While Daddy's Away....

While Daddy is away, the boys always try new things on me. They try to pull fast ones over on me and seem to try out new stunts and all kinds of crazy things. Both of the boys are feeling better. They both went to the EENT yesterday. David has to go back in a year and Daniel had his tubes taken out, since they weren't functioning anymore. We are to come back in March or April to have a hole in Daniel's ear patched before cold weather starts. The one tube David has left is not working either, but the doctor said that it would be too painful remove, so we're going to let it come out on its own. I just hope we do okay this winter since we are tube-free and already with one ear infection with Daniel. Cookie's fever was down yesterday too. She got one more shot (her third this week) and was given two days worth of antibiotics to help fix the infection. She acts like she feels a lot better.

When it was time to put the boys to bed last night, after we read stories in Daniel's room and did Daniel's prayers, David said he wanted to sleep with Daniel and Daniel thought that was cool, so I let them try it. I knew it wouldn't last long, but I wanted to try it out. It lasted about 7 minutes, but they had fun. Here are some pictures:

Busy Time

This time of year is such a busy time. Things are going well. It has been so much fun decorating for Christmas this year. Last year, I had just had surgery, so I wasn't up for any of it. This year the boys are older and everything is fun right now. I've even got my own "pink" tree this year that is decorated with lots of pink. I've told the guys to keep their hands off of it. We stay busy with school and school activities, homework, parties, church activities parties, family events and we have a special friend who is very sick with cancer right now that we are trying to help the family any way we can. His name is Tom Russell and has had a tremendous impact on our little family. He is our Sunday school teacher and has taught us so much and treated our family as if we were a part of his. His daughter, Candi is becoming one of my closest friends and her daughter and our boys play really good together. I've set up a blog to help keep our church members and out of town family and friends updated on Tom's progress as he travels to Houston for assessment. The blog is at: www.ourfriendtom.com.

Nativity Scene at David's School

David's School is having a drive-through nativity scene Saturday, December 1st. The kids and I went to this a couple of years ago and it was really nice. We are going to try to go to this Saturday.

Here is the info from the wkrg website:

Kingswood United Methodist Church Live Nativity Drive Through Kingswood United Methodist Church - Mobile - Alabama
Saturday December 01 2007 - 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Event price: free


Kingswood United Methodist Church at 5200 Perin Road will present its annual Live Nativity drive through. It will be Saturday, December 1, from 5:30 p.m. until 7:30 p.m. This is our sixteenth year to produce this event as a gift to our community. The Live Nativity is a quarter mile long, lighted drive through, with costumed characters, livestock, a King's tent with Wisemen, Manger Scene, Shepherd's Field, Village Market, Carpentry Shop, and multiple other scenes.


5200 Perin Road
Mobile, Alabama


More Event info
Audrey Bryan
661-0420
edudir.kingswood.umc@comcast.net

Doctor Visits

We've had a few doctor visits so far this week and it's only Tuesday. Two more for Wednesday, comprised of one dog and two boys and hopefully we're done for a while.

Daniel has an ear infection and bronchitis. David has a follow-up appointment with the EENT for when his ear was draining blood two months ago. Since Daniel has an ear infection and our pediatrician says that the tube in there looks like it is stuck in a bunch of wax, I'm going to take Daniel with me to the EENT visit to have the doc check him out too. He's coughing so bad, I hate to send him back to school anyways yet. The doctor said he was okay to go to school, but we're going to give him one more day to recover.

Our precious little Cookie is having a really hard time. She is 13 now. Saturday she started throwing up a little and hollering with her eye. Her eye was hurting her so badly that she wouldn't let me clean it or really do anything to help her. I was able to give her a bath and get her to settle a little. We couldn't get in touch with our vet over the weekend, but tried to keep her as comfortable as possible until we got her to the vet on Monday.

Monday, the vet said that: 1) She had an ear infection that was very painful. 2) She had a high fever and a a gastrointestinal infection that caused her to vomit over the weekend...from everything we can tell, it was a bad reaction to a change in dog food that happened on Friday. She got sick on Saturday. 3) She has glaucoma, which is very painful. Her eye is totally red and bulging from her face. We have eye drops to see if this will help take the pressure off of that eye. He said that she is basically blind anyways. The other eye probably won't last much longer. The other eye was her "bad" eye anyways. He said that she still has good quality of life left. She is really healthy, aside from the eye troubles that she has. So, we're going to try this treatment to see if it helps her. The next step is to remove the eye if she is still in pain. We went back this morning to have her temperature checked and for our second round of shots. She still had high fever, so we go back tomorrow. I'm praying that her tummy settles and her fever goes away. It has been really hard seeing her in so much pain.

Daniel at School

Mr. Perry, a friend of ours, forwarded me these pictures. Our big man at school. :-)

Makin' the Kitchen More Homey

I can't wait. We ordered a new kitchen table a couple of weeks ago and it's due to come in the middle of December. We were at a party at a friend's house and admired their table so much we found out where they got it. It's a homey, large square wood table that seats six and with a built in expandable leaf, it will seat 8. It will take up a good bit of our kitchen, but I think it will be great for playing games and art projects, homework and of course, dinner. Here is a picture:

David's Thanksgiving Party

David had his Thanksgiving part at school on Tuesday, Nov. 20th. The kids had a feast and had a fun time playing and eating. Jason and I were both able to attend and party with the kids. David takes his eating very seriously. He does not get up until he is done. All of the other kids eat quickly so they can play. David's whole party IS the lunch. He loves party days!

One of my favorite pictures of Daniel

I took this the same day that we went to see the ducks. Daniel was climbing the tree in this picture. I just love it. It shows his sweet face. He looks so much like his daddy.

Sharing Thanksgiving Lunch at School with Daniel

We were invited to have Thanksgiving lunch Wednesday the 13th with Daniel at school. The children dressed up as pilgrims to eat their feast. We got to visit with them at school, eat lunch with them, and then let them get back to their school work. Jason and I were both able to attend and had a great time. We love Daniel's teacher. She is so good with the students.

Daniel's PTA Citizenship Award

Today was a fun day. After dropping David off at his school, I was able to work with Daniel's class today, painting their hands and making turkey pictures from their hands on their "deer skin" t-shirts. It was a lot of fun working with all of the kids and I got so many hugs. This is such a sweet age. :-)

Tonight was PTA night at Collier Elementary. Daniel was presented with his PTA Citizen of the Month award that he received in September. He was the first child chosen for his class for the school year. Daniel is really loving school and thriving. Mrs. Jefferson told me today that he is reading all over the place in her class and that he reads and giggles at himself like he should have realized he could read a long time ago. He started reading mid to late October. Mrs. Jefferson predicted he would be reading by Thanksgiving and flying through by Christmas. He's even ahead of that. We are very fortunate and blessed to have received such an awesome teacher!

Feedin' the Ducks-Veterans Day Holiday

What a fun day we had! The day started out a little late, since neither child had to be at school. This morning, we talked about having Jesus in your heart and we had to argue with David to convince him that Jesus was in his heart. He said that Jesus was in church. Now, if you ask him, he'll tell you that Jesus is in his heart.

After we got everyone ready, we embarked on our adventure to take some pictures (hopefully for Christmas cards) and feed the ducks. Little did the boys know that our first stop was to Children's Medical to get them flu shots. After minimal crying and just a little bit of kicking, we were done at the doctor's office and off for our main adventure of the day.

We went to Mobile Memorial Gardens where my grandparents are buried and we climbed trees, played, took some pictures and fed the ducks. Daniel has always been afraid of the ducks, so he and I were a little apprehensive about it, but this time, he was a champ. We played and took pictures first, while the ducks and geese ignored us. This gave me an opportunity to explain to Daniel that the ducks were only interested in us if we had food. David is not afraid of anything, so he was running towards the ducks. Daniel saw that the ducks ran away from David, so it gave him courage. Our biggest laugh of the day was when the ducks and geese were lined up along the edge of the pond, hoping that we would feed them and we discovered that if you walked towards each one, they would dive into the pond. So Daniel went from duck to duck "pushing" them into the pond by just moving towards them. This was hilarious. Daniel even climbed a tree. He's getting braver and braver. David is in the phase where he doesn't want his picture made and Daniel is a ham, so there are many more pictures of Daniel. After we played, we visited my grandparents' graves and David smelled the flowers there and we talked about my grandparents. After a short visit there, it was off to McDonalds and then the grocery store.
After all of that, Mommy was exhausted, but the boys came home and played outside while I put up groceries. We really had an awesome day! They were really good, too.

I've always loved boys!

God sure knows what he is doing. My earliest memories of preferring the company of males is way back in 1975 in kindergarten, when I chased a little boy around the playground in order to kiss him. As the years went by, I preferred males as friends and co-workers and my best friend of all times happens to be Jason. He and I became friends the instant we met and now I have two little Jason's running around who have my heart and have changed my life forever and for the better. If you had asked me a few years back what I saw in my future, it definitely would not be little 'ole me in a house full of guys, but God certainly knows what he is doing. Not a day goes by that we don't share a big laugh (usually at David's expense)and count our many blessings for our wonderful family.

Daniel's Trip to the Environmental Center

Daniel's class went to the Environmental Center on the 3rd of November. They learned about alligators, snakes, opossums, nocturnal animals and got to see all kinds of animals that they were taking care of. Our favorites were the bald eagle and the three legged deer. We also saw turkeys and some uninvited rats that were eating the food from some of the animal's bowls. Yuck.
The kids learned about the difference between a coral and king snake. One is poisonous and one is not....red meets yella could kill a fella (red stipes touching yellow stripes) and red meets black, a friend of Jack. (red stripes touching black-nonpoisonous). They had a great time and had a picnic before time to go.