Zoo

I took the kids to the zoo last Wednesday. I heard it was free and I figured since it was the day before Thanksgiving, it wouldn't be too crowded. Boy, was I wrong!!! We got there early and it wasn't too bad, but by the time we left, there was hardly a parking spot in the lot. I had 3 people waiting for my spot! All that aside, we had a very nice time! I think we all enjoyed the new babies the best--a baby elephant, baby giraffe, 3 baby tiger cubs, a baby crocodile, a baby langur monkey, and a couple of other babies. The only thing is, what kind of zoo has no lions or hippos?! Apparently ours. :)

13

Jon and I celebrated our 13 year anniversary last Sunday. It's so amazing how quickly time flies by. A lot of superstitious people say that 13 is an unlucky number. I think this year will be a great one, even if it did start out unlucky.

Jon and I decided to go out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary on Saturday night. Just before we left, I was playing the game Perfection with Jenna (the one that you have to put the shapes in the right spot before it pops). She wanted to put all the pieces in and then set the timer. So we did. My mind started wandering as we were waiting for it to pop and when it did, it scared me to death and I jumped, accidentally smacking Jenna right in the mouth! It made her mouth bleed and it got really swollen, since it was just operated on. I felt sooooooooooooooooooooooo bad!!!! About 24 hours later, she got a fever over 101 and I just knew she had an infection, since that was her only symptom. The fever lasted for 24 hours and was gone *just like that*. She's had a couple of weird fevers like that this year.

Anyway....hopefully the rest of our 13th year is better!!

Jenna's Surgery

Jenna had her surgery done this morning. They called yesterday and said that we needed to be there at 7:30 am and they'd do the surgery at 8:30. They said it would take about 30 minutes and then we'd have a recovery time before she could go home. Let me just say---this is a brand new hospital--they just opened up on November 2 and they said they aren't doing many surgies in this children's unit yet, so she's one of the first. Everything was sooooo new and clean! Anyway...this little girl is Sleeping Beauty--it's not often that she gets up in time to be somewhere by 7:30 am. But...last night she went to bed early and so she got up early--that part was easy. The hard part--she was thirsty and hungry and I couldn't let her have anything. She was soooooooooo mad at me! We got to the hospital and she was being so cute with everyone and they all made such a fuss over her. They told me they only had a few surgeries scheduled, but one canceled last night, so they got her in 30 minutes ahead of schedule. We seriously just whipped right through everything, with hardly a waiting time for any of it. The surgery only took 20 minutes and she woke up fast afterward. They gave her some apple juice and she downed half of it before I even got to her. They wanted her to drink 3/4 of it before she could go home. Well...then the drama started. She wanted to go back to the pre-op waiting area to play with those toys, not the toys they had in recovery. So...she put on her best mad face, refused to drink any more, and started crying. After about 30 minutes, the nurse let us go back to that room and let Jenna play. She was happy again and finished off her juice. We got home and she was dying to eat, so she had some cereal, but it really hurt her mouth--they said she can eat and drink whatever she wants to and will have about 3 days of pain. The doctor said both her tongue and upper lip were really tight, but things went well. What a trooper!

'Tis the Season....

A week ago, we were freezing cold and had snow on the ground. And now? Close to 70 degrees. I guess that's how fall works. It's still crazy that our first snowfall was on October 27---Jenna kept talking about Christmas!! We ended up with 4 inches in all and it stuck around for awhile. The trees were still so full of leaves that the heavy snow lowered some of the branches down to the ground. Speaking of trees, our trees are usually done dropping leaves by now--we have 12 trees in all. Five of them are just barely turning colors and when I look up at all the leaves still in the trees, I cringe, because I know what I'll be doing soon. I just hope they're all dropped and raked up by the time Thanksgiving is over with, because I don't want to be out raking during the Christmas season!

Halloween Continued...

The kids had a lot of fun scooping out the guts of the pumpkin---Jon did most of the carving this year. And here's Kendall's Black Rider costume---from Lord of the Rings. I thought the costume turned out to be pretty good--he wanted to use a scary mask that we had with the costume, which worked out fine. At least the kids have options, right?The kids all had a great time trick-or-treating! Kendall went with friends; Kristen went with a friend; and Jon took the other two out. We had really nice weather, so Jenna decided to be a ballerina this time around.

Halloween Costumes

Kristen the gypsy.

Kendall as Napoleon Dynamite.

Jenna the dog---her most favorite animal in the world! She's the mama dog and her stuffed animal is her baby dog.

Jarren as a "green" soldier from his Indiana Jones Lego (Wii) game.

As I mentioned before, I will post pictures tomorrow of Kendall's other costume. Very scary and cool!

Halloween Parade

Every year, our elementary school has a Halloween parade first thing in the morning. We couldn't find Kendall's wig and teeth. Kristen wore her costume to dance yesterday and stepped on the bottom ruffle and tore it---I had to do a quick job repairing it. I spent hours sewing Kendall this cool Black Rider (Lord of the Rings) costume, but he decided to be Napoleon Dynamite for school, since they weren't supposed to wear masks, have weapons, etc. So...he'll wear that for trick-or-treating tomorrow and I'll get pictures up then of that one. They set tables up in the gym at the school and have each grade, youngest to oldest, wind their way around the tables so that all the parents can see. Jenna had a lot of fun watching all of the kids and seeing everyone's costumes.
Jarren, Noah, and some other first graders.
Kristen and a couple of classmates (4th grade).
Kendall and a friend---6th grade.