Play Dough

The other day we made some homemade playdough and KJ had a lot of fun with it! We put on our Sunday School CD which KJ really enjoys listening to and went rolling/patting/cutting away on our (supposed to be red, a little too pink) dough!

Trick Or Treat

Halloween was a fun day, as usual! We made delicious sugar cookies, carved some cool pumpkins and KJ got a good amount of candy!

Nicole and I planned out a day of Halloween festivities, but they all somehow ended up jam packed into a 2-3 hour period. We did not plan on having to freeze our sugar cookie dough after getting it together and therefore we were baking/decorating at the same time we needed to get the pumpkins carved. I ended up skipping out on the carving and cleaning up while everyone else made cool pumpkins to decorate the porch with. It all worked out; however, we were unable to dress up like we had planned because of the lack of time. Nicole pulled through and was a 50's girl for the night, but I missed out on being the black cat and we never got to dress Keesha up as the Geisha girl (it would have been really cool!). I threw a beanie on though for trick or treating and called myself a pro snowboarder. HA! We know that is far from the truth and therefore made a great costume in my opinion. :)

Trick Or Treating was fun. We had a Buzz Lightyear and a Pink Ladybug. We made a quick stop at mom & dad's seeing as how they were trying to keep themselves away due to swine flu exposure. We explained to KJ that we could see them but he wouldn't be able to give them any loves for a few more days. He actually did pretty well considering he hadn't seem them in a few weeks due to their trip to China/Japan. We then visited some more relatives and made a quick stop downtown. Lainee was ready to be home by the time we finished, so it was a pretty quick trip, but fun nonetheless.

Nicole and I had also planned a Halloween dinner, so when we got home Nicole was boiling some fettucini noodles that were dyed black for some black noodles and sauce. We were going to go all out and decorate the garlic bread too but we were once again in kind of a hurry so we just did everything else normally.

Here are some pictures of our Halloween Fun:

Fall Fun!

Well, our tree decided it was time to shed resulting in a lawn full of yellow, fun to jump in, crispy, crunchy, yard covering leaves! KJ really enjoyed jumping around in them and I really enjoyed taking pictures of the kiddos out in those beautiful fall colors. Here are some pictures!

Ok, so this first one is Lainee on the porch, but it is outside and she looks so cute!

A leaf found her hand and then it about found her mouth...

KJ having fun in the huge leaf pile!


Cute (I wish I had a nicer camera)!

Family Fall Fun!

KJ turns 2 and updates!

Well KJ had two very fun birthday parties (really, he had 3 if you count the one he had with just Chad, Lainee, Nana and I). It's still so crazy that he is now 2! He got a lot of cool toys and we had fun spending time with family in Shelton since we arn't able to see them very often. It was also nice because everyone was able to meet Lainee! Here are some pictures from both birthday parties, he had one over in Shelton and one here at home.

Here is the birthday boy with his cool cake that Grandma Martha made:

Mmmm.... Cake!

Here is the birthday boy at his party here at home!

And another cool cake made by Grandma Martha!

Here I am with the kiddos at KJ's party, I'm so lucky!

In other news, both kids seem to be growing so fast. Lainee is now over three months and just rolled over for the first time yesterday! She then did it a few more times! She's also starting to (baby) talk more and her and KJ just love each other, it's really adorable. KJ is just about a full blown conversationalist now. It's pretty fun when you can just talk to your 2 year old and he, for the most part, knows what you are talking about. He is responding with "huh?" alot, well to almost every question which can kind of drive you crazy, but it is still cute. As for Chad and I, we are both doing very well. I'm sure I drive him crazy with my current worry: the swine flu. I'm trying my best to keep my kids healthy I don't want the swine flu or any other flu or illness in our house, ugh! I just need to remember to pray and rely on God, he is in control not me and I know worrying about it definitely won't do me any good.

Here is a video of Lainee rolling over!

KJ went fishing!

This past weekend KJ got to fo fishing with Daddy, Nana, Uncle Dan and our friend Mark. Sadly, I wasn't there to see it...but KJ caught a fish! Him and Uncle Dan were the only ones that caught one and I think he had a lot of fun. Chad said that he was watching KJ fish when Mark said that he thought KJ had a fish and then both figured it was probably nothing until his bobber kept, umm... bobbing (?) and sure enough as KJ reeled it in (with a little help from daddy) there was a fish! Here are some pictures from it.

Here he is fishing:

Here he is with daddy and his fish!

He's growing up so fast, hopefully next time I'm there to see him catch his fish.

Here are some newer pictures of Lainee, she is growing up so fast too!

This weekend we are heading to Shelton to have KJ's birthday party with family over there, followed be another one here next weekend. He is going to be TWO! Crazy!! Blog birthday coverage to come!

Brief Update

Here are some things that have been going on lately...

--Lainee had her 2 month check up (@ 7 weeks) She weighed 10 lbs. and measured 22 3/4 inches, she's growing like a weed! We also found out that what we thought was baby acne was actually eczema. :( Luckily, we are keeping it under control now with eucerin and hydrocortizone cream when we need it. Hopefully she will outgrow it!

--KJ got an Elmo potty book yesterday and since he has already gone potty TWICE in the potty after letting us know he needed to go. What a good boy, he is growing up so fast!

--Chad put our patio in this past weekend. It looks great and he is waiting for the rock to settle some before making it permanent. *Pics to come!

--Lainee is currently fighting a cold or allergies, I'm not sure which. She has a very snotty nose and it makes it hard for her to sleep on her back. Poor girl, at least she waited 8 weeks before getting sick, unlike her big brother who got one when he was only 3 weeks old! KJ was a little stuffy on Sunday but was fine the day after, so maybe she is just fighting off what he had? I'm not sure, I just know I don't like when either of my kiddos are under the weather.

--KJ is going to be 2 in a little over two weeks!!! Where does the time go???

--We got our pictures back from JC Penny's, I will post some so you can get a better look at them.

--I think those are the main things for now, if I think of anything else I will add it on here. Hope this finds you all well!

Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Today is the first day of September and therefore the first day of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Although many people don't read my blog, if there is anyone who does who may not have known this information before... I have at least spread awareness that much more. I had never really thought much of childhood cancer before hearing the story of a little boy who lost his struggle with the terrible disease. He was a cousin to a friend of ours and I began following his journey after our friend shared her cousin's story. Since learning of his struggle and "meeting some parents" of children who have/had this disease and reading other stories of innocent children who have had to endure so much suffering because of cancer, I wanted to help spread awareness.

I will confess that I have not been very active or involved in doing this since I first began last year, mostly due to pregnancy and now having two children, it's just been hard to be online as much as I had been before. Not that I did a lot before then. Anyways, here is my miniscule contribution to help spread awareness -- Breast cancer recieves so much funding and there is so much information out there about it, why can't it be the same for Childhood Cancer? The children deserve it!

Here is some information/statistics about Childhood Cancer.

Facts on Childhood Cancer (courtesy of Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation):

* On the average, 36 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer everyday in the United States.

* On the average, one in every four elementary schools has a child with cancer. The average high school has two students who are current or former cancer patients.
* Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15 in the United States.

* Childhood cancers affect more potential patient-years of life than any other cancer except breast and lung cancer.

* The causes of most childhood cancers are unknown. At present, childhood cancer cannot be prevented.* Childhood cancer occurs regularly, randomly and spares no ethnic group, socioeconomic class, or geographic region. In the United States, the incidence of cancer among adolescents and young adults is increasing at a greater rate than any other age group, except those over 65 years.

* Despite these facts, childhood cancer research is vastly and consistently underfunded.

Here are some ways you can help!

Join PAC2, a great site for parents, family, friends anyone who wants to help spread awareness!

http://curechildhoodcancer.ning.com/

Sign the Petition:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/CureChildhoodCancer

Or, just spread the word through your blog or some other form of communication.

Thanks for reading!