ENT

Friday morning Preston and I finally had our long overdue ENT appointments. I was praying they wouldn't cancel on us again! Kate stayed with Granny so it made it a lot easier- especially since we ended up being there over an hour, something completely unheard of at our ENT! They are really good at being prompt. Preston used his time well, making a picture to send for Grandpa Ed's honor flight mail call and playing I spy. On to the good stuff- because you know you love hearing about our ear issues!

Preston's ears looked good Friday. His left tube was completely crusted over and Dr. S. had to scrape the junk off of it. He thinks the tubes will be out before he goes back in April. Sigh. Despite the year he's had with these tubes, he thinks he'll do just fine and won't need another set. But with winter coming up, he said he couldn't be certain. I know my son and colds- they go straight to his ears. But he said that if they get infected again- that would be the fifth time this year- he would most likely have to take the tubes out and then put new ones in when his ears are cleared. That would mean two trips to the OR. Sooooooo not fun. I expressed my concerns over his last infection that took three weeks, two different antibiotic ear drops and a round of Biaxin before it cleared. He simply said that it wasn't Preston that's becoming resistant to the antibiotics, but the bacteria itself.

So with that being said, I'm not 100% pleased. Preston has had four infections since January. That's a lot for any kid, but too many for one with tubes. And he thinks he'll do fine once they fall out. I can almost say with 100% certainty that he'll be back to the same pattern he was in before his first and second sets- an infection every month. Even when I talked with him over the phone a few months ago, he said that he's nowhere near being ready to be out of tubes. When we saw him in June, he said the best thing we could to was keep him in tubes. Now there's a change of heart. I'm not happy. If these fall out and he's right back to constant infections and Dr. S. won't put a new set in ASAP, we'll be finding a new ENT. Christopher worked with some of the best ENT's in the country at Wash U, so I know finding another will be no problem. I hate to think of not being with Dr. S. anymore because he's so good with Preston. He even had him on the floor tickling him Friday and Preston was cackling and having so much fun. Not many doctors will do that. And he really is good at what he does, too, so it's going to be a touch call.

Then there was me. Preston's ears looked good. Mine looked OK. My tube is out and the eardrum is healed. He did have to dig the tube out of my ear because it was still lodged. I had a feeling it was out. While Preston has to wait to get new tubes, all I have to do is call when my ear goes back to it's old tricks and he'll put another right in. Because my eardrum is almost completely scarred over, there's only enough room for the smallest tubes they make, which fall out quickly (6mo. in children, 1+ years in adults). Putting in larger ones like Preston's is too big of a risk for a perforation. Having been there, done that, I don't want to do that again! We also discussed the "fizzing" sound that my ear makes when I hear things and the sound goes away- it sounds just like opening a bottle of soda and is so much more annoying than the constant ringing in my other ear. He said it's because of all the scarring and has something to do with the muscles that hold the eardrum in place. I couldn't hear well with Preston there! He also told me about a condition- again, I couldn't hear the name- where those same muscles spasm and sometimes need to be cut to stop this loud pounding noise in the ear. Now that he said that, I know that's what mine has been doing from time to time. It sounds like someone is pounding a big bass drum inside my ear and I can actually feel it. Between the constant ringing, the constant fizzing (playing Yahtzee tonight almost made me lose my mind), not being able to hear well, and infections, I just don't know what to do.

So that was how we spent our morning Friday. It was nice to spend some alone time with Preston.

Parade, pumpkins, and trick-or-treat

Ahhhhhh. Our weekend was so busy, and I'm so glad that it's over! This was our last jam-packed weekend until Thanksgiving so I'm going to enjoy my time off!

Thursday night was the annual Lion's Halloween parade downtown. Kate's girl scout troop was walking in the parade and since her BFF Addison was walking, she had to. She really had fun! You can see her below in the black dress and brown boots (I wasn't going to argue with her...). She was throwing Preston some candy and the camera caught it mid-air!

Watching the parade after Kate was done walking. What was she dressed as? Your guess is as good as mine! Seriously. She wanted originally didn't plan on dressing up (it's that jr. high, too cool for school thing), but did because of the parade. She wanted to be a vampire, but couldn't find a costume. I think this was a spider something-or-other costume that my mother-in-law found at Target.

We also carved pumpkins Thursday after school since they got out early. Our little knife broke mid-carving and it was time to start dinner to get ready for the parade, so we had to wait until I got another carving kit Friday before we finished them. The first one is Kate's- wolves howling, the middle is some ghosts, and the last is Preston's- a skull and cross bones.
Preston dressed up as Luigi this year. The store-bought costumes looked really cheesy, so I just bought him a green shirt, overalls, and the hat, which I sewed the "L" on. The mustache was too cute although it pinched his nose and it never stayed on for more than a minute.
Doing his luigi jump before heading out to trick-or-treat. It looks like he's hanging from the tree!
Today we got together with Christopher's family to trick-or-treat. The kids had a great time and came home with more loot than a pirate. I told Christopher we won't be buying and chips or fruit snacks for weeks!

Parent/Teacher conferences- Round 2

I must say that having the different school's conferences a month apart is quite nice. There's no trying to schedule two at the same time along with everything else. Yesterday was Preston's turn.

Overall, Preston is doing very well this year. He's an excellent reader, exceeding my expectations completely! It is definitely something that he enjoys and is learning very quickly! He needs to work on listening more attentively and participating more, but other than that, academically, he's doing great! She did say that he is a "bathroom player" which means that he gets caught playing around in the bathroom a lot. How embarrassing! I guess it could be worse! At least he wasn't the boy caught standing in the urinal!

Preston had perfect spelling for the first quarter of this year and earned a trip to Mc Donalds with his class next Monday! He can't wait! I do have to bring him some fries since theirs have milk, but other than that, he's good to go and for once I won't have to pack his lunch!

I can't wait to see what the rest of the year brings!

It's almost that time

Election day is coming next week, out of all the phone calls we get over the coarse of the week, the majority of them are political. Most people hate these calls, but the politician in me loves them, except the ones not from my candidates. Tonight I got one of my favorites, the one I'd been hoping I'd get each time I answered the phone and heard the recording... a live town hall meeting! It was U.S. Representative John Shimkus, a great guy that I've had the opportunity to meet during my political science classes. I listened in for quite a while, although I never did think of a fabulous question to ask him. I love the live town hall phone meetings. They're always neat to listen to and find out what is on other people's minds, and being able to participate makes it even more fun! Rep. Shimkus does a lot of these, even when it's not election time, and I always look forward to these calls!

Next week, I encourage each and every one of you to get out and vote. It's THAT important! We're at a critical point now where we have the power to change Congress, and it WILL happen. The people voted for change in 2008, and we got that change- what do you think of that now??? It's time to get some NEW change and turn this nation around. Of course, I can't tell you who to vote for, but those of you who know me well (or have read my "about me") know who I want you to vote for! ;)

Wiiiiiiiiiindy

It's been dry around here for a long time. In fact, it's been well over a month since we had any rain at all. It looks like summer, but feels like fall! Rain would be in the forecast for days, and then nothing. It was pretty bad. Then yesterday it started clouding up and getting windy, and the weather guys predicted severe storms and possibly tornadoes overnight. I had my doubts, but really hoped that it would rain. Have I mentioned before how much I LOVE thunderstorms?

Anyway, I hear it start to rain a little after 5 this morning, and the wind was just howling. At 5:30, the wind was absolutely crazy- almost as bad as when the tornado went over our house last summer and took all the tops off of our trees. Preston comes running into the bedroom bawling, scared. The wind was blowing the rain so hard on his windows that it scared me. I took him into my bed hoping he'd go back to sleep while I laid and listened for the tornado sirens (which didn't go off). The storm blew over but Preston, nor I, went back to sleep. Yaaaaaaaaawn.

When we went to town, the flagpoles at the 66 station had been snapped in half by the wind! Talk about crazy! I was very surprised that we didn't have any damage with our trees! The wind blew 40+ mph all day with strong gusts, and branches have been falling like the leaves. I'm surprised there are any leaves left! I can now see up the hill to Granny and Pa's house again!

So it's been a long day, but I've loved the weather! Now, I'm getting Kate's cold and my throat has been hurting me all day. I'm not going to say anything about my ears (knock on wood), but I am SO glad Preston and I are headed for our ENT Friday! That is, if they don't call and cancel for the 3rd time this month. I'm not counting my chicks before they hatch!

Prayers

I found out yesterday that one of Kate's girl scout leaders had just been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer. She has two young girls, ages 9 and 11. Right now, they don't know what he treatment plans are. Please pray for her and her family.

Baking day

Today kind of felt like the olden days where you'd have the one specific day that you'd do all of your baking. I didn't plan for it to be that way, but one thing led to another and before long, it felt like my oven was on the entire day!

I'd planned on making beef and noodles for dinner (click to go to my recipe). When I went out to get the beef and broth from the freezer, I saw the stack of many bags of cherries and figured that as long as I had my rolling board out, that I may as well make some pie crusts. So I did just that and came out with probably my tastiest pie yet. Those sour cherries are hard to balance- they're either too sour or not sour enough. I had a piece straight out of the oven. YUM!

As soon as the kids got home from school, Preston went straight to my recipe file and asked where my chocolate chip cookie recipe was. Since they'd been asking to make it for a while and we hadn't had enough of their dairy-free margarine on hand until today, I figured, why not? So we whipped up a batch of cookies that were also very tasty!

I also baked a loaf of bread for dinner, but that's kind of cheating because it was from frozen dough. But I do need to start baking bread again and stock my freezer. I love making bread from scratch!

I also baked two cakes tonight for the band's soup supper tomorrow night. I have to help Diana with Glen's cake tomorrow, plus run the big bucks store at Preston's school, so I figured I'd better bake them tonight than stretch myself even thinner tomorrow.

The only problem with baking all of that, is that now there's a lot of junk just yelling for me to eat it, and I already have heartburn. Ugh. But another piece of pie is in order before I head to bed!

It's that time of year

Eczema has reared its ugly head.

We enjoy a few nice months during the spring and summer with little thought to Preston's eczema. Most of the time, unless he gets a hold of something he can't have (like the bad blue jello), it's not even an issue. But once the heat turns on, it's back, and it gets ugly.

Preston is having his first flare, right above his top lip. It's dry, it's hard, it's crusty. I've been plastering it with Eucerin, but it's still bad. I hate when he gets it on his face because we can't use hydrocortisone on it. He had a spot the size of a quarter on his face last year that took months to clear up. IF it were anywhere else, we could have used hydrocortisone and it would have been gone in weeks. Sigh...

And this is only the beginning.

Not pretty

You know it's going to be a bad day when you terribly burn your finger at 6:45 in the morning. Clearly, my mind was not awake, and when I dropped part of a fried egg under the burner, I grabbed the burner (which I had JUST turned off) to get the egg before it stuck to the burner pan. OUCH! You should see the blister... This may be a sign that I should not cook that early in the morning.

You know it's going to be a bad day when your husband has his mid-week day off and is in a V.E.R.Y. bad mood. I won't even go there...

You know it's going to be a bad day when you have to take your sick cat to the vet, and she hates the vet's office with every piece of fur on her body. She hisses, she hit, and it was just horrible. The sweetest girl there, Jill, always gets Zipper when we go in, and I feel so sorry for her. I apologized in advance today, and she said that they always call her in for grouchy animals. Thankfully she's a dear! They gave Zipper some antibiotics since she was SO uncooperative, and if she's not better by Monday, she has to go in for sedation and x-rays. I pray she gets better!

You know it's probably going to be a bad day tomorrow when your already still grouchy husband announces at 7:00 that he has a 99 degree temp, and that's after taking Tylenol. Sigh... Sick husbands staying home from work are never fun.

And thus sums up my day. I'll be praying that tomorrow goes MUCH better.

Mishmash Monday

This is completely random, but right now, there is just too much going on to go into much detail. I'm praying things will settle down after this coming weekend...

• We had a great weekend and it was the first one in a month that we didn't have a birthday party to attend. Phew! We have two this weekend, though.
• Preston had his first bowling gig Saturday. There are two Prestons on his team! That made it a bit tricky when one of us would say, "Preston, it's your turn!"
• We still have a sick kitty. The Reglan isn't working. I'll be calling the vet in the morning. It WON'T be pretty... Please pray that it isn't anything serious.
• I finally got all of my recent photo shoots edited. What a lifted weight!
• Girl Scout cookie sales are finished! Kate didn't meet her goal of 250 boxes, but she sold a hefty 137, so I think she did a great job!
• I have a busy week ahead of me with an even busier weekend.
  
• Meals on Wheels called me today and I start delivering at the end of next month!
• Grampy and Flat Stanley return from Europe tomorrow and I can't wait to see pictures from their trip! Preston's Stanley will probably be the most traveled in the school once he'd done!
  

Sick Kitty

Whoa! The thumbnail didn't look too bad, but now that this is uploaded, Zipper looks really mean!

Our poor Zipper is sick again. She's begun vomiting again every night. And it's weird that it is almost always at night, and not in the day, although she did vomit this morning. We started her back up on her Reglan last night, so hopefully she will stop getting sick soon. I pray that she does because a trip to the vet is NOT a pretty situation. Our sweet kitty turns into the devil's cat the second we get there, and EVERYONE has to be on alert! The last time we were there, she bit someone. It's bad...

The strange thing about her vomiting is that she almost always does it in Kate's room. It's not just this round, but every time she gets into her vomiting spells, she will only do it in Kate's room. One time she seemed to target a Scooby pillow until I finally took it away. This time it's her American Girl doll bed that Zipper has taken over as her own- nothing like high style for a cat. But Kate is very upset over Zipper doing this in her room. She has to watch where she steps in the morning, her sham pillows need washed almost daily, and it's just everywhere. She wanted to put up a baby gate to keep her out since she doesn't like her door closed. Poor girl. Both of them. Please pray that her med. will start working quickly and we can avoid the vet. I'm also worried because she's 11 years old, and that's pretty old for a cat. I'm praying this isn't something serious that's age related that may not get better. We're not ready for Zipper to go.

Southern girl at heart

Last night, as I was watching yet another BBQ show on Food Network, I realized that I'm living in the wrong part of the country. I've been born and raised in Southern Illinois, right smack in the mid west. But my heart longs for the South. With the exception of one very long vaca to San Francisco, Reno, and the Grand Canyon, I have only vacationed in the South. I love the South- the friendliness, the laid back attitude, the accent, and mostly, the FOOD.

Oh, how I LOVE Southern food. It just feels so welcoming, and it's no wonder that when I cook, I tend to cook Southern food, regardless of calories, simply because it makes you feel good. When we had Preston's party, I put out a full spread of pulled pork (complete with slaw on top) and savored every bite. Even though dairy isn't an option in this house, when I get hungry for fried chicken, I'll buy a 1/2 gallon just to make gravy. I'm too scared to risk making it with rice milk. I love a good biscuit with gravy. Corn bread. Rich deserts.

So for the time being, this girl from Illinois will remain in the mid west. Maybe someday, if my children keep begging to move to Gatlinburg, maybe we'll find ourselves somewhere in the South.

Funny

My daughter makes me laugh. She's her own little person- flawed, yet perfect. She has a brilliant mind, always a thinker. Some days, things are over-analyzed, others, things don't get a second thought. Then there are days that make me scratch my head and think to myself, What are you thinking?!?!?!?

I was helping Kate study for her social studies test for tomorrow. She clearly knew the material and was doing very well with the study guide. This study guide was filled out by the students, then corrected so that they had the right answers, but it wasn't for a grade. We got to one question- This area is presently known as Sudan. What did the ancient Egyptians call it? Crossed out on the line, I see Maine (as in the state). I chuckled and asked her why it said Maine. She starts laughing and said that she had to hurry up and write something, so she wrote the first thing that came to her mind. In this case, it was the state of Maine. I'm not sure where the connection between Maine and a country in Africa came from, but it was cute nonetheless.

As we laughed, I remembered just a few weeks ago as we studied for another social studies test. This one was about B.C. and A.D. I must say that spelling has never been Kate's forte. If I had to pick one academic downfall, it would have to be spelling, hands down. The question read- Does every culture use the Gregorian calendar? Her answer, No, because not everyone believes in Chrise. I asked her who Chrise (like Chrissy) was, and she laughed that she had spelled Christ wrong.

And remember a few weeks ago when I posted about her parent/teacher conference where her language arts teacher explained how she never gives 100% to any of her students, but gave Kate one on her paper because it simply could not have been improved upon? I read through it, and in the entire paper, she talked about the scent of pin that filled the air at the pumpkin patch. Yes, she smelled pin not pine. And it wasn't just used once, but many times throughout the paper, and each time, it was pin.

I love you sweet girl, you make my day!

Adventures in cookie selling

Tonight, we set off on foot to sell cookies to the neighbors. We did pretty well for only stopping at a few houses and Kate is slowly inching her way to her goal. But of course, doing so would not be without excitement!

We stopped at the Kern's house. I've known them for several years. Her husband mowed the church lot next to our old house, and she came with her dad to look at our house before we sold it. She's also one of Kate's friend's aunts. Anyway, after buying cookies, she asked how we liked living in our new house. Right away one of the kids chimed in, "There's no ghosts in this one!" So then that opened up a huge conversation, "Really?!" "What happened?" "Did you ever seen any?" She was really engrossed and I did have to tell her about Wanda. As we were leaving, she asked if ghosts were evil spirits and as Preston jumped off of their porch, he shouts, "Nope! Wanda's nice!" Oh, land! After we left, I told Kate we wouldn't sell many cookies if we spent ten minutes at each house talking about ghosts!

Another house we stopped at belonged to some of Christopher's relations and they know us well (although I don't know exactly how they're related). She invited us in, and we only went in because they were relatives. As we're standing there visiting, Preston sees a cobweb, swipes his hand and says, "Oh, you've got a cobweb!" How embarassing! She thought it was quite amusing and laughed, but I was thinking, here we go again...

We still have a lot of houses in our neighborhood to go, and still some family that hasn't been asked yet. We always wait until the last day to see if she needs a certain number to reach a goal/prize- within reasonable limits, of course.

We had a busy day at the zoo and I'm beat. I wanted to remember our adventure in selling before I forgot, but I'll share our weekend pictures soon. Possibly another photo shoot tomorrow afternoon as well, so I'm just beyond busy- and loving it! But Seth called last night and left a voicemail on my cell to the effects of, "I'm calling about some pictures I had taken a week ago and haven't heard anything about them yet. Just calling customer service to complain." I nearly laughed my head off! My brother is a nut! Gotta get those pictures done this week. Also gotta get my garage sale ready and bake 2 desserts for the Fun Fest Friday. Eeek!

Busy, busy

We had a pretty relaxed day compared to the upcoming weekend. Kate got in trouble... So when Granny stopped by with a side table she'd found for me at a garage sale, Preston asked if he could go to her house. So he got to go play with Granny and Pa for a few hours while I spent some time with Kate. It was nice. It's not very often that we get to sit down together, just the two of us, and have lunch. We then set off to sell some Girl Scout cookies (see the sidebar for her running tally) at Grampy's office, went to the library and put our ad in the paper for my garage sale next week. I wish we'd walked the neighborhood selling cookies, though. If it's nice, we'll do that Monday.

Tomorrow morning starts the chaotically busy weekend. I have the girls' birthday party shoot at 11, and have to be there by 10:15 to do some before shots in their outfits before they're covered with cake! It should be fun! Then we're off to dad's after the party for some fishing, kitten petting, just having fun day. Annette always makes fabulous dinners, so I'm excited about what she'll have for us tomorrow night! Sunday is a trip to the St. Louis Zoo, and hopefully, a photo shoot on the landing. I REALLY don't want to have to make another trip over there later on, but the shots I'm wanting are in jeans and long-sleeves. Go figure that it's supposed to be in the low 80's. Sigh. So the jury's still out on that one. We may just have to buck up and face the heat because the next day they're out of school (which I'd planned as a back-up date), Preston and I have our twice rescheduled ENT appointments. And there's NO WAY I'm going to reschedule them again- not with Mr. P's ears. Monday is up in the air. We're supposed to meet Grampy at the park, but Granny and Pa want us all to go up to the property one last time before winter, so I told her to invite Grampy along and we'll all go. But it's supposed to rain, so who knows...

Kitchen

It's Show Us Your Life Friday at Kelly's Korner and today's theme is kitchens!

It's hard to believe that 3 years ago this weekend we started working on this house. It's even harder to believe that this is the kitchen that we started with. HOLY COW. One of the conditions (MY condition) of buying this house was that we would gut the kitchen and start fresh. The drawers had to be forcibly opened and closed, as did the cabinet doors. There was no dishwasher. There were only cabinets along that one wall. Thankfully, Christopher agreed! You can see the complete renovation here.

The reno was not without it's problems, most importantly, the cabinet that blew off the trailer and shattered, leaving us with an unfinished kitchen for 3 weeks after we had to move in. But it was all worth it!

We knocked half of one wall out to make a breakfast bar that is rarely used except for homework. I love it, though.


My children supply me with a never-ending array of decor for my refrigerator. You can tell they've added their favorites- two yellow submarines and a drawing of John Lennon. Ha!
But this has to be my favorite. Preston drew it the first week of school. He's the one in red, I'm the one in blue. Amazingly enough, my hair actually feels like he drew it a lot of days! Maybe he's trying to tell me something. I love my sweet boy!

I hope you enjoyed our kitchen! Thanks for stopping by!

It's cookie time!

Girl Scout cookie time, that is! Let the craziness begin! Kate has set her goal at 250 boxes. That's a lot! But the time before last, she sold around 242 boxes (going completely off of memory, here). It's attainable, but she has to work hard. Hopefully this time will be a good turnout. Last year, because they restructured all of the councils, we sold cookies twice in one (calendar) year, but it was spread out over two scout years (they break in the summer), so last year's scout troop didn't sell hardly any. People had just bought cookies less than 6 months before that and didn't want more. That meant that her troop didn't have as much "fun money" to use for trips and activities as they usually do. So I'm optimistic that this will be a good year, although I don't think the girl that sold 700 boxes last year joined back up this time.

Christopher took one order form to work today and sold 31 boxes. Dee has the other and Kate is excited to find out how many she sold. Tomorrow the kids are out of school, so we'll be hitting up a few neighbors and will be visiting Grampy's office to sell to the ladies there. They love when Kate comes around with the order form! Saturday should be another good day since all of the family will be at Abbie and Issie's birthday party! I think I'll keep a running tab on my sidebar to see if she reaches her goal! Let's sell some cookies!

Unmotivated

Do you ever have days where you just feel so unmotivated? I'm in a fix right now and have no ambition.

I spent the past two days at home with Preston, which are always sweet times, even when he's sick. His fever broke yesterday so he was back to school today, and I miss him. He sounds all stuffed up and has a cough, but otherwise, he hasn't missed a beat. This virus certainly didn't slow him down! While he was home, not much more than the basic everyday chores were done. I spent my time with him.

So now I sit with two photo shoots that need edited, and don't feel ready to conquer them. Now, I should be hard at them because on Saturday, I have a big birthday party shoot and possibly two more this weekend. Holy mother of pearl, when did I get so busy? Sigh... I enjoy it though, or I wouldn't do it.

I also have been feeling queasy for the past two days. If I eat a bite, I feel better with the exception of yesterday afternoon that pretty much knocked me flat. Please note that it doesn't take much nausea to do me in. I know that God was with me when I was pregnant because I had absolutely NO morning sickness with Kate, and some all-day nausea and gagging with Preston for 12 weeks, but I never got sick. Had that not been the case the first time around, I doubt Preston would be here!

Christopher got another speeding ticket last night. Sigh... I can't even begin to remember how many he's had in all. We have the same conversation each time, about when was the last one, the one before that, and so on. I went in to pay our property taxes this morning so I stopped by the State's Attorney's office to ask about court supervision. They've raised that through the roof, and it's now $270! I think we'll just pay the $120 ticket and let it go on his record. His last ticket was in Nov. of last year and in St. Clair county, supervision is free. FREE! I guess our county needs the revenue??? And what makes it worse, is that the state just raised ticket prices from $75 to $120 last month to help generate income for the state since ol Blago completely depleted any funds Illinois had. It's sad. I told Christopher to keep the cruise under 70!

Picture perfect weekend

I had two photo shoots lined up for this weekend, so I knew I was going to be busy. But Saturday morning, we woke up to rain, so that shot my first shoot with Abbie and Issie, but we still had hope for doing their family shots at the farm that afternoon before Sarah's party. Thankfully, the weather cooperated- somewhat. It was COLD. It was WINDY. But we persisted and did the best we could with what we had. Between takes, I took a few of my sweet boy.
Doesn't my little man look so grown up? Now, if we just had his boots in the picture, it would go great with the barn! I plan on taking him and Kate back this weekend for a better shoot with both of them. It's supposed to be in the seventies, so that will be just perfect!
And here are my sweet nieces, Abigail and Isabela, who will be turning one on Saturday. It just doesn't seem real! With it being as windy as it was, they weren't as cooperative as usual. They kept making funny faces and turning away, so I didn't get as many as I'd hoped. We still have their "official" shoot coming up, so I know I'll get many more. I've also been asked to photograph their party, so I'm excited about that!
Today proved to be much nicer although it was predicted to be the colder of the two days. I was able to get out with Glen and Cooper and take their 3 year and 6 month pictures. Glen did SUCH a great job and we were all so proud of him! He is such a little ham! I love him so much!
And Cooper is just a big ball of butter that makes you just want to squeeze his fat legs! He's every bit of a ham as his brother! I swear that this boy does not fuss unless he's hungry. He is the happiest, smiley-est boy there is!

The kids had a blast playing together this afternoon and built a hotel in this huge, 30+ ft. tree that Seth and Pa cut down this afternoon. They took me on a tour and it really was neat. They definitely used their imaginations! Right before we got ready to come home, Preston slowed down and said that he didn't feel well. I asked him what didn't feel well- his throat, his head, and his belly. The dreaded trio that usually means that strep is paying a visit. We got home and he had a 100 degree temp. So no school for him tomorrow, and most likely a trip for a quick strep. And I'm not saying a word about his ears...