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













curling her hair





her favorite thing is the lipstick
probably because she sees me putting on chapstick so much :)









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 :/