Renaissance Festival

We decided to join some other friends of ours and head to the Renaissance Festival this year.  We had such a great time!  I love having these kids to take on little adventures, they make life so much more fun!

 

There were lots of fun activities there…Ryder did juggling school:

Daddy impressed us at the sledgehammer game, making the bell ring over and over, big muscles :)

Ryder shot a cannon..

He played on a Pirate Ship…

He got a shield and a sword (and later asked us to write Knight Ryder on them!)

Ryder and Daddy went down this huge slide…

What, you don’t see them coming down?!  Oh that was because Ryder chickened out once they got to the top, who didn’t know that was going to happen?!

Scott & Kara did go down though!

Ryder stuck to the smaller slide, which is still a big deal considering this is the first year he has come around and started sliding!

Of course we had to eat a turkey leg! (sorry Alan, had to use this picture as proof!)

And other yummy stuff, like chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick! (wow I’m really annoying with my mid-chew shots)

Your turn Maisy…

Awww the little monkey eating a banana cookie.  She was such a trooper the whole time.  Just rode around looking at every thing!

At one point Ryder tried to hop on and catch a ride…Poor Maisy!

The sweetest boys in the world bought me a beautiful pink rose!

 

The sweetest girl in the world wanted to hold it and smell it.

Then she turned mean and started slamming it on her stroller until it was nothing but rose petals on the ground!  She gets payback against her brother at every opportunity.

There were some pretty interesting things walking around this place…like this weird guy…

But there were some pretty awesome people there with us, like these people:

Our favorite newlyweds, the Bagley’s!

  

And The Seymour’s.

And us!  (apparently Ryder wanted to claim a different family at this point)

He was pretty attached to their little girl Kara and had a great time playing with her.

(or chasing her around telling her she had a belly ache and he was the belly ache doctor!)

I’ve known Justin & Scott for such a long time, I love that we have been able to keep in touch over all these years.

So that was our time at the Renaissance Festival.  Spent way too much money, but it was a great time with friends and the kids had a lot of fun, so it was worth it.

And…crash…

The Weeks Events

It’s always eventful around here. 

Let me start with Saturday – Poppy got crabs for Alan & Gregg’s Birthday so we had a few friends/family over to the garage to indulge.  The kids love running around there getting into everything, especially when they have friends/cousins over to join in on the fun.

 

 

Our little country girl!

Sunday one of my favorite girls, Diana, was getting married so Yaya came over and loaded the kids up.  I had to snap these pictures of Maisy waiting patiently to get in her carseat…she is just the sweetest little go-with-the-flow girl!  It helps that she LOVES going to Yaya’s house.

So Mommy & Daddy were kid free and looking forward to our evening out. 

Diana was absolutely beautiful and it was great to see her dream wedding play out perfectly.

    

About the time they were saying “I Do” I got a text from my Mom that Maisy had woke up from her nap and was sick.  She said she had a fever and a lot of congestion in her chest.  This came out of nowhere because that morning she was fine!  On the way home from the wedding I called to check on her and Mom said she was already asleep and that she didn’t mind keeping her still and she’d call me in the morning to let me know how she was.

It’s hard as a Mom to be away from your baby when you know they are sick.  But it’s also hard to turn down an offer for someone to keep both of your kids over night.  Just a side note :)

Early the next morning I called my mom to check on the baby girl and she said she was up most of the night, her cough was horrible and painful, and she just felt like Maisy wasn’t doing good at all.  I decided to head over there and pick her up before work, I brought her home to Alan and he called out of work to take her to the Doctor. 

As soon as the Doctor saw/heard her she told Alan that she was in respiratory distress and wanted him to take her to the hospital for a neck x-ray to see if she had an obstruction.  I felt so bad for him having to do all that alone, but he handled it.  My man! 

Later that day the Pediatrician called me and said the x-ray came back clear but she was still concerned, especially because I told her Alan said she had gotten worse since her visit that morning.  SO to the Emergency Room we went for more x-rays.  They ended up doing a breathing treatment with 2 different kinds of medicines in it, giving her steroids, and taking more x-rays to confirm that she did have an obstruction.  Her breathing airways had swollen which is why she was having such a hard time getting her breath back in, so they told us she had Croup and sent us on our way with meds to make our girl better.  Of course “sent us on our way” didn’t happen until 5 hours after we got there…what a long day for us all!

 

  

But it was all worth it to see her smiling again!

When we got home, all we wanted to do was crash for the night, but Maisy was wired from the medicine they gave her and Ryder was excited for us all to be together again so they spent a good 2 hours playing and entertaining each other.  Like on this train Ryder made…he loves it that now he can tell her to do something and she listens.  I feel bad for the day that she decides to be the “instructor”.

I thought all the weeks big events were winding down and we could finish it off with just the normal routine…and then I heard the big thump in the living room!

Followed by a scream for Mommy!

That’s never a good sign.  Lastnight when Ryder was watching his show before bed he fell out of the recliner and somehow gashed his eye open pretty bad.  When I got to him and saw blood everywhere of course I yelled for Alan.  That’s not exactly my area (man I should have started this post with Friday’s events where I got bloodwork done and just about passed out…yes I am that big of a baby).  So yeah back to the blood…ugh or not.  It was pretty bad but when the words “hospital” and “stitches” came out of our mouths Ryder freaked.  So we told him if he could stay calm and let Daddy be the Doctor we might be able to fix it at home and not have to go to the hospital.  Daddy was able to get it to stop bleeding, glob it up with Neosporin, and cover it with a Spiderman band-aid.  He’s definitely going to have a scar…but he’s a boy so I guess I need to get used to that. 

So, what’s today, Thursday??  Here’s to hoping for some peaceful, quiet days ahead.  That include no blood, sick babies, or trips to the Emergency Room!

A Trip to the State Fair

Yesterday evening Me, Alan & Ryder headed to the State Fair…yes we left poor Maisy out, but we will definitely be bringing her next year when she can enjoy it a little more.  I’m sure she had just as much fun hanging out with her Yaya!

This is our second year bringing Ryder here and just like last year we really enjoyed it!  We got to see and pet all kinds of animals…

 

Ryder named that second goat Maisy, then kept yelling at her because she wouldn’t come back to the camera for a picture with him, typical!

  

Ryder played several games and won prizes…definitely his favorite part.  He doesn’t ride rides but he wants to play every game we pass by.

He remembered this balloon stand from last year and started talking about which balloon he would pick before we even got out of the car to walk into the fair.  Superman is who he picked to come home with us!

 

 

I thought it was sweet that this is what Alan wanted to do for his Birthday…such a good Daddy :)

We went into the big expo center where they had hundreds of tables set up with things to buy, a dangerous place to go, but I spent the best $7 I’ve ever spent on this…

I don’t even know what you call it, Ryder spotted the pirate and had to have it, and it turned out to be so useful!  You put the strap around his neck and slide any kind of drink bottle in there.  Ryder hast he hardest time holding any round cups/bottles like that (as you can see he doesn’t have a good grip) but this thing made it so much easier for him.  PLUS he could even keep his drink with him in the car and was able to twist the top off and on…sorry for the infomercial, but that thing just made his life (and ours) a little easier!

    

I can’t believe what a big boy he is now…He walked the entire time, no more stroller for my baby BIG boy!

See ya next year State Fair!

Another Family Update

Let me start by saying that today is Daddy’s Birthday!!!  We will be celebrating him all day because without him being born…we wouldn’t be a family right now!  We’re so thankful for the man that he is and the role that he plays in mine, Ryder’s, and Maisy’s lives.  Love this guy!

Last time I wrote, I talked about us trying to buy a house.  Well I think it’s safe to say that God didn’t like that plan and had other ideas on what we needed to spend the money we had saved up on.  We ended up having to replace the transmission in my car, and on October 19th I have to get my wisdom teeth taken out :( :(  I’m bummed that we went from something really exciting, to having to spend money on not-so-fun stuff, but it was definitely a wake up call that there were things we NEED to take care of before we can do the things we WANT.  I’ve never been put to sleep before so I’m panicking about this whole procedure…pray for me.

 

Maisy had her 15 month check up on Friday.  She weighs 20 pounds and is 30 inches long.  That’s the 25th percentile for weight and 75th percentile for height.  The doctor said she’s perfectly healthy and right on track for development.  She’s still walking around the house screaming all the time, usually because her brother took something from her or yelled at her or she wants to be picked up or she thinks she wants a snack…pick a reason!  She has quite the personality already and can definitely make us laugh just with her reaction to something or her facial expressions.

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: We have a Pre-Schooler!!!!!  I was so excited to hear at our Eligibility meeting last week that Ryder got into the Special Ed pre-k program!  They have been doing lots of testing on him to see if he would qualify, he had to show a certain percentage of a delay in atleast one area…which he did in both his motor skills and self-help skills.  The Psychologist talked to me about Ryder’s IQ and level of intelligence…we all know he’s a smart boy but hearing it come from a professional solidified my thoughts and makes me realize we’re doing a great thing by getting him into school so early.  They actually already have planned for him to only spend 1 year in the special ed classroom, streamline him into the regular Pre-K next year but still have his therapists pull him out of class, and then get him into the Gifted program when he starts Kindergarten!!

On October 15th we’ll be meeting to set up his IEP (umm Individual Education Plan…maybe) which will be the plan laying out what the teacher will work on with him, what the therapists will work on with him, and what goals they want him to meet.  Then he starts school on October 18th!  He’s going to be riding a bus and everything.  Shew…I can’t believe it, my baby.  It’s such a good thing for him though so I’m keeping it positive.  He is SOOOO excited!!

So that’s a little taste of our Marsh Madness – keep you posted!