Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween

Today was a very busy day and I had no voice. After a week of the sore throat, my voice finally disappeared. The only good part about it is that my throat feels a bit better now. Anyway, Connor had football pictures and a game. From there we headed over to a Halloween party at the house of one of his friends. We got home just in time to get Keaton dressed for Trunk or Treating at Living Hope. We headed on over and and had a good time. After dropping the boys off at home, I then headed to the grocery store. Man on man, what a day!! I might have been busy but never too busy to take a picture or two.

Here are our boys in their costumes....

and without their masks.

Connor loves to make funny faces but Keaton hasn't quite started joining in on the "fun".

I usually don't dress up myself or at least haven't since having the boys unless we go to a Halloween costume party (which we have only done once). So, my school decided to let the students wear costumes for the first time since I have been teaching there. I decided to participate but had no idea what to wear. My friend and neighbor saved the day. She always gets into Halloween and had a costume to spare. I had to borrow Annie's doll to take with me. I figured the kids wouldn't know who I was and I was right. Only a very few knew who Raggady Anne was.


Jackson's Orchard

Last Sunday the weather was great. We (and about everyone in a 100 mile radius) decided to head out to Jackson's Orchard. We met up with our friends and had a good time. The kids liked the Cider Slider and really enjoyed climbing on the hay maze under the big tent. We even took a wagon ride out to the pumpkin patch and ended our trip with delicious treats. The boys opted for ice cream while I had a caramel apple. (Man I sure wish I had another. They are so yummy! ) It was a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon.




Sunday, October 25, 2009

Rob's Birthday





The boys and I wanted to surprise Rob for his birthday with a set of corn hole boards and we did. We purchased and gave them to him a week early. We even got to go ahead and try them out before his birthday. I believe Connor and Keaton like them just as much as he does if not more. A great gift idea if I do say so myself. They're fun for the whole family.

The Nashville Zoo


Connor's 3rd grade class visited the Nashville Zoo recently. He was so excited to return to school from fall break because they were going to get to ride on charter buses to the zoo. Prior to the trip, his teacher had discussed with the students various animals they would see. Each student had to select an animal to research. Connor chose the Schmidt’s Guenon, an animal I had never heard of before. Here are a few picts from his trip including one of a Schmidt's Guenon. The weather was wet and cold but a good time was had by all.

(Perhaps the newest addition.)




Connor and his trip buddies, Josh and Sean.



The Schmidt's Guenon, the animal Connor and I'll both know well before the project is complete.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Too Good to Be True....I Couldn't Pass This Up

I was checking out some of my favortie blogs when I ran read across the wonderful chance to win a $200 gift card to Best Buy. I ask you, Who couldn't use a $200 gift card to Best Buy this close to Christmas? So I decided to enter. You can check it out and enter too. Just go on over to MckMama's blog and follow her directions to enter or visit blogher to learn more.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Autism Walk


(My guys just before the Autism family walk began.)

Autism is something that directly impacts my family each and every day. In order to support awareness for Autism, our family participated in the Lifeskills Run for Autism at the Bowling Green Hot Rods stadium. All the proceeds benefited the Kelly Autism Program of which Keaton visits two days a week.

(Here is Keaton getting ready for some face painting. He didn't last long. After one stroke of the face paint, he was finished.  Apparently he's not a fan.)

Although the weather was way colder than we ever imagined it would be in the middle of October, we still had a great time. Rob ran in the four miler. The boys and I joined him later and completed the family walk.


Having a child with Autism hasn't alwasy been easy, but what in life worth having really is?

Keaton Sings Along

~Update #2~
Ok so I finally got it right and then figured out that I had the broadcast as private. Ooops. Sorry. Hopefully this time it all works out.
Enjoy!!

~Updated Post~
Ok...so I am learning. After I first included a link to the video my friend, Valerie, talked me through how to embed the video into my post. So now I have tried that. We'll see what happens. Here's crossing my fingers and hoping it works.

Lately Keaton has been watching an old Blue's Clues video. Some of his new phrases have come from this video. He has been talking a lot about Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper, kitchen helpers and a new baby. (All of which are from the video.)
Yesterday afternoon I happened to catch him singing along and playing the guitar with Steve on the video. I was able to get him to do it a second time and I captured it on video. Although the first performance was the best, this one is pretty good even if Connor is peeking around the corner. Hope you enjoy. (Click the link below to view. This is my first time to post a video to the blog. If there is a better way and you know how to do it, please let me know.)


Keaton Sings Along

Monday, October 12, 2009

Captivating Collages

I wanted to share some more vacation fun picts and thought I'd create a couple of collages to share. We really did have an awesome time at the beach with the Johnson family. Keaton loved the waves just as much as always. He would put his face right in the water and let the waves rush right over him. Connor really enjoyed helping Kevin and the boys look for jellyfish. Rob was able to do his favorite beach thing (long walks) a couple of times. I'm sure he would have made more trips down the beach if he had been feeling better.  As for me, I  hit the waves with Keaton for the most part but did get to spend a little time doing my favorite beach thing~reading a book while listening to the sound of the waves.

Creek Family Fun on the Beach


The Creek and Johnson Families at the Pool


Johnson Family Fun at the Beach
(I'm sure there are more Johnson family photos of the beach that might have been better to include but I do not have access to them as of yet.Sorry.)
I had just about forgotten how nice the beach and ocean were over fall break. The water was nice and the sand wasn't so hot that it hurt to walk on it. After a couple of days of rain the pool was a little chilly at first but didn't take long to warm back up to "just right". Maybe waiting until fall to visit the beach is the best idea of all.
                               

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Another Blogging Find

I was checking out some other blogs tonight and happened upon the following blog.
Check it out.

Leelou Blogs

The National Naval Aviation Musuem

So we arrived in Gulf Shores, Fort Morgan rather, really early Sunday morning. The weather forecast for the first couple of days wasn't spectactular by any means. Not that big of a deal for Sunday. We had to get groceries and take care of a few things anyway but we had to find something to do on Monday and we didn't want to spend a lot of money doing it. So we headed on over to the National Naval Aviation Musuem in Pensacola, Florida where the admission was cheap. It was FREE!! It also happens to be the home of the world-famous Blue Angels Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron. If we had gone a day later and got there early, we may have been able to see them practice. Maybe next time.
                                      
While there we were able to view vintage uniforms and historic documents. We saw dioramas from World War I, Main Street USA to the depths of Lake Michigan. It was very interesting to see all the exhibitis and take a closer look at Naval history. (Rob even enjoyed the musuem and probably could have spent a little more time there if bellies hadn't started rumbling.)
                                
Rob may have enjoyed learning about the history behind the planes, we all enjoyed looking at the different kinds. I thought this one decorated like a shark was especially neat.

We all enjoyed getting to climb in and get a real feel for the planes. Although he wasn't feeling his best,  Keaton liked climbing into all the different planes as much as the rest of the kids. Here he is sitting in a Blue Angels model plane.
                                      


Rob standing beside the Blue Angels plane with Connor inside.
 
Connor leading the way with Dylan as co-pilot in this one.
 
Keaton and Connor, future co-pilots.
 
Jennifer and I had to hop into one too. We couldn't let the boys have all the fun.

We had a great time visiting the musuem. Not only was it a learning experience but the boys had fun as well. Here are the three oldest ones having a fun time on an extremely large anchor.




Saturday, October 10, 2009

Crab Catchin'

While on vacation the boys couldn't wait to go crab catchin' at night. Jennifer and I took Connor, Landen, and Alex down to the beach one evening after dinner. You would think that with three boys one of them would pick up the crabs. Oh NO. No way were those boys going to touch any crab. They wanted to only be in charge of the flashligths. So that left Jennifer and I to do any catching that was to be done. Thankfully we each had headed to the beach with a cool drink and had our empty cups. We didn't want to touch the crabs either but we figured out a way to trap them in the cup and get them into the bucket. We had a very successful night as you can see. We collected several small crabs. Way to go Moms!!



On our last night in Gulf Shores, we decided to give the Crab Catchin' another go. This time we were joined by Kevin and Dylan. Add two more of the male species to the group and surely one of them would collect the crabs. NOPE. Once again it was up to me and Jennifer to do the catching. This time it was a little more difficult. Our flashlight holders kept moving the flashlight. Do you know how hard it is to catch crabs on the beach without any light? I do. It can't be done! However, after a while the flashlight holders got the hang of it and we were able to rack up quite a catch as you can see. We may not have caught as many but we sure caught some bigger ones.

The crabs below were caught during the afternoon by net. There is no way I would have attempted picking up these big boys with a plastic cup. The boys were fishing for jelling fish when a lady close by asked to borrow the net for a minute. These guys are what she came up with.


Wednesday, October 7, 2009

From the Infirmary to the Beach and Back


(The view of one of the counters in the condo while on vacation.)

This vacation has been rather interesting. It started right in the middle of what seemed to be a flu epidemic at home. We left Bowling Green with only one child (our friends' oldest) on TamiFlu. He was feeling much better by the time we arrived. However, Keaton quickly started coughing and began to run a temperature the evening we arrived. So we treated his symptoms the best we could with Children's Tylenol and Zyrtec. Thankfully his fever is back to normal but still has a runny nose.

On a trip to Wal-Mart to refill our supply of Children's Tylenol, our friend decided he needed some cough medicine. So we brought home some Delsum. By the way, it's really good stuff to treat a cough. Later that same night Rob started running a fever and needed cough medicine. Thank goodness we had something.

It seems like we have gone from the infirmary to the beach and back a few times this week. We have joked about our "medicine" bags and the amount of medicine we have had to dispense during our trip.



Sunday, October 4, 2009

Jellyfish Sunday

Fall Break has begun! We headed out yesterday evening and made it to the beach really early this morning. We were hoping for a fun filled beautiful day at the beach. Instead we received rain, a little more rain and lots of jellyfish. We headed down to the beach between showers and the boys had a great time. Keaton was living it up hitting the waves when we noticed others on the beach looking very intensely at something in the sand. After checking it out, we realized there were lots and lots of jellyfish washing ashore. How in the world did Keaton and I miss them in the ocean I'll never know but am very grateful that we did. Who would want to get stung at all, but much less on the first day of vacation!?!



The boys had a great time helping Kevin catch the jellyfish. They had a system worked out. Kevin would use the net to catch them and then the boys would jab them with sticks and cover them with sand. It worked for them.