SATURDAY is here

Happy weekend! Gosh I cannot believe that I have not posted since Monday. Where does the time go to? We had a pretty busy week. As I mentioned in my last post we took Carter to have his hearing tested on Monday in Algona and he passed. That is good that we know he can hear. I guess he just has "selective hearing". It must be a guy thing. Adam has that sometimes too. Especially when a sporting event is on TV. On Tuesday Adam had an appointment in Fort Dodge to see a dermatologist. He has really bad eczema on his hands and cannot seem to be able to get it to heal. The tips of his fingers have been raw and keep cracking open. Hopefully the meds that he got will help clear it up. On Wednesday Kinnick's teacher came over and worked with him. Adam took Carter over to Algona for lunch so that I could focus my attention on Kinnick. That was really nice! On Thursday I went with my mom and dad to Emmetsburg where my mom had her gallbladder taken out. Adam stayed home with the boys until I got back to the house around 4 pm so he could go coach Maddie's basketball team. Yesterday was pretty uneventful. I had a bad headache most of the day so I did not get alot done. This morning I am sitting here with the elderly man that I do typing for and he is proof reading something I typed for him. He has been here for an hour now. Carter is upstairs in his crib for timeout. Maddie is playing a video game. Kinnick is in his high chair and he is writing on a piece of paper. He loves to write! We only let him have pens because he eats crayons and also pencil erasers. Adam loaded the dishwasher for me and is also putting together a ceiling fan. What fun! He and Maddie will be leaving shortly to head to Algona for Maddie's basketball game. We do not have much else going on this weekend. Just get stuff done around the house. Hope that you all have a great weekend! Love, Steph

new week

Good morning. Thought I would take a minute this morning to post before the boys wake up. Maddie is off to school and Adam is outside moving snow. We got some nice pretty snow over the weekend. The kids played outside in it yesterday afternoon for a little bit after we got home from getting groceries in Algona.

Today Carter is having his hearing tested over in algona because we are concerned that he does not hear correctly. He is always saying huh??? what did you say??? And he is very sensitive to loud noises. Will have to see what we find out. His appointment is at 10:30.

If you read the post I did on Saturday night you will see that the kids like to play with play-doh. Carter liked it so much that he ate some. Maddie saw him do it but did not tell us about it. When we got the play-doh cleaned up we had pizza for supper. Carter told me that he wanted to take a bath because his tummy hurt. Adam told him that it would be okay and that he just needed to go to bed. I was not so sure about that, so I let Adam get him ready for bed and take him upstairs. Without any warning Carter vomited all over Adam and the carpet upstairs. FUNNY. Call it mothers intuition. Lesson learned: supervise Carter when he plays with play-doh to make sure he does not eat it.

Okay, well I should go switch some laundry and get something productive done this morning. Have a good week!

Saturday night

Check out all of the play-doh on the floor!

Puppy wants to know why he can't come into the kitchen too

Maddie jammin on her guitar while playing guitar hero on PS2

This play-doh is FUN!

PLAY-DOH IS BORING STUFF, THEY WON'T LET ME HAVE ANY OF IT!

It is Saturday night and we are playing with Play-Doh! WOOOOHOOOO! I am sure that you are all jealous. Carter is facinated by the barbershop and keeps cutting the play-doh hair. Kinnick is just sitting in his high chair watching all of the fun. I think we are going to put them to bed before too much longer. Carter has not napped today and Kinnick did not nap long enough. Plus, the puppy wants in the kitchen but we have the gate up so he cannot come in for fear that he will eat all the play-doh on the floor.

Maddie had her first basketball game at the YMCA this morning. Adam helps coach her team so he took her over and I stayed home with the boys. She said that did made some baskets for her team so she was pretty excited about that. Great Grandma Bev and Great Grandpa Gib also came to watch her play and she was really happy they were there to watch.

Not much else happening here. For those of you who do not know, we have decided to take Kinnick to Iowa City for a full evaluation so that we can get an official diagnosis for whatever is going on with him. He will be 2 on March 25th and he still does not talk. From what we understand Iowa City is the best place we can take him for this type of evaluation. We will keep you all posted as we learn more. Our appointment is February 19th.

Have a great rest of the weekend everyone! Love, Steph

HAPPY 9th BIRTHDAY TO MADDIE!

Today is Maddie's 9th birthday and I just find that so hard to believe. Where does the time go? She is really growing up fast. She has reached the age where she is VERY concerned about what others think of her. Trying to make plans for her birthday was a challenge. She decided that she did not want to have a birthday party at our house. She told me that she did not want me to bake her a cake either. I asked her if we could go out for supper tonight and she was okay with that. I got her to agree that Grandpa and Grandma could join us. We bought her a small cake at Hy-Vee and will take it with us for supper. I will put candles and matches in my purse just in case she lets me do that part. I doubt that she will let us sing Happy Birthday to her. This morning she had a 2 hour late start at school due to the snow we received. She was pretty happy that school was not cancelled. She wanted to be with her friends. And speaking of friends, planning her party with friends was not an easy task either. Another girl whose birthday is the same day as Maddie's wanted to do a pool party at the AmericInn and split the cost. We asked Maddie about it and she had other ideas in mind. She wanted to do a party and invite only boys. I told her that we could not do that but suggested that maybe we could invite the 19 students that are in her classroom so that there would be both boys and girls there. She was okay with that idea. We decided to check into what the YMCA offered for birthday parties and ended up deciding that she would have her party at the YMCA and the theme of the party would be basketball. Even though the weather was really crappy yesterday she had 16 of the 19 kids in her class come to her party. The YMCA took care of everything for us. They got cupcakes, punch, plates, napkins, decorations, goody bags, and most important they entertained and played games with the kids for 2 hours. They did all of the set up and the clean up. All we had to do was show up! They split up in teams for basketball and it was boys versus girls. The boys wanted Maddie on their team and of course she thought that was GREAT! When it was time to open gifts and have treats they boys all wanted to sit next to her. She started opening her gifts and she got to one that she did not want to take out of the bag and show it to us. She finally took it out and it was a Strawberry Shortcake duffle bag. She said "I won't use this". I was so embarrassed and wanted to crawl under the table and hide. If you know Maddie that is the last thing she would want. On the way home from the party she told us that she did not want the boys thinking that she was a "girly girl". She was going to apologize to her friend at school today. CRAZY STUFF! Other than birthday excitement there is not much new here. Have a super week everyone!

Looks like we might escape the nasty snow storm

Hello and hope you are all having a great weekend. It looks like the weather they had predicted for us will most likely stay away. YEAH! Adam, Maddie, Wrigley and I are sitting here watching Las Vegas. Pretty exciting Friday night??? Typical for us old farts I guess. Today was a pretty boring day. There was a service tech here from Direct TV from 1 pm until almost 5 pm. He was here to fix what the last tech messed up a month ago. Carter fell asleep at 5:30 and Kinnick went to bed about 7:30. The house has been pretty quiet tonight. It's almost 10 and I am more than ready for bed. Have a good weekend! Steph

Puppy lost a tooth

Well, today was pretty exciting for me. I was playing tug of war with our puppy this afternoon and I noticed his mouth bleeding and then I saw a tooth on my kitchen floor. I felt so bad. Adam was not answering his cell phone and I was freaking out because the bleeding did not seem to stop. I am sure it was not really that long, but I was worried and was not sure what to do. I made a phone call to someone else who knows about puppies and she told me that it was probably okay. Turned out she was right! The bleeding stopped and Wrigley seemed just fine. Wow, what excitement! When Maddie got home from school I showed the tooth to her and she thought it was cool. Carter looked at it when he got up from his nap and he was not so sure what to think about it.

Not much else new happening here. Sounds like we could be in for some snow this weekend. Adam said possibly up to 12 inches. Holy cow! I guess I will get groceries tomorrow, just in case!

I need to go and change a load of laundry now so this is going to be a short post. Love, Steph

SOME GOOD NEWS TO BRAG ABOUT!

Hello and Happy Monday! I am so excited to share this news with you. I have been waiting to tell all of you and have decided that now is the time. Christmas and New Year's was so hectic that I barely found time to type anything on my BLOG. No, I am not pregnant, so if that is what you are thinking stop it right now. This news is about Maddie and how proud we are of her. In October Maddie was given the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills. (Gosh, I remember taking those tests when I was in school and how much I hated it, especially the math!) We received the score interpretations for Maddie in the mail and we wanted to share with all of you how she did. Each student is given a "core total score" which is used to describe a student's overall achievement on the tests. Maddie got a core total score of 4.4 on the test. This means that her test performance was approximately the same as that of a typical student in the 4th grade at the end of the 4th month of classes. Maddie's core total national percentile rank was 86%. This means that she scored higher than 86% of 3rd grade students nationally. Her overall achievement appears to be above average for 3rd grade. The test results also help determine strengths and weaknesses so that we know where she may need additional help. Finally, Maddie scored at or above the national 95th percentile on 4 tests and that means that she qualifies for the BESTS program at the University of Iowa. Of course these courses are held in either Des Moines or Iowa City and they cost money. I guess it is neat to know that she could enroll in something like that if it worked out. Needless to say, we are proud of her!!!!!!

Saturday night

Kinnick checking out the piano that Carter got from the Johnson's

Kinnick & Santa at the Simonson Christmas - not sure what to think???

Carter was more than happy to get his gift from Santa!

And so was Maddie!

Maddie and Kinnick being GOOFBALLS!

Here it is Saturday night and Adam and I are just watching some episodes of Las Vegas that we TiVo'd and have not had the time to watch. Carter and Kinnick went to bed at about 9 pm and Maddie is still up, playing a video game in the toy room. Wrigley is trying to get comfy in Maddie's bean bag chair here in the living room and he keeps looking at me wondering if it is okay or not. I should go get the camera and take a picture of him but I am too lazy. I spent most of the day sleeping because I woke up with a migraine today. It is still not gone, but it is duller than it was earlier. Maddie started back to school on Wednesday after Christmas break. She was ready to get back to school and see her friends. The only part she doesn't like is going to bed early. This morning she went to a meeting at the YMCA to get information about girls basketball. Adam is going to be one of the coaches so he took her over to the meeting. I will know more this coming week about game times. Not much else is new with us. I will try and put a few pictures on if the BLOG will let me.