Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween!

We had SO much fun tonight. We got the boy's dressed up and went to the Gresham outlet mall to trick or treat. As soon as they figured out they were getting candy they were all for it. We also went to a couple houses in my parents neighborhood. Where my sisters and I used to go when we were younger. The families still live there and they liked seeing the boys.

Here's Gabe last year (My little tiger)
This year he was a bat!




The Jaden Man was Goofy

On Tuesday we carved pumpkins too. I don't even remember the last time I carved a pumpkin. Gabe and I carved his and Bryan carved our big one. It was so much fun!


Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Family Pictures

Sunday was a crazy day! We woke up around 7, had breakfast and then puttered around for a little bit. We didn't go to church because I needed Gabe to take a good nap before pictures at 1.
While Gabe napped I showered, gave Calie a bath, got ready, packed some things for Bryan, did some laundry, took everything out to the truck, got Gabe up around 11:30, got him ready and left for the church to pick up Bryan.
He had just gotten back from the retreat at noon. He hurried into the church, shaved and changed his clothes and we were out of there. We drove to Cathedral Park in St. Johns. What a beautiful park. And what a beautiful day. It was really windy that day but it wasn't so bad when we were doing the pictures…just a few times the wind picked up and my hair went crazy a little. We had so much fun with Mike and Becky. Gabe was totally infacuated with Mike. He is bald and I think that Gabe just thinks that's interesting. He was looking at him the way he does uncle Nate. Maybe because Grandpa's bald? It's funny.
They had gotten there early to scope the place out so that they knew where to go and what pictures they wanted to take.
Gabe did pretty good, Calie not so much, but I suspected that. Gabe was a little ham. Especially when we let him run around this picinic table and they took pictures of just him. He was laughing and smiling and posing. It was hilarious.
Here are a few of the ones Becky put up on her blog:





Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Favorite

Lucerne Pumpkin Pecan Creamer!

This is such a great fall morning treat with your coffee.
DELISH!

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Mommy and Gabey weekend

Well first off Gabe is starting to feel a ton better. His cough and runny nose is lingering but he's practically back to 100%. YEA.
I was a single parent this weekend. Bryan left on Friday for the annual Jr High/Sr High retreat. This is their third year doing this. All three on the same weekend, so Bryan missed Jaden's birth, 1st birthday and now 2nd birthday.

Jaden turns 2 tomorrow. I can't believe how fast these two years have gone. It seems like just yesterday he was a 2 pound tiny little thing fighting for his life. I just love that little guy!
Gabe and I celebrated with the family on Saturday night.

Gabe and Molly were hunting for Fish crackers under the table


Mad

Happy
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JADEN!!!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Woman of Faith

I really would like to have time to document life daily, but I just haven't made the time to do it. Mostly, I don't usually want to be on the computer after a long day at work and I've been SO tired during the week I usually get Gabe down around 9 and then I quickly get everything ready for the next day and go to bed myself.

Oct 10-12
This weekend was awesome. After work on Friday I rode The Max to Gateway and met Moo there. We bought her a round trip ticket for Friday and one for Saturday and rode back down to the Rose Garden. It was Women of Faith weekend. I think this is my 5th or 6th time going and every time I LOVE IT!

My mom and I have gone together all the other years, but this year mom couldn't make it so I was glad that Moo signed up this year. It was Moo's first time going. I was really hoping she would like it as much as I do.

We got in the arena and found our seats and sat down. I love going to WOF. There are so many talented women who speak, sing, do skits, are witty and they all have gone through so much in their lives and have amazing testimonies. They all are so passionate about their faith/relationship with Jesus. I swear every year I come away having learned SO much. We are constantly growing and you have to make a daily choice to follow Jesus and glorify him.

I missed Gabe a lot! I know though that going to this will make me a better mommy. Bryan picked Gabe up from mom and they went home. They had dinner and played. I think Bryan said that he had Gabe in bed around 9 (usual time). Moo and I rushed to The Max to get there as fast as we could and we got right on and got seats too. YEA! We stopped at Moo's and then she took me home. I cleaned up a few things and then went right to bed. I had to get up pretty early Sat. morning.

I got up around 6ish and got ready. I didn't get to see Gabe, but it was probably better that way for him and for me. He wouldn't have been happy had he seen me and then I was leaving right away. I picked up Moo at 7:30 and we stopped at Starbuck's for a coffee. We got there just in time too. As we were leaving there was a huge line. We got on The Max and headed to the Rose Garden. We were able to bring in our coffee's which I was happy about and we walked around a bit before it started. I loved all the music and worship. Nicole C Mullen was amazing. Her music and dancing and what she does and her arms…she has very muscular arms. She's pretty and she has this overwhelming passion for the Lord. One of her songs One Touch brought tears to my eyes. It was very powerful and it moved me. It was about the women who touched the hem of Christ's rob and released his power. Because of her faith she was healed.

One other part that really hit home was when the dramatist, Nicole Johnson did a skit on words from your mouth. That your words can be like fire. She read the passage from James 3
James 3:6 says, "The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell."
I know that I do this sometimes and that I yell. We yelled in my family when I was young and want to try and change that with my family. I know that I probably have hurt Gabe and Bryan and Calie and others with the fire that has come out of my mouth. I just know that I really need to work on how angry I get and watch what comes out of my mouth/off my tongue.

We had such a great time. It was a really good bonding time for Moo and I too. To top it off, Michelle offered to drive us to my car in her convertible Mustang and it was fun! ;o)

I dropped Moo off at home and couldn't wait to get home myself. When I got there Gabe was still napping so I did some music searching and imported a bunch of my CD's into ITunes because they had gotten lost one time when our old computer crashed. Speaking of music too…my iPod died last week. I got a frown face and the hardware was having issues…clicking and stuff. That is seriously a bummer. I love my iPod. Bryan hasn't been using his as much lately so he gave it to me. Love that guy!
When Gabe woke up he was so excited to see me. We spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging out together no TV. It's sort of funny…but when I get back from that conference I always minimize TV time. Which is good I think…I just think I need to practice that throughout the rest of the year.

Bryan had been having severe abdominal pain since around Wednesday the 8th or Thursday the 9th and was hurting pretty badly on Sunday. He went to 1st service to teach JR High but came home afterwards. We had a pretty mellow day all of us and around dinner time Julie and Jaden come over to hang out for a while. The boy's had a blast together and are always SO excited to see each other. Gabe went down around 8 and they had gone by then. I think Bryan and I had gotten in bed pretty early also.

Monday morning Bryan got up to get in the shower and could barely walk. I was scared that he might have an appendicitis so I didn't end up going to work Monday. Gabe and I took him to see his dr around 11 and then we went home and got Gabe down for a nap and I did some work from home. My mom came over to watch Gabe because we had to be out at the Milwaukee hospital for blood work and a CT scan. I read my book in the waiting room and they had prepped him just in case it was an appendicitis he would get admitted right away and have surgery. We waited for his results from the blood tests and CT scan and about 10 minutes later a nurse came and got Bryan to talk to his dr. He didn't end up having an appendicitis which is a good thing, but he did have Diverticulitis. They sent him home on a liquid diet for a few days and 2 antibiotics.

Tuesday I left for work around 5:40 and around 7 got a call from Jenny saying that Gabe didn't have any clothes. They were going to the zoo that day too. AH talk about stress for me. I am stuck at work with NO car and Bryan forgot the bag I packed with all of Gabe's stuff in it. Jenny said that she had enough diapers and wipes and that she could keep him in his pj's all day or they were trying to find some of Joshua's old clothes for him to wear. They ended up putting him in a pair of blue pants, a white turtleneck with some sport logo on the neck, a pair of sport socks and Daphne's brown shoes. He didn't look toooo bad, but wasn't an outfit that I would EVER put him in. Jenny did her best.
He have a blast at the zoo though. They had pumpkins all over the place and Jenny said that he kept hugging one of the big ones. They got to pet the goats and Jenny said he LOVED that. He kept calling them doggie's. Hee Hee


I ended up picking up Gabe at Jeff and Trish's and then I had to go clear out to Clackamas to b-sit Kambrie for Nate and T's date night. That sucked…not watching K, but the fact that they didn't really get a good date night since T wanted to be back by 7 to get K ready for bed. K is in school now so she needs to get to bed earlier. I felt bad. We had fun with K though. She was excited to see Gabey Monster (that's what she calls him) and Gabe LOVES her. Gabe didn't eat a good dinner, but Kambrie ate all of hers. We read books and watched Peter Pan. At one point I had lost Gabe's bink and was looking all over the place for it. Gabe got a timeout while we were there. He sat where I put him for 1 min and Kambrie said "Well that wasn't a very long timeout. Why was that so short?" I told her that Gabe is only 1 so his timeouts are 1 min and she is 3 so her timeouts are a little longer. "OH!" she says. It was hilarious.
Gabe has been having a little diareaha lately so his poor bottom is red and sore. I hate that. You can tell it totally hurts. When we got home after watching K I put him in the bath for a while to help with that and then he went right to bed. He was wiped out.

Drop offs in the morning kind of go up and down…some day's he cries and holds on tight to Bryan and other times he sees a toy that he wants so he'll get down and go straight to playing. He likes Joshua and Daphne. Gets excited to see them. He usually gets one good nap in and sometimes 2 but he's usually very tired by the end of the day. They do a ton of fun things. Wednesday Jenny took them to an indoor gym with a ton of toy's and Gabe loved riding on every single riding toy they had there. He especially loved the worm riding toy. Jenny sent me some pictures of him. SO cute!

Thurssday Gabe got his first time out with Jenny. He hit Maxine and Daphne on the head with a toy. :o( Seriously, where do they learn this stuff? That makes me SO sad that he did that. This is one of the things I don't like about being a parent. They are SO cute and innocent when they are a tiny baby and then they start acting out and doing things that aren't nice at all. SIGH

Also, on Thursday Bryan went to the bank on his lunch and when he came back out he noticed that he had a flat tie. There was a Les Swab right there so he took it to them and they said that there was a huge piece of medal in the tie and the couldn't patch it. So we had to get a new tire.

Bryan had an interview a couple weeks ago for a full time production job and he found out that he didn't get the job. He totally thought he had it and was completely shocked that he didn't get it. He had a meeting with the 2 managers and they told him that it wasn't anything that he did or that he couldn't have done the job, just that they had a candidate that had more experience in production and the technical side of it.

Friday we picked up Gabe at moms and then we went home, had dinner and played. We been putting Gabe in timeouts lately. I think he's starting to understand them but it's hilarious cause he'll do something like lately he's been banging his toys on my coffee table and I will tell him "Gabe if you do that one more time you will go into a timeout". He then will look at me, put down whatever he has in his hands and go to his timeout spot. What a silly guy! So I just let him sit there for 1 minute and then I tell him that he can get up and have just reiterate that he can't bang his toys on the coffee table and tell him I love him. HA
After Gabe's bath I read him some books, gave him milk and snuggled with him. He went down about 9 and I headed over to Moo's to hang out. We decided to do a get together on Friday nights when it works out and the kids have gone to bed. We met at Edgefield about a month ago and since Travis wasn't home we met at Moo's this time.
When I got there Moo was cooking and T greeted me at the door. We had some yummy fondue and Moo made an apple pie cider drink too. I actually didn't feel all that good so I didn't eat or drink that much, but the time with my girls was fabulous. T left around 12:45 and I stayed about an hour later. Bryan finally texted me asking if I was coming home or if I was staying the night there. Lol!

Saturday was pumpkin patch day. We got up pretty early. I think Gabe woke us up at 6:30? We had breakfast and played. I got the bag packed for Bryan and Gabe was ready to go down around 9-9:30. I then got ready and headed to my hair appointment. While my color was processing Marcella waxed my eyebrows. It made the time go so much faster and I was so needing some help with my brows. I may do that every time I get my hair done? (about every 2.5 months) After I said goodbye to Marcella I drove and met Bryan at Nate and Teresa's and we left for Lee Farms. We went there 2 years ago. I wore jeans and my puffy vest thinking it was going to be chilly...you know fall like weather, but it was gorgeous out, sunny and hot. I was actually sweating. It was so nice out.

It was pretty close to perfect. There were Pumpkins,Farm Animal Display, Fresh cider and cider donuts, Haymaze, Hay Rides, Pony Rides, Fresh Kettle Corn, Elephant ears, puppies, and slides.











I forgot to bring the umbrella stroller which I think would have helped us in the end, but probably after 2-2.5 hours there Gabe started melting down. So we bought our pumpkins and headed for home. He fell asleep right away.

We transferred him to his bed and Bryan and I worked in the yard for about an hour or so.
When Gabe woke up we all cleaned up and headed to Nate and Teresa's. They watched Gabe so we could go out on a date. We went to dinner and then got a few things at Target that we were needing. We got back around 9 and then went home. I got to snuggle with Gabe before bed.

We went to first service on Sunday and then came home. We had lunch and then all took naps. It was such a great day. We played and laughed. I love family Sundays like that. It was so nice.

So Gabe has been fighting a cold/running nose/cough. This week has been a bit of a battle. Monday he went to moms with just a runny nose...pretty clear and then Tuesday with Jenny he had a little more. Yellowish/greenish snot and a cough. I decided to keep him home yesterday and today. So we've been taking it easy these last two days. I have gotten a lot of Gabey and me time, a lot of things done around the house, and some work from home also.
I HATE missing work...but not at the same time. I feel guilty, but you know I have to take care of Gabe and I can't just send him off feeling miserably and get everyone else sick.
He's up all night coughing. I feel so bad. I have tried to get him and rock him back to sleep so that he's more elevated. He's napping right now and totally coughing up a storm. My poor baby! :o(

One of my favorite things ever since Teresa watched Gabe this summer was that almost every time Gabe was with Kambrie he would give her a hug. He seriously loves that girl. At the Pumpkin Patch we were waiting for the hay ride and he just rapped his arms around her and hugged her tight. He did this about 3 more times...we had to document it.