Thursday of Snowcoming Week and 6 month checkup!

Today was "Decades Day" for Snowcoming Week...Tony dressed in a tye-dyed t-shirt and bandanna and Bradlee wore a "SK8TR" onesie Tony made for him. We were going to try to spike his Mohawk, but his hair is so fine, you wouldn't have been able to see it!!!

Emma, not wanting to be left out, decided at the last minute that she wanted to wear a dress to school today, so I pulled out one of the outfits she got for Christmas...what a cute outfit it was!!

This afternoon I took Bradlee to the doctor's for his 6-month check-up....I can't believe he's 6 months old already! It's so different than with Emma, 'cause when Emma was 6-months old, it was June!! Anyways, Bradlee is growing very well and weighs 16 pounds, 1 ounce and is 25.5 inches long. I think he's more like 25 inches, since he was lifting his head up to see what the nurse was doing while she was measuring him, so I think that may have given him an extra half-inch or so....He got 5 shots (would have been 4, but it's still flu season, so since he's 6 months old, he could now get a flu shot) and the rota virus vaccine by mouth. He did so well! Only cried when they were actually doing the shots, and I think more because they were holding his legs than because of the pokes! I picked him up when they were done and he stopped crying and started his "complaining and whining"! What a cutie...all the nurses (some who were nurses when I was seeing his pediatrician!) all came to see how big he's gotten! He's doing great and we get to start introducing meats!!!!

Snowcoming Week!

So it's Snowcoming Week at Holly High School. Unfortunately, the other schools don't "celebrate" the week, so only Bradlee and Tony got to dress up this week. Monday was "Pajama Day", but Tony and Emma were both sick (again!) so everyone (except) me stayed home in their PJ's...I decided it would be better to NOT have a picture of that! Tuesday was "Masquerade Day"...coming off the stomach bug, Tony didn't have the energy to try to come up with a costume, so we didn't do anything for Bradlee, either.

Today, however, was "Would you still be my friend if I wore this? Day"....Tony, appropriately, wore an Ohio State University t-shirt he borrowed from a friend at school. I wanted to put Bradlee in a dress of Emma's (age appropriate, of course!), but Tony wouldn't let me...so instead we just dressed him and put a diaper on his head! Here are the pictures!!!

Bradlee's teachers gave him tons of hugs and kisses, and then promptly used the diaper on his head to replace the poopy one on his butt....

Wait until tomorrow....HE HE HE! :)

Good Week

Hey All --

It's been a busy, but good week. Monday was MLK Day, so no school, but other than that, the kids were finally in school a full week!!! YIPPEE! No swollen eyes or 4-year olds with PMS...no stomach bugs or stuffy noses...for now! :)

Yesterday my mom, sister (Karyn) and I participated in a 12-hour scrapbook crop for breast cancer. For those of you scrapbook-illiterate people, a crop is where you get together with other scrapbookers and just scrapbook for a period of time. There are hour-long crops, day-long crops, and even weekend-long crops!! It's a great time to just be able to sit and work on your projects and nothing else...it's rather relaxing and, depending on the other people you're with, it can be a fabulous time!

Anyways, we did this breast cancer crop yesterday, 9am - 9pm, with 120 other scrapbookers. What a day! I worked on my scrapbook from our Disney trip in 2007 and was able to get about 5 pages done. My mom worked on her scrapbook she's making for Emma (to give to her when she graduates high school!) and Karyn worked on her college scrapbook. There were vendors there selling things, including Pampered Chef and other scrapbook items. It was a lot of fun. They have a silent auction (of which my sister-in-law won!), door prizes (which EVERYONE wins!) and a raffle (I won a storage bin, which is going to my sister-in-law and my mom won a photo printer (!) which is going to Karyn!)!! It was a great day and I felt very productive. The best part is that ALL the procedes go to the Susan G. Komen fund....the whole event brought in $7500.00!!! WOO-HOO!!!!

Also at the crop, one of the ladies that was helping run it is a hairstylist. She volunteered (along with a co-worker) to cut hair for Pantene Beautiful Lengths (kind of like Locks of Love, only the Pantene group makes wigs for people of all ages, not just kids). Well, I attempted to grow my hair out (they needed no less than 8 inches), but quickly gave up! LOL However, Emma's never had her haircut, so I asked her and Tony if it's something we could do with her hair?! She was all for it...Tony? Not so much....so finally the big day comes and Emma sits on my lap and they cut off her ponytail! All 10 inches of it!!!!! Does she ever look cute, now! :) The whole 120 croppers were watching and when it was done, they all cheered!!! She got a little "Scrapbookers for Breast Cancer" t-shirt for doing it and VIOLA! it was done! After the ponytail was cut off, they trimmed and shaped it for her and then at the end told her to shake her head....she loved that one!

The rest of the afternoon, she kept brushing her "hair that wasn't there" off her shoulders (my mom said, "What a GIRL!")...how cute. My mom, by the way, donated her braid that was about 2 feet long. She had it cut off when she was 10 and had saved it all these years!

It was a great day and here are the pictures:

BEFORE

AFTER

The Last 24 Hours...

So last night, Tony had a basketball triple-header at Holly...he announces, for those of you who don't know...anyways, I brought Emma and Bradlee home from my parents' house after dinner and put Bradlee to bed, then Emma to bed. They were both in bed (thank GOD!) by 8:00pm..quite an accomplishment! I was down in the basement working on a project and watching ER from Thursday night when I heard crying. I thought it was on the TV, but then a Verizon commercial came on, and that definitely was not part of the dialogue! I turned up the monitor, which wasn't indicating Bradlee was crying, but in the background, I could still hear crying, so I figured it must be Emma. I ran upstairs, turned on the hallway light, and went into Emma's room. He hair was all in front of her face and she was really sweaty, so I thought she was just overheated. I started calming her down, and pushed her hair out of her face, when I saw that her left eye was swollen. I moved the rest of her hair out of the way, and not only was it swollen, but it was completely swollen shut! The right eye was also swollen, but not as bad. I turned on her bedside light and she was crying and kind of talking gibberish, probably from waking up. I turned off her light and told her to stay still. I ran into my room, called my mom and dad and told them what was going on and they were headed over. I grabbed Emma, threw her shoes on her, and took her downstairs. Threw on my shoes, her coat, my coat and opened the back door when my mom and dad drove up. Mom and Karyn came in to stay with Bradlee, my dad took Emma and me to the ER. She was so out of it and so tired, it was almost funny in a cute sort of way on how she was acting! We got through triage with no problems (and faster than any other time I have EVER been to the ER!) and the doctor came in before we even had a chance to get our coats off in the room. Her throat wasn't swollen, nor were there any hives, so whatever the allergen was that was causing the swelling of her eyes was only by contact, not ingestion....ugh. They put her on a dose of Benedryl and toddler-Prednisone (a steroid)...and it almost started working immediately! Her mood picked up and she was SO funny! At one point, she said, "Mama, sometimes when you bring me to the doctor, you forget to put my clothes on!" :) I laughed and told her that it was because the doctors like her monkey and banana pajamas! Not even 2 minutes later, the doctor came back in and said, "Emma, I just love your pajamas!" LOL He was a great doctor. SO...Emma's on steroids and Benadryl and still had a somewhat puffy eye, but all-in-all, she's much better. She's also combating with the drowsiness from the Benadryl and the moodiness from the Prednisone, so that's also been the challenge of the day! LOL We're going to be nice parents and not send her to school tomorrow! :)

Another Forgot...

Okay, so I'm just getting back into the blog thing again...I forgot another thing!

In 2 weeks, I will be attending a scrapbooking crop for breast cancer. For those of you who are craft-illiterate, this basically means I will be spending 12 hours in a local elementary school's gym, scrapbooking until I can scrap no more!

All the registration fees, funds raised, donations, etc. go to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer fund. The reason I'm telling you this, is to give you the opportunity to donate to this VERY worthy organization!! If this is something you are interested in, please let me know...you can write a check to "Susan G Komen Race for a Cure" and send it to me and I can turn it in that day. This way, the donations can all go towards our goal at the crop!!!

Thanks again for reading...I promise no more updates today! :)

Forgot

I also forgot to mention that I'm reading a book I got for Tony for Christmas...it's called, "The Year of Living Biblically" by A.J. Jacobs.

What a book it is! I'm just past the half-way point and I am so glad my friend, Lauren, recommended it to me! Not only is it rather entertaining (the author writes really well), but I'm learning a lot and it's almost making me reflective on how I live...I highly recommend reading it. I would say you could borrow our copy, but there's quite a line up behind me...so go buy your own copy! I promise you'll at least laugh a bit!!! :)

Picture Overload...

It's been a while...holidays are crazy times, especially when you're not the one on a 2-week break!

We've had a great few weeks, despite some sickness (Emma, Bradlee and Tony getting colds, and then Tony getting strep throat, then Bradlee getting a tummy bug...). Christmas was great. We started our festivities at Uncle Paul's house with Tony's family. We had dinner and exchanged gifts:

Getting ready for our Christmas Eve festivities!

Emma on her new Smart Cycle and Bradlee in his new Christmas PJ's!

(Notice how his and hers match?!) :)

On Christmas Day we went to my parents' house for gifts and dinner with my grandparents', Tony's parents, my parent's, Uncle Paul, my sisters, Tony's sister, Garrett (my sister's boyfriend), and us (plus the zoo that was already there...3 cats and 2 dogs!). I don't have any pictures at this time, but I'm hoping my dad got some good ones and will give me copies...I'll post them when I get them. In the mean time, here's one of our Christmas tree after Santa visited!!

The day after Christmas, I had to work. Then I came home and we all got ready for the Motor City Bowl at Ford Field. My parents, sisters, Garrett, Tony's parent's, friends of my parents', Tony and I all went...and we took Emma, too! It was her first official sporting event! Too bad CMU lost (to Florida Atlantic)...it was quite the boring game and Emma was getting rather antsy, so we left in the middle of the 4th quarter. She had a great time learning the CMU cheers (like, "Go, Fire Up Chips! CHIPPEWA!!!") LOL We really did have a great time!! My favorite part was on the way home. I was in the back seat with Emma and she was "talking" to Pinky (her bear). Then she looks at me and says, "Mama, when Pinky and I get bigger, we want to be Chippewas!" :)

Mommy and her little Chippewas!

For New Year's, Tony, Bradlee, Emma and I all went to Tony's parents house with some friends, Matt & Desiree, and their two sons, Dorian and Griffin. The older kids (Dorian is about 9 months younger than Emma, Griffin is about 3 months older than Bradlee) stayed up until midnight and loved the hats Aunt Lynne bought them! Matt & Desiree brought over their XBOX 360 and we played Rock Band...Emma even got in the game! What a great way to kick of the new year!!

Emma playing Rock Band and Tony celebrating 2009!

Emma, Bradlee and Tony's Dad enjoying their party hats!

On January 2nd, our godson, Braeden, turned 5, so we went to his house for a small birthday party. We haven't seen Maggie and Kevin (his parents) or Logan (his brother) in quite a while, so it was nice to catch up and see everyone again. We just couldn't believe how big our kids have gotten! It seems like yesterday they were just born!!

Braeden, Emma and Logan

The final picture I have is of my big boy, Bradlee! :) He's already learning how to hold his bottle by himself!!

Well, that's our holiday season in a nut shell!!Crazy as it was, it was a fun few weeks. The Christmas decorations come down tomorrow and Sunday...then we have to find a place for all the toys Santa (and the grandparents) left!!!