Summer

Summer break is quickly coming to an end. Sophia starts kindergarten in 24 days! We've had a good summer.

Sophia spent a week by herself with her grandparents and then Connor and I went down to join them. Had fun. The most exciting part was when sophia got up on waterskis with Uncle Paul! That girl is fearless!! Maybe next year she will do it alone.

The other thing Sophia is looking forward to is Cheer Camp! She is going to a one day(5hour) camp. Then a week later she will get to cheer at the first home football game for highland high. She is so excited.

Trying to think of some fun things I can do with Connor while Sophia is in school all day. Maybe I can sign him up for a sport or something.

Ok kids are fighting over the slide. Gotta run.

Yard sale and missing my girl

So today I went to my friend Katie's to do a yard sale. We did it from 9-4. I only made $12.95. Bummer. I hope tomorrow is better. I won't be there on Sunday because I'm going to the lake.

Speaking of the lake, Sophia has been down there with her grandparents since Tues! I miss her so very much. This is the longest she has EVER been away from me. When Connor was born, she was only gone for 4 days! I cried almost all the way home from Todd's on Tuesday morning after I dropped her off. I missed her already. So I can't wait to see her!!

Connor, Billy and I will be driving down on Sunday morning, then Wayne will be joining us on Tues since he has to work. Then he will drive home Wed evening. I'm not sure if the kids and I are staying longer or not. Probably not. Guess it depends on how things are going.

Well I'm tired and need to get some rest before tomorrow.

Update

4th of July was great this year despite the rain. Went to the Highland parade on Friday night. Kids had a blast! Saturday we went to the Whiting parade. Connor enjoyed it. Sophia was tired and spent the whole parade sitting on Aunt Marilyn's lap.

After the parade we came home and had friends over for a BBQ. It was fun but most everyone left early so we over to Todd's and partied with the family. We had so much fun and didn't get home til midnight!!

Yesterday Sophia had a routine hearing test at Childrens. It went really well. The audiologist thinks she may not have to come back. Fingers crossed!

After her appt we went back and spent the day with mom and dad. So tired today!

So that's about it.

Testing this out...

Just uploaded an app to the iPod so I could post here. Seeing if it works!

An update

Here's a brief(maybe) summary of what is going on at Casa de Kinker!


Sophia graduated from Preschool at the end of May. She is now officially a Kindergartener! woohoo. She is enjoying her summer vacation so far. The best part is that she has actually started riding her bike and is showing a small interest in learning to ride without the training wheels. So far she just freaks out.

Connor is finally done with speech therapy. His last day of that was 2 days before Sophia's last day of school. He's also enjoying the summer. We have slowly started potty training. It's going VERY slowly. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we will have him done by end of summer. wish us luck.

Wayne has been working a lot. Picked up some overtime here and there. It's helped. Sunday is his birthday. Sucks that his bday and Father's day are the same day but he's okay with it. We are going camping for the week as his birthday gift. :) We bought him a weed whacker a few weeks ago as an early Father's day gift.

I've been busy too. The first weekend in June I went on a whirlwind trip to Massachusetts. I went to meet a friend that I met online and have known for 7 yrs!! We are best friends but have never met in person. It was great. It was like I had always been a part of the family. I flew in on Friday afternoon, spent all day Saturday in Boston and then flew home on Sunday evening. It was too short because I wanted to see more, but just long enough because I missed my kiddos. Yes I went alone!!! Jules and i have already made plans for next year at this time for us to get together again but next time I'm taking Wayne and the Kids. :)

The biggest news we have is that we bought a MINIVAN!!! I love it. It's a 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan. it's soo roomy and comfy. It has plenty of room for the kids and has stow and go seats so we can fold down the back seats and put stuff back there. We also paid off our Saturn this month!! Today actually. It felt soo good but would have felt better if we hadn't just added on another car payment. Oh well. We really needed a 2nd car AND something bigger!! Love it!!

Lilke I said earlier, we are going camping next week. We will be gone from June 21-28. I can't wait. A whole week in the tent, swimming in the lake or pool, hanging out w/ just Wayne and the kids! it's going to be great!!

well, my fingers aren't functioning very well tonight for some reason so I must end here!! If you've made it this far! Great!!!!

Helping Save babies and so can you!!

Once again, that time of year has come. Sophia and I(and probably Connor) are doing the March of Dimes walk. We have done it every year since 2004 when Sophia was the county ambassador. Every year we choose a child to walk in memory of as well as in honor of Sophia. This year, we are walking in memory of Ronan Ivey. His parents are friends of ours. Sweet Ronan was born too soon and only lived a short time but he touched so many lives.

Sophia and I set our goal for $500 this year. We are half way there and the walk is in 3 days!!! If you would like to donate, please go to our site

www.marchforbabies.org/Sophiasmommy

Any donation is appreciated. A little goes a long way!!!!

I am planning to Twitter our walk progress as well. If you want to follow along go to: twitter.com/CSMomma

Happy bday?

So Yesterday was my birthday. It started out good. The middle, not so great. The end..great.

I had to work yesterday which was okay. I was only there 3.5 hrs. When I got there, I had gifts on my desk :) Marcy bought me a small bunch of flowers. Katie gave me a gift bag with goodies in it. It had a little slinky, a reed diffuser, jelly belly jelly beans, cute socks(that match ones i got sophia) and a picture frame. :) So cute.

Then this is when my day turned sour. We went to my parents so Wayne could go with dad to get the RV filled. When dad backed it up, he got it stuck in the mud. SO Dad and Wayne spent almost 3 hrs, yes 3 HOURS, trying to dig it out!!! Finally, they called a tow truck! I was pissed! We were supposed to go to the mall yesterday so Wayne could get new glasses. THAT didn't happen because he was digging out the RV. We were all supposed to go out to dinner for my bday. Mom and Dad didn't go.

We were supposed to meet my sister Kim at Red Robin at 5:30-5:45. We didn't leave Mom's til 5:45 because Wayne had to clean up and change clothes. Luckily I had ran home and got him clean clothes. Finally got to the restaurant, ordered our dinners, drank my pina colada and enjoyed ourselves. The only bad part is the waiter forgot to take my burger off the ticket because I had a coupon for a free one for my bday. Then my sister had asked them to sing for my birthday. They didn't! I was both sad and happy about that. Kim got me a body wash set for my bday.

Wayne had said he would get me the Wii Fit for my birthday. We went to one Target, didn't have it. Went to Best Buy, didn't have it. Went to Game Stop by our house, nope. Target by us, nope. I did however get a yummy Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks while there though. :) FINALLY, we went to Game Crazy. Found it there!!! WOOHOO. Since the kids had fallen asleep in the car, we put them to bed when we got home and then I set up the wii fit. It's awesome! I had so much fun figuring out the different exercises and stuff. My favorite so far? Hula Hoop!! :)

So except for the part in the middle, I guess it wasn't a bad day. Just would have liked to have done something besides watch my husband dig out a friggen RV on my bday. lol

Wii!!!!

So yesterday, Wayne and I bought a Wii!! It's our bday gifts to each other. Ok so my bday isn't until March and his isn't until June. We just figured since we had the money to get it now, we would get it. OMG are we having fun with it! LOL We got it hooked up around 4pm yesterday afternoon and played it til around 10:30!! We only stopped long enough to eat dinner. We've been having a blast playing the Wii sports that came with it. We also rented Mario and Sonic Summer Olympics. That's been pretty fun as well. I told him when I get paid, I am going to get the Wii Fit. One of the girls at the chiro's office has it and she said she lost 10 lbs in the first 2-3 weeks she had it! :) My favorite part of the Wii is that it makes you actually get up off your butt to play. Tennis got ya moving, boxing was good for cardio. LOL


I'm sure this is how we'll be spending our days off for a little while LOL

Neti Neti

So day one of the neti pot didn't go so well. I was just too stuffed up for it to do anything.

However! This morning it worked like a charm! It was fabulous. I won't go into the gross details about it, but I can now breathe in AND out of my nose. Still a little congested but not like before. It's lovely. :) Maybe I'll actually be able to smell again and my food won't taste so gross. LOL

Wayne is trying it now(yes I cleaned it). I'm curious to see how he feels about it.

Crazy days

So it's been pretty crazy around here. Tomorrow is my first day off from work in almost 2 weeks! I'm not complaining much though. It's been worth it. I'm really hoping for a decent bonus this year so I can get the lap top I want. :)

Of course, there is one downfall to working this week. All the sick people who have come into our office! ACK. Of course I ended up with a horrible cold. It's starting to get better. Thank goodness I'm off tomorrow..finally!

So to combat my cold and as an experiment of sorts, I went out and bought a neti pot. It's a little pot that you put saline water in and let the water run from one nostril and out the other. It's gravityfed and so far it's been, um, interesting. I don't think I was doing it right at first because the water kept running to the back of my throat and then I would gag. Then I came online, found a video of how I'm supposed to hold my head and it worked much better. I'm sure as I do it more and I'm not as clogged up, it will work better. Wayne is going to use it too in hopes that it helps with the multiple sinus infections he gets. I'm just hoping it helps with my allergies and the occasional cold I get. :)

Kids are doing good. Sophia had school pictures on Friday. She was so excited because the kids who are going to kindergarten next year got to wear a cap and gown for their pics. She came home all excited because hers was PINK! Her favorite color. I can't wait to see how they came out. She's been such a good girl. We have a new routine at night now. Every night at 6pm, we curl up on the couch together and watch How It's Made for an hour. Then we watch Food Network or Discovery channel until it's time for the kids to go to bed. Connor comes and goes during that time. Most of the time he is in their bedroom watching cartoons or playing with his batman stuff.

Connor had his last session of OT on Thurs. It was a bit sad because we had to say good bye to Elona for the 2nd time. She was Sophia's OT as well. We did promise to keep in touch so we have exchanged emails. I made sure to get a picture of her and the kids together. I'm going to send her a copy. We will miss her. She has been a part of our lives in some way for 5 yrs. It started when she started OT with Sophia in the NICU. :)

Well better go make dinner for the munchkins. Unless they aren't hungry yet. :)

The Demon has left the building....

The demon that has possessed my daughter that is! LOL

For the longest time now, Sophia has just been such a handful. She wouldn't listen, threw fits, cried, didn't want anything to do with me or her dad, and wouldn't eat very much at meals. Well for the past week, it's been like dealing with a totally different kid! She's been so good. *knock on wood*

Some examples of her better behavior? How about the past 3 days she has had not one but 2(and even 3rd) helpings of dinner. Monday night I made chicken alfredo and she had 3 helpings!!! Wow. She's also been doing things the first time I ask her to do something. Not waiting til I've said it 3 or 4 times. She's more polite now. She has started putting her dish in the sink after she's done eating. She even came to me the other day and told me she wasn't going to pick her nose or put her toys in her mouth anymore. This was after she got in trouble for biting the feet of her Barbies and chewing on the accessories.

The most amazing part of all this? She has a 2nd molar coming in!! She has only complained about it hurting her once and even then she said it wasn't bad. I don't care what has caused the change, but I'm loving it. I'm going to enjoy it for as long as it lasts!

Oh the weather outside is frightful!

So it's snowing today. A Lot! Not thrilled, but at least now I am home from work and Sophia is home from school and I don't have to drive in it again til tomorrow! UGH.

Tax season is officially underway for me. I did my first return of the year on Monday. Today I had a guy come in that I did his return last year. He requested me when he came in. Tomorrow I have an appt to do a return for a lady I did last year AND her friend made an appt with me tomorrow as well. So I have back to back appts. That should keep me busy for at least an hour LOL Sure beats doing fake practice problems.

Kids are doing well. I'm so proud of Sophia because she is getting better at writing her name. They have to write their names on the tops of their worksheets at school and I've noticed a drastic improvement. She still needs to work on her H's but that's okay.

Connor just keeps getting funnier and funnier every day. He constantly makes me laugh. Yesterday he was running around in his pull up yelling Connor's Naked, Connor's naked!! Silly boy.

Well, better go get lunch and hot chocolate ready. Sophia and Wayne are outside playing in the snow. I was hoping Connor would go back to sleep since he fell asleep in the car, but doesn't look like that's happening. :(

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all my friends and family. I hope 2009 holds better things for you all!


For NYE, we took the kids to the Science museum in Chicago. Boy was THAT a mistake! Ugh. It was a bit crowded. I can handle that, but I just couldn't handle how rude people were! At one point we were getting on an elevator and some lady rammed my double stroller with her little umbrella stroller so that she could get on the elevator first! UM hello, we're going to the same floor!!! And don't get my started on the number of kids, little kids, who were allowed to just run willy nilly around the place. We're talking kids Connor's age and younger! Egads. I told Wayne I want to get a museum membership so we can go whenever we want and not have to wait til a free day to go. That was just crazy!

Once we got home, I realized that my chicken had not defrosted so I went to McDonald's to get dinner. Then I had to go back out to the grocery store because I forgot to pick up the stuff for chili cheese dip! Yummy. We had decided to let the kids stay up figuring neither one would make it to midnight. Yeah okay! lol

Sophia crashed in our bed at 9:30, Connor made it to midnight and beyond!! When we put him to bed at 12:10, he cried. He was just a ball of energy. Poor little one though had a stuff nose that woke him up at 2:15 and 2:45. Gave him some meds and he's still asleep. :) Mommy's little night owl!

Oh and we did have one visitor last night. Kris came over. It was nice to see her. She brought the kids a little thing of candy from her and Richanne. Connor loved his and kept wanting some, but at 11pm, that wasn't an option. I did give him a couple of gummy bears though. :)

So now I am going to go make coffee and breakfast for my family. Wonder how late my little party animal will sleep. :)