Busy Tuesdays

My Daycare family is quite large on Tuesdays. With every other day of the week being at least one child less than my Tuesday load, it is definitely my busy day. Here is a picture of my Tuesday "family."

Feeding the ducks.

Here are pictures (lots and lots:)) of the kids feeding the ducks down at Riverside Park last Friday morning. Thanks to Grandma Chris, who showed up at our house the night before with a huge bag full of old bread, we were able to satisfy ALL the ducks and some of the local birds in the area.

Jessica's Surgery

We had ear tubes put into Jessica's ears this past Monday. She has been having trouble with fluid building up in her ears. This fluid was occasionally turning into an ear infection, which we attempted to treat using different oral antibiotics (all of which she seemed to have some sort of adverse reaction to). The other problem with fluid building up in her ears is that her hearing was affected. The doctor said it was like trying to hear with your hands covering your ears. It was pretty much a "no brainer" for us to go through with this minor surgery. I was able to go with her into the operating room where they gave her a small dose of gas to go to sleep. The procedure itself only took a few minutes. She seemed fine the rest of the day and has been doing well since. Here is a picture of Jessica the day of her surgery.

Jessica's bee sting

Jessica was stung by a bee the other day while we were playing outside at Grandma Chris's and Grandpa Bob's house. I saw it fly towards her and then fly directly up her shorts. A few seconds later (as I was heading towards her to check and see if the bee had flown away), she began to cry. It was a total "hurting cry." We rubbed a baking soda paste onto it, which seemed to help soothe her somewhat. Luckily, she did not have any sort of an allergic reaction --just lots of crying and making mom and dad feel awful that this had happened in the first place.

My 2009 New Year's Resolution has been met!

Not only did I achieve my goal of running 300 miles this year, but at last count, I had surpassed it by atleast 50 miles. It makes me happy to know I have regained my willpower to bring fitness back into my lifestyle. I feel terrific that I've obtained my fitness goals and reinstated exercise back into my lifestyle.
During my pregnancy with Jessica, I let myself get pretty out-of-shape and extra large!! Now, I am proud to say, I am 60 pounds lighter, stronger and healthier.
Creating and obtaining this fitness resolution has made me feel so good, I've already began thinking about what my next year's resolution will be. Since I enjoy taking certain aerobic and strength training classes at our Onalaska YMCA so much, my fitness resolution will be a specific number of hours devoted to exercise in general (rather than just running).
I'm jumping the gun a little bit...I still have a few months to figure it out.

Our acorn tree

We have an acorn tree not too far from our house; the kids get a kick out of watching all the squirrels that live in that tree, so we walk there quite often. We decided to plant our own acorn tree in hopes one day it will grow big enough to be taken out to a countryside and planted into the earth. The kids dug up the soil and dumped it into the pot. We placed the acorn into the soil and covered it up and then Jackson gave it some water from our hose. I hope it grows; Jackson is so excited to see it!

Are we raising a shopaholic?

Earlier this summer we noticed Jessica began showing an interest in shoes. She just loves to find shoes around the house (doesn't matter who they belong to), try them on, admire them, and then walk around the house wearing them. Jessica has now expanded her obsession to include clothing items too. She will find random articles of clothing around the house (she'll pull them out of drawers, laundry baskets, pick them up off the floor in the bathroom, etc...), then she'll put the article of clothing over her head. She'll continue layering until she is walking around with three or four articles of clothing around her neck.


Sometimes she'll come to mom and "ask" for help, in which case I show her how to put the clothes on correctly.
This is what happens when Jackson leaves his underwear and his shirt laying around on the floor of his bedroom...

Her clothing is underneath; I helped to put these two articles of clothing on over her own --and she couldn't have been happier:)