Begger's Night

Beggars night is the term the Dayton Ohio area uses for Trick or Treating. Our night was last night. Before I show you pictures, I am going to rant. Beggars night was from 6-8 pm. Great! They put a time limit on it. No kids ringing the door bell waking up the young kids. This is our 2nd year on this side of the military housing, so this wasn't new to me, but I remember my rant last year. As one is begging each house for family, one can observe multiple (and I mean like more than 10) 15 passenger vans dropping kids off and going to the "end" to park. Yes, you heard me right. Multiple vans brought their kids to the stand alone houses to trick or treat because we are the "rich" part of the military (you are supposed to be a Captain or higher to live over here) and we are safe. So, we gave out candy and then gave out some more. The thing that bugs me the most is when kids over the age of 12 are begging. There should be an age limit. There should be some sort of party for kids age 12 and older to go to. Why are they coming to my house and taking the Mike 'n Ike's or Hot Tamales from the little kids.Okay, ranting done. Kennie was a pirate, Justin was a knight, Nate was the cutest dang spider you have ever seen, but it was Maggie who stole the show. She is the cutest lady bug in the world. See for yourself!! Aaron was a military man (what a great costume huh?) and Sassy was a crazy mother. (come on, that is a disguise don't you think?)

Also, here is a video of Nate saying trick or treat. I couldn't resist, he was SO SO SO cute!

How we celebrate Halloween

We are celebrating Halloween by letting the boys choose 1 friend to sleep over. They decided to ask Wesley to join us tonight. So, we had Wesley's family(who might as well be considered our family as well!) over for dinner, played a bit of the Wii and ate desert. Wesley went all the way home (across the street) and changed into his pj's and brought his sleeping bag over. This is what my downstairs looks like right now.

baby legs take 2

Okay, you can see how busy I have been, I just realized this morning that I posted the baby legs post without a picture. Here is a picture of Maggie sporting the baby legs.

Baby Legs

Okay, my friend Shelby gave me an awesome gift last week. She gave me these. Okay, where have these been all my life? These would have been great when Kennie and Justin weighed 100 lbs at 3 months (slight exaggeration). So, with Maggie I have the opposite problem. I can't keep a 0-3 month pair of pants on the girl. So, she sports these great baby legs. Take a look!

A feeling of Peace

Maggie's x-ray came back normal. Troy also told me that they won't do an EKG until she is 1, so for a while, we just sit around and wait.

So, many of you have asked me if we are done having kids. My response was always no and Aaron said a quick yes! We were sitting in church today with a "very active" 1 year old behind me. (Not that my kids aren't.) I started thinking about how my kids have gotten worse with each one. Kennie was an angel. Never cried, always slept, eats what I put on his plate. Justin is pretty good, but he has my stubborn streak. I fight with him a bit more than with Kennie to get him to do things. Nate is a handful. He throws things (first time I've delt with that), yells, screams, is a huge bully and the list could go on. In Maggie short 4 1/2 months, she is more work than any of them have been.

Sitting on that church bench. The thought came to my mind, I don't want to have any more kids. And, for the first time ever, I felt a peace with that thought. I know, stop the presses. So, for now, we are a 4 kid family.

This and that (it's a long one)

It's been a while since I did a general update, so I am going to do it today. A lot has been happening, so bare with me.

Aaron is enjoying a laid back month this month. He is doing geriatrics at the VA. He doesn't like the VA and is excited to be leaving at the end of the month. However, the first 2 weeks of November are night float, which is never good for me. He works all night and sleeps all day. His only night of the week off is Monday nights. He is going to D.C. the 19th of November and found out he gets to present his case at the conference he is going to. YA!! Maybe that will help him get his fellowship.

Kennie is doing well in first grade. He struggled in the beginning with his writing, since he hadn't been introduced to it. We worked with him conference weekend and now he is doing better. We are working with him on creative writing and including more details in his stories. Once we explain it to him, he is off with it, so it just takes us introducing things to him. He is still the top reader in his class and continues to excel in Math. He is very pleased with himself to say the least.

Justin is currently down with a stomach bug. He has missed the last 3 days of school and will miss today because he doesn't feel good. You can tell when Justin is sick (he acts just like Aaron) and he is sick!! Hopefully we are on the upswing of it and he will be back to "normal" by the weekend! He is enjoying preschool and he has started teaching himself how to read. He is really smart and is doing exactly what Kennie did last year. He has also won 2 of 5 football polls and is very pleased with himself!!

Nate is getting cuter by the day. He is learning all kinds of new words and won't stop talking. While Grandma and Grandpa Lewis were here, we cut out his nap and is doing so much better with it gone. We actually sleep through the night most of the time. Now, we just have to work with him about not throwing objects. I have many a bruises from him.

Maggie (this is where this post will turn into a book. This is more for me to remember than anything, so please bare with me.) We have had a couple of rough months with Maggie. She hasn't been a happy girl since August 13th (the day of her 2month shots.) She cried a lot, went from sleeping a lot to hardly sleeping and just no fun to be around. I was really at the end of my rope and didn't know if I could handle much more, so I took her into the doctor for her excessive crying and a 4 month check-up. Well, she weighed 10 pounds 11 ounces (she was 10 lbs 6 oz at her 2 month check up.) This was quite concerning to the doctor. (Let me take a minute and thank Troy. He is in our ward and just happened to have appointment openings when I needed an appointment. It was so nice to know that the doctor knew my family and my kids more than a normal doctor.) 5 ounces in 2 months isn't good. At her 2 month check-up she was in the 50%. At 4 months, she was in the 2%. Yes, that's right, 2.

What we decided in her appointment is that we upped her Zantac from .5 ml's twice a day to 1 ml 3 times a day. I also cut just about everything that is worth eating out of my diet. Gluten (wheat, barely, and rye to just name a few), dairy, nuts, eggs, sugar, artificial sugar, caffeine (that means chocolate) and carbonation. So, you might be asking yourself what I ate. NOT A WHOLE LOT!!! I was at a loss. It isn't too difficult to do one of those. But to do wheat and dairy was the killer. So, that was last Thursday. I noticed a change by that afternoon. She took an hour and a half nap. By Friday night when Shelby came over to hang for a bit before girls night, she took one look at Maggie and said "welcome back Mags!"

We have our old Maggie back, almost. She isn't quite sleeping through the night again, but we are getting there. I took Maggie back to the doctor today for a weight check and to touch base with the doctor about how things were going (we also did a mini appointment in the halls at church on Sunday and he said that since her change was so immediate, I could introduce wheat back into my diet because it wouldn't change that fast if it was wheat.) Anyway, so today Mags weighed 11 lbs. She gained 5 oz in 1 week. PERFECT. I don't have to go back for another 2 weeks for a weight check.

Now, we had some fun things at our appointment today. Troy heard a slight murmur while listening to Maggie's heart. For those of you who don't know, I also have a slight murmur. My heart is turned almost 180 degrees (they call this dextrocardia). It hasn't caused me much grief other than to limit my sports activity (like they could stop me) but I do have to be careful and I get winded easy. So, if she still has the murmur in 2 weeks, she will have an EKG and maybe an Echo and an X-ray to see if her heart is turned as well.)

There is also a chance that her hip socket is out of place. We will know in the next day or two if it really is. We went and got an X-ray. If her hip is out of place, she will need to wear a brace for 2 months and then we will have it re-examined to make sure all is well.Other than that, Maggie is doing a lot better.

So, you may have noticed that I have left myself out. What more is there to say. With all of this going on, I haven't had much time to do anything. Stamp camp is tomorrow night and I haven't finished the layout. I have a swap due the 1st of November and I haven't even started it. My house is a mess, my laundry is almost caught up (thanks to a throwing up kid I had to wash everything so we could live in this house with the smell.), I haven't exercised in 3 weeks (but have still lost a total of 11 lbs). I go to bed exhausted at the end of the day and wake up exhausted at the beginning of the next day.

I better head to help out with the screaming children in the bathroom who need their teeth brushed, medicine administered, prayers and kisses. Peace!!!Just a quick picture of our new Mags. Enjoy!!

Fall Family Photos

There are some who can't see the slide show on the right, so here it is bigger. We went to a park in town and took these pictures. We really are in Nature! Thanks to Rita for taking such great pictures.

Utah details

Here are the details for our Utah trip. The kids and I (along with my dad - what a great guy!) will leave Ohio on Monday, November 17th as early in the am as we can. We should get to Utah late Tuesday night. If we have to push it, we will get there mid day on Wednesday. We should be there no later than the 19th! Aaron will join us Thanksgiving day (hopefully) and we will leave to come back to Ohio probably the afternoon of the 5th just to give us some play time (Aaron has to be to work on the 8th. We will be spending quite a bit of time in Idaho. I will let you know specifics of when we will not be in Idaho as soon as we buy Aaron's plane ticket. We would love to see you if you live in Utah or are going to be visiting around that time.

Maggie is 4 months

Wow. It's amazing to think that Maggie is 4 months old. I am hoping she gets out of this fussy stage real quick. Here is a bit about Maggie at 4 months.

At 4 months Maggie is:

Still a mama’s girl
Still wearing 0-3 month cloths (and some newborn too.)
Still has to be walked around the block to go to sleep (ARG!)
Isn’t happy very much
Has more bows than outfits
Rolls all over the place. I can’t leave her anywhere
Doesn’t like to be left alone
Still loves her pacifier
Is still an emotional nurser
Doesn’t sleep through the night anymore
Has the biggest eyes anyone has ever seen (I am sick of hearing that!)

This isn't my favorite stage by a long shot. I can't wait until she grows out of this. If anyone can remember when Nate grew out of this, could you remind me? Hopefully she is out of this stage in 6 weeks when we head to Utah. It's going to be a miserable 2 days in the car if she is still doing some of the things she is doing now.