Happy Thanksgiving!

( more )

Happy almost Thanksgiving!!
I'm thankful that we're starting to feel somewhat better finally. Our coughs are still hanging on but they're much better and our noses are no longer snotty. I'm sure I've jinxed us by saying something about it now though :P

We're going to Nan & Pop's for dinner tomorrow. We're only responsible for bringing the beans but I decided to make these too:



They're so cute!!



Jack has done a few turkey projects and we've read a few Thanksgiving themed books from the library:



( few other misc pics )

I feel like all I've been doing lately is complaining. I'm so so so so sick of us not being healthy. We've been dealing with this crap for coming up on 7 weeks I think. The kids were seemingly over their coughs/runny noses for a few days and then they came back. Fortunately they sleep pretty good when they're sick. I hear them coughing during their naps and during the night but it's not keeping them. Honey seems to work the best but it's not a cure-all.

I was feeling a bit better after my chiro visit last week but it's back. Coughing and snotty nose.
After our night out on Saturday I had a monstrous headache....as expected. But then it just wouldn't go away. Yesterday was day 3 of it and it was really really wearing on me. I was alternating Tylenol and Motrin and that wasn't really working. Sleeping was difficult. I tried ice packs. I called the doc and they said to keep doing what I'm doing. Finally it occured to me to make a chiro appointment. You'd think by now that I'd think of that sooner. It always seems to help. So I called yesterday but wasn't able to get in until this morning. My neck was so out of whack it was swollen! I feel much better now. I'm hoping it doesn't come back.

So today has been the first time in 4 days that I've had the energy/desire to do anything around here. The kitchen floor was gross. The bathroom was gross. The laundry wasn't too bad because Jared's been on top of it. He's been making all the dinners and doing the dishes....although he does that a lot of the time anyway. The kids and I walked down to my mom's for lunch yesterday in hopes that some fresh air would do us all good. It helped temporarily. I wish Jared could just go to some quick chiro seminar and learn how to adjust me so I wouldn't have to go to the chiro :P

I started reading the Sookie Stackhouse books. I'm halfway through the first one and really like it. It's like a recap of the 1st season of True Blood but it's a little different too so that's good.

I got some Legos from my mom's house last week. They were mine and my siblings' when we were kids. Jack's got some bigger Legos but these are the smaller ones. I was thinking about getting some for Jack for Christmas but wanted to see how much he'd play with them. Well I think it's safe to say that he really likes them! He's been playing with them every day and actually, we've all been having fun with them. Jared and I have spent a good chunk of time building things. I built a pretty sweet house the other day with a removable 2nd story. Then I built a helicopter the other day and he loved it.

We went out Saturday night for the first time since my birthday!! That was 2 1/2 months ago!! Rob and Barb came over to watch the kids for us. We had lots of fun :o)
The kids had lots of fun too :



Barb got some really cute pictures

( more )

I sure miss the good old days of not being sick. I feel like I've been sick for months. I keep going back and forth about whether or not I should go to the doctor. I know bronchitis eventually goes away on its own whether or not you take antibiotics. I finished the antibiotics like 5 days ago and I still have a cough and a snotty nose :/ It's really frustrating. Jack and Keira are for the most part over their colds. Jack still has a cough some times and I have to wipe his nose once in a while.

Keira is back to being an awesome sleeper! Hooray!! She's gone to bed nicely for the last several days :o)
She's starting to talk quite a bit more and say things more clearly. She picks up on new signs very quickly too. Yesterday morning she and I slept in together. She usually wakes up between 5:30 and 6:30 and I bring her to my bed to give her milk and some days we go back to sleep together. Yesterday we fell back asleep until about 7:30 and then she was stirring a little and I noticed she was signing for milk but hadn't even opened her eyes yet :o)

I had Brooke and Dylan for a few days this week. It was fun but both kids had colds so Dylan was not his usual happy self and I ended up having him strapped to me most of the time in a mei tai carrier. He just wasn't content to be anywhere else. Jack and Brooke and Keira had lots of fun though. My mom took them for a walk to the park one day which was nice. We managed to do a craft project during one of Dylan's naps :



Mine is on the bottom, Jack's is the top left and Brooke's is the top right.
We started out with caterpillars and then added suns, flowers, leaves and clouds.
We added the branches last. It was lots of fun!

I decided to start working with Jack on some letters. He knows his letters obviously, but I decided we're going to focus on a letter or 2 a week. We'll talk about the sound the letter makes, do some color pages, some projects and some work sheets where he can practice writing the letter. We'll also try and eat some foods that start with that letter. This week we started with the letter A. We made a tree and some apples out of construction paper. Each apple has a letter of the alphabet on it. He had fun coloring the letters and gluing them onto the apples. Then he got to glue the letter A apple to the tree. Every time we move onto a new letter he'll get to glue it on the tree. He loves to glue things and cut things with his scissors. Yesterday we did a craft project with a print out of an alligator and a toilet paper roll tube. He colored the pieces and I cut them out and we glued them on together. He did really good practicing writing the letter A and he also did the number 1. This week we'll work on B and 2 and depending on how much time we have to spend on it....at some point we'll do C and 3 too. There's some pretty good sites out there with letter writing practice sheets, activities ideas and color pages. If you know of any good ones, please let me know. Thanks!

We've been checking out a ton of books lately. I'm currently reading 3 different books, Jared's reading one about Wyatt Earp and the kids have a bunch of books. We checked out some books about Thanksgiving. Jack really likes I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie.
I'm reading Lovely Bones (alright), Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys (very interesting) and The Discipline Book (very good). I think anyone raising a little boy should read Rasing Cain.
I also Raising Boys but haven't started it yet.
Very interesting stuff!
I have a whole list of books on raising girls I want to read too. It's nice to actually have time to read again :o)

The other night we got Keira some supplies for her beauty salon at Walmart. I have been looking for supplies for her but haven't found much other than a comb, mirror, brush and a headband. We found a cute kit with a hair dryer that actually turns on and blows the slightest bit of air, a curling iron, a straightening iron, some curlers, a brush, some perfume and some lipstick!! I was pretty excited even though it's princess themed. I don't like to buy her princessy stuff.

She has been playing with all of it ever since. Jack especially likes to play with the hair dryer since it turns on :P



( few more )

We got Jack a fireman costume for 75% off so it was only $3.50. He's been having fun with it. He insisted on wearing the hat and bringing the axe to Cub the other day :P

Yesterday morning I went and did some cleaning for Nan & Pop. Then in the afternoon I took the kids to the mall. Old Navy is having a 50%off outerwear sale and Jack needed a winter coat. He also got a scarf and Keira got some new jammies as well as a hat and mittens.

Rob & Barb are babysitting for us this coming Saturday night. We haven't been out since my birthday! That was the end of August!! I hope I feel better by then :/

Keira did her first 2-sign combo the other day! She signed asking for milk so I gave her some. Then about 10 minutes later she wanted more so she was signing "more milk"!

For the last few months Jack has been coming into my bed during the night and I've been too lazy to get up and take him back to his room or fight with him about going back on his own. Some nights he'd come to my bed as early as 11pm! Most nights it wasn't until 2 or 3 though. I really didn't mind but I knew it was something that I eventually needed to put an end to. In the last few weeks he's been just asking at bedtime if he can sleep in my bed and crying when I say no. He would say different things about why he didn't like his room. It was too dark, it was too bright, his sister might wake up and cry, he just didn't like it, etc. Finally I decided to make him a sleeping chart similar to the potty charts that were such a big hit.
I told him every night that he slept in his bed the whole night....without any crying or getting upset at bedtime or during the night if he would wake up.....he would get to put a sticker on his chart. His chart is a puppy with circles for the body and the occasional square. When he gets to a square he'll get a prize. The first 2 nights he went to bed fine but woke up during the night and wanted to come to my bed. I didn't let him and he didn't get a sticker in the morning. The 3rd night he went to bed fine and didn't wake up at all....that I know of. So he got a sticker in the morning and was pretty excited about it. He's gotten 3 stickers now so he's getting closer to his reward. He's proud of himself for sleeping in his bed all night now :o)

I've been meaning to post some comparison pics of the Fitz Kids:



Jack at 15 months



Keira at 15 months

( few more )

I'd like to commend all the women out there that dressed up for Halloween and did NOT go the slutty route. It's really not that hard. Your boobs don't have to be hanging out of your costume. We'll still know you're female.

Anywho....

Something else that is extremely irritating.....I like the Perez Hilton feed....but I HATE that so many of the posts show up 68 google times. Why is that?? Argh....reading my friend's list can be so obnoxious because of that.

Tomorrow is my last day taking antibiotics and I don't seem to be getting any better. Argh. I hopt I don't have to start another course of some different antibiotics. My sinus infection seems to be gone though so that's cool. Still dealing with the bronchitis though. The Fitz Kids seem to be just about over their colds so that's awesome. Keira has gone to bed nicely the last 2 nights and thanks to daylight savings....is back to going to bed at a decent hour.

Jack and I went shopping yesterday and got some Halloween stuff for cheap. I'm pretty excited about that. I was hoping to find some costumes for dress-up play for the kids but even at 50% off they were more expensive than I would have liked.

We have a ridiculous amount of treats in the house. We have halloween cupcakes, halloween cookies, candy, pumpkin bars, apple crisp as well as some extreme toasted marshmallow candy bar rice crispy bars! I got the recipe for those here . They're delicious!!



Halloween was so much more fun this year than last year. Last year Keira was miserable so we were miserable.
This year was chilly but both kids had fun. I ened up wearing Keira in a mei tai carrier and that worked out slick.
She was pretty content and was even trying to say trick or treat :o)

Jack was pretty excited to trick or treat with Romy. After trick or treating we didn't hang out too long though because the Fitz Kids were tired and getting crabby so we went home. We did get a few pretty funny group shots though:

( back here )



Jack was drumming along to some tunes today :)



so naturally his sister wanted to too :)

I haven't commented on anyone's posts in a long time but I have been reading them all regularly. Sorry :/

I've been on Amoxicillin since Sunday and I still don't feel any better :(
Fitz Kids are both sick and it seems as if they're getting worse every day :(
They just have snotty noses and coughs....no fevers. Thank god!
Jared took 2 nights off work this week which was very helpful.
I've been able to sleep in with Keira which we both needed.
This morning she and I slept in until 9!! And she still went down for her nap around 12:30!!

I've had a humidifier running as well as a Vicks type vapor plug in thingy during the night. Neither of them have been sleeping very well.
Also.....this last week Keira has been extremely difficult to get to bed. I chalked it up to her being sick but didn't really think that was the issue.
Especially since it started before she really seemed to be sick.

She would cry for over an hour! I would go up and lay her back down every 5 minutes and then eventually give in and bring her down stairs :/
It finally occured to me that it could be a sleep regression. So last night I just said screw it and let her stay up until she seemed pretty tired which ended up being about 9. That's only an hour past her usual bedtime so not a huge deal.
She went down much easier than the previous nights.

I think we may have to pass on our ECFE class tomorrow. Jack's a snotty mess and dude melts down at the drop of a hat. I really don't want to subject other people to that.

I hope they both feel better before Halloween.

I took Jack to Cub on Saturday in his costume. They said they were having trick or treating throughout the store but they were big fat liars.

Tuesday night I took him to Kowalski's and they really did have trick or treating throughout the store so he was happy about that :o)

We made Halloween cookies yesterday and frosted them today. These are the 3 Jack decorated:




after that he was bored

( few more )

Jack's favorite toys this week are a gang of puppies. He's got like 5 or 6 of them. He sleeps with them, he naps with them and he plays with them. Especially a little red one named Rover. I made a dog house for them:



It's got a little hole in the roof for peeking.

( 1 more )


The other day we finally had a decent enough day to go out and play in the leaves:



Keira's making such a funny face in this one :)

( few more )

We carved our pumpkins the other day but have yet to take pictures of them. Jack's and Keira's were insanely hard to cut into so I ended up just painting on them :P

Keira has decided this week that she's ready to start feeding herself. Anything that requires a spoon she wants to do herself. She's pretty good at it too!
She got 2 new teeth over the weekend so now she has 8. It's funny because it didn't really affect her sleep at all. That's how I know this week it's a sleep regression. Even when she's sick or getting teeth....she's still a good sleeper.
She hasn't gone through a sleep regression since 9 months though so it took me a bit to even think of that as the culprit :P

I'm so sick of being sick. My cough has been hanging on for over 2 weeks. Now in the last few days my nose has started being stuffy, my chest is congested and I've needed my inhaler a few times a day. I can't sleep without a lozenge in my mouth :/
I was just thinking yesterday how miraculous it is that the Fitz Kids haven't gotten sick with all the sickness going around. Today Jack woke up with a stuffy nose. Awesome! :/

I wish I would have just had the flu for a few days and then gotten over it. This 2+ weeks long bullshit is obnoxious!!

We don't really have anything planned this weekend. Maybe some cleaning and grocery shopping but that's it. We might carve pumpkins but I don't want to do it too soon before Halloween. Since Jared works nights during the week though, we may need to do it tomorrow night.

Lately we've been going to the library a lot! I've gotten pretty hooked on how easy it is to just request books and then go pick them up without having to look for stuff. It's hard to look for stuff with 2 kids. Especially when the little one enjoys yanking books off of shelves. It's hard enough to just check out with 2 kids! I read Water for Elephants in a week. It was so good. I couldn't put it done.

Recommend some of your kids' favorite books please!!

Jack and I picked up some books yesterday after our ECFE class. 2 of them are Halloween themed :) We also got Toy Story. We've been checking out the occasional DVD since there are so many movies Jack hasn't seen yet and he's at the point where he'll sit and watch a whole movie.....for the most part. So last night he watched Toy Story for the first time. He liked it. We got Toy Story 2 earlier in the week....or last week maybe.....I can't remember.....it was scratched to shit and skipped a bunch so that was annoying.

Lots of people were out from our class yesterday. Kids and teachers! There's so much sickness going around. I hate that about this time of year.

My mom flew out to Seattle this morning to visit Amy, Erik & Simon! I wish we could have gone too :(

Keira is learning new signs every day! It's so exciting. I'm a tad frustrated though because I have a book with some signs that I've been teaching her and yesterday I was looking online for some new ones that aren't in the book. I discovered some discrepencies in the ones I've already taught her and the way they show them online. Not a huge deal but kind of annoying. Shouldn't something like that be universal??

I pulled out some hats/masks from the Halloween costume box the other day and the kids have been playing with them. They love them. I decided I want to get them some dress up stuff for Christmas. Not princess stuff!! I'm not buying Keira any princess stuff until she's old enough to ask for it. Hopefully she never will ;) Jared suggested we buy some stuff next Saturday or Sunday when it's dirt cheap. That'd be cool if we could find some halloween costumes marked way down that they could use for dress up. We'll see.




little devil

( more )



coloring the other day



puzzles!

I finally caved and trimmed her hair the other day. She refuses to keep any barrettes or pony tails in anymore :( I think I did alright and she was pretty good and let me do it!

We decided to go to Country Sun Farm again on Sunday. It was a much nicer day so it was pretty busy.



( few more )



Jack and I made some festive cupcakes today



then we made some pine cone critters

( few more )



Fitz Kids were having fun tonight playing with Elmo, Cookie Monster, Big Bird & Ernie

( few more )

Keira is getting pretty good at doing puzzles and sorting her shapes. She finally likes to actually color with crayons but still tries to put them in her mouth at times. I think it's only to see if she'll get a response from me though because she looks right at me when she does it as if she's waiting for me to correct her.

She likes to lay down and drive cars around just like her brother. Her most favorite thing is books though. She'll bring us book after book after book after book. And sitting on the floor cross legged is an invitation to read books in her eyes.

She'll point to several different body parts when asked.  Head, hair, mouth, nose, teeth, tongue, tummy, hands, fingers, feet, toes, ears, shoulders, eyes and cheeks.

She loves Hide and Seek. We play almost every day and most nights. Jack and I usually hide from her together and she loves to find us. Sometimes I hide from both of them though. If it takes too long to find me she gets upset though :P

She loves Ring Around the Rosie. Especially the fall down part.

She loves kisses. Most of the time when she is greeting people she leans forward and offers her forehead as if to say "you may kiss me".

My mom had back surgery a few weeks ago and isn't supposed to lift anything over 15 pounds so Keira has learned to bring the stool over so that she can get up to Nana's lap with minimal lifting on Nana's part. That way Nana can read her book after book after book after book.

We have a toy microphone that she wanders around "singing" into. It's pretty cute. I should get a video of it.

She loves her beauty station. We keep it on the porch and lately it has been too chilly to play out there so I bring it in almost daily. Sometimes I bring in the tool bench or the kitchen and the food/dishes. If Jared's awake, the corn popper car and police car or dump truck and the kids drive around the kitchen.

She's learning lots of new signs. Tonight when Jack crashed into her foot with his riding police car, she immediately came running to me doing the sign for hurt. We've only been using that one the last few days! I really wish I would have kept up with it more with Jack. Ah well.

They have so much fun together.....most of the time :o)

Jack is getting pretty fluent with the signing too now that I'm doing it so much with Keira. It's cute to see him sign things to her. He's my little helper when it comes to teaching her things. I'll overhear him reading to her, holding up an animal and telling her what it is....twice...and maybe the sound it makes, holding the shape bucket while she puts the shapes in, getting it started if she's struggling, telling her the shapes of the puzzle pieces as she puts them in the puzzle, etc.

Most of the time he plays and shares very nicely with her. He gives her hugs and kisses and tells her he missed her when we get home from going somewhere without her.

He also loves to tattle on her when she's being mischievous ;)

I have a TON of CD's with different genres of music. I decided to pull them out today so I could find the CD with Halloween Party Music on it. We had fun listening to Moster Mash, Ghostbusters, The Time Warp, Purple People Eater, Super Freak, Disco Inferno, etc. Then I decided it would be fun to listen to a couple different CD's every day.....depending on what all is going on of course. But I figured it would be fun for the kids to hear all different kinds of music. So next we listened to a Rock 'N' Roll CD with The Twist, Maybe Baby, Hound Dog, Lolli-Pop, Johnny B. Goode, Under The Boardwalk, etc. We had lots of fun dancing to that one :o)

Jack was picking out a bunch he wants to listen to but obviously it's just because he likes the design on the case. I'll let him pick one out this afternoon though.

Some of the CD's :

Golden Big Band Era
Jamaican Reggae
Tht 40's Glen Miller Orchestra
From India to Tibet
Cuba Libre
Luau Party Music
Disco Party Music
The Best Of The Caribbean
Polka Party Music
Steel Drums Of The Islands
The Best Of Italy
St. Patrick's Day Party Music
Essential Country
15 All Time Favorites From Bavaria
The Best Of Irish Pub Songs
The Greats Of Swing
Italiana Nostalgia
Flamenco Nuevo
Midnight Jazz
Tango Y Nada Mas
Kids Party Music
Pool Party Music
The Best of Germany

And many more!!

We're going to have a dance party every day (almost) and practice all kinds of different dancing :P

I also exposed Jack to the wonderful world of Video Games today :P He likes the Simpsons a lot even though he's hardly ever seen them. So I played a little Simpsons Hit and Run with him. Obviously he needs a little practice in the hand-eye coordination department  but he really liked it. We also have Simpsons Road Rage. We'll play that one another day.

We played a few board games with my mom too. She stopped by and we were getting ready to play a Thomas game. We've had it for a few months but never played it because Jack usually got bored before I finished reading the directions :P We made it through a whole game of it though! Then we played Candy Land. We didn't make it throught the whole game though. Kids got hungry for lunch.

This morning they watched The Jungle Book for the first time. Well, Jack watched it. Keira doesn't have the attention span for a half hour program let alone a movie. Jack actually doesn't usally have the attention span for a movie but he loves The Jungle Book and we've read it a bazillion times so he was pretty into it. We got it from the library along with Toy Story 2 although he hasn't seen the original Toy Story yet. Ah well. I'm sure it won't matter. He's big into Olivia right now so we got a few Olivia books as well as Llama Llama Misses Mama, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, If You Give a Pig a Pancake and a few others. I got Water for Elephants and I'm excited to start reading it.

Keira has started saying a few different animal sounds when you ask her them along with doing hand gestures to some of her favorite books. She's kind of taking her time in the speech department which I'm not concerned about at all. Jack had a much bigger vocabulary at this age but wasn't walking yet. He also was the first child whereas a lot of times when I ask her something, he answers for her. I expected that though. She comprehends A LOT! She imitates a lot of things he does too. Obviously that has it's pros and cons.

I can't believe she'll be 15 months on Sunday!!

She is now a master at getting up onto the couch and the train table. She then proceeds to run back and forth. She's taken a couple spills though so she is definitely learning that she is NOT invincible.

She's taken a liking to shoving her brother. She is not a fan of sharing laps with him AT ALL. She does kind of a whine/grunt and shoves him if he is too close to her, bothering her, attempting to share a lap, on a lap that she wants, or standing in a place that she wishes to stand.

She no longer cares for pony tails so her hair is forever in her eyes. Argh. I DO NOT want to cut her hair so I'm constantly sweeping it to the side and trying to get her to forget about any pony tails or barrettes in her hair. That gets old fast. She also still hates hats so winter should be fun with the whole trying to keep her noggin from feezing should we ever decide to go anywhere.

I know I've said it before but I'll say it again. I LOVE the kids' Gloworms! Jack still uses his from time to time but lately Keira rolls over and turns hers on the moment I lay her in her crib. Then I hear her turn it on a few more times over the monitor until she's asleep. Awesome. It sucks that it doesn't play music and stay lit up for longer though. I want to get her a Soothe & Glow Seahorse. They play music and stay lit up for like 5 minutes I think.

I watched this last season of Weeds in the last few days On Demand. Wow. What a weird bunch of storylines. I need to watch this last season of The Office. Such crap that it's not On Demand. 

I'm so annoyed at the lack of Fall we got. I'm gonna be pretty pissed if we don't get another shot at it. It's 'supposed' to warm up a bit this weekend and the snow we got is practically gone. Jack and I have a leaf hunt to go on for pete's sake!

We went to Country Sun Farm Sunday morning and it was pretty chilly out. Our camera and batteries are pieces of shit so I didn't get nearly as many photos as I would have liked :( If it's warmer (like it's 'supposed' to be) this weekend we may go back. The kids thought it was pretty cool but I think a wagon ride would be fun and we haven't done that yet. I'd also like to go to Pine Tree Apple Orchard at some point before Winter sneaks back up on us.




( few more )

On the way home we scored a FREE beauty salon station! The kids have both been having so much fun with it. I need to get them some beauty supplies from the dollar store this weekend.



( few more )

I made some forts for the kids tonight. They love to play with the tunnel and bus and they really love to tunnel TO the bus. The bus has a circular hole in one side that the tunnel fits nicely in. The other day I made a fort so they could play fort to the tunnel to the bus and ever since Jack has been asking to fort to the tunnel to the bus :)



enter here under the train table and go right at the chairs
that leads under the tool bench and the beauty station under the wolf blanket
that brings you to the tunnel to the bus

( few more )

So for the longest time we've had black soot on all sorts of surfaces in our house and never knew what it was from. The other day I found it on some dishes that I had just washed like an hour earlier! It drives me nuts and I want to just burn our house down and build it from scratch to get rid of it! Well today I finally decided to google it and found the answer. All this time and it's from our damn candles!!! ARGH!!! We ALWAYS have jar candles. Lately we've been burning them more and now that it's cold out the windows are always closed so that explains why it has gotten worse in the last few weeks. I guess aromatic jar candles are the worst and having them underneath a ceiling fan makes them even worse. OY. I wish I had known that years ago. I wish I had googled it years ago. Ah well. I'm happy to finally know what's causing it though.

Thanks for the comments on my previous post. So far so good. The kids still don't seem sick and I haven't gotten any worse. I'm really really sick of this cough but I know it could be a lot worse.

that we may have H1N1.

Kim just called and told me that she and Lizzie both have it. She said it started out as just a throat tickle and some sneezing on Saturday and yesterday turned into a cough. Last night she had a full blown fever. She said she doesn't really feel all that bad so she never would have guessed that it was H1N1.

I've had a bit of a runny nose and a throat tickle for a few days now that turned into a cough yesterday. The kids have both been a little sneezy and had some coughing but not much. Keira has actually been signing for milk at random times which is new. She usually doesn't sign for milk. I just offer her some when she wakes up, mid morning, before nap, mid afternoon and before bed. When I offer her some, I do the sign and she does it back. Yesterday she came up to me and did it on her own a few times and then would also look at the boppy. Makes me wonder if she's feeling under the weather.

I just keep waiting for us to get worse.

Lizzie and Charlotte weren't here at all last week so if we do have H1N1 I don't know that we got it from them.



 

I got Jack's halloween costume this weekend :)
He's been talking about how he wants to be a dog for a while now so we were going to go to Old Navy and get their dalmation costume. I decided we should go to Saver's first and see if they had anything. He wanted to be a red dog like clifford. He has a little red dog named Rover though so he was saying he wanted to be Rover. I had only seen 2 variations of the Clifford costume though. 1 for about $20 which looked flimsy and cheap and 1 for about $50 which was NOT going to happen. $25 was about the most I wanted to spend.

I saw this giraffe right away and since Jack loves Melman from Madagascar I thought he'd like it so I grabbed it right away. It was pretty busy in there and there were lots of people in the costume section. I showed it to him and he was really excited about it and wanted it on right away! There was a woman behind me who wanted it too and was waiting for me to hang it back up. We hadn't decided on it for sure yet so there was no way I was hanging it back up! There was a dalmation costume too but he wanted the giraffe so it's a good thing we got there when we did. It was $6.99 but we had brought in some clothes so got 20% off everything we bought. I ended up finding about 6 shirts for myself, 1 for Keira, some shoes for myself, pants to go with Jack's costume and a Jacket for Jack and I only spent about $50!! I saved about $14 since we brought in clothes! I love Saver's :o) My mom called from work last night though and said she found some giraffe print fabric and is going to make Jack some jammies that he could wear over other clothes and under his costume on Halloween! He's going to look so cute.

Keira hadn't seen herself in her costume yet so I decided to try it on her again that night and let them play in their costumes for a bit. I showed her what she looked like and she loved it. They were both fighting over the mirror and shoving each other aside to get a better look at themselves! Jack had seen himself in the mirror at Saver's so he already knew what he looked like but he wanted to keep looking. Keira was so funny though, shoving him aside so she could see the cute bunny in the mirror.



( few more )

Keira has decided she no longer likes to wear her barrettes :( Fortunately she's down with baby pony tails :)



We had fun at our class on Friday and I told Jack if he used the potty at school that we would go on a fun family adventure this weekend. He used the little boy urinal and it was pretty cute. So we decided to go to Choo Choo Bob's yesterday morning. I told him if he used the potty at Choo Choo Bob's he would get a little prize and he used it twice! He got a little $2 train :) His only issue is that he's scared of the loud flushing sound so he doesn't want to ever flush when he uses public bathrooms. So I have to flush for him once he leaves. No biggie. I'm just happy he's finally starting to use public bathrooms. We can probably start having him leave the house in undies soon!

( choo choo bob's pics )

( misc )

She can get up on the couch now which isn't that cool.

I went over to my mom's to clean yesterday afternoon. She's recovering from her back surgery. My grandma just had shoulder surgery last week so I need to find a time to go over and clean for her as well. I'd like to bring the kids with so she can visit with them but obviously I can't clean and watch them at the same time.

Saturday I think if the weather is nice we're going to go to Country Sun Farm. It looks really cool. I think the kids will have a blast. We thought about going today with my mom but Jared would like to come with so we'll wait until the weekend. That and it's supposed to rain today and the next few days.

before

( after )

Fitz Kids had fun playing outside this afternoon

( few more )

Fitz Kids all ready to go to the farm.

( more )

We had fun at the farm. Got lots of good stuff and of course, Honeycrisp apples! Rob, Barb, Brooke & Dylan stayed over that night and we had a bonfire. The kids had fun playing together all the next morning. Rob went golfing so Barb and the kids hung out at the house with us.

My mom brought over some sweet potato muffins for Keira since she loves sweet potatoes but they had walnuts in them. Some big pieces and some little pieces. I decided to try giving her some. I'm not sure if people that have peanut allergies generally are allergic to other kinds of nuts. I figured if she reacted to it I could just give her some Benadryl. I took out the big pieces and most of the little pieces. She ate a few bites and nothing happened so I gave her some more. She loved them and they didn't affect her at all. So I guess that answers that question ;)

I'm getting kind of antsy to get Jack's Halloween costume. I know...it's not even October yet. Problem is he doesn't know what he wants to be. Every time I ask him he says something different. I'm afraid if we buy something that he likes, on the actual day he'll decide he doesn't want to wear it.

I can't remember if I've mentioned it or not but I got some Preschool Work Books for Jack. He LOVES them. 1 of them is about nursery rhymes and it has a connect the dots page and a hidden picture puzzle page for each nursery rhyme. It helps with number sequencing, peceptual skills and eye-hand coordination. The 2nd one is about tracing and is giving him some pre-writing practice. It starts out with tracing mazes then goes into tracing shapes and eventually will get him tracing letters. Again, helps with eye-hand coordination skills and teaching him how to write clearly. The 3rd book is a hodge podge of different work sheets about reading readiness, early math and beginning science. We do a couple pages out of each book almost daily. We do this book last because it's his favorite. It touches on all kinds of things. Number sequence, counting, size differentiation, size relationship, shapes, measurements, number recognition, addition, more or less, animal characteristics, alphabet and beginning sounds, matching, classifying, cause & effect & analogies! We got them from Walmart and there were a few other books that we'll probably get once we finish these. He gets so excited when I suggest we do his work sheets =)

We had fun at our ECFE class on Friday. Jack painted and then made a picture by cutting and pasting construction paper. His first time using scissors!! He did awesome with them too. We may have to get him some little kid scissors so he can practice. 1 of the other work books that we may get in the future focussed on praciting with scissors but I thought he would be too young for it. Guess I was wrong.

I drug out our baby walker thing for Delilah and Keira is obsessed with it. She loves to try to climb into it. I also got an exersaucer from my mom and she's been pretty excited about climbing on that today too. Dylan used the walker this weekend and I'm pretty sure Keira would have climbed in there with him if we had let her.

I joined a Mommy Meetup group a few weeks ago but have yet to attend any of the meetups. The ones I've wanted to go to just haven't worked out for us. One of them is at Choo Choo Bob's this Friday and Jack would LOVE to go but that's when we have our ECFE class. There's one at the Science Museum on the 12th that might be fun to go to. We'll see.

Yesterday was a busy day! I had 8 kids throughout the day in addition to my 2. I had Thomas all day. He's just a few months older than Keira. Then I had Max & Delilah from about 10:30-1. Then I had twin 4 1/2 year old girls named Ella and Lucy and their 2 1/2 year old brother Jackson for a few hours in the afternoon. I also had Lizzie & Charlotte. Jack had so much fun with all the kids. Keira did too of course :o) Today I just had Delilah this morning for a few hours and then I have Lizzie & Charlotte this afternoon. Tomorrow morning Jack and I have our ECFE class and then I'll have Lizzie & Charlotte again.

Saturday we're going to Aamodt's Apple Farm with Barb and Brooke and Dylan. I'm excited to get some Honeycrisp apples! Keira's going to be excited to see the petting zoo. Jack will be excited to see all the John Deere tractors and trikes they have to ride on :O)