Halloween Revisited

Jake's first Halloween 2004-Duck Halloween 2005- Monkey

Halloween 2006 -Train Engineer

Halloween 2007- Farmer and Cow

Tyler

Jake

Jake pulling Tyler with his tractor. We brought the tractor and wagon with us and Jake pulled Tyler, plus a chicken (Claire) all over the neighborhood we went trick or treating in. This is my favorite Halloween costume so far.

Halloween 2008- Police man and convict

Like Roadtrips?

Then head to Gull Meadow Farms over in Richland. It is a lot of fun for kids- they have everything, minus the elephant. It disturbs me and I don't want them growing up thinking that an elephant is part of an apple orchard.

Jake has some of the goofiest faces I've ever seen! He had a great time, especially since last year he was sick when we went and couldn't enjoy himself as much. Tyler on the other hand, won't do any of the fun activities they offered. It drives me crazy!

Me: Tyler, would you like to ride on the train?

Tyler: No, I don't want to.

Me: It's really fun, Jake, Luke and Paul are all going to ride it.

Tyler: No, I don't want to.

Me: Tyler, Mommy spent $4.50 so you could ride the train.

Tyler: No, I don't want to.

At this point I pick him up and very gently put his little butt in the freakin train. He starts crying and everyone is staring. I have to walk next to the train and hold his hand. It was like this for all the activites. I made him go down the slide, I made him go on the bouncy thing, and made him go on the train. I don't know what else to do. He wouldn't have done anything and I know he would enjoy it if he would just try it!

Here's the train. What kid would not like to ride on that? By the way, it's $4.50 for all the activites, not just the train.

Here's the bouncy.
And a zip line. Luke, Paul and Jake loved the zip line.
And the slide.
They also have other fun little areas like an obstacle course, labyrinth, and last year they had a tractor tricycle course. They also have pumpkin scenes all over like this:
Then it's time for the tractor ride out to the field to get a pumpkin.

There is also an apple orchard which we did last year, but didn't have time this year. The boys love to pick apples, so we will have to do it next year for sure. My sister and I tried to get a picture of all four boys- her 2 and my 2, but that is a big joke. There is always someone who is not looking or smiling out of the four. If we have anymore kids, I'm not even going to try it.

Mommy School

Last weekend my sister and I went to the Hearts at Home Conference in Grand Rapids. I went 2 years ago and really enjoyed it. My mom treated us for our birthday, so even better! Friday night is "mom's night out." There were few speakers who were really funny and a group called The Go Fish Guys. They have great preschool/kids music. I normally don't care for kid CD's, but this one is catchy. My favorite is from the Party Like a Preschooler CD. The song is called It's Hard to Be Cool in a Minivan.
The next day is workshop day. There are 2 main sessions with more great speakers, and 4 workshops. There are 20 different workshops to choose from- some topics are finance, discipline, organizing, fashion, marriage, and motherhood. I picked 2 finance workshops: one about raising financially savvy kids and one about getting out of debt. I also went to Finding the Hero in your Husband and My Heart's at Home-because there was not really much to choose from during the 4th session. My sister went to a workshop called What Not to Wear and loved it. They even went through to figure out the best colors for you based on skin tone and hair color. Very informative sessions and you leave feeling inspired, re-charged, and encouraged.

On top of all this '"mommy school" stuff, David and I are taking a parenting class through our church called the Nurtured Heart Approach. If you want more info visit the link. I would say it's geared for intense or ADHD labeled children, but the techniques they use for those types of children could be used for any type of child. The first session, there are 4, was all about ADHD and I was wondering what the heck I had signed up for. I don't think my kids are ADHD, I just want some parenting techniques. The second class got more into the "meat" of the techniques and it was a lot better class. We have to go to class number 3 on Thursday. As a reader, you get some of the goodies they shared with us.

1. Kids hear a lot of negativity during through out the day. Most of the time, when we do give them attention, it is mostly negative. i.e., " Tyler stop hitting your brother" you get the idea. Our homework for the first session was to give the kids 30 validations every day. i.e., "Tyler, I see that you are playing nicely with Jake. Thank-you."

2. Studies have shown that protein is an important part in a "concentration diet." Most kids get most of their protein at night, after school is over and they don't need to concentrate as much. They suggest giving your child more protein at breakfast and lunch, to help stay focused at school.

3. Spend 15 minutes a day with your child doing what they want. There should be no direction from you during this 15 minutes. Just straight play doing whatever your child desires. Ideally, it should be at the same time everyday and it will be something your child truly looks forward to. You are your child's favorite toy.

Our last class that we are taking is at the Jackson School for the Arts. I never knew this even existed, I found it through another blog. I signed Tyler up for My First Art. I love to do art projects, but I am never prepared to do them and if I do, the kids are interested for maybe 5-10 minutes and then I spend another 20 min cleaning up the project. This class is great beacuse the teacher plans each project and they bring the materials and do the clean up. It also gets Tyler around other kids his age. I really enjoy going and Ty does too. Jackson does have some cool things to do with kids!

I love going to all these classes. I really miss college. One of the things I noticed most when I started staying at home was that I wasn't learning anything. I missed information! You don't get much information from doing laundry or emptying the dishwasher! I also like having a set date night with David. We know that you should have date nights but we don't ever plan them. Having to attend classes makes us get Grandma over and we spend time together. And the best part is it's not our usual dinner and a movie. We get good information and something we can really use from our "date nights." Another example was our Marriage Matters classes we took last spring. Those had a lot of good information too and it made us get out and spend time together. So, go sign up for some classes!

Not What I Expected

Last weekend, Jake had his first soccer game of the fall season. He did pretty good. Considering there is third graders on his team, I didn't expect much. He will be lucky if he touches the ball all season. Apparently there are not enough players to fill the teams at Concord, and this is the best solution.

After the game, David was asked to drive the Carr Bros. truck in the Parma Days parade. Tyler was able to ride with him and throw out candy and baseball hats. He was so excited. I decided to ride along too.

I was impressed at all the fun things Parma Days had for the kids after the parade: pony rides, bouncy house, tractor pull, balloon animals- all for free. It was fun.

That night, David was at a bachelor party, and I gave the kids a bath before our movie night- which was Milo and Otis with puppy chow snack. Jake was complaining his head hurt, but I figured it was a headache and he would feel better once he went to bed.

The next day, he couldn't move his neck. He moved like there was a brace around it. Turning his whole body instead of his neck. Again, I figured he slept on it wrong, but when it didn't stop all day, then I knew something was up. Plus, he took a nap both Saturday and Sunday which he never does. That evening we went to the Hillsdale fair. Even though Jake was sick, he still wanted to go. We felt bad because we promised the kids and they were looking forward to it. We wanted to see the combine derby- can you believe there is such a thing? Talk about hillbilly- but we decided just to walk around a bit and come home.

I made a doctor appointment first thing Monday morning. He was sleeping a lot, and still couldn't move his neck. It was swollen now. I figured we would get some antibiotics and be on our merry way. He had a cough for the last 10 days and I figured it was swollen lymph nodes. Dr. Mian took one look at him and told me to get him to the hospital immediately. This is the not what I expected part. I have a hard time understanding Dr. Mian. He is foreign and talks like he arrived in the U.S. yesterday. So, I didn't know exactly what was wrong, I just took Jake to the hospital like I was told. I called David and tried to not be hysterical. I didn't want to scare Jake so I calmly told him to get his a** to the hospital asap! He was of course about an hour and half away.

When they admitted Jake he looked so sick. He was sleepy and you could see it in his eyes. They ran x-rays and couldn't see anything. So then they did an MRI. His IV was the wrong size to inject the dye, so they pushed dye in through a bottle. This made it hard to see exactly what was wrong. I still had Tyler with me, so my brother came and picked him up. At 5:30, when I had to leave to go get Tyler because there was no one else to watch him- we still hadn't seen an actual doctor -he was admitted at 11:00am. At 7:00pm an ear, nose, and throat specialist came in, and told David that Jake had an abscess on the back of his tonsils along with a bad infection. They were going to take him to U of M for surgery to remove the abscess. I was at home getting Tyler ready for bed and David calls to drop this news on me. I have no one to watch Tyler-I called my sister in tears and she drove over from Kalamazoo to spend the night with Ty. Thank goodness for her!!

I had to drive to U of M by myself in the dark and rain, while David and Jake went by ambulance. I was so scared. I keep thinking of my poor friend Sara, who last year took her son to Uof M to be told he had 1 year to live. I had been to Motts before because Jake has yearly appointments for his heart murmur. I hadn't been at night, or in the rain, or when I was was an emotional wreak. I got so freakin' lost. Not only trying to get to the hospital, but in the hospital as well. It is the MOST CONFUSING hospital I have ever been to. By now, it is close to 11:30pm. We are in a room with three other people. There is a small couch for David and I to sleep on. It's too late for a real doctor, so we got a resident. He looked at the MIR from Alliegence, which was poorly done. He said surgery was not needed and Jake just needed to say on IV antibiotics for a few days.

At 3:30 am, David went home. It was to loud and he couldn't sleep on the tiny couch. I was curled up on the end of Jake's bed. The next morning, a real doctor came in, and they scheduled the surgery for later that morning. This was after the resident told me it wasn't needed. Talk about being confused. They did the surgery and took his tonsils out. It went very well. I'm so proud of the way Jake handled everything. There is nothing worse than to see your child suffer to be in pain. I felt so bad for those parents and kids who have to spend weeks and months there. It felt like a prison.

That night, I asked Jake who he wanted to stay with him in the hospital, and he said Daddy. It broke my heart, but at the same time, I'm happy that David and Jake have such a tight bond. I hope it is always that way. He was released the next day, but not until 6:00pm. He wasn't eating or drinking. At that point they realized he hadn't been given any pain medication. They had asked him earlier and he said no, he didn't want any. Hello- why would you ask a five year old if he wanted medicine? What do you think the answer will be? Once he got the medicine we were outta there.

He is doing a lot better now. We are going to half day of school tomorrow and go from there. This whole experience has taught me how fast life can change. We got lucky and and had a problem that doctors were able to fix. I think about the kids who are still there and maybe don't have an easy sickness to fix. My life was turned up side down for three days and now it's back to normal. Some parents will never again have a normal. We are so thankful.