Wednesday, March 17, 2010

If she could...

...she would LIVE at the park! With the nice weather brings daily (sometimes twice a day) trips to the park about a half a block from our house! The second we pull into the driveway it is, "Mommy (or daddy, whoever happens to be driving), I go to the park?!" How can you say no to such a sweet little request! Kyan equally enjoys going, just happened to be this day he wanted to stay inside with his daddy and play games!

We are enjoying the weather as much as we possibly can while I am off for spring break! It makes me long for summer where I get to be a part-time stay at home mommy for 8 weeks! I am counting the days...

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Take Me out to the Ballgame!









So I think that the pictures speak my 1000 words! We spent Sunday afternoon at the baseball field enjoying a spring training game with our closest friends and as our little family of four! We enjoyed each others company, the weather, and of course...baseball! But to be quite honest, I was more focused on socializing and snapping pictures than I was about catching any plays! Our friend and (old) neighbor (he will always be neighbs to me) initiated the email to get us all out to a game together, as he does so well. Brian (last picture on the bottom - 3rd from left) really is the glue that keeps us all together!
It was a perfect family day! I think I am safe to say, based on so many smiles, that all parties had a blast!

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Cloud Nine

Ok first, a little bit of background. Twice a year, my dad and his friends come to AZ to golf everyday for a week. In March they golf 18 holes a day, in September, 36! I am sweating just thinking about it! Anywho, Chad and I used to always tag along with them when they went out to dinner, before we started to have kids, once they came, schedules and Lola's diva-ness just don't mix with us really meeting up anymore. So a few year ago, we started to cook the boys one homemade meal while they were away from home! It was a night where they didn't have to go to a restaurant and spend any money! Plus, it was a way for us to get to see them too! The past two years I have made Aunt Jan's homemade meatballs/Italian sausage/sauce spread (a recipe may soon come...still deciding on that one!) and they have left our house stuffed! It is a lot of hard work and preparation, but I have the BEST assistant in the world! Kyan loves to help make anything in the kitchen, but meatballs are his favorite! They were extra delicious tonight!


Kyan asked over and over again today, "How much longer 'til my golf buddies get here mommy?" To say that he was excited was an understatement. As soon as he heard the door, he ran to it and let everyone in! He was bouncing around and so excited to see everyone and show off all of his hard work! He gave some of the guys a tour of the house, making a special stop at his room to show his buddy Kyle the helmet that he made for him! Then it was off to the backyard to play around with a few of them for a little while so that I could finish up with dinner! His buddy John brought him sparkling grape juice and during dinner everyone toasted Kyan and his delicious meatballs! He was on cloud nine, to say the least! As soon as they left, he crashed and burned! Tonight was a great night!

Thanks golfing buddies for coming over for dinner and sharing our evening with us!

"Pants on the Ground"

We are not American Idol watchers, but it didn't take long for this song, its lyrics, and Larry to catch on to the world!



As an 8th grade teacher, I sing this song to 8th grade students who sag their pants as a joke, as do other teachers! The kids think it's hilarious! Not only do I sing it there, but the words somehow get sung at home. I sing it, Chad sings it (he knows more words than me, I just know "pants on the ground"), Kyan sings it, even Lola sings it! However, I didn't really know that Kyan sung it as well as he did until he told me that he was singing it at school one day and his teacher asked if he would sing it tomorrow for her so that she could record it on her phone! OMG! So I asked him to sing it for me so that I could hear him! It was the cutest thing ever! It was something that needed to be recorded and shared! So, the D90 did the trick last night and here is Kyan's version of the song, "Pants on the Ground"!



And if that isn't enough, Lola wanted her turn getting recorded singing her version!



Here they are together!


Love you Kyan and Lola!
I hope I never, ever catch you with your pants on the ground ;)

Sunday, February 28, 2010

OREOs equal LOVE

I came home from a photo shoot last night to this. My two babies, snuggled on the couch, sharing Oreos, watching The Upside Down Show. If that isn't love, I don't know what is!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

One Healthy and One Sicky

*ignore the picture quality, they were taken with my blackberry!

So I will start with the healthy doctor's appointment this week - Miss Lola. She had her 2 Year Well Check on Wednesday and checked out, well...very well! She weighed in at 26.9 lbs (75 percentile) and was 35 inches long (76 percentile)! Nurse Practitioner Teri said that she couldn't believe Lola was already 2 and was proud of her progression! Our goal for this summer is to have the binky gone and to be potty trained 100%!

No for my sicky baby - Mr. Kyan. I started off this week with a phone call from the nurse at his school saying that she thought he might have pink eye, but since we didn't really see any goop or grossness in the morning before school, maybe it was just irritated, so she sent him back to class. I then got a email that afternoon from Kyan's preschool teacher (I adore her) and she said that she didn't think Kyan's eye was irritated, like they first thought. She asked us to keep an eye on it and if it got worse, he wouldn't be able to go to school tomorrow, but if there was no goop - then go right ahead and send him. So we put in drops every couple of hours Monday night in hopes that they eye would be better by morning.

Tuesday rolls around and Kyan woke up with a few an eye booger, not goop, but since I had sub plans ready to go, I figured they would be watching him close at school, better just stay home. By mid-morning I was kicking myself, I thought I had wasted a day. His eyes were as clear as our AZ skies usually are (what is up with all of this rain lately?) and he was acting just fine. Oh well, guess I would just enjoy time with my kiddos and a day off. I wish. Right after lunch, it seems like he took a turn for the worst, his cough went from that of your average everyday cold kinda cough, to really, really dry. It hurt me to listen to him. So I called the pediatrician's office and they got me in at 4:30 that afternoon, where she diagnosed him with croup. Croup? Don't know too many 5 year old's that get that, but ok. So he started taking his medicine that night.

Wednesday he still was in no shape to go to school, so I stayed home again. His cough seemed ok, in fact, I was hoping that he was going to be able to return to school the next day. He played games, watched movies, just kinda kicked it around the house. The only problem that I had with him was naptime, where I tried to get him to lay down for a nap. He fought it hard, harder than I have seem him fight one in a long time. Must have been the medicine. That is the only thing that I can chalk it up to, that and not feeling well. Anywho - we didn't nap, but we did make it to Lola's doctor's appointment on time and in a good mood (see her post above!). We went home that night and debated whether to send Kyan to school or not the next day. For the most part, we thought that he was ready to go. So we decided we would see how his night was (which he has slept through the sick nights very well so far, so we didn't see why this one would be different) and make the decision in the morning. The only trouble with that was, Chad leaves way earlier than I do with the kids, so how were we going to do this?

Wednesday night/Thursday morning was THE WORST NIGHT EVER! Kyan coughed and was up for probably 3/4 of the night. At 12:30am, Chad turned on his TV to try and distract him, he wasn't sleeping anyway, so no use in trying to make him sleep. I gave him a popsicle, Chad took him outside, NOTHING WAS WORKING!!! He just coughed, and coughed, and coughed...
We looked up croup online to see if there was anything else we could do. There was nothing, just help him through the coughing and wait it out. That was when I wished it was me and not him, nothing is worse than seeing your own child struggle.

Needless to say, Chad ended up staying home with him yesterday, where Kyan continued to cough. I called the pediatrician once again, after 3 days on a steroid, a cough like that should NOT be happening. So back to the pediatrician's office we went. Because of Kyan's cold for over 2 weeks, they determined that he no longer had a cold, but rather a sinus infection. Sinus infections are treated with Augmentin, so that is what they wanted him to now take. But, the doctor was concerned with the chronic cough, so he listened rather long to his lungs. I could tell by his face that something was wrong. Sure enough, Kyan had a crackle in his left lung towards the bottom. Pneumonia, or at least the start of it. Because they treat sinus infections and pneumonia with the same medicine, he said he was going to call it a sinus infection and wasn't going to order an x-ray, as there was no point in putting Kyan through radiation if they didn't have to, he was already going to get the same medicine that he would be getting if in fact he had it. So, we left the doctor's office feeling a little better, with stronger medicine to fight off whatever is in his little body and is making him so sick!

Kyan was able to get a little bit of sleep last night, thanks to the pharmacist and a recommendation of his! He takes his medicines like a champ and is not coughing as much today as he has been the past couple of days, but his poor little body is so sore. Hopefully, after this weekend, he will be good as new and back at school playing with his friends!

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Long Overdue Pictures from the Zoo!





We went to the zoo a few weeks ago, I am not really sure why the pictures never got posted? I guess they were waiting for me to play with them and work some new magic! You can read more on that magic below, but for now, a little bit about our trip to the zoo as a family!

We started out in the new part of the World Wildlife Zoo - the Aquarium, so beautiful, but BIG mistake! Lola freaked out (big surprise I know - HA!), this will be one of her many freakouts of the day! She was so scared and I can't really tell what it really was, other than I had to calm her down in all three buildings that we went in! She wanted to see the penguins being fed, but it was in one of the aquariums, so it took a lot of mommy coaxing to get her in there!

After we were finished, we boarded the train and took a family ride! Both of the kids were so in love with every second they spent on that puppy! In fact, freak out #2 from Lola followed as soon as we got off of it and headed to the next thing. A HUGE, DRAMATIC fit was thrown and once she was finished, we moved on! Yes, I let my kid freak out in public! It is not something that I encourage by any means, but I do not give into what she wants, I let her get it all out and then we move on.

And move on we did, to the petting zoo! Here, both kids made fast friends with the goats - especially Lola! She was amazed by them and I was pretty surprised at how brave she was around them! I am sure that they animals were pretty surprised by her too! Kyan was more timid, but got in there every once in a while to pet one of them!

From there, we did more walking and saw many more animals! Lola loved the birdies, where Kyan loved the indoor exhibits I think! Maybe that was because he knew it was just him and daddy in there from the time we left the aquarium? Lola wasn't about to step foot in another one! Instead, she called Grandma Julie and told her about her visit to the zoo!

An attempt was made to feed the giraffes, Kyan managed to stretch his arms to feed them a couple of times. Lola on the other hand, decided to have yet another meltdown right on top of the giraffe feeding platform! Time to head home...soon.

Last thing on the agenda, the thing Kyan had been dying for from the moment we stepped foot into the zoo - THE SKYRIDE! Usually this is something that him and his daddy do, but after talking in the car, I somehow talked myself into being brave enough to handle it today?!? What was I thinking? I am not really sure, but went for it! I would definitely say that I have a slight fear of heights, mostly straight up and down or falling off the side of the mountain type of heights, but there is a fear! Kyan, not so much! He loves this skyride! He even braved the one at Sea World this past summer! Well, the entire time we were up in the air, Kyan comforted me and made sure that I was doing ok! I think I was gripping the handle so hard and holding on so tight that he must have noticed, despite my efforts to try and show him that I wasn't afraid! I guess I didn't fool him! It was really cool to see the zoo from up above, but I am pretty sure that will be one of my last skyrides that I take, I think daddy can stick to that duty forever! Once our feet hit the ground it was time to go!

We had a great day as a family at the zoo! We look forward to the next trip back!


A little side note~
For those that have asked and for those that are curious to know...
I have had fun playing in with a website called Picnik, where I created these collages to display more pictures together, instead of viewing them one after another after another after another (ok, you get my point!). Yes, it is free! I use them all the time to add words to my photos (like you see in our header for example). However, to get these great collage layouts that are super easy to use, you do have to pay a small fee per month or year (whichever you decide) to upgrade! I have never ever paid the fee until today and I am so happy that I did! I plan on showing you pictures like this from now on!!! I am thinking of getting rid of my background, still debating, to display the collages on a larger scale. I know many that do this to their blogs, but it is work, so for now, if you would like to see them bigger, you just need to click-or double click-on the collage that you want to see in better detail!

Lots of you have also been asking how I did my sidebar frames and the fancy frame from a post or two ago - Megan, of Shabby Blogs, offers tons of free stuff on her website and gives tutorials that are super easy to use! I love all of her backgrounds (that is why I am hesitant to get rid of mine just yet) and freebies that she offers to make our blogs look beautiful! If you haven't checked out her site, you should! I love it when she has new goodies to offer!