Callie's 13th Birthday

This morning was Little Seeds' Christmas party. Jeff and I were both able to go and take some pictures. Sean did a good job and we all had fun. Jeff had to run back to work but Sean and I enjoyed snacking on the cookies that the class baked on Monday.

Little Seeds Christmas Program 2007

Let it Snow

Sierra is still getting a kick out of my camera. Enjoy.

It was nice to have Daddy home this weekend. Here he and Sean were enjoying a game of Sudoku for kids.

Clayton and Keagan spent the night Friday night. The kids had a great time.

First snow of December 2007.

I was playing with my camera and Sean and Sierra thought I needed some subjects so they posed for me. I have no idea what Sierra is doing but it might be a Care Bear stare.

'Tis the Season....

We enjoyed our first ever (that we can remember) Thanksgiving weekend at home. On Thanksgiving Day, I cooked and we had Papaw and Uncle Kerry over for dinner. The kids were excited to have company. Sean was worried if no one came that he would not be allowed to eat the strawberry jello I made.

On Friday, we put the tree up. We got it new on clearance last year. It is pre-lit with 800 lights and Jeff was very happy to not have to string the lights this year. This is probably the first time in a long time we've been able to put the tree up and get it decorated all in the same day. :)

Here are some pics of the tree and the kids.

We managed to escape the nebulizer during the last round of colds, but the irritating cough that Sean has had since last week finally got a grip on him yesterday and this morning the doctor heard wheezing in both sides and pneumonia in one lower lung. Poor little guy feels pretty bad but at least his fever has not went up real high. He's now on a regimen of antibiotics and four breathing treatments a day with a steroid on standby if he doesn't improve in 24 hours. I don't think we'll need to get that one filled because the breathing treatments are really helping his cough. The doctor said that it could slow down the effects of the antibiotic so we're hoping to not have to go to that. Callie isn't feeling too well either but hers seems to be a bit of a sore throat lack of appetite virus.

I went to Wal-mart (or Always as Callie used call it) while Callie ice skated last night. I grabbed a cart in the parking lot as I usually do. This gives me a chance to test drive it on the way in the store so I can decide if it is a good one or if I need to trade it in when I get inside. This one had a major alignment problem and was pulling to the left so I dropped it off and picked up another one. I later noticed that the new one was loud and made a KAHLUNK KAHLUNK noise as I drove. What is it that people do to these carts to make them so messed up?

I like the carts at Aldi. They are newer. You pay a quarter to unlock it and use it and then when you are done, you put it back and get your quarter back. It seems to keep the carts in better condition since they aren't getting run over in the parking lot.

I was searching for a replacement lead-free Curious George for Sean. 5-year olds do not understand "refunds" when their toys are recalled. He was more upset about losing Curious George than he was about the Aqua Dots. I got lucky and there was one Curious George that was plush and did not have any paintable surfaces. His head weighs about 5 lbs. it seems because he is a Tumbling Curious George. Sean loves him.

I also had to pick up some guinea pig supplies for Callie. Here are Kinjie and Binkie thanking me for their fresh bedding and Timothy Hay. Does anyone know why they call it Timothy Hay? Who's Timothy?

Sean's Curious George recalled. That's 2 of his favorite toys 2 days in a row. Isn't this ridiculous? They ought to refund more than the cost of the toy for having to take away kids' favorite toys because they are not safe.

http://curiousgeorge.regcen2.com/default.asp

Bad news for Aqua Dots

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08074.html

Sean was upset to find out that one of his favorite gifts ever has been recalled. I'm glad he doesn't have a tendency to put things in his mouth.

5:25 am: "Mommy.... I'm hungry."

Where's his button?

Tonight we roll back our clocks. We just started doing this last year here in Indiana. After many years of being different (except for Arizona), our government finally caved in and put us on Daylight Savings Time.
At least in the fall, moving the clocks back an hour is much easier than moving them forward an hour. We should get an extra hour of sleep. Problem is that we do not have a time set button on the kids so we can roll their internal clocks back. I just have a feeling Sean will appear at the side of my bed at about 5:30am saying, "Mommy, I'm hungry".

We went to the doctor yesterday. Three weeks ago we all had a nasty cold virus but everyone had gotten over it except Callie so off to the doctor we went. She has a sinus infection and is now taking antibiotics. While we were there, I decided to go ahead and do flu shots for Sean and Sierra as well as Sean's 5-year shots. While discussing with the nurse and the doctor, we were very careful not to say "shot". Instead, we used the words "vaccine" and "immunization".
Once the doctor was done with Callie and discussing the "vaccines" with me, he said he was going to run and out he went. Finally, the nurse comes in and Sean sees the syringes on her tray and he starts to get tears in his eyes and says "Poor Callie". Little did he know. Sierra got hers first since she was just getting one. She didn't do too bad. I didn't realize just how strong Sean was until I had to wrestle him on to the table. The good news was that they had the combo shot for two of the vaccines so he only got 4 shots instead of 5. He got 2 in each leg. He thought he had only gotten one shot in each leg. I guess he didn't notice the second ones in the legs because he was screaming so loud. He walked like a penguin out to the van, still crying. He cries more afterward from thinking about it than from the actual shots.

Treats and more Treats

What a nice day we had to end October. Back to reality in November with cooler temps in the forecast. We started the day out with Bible Study Fellowship. Afterward, in the van we ate the picnic lunch of ham, celery and grapes. Then we dropped Sean off at preschool. They made persimmon pudding today while wearing their baker's aprons.

We went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. Callie did not solicit candy but a couple of people insisted on giving her some which was nice. It appeared that about one-third or a half of the kids trick-or-treating were her age or older. Sean was like a hunter... out for the big kill. We ran into an old preschool buddy of his from last year and they were excited to see each other. We probably heard "Hi Sean! Hi T.J.!" about 20 times as we kept passing them along the way. Sean was glad to see him since they do not go to school together this year.

Sierra was good at remembering her manners so Sean started letting her go first so he would remember to say thank you when she did. When she would get her candy, she would turn around, eyes real big and walk to me holding her open sack so I could see. It was like she was in disbelief that these people would give her all this candy. We ended the day at Mamaw's. Her tootsie rolls were a big hit with the kids. And the bananas and apples - not that she spoils them or anything.

Sean's not as into sweets and does not like tart candy but Sierra hasn't found any candy she doesn't like yet. I think Sierra has her mommy's sweet tooth. When I was a kid, we would get a dollar for our allowance each week and I would go next door and spend it on candy. I always nickeled and dimed it away (literally back in those days) on things like ring pops, jolly ranchers, candy cigarettes (because they were sweet and only 10 cents a box), sweettarts, etc. I never blew it all in one place like on a candy bar. I wanted to make it last. I'm probably one of the few who still had Halloween candy left by the time Easter rolled around.

Enjoy the pics.

CHRISTIAN PUMPKIN

Sean made this pumpkin at preschool. They do not celebrate Halloween but tomorrow they will be dressing as bakers to do some baking. Ma made him and Sierra baker aprons and hats so that is what they will be trick-or-treating as this year. I think Callie has retired from trick-or-treating but she plans to dress up to hand out candy.

Sierra and Cedarmont Kids Video

Body Electric

Sierra enjoyed (well not totally) some exercise with the PBS workout channel this week. She prefers marching and dancing to the Cedarmont Kids videos.

Sudoku Anyone?

Here our two math brains are enjoying game of Sudoku for Kids.

Kids had school pictures made the other day so I took some more of them when we got home. Enjoy!

So much for going to sleep early....

I'm on an email list for weather alerts and we got this email today.

This is a heads up for tonight's weather. We don't want to alarm anyone but this
storm system has some real potential to do damage.
Spotters - you will be activated tonight.
For businesses/industries that run 2nd and 3rd shifts, pay
close attention to your weather alert radios/devices. Make certain your
employees know what to do in severe weather events.

Alrighty then! No sleep for us moms. Additional notices gave us some good news: Storms are fast moving (possible up to a mile per minute). Flash flooding is not likely to be a problem if the speed of the storm continues.
Well, that is a relief - at least they don't expect flash floods. Just possible tornadoes that might be long lived and possible 70-80 mph winds and storms that are moving up to 1 mile in a minute..

I want to know what a spotter is. Is that a paid job? Running around looking at the sky for tornadoes? Could that be safer than sitting at home unable to hear the tornado sirens or see the tornadoes through the trees? Might be a good job to be on-call for if it doesn't require any previous experience. :)

Picasso?

Sean helped Daddy with a bookcase that Mommy found at a garage sale for $8. Here is his depiction of their project.

What happens when mom and dad are sick and the kids dress themselves.

While mom and dad and big sister were down with the nasty cold virus, the young ones, who were feeling much better, entertained themselves as you can see.

Sean's birthday is today. We celebrated on Sunday by letting him pick out something at Toys R Us and then having cake and ice cream at home. I could not get the video to publish on here so here is the link if you want to watch it.

http://s50.photobucket.com/albums/f333/schneisa/?action=view&current=MVI_4291.flv

Sean has been wanting Aquadots ever since he saw a commercial for them a few months ago. So that is what he picked out without any hesitation. Much to my surprise, it works like the commercials show on tv. He has made a hot air balloon and a girl so far. See the pictures.

I have two complaints. One is that there are not 500 dots in the set as it says. Also, it says it is for ages 4 and up. After some practice, Sean is able to drop the dots in the tray to make the pictures but most four year olds probably cannot do that. Loading the dispenser from the small plastic pouches of tiny dots is not something for a 4-year old either. Sean loves this and asks often to get it out. So I guess my review ultimately is a thumbs almost up.