My boy turns 4....sigh

(With his booboo)

I really am sad to report my little Keaton turned 4 last week (he was not so sad). I can still remember when he was born like it was yesterday. I remember holding him scared of being his Mom (I still am a little scared to be his Mom....he deserves so much). Keaton has brought so much joy and laughter to our lives. He says the most funny things AND the most kind things. He is a kid that loves life. He loves to go and do (which works really well for us). Keaton is not afraid to try anything. He will jump right in and try it and keep at it until he has it down (especially with active things).

(Keaton "moving pipe" at Grandma Palmers)

Keaton has really excelled at swimming. He can swim the length of the pool at the rec center. That is really quite exceptional for a little guy like him. He starts lessons again today. I really want to encourage his swimming (genetics are against him for a healthy figure.....I need to help him where I can :). Keaton is a good eater (another reason the swimming is important :). He will try anything I put on his plate. He usually says "this is GOOOD". Then after a couple more bites he may say...."this is not so good". I am glad he goes in positive though :). He loves Kiwi, avocado, grapes, but his true love is SALSA! He puts it on EVERYTHING!

Keaton is such a good big brother. He loves that little Savannah more then I could have imagined. When I was pregnant I had the distinct impression that Savannah was so excited to come to Earth and be born to see Keaton (she also was excited to see Lee and I but mostly KEATON). I can see now it was a right on impression. These 2 have a special relationship. They love each other so much. He is such a good helper with her. I have to say this baby is so much easier having Keaton.

Keaton loves books! We love to cuddle in my bed (with Savannah who also loves books) and read and read. I have him pick out books and we always have a huge stack to get through. He likes to go to the library and pick out books so we can learn things. I never thought I would know so much about Sharks, Dolphins, Turtles, Jedi's, Star Wars ships, etc. I think he gets his great vocabulary from all the books.

Keaton is a tall kid. When we went to the Doctor this time he was 99% for height. The Doctor told him that means if she lined him up with all his friends he would be the tallest...she is right.

When Keaton was born he changed my life. He still is changing my life....it just gets better and better. Happy Birthday Keaton!

Halloween night!

Halloween night we make scones for the neighborhood in our front yard. We make a fire in a fire pit and invite everyone to take a break and eat a scone. They were a hit, ESPECIALLY with Keaton. You will also notice his root beer in his chair. Our neighbor a couple houses down passes out root beer. Keaton loves that MUCH more then the candy and can't wait to get back to drink it. He would rather hang out with Lee so we pretty much only went down our street and were done.
Here are all his pumpkins. We had gotten enough from Lee's Dad for all of Keaton's buddies for his party. We ended up not having enough time to decorate them and I forgot to have the kids take them home. We ended up with a whole collection!

Savannah supervised the cleaning of the pumpkins!

Lee Let Keaton do his own pumpkins only if he cleaned them out too.

Keaton with the power drill drilling holes in his pumpkin...yes we are totally bad parents :)

Savannah the Elephant. She was supposed to be Princess Leah but I ran out of time. I thought she was a cute Elephant.

My Jedi knight. I made the costume the night before...don't look too close.

How Savannah spent most of the trunk or treat...and Halloween night.

Song in her heart

On Sunday's I teach a group of about 50 kids songs of Christ as well as some fun and seasonal songs. I love it. I really like kids, and I like music...a perfect fit. The kids range from 3 to 12. Some are well behaved....some not so much. Some have good voices....some not so much. Some are from wealthy families...some not so much. Some can sit quietly and learn...some not so much. Regardless, I really love them all. Lately my favorite thing to do is to watch the littlest kids. Many times they can not sit still. Many times they don't remember the words. My favorite to watch is Charlotte though. Charlotte is a beautiful girl. She is always happy, and LOVES to sing. Can I tell you though... she doesn't know many of the words. That doesn't matter. Charlotte sings loud and strong. You can tell she feels it in her heart. I feel the spirit of Christ when Charlotte sings. I KNOW he loves her, I know he loves me through her. Does that make sense? I can see that we don't have to "know all the words". I believe Christ loves our intent, our passion. I think so many times we don't try since we can't do it just right. Why do we do that? I think for awhile I am going to try to care a little less about knowing the words and more about singing the songs in my heart....see how that goes :)

Short term memory

With the whole recession I have found a lot of comfort lately in learning how to make as much as I can myself. It gives me comfort that if I needed to we could survive fairly well on my food storage. This week I am trying yogurt from scratch. I consulted with my friend Tiffany since I have gathered it is a pretty tricky process. Tiffany gave me some great tips. The best tip was on how to keep the temperature at 100 degrees while it "cures". She said that she found it best to put it in her oven and turn it on to 350 or whatever and let it pre-heat for exactly a minute then turn it off, she then repeated every hour. She commented that when she did this she had to set her timer since with her 4 kids her attention span sometimes isn't that long :) I smiled and decided I would do the same....just in case. Oh, how excited I was as I watched the yogurt thicken each hour. I carefully followed Tiffany's direction and was excited about the yogurt we were going to have for breakfast with my homemade granola. I would slice some kiwi's and mango's with it...yum. I followed the process for 7 hours it was looking almost perfect. I thought one more hour and I would have perfected it on my first try....sigh.....you know how this turns out. I turned the oven back on, set the timer and finished dinner. The timer went off. I thought....hmm....what was that timer for? I figured I had set it to motivate Keaton somehow. I set off to find Keaton. Of course he was into something so I got totally distracted. An hour later I remembered my yogurt.... boiling.... dead. SO I figure I will try it again sometime. This time I guess I will have to set the timer 2x for 30 seconds each :)

Savannah was not excited to "try" the yogurt :)

Misc pictures

This is the Vanna we see most of the time. Little tongue sticking out. What a doll, eh?
Look at those cheeks. I LOVE kissing on them!

My wonderful Aunt Lynn got the kids these cute outfits when we went to see her last month. Keaton LOVES how cool they are in their matching Halloween gear.

Vanna's not quite up to posing all the time :) Thank you for your well wishes. She is sleeping much better. My Doctor also found a level way off that helped me too. We are doing MUCH better!

And the winner is....

AMARA! Yes, ladies after all your thoughts and well wishes Amara (my bigger much older wiser sister) wins with EAR INFECTION! Apparently Savannah was not completely over the whole reflux thing and it has been festering causing her to sleep less and less. After the Doctor gave her 2 prescriptions for the ears (one is for numbing drops, did you even know that existed?), and 2 prescriptions for severe acid reflux my sweet girl has slept for 3 of the last 4 hours. Here is HOPING for finally a good nights sleep!

HELP!!!!

I am seriously going crazy. I need some help. Please be nice. The issue is sleep....isn't it always with my kids? Keaton is almost 4 and still doesn't sleep through the night. Savannah has been our miracle sleeper though. At 2 weeks she slept through the night and up until 6 mos mostly slept through the night with maybe one wake up here or there. Can I tell you how wonderful that has been? Can I tell you the difference it makes in your life to have a baby that sleeps....especially when you are not a necessarily "young" mother? For Keatons whole first year he woke up 7 times a night (yes 7 not a typo). I was working 45 hours a week and was happy I could spend those nights with him. When I really got too tired he was a cuddly kid and we could sleep for quite a while in the recliner. Savannah has never been a cuddler. She cannot sleep well when someone is holding her. Luckily it has been fine since she sleeps. We are going on almost a month though where she has not been a good sleeper. For the first week she woke once or twice a night. Not too bad....a little annoying but not bad. The next week she woke every couple hours. I tried everything. No luck. The next week every hour, and this last week EVERY. HALF. HOUR. Last week we ended up in urgent care over the whole thing. They thought she was congested and couldn't sleep. They said to put her down in her car seat and give her benadryl and she would be fine. It worked for one night. Last night was the worse. Every TEN minutes. You think I am kidding. She wakes up SCREAMING. It takes me about 10 minutes to calm her down. She may be teething but Motrin, Tylenol, nor teething tablets make a difference. She may have gas but Gripe water, mylicon, nor Malox work. She certainly may have allergies but she doesn't seem congested and Benadryl isn't working. Please don't suggest she "cry it out". When she gets upset she swallows so much air it puts her in pain for hours. I do wait to get her until I am sure she cannot go back to sleep. As for me.... I may "cry it out". Any ideas?