Luminaria

When we moved to Kansas a little over 2 years ago, one of the selling points our realtor gave us for the house we bought was that it was in a historic neighborhood that every Christmas does something called a Luminaria.  I was familiar with a luminary but didn't know such things as Luminarias existed.  Basically all the houses line their driveways and walkways with luminaries for 1 night at the same time and the streets get a whole lot more crowded.  I was sold. That first year we were hit by the most devastating ice storm.  The whole area lost power for days, trees were in huge piles in our front yard for months and needless to see the Luminaria got cancelled. Then last year we had to be out of town already for Christmas and had to miss it.  

But not this year!  It really was a sight to see.  It was in a word: beautiful.  My camera ran out of battery power before we could take pics down some of the other streets in the neighborhood.  But we have a few to see below.  It was freezing, we had more traffic in our neighborhood then I've ever seen, and we met 2 more of our neighbors because of it!   

Kate before she got tired of being outside and was OVER the Luminaria

 Looking out across the street from our front porch

Across the street from our house

Me and Kate posing with a little teddy bear

Our house from a different angle

*Pics courtesy of my husband who had much more patience then me to get these night shots.  

Crawling

So I guess you could say Aidan is officially crawling.  If you're lucky enough to see our little cherub this Christmas you can see for yourself then.  If not video proof coming soon!  He likes to give up a lot and enjoys alternating his crawls with throwing himself into the ground and propelling forward.  But either way we're in trouble.

Christmasy photo shoot

I took advantage of the warmer day Saturday and that the snow hadn't completely melted to snap a few pics of the kiddos in some Christmas attire.  If I'd been on top of things these could have worked in our christmas card.  But the weather was much closer to frightful rather than delightful the week before when I needed a picture so I had to settle for something else.  Please ignore the graininess if you can see it.  I forgot to change my ISO from 800 which is WAY wrong for outside pics and the quality was seriously lost on these .:-(  Ignore me if you don't know what all that means.  I'm not sure I do either.  So here are lots and lots of pictures of my kids-unedited.

Christmas Fun: Ballet style

I seem to be a bit behind these days.  Life has been consumed by Christmas related activities or sickness and I just haven't taken the time to post as much.  Hopefully after Christmas I can get back to doing more.  But right now the Christmas shopping is done.  The kids are all well.  The husband is at home and Christmas break is coming.  

Kate had her Christmas dance recital last weekend.  Here's our little ballerina and Aidan at the recital before it started.

He looks genuinely frightened.

Ready for the music to start

Group shot

Moving on to more current events... Kate and I headed over to our local theater this weekend which is a restored theater done in an art deco style and it was so cool.  I was impressed to know we have this little gem in our community.  Local ballet students (who go to a more hard core studio than Kate) audition for the Prairie Nutcracker (so Kansas) and they perform it every year in this theater.  We had great seats, got a little dressed up, and enjoyed an afternoon matinee yesterday.  We both really enjoyed it and left the boys at home to watch Dallas lose.  It was adapted from the original and I kind of enjoyed it more.  Here are a few pics of us girls before we left for the show.

 

Of course

This is looooong.  So Daniel is away on "business" yet again until Friday and naturally one of my little cherubs has decided to go and get sick.  It figures it would happen the day Daniel and my Mother-in-law who was visiting both leave.  To add to the mix did you know yesterday the high temp here was 16 degrees?  And when I set out to take my feverish child to the minor emergency clinic my car said it was 9.  Yes as in 9 whole degrees outside.  Oh yea- the roads are still covered with a nice crunchy layer of snow on all the side streets and it was dark.  Let's start from the beginning...

Yesterday morning as everyone was getting ready to leave Kate was complaining of a sore neck.  We all figured she had slept funny and sent her on her way.  She was a little grumpy but didn't feel hot and no one called me during the day so I figured we were in the clear.  I picked her up and went to get a drink from McDonalds and she ask me if she could close her eyes because the sun was hurting them.  By the time we got home she was half asleep and in a bad mood.  She had dance last night and when I tried to help her get her tights on I noticed she felt hot.  Turns out she had a 103.3 fever.  At this point it's almost 4:30, Aidan was screaming because he needed a nap, and my mind is racing with the possibility that my kid had meningitis.  A quick search on the internet confirmed that yes those symptoms could be signs of meningitis.  She wasn't complaining of anything else so I put a call into the pediatricians office before it closed.  I left a message for the nurse who called me back and basically said she didn't want to tell me to wait but that it was up to me.  I could take her to the minor emergency clinic that closed at 6, the ER, or wait.  I took the minor emergency route.

A mere hour later we left with a diagnosis of a sinus infection.  The neck pain was swollen lymph nodes.  He gave us a prescription for an antibiotic and we headed off to Walgreens to get it filled.  They call our name, I head up and get my total... $56.00.  I said, "Are you serious?"  'Yes."  First if all our insurance has a plan so we never pay more then $25.00 for even a brand name drug.  But if there's something else that can treat the issue that's available in a generic they prefer you try that first.  Second he Dr. said what he was writing it for was available in a generic.  They tried to more or less tell me not all drugs have a generic.  Yes.  That all drugs have a generic name. Yes.  I know.  My husband works for one of these drug companies and surprise I'm not stupid.  My response..."She has  sinus infection.  It's not like she has some weird infection or something."  The lady behind the counter was not amused with me.  I decided not to take it and headed off to take charge of the situation.

I ended up having to have the on-call pediatrician paged.  She called me back, got it all straightened out, decided she wasn't sure Kate even had a sinus infection but that she was comfortable with her taking an antibiotic, dissed Walgreens ( I concur), changed the prescription, and had them get it ready right away, paid my $7.00 and we headed home.  We survived the night, Kate seems better today- no fever, neck feels better, and Aidan is napping right now.  Unfortunately the Fresh Beat band is on TV and those kids make me crazy.  It's going to be a long day.  So Daniel I hope you're enjoying Chicago and  your expensive snacks and dinners.  I better get a keychain with the Sears Tower on it for this.  :-)

Thanksgiving weekend pics

Yes- I'm way, way behind in posting.  I've had multiple "super exciting" things happen to write about.  We'll start with this though.  While my parents were her at Thanksgiving we had an impromptu photo shoot out in the front yard.  Aidan wanted to eat leaves and grass and Kate was busy bouncing around but I got a few good ones.  Click here to see all the rest of the pics at the Walmart photo site.

Better late then never

Here are a couple of pics from our weekend 2 weeks ago in Tulsa for an early Thanksgiving celebration.  We spent the weekend trying to keep Kate from spreading lice and Aidan from eating his cousin Ava.  But aren't they all cuties!

Knee pads and necklaces will keep the lice at bay.

"What?  I wasn't going to snack on her."

Camera was wacky when I took this but I think you can still see the drool.

Friday Five

1.)  We survived Daniel being gone for a few days to the great state of Texas.  No one came to the door after dark while I was standing in my underwear.  For the most part we were all well.  There were no mini nervous breakdowns and my house isn't totally out of control from the experience.  Success!  He's off to Chicago next week.  If you people at his job happen upon this... Give the man a raise and a promotion!    Daniel's Mom will be here 1 of the nights next week so that's always good.

2.) Aidan is trying so hard to crawl.  He more or less can get anywhere he wants including under the Christmas tree if you're not paying close enough attention and has only managed to pull on the cord of the computer and not caused it to actually fall off the table.  Baby-proofing here we come!  He also is in the midst of getting 3 teeth at once.  That means he's gonna have 8 total.  Does that seem like a lot for 7 months old?  Last night was not a particularly fun night for him even with a dose of tylenol.  So he's getting this crazy thing for Christmas.  300+ people that take the time to write a positive review can't be wrong can they?  My ID wallet is his favorite chew toy and I think he needs something a little more baby friendly that doesn't contain my driver's license.  Traditional teething rings just aren't "cutting it."

3.) After some serious obsessing and compulsiveness I am almost done Christmas shopping.  Can we say "Thank you Amazon!?"  I only have to pick up a few more things at Target and place 1 more order online and I should be done.  My husband on the other hand has "not even looked thought about what to get me" and needs to get on the ball.  Did you read that Daniel?  We do not pay for express shipping in this house!  I'm pretty pleased with the deals I found and my parents can expect a massive amount of boxes coming their way.  We're shipping a bunch of the presents for both sides of the family there since there's a new little someone taking up some of our space in the car for trips.  Imagine if we still had that dog.  Shivers.


4.) It's cold here.  Like bone-chilling, want to stay under the clovers all day, cold.  After Saturday we're not going to get much above 30 for the high.  Of course there's chances of snow.  We also don't have a winter coat for Aidan.  It's on order and the lady at Gap customer service assures me it will be here no later then Wednesday.  By then he'll be a little ice cube!  I guess that's what layers and blankets are for.  Why do I live in this town without anywhere to shop again?

5.) Kate has her winter dance recital this Sunday.  I haven't seen the dance yet because we never can get to dance early enough for me to score 1 of about 4 available seats.  I could sometimes stand and watch but that doesn't work so well with a fidgety baby who wants to get on the floor and scoot around. So it will be a surprise to us all.  I'll post pics after the event.  Let's hope the heater in that building is working. Why won't I not be surprised if they don't even have it on or if it's working a little too well?

Now... Enjoy another installment of what I like to call "Pictures that might get us in trouble with Child protective services."  How many things can you find wrong here?  At least we buckled him in.

So much

I haven't posted in a while and there's so many things that have happened in the last 10 days.  In no particular order...  We made it through the gigantic clothing sale.  I ended up selling enough to clear close to $400.00 which is super exciting to me!  I got the dreaded call from the nurse at Kate's school that she and several other kids in her class had lice.  After 2 separate products (Thanks Lice MD) we are totally lice free.  No one else got it thank goodness!

We went to Tulsa and spent an early Thanksgiving with Daniel's family(I'll post a few pics later).  I spent 3 days cleaning my house top to bottom with a baby in tow and my Mom and Dad joined us for Thanksgiving.  I cooked a turkey for the first time and it turned out pretty good.  I took some cute pics of the kiddos (post to follow later with pics).  I black Friday shopped for the first time (although I tagged along once in high school- full post about that experience later).

We all got sick and I'm starting to get over it finally even though my throat isn't quite ready to let it go.  In true Aidan style he decided to teethe right in the middle of having a sore throat.  Poor kid!  My house has lights on it, the tree is up, but not decorated, and Christmas shopping is in full swing.

Daniel leaves tomorrow for the first of 2 business trips in 2 weeks.  Boo to him!  First he heads to Austin until Thursday night and back for the weekend and then off to Chicago for most of next week.  It must be nice to have someone else pay for a little vacation and give you no less then 50.00 to spend on yourself at dinner alone.  Kate is at school for her first day back after 5 days off, Aidan is thinking of attacking the Christmas tree, and I've got work to do.  So much, so much.  More later.

Who needs toys when you have a box and some socks?

Don't call DHS.  We only do this occasionally.

How to annoy me

I kind of despise people coming to my door unannounced.  Especially if we've never met.  I get this lovely trait from my Mother.  As a child we lived just outside the city limits and consequently had very few door to door salesmen, traveling evangelists, or people on a mission to scam you come to our door.  But when we did... Watch out!  My Mother would go into this panic mode.  She'd start shooshing us, telling everyone to remain still, and we were to do nothing to alert the "intruder" that anyone was home.  Growing up this was highly amusing to me.  I couldn't understand why she wouldn't just answer the door already!  I get it now.  As an adult I now wonder as I see myself doing the same thing- Was she and am I afraid we'll offend the person on the other side of the door by letting it become painfully obvious we're home and just don't care to talk to whoever it is?  Or maybe its the craziness in us that thinks deep down we've been targeted out of all the possible homes for a random attack.  Whatever it is it just plain annoys me to no end.

This whole week I've spent far too many hours to count- washing, ironing, hanging, typing tags, hanging tags, and getting ridiculous amounts of clothing, toys, and other stuff ready for a consignment sale.  It's a daunting task and if you're a little obsessive compulsive like I am it can pay off big.  So in an effort to save money I made my poor husband stay late at work to print out my tags so we didn't have to go out and buy a new printer cartridge for our printer.  It was in the 7:30 at night range, it was dark and cold outside, Aidan and I had just taken a relaxing and much needed bath, and I was doing what anyone should be allowed to do in their own home... I was walking around in just my underwear.

Yep I like to walk around naked or semi-naked and you know you do too!  As I told my husband, "If you can't walk around naked in your own home, where can you?"  My OCD over getting clothes ready to sell had cost me getting clothes put away that we're actually keeping and I was standing in front of my living room window (the shades WERE down) and looking through a mountain of clothes for a pair of warm pants and a shirt when it happened.  Tap, tap, tap.  I froze.  Then I thought of my Mother and thought what would she do?  I ducked, swung my head around to Kate, and through gritted teeth, hissed "Shhh!"  Then Aidan let out a high pitched squeal, I realized the TV was blaring, the lights were all on and I knew we were doomed.  They know.  We're home!

Who comes a knocking at 7:30, in the cold and in the dark?  Oh my word- I was just standing in front of the window topless and what if they could tell!  I ran up the stairs and grabbed some clothes.  Then the doorbell rang.  "Ahh, they weren't going away!"  I thought about screaming, "I have a gun!  Go away!"  What is wrong with me?  Through the corner of the shade from the top of the stairs I could see someone standing there against the railing.  Waiting.  Waiting to kill me!  No probably waiting for me to answer the door so they could give me some sob story about how they're locked out of their car that's in Georgia and they're trying to make some walking money to get there.    

I grabbed the phone and called Daniel instead.  "You better be close!"  Turned out he was and by the time he got here my would be attacker/salesman/ concerned neighbor wanting to alert me to the nudity clause for our neighborhood had left and wasn't even in our backyard stalking us!  But seriously people! It's dark, it's at a time of night that people with children could potentially be getting them ready for bed, and I don't care that we don't live in a big city.  You just don't do that!  OK I'm done being crazy for the time being.  But Mom since I know you're reading this you can be proud in the fact that I now know.  I get it.  What exactly do I get?  I'm not sure, but I get it.

First snow

Right now we're getting our first snow of the season.  Kate was delighted when she got out of school.  Aidan just wanted to be done with it so he could come home and take a nap.  Kind of a switch from a week ago.  Even the cats have had to resort to snuggling next to the vent to stay warm.  Brrr.

Girls night out

I don't particularly remember if as a young child I had yet caught the shopping bug.  I remember as a tween coveting Guess jeans and clothes made by Esprit.  I remember when penny loafers were all the rage and the little plastic jelly bracelets were a must have.  Did you know those bracelets are back in style?  Kate brought one home from school the other day.  But I suppose I don't recall wanting anything much as a five year old besides toys I'm sure.

As an adult I get a pure sense of joy out of shopping.  If I'm in the right mood and feel like searching for a bargain I'm over the moon when I find a good one.  I even enjoy grocery shopping just so I can see the fridge and pantry stocked with stuff.  My husband doesn't exactly feel the same way.  The faster he can get out of there the better.

Kate had a near melt down the other night at Dillards over her "need" to own a pair of Sketchers shoes.  Really?  Sketchers?  Not Uggs or something really ridiculously expensive?  Sketchers I can handle.  So since her jeans were getting too short, her shirts were getting too short, and she appeared at least somewhat interested in fashion I thought it might be fun to take her on a little girls only shopping trip.  You'll have to remember where I live.  I won't mention the specific city in case I'm being blog stalked by some weirdo but we have a mall and I wouldn't exactly call it the best in America.

We headed to Dillards and a few other stores and she would have been happier if I'd let her come home with discarded tags off clothes she found on the floor and a couple stuffed animals.  Whatever store we were in she managed to find the few non clothing items in her section and seemed to gravitate towards them.  She did express interest in a creepy furry jacket that would have made the Real housewives of New Jersey proud.  But she kept asking if we could go home or if she had to try the jeans on.

She did get excited to try on a pair of the precious Sketchers shoes which I will admit are cute but any shoe that requires me to help her get it on is not happening.  You practically would have to oil your foot up with some Crisco to get that thing on.  No zippers, no ties, just a "slip-on" and 1 child and 2 adults sweating it out later she had the blister-inducing thing on her foot.  Sorry kid- like I said not happening.

We did come home with a few pairs of jeans and a few shirts with plenty of pink, purple, glitter, and sequins to bulk up her fall and winter wardrobe.  She seemed happy but would have liked it better if I had acted as her personal shopper and she could have stayed home and watched iCarly.

So I suppose we're not quite at the marathon girls shopping trips stage yet.  I'll give it time.  I imagine before long she'll be begging me for those Uggs and declaring that Sketchers are so yesterday.  

Cat hotel

For over a year we've had this little visitor coming around our house.  We've spotted him all around the neighborhood but don't know who he belongs to.  He looks like he eats and I've never fed him but he keeps coming back.  Lately around 10:00 or so every night he checks in on our front porch and sleeps here for the night.  Sometimes he requests a late check-out to catch up on his zzz's.

Summer Fun (Oh wait it's November)

On Saturday we took advantage of the warm weather and headed over to a park.  Aidan enjoyed his 1st time in a dirty park swing and Kate got to expel some of her endless supply of energy.  

Saturday is good for blogging

I've been slacking on my blogging duties due to just being busy and tired and not having anything I wanted to talk about.  But I figured I'd share some random updates.

• Aidan had his 6 month check-up.  He's up to 28 inches and 19 pounds, 12 ounces.  He's doing good.  Have I mentioned he now has 4 teeth.  3 on bottom and the newest 1 on top.  Perfect for those times when his nose is stopped up and he gets frustrated while nursing.  I refuse to talk about anything related to his sleep. He's not crawling yet but I expect it to be soon.  He's over avocados but loves everything else he's had so far and did pretty good when he had to get 5 shots at his check-up.  So sad. :-(

• Kate is loving Kindergarten.  She tells us stories of chasing boys and "best-friend picking contests" and seems to be fully embracing the social butterfly roll.  She continues to amaze me at how fast she's picking up reading and what a sweet big sister she is to Aidan.

• I've been busy getting mountains of clothing washed and ready to iron and hang up for a children's consignment sale that's coming up in 2 weeks.  I put some of Kate's old clothes in the Spring sale before Aidan was born and made over $300.00.  So I figured I'd do the same with some fall/winter stuff.  Perfect way to make some extra Christmas shopping money!

• My husband continues to "amuse" me by instant messaging me from upstairs, dressing Aidan in socks that are pulled up to his knees and when asked why says, "because he's a playa" (whatever that means), and telling me my OCD over getting some stains out of Kate's old clothes is a good thing and means I could have done what he does.  (Again-whatever that means.)  Using a toothbrush to scrub out stains does not make someone OCD.  Does it?  Does it?

• The November weather here is starting to irritate me.  It was like 80 degrees outside yesterday.  I had dealt with the cold being here.  I had packed away summer clothes.  Now Kate had to dig out shorts today so we can go to the park and not be too hot.  What's up with that?  I'm ready for sweaters and boots.  Come back fall!

• I'm cooking chicken noodle soup in the crock-pot today and it smells yummy!  Too bad when I planned out my menu over a week ago it was 50 degrees and I stupidly assumed it would be similar weather by the time I made it.  Oh well.  Who says you can't have soup when it's hot outside?

• Thanksgiving is coming up soon and we're hosting for my Mom and Dad.  I'm ready for the holidays.  I told Daniel he should just go ahead and put up the Christmas lights today since it's nice outside.  He wasn't all that amused with me.  

• UPDATE: The chicken noodle soup tased even better than it smelled and Kate not only agreed to eat the carrots, celery, and onions in the soup but asked for some more orange and green things.  What is going on around here?  It must be the heat.