Murphy's Law....

J can be home for months on end and everything goes smoothly. Then he has to be gone for work for a couple weeks and everything falls apart at home! I took Sara ice skating a week and a half ago with a friend just to discover that her little friend was sick and has been exposed to RSV by a cousin the weekend before. I called J that night and predicted what would come around here. Sure enough, exactly 3 days later Sara was up in the middle of the night with a fever and cough. This was the start of our sickie rollercoaster. I ended up taking her to the dr. and then to urgent care a few days later. She had a fever of 103 for 6 straight days and didn't sleep pretty much that entire time because of all the coughing! About 5 days in to her illness, Jace started sneezing. I ended up in the pediatrician's office with him yesterday and left with a diagnosis of RSV and bronchiolitis. He is one sick little baby but such a little trooper. They sent me home with a nebulizer and I'm giving him breathing treatments every 4-6 hrs. The goal is to keep him eating at this point. He sounds awful, wheezy and a nasty cough but so far we are hanging in there. The dr. said things will get worse before they getter better so we are bracing ourselves. Of course, we couldn't get through all this without me getting it also, so we are a house full of sickies. On top of all this our dog Dakotah is sick. She is suffering with some pancreas issues and once we have healthy kids again we will need to do further testing to figure out what is going on with her.......

I got these couple cute pics of Jace before he got sick. There are no new ones of Sara as she wasn't feeling very photogenic!

First Snow

We had our first snow of the year, a little bittersweet for me. I am a summer person, I love the hot weather! I am really trying hard to embrace winter and find some things to do in the winter that we will enjoy. So after it had been snowing awhile we all bundled up and went outside to build a snowman! Sara had a blast and also enjoyed making some snow angels. I think her favorite part of the snow is eating it! We've had to talk about the rules of eating snow though, no yellow snow! I guess this means that winter is officially on its way.....

Christmas in November...

I don't like to get too excited about Christmas too early but this year we had to. J was getting ready to leave for 3 weeks so right after Thanksgiving off we went to get our Christmas tree. I don't think we've ever put one up this early. It was really debateable about whether or not to even put one up with a very busy baby around the house but Sara would have been devastated so we had to get one. We headed off to a local Christmas tree farm, nothing like Christmas tree hunting in Montana though, to pick one out. Uncle Steve was here to go along! We decided on a nice little one just in case Jace decides to pull it over on himself! Sara was so excited and it turned out to be a nice little tree.

Jace in the bath

Isn't he cute??

Ice skating adventures....

There is a local indoor ice skating rink that has a preschool drop off program where they can go skate for an hour and get help from a coach during some of that time. We just started going this week and Sara loves it! She uses a bar that she holds on to help get the feel of the skates and to help learn the basics and then she will slowly be able to wean herself off of using the bar. I expect she will be skating on her own in a couple weeks! Kids at this age learn so fast. As soon as we get snow we plan to get her on skis also. Four is a really fun age because they are able to do so many new things! She is also suddenly really excited about learning at school and is constantly wanting to write and loves math! It is so fun watching her learn!

Halloween Fun!!

Halloween is such a fun holiday! Sara was especially excited this year. I think being four she finally understands the full gamete of Halloween. She chose what she wanted to dress up as early this year and I decided to take on the project of making her costume. It was really fun for her to help and see the process of making it and we were both happy with the result. She was such a beautiful butterfly! Her little friend Riley came over and the daddies took them trick or treating. Jace didn't make it too far and he was ready to come home and go to bed. We at least got him dressed up for a few pictures, although he was not impressed! He inherited the costume from our friend Colten in North Carolina. Thanks Colt!

Here are also a few other "Halloweeny" pictures from the month and some of a cute bouquet of flowers that J sent Sara and the biggest spider balloon you have ever seen!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Riding Reno

When Sara was a little over 2 1/2 she got to ride a horse for the first time at my uncle Rod's house in Belgrade. She has not stopped talking about it since. It was literally a love at first sight and ride with horses! She even has some stuffed horses at home which are named after Rod's horses. Well, a couple weekends ago we decided to make a flying trip back to Montana and ended up staying at my uncle's house again. Of course Sara had to talk them in to riding Reno again. It was snowing and the weather was awful but luckily he has a nice big indoor arena that she was able to ride in. The lights are not great inside for taking pictures but here are a couple from riding Reno. She got pretty brave and even got Reno to gallop a few laps for her. I'm seeing a horse in our future.....

What everyone is up to these days....

Well, I thought it would be fun to write a little fall update about what everyone is up to around here. Sara turned 4 in July and is in full blown "princess" mode. She loves everything that has to do with princesses, pink, sparkles and pretty. She wears dress up clothes around the house most days and wants to call everything "pink". Even though she appears to be all girl, she also loves bugs, dirt and playing outside. She is going to a Montessori preschool 5 days a week from 9-1. This is her second year there and seems happy and settled there this year. She has lots of friends and loves to play with them! She also loves swimming and has begun swimming on her own over the past month or so. She has also started AWANA and is in Cubbies through our church and is excited about that. She's a little unsure about her baby brother. At times she is lots of help and other times she'd like to "sell Jace to the zoo". Overall she has adjusted to life with a baby quite well. She is such a great little girl!

Jace will be 9 months on the 22nd and is all boy! What a different baby than Sara was! He is everywhere and in to everything. I think he has already broke more things than Sara has and she is 4. He has been crawling for a couple months, is pulling up on everything and is walking along anything he can hold on to. He has 3 teeth and one more any day. The other area he is the complete opposite of Sara is in the sleeping dept. He is still up most night 2-3 times to nurse. I never imagined I'd have an almost 9 month old baby who is not sleeping through the night. We are all pretty tired around here........ He is a very happy, smiley baby and we are just absolutely in love with him!!

I am doing the stay at home mom thing for now. I'm not feeling ready to go back to work and am just trying to enjoy the blessing of not having to work for right now. I spend my days driving Sara to and from school and to her various activities and trying to keep up with everything around the house. J is still doing the same old thing for work and is doing really well.

A trip to the Pumpkin Patch!

We live about 5 minutes from a great orchard full of fields of different fruits and vegetables. We made our annual trip there this week to pick out pumpkins. Sara thought they were all perfect and if it had been up to her, we would have left there with all of the pumpkins! She had a great time picking some out and riding in the wagon. Jace had fun taking in the sights and hanging out with daddy in the bjorn, his favorite way to be held! We brought the pumpkins and some corn stalks home and decorated the front porch with our scarecrows. I can't believe October has snuck up on us!

Vacation time!

The kids and I flew out to join J for a little vacation. I will admit to being a little worried about traveling so far by myself with two kids, two strollers, two car seats, two big suitcases and a carry on, however it couldn't have gone better. The kids were great on the plane and we had a great time. Everyone was happy to see daddy after being apart for a couple weeks. We stayed in Old Town Alexandria for about a week and then drove down to North Carolina to visit some friends for a couple days. While we were in the DC area we rode the metro (train to Sara) in to the city for lunch, visited the zoo, went to the aquarium in Baltimore, ate lots of good food and were able to catch up with some old friends. Sara especially loved swimming in the hotel pool. She also really enjoyed playing with Jaleigh and Colten in NC. The plane ride home went pretty smooth also, despite it starting with a lovely couple in front of us who proclaimed as we sat behind them, "great, there's two of them", speaking of the kids. Too bad they didn't live up to their expectations and were pretty quiet all the way home! Overall, it was a great trip and we had a lot of fun but it is always nice to be home and sleep in your own bed!

Welcome to blogging!

I have been inspired by my friend Allison to start a blog for our family and friends to keep updated on what is happening around our household and to see current pics of the kiddos. I will try to keep it updated weekly with new pictures but we'll see how that works out..... So for now, I guess that is about all. I'm not feeling particularly inspired and creative at the moment but hopefully as time goes on, sparks of creativity will come to me!