BLESSED

Tonight Andy and I headed downtown to volunteer with some members of our small group (thanks Caleb, Theresa, Becky & Matt) at the Detroit Rescue Mission. We got there at 4:30pm and helped do a little bit of dinner-prep work. Our duties were then to serve the meal, fill water cups, pass out pie, bread, plastic wear and napkins. Most importantly I think just being there to smile at them and let them know that they are worth our time was the most rewarding job! It was so heart-breaking to see how many residents are there due to their lives falling apart and loosing everything they have whether it be due to the economy or poor decision making; either way still so sad. I came home feeling very blessed! I can't even imagine losing everything. We are SO thankful to have jobs, a home, basic necessities, family and friends who are there to love and support us, and especially thankful for the money we paid the babysitter for the evening!!
I hope we can continue to pour into the lives of people who need it! With Thanksgiving coming this week it has been great to reflect on what I truly am thankful for!

SIX Months

My BIG girl is 6 months old!! I have been packing baby clothes away like crazy lately,she is getting so big SO fast! She is squirming around (not crawling yet), sitting up by herself for brief periods of time and saying "DA-DA"! We are continually working on Mama, but for some reason she doesn't want to say that yet. Her favorite thing is still watching Mason run around the house and she LOVES chewing on anything that she can get into her mouth!

BIG Helper!

BIG helper on the ladder :)

Mason and I tag-teamed to talk Andy into hanging Christmas lights outside (even though we had to promise we won't turn them on until AFTER Thanksgiving)!

Now we just need to talk him into letting us put the decorations up INSIDE!!!

Out of Commission

Last week was pretty rough for all of us! Mason woke up with a really high fever and cough last Saturday. I called his pediatrician on Sunday after a sleepless night and surprisingly they did not even want to see him in the office they just called in an Rx for Tamiflu with all of this Swine Flu hype. Thankfully it did help almost right away and he seemed to improve pretty quick. I unfortunately came down with Bronchitis on Monday and then Kailee was at the doctor on Thursday after she came down with the same high fever, runny nose and cough that Mason had.
Thankfully Andy stayed healthy during all of this (I have no idea how!) and was a huge help. There is nothing harder than having two sick kids when you are sick yourself :(

This week hopefully all will be back to normal-back to preschool and back to work. Kailee is still on the mend, but getting better each day!

Mason is still doing really well with the potty training! I think the fish really helped! Unfortunately we have already had to replace a couple of them but Mason does not seem to be bothered by it. He is enjoying feeding them and watching them swim around.

He definitely keeps us on our toes. The conversations around here have been hilarious! He asks some crazy questions...I need to start writing them all down to share.

Our Newest Additions

A week ago I told Mason that if he started going to the bathroom like a BIG boy then I would buy him 'real' fishies! One thing you have to understand is that we have been trying to get him potty trained for so long that I thought this was just going to be another failed motivational tool (I know, my positivity has been overflowing with this whole potty training ordeal)! When we started this summer we tried all kinds of motivation: first stickers, then M&M's, followed by movies and then the prize system all to no avail (he would tell me he "did not like these things anymore"-oh dear!) I was actually told by my pediatrician to give up for a while and then restart weeks later because he was obviously not ready. So, when we started this back up again I promised Mason if he filled in the reward chart then he could go to the store and pick out 2 fish. Since I was totally convinced that he would walk down the isle getting married in a pull-up since he is too stubborn to be potty-trained (OK, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration) I really did not think that we would end up owning any fish. Well on Thursday he had filled in every square on his sticker chart, so off we went to buy his fish!

Here he is showing the "man-helper" which ones he wanted :)

Just a bit excited! He could not wait to get his hands on everything!

Watching "Nemo and Dorothy" swim around as he explained to them they could not have a snack if they did not eat their dinner!

...and more watching!

Since we almost had a near casualty with them already we had to set some rules:
-NO hands in the fish bowl
-NO sliding the bowl across the counter because we don't want them on the counter
-NO feeding them unless an adult is around

So, even though I did not think we would end up with fish, it is fun to see how much Mason enjoys them! Hopefully I am better with fish than I am with plants :)

Fall Snip-its

Our kiddos! They are such good buddies now that they can interact with each other. Kailee lights up every time Mason goes zooming by, it is so cute to watch! I can no longer put her to bed without Mason kissing her head first and he is the one who "needs" to wake her up in the morning. He has definitely turned into her protector and is such a big helper!! They are both amazing kids!

Kailee started eating cereal now that she is 5 months old!! Although it is time consuming (since we recycle the same bite about 5 times), it has been fun to start this new adventure with her. She on the other hand has made it perfectly clear that we have to feed her the cereal AFTER her bottle because it is just not fast enough when she is really hungry...a concept we have no experience with but love!

Her 5 month picture! Happy as always :) She is rolling over like crazy, scootching around (mainly just in her crib) and is working on sitting up. She is content to just hang out and chew on toys but mostly loves when she has someone to talk to!

Stacy and I took the kids to the Zoo-Boo a couple weekends ago and had a great time! Mason was a bit confused as to why were at the zoo, but not there to see the animals but he sure enjoyed collecting all of the candy. It was chilly, but we were so happy it did not rain!

One of our very close family friends Jodi got married last Friday! She is one of our 'girls night attendees' . Wendi, Jodi, Stacy and myself all get together about once a month to hang out and chat. We are looking forward to our November night out to hear all about Jodi and Eduardo's honeymoon :)

Our fall has just been SO busy! I hope things slow down a bit but with Thanksgiving and Christmas coming I am not holding my breath!!

Basement

We started a project a couple of weeks ago...finishing our basement!! One of my patients who is currently laid off from his carpentry job came in to get his teeth cleaned and he was ready and willing to do any kind of work to help him pay some bills. We have wanted to get our basement done for a while, but just could not afford it so this worked out great for all of us! We worked out a great deal and he got started on it that next week!
Mason loves "helping" when we go down there to paint, clean up, etc. The other night we told him we had to go down to do some work and he ran into his toy room, grabbed his 3 hammers and his hard hat and told us he was ready to work! He has really enjoyed this project!
It is going pretty fast, we had wood floors installed yesterday and our carpet should be installed tomorrow! It will be less than one month from start to finish!! WAY faster than doing it ourselves :)