Birthdays!

Trav and I just celebrated our Birthdays. Lets start with mine, because Trav made it awesome just like he always does.

I started out the morning going to Boston's Preschool. Then we did a little shopping at the rack. When I got home Trav had Ice Cream and cookies delivered for Lunch. He knows the way to my heart. Flowers<Ice Cream

 Boston was SO SO SO excited for me to open my presents. First I had to put on my "Birthday Glasses"

He was So proud of the gift he picked out for me. I got the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. In the pic he is pointing to himself like "ya I picked this out and it's the best gift ever!" He was seriously so proud it was the cutest thing ever!

 My cute boys with my new tree.

Through a sweet hookup of my Mom's, Trav surprised me with Photoshop CS6. I have been wanting this forever, but it is too dang expensive that I never thought I would actually get it. Now to actually learning how to use it. Just a tad bit overwhelming. 

After presents Trav made Shrimp Scampi and Capresse my two favorite things for dinner. Yum!

 My Mom made my favorite cake, but we were too full to actually eat it that I didn't have any until two days later, but it still tasted just as good!

This handsome devil turned 30!!!! Such and old man now. 

 I wish I could say that his birthday was as awesome as mine, but it wasn't. Pretty much he way better at gift giving than I will ever be and a Sunday Birthday spent doing Tithing Settlement isn't too much fun. O and that fact that he is near impossible to shop for doesn't help either. Seriously I have never met someone that doesn't want things. Like really doesn't it's just weird. 

 Once again Boston was beyond excited to give Dad his present he picked out. He loves "chompers" and Dad loves football so a football chomper was the perfect gift.

 He is such an incredible person. I wish I was more like him. He works so hard and never has anything, but what is best for our family on his mind. 30 looks good on him. I should mention that he voluntarily stayed home with Carter during church and I'm sure it had nothing to do with the Cowboys game being on. Carter was a good excuse to enjoy a little something on his Birthday ha.

Thanksgiving Feast

Last week I got to go to Boston's school to his Thanksgiving Feast. He LOVES it when I get to go to his school and I LOVE it that he loves it! 

 The kids got to choose to dress up in their Indian costume or Pilgrim. Obviously the Indians were much more popular. 

 They sang a few Thanksgiving songs and then we got to eat Thanksgiving lunch together. 

 Boston's Thanksgiving "lunch" consisted of a roll and mashed potatoes for the main course and pumpkin pie and a brownie for dessert. 

Sure do love this boy. It is so fun to see him at school. He absolutely LOVES preschool and is always talking about it.

Chores

I have been trying to get things a little more organized around this house. I felt like I had this huge list of things I wanted to do, but with therapy, doc appointments, school, T-ball, and busy life I was never consistent enough to actually get them set and stone. One of the things I wanted to do was a chore chart for Boston. I felt like he was more than ready for some structured chores and definitely old enough. I didn't do anything fancy, but can I just say it has been SO great having him do more around the house. He does a great job with his chores and actually enjoys doing them. I'm sure the reward that comes when they are finished helps a little. 

Here are what some of his chores look like...

Bedroom- He makes his bed, clears his floor and dresser off

Laundry- He takes all the dirty laundry baskets from each room and organizes the clothes into whites, colored, towels, etc. in the laundry room baskets.

Bathroom- I give him this chore on the days I clean bathrooms and he gets right in there and does everything with me.

Shoes- He puts all the random shoes laying around the house back where they belong

Eating- He has to eat his meal with NO complaining and quick. Yes this is a chore (more for me though)

Reading- Spends 15 minutes sitting on his bed "reading"

Toys- He cleans up all his toys around the house

It definitely took some teaching for him to get the hang of it. Now all I have to do is tell him to do his chores and he goes right to his chart and does them himself. When he is finished he puts his "all done" ticket next to the chore picture and we pay him 25 cents each day. If he has extra good "Beehavior" and finds a Bee on his chart at the end of the day he gets an extra quarter. He is loving dollars these days so getting four quarters is a lot of motivation to turn them in for a dollar.

Mud Run

 Back at the beginning of the Summer they had a Groupon type deal for the Mighty Mud Dash in Dallas. A couple girls in my ward signed up and before we knew it we had a huge group all doing it together. It was SO much fun! I sure am surrounded by some incredible people!

Before

 

 After

 Somewhere during the race

Kiss those medals!

 The fab four before

 and After.

After they had a fire truck hosing you down with freezing cold water. It really didn't help all that much. I swear they put something in the mud, because I literally had to wash my hair four different times to get it all out. It was such a fun morning. The race was supposed to be a 5k, but I'm pretty sure it was only about 2 miles. Physically it wasn't challenging which made it all the more fun. I did come away with a nasty bruise and scrapped up legs. At first I thought I left scratch free, but as the days went on scrapes and bruises kept appearing. Ha I guess I am not as tough as I thought I was. JK

Surgery #2

You know those "pinch me if this is real" moments? I have been having that all morning. Rewind to yesterday. I was a ball of nerves before the surgery. I mean this was THE surgery that was going to make everything better and I was so anxious to see if it worked. Dr. McClay made a small incision in his neck and removed the stint from the first surgery. He had three small scar tissue growths that he got rid of. The whole thing took only about and hour and when he came into the consultation room he said everything looked "picture perfect and was nice and OPEN" Talk about huge relief. It is absolutely amazing! I wish I could show you a good pic of the inside of his airway you would never be able to tell that he grafted two different pieces of rib cartilage in there it was literally seamless. The body is so incredible!

 Little man was not too happy with my when we walked back into children's. Boston let him wear his owl beanie for good luck and I think Carter was pretty happy about it. He wore it the whole time. Surgery included. Pretty cute. 

 Thanks to a dose of silly juice he went from angry to super crazy. About five minutes after this pic he zonked out in my arms. 

 He was super loopy after anesthesia this time. Not only is he usually loopy from the anesthesia, but he had an allergic reaction to badadine a topical ointment for his incision so he got a heavy dose of benadryl. As far as his sats he bounced right back like usual and we were able to head home about and hour after surgery. I guess after your 11th time they aren't too worried how you will react to all the meds. Ha.

This morning has been the "pinch if this is real" moment. When I went in his room to get him this morning he was sitting up in his bed with no trach in. Usually when he pulls his trach out his neck is super red from itching (he has really bad eczema around his neck and that is usually why he takes his trach out) but this morning his neck wasn't red at all so I'm guessing it was out for a while. I put my hand over his neck and mouth and was shocked to find him breathing out his mouth. I put his trach back in went out and decided to try capping off his trach to see how he would do. When I put it on he acted as if nothing happened. He was breathing with absolutely no difficulty! I started bawling my eyes out! It is the first time that I have really believed that we might actually be able to get rid of his trach. I have always talked about it, but never really allowed myself to believe that it would actually happen. It just seems too good to be true. Not only was that amazing, but he decided that he would happily walk around the house with his little push toy. He normally hates that thing. He also pulled himself up to standing with no help and he ate and swallowed a pretzel. I am sure not all of these milestones were a result of the surgery, but to have them all happen on the same day was the best thing ever!

To make things even better I HEARD him say DADA!!!! Life is good so so good!

Halloween

We had SO much fun this Halloween! The boys were in Heaven. 

 I of course tortured the boys by making them take pictures. Boston was a good sport after a little bribing and well you get how Carter felt about it. Will they hate me one day for all the pictures I make them take? PS it was SO warm out that our poor pumpkins shriveled up within 24 hours. I'm sure it had nothing to do with my poor carving skills. 

 We got lucky with Carter a tractor happened to drive by and he was lost in little boy world.

 Then the tractor was gone and he was done! Cutest baby Captain America EVER!!!

 I was told that this Captain America was the coolest ever not the cutest. How dare I. 

 The coolest Captain America has some serious moves. 

 Grandma D and her boys. They made the balloons with ghost faces on them and put glow sticks in them. Unfortunately it wasn't pitch black so you couldn't tell, but they were super cute and Boston has some awesome drawing skills these days. 

 I know Carter is crying in almost every picture these days. He really is happy I promise, just not a fan of taking pics at all. Conner might have freaked him out a little too. Ha. 

 We met our friends at the park for some dinner before Trick or Treating. I wish I would have gotten a picture of all the kids. 

 This is the first year that Boston has been into Trick or Treating and I think we awe all the credit to his buddy Jack. They were running up and down the streets like crazy boys. Trav and I LOVED watching him get so excited about it. 

 I am not joking when I say he was in Heaven!

 Carter was a good sport hanging out in the stroller

 for a little while then he made his way to Dad's shoulders

 He was happiest doing a little walking around.  The only problem was he couldn't quite keep up with everyone. 

 This was Boston's favorite house. Someday we will convince Trav that we should be the "cool" house in the neighborhood. After this we ditched Dad and Carter and Boston filled his bucket to the brim. 

 The party wasn't ever when we got home he was ready to pass out candy to the few trick or treaters left. He sang his little heart out and yelled out "we have candy. come here for candy. this is the cool house. don't forget to come get your candy." I'm sure you can guess I had a hard time making him call it quits for the night he was having TOO much fun and we were loving it.

He did pretty good this year. Thankfully he hasn't been asking for it too much! We actually still had candy from last year that we threw away. Lets hope we have that kind of luck this year. Not counting on it. 

Trunk or Treat

It has been ridiculously warm around here this Halloween. Like record breaking high warm. As much as I am ready for cold weather it was nice to be able to take Carter out and not worry about it being too cold. We had a Trunk or Treat at our church the same day as the preschool party so as you can imagine Boston thought he had died and gone to Heaven. 

 Cutest Waldo and Captain America I have ever seen. 

 Captain America/Waldo

Captain America was a huge hit this year. We tried to gather them all together but by the time we actually did I think at least three had left. Such cute kiddos. In case your wondering why Carter is not so happy I made the mistake of walking away to gather a Captain America. Little man is sorta attached at my hip these days and the above is what happens if I make the mistake of leaving his side.