Autumn

So I have this tree that drops its leaves late in the Fall.  When it does, they are bright gold and every last leaf will drop in 24 hours.  It is simply breathtaking.

Once all of the leaves had fallen and dried we had to clean them up.  But not without a little bit of fun first. 

Halloween 2011

Better late than never.  What can I say other than the Holidays are a busy time and I wish I could have posted these sooner.  Every time I think of something funny or noteworthy to write about I realize I should really post events in the order they occurred.  So, before I can write about Santa I better wrap up Halloween!

This year I took the kids to the Zoo Boo at Como Park and Conservatory in St. Paul.  We were supposed to meet Paige's Aveda friends there but by the time we arrived they had already started the walk through and the way it was set up..well, you really couldn't play catch up.  You pretty much filtered through the zoo in one gigantic crowded line.

This year Paige wanted to be Darth Vader, not much of a surprise to me since as long as she had a say...her costumes were on the boyish side.  I chose a little Yoda costume for Quinn so they could be a duo.
While it is on my mind I will take the opportunity to list Paige's previous costumes.
 I will have to dig up the pictures...I did find a few for now...

2006 : A little pumpkin (2 months old)
2007: A black & white puppy (14 months old)
2008: A horse (2 years old)
2009: Superman (3 years old)...note to self, this is when the opinions start...Quinn (3 weeks old) little pumpkin

Paige and Dylan

2010: A Pirate (4 years old)...Quinn (1 year old) was the black & white puppy

Paige looks like she about to attack and Quinn like he knows it! 

This one makes me laugh, I have no idea why she was so upset.

 

Sweet little Quinn...he has grown up so fast!

2011: Darth Vader (5 years old)...Quinn (2 years old) was Yoda

At the Zoo Boo 

Little Yoda

 Paige and her friend Oliver from Aveda.

Paige was so upset as we neared the end of Trick or Treating because we never found her Aveda friends.  Then just as we were walking to the car we found her very special friend Oliver.  Now the day was complete!

We bought a pumpkins for each of us and the night before Halloween we carved them.  I always buy a pumpkin for everyone but somehow I always get stuck cleaning and carving 3 of the 4.  I guess at least I don't have to do them all!!  This year Paige and Quinn dug in to help with the seeds.  Quinn was all boy about it but Paige was pretty squeamish, she didn't want to get her hands dirty.  

The next day was Halloween and my Mom came to help me take the kids trick or treating while Jeff handed out candy.  This was Quinn's first year out, last year I took him to just a couple houses but he was too little to stay out long.  This year he was all about the candy!!  We brought the stroller just in case but I think Paige rode in it more than Quinn did.

Trick or Treat!!!

We went to a couple houses and then had to sneak back to our own house and surprise Daddy! 

Look what I got!!! 

\

Quinn and Grandma 

Making "candy" angels 

Calgon Take Me Away!!!

I will never look at this picture the same way.  I remember when I first uploaded the pictures from Quinn's Birthday party the night before with my family I laughed to myself at what a ragamuffin Paige was.  Geez, someone run a comb through that kids hair already!  Well what do you know.  It turned out that there was more going on in this picture than I ever would have thought....

I have been waiting to write about this day for some time, unsure if I should or not.  Ultimately I decided that since it was a day I know I will never forget, I should make sure to document it in full detail.  (future Paige, hopefully you look back at this and laugh..for one day you will have a child of your own and sooner or later...this may happen to you)  So it was Friday morning, Friday October 7th, 2011 to be exact.  It was a morning like any other...well almost. 

I had gotten myself ready for work and was in the process of getting the kids up, dressed and out the door for school and daycare and just like any other morning I running later than I had hoped.  I had just one little thing left to do before we could leave, it is always our last step...I had to spray a bit of detangler and brush the tangles out of Paige's hair.  It was as I was brushing that Paige uttered seven little words I will not soon forget. 

Paige:  Mom, that feels good on my itchies. 
Me:  What do you mean?  What itchies?  Why do you have itchies!!!  Where are they??  (Clearly...I am starting to panic a little)
Paige:  My head has itchies everywhere..here and here and here....Mom, will you brush it some more, but harder?  It feels really good.

Okay, so clearly we had an issue that I needed to investigate.  I immediately had Paige look down and I started to comb through the hair at the base of her neck.  It took less than 10 seconds before I saw it.  Paige had head lice.  I felt a wave of anxiety kicking in...I was scanning my memory to recall any little tidbit I could about head lice.  After all I was no stranger to it.  Not only did I have it once as a child, but I worked in childcare for seven years and every year at least a few children would turn up with the impossible bug. 

Now what?  We were READY to leave.  I had lunch plans...  Could I just pretend I never saw it and go on about the day as intended and deal with it after work, I mean she got it from school afterall??  No, I knew that wasn't the answer.  But what does one do in this situation?  I started with a call to both my Mom and my best friend.  They both confirmed that no, the kids could not go to school and daycare and it was just the beginning of a very LONG day.  I spent the next half hour contacting her school nurse, her classroom teacher, the before and after school program and Quinn's daycare.  It was humbling to call each person and tell them Paige had lice.   I am certain she caught it at school, from who I will never know but surely someone along the way did not contact the necessary people and correct the problem.  

Hopefully you have never encounter lice because it is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.  Well maybe I would...as long as they didn't share a cubby or coat hook near anyone in my family. So the very first step in getting rid of the buggers is to treat the hair with a product that will kill any live lice.  Yes, I said LIVE lice.  Isn't that disgusting??  The thought that there were tiny little bugs in my baby's hair biting her just pissed me off.  So I loaded the kids in the car and off to Target we went.  It was 8:00 in the morning and I was at Target, how awesome is that.  I love Target!!!  But not today, today Target turned out to be a bad, bad place. 

As soon as we got there I took the kids to the bakery to select a donut since normally the kids eat at school and I kind of forgot to make it for them since we were staying home with all of the chaos.   Donut in hand,  we meandered over to the health care section to find the RID or Nix (lice removal products).  I was pleased to see that they also carried a store brand box at half the price but grossed out that they were nearly sold out of all three varieties just 1 month into the school year.  Ish...

Paige asked if they could go look at the toys, we had no reason not to, so we headed to the back of the store to build their Christmas wish list.  Up and down the aisles we went looking at trucks, Lego's and anything that lit up or made noise.  All of a sudden Paige yelled out in a panic that she had to go to the bathroom.  I told her okay, we would go, I just had to get Quinn... (On a side note. Paige has to poop EVERY TIME we go to Target.  Really, every. single. time. It must be the excitement of shopping at Target!)
So, back to Paige...she is yelling out to me to hurry that she has to go BAD so I scoop up Quinn and put him in the cart.  He is mad that we are leaving so he is throwing a fit and trying to escape from the cart.  I tell Paige that she can get a head start to the bathroom since she knows where it is to which she yells back at me "I can't!".  I ask her if she would rather I put her in the cart and rush her to the bathroom but she tells me that won't work either.  It as this moment that I realize she is walking as fast as she can while breathing quite heavily.  She sounded a bit like a woman in labor and in addition she was on the verge of tears.  I tell her to just head up to the front of the store to use the main bathroom, it would be the closest and while she went to the bathroom I would pay for our things.  She was good with that plan and I watched as she did the penguin march into the bathroom. 
I stood in line to pay keeping on eye on the bathroom waiting for her return, but it was taking longer than it should have.  I was getting a bit anxious and the cashier for my line was taking her sweet 'ol time checking the lady in front of me out.  As I again looked over at the restroom door on the lookout for Paige I saw a woman walk out, she had a look that told me immediately that she was looking for me.  I watched as her eyes scanned the check out lanes and as soon as they got to me there was an immediate look that came across her face, I was the person she was looking for.  She asked if I was Paige's mom and told me that Paige needed my help really bad.  I thanked her and asked her to tell Paige that I would be there in a minute...or thirty if the darn cashier didn't pick up the pace.  I was amazed that the cashier couldn't understand the desperation of my situation, Paige needed me now and there was no time to chit chat! I finally made it to the bathroom and left our bags in the cart out in the hall and pulled Quinn out to go with me. 

The second my nose hit the air in that bathroom I knew it was going to be bad.  I called out to Paige asking her which stall she was in and quickly realized we were the only ones in the bathroom...whew!  Paige opened the stall she was in and there she stood, pants and underwear around her ankles.  Poop everywhere and a toilet so full of toilet paper it stuck out above the seat.  I stood there for a moment like a deer in headlights...where do we start??  Paige felt so bad and was sad that her clothes were dirty, I told her not to worry that everything would be just fine.  Step number one was to flush that toilet.  I was so afraid, our situation was bad enough as it was but what if that toilet overflowed?  It was a real possibility!  I held my breath, said a prayer and pushed the little black button.   Whoosh.  Down it went!  Woo hoo!  

Next we had to change locations, the single stall simply would not do for what needed to be done next.  I made sure the bathroom was still empty and had Paige shuffle across the bathroom with her pants around her ankles into the handicapped stall so we could all fit.  There I stripped her down, tossed the underwear and went through 15 or so wet paper towels to get her clean enough that we could go home.  The only remaining problem was that the waistband of her pants also had poop on it.  I thought about buying her a new pair to wear home, we were at Target after all...but that would mean leaving my 5 year old alone in the bathroom naked and everything about that just seemed wrong.  So I did what I had to do...I washed her pants in the sink.   So gross and unsanitary I know.  But what else could I do??  I made sure to make my rounds to the sink only when the other shoppers had finished their business as not to freak any of them out and then I  rinsed the sink well with soap and water when  I was done.  I then dried them the best I could with paper towels and off we went...I got into the car, looked at the clock and sighed.  It was only 8:40 AM.  Calgon, take me away!!!!

When we got back to the house I immediately treated both her hair and mine (just in case) and then we showered.  I spent the next 3 hours hunkered over the bathroom counter staring nearly cross eyed at Paige's scalp.  One by one pulling nit after nit from her hair.  Every time I would look away to allow my eyes to refocus, I would look again and find more.  There were just so many eggs, what a disgusting bug.  My sweet Paige was so, so patient.  She laid quietly playing with her Lego's singing songs and chatting away with me about school and her brother and her friends.  It was nice spending that time with her, good thing we enjoy each others company because there was a lot more time to be spent over the next two weeks looking for bugs! Pretty soon both of us had had enough, she needed to get up and move and my back was killing me.  Quinn also was in dire need of some attention, he had been given run of the house for the past 3 hours and he really did a number on both the bedroom and toy room.

The next step was to wash everything I could and bag up everything I couldn't.  I spent the next hour bagging up all of the pillows and rugs, stuffed animals and plush toys to store in the garage for a couple of weeks.  Then I pulled all of the bedding in the house along with all blankets, towels and every piece of dirty laundry I could find and loaded the car.  The kids and I were off for a fun filled afternoon at the laundry mat where I would spend a total of 5 hours washing, drying, sorting and folding.   By the time I was able to head home we were all exhausted.  Paige and Quinn were so good, they had so much fun running around and pushing buttons on the machines.  We were pretty much the only ones there so they were able to run around and play.  In between loads we took Quinn to get his hair cut short as to keep him from catching lice and went to Walmart to buy more treatment for Paige's hair.

At the end of the day the worst part was over.  My house was really clean and I had developed a new found fear of ever bringing this bug back into my home.  It took a good two weeks before I finally stopped finding eggs in Paige's hair.  I had to be diligent about checking every last strand of her hair each and every day.  We also incorporated bi-weekly olive oil treatments.  A sure fire way to kill the bugs while adding a lustorous shine to your hair!

I never thought I would see a day that consisted of Headlice, Cleaning up poop in a public place, Walmart and a Laundromat.  Undelieveable.  Oh, by the way.  There are actually people who pick out eggs form headlice as a profession to the tune of $90 per hour.  If Paige would have hired me, I would have made nearly $2,000...you do the math :)

 

Happy Birthday Quinn!!!

Quinn turned two exactly one month ago.  TWO!  Where does the time go, it feels like yesterday that he was born.  Like just last week that he smiled that first precious smile at me.  Quinn has a great smile, always has...it's going to take him places, I am certain of it.  But here we are today and he has become a little boy right before my eyes.   The morning of Quinn's birthday I snapped a couple pictures of him out in the field playing, he hid at first but then decided it wasn't so bad.

That night we had a small party of our own to celebrate Quinn turning 2, just the four of us.  Quinn got some fun gifts! (2 Thomas the Train cars, a twirly thing to drive his cars on, a light saber, a Thomas the Train blanket for his bed and some clothes for Fall)

Once Quinn opened up his light saber, Paige had to run and get hers along with suiting up in her Darth Vader Halloween costume we bought earlier in the week...do you think it looks a little too big??  Her feet resemble the wicked witch of the West after the house falls on her!  Our little Quinny will go as her very wise sidekick Yoda.

Jeff gave Paige his very special Darth Vader toy to play with from when he was a little boy under the condition that she was oh so very careful with it!

And they battle!

Quinn was very excited to blow out the candles on his cake, so excited in fact that we lit them at least 5 times so that he could blow them out again and again.  The funniest part was that he wanted us to sing Happy Birthday to him after each lighting as well.  He loved being the center of attention and laughed the whole time we sang.  I should try for a reenactment so I can catch it on video, it was probably one of my favorite memories of his birthday.

It was a good day to turn Two!!!

A Bout of Bad Behavior

Do you see this picture?  This simple photos show it all, I don't think I could have done better if I tried.  Take a moment and LOOK at this picture....I wish I could hear your thoughts....

So in this picture I asked the kids to smile, say  "cheese!".  Of course I snapped quite a few trying to get one nice one and THIS is the best I got, and for SO many reasons.  You can see the water droplets  frozen in mid air, truely a second later, I was wet...thankfully my camera was dry.

Paige, as usual, was cooperating, smiling for me and playing to the camera.  Quinn on the other hand was yelling "NO!" and slapping his arms into the water with a snarl on his face.  Hair whipping, water flying and Paige looks like she doesn't have a clue as to what is happening behind her.  I love it.  Well at least in the artistic sense. 

Quinn turned 2  two weeks ago and ever since then, it is like a switch was flipped.  Please enter the terrible two's!!!  Our days are filled with shouting, spitting, hitting, hair pulling, biting and pinching.  Poor Paige, much of the physical behavior is directed at her while the backtalk is saved for Jeff and I.  My sweet girl looks to me for comfort, Jeff for consequenses and then returns to tell her little brother what he did wrong and how it hurt her feelings.  He then hugs her and says "Saw-eee" as I smile on the inside...but then two seconds later Paige is crying again.  Man is it a battle.

I tried this morning to get a little example on video...and it is a poor one,just the tip of the iceburg actually and the audio/video sync is off.  But you will get the jist of it.  Enjoy!

Our Garden

We may live in the city on a quarter acre lot, but we have a garden!  We really do and it is actually a pretty good one this year thanks to all of the rain we had during the Spring and Summer.  I had been meaning to post these pictures for the past couple of weeks and kept forgetting.  Now apparantly we are under a hard freeze warning for tonight.  What??  It is only September!  Believe it or not, the day before yesterday it was in the mid 90's and tonight the low is expected to be in the mid 20's.  How's that for Minnesota nice?  Well, before our garden is no more, here are a few pictures. 

We grew corn for the very first time and I was really suprised that it actually grew!

If you look close you can see Quinn is about to throw a big handful of sand at Paige.  Uh-Oh!  That is the first thing he tries to do when he sees dirt...boys....

In this picture you can see the corn of course, but we also planted green beans along the fence (they never stood a chance, the rabbits ate them) and carrots (most of these seeds washed away in the first big storm the day we planted them).  This is Paige's garden, a small space on the front side of the real garden that is not fenced.  You can see on the fence how only 2 cucumber plants infested the whole wall!  This was our first year planting cucumbers as well.  I think next year we will plant just one.

This is the inside of the real garden, the tomato plants are huge!  We are looking forward to canning them this Fall, so hopefully we can keep them covered and warm enough tonight through the frost.  We also have lots of peppers, broccoli, cabbage, raspberries and strawberries.  Oh and herbs, TONS of them!  

In case you haven't had a garden before, even the smallest of gardens are a really great way to have the whole family involved in something.  The kids love helping plant, watching everything grow and produce food they can eat ..that is if they would actually eat vegetables.  But most of fun, picking everything.  It was a fun year for the garden, I can't wait to do it again next year!

First Day of School! First Day of School!

It was a really big day!  Tuesday was Paige's very first day of kindergarten and we made it through the day without any tears!  That day we made it anyway...I never guessed it would get harder instead of easier.  But first and foremost here are some pictures of her big day.

Paige woke up with a big smile on her face, excited for her first day.  She got up without hesitation, got dressed in the new school clothes we carefully laid out the night before and sat down for breakfast.  She didn't eat much and I didn't force her as I am guessing she probably didn't have much of an appetite with all of the butterflies flying around in there.  After breakfast it was time to head out the door so she and Quinn sat down to put their shoes on.

Once we were ready I had to take the a few more pictures of Paige posing with her backpack and grinning about this very big day.

Check out the Justin Bieber backpack!

One more outside! 

Then into the car we went and off to school.  Paige was ready and excited.  And of course, a bit nervous too.  When I asked her why she said because she wouldn't know any friends and would miss her momma.  (Melt my heart)

I took the entire day off of work because I wanted to be there for her to walk her to her classroom and pick her up right after.  It was nice to be able to take our time and enjoy the moment.  Paige posed for a fun picture on the steps of the school, she picked the spot out all on her own.

As walked through the doors, she held my hand all the way down the long colorful hall filled with kids and parents and chaos!  Orderly chaos, but it was quite a busy morning nonetheless and nearly every kindergartner and their parent was lingering among the four classrooms and connected hallway.  Paige and I found her cubby, hung her backpack and found places for all of her classroom supplies.  We checked out where she would sit, where she would rest and just took it all in.  Her little classroom was a tiny saferoom away from everything big and scary that was outside that door.  Her teacher was kind, yet firm.  Two very important qualities in someone who has to manage 25 scared 5 year olds.  Paige was going to be just fine, I just knew it.  As I kneeled down to hug her before Quinn and I said our goodbyes I felt the lump in my throat trying to make an appearance.  I forced it back knowing that if anyone should cry at this moment it certainly couldn't be me.  My tears could fall in the car, where I couldn't touch paige's amazing confidence and trust.  She returned my hug as I squeezed my eyes tightly looking for strength.  She then so sweetly made sure to give her brother a hug and kiss as well.  Her teacher came to collect her and she waved me out the door with a smile and she headed to the table with her new friends to color a picture of what else...a turtle.  But before I left, I had to sneak just one more picture of my kindergartner.