Mrs. Claus cookies

On Sat we went to the Village Green behind Market Street and they had a program called "Make cookies with Mrs. Claus. It was such a great program! She was a ventriloquist and had puppets, they sang songs and the kids got to participate in a bell choir. Then they decorated cookies. It was a huge hit!

James enjoyed the icing the most.

Finished products

Bell choir

Front row seats!

New addition

No we are not having a baby but we do have a new addition to our family. After Thanksgiving, Sheri had brought her cat and Ryan saw how much the kids and I enjoyed playing with it. I have always been a cat person but we were going to wait. Well Ryan surprised us by getting a cat for me for Christmas. Although I think it is mostly the kids kitten right now. We names him Boston in honor of the Red Sox. He is a great cat and provides hours of entertainment for the kids.

Gymnastics farewell.

So I thought I would post a couple of pictures of Maddison at gymnastics. She loves it but I think this month will be her last. With all my working and her schedule she has starting acting out a bit. I think she is feeling overwhelmed. So I am slowing every one's schedule down to see if that helps. So her are a few of her at practice. So cute!

They always come at the end for a final "tah dah"

Balance beam.

My little monkey.

Halloween

Ok so I know I am really late in posting these but Ryan wants me to make sure everyone can
see James' awesome beard.
Maddison was Ariel.

James was Dustin Pedroa

Neither one wanted to hold hands or be near eachother. Oh well I tried.

Pumpkin Patch

Last Sat we finally made it to a great pumpkin patch. We were able to do so many things for free and the kids had a blast. Maddison got her face painted, pictures with the cut outs, petting zoo, and James Maddison and I rode on the train. They had drinks and food there that you could buy and lots of other things to look at, including a corn maze for toddlers and one for bigger kids. I couldn't believe that it was all for free. Especially since they were right next to one that charged for all of it. The only thing they asked was for you to bring a couple of cans of food to donate.

I love this picture of Ryan and the kids.

Need I say more?

James was so proud of himself.

Maddison had to be holding both their hands.

James loved the train.

Maddison showing off her pumpkin muscles.


Just as we were heading back to the car, with both kids exhausted, we walked by this huge haystack. I didn't think anything of it because of how tired the kids were. However, it was the hit of the day.

Bubbles and more Bubbles

One of James' first words after Mama and Dada was bubbles. He is obsessed with bubbles . We have the bubbles up high in the house and he just walks around saying "bubbles, bubbles," and pointing to the door. So while I was in Chicago, Ryan took the kids outside for a bubblefest. James tries so hard to blow bubbles but ends up drinking most of it. Then when his mouth is full of soap he will blow bubbles with his mouth. He thinks it is hilarious. He also loves it when the bubbles land on him and will say "pop." Maddison loves them too but not as much as James right now.

Heard Museum

We are doing a little Joy school with Maddison and some of her friends again this year. Well we decided to add a fieldtrip once a month. I was in charge this month and we went to the Heard Museum because we had just learned about dinosaurs this week. Here are some pictures of the kids.

Four moms and 15 kids. YIKES!!
So apparently Maddison has her pick of Toni's boys. These three were inseparable.
Jacob and her have a little romance and they held hands the whole time except for when Sam moved in on Maddison and grabbed her for a little while.
MMMmmm should a three year old have to choose between her boys this early in life :)

They grow up so fast

I think our kids are so fun (not that I'm biased). Here are some random picutres of the kids.

James as a GQ model.
Maddison in another darling outfit from Aunt Christ. She asks to wear this skirt every Sun and several times throughout the week.
We go for a walk every night and the other night it turned into a nature walk. We stop to look at the turtles, fish and ducks, then saw the fireflies and Dad caught one, then Mom stepped on a little garden snake and Dad chased it away. And of coarse we saw tons of rabbits.

Splish Splash

Ok so these next pictures are why the kids like Ryan to give them their baths better then me. Why is it that Dad is always so much more fun than Mom?

Quiet Time

So this is what happens when I ask Ryan to put Maddison down for Quiet time. I needed to run an errand and asked Ryan to put Maddison down for quiet time. Apparently, he was too tired to read Maddison stories so she read to him. They were both exhausted and by the time I got home they had both zonked out. Cute!

The chicken or the egg? according to Maddison

The other day we were having pancakes and eggs for dinner (I didn't want to cook.) and Ryan started a conversation with Maddison about where the eggs came from. So here is how it went...
Ry: Maddison where do chickens come from?
Maddie: Eggs
Ry: Then you mean you are eating a chicken?
Maddie: No I'm not.
Ry: But you just said chickens come from eggs.
Maddie: Mom is that true?
Mom: Yes but we are eating the eggs that are just meant for eating.
Maddie: See Dad these aren't chicken eggs.
Ry: But how do you know these are the eating eggs and not the chicken eggs.
Maddie: Dad there are two kinds of eggs brown and white. The brown ones become chickens and the white ones are eating eggs.
Ry: But won't the chickens miss their eggs?
Maddie: No because they just have lots and lots of eggs. Just don't worry about it Dad. I know what I am talking about.

It was so funny to hear her rationalize this whole egg thing. This is a very brief overview of the actual conversation that went on for about 15 minutes. She just had a logical explaination for everything. I just thought it was funny that she even knew about the brown verses white eggs. I don't remember ever telling her there were brown and white eggs. Oh well I guess it all just comes from the mouths of babes.

We made it to the RED SOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So for those of you who don't know - my husband is a die hard Red Sox Fan. We found out a few months ago that the Red Sox were playing here and we immediately bought the cheapest tickets we could find for Fri and Sat night. Which actually were REALLY cheap. We took the kids on Fri night and then we went again on Sat. Ryan was in Heaven. I was really glad we were able to fulfill this little dream of his. Despite all the hardships we have had lately, we were able to put them aside for one weekend and just enjoy. The kids were really cute at the game. Maddison kept yelling "Go Red Sox" and "Yankees 'pugh'"(she would pretend to spit.) She didn't really realize they were playing the Rangers. James just enjoyed the food and would say "Yeah" whenever we would clap. We had a great night. James put his sippy cup in the popcorn container and went at it.
Maddison was so excited to share this time with Daddy.
Girls just chillin.
James had a full fledge Red Sox outfit on. So cute.

Hair Cut

Ok so we have given James little trims before but this was his first real haircut with the buzzer. He did pretty well and now we can spike it. That was the real reason I had Ryan cut it.
First encounter with the buzzer. He thought it was cool.

He is starting to wonder what is going on now.
How handsome. Ryan let him buzz some of his hair at the end.

Sick

I forgot one other thing that happened to James around the end of August. He got so sick. He never likes to cuddle and is always on the go. Well one day he was kind of mellow and I thought he felt pretty warm but I didn't take an official temperature because I thought it was just teeth causing the fever. Well the next day in the morning I went to get him out of bed and he felt hot to me so I checked his temperature and he was 102. I gave him some Tylenol the amount according to the bottle. Then sent him back to bed. When he woke up I still thought he was really hot and took his temperature again - 102.7. So I sent Ryan to the store to get some Ibuprofen. We alternated the medication giving him the doses according the the bottle but his temp was around 103 all day. Well around 7:00 we put him to bed and thought maybe the fever will break soon. I went in at around 8:00 and didn't even touch him but I could feel the heat radiating off his body. I woke him up and took his temp and it was 104. We gave some more medicine, a cool bath and tried to get him to drink. We waited for an hour to see if the meds were going to work. Then I took his temperature again and it was 105.3. We called my parents to have them watch Maddison while we took him to the ER. His temperature topped off at 106. They gave him the REAL appropriate doses of medicine (not the one the bottle says), put cold rags over him and were about to do a cool IV. Then the doctor said to hold the IV until the blood work came back (I was very relieved.) Needless to say it took the hospital 4 hours before his temperature broke and was there a reason - NO! They just said it was some virus but that it was good we brought him in because at that high a temp he could of had seizures. Moral of the story -- Find out how much medicine your kids can really have safely, and it might save you a trip to the hospital. Here is a picture of him and Dad when his fever was 105.

He was beet red because his little body was so hot.
Poor little guy.

Complete Slacker

Ok so I know I am a complete slacker and I am sorry about that. Our computer just isn't super fast so I get bored waiting for things to upload. Then the computer broke and I couldn't get my pictures until we got it back. So I am going to try to do better. So a few updates... James is walking in full force now. He has a sense of humor all his own and is all boy. He is fascinated by cars and airplanes. He goes around all day saying brooooom with all of his cars and trucks. Maddison is so excited to be back with her preschool group. We also started her in gymnastics (because we got a month free) and she absolutely loves it. She now goes around the house and will raise her arms and say tah dah! Super cute. She is also starting to read and loves anything that involves a lot of detail with arts and crafts. Here are some more recent pictures.

Maddison and one of her best friends Megan.
Daddy trying to take a nap :)
Aunt Chris sent us some new clothes.
James just being James.