Fever = No Surgery

Nathan's surgery was suppose to be yesterday but he started running a fever on Sunday and had one yesterday morning so now we have to reschedule the whole thing. A little irritating because now he is going to miss a lot of school. In other news....Jon bought this awesome new computer!! It is a Dell with a 19 inch monitor! So hopefully, no more computer crashes for a while. I still need to put all of my photos on this computer so I can update this blog with December posts but that will take a couple of days.

Happy Birthday

Another year older.....yuck. Anyways, Jon was telling me that I need to do a slide show with all the pics I have of me when I was younger, and I guess that would be only fair since I have made one for everyone else. The problem is that I own maybe 3 pics of me under the age of 14 so....Mom and Dad....if you wouldn't mind sparing a few pictures of me, I would really appreciate it! As many as you are willing to spare :). Here is a pic of me and my new Coach purse Jon bought me for my day!

Frustrating

I haven't been blogging this month because our computer is down again (3rd time this year). I am on my laptop right now but I like to blog and add pictures that is why I have been waiting. Hopefully in a few days, I can post about 5 blogs that are due on here. I will edit the dates to reflect when the events happened. In the meantime....I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! The boys are very happy and I am happy that I finally got the Photo shop program I have wanted forever (but alas...no computer=no pictures)!!

Christmas Eve Traditions

I thought I would share with you some of our family's Christmas Eve traditions...

First, we always make Christmas cookies. This year was better because even Owen enjoyed making some!

Then we always track Santa's progress on the computer with NORAD. I love this site because the kids actually call the 800 number with any questions they may have and they always have an answer!

Then, we HAVE to watch The Polar Express! It puts to rest any doubts they may have if Santa really exists ;)

This one is a new one. Jon has this super old edition of T'was the Night Before Christmas so he read it to them just as they were about to go to bed (Justin slept in Nathan's room tonight). The boys (minus Owen because he was fast asleep) really liked it. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Vacation in Branson

We just came home from a great Christmas vacation. We left on the 19th, right when the boys get out of school. We went to Branson and stayed at a beautiful resort for 5 days! It was the Horizons by Marriott. To view the resort and all its great amenities, click on this link: http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/sgfhb-horizons-by-marriott-vacation-club-at-branson/



While we were there we went to Silver Dollar City. It was so FREEZING the days we were there. It was 13 degrees during the day and like 3 degrees at night. We also went to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede~~we LOVED it! The boys had such a blast! Then we went down to the Branson Landing, went through the Trail of Lights and of course, the Ripley's Believe It Or Not Museum. We loved this place so much that we already booked it for the 4th of July weekend! Below is a short slide show. There aren't too many pics outside....brr!

First Ice Storm of the Season

Winter is not even here yet it is so cold out. The high has been in the twenties and down to single digits at night. Jon came home today and it took him forever to drive the hour drive because people were driving 45 on the highway. We had our first ice storm today...just a few inches. For my Florida family/friends....snow is nice soft and ice pellets come down hard and coat everything in ice. Of course they cancelled school today (rolling eyes). Here is a pic of Nathan trying to convince his teacher that it iced more that 2 inches (a class prediction project).

Here are the boys sledding down our driveway:

Trees for Troops

One of the nice things about being a military family is that businesses will once in a while do something nice to support us. This is a nice example: Trees for Troops. They give out free, live Christmas trees! Well, the boys wanted a real tree this year so after I dropped them off at school, I went down and stood in line with Owen to get one. Jon is in Germany for 10 days so he gets to miss out on the excitement. Owen and I picked our tree and a nice Marine carried to the van. I tied it to the top and set it up. As you can see, it is a nice one and our living room smells so great!

Also, they had a nice Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on post. There were tents set up and inside every tent, they had free food and toys for the kids. Here are the boys on the train: Eating yummy food (it was FREEZING)!
Too bad Jon had to miss all of the fun!

Owen's Favorite Birthday Toy

This by far is Owen's favorite birthday toy:

Happy 2nd Birthday Owen!!

It is such a cliche to say time goes by too fast but it really does. It is scary. Today Owen is 2 and he is such a sweet toddler. He is shy at first but then warms up to you. His favorite things are trucks, in particular, garbage trucks and cement trucks. He loves Sesame Street and his family. He is such a sweet little boy and I am so happy he is in our lives.
He actually was able to blow out his candles!

Paper Magnet

Justin must be lucky because he was in 2 different local newspapers the past few weeks!

The first one is from the city's paper, "The Daily Guide". The school holds a "Super Science Night" once a month. It is an after school learning program.

The second picture is from the posts newspaper, "The Fort Leonard Wood Guidon". It shows Justin getting ready to take a picture for the Photography Club.

Brothers

The boys had their pictures taken together "professionally" for the first time last week. I think they came out so cute...especially the headshot of Owen...I can't believe he will be 2 years old in three days! We will be sending out these in our Christmas cards this year!

Surgery

After many months of contemplating on what to do with the results of Nathan's sleep study (see July's blog), we decided to go ahead with the surgery. We went to see the Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon, Dr. Buchman, a couple of weeks ago. Even he was undecided on what to do. His sleep study did conclude that he has mild sleep apnea but his tonsils are not big and he doesn't snore to a extreme. He said that with most obvious cases, he can tell the parent that after the surgery, you will see a different child. They will sleep much better and you will see them more happy and alert during the day. With Nathan's case, he said it might help. For those of you who don't know, Nathan sleeps horribly. As a consequence, he is sleepy all day and lacks focus A LOT of the time. He also has frequent headaches and about once a month, a severe migraine. Jon and I decided that even though the surgery is not guaranteed to help him sleep better, there is that CHANCE and we have to take that chance. Having said that, his surgery (tonsillectomy and adenoid removal) will be done on December 29th. It takes 2 weeks to recover and I am so nervous about the general anesthesia. If anyone who reads this post has had experience with this surgery and all that goes with it...please leave me a comment! Thanks!

The Fun of Fall

Big piles of leaves and roasting marshmellows and making s'mores. What more can you say about fall?

2008 Spelling Bee

It was that time of year again when Wood Elementary holds its annual Spelling Bee. In the past, they would just ask the kids in grades 3rd-6th who wanted to be in it and pick 4 from each class. This year they did it differently. First they held a classroom spelling Bee. This picked out the best 4 spellers in the class. 6th grade held their spelling bee last week and the best 3 plus an alternate will go on to the District Spelling Bee. Today, 3rd-5th grade had their spelling bee. Here is the list of names:

Do 2 of them look familiar? I have 2 super spellers for sure. Now let me start off by saying that these kids had 10 days to study a list of 3,400 words. It was a lot of work. This was Nathan's first year eligible for the spelling bee and it was tough. He got out in the 1st round along with 2 other third graders plus a fourth grader. We were so proud of him for just making it this far! Now for Justin, when he was in 3rd grade, he also got out in the first round and last year, he came in 4th place which made him the alternate to go to District. THIS year....HE CAME IN 1ST PLACE!! It was so exciting! He will go on to District in a week or 2.

Now here is a picture of the whole group of 3rd-5th graders who competed:

Here are the top 4 who will go on to District:

1st place--Justin 5th grade 2nd place--Kimberley 5th Grade

3rd place--Asia 3rd Grade and alternate (I don't know his name) in the second 3rd grade class.

I AM SO PROUD OF MY BOYS!!

The Vote is in!

And I am so excited about the next President of the Unites States!

Happy Halloween!

Trick or Treat!

Frontier Theatre

Nathan's 3rd grade class went on a field trip last Tuesday. They went to Frontier Theatre in Marshfield, MO. I went also as a chaperone. They talk about frontier life and have a lot of fun activities for all of the kids.

Learning about animal skins:

The rock wall/slide they had built:

Nathan going down the slide:

Nathan's teacher, Mrs. Crabtree getting stuck on the rock wall:

Nathan and his best friend Jordi:

Learning about tools and toys the people of the frontier days used:

Corn maze!

Nathan in the "mouse house":

Hay ride!