Our Sweet Boy

I just wanted to share this picture that I took of our youngest. I have been practicing a lot with my camera and trying different things out in photoshop and really liked how this one turned out. I posted the color and b/w just for comparison. Thanks for looking!

The NO TV Talent Show

We went to the Dewey Elementary School Talent Show last night to watch Kelsie and a friend dance to All For One from High School Musical 2. She did a great job performing on stage is actually quite natural in front of a big crowd of people! The show lasted almost 2 hours with forty-some-odd acts. There was a ton of culture shining through the performances and I loved every minute of it! There was the Irish dance, the Brazilian instrument that was played, the "kid rock band", the rapper, a song and dance in Spanish, and so much more! There were lots of magic tricks and instrumental pieces as well. There were also a few kids who did a comedy routine and my favorite joke of the night? Here it is:

Knock, knock.

Who's there?

Dewey.

Dewey, who?

Dewey hate TV tune out week or what?!


That's right, we're right in the middle of TV Tune-Out week (well, almost done with it now) and are proud to say that our TV has been turned off since last Sunday. It was hard at first, but after we realized all the extra time we had on our hands, we've been having TONS of fun! We've been lucky enough to have beautiful weather this week so we've been outside most of the time playing and planting our garden.

I think Brandon was probably the one that was the most disappointed about not watching TV when he realized Monday morning that he couldn't turn it on (Wally turned the power strip off the night before). He stomped out of our room as loud as he could and then set the table and ate breakfast all by himself. Crazy things like setting the table without being asked have been the result of no TV in the mornings...we kind of like it! We've tried to have lots of fun each night so we wouldn't be tempted to turn on the tube, one being the school talent show. I really didn't think that we'd be able to do it and there were times, believe me, that I was ready to give in on those late afternoons with Brandon, but we stuck to it and are very proud of ourselves.

So, we'll see if the table gets set Monday morning, but in the meantime, we've got a Family Talent Show to prepare for for tomorrow night.

I'll never understand

Yesterday afternoon, I opened the refrigerator and found this. I actually did a double take because I couldn't believe what I saw. In case you're still wondering, yes, those are cheerios in the milk carton (look close and you'll see them floating like little inner tubes relaxing on a lake). When I asked my #1 culprit about it, he said, "Yep, those are cheerios." shrugged his shoulders and walked off.

I'm still trying to figure out the thought process that went into this.

"Hmmmm.


Cheerios.


Milk.



Cheerios go in milk.



I need to put this handful of cheerios in the milk!"




Of course I don't really know what he was thinking. I just get to enjoy a gallon of milk with cheerios floating in it.

Hair today, gone tomorrow

I finally did it.

Today, I finally made the appointment and got my hair cut. I have been wanting to cut my hair for a while and took advantage of Wally being home today to do it. I have been growing my hair out for almost 2 years and I finally got tired of it. Since it was so long (at least by my standards anyway) I looked into donating my hair. Locks of Love takes hair and turns it into wigs for children who suffer from cancer. I have never done anything like this before and decided that it would be better to give it away than to just throw it away.

When I got to the salon, I was all pumped up and ready. When Yuki, my hairdresser, came over to cut my hair, I suddenly got very nervous. When she showed me how much was going to get cut off, I panicked. When she showed me the 10-inch pony tail that she cut off of my head, I started to cry.

I really surprised myself with my reaction. After all, it's just hair, right? It will grow back, eventually. Then I started to worry about what my hair was going to look like when we were done. Yuki was very confident though and reassured me that everything was going to be ok. While I watched her work (which, by the way, I have NEVER seen anyone cut, comb, and blow-dry so fast and precise in my life!) I started to think about what it would be like to not have hair because of an illness and what I just did with my hair is going to help someone else.

A hug from the lady next to me, tons of encouragement for what I was doing, and lots of kleenex later, I think I ended up with a pretty nice haircut. It is shorter than I have ever had my hair, and it will definitely take some getting used to, but it feels good. It makes me feel even better that I can do something to help someone else, even if it means giving up a little part of me to do it. Suddenly, it was totally worth it.

Ready, Set,

HIKE!

What else is there to do on such a beautiful day?!

Asthma?

Last week Brandon and I got sick with a pretty bad cold. It was one of those chest colds that ended up with lots of coughing and runny noses (we went through a few boxes of kleenex between the two of us). Brandon got it pretty bad in his chest and was having a hard time breathing. Thursday night he was up three different times throughout the night, which for Brandon is NOT normal at all (unless it's to sneak some video game time). I was starting to think that I probably needed to take him into the doctor the next morning when he was laying in bed with us, wheezing and coughing.

I finally decided to take him in Friday morning and when the doctor listened to his chest, he almost immediately called him an asthmatic. They gave him a breathing treatment in the office and he sounded a lot better and so they sent me home with our own nebulizer and prescriptions for all the medicine he would need. It was a very interesting appointment, and by the time I got home I just wasn't sure about how I felt about the whole asthma thing. It doesn't surprise me that he could have asthma (it runs in both of our families) and really if that's what it is, that's fine. I think what surprised me was that it was like all of the sudden Brandon has asthma. We've never had problems in the past with him and he gets one bad cold here and now he's an asthmatic. And, if you know Brandon, he's one big ball of energy that just goes and goes and goes from the time he wakes up in the morning until he falls asleep at night. I guess we would have noticed something in his behavior if he was having a consistent problem with breathing before now.

I was ready to take the machine back to the office and just let his body deal with being sick, but then after I realized that his breathing had gotten a lot worse from the time he had his treatment in the office and when I picked up his medicine we were probably doing the right thing. So, this weekend, Brandon has been doing breathing treatments 3 times a day and is on a steroid, predisone, to help reduce the inflammation in his lungs. He's doing better breathing-wise, but I am still trying to decide if this is really asthma or just a really bad cold.

I guess it's better safe than sorry, right?

Healthy Kids Day

We went to Healthy Kids Day at the YMCA this morning! We used to go every year while we lived in Pennsylvania, and were sad when they didn't have it in Washington while we were there. It's been on the calendar for a couple of months here to we were sure to not miss it! We had such a great time and we got to do so many things. Kelsie and Brandon went through an obstacle coarse where they had to hula hoop, dribble a basketball, do sit ups and push ups and jump rope! There was a magician who showed us some magic tricks and a group from a karate studio showing off their stuff. Caleb loved the play area where he could walk around and climb all over everything and Brandon had a great time doing flips on the mats. Kelsie jumped 95 times in a row during the jump rope contest and won a prize for jumping so much. (I jumped with her, but I had to mess up on purpose around jump 35 since my pants were starting to fall off. Note to self: get new pants.) We had such a great time and came home with kites, frisbees, snacks, tattoo's, t-shirt's, and as much healthy information as we could get!

Along with all the fun that we had, we also got information for a new program called Healthy Family Home that the YMCA is sponsoring. It's all about getting healthy and doing it together as a family. It looks like such a fun program and one of the things that I want would love to get involved with (I did get health education degree and all). Anyway, I thought I'd pass along the information and also a link to the President's Challenge site which is another great way to get everyone healthy!