie

Girls being goofy

Checking out the chickens

The cutest pumpkins in the patch

Rubber Duckie races

Pig races!!

'Wilbur' won!

Leaving after a fun filled day

What a great day!!

Soccer Super Star

Lily's first soccer game of the season was on Saturday...and she scored the first goal of the season for her team!!! GOOOO LILY!!! Sadly, her team lost - 5-3, but they had fun, which is all that really matters. Here's some pics from the game:

If this is what soccer does to her - let's play soccer everyday! ;o)

Poor Miss Lil

On Monday I received a call from the school nurse saying Lily was in her office complaining of a sore tummy, her eyes hurting and a fever of 102! Great - those yucky school germs are starting already! I went to pick her up from school, gave her some Tylenol and she fell asleep for the majority of the afternoon. The fever kept up for the rest of the day and all night, so I kept her home from school on Tuesday too. All day Tuesday she kept up a low grade fever, but was acting mostly normal besides that, just a little quieter. No other side effects. I figured she would be fine to go to school on Wednesday and Lily was begging to go, but her fever had shot back up to 102 by Wednesday morning. I made a doctors appointment for her Wednesday morning and the doctor seemed a little stumped too. She took a throat culture, urine sample and had blood work done (I'll let you guess how fun that was - all I will say is she was screaming bloody murder through the whole clinic and she cried for at least 45 minutes...), but all tests came back normal. The doctor said it was probably something viral that just had to run it's course. She said as long as the fever was gone and Lily felt well enough to go, she could return to school on Thursday. So Thursday morning came, and Lily was waking me up at 6am saying it was time to get up & she wanted to go to school. I took her temp and it was 98.7 - not perfect, but well enough to go to school. So we start getting ready and while she is in the shower she starts coughing and says she can't stop. Then she starts crying saying her tummy hurts and she just wants to get out of the shower and lay down in her bed. I told her she had to finish washing all the soap off her & she starts crying harder saying she doesn't want to go to school anymore and she just wants to lay down...so I get her out of the tub, back into her jammies and straight back to bed. There goes another day of school...By Thursday afternoon she is completely back to herself, jumping around like a maniac with no fever the whole day. By the way she is acting, I know whatever she had is completely gone and I agree to let her go to her school fundraiser at CiCi's Pizza that night. She is thrilled and gets to see a bunch of her friends from school at CiCi's. Friday morning, she was so excited to go back to school she could hardly contain herself! We were waiting at the front door for the bus and she was jumping up & down saying "Will the bus just pleeeeeease get here already?!!" I have never seen a girl so excited to go to school! It is so neat to see how much she loves school and how much she is growing and learning just from going for a month. We are so happy she is feeling better and that she enjoys going to school so much!!

This is her ready for school Friday morning

Jake's My Name, Power Naps Are My Game

Mr. Jake is officially 5 months old and what a big boy he is! He is so curious and tries to get his hands on anything that catches his attention. Most anything he gets his hands on goes directly into his mouth though, regardless of what it is... He has started to recognize his name and he will look at us when we call out his name or when he hears one of us talking about him. He is also starting to develop a sense of humor and laughs at funny things we do. Sometimes he will try to make us laugh and if he succeeds he will try to do whatever it was that made us laugh again. Silly little boy! He is absolutely in love with his sister and whenever Lily is around he is all smiles. She can get him laughing like no other. Her coming home from school is probably one of his favorite times of the day. He has also started paying close attention to the dogs and whenever either of them gets close enough for a pat, his hands are all over them. If he does get a chance to pet them, he gets a big goofy grin on his face - he loves his puppy dogs already! Another thing he is doing now - which is by far one of my favorites - is when I hold him facing me, he puts his arms around me & tries to hug me - complete with slobber all over my shoulder - but I love it anyway. He is still waking up in the middle of the night, but I am now giving him a bottle when he wakes up and it seems to help a little. At least now he is only waking up once a night, whereas before it was several times a night. For the most part, he doesn't sleep very much during the day either. Sometimes he will take a long nap, but for the most part he will sneak in a few 20-30 minute power naps throughout the day and apparently that is enough sleep for him. He still loves his food and is not very happy if one of his baby food meals is skipped. He's also attempting to sit up on his own, using his hands to prop himself up. He is still very wobbly and falls over to one side or the other, but he can sit up for 10-30 seconds at a time on his own. His two favorite toys to play in right now are his entertainer and his walker. He will sit in his entertainer bouncing himself and playing with the toys for quite a while. Oddly enough, his favorite toy on the entertainer was Lily's favorite too! The little sunflower. He has figured out how to scoot himself backwards in his walker and he is pretty proud of himself. I always ask him where he thinks he's going, which he thinks is pretty hilarious. It is unbelievable how much he has changed & grown in just 5 months!

Here's a few more pics:Petting his puppy dog

Relaxing on the couch

Talking to Mom in his walkerNap Buddies

Little Missy

Lily has been a little smarty pants lately...here's just a few of the latest:

Mom: Lily, go try to go to the bathroom before we leave for soccer practice.
Lily: I don't have to go.
Mom: I asked you to go try.
So she goes in the bathroom, stands there doing nothing for a few seconds, not realizing I'm watching her, then flushes the toilet.
Lily: Okay! I'm ready to go!
Mom: Did you go to the bathroom?
Lily: Well, I told you I didn't have to go!
Mom: So why did you flush the toilet?
Lily: "Oh, there was a bug in there!"

There was NOT a bug in the toilet by the way! I couldn't believe she did that! Trying to trick her Mom at 5 years old - I can't wait to see what she's going to try to do at 15...

Then getting ready for school one morning she wanted to bring something to school with her that she brought home the day before:
Mom: Lily, you are not bringing that to school today.
Lily: But I need to take it!
Mom: Did your teacher say you were supposed to bring it back?
Lily: Well, no, but Willa is going to bring hers today too.
Mom: Lily...
Lily: I know what your going to say Mom, that you don't care what Willa does, but I really want to bring it!!
And that was exactly what I was about to say too!! I was about to tell her that I don't care what Willa does because I'm not her mom. She's too smart for her own good...

Mommy Time with NKOTB

When Jamie & I heard that New Kids on the Block were doing a reunion tour, we knew it was an opportunity we couldn't pass up. We are die-hard New Kids fans and we have been missing them dearly for the past 15 years. Both Jamie & I went to see NKOTB for our very first concerts some 18 or so years ago. When we found out that they were going to be in Washington DC on Jamie's birthday, it sealed the deal. We were going come hell or high water. I mean, who could pass up the chance to re-live some of their fondest childhood memories?!?

Thursday was the day of the concert, so Jamie & I said good-bye to the kids, wished the Daddies luck with their "Daddy Day Care" for the day & took off for DC.

Getting ready to leave

(yes, we are THAT crazy for them - haha)

Finally on the road - acting like we're 12 again :o)

SO EXCITED! LOL

We're there!!! Waiting for the concert to begin

For those of you who think we are crazy...we aren't the only ones - Verizon Center is packed to the rafters!! The concert was sold out

OMG! It's them!!!!!

Had to get my pic with them
They were like 50 feet away from us here - ahhhh!! :o)


We had a fantastic time at the concert. It was honestly one of the best, if not the best, concert I've ever been to. What a blast!

Vader & the Vet (again...)

Two Saturdays ago I noticed that Vader was bleeding again - the same way as before. The vet told us last time that if it happened again, we would have to do further testing, so first thing Monday we were off to the vet. The vet said there are several possible reasons he could be bleeding - anything from an injury to an infection to kidney stones to cancer. She quickly ruled out an injury - no visible injury & no apparent tenderness. They took x-rays and were also able to rule out kidney stones, but they found that his prostate is enlarged, which again may be caused by a few different things. It could be a bacterial infection, prostitis, cancer or it may just be because he is still "in tact". She said prostate cancer is very fast moving and that it's also very painful. She said that because it is fast-moving that if it was prostate cancer, it would move to his lumbar area next and she didn't see any sign of that in the x-ray. She recommended we have a urinalysis done that tests for specific types of bacteria (i.e. an expensive test), and then go from there depending on the results. That way, if it is a bacterial infection she would be able to pin point the exact type of bacteria and prescribe the antibiotic that specifically targets that type. So they ran the urinalysis and we were sent home to wait for the results. The results took a week to come back & they found no bacteria what-so-ever. (However, that does not mean he doesn't have prostitis) So the vet said the next step she wanted to take was to either test for cancer so she could rule that out or go ahead and neuter him to see if that would fix the problem and also start him on antibiotics for prostitis - in case that was the problem. We figure that since prostate cancer is fast moving and he's had this problem since February, the fact that it's not in his lumbar area already, that there's a good chance it is not that. He also has not been acting like he's in any pain - actually in the past few months - ever since we started him on senior food - he's been even more social than he had been in the past couple of years. So we have decided to go ahead and neuter him to see if that fixes the problem. The cancer tests are rather expensive, so since we are going to have to neuter Vader regardless and he doesn't seem to be in any pain, we decided to go ahead with that first & see what happens...sooo that is where we are now. This is extremely hard for us, because Vader is like another child to us & we can't imagine what we'd do if he was really sick. I wish we would have had him neutered years ago & possibly prevented any of this from happening. But I guess you live & learn, so we won't be making the same mistake again. I'll keep everyone updated as to how Vader is doing once we know more, but for now just keep him in your prayers for us, please!! Thank you!

My Fashionista

Lily insisted on striking a few poses for the camera while getting ready for school the other day. Apparently I can't take a pic of Jake without taking one of her too. Silly girl. :o)

Sweet Baby Dreams

Around the House

Things around here have been going pretty good. Lily is still enjoying school & learns so much every day. Between school & soccer practice, she doesn't have time for much else! Her first soccer game was supposed to be this weekend, but it's been rained out, so unless it's rescheduled for an earlier date, her next game won't be for a couple weeks. She loves going to soccer practice and she's improved a great deal from last year. It's really weird to have her gone all day at school and I really miss her while she's gone...

Jake has been doing great as well. He is constantly grabbing for anything within his reach & anything he can get his hands on goes directly into his mouth. One of his favorite things to do lately is suck on his toes. He's also developed this high pitched shriek that he loves to show off whenever he's happy. Another one of his favorite things to do is eat! - which accounts for the extra "cheekage" he's developed as of late. He loves his green beans and sweet potatoes, but he's not such a big fan of peaches - at all. He is such a happy boy & he's so much fun to be around.

Brian's been doing well too. He's been working hard & taking care of his soldiers. Some need more care than others, but I guess that's all part of the job...He's also been getting ready for our move and we have an appointment with transportation to schedule everything and get all the necessary information in October. On top of all the work he's been doing, he's taken on the role of Super Dad as well. He has volunteered to design & make team t shirts for all the parents of the kids on Lily's soccer team. He also made Lily a t shirt to wear for her school's "Spirit Day" and he's been making extra time to hang out with Jake & making sure he gets his tummy time. In the mornings he's a huge help while I'm getting Lily ready & out the door to the bus - whether it's just watching Jake, changing him or feeding him his cereal, emptying the dishwasher & trash or making Lily's breakfast and/or lunch - I don't know what I'd do if he wasn't picking up the slack, so I hope he knows how much it's appreciated!

I've been trying my best to house-hunt from afar, but it's pretty slow-going. It's hard to get a real idea of the houses from pictures on the internet. We were going to try to make a quick weekend trip down there to check out some properties, but it doesn't look like that's going to be possible. SO we're just going to do the best we can from here & hopefully things will fall into place as the time to move nears.

Here's a few more pics from this past week.

Miss Lily is at school so much I don't get very many pictures of her anymore!Chilling out with Vader

Hanging out in the entertainer

Checking out Zo

Happy boy