my grandfather

Last Saturday (October 10th) my grandfather received an award for his service in the Armed Guard in World War II. Congressman John Adler gave him the award, along with an American flag which had been flown over the capital. Quite an honor.

Another picture can be found on the Burlington County Times blog.






After the quick ceremony the whole gang went to the Bagel Deli for brunch. Yum.

weekly recap (Oct 5-9)

Monday: The week started off on very little sleep. What else is new? I also woke up with a clogged milk duct. Woohoo, that was not fun at all. The rest of the day was relatively uneventful I suppose. No iPhone or camera photos, which means we didn't do anything great. LOL.

Tuesday: It was a normal Tuesday for us...school, lunch, followed by rest time, some play time, and then a trip to Chick Fil A for family kids night. I was really ready for the day to come to an end, but as we passed the fire station Tyler noticed commotion and read the sign and realized it was the open house. I had been hoping to avoid that, because it was late at night for him, but that kid doesn't miss a beat and I never would have heard the end of it if we didn't go. I put Jason to bed and left him with my parents while Ty and I had a "special date". It turned out to be a nice night, with good weather, and plenty of Tyler's classmates were there. He was a happy boy, adn I think learned a little bit about fire safety.




Wednesday: After school Tyler had a library program. I should have realized I was in for trouble when I had to park about 2 blocks away from the library due to lack of parking. Ugh. We finally got in and of course Jason wants NOTHING to do with reading a book or playing with the little toys they had. In fact he only wanted to bang on the fish tank. Not stare at the fish tank, but bang on it while screeching. When I was mean mommy and put and end to that he began screaming, loudly. The librarian initially had asked for parental help for the craft portion of Tyler's storytime, but at sight of Jason's tantrum I was politely told that I was not needed. I spent the rest of storytime watching Jason crawl around in the park across the street. We finally rejoined them when he was a little calmer. Tyler had a great little firetruck food craft. Jason screamed, yet again, and was given a graham cracker. Little stinker ate the whole thing! I suffered the reprocusion of Tyler and that darn red food dye for the rest of the day though. I seriously hate that crap and what it does to him.


Thursday: After school I announced to Tyler that we'd be making a trip to the mall to get Jason's 1 year old pictures taken. Tyler normally hates pictures, but because this was about Jason he decided he LOVES pictures. In fact, he begged me to take a picture of him right then. Stinker.


The trip to the mall was relatively uneventful. Got our pictures, a few things at sears, and of course Aunt Annie's pretzels. Yummy. Anyway, here is a preview of the pictures, including one of the boys together. Apparently Tyler won the battle and did manage to get in a few pictures, despite his desperate need for a hair cut. Ugh. It is what it is. LOL.





When we returned from the mall Tyler was sooooo excited to finally be able to pick the runner beans. I LOVED the look on his face when he discovered that a PINK bean was enclosed in the pod. Priceless!


Friday: After school Tyler and I walked home with him schoolmate, as usual. On the way there was huge drama over a plastic pirate coin they found on the ground. Yes, you read that right. Aaaah, the life of a kindergartener is rough. After a long compromising session they opted to take a picture of them together with the coin and then she brought it home for the weekend and Tyler got a real coin. Seriously, I don't make this crap up!

Later that afternoon my brother Chris took Tyler out to play soccer. I just love the picture I got of the two of them.


That night my grandparents and my brother Jim and Cara came to join us to celebrate my grandmother's 79th birthday. Yummy food, but Tyler was in a mood, to put it mildly. He has been really testing my patience, unfortunately. Right now it's a battle that he's winning. The lack of sleep I'm experiencing doesn't help, I'm sure. Anyway, that's a whole other post for another time (that I likely won't write because I'm too sleep deprived to catch up on blogging). Anyway, birthday pictures, which aren't great.


That night Jason shocked us by taking his first step. Well, stepS, to be exact...3 of them! What a big boy. He promptly sat down, looking shocked (likely from our excitement), and began clapping for himself! Too cute!

busy October weekend

October is a busy time of year. No lie, we have something on our calendar every weekend day in the month of October. The first weekend in October was no exception. Packed with activity!

Saturday morning started off with some garage sales. I've been really disappointed with the garage sales this season, but I did manage to find a wrapped Scrabble Junior game for Tyler, which I'm secretely putting away for Christmas and pretending it was purchased brand new. $1 well spent! Oh, and remember those soccer cleats that I desperately tried to find in size 11 for Tyler without success. Well, they were a garage sale find for $2. Go figure.

Soccer was fun. They were VERY low in attendance, I'm assuming due to iffy weather, so they combined with other teams for some mock games. Tyler is getting better at keeping up with the pack and trying to go in for the ball. Still not totally his thing, but he's trying and I'm proud of him. Towards the end they put him in goal where he managed to save all 4 attempts on goal. He laughed when they called him "the wall". He also got to cheer on his team from the sidelines as well, which was nice because he got to sit and chat with a girl. He likes that. I take that back though, as he did not cheer on HIS team, but instead the opposing team because Mackenzie is on that team. LOL.




That afternoon we got to go visit Uncle Chris. The traffic up route 70 is CRAZY!

Sunday afternoon we were supposed to go to the Pumpkin Festival, but due to some scheduling conflicts with my parents we deciced not to go. I think it was a good decision though because we ended up at Indian Acres farm instead. The boys had a wonderful time eating, playing on the playground, running through the hay/corn maze, going on the barrel train ride, and feeding the goats. We'll definitely try to go back again later in the season!











Mr. Tyler had a bit of a rough day and our trip ended on a bad note. In fact he spent the beginning of Chase's 2nd birthday party in time out as a punishment. He regrouped though and was albe to enjoy himself.



Later that evening my friend Miranda, who was in town for the weekend, got to take a trip down memory lane and do one of our late night walks. We caught up about lots of stuff, including her show. If you haven't tuned in yet, make sure you catch My Antonio at 10:00 on VH1. It's a bachelor type reality show starring Antonio Sabato Jr and Miranda is now one of the final 4 girls. Anyway, we walked for an hour and then watched her show. It was nice to catch up with an old friend!

another weekly recap

Before I forget, on Sunday we got some McDonalds and I brought the boys to Freedom Park for a little picnic. Stinker begged and begged and finally got his first taste of french fry. Of course he won't eat the foods I want him to but will eat a french fry. Ugh.
These school weeks just fly by....

Monday: I thought I was being smart and had scheduled Jason's 1 year well-baby appointment for while Tyler was in school, so I didn't have to lug 2 kids to the doctor. Next time I will check the school calendar first, as Tyler apparently had off school! Darn. So, in fact, I did lug 2 kids to the doctor. Jason is doing fairly well. He weighs 22lbs 15oz and is 29inches. He's a big boy for sure, but gained less than 3 pounds in the last 6 months and weighs only 12oz more than Tyler did at 6 months old! LOL. Anyway,his percentages are still dropping a bit, and although they aren't too concerned, they did suggest I consider going to a feeding clinic now. He has definitely made strides though, and hasn't gagged or thrown up food in a couple of weeks. He still would prefer to nurse 24/7, but is making progress. Anyway, the initial part of his bloodwork came back, showing no allergies to typical outdoor stuff, which was great. Still didn't have word on the food allergy testing. I did learn though that he's slightly anemic, so he'll be doing iron vitamin drops in addition to his tri-vitamin flouride drop. He got 3 shots and handled it pretty well.

That afternoon my parents and I decided to take the boys to the mall to go to build-a-bear. Tyler still had a gift certificate and we figured we'd let Jason make one for his birthday. We got part-way there and my parents got an emergency phone call and we had to continue on to the hospital instead of the mall. Tyler was disappointed for sure, but eventually I took them home and we stopped at WaWa to pick up a special treat dinner (my odd boy picked a fruit cup and cheetos) and I had bribed him with a walk to the ice cream stand. As luck would have it it started to rain, so luckily I was able convince him it would be just as fun to put Jason to bed, make a fort, and eat ice cream and read bedtime stories in there. Crisis diverted.

That night was a long night for the family, but perhaps that will be another blog for another time.

Tuesday: After school I had to make good on my promise to take the boys to the mall. My mom had an appointment with the knee specialist which ran later than expected, so the boys and I went on our own. Tyler loved, loved, loved making a bear and helping make Jason's bear. Actually the both picked stuffed puppies. Tyler named his "stuffy" and we named Jason's "ruff" because that's how he screached for the bear/puppy he chose. Anyway, from there we drove to chick-fil-a and met up with my parents for dinner and family kids night. The craft was a scarecrow face, which Tyler enjoyed at usual. Jason enjoyed getting a taste of Ty's ice cream. Little stinker.



By the way, my mom finally got some semi-promising news from the new doctor and she got orders to restart PT on Friday. Keep your fingers crossed.

Wednesday: After school Tyler had a library program, so my mom brought him there while I stayed with napping baby. Otherwise my day was apparently unremarkable, or at least I can't remember otherwise.

Thursday: I brought cranky teething baby over my grandparents house for a visit while Ty was at school. Cranky teething baby acted as if he had not a care in the world and happily played there for at least an hour, if not more. While there I noticed that Jason had finally cut his 4th tooth (his top left). I was hoping that would mean that he'd be less drooly and snotty and cranky, and perhaps even sleep better, but I was wrong on all counts. Sigh.

Speaking of Jason, that afternoon I got a call that his bloodwork came back showing no food allergies. Which means either he was allergic to dairy and outgrew it, he was simply very sensitive to dairy, or it was all in my head. I guess we'll never know. Regardless, it's now okay to try to slowly introduce dairy. I started with yogurt, which he promptly refused.

After Tyler got out of school he had an appointment with the pediatric dentist. He threw a royal fit while they tried to do x-rays. They must have been good though because they calmed him down and got them done somehow. Turns out his 2 "mini cavities" have progressed to 2 small and 2 large cavities. The 2 largest need root canals. Ouch. My poor baby. Not looking forward to the appointment to fix this. Ugh.

Friday: Tyler had a playdate after school with his little friend Mackenzie. They played in her backyard, ate lunch, and then played tea party and princesses. Meanwhile the younger siblings poked each other in the eyes and such. A nice diversion nonetheless.

I think that about sums it up.

Jason's birthday party!

Saturday evening was Jason's party. It wasn't fancy, just pizza and cake (well, and some chips, fruit platter, and veggie platter as well). Our immediate family was there, my parents, Al's mom and stepdad, Jason's cousin Carli, Uncle Chris, and my grandparents. I'm glad we didn't do anything bigger, because it proved to be a little overwhelming for Jason. He didn't want to go to people he doesn't see regularly (understandable), and he was a bit cranky. Cake was a total flop, in which he wanted nothing to do with eating. He did finger paint with icing for a bit, but that was the extent of it. Afterwards we did presents, which was a little more exciting for him. In the midst of present opening some of our guests unexpectly left due to illness, and after that he sorta chilled out a bit. I think he was a little less overwhelmed and started to enjoy himself. Overall, a decent first birthday party. Glad I didn't bother to plan more of a party!

After the guests left and the boys went to bed Al and I went out for a couple of drinks and listened to a band, a much needed diversion!