School Halloween Party

Mason had his Halloween party, or whatever they call it to not offend anyone, at school on Friday. Both the boys decided to be Knights for Halloween this year...or at least for this Halloween Party.

They had lots of yummy snacks.

Family got to have some snack too.

Everywhere Mason went in his classroom, Cooper had to follow like a lost puppy dog.
They wrapped some kids up like mummies. Mason's group mummy is the girls 2nd from the right.

Here is most of Mason's class, he and some other kids are hidden behind the parent on the right side of the picture.

Baby check up

I had another ultrasound today to check on the growth of Shiloh. Her growth caught up a little bit from where it was two months ago, but she is still small, in the 37th percentile. The fluid levels look good, as does my placenta. With everything looking good, except her being small, my Doctor doesn't see any reason to induce me early. BUT lucky for me, I get to have another ultrasound next week AND a non-stress test. What the heck is a non-stress test? Anyone ever had one? What does the test include?

Here is a picture from the ultrasound:

Shiloh's nose looks just like Coopers, she has chubby cheeks, just like Cooper did, and we got to see her hair.

Other stats from today:

Gained 3 more pounds for a total of 19 pounds gained.

Shiloh's heart rate was 130bpm

I was also "examined" today, if you know what I mean. I am 70% effaced and dilated 1.5cm. (Sorry if you didn't want to know that little tid bit of info, I have to write it down somewhere before I foget, and since I'm still working on the first year of Cooper's scrapbook, it looks like it will be awhile before I get going on Shiloh's.)

I am 36 weks 0 days pregnant.

Baby Shower

This morning was my baby shower for Shiloh. Three of my sisters took care of the shower. First THANK YOU to them for doing all they did. Somehow, I lucked out with a really great sister-in-law, Melissa....I mean Michelle (sorry inside joke (kinda)). She is SO creative and crafty. She handled all the decorations and food for the shower. She is also the one who helped me decorate our house, in less than a week when we moved in. DeAnne took care of the games. Rachel coordinated a group gift (a dresser), which we will be able to get, so stay tuned for pictures of that. The theme of the shower was Lil Pumpkin.

This sign says Lil Pumpkin

First we played a game of pass the bottle. You pass three bottles around the room until the music stops, when it does, you are to drink the juice as fast as you can. Somehow...I got stuck with one of the bottles at the end. You wouldn't believe how tough it is to suck on a bottle, and how much your tongue will start to hurt.

Jeff's cousin, Jennifer got stuck with another.

And my sister Julia also got stuck with one, but she CHEATED, she opened the bottle and drank it form there.

The food display was awesome! Again, Michelle is so creative and did a great job!

We had fresh fruit, bagels with cream cheese, mini cinnamon rolls, doughnut holes, bunt cakes that looked like pumpkins, juice and milk. Yummy, yummy, yummy.

Then there were the guests.

Corrine, Evan, and Jessica

Jennifer, Antje, and Robin

Jeff's grandma Long

Teresa (Jeff's mom), me, and Renee

Jana, Jacque, and Julia (the cheater :) )

Kimberlee (with my sister Rachel's baby Hannah) and Heather

Tambi and Dana

Hannah sleeping

Then it was present time.

Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated with us! There were way more who came, but must have escaped the camera. Thank you to my sisters for throwing it all together.

Sleepy boy

This was just too cute to not take a picture and post.

Pumpkin Patch Field Trip

Today was Cooper's field trip to the pumpkin patch. Jeff went with him today while I stayed home and got a few more things done on my "to do" list (I think I'm in the nesting phase, maybe that will mean I will go into labor a week or two early....a girl can hope can't she?)

My little preschooler ready to get going on all the activities!

Jeff and Cooper ready to go on their tractor ride through the apple orchard.

Everyone got to pick an apple from a tree. Cooper with his cousin, Zachary. Cooper has his and Jeff's apple.

Eating his apple while they learned how to make apple butter and got to have a sample.

At the end of the field trip, eating a pumpkin cookie that Miss Jolinda brought for the class. Yummy. I remember these from last year's field trip with Mason, they are so good! I need the recipe. Hint. Hint.

Cooper with his preschool class.

Just before leaving, Cooper got to pick a pumpkin to take home.

Carving Pumpkins 2010

Monday night for FHE Mason and Cooper (cough...Jeff and I...couch) carved their pumpkins. Can I just say that I could care less if I never carve another pumpkin in my life?! I really don't see the point. We grew our own pumpkins this year. We ended up with six, one of which never turned orange. Weird.

Mason with his pumpkin, excited to "carve".

Cooper with his pumpkin....scared? or excited? to get carving.

Here are the other four pumpkins we grew. Jeff and I were going to carve the other pumpkins at a different time, but I don't think either of us will "get around to it".

Cooper was brave enough to stick his hand in and get the guts.

Cooper's finished pumpkin. He wanted Wow Wow Wubsy. Yeah....I carved his for him. I'm not very good at being patient and making precise cuts, so some parts that were suppose to be attached, came off. Oh well. I don't think Cooper cared.

Mason's finished pumpkin, Swipper the Fox from Dora the Explorer. As you can see, Jeff was way more patient than I was.

Ready or not...

OR. NOT. is what I am thinking when it comes to raising a GIRL! Jeff and I had my nieces this last weekend. When people tell me that girls are different to raise because they are more dramatic than boys, I have always thought the dramatic part wouldn't kick in until the teen years.....so I'd have plenty of time to get ready for the drama. Yeah. Right. Try maybe a few years. There were more tears shed in our house this last weekend than I think there have been all year. Tears....over....nothing. Tears out of a girl when something didn't go the way she wanted it to go. Like, one day I said, if you eat a good amount of your dinner, you can have a cookie. Well dinner wasn't eaten. Then when the cookies were brought out, so did the tears. I am used to pouting, or stomping off, or "that's not fair", when something doesn't go my boys' way. I like to boy "drama" much better. Don't get me wrong, I love my nieces. But oh the drama and the tears! I am so not ready to deal with that!

Then there is the hair. With Mason and Cooper, if their hair is getting unruly, time to shave it off. With a girl, you actually have to brush it. What? I don't like that. Then the washing of hair. With the boys, I just put some shampoo in their hair, scratch their head a bit and the shampoo becomes well incorporated. With a girl it's a lot more work. Then there's the rinsing. With a boy, dunk a few cup fulls of water over their head and wallah shampoo is gone. A girl? You actually have to do a through job. I thought I did with my niece, but while brushing her hair some soap suds came out. ooops. AND the whole time I was brushing out her hair, all I could think was I hope I'm not hurting her. She never complained, so I guess not.

Anywho, I....am....so....not....ready....for.....a.....girl....!

Score!

Last week Albertsons was having a big sale! For every $25 you spent on participating items (there were like 45 different items) you got $10 back on your next shopping order. Usually the $25 is calculated on the sale price, but this time it was on the regular price. So this made it an even BIGGER sale.

So what did I get?
130 cans of Healthy Choice soup
25 boxes of Swiss Miss cocoa mix
33 Hunts pudding packs
25 cans of ravioli
24 cake mixes
18 brownie mixes
17 can of frostings
13 cans of refried beans
12 boxes of popcorn
9 packages of sausage
8 bottles of oil
7 5lb bags of flour
7 mustards
6 boxes of crunch n much
5 jars of jelly
5 12 double rolls of toilet paper
3 8 roll paper towels
1 peanut butter

So what did I pay for all this?
$47.68

What did I save?
$867.83

I did all this in about 35 transactions with NO coupons! I could have saved a little more if I had done a few of my transactions with different combinations of items. The soup was a money maker, so most of my transactions had soup in them, but I really didn't want anymore soup, so I did a few transactions without soup and paid a little more for each item.

Baby check up

Here are the stats from today's visit:

I am measuring small still: 31 cm, should be 33 cm.

Shiloh's heart rate was 148.

I gained 3 more pounds. A total of 13 pounds.

I have an ultrasound in two weeks to check on Shiloh's growth.

I am 33 weeks 2 days pregnant.

Burn Baby! Burn!

Yesterday the city fire department held a live demonstration on the effects of a house fire. They compared the difference in damage between a house with a sprinkler system and one without. They also wanted to show the difference between hose water damage and sprinkler damage to put out a fire. We typically flow between 150-200 gallons a minute out the tip of the nozzle of the hose, the sprinkler system is significantly less.

They constructed two mock living rooms with similar furnishings in them.

First they set a trash can on fire in the room without a sprinkler system.

This image is the room without sprinkler system, 1 minute into burn. This is called a flashover. As the fire grows the smoke and heat layer become more dense, they eventually will move down in the room to the level of the combustibles. The surface of the combustibles will heat up and release gas which super-heats. The point at which the gases, the combustibles and the particles in the smoke combust is called a flashover. Flashover generally starts at about 1000 degrees. This fire went from 800 degrees before the flashover to about 1600 degrees at its height before being knocked down by the water from a fire hose. Anyone caught in a flash over including us firefighters has a very poor chance of survival.

They then ignited the room with the sprinkler system. The temperature in the room reached just beyond 100 degrees before the sprinkler kicked in and knocked the fire down.

The two rooms side by side.

The boys checking out the burned up room.

Brennen Frank, Mason and Cooper all get a close up look of the destruction.

The burned up furniture.

We were lucky enough to know the engineer from engine 1, Russ Butters, he let the boys sit in the engine and take pictures. Here is Coop.

Mason, driving engine 1.

Even being in the fire department I was still amazed at the effectiveness of a fire sprinkler system. The amount of damage was greatly reduced. Crystyne and I are seriously contemplating installing a system when we can save up the money for it. It would be well worth the money, about $1.50/per square foot. So someone with a 2400 square foot home can a sprinkler system installed for $3,600. The city also was handing out literature on the difference between ionization smoke detectors and photo-electric smoke detectors. We finished the day, with treats provided by the red cross.

Preschool field trip

Last week Cooper got to go on a field trip to the Fire Station. It probably wasn't nearly as exciting for him as it was for some of the other kids. He was probably thing, yeah I get to go to the fire station any time I want, cuz my Dad's a Firefighter.

The Firefighters taught them Stop, Drop, and Roll.

Cooper sitting in Engine 91

Cooper's preschool class. He actually only attends with 4 of these kids because he only goes to the Music and Motion class on Wednesday. Most of the kids go Tuesday and Thursday. Cooper is 3rd from the left. Look what I caught him doing. Shock!

Happenings

While Mason is in Kindergarten in the morning, Cooper gets some good one on one time. It's been really nice to be able to spend time with just one child and I am soaking it up while it lasts for this short time.

One day Cooper got some Ritz crackers out and stacked them up. He was so proud of himself and how many he was able to stack.

Then another day, I was cleaning a spot off a cupboard. He then wanted to clean all the cupboards. He cleaned most all of the bottom cupboards. He's such a great helper.

So looking at these pictures makes me sad. My little baby is not a baby anymore. I don't know when or how it happened, but all of a sudden he has become a big guy.