Happy Birthday, JILL!!!!!!

I wanted to say "Happy Birthday to Jill!" She is my oldest friend (meaning I have known you forever not that you are older than me, but you are). Anyway, I hope you have a great day with your family! You deserve a great day!!!!

I have always looked up to Jill. Her family was my second family! I always loved going to her house. We had so much fun growing up. I especially liked it when we would walk to school with our moon boots and we would walk on the moon. Good times!!! Whatever Jill did, I wanted to do. She played the violin and so did I (which I was so good at the violin. Ha, Ha). I wish I had a scanner because I have great pictures of us growing up. Our moms used to have our pictures taken together and we would wear the same outfits. Hilarious! I will have to get some of these pictures posted sometime. Anyway, Have a Super day!!!!

Hayden's First Day of School

Thursday was Hayden's first day of school. He is still going to our elementary school for their Early Childhood Program. He goes everyday in the afternoon. The last year and a half he was going in the morning. So going in the afternoon is a change for him and mommy. He gets to ride the bus there and home. Of course that is his favorite part. He has his same teacher which is good. He likes her and so do we. She is a great teacher for Hayden.

I also started school this week. I am excited but I have SO MUCH WORK to do before I graduate on December 13. Please pray for my sanity.

Well, the kiddos are having a sleep over at my parent's house so Brian and I are going out before things get too crazy with school. I hope everyone and their kids had a great week going back to school.

Busy week....Summer ending....

Ok, so we have had another busy week!!!! I got recertified for CPR on Monday night. I did pass, but don't anyone go into cardiac arrest. I really don't want to have to use my skills! I started back to work in the NICU as an extern tech. I prepare the formulas, clean equiptment, laundry, and help temp, diaper, and feed. Gosh this all sounds familiar but atleast I get paid for doing it. My friend, Ashley, also works in the NICU as an extern tech so we had fun last night working together especially when it is 3am in the morning. We get a little slap happy. Earlier in the afternoon we started our garage sale. It was very busy and we did really well selling our items. Some items I would have paid people to take but people were buying the items. I wanted to say to them, "Do you really need this, or Really you are going to buy this." Oh well, money in our pocket. We continued the garage sale on Wed. We did good again and the last minute garage sale was a success. If you remember the picture of all the clothes..... well I will let you know we got the clothes that didn't sell into three bins. Pretty impressive if you ask me. Then we come to Thursday (My birthday). I was awoken with two cute children running into my room yelling, "Happy Birthday, Mommy." They had me open up my card. It was cute. When you opened it up it sang the tune, "Burn Baby Burn." So of course we had to have a dance party in the bed. Good times! Then we quickly got ready to leave for Iowa City for Hayden's neuro appointment. It ended up being a great appointment. We are weaning him off of his seizure medication. Please pray that he does not have anymore seizures! I can not see him go blue, limp, and nonresponsive again. I have seen it too much!!!! When we got home we went to my mom's house for a birthday dinner. Friday was a normal day with the children and then we went back to my mom's for a pizza dinner. Yummy! Saturday was another busy day. We started it out by going to have breakfast at IHOP. Then we did some fall clothes shopping for Hayden and Ava. Then we went out to the lake to be with my family and were busy swimming in the lake, getting pug rides, and fishing. Then I had to go into work. I worked a full 12 hour third shift. Now something amazing with Hayden was happening today! He decided to ride his big boy bike instead of his tricycle. We are so proud of him. He looked so cute on it riding around with his helmet on. Also, he decided that today he would stand up to go to the bathroom instead of sitting. I thought that was pretty neat. I know it doesn't take much. He was making big boy decisions all day today. After dinner tonight, Brian and I made a crazy decision. We went on our first family bike ride with all of us on bikes. What is so crazy is that we decided to ride to my mom's house to surprise my parents. Well, it was about 1.5 miles away. Hayden didn't complain once, but Ava was another story. She kept saying that her legs hurt, which I am sure they did. But we made it to her house all in one piece. My mom gave them half of a DQ ice cream sandwich so all was good. No, we didn't ride back home. Brian went and got our van and we drove home. Oh yes, earlier in the day we went out to my aunt's pool for a couple of hours to swim. I had to get that in before I started school. It was nice to relax in the refreshing pool! So, now tomorrow I go back to school. So sad!!!! But the sooner I start the sooner I will graduate! Yeah!!! I hope everyone had a great week and will have a super week!

My big boy

He is so proud of himself!

Ava was busy having her own dance "concert"

Where did my babies go?

Since we are selling a lot of our baby items the kids are having fun playing with the items. It makes me remember when they were small enough to play with these things. Actually it makes me very sad. I can't believe that they are going to be 5 in December. Where are the days going?

Ava looks like a giant in this picture

This is a picture of the clothes we are selling (I don't remember having this many. I am ashamed, but hoping we get some good money for them)

Horsing Around....

Brian and I are trying to get ready for a garage sale for this coming Wednesday. Don't ask me why we are doing this because I am not so sure. I have a renewal CPR class Monday night, I work Tuesday night and Ava's new preschool teacher will be at our house Wednesday in the morning. Could we have anymore going on? Oh yeah, we leave for Iowa City on Thursday (happens to be my birthday) for Hayden's Neuro appointment for his seizures. We don't have as much to sell as we have had in the past. We are selling baby items, a lot of baby/kid's clothes and other items. If you are looking for kid clothes come on over on Tues. evening or Wednesday. Some of the clothes aren't even a year old. Ok, now for the reason for this post. Brian and I were in the garage cleaning it out and setting up tables. The kids wanted to play with the brooms so Ava started sweeping, Hayden immediately put the broom between his legs and was playing horsey. It was a riot. He looks so funny because he has his bike helmet on. I had to take a picuture because we were laughing. Hope everyone is having a good weekend we are off to my parent's house for pizza and movie night in their theater. Good times!

Pictures

Hayden and Ava had their pictures taken yesterday by my friend, Joy. You can look at the sneak peak on her blog. Just click on "Joy's blog" on the right side of the screen. I think they turned out great! The kids were a little crazy at the end but Joy really knew how to reel them in. She did a great job with them. Thanks for being patient, Joy!

Mini Vacation (Gurnee, IL)

We just got back last night from our mini vacation to Gurnee, Il. We had a lot of fun. It was the four of us, my mom and dad, and my brother, Caleb, his wife, Valerie, and their three kids; Luke, Gia and baby Caleb. We left Sunday at noon. We stopped at Portillo's for a late lunch in Plainfield and then finished the last one and a half hours of driving. We got to our resort (Key Lime Cove Water resort) late afternoon. The resort was so neat. It has only been open since February so everything still seems new. The rooms are nice and colorful. When you walk into the resort it feels as if you are in Florida by the beach. The neat thing about this resort is that there is an indoor water park. It was a nice size. There was a lot for older kids, adults and little ones to do. There was a wave pool, lazy river, a lot of different water slides, a kids area with three different water slides and a huge water/play area with a huge pineapple that fills with water and then dumps on everyone below (Hayden did not like that at all. It scared him to death). The resort also has an ice cream shop, a kids arts/craft area, three other food places, and a couple of other shops. They have a shuttle that can take you across the street to Great America Six Flags (which we did use). The kids had so much fun playing in the water park. We did that Sunday night. Then Monday we were supposed to go to Great America but it decided to thunderstorm ALL DAY LONG! So, we all went out to breakfast to IHOP and then my mom had been reading in a travel magazine about places to visit. She found the Jelly Belly Warehouse tour. It was only 20 minutes away so we decided to do this. As we were driving I started to read more about this tour. We thought we were going to a factory to see them making the candy, it was only a Warehouse tour and we would be stopping at various points to watch a video on how they make the candy. My poor mom, we were making fun of this the whole way there. We thought we would get there and get right in, because after all who wants to see a bunch of boxes laying around. We were wrong again, there was actually a line. We were cracking up. We waited a good 45 minutes before we got our special hats and got on our little tram/train ride. We literally took a ride around the boxes in the warehouse. WE stopped every 100 feet to watch a video and listen to our guide's annoying voice. We tried not to laugh during the whole thing. My brother said, "Well, there goes that half hour that I will never get back." My dad told my mom that when she reads something else in that magazine that looks interesting to keep it to herself. Hilarious! It was a really bad tour. Even the kids were bored. The best part was getting a free sample bag of Jelley Belleys (I don't have any pictures from this "wonderful" experience because I forgot my camera). When we got back to our hotel, the boys took the kids to the water park and the women went to the Gurnee Mills Outlet Mall. It was such a great outlet that Brian and I will go back in a few weeks to get the kids their fall clothes. When we got back we all went to eat at The Rainforest Cafe. Hayden and Ava loved going to the same restaurant again. We got done eating late so when we got back to the hotel we let the kids play at the hotel's arcade/gaming area. It was huge. Then they got to choose their "free" prizes. They each got a plastic dolphin and plastic whale. They are still playing with those things. Go Figure! Tuesday morning it had finally cleared up so we went to Great America for the day. WE had a lot of fun as you will see in the pictures. We were there from 10am until 5pm. That was long enough because it was really hot. There were three areas for little ones so Hayden and Ava had plenty of rides to go on and we took them on some big adult rides, too. Their favorite was the kiddy roller coaster. It actually went pretty fast. Ava ended up getting heat exhaustion atleast that is what I think. She threw up when we turned our stroller in about 6 times, then after dinner which Hayden and Ava slept through and then thank goodness we had gotten a bucket that their lunch had come in because we used it on the way home for when she threw up again. She is fine today. WE got home about 10pm last night. We had a super great time and would recommend the water resort to everybody!! Enjoy our pictures!

The water park in the resort. YOu can't see the little kids area to the left.

The waterfall when you walk into the resort

Just part of the resort

Hayden and Luke playing at the water park

Being goofy before ordering our meal

Eating ice cream at the resort's ice cream shop

Riding the carousel at the arcade/gaming area in the resort

Playing games

More games

At the front of the park

The cousins except for baby Caleb

Getting ready to ride the roller coaster

There was a Wiggle World and this was the Wiggle show.

Ava was telling me NO MORE PICTURES!

OK this was hilarious, Brian had to take our niece, Gia, on this ride and he looked like a giant!

Waiting to see a movie at the park about the shallow seas

What we've been up to....

Summer has been really fun for us! My friend, Anne, has been here visiting. One day we took our kids to a sprinkler park. It was a little cold, but they still had fun! The kids have had fun out at Mackinaw with the jeep. We got an addition to the motorized jeep family. Someone at Brian's work gave us a Barbie jeep for free. So, they both have their own jeep. They love it! My friend, Jill, has also been visiting and we had them out to the lake. Our kids had a lot of fun swimming, jeep rides, and pug rides. It was neat to see our kids together because Jill and I had a lot of great times out there growing up. Then, last night we took the kids to the Chiefs game. They have been asking to go now for months. I finally had a free night with them having a home game. We went and it was hot. Anyway, we bought tickets at the stadium and got third row up from homeplate. They were perfect seats especially for Hayden and his eyesight. Hayden also made the jumbotron. I was holding his hands and he was dancing like a crazy man. Brian noticed that we were up there. I usually don't really pay attention to the game. But I thought I had heard a player's name that I recognized and I did. It was Shane Keough playing for the other team. Well, if any of you watch the Real Housewives of Orange County show then you know who I am talking about. It is a son of one of the housewives. I thought that was pretty neat.
My externship in the NICU is officially over with. I had a great experience and I am so happy that I had the experience. I now can say without a doubt that I want to work in the NICU! I hope everyone is having a great summer! We leave for another mini vacation to Gurnee, Illinois to Great America on Sunday. I will have the pictures up when we get home!

Hayden at the sprinkler park

Ava braving the water

Hayden loved standing with the water going up his face

Exploring out at Mackinaw

Hayden giving Kayleigh a ride

Ava giving Sydney a ride

At the Chiefs game

My two goofballs

Ava with her cotton candy (first time to try the stuff)

Watching the game