Bad Things Come in Threes....

That's what Mama always says....Bad things come in threes.

Today started off as a normal day. Got up, dropped off Quinn, went to work. Today's a teacher work day so I was hoping to get a lot of stuff done...mainly report cards. Then the office called my classroom saying that they had a phone call for me.

Bad Thing #1:
It was one of the directors from the daycare calling to tell me that Quinn had fallen into one of the shelves and bumped his lip and it was bleeding. Apparently he had pulled up on a shelf and slipped. I guess his mouth was open when he slipped because he bumped the little flap of skin that holds your upper lip to your gums. IT bled a lot, the teachers fixed it, he took a nap and slept off the drama. Now he's back to normal, yet slightly swollen.

So I continue my day and decide for lunch I would do what normal people do and go grab a bite. A lot of people forget that being a teacher means that your lunch every day involves being stuck in a loud room with about 75-100 children....doesn't make for a very calming, eating environment. So I decided to drive up the road to the Wendy's.

Bad Thing #2:
I am sitting at the red light waiting. As it turns green, I can't go forward due to about 7 cars being in front of me. The guy behind me doesn't realize that, and starts to go, hitting me from behind. Luckily he barely tapped me, and there's not much damage done to either car. We did do the right thing and called the police, exchanged information, the usual.

So I get my lunch, finish the day at school, pick up Quinn and head home. I was looking forward to the yummy smells that would be waiting for me, since I put dinner in the crockpot to cook this morning.

Bad Thing #3:
The crockpot scorched the food. Ugh. I even had it set to the appropriate temperature. I've made this particular recipe a million times. Some things you can cook in the crockpot are good all year long. This one is one of those crockpot meals that are only-good-on-a-super-cool-day. Today is just cold enough that it would have tasted so good. I tried a tiny bite and it has a scorched taste to it as well.

The best part of the day is the fact that I've had my 3 things go wrong. And if Mama is right (as she usually is) I should be ok for a while!

Growing like a weed

The whole time I was pregnant and buying things for Quinn before he was born, people told me if I liked something, buy it bigger because babies outgrow things so fast.

So back in September, I saw the cutest Halloween costume for Quinn at Target. A green dragon, complete with a spiky tail and wings. I bought a 0-9 month size, since he would be in the 9month range in October. I double-checked the tags and he fit right in the weight suggestion too. We put him in it and it fit, but seemed small. We assumed it was because he had on pajamas when we tried it on him.

We tried it on again tonight, just to make sure it still fit.

NOPE!! We couldn't get it over his shoulders. Oops.

So we rushed over to Babies-R-Us hoping to find something on clearance, since Target had no more dragon suits. We found a black spider costume for 40% off. We were telling the ladies at the checkout counter about why we were buying another costume. They told us the costumes would be on super-clearance tomorrow, but they felt so bad about the situation that they gave us the deal early! We ended up spending $4.50 on a $30 costume!

Stay tuned for pictures later this week!!

Where were you when the lights went out??

In the dark of course...



That's where we found ourselves tonight. There was a pretty bad car wreck not to far from our house. I saw it on my way home from work. It looked like a car had taken down a bunch of power lines or something.

About 5:30 or so the power went out. Buddy wasn't home from work yet, so Quinn and I went across the street to visit with Cookie for a while. When Buddy got home, the power was still out, and we needed to feed Quinn. We heated his baby food in a little sauce pan on the grill. We lit candles all over the living room and kitchen for a little bit of light so we weren't walking into walls.

I know people lived and survived with years before "modern" technologies were invented. I guess that's why the pioneers got up so early and daily life was "over" when the sun went down. But you know, now that we have these things, it really is hard to live without them. And having to live without these modern things and having an infant in the house really makes life difficult.

Thankfully the power came on a little before 8pm. Still, that's almost 3 hours.

I guess it could be worse. The last time this happened, it was mid-July, 98 degrees in the shade, and the power was off for 6 hours.

I'm sure life was great back then for those people. I'm just glad it's not me.

The Early Bird Catches the Apple

Or is it...A Worm a Day Keeps the Doctor Away....

OK. Let me just say with the crazy, busy weeks I've been having lately, it would make sense that eventually I would make a mistake.

Only this mistake involved an apple, and yes, you guessed it.... a worm.

And this particular apple was packed into Buddy's lunch.

And yes, he almost bit into it. Oh well, like I said, it was bound to happen.

But, he must not be too mad at me. When I got home on Tuesday night, after a day at work, 2 (yes 2) meetings at the fire station, and feeling like I was coming down with a cold, I was greeted by an amazing sight!

Buddy had cleaned....the living room....the kitchen....BOTH BATHROOMS....

He had fed the baby and packed his bag for the next day!

He made me sit down and relax while he dashed back to the master bathroom to run the tub full of warm water with candles all around. I got to soak while he put Quinn to bed.

If he does all this on the same day I accidentally put a wormy apple in his lunch, I wonder what he'll do if I "accidentally" burn supper???

Fun Times at the Pumpkin Patch

This past Sunday, our little family went to the local pumpkin patch. This particular place is pretty special to us, despite the fact that it was our first time stopping to look at the pumpkins.



In the past, this location had a little old house that sat in the middle of the property. In April of 2007, the owners of the house donated it to a local fire department to burn for training. This happened to be the same department that our fire chief works at. He invited a few of our members to join the other department at the burn. I was so excited about possibly going into a burning building for the first time! But the morning of the burn, Buddy and I realized that there was a huge possibility that I might be pregnant. We decided that maybe I should just sit this one out. Later that night, I took a home pregnancy test and....I was!


*ahem*....back to the pumpkin patch story.....



So anyways, we decided to meet up with another family and their little boy, who happens to be Quinn's best friend from daycare. This little place had lots of places for good pictures. The only problem was getting Quinn to look at the camera, and not all the traffic that was going by.




They even had some really BIG pumpkins. Quinn had fun standing beside them and beating on them. I think he liked the hollow sound that they made.






They also had the pumpkins set out in groups by size, and then in groups of about 20 or so pumpkins. I found a group of nice ones with one pumpkin missing from the group. I plopped Quinn down in the middle of the group and caught this cute shot.





Near the area where we had to pay, they had another photo-op, and we got this cute shot of our entire family.



And finally, here is Quinn with all of our pumpkins. Notice that we have "Daddy", "Mama", and "Baby" sized pumpkins!



Now, my question is....what in the world do I do with all these pumpkins? I did see this link on the Money Saving Mom website a few weeks ago. I will definitely try the recipes for pumpkin muffins and pumpkin seeds. But how in the world do I cook pumpkins this big????

I'd love to hear some ideas!!

Quinn is 9 months old!

I took Quinn for his 9 month old check up today. It is so hard to believe that he is already 9 months old. (Of course those of you with older kids are probably reading this and thinking....boy she has no idea....) But remember, you guys were first time moms or dads at one time, too.

He got a very good report from the doctor as well. He is 19 pounds 2 ounces, and 30 1/4 inches tall. His height puts him in the >95th percentile....basically off the chart, yet his weight is only the 30th percentile. Looks like we'll be buying this boy the "slim fit" jeans.

He is crawling all over and pulling up onto everything. Now I wonder if he will be an early walker. Doesn't really matter to me so long as he's developing like he should.

I am so blessed to have such a sweet boy. See what I mean....

Fire Prevention Week

Since Buddy and I are both Volunteer Firefighters/EMTs, I feel led to mention that October 5-11, 2008 is Fire Prevention Week.

Fire Prevention Week was originally created to commemorate The Great Chicago Fire, that did the majority of its damage on October 9, 1871. Legend says that "Mrs. O'Leary's Cow" kicked over a lamp, setting a barn on fire, which in turn set the city on fire.

This year's theme is Prevent Home Fires. Cooking fires are the #1 cause of fires in the home, mostly due to unattended cooking.

Does your family have an escape plan in place? Do you know where the family would meet should the unthinkable happen? Do your kids know 2 ways to get out of their bedroom? (Hopefully there is a window.) Do your kids even know what the smoke alarm sounds like?

This would be a great week to sit down with your family and talk over some of these questions. Come up with a family plan....wouldn't you rather be prepared, instead of something like this catch you off-guard?

The next time you ride by your local fire department, stop by and take a look around. Our members love showing the trucks to families that stop by.

To learn more about Fire Prevention week, or to get ideas, lesson plans, etc, just click here.

My Wish for America

At school this week the faculty put up a bulletin board in the lobby called "Our Wish for America." We asked all the students to write their wish for America on a red, white, or blue star. The purpose of this is to promote the up-coming elections, with the idea that if the parents see how much their kids understand about our country, it would encourage them to vote, or to get registered to vote.

Here is a picture of the board.



Here are some of the things the students wrote as their Wish for America. Students from Kindergarten all the way to 5th grade participated. I gathered a short list of some of the thoughts that stood out to me. Some were the typical "kid" thoughts, but some were very profound for kids of this age group.

The "fun" ideas:

• Everybody should have a race car.
• Everyone would get to go to Chuck-E-Cheese.
• Everyone could have a dog.
• Everyone could have a skateboard.

The "profound" ideas:

• I wish no one would get cancer.
• I wish that everyone could work.
• I wish that nobody had to be homeless.
• I wish the gas prices would go down. (See, even kids notice things!)
• I wish that everyone could learn to read.
• I wish that all children get a good education.
• I wish there were no drugs or alcohol.

There were plenty of others that were just as meaningful, but my absolute favorite said I wish that everyone would obey God!

Whew! Some of these were written by the little kids. Sometimes I don't think people realize just how much kids understand. If you aren't registered to vote, I urge you to do it. Our state's deadline is October 10th. That's just a few days away, if you want your voice to be heard on November 4th.

What is your wish for America?