A visit from Santa!!!

Tonight we went to a Christmas party at our good friends house, and guess who came to visit?? Yep - Santa!!! The kids were so excited! We had told Katie and Aidan that Santa was coming to visit at Miss Stacy's house, but apparently most of the parents had left it for a surprise. Either way, the kids had a GREAT time! Along with the typical question from Santa ~ what do the kids want for Christmas, he also asked them what they had done to be good this year. Katie responded that she helps set the table and tries to clean her room and wants a Christmas Barbie. Aidan said that he helps mommy and he loves mommy and asked for new racing game for his Wii. After talking to Santa and asking him for the game, Aidan ran over to Eric and said, "Daddy, I asked Santa for new racing game! Now you won't have to buy anymore!" Very cute! Needless to say, typical to the age, Mylie didn't want anything to do with the stranger in the big red suit. :) She happily stood at the back with mommy and giggled and bounced around in time with the older kids, but at a safe distance. Tomorrow we will be visiting Santa again ~ this time on the Santa Train. Our kids will get lots of face time with the big guy this year! :)

Katie talking with Santa

Santa listening very carefully as Aidan tells him about his wish list

Mylie and Santa ~ this is the closest she would get :)

Katie asking Santa if Rudolph's nose really glows. He said yes, when it's foggy out!

Daddy and Mylie cuddling at a safe distance from the big red man :)

Aidan's Christmas Concert

Aidan participated in his preschool Christmas concert this past week - and he was DARLING! He was located front and center on the stage, and he sung his little heart out! It was very obvious that he loved performing, since he danced, clapped and sung louder than anyone else on stage! The girls were all dressed as angels and the boys were dressed as shepards. I love the fact that he goes to a christian preschool where they can celebrate Christmas! When the concert was about ready to start, they opened the curtains and let the kids all say hi to mom and dad before the official concert started (smart move!). Aidan jumped up and down waving a yelling "hi mom", "hi dad", "hi Nana" (Nana was able to come watch also)! I will admit that the whole experience did make me cry a bit - as a very proud mama!

Cute little angels and shepards

Aidan clapping along with music

Aidan getting his groove on

What a cute boy! He is singing his heart out!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Who needs to buy one of those expensive car play mats when the kids can make one with daddy and it's 1/1000 of the cost and way more fun?! Tonight after dinner, the kids were getting restless, and Eric suggested that they all create a "road" map - with roads where Aidan could drive his cars, and houses and other buildings where Katie could play with her Polly Pocket dolls. I think half of the fun was coming up with all of the things that they would draw on the map, but creating it and then playing with it proved to make for a very fun family event. I honestly thought that after they had finished creating the map - which was complete with roads, neighborhoods, a gas station, police and fire stations, airport, school and various stores such as Blockbuster, Subway and Roundtable Pizza, that they would be bored and move on to the next activity. I was pleasantly surprised when we had to pull them away from their creation so that they could get ready for bed. Although it takes up our whole entry way, I promised to leave it up for a while so that they can enjoy their efforts.

Just in case I haven't expressed how much I love my husband.... He is an amazing man and an even better father! One of the reasons that I fell in love with him is because I knew that he would always be a Toys R Us kid! He definitely enjoys getting down and playing with the kids and their toys as much as they enjoy having him.

Katie working on the school house

Mylie making sure she added her contribution to the map

Daddy working on the water park and airport

Aidan adding the water slides at the water park

Mylie taking a break from the drawing to play with mommy's phone

Happy 4th little buddy!

To me, 3 is still a baby, but 4 is a big boy! I can't believe that my little guy is now a big boy!!! It's a good thing that Aidan is still a mommy's boy and loves to cuddle, tell me how much he loves me, and is not yet embarrassed to kiss his mommy in public ~ because otherwise I might be having a much harder time with the fact that he is growing up so fast! Ahhh - I love my little buddy!

In honor of his birthday, I wanted to share a few things about Aidan that help to make him extra super special! Aidan is a very loving little guy! He loves his family, especially his sisters, and adores his friends! His best friends are Brendan, Jack, Max and Anna and he is very happy to spend as much time with them as possible! Aidan is VERY competitive and loves anything that keeps him up and moving. This Fall he played on his first soccer team and is currently on a basketball team. Daddy has been his coach for both of these teams which makes it extra special for him. Aidan also loves video and computer games, and would much rather be playing some sort of interactive game instead of relaxing and watching the TV. This is usually a benefit, because he loves learning games on the computer, but we also have to work very hard to limit his electronic time. I know I am quite biased, but Aidan is also very smart! He can count up to and recognize numbers up to 100 ~ and only stops there because we haven't taught him to go further. One of his favorite games is to play with the number flash cards in a race game with his Katie. For this game, Eric will flash a card and the first one to get the number right gets the card. The one with the most cards at the end wins. The game is always neck and neck - and Katie is one smart cookie herself, so it's not an easy fight. He has also began to read and loves me to create words with the alphabet flash cards so that he can sound out the words. He is doing great! We were also amazed this past Sunday when he wrote his name all by himself, and we haven't even been working on that skill. Most of his friends can't quite verbally spell their names yet, so the fact that Aidan can spell it - forward and backwards, and now write it is pretty impressive to us. As you can tell, Aidan never ceases to amaze us with his personality, love, energy or intelligence.

Now ~ back to the party details. :) Aidan's birthday is October 24th ~ and as I explained in my earlier posts, it was very uneventful since the swine flu had officially taken over all of the kids in our house. Although his actual day was not very fun filled, we did have a fabulous party this past weekend that was a joint party for Aidan and his best friend Brendan! Since the boys are such good friends, and have many of the same friends, Brendan's mom Heather and I decided that a joint party this year would be a great idea - and we were right! Our party was held a Bullwinkes Family Fun Center ~ a GREAT place that has plenty to do for all ages! I think all the kids had a blast and Aidan was finally able to welcome in his 4th year with all of his friends by his side!

Aidan having a blast in the climbing area

Aidan, Katie and Bri ~ taking a break from the fun

Daddy and Mylie having fun together

Aidan showing off his loot ~ courtesy of Bullwinkes

Mommy and Mylie taking a break to pose

Treats treats and more treats! No more tricks please!

As holidays go, Halloween is pretty darn cool when you are a kid ~ and lets face it, it is even pretty cool when you are a big kid! Our house is no exception when it comes to being excited over a holiday that is really all about obtaining as much candy as possible! :) As you are probably aware from my previous post, the kids had been quite sick with the flu for the week leading up to Halloween, so we were definitely planning all of our Halloween festivities on a minute by minute basis.

As it turned out, all 3 kids were essentially healthy for the big day! Both Katie and Aidan woke up on the morning of Halloween in great moods! They were both practically bouncing off the walls with excitement - even without the after-Halloween sugar rush! Aidan started asking me about 9 a.m. if it was time to go trick-or-treating yet and asked from then on about every hour. Telling him that we had to wait until it was dark didn't work either, because he just started asking if it was almost dark. Darn! That diversion didn't work as well as I had expected! :) Around 5 p.m. we started getting ready - figuring that 6 o'clock would be a good time go head out. Our big mistake was not taking into account that daylight savings time this year was VERY late - and didn't start until early Sunday morning. Therefore, at 6, it was still very light outside. Oops!

So, all of the excitement, all of the anticipation.....all to last about 20 minutes once the kids got outside and started trick-or-treating. Mylie was the first to go home ~ but honestly, she is only 18 months, so I can't really hold it against her. :) I truly thought she would last longer, simply because she is a candy-aholic and I figured that once she realized that people would give her candy just for standing at their door, that she would be in for the long haul. Not so! Instead, at the first house we went to, the family gave her peanut m&m's. Forget that she can't even eat them. :) She was SO excited when they gave her the candy that she wanted to follow them inside and apparently join their family. :) She was SO mad when I made her leave their house. After all, she had finally met someone who understood her raw desire for sugar. :) She held those m&m's tight in her hand until the next house. At that house, they offered her a sucker - so she very politely tried to trade her m&m's for the sucker - placing the m&m pack in their basket and taking the sucker happily. I'm sure she was very confused when I let her leave the door with both! Oh the joy! However, Mylie is a sucker freak, and once she had that sucker in her hand, nothing else was important. Two and out for her. :) She rode in the stroller for a few houses happily sucking on her treat before we sent her home with daddy and Nana to help give out candy.

Aidan was the next to throw in the towel. He made it to about 4 houses before he was coughing so hard that I had to stop in at a friends house and get him water. As I mentioned in my previous post, this flu has run havoc on Aidan's respiratory system. Running to get to the door first so that he could ring the doorbell (all of the kids we were with were competing for this coveted prize) proved to be too much for his lungs. He lasted 2 more houses before he looked at his bucket and declared that he had enough candy and wanted to go home. I had Katie continue on with our friends while I took him home to assist with the candy hand outs.

When I got back to Katie after taking Aidan home, she has gone to about 4 more houses and announced that she was also done. A whopping 10 houses (2 small cul de sacs) wiped her out for the night. She happily went home and answered the door to give out candy. The trick-or-treaters that came to our house got extra candy with so many little hands handing out the treats. Katie even said to my mom, who was spending Halloween with us, that it "just felt so good to have her PJ's on and be relaxing at home." Very funny!

So - my point to all of this.... First ~ my point is that my kids did not do their duty and get mom the desired amount of candy this year! :) Just kidding (kind of). Honestly, I was very shocked to see how this flu is still affecting the kids. Although they seemed to be healthy enough, their poor little bodies just could not take the energy needed to trick-or-treat this year. The good news is that neither Katie or Aidan seemed at all upset that their evening was cut short. The 4 lbs of candy that we had left over didn't hurt how they felt about the night either. :)

A big thanks to my mom for watching the kids for us after we were done trick-or-treating so that we could go to our friends annual Halloween party. The party was for adults and kids, but with our kids not up to it, Eric and I still had a a great time spending the evening with amazing friends!

All 3 kids in their costumes

Katie ~ our little hip witch

Aidan ~ the adorable astronaut (he looks tired already!)

Mylie ~ the cutest kitty ever!

A picture of daddy's costume when lit up in the dark

Mylie never seemed to be scared of the pumpkin head, just very curious!

Mylie enjoying her sucker before heading home

Oink Oink! The piggy flu has hit our house!

Yep - that's right - the dreaded H1N1 flu hit our house this year, before vaccines were available in our area. UGH! I know that many people have had concerns about the H1N1 vaccine, and I have to admit that I was one of them. I went as far as to put a posting on my Facebook page asking for advice from friends while I tried to decide if getting the vaccine was the right choice for my family. Now that we have had the virus in our house, I feel very foolish for ever questioning getting the vaccine. This is one nasty virus, and we are still battling the affects a week and a half later. :( My advice to anyone who might read this post - get the vaccine!!!

Katie was the first one in our family to come down the flu. We knew it was coming, as her 1st grade class was getting hit very hard. She came down with it on Thursday night, 10/22. The symptoms included a very high fever, very soar throat, trouble breathing and a bad cough. This is all in addition to the normal flu symptoms of the headache and body aches. Friday night it was Mylie's turn to get sick and we had 2 very sick little girls in the house for Aidan's birthday on the 24th. Poor little guy didn't get much of a celebration on his actual birthday. :( Mylie was not looking good and having trouble breathing, so we took her into the doctor on Saturday and had the H1N1 flu confirmed. They put her on Tamiflu, which turned out to be a huge blessing because, in the long run, she definitely got off the easiest with this virus!

Come Saturday night it was Aidan's turn to get sick. We were eating his birthday dinner and he kept trying to go to sleep in Eric's lap at the table ~ even before he had time to enjoy his birthday cake! You know you are sick when..... We verified Aidan's temperature at about 7 p.m., gave him medicine and put him to bed. at 10 p.m., Aidan woke up with a terrible cough and unable to breath very well. Although Aidan doesn't have asthma, his lungs often get hit pretty hard with respiratory viruses due to his premature lungs at birth and the fact that he was hospitalized with RSV at 10 weeks old - so we know to watch him closely and take any breathing issue very seriously because his status can change very quickly when he gets sick. Sure enough, after trying to get him breathing better by using our normal treatments of cold air (outside) and hot humid air (shower running, bath, etc), his breathing did not improve and he was still retracting when he tried to breath. I immediately headed for the emergency room with him to get him help, but only made it a few blocks down the street before he was having such a hard time breathing that he started throwing up and I had to call 911. After meeting the fire truck and an aid car along the side of the road, we continued to the ER where he was treated with a breathing treatment (albuterol), cool air treatment, chest x-ray and finally steroids to help his breathing. CRAZY!!

So here is what the virus did to each of the kids: Katie had the worst fever and it lasted the longest. She suffered with the flu symptoms for 6 days straight and missed 4 days of school (good thing she was sick over the weekend). She is still suffering from exhaustion and a terrible cough, but she seems to be recovering pretty well. Aidan has had a very difficult time with the respiratory side of this illness. His cough has lasted 9 days so far and it is not just a typical cough - it is horrible!!! It has kept him up every night, which has not helped his healing, and he now seems to be losing his voice. His fever left after only about 4 days of being sick, but spiked again 3 days later. She fever seems to be gone now, but this cough could go away any day now! Mylie definitely recovered the fastest with the use of Tamiflu. She also has the bad cough lingering, but her fever left fairly fast and she has continued to get better every day.

We are glad that this virus as come and GONE! We are looking forward to a healthy and happy rest of the year! I can guarantee all of us will be getting the seasonal flu vaccine ASAP!

Halloween Haunted House

Along with other family traditions that are created over the holiday seasons, there are two traditions that we have come to enjoy thanks to Nana (my mom). 1 ~ she will always buy us a fun Halloween decoration. This year she got us two - a really cute pumpkin decoration that is more for me to enjoy, and a very fun dancing dog for the kids that plays Halloween music. Mylie is especially fond of this gift ~ as she loves to dance along with the dog. :) 2 ~ Nana always gets the kids a Halloween house to decorate. This has become a very fun tradition for our family!! In the past, this has been a project that Eric did with the kids (I am artistically challenged!). This year however, Eric put together the structural part of the house, and the kids did the rest. I think they did a great job! Take a look for yourself! :)

Aidan's first soccer team

This year Aidan joined his first organized sports team with his very happy daddy as the coach! One thing about Aidan - he is VERY competitive, so sports are definitely right up his alley! Unlike Katie, who could care less about competition or winning, Aidan is all about the game. We can get him to do almost anything by telling him that he is competing (or racing) against someone else - usually his big sister. Katie is very cooperative and plays along nicely, although she could care less about the outcome. :)

I know that I am a bit biased, but Aidan is also naturally gifted with great coordination, which makes him pretty darn good at almost all sports. Since he was very little, we have believed that he would be pretty good at sports for a few reasons. First, he LOVES balls and sports - and has ever since he could hold a ball in his hands. He has been hitting the baseball thrown by daddy since he was at least 2, if not earlier, and actually does better when they play fast pitch instead of slow (underhand) pitch. Second, as I mentioned, he is very coordinated and has always had a knack for hitting the baseball, kicking the soccer ball or dribbling the basketball pretty darn well for his age. Of course, then you add in his natural desire for competition and winning. The good news about this one is that he is also good at getting very excited for his friends when they win - even when they are playing against him. This doesn't go for everyone however - especially when his sister is involved. :)

So ~ back to soccer... Aidan definitely showed his love for the sport during his 1st soccer season. He was easily the leading scorer on the team (of course - we are talking 3 and 4 year olds. :)) and loved being right in the game at all times (except when daddy would leave without feeding him breakfast - that caused for a few game time breakdowns). Adding to the fun was that we had a very great team - with 2 other neighborhood friends on the team as well. We had a great time watching Aidan play this season and we are excited for basketball to start next week! Of course, daddy will once again be the coach!

Go little dude!

The team with their dads at the soccer party (we were missing 2 boys)

A day at the patch!!

What's Halloween without at least one trip to the pumpkin patch?? Aidan's preschool class took a trip to a local pumpkin patch and we had a great time learning all about bee's and how they make honey, petting the farm animals, helping to make fresh apple cider, playing in the hay maze, and of course, taking a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch! We had a great time spending the morning together and picking out Aidan's very first pumpkin of the season.

Aidan with his pumpkin

Aidan loved the hay maze

Aidan's preschool class

Best buds! Aidan and Brendan

A new cousin has arrived!

My cousin Sarah welcomed her second child, a baby girl named Suzanne Grace, to their family on October 1st. It was a VERY exciting delivery for me, because Bruce and Sarah allowed me to witness the amazing birth first hand and be their not-so-professional photographer. What an amazing experience!!!! I have been present for the births of all 3 of my sister Patty's children, and it is just as amazing every time! Of course my kids were VERY excited for Auntie Sarah to have her baby and loved meeting their new cousin. We love you baby Suzie!

Katie loving her new baby cousin

The kids and Nana meeting Suzie. Mylie loved her!

My mom holding Suzie (her grand-neice) along with my kids

The circus came to town!

I know the circus is a little old fashioned, but there is no way we could miss going when it came to town! Our kids are the perfect ages for this exciting, bright, active show ~ and it proved to be a very fun family outing! A big thanks to my mom who stayed home and watched Mylie for us so that we could really enjoy the show with Katie and Aidan. Another huge benefit is that we scored amazing center ring seats in row 8! I'm not sure it was really "The Greatest Show on Earth", but it was definitely a great family outing with fun memories for all of us!

The kids posing outside of the arena

Cool cats

Mom and Katie (and Aidan's head - good picture daddy! :))

My cute circus boys!

Soccer girl!

This year Katie played for our local sports club and had a blast!!! Katie is an amazing athlete, excelling in many individual sports including dance, gymnastics and swimming, but this is really the first true team sport that she has participated in. She did play on a soccer team through the YMCA when she was 3 ~ but she was 3, and dancing in circles, holding hands with her friends during them game and picking grass are the norm for kids that age.

Katie is our very sweet soul! She is a care taker, best friend to anyone and overall non-aggressive child. Fighting to take the ball away from another player doesn't necessarily come naturally to her. With that said, she did absolutely amazing!! We are SO proud of her! Even if she wasn't always the one who was taking the balls away from other players or scoring the goals, she was ALWAYS right there in the game. She ran hard and fought hard the whole game ~ with a smile on her face every minute! Since the season ended, Katie has asked on mentioned on multiple occasions that she wishes she could still play soccer. For now she is looking forward to playing basketball, which starts in January, and is also busy with piano (which comes completely natural to her!) and other upcoming activities such as gymnastics and swimming. Very fun!

Silly team picture

Team huddle on the first game

Waiting her turn to go back into the game (first game)

Go get 'um Katie!