Halloween...very late!

First off, let us say a very belated "Happy Birthday" to one of Hunter and Hannah's favorite little pals miss Adalee Kate Grindstaff! I can't believe she is already one...her birthday was actually on October 30th. As you can see above, she is absolutely adorable and ever so fashionable!

a little pumpkin carving pre-Halloween...

Hannah was a "pumpkin princess"

Hunter was a farmer...he was not feeling the cowboy hat...

Finger Pricks :(

To sum up October for us....crazy, busy, fun, and ROUGH! We are just now getting back into the swing of things around here, hallelujah!

Over the last few weeks we have all had a pretty bad cold...nothing serious like the flu (thank goodness), but still not fun. We have all been way too healthy this year so I figure we were just due for something....here's a little how our last few weeks have been...

The week before last when Hunters symptoms first started (runny nose, coughing), I decided to go ahead and make a trip to the doctor to rule out the swine flu...yes I am overly paranoid. Well, turns out he had an ear infection, so they sent us home with some good old antibiotics for Hunter (Hannah is fine at this point, just a slight runny nose). So a few days later Hunter starts running a fever and coughed all night long....me, being the paranoid mom, thinks the antibiotics should have kicked in so something is wrong so I make yet another appointment.

The morning of the appointment Hunter woke up with no fever and in a generally good mood-I thought about canceling the appt, but decided against it and went ahead. Doc says that his ear looks better, but wanted to run a blood test to determine whether what he had was viral or bacterial. So the nurse comes in to do the finger prick and takes what seems like FOREVER squeezing his little finger...after she left Hunter was fine and continued playing with the toys in the office. Hannah, on the other hand, began having a complete meltdown. All we can figure out is that she was watching Hunters finger have the blood drawn, and she thought she was next. After trying to calm her down and explain to her that she was fine and she would NOT have to have her finger pricked, she was still freaking out, so I handed her to Kevin so he could have a try. The second I handed her to Kevin she threw up ALL over him and herself. At the exact same time, the doc walks back in to give us the test results, and sees that things have gotten messy so he calls in his nurses for a "clean-up". Keep in mind that up until the finger prick, Hannah has been as happy/healthy as can be. My first thought was that she has come down with a stomach virus, until we lay her on the table to undress her and she turned completely white as a ghost and limp as a noodle. The doc called the nurse back in and they immediately began checking her vitals and trying to get her to wake up....which scared me even more. As it turns out, she had what they called a "veso-vagal episode" (spelling?), which basically means she got so worked up, her blood pressure dropped way down and she passed out. Just to be sure, the doc wanted to do one more thing on her....you guessed it, a finger prick. Luckily at this point, she was so exhausted that all she wanted to do was sleep.

As I am holding her in my arms while they are pricking her finger (which I promised her she would they would not do), I notice that Hunter (the reason we are in here in the first place), is running around the room dancing and singing his ABC's. All I could do was shake my head, because I knew I had probably brought this all on myself. So the one thing I learned from this fiasco is to follow my instinct....if I had, then we would have avoided the situation entirely. Poor Hannah. As it turned out, Hunter just had a cold. Hannah was eating chicken nuggets an hour later.

Bellies full of gold fish

Pumpkin Patch

Last weekend we joined Keith, Jana, and Kaitlyn at their church's pumpkin patch in The Woodlands. Being the dork that I am, I had all of us wearing our pre-Halloween gear, and was hoping for some good family pics in the pumpkins. The more you try to get them to look at the camera, the more they won't do it...that's what I've come to realize. Oh well, I'll take what I can get!! These turned out pretty cute, but I think we may try out another pumpkin patch before Halloween rolls around---sure was fun!

SWEET FALL

"Hunter"

Top 15 Little Things I Love about Hunter @ 2 Years old:

1.)I love the fact that you love stickers. You're completely fascinated by any and all kinds of stickers, whether they're in the sticker books I buy for you, the Krogers stickers that the bagger gives you, or on your banana for breakfast, you could care less-they are all "sheekers" to you...

2.)I love the fact that you are my awesome little helper. Whether it's helping me shut the door, put something in the trash, or pick up your toys...once I give you a task and you get focused on it, you don't stop until you get it done just right...

3.)I love the fact that you love to dance. Ever since you were able to pull up on your little music table, you have had some serious rhythm! Your favorite tunes to dance to are anything to do with Sesame Street/Elmo. The other day, you broke out all of the sudden in a breakdance on the floor -not really sure where you learned that one at...

4.)I love the fact that you are extremely focused. Well....not all the time, but when you do decide to focus on something you are doing, I can tell by the intense look in your eyes. Whether it's stacking all your blocks JUST RIGHT, or putting every little piece back into your puzzles, you have some serious determination...

5.)I love the fact that you love to be outside. If you had your choice we would just hang out in the garage or backyard all day/everyday-and you are such a good mailbox checker...

6.)I love the fact that you want to make everything "awl betta". This is your new favorite phrase, and it makes the melt every time I hear it. Whether I kill a bug for you, wipe off your face, or kiss your boo boo, everything is always "all better" in your book...

7.)I love the fact that you are incredibly hard-headed. And I don't mean stubborn (which you also are), I mean that I think you have a head made out of steel sometimes! When you are going full force you will sometimes take a tumble or smack into something that makes me cringe and wait for the tears to come, but most of the time you just keep on trucking-like it never happened...

8.)I love the fact that you love to read. While your sister can hardly sit still long enough to make it through a few pages, you are completely content on cuddling up in the chair and stacking up 3 or 4 to read at a time. Your all time favorites at this moment are "patty-cake", "i-spy", and of course your Sesame Street musical book from Gammy and Pa-pa...

9.)I love the fact that you LOVE your Daddy so much. Just like your sister, as soon as Daddy is home, I am pretty much kicked to the curb-and I am ok with that...

10.)I (secretly) love the fact that you have confiscated Hannah's cabbage patch baby. I tried for a minute to discourage it, but you were so sweet when you said "baby" and gave it a kiss, that I figure what could it hurt? "Adriana Tricia" (I think that was her name) has been in your crib ever since...

11.)I love the fact that you look like me. While you do favor your Daddy in some ways, you definitely look like my side of the family. Everyday I can see such a resemblance of myself, my Dad and even my Grandma Johnson in your face- I am reminded of how special our family is to us...

12.)I love the fact that you listen to my "1, 2, 3"'s. I remember when I was little constantly being told "one, two, three" when I was doing something wrong. I guess it works, because now I find myself constantly doing it to you! You usually stop what ever it is you're doing now on "2 1/2"...

13.)I love the fact that you scream "Momma" at the top of your lungs and practically knock me down when you first see me there to pick you up from daycare. After your 30 second long bear hug, you are usually ready to hit the road...

14.)I love the fact that you say "thank you" for anything and everything. The other day you told the bagger at Kroger's "tank you" for every single one of the 15 or so bags he put into the buggy, so polite! You even thought to tell the nurse that gave you your flu shot thank you as she was leaving the room-I'm sure she doesn't get to hear that often...

15.)Most of all, I love your hugs and kisses-you give really good ones! At the end of a long, exhausting day a big hug and a few kisses from you before bedtime makes it all worth while...There's truly no better feeling...

Again, I'm sure I will think of plenty of other sweet little things you do in the future, but these are my current favorites for now!