Autumns Play Date

The other day I got to watch my nephew for a few hours and we had a lot of fun. Autumn loves her cousin. I watched him twice a week for a few months and even though I was super pregnant at the time I always looked forward to it and Autumn loved playing with him so often. So what a treat it was on Mon. to have him all to ourselves for awhile.
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First thing we did was go to the park. Drew manned the double stroller with Autumn and her cousin in it and I had the single stroller with Weston. We walked to a park about a 1/2 mile away and it was so much fun! Autumn really enjoyed playing there with her cousin. And he is quite the daredevil. Taking both Drew and I by surprise! He was very photogenic. I didn't even have to touch any of these up. I got a bunch of great pics of him.

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First up the swings:

He liked it! I didn't know what to expect because last time I saw him in a swing he didn't show much like or dislike. My little man!I tried to get a group shot. Autumn wasn't into it. She wanted to play on playground equipment.Future Rock Climber??Now the equipment. He was so busy and all over the place.Autumn always right behind to watch and see what he is doing.Taking on the big slide in the over 5 area!Parker wanted to go also. Don't worry. Drew is right behind him.He loved it! He went down several times. Once by himself! Otherwise Drew or I were holding his arm as he went down.

Afterwards we came home and while I was making their lunch they watched TinkerBell in Autumns room. For lunch, fish sticks and bananas.

Here is my favorite picture of the day. Christy you are going to love this! Staci used to make faces like this when she was a kid.

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Playground with Autumn

Before this weekend the weather was actually really nice. We were able to go for long walks and take Autumn to a newly remodeled playground. The playground is in a neighborhood just behind us. It has some really nice covered equipment now. She loves the slide, and the area designated for children under 5. Every time we leave I have to drag her away kicking and screaming. My big girl taking on the slide all by herself!Here is Weston just hanging out in the stroller, fully entertained by his sister. (Check out those two teeth!)

Weston's 7 month pictures.

We hired a photographer to take Autumns 2 year pictures, Autumn was really hard to get good pictures of. So our photographer agreed to do another session to make it up to us. Autumn had pink eye the weekend of the photos so we just did them of Weston. Which made the photo session ten times easier.
Check out the rest of the pictures HERE, I am really happy with them. Even the ones where he is talking and crying! It shows all sides to his personality, even though he rarely cries like that. He was hungry and mad that I woke him up from his nap to take pictures. Thank you Becca!

Playing In The Rain

I had gotten Weston ready for bed yesterday and was just about to do the same for Autumn when I heard the rain outside. The monsoon season is here but they have been calling it the "non-soon" because of the lack of rain we have recieved this year. Since Autumn rarely gets to play outside because of the triple digits I figured while we were waiting for Drew to get home from work she should get to play in it. She liked it, you can't tell though. She was upset because she wanted to strip her clothes off, but since we were out where people could see her it wasn't appropriate. Which when Autumn doesn't get her way even if she is enjoying herself, she won't show it. :)We have this Welcome bear on our porch. She always says hi and bye to it when we come and go from our place.Here we were when she had finished playing and we were waiting for Drew to show up, watching and smelling the rain.

Busy Busy

I don't update my blog like I used to. I feel so busy! I update my savings blog twice a day, am checking my email constantly to see if my realtor has sent me more housing listings, go out looking with my realtor every other day, and then there is Weston. It's not enough that he was crawling at 5 1/2 months. That's enough to keep a mom busy, but now he pulls himself up on everything. Is that normal for a 7 month old? It's the cutest thing when he gets to his feet, he starts laughing. Like it's this big feat he has conquered. My sister commented to me on how busy my kids are, and asked why I had such busy kids. When I go to friends houses their kids seem just as busy as Autumn and Weston. So to me, my kids are normal. Busy, yes. But for me it's fun that way and if I were to have a kid who acted any different it would be strange to me.

Here are some pictures to explain Weston's busyness. They are all taken with cell phones.

Autumn was watching a movie in her room, thought it would be fun to sit in the laundry basket and Weston climbs up to get her.

My sister watched my kids for a me and she sent me this picture. Weston was sitting in the recliner and he climbed over the arm of the chair to the top of her coffee table.This was just yesterday. I was sitting on the couch and then I see these eyes peering over the coffee table. It was hilarious.He climbs on chairs, bookshelves, anything that he can get his little hands on that will support him. Just one day he started pulling him self up on the book shelf and now he does it all day long. I have to keep a watchful eye on this one!

I was doing a work out video while Weston played around me and I hear him laughing, I look behind me and here he was- in his toy bin:

My little mover. Yes, I realize his onesie is not buttoned, it's brand new, I took off the tags this morning and when I put it on him it wouldn't snap. He jumped from 3/6 month clothes to 6/9 month clothes over night. Now I have a ton of 6 month clothes (like this one) that are new and don't fit.

And he has outgrown his car seat. His head reaches top of it and his feet hang out of it. He is constantly kicking the backseat. So now when I go shopping with him he gets to ride up front!

He held on the whole time like he was on a roller coaster or something. I love this little man. Even though he is busy he is 10 times easier than Autumn ever was. I take him for a walk every morning and he just sits there looking around. Autumn would've needed snacks, toys, drinks, etc... She is my high maintanence child. Weston is a wonderful addition to our family. Busyness and all!

7 Days Left!

Until we know the fate of Drew's student loans. We are excited, and slightly nervous about the verdict that is supposed to be given to students who have loans through Student Loan Express for Silver State Helicopters Aug. 31st. We have waited a year and half to know if we have to pay them back for an education Drew never got, or if students will be forgiven of the loans. (Which Citi-Bank has forgiven all the students of Silver State of their loans which sets the bar high for SLX).
Should we be forgiven we can actually move forward with our life. We built a house close to Drews aviation school, and when the school filed bankruptcy we backed out of our home. Since then we have known it would be hard for us to qualify for much with a pending $70,000 loan on Drews credit. Pending is not good.
So what have Drew and I been doing since finding out Aug. 31st is the supposed deadline? Ignoring the nagging idea that we may actually have to pay back these loans for an education Drew never got, and we are also looking at houses. We drove around today looking at some. Should SLX say all students are forgiven you better bet we will be looking for a larger space. That we can own. But there is still that possibility that everything goes bad and SLX can't take the cuts and has their students repay them. In which we will be stuck.
We have been following a blog, of a lawyer who represents many SLX students, which is how we found out about Aug. 31st. HERE
Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Autumns growing up!

Autumn is still doing very well with her breathing treatments. She now only has to do one a day (before bedtime). The treatment is a steriod to help keep her airways open (it would be the same as an older kid using an inhaler once a day). This should hopefully prevent any future attacks. And it's something we have to do everyday through winter, and then next spring we will see what steps we need to take.We got rid of all her stuffed animals. And any fluffy toys. Since that was the majority of her toys I went garage sale shopping and bought Autumn and Weston some new toys. It was like Christmas for them. Autumn has really loved all her new plastic and/or wooden toys. Especially this train, she played with it for 3 hours Sunday night. It's voice activated and talks back and plays music. You can press a button and it will stop at certain stations on the track. When it goes through the tunnel it's voice sounds echoed. It's a very cute toy. What I LOVE most is I paid $6 for it! This is what her shelves looked like before I had to get rid of any and all stuffed toys in her room:Many of these toys she has never played with and have been used as decor in her room. All of the carebears are being donated because her room is slowly being taken over by princess stuff. Most stuff is in boxes, in case she does out grow this (which the dr. said when she is 4 we may get to atleast have stuffed toys in like Weston's room, but as long as she doesn't play with them or have them in her room) so the Elmo's, frogs, and Pooh/Tiggers are all packed in case Weston can one day play with them. I won't hold on to those toys forever, so if 4 comes and we still can't have any stuffed toys I will just get rid of everything. It was really hard to pack up all the toys, I have so many memories of her playing with things. We bought her an Elmo chair for her 1st birthday, that was her "big" present, and we are giving it to a kid who is in the nursery with Autumn. Since it's stuffed we can't have it. These shelves are now full of picture frames, her movies, and little figurines.
Since we had to get rid of the bedding in her crib we decided to just move Autumn over to the twin bed that's been in her room forever. So far it has not caused a problem. Only twice have we had to tell her to get back in bed, and after saying it once she has stayed. It's been fun to see her open her door and come walking out of her room in the morning. I think she really enjoys the independence and feeling like a big girl.

She really likes her princess blanket, but we are currently looking into hypoallergenic bedding, I was so excited to get to buy cute princess bedding for this bed when she transitioned to it and now all the hypoallergenic bedding that I am finding is plain and boring and expensive. So until I suck it up and buy some, she can enjoy her mismatched bedding and princess blanket. I just have to wash it A LOT!