Tonsils

Our family is now tonsil-less. A few weeks ago I took Jace in to see our ENT physician to take a look at his tonsils for several reasons: 1. He is a constant drooler (we thought he would outgrow it). 2. I am concerned with all his allergies and want as much space in his little throat as possible if he has an anaphylactic episode. 3. We've met his deductible for the year.

The doctor thought that they were large for his age and would need to come out within the next year or so anyway so we decided to just go ahead and get it done.

The morning of the surgery we got there at 6:45 a.m., way too early if you ask me... Jace was the first surgery of the day and they were waiting for us. They did such a great job and really try to put the kiddo at ease. After getting weighed they let him pick out a stuffed animal. Then we spoke to the surgical nurse, the anesthesiologist and finally our surgeon. Then the anesthesiologist came back to give him a "ride" in the wagon (off to surgery).

The surgery lasted all of about 20 minutes and then Dr. Barlow came and told me that Jace did well and they took out a lot of adenoid tissue and his tonsils looked like they had been chronically infected, don't know why our family is so prone to strep. And we didn't even know Jace had a sore throat, usually they say under 2 they don't get strep throat, instead they get ear infections. Anyhow, he has done pretty well since, likes to cuddle a lot (that's a change), but we have been struggling keeping the pain under control for him. Hopefully we're past the worst part and he'll just continue to get better.

Pause

The other night I was reading stories to Jace and Levi in the little one's room. Levi pointed at me and acted like he was using a remote control and said "Pause", ran to his room, came back and made a clicking motion again and said "Play". Obviously too much TV.

Black Island Farms

This past weekend we went to the Black Island Farms in Syracuse. We bought the combo pass that included the corn maze, courtyard activities, and hay ride. I got a ton of fun pics:

In the courtyard they had a big bounce house shaped like a pumpkin and slides made out of hay bales and PVC pipe. Some of the slides looked really big and I thought that they might be too big for the boys. Levi saw the really big slide and ran right up and slid down several times. Jace followed right behind (I went on the big slide with him but he did the rest on his own).



We just did the kiddie corn maze (I get lost way too easily in the big mazes, I've actually never found my way out of one, just follow others that figure it out).

They had some barrels painted like pigs and cows for the kids to ride in, I couldn't fit it them darn it.

The hay ride was a lot of fun. The kids got to pick out their own pumpkin and really liked riding behind the tractor.

Levi actually picked the smallest pumpkin for himself. Jace's pumpkin was bigger than he was.

Admiring their haul.

It was a fun family outing.

SuperHero Birthday Party

For the past week Levi has woken up everyday and asked "am I 4 now?" Each day I would tell him not yet and he sigh and lay back down to sleep and be a little ornery for awhile. Well Levi's birthday was Sept. 30th and that morning we went through this same routine but he asked with a super sad/defeated voice, when I told him that he was now 4, his eyes got really big and he shouted "Hoooooray!!!"
All he ever wants is to play "super hero". He couldn't decide on which superhero was his favorite so we just combined them all. We had a Superman cake,

Transformer pinata,

Batman for a sidekick,

and a very happy Superman.

We invited all the kids from Levi's primary class and a few neighborhood friends. Suprisingly all but 2 showed up (brothers who were sick that day). We had anywhere from 15-20 kids, I didn't really count, I know that I made 24 cupcakes and barring the 2 the boys had at lunch, I passed the rest out to the kids.

We rented a bounce house/slide which was probably a little over the top, but the kids had a blast. I ended up with a sinus infection that day and was pretty miserable but how do you tell a 4 year old that he can't have a party that he's been looking forward to for a month.

Thankfully we had already rented the bounce house and it was worth every penny to have them come set it up, take it down, and not have to try to entertain 15+ 4 year olds or run games for them. They could just play, play, play, stop for presents, play, stop for the pinata, play, have treats and go home.

Our boys played on the bounce house off and on all day long and we invited a couple cousins to come over early, I think we got our moneys worth. I think that we may do that again.