Sad

Yesterday we drove past a little boy driving his own electric hummer down the sidewalk while his Mom was walking behind him. Aiden was quite impressed and said "Wow! His Mom must have A LOT of money!!" In other words: "My Mom's broke!" :(

Messed up

This weekend Jeremy made arrangements for just the 2 of us to stay over night at the Westin Hotel at Crown Center. Beautiful area and hotel. Here's a pic of our room:

Jeremy is such a great husband and is always trying to find ways to strengthen our marriage. If it wasn't for him, we would probably never do anything without the kids!

However.....

with all the planning and organizing that he put into this special night, no one could have predicted all the things that could have gone wrong!

Jeremy's cousin Kinsey came over to babysit. The boys were really excited because they are basically in love with her. Aiden tells everyone he knows that she is his girlfriend. I overheard him once telling the neighbor kids about her and he described her as having really smooth skin.

Well, right after we ordered our food from the French inspired cuisine restaurant, Brasserie, we got the phone call. Whitney threw up everywhere in her crib and Aiden was burning up with a fever. Kinsey's parents, Kevin and Leslie, were there checking in on everyone so they helped get everyone settled down. We finished our dinner and then we planned to go home. Jeremy was dissapointed and I was worried about the kids so dinner was pretty much a bust. After dinner Kevin said that everyone was sound asleep and that they seemed fine. He offered to stay the night with Kinsey in case anyone else got sick again during the night and insisted that we stay at the hotel and, as only Kevin could put it, "get our freak on". So, that's what we did. :)

Everyone slept through the night. Whitney woke up at her normal time 5:30!!!!! Kinsey said that Whitney just LOVED Kevin and was happy as long as he was there. The boys told me the next day "Mommy, Kinsey's Mom was sooooo nice to us. She kept calling us 'sweetie' and 'baby'." lol! They liked it.

What a crazy night. All the work and trouble involved just to get away for a night! Thank you SOOOO much to Kinsey, Kevin, and Leslie. Also, thank you to my amazing husband who never gives up.

Fall Leaves

Yesterday was such a beautiful day! It's been in the low 70's all week and the leaves are falling everywhere! The kids played for over an hour in the leaves. All the neighbors came over and they just had a ball!

Well... once again it has been a while. And once again, I have a good excuse. Over the last 2 weeks we have had 3 strep throats, 1 case of pneumonia, 1 chronic cough that induces vomitting at least twice a day, 1 really bad cold, and 1 surgery. Ya, it's been a little crazy over here.

The worst part of the past 2 weeks was the surgery....

For those of you that don't know, Jeremy was diagnosed with Malignant Melanoma. He was lucky to have caught it in time before it had spread to his lymph nodes (we hope), but he had to get a good chunk taken out of his ear (where the mole was).

I noticed the mole on the tip of his ear was looking a little weird. It was changing colors and shape. Jeremy couldn't see the mole because it was on the back side of his ear. I mentioned it to him a few times and told him he needed to go get it checked out. It wasn't until my Dad was visiting over the summer though, that we finally did something about it. He saw the mole and said "Jeremy, you have cancer!" He's also had Melanoma before and thought it looked suspicious. We just needed one other person to confirm what I thought, and that was enough!

He finally got into the Doctor and ended up having to get 3 biopsies because the Doctors couldn't agree one way or the other and needed larger samples. We finally got the word that it was, indeed, Melanoma and surgery was schedule a couple days later.

They had to cut 7ml on each side of the mole and cut all the way down to the hole in his ear, like a pizza wedge, then sew it back up. His right ear is slightly smaller than his left ear now. The Melanoma was about .7cm deep. When it is 1.0cm or more is when they have to biopsy the lymph nodes because metastais is more likely.

So.... the take away message here is to get those moles checked out sooner, than later! Poor Jeremy looks like Frankenstein now. He can't sleep on his right side and Whitney is always pulling his ear. I'm just glad he's ok. That was kind of scary!

Rockets

This is the exact same rocket that the boys launched for giving away all their Halloween candy. It goes up 600 feet! We waited until Jeremy got home from work that day to launch the rockets but then Jeremy was a total BUZZ-KILL! He was freaking out about setting the rockets off at Porter Park since it was a public park and there would be lots of kids there.

We went anyway. Jeremy was too embarrassed to be seen with the boys and me so I had to set the rockets up myself while he hid on the playground with Whitney. I was really nervous and my heart was pounding when it was time to launch the first one. I've never set up a rocket before and I wasn't even sure if I did it all right. It was really complicated!

Connor pushed the button and it FLEW!!!!! I didn't realize but we had an audience at that point. Everyone at the park was watching and started clapping when it went off. Then we got Aiden's set up. I notice Jeremy and Whitney are "working the crowds", talking to all the people and making it sound like the rockets were HIS idea!!! LOL! I was so busy setting up the rockets I didn't have time to take any pics. :( But, I still had to get this story in here cuz Jeremy is such a dork! :)

Halloween

What a busy day!!!

(This day is going to have to be split into 2 different entries)

It all began with bloody waffles (mashed up strawberries) for Breakfast.




Here's a classic Whitney face! lol!




Then the "bus" loaded up all the kids to take Aiden to school for his Halloween party.




The little girl dressed as Snow White has a crush on Aiden. :)

Whitney couldn't get enough of Audrey in her costume.




Then it was on to Connor's school for his Halloween parade/party






I was already worn out before we even went Trick Or Treating!

Trick Or Treating

The boys were so excited for Trick Or Treating! This was the first year they were really into it.



Whitney was already eating candy before we left our house.



She had to be pulled by the hand to go to the first house. She got a Kit-Kat and ate it right there. Wrapper and all! After that she was running ahead of the boys to each house. Everytime she got to choose a piece of candy she chose a Kit-Kat everytime! Little piggy! :) (just like her Momma). She thought she had to eat each piece of candy right after she got it, so we had to keep her in the stroller in between blocks so she couldn't get too much candy.



They boys organized their loot the next morning.





I made a deal with them that if they gave up all their candy except 1 piece that I would buy them rockets to shoot off that day. They agreed. (I know... I'm a mean Mom). Here's what they ended up keeping: