The Great Pumpkin Carving!

so, i'm a newbie at the whole pumpkin carving thing. it is ken's job around here to do it, bc it makes me gag to smell the insides of the pumpkin, and having to use my hands to clean it out is just disgusting. i can take real blood and guts, but this is gross.

so, i figured that bc ken is not here, i wanted the kids to have a great time with pumpkins. we didn't do anything last year when he was gone.

i also have learned a very valuable lesson for future halloweens...don't use markers. use paint. spencer is a wee bit coloured now.

Sliding at Festival

Fall Festival

so it's been a couple of weeks since i last updated.

mimi and poppy came out the 20th-24th, and we had a great time.

we went to the black island farms festival. it's our 4th time going, and i'm going to miss it next year. there are slides made from hay. well, with a large rubbery plastic slide coming off the hay. large pumpkin bounce house. small maze for the little kids...spencer's age. corn maze for everyone. an area to pet the farm animals...watch out, the small goats bite. lol rides. hayride.

you get the point. lol

last year, spencer was only about 10 months old, and it was in the 30s, so we did not stay long at all. this year, the temp was perfect, and emma and spencer had a blast.

My Baby is 6!

i finally have time to sit down and talk about emma's long birthday weekend.

she received gifts over a few day period, so i was waiting until the whole thing was through. she had the best time, and i have to admit that i did as well.

saturday, the base did 4 hours of free childcare bc ken is deployed. the kids were at the daycare from 9-1. i ran some errands, and both of them had a super time. after i picked them up, we got home, and spencer napped.

neighbor came over to watch spencer that afternoon. i took emma and 3 girls from our neighborhood to see game plan. a disney movie starring the rock. the girls all loved it. afterwards, we went to mcdonalds to get burgers. came home to eat them. the neighbor set up the dining room with the cake i had baked and the tablecloth, cups, plates, etc. we ate dinner. emma opened presents. and then we had cake and ice cream. it was a very long day, but it was a lot of fun spending a good bit of it with emma.

yesterday, her actual birthday, she got to wear a birthday hat at school. exciting stuff for a 6 year old, of course.

her presents included:
digital camera, movie surf's up, and tinkerbell stickers from ken. what i do when he's deployed is box up the stuff, address it to emma, put daddy on it, and then set it outside so she thinks the package came from him. it's worked 2 years in a row. :)

she also got polly pockets stuff from myself and rae. drawing floor mat from friend and a puppy pillow. tinkerbell stuff. boots. drawing stuff.

she did well this year. lol

i will post some pictures here, but you can see all of them on the website on the side that says family pictures. the ones starting with the letters PA are from emma's new camera! she and her friends took over 200 pictures in less than 24 hours. thank goodness for digital, or as emma calls it, the "digiNal."

Product Plug

emma has always been fantastic with eating. she loves salad, broccoli, sushi, and really just about everything. there are very few foods that she refuses. and bc of that, i have never had to worry about getting veggies and fruits into her or about nutrition.

spencer is the opposite. there are even typical kid foods that he will not touch. i have had to squeeze his cheeks and pry his mouth open just to get him to TASTE something. he's picky about cheese. he doesn't like any veggies except for peas. he also has an extremely short list of fruits he'll eat. he is picky about juice, which is fine, but what kid doesn't like all juice?! he is also picky about bread. he doesn't like anything with red sauce. he will occasionally eat alfredo. his pasta cannot have anything on it. the list just goes on.

so, when i heard about jerry seinfeld's wife, jessica, and the book she wrote, i was very very interested.

http://www.deceptivelydelicious.com/site/

and while i'm not one of those people who jumps on every new fad, i am all about this one. i've had recommendations from people i know, and i finally got to see mrs. seinfeld in action on oprah this week.

the show featured a group of school children who despised all the typical disgusting foods like broccoli, spinach, carrots, squash, etc. they were given jessica's foods...baked chicken nuggets, mac n cheese, brownies, and a few other items. the kids devoured the foods and raved about how wonderful each thing was. it was then revealed that all of those foods contained their food nemeses. the kids were shocked, bc the food tasted so great.

so, i am buying the book. i am sold.

Another Change

i've been putting off cutting his hair short for a really long time, bc as soon as you cut a little baby boy's hair, he becomes a BOY. not a baby.

he also has 6 new teeth.

and the big boy bed.

i'm so heartbroken that he's growing up. while i would never have another baby (well, bc ken is "fixed" and just bc i know we are done), it makes me incredibly sad to be saying goodbye to this part of spencer's life. and mine. i know that great things are going to come. but this seems like it's the beginning of him leaving me. (if there were a smiley to put here that was crying, it would be here.)

it was hard when emma went through this, but then i had spencer. this is it. the last time i will put my own baby into a crib. the last time i will look at my children and really see a BABY.

Big Boy Spencer

spencer slept on his own in a bed last night. he decided he'd had enough of the crib, i guess. we put a twin mattress in his room after we bought emma a double loft bed. up until this past week, it only had a sheet on it. it was mostly used as a place to play or a place for myself to lie down if i wanted to nap while he played in his room.

i bought a comforter and pillow and sheets for it last week. he's been very interested in it since then. a couple of times, he has woken from his nap in his crib crying. i could tell he wasn't ready to get up, so i would put him in the twin bed, and lie down with him. he did fine. and then last night, i gave him the choice of the crib or the bed. he chose the bed.

it took about 45 minutes to get him to sleep. at first, he pulled out the night light, crawled around in the dark, climbed behind the glider and got partially under his crib to mess with the baby monitor. i went in and put him in his crib after that. he screamed and screamed for a good 2 minutes. i put him in the bed again, and i could hear him starting to mess with his toys. i yelled for him to go night night. i checked on him about 20 minutes later, and he was asleep across the mattress. he had thrown himself on the bed the last time i told him to go night night. :D

so, i think he might be done with his crib. i'm a little sad. emma was 11 months when she moved to her toddler bed. spencer is 22 months and has been in a crib the whole time. i can't believe he's growing up. :(

Anti-Death Penalty

i wanted to recommend this movie/website to you all who read this:

http://www.afterinnocence.com/

it is about a select group of men who were wrongfully imprisoned and later set free after dna proved their innocence. some were imprisoned for 6 years, some for more than 2 decades. these are not the only men who have had this done to them. there are many. and beyond that, there are still an unknown number of men (and women?) who are going through this, but have not yet been exonerated.

what is really disgusting is that these men have not been taken care of or compensated for what the government took away from them. they were set "free" one day and told they could leave. the amount of money some of them were given is repulsive...$5.37.

the group, innocent project, has worked to free more than 150 people who were wrongfully imprisoned. there are so many more.

can you imagine how happy you would be to be freed finally? only to also experience the sadness at all that you missed. your life as you once knew it is no longer there. your children are grown. spouse maybe gone. job gone. no home.




on the same note, there is a hollywood movie called, http://www.thelifeofdavidgale.com/, that was in theaters in 2003. i recommend this movie as well.

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Ken's RNLT Date Was Approved!

we are now leaving mid-march, as opposed to mid-february. we have to be there by march 31. very good news. this way, we do not have to rush as soon as he gets home from qatar!!

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Scan Results

so, i apparently do not have a hernia. i'm completely baffled by this. the nurse i spoke with said that the only thing showing up unusual is a swollen lymph node. i have had a swollen node in that region before, and it felt nothing like this.

i am trying to make an appt to get some bloodwork done to find out what is causing this. i obviously have an infection, so we shall see.

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