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.