The Heat is On, but the Colds are Still Here

We finally decided to bite the bullet and turn the heat on last night. Before going to bed it was a chilling 67 in the house so we decided that it would be best to go ahead and switch from air to heat. Well, Savannah must have liked it because she slept over 13 hours last night, waking up after 8:15 this morning. WOW!! Welcome Fall.

We're all still trying to recover from week long colds. Dave is much better now thanks to a nice round of antibiotics, but I'm still feeling a little icky which prevented me from visiting my friend Donna and her precious new baby Roy Austin. Congrats Donna! I can't wait to feel better so I can finally meet him.

Savannah still has a runny nose and unfortunately is back into an eating slump, only this time she doesn't want to eat anything. Since Saturday she hasn't finished a single meal that we've given her, which is way out of the ordinary for our little chump. I'm just praying that her little runny nose has nothing to do with the non eating. I called the doctor again this morning and of course they say we're doing all of the right things, but to just watch her. Thankfully they said that they she's not contagious, but that we should bring her in by the end of the week if she's still not any better.

I have to share a little dialogue that occurred at our dinner table on Saturday night. Savannah comes over to the table waving her arm in front of her face saying "shoo, shoo" which means that she has a poopy diaper. When I said "Savannah, do you have a poopy?" She quickly replied "Oh, yeah!" We laughed so hard we were almost crying!!

Party At The Page's House

Just the girls

Pawpaw with his two cuties

Granny with Savannah

Today we ventured to Burlington for a family Halloween party at my brother's house. It was so much fun seeing all of the kids together and playing. Savannah was a little unsure of her uncle in that crazy costume and cried when Pawpaw tried to pick her up in the scarecrow costume, but once they took off the scary outfits, she had a blast!!! Kristin did an excellent job and even had a pinata filled with the best candy for the kids to bust. (I'm still feeling a little sick from all of the sweet tarts, runts, and nerds.) Anyway, here are some pictures from Savannah's second Halloween party.

A Day Filled with Friends

Savannah's Clemson Cheerleading costume

Here's the gang: (top left) Caroline, Cole, Kailyn, Bryson, Caden, Savannah (bottom left) Anna Kate, Ethan, Jack, Caleb, Kathryn

Decorating the pumpkins

Savannah attended her first Halloween party today! She and 10 other of her friends were invited to Jack's house for a huge party. Elizabeth (Jack's mom) did such a wonderful job with the decorations and pumpkin decorating theme. Everyone had a blast, even the mommies who had a chance to talk while the kids played!! Enjoy these few pictures from the party. I had tons more to post, but a certain little unnamed boy was just wearing tights in most of my play room pictures and I promised his mom I wouldn't put them on the blog!

Sara and Savannah

After the party, Sara, who couldn't make it to the party came over to play with Savannah. The girls too had a blast as they played the entire afternoon together. I'm amazed at how well they kept each other company. They followed each other around, laughed A LOT, and played hard!

How blessed we are to be part of such a great group. I wouldn't trade any of my Bible study girls or their kids for anything. It is so much fun to journey through this stage of life with these women!

Fast Paced Life

Things have been pretty busy around here lately. Between four mystery shops, a pot luck lunch, church, and everyone needing extra tutoring I haven't really stopped to breathe since Saturday.

Savannah and I did enjoy lots of time outside yesterday which was tons of fun (except for the multiple whelps she has now from bug bites). She's starting to get into the sidewalk chalk, but always ends up walking over to Mrs. Marlene's house to visit. It was quite funny yesterday as she insisted on going up to the door and waiting for Mrs. Marlene to come out. I know our precious neighbor is really busy as they're heading to Europe for three weeks this Friday, so I didn't want Savannah bothering her. However, once Mrs. Marlene saw who was at the door she of course wanted Savannah to come in . . . and she walked right in, headed for the nice comfy recliner, and pointed to the TV. Mrs. Marlene sat down and Savannah climbed into her lap just in time to watch some Sesame Street on the big screen TV. What a treat!!

Then it was back to the crazy fast paced life with tutoring until 8:30 last night. I have to tutor just as late tonight too. :( Thankfully, after tomorrow things should slow down a little . . . and then there's always wonderful WEE school on Friday to look forward to.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention that our new fish Fred is now dead.

New Activities

Savannah coloring for the first time at home

Her first piece of artwork!

Lately I've started to worry that Savannah is being deprived because I'm not a very creative mom. I mean even though I stay home with her all day, I just can't force myself to come up with little games and things to keep her occupied. I just don't have the patience or creativity to think of things to do with her . . . and remember I'm a math teacher at heart so that's my excuse for lack of creativity.

This week, however, I have been encouraged and helped by my Bible study girls. They have been circulating ideas of things to do with our kids that are out of the ordinary. I have to admit that I haven't tried one yet, but at least I have a resource when we're desperate this winter. What I did do though was go to Target and get some things that may occupy Savannah for more than 1 minute at a time: big, washable crayons and some sidewalk chalk. Yes, I know I'm terrible because I didn't already have those things, but I think we're just now to the point where everything (just lots of things) doesn't go straight into the mouth.

So, let me recap the afternoon for you.

* I give her some crayons with a brown paper bag.
* She refuses to color unless she's sitting on half of the bag which is cute and all, but that limited the coloring space so our carpet now has lots of marks.
* Then once I thought things were going well I turned my head for a minute only to find that she had started to color our couch with the black crayon. Hats off to Crayola, it did clean right up with only a wet rag!!! Whew.
* After she lost interest we decided to do some sidewalk chalk outside.
* She made one mark and then found some trash to eat off the pavement.
* Creative playtime OVER!

Here she is making her one mark.

I'm done mommy, now what?!

Car Issues

I know I should be thankful that we have two cars that run well and are in great condition, but boy is maintenance an aggravation. Just last week I took the Highlander in for an oil change and ordered the '08 tag stickers for both of the cars. Then we realized Dave was past due an oil change so he took his end at the end of the week. Of course they recommended that we have about 6 other services done to the Accord, but Dave wisely decided to wait.

I called Compact Cars yesterday morning to clarify what we really should have done. This is a great little shop that works only on Hondas and Acuras. It's run by Christian people who are honest and are tons cheaper than the dealerships, even with Dave's Sonic discount. They said the majority of the services probably really didn't need to be done, but that the timing belt was due for a change. Ouch. That's a pretty big expense, but since we plan to keep the car awhile, I scheduled it for later this week. They said that they could check it over for all of the things that might need servicing while they were doing the timing belt.

Well yesterday, literally minutes after scheduling the timing belt for the Accord, I was driving to aerobics and my check engine light came on. Oh no! Just what we need, NOT. Anyway, Dave volunteered to switch cars today so he could drive mine in and have it checked to see what was wrong. All day I prayed that it would be something minor. Dave called right before tutoring to tell me that they had mistakenly left some hose off after the oil change and that it was fixed . . at NO CHARGE!!! Isn't it amazing how God handles even the smallest details of our lives?! I'm so thankful that Someone who sees the full picture is in control.

Fabulous Fall Weekend

We finally made it to the pumpkin patch yesterday and Savannah loved it . . . that is until it was time to leave. She had a blast picking up pumpkins and carrying them all around (always two at a time). She even took a roll completely over one. Here are a few pictures from the afternoon.

I finally captured Savannah feeding her baby on camera. After she fed the baby, she then tried to feed me and Dave with her little bottle. The last picture is of her crazy tights. I love them, another consignment special! If only all weekends were as laid back as this one has been.

I Love Fridays!

Friday is wonderful WEE school day. I dropped Savannah off this morning and took off without looking back (amazing how things have changed). Since the weather is so awesome I decided to do a long run in the neighborhood around our church instead of aerobics class for a change of scenery. It was incredibly peaceful and fun to reminisce as I took the same route that Dave and I used to run before we were engaged. Then it was off to do errands and some quick house cleaning. I have to add to my savings at Lowe's Foods . . . the grand savings for two days of triple coupons is $144.70 with only spending a grand total of $6.73!! Every time it's hilarious to watch the cashier's face when she says the total. I LOVE IT! This past trip they ended up paying me to take groceries, literally!! :) I must say that we are completely stocked now. Both our refrigerator and freezer inside are packed as well as our extra freezer outside.

Here are a few pictures

of Savannah in her

new fall outfit . . . see her face now? Wait until tomorrow when she sees all of the pumpkins in the pumpkin patch! I think she's tring to pull the stem off in the picture on the right.

High on Life

Many of you know how excited I get over a good deal . . . there is almost nothing that makes me feel such a rush as watching the savings tick away at the cash register!! Well, today has been one of those incredibly high days. My neighbor called yesterday to tell me that it was triple coupons at Lowe's Food Wed.-Fri. this week. Normally I would not shop at Lowe's as they don't carry lots of what we normally buy, but knowing that they were basically giving away groceries made me go there twice already today. The first trip I bought 21 items (the coupon limit is 20 per transaction) for a whopping 19 cents total!! So excited, I decided to try my luck again and headed back with another 20 coupons after lunch. All in all I ended up saving $99.23 and only spent $7.62!! I called Dave and now he wants in on the action (it's very contagious) so I'm gathering him another 20 coupons to use tonight after work!

We've also had a grand day around the house. Savannah has been doing wonderfully with managing the teething so we've been able to play outside and enjoy the awesome cooler weather. Welcome Fall!!

A Day of Crying

Savannah had quite a rough day yesterday. Since Saturday she's been waking up at 5:30am and also several times throughout the night just wailing and yesterday was no exception. However, she also woke up with a very high fever and was completely inconsolable! She cried ALL DAY and nothing, I mean nothing, would calm her. She didn't want to eat, go outside, play, take a nap, take medicine, nothing! There has only been one other day like that where she cried all day and it was quite a few months ago as she was still into Praise Baby and the exersaucer at the time. I know it's all from teething as I can see one tooth that has broken though and at least three other places where her gums are swollen and the tooth is getting ready to break though.

Have I mentioned that I HATE TEETHING???!!!!!!

Anyway, we survived the day and she woke this morning all better. Or mostly better. No fever and not screaming at least. She still woke up over an hour earlier than normal, but hey, that just meant I got a early start on the day! :) She's back to eating and is her normal fussy self . . .or was it the hour wait to get the oil changed that made her fussy?!

Welcome Home Fred!

Yesterday afternoon we welcomed our newest addition to the family, our beta fish Fred. Although there was lots of discussion on his name, we ended up with Fred because he's red and because Dave wanted to stick with Jamen's plan of an old man's name. We almost lost him already as I accidentally punctured his bag in the pet store and we quickly had to have him rebagged before leaving. Dave has already started trying to train him . . .

Race for the Cure

This morning bright and early we all piled in the car and headed uptown for the annual Susan Komen 5K Race for the Cure. God is so good. I was worried all night that it would be difficult to get Savannah up early and fed before we had to leave, but He knew just what our schedule was and she was up at 5:30am. We met our friend Laura and then headed uptown. Although both Dave and I were a little disappointed with our times, I think we still did fairly well especially considering I had to push a 32 pound child in a 15 pound stroller the entire race! I finished right at 31 minutes . . . so I still have some training to do. We've already decided that next year we're running together WITHOUT the child. By the way, yes, my face was really that red!! :)

Here's a funny picture of Savannah wearing Dave's foot braces when we got home. She's big into trying on our shoes and seeing how far she can walk in them. I'm not sure how she figured out how to put them on her feet, but she did it all by herself. Very cute.

Milk Be Gone!!

I called the doctor's office yesterday to try to get some advice on Savannah's continuing milk situation. The soy milk seems to cause diarrhea and the regular whole milk causes spitting up. So, not wanting either of those two results, I tried mixing 1/2 soy with 1/2 whole and you guessed it . . . diarrhea AND spitting up. AAAHH!! I left a message early yesterday for Dr. Baker and of course I missed his call as he called right back and we were out for a walk. Thankfully he tried us again late last night to make sure I wasn't panicked over this issue (he said he could tell by the nurse's note that I was quite concerned). Our solution is to put her back on soy for a few days and see if the diarrhea comes back. If it does, Savannah is DONE with milk for awhile. Dr. Baker suggested just putting her on a multivitamin with added calcium and giving her lots of yogurt, cheese, and other dairy products in her diet. Whew. Finally an answer that may solve all of our current feeding issues.

Farewell to George

Dave woke me early this morning to tell me the sad news that our beloved fish died last night. Now normally it wouldn't be that big of a deal for a fish to die, but we've had George for over 3 years and we adopted him from Jamen when he was over a year old . . . that calculates to a long, 4+ year life for our beta fish, George.

I think the loss will be hardest for Dave as he always counted George as part of our family. He even insisted that we put George's picture along with the family pictures on our return address labels last year for Christmas. Silly I know, but this is also the man that also would let George kiss his finger. It drove me crazy and I would always say "Dave, get your fingers out of the fish bowl!!!", but he just enjoyed watching the fish practically jump out of the bowl to nip his finger.

George had a long, healthy life filled with love from our family. He will definitely be missed.

Craziness

This week has been very crazy. I got the brilliant idea before vacation to put all of my tutoring students on two days at the beginning of the week and just knock it all out at once so that I could relax for the rest of the week. Well here I am having just finished my last student for the week and I'm completely exhausted. Whew.

I was going to update things yesterday saying that Savannah had improved tremendously, but then she screamed for 2.5 of my 3 hours of tutoring yesterday so that quickly changed my mind. She does seem better today, but still has diarrhea. I'm still struggling with the milk decision (whole vs. soy, due to the spitting up) and with trying to figure out this nap thing. Some days she takes 2 good naps and some days she just refuses, but seems to need it. AAAHHH!! Could someone please buy me a mommy manual??