Visit from Grandma Q.

We were so glad that Grandma Q. could visit us for the week of Thanksgiving, and Ethan and Ryan absolutely loved playing with her! She probably needs a vacation from her vacation after running around with our two high-energy boys :) Thanks so much for coming to visit us!

Black Friday Deal on a Washer

I have been looking through ads for many months now searching for a deal on a front-loading washer. Our washer still functions well, but the lid and part of the basin started to rust a long time ago and whenever the lid is jostled or if I don't close it super gently, bits of rust fall into the basin and we find rust stains on our clothing. It has been very aggravating to continually find rust stains on clothes that otherwise are in excellent condition. I tried all sorts of methods I read online to remove rust stains, but none of them worked. I was excited to see a front-loading washer deal in Best Buy's Black Friday ad for a unit made by Samsung (which is highly rated). It also has the steam cleaning feature which appealled to me for trying to get out the many stains created by two little boys. There was a lot of discussion about this 50% off deal on slickdeals.net, and it sounded like there were very few units that could be sold per store. I wasn't sure if it would be worth getting up super early to wait outside in the cold. We drove past Best Buy last night and saw about 25 people camped out in tents and sleeping bags (which I definitely wasn't willing to do), but thinking of all of the frustrating rust stains made me decide it would be worth a try. I got to Best Buy at about 4:15am (it opened at 5am) and there were already at least 100 people ahead of me in line. When the store opened I made a beeline for the appliance register and was the second person to check out (the person in front of me also bought one of the washers). I asked if the salesperson would give me free delivery and she said yes, so that saved another $30 (it's always worth asking!) I was SO excited to get in on this deal! I later read that Best Buy had very little stock of these washers for Black Friday and that I was *extremely* fortunate to have been able to purchase one. So far we LOVE it and are thrilled to no longer worry about rust stains ruining our clothes. Is it sad that I am this excited about a washing machine?? ;)

Furnace Issues

When we arrived home from spending Thanksgiving Day at my parent's, the first thing that we noticed was how incredibly cold our house was. The furnace was circulating cold instead of warm air throughout our house. It had been acting a little quirky earlier in the week, so fortunately we had already scheduled a furnace check-up for Friday morning, so we layered on the clothing, turned a space heater on in Ryan's room, and awaited the furnace technician first thing in the morning. It's a long story, but we ended up having to pay a lot for the Trane store to be opened today so that the tech could get a part he needed to repair our furnace. After we paid for this expensive repair and the tech left our house, the furnace proceeded to continue to blow cold air (it hadn't actually been fixed). Dan figured out that if he switched the furnace off and then back on, it would run for a short time, so we spent the weekend switching it off and back on to keep the house heated until a tech could return on Monday. Two techs were at our house for 4 1/2 hours scouring our furnace, air returns, and ductwork trying to figure out the source of the problem, and the primary tech (who has 20 years of experience repairing furnaces) said that he had never encountered this particular issue and could not pinpoint the problem. He did find that the control board for the furnace had a burnout area, so he replaced that, but he thinks that was not the root cause of the problem and that the issue will recur, it's just a matter of when. We'll just have to wait and see what happens! We are very thankful though to have a warm house again, especially with this chilly weather.

CVS Thanksgiving Bargains

The Thanksgiving Day deals at CVS were not as abundant this year as last year, but were still worth getting up a little early for. Accounting for out of pocket cost and increase in total Extra Care Bucks, CVS essentially paid me $13.50 for these items: 5 Cokes, 1 Degree deodorant, 1 Schick Quattro Titanium shaver, 1 St. Ives body wash, 1 Vaseline Sheer Infusion lotion, 1 Herbal Essences shampoo, 1 Herbal Essences hairspray, 1 Twix, 1 Reeses, 1 Philips universal remote, 1 Philips earbuds, 1 Colgate toothbrush, 2 Bic Soleil razors (one with 4 extra replacement blades), and 1 Colgate toothpaste. I heart CVS! :)

Thanksgiving Day

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving Day shared with family and close friends at my parent's house. Mom, Dad, and Mike hosted our family, Grandma Q., my Aunt Joanne and Uncle Leonard, and our family friends Gene and Joyce for a delicious Thanksgiving meal. After lunch (during naptime) we enjoyed playing Tripoley and eating some yummy sweets. It was a fun, food-filled day!

Dan and Ryan

Joanne and Leonard brought Mike a hat and shirt of his favorite NASCAR driver, Jeff Gordon.

Ryan and Grandma Q.

Gene and Joyce

Joanne and Leonard

Dan and the boys (Ryan was almost asleep)

Mom and Ryan (mid-blink) ready for bed in his jammies

Thank you so much Mom for your hard work preparing the food and hosting us all!

Ethan's Thanksgiving Program

Ethan had a fun time celebrating Thanksgiving this year.

Here is a turkey craft that he made at preschool

Ethan participated in his first preschool program this morning. His teachers asked parents to bring in white t-shirts for the kids a couple of weeks ago. The kids dyed the shirts brown, stamped various shapes on them, made fringe on the bottom, and the teachers sent beads home with the kids for parents to help thread through the fringe. Ethan and I had fun picking which colors of beads to thread and tie on the bottom of his shirt. Here he is in full costume (headband with feather, necklace, and shirt).

Ethan's class singing during the program (Ethan is all the way on the left)

I think that Ethan had a lot of fun singing

A turkey is a funny bird, his head goes wobble, wobble, wobble.
All he knows is just one word, gobble, gobble, gobble.

I'm a little Indian on the go,

Here is my arrow, here is my bow,
When I go out hunting, hear me shout,
Bear and buffalo better watch out!

Ethan's class made cornbread before the program and ate the cornbread they had made, carrots, cheese, turkey, and popcorn as part of their Thanksgiving feast.

Mommy and Ethan

Grandma Q. and Grandpa G. with Ethan. Ethan was excited that Grandma, Grandpa, Daddy, Mommy, and baby Ryan were all able to attend his program.

Ryan slept through most of Ethan's program, but was wide awake and ready to hang out with Grandpa when we got home

Another Visit to the Doctor

Ryan has been a great sleeper since he was about 4 months old, and the last couple of nights he has been waking a few times. I suspected that he was either experiencing teething pain or had an ear infection. He has had 2 prior ear infections and I wanted him to be able to start on an antibiotic right away in case he did, indeed, have another one, so I took him to our pediatrician today. Thankfully he did not have an ear infection, and we chalked his nighttime waking up to a little congestion/cold or teething. Since we were already in the office, I requested to have Ryan weighed and also his hemoglobin checked (it has been nearly a month since it was first checked). Ryan weighed 17 pounds 3 ounces, and his hemoglobin was 9.5. He is still below the 5th percentile for weight, and his hemoglobin has not risen very much since it was initially checked at his 9 month visit. We already had an appointment scheduled for Dec. 1st to check his hemoglobin, so I will bring him back in to have it re-checked in a week.

Ryan's Bathtime

Since Ryan was in the NICU when he had his first real bath (I was not in the room, and Dan did not take any photos), I recently realized that we have absolutely no bathtime photos of Ryan. So, we remedied that this evening and took a few of him during his bath. He loves bathtime and enjoys playing with all of the toys that Ethan has amassed.

Ethan's Matching Playdate

One of Ethan's friends, Kaden, came over to play this morning, and his mom and I were cracking up when we saw that the boys were dressed in identical sweatshirts (completely unplanned, of course). Kaden shares Ethan's love of all things Thomas the Train, and the two of them had fun playing trains in the basement and doing Ethan's Thomas puzzle in their matching outfits ;)

Ryan's First Time Clapping His Hands

Today Ryan clapped his hands for the first time at my parent's house. Unfortunately I did not have my camera on-hand at the time to capture it on video. So, instead I'm posting a video clip of him clapping back dated from 12-24-09.

Weekend Retreat

Dan participated in a Christian retreat this weekend that he was sponsored to attend by our friend Doug. He really enjoyed his time there and felt rejuvenated and reconnected in his spiritual walk. As part of the retreat many friends and family members were ask to write letters of encouragement to Dan, and he wanted me to let everyone who wrote to him know how very much he appreciated your letters. Thank you!

Daddy Date Night Photo

Ethan's preschool teachers printed photos of each of the kids with their dads and mounted them in the frames that the kids and their dads created together on Daddy Date Night. His teachers handed them out to parents today, and I think that Ethan and Dan's turned out really well! A cute memento from that evening.

Belated Pumpkin Carving

In addition to decorating the pumpkin at the hospital, Ethan made a couple of cute Halloween crafts at preschool. We displayed his bat, pumpkin, and spider on our mantle.

This is the first year that we've carved pumpkins with Ethan. We had planned to do our carving on the 30th, but ended up postponing it after Ethan's hospitalization until we had a day with nice weather. Ethan was so excited to carve the pumpkins that we had picked out at the pumpkin patch.Ethan thought that scooping the seeds and goo out of the pumpkin was kind of yucky, but he jumped right in to help.Ethan held the trash bag so that Daddy could scoop the goo into itFor the smaller (Ryan's) pumpkin, Ethan told us what shapes to use for its facial features and how many teeth it should haveFor the larger (Ethan's) pumpkin, he selected a pattern from a book of pumpkin carving patterns that we had. He picked out a spooky house.The finished pumpkins!

A Live Theater Production for Kids

This morning we took the boys to a live theater production geared toward kids from preschool age to middle school. We saw Jack and the Beanstalk at a theater that is usually a dinner theater for long-running productions. The price of the show included a juice box and rice krispie treat for each person (Ethan loved that). We were not permitted to take photos during the show, so we just took a few before the show began. Dan and I thought that the play was a little scary for the younger kids in the audience (Ethan startled several times, but otherwise didn't seem phased). The giant's voice was really loud, and he and the giant's wife were pretty intimidating. We enjoyed the fact that the narration was sung, and the characters did several cute little dances. I think that Ethan really liked it, and we'll look forward to taking Ethan and Ryan to future (hopefully less scary) productions.

Ryan did pretty well sitting on Dan's lap during the show

Ryan Bounces in His Exersaucer on His Tippy Toes

Ryan loves his exersaucer/activity center. He can keep himself amused there for over a half hour at a time and enjoys the fact that he can bounce and explore the toys all around him at the same time. A funny observation that Dan and I have made is that Ryan always bounces on his toes (think en-pointe like ballet). Looks like it would hurt to me, but he bounces with his feet pointed and toes curled in. I tried to capture his bouncing method on this video, but it doesn't really show very well since you can't see his feet through the sleeper!

Ethan's Belated Halloween and Ryan Standing Up

Since Ethan missed out on trick-or-treating on Halloween, we asked a few friends if it would be alright to bring Ethan by their houses in costume for some belated trick-or-treating. Thank you to Kim, Jacob, Elizabeth, Doug, Chris, Brad, and Sam for letting us stop by and for sharing your candy! Ethan thought it was a lot of fun and didn't seem bothered at all not to have been able to participate in the "real" event.

Ethan with Jacob and Elizabeth

Posing as a lion with DaddyEthan (mid-blink) and his buddy Sam

Tonight Ryan started "practicing" standing up by holding onto one of our baby gates. He was so excited to be able to keep himself up in a standing position. This is the same baby gate where Ethan stood for the first time :)