Halloween, the Preview

Sunday was Trunk or Treat at church, and our little garbagemen had a great time.  Notice the dirt (not real) and smiles (real) on their face.  They are sooooo ready for candy, which they of course collected in their garbage cans.

Our boys with Mummy Lloyd and Little Red Riding Hood Nicolina.

The candy was outside, but the games were inside.  Here's Micah taking his time choosing a lollipop to win tickets. 

Liam staring intently at the spinning pumpkin wheel and hoping to win a lot of tickets himself.  They used the tickets to get really cool prizes.

Eating hot dogs, Cheetos, and candy, of course.  I have no idea what Micah is doing in this picture, but I'm pretty sure he was running solely on candy at that point.

Unlike most of the east coast, our Halloween will remain on Halloween, and our boys are looking forward to even more candy to fill up their cans.  Liam also has two school parties to go to.  We may be eating this candy straight into Valentine's Day...

How we spend our down days

Sometimes we do extraordinary things and go exciting places, and sometimes we stay around our house and create our fun.  Like when we drive a steering wheel while watching race cars on TV,

or trying on a fun panda bear hat and getting ready for our winter visit up north.

 

We bake yummy chocolate chip cookies to give to Meals on Wheels...and some to eat for ourselves.

We took advantage of the insanely-beautiful-low-humidity-finally-good-to-live-in-Florida-again weather and swept the back porch,

and bounced in the bouncy house for the first time since last spring.

Even the dogs, who are starting to show their age in the white hairs around their faces, got in on the outdoors fun.

And at the end of the fun days, we snuggle on the couch and watch a movie and appreciate how much we like being together as a family.

Ding ding ding ding ding here comes the fire truck, the fire truck...

One of the best days of the First Presbyterian Preschool year is Fire Truck Day.

Provided there isn't an emergency, the Hillsborough County Fire Department brings one of their trucks to the school and the 3- and 4-year-old classes get to go outside, listen to a presentation, watch them do fun things with the truck, and then they get to walk through it.  It's a red letter day for most of the children. Except for Liam.

Liam has followed in his brother's footsteps with regards to Micah's love of all things transportation.  He has also followed in his footsteps with regards to being scared of loud noises.  So this is Liam "listening"

to the firefighters' presentation,

which included the ladder going up and "touching the clouds" (according to Liam). 

After the talk was over, the kids all lined up for their turn to walk through the first truck. 

which Liam did with fingers in his ears.

Climbing off the truck, with his fingers in his ears.

A class picture of Liam and his ladies (his class is comprised of him and seven girls) - and he still has his fingers in his ears.

The funny thing is that he talked about it nonstop when I saw him later that day, and he only remembered that he had been scared and put his fingers in his ears if Tim reminded him about it.  Otherwise, the day and the experience got rave reviews.

A boy, his nose, and an acorn

This is a story about a boy, 

 

his nose,

 

and an acorn.

One day, the boy's Mommy came to pick him up from Preschool.  The boy's teachers informed his Mommy that they thought he had something up his nose.  That's weird, Mommy thought.  The only thing the boy or his brother had ever put up their noses before were these.

 

The boy denied it, then fessed up that yes, there was something in his nose - after the preschool director and Mommy found it with a flashlight and tried to get it out. She couldn't.

So, trying to be a responsible parent, the Mommy took the boy to the pediatrician immediately.

The pediatrician saw the object, called for some help to hold the boy down, and made one attempt to try and get it out of the boy's nose.  She couldn't.


After a detour at Mommy's work (Daddy is traditionally out of town when nonplanned medical issues arise), the boy and his Mommy ventured into the big city of Tampa

to visit the ear, nose, and throat doctor at the only appointment left in that practice (which we know well) in the whole city for the day.

The ENT, who was not the one we regularly see and who Mommy thinks did not have children of his own, couldn't find the object at first.  Then he decided to put medicated cotton in the boy's nose to numb the area and dissolve the object if it was up there.  Mommy thought to herself, "He has one shot to get this up the boy's nose before the boy realizes what's going on and freaks out.  Can he do it?" He couldn't.

So Mommy and two nurses held the boy down while the doctor inserted the cotton.  Mommy held and soothed the boy for a few minutes, the doctor and nurses came back in.  Mommy and the nurses held the boy down again and, with the help of a camera and this tool

the object was removed.  While Mommy comforted the boy again, the doctor positively identified the object as a piece of an acorn.  Not the whole thing, just a piece of the bottom part.  Amazing.  Mommy asked the boy if he was ever going to put anything in his nose again.  The boy answered with a resounding,

Mommy figured out the pediatrician cost $25, the ENT cost $45, and the procedure at the ENT cost $47 - but only because we have met our deductible for the year.  So the piece of acorn cost $117. Oh and then there was this

that cost about $9 for two, one for the boy and one for his brother.  But at the end of a very long day, they made everything better, and made the boy temporarily forget about the trauma of the acorn. The moral of the story?  The boy has two more months to stick whatever he wants up his nose.  After that, the deductible resets and that piece of acorn will cost a lot more money.

But the real moral? Whatever it takes to keep this boy smiling is worth every penny.

Curious George and his buddy

Catching Up

It might be October 1, but I'm still catching up on Micah's birthday party from the beginning of September!  At his request, it was a transportation-themed party.  I had picked up a fire truck cake pan at a yard sale a while ago and in reading the directions, I found it that you can turn it into a dump truck or a school bus, among other things.  Who knew?  So when Micah heard that, he asked me to make it into a bus.  I think it turned out pretty well.  I especially like that he's driving the bus!

We held it at the same local park at which we had his fourth birthday party.  He loves it there, and we love that it's got a great playground, running trail, and clean restrooms. :)  Basically, it's ideal for families.  There aren't a ton of pictures of the party because, as the kids get older, there seems to be more to do at each party.  But we have some of him opening his presents.

He was next to his buddy Lloyd for a while.

Blowing out the candles!  We must have been singing "Happy Birthday" very loudly since Liam has his hands covering his ears.

This last picture is one Tim took of Micah with his cupcakes at school.  On his birthday, he was allowed to bring in a treat for his classmates, and give each of them one.  He picked this "Cars" themed cupcake-cake, and Tim said that Micah loved passing out the cupcakes to everyone and sharing his treats.

We can finally close the books on his fifth birthday.  Happy birthday, Micah!!