My date with Conner

Conner and I went on a date Tuesday night. A local movie theater in Bethel (just east of us on 125) just re-opened and was hosting a movie night for Conner's school. It's an old theater - just one screen, and reminds me of the theater that we go to while at the cottage. It's cheap, too (relatively speaking) - $4 a ticket, and candy is only $2 for a good-size package. I think we'll be going to more movies there in the future!

Anyway, Conner and I went to see the new movie Bolt. It was cute, and he did a great job of watching it while we were there (only asked once when we were going to go home, and it was close to the end anyway!). He told me on the way home that he'd really liked the movie... then he fell asleep. I don't know that we'd go on a school night, but because we got to stay home yesterday, it was the perfect opportunity!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I just saw this on a friend's blog (thanks, Sheila!) and thought it was cute.

On the First Day..... We give thanks for the fresh turkey feast and its hot trimmings.
On the Second Day..... We bless the cold turkey sandwiches, sloshy cranberry sauce, and hard rolls.
On the Third Day..... We praise the turkey pie and vintage mixed veggies.
On the Fourth Day..... We thank the pilgrims for not serving bison that first time, or we'd be celebrating Thanksgiving until April.
On the Fifth Day..... We gobble up cubed bird casserole and pray for a glimpse of a naked turkey carcass.
On the Sixth Day..... We show gratitude (sort of) to the creative cook who slings cashews at the turkey and calls it Oriental.
On the Seventh Day..... We forgive our forefathers and pass the turkey-nugget pizza.
On the Eighth Day..... The word ''vegetarian'' keeps popping into our heads.
On the Ninth Day..... We check our hair to make sure we're not beginning to sprout feathers.
On the Tenth Day..... We hope that the wing meat kabobs catch fire under the broiler.
On the Eleventh Day..... We smile over the creamed gizzard because the thigh bones are in sight.
On the Twelfth Day..... We apologize for running out of turkey leftovers. And everybody says, "Amen!"

We have the Macy's parade on (well, the pre-parade festivities, anyway) and are ready to go eat some turkey!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Another Audrey first

We had our Thanksgiving feast at church last night with our large small group (who have since split into three different small groups). After getting home around 9:00 I got the kids in bed, then Eric and I were putting our pj's on (so we could go downstairs and watch Survivor!) when I heard a big thump and cry from Audrey's room. I ran in there, and she was sitting on the floor with her blankie crying. I guess she made it out of her crib! Time to lower it again!

Conner never tried climbing out (or never accomplished it, I guess!). Yet another sign that this is going to be a difficult child. I shouldn't say difficult... how about spirited?

My goofy children

Conner had to go outside yesterday to shovel the massive amount of snow that was falling on the back deck. He had a ball!

I have no idea where she gets her goofiness from. (Someone said around Halloween that Audrey has jack-o-lantern teeth!)

Our weekend in review

Friday night I took the kids with some friends from church (Shannon & Chase, Cheryl & Noah & Danielle) to LaRosa's for dinner then to see Madagascar 2. I was worried about how Audrey would do in the movie, but she was ok. She had her blankie and paci (although we lost one - thank goodness I had a backup!) and ate a lot of popcorn. She wouldn't sit with me until the very end of the movie, when she finally relaxed on my lap. Conner did great; he told me on the way home that he'd slept for a little bit during the movie. I was just glad that he hadn't slept through the whole thing! Eric left around 4:00 that afternoon to go to Louisville with some of the guys from our group to see the UC/Louisville football game. The funny thing was that I didn't realize they were going to Louisville - I thought the game was in Cincy! (Didn't realize it until I saw it on TV that night.) I guess they didn't get home until after 2, but I was dead asleep at that point!

We went up to Columbus yesterday for Levi's 2nd birthday party (I can't believe he's going to be 2 and Audrey is soon to follow!). We spent a couple of hours at a house that Erica and Andy are thinking about making an offer on. It's a neat house and could be really cool but has a lot of work that needs to be done. It'll be interesting to see what they decide! Anyway, we went back to their house afterwards for pizza and cake. It was really cute to see Audrey and Levi playing together (or next to each other, anyway) and chase each other around the vacant house. For as little as she seems to me, Audrey is actually taller than Levi!

We had a nice afternoon/evening with everyone - Doug & Marge, Erica's parents Jane & Bill, and her sisters Ann & Christy were all there. We left a little before 8 after getting the kids into their pjs - both fell asleep pretty quickly and stayed asleep the rest of the way home!

Audrey wasn't happy that we were making her sit there by the boys. She wanted to go play!

It snowed a little bit this morning - I think the first thing that Conner did was find the snow shovel that Eric bought him last year. I can't believe he rememberd it! (I didn't!) Conner went out on the back deck and pushed around the little teeny tiny bit that actually stuck. He was disappointed on the way home from church to see that all the snow was gone. Eric went to the Bengals game with a buddy today, so the three of us came home from church and grabbed some lunch (leftover LaRosa's), then Aud went up for a nap and Conner's been in and out with Dash.

And last but not least, Audrey had a cute outfit on for church today that really shows off her chubby legs!

The reason

Audrey had another bad night last night. Every time I tried to put her in bed, she screamed. Wanted no part of it. She stayed up with me and Eric until about 11 (we were arranging the new furniture in the living room!). Around 2:00 she woke up crying, so we spent the rest of the night/morning in the spare bed.

I took her to the doctor after school, though Angela said she acted fine all day. The diagnosis? An ear infection. Now we have a reason for the goofy behavior and some medicine to fix it! Yay! She's actually in bed right now and hasn't screamed once. In fact, I think she's sleeping.

We had Conner's teacher conference tonight (it was a family affair!). It sounds like he's doing great, though he couldn't identify A, D, or V, and didn't know what a rectangle looked like (that really stumped us!). Miss O. is very happy with where he's at and said he should be able to identify some short words by the end of the year. Conner already knows "Stop" (although the red octagon might have something to do with it!), but it was nice to hear that he's doing well.

Our new carpet!

We got the new carpet on Friday. Eric was home with the kids, and Doug and Marge came over to help, too. It looks great! The carpet in the family room and steps/hall upstairs reminds me a lot of what we had at our old house. The carpet in the living room and dining room is basically the same but has some extra color mixed in. I'm not sure how much you can tell from these pictures, but I'll give it a shot!
Of course, there's some extra work that's popped up, too. The paint in the family room didn't go well, so Eric repainted it last night - it's more of a caramel color now. We bought new paint today after church for the living room (that sky blue color looks horrible!). Eric's at Sam's Club right now buying some new furniture for the living room. Hopefully in the next few days (if not today!) it will all come together.

We also need to get a hearth rug for the fireplace (the one that's in the picture is the rug from the front door - we were just testing for size and Callie decided it was comfy) and new curtains for both the family room and living room. It's amazing how one project (carpet) turns into many!

We took the kids Friday night to get their flu shots. Audrey went first and did great (just gave the nurse a look like, "What are you doing?") while Conner did a little whining and then proceeded to show everyone else that evening his bandaid. Yesterday, however, Audrey was super grumpy (very unusual) and I don't think felt very good. She fell asleep on me on the couch around 8:00 and I got her in bed. Around 10 she woke up ("Mommy!") so I brought her down, got her some juice and cheerios, then she was ready to go back up around 11. We repeated that around midnight. Thankfully, she stayed asleep in bed until 6 - she woke up again, crying, so I brought her in with us until 8. It was just very weird behavior for her (Aud even cried during her bath!) and we think maybe it was a reaction to her flu shot. I'll need to remember that for next year.

I took some pictures last weekend of the kids playing outside (with Dash, of course!).

A neato thing happened today. . .

I know the focus of this blog is the kids (hence the name of it!) but a cool thing happened at school today. I'm part of a program called PLP (which stands for Powerful Learning Practices) that is focused on integrating Web 2.0 tools (like blogs, wikis, etc) into the school environment. There's a website that we're expected to post and read on a regular basis. A current conversation is called "Are You Googled Well?" and is asking about the results when you google yourself (search for results on the web under your name). So I googled myself.

There were a bunch of results ranging from my summer softball schedule (as the coach I was listed) to my school webpage for the kids to check notes and such. There was also an entry that started like this:
"To speak some more about wikis, I found that Kristen Fouss produced a nice mathematical wiki. The introductory page specifies that this wiki, a collection ... "

I was like, what? So I clicked on the link. It took me to a blog (here) that was describing the wiki that I had my classes make last year! It's so amazing to me that not only are people visiting that wiki, but they actually think it's something to reference! That just made my day. :)

Conner's night-time habits

Conner's been doing a great job of going to bed lately. He's finally become accustomed to being at school 5 days a week and not taking a nap. Last night was a bit iffy, but I think that was because of the time change - he got up around the same time yesterday morning but was up an hour later. For the past two or three weeks he's even been wearing underwear to bed (as opposed to a pull-up) and we've only had one mini-accident (the wetness didn't make it through his pj's). It's very exciting, and nice not to have to buy pull-ups!

We still have one sleeping issue, though - Conner still has the side guards up on the side of his bed so he doesn't fall out. He's quite the active sleeper; I never know how he'll be lying when I go to check on him! Last week one night he actually fell out of bed despite the guards - there's only a foot or so at each end, so I'm not sure how he managed it, but I heard him crying around 3:00 one morning and went in to find him sitting up on the floor. I'm hoping that he'll be better by the time Audrey gets a bed next summer (assuming she's ready, which I think she will be)! I'd hate to have to buy more guards because my (then) 5.5 year old still needs them!

I forgot to write in my Halloween post about Audrey's "thank yous" (which were more like "dank oo") when she got the candy. She did a great job of saying it! (And now says thank you every time we give her something.) People really got a kick out of it. Angela said that today she started saying "love you", but I can't get her to do it. She's also learned to say "bless you" (or her version of it) when you sneeze.

More Halloween pictures