Family Fun Day at the Park

What a better way to spend a Saturday morning that at a park as a family?!?  Jonathan has a new favorite park, Owl's Nest.  He can do the monkey bars at this park and he is obsessed!  I am actually quite proud of him as this is something he has been trying all summer long to do at other parks.  I think these monkey bars are not quite as high and that helps him.  The picture of Diana sums her up well these days...on the go!  She is a busy body.  She definitely keeps me busy.

Zoo

Today GB and Grandpa Weeks came down and we went to the zoo. We claim it was Grandpa's first time going to the Cincy Zoo (although there was 1 other time when Brad was little). It was such a fun day at the zoo! We saw lots of fun things and different things than normal. For instance, Jonathan wanted to go down the rhino path which we don't normally do and we saw a baby camel. Then we went to the new cat exhibit and the tigers were pacing back and forth right by the window...Jonathan was so close to the tiger it was unbelievable. Then we saw the baby manatee going #2, which was so weird but gross. We then stopped in to see the polar bears and while we were there, the one decided to take his ball down to the pool and play. A bunch of kids, including Jonathan and Grandpa ran down the hill (along with giggles) to get a better view. Next stop, the bird house because Jonathan wanted to see the penguins. It smelled a little in the exhibit so we went through it pretty quickly until we got to the penguins. One king penguin looked like it was going to jump in for a swim but he was being hesitant and the next thing we knew, he slipped and fell in. It was pretty fun. Jonathan said that was his favorite of all day. Somehow I got talked into going in the Lorikeet exhibit, which I would have been fine with but then Jonathan wanted to feed them and the next thing I know, I had 3 birds on me. I don't think I need to experience that again. We picked up lunch on the way home, Diana fell asleep and ate quickly. GB and I went shopping for furniture...she has been a life saver. I would have totally given up on trying to figure out furniture for my living room by now. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing outside and enjoying our time together. GB and Grandpa stayed for dinner. It was a great day!!

The Gang

Shonda and I are still swapping days once a week of watching the kids so the other one can get some things done.  Today was my day to watch the "gang."  The kids were so well behaved today, aside from Diana who was a little fussy.  We played a spiderweb game and painted fall trees, of course I didn't get pictures of those but I did get pictures of Jonathan and Alex putting together an Alphabet puzzle.  They matched all of the letters and then put it in alphabetically order.  It was fun to watch them and how they helped each other signing the ABC's.  They were also busy coloring for awhile.  I loved the concentration by all of them.  Diana enjoys dumping the crayons and putting them back in the box.  Drew was busy helping me clean up.  Fun day!

Jonathan's School Work

Jonathan seems to be taking pride in his school work so I decided to make a place for him to show it off.  Unfortunately it is up in the hallway by his room but it was the only wall we had long enough for the wire and a place I didn't think Brad would actually kill me for doing this.  Notice Jonathan's concentric circle painting and grids?



Concentric Circles

This week at school, Kandinsky's Concentric Circles (picture below) was introduced.  Since all of the kids in Jonathan's class knew what a circle was, Mrs. Riccardi decided to take the lesson one step further and discuss concentric circles.  I am a little embarrassed to say that I didn't know what that meant and had to have Jonathan explain it to me.  He did quite well explaining it and has been talking about it non-stop.  He also has brought home more "school work" this year than I think he did all of last year.  Amazing!  They are also talking about grids at school.  He made a tic-tac-toe board out of one of them, which I thought was clever but I guess no one wanted to play with him and that made him sad.  Another new concept introduced at school, is voting.  So far Jonathan is NOT a fan.  Apparently there has been two days where the weather hasn't been fantastic so the class voted on whether they should play out on the playground or go to the muscle room.  Both times Jonathan wanted to play outside but the muscle room won 5-4 both times.  He is still saying he doesn't like school, he loves it!  Makes my day!

Fun Dad

Brad randomly decided to make chocolate chip cookies tonight after dinner.  For those of you who don't know Brad very well, this NEVER happens.  It's rare that he actual eats sweets let alone bakes them or have them be his idea.  The boys were super cute about it!



Trouble

Trouble with a capital T!  How cute are these little guys?!?  Evan, Alex and Jonathan hanging out at the Bluegrass for Babies event.

Care Package

Ever since Grandpa Gordy told Jonathan that he mailed out a care package, Jonathan has been checking the front porch every day!  Today the package arrived!!!  Yea!  Jonathan instantly had to eat a sucker, plug in his credit card machine, and put on all the buckeye gear.  Diana of course had to have a sucker too and fought over the buckeye socks.  She wouldn't let me take them off once she had a turn in them.  She was also excited about her own snack bag, after I filled it of course.



Call me Maybe

Back to Normal

I am happy to report that Diana is doing much better...she is starting to show signs of being back to normal.  Finally eating more and wrestling with her brother.  Very happy to see her "spunky" behavior again. 

Thomas the Train

GB and Grandpa Weeks got to spoil Jonathan last night and today with a sleepover and then a train ride with Thomas!  Jonathan said he had so much fun and that he wished he could go again.  Dave was a little worried they might not ever leave as Jonathan was having so much fun!  It was special time just Jonathan got to spend with them and it was a huge help to us so we could just focus on getting Diana healthy. 

Doesn't Like School

Today Jonathan said, "Mommy, i don't just like school, I love it!"  I asked him if he liked school better this year and he said yes. I asked why and he sad because of his teacher. She is funny and makes school fun. He also added that he liked having more pets (fish, a toad and a turtle) in the classroom and the bigger room itself.

Slime

Jonathan made slime today!!!  He kept saying this is gooey, it's cold, it stretches!  I think he had fun with it but the snow and rainbow rice are still his favorites.  I do think his favorite part about the slime, after awhile with playing in it, was that I let him use my pizza cutter to cut it.

Croup

Jonathan was sick last week with what I self-diagnosed as croup.  He ran a low grade fever for a few days and just wasn't help self.  Eventually his voice got really raspy.  Well today, I was confident that he had croup because Diana started wheezing after her afternoon nap yesterday, was up all night and has a "barky" cough.  Despite calling the doctor at 9 am this morning, right when they open, we didn't get an appointment until 3:45.  At that point Diana had gotten worse and was wheezing even while I was just holding her, not even being active.  The doctor confirmed she had croup and informed me that I needed to take her to Children's hospital.  She said she needed a breathing treatment that they weren't equipped to do at the office.  When I asked her if I could wait an hour until Brad got home to watch Jonathan, she said no, you need to go now.  This of course freaked me out but tried to remain calm and off we went.  We got to the hospital about 4:30 and got immediate treatment.  I later told nurse I was surprised we didn't have to wait longer in the ER.  She said well when your child sounds like this, we don't make you wait.  Diana got an oral steroid and then had to get two breathing treatments within an hour.  It's protocol if more than one breathing treatment is needed that they need to stay the night for observation.  At 8:30 pm we got admitted.  Jonathan was great and of course flirted with the nurses, brought back some memories.  Brad came and brought Jonathan and as Brad put it, "another night at the hospital for the girl team."  We were finally left alone about 10:30 after we saw 3 doctors.  At one point they mentioned putting an IV in her and I said no...get me some milk and I promise she will drink it, which she did.  Poor Diana, every time she would finally get comfortable in my arms someone else would come in to listen to her or ask me questions...she was so tired.  Every time I tried to put her down, she would cry and wake up.  Finally at about 2 am I got her to sleep in the crib and I was finally able to get some sleep too.  The whole experience definitely brought back memories, but the good news is that is only a one night stay!  Diana woke up and was still wheezing a little when she was active or drinking but they said that was normal and as long as I was comfortable, she could go home.  I knew she needed sleep and she wasn't going to get good sleep in the hospital so I quickly agreed.  We were home by 9 am and both asleep by 9:30.

First Day of Preschool 2012

So my camera didn't delete these pictures...yea!!!

First Day of Preschool

Jonathan had his first day of preschool today.  Yesterday was supposed to be his official first day of school, orientation day, but he was still getting over croup so I kept him home.  Today was the first full day and Jonathan was so excited to go.  I didn't even get a hug or kiss goodbye.  As soon as the teacher opened the door, off he went.  Big difference from last year.  I am very bummed because I had taken all of these cute pictures of Jonathan before school but somehow my camera deleted them before I could load them to my computer so these were taken after school.  Not as great but oh well.  I even took Jonathan out for ice cream after his first day of school.  Hope he doesn't expect this every day now.  :-)  I think the afternoon preschool is going to work out well.  We got to go play at a park this morning, have lunch, Jonathan went to school while Diana napped and I got to workout.  It was a good day!  Jonathan said his favorite part of his day at school was fixing and playing outside.  They also have a class toad that ate crickets which he thought was pretty cool.



Outside Outside

We are loving this beautiful weather!  You would never know Jonathan is sick because is still very active.  Diana is obsessed with being outside or going places...I guess she just likes to be busy...that's why I call her my busy body.  Lately, about 30 minutes after she wakes up in the morning, basically when her bottle is gone, she will go to the back door, grab her shoes and wave bye-bye.  She is ready!  Today Jonathan built a fort outside with some of his toys and Diana's new found love is Jonathan's old bike helmet. 



Red's Game #3

 I took Jonathan to a Red's game.  His third one in a week!!!  Today's game was a Red's Heads Kids Club event where he got to run the bases afterwards.  Boy was he excited! I was nervous letting him on the field by himself but he did great.  He told me he was going to be fine, and of course he was.  Such a good kid. Unfortunately, the Red's lost again today, they have lost all 3 games this week that Jonathan has gone to.  Maybe he shouldn't be allowed to go anymore.  Diana was not so well behaved for Brad while we were gone.  Apparently she refused to nap (at least in her bed) and kept saying Da-Da over and over again.  Brad took her for a walk and she finally fell asleep.  Adorable picture but not so cute when she was awake.

Running the Bases

Jonathan is the little guy in the white 32 Bruce jersey.  He enters the field about 9 seconds into the video.  Sorry about the videotaping...I was walking and trying to get around people.

More Teeth

So I lost track of where I left off posting about Diana's teeth but she now has 6!  She cut her bottom left side tooth on Saturday and yesterday she cut her top front right.  I think she is working on her other side top right and side bottom left as she was up last night crying in the middle of the night too.   She cries for about 5 minutes and then falls back to sleep on her own.  I always debate going in and just about when I am ready to, she lays back down.  The funny part about the teeth is that yesterday Jonathan asked me how many teeth Diana has and I responded with 5.  He said no mom, she has 6...I saw her top front one.  Diana was already in bed when Jonathan and I had this conversation so I checked this morning and sure enough you can feel and see her top front right tooth.  He is a very observant and great big brother!

Airforce Museum

We went to the air force museum today up in Dayton with the Pusateri and Bajorek clan.  It was a great day!  The "babies" (i.e., Diana, Lucca and Drew) all stayed at Ariel's parents house while we went to the museum.  The kids got to actually sit in an F-4 and an F-16 which they thought was really cool.  I would love to take the kids back as they get older when they are learning about all of the different wars.  Very neat museum.  Afterwards we went back to Ariel's parents for lunch and the kids played on the putting green in the backyard and went on a golf cart ride.  Such a great day!!!

Red's Game #2

GB & Grandpa Weeks took Jonathan to a Red's game today.  He has been bugging and bugging to go so this has been planned for awhile.  He had so much fun!  I think he enjoys his special time with GB & Grandpa. 

Prayer

At dinner while we are saying a prayer, Jonathan has been saying and extra prayer at the end.  It is too cute not to share with everyone.  "Dear God, please help us do everything.  Help daddy make more money.  Help mommy not working out so much.  Help Diana cut her teeth."  So that's what is going on in our life these days.  :-)  He sums it up pretty well.  I have really tried to get back in shape lately and am addicted to calicrossfit.blogspot.com.  I love her workouts!  Some of them are really tough though.  The other day after I did one, I could barely walk.  I went to go upstairs to shower and I heard Brad say, "Jonathan go watch mommy climb the stairs this will be funny."  My sweet little boy came over to me and helped push my bottom up the stairs.  On the way down, he held my hand.  I think he is worried about me. 

Let it Snow

Ok, well not really.  I am no where near ready for actual snow!  Another pintrest activity today.  We cut open one of Diana's diapers, added some water and Jonathan had some snow to play with.  It's actually very cool and I highly recommend this to anyone looking for a kid activity, although it can be messy.  Jonathan had so much fun playing it was well worth the mess.

Smoke Stacks

Red's Game with Dad

While I was taking advantage of Brad being home today and Diana napping, I decided to clean my second floor which is one of my biggest challenges to get done (I know silly, but Diana is either by the stairs and scaring me or has her hand in my mop bucket).  Brad told me he was taking Jonathan downtown...I thought just to go to a "park."  Well it turned out to be a "ballpark."  Randomly Brad decided to take Jonathan to the Red's game today.  Jonathan couldn't wait to come home and tell me!

Diana's First Rose

I stole this from Brad's facebook page...because it's too cute not to.  I was in Columbus for Emily's baptism when this happened.  Brad: "Diana's first rose. What a ham."

Birthday Celebration

We celebrated my birthday today with GB, Grandpa Weeks, Uncle Kyle, Aunt Amanda and Cousin Natalie.  The dairy queen ice cream cake was missing on my actual birthday so now my birthday is complete.  Thank you!