Archive for the ‘Brandon’ Category

Nothing exciting going on…

Sunday, January 22nd, 2006

I just realized I never posted the cause of those pesky ‘check engine’ lights… Rats! They ate through some wires… pretty scary. The van is happy now, and there are boxes of rat poison half-eaten in the garage. Let’s hope that’s the last of them.

There’s really not much going on around here… we’re back into our normal daily life again… tax season has officially begun and I’m thrilled to be doing returns again. I absolutely can not wait to be working from home full-time. I have to work at Orrtax until 6 two or three days a week for the next four weeks and I hate it.

Christian is signed up for baseball again. The season starts April 1 and he’ll be on a machine-pitch team this year. He just finished Semester 3 of Kindermusik’s Young Child class. Just one more semester and he’ll graduate. He gets to start playing the recorder next week. He has also been enjoying going to Kid’s Club at church every Wednesday night. They’ve been learning about different cultures and he was really excited to take one of our Usborne books to class (his Children’s World Atlas). He’s been reading a chapter book to me, one page a day, and he’s been sounding out some really big words. He’s still a bit stumped by some really easy words, so he has some work to do, but he’s definitely doing better.

Brandon is still not really thrilled with Kindermusik. He still thinks none of the kids are his friends. He’d rather stay home by himself. We’re going to keep him going, though. At least in the Fall, he should be able to start the Young Child series too and learn notes. I think he’ll do great. He loves to sing.

Alyson is starting to have terror-tot moments. She shrieks and screams to get her way. But most of the time, she’s still our easy-going happy little walker. It’s fun to see her walking around.

Well, I think that’s about it for now… let’s hope we can continue this ‘no big news’ streak we have going :-)

Sick kids

Saturday, December 31st, 2005

Poor Brandon and Alyson are sick and both came home from the doctor today with 3 prescriptions (each).

Alyson has a creme for excema… it turns out the horrible sore under her nose that we thought was a burn at Christmas was just excema (sp?). She’s also on the nebulizer every four hours.

Brandon is also on the nebulizer every four hours. He’s also on amoxicillin twice a day for a beginning ear infection. He ALSO gets to take two pills (crushed) each day. Alyson gets the same pills if she gets much worse.

Brandon gets to go back to the doctor first thing Monday morning for a recheck… I guess the pediatrician was concerned about his breathing… he and Alyson both sound just terrible.

The good news is, Christian is fine. He’s got a bit of a cough, and the pediatrician listened to him and said he was fine :-)

So it seems our New Years will be spent quietly at home.

Happy New Year!

Christmas

Friday, December 30th, 2005

Well, this blog entry would have been done last weekend if our internet hadn’t been down for two days. Apparently something blew up and knocked out only our service :-( But it’s all better now :-)

Christmas was WONDERFUL. We had such a nice, relaxing weekend!

The 23rd, Friday, I was lucky enough to leave work early. The boss was on vacation, although apparently she did call around the office to try to find someone around 2. There was no one to be found :-)

Christmas eve was, as always, spent up in Arlington. The kids had a great time with aunties and cousins. Alyson loved all of the food. The previous week at bake day, she even liked a tomato and mozzerella (sorry for the spelling) and vinagrette (ack, spelling again) salad. Alyson didn’t even mind being passed around. All day the kids asked when they could open presents! Christian got both the smore maker and the chocolate fountain he’d been asking for. He was so excited! Brandon got a karate Spongebob toy that he’d been asking for. Alyson got an adorable little chair with a table and light that sings to her and lights up. (There were other gifts as well, but these are the highlights) :-)

We even made it to the Christmas Eve candlelight service. We had to be there at 10 for the 11pm service. The kids got changed in to their jammies and were really good. A little wound up, but good. Brandon slept through the whole service. Alyson desperately wanted the candles! She was so tired but just couldn’t rest. Christian was a little bit bored, but when it came time to light the candles, he perked right up.

By the time the kids were in bed, it was at least 12:30. Bill and I got to bed about 2. At 5, Christian woke up and woke me up (and was promptly told to go back to sleep LOL). He slept on the floor by my bed until 7:30. Much better :-) We were all up and tearing into stockings by 8. Bill was disappointed because he got Brandon the same SpongeBob gift, but Brandon decided he liked it so much he wanted to keep them both!

After all of the gifts were opened, we had a nice breakfast and we had a little bit of time to play before Grandma Julie came over. We really enjoyed her visit. Alyson carried around her new Live Strong bracelet for 24 hours before she put it down for a rest LOL. The kids love the play tent and tunnel too. It was the year for duplicate gifts, though. I know Mom was disappointed that Christian had already received a smore maker. The good news is, I’m sure the Alvord family will enjoy it :-) We’re hoping to get together with them this weekend.

We had Christmas dinner at Grandma Tessie’s house, and more gifts! Uncle Ed spoiled the boys with a Nintendo DS to share!! Alyson got a really cute fuzzy Dora chair to sit in and a nice fleece pillow. Ed found me a nice lamp that’s made of salt! It’s really cool. Bill was excited to get Battlestar Galactica Season 1 on DVD. We still have one more gift exchange there, as Uncle Andrew and Brenda are in Chicago.

The 26th we got to just have a nice relaxing day home playing with all of our new toys :-) Over all, we had a great Christmas! Brandon was funny… he said he hated every single gift (well, except the SpongeBob gift). Alyson, on the other hand, dearly loved every single gift. She loves her Cabbage Patch doll, her bracelet, both of her new chairs, her ball popper toy from Daddy… every single gift. She even loves the clothes! Christian’s favorite gifts this year were his new spy kit and the smore maker and a remote control flywheel that Brandon got him. Brandon’s favorite gift was by far the SpongeBob toy.

I think that about sums up our Christmas weekend! Happy New Year everyone!

Quick funny about Brandon

Saturday, December 17th, 2005

This morning at breakfast, I said that right after breakfast I needed to go to the store.

Brandon’s response?

“Good luck with that.”

LOL!

Narnia

Saturday, December 10th, 2005

Yesterday was Brandon’s 4th birthday. His party was last week, but we wanted to do something special for him, so we took him to the Chronicles of Narnia movie on opening day. It was a great movie. I highly recommend seeing it (although I don’t think it absolutely has to be seen in the theater). Brandon was a little bit bored and distracted. He really wanted to go play the games in the lobby, so he kept asking if the movie was over yet. We also let him pick dinner, so we picked up his favorite McDonalds dinner on the way home :-)

Today the kids are getting ready for tomorrow night’s Christmas program. Alyson and I just went and spent $100 on clothes for her (yikes). At least I can finally clean out some of the clothes in her dresser that she keeps wearing every week even though she’s getting too big. She’s really going to need more clothes in the summer – if only we could move her birthday LOL. I would have bought her more 18 months clothes today, but they were all long sleeves and fleece. I also picked up a set of gloves, hat, and scarf for her stocking… she keeps stealing mine, so I don’t think it’ll matter that they’re a little big for her :-)

Christian got to go on a field trip to see a play about the elves and the shoemaker (whatever that is about LOL). He was upset about it because he missed two recesses. I also sent him with money for the bookfair this last week and he forgot every day to use it. I guess we should have gone on parent night afterall. Oh, well, he has lots of books and I’m sure there will be another bookfair in the spring.

Some good news, I’ve been getting more calls and emails than I ever expected thanks to my listing on bookkeepinghelp.com. I have another meeting with a potential client Monday night (and this is after I met witih 2 new clients less than a month ago). I’m excited for what January will bring!

Snow!

Thursday, December 1st, 2005

What a great day to be stuck at home. Grandma was sick today and couldn’t watch the kids, so I got to stay home. While Alyson and Brandon aren’t terribly helpful when I’m trying to work from home, it was ccertainly fun to be able to tell Brandon, Look it’s snowing! He got SO excited. He had to put his shoes on and go outside. Alyson liked it too. I’m hoping to get snowed in and not have to go to work for a couple of days 🙂

Marbles

Tuesday, October 25th, 2005

Brandon swallowed a marble. Came right down and told me about it, at least. Said his throat hurt.

Thankfully, the triage nurse said to just watch him for 3 days. 3 whole days.

Isn’t parenting great.

Sick kids

Wednesday, October 12th, 2005

Well, i took two of the three kids to the doctor tonight for these coughs that have been lingering. Sounds like we’ll need to get Christian in tomorrow.

Alyson has the crud and is on antibiotics. She slurped them right down too 🙂

Brandon is also on antibiotics. He spit it out. I don’t know how I’m going to get him to swallow them tomorrow. The rest of the appointment was interesting though. The doctor (actually we saw the clinic nurse) said that Brandon’s ongoing cough is probably an immune response – not exactly asthma, but similar. She said he may grow out of it, but she said it’s very common when they have sensitive skin (Brandon’s only other prescription ever was Elidel for excema). She also found it interesting that Bill has asthma/allergies. So Brandon now gets to try kid Claritin every day, and he gets to try Alyson’s nebulizer. Great fun.

One thing I wanted to write about Brandon that’s so funny. The kid is obsessed with gas stations. He points out every single one we ever pass, tells us what color it is, and asks if we need gas. Too funny 🙂

Well, Alyson’s in the bathtub (love having a laptop) and her water just ran out (the seal wasn’t good), so I need to get her a bit more water and get her washed up. Hopefully they’ll all be feeling better again soon.

October already?!?

Tuesday, October 4th, 2005

I don’t know where the last few weeks went.

Good news:

Alyson is starting to stand on her own for a few seconds at a time. She gives kisses 🙂 She eats almost only finger food.

Heartbreaking news:

Poor Christian and his best friend since Kindergarten Gabe had a falling out yesterday. He was really upset. Today they’re fine again LOL. But the poor kid yesterday afternoon wrote some sort of flame mail to Gabe and wanted to mail it.

Must see:

GO SEE SERENITY! Bill and I went and saw the movie Serenity on opening night last Friday. I laughed, I cried. It was a great movie. We both want to see it again. PLEASE go see it, and go see it soon! I want more people to talk about it with 🙂

More good news:

I got a call on Sunday from Brandon’s Sunday School teacher (I stayed home sick – yuck). She was just calling to tell me what a delight he was in class. He remembered his entire verse (God is patient, and he wants everyone to repent.) He remembered it all except for the 2 Peter 3:9 part. It was so nice to hear. Brandon can be such an uncontrollable powerhouse of energy, it’s nice to know he does well in class.

Silly kid:

Christian’s first ASB meeting was last week. It is held during lunch recess. He FORGOT to go at first. He said he RAN and he missed a lot, but he did get a treat. LOL.

Alyson – 10 months!

Sunday, September 18th, 2005

It’s been a challenging week. Everyone is sick in one way or another. Bill has the fever and no voice. I have the headaches. Christian is just sniffly. Brandon has the cough. Alyson has been fine, but it looks like she’s getting the runny nose.

Poor kid is just getting too mobile for her own good. It took FOREVER to get her to sleep last night (and I tried everything). She’s just so interested in climbing, she had a terrible time being still long enough to fall asleep!

So at 10 months, Alyson:

climbs stairs

can stand up in her crib and playpen

cruises back and forth along the coffee table

crawls super fast

eats 3 solid meals with us most days (and usually eats what we eat)

drinks about 2 bottles of formula a day, and has sippy cups of water everywhere

is beautiful 🙂

is very smiley when she wakes up in the morning and has a great sense of humor already

loves mommy, daddy, brothers, and kitties very very much

I think that’s about it for today – I’m sure there’s more and I’ll try to add to it later.