Shots and x-rays....Yuck!

I took the kids to their check-ups at the doctor last Friday afternoon. They ended up getting flu shots, which Kenzie was not happy about. Apparently, she's very scared of needles. She hasn't had shots in about 3 years, so I think mostly she forgot about them. Aydan did ok with them, but he went first so he didn't really know what to expect. Here are their height and weight stats:

Mackenzie-8 yrs old- Height: 47 inches Weight: 57 lbs

Aydan-3 yrs (4 yrs in Jan)- Height: 40 inches Weight: 43.5 lbs

Well, they were a little concerned about Kenzie's height. They said she wasn't even on the charts for her age. She was well below average height for other girls her age. She asked me if we noticed that she was short. Well obviously we did, but I told her I thought she would eventually have a growth spurt. Kenzie has said that kids at school tell her she is short and she is aware that she is a small girl, but we tell her not to worry, that she is cute just the way she is. The doctor said that she wanted to run some tests on her blood and take an x-ray of her left wrist, which will give them her 'bone age.' I never knew there was a difference in bone age compared to actual age but I guess there is. She said if her bone age is less than her actual age then they would consider growth hormones for her. If the bone age was the same or older than her actual age, then she said the growth hormones wouldn't work.

So, Monday we headed off to get the blood work and the x-ray done, and of course we had to go to 2 diffrent places for each one. She had never had her blood drawn so she was pretty nervous about it but she did really well, considering they had to draw it from each arm because the first arm wasn't giving enough blood fast enough. Poor girl! She only shed a couple of tears. The x-ray went alot better! Fast and painless! We went out for lunch afterwards and got milkshakes to cheer her up.

So now, I'm just waiting to hear back from the doctor what, if anything, they found out. I'm not sure what to think about the growth hormone idea. I don't want her to grow freakishly large either ya know! I'm sure they wouldn't do that, but its just scary. I think its just a genetic thing. Danny and I are both fairly short and so are our families so who knows. Aydan, on the other hand, is a big boy so maybe he didn't get the 'short gene.' :) So, we are trying not to make a big deal out of it because I'm sure it will be fine.

Well, I will keep everyone updated on what we find out.

P.S. I finally got all my gift wrapping done! Oh yeah!! :)

Santa and snow on a 75 degree day...

No it wasn't Christmas in July but I was beginning to wonder. This Saturday was the Christmas festival at the park by our old apartment building. The weather was awesome, although it didn't feel one bit Christmasy. They had a truck come in and make a couple of patches of man-made snow for the kids to play in. The kids around here just think its the greatest thing ever! It never snows here (at least not enough to amount to anything.) I'm surprised the snow lasted as long as it did with it being so warm out. They also had cookies, lemonade, hot cocoa, popcorn, face-painting, and crafts for the kids to make. Best of all, Santa made his appearance.

Aydan, being shy at the moment, wouldn't stop making faces with his hands as you can see in the picture. Kenzie talked to Santa a bit but she did say that he kept pushing up his beard and she could see his gray mustache underneathe. I let her know that he was just one of Santa's helpers because Santa is too busy at the North Pole right now. I think she bought it, for now. Phew!

Well, these pictures are out of order but there was a boat parade in the evening along the water. All of the boats were lit up and some were playing Christmas music. It was very pretty. It was a calm, clear night for it, unlike last year when it was so foggy you could barely see the lights at all.

Before the parade began, there was a short fireworks show, which was also very pretty.

More boats.

More fireworks.

The kids had a great time throwing snowballs at each other, although they ended up being more like ice balls-Ouch!!

I'm so ready for Christmas to get here!! For one, maybe the kids will play with their new toys and stop asking to play with my iphone :) Aydan has figured out how to download more apps and one night while he was playing a game (or at least, I thought he was) he ended up downloading $4 worth of new apps. I'm just glad they weren't the expensive ones. I told him he owed me $4 and he looks at me with his eyes brows narrowed and says "Seriously?" I about died! Maybe you had to be there, but it was hillarious. I think I was just surprised that he even used that word. His vocabulary is definately expanding, lol!

Well, thats all for now. Keep checking back for more updates :)

******Merry Christmas to you all!******

bunk beds, stockings, and other things I accomplished this weekend......

The kids got a new set of bunk beds-Finally! I put them together all by myself, except for the beams that go across the bottoms. As you can see, Aydan helped out a little too! He is obsessed with this drill now! He did a pretty good job :)

Here is the finished product. They can be switched to 2 individual twin beds too, which will be nice when the kids get their own bedrooms eventually.

I'm a little bit leary of Aydan being on the top but we will see how he does-so far so good. Kenzie wanted the bottom so she can hang up blankets from the top bunk and have her own little "tent." They love the beds and so do I. They still have lots of room in their bedroom to play. Hunter likes the new beds too, as you can see he's made himself comfortable.

We tried something a little different than we've done before and I bought some plain Christmas stockings and some craft supplies and let the kids decorate them themselves. Well, I ended up making Aydan's because he lost interest after a while and went and played, but Kenzie did her's entirely on her own. Aren't they cute? ;)

Kenzie and I decorated one for Hunter too. Santa might bring him some treats this year.

~Have a great week!!~

completely random pictures.....

So I don't really have anything exciting to blog about so I thought I'd share a few random pictures from my phone.

Here's Aydan with his BFF Hunter. Hunter is so good for putting up with Aydan :)

The Ballunar Festival was Halloween weekend so we didn't go but we still got to see some balloons out our window as they were headed over to Johnson Space Center. It was quite a sight. Danny and Kenzie counted almost 40 balloons in the air at one point.

Aydan at the park being goofy as usual. There's a dog park we've been going to (with the dog of course, lol) and next to the dog area is a playground that the kids like to play on.

This is so funny! I took the kids to dollar theater (yeah like the best thing EVER!) to see Despicable Me (great movie by the way.) They found these fake mustaches in the little quarter machines. Kenzie's looks more like a caterpillar on her face , lol! Nice!
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Other than that, we haven't really been up to much at all other than then normal stuff. I'm so ready to put up my Christmas tree but I'm forcing myself to wait until after Thanksgiving! I just love Christmas decorations so I can't wait! Plus I have a full size tree this year. Last year I just had a small 3 or 4 ft tree that we set up kinda last minute so I'm looking forward to this year. I even got a head start on my Christmas shopping-whoot whoot!

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Well thats all I can think of for now! Hope you all have a great week!

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Oh and just a side note, I'm thinking about changing the name of the blog to get rid of our last name-it just seems to be too personal. Any ideas please leave a comment. Thanks!!

Happy Halloween!!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!! Ours was pretty good. Our apartment building had a Halloween party with food and games for the kids on Wednesday night so we went to that. They also let the kids go trick-or-treating within the building. The pictures above of the kids were taken there. Aydan was Bumblebee the Transformer and Kenzie was a Witch.

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Then on Saturday night, we went to the Halloween festival at the park. Most adults and kids were all dressed up and they had music playing. There was lots of food and games and they even brought in a mobile home set up as a walk-through haunted house.
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We didn't go trick-or-treating this year. Some neighborhoods did theirs on Saturday and some on Sunday so it was kinda confusing. Plus, I really don't feel comofortable going to strangers' houses.
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Now that Halloween is over, I am getting very excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up! I can't believe how fast time is going by! I've started a little bit of my Christmas shopping so I'm pretty proud of myself.
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Meet Hunter!!!!!!!!!!

This is our new little buddy, Hunter. We adopted him from a local shelter. Hunter is the name he's had his whole life so we thought it'd be best to just leave it so we didn't confuse him. He's a 2 year old pug/daschund (weiner dog) mix. We picked him up Tuesday night after waiting since Saturday to see if we were approved. He had 3 applications turned in on him and they decided to pick us since we had small children and they thought he would do best with a family our size. Woo Hoo!!

We couldn't have asked for a more well-behaved dog! He doesn't jump; he doesn't bark; he doesn't beg for food (much, lol). At first Aydan was a little leary of getting close to him because he'd never really been around dogs much and he gets scared when they bark at him. Eventually he warmed up to him and now he won't stay away. He wanted the dog to sleep with him in his bed. Kenzie loves him and didn't want to go to school today because she wanted to stay home and play with the dog.

He does great on a leash. They weren't sure if he was house-trained but he must be because he's been doing awesome at "going" outside, not inside.

When we sat at the table to eat supper, he layed by the doorway and didn't try jump up at the table or anything.

He loves his stuffed animals.
Kenzie and her new sidekick.

Now the big question---What can I dress him up as for Halloween??? LOL!!

Outdoor pics

Pictures from our museum tours....

Giant eyeball at the Health Museum.

Giant brain at the Health Museum.

Riding the metro on the way up to Museum District.

The rest of the pics are from the Natural Science museum......

time flies when you're having fun.....

I can't believe its been so long since my last post!! September is almost over and it seems like just yesterday it had just begun!

We've just been busy keeping up with life. Our days are not long enough! Danny goes to class 3 days a week, which didn't sound like much when he first signed up, but now that he's doing it, its a lot. Its going good though. He's in Math and Comp. 1 right now and needless to say, he's been busy with homework and studying. He's doing great, especially considering its been like 12 years since he was in high school :) I've thought about going back myself but there's no way we could both do it at the same time so we'll have to see what happens.

Kenzie's doing well in school so far. She had to memorize the Pre Amble to the US Constitution! Can you believe that! I don't remember having to do that in 3rd grade; I thought it was more like Jr. High? Yesterday, she came home and said that they moved her to a different classroom. I guess her school got a new 3rd grade teacher and they took 5 students from each of the other classes to fill up the new teacher's class and she happened to be one of the students. So hopefully she likes her new teacher as well as she liked her old teacher! I guess we'll find out today.

I had my Golden birthday on Monday; 27 on the 27th. Now I'm just one year closer to 30 :( I'm freaking out about that age!! On Saturday, the museum district had its annual free day for 17 different museums so thats what we decided to do. Well, I think everyone in Houston had the same idea because it was absolutely crazy! We went to Natural Science museum first. Aydan loved to see the big dinosaurs! There was just so many people that we couldn't really stop and take our time looking at things. After that I really wanted to take the kids to the Childrens Museum, which was a few blocks away from the Natural Science museum so we walked. Well, the line to get in wrapped around the corner so we didn't even try to wait in line. We went across the street to the Health museum. And again, it was so packed you really couldn't see much. It was pretty neat though because there was a tour of inside the human body which was cool. After we left that museum we decided to call it quits. The kids were tired, bored, and hungry by then so we went and had lunch.

This week we've finally enjoyed some fairly cooler weather. Its been in the low 80's during the day and around 65 at night so I can finally open the windows and let some fresh air in. Its been nice not have to run the A/C much anymore. Hopefully this cool trend continues because I'm so ready for it!! :)

I'm looking forward to Halloween coming up next month. I've been trying to think of some costume ideas for the kids. When I ask them what they want to be Kenzie says she wants to be a princess or a witch and all Aydan says is that he wants something with a mask.

Well, thats about all thats going on in our lives right now. Keep checking back for more updates :)

Labor Day Weekend Recap: Grillin', fishin' and relaxin'

We enjoyed our long Labor Day weekend but they always end too soon. We did a little fishing and on Sunday we went to the park to grill out.

This is just Aydan being silly.

Walking down the dock with his new fishin' pole. Now he's ready to catch some big fish!

After we ate our dinner we of course had to make s'mores. Yum Yum!!

Sorry, these pictures are not in any special order.

Danny and Kenzie went fishing one morning at our building and he caught a catfish, well actually he caught 3 catfish. This is a picture of one of them.

Aydan getting ready to cast his line out. The kids never did catch anything but they had a blast anyway.

Happy September 1st!!

We're getting closer to my favorite season....FALL!!! Other than Christmas time, Fall is my favorite time of year!! I love everything about it! The pretty changing leaves, the cooler weather (although down here its not much cooler but...oh well), Halloween, apple cider, fall decorations, PUMPKINS; you name it, I love it!

I've already noticed some leaves changing and falling to the ground. It's definately not as pretty as it is up north because there's just different types of trees here (like palm trees) that don't loose their leaves or change colors. So far its still been in the upper 90's but soon enough it will start to cool down, and by cool down, I mean low 80's, which will seem a LOT cooler.

I'm really looking forward to the Halloween party that the town hosts at one of the parks we go to. We stopped by last year and it was a lot of fun! They have Halloween music, games, hay rack rides, candy, food, and all the kids wear their costumes. It's a very family-friendly atmosphere, which is great for all of us to enjoy!

I need to start figuring out Halloween costumes for the kids. I've also been thinking about having all of us dress up this year but I don't know if I'll be able to convince Danny of the idea, lol! If anyone has any suggestions for theme-costume ideas for all 4 of us to wear, please leave a comment and share :)

Thats all for now!! Hope you all have a great week!

just one of those mornings....

This morning was one of those mornings that you could tell was going to be bad from the moment you woke up. After my alarm went off, I shut it off as usual to try to get a few more minutes of sleep in (every second counts ya know!) Well a few minutes turned into about 23 extra minutes! Ooops! So I jump out of bed, hope in the shower, then try to wake up the kids.

My kids are not morning people, in fact, they are far from it! I know it doesn't help when Aydan won't stay in his bed at night when I tuck him in. He will sneak out of his room and slowly walk into the living room (or wherever I am at) and say, "Um Mom, I need another hug and kiss."

Cute, yes.

But we he does it over and over again, yeah, not so much. His antics effect Kenzie's sleep since they share a room, so by the time everyone gets settled in, it's way past their original bedtime. I'm thinking I need to come up with a better routine of getting them in bed and staying in bed a lot sooner.

So anyway, back to this morning. I finally get them woke up (or at least in a zombie-like stage.) Aydan's first words are of course, "I want some fruit snacks!" When I told him no he couldn't have them for breakfast, he threw a major fit. At that moment, I probably would have given in just to get him moving but they were all gone-bummer! So while he's throwing a fit, I tell Kenzie to get up and get dressed so she has time to eat if she wants to. Well she's not the most cheerful ball of sunshine in the mornings either and throws the blanket over her head. I finally just say, "You better get up and get moving or you'll be late for school," and head back to my room to finish getting myself ready at least.

Aydan finally staggers into the kitchen and says he wants PB&J toast so I get everything out to make his toast. I go to the pantry and grab the peanut butter. "I WANTED TO GET THE PEANUT BUTTER DOWN!" I said, "Aydan, it was too high for you to reach." "BUT I WANT TO GET IT DOWN."

Whatever.

I go back to the pantry and put the peanut butter back on a lower shelf so he can reach it and get it down for me. He goes over to get it and is mad that I put it lower so he climbs up a shelf just because. *sigh*

I get his toast made finally. In the meantime, Kenzie finally crawled out of bed and got dressed. She comes in to get something to eat. I got her some cereal and of course since Sissy (thats what he calls Kenzie) is getting cereal, Aydan thinks he needs cereal too. He finished his toast so I give him a little bit of cereal too. While they are eating and arguing back and forth, I go back and try to finish getting ready.

Once Kenzie is done eating, I tell her we need to do her hair. I brush through it trying to be careful because she is very tender-headed, but somehow it hurts her anyway so she gets mad at me.

Then, I get Aydan's clothes out and tell him we need to get him dressed. He sees what clothes I have for him and gets mad. "I WANT TO WEAR A BUTTON SHIRT!" I tell him that he just wore his button shirt on Monday so he cannot wear it again until I wash it. He continues to throw a fit about it. I get him dressed while he's crying, grab his shoes, my purse, and my lunch, and I tell Kenzie that we gotta go. I have to pick up Aydan and carry him because he's still upset about his clothes (since when do boys care what they wear anyway?)

So he cries all the way out to the car as I try to carry him, my purse, and my bag of lunch down the hallway, down the elevator and across the parking lot.

By the time we get to Kenzie's school, everyone has finally calmed down and gotten over it. So I get her dropped off and head to the daycare to get Aydan dropped off. Luckily, he did good at daycare at doesn't throw a fit in his room (you never know with him, sometimes he does great and other times he cries and doesn't want me to leave.).

Whew!!! Talk about being exhausted before my day even begins, lol!!! Oh well, I am sure everyone (mom's especially) have days like this. And I wouldn't have it any other way! (well maybe with a little less crying :)

Here's to a better morning tomorrow!

oh yeah....

I forgot to mention that we got our computer up and running again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had guessed it was a hard drive problem from the way it was acting so Danny picked one up the other day, brought it home and popped it in. We ran our recovery disks and it worked!! So thrilled! We lost all the documents and pictures that we had saved but at least we are back to the basics.

Also we get free Wi-Fi at our apartment so we have internet again! I just uploaded 386 pictures from my camera so I'm back in business!! Wooo Hooooo!!!

Ok, I'm done for tonight!! Good-bye!!!!! :)

Back to school....

Kenzie started 3rd grade (crazy, I know!) on Monday. She was so excited to be going back finally. I'm so thankful that she enjoys school as much as she does! I hope the enthusiasm continues all year! Since we moved over the summer, she did have to change schools unfortunately. It's in the same district, which is great because its one of the best rated districts in Texas.

I think I was more nervous than her about her new school and having to meet new kids. She makes friends so easily.

Here she is Monday morning before we headed off to school. Isn't she so pretty :)

So far this week, she has loved it! She's made friends in her class and she really likes her new teacher. She said next week they will start having homework-"the best part!!" as she put it! And yes, she was serious! She can't wait to be given homework! We'll see if she's still so excited about it come spring after the new-ness wears off ;)

Houston Texans Training Camp

A couple weekends ago, we went up to Reliant Stadium to watch the Houston Texans training camp. It was soooo HOT that day! There was a pretty large crowd to and of course the bleachers were already full so we were stuck standing.

Aydan with Toro the Bull.

We hope to go to one of their games sometime. It's hard to believe football season is starting already! That makes it really start to feel like fall and winter! (although its probably not going to feel like it temperature wise with our hot weather lasting until October/November-ish.)

Girl Time (a.k.a Shopping!!)

Last weekend Kenzie and I had some much needed girl time. I wanted to take her shopping for some new school clothes. I can't even remember the last time just her and I went shopping together We left the boys at home and headed out. There's so many stores and shops in our area; I just love it!! It's very similar to the Bloomington-Normal area (for all of you IL readers to picture what I mean)

We made several stops, including Burlington Coat Factory, a few stops at Baybrook Mall, and last, but not least, Walmart. We had so much fun! Kenzie had such a unique sense of style. I loved watching her pick out her clothes, showing me what she likes and dislikes. Like, seriously, why didn't they make cute girls clothes when I was growing up? Well, I guess it wouldn't have mattered because I was such a tom-boy.

I love spending time with my little girl, but sadly, she's growing up way too fast! She'll be starting 3rd grade next week and is in love with Justin Bieber. She tells me about her friend drama and who likes who at daycare and school. I just hope that we can remain very close and that she feels comfortable talking to me about what's going on in her life as she gets older.

She's such a good sister to Aydan. She puts up with playing cars and trucks with him; she comforts him when he gets in trouble; she reads to him; she's just the best. Most of all, she puts up with having to share a room with him while we are still in a 2 bedroom apartment. Once in a while, she'll complain that he's making a mess, but for the most part, she makes it work. She loves keeping her toys and stuff in order and is always willing to help clean around the house.

Hopefully, we can have another 'girl day' sometime soon. I'd really like to make it something we do quite often. If not shopping, then just going to a movie or something.

New Ride

We had seen this bike at the store a while back and Aydan just loved it and had been talking about it ever since. We finally went back and got it for him and he's been riding it non-stop all weekend!

Taking it for a cruise. VROOM VROOM VROOM!!

Making one of his typical goofy faces... :)

Notice the button-up shirt he is wearing. The kid LOVES button-up shirts! He only has a couple of them but he puts one on over whatever he's wearing as often as he can. He says he looks cool like Michael Jackson when he's wearing one...lol, but thats a whole 'nother blog post :)

Kenzie taking a ride on her bike too.
Both kids have a blast riding their bikes around outside. Now I need to get a bike so we can go on bike rides!