Back to the blog world!

Yes, yes...I know, it's been awhile since I've blogged. I really do have good reasons!!

Over the past couple of weeks, we have had sick kiddos. Our girls have never missed a day of school and last week, they were both home. Brenna woke up Monday am with a headache, stomach ache and low grade temp. So, we sent Alyssa to school and Brenna stayed home. Even though her temp was gone by the time school started and she was ready to go to school by noon. I kept her home. Our rule is you have to be fever free for 24 hours before returning to school.

Tuesday morning, both girls headed off to school. I took Ethan to my mom's house and headed to the school to volunteer and Alyssa's class. When I went to sign-in at the office, I saw this cute, little, blond girl in the nurse's room and quickly realized that it was my Alyssa and she was crying. They told me that they were just getting ready to call me because Alyssa had a stomach ache and fever. So, instead of volunteering, I gathered Alyssa's work for Tuesday and Wednesday and we headed for home. I quick went and got Ethan from Mom's and then got Alyssa home and in p.j.'s. I think that's the best part of being sick...you get to stay in your jammies! Alyssa's stomach ache was short lived but the fever didn't go away until early Thursday morning. She stayed home Thursday and was very excited to return to school on Friday.

Ethan has been "sick" for a week and a half. He always gets croup this time of year. Thankfully, it hasn't been as bad as years past. We have become true pro's at handling croup in this house. Ethan has had it off and on since he was 5 months old. In fact, our doctor has finally just given us the medication that we need to treat Ethan with his croup and we just call in to report when we use it. Since he's given us the medication, we've only had to use it once. Poor Ethan, the first night/early morning, he woke up with it, Oct. 10, he looked at me and said, "Mommy please don't take me to ER. I don't want to go to ER." I told him that we didn't have to go there any more because mommy had the medicine at home if we needed it. I think the poor boy has been there one too many times for this croup business. Anyway, with the croup stuff, Ethan has been fighting a cold. This past weekend, he had the fever part so he was home bound. Thankfully, the fever is gone and it's just the lingering cold that he's dealing with now.

I wasn't well Thursday so Jason stayed home from work to help with Alyssa and Ethan. (He's such a great husband!!! I didn't even ask him to stay home, he just did!) I honestly think I was just worn down from everyone else being sick and getting up so much during the night with the kids...taking temps, giving tylenol for fever, cold and cough medicine for those needing that. A mother's job is never finished...no rest for the weary!

I did take advantage of some serious scrappin' time last Monday and Tuesday while the girls were home. I completed 13 pages!! I'll share just a few of them.
There are lots more but I didn't really want to take pictures of them all. It is so much easier sharing my digital scrap pages. I can't wait until my kids are caught up in the traditional world and I can get back to digital scrappin'!

This past Monday, Ethan and I met my mom, sister and niece out at Bellewood Acres. We had never been there so it was fun to go explore a new place. Ethan had fun watching the workers sort apples and get them ready for packaging and then watching the man making apple cider. He just took it all in and told Jason all about it that evening. Here are a few pictures of our day.

Ethan found these huge pumpkins. He's wondering if his cousin Wayne can grow pumpkins this big. (Wayne had his own pumpkin "patch" this year.)
This was Ethan's favorite part to watch...making apple cider.
The crew...
Ethan found this cart of pumpkins and jumped in for a picture. I was going to have him stand next to it but no...he wanted in. Okay!
Checking out all of the apple trees...Ethan and Mommy Paige and TrishaPaige and Ethan with Mom...Ethan was being such a goof at this point. It was hard to even get a good picture of him.Paige and Grammy.It's been nice to get everyone back to normal routine this week. It's our last week of sports so next week will be even better! We won't have to worry about getting anyone to turn out and who's going to who's game on Saturday. We are looking forward to a quiet (as quiet as it gets) schedule for the winter months.