Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Christmas!

Beware of long post with many pictures!

Christmas morning! The kiddos slept in until 9, so it was wonderful!
The stockings I made last year… I really like them, but they are pretty small and I would have to make another matching one for next year… so we might have all new ones next year??
Like father, like son. Hair-wise that is!

Grey wanted to show us everything out of his stocking.

We had to keep reminding him to look for more stuff because he was the king of distraction this year!

Have you ever seen someone so excited to get new undies!?!
Grey's favorite was the chocolate of course.

Skylar made sure that Toby and Sammy each had a stocking as well and they loved their new bones. They each grabbed one up and took off to hide and eat in peace.


Skylar wanted us to open the present she did for us (at school) first, so we opened that up. I loved getting artwork made by them!

Then it was time to open presents!



They both loved all of their presents! But Grey needed some extra convincing to keep opening up new presents since he just wanted to play with the ones he already opened. Perhaps that is a sign that we got them too much stuff??

He almost has it! He has been going around saying "cheese" and taking pictures of people.
He needed a quick recharge in the midst of opening presents!
After we opened presents, Dada helped them play with their new toys while Mama cooked breakfast and then we all got ready and headed over to Nana and Papa's house. We spent Christmas Eve with my family and I'm the doofus who forgot to take her camera. :*(

We got there and ate some lunch and Grey took a nap while Skylar watched cartoons… we waited for Bill and Kristen to get there before we dug into the presents.
Poor Emma got banished to the other room when Bill and Kristen brought their new dog Izzy.

Skylar and Grey were busy little beavers in the middle of all the adults. They were dancing around and throwing balls!

Skylar helped pick out all of the presents this year, including this beaver hat she got for G-pop. I'm taking bets now to see if he will ever wear it again!


We had a great Christmas and the kids are still loving their presents!

Friday, December 23, 2011

Christmas caroling and tree lighting in Jamestown

After the Christmas parade in Jamestown, Skylar and I went back home and picked up Ken and Grey, (who just woke up from his 3-hour nap!) and went back downtown to see the annual Christmas tree lightning and sing carols.

The kids loved the "hot" chocolate and cookies and watching the water fountain while we waited. We kept wondering where the infamous tree was when we realized it was a maybe three footer planted on the lawn in front of the library. Evidently they bought a new tree this year and wanted something that would grow over the years. It was a little disappointing honestly…

We stayed for a few carols and then went home for dinner. :)

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Grey's first trip to the ER

Actually, it was the walk-in clinic at Moses Cone, but ER sounds so much more exciting…

A few weeks ago, I was making a valance for Skylar's room (its finished and I love it… will post about it soon!), but I was ironing the fabric and went to use the bathroom. Grey walked in the room and dummy me, left the iron on the table.

I hear a loud crash and know immediately what happened and just prayed it wasn't his face.

It was his hand. :*(

Poor little guy was okay after the first minute, but then started crying about 30 minutes later. We had kept it in cold water at first and I guess when he left that, the burn really came back. We put some aloe on it, gave him some meds and called the on-call nurse at the Peds office.

She told us to go on in the to ER. I decided to go to the walk-in clinic instead because I knew where that was. I figured they could point me in the right direction if it wasn't right. The ER was somewhere in the near vicinity so it wouldn't have taken us too long to hop back in the car and go there instead.

Grey was pretty upset until we got to the clinic, and then he was mostly fine. I had a washrag to keep on his hand and as long as he had that, he was okay.

By the time we got in to see the doctor, a huge blister had formed over the burn. The main part was in the crease between his thumb and forefinger, but the tips of his first two fingers also got burned. You can see slightly where it goes all the way up his forefinger practically.
He was amazed by all of the "toys" in the room. He especially loved the heart rate machine…

It was late for him and he was pretty tired, so I snuggled up on the bed and we watched Netflix on the phone while waiting. I don't really understand doctor's offices and how one person comes in, asks you some questions and says the doctor will be right in. We wait some more.

The doctor comes in, asks you pretty much the same questions and says they need to check out the best thing to do for one so little…

We wait some more…

The doctor comes back in and says this is our protocol: blah, blah, blah. You are all caught up on vaccines right? Um, no….

(Do I tell them that I missed his 18-month check-up because his sister broke her leg and I was too busy taking her to all of the specialists??) No, I just didn't make his appt.

We wait some more.

The nurse comes in to bandage him up. But didn't finish.

We wait some more.

A second nurse comes in to finish the bandage.

We wait some more.

The first nurse comes back in to give him his DTAP vaccine.

We wait some more.

The doctor comes back in to check everything over.

We wait some more.

The nurse comes back to give us our discharge papers.

We can leave!!

It was a long night.

And we might or might not have broken the stethoscope while waiting.

But, Grey was a model patient for the all the nurses and doctors and let them do whatever they wanted. He didn't even cry when they gave him a shot.
Although he thought about it!
I'm glad to say that he is all healed and doing nicely! He didn't even seem to notice his hand after that, until we took his bandage off twice a day to clean and reapply cream. Then he would hold up his hand and say, "hurt" in his most pitiful little voice.




Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Fall fun.. with a little Christmas thrown in there

Skylar can be very particular about how she falls asleep and often needs certain babies/animals/pillows, etc. When we walk in to check on her at night, this is a pretty normal scene:
Books everywhere, clothes on the floor (she sometimes changes) and dolls laid out on pillows with blankets. They need some love too.

On another note: Skylar is all into the Christmas season and loved getting to decorate this gingerbread man with my mom one day. Don't worry about the Halloween tablecloth… it has been replaced with a Christmas one. :)

But, before we jump too much into Christmas, there's still some more catching up to do…
One of the great (ah-hem) things about fall is all of the leaves on the ground and how beautiful they are changing colors. Everywhere but in your own yard. I don't have an official count, but we had somewhere close to 100 50 gal. bags of leaves and we still haven't gotten them out of the back natural area or the flower bed beside the house. Meh.

Skylar and Grey had a blast jumping in the leaves though when we raked them up into piles. They really just threw themselves into it!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Thanksgiving show at preschool

Every year for Thanksgiving, Skylar's school sings a bunch of songs and puts on a big potluck feast for the parents. Skylar is there on the front end… She decided not to sing any of the songs, even though she knew them all, because all of the parents were there and she doesn't "like to sing in front of the parents."

But she was cute anyway. :) Aaron, her best bud there beside her, sang his little heart out. :)


Monday, December 19, 2011

Halloween- Going back a few months to catch up!

So, yes, Halloween was almost two months ago, but I want to document here for memories sake! Grey was a puppy (you might remember this puppy from Skylar's second Halloween) and Skylar was a dragon. The dragon was meant for Grey, but Skylar decided to wear it over the princess dress-up clothes that she has and I was all for that. It was a little tight… and short… but whatever, it was dark!

We didn't last too long trick-or-treating this year. The cousins came over and we went around the neighborhood like last year, but only made it to the end of our street before we had to head home!

Grey was adorable saying, "tick-a-teet, pees" and "ank-ooo", however, he assumed that he would be able to eat all of his candy immediately and got to the point where he started screaming as we left each house because he couldn't eat everything while standing at the door.

Skylar, refused to say anything, but did smile and ask me if I would say "trick-or-treat, smell my feet" for her. I refused. She did great until we got to a couple of houses in a row that had a bowl of candy sitting out to grab yourself. At the next couple of houses, she decided that she wanted to pick out her own candy instead of them handing it to her and even said, "I don't want that one!" After explaining that that was rude and telling her she needed to except whatever they gave her and say thank you, we went on to the next house. She did the same thing and so we decided then and there to make an early night of it.

We got back home and kids were in the bed and Skylar was standing at the top of the stairs when the doorbell rang a few minutes later and she yells down, "Mama, don't hand out the good candy! Not the candy in that bowl!" I told her she could eat the candy she got tonight, but we were handing out the candy we bought to hand out. So she thought a minute and said, "Just turn the light off and put a sign up that says we are out of candy!"

She thinks she's so smart…

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Grey's new sleeping arrangements

The past few nights, I've gone in to check on Grey before bed and found him here:


He has been taking his pillow, lamby, dog-dog, and two blankets and snuggling up in the rocking chair to fall asleep. I almost hate to move him he looks so comfy.

Almost...

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

What's that you say? I have a blog…. oh right…

Yes, I realize it has been over a month since I have updated the blog. Basically… we've been busy. But, mostly, I've been lazy!

I was looking back through my pictures and finally got them all uploaded from my camera to the computer and realized that I don't have a single picture from November. And I don't even remember what all we did in November. Except that we were busy. That makes me pretty sad, since I usually rely on pictures to remind me of everything we have done. I have a very poor memory.

Maybe I took some with my phone? But that would require walking 20 steps into the kitchen to go get the phone… and if you go back to the first paragraph (can I call it that?) you'll remember that I'm lazy. Hopefully I did take pictures with the phone and one of these days I'll remember to upload those on the computer as well!

But, until then, here are a few pictures from December when we went to the Jamestown Parade. Grey was asleep (pretty sure Ken was too), so Skylar and I met my mom, sil and cousins out in the cold! She had a blast and loved it! She is sooo into Christmas this year, it's been so much fun!




Friday, November 11, 2011

Grey's cowboy persona

He can't stand it: every time he sees the camera or phone, he stops everything to come watch himself. He LOVES to watch himself on video.



Dancing at IHop

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Windy Gap

The weekend before Halloween, we all headed up the mountains to Windy Gap, near Blowing Rock, NC. Ken was playing with his old band members for a weekend retreat and we tagged along with them.

The camp is beautiful and has a very charming, rustic setting. Here is the cabin we stayed in:
And here was one of our views during the day:
Here was another view as we walked up the road towards the meeting hall and dining room:
Right by that large draping tree is a large pond with a huge slide going down the mountain into it; and a large blob (huge pillow-like bouncy thing that you can jump onto, scoot to the edge and then have someone else jump behind you and fly you into the air before landing in the water. The weekend we were there was freezing and it even snowed a little bit however there were still high school students doing the blob, swimming in the pools, and going down the slide. Crazy!
Windy Gap is a Younglife campsite and their goal is to make it a fun place for high school students to go. They feed them three meals a day and include activities in addition to worship time during the day. In addition to the lake and pool, they have a volleyball court, basketball court, snack-shop with games, horseback riding, a zipline, and probably something else that I just missed.
The kids and I had quite a bit of time without Ken while he was setting up and practicing, so we took a walk around the place. We went to see the horses and stood at the gates waving:
And oohed and ahhed over the huge leaves we found on our walk.

This isn't exactly a good picture, but I thought it was funny. Grey looks so serious here. He was just running up to me when I tried to jog ahead a few paces to take their picture. I guess he thought I was trying to run away and he was concentrating hard to keep up!
We saw this old bridge that the kids loved. Scared me silly thinking they were going to fall off though!
Grey did try to kill himself… although not by going over the side of the bridge.
Next we saw an old wagon and the kids wanted to hop up and "ride" it.

What? Were they actually having fun together?? I don't remember this phenomenon!

Grey was pretty obsessed with the lake and little rivers that ran along the property. I'm pretty sure he would have jumped right on in along with the high schoolers.
Ken's old band-mate, Scott brought his wife, Michelle and their two little girls. Skylar was so excited about seeing Abby and it didn't take her too long to warm up. They were bff's after about an hour.
Grey ran back to that same old bridge on our last walk back from the dining hall, and took his "bappa" with him and sat right on down, feet hanging over the edge. I ran beneath the bridge on the side of the river just in case… and also happened to have my camera with me! Score! Except that he was up and running just a second after I shot this one picture.
The kids had a ball and Skylar loved the mountains. She wants to go back and walk to the top of one. I told her her daddy would love to take her. ;)