Anxious

I just want to get past the next few days.  For some reason, I'm very anxious!  This time last year, my little little man John David was in the hospital for pneumonia!  He was almost 7 1/2 months at the time.  It was a very hard time, seeing your baby poked and prodded, having x-rays, and numerous breathing treatments all while crying uncontrollably.   Not to mention having to wake up every 2 hours at night so the hospital staff could take vitals.  They are right, you don't go to the hospital to get rest.  So this time last year, we brought John David in since he had cold like symptoms and a fever.  I remember hearing the wheezing when we were waiting for the doctor to come in the room.  She heard it too and that's when he had his first breathing treatment.  We went home with an antibiotic for his first ear infection and much needed rest.  Unfortunately, laying down wasn't easy for him, as he couldn't breathe as well.  Kevin stayed home with him the next day and he was miserable (both Kevin and John David ;-)  I took him back to the doctor, his oxygen level was in the 90's and he had 2 breathing treatments, his breathing was rapid (you could see it in his chest), hospitalization was talked about, they thought he had RSV.  Woke up Saturday morning took one look at him and just new he was going to be hospitalized.  My poor baby!  I have tears just thinking about it a year later.  We took him in, waited in the waiting room as usual, when we went into the room, the nurse told us if he ever looks like that to ask to be seen right away.  :-(  Oxygen level was at 89, 2 breathing treatments later, the doctor sent us over to the hospital.  We left 2 days later, with John David feeling much better!

Fast forward a year later, John David is coughing, has wicked congestion and croup and strep lingering at daycare.  So this is why I'm even more anxious!  Back off Croup and Strep, Stay away from my John David and Austin!

January 14, 2012

I have been slacking!  I can't believe it's been more than 2 weeks since my last post!  I guess, we've just been busy.

Happy New Year!  Kevin and I had a great time ringing in the new year.  We went out with Kathy and Sean and went to a comedy club and ate dinner and saw a comedian.  Afterwards, we went back to their house and played games until the New Year.   Boys were up early, as usual, but we all got naps in!  It was so nice to be able to go out on New Years.  The last few years we stayed in, and while that was nice too, it was equally as nice to get dressed up and go out!

Last weekend was my work holiday party.  We went to the Herrington Inn in Geneva.  What a great night it was.  The theme of the party was casino night.  Work gave us $1000 in play money per employee, and we got to play, black jack, poker, craps or roulette.  We played Craps the whole time, it was my first time playing, and I must say I really enjoyed myself!  It was nice to be able to play, without spending your money.  We had prizes that we could win in an auction, but unfortunately, we didn't win at the auction.  We did win a total of $1800 in play money, so $2800 total with the original $1000, but that wasn't enough!  Oh well, we had a great time.  We even stayed the night, and let me tell you, that the room was beautiful.  The Herrington upgraded me to a river room, I guess one of the perks of being "the host" and the view was amazing.   The room had a fire place, a huge bath tub and heated bathroom floors!  Incredible!  I wish I could have slept in, but I was up at 730!  Just couldn't do it!  I think the boys have ruined my ability to sleep in! 





View from our room in the morning.

 Boys are doing fantastic!  We just had their 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 year appointments and they got clean bills of health.  The are big healthy boys!  Austin is 37 pounds and 37 inches and John David is 29 pounds and 33 1/4 inches.  I was so nervous about that appointment because John David hasn't been able to get rid of his ear infections.  He's been on 3 antibiotics in 6 weeks.  He was pulling at this ears up until the appointment, so I was sure the infection was going to still be there, but it wasn't!  I was so nervous, JD was going to need tubes.  I know we aren't in the clear of having tubes, but at least its not the topic of concern at the moment.

I'm so amazed at both Austin and John David.  We were in the car last night and Kevin would say 1, and John David would say 2, then Kevin would say 3 and the John David would say 4!  I expected that to come from Austin!  And Austin is a puzzle wizard!  He can put the alphabet puzzle together no problem and he corresponds the letters with the object that goes with it, A- Apple, M- Map, P Pretzel, X- xylophone, and we gave him a Mickey Mouse puzzle and he was able to do that one too, so impressed with my little A-Man and J-Man!

Kevin made dinner on Wednesday!  Woot woot!  Kevin's mom has a temp job (hoping for it to go permanent) and she started this week, so we are trying to work together to get dinner and Kevin was up for making tacos.  Boy were they delicious!  He's excited about trying more things in the upcoming weeks! 

I'm so close to being done with my weekly allergy shots.  Unfortunately, I had 2 reactions on my left arm, Mold, Dust and Dogs, so we are trying to have 2 allergy meds on days that I have shots.  It worked last time, but I think it threw my back a week!  And I've been having arm pain, numbness and tingly in my left arm for over a week now.  It's not fun!  I think I have 2 shots left so hopefully, the numbness goes away.  Work has been super busy.  We just integrated a new performance management system and I have been training every employee on the new process.  I have given 1 1/2 hour demonstrations every day last week!  I have 1 this week and probably 1-2 next week!  Any public speaking nerves have gone out the window! :-)

I will do my best to update more regularly, after all, I know you all want to know what's up in the Artinghelli household!  It's never a dull moment here, the boys make sure of that!

Christmas Artinghelli Style

Merry Christmas from the Artinghelli's!

All I have to say is the boys are spoiled!  Spoiled with love, clothes and toys! It's crazy, I don't know what I'm going to do with everything.  I feel as if the walls are closing in on us.  Good thing I have the next 4 days off and I can try to get somewhat organized.  Good thing, I removed some of the "old" toys prior to Christmas and good thing I can take the tree and Christmas decorations down this weekend.  That should make more room. Ha, ya, make more room for our "double dare competitions"  This is what I see in the near future.  Up the slide, down the slide, through the tunnels and shoot the basketball in the hoop, who can do it the fastest wins!  Yes, we have all of those toys!  We even have tons of balls to throw and them during the competition.  

We truly have been blessed.  Christmas Eve we spent at home.  We pretended Christmas Eve morning was Mom Artinghelli's traditional Christmas morning. John and Morgan came over in pj's, the boys, Kevin and I came upstairs in our pj's and we opened presents and had Mom's famous pancakes and sausage, yum! Toys were played with, boys napped and then we had a great Lemon Chicken Dinner. After dinner, we went to Kevin's aunts house and had dessert!  Fun times.  

Boys looking out the window for Santa!

We put the boys to bed and finally got the play Santa!  How fun is that!  I feel like I'm part of a new club!  The Santa club.  I don't think it's "real" (being in the club) until the kids somewhat understand Santa or can at least recognize Santa!  We  had the boys sprinkle the reindeer dust so the reindeers knew where to bring Santa and we set up the boys obstacle course, tunnels outside their doors and laid the presents out.  No cookies and milk this year, but definitely next year!  Kevin has already volunteered me to be the milk drinker, too bad I don't like milk.  We'll see what happens next year.

Boys slept til 7!  WOOT WOOT!  I got them all ready to come out of their room.  We had the video recorder all ready to tape the excitement!  I'll have to come back and post that!

Santa set it up so they'd have to go through the tunnel first.

They were very excited!  Didn't want to open all of the presents because they wanted to open and play with the actual toy they unwrapped.  We had to keep telling them, you still have a couple more presents.  So cute!  They were very excited!  And I was equally as excited for them. Nothing like having kids to bring out the excitement in you!  We had breakfast, played with the toys, all had naps and then went to Aunt Karen's house for more fun and excitement. 

Just a little messy!

And then on Tuesday, we went over to my dad's (grandpa's) house to celebrate one last time!  Santa came there too!  All I can say is it as been a hectic and wonderful Christmas!  We are truly lucky to have so much love in our lives.

So I am looking forward to the next 4 days, 4 days off, 4 days to organize and relax (well relax as much as you can with 2 toddlers, wait, 2 boy toddlers ;-))

Thanks everyone for making our 2011 Christmas wonderful!

Christmas Fun

We are in the Christmas spirit at the Artinghelli household. The tree is up, decorations are out and the boys saw Santa.  We had our annual Christmas party at Brookfield Zoo this year for their Breakfast with Santa event.  Breakfast was good and seeing Santa was a blast.  I predicted that John David was going to freak, as he is having a lot of stranger anxiety.  I thought Austin was going to love seeing Santa!    Kevin was in agreement with my prediction.

Here is a picture of us waiting in line for Santa. As you can see John David was holding the stick that light up.  He was having a blast.

All is good at this point.  They did pretty well in line, only getting out a couple of times but staying within 5 feet of us.  We go into to see Santa.  As predicted, Austin was super excited and very curious.  He went on Santas lap and was happy as a clam.  John David was unsure, but did not freak.  We sat him on Mrs. Claus lap and he was still unsure, but no tears.  We quickly snapped as many pictures as we could and I tried to get them to smile or laugh.  This is what I came up with.

As you can see, John David isn't happy but he's not crying, so that's a win.  Austin is in the middle of talking.  So, I didn't get my cute smiling picture with Santa, but at least I did get a picture.  The one the zoo took, turned out to be the best and we have that one framed at the house.

We did Christmas Crafts over the weekend with Morgan.  We took foot prints and created a tree and we took hand prints and created a reindeer.  Boys loved doing the crafts, we had lots of smiles and giggles.  And I loved it because I have momento's of the boys hand and foot prints.





Austin's feet



John David's feet

Austin's hand

John David's hand

We also took Austin to see his first movie over the weekend, we saw Arthur Christmas.  Austin did great!  He sat in his chair, stood and even sat on my lap.  He enjoyed the popcorn!  I don't think he understood the movie, but that's okay.  I'm sure there will be more movies in our future.

We are just over a week to Christmas!  We are definitely looking forward to seeing the boys open their presents from Santa, afterall for the most part they have been very well behaved and on Santa's nice list!

Christmas is coming!

Woot woot!  Christmas is coming.  The Artinghelli household has their Christmas Tree and decorations up!

We took the boys for our annual Christmas pictures and let me tell you, BUST!  For starters it was hot as hell in there.  John David wasn't having it and Austin was just interested in everything but taking pictures.  Typical of a 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 year old, however, I expected more out of the photographer.  From experience, when you get those cutsie pie pictures, they look so cute and look like their were all nice and calm from the pictures, when in fact, for my family, it's pure chaos!  However, with all of that chaos, we can get cute pictures.  This time, not so much.  Thank goodness that I purchased the membership, otherwise we would have paid a fortune for nothing.  I left with nothing.  I thought the photographer could have done a better job or at least tried a little harder, I could have left with at least one good picture.  Sigh.... I guess I'll have to play photographer at home. 

We had a great time putting up our Christmas tree.  Morgan, Austin and John David took care of the bottom of the tree and Kevin and I took care of the top of the tree.  So far they don't care too much about the tree, ornaments are still on it!

This Sunday we are going to Breakfast with Santa at Brookfield Zoo with my work.  Hopefully the boys enjoy Santa and aren't too scared.  My guess, Austin will love him and John David will scream his little heart out.

November update

Has it really been a few weeks since I posted.  I've been crazy busy at work, so by the time I get home, I just want to veg!

Boys are great!  Growing like weeds!  They are so much fun!

John David is obsessed with the balls.  He loves throwing them and running after then, I swear a ball can keep that kid busy for hours!  Woot Woot!  Austin loves to watch cartoons, John David, not so much.  Last night, Kevin had the Michigan basketball game on and John David was glued to the TV!, What?!?!  So it looks like Kevin has a sports watching partner!  John David is recovering from 2 ear infections and teething woes!  He is taking it like a champ, but boy, that has to be painful. I think he has 10 teeth now!  10 teeth in 4 months, OUCH!  He has learned the wonderful art of climbing.  He can get on the chair and if we aren't quick enough, he will be on the table!  The good news, he can get down!  For a while there, he was stuck.

I can't believe how much Austin is talking!  You can actually have conversations with him!  On the flip side, he is taking everything in, the good, the bad and the ugly.  Over the weekend, he was going to watch a movie with grandma, he brought lovie up with him.  He told Lovie to "Sit down", not 3 seconds later, he said "Sit Down, Now!"  Hmmm, I think he's modeling me, hmmmm is this good?  Hey, at least he understands!  We took him over the weekend to find his snow boots.  He was in love with his Spider-man boots from last year and he has been having a hard time with JD getting his hand me downs, so I wanted to get him all excited about picking out new snow boots so when it's time, he will be fine with it all.  He picked out Cars snow boots!  And they light up!  Both kids have light up boots, we will be lighting up the town!  He had too much shopping fun, since he passed out in the cart.  We were shopping, he was talking, next thing, he has his head down, I thought he was just being funny, nope he fell asleep!  Too stinkin cute!

Kevin is on his own at work, no more having to go with someone.  I'm so proud of him and he's doing a fantastic job!   Michigan is doing great!  He was able to go to a Michigan bar last weekend to enjoy the game!  He brought the boys home little footballs and they love them.  Both of them keep asking for their footballs!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and I'm so looking forward to the feast!  I can't wait for the Mashed Potatoes, one of my all time favs!  I'm looking forward to the weekend, I have things planned every day, so that makes it more fun!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Halloween Fun!

Let's see, it's been awhile.  We've been busy busy busy bees!  Last weekend we partook in pumpkin carving and boy was it a blast!  Kevin started off only wanting to take pictures but once he got started he was so into it!  I think he had the most fun.  Austin loved the goop.  And he loved taking the seeds and putting them in the strainer.  He kept saying "give me"  hmmm wonder where he learned that from.    John David, I don't think, knew what was going on.  He was sitting in his hi chair watching.  He would take seeds and try to eat them and kept picking up the top of his pumpkin. 




Getting the goop out!



Daddy and Austin with their masterpiece.





JD with his pumpkin



Come on Mom and Dad, let's go!

Halloween was a blast!  I wasn't into Halloween too much prior to having the boys, but I think I was just so excited for them. We were only going to go up the block and back, but since we were having so much fun we decided to go around the block.  Next year I'm sure we'll be ready for a longer route but this was really their first time so we wanted to take it slow.  We went to like 2 houses with Austin last year.

Trick or Treat

Austin was a natural trick or treater!  He would run to the house, cutting through the yard (who taught him that), ring the door bell, hold out his bag or take 1 or 2 or 3-4 pieces of candy (we need to work on that).   He even knew the drill if they weren't home, wait 10 seconds and then he'd babble something to us like they aren't home and proceed to the next house.





Superman!

JD was close behind.  He was a bit more shy and would want to be held while getting the candy.  He loved going up the the houses after he figured out what was going on.  He wouldn't let go of the bag.  They were getting a litle cranky so we thought we skip some houses.  Austin was not up for that.  He was "yelling" at us that we missed the house and run up.  So of course we would go, one house we tried to tell them they weren't home, but he wasn't having it.


We got home and rang grandmas doorbell!  We had to bribe them with candy to eat dinner.  They ate their dinner and each got one piece of candy.  Austin loved when the doorbell rang, he would run to the door to see the costumes. He repeated everything I saw, oooohhh, ahhhh, happy halloween,  thank you, you're welcome.  That kid, too stinkin cute.



 




Halloween was so much fun that I can't WAIT for Christmas!