12.31.2008

Our Very Merry Christmas!



Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! This year was a lot of fun for us. Ethan was extremely excited about all of the gifts under the tree. And it was Collin's first Christmas!


Here are the boys all dressed up for church on Christmas Eve. Ethan loved wearing his tie!

Here he is leaving cookies & milk for Santa, a carrot for the reindeer & chocolate for Rudolph! And of course enjoying a cookie himself!



I was totally expecting Ethan to go nuts & tear into all his gifts this year, but little Mr. OCD took his time opening every package & made sure every piece of wrapping paper was off! Then had to play with every item for a little while before moving onto the next gift. Collin was really getting into unwrapping his gifts. I wasn't sure if it was going to be too overwhelming for him, but he was very excited!

Ethan loves jammin on his new guitar! And Collin got a little piano so they can jam together!

Santa brought the boys a riding lawnmower, that they both think is great!


Ethan was very excited to see that Santa ate all the cookies & left a letter thanking the boys for leaving goodies. And of coarse noticed that Santa left a crumb mess on the table. (OCD!)

Here's Ethan & Daddy doing some yard work with Ethan's new weed-wacker & leaf blower! Oh and can't forget the safety goggles! Saftey First!


A few days before Christmas Ethan insisted that we needed to make Reindeer antlers for everyone to wear for Christmas.


Here's Aunt Kari & Uncle Beau sporting their antlers!

And Grammy & Grampy wearing theirs too!


Oh, by the way. . . . .

Thanks a lot Grammy & Grampy for the lovely Drum Set!


Actually it's not as bad as I was expecting! And he's actually pretty good! And I've even caught Daddy playing it a few times!

We hope everyone had a great Christmas. And we wish everyone a safe & happy New Year!





12.21.2008

December

Well, December as usual has been such a crazy busy month! And I haven't had much time to sit down and get on the computer, let a lone get pictures uploaded or blog post. So I figured I'd just briefly combine most of the month into one posting!

I am happy to say that all of my shopping has been done for about two weeks! And everything is now wrapped! YAY!!! Glad I was able to get all of the shopping done early since we keep getting hit with nasty snowstorms up here. Plus Fred and I are both so busy with work during the month of December it's really hard find time to do much of anything! Everyone wants to have their hair done for the holidays and the jewelry store is extremely busy. We've barely had time to spend with the boys the past couple of weeks. I hate to say it, but I'll be very happy once it's all over!


-TUB TIME-

This month Collin has now gotten big enough that he can sit up and take a big boy bath with Ethan. They have been having lots of fun during bath time.






They have a new set of boats that they love to play with in the tub. Collin mostly likes to try and eat them! (Everything goes in the mouth!)



-Christmas Tree-


The first Sunday in December we went and cut down our Christmas Tree. Every year we go to a local tree farm and trudge thru the snow and find the "perfect" tree! This year we had to trudge thru 6'' of snow and get pelted in the face w/ sleet! But it was worth it cause Ethan had fun! Every year Fred gets irritated because I always seem to walk the whole farm until I find that "perfect" tree! Well, It has to "talk to me"! I can't help it! If it is going to be in our living room for weeks I need to love it! It needs to be tall enough, not too fat, has to be full (I don't want a Charlie Brown tree) and be shaped right! I cut hair all week, I dont want to have to give a tree a hair cut too! (But believe me I have in years past!)

So we got the tree home and up in the living room on Sunday. I didn't get any lights on it until Tuesday. And I didnt get time until the next Sunday to start putting the decorations on. But now it's finally done! Here are a few pix of Ethan putting the last few ornaments on it. The non-breakable ones!






Tyler inspected to make sure he did a good job!


-Ethan's being silly-


So the other day while Ethan was going potty, I walked into the kitchen for a minute and came back to find this. . . . .








He decided it would be funny if he unwound all of the toilet paper and made a "castle" out of it!




The other night I made fetticini alfredo for dinner and as usual Ethan was the last one to finish eating. While I was washing the dishes I heard him giggling. I turned around to find him replicating the famous scene from Lady & the Tramp with Buddy!






Very funny! But also very gross at the same time! Since Ethan would finish eating the noodle if Buddy let go! Yum! Noodles w/ dog slober!






12.01.2008

Our trip to Delaware

So . . . . . I'm a little late with this posting! But better late than not at all right?

On November 20 we had Ethan's bi-annual visit to AI Dupont Hospital in Delaware to see Dr. Bober (geneticist). And this time we also saw Dr. McKennzie (ortho). Both check ups went great! They both said he's doing well and see no problems! And Dr. McKennzie also told us since he doesn't see any issues of concern & since to our insurance company wont cover us to bring Ethan there, he said we only have to make the trip once a year! YEAH!!! All we have to do is send him exrays in 6 months for him to review and if they look good he'll see us 6 months from then! Oh what a relief! It is a great expense for us to travel there. Between gas, food, a place to stay, and paying to see the doctors, it adds up real quick! The hospital has given us a discount everything because we have to pay out of pocket and this time they gave me papers to fill out for a program through the hospital that if we qualify we may get a larger discount! It would be so great if we do! But I wont hold my breath!!!

Our trip went very smooth considering we traveled 5 & 1/2 hours with a 3 yr. old and a 6 &1/2 mo. old. We left Wednesday morning. Surprisingly we only stopped 2 times on the way down, once for an hour for lunch and then one other time for a quick potty break! We were very impressed! And this time we had a GPS, which made a huge difference! I didn't have to read directions & get in trouble for making us go the wrong way! So if we missed a turn Fred just yelled at the lady in the GPS! It was great! We arrived in Delaware around 5:30 and were lucky to get to stay at the Ronald McDonald House.

The Ronald McDonald House is such an amazing place! They have multiple play rooms for the kids and tv lounges for everyone. A huge kitchen & dinning room. The staff/ volunteers are all so nice. We always meet so many wonderful people, and so many kids with so many different conditions.

Thursday we spent most of the day at the hospital waiting for and seeing doctors. But we also had friends join us. The Camenga family arrived in the afternoon for Seamus' doctors appointments. That night for dinner we all went to a Japanese Habatchi restaurant. It was our first time going to a Habatchi & it was great! It was alot of fun and Ethan got a kick out of using chop sticks! The boys enjoyed picking up goldfish crackers with their chop sticks!








On Friday we all got up early and headed to New Jersey to the Adventure Aquarium. It was awesome!

The first things we saw there were the hippos!




They are HUGE!








Collin thought the fish were very funny.



Everyone checking out the jelly fish.



They found Scuba Steve!



The kids really liked the shark tunnel. I was slightly terrified, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be. I was just praying the glass wouldn't break!



Gracie loves baby Collin!


After the Aquarium we all went out for lunch. The boys were being really silly wearing Seamus' grandma's reading glasses!








When we all finished lunch, we went our separate ways. We headed back home and the Camenga's headed to see family in New Jersey. It was really great getting to make a little vacation out of our trip to see the doctors. And we enjoy getting to spend time with our very good friends.


Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I totally forgot to take pictures! oops! But we had a good day! We had dinner and desserts at our house with lots of family. It was such a busy day that Ethan and I went to bed at 8:30 (which is real early for us)!

11.09.2008

5 years in business

Wow! Time really does go by so fast! I can't even believe that this past week was the anniversary of my 5th year in business! For all who don't know, I own & operate a small salon here in Herkimer.

It seems like almost yesterday that after almost 6 years of working for other people, I decided it was time to stop making money for everyone else! I needed to do something on my own. Even if it meant I'd just "break even" every month, it would be well worth working for myself! I love that I don't have to answer to anyone!!!! I get to set my own hours. Which is great when you have two small children with doctors appointments, school, and everything else that comes up.

I have a woman named Michelle that works for me. She mostly specializes in Facials but does a little bit of everything else. She has been with me since the very beginning. (Well besides her 9 month break when she moved to Florida, but then she came back.)


Here are a few pictures of the salon inside & out!



This is the front entrance to the salon. I rent the downstairs appartment of this house.












It's small and simple. But it's all mine!

-Jen!


11.03.2008

Halloween









Wednesday night Ethan & I carved his first pumpkin!





He was really grossed out to see what was inside the pumpkin!










He insisted we had to wear our aprons so we didn't get messy!






He is sporting his new John Deere apron.







Unfortunately, Friday afternoon when we got home we realized someone had stolen our pumpkin! Ethan was very upset! He kept yelling "someone put my pumpkin back on my porch!!!!!!!" I guess next year we wont put our pumpkins out until the last minute!





Ok, and now the moment you've all been waiting for!





The big costume unveiling. . . . . .












It's a bird. . . . . . . . . . . . . .











It's a plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .











No. . . .











It's SUPERMAN!








Actually, it's Super Ethan!!!!!





Check out those muscles!!!!





At his school Halloween party.





Superman gets real thirsty fighting crime!!!!!




And now . . . . . .








The cutest little animal!









My nickname for Collin may be "monkey" but for Halloween he was a cute little giraffe!





Always such a happy boy!




And on Halloween night our little giraffe was visited by the king of the jungle! This cute little lion is Brucker! Collin's best friend!




We only ended up trick or treating on our street this year. We really didn't need to have a ton of candy in the house! Plus the past two years Ethan has such fun just sitting on the porch handing out candy! We didn't end up having that many trick or treaters this year, so guess what we have a ton of ? I think we'll be eating candy until next Halloween!





Hope everyone had a great Halloween!