I am thankful for. . .

Simple and sweet. . . I am thankful for my beautiful family. I love my boys and my dedicated hottie of a husband who works so hard to take care of us. I am thankful to be home with my children and thank them for making me their mama. I am thankful for my boys grandparents and love the way they love our babes. Thank you for teaching us to be the parents we are. I am thankful for having a sister in law, Erin and her wonderful fam that comes with her, because I always wanted a sister. I am thankful for my creative, unique brother Josh and his other half Charlie who we deeply missed today. And let's be honest, I am thankful for red wine because I couldn't get through life without you either! Cheers!
Happy Turkey Day!!!!
Thanksgiving 2011

Watch out!

Here's a story that we will laugh about one day. Saturday night about 3am I wake up to hear the cabinet doors in the boy's bathroom opening. Eric was gone working a graveyard shift so I quickly popped up to see what was going on. Well Mr. Carter had gotten up (which he NEVER does) and decided to play in the bathroom. The only problem was he had shut the door and opened the drawer leaving about one centimeter of space. I calmly tried to get him to close the drawer. I brought out snacks, toys and musical instruments, anything I could think of to try to get him to want to come out. Nothing was working and I began to panick, it had been a little over a half hour at this point. I finally had gotten a hold of Eric which was good because I was one phone call away from calling the fire department. He tried to keep me calm but once Carter started to cry, there was no calming me down. My mama instincts took over and I was going to break that door down if I had to. I found every tool possible and went to town on the door. By 5am I had broken through the door and Carter was safe and sound.

Some how Nolan slept through it all, which was a very good thing. Eric made it home shortly after the ordeal and all was well, all but the door. And later on that afternoon as I was retelling the story to friends and family we were laughing. Because things are always better when you laugh about them. Looks like we may need to add a new door to our Christmas list.

Family haircut day

Every 6 weeks or so, the boys in this house need a trim. They grow hair like their Daddy (AKA- Harry). Unfortunatly they strongly dislike having their hair trimmed. It is a two person job between Eric and I. So this session of hair cutting, I got smart. . . M&M's and music. Much easier with chocolate and the Rio Soundtrack playing in their ears!

Opps

Our little Carter loves to take off his diaper. We have to make sure he sleeps in pants or his jammies because Lord knows what we will find. The other morning he managed to take his diaper off inside of his jammies and when I unzipped him, I found his diaper wrapped around his ankle! Nice buddy!

B-day parties!

We celebrated two friends birthday's last weekend. Kiera's 2nd birthday at the farm and Adeline's 3rd birthday at the Bouncy House. Some where along the way we picked up a little virus so we have been homebound all this week. It has been a long week. The tikes were feeling better this weekend so we did a couple outings just no contact with other kiddos. It has been a long week!!!

Beware of the super protective mama. . .

So changes are in order. Our little man is approaching his third birthday (December 2) and we are getting ready for pre-school. The process has been somewhat challenging for us. Prepare yourself because I complain here a little bit! I just can't understand if you are in the "business" then you should know how to choose your words. I am prepared to offer classes in Professionalism 101 because in unprofessional terms- "you suck"! My first conversation started with "Tell me about Carter, is he high or is he low?" My response was "well mam I can tell you about what Carter does well and other areas we may need to work on". Conversation continues with, "let me guess he must be very happy and sociable but is also very stubborn and set in his ways". If you have a child with DS, you may want to knock someone upside the head when they throw this stereotypical remark at you. Umm last time I checked every 2 year old is happy and also stubborn, DS or not. I remember after Carter was born, people would say to me well at least he will be happy all of the time. And I wanted to respond to them by saying my child will be happy because he is loved and treasured, not because he has DS. And if you have met my little man, he has his moments. It's not always ponies and rainbows around here. He experiences every emotion just as a typical child would.After awhile (and more annoying questions and comments) I began to realize that I need to grow thicker skin. I have to prepare myself because this is just the beginning. School is going to bring big changes and new people into our world. People that I will politely need to educate because they obviously missed their Professionalism 101 class in college.We have had several meeting and had to do some assessments with Carter to see what areas we need to work on. Although not sure what these questions, like "when he is in a grocery store does he refrain from touching things?" Or "does he walk on the sidewalk or does he tend to want to walk in the street"? Well let's see being the parent that I am, I don't let him run free in the grocery store and throw things off the shelf nor do I let him run wild in the street. So is this question for my parenting skills or actually have something to do with the way you will be educating my son? Seriously?With all complaining aside I am excited for Carter to start Pre-school, I realize there are a few hoops we will have to jump through to get there but we'll get there. And Mr. Carter along with his mama will teach a few lessons on our way there!

Weekend in Winthrop

For Eric's birthday we took a family trip to Winthrop and spend 3 days enjoying the peaceful little town far away from home. The town looks like an old western movie set in Hollywood. Loved it! Cute shops with friendly smiling faces, quaint restaurants with food grown locally, and colors of fall everywhere you looked. Schedules were set aside and we never even looked at the time. We took long hikes and explored. The cabin (http://cascadecondos.com/) we stayed in was amazing, thanks to Katie's mom Karen and step-dad Randy. The decor was rustic and country. We had a tremendous time and can't wait to visit again. We will feeling adventures so we even stopped by Leavenworth on the way home to sip an October feast beer and munch on a hot dog at our favorite place (mine was a veggie braut of course and the boys an organic turkey dog, daddy enjoyed the real deal though). Great, great weekend.
Happy birthday Daddy! We love you!