Snow Day #2 Fun!

School was closed again today, so Jason was home with both the kids. Nancy was off today anyway, so Jason had already planned on staying home so that I could go take a job since I haven't had one that hasn't canceled all week.

Jordan is taking breathing treatments every 4 hours around the clock plus some Prednisone, and he seems to be already doing MUCH better! His cough is loosening up a little and he doesn't seem to be working quite as hard to breathe as he was yesterday until I finally decided I couldn't take it anymore and had to take him in to the doctor's office ...

When I got home around 4:00 from my job, Jason and Meggan decided they were going to go back outside to sled for a little while. I decided I just HAD to get a few pictures, so I bundled Jordan up too and went out to snap a few. I'm not sure how impressed he was, but he DID cry when we came back inside and kept going back to the door ... :)

Jordan not quite so sure about all this snow!

We did finally put him on the sled with Meggan, but he only made it a foot or so. There's a reason I didn't take the picture showing his face ...

He runs at full speed and then lets go and she continues flying down the road - and screaming and laughing all the way!

He did finally take a couple steps into the snow (with a little assistance from me) and then just stood there looking at it!

Meggan's finished snow angel just before we went back inside!

Hope everyone had a good Thursday. I was just glad to have a job that I got over 100 pages out of and it was a decent one with nice people who (pretty much) took turns talking, in complete sentences even. Those seem few and far between at times ...

So far I haven't seen anything for school tomorrow, no delay or anything. We should be home free for tomorrow and then the weekend will be here!!! I'd better head to bed so I can set my alarm to get up at 1:00 to give Jordan his first middle-of-the-night breathing treatment - poor thing!

Snow Day Fun!

Monday night after dance class we met Dawn, Jer & Lucas and Mom at G.T. South's for a little supper. Dawny had bought Meggan and Jordan something from the $1 bins at Target a couple weeks ago and mentioned something to Meggan about it, and since she doesn't forget ANYTHING, she had reminded Dawny that evening. Since Dawn didn't bring it with her to supper, she came to our house after we all ate and brought the stuff over. Meggan loves her stickers and coloring book - and Jordan will love his coloring book too, just give him another year or two!

Of course, Lucas was hungry while they were here, so Meggan made sure he ate his bottle all gone!

Meggan feeding Lucas his bottle!

While Meggan was feeding Lucas, Jordan was busy "rearranging" the remotes!

So on to the snow day:

Today school was canceled because of the snow, and Meggan was excited! They were going to go to Nancy's together, but then when my 6:00 job got called off by 9:00 this morning, I just figured I would keep them home instead and not mess with even taking them to Nancy's house. We were playing this morning and Meggan asked about Cami, so we gave them a call. Since they're off of school today too, we went down and played with them for a while. Once it was Jordan's nap time, we all decided to bundle up and play out in the snow for a while!

The snow is a good 10 inches high!!!

All the kiddos flopping into the snow (Michael and Cami were doing "flips" into it)!

Even their dog, Buddy, was loving the snow, running around EVERYWHERE!

Hope everyone else is enjoying the snow day! I feel bad for those that had to go out into this craziness, including my own husband - I just pray he gets home safely (and within just 1 hour instead of 2 or 3 hours)!

We'll see what tomorrow brings ...

Cleaning and Swimming!

It's really not fun at all to clean, but you couldn't tell Jordan that. He loves to "help" us with the vacuuming, if we let him. He was wanting to help this morning when I was vacuuming quick but I wanted to get it done quickly, so he went and found his own version of a vacuum (one of the attachments) and was going to town vacuuming the floor. Then he was trying to help me hold the cord for a while too, but that got boring pretty fast!

You can see his makeshift "vacuum" sitting behind him. He threw it down and reached for the big vacuum as soon as I let go of it to take his picture!

Where does all this cord go anyway?

They had lots of fun swimming at the pool. Jason said Meggan was just jumping in like crazy! She is really loving to go swimming, and is becoming the fish I always suspected she would be at some point!!!

All ready to go with the flip-flops bag that Dawny & Jer gave her for one of her birthdays! She informed me that she's carrying it "like Aunt Julia" ... my brother's wife does usually have a purse and/or diaper bag that she puts diagonal like that (she's SOOOOO observant!).

Thank goodness Uncle Jer ended up coming to the pool with them - that way Daddy could take a few pictures of her high-flying jumps into the pool and Micah didn't have to try and catch them both at the same time! She was pretty comfortable today...


Maggie is splashing the heck out of her daddy! That's always fun; right? :)

We were at church for ChristCare Group and then the chili cook-off (yum!) and it ended in Meggan going home with Micah and Angi to spend the night at Maggie's house! Oh, those two ... I don't know what we're going to do with them. And when they look at us in the eye and beg "PLEEEEEEEEEEASE" with those blue eyes, it's just hard to say no. :)

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! Good night.

So Quiet...

It's just after 1:00 on Saturday afternoon. It is really quiet in our house right now. The reasons being that I just laid Jordan down for hopefully a good nap until we're ready to head out the door for ChristCare Group starting at 4:00; that Jason and Meggan just left to go BACK to the YMCA (we were there this morning for aerobics class and the guys were running) and they are going to go swimming (I am SOOOO happy they are spending some daddy/daughter time together - and they're both loving it); and so now it's just me and Boe, one of which is getting ready to do some work. You might still be wondering who, but I will just tell you that I am going to fire up the laptop here in a couple minutes and get some pages done, whether I want to or not!

Jason has the camera with him at the YMCA. This will be the first time Meggan has gotten to go swimming there since we joined a few weeks ago. She has been DYING to get in the pool, and we have been taking her to the kids' room while we workout on Saturday mornings and then letting them play in the big play room and then leaving again. She has now informed me that she would like to take swimming lessons there. They have a session starting towards the end of February, and we may just go ahead and put her in them - it won't hurt for her to have some time in the water without Mommy or Daddy right there! Micah and Maggie are going to meet them there - and they should all have a blast!!!

I promise that I will post pictures later tonight. She informed me that she's going to do a dive... :)

Finally More Pictures!

So when I say blogging hiatus, I guess I mean it! For those of you who check in every day or every other day or so, I apologize that you aren't getting to see lots of posts - but especially that you aren't getting to see pictures! I know that is really nice (especially for those far away) to keep up with the kids and get to see what silly things they're up to.

Tonight we had Meggan's parent-teacher conference. She has mastered all the skills of Pre K-4 and they are just this week starting reading group ... that's right, their preschool learns to READ at 4 years old. This should be fun - she is really excited about it! Her printing is beautiful and she is very well behaved, so that was a great report!

Then I took off to go to water aerobics (yes, Dawn and I have decided to try that out a couple nights a week) and Jason brought the kids back home. I put him in charge of taking a few pictures before the kids went to bed so I could post some (finally)!

Quite the combination, I know ... a pink Tinkerbell rolling backpack and some cologne. He loves to carry that stuff around!

Looks like she didn't want to take a break from coloring to take a picture!

Playing together before the wresting started!

This is how they wrestle. She LOVES it when he does this (she'll lay down on her stomach so that he will come up and jump on her back)! She makes a big deal out of it and then he thinks it's the greatest thing ever too! :)

He SO is going to antagonize her when he gets a little older (and bigger)! We keep telling her he's going to get bigger (she only has him by not even 15 pounds right now and is almost 3 1/2 years older)!

Hope everyone is having a good week so far! Have a great Wednesday!

Refreshing!

It has been a refreshing week! We haven't been doing much of anything since I blogged last time, but I can't say that has bothered us one bit!!! Of course, Meggan had dance class on Monday evening and choir practice on Wednesday evening, but other than that, we've just been hanging out at home in the evenings this week and it has been fun!

It's Sunday afternoon at 1:00. We went to church this morning and Meggan sang with the Cherub Choir and now Jordan is down for his nap and Jason and Meggan went to Target together. Oh, how it warms my heart that those two are spending some daddy/daughter time together! She is off of school tomorrow because of MLK Day and Jason is off of work because the bank is also closed, and I think they are going to try and go to a movie together or go to the YMCA and go swimming together - and I am excited for them!!! She has always kind of been my little shadow and has to go wherever I go or stay home whenever I stay home, plus Jason has lots of times especially lately been the one staying behind while Jordan takes his nap, so this is a nice change of pace for me ... and for them! I hope they have fun and get to just enjoy each other's company!

On another note: We are trying to get Meggan to go to sleep in her bed. It hasn't been very successful the last two nights, and we kind of lost our patience last night and she had movies taken away for today and she had some of her Barbies taken away only to have to go even farther and say she can't have sleepovers for at least a week or two. We thought maybe we just have to find what truly means something to her.

If she would just close her eyes, she would be gone in about 2 minutes. It's so hard to get through to her that she is a big girl and doesn't need to be scared, etc., etc., but you know how those 4 1/2-year-olds can be ... they pull out all the stops. She has ALWAYS fought sleep anyway. As I've said before, Jordan is most definitely our good sleeper! This has been a long battle with her (she climbed out of her crib at 19 months), and now she will be 5 years old and it's just time for her to sleep in her own bed! It's just so hard because you just get so tired and just want to go to sleep, but we will fight on ...

That's about it this week. I know I don't have any pictures to post this time around, but that's because we haven't been up to much this week. I can't even just snap a quick picture of the kids to post right now because one is sleeping and the other is on a "date" with Daddy!

I just wanted to update quick and let everyone know we're still alive. It was a good week to just come home from work and stay inside for the evenings! Hope everyone else is enjoying their weekend! :)

Blogging Hiatus...

This morning I have come to the very REAL realization that I am trying to do too much. As of this moment I am declaring a hiatus for myself from daily blogging. I love updating the blog once a day and putting the pictures up and showing what we've been up to or just one or two fun things that stuck out in the day or that I've been feeling, but here's how I'm feeling today:

Being on the computer takes up precious time.
Precious moments to be enjoyed with the kids,
precious moments to have a conversation with my husband,
even precious time to get some pages of a transcript done,
just precious time that gets eaten away and then it's gone.

My resolutions are not being fulfilled when I'm on the computer. I can't TALK more with Jason, can't INTERACT more with Meggan, can't PLAY more with Jordan, and I definitely don't FEEL better about myself when I fall into bed at night having not done these things when I had the chance to.

I will still be blogging - it just won't be daily. Maybe we will all put our heads together (and hopefully Jordan won't head-butt us too hard because he thinks we're wrestling!) and pick the best things from our couple days or our week and post it when the time is right! Our family just means too much to give up those few hours we have to truly enojy each other!

Enjoy your Tuesday ... you won't hear from me again until at least Thursday! :)

Spaghetti!

Tonight when we got home from dance class, Jason had made spaghetti for supper. Both of our kids love spaghetti and it was getting close to 7:00 and they were hungry, so they were excited when they saw it was spaghetti supper tonight! I just can't wait until Jordan eats his spaghetti (and pretty much any other food) with some kind of a utensil ...

Yes, she still had her leotard on! She's also wearing pajama pants ... it was pajama day at school for Spirit Week (she LOVED it)!

One day he might eat as neatly as Meggan (we're not holding our breath though)!

Trying to be like Sissy (we call her the coloring machine)!

And then he realized I was taking their picture and totally hammed it up for the camera!

We love these two so much!!!

Ice Skating!

Well, so much for a relaxing Sunday after church, but that's the way we like it these days! Fun times with friends is always an even better way to spend the day!

We went to church and Sunday school like usual starting at 8:00 (Mom dropped Meggan off around 9:30 in time for her to go to Sunday school), and after Meggan got done at Sunday school, our friends asked us if we wanted to have some lunch. We decided on Panera (yummy!) and headed there around 11:00. By the time lunch was finished, Meggan and Maggie had come up with a great plan for Maggie to come to our house and play. So we headed home with the three kids, and Meggan and Maggie played for a few hours while Jordan took a nap for 3 1/2 hours until Angi picked Maggie up around 3:00. She mentioned they were going to go ice skating, and then called a while later to ask if we wanted to join them - so off we went to the ice skating rink. This was Meggan's first time ice skating, and she didn't do too bad!

Since my lower back has been bothering me for a while now - the chiropractor said it's out of alignment, and I'm heading back for my first adjustment in the morning - Jason was "stuck" to be the one out on the ice with Meggan having some fun father/daughter time!

Daddy and Meggan just starting out!

Balance...

Taking a break!

Micah busting a move and Maggie holding on for dear life!

Meggan's favorite part was when two people would hold her hands and skate faster with her (that's Jason, Meggan, and Angi up there a little ways)!

Jordan did go out and stand on the ice with Jason, but he really wasn't a big fan. I didn't catch a good picture of it, but he and Faith WERE both there in case you were wondering! :)

Finished the night off with a trip to the Cheesecake Factory, so it was quite the day!!! We won't be looking to go out to eat this week for sure...

Hope your Monday is a good one!

Meggan's Earrings and Boys' Night!

Meggan finally has her ears pierced! This is not something that has been forbidden by any means, but it was just something that we were waiting for her to be interested in and ask about before we let her do it. She had asked about this back a couple weeks or so before Christmas, and we were just so busy doing other fun stuff that we didn't make it to the mall to get it done, so this afternoon was finally the time ... and she did SOOOOO good! We were all so proud of her! :)

Jason and Jer met us at the mall after they worked out at the YMCA and after Jordan had a nice 3-hour nap, so we had me, Jason, Jordan, Dawn, Jer, Lucas, and Grandma all supporting her - not that she needed it, but we all just wanted to see her accomplishing such a big-girl rite of passage! She picked emerald studs for her May birthstone (she was excited about that) and after we were done we had to pick out some other new earrings for 6-8 weeks down the road when she can change them (she picked a pack of "M" earrings, in basically every color of the rainbow!)

First ear wasn't so bad...

Not so sure about the second ear after already experiencing the first one...

Trying hard to smile (and not cry)! She never did once cry or even tear up or anything - she kind of jumped a little bit, but was so strong and brave and proud!!!


I caught her admiring her new earrings in one of the mirrors at Claire's!

Jordan passed the time waiting by trying on Daddy's hat and a couple others...

After we did that and stopped at a couple other stores, we hit the playground for a little bit and then headed home! Meggan headed home with Grandma to stay the night, which she was super excited about - so hopefully she won't have too much pain or anything while sleeping tonight!

We came home with the boys and had some supper and then played a little bit before Jordan was ready for bed! Now we're just hanging out while Jas and Jer play the Wii and watching Lucas suck his thumb. I think we're going to go kick their butts in bowling on the Wii after their football game is over though!


Jordan cleaning up after supper!

Showing Lucas how to play with the Mega Blocks wagon!


You want to play, Lucas? He just turned the other way...

"Playing" with Lucas!

I got it!!!

We're looking forward to church and then a relaxing Sunday afternoon!

Today's Fun!

Our friend and neighbor, Will, got a Hummer motorized vehicle for Christmas, so since it was somewhat "warm" this afternoon when we got home from school and picking up Jordan and them picking up Ellie, they decided we should try it out! Will didn't last too long as the driver, as his steering skills are not exactly great, so Meggan drove most of the time and he was the radio man ... seriously cute!!!

They had so much fun - and Meggan is actually a pretty decent driver (I can say that when she's 4 1/2 years old at least)!

Will takes his radio man job pretty seriously in this picture (but it turned out the best of the 3 that I took)!

The toddlers wanted to take their turn "driving" the Hummer too!

I'm heading off to 8:00 aerobics class tomorrow morning, so wish me luck! I will have to wake both kids up to get there and get them in the kids' room on time to get to the class, so I hope they forgive me for that! :)

We're also going to go get Meggan's ears pierced tomorrow afternoon, so keep her in your thoughts as well. I am just hoping she tolerates the pain that is involved and is happy that she did it (and hoping she doesn't chicken out too)! I know - I should have more faith in her. She's been talking a pretty good game, so I'm hoping she's pretty convinced that it's what she really wants ...

Happy Friday to you! Looking forward to a fun weekend!

So THAT'S What This is For...

Today we had Jordan's 15-month doctor appointment. I asked Jason to take this afternoon as his comp time for working Saturday morning and just be there so we could make whatever decisions we needed to make.

For those of you that know our Jordan, he has had some "lung" problems. I'm not sure exactly what to term them without saying what the doctor said, which is reactive airway disease, but he just coughs ALL THE TIME. Even when he's healthy and doesn't have a cold, he has this yucky cough. Dr. Gloyeske, Jason, and I finally came to a decision to get him on some kind of medication. We are trying him on Singulair, and we are just hoping and praying that it will make a huge difference in his overall "lung" health! All in all, we are just happy that there is something to try - everything that the doctor was telling us this afternoon just made sense and just sounded as though he was taking a dictionary and reading the precise definition of Jordan's life, so hopefully this will be our answer, what will make him sound better and will make us feel better! :)

Since Jason was already off and we were all home, tonight was really just a nice night ... no dance class, no running to get Meggan's bangs cut, no choir practice. We just were at home! We had a great (and healthy) supper and then just got to PLAY!

Here are Jason and Jordan with their latest experiment, shall we call it.

Before (top) and after (bottom). Meggan came running out of her room when she heard the loud thud, which was Jordan's head hitting backwards. I believe my words to Jordan were, "Just exactly what we DIDN'T want you to learn to do."

Jordan's thoughts: "Oh, so THAT'S what this is for."

Hope everyone has a great Friday tomorrow!!!

Resolutions...

So we went to the YMCA and became members again tonight!

We were memebers 2 or 3 years ago and then canceled our membership and decided to join Cardinal Fitness - it was a) closer and b) cheaper. Then they built a new LA Fitness not too far down the road from there, and we decided to join there - it was going to be brand new and had great amenities (a pool and aerobics classes and such). After we became members and then learned that the pool was just for kids over the age of 14 and not really for just open swimming, that was a letdown. We remained members there until we decided we just weren't getting what we wanted out of it and also not getting our money's worth because we weren't going like we should. In Jason's defense, he was diagnosed with mono and just never really had a chance to fully come back before the holidays hit. As for my defense, I have none except lots of working and pure laziness...

Jer, my brother-in-law, gets a FREE membership to the YMCA from his work (yes, even my sister's membership is free), and so we decided we would go back to the YMCA and take advantage of them being members as well - maybe we can help each other stay on task a little better if we're all going to participate in the Mini Marathon in May - and take even more advantage of the indoor and outdoor pool, basketball games, aerobics, youth programs, etc.

We are really excited to get back into exercising again - it's been a while! We HAVE to stick with this resolution or we won't be able to run (or even walk) in that Mini Marathon coming up in May. It seems a long ways away, but it will be here before we know it!

I've thought about it for a while now, and these are my resolutions in writing:

1. TALK more with Jason
2. LISTEN and INTERACT more with Meggan
3. READ and PLAY more with Jordan
4. FEEL better about myself (inside and out)

These are resolutions worth keeping! Wish me luck!!! :)

Daddy's Shoes!

Tonight when we got home from my mom cutting Meggan's bangs and ate some supper, Meggan decided it would be fun to try to wear Daddy's shoes. This in turn, of course, meant that Jordan had to try as well since he wants to do EVERYTHING that Meggan is doing. So she went and got another pair of Jason's shoes for herself and they tried this task together. Jason told them they looked like clowns! :)

After they tried walking in Daddy's shoes, Jason and Meggan decided to play Wii and a game of bowling before it was time for a bath. Of course, Jordan had to do that as well - nothing gets by him if Meggan is doing it! You can see she was trying to help him do it right, but we told her to just let him do it and pretend that he was actually having a turn instead. The problem was getting him to let her have the controller back (those 1-year-olds don't exactly get the meaning of sharing or taking turns)! :)

Since that wasn't going quite as smoothly as we had hoped, I decided to take him to the bath before Meggan and let them finish the game. We rarely give them baths separately (not since Jordan was a week or two old and his belly button fell off so that he could get totally wet), so this was a nice treat for them both, I think! Jordan spent his time under the faucet or dumping his new bath cups that Nancy gave him for Christmas back and forth, and Meggan spent her time playing with and reading to her mermaids. They both enjoyed having the tub to themselves and getting to play a little longer than they usually do (because they start splashing each other and getting water ALL over, and I end up cutting it short to get it over with - and save the floors)!

Funny kids - and just a nice night, although it seemed so very short!

Monday Already?

This will be a pretty short post, because I'm really tired! I was going to stay up late and get a job done from last week that I would love to get off my computer, but I'm exhausted and I have a headache. I didn't have a job today until 1:30 and it went until about 6:00, but it felt like we started at 8:00 this morning and went all day until 6:00 tonight. :(

I also know that tomorrow morning we are going to have to start working at getting back into the swing of things around here. It was great to have a needed break from working and going, going, going, but it's going to be hard getting back to the grind! I'm pretty positive that tomorrow morning I will have two not-so-happy kids when I wake them up at 7:00 instead of the 8:15 or 8:30 I've been having to wake up the sleepyheads lately (maybe that's why I'm not getting much work done before I myself have to head to a deposition). Keep your fingers crossed for us all as we get back into the school/work schedule ...

I better get Meggan in bed so she can make it through the school day tomorrow and then get myself in bed so I can make it through the work day tomorrow! :)

Busy (and FUN) Sunday!

This morning we got up early and went to church as usual, although I'm sure we would have rather slept in after staying up a little bit late watching the Colts game! Our friends asked us if we would like to go to The Children's Museum with them after naptime, but since Jason's work was having their holiday dinner tonight, we said that probably wouldn't work out. So instead we all decided to just go grab some lunch after the older girls went to Sunday school and then head down to The Children's Museum from there and squeeze it all in before naptime!

Meggan and Maggie decorating what they said was their Christmas tree at the Chihuly blown glass exhibit!

Their finished "masterpiece" of art!

Jordan and Faith dancing in the fish costumes!

We had a great time! We even decided to just buy a membership for this year and see how much we make use of it. It's lots of fun at the Museum, even if all you do is go there for a couple hours and play at Playscape and then ride the carousel! :)

Playing with the mama and baby ducks in the water pool at the Playscape!

Playing in the little house at the Playscape!

Carousel ride for everyone (the little ones and Daddies are in the background before takeoff)!!!

The big girls went down the big slide they have set up during the holidays!

And the little ones got to go down it too - with a little help from Jason and Angi!

Miss Lacey (a teacher that Meggan was really close to at Little Wings, the "school" she went to when she was 2 years old) came over to watch the kids while Jason and I went to his work dinner! We had lots of fun there and great food, and the kids had a blast with Miss Lacey here at home ... she even played hide-and-seek with Meggan, which it doesn't seem like we ever get around to doing!

Lots of fun again this weekend - just sad that it's over already! Meggan will go to Nancy's house again tomorrow for her last day of Christmas break and then back to school Tuesday morning. She's really excited about tomorrow because it will be Lucas's first day at Nancy's house and she will get to be there and "help" him!!!

Good luck back at work tomorrow, Dawn - you're in my thoughts and prayers as this most difficult day approaches! :(