It's been awhile...

Since we posted anything you may say. Well, everything has been going pretty smoothly around here. The potty training has been going amazingly with only a couple accidents. Sydney is reading like a banshee (which is a good thing). She's reading words I didn't realize she even knew. We have to be careful now and can't even spell things in front of her because she might figure them out!!

Tonight I've been busy preparing for Thanksgiving at our house tomorrow. It's become our holiday since 2003 when we moved in (to our house) and started hosting it. It's gotten a little bit easier each year as the kids grow up and can play on their own a little bit more. This year I didn't even crack open the recipe books until Tuesday. We usually end up with about 15-18 people including our family. It's not too bad as I'm only responsible for the turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry relish, pickles, olives & drinks. Shannon also is making an apple pie this year. Everyone else brings a couple of things so we end up with a ton of food!

Unfortunately tomorrow's group might be smaller as Shannon's Dad has been sick and his sister had back surgery and just got out of the hospital last weekend.

Hope all of our family and friends who read this have a great Holiday and weekend.

Underwear or "Uhwear"

Here is our big little girl at 28 months in underwear!
Last Monday morning the 11th of November Keira used the potty, went into Sydney's room, grabbed underpants from her dresser and announced that she was going to wear "uhwear" to school. I told her no twice and then gave in because she sounded so determined. Of course I brought a change of clothes and told her that if she had an accident she would have to put a pullup on. She's been wearing pullups since our summer vacation back in early May but pretty much treated them as diapers and never told us she had to "go." Well something changed on the 11th (maybe it was that election season was finally over) and there was no turning back. She has had only two accidents in the past 8-9 days and is doing great! It's really exciting but just proves that there is no point pushing a kid before they are ready.

Ice Skating

Sydney is taking skating lessons with the park and rec for six weeks. She has been having fun and I think she has been making good progress. She has been focusing on staying on her feet which is good but she hasn't really started skating yet; she mostly "ice walks." Carrie talked to her today about taking chances and falling down occasionally in order to really start skating. Here are a couple pictures of her class.

MS Society National Convention

As Carrie mentioned in her post, I was in Chicago last week for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society's 2008 National Conference. As team captain for the Capella Cruisers MS 150 bike team (http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/CapellaCruisers), I was invited to attend the Team Captains' Rally. The theme for the conference was "Be bold, be imaginative, be collaborative" and the event was truly motivational.

There were break-out sessions specifically designed for the team captains regarding recruitment, fund raising, and the total team experience. These sessions provided useful tools and thought-provoking ideas that will help our team in 2009. The inspirational part of the conference, though, came from the general sessions. The general sessions presented musicians, authors, scientists, and others who have stories to tell related to MS or along the theme of the conferences.

Jourdan Urbach - a protege who has been playing violin since he was less than three years old, an author, a research scientist, founder of Children Helping Children, and a gifted speaker, who advocates getting kids involved in volunteerism and philanthropy. Did I mention that he is only 17?

Malcolm Gladwell - author of "The Tipping Point" and "Blink." He related stories of being bold, using imagination, and collaborating with others to achieve success.

Dr. Stephen Hauser, MD - updated the attendees on the work being done to find genomes related to MS, all too detailed and technical for me to remember let alone write about here. Suffice it to say that they are getting close to finding the needles in the haystack and they hope to have individualized treatments by 2013.

Dr. Dora L Hughes - health science advisor for senator and now president-elect Obama. She developed MS while in medical school but went on to get her MD and Masters in Public Health. She promises that people with MS will have a friend in the White House.

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/news/news-detail/index.aspx?nid=485
http://www.nationalmssociety.org/news/news-detail/index.aspx?nid=486

Just me and the Girls

This week Shannon left early on Wednesday morning for Chicago for the Multiple Sclerosis National Convention and Team Captain's Rally. (I will ask him to blog about this in more detail when he gets a chance). What this meant for me is three days and nights of being the only parent home. I know... - doesn't come close to the stay-at-home Mom whose husband travels regularly or god-forbid the single parent. But it was different for us as Shannon does not travel much except for his annual MS 150 bike ride.

I must say we had a good time - what little time we spent at home that is. Wednesday night we picked up Wendy's with burgers and frosty's for the girls. Thursday night was swimming, eat at home and then go to workout at Lifetime. Friday night was eat out at Cane's Chicken Fingers in Apple Valley and shop at Burlington Coat Factory for a jacket, slippers and socks. We capped the night with a couple episodes of Dora the Explorer. Not a bad time I must say.

The Leaf Blower Incident

Last weekend had to be one of the most gorgeous November days in the past century! Last Saturday after Kim's shower wrapped up I finally made it outside to start on the task of picking up some of the leaves that we have been remiss about this year (most of the early leaf fall blew across the street to our neighbors yard of which we were jokingly reminded of when we ran into them in church a couple of weeks ago). I raked up a couple small piles and no sooner had I hooked up the leaf vacuum and began to suck up the first pile when I heard a horrible clunk followed by the sound of the small electric motor rising two octaves and vibrating the extension cord loose. I took the attachments off and upon seeing that nothing was stuck, I tried again with the same result. I did notice however that the impeller blades looked odd. Shannon later upon more thorough investigation noticed that one of the (hard) plastic blades had been sheared off! That was the end of that day.

I suggested that we must go to the Home Depot and buy a new one on Sunday so I could finish or rather start this job!! Those of you who don't know me well might think that it's strange for the wife to get excited about a leaf blower/vac. Well - as you can see we got the new and improved Ultra model by Toro for $69.99 a mere $10 more than our 5yr non-Ultra model. Improvements include snazzy red color, better cord control mechanism, more horsepower, and most importantly a METAL impeller. What a concept - something that sucks up large leaves, small sticks, acorns, and other debris might need something stronger than hard plastic... So there is a variety of reasons to get excited!

Sunday was beautiful, the new leaf blower is fantastic, and the garden got it's much needed layer of leaf mulch fertilizer for the year - Yeah!

Kim's baby shower

I threw a baby shower last Saturday for my sister Kim. My cousin Clare planned the games and prizes so I just had to worry about snacks, decorations and cleaning the house (by far the biggest task). It was a fairly small family deal with about 12 people total including Syd and Keira. Kim is having a baby girl and I'm getting excited about falling in love with a new precious baby that I can hold. I guess girls run in our family but that's ok because as my Mom says "Girls can do anything".
Her due date is the 13th of December so watch for future posts!