Sugared Up

Nothing like a sugared up 5 year old at 10pm....

Thwarted

Baby gates work well for dogs, too.

At the risk of jinxing it...

Caroline survived the day at day care yesterday, and is in the home stretch of her second illness-free day in a row. When is the last time THAT happened? I am beginning to wonder if the yogurt I was feeding her in an effort to get the diarrhea to stop was actually prolonging it. I've cut out the yogurt and done to healthy doses of banana and sweet potato. I'll have a constipated kiddo in no time.

Here She Is!

Diarrhea girl ;) poop tests normal. Nothing to do at this point but stuff her full of yogurt and bananas and hope her intestines start functioning normally soon...

Peace and Quiet - Sort of

This morning I dropped all the kids off at school / preschool / day care and drove the cousins to the airport. Then I went to the grocery store to pick up a few necessities (like something for dinner tonight), stopped at PetCo to get dog food, and decided to stop in at Wal-Mart and get a little Hanukkah shopping done. About 20 minutes into the trip, after having picked out only a few things, I got The Call - Caroline sick with diarrhea AGAIN. She got thrown out of day care last Monday, was home Tuesday, got thrown out Wednesday, battled diarrhea off and on all Thanksgiving weekend, nearly got thrown out yesterday, and now is home again, and has to stay home tomorrow too (My first day back at work in a week is tomorrow, good timing). Caroline has earned herself a trip to the doctor this afternoon. And I am bringing the doctor a specimen - lucky guy.

Monkey Joe's

Exhausted

The youngest two cousins conked out after a trip to Rays Splash Planet.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Sunrise

Beautiful sunrise this morning! These pictures don't even do it justice.

Caroline's Mad Face

Caroline has been what some would call "a hot mess" this weekend. She seems to be teething, pooping constantly, has a fungal diaper rash, and slept not a wink during the day yesterday. Hoping today is a better day, but I do not have high hopes.

Pulling Up!

11 Months Old Today!

Winterized

Weekend Away

Joel and I ended up opting not to drive out the the vineyard Saturday, because our babysitter could only stay until 9:45 on Sunday, and we didn't want to have to get up early to make the one and a half hour drive back home to be back by then. So we stayed uptown at the Marriott for 2 nights, saw 2 movies (Flight and Argo), and I read 3/4 of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. We ate at BLT Steak, which was awesome, and we ate at Enso (an Asian restaurant), and we had dessert at Bar Cocoa, a "chocolate bar" in the Ritz Carlton, and we had appetizers and drinks at The Wooden Vine, and generally spent a lot of time eating and relaxing ;) The kids seemed to have a great time while we were away! Today Ben is off for Veteran's Day and being a bit of a bored nuisance, and Caroline woke up at 5am and had an hour and a half long scream fest, so it was good to get away and recharge the batteries for a weekend ;) They are already starting to deplete again, LOL...

Dress Up Fun

Looks like Becca had some fun playing dress up with Sharon today. Can't wait to be back home with my cutie pies in the morning!

Sweet Caroline

Love this pic of Caroline that Sharon took!

Getting Organized

Getting organized to go away this weekend without the kids is almost as much work, or maybe more work than getting organized to go someplace with them. Today I have: gone grocery shopping, gone to the bank, done 2 loads of laundry, sent the dog to camp for the weekend, packed, made the guest bed, put gas in the car and vacuumed it out, stocked the diaper bag, written down important phone numbers/instructions for the weekend, got a birthday present for Ben to take to his friend's party tomorrow.... the list goes on... Joel and I are going to BLT Steak for dinner tonight at the Ritz Carlton, followed by a movie (Flight), followed by a stay at the Marriott uptown... I wanted to stay at the Ritz but it was like $400 a night... and I've already spent over $400 in babysitting/doggy camp before even leaving the house. Saturday we're going to this vineyard , and coming back Sunday morning. Stay tuned to hear all about our weekend away!

Official First 3rd Grade Report Card

2 As (Language Arts and Science) and 3 Bs (Math, Social Studies, Writing). His Bs are all "high" Bs (88% was the lowest average), so Mom is happy! And Ben is happy, because he gets $10 for every A. Congrats Ben!

Hey Ben, I think Clara wants something....

Bed Head

Get out the Vote

Ben cast his ballot while Joel and I cast ours. Actually, I let him press some of the buttons on my voting machine.. Sshhhh....

Patient Dog :)

Poor Clara takes a lot of abuse now that Caroline is moving around!

Double Ear Infection Girl

Goes a long way in explaining the fever and sleepless night we endured last night. Arrghhh. On top of getting up 4 times with a fussy baby, Ben misread his clock and came downstairs and woke me up at 5:27, thinking it was 6:27. I grumpily told him to go back to bed, which he did, but not 5 minutes later Caroline made her 5th wake-up call of the night. Her discomfort was due in part to the fact that I had only Tylenol in the house for her, no ibuprofen, so first thing this morning we made a grocery run for that, and later a doctor appointment to confirm the ear infections and get a prescription for amoxycillan. Of course, the Friday before election day is NOT the best time to have to deal with a sick baby at home, in my profession! Fortunately she's sleeping now (finally), and I am catching up a bit.

Halloween

Joel took the kids out trick or treating for about an hour last night, which was plenty long enough for them to get completely sugared up, especially Rebecca, who put on a pair of plastic vampire teeth and was completely out of control for a while running around and giggling like a maniac. Caroline went for a half-hour stroller walk with Joel in her unicorn costume before coming home and going to bed; no doubt she was wondering what the late night (for her) walk was for, and who were all these people wandering around...?

I stayed at home and sat on the porch giving out candy, because the trick-or-treaters were coming so fast and furious that sitting inside would have been a royal pain, with the door bell constantly ringing, etc. At one point there was a stampede on the porch steps, two kids fell down in the crush of bodies, one kid almost knocked our pumpkin over... We ran through 5 bags of candy including 2 bags that were the jumbo size, and then I had the kids dump their loot and hand me everything they didn't like, which for Becca meant all her snickers, peanut M&Ms, and reeses cups, and for Ben meant pretty much just tootsie rolls. That got us through the rest of the evening (porch light off at 9), and I was able to return some of the candy back to the kids ;)