Halloween!!

It was a long day for Dan at work. He got off work just in time to pick up the kids from school (yay for me!). Lily has been napping really well, so that saved me from having to wake her up!!

As soon as he got home, the costumes came out!

Now, originally, Andrew was going to be a ninja (wearing Matt's karate uniform) and even, supposedly, tried on the uniform, but when he put it on tonight, it was miles too short. Either he did not try it on like he was supposed to/said he did, or he grew about 3 inches in the last month....So, instead he wore his Darth Vadar costume from last year. It was also short, but didn't look bad.

We bought Matt a Ninja Turtle costume for this year. He was Rapheal.

We bought April a witches costume this year. For some strange reason the hat would just NOT fit her! In digging through our costumes from years past we found a witches hat from when she was 2 and that one fit! I'm still scratching my head over that one....

Chris was going to Whinnie The Pooh (an old costume that the boys have long since outgrown) and Dan tried it on him about a month ago. It was big, but Dan said it was fine. Well, tonight Dan says, no, it's way too big. So, digging through the old costumes from years past, we found the costume that Chris wore last year (and possibily the year before that also). It's a yoda costume and it really is very cute. We couldn't find the ears/head piece, though, so he looks more like Aniken or Obiwan. His hair goes well with the costume! :)

For Lily I bought a ladybug costume. I found one online that I REALLY liked and wanted, but when I went to order it, they were sold out! I was heartbroken! Thankfully I had picked up one I liked less at Target as a back-up! I was glad I did because they were also sold out the next time we went! I tried the ladybug on Lily about 6 weeks ago and it fit perfectly....well, tonight when I put it on her, it was so tight she couldn't even stretch her legs out straight! Apparently she has gained a lot of length lately....

Dan went as an evil sorcerror and I wore a victorian dress. The plans were to go to Papa Murpheys for free pizza (free personal pizza for kids in costume) and then head over to the hospital where they were having a Halloween party for the city. Free candy, free madhouse, free food, stuff like that! We got there and the line was soooooo long, so we turned around and went back home! I cooked up the pizzas, we ate dinner, and then Dan took the 5 kids trick or treating while I stayed at home to pass out candy.

Pepsi, again, gave us cans of soda to hand out! This year they gave us 3 cases of full size sodas! We only hand them out to older kids, though, candy for the little ones! Well, we had all of about 5 groups of kids stop by....we still have about 2 1/2 cases of soda and more candy than we could eat in a year (although we are trying to disprove that). Next year I will just go with Dan and the kids! It's not worth hanging around the house for that!

The weather was BEAUTIFUL! The warmest halloween we've ever seen in Colorado! It was cooling off just as they were getting home, but still not freezing.

Here are my trick or treaters!!

Gdiapers

Today I did something a bit implusive. I bought a starter kit of Gdiapers. Have you heard of gdiapers? http://www.gdiapers.com/

They are VERY cool! Not exactly disposables, but not exactly cloth either. They are flushable diapers with a soft, cute cloth exterior!! The flushables are a bit more expensive than regular disposables, but completely biodegradable and good for the planet! And even better, no need for a diaper pail, since ALL of the diapers go right down the sewer! :) Love it!

Anyways, according to their weight guidelines she should wear a medium. So, I bought a medium starter kit, took it home and threw one on her! It's HUGE! So huge it just doesn't look comfy at all! When Dan got home I got to go and vote (early voting) and then I made a quick stop at the store to pick up a starter kit in small. The smalls fit her perfectly! YAY!

I hate the orange, but she is still a cutie (I didn't get to pick the colors in the starter kit, they are all orange and vanilla)!

I spent this evening searching diapering boards looking for good deals on the gpants (the orange part) and the flushable inserts! I found a couple of good deals, I'm just waiting to hear back on them!

Also this evening I won an auction (on Ebay) for a video baby moniter! I'm soooo excited! I did my homework and picked this out. It has really high reviews and I ended up getting it for $40 less after shipping than it sells for on Amazon!! YAY! I can't wait to ge t it! No surprise here, but it's pink! LOL

Got Milk?

Some of you know that I have been donating breast milk ever since Lily was 3 months old. Well, today I made another sizable donation!

5 months ago I started pumping with the express purpose of donating my milk. 3 months ago I met a family who had a baby by surrogate and wanted her to have breast milk. I donated 315 oz to her the first time we met 3 months ago. A couple of weeks after that a family was in town visiting from Grand Junction and in need of milk so I gave them what I had stored up since my first donation. It was 96 oz. A couple of weeks after that a mom in Denver had a baby (also by surrogate) and needed breast milk for her, so I donated the 128 oz I had stored up. A month later my first recipient came out and took what I stored up that month. That was another 368 oz. Today she came out again and picked up the 405 oz I had stored for her over the last month!

I am very proud of what I've been able to do and the babies I've been able to help! It is really rewarding! I honestly wish I could do more, but I am not really a cow and I do have my limits! LOL

So far I have donated 1088 oz to my first reciepent and 1312 oz total over the last 5 months. To put that in perspective, I have donated over 10 GALLONS of breast milk! :) I've done that while also nursing Lily exclusively (except for the small amount of solids she eats now).

My recipient and her daughter visited for 2 hours! We had a great time together! I really enjoy her visits and when she leaves I start to look forward to our next visit in another month or so!

Broken Glasses

Tonight the kids had issues, especially Matt! He was supposed to be doing homework, but was instead watching TV. Dan asked him what he was doing and he said that he couldn't find his homework...like that's an excuse!! Dan told him that he had 10 minutes to find his homework or he would be doing 20 push-ups (push-ups are our most recent attempt at curbing Matt's behavior!). 10 minutes later Matt was back to watching TV. Dan requested the push-ups and Matt refused. We have seen him do push-ups and we KNOW he can do them, but tonight he was feeling very sorry for himself. He would push-up, but then just fall to the ground crying. Dan told him again to do his push-ups and Matt KICKED Dan!! Holy cow! Dan grabbed him up off the ground, spanked him and sent him to his room. Matt went to his room screaming so loud I'm surprised his head did not just pop right off! He screamed up there for quite a while, but we just ignored him, like we do with any toddler tantrum. Later Dan went in his room to talk to him and found that Matt had snapped his glasses in half! We are at a complete loss as to what to do with him. What punishment is severe enough for what he's done? That was his only pair of glasses and they are not repairable. Sooooo, until I can get him to an eye Dr and order the glasses and have them made and shipped to us, he will be wearing glasses that look like this.....

We are so frustrated with him! We really don't know what to do.....

April's Haircut!

April has been begging for the last 2+ months for a haircut! I finally got up the nerve to do it!

Before

After

It is really cute, but I do really miss her long hair! *sniff* For as long as I can remember I wanted my hair to be loooong, but it just doesn't grow and when it does finally (after years and years!) get a little length to it, it's yucky looking! April's long hair was sooo shiny and just beautiful! She is still a very cute little gril (gorgous!) but I will be looking forward to it growing out (at which point she says it will need to be cut again!). Her hair, i nthe past, has grown REALLY fast, so we will see.....We cut off a little over 10 inches and will be sending it to Locks Of Love in the next couple of days!

New clothes!

Last week I got the word from an online friend that Old Navy was having a BIG sale. She was right! I ordered a bunch f things (16 items for the kids!) for $87. Sadly they sent me e-mails saying that 3 of items were out of stock....Still a good deal! 13 items for $70-something. I got 2 dresses and one long outfit for Lily, 2 pairs of jeans, 2 shirts and 2 sets of long jammies for Chris and 4 t-shirts for the big boys (one of the cancelled items was a dress for April and it was the only thing I had ordered for her)! When I left the house this morning to take the boys to the neighbor's house for carpool (I only walked them today because they hadn't met her yet) I saw that there was a box on my porch from Old Navy! When I got home, I opened it up and it was like opening up Christmas presents! LOL Each item was individually wrapped!

The pants fit Chris perfectly and he likes them! I put one of the dresses on Lily and I'm really not sold on it...I think the colors are too bright/harsh for her coloring and I'm really really not sold on the big bow on the collar! LOL It's ok, she's still cute! This may just not be a favorite....it was cheap anyways! :)

I am tired today. Lily is really protesting sleep. I would REALLY like to know what she's got against a little shut-eye! Personally, I miss sleeping through the night!! She was up at least every other hour all night. She was up at least 3 or 4 times between midnight and 6:30am. Honestly, I lost count. She was awake and squirming when I went to bed and that rapidly turned into a cry. Then she didn't want to go back to sleep. She nursed for about half an hour before finally going back to sleep! She did the same thing around 4am....woke up, nursed and didn't quickly go back to sleep. She fussed some more around 5am. I think I nursed again, but I can't really remember....She finally settled into a nice quiet deep sleep around 6:15. Of course! Because my alarm goes off at 6:30....I guess she testing my endurance. How long can Mommy go with little to no sleep before she cracks?? So far we are over a year and still counting.....(I wasn't sleeping through the night during the 3rd trimester either).

Now I need to decide whether to wake her up or not....If I don't wake her up, then her afternoon nap will start late and *if* she took a good nap, then I would have to wake her from that nap to pick up the kids. But, if I wake her up, there is no guarentee that her afternoon nap will be good and I might be left with no good naps at all! Plus, she might very well be grouchy because I woke her up and then she might fuss and cry while I try to make lunch....Ugh!

Oh, nevermind. She just made up my mind for me and woke up on her own!

Lily the talker!

Today, while we were at the store, Lily demonstrated that she understandes the give and take of conversation! It was just too cute! We were standing in the check-out line and another baby, that we couldn't see, was yelling. Not an upset yell, just a yell to hear their own voice. Well, Lily heard it and yelled back! LOL The other baby heard Lily and yelled back and Lily responded, ect. It was insanely cute! Neither baby was upset or fussing, just communicating in their own language! It's like "Hey! I hear you!" "Hey! I hear you, too!" "Hey! I still hear you!" "Hey! I still hear you, too!" Anyways, when I got home, I was playing with that and when I yell like that, she responds to me, too! I love it! She's got so much more vocal lately!

So, I had to take a video of Lily and I *talking*. She is just so cute!

While we were at the store (I just had Lily, Dan took the big kids) I had 3 people comment on how cute she was! Granted, I think she is, too, but I'm biased, they are not! Brown and pink are apparently her colors! Good thing that's all the rage this year!

Andrew's Whopper

And I don't mean the kind you get at Burger King!

I met with his teacher this afternoon for an ILP meeting and while I was there asked her about homework. Last year he brought home a packet on Monday that was due on Friday...easy! This year he sporatically brings home math homework and he reads 20 minutes, but that's been it! His teacher told me that he has NOT been turning in the PROJECTS he's supposed to have been doing as homework! She gave me a paper of the most recent project and we had never seen it! Also, he is supposed to be studying spelling words every day, but we've never seen a spelling list (his teacher then checked his desk, and found it, and told me that she had told him to take it home). Sooooo, we are not happy with Andrew! We have been asking him DAILY about what he has for homework and he'll say the math or nothing. Now, last year his special ed teachers would help him with the projects, so he really didn't do much at home project-wise, so I thought that must be happening again this year and that's why we hadn't seen any projects yet (his teacher told us that the homework the kids would have this year would be projects instead of a packet). Apparently that is not the case! We are really disappointed in him and he was nearly in tears about the whole thing. He said he was lying to us because it's just so much WORK and he didn't want to do it....He understands that he has lost his video game priviledges until he earns them back!

The ILP meeting itself went fine. He is behind in comprehension (no surprise!) and fluency, so those are the issues his teacher will be addressing. She gave us some suggestions to help him as well. One of her suggestions was to get him books on tape to help him get into books that he otherwise would have no interest in. She says he prefers non-fiction! That shocked me at first, but I can understand it! Non-fiction is conrete, it doesn't require abstract thought, it is real. Fiction involves made-up stories that require him to think abstractly and decode emotions. She said next semester they will be reading Tom Sawyer and she expects that he will not like it! So, next week when Chris starts school, I iwll head down to the library and see if I can find Tom Sawyer on tape/cd for him! Also, we have him reading out loud to April every day, so that should help with the fluency!

A busy day...

Today I've got an ILP for Andrew. ILP is Individual Literacy Program. It's with just his teacher at 4pm today. It'll make for a complicated pick-up with the kids, but oh well....I also need to stop at the store mainly for milk, but also to pick up some new pacifiers for Lily. On Friday she actually took the paci a little bit, but had a hard time staying latched on to it. I think she had trouble with it ebcause it's newborn-2 month size...I need to get her some bigger ones and see if that helps!

April, Chris and I are hanging out in the basement (so they don't wake the baby up!). I've, sadly, got laundry spread all over the place. LOL Can't keep up with the laundry, it's insane! Anyways, April made herself a comfortable bed using just a laundry basket of clean clothes and a boppy. Looks comfortable, doesn't it?

The Distracted Subject

Since Lily started sitting up last week, taking her picture has been a real challenge! There are so many more/new things to see from her new viewpoint! I just wanted to share with everyone how hard getting ONE good picture of her can be!

Normally I just pick the best of them, and usually there are still too many, but today I wanted to share a few of my struggles with you. You will see that I have posted several pics...really it's just a fraction of the 16 pictures (and one video clip) that I took during this ONE photo shoot!


The "ignoring you" picture....

The "There is something more interesting over there" pic....

The "oops, I dropped my toy" pic....

The "the TV is more interesting than the camera" picture....

The "you almost got me...but not quite" pic....

The "facing you, but looking somewhere else" pic...

The "looking at you, but not smiling" pic....

And then the ONE picture where she is looking at the camera AND smiling! *whew*

Sometimes it's just easier to take a video...then you get all of the pics in one little clip! :)

April's Pumpkin

Dan and April were working on pumpkin carving this morning. Dan scooped out all of the insides and drew the faces on the outsides. On one pumpkin he drew two faces, one on each side. He carved one side and then let April carve out the other side!

April carved the other side COMPLETELY on her own! She followed the pattern that Dan had drawn on there and even added a couple of freckles to the design all on her own! To make the picture of April's carving even more special is that Andrew took the picture (and it looks great!)

I am SO impressed that April carved that all by herself! Now, there was no candle or anything in it. Andrew just happened to catch the light coming in our sliding door and it lit the pumpkin so it looks like it's glowing! Isn't that awesome?? A couple of talented kids there...

April the photographer

April was outside with Dan this morning. He was taking some pictures of things to put on Craig's List and when he was done April took over the camera. Here is some of her handiwork...

Pumpkins to be carved...

This is one of our trees (thank you G-ma and G-pa Franke for making it a tree instead of a bush). April tells me every time we come or go from the house that it's naked now...

This is what Dan looks like to a 5 year old....kinda grouchy looking if you ask me! (maybe the sun was in his eyes??)

And my absolute favorite.....April's protrait of Chris.

Lily's new toy...

I mentioned yesterday that we got Lily a toy at Once Upon A Child. It's a leap frog drum. On one setting it says the alphabet, on another it counts to 10, on a third it sounds like a drum, and on the 4th it plays a music note every time you hit it. It didn't take her long to figure it out!

Doesn't she look insanely happy? This was just moments before her morning nap. She took a 3 hour nap so she WAS very tired!

The pumpkin patch!!

Ok, it was a looong day and I took a lot of pictures, so get comfortable!

We left home around 11am and stopped at one place so Dan could leave them an application. Then we headed out to the pumpkin patch. We went to one a friend of ours told us about east of Fort Collins. It was more than JUST a pumpkin patch, though, which we didn't expect!


They had a jump house! For all the dirt and gravel I was impressed at how clean it was inside! The kids had a BLAST jumping in it!

In this picture Andrew is in mid-air, matt is on the left, April is on the right and Chris is climbing in in the foreground.

In this one Andrew is in mid-air and Matt is on the far right (in orange, he blends in with the jump) upside down. LOL

They also had a playground, but I didn't get any pics of the kids playing there.

Then we went through the corn maze. Everyone was getting lost in there and we passed the same groups several times! LOL For a while we thought maybe there was no exit since everyone we had talked to had come back out the entrance!

Then we visited the animals in the petting zoo. April was the most interested. They had ponies...

goats...(this goat is fine, he was just reaching his head through the wire to get some food on the ground. I thought it was funny so I took his picture)

pigs...

and this goat thought that April tasted good.



They also had corn chuckers. For $1 you got some ears of corn to sling shot towards a couple of barrels out in a field. If you hit a barrel you would get a free pumpkin. We did not hit either of the barrels, but I got pretty close to one of them....(I was actually aiming at the other barrel, though...)

Then we went on the petal cars (Dan, April and Andrew went on them, I had the baby, Matt was in trouble and Chris was too little).

Here is Dan on the clown car....

April and Dan racing

It was so comical, I also got a short video clip of the goof-balls! If you listen closely you can hear Matt say "I want to go home. This is boring!" He was mad because he was in trouble (for lying and breaking the rules repeatedly).

After the pumpkin patch we stopped at two more places so Dan could drop off applications and then went to lunch at Old Chicago (our favorite sit-down resturant). They were amazingly busy for the time (2pm). We had a wonderful lunch and the kids weren't bad. Well, Matt was mis-behaving (waving his hands over his head and hitting people as they walked by), but the others were great. Lily was in a GREAT mood and was super happy! She chewed on a postcard and a menu and once I got my food she chewed on my veggies. She started off with some celery, which she enjoyed. But, the celery hit the ground as soon as she got her hands on a carrot stick! She knawed on that stick for quite a while and, to my surprise, actually got some bites of carrot off (she has no teeth so those are some pretty sharp gums!). It wasn't a problem, though, and she enjoyed chewing up the carrot bits, too. I gave her a steak fry to try as well. It was much easier for her to get a bite off of that, but she choked on it....Back to the carrot!

As we were getting ready to leave an older couple came up to us to tell us how well behaved our kids were! It's crazy because every single time we go to Old Chicago someone comments on how well-behaved our kids are! This was our first time eating at the one in Fort Collins, though, so we were kind of surprised to hear it there, too! Then, on our way out the door (we were seated right next to the door), the hostess commented that we have some of the best behaved kids she's ever seen and she was impressed at how quiet they were! Wow! That really just made our day! It's so nice to get compliments like that, especially when you have a large family like we do!

After lunch it was on to Discount Tire to get our new winter tires put on! We got there at 3:30 and they expected it to take about an hour so we walked to Once upon A Child. It was a rather long walk, but we survived. We browsed and I ended up buying a pair of jeans for Matt (he puts holes in all of his pants, so I wanted to get some cheap) and a drum toy for Lily. Then we walked back to pick up the truck. They were just finishing it up when we got there!

Dan is on-call this weekend, so, while we were out being busy all day, he got two Pepsi emergencies! They needed deliveries ASAP. Soooooo, we headed out to Greeley to pick up the stuff they needed. One of the stops was out in the middle of NOWHERE! It was east of Greeley and north of Fort Collins so waaaaay off the beaten path! Then all the way down to Loveland for the second delivery. By the time we got to Loveland it was after 6pm. Lily was SICK of her carseat and getting fussy in general. She cried a bit and then fell asleep. While Dan made the second delivery, though, she woke up. *sigh* After that little *nap* I knew she was going to be up for a while, so we headed towards home and stopped at the grocery store along the way. We bought our pumpkins there (the ones at the patch were overpriced) and got some produce for baby food. By the time we got home it was 7:45 and time for bed! We were pooped! Of course, Lily wasn't....

Dan and I got the kids in bed and watched a movie while Lily played until 9:30.

As always, I have stayed up way too late and will regret it in the morning!

8 months old! Oh my!

Today Lily is 8 months old. Where has the time gone?? She has grown and changed so much!

Newborn, in the hospital

8 months old...

My day off....

Let's see....Chris, Matt and April started fighting and screaming at each other at 7:30 this morning. I got to sleep in an hour, I should be grateful, right? Then I fought all morning with Matt to get his chores done, Lily did not nap for more than 5 minutes and Chris unrolled the brand new roll of toilet paper that I just put up last night....this was all before lunch....Some day off!

Since she didn't nap this morning she took a loooooong nap this afternoon! Dan got home from work at a decent time. He's on-call this weekend. We are also planning a trip to a pumpkin patch this weekend (one with a corn maze!) and I am getting NEW snow tires put on! Yesterday we stopped at Discount Tire to get an estimate on the tires and it was really good! Because of Dan's connections they took $130 off the price! Apparently these are THE snow tires to have. Dan describes them as soft and sticky to give you good traction on the snow and ice. I asked the salesman (an old co-worker of Dan's) what was so special about them and he said "They're awesome!" like that explained it all! LOL Men and tires! So anyways, tomorrow I get "awesome" snow tires! Dan says they will only last me two winters before we will have to replace them. Ugh!

I digress. Dan's on-call this weekend. He got home at a decent time, sat down at his computer and got comfortable. I said "Yay! It's the weekend, even if you are on call" and he said "DOH!" He forgot he was on-call and left the on-call book at work in Greeley. *sigh* So, once Lily was up from her nap (4:30) we got to take a drive out to Greeley. Then up to *almost* Fort Collins to pick up the Titan. Then home for dinner....Lily had sweet potatoes and applesauce for dinner and LOVED it! The applesauce was yummy! She and I shared a bowl of just applesauce while waiting for the sweet potatoes to warm up....This morning she had pears again and oh my does she love pears!! I can't blame her, they are pretty yummy if I do say so myself! :) I just had a little taste, really! It's like the peaches all over again! Too yummy! I keep telling Dan that she is eating better than the rest of us and I'm jealous! :P

As I was looking through the laundry basket for jammies for Lily I found 3 hats for her. I tried them on her and I was shocked that she didn't try to pull them right back off again!!

It is so much easier taking her picture now that she's sitting up for me! Very helpful!!

Some were kind of small on her....

And, after trying on all 3 hats, the resulting hat-head!

It's ok, she's still a cutie pie!

Oh Blessed Sleep!

She slept! She slept!! It's a dream come true...and she may be sleeping swaddled for the rest of her life....I feel renewed today finally! I needed that sleep....

Tomorrow the kids don't have school, so I'm getting through today and hoping for a *day off* tomorrow! We just hung out in jammies all day!!

Lily has such big blue eyes! I love them! Poor baby is now blind from the camera flash...oh well!

What a cute kid she is!!

After Dan got home from work we took his Titan to the dealership. It had a recall on the A/C unit or something like that. Could possibly cause a fire....

I'm swaddling her again! Mommy needs her slep!