"Just adenoids" isn't so bad

I said on facebook yesterday that Aubrey was doing well and was busy working on fulfilling all her post-surgery wishes: eating Jello, a popsicle, and ice cream and watching "Dragon Tales" (PBS show) while sipping on apple juice. Surgery went well and she did great. Having 1pm time slot was a little rough in that she wasn't able to eat or drink anything all day, but she made it through. She was scared and teary when we got to the hospital, but the pretty pillow and the beanie baby they had waiting for her in the room helped with that. She did not like the IV in her arm or the thing on her toe in the recovery room--not happy at all. That's when we planned out all the things she would eat and the things we would do when we got home. That helped distract her for a while. I appreciated the fact that they let me come in right when she woke up. It wasn't that way at the hospital where Joel had his surgery. All in all, she was a brave little girl and a good patient, and I'm thankful to have it over with. I really hate hospitals.

Recovery is going well the day after, too. She's assumed her position on the couch and while a little paler than usual and a little more tired, she's acting pretty normal and seems to be in little pain. We'll still take it easy this week, though. Thanks to all who prayed for Aubrey and for us!

The Negotiator

We've been whittling away at the Halloween candy stash around here (went with the ration-it-out-for-a-while method this year) and making them work for their treats after dinner each evening. Picking up, working on homework, and doing chores has been earning a few treats. This evening one of the kids asked, "How many treats tonight?" and before Greg could reply, Aubrey piped in with her own suggestion: "Six, plus a bonus!"

Um, no, but very funny! To be fair, she has fully embraced the idea of the Daddy Tax and is a generous and willing taxpayer.

On another note, Aubrey could use your prayers this coming Monday. She is going in for surgery to have her adenoids removed. She's been struggling with sinus infections for the last year and half (treated 6+ times). They finally did a CT scan a month ago and sent her to the ENT, the same one who did my sinus surgery, Joel's tubes and tonsillectomy, and Grant's tubes. We know his office well! Basically, her adenoids are chronically infected and the underlying cause of all her perpetual illness. We've tried everything else, and it hasn't worked, so surgery it is. I'm not looking forward to the hospital experience or having my little girl put under, but at least it's not tonsillectomy. We're hoping to never have to do that with any of our kids ever again. Boy, was it awful! This should be a lot quicker recovery. We're looking forward to having our healthy, happy Aubrey back in the near future. We've had quite a few battles lately, and I think it has more to do with her not feeling well than her just acting three.

Too quiet

This is what happens when Mommy is chatting downstairs with a friend and doesn't check on the children who "are playing so nicely" upstairs. I really should have known. It's happened before.


thousands of "fun fusion" beads in every nook and cranny of the room

Grant dumped them out, but Aubrey and Joel did the spreading. The clean-up was painfully long and wasn't quite done before Kari came home from school. The fact that her brother and sister missed out on cookies for afternoon snack because of their misdeeds made her feel better about the state of her room. It's all about justice, you know.

Trick-or-treating

I got Spidey to take his mask off this time. Aubrey roared for almost every photo, which made for some funny facial expression from her but also made Grant laugh in a lot of them.

He's laughing at her in this one.

Pretty sure none of our other kids had lollipops (or any other candy) at such a young age. He was very much aware of the fact that all the kids were getting yummy stuff in their buckets and wanted in on that action. We brushed his teeth well that night. :)






















Grandma walked around with us for a while and helped keep track of kids.




We ran into Brian and Emily and little golfer, Russell towards the end of our time there, so I tried to get a cousin photo. Aubrey was ready to be done, can you tell?
 
I quit taking photos at this point, but the rest of our evening was eventful and fun. We had dinner down the street with Grandma and Grandpa M and Eric and Leah and the kids, and then headed towards home (after a couple candy stops) for more trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We suspected that it would be a fairly busy evening in this new neighborhood and made sure we had lots of candy, but I was shocked at just how busy it really was! We got home at 6:30pm, and for that next hour, we had a steady stream (as in hardly shut the door) of kids, and the hour after that was a semi-steady stream (during which I believe I broke my toe running into the couch on my way to the door--can't forget that exciting part of 2011's Halloween--such a stupid thing to do!). We shut off our light at 8:30pm and were down to the bottom of the bowl. Our kids handed out candy for a few minutes before they headed out themselves when we got home, and it was so fun to hear, "Hi, Kari! Hi, Kari! Hi, Joel!" A ton of the kids who go to East Orient live in our neighborhood, and it seemed like they were all out there that night--made for a really fun, family-friendly atmosphere. I stayed behind with Grant to "man" the door, but Greg said the kids had a great time running from house to house, saying hi to their school friends along the way and making quite the candy haul. It was a great Halloween in the new neighborhood, and having done it once, I'll be more prepared for next year. :)

Harvest Party

The kids had a blast at the Sunday school Harvest party. They look forward to it every year and always have so much fun.

Kit Kittredge, Little Lion, Spiderman, Big Lion
















Kari was a good big sister and held the string for her.































Couldn't quite reach!















They had pity on him and just gave him a donut.


















The whole "costumed" group. Every year Greg and I talk about finding costumes to wear, but we never do. Not sure we could pull off "Samson and Delilah" like the Pates (pretty sure we can't, actually), but we should come up with something one of these years! :)
















Big "thank you" to the Strandbergs for hosting, Christine for planning, and all those who volunteered to help!

Carving

Eating apples and caramel and carving pumpkins made for a fun Thursday evening. Grant was one tired little boy and went to bed a little after 6pm. It worked out pretty well since he would have wanted in on the action and wouldn't have been able to do anything anyway.

We tried making mini-caramel apples like some I saw on Pinterest, and while tasty, they didn't really work. I've actually sucessfully used several ideas found on pinterest lately, but this one was a fail. I felt better, though, when Kari's class did real caramel apples at school yesterday, and the caramel fell off theirs, too. I think we'll stick with caramel apple dip--not as cute, but a lot less work and a lot less mess!

Finished jack-o-lanterns and happy carvers/scrapers.

Kindergarten Pumpkin Patch field trip

Great Grandma and Grandpa came and watched Aubrey and Grant so that I could go with Joel on his field trip. Clear, cold, and dry weather made for a great morning.

The whole kindergarten class--28 kids with Mrs. Walsh.
On the tractor ride to pick out pumpkins. The girl in the middle is our next door neighbor and Joel's good friend.
His pumpkin's in the bag. I had a good time spending the morning with Joel and his class. It was a treat! :) Thanks so much G&G for helping out so I could go!

Found these on the camera, might as well post 'em

I let the kids paint a while ago (it's not a frequent activity around here, at least not as frequent as they would like). Aubrey's paintings all looked the same--brownish gray and all over the place. Joel's were colorful and carefully planned out. Kinda wonder how much of that is the two year age difference and how much is just personality. Time will tell.


We found a good use for my old laptop, the one my parents gave me the summer before I left for college. Fourteen years old is absolutely ancient for a computer, isn't it? It has now become the baby's play computer! :)

Liepolds, the way we like it

We've had a nice, long, fun, productive weekend. The kids didn't have school Friday, and Greg took the day off, so it felt like we got two Saturdays this weekend.  He took the older three kids to see Cars 2 this afternoon (love the Mt Hood movie passes). They were very excited to go, especially when they heard they would get to pick a movie treat beforehand. Grant and I are hanging out here at home. He's not at a good movie-watching age. :)

We had a couple soccer games on Saturday, and we did a bunch of yard work--moving dirt and rocks, laying bark dust, and just trying to get our backyard presentable and a little more usable. It looks a lot better, and if we can get some grass to grow, I think we'll be good to go for next spring/summer.
We went to the pumpkin patch Friday morning (the main reason Greg took the day off) to assure we would not have a repeat of last year's miserable experience. There were just a couple cars there when we arrived, and the crowds came as we were leaving--perfect timing. We had such a good time together as a family. I loved it! Good memories. We had one little mishap with Aubrey falling forward in the mud, but she somehow managed to keep her face out of it, and she recovered very quickly. Some friends (Paul and Karyn & kids) witnessed the whole thing without realizing at first that it was us--kinda funny. :)

We let the kids take turns choosing which direction we all should go in the corn maze, and they chose the right way almost every time, so it didn't take quite as long as in year's past. The creative juices (or perhaps funds) must have been running low this year because usually they have some cool theme like Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Bob the Builder, or Star Wars. This year the theme was farming, specifically Liepold's farming--about the varieties of berries they grow, pests that threaten the crops, how the farm works. Hmmm...not quite as entertaining, more self-promoting really, but at least it was educational!





















Some favorites from our time there. The pumpkin photos are always some of my favorites. Love all that orange!

















Crazy to think that last year Grant was just a tiny newborn, hanging out in the baby carrier the whole time. This year he's running with the "big" kids, picking out his own pumpkin.