Less than a month!!!!

Well, the countdown is on...we have less than a month until school starts again and even less than that until I need to be in for Teacher Meetings, etc.! Where in the world has this summer gone???? I honestly feel like we have just recently been able to catch our breath this summer...whew!



The main attraction this summer...the hospital! :( Kate has spent more time in the hospital this summer than I ever thought any of my kiddos would...ten days...dang. By some freak accident, she managed to get a staph infection in the soft tissue of her right foot which then led to it being in the bone. Official diagnosis...cellulitis and osteomyelitis. Not fun...but now 10 hospital days, 2 surgeries, lots of IVs and antibiotics, an orthopedic boot, etc. we now seem to be on the mend...we hope! :) Almost two months after this all started, she is still limping on her foot and it is still swollen but with a high dose of antibiotics we have been told all will be improving very soon!



We also took a wonderful trip to Washington DC...a trip that the boys LOVED, Kate still babbles about sometimes and one that I will remember forever! :) The monuments, the history, the artifacts, the experiences....all were priceless!!!!! I even got to see the real Declaration of Independence and the real Constitution...so unbelievable!!!!! Pictures are posted in our previous post!



Chris went to his first overnight Boy Scout camp and had a lot of fun! He and Greg are going to another one in August to celebrate the Boy Scout's 100th Anniversary which is this year!



The boys have also spent a week at Grandma and Grandad's which was a lot of fun for them! Daniel is still talking about going on the train and building with dominoes and Chris is still telling me little details from the week with his cousins! :)



Summer is now winding down for us...although Greg and I are hoping to plan a weekend trip somewhere if we can fit it in for our 10 year anniversary in September! Not sure where we will go (wherever we can find a great deal! :) ) or when we will actually go but hopefully it will be sometime soon! We also are needing to go and shop for back to school clothes, etc.!



So that is where we are right now! :) Just working through things with Kate and trying not to let the small things with her stress us out...I find that I am watching her like a hawk and the smallest change in her foot makes a million questions start running through my head...I am hoping that soon that will slow down!



Well, I am off to clean on this wonderfully stormy day!!!!



Nicole

DC Photos...

Ok...after talking to Greg and thinking about the sheer number of pictures we took on our trip, we decided to upload the pictures to a Picasa web album for everyone to see! :) There are about 180 of them and while I'm sad because there is no commentary to go along with them, I'm happy because there they are...all of them! :)

Here is the link:

Washington DC 2010

:) Enjoy!!!! :)

Technical Difficulties! :(

So I have been trying to get more pictures up from DC and blogger just isn't wanting to cooperate! :( I got the four up from Mount Vernon (that was all it would let me!) and now it is freezing every time...

I will try again as soon as either my service or blogger will work with me! :)

Have a good evening!

Mount Vernon!

The first day we were in DC we took a trip to Mount Vernon where George and Martha Washington lived! There was a scavenger hunt for the kids to do and once they were finished, they were each awarded a pressed penny! :) The scavenger hunt sent them looking in all of the outbuildings, etc! Fun! :)

The house:

George and Martha Washington are buried at Mount Vernon in the building below. Many of their family members are buried here as well.

While we were visiting, a high school band dressed in period clothing played on the bowling green in front of the house. Pretty cool!

This is the view from the back patio...absolutely stunning!

Blog? What's that???

That seems to be my frame of mind lately!!! I have been so horrible about updating and so much has been going on! I will have to take it in chunks!

KATE: Turned 2 in April and we had a birthday party for her in the backyard! It was so much fun! It was the first time we had been able to have an outside birthday party and so many of our friends and family were able to come! :) WONDERFUL!

At the end of May, Kate was in the hospital for an infection in her foot...those 6 days in the hospital are a blur and they were almost some of the longest days of my life. She is definitely on the road to recovery now and is back up and about bugging her brothers! More on this situation in another post!

DANIEL: First year of preschool over and done! He LOVED every minute of it! He has decided he is a Minnesota Twins fan because one of his teachers is from Minnesota and she LOVES the Twins! :) He is sticking with this and it has added some fun conversations to this house!

He played soccer for the first time this spring and can't wait for the next round to start in the fall. He had fun running around, chasing the ball and hanging on the goal posts...I have some cute pictures and I will have to post those later on!

CHRIS: The new second grader in the house. Man...I don't know where the time is going but I can't believe one more year at the Primary school and then he will be with me at Ray Miller! Seems to be just flying by! He took piano lessons this year at the school and has discovered that he has a knack for it! We are going to continue lessons this summer...he LOVES it! He also played soccer again this spring, completed his Tiger Cub badge and is now working on his requirements for being a Wolf Scout. He is going on his first Boy Scout campout soon and can't wait!

His report card was outstanding and he finally got a Satisfactory on "Talking at appropriate times!" :) We like to tease him about that! He is reading like crazy right now and his favorite books right now are the Boxcar Children books.

Things for Greg and I are pretty status quo! We are both working away and trying to keep up with the three kiddos! :)

We are working on packing up to head to DC tomorrow afternoon and there will of course be a blog post on that when we get back! :)

Hope all is going well out there! I'm not sure if there is even anyone still checking this but I'm still here and I'm going to commit myself to blogging again! It is the perfect way to record our lives and share it with our friends and family!

Have a good one!

The things kids say (my kids at least!)!

Kate: "Myself! Myself!"

This is what she says when she wants to do something on her own...be it putting the butter away (like today at lunch) or getting a diaper or playing a game...funny!

Daniel: "I love you all the way to ______________ (fill in the blank!)"

He says this all the time and the words he puts in the blanks are what is really funny! This morning I was told that he loved me all the way to Grandma's windows! :) Last night he loved me all the way to Disney World and back AND all the way to Walmart and back. Funny!

Chris: With Chris it is more the way he says things this day...he is very dramatic at times and he can be so passionate about cleaning...this morning I got a "But MOOOOOOM!" with the classic expression all kids give when they say that phrase...I just had to laugh. I said it enough times growing up and I heard my siblings say it lots as well...that is a phrase and expression that will never skip a generation I've decided!

An update on us!

So it has been awhile since my last blog post!  Time sure does fly!

Things have been pretty status quo for us!

Chris did participate in his Pack's Pinewood Derby race but I will post more on that later on!  With pictures!

So to sum this little post up...we are still here...still doing well and still having fun!  :)

Be back soon with a longer post!