Happy New Year!

Ethan right before he turned 1, awwww!

We are planning on ringing in the new year right here at home, with a few friends and the Wii. :)
I hope you and yours have a great night tonight, whether it be out with friends or hanging out at home. See you next year....

Surgery for Aiden....again!

Just got back from the Dr...he has to have his one tube put back in and while they are in there they are going to remove his adenoids. He just finished up a 10 day antibiotic for his double ear infection and when he was looking in there today he already had a ton of fluid build up and will probably turn into an ear infection with in a week or so. UGH!!
But at least this will help him out in the long run right? He is refusing to eat lately and would rather just drink his meals, the Dr said it is probably because it is so swollen that food hurts going down, while milk, yogurt and applesauce feel good.
I know that this is just routine surgery, but it still sucks to see your little one wheeled off for surgery. Last time he was too little to really understand what was going on, he wasn't even 1 yet, but this time he will.
I have decided that I am going to take him in for a second opinion at a pedi ENT, while I like our current Dr, the wait time is ridiculous! We waited today for over 35 min and there was no one else in the office. The parking lot was empty and so was the waiting room. The last two times before we waited over an hour. I understand sometimes people run behind, but this is consistent. I found a pedi ENT, with offices in Plano and Dallas, and they are all set up for kids, so if there is a wait, it shouldn't be too bad. At our current Dr there are usually about 5 older people there with hearing aids that do not like to hear kids laugh and screech :) Aiden was happy the whole time today, but he was happy while dancing, singing etc...
Fingers crossed that our second opinion appt goes well...and if you have a great Dr to rec, please leave me a comment or email me!

Our *Green* Christmas card

Merry Christmas from our family to yours...

Birthday party time!

So with the boys party being right after Christmas, I have to be on the ball and get invites done and out early, like before Christmas break if I want them to hand them out to friends at school. So when I got them done a whole week before school let out I was feeling so good. The invites are below, do you happen to notice anything important missing?


Yeah, the date might help huh? Sat morning I got a call from one of the little girls mom's at school asking what the date was...OMG! I ran to the stack I was about to mail out, ripped one open and yep, there is no date! After all the spell checks, and proofreading...I still screwed them up! Now now I am going through with a fine point sharpie and writing in the date...ahhhh

So when you get your invite and it looks like it was opened and then resealed, it has been. :)

It has been on of those weeks...

Last Monday I took Aiden into the Dr. He had these bumps on his elbows that were starting to bother him and I didn't know what to do. I talked to my SIl for a bit about them and she thought it was eczema. We went to the Dr and yep, thats what it was. Got a steroid cream, told to use a different bath soup and slather him down with Cetephil lotion. No big deal right? Well on Thursday he started running a fever that afternoon, and by the next morning he was kinda out of it, but back to his normal self. I headed out to help a friend out who works for a women's shelter and mom watched the boys. Aiden woke up from that nap with a raging fever and the rash had spread to his arms, legs, armpits and torso. So I called the Dr and they squeezed us in at 4:45! After looking at the new bumps, he was diagnose with molluscum contagiosum AND a double ear infection. Yes, this makes 3 ear infections in the last month or so, looks like we are going to have a tube put back in the one ear.
Thinking we finally got this under control with the two prescriptions we now have, we went home and got ready for the weekend. That night starts the coughing...it was almost bark sounding. So I thought croup right away, Seth sat with him outside in the night air, that helped for a few minutes. Then we tried the steamy bathroom, no help. We turned on his humidifier and hoped for the best. It didn't help at all, in fact we were up all night with him, he couldn't sleep cause he couldn't stop coughing...it was a rough night...and it continued all weekend. :(
We went back to the dr today, they diagnosed him with walking pneumonia. So we are home now with two more prescriptions, a z-pack and a cough medicine. He is actually sleeping right now, and I have only heard him cough once...I just pray that this works and he gets better...Ethan ran a fever this morning and they checked him out for me while I was there with Aiden, no meds except Tylenol and REST....I don't want sick boys for Christmas!!

Poor Aiden!

So late last night, we heard Aiden stirring around in his bed so we turned on the TV to see how he was doing. He looked like he was still asleep, but he was all tngled up in his blankets, so Seth went up to get him straigtened out. As he was doing it Aiden woke up a little more and decided to try and sit up, sorta. He managed to do a face plant into the side guard rail that keeps him in the bed. I ran up to help, he was screaming! Seth got him some tylenol and I rocked him for a while till he calmed down, looked at me and said "bed?"
So he walked over, climbed in and was asleep before I could even leave the room.
I felt horrible for him, I kept checking on him all night, to make sure he was fine. I never saw a bruise on his forehead so I thought we were in the clear.
So this morning when he got up and I went up there, I felt to bad when I saw him, with a huge swollen eye lid that is black and blue with a bit of red! Poor guy smashed his EYE last night...no wonder he cried for so long.

This was the best I could do at taking a pic!

So bad at this...

I always think I am going to start being better at blogging, but then life happens, I get tired, things need to be cleaned, laundry needs to be washed, folded and put away, and after all that all I want to do is veg out!
BUT, I am getting emails, calls and texts from family, asking me if I gave up on my blog or what...so I am going to make an effort to post at least 2x a week...we will see! :)

Movie afternoon with Ethan

This afternoon was the perfect weather to cuddle up on the couch with Ethan and watch a movie. I got out an old favorite of mine when I was little, Bedknobs & Broomsticks. Ethan loved it and about 30 minutes into the movie he looked at me with this loving look and said: MOMMY! My Michigan grandma is a movie star!! She looks beautiful!!
Here is a picture from last month with my beautiful grandma:


And here she is starring in her role:

Here comes Baby Hoisington #3!

Here is a link to the video that we used to tell my parents!

Ethan and the camera

Ethan loves to take pictures, loves.
Whenever he sees our camera he will grab it and snap some pictures, here is one he took of himself tonight, I love it!

Where has my little baby gone?

FINALLY!!

I saw this cute idea for *family rules* a while back and I got inspired. I went out and bought a canvas at Michaels with a 50% coupon. I also got put in touch with Nancy at "A" City Stickers. She was wonderful to work with and very prompt in replying back to my emails. She had the vinyl printed and mailed out to me in a matter of days. I however am just getting around to finishing my project! :)
Here it is:

I love it Nancy! Thanks so much!!

Blue & Brown Swap

I got the chance to participate in my first color swap and I am so glad I did! My partner ended up being Sarah with Blue Castle, the lovely lady in charge of the swap! YIKES!! Not only was it my first swap, but I had to swap with the head lady, talk about intimidating.
First up, what I sent her (I forgot to take a picture, newbie mistake, so i stole this picture from Sarah's blog):
A cute ice cream bowl, new spoon and matching glass for her to relax with coffee slushie. I also got her the new Martha magazine to read up and get some inspiration from. I also grabbed this super cute tin, with a sweet bird on it and underneath my little note to her it read Family. Oh, and the linen diffuser and hand lotion just completed her *relaxation box*

Next up, my WONDERFUL box!! I was so excited to see this super cute box in my mail, I would have never thought to use one of the many photo boxes I sent off to Goodwill for mailing! Doh!
Then all my new goodies!

She got me two new knitted dishcloths, funny thing is, they match my newly painted kitchen EXACTLY! How did you know Sarah?!? :) I also got this wonderful pin that she made, a cute notepad that fits perfectly in my purse and cute hankie. She also got me a copy of one of her favorite books (I just started it, love it so far!) Plus the cute iced tea glass, or on those long hard days, a wine glass. :)

Thanks so much for hosting this Sarah, I had so much fun!

Back home...

We are back in town from our wonderful trip. Since getting home I have tried to blog about a million times and things keep getting in the way. But since I have my mom over here right now to help with the kids, more about that later on, I am going to take advantage of it and get these blogs cranked out!

We are OUTTA here!!

About to go wake up the boys to leave, so far we are on time, I wonder how the day will end. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers, both for driving and my sanity!!
:)
I will try to update during the vacation, but while we are at my aunt's lake house, I'm not sure of the reception we get...so it may be random!
Bye Y'all!

The boys are ready!

I have both their bags packed, a huge bag of snacks, another of new toys, games etc and a movie system. Our DVD player broke about a week ago, perfect timing as usual! So my wonderfully, smart and nerdy husband was able to work it out and we didn't have to buy anything. Ethan has the extra laptop in the case in front of his seat and he knows how to start all the different movies up and whatever he has on his laptop plays on Aiden's. The sound is wired into the car, so I can turn it up and turn the front speakers off.
We test drove it tonight on our way to dinner, it was a hit. All I heard were giggles at the movie every once in awhile...lets hope it stays like that!
How many other 17month olds do you know that have their own rear facing monitor? :)
Don't worry, that thing is so strapped in there that I am not even sure we can remove it without breaking something.

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

Or maybe not...
We leave for our 3 week road trip on Saturday and want to know how much I have packed? Um, nothing. Yep, not a darn thing! I have a list of what I need to pack, the boys laundry is all washed and is sitting on the couch next to me, but that is as far as I have gotten! I need to just do it tomorrow, cause otherwise I am going to be freaking out on Friday. Here's hoping that Aiden takes two great naps tomorrow....

Oh, and any and all prayers, well wishes, driving dances, etc would be appreciated. I am taking the boys by MYSELF for the trip.
Seth has some weddings and obviously cannot take that much time off work, but since I want to see my WONDERFUL sister Kirsten and my party aunt in Michigan, it's worth the drive to me....now lets just hope we survive it!!

Movin' to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches...

I LOVE PEACHES!! There I said it, out loud! But I have to clarify, I love peaches, but I REALLY love FRESH peaches. Like, go pick them yourself fresh peaches. I may or may not have had a hormonal incident on Girl Trip 08 with peaches and a crazy driver (shut up Dianthe and Erin)
So when I saw that a peach farm near me was about to open for the season, I decided that the boys and I would be going up there on opening day. My parents decided to tag along with us, so we met them at Starbucks this morning at 8:30 and we were off! After getting a little turned around we made it. It was so much fun! I love finding new things for the boys and I to do during the summer.

The little peach house, where you pick up your baskets and then come back and pay, etc

small part of the orchard

Yum......

The boys have their buckets ready to go!

Aiden is really into balls, and thought the peaches were balls, so he started bashing the together.

Aiden couldn't get them in his mouth fast enoughNotice the chipmunk cheeks?

Grandma & Papa with the boys

Papa and Ethan relaxing on the bench in the shade

The boys and I

Ethan is ready to go home now!

My friend Amie and I hit up the Pottery Barn outlet last year and I picked up this super cute and tiny Le Creusetcrock. She told me not to buy it, that I would never use it. Well, look at that, it makes the perfect peach cobbler for one. :)

New Fence

Remember that nasty storm that blew through DFW last Wednesday? Well I was driving in it to a clients house, and Seth and the boys were hunkered down in our bathroom with the crib mattress's. Well after it was all said and down, our poor fence had lost the battle with it. You see, our yard backs up to a BIG open field, and when a storm comes through, we have nothing to shield us from the wind, so our fence gets the blunt force of it. The fence was original to the house, and we have had to replace a few wood posts in the past, but this time we decided to go ahead and do metal posts. Something we should have done a while back. When we started to tear down the orginal broken section, my Dad pointed out to Seth that the other posts were rotting out at the bottom. SO out with the entire back fence! Seth made another run to Home Depot to get some more supplies. Now that it is all said and done, we love it! I plan on staining it next week. I can't wait to have it all done.

Papa brought Ethan his own glove

Hat: check Gloves: check
Let's start unloading

Get a good hold on it

walk it over to the piles

Almost there

He did this until all the wood was out of the van, about 142 planks! We did help, but he did a lot on his own!

This is as far as we got the first day...

Ethan was WORN out after helping us out all day

All done! Just waiting for stain!

Mmmmm, blackberries!

So we decided to pack up the boys last Saturday morning and go to a local farm near our house and do some blackberry picking.
When they woke up we got them dressed and threw them in the car and headed up to the doughnut store to grab some breakfast! Ethan was thrilled!
It was about a 20 minute drive, but pretty soon we pulled up to Duck Creek Blackberry Farm. Ethan was out of his car seat as soon as I turned the car off, he was so excited to pick berries!

Ethan starting to pick berries Aiden eating his berries

Ethan showing me his stash

Blackberry boy!

A sweaty family picture!

We are going back this Saturday to pick some more. The bushes were not totally ready and the half bag of berries that we did get got eaten before we could bake with them. :) But the people that run the farm refused to let us pay for the berries we were able to pick since we didn't get a whole bucket full. But with all the sun we have had this week, the bushes are supposed to be full! We can't wait!

Texas Sized Flip Flop exchange!!

My friend Becca is hosting a flip flop exchange! You have till Sunday night to join in! Go sign up!!

I got an award!

Misty gave me this award over a week ago, but I keep forgetting about it! Sorry Misty!!


The rules are:
Post this cute award to your blog.
Link the person from whom you received this award.
Nominate as many blogs as you'd like.
Leave a comment on their blog telling them how adorable they are!

I nominate anyone who is reading this blog and wants to participate!
:)