Reagan's first field trip and Grant's illness

Reagan had her first field trip on the 20th to Honeysuckle Hill Farm for pumpkin picking. I planned on meeting them at the farm after I dropped Grant off at his school. When Grant woke up that morning his face on one side was all red and rashy like, but I didn't think anything about it because he sleeps on the floor behind his door a lot and I thought it was from rubbing his face on the ground. When I got to his school though I took him to the bathroom and pulled up his sleeves to wash his hands and noticed the rash on his arm. After talking to the director I decided not to leave him. This meant I had to take him to the farm with me. He wanted to stay at school and was mad that we left, which translated into a grouchy kid on the way home. Scott called the dr and they wanted to see him. He had something called fifths disease which is essentially a cold followed by a rash. He wasn't contagious anymore and now the rash is gone, but it can come back anytime in the next 5 weeks. He may have just had a mild reaction to the virus though. Lets hope!

Reagan had a great time on her field trip. This was Reagan's first bus ride and she was pretty nervous about getting down the stairs.

They tried to teach them about how bees pollinate. I don't know that they understood it at all.

We went on a hayride with her friend Max.

And had lunch with her friend Jillian.

They had a playground there and the kids had a great time on the seesaws.

Grant is such a big boy and was climbing all over the place.

We did a lot of things with Reagan's friend Josie and her mom, which I like. My camera battery died though so this was all the pictures I got. They had a lot of fun, but mommy was exhausted and ready for a nap when we got home. Actually all of us took a pretty good nap and daddy had to wake us up when he got home.

Grant's 3rd Birthday Party

On the morning of Grant's birthday both kids had soccer games. His friends sung Happy Birthday to him after the game. Here he is...

Mommy made him 2 cakes for his party. A white baseball cake and a chocolate football cake.

Grant's party was at Master's Gym which is where Reagan had her party. He loves it especially the trampolines.

They also have a big ball pit that he LOVES.

All Grant's girlfriends came to the party. Emily and Sophie...

...and Eleanor from his school.

He had a lot of other friends there also. A bunch of 3 year olds don't sit very well for pictures.

He loved all his gifts, but Ms. Katy got him a soccer ball bean bag chair. He thought it was a huge ball at first.

He had a great day and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Pumpkin Patch and Best Friends

 Yesterday we went to Bottom View Farms to pick pumpkins. Reagan and I have been going there every year since she was 1. They have a hay ride out to pick your pumpkins, a train ride (tractor pulling wooden train cars), animals, a huge slide, and a merry-go-round. Halloween is both of the kids favorite holiday. They look forward to this all year. Every year we meet our best friends there and take some amazing pictures of them all together. 

 Getting ready for the hay ride.

 Reagan picked a pretty small pumpkin and thought it was too heavy to carry.

 Grant chose one much bigger and actually carried his.

 Here is a picture of all the little ones together. It is very hard to get them all to look at the camera and/or smile.

 The big girls are not a whole lot better at the looking at camera thing. They all sure are cute though.

 Here they are trying to get a horse to come over to them.

 Grant thought this was funny and I thought it was funny when he first tried to put his head in the hand hole.

 I love Sophie's smile and so does Grant.

 Grant always wants to hold Sophie's hand. She doesn't always let him, but when she wants to she yells "hold my hand" at him. And he does. He loves her so much. He calls her "my Sophie."

 Every year we do pictures on this tire. Here they all are minus Jackson because he wouldn't stand here long enough for one.

 And for the third year in the row, here is a picture of the big girls on the tire.

 Grant and his girls. I can't believe they are all looking and smiling at the camera! It is a pumpkin patch miracle.

 How cute are my kids? They look so sweet here, not so much on the way home when they were screaming though.

 Grant is so happy to finally have another boy in the group. Almost 3 years of being surrounded by girls and now he can't wait for Jackson to be able to play rough with him. He still calls Jackson and baby and always wants to pet, hug, or hold him.

 All in all, it was a great trip and one of our favorite places. And now they can't wait to go back next year.

Busy week

Grant's birthday party is Saturday. Not only that, but the kids both have games that day. I started testing out icing cakes today since I've never made a ball cake. They turned out pretty good, but it's a lot of cake baking going on in my house this week. I am also making candy balls with Oreos in them. Hopefully they will turn out great. My only redeeming hope is that I'm making these for 2-3 year olds and they don't really care what they look like as long as they taste good.

And since I have all these things to do what could make it better than both kids being on Fall Break from school. We have a lot of things planned including visiting the pumpkin patch on Wednesday. Diana is off work too so we will get to hang out with them some.

Grant had his meeting with the school district and he will start speech 2 days a week. One of them is Friday at 7:30! Reagan has to be to school at 8:30 so I'm gonna have to get this worked out somehow. Otherwise they are during his nap time which doesn't work out too well for us. So we will see how it goes... his other speech appointment he gets to work with a little girl. That's a good thing since he loves girls so much more than boys.

Also on Friday I took Grant back to the ENT because his audiologist said one tube was blocked. Essentially he said there is fluid behind there and he can't hear out of his right ear. He's waiting to see if the tube falls out or if he gets an infection. He said if he was a betting man Grant would have another ear infection soon. And when he does he will need new tubes put in and his adenoids taken out. Enlarged adenoids can keep causing the ear infections and it may also be why Grant's mouth is always open. So he will probably have the surgery by the end of the year. :-(

On a side note Reagan has been driving us crazy lately. She has been lying about everything. She bit Grant the other day and then screamed and cried because he bit her back. What is he suppose to do? Reagan also called Grant a "butt" today. It's funny that she thinks that is such a bad thing to call him and listening to Scott tell her not to call her brother names anymore cracked me up even more. I don't know where all her attitude is coming from or what the problem is. I know that she is tired from no naps at school and soccer so maybe after the season is over... either way it is gonna have to stop or mommy will be dropping the hammer on that little one!

Chattanooga

Chattanooga

We went to Chattanooga last weekend just for a quick get away. We had plans to go to the aquarium on Sunday before we left, but the rest was pretty open. On the way down there we kept seeing the signs for Rock City. It was a beautiful day and neither of us had been there before so we decided to take the kids there. This decision was made after Scott looked up what what Rock City actually was because neither of us knew that either. :-)

It was an amazing place to walk through. They said it was only 3/4 mile, but it took us almost 2 hours since there was so much to look at. Grant especially loved it because he got to run through the whole thing. Here are some pictures...

 This one cracks me up. They are goofballs. The one below was a very tight squeeze.

 This is them acting like dragons in a "cave" they found.

The rope bridge was Reagan's favorite thing there. She made the lady in front of us nervous because she kept jumping up and down on it.

 A beautiful view.

 Putting their heads in these things for pictures is one of their favorite things to do.

 The loves of my life!

 That evening we walked around down town. They found this dog statue and loved it.

 The next day we went to the aquarium.

 This is how close we were to the penguins. They were amazing.

 They all have names and can be identified by the tags on their flippers.

 I need a shark cage like this at home to lock them all up.

 Reagan said papaw needs a fish tank this big.

We had a great time and plan on making another trip back in the spring. It's nice that it's only a couple hours away.