Because that last post seemed a little depressing…

And yes, all are in good health now! Something to really give thanks for!

Bronchitisaurus

This picture was taken the day that Aedan got his flu shots, seasonal and H1N1.  Needless to say, he was miserable.

This week he got Bronchitis (so naturally I wouldn’t dare set the two of them this close) and we are waiting it out with some bubblegum flavored meds from the doctor.  It’s a hard knock life I tell ya!

Big Kid Aedan

At the grocery store.  These shopping carts are a lifesaver!

Curtis Orchard Pumpkin

Shaving (not a real razor in case you were wondering)

First day of Preschool

Halloween at his Little Maroons Preschool with his teacher Mrs. Yagow   

Lily’s first 6 weeks

   

Scattering Sunshine

Lily started smiling at 3 days old, no joke.  The last day in the hospital she really threw me off guard when she made eye contact and broke into a little grin.  I can tell the difference between unintentional smiles and intended ones and she most definitely smiles with a purpose about 90% of the time.  It was just weird to see a newborn smile at me.

Unfortunately I was unsuccessful at capturing it on camera until two weeks ago so you are just going to have to believe me. This little baby has been SO much fun for me and when I think about it I think that is in part due to the fact that she has been so responsive from the start and that little bit of interaction sure makes my day!

There were two in the bed

and the little one said,

ROLL OVER!!!

I think we are starting to see a pattern.  Lily sleeps okay at night in her bassinette but she sure sleeps better on a decent mattress.  Now they are both taking over our bed!!  Actually, Aedan has been great in his new bunk bed’s fancy mattress but once every blue moon he might nap on our bed.  This particular day he wanted to lay by Lily and they fell asleep.  Cute kids.

I am starting to think that we need to invest in a really good crib mattress if there is such a thing.  If there is one thing I learned with Aedan is that while his new mattress may be a bit more pricey, you can’t put a price on a full night’s worth of sleep without your kid climbing in next to you and kicking you and grinding his teeth so you hear it all night long. There are some who say family bed time is the way to go but I think I prefer sleep.  So selfish of me yes but I am a better mommy for it during the daytime where I can enjoy snuggle time while I am awake. 

I’m reminded of that Princess and the Pea story when it comes to these kids – they must have royal backsides as they want nothing but the finest.

Halloween Costumes 2009

Before Halloween gets too far behind us (that was SO last night) I thought I should share our costumes for this year.  Now before you get too excited I must preface this by saying that there were no special FX that went into these costumes like last year’s.  I also wanted to make life a little easier for me (this is where I guffaw) and reuse a costume from the past (mine).   Okay I’m stalling here….

We did an Alice in Wonderland theme.  Having a little girl in the family sure opens up more possibilities for costume themes. 

Didja notice Aedan’s white rabbit costume? 

Didn’t think so.  That is because he is not wearing one.  Poor guy had a good reason too:  I finally got things arranged for him to get the regular flu shot (they told me H1N1 was out) and they scheduled him on the day of our ward party.  He went in and to our surprise they were also able to give him the H1N1.  He came home with a shot in each arm and was a cranky little boy.  He did not want to wear any costumes at all.  It was hard to get him to go to the trunk-or-treat party and we almost didn’t go.

Aedan originally wanted to be the white rabbit in our Alice theme and I made him the full rabbit costume with a tunic and a mock Elizabethan ruff collar and at the last minute the kid refused it all.  Okay that is not entirely true, for his giant pocket watch I made him a treat bag with a clock on it and he wanted to take that to the party.  It wasn’t until later that he was even willing to put the ears on. 

Yes it looks huge & I didn’t bother finishing it off.  I wore it Halloween night. I don’t think I’ll take pictures of the rest, I’m too bummed.

Neal, the Mad Hatter, was mistaken for Willy Wonka by a few and I can see why but oh well.  I think of all the costuming I did this year I had the most fun making his hat.  I have made several hats before but never had sewn one.  I’m at least glad I made that.  I had recently learned (because I was too daft to inquire about it earlier I suppose) that the 10/6 on the Hatter’s Hat is actually a price tag.  10 shillings and 6 pence which, if you are quick to Wiki means that would be equivalent to 40.55 pounds today with inflation.  Either he is boastful and left it on on purpose or mad and completely forgot to take it off.  Either way it’s mental but he truly can’t be the Mad Hatter without it.  Otherwise, apparently, he would be Willy Wonka.

Lily’s Alice dress was so tiny (tiny clothes are frustrating!) and the material was so cute and sparkly with big poofy sleeves and a tiny little petticoat.  (that last sentence contained several words that I don’t think I had used up until we had a little girl in the family…) I had great plans of making an “Eat Me” “Drink Me” accessory but never got around to it. 

My dress for the Queen of Hearts was made back in my undergraduate days as some of you might recognize although a post-pregnancy body was not meant for it :) Oh well, I squeezed into it for a few hours and survived.  But the best part? I actually splurged for a 6 hoop hoop skirt!  Oh how much fun!  Love it!

One for the roomies.  I think K-Money made this for a calendar am I right?  Wow, good times. Miss Happy Meal was so fitting don’t you think?

A side note – we had also made giant cards (clubs, hearts, diamonds, spades) out of poster board to decorate our car for the trunk-or-treat but it rained so that was disappointing.

We had literally a trick-or-treating event every day since Wednesday.  Admittedly, I felt horrible having my little boy dress up as a rabbit.  Is that silly of me?  Feeling the need to give him an opportunity to have a very BOY costume and seeing as we had plenty of costuming events to attend to, we marched off to Wal-Mart and *gasp* bought a costume for him there.  Of all of the super heroes he had to choose from, guess what he chose?

Aedan at preschool by his cubby, I like that word, cubby.

Yup.  My little boy as Darth Vader.  It took some convincing that his name was not Dark Vader.  The kid has no clue who this character is.  What really sweetened the deal was that I told him he was a bad guy (much easier than explaining that in the end he was a good guy) and that he uses a light saber (or “gun sword” is what he called it).  He was sold. 

Trading in the saber for a dart gun for a wild west apple shoot-off at the trick-or-treat street.

In an attempt to further explain this bad guy so Aedan could get in character, Neal told him a few key phrases that Vader would say.  The one that stuck in Aedan’s mind was “I am your father” and proceeded to say that to many who would approach him.

Even the sith need a little TLC every once in a while.  They highly recommend DQ for such a time.

At the trick or treat street party at the local rec center, a little boy dressed up as a Jedi knight excitedly ran up to my little Darth and shouted, “Hi Darth Vader!”  Aedan gave him a look that said, “Who are you?” and said a very polite hi to him.  The other kid clearly had a clue as to the whole story line and I could tell he desperately wanted to duel right then and there.  After a bit of awkwardness when Aedan did not get all hyped up about the situation the other kid walked away saying, “Later Vader!”  Too cute.

Vader’s mistress shown here is a witch and a cute one at that.  Together they terrorized our neighborhood on spooky All Hallows’ Eve.

Aedan also wore this costume to his preschool trick-or-treating and also for Halloween night.  He really enjoyed making Vader breathing noises while wearing his mask.  Funny kid, I think he thought he was a Transformer.

The brotherhood of the sith.  They’re out there I tell you. Armed with a deadly arsenal of sugar.  I’ve given in to the dark side, how ‘bout you?

Happy Halloween!

What?  You think just because I own a blog it means I actually got to use it?   :)

I know it has been over a month since my last post and I definitely don’t plan on making that a habit but things have been too ______ (insert adjective) to do even the shortest of write-ups. 

If you know me at all, and I like to think that you do, you would have been able to guess that October would cast me into the bowels of our life’s “Bermuda Triangle”.  There is the everyday tasks that are always there but now I’m adjusting to baby/lack of sleep AND I’ve been getting things ready for Halloween.  Now while the Halloween part may not seem important, I fear I have got some sort of reputation to uphold and people here have been, um, getting all anxious to hear what we have in store for this year.  Yikes, talk about stress!

Okay, confession, I wrote a draft post to update you on life here a couple weeks ago and never got around to publishing it.  My prime blogging time has also been Lily’s prime awake time and, well, she is cuter than my blog so I’m not going to fight it! I think I need to break my big catch-up post into bite-sized posts so look forward to these throughout the week.  But first, a teaser:

YOU DON’T KNOW JACKie and the rest of the Kitchenators

(I used to love that game…)

1) Aedan has begun:

a) Preschool

b) Break-dancing

c) making up adverbs

d) all of the above

2) Labor and Delivery was

a) less painful than Aedan’s

b) quicker than Aedan’s

c) more back labor than Aedan’s

d) more extreme than Aedan’s (it is a strange feeling going from 4 cm to 10 cm dilated in one contraction, let me tell you)

e) all of the above

2) Lily loves

a) dancing

b) music

c) baths

d) mommy

e) daddy

f) Aedan

g) all of the above

3) Lily had a visit with a language/speech pathologist because

a) she frequently confuses her nouns and verbs and it is quite frustrating

b) she cries in Russian, it’s the bizarrest thing…

c) she clicks while nursing

d) all of the above

4) Lily began smiling at

a) 3 weeks

b) 3 days

c) 3 pm today

d) hasn’t even cracked a grin yet

5) Aedan loves

a) Lily

b) holding Lily

c) moving Lily

d) pulling Lily

e) prodding Lily

f) all of the above

6) Jackie has been

a) sewing paper and cloth but not together

b) having too much fun with a baby again

c) cooking up a storm

d) making baby announcements and got most of them mailed off

e) getting more sleep than she knows what to do with

f) some of the above

7) In any given moment, Neal may be found

a) coughing

b) IMing his brother

c) doing all of the chores his precious wife has neglected to do

d) working hard and looking for a job

e) being a super daddy

f) all of the above

8) Halloween time this year was not the most ideal for us because:

a) After I spent too much time making costumes for the family, Aedan decided he didn’t want to wear his

b) After trying to coordinate a time for Aedan to get his flu shots, the best time they could give me was Thursday afternoon – Aedan has been cranky up until today

c) Being on a Saturday sure made for way too many parties beforehand…

d) Hardly any trick or treaters and too many candy bars left in the bowl downstairs makes losing pregnancy fat a real challenge

e) Most definitely all of the above

I suppose I’m not really looking for you to answer these but you can if you want to.  Now I’ve got to catch up on all of your blogs – so sorry for the long break!  I promise I will be a hostess with the mostess postess this week…

Introducing our Fall Lily!

Lily So-Han

Born 2:30pm September 22nd, 2009

First Day of Fall was a rainy one

7 lbs 10 ounces

20.5 inches

She is an angel and a lamb rolled up in one.

Not nearly as loud as Aedan was but just as cute :)

She is a very curious girl and loves to look at everything.

Aedan is THRILLED and is always anxious to hold her (inspite of the nasty cold he has which he has passed along to mommy now...)

We are all doing great and will be bringing her home tomorrow!

Inducement here I come…

So I’m a handful of hours away from my appointment to be induced and hopefully all will go well.  I was induced with Aedan but I didn’t go as far into the pregnancy as I did with this one and with Aedan I was progressing better, so…, ya.  Oh well! 

Meanwhile Neal has recovered from his cold but managed to pass it on to poor Aedan.  I feel so bad for Neal’s sister and family who has Aedan for the night tonite.  We are supposed to call the hospital at 5am to go in to be induced (hello? who set that time up I want to know?!?) so we figured it would be good for Aedan to have a sleepover.  He was so excited – he was carrying his backpack and sleeping bag around the house a couple hours before we took him over.  People have asked me if he is excited to have a little sister.  I would have to say yes but right now it seems as if this sleepover at his cousins house trumps new sibling. 

I don’t know why but I’ve always been bothered by the term “nesting”.  I’m not a bird for heavens sake!  I will say, however, that I have done some pregnancy-induced interior decorating/rearranging.  We plan to have this baby in our room in a bassinette for a while so Aedan’s room is still just his room.  I wanted to make it a place where he wants to play as that is basically the only room that comes close to a toy room.  But we have major space issues here and things were tight as is.

Remember Aedan’s sleep problems?  Well, I feel like such a bad mommy now but I am starting to think that his problems were mostly from the fact that he was sleeping in an uncomfortable toddler bed.  He has been asking for a bunk bed for a while now but it almost seemed silly to get him one as it wouldn’t be shared for a long time.  But we caved and got one anyway with the idea that we could transform it into a loft bed simply by not setting up the bottom portion and have the bottom area available for toys and play.  Wow does it make the room feel bigger now!

Turns out loft beds are generally more expensive than a bunk bed which seems dumb to me but now I have a makeshift loft bed with the option of adding in the bottom bunk when I need it.  Yay!  Plus Aedan has a super comfy mattress (apparently better than ours) and he has preferred sleeping on his own in his own bed ever since we got it!  What a relief! 

It is a pretty colorful room I know but it is fun.  I’ll have to get pics later but we strung some multi-colored rope lights underneath the top bunk to provide some fun lighting for the play area bellow and he is loving it. 

Okay, off to bed I go and we will try to post pics soon! 

Overdue

Today was my “official” due date and no baby yet.  I had an appointment with the doctor today and all is well.  There is a chance I will go over the weekend and if not I will be induced next week. 

We have been extremely blessed to be relatively sick-free all summer long.  And now, a matter of days before this baby makes her debut, Neal has fallen ill.  So hopefully he can be better before she comes! 

Hope all is well in your neck of the woods!

Fair Enough

The fairs here in the Midwest are quirky, there’s no getting around that.  Last year we wrote about the Arcola Broomcorn Festival and as boring as it may sound this is actually our 4th (I think) time back and we love it!

 

We hit some of our favorite vendors and a few new ones as well.  Deep-fried candy bars, who would have thought?  I saw on the news that a vendor at our state fair was selling chocolate covered bacon.  I think if it is good for you it doesn’t belong at the fair.  Just sayin’…

The parade was fun (yes folks, that is me still pregnant) and for someone who LOVES (understatement) all things with wheels, Aedan sure did a lot of this during the parade…

 

Gotta love the Lawn Rangers of course.

Hey wait, can I zoom in on this for a second? Is that Obama with a plunger?

Well anyway, a few extra quirks caught our attention this year:

Puppet and Drama Ministry?  Okay don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of using all sorts of teaching methods, in moderation.  This seemed a little silly though but I’d be willing to give it a try...  Course, I’ve never been a fan of Veggie Tales either…

And in case you forgot Grandparents Day yesterday: get granny a H.A.G.S. Tshirt.  I know my grandma would have got a good laugh out of it!  (no we didn’t buy one for you Grandma, maybe next year)