Pumpkin Carving

Which one's scarier???

The littlest helper

As I'm uploading pictures to my computer, I realized I never wrote about our pumpkin carving from this year.  There isn't really much to tell, but there are a few pictures to share.  Enjoy!

Mostly treats (not-so-much tricks)

All the kiddos dressed up and ready for trick-or-treating

I took my little football player, my Eeyore and tiny mouse trick-or-treating on Halloween.  Mike was still gone hunting at Fort Ripley so my mom was my assistant for the evening.  Leah, Karsyn, Sydney and Rhonda also joined us.  We just hit up a few houses of people we knew.
We started at my parents' house where we fed the kids their McDonald's that we picked up on the way to Albany,   Once they were all done eating, we started dressing them up, and got them outside to attempt to take a few pictures of them with my parents' HUGE pumpkins.  We got a few.  Nothing spectacular, but you can't expect much when you're trying to take a picture of two 3 1/2 year olds, two 1-year-olds, and an infant.
Once they'd had enough of the picture taking, we started loading them in the car.  By the time we got to our first stop, Tyson was sleeping, and he continued to sleep until we got to the last house  before we planned to go to Eric's (where I was going to feed him).
We got everybody out at Eric's, and snuck in the back door.  They didn't have their porch light on, so there shouldn't have been any trick-or-treaters other than us, but apparently lots of people don't understand that concept.  There were people knocking and ringing the door bell all night.  So, Eric and Amy and the other roommates did their best to hide out and ignore the knocking and ringing, but as we loaded the kids in the car to leave, Eric and Amy actually beat us out of the driveway (they decided it'd be easier to just leave).

Turns out....

Caution:  This post might be a little TMI for those who don't care about Kayden's vomiting, BUT--there's good stuff at the end, so keep reading=)

Turns out, Kayden's vomiting incident at daycare yesterday was probably MY fault =)  He threw up just once.  I did have my dad go and pick him up from daycare though, because I figured he would probably rather be around less kiddos while he tried to recover from his rough morning.  Anywho--I have come to the conclusion that the vomiting was MY fault, because I gave him his dreadful medicine in the morning before we left the house.  I sorta forgot that he is supposed to take it with food.  So, today, I sent it to daycare, and I'll leave Sharon with the challenge of getting him to take it =)

Now, a few side notes:

Tyler is crazy.  This time change has really screwed up his sleeping habits.  I think every day this week, he's been awake by 5:15.  This morning he was yelling, "Mommy!!!".  When that didn't work he switched to, "Daddy!", and when he still got no help, he started yelling, "Papa!!!!".  Now, if only Papa could have been around to deal with him!

Tyler has also really been working on talking.  He is getting better and better at telling us what he needs or wants.  He has a pretty clear , "juice", and if you don't give it to him, he has a pretty clear, "NOOOOO!".  He is also working on his brothers' names.  Kayden is, "Day-in" and Tyson is just, "I".  It's pretty cute, because he tries to fight with Tyson the way he fights with Kayden.  He's always saying, "No, I!!!  Mine!"   

I guess I kinda needed a day off anyway....

Tyler fought a fever all day on Sunday.  By Monday morning, he seemed ok, so I sent him to daycare, and told her to call me if she thought he seemed sick.  I warned that they'd had a LONG weekend, and they would be tired.  I texted Sharon (our daycare provider) later in the morning, and asked how Tyler was doing.  Her reply was, "Tyler seems fine.  Kayden's temp is 101.2".  What the ??????   Ugh.  So, she had Kayden take a nap, and I picked him up at our normal time.  We got home, and he was pretty sluggish.  Laying around on the couch.  We talked about skipping pre-school, but in his mind, that was NOT an option!  So, as soon as Mike got home, off to school we went.  He seemed fine at school.  He even got to stay and watch me play volleyball.  

We got home, put him to bed, and I checked his temp in the morning.  It was 100.3.   So, I decided I'd keep all the boys home, and take all three of them to the walk-in clinic that morning, and as long as everything was ok, I'd go to work after lunch.  

I was a little nervous about taking them all to the doctor, by myself.  They did amazingly well!  I loaded Tyler and Tyson in the double stroller, and explained to Kayden that he needed to be a big boy and be my helper for the day.  Thank God, Tyson slept through everything until the very end of the appointment when the doctor was ready to check his ears.   Verdict:  Kayden has an ear infection and (as he says) "a pink eye".  Tyson has an ear infection, and Tyler just had a virus, and is still trying to recover.  

Next stop, Target.  We shopped around a bit to give the pharmacist time to fill the prescriptions.  Kayden chose a $3.00 toy, and we picked up our prescriptions and were on our way home by noon.  Tyler fell asleep on the way home, and took a 2 1/2 hour nap, Kayden played with his new toy while he watched a movie, and Tyson had a bottle and took one of his longest naps to date!  All of this gave me some time to catch up on laundry from the weekend, dishes, etc. 

This morning, I took the kids to daycare, just like any other day.  Kayden had a strange meltdown as I dropped them off, but I figured he was just tired and a little cranky.  Sharon distracted him while I snuck out the door.  

My latest text from Sharon, "Kayden threw up.  He seems ok now.  That explains his behavior this morning.  I'm making him soup".  

Ugh!

The Annual Hunt

Kayden concentrating on his masterpiece

The final product

                                               

Frost a little, eat a little...

Tyler's cookie never saw the "finished product" tray

Working hard

This past weekend was opening weekend for deer hunting.  Every year, we spend the weekend at Mike's parents' house.  Before we had kids it was a weekend of girls shopping, laying around, catching up on sleep, playing cards....oh, the memories. 

NOW, it's a weekend of crabby kids, waking up early---too early, time change, eating way to much, cutting up and packaging deer....it has become work!  None-the-less, it is bonding time =)  The kids do love to spend the time together, and it's all good and grand until Sunday afternoon.  This is when they are sick of each other.  They're fighting.  They're crying.  They're exhausted.  We've run out of creative ways to entertain them, and we're ready to pass them onto their daddies!!!!!

This year, we did think ahead a little bit.  We brought ingredients and frosting to have the kids make, cut out, and decorate cookies.  This was splendid.  They loved it.  They made a mess.  They took a nap.  Mission accomplished.  

All day on Sunday, Tyler had a fever.  His temp was between 100 and 103 all day.  We gave him lots of Tylenol.  I thought by Sunday night he was better.  More on that in my next post....

P.S.  The actual hunting part was successful.  Mike shot a small 8-pointer and another small buck and 3 does shot.  Isn't that enough you say?  I sure would think so.  BUT, my lovely husband will hunt again this weekend, the following weekend in Wisconsin, and he'll bow-hunt until the end of December.  Oh joy....

I just HATE it!

This weekend, I am finally going to pick up Tyson's crib.  Thanks to my wonderful friend/co-worker Gail, I won't have to buy one.  She is letting me borrow hers.  I have had the cutest set of bedding sitting in the boys' closet for months, and I'm finally going to get that darn crib, set it up, and adorn it with that cute bumper and sheet and blanket.  

Tyson has been sleeping in the pack-n-play in the toyroom.  He's really starting to roll around at night, so the pack-n-play has just become too small to be his regular bed.  We really don't have much choice other than to keep him in the toyroom for now, but at least he'll have his own bed to sleep in. 

So, here's the thing I'm dreading about having two cribs in my house:  changing the sheets.  I absolutely hate, despise, cannot stand, changing crib sheets.  It's a pain to get the mattress out, and even more of a pain to get it back in.  I just hate it.  I don't know why.  It takes about 3 minutes, but I just whine and complain the whole time.  I put it off for as long as I can.  I just hate it.  

There.  I've vented.  I'll post pictures next week of how cute it looks.  And I'll probably complain a little more about how not-fun it was to get it ready. 

I'm workin' on it!

The Halloween post is coming. I've been having some trouble with my camera connecting to my computer to download pictures, and I kinda feel like a Halloween post without pictures is pointless=)