Brothers

I'm going to keep this post short and sweet.

Sunday we purchased Nolan a high chair and started him on solid foods (loves bananas, hates pears). The high chair we got matches the swing and makes jungle noises- it entertains both Nolan and Brennan. So tonight Brennan wanted to play with Nolan and his high chair, yet Nolan wanted nothing to do with it. Note the bored expression!

For the past few days, Brennan has been running around the house with this monkey wanting me to take a picture of it. His monkey is named Unkey and has the same birthday as Brennan (info from Brennan). He is such an imaginative child!

Tagged

Now look at what you've started Stephanie! I have to continue your tag (per Sheena). So here goes!

4 Places I've Lived- Northern Utah, Southern Utah, North Texas, South Texas and North, North Illinois (that's general enough, don't you think?)


4 Jobs I've Had- I only wish I could say that I've only had 4 jobs- I've worked many retail, fast food, restaurants, and of course Teaching jobs (I've been employed by many good companies)


4 Favorite Desserts- Creme Brulee (Jakob's is the best), Don's Chocolate Shakes, Chili's Chocolate Avalanche with Ice Cream, and of course mom's brownies


4 Interesting Facts About Me- I used to play the bagpipes. Even though Stephanie is the accountant, I used to have to explain things to her in Mrs. James accounting class and even had an accounting scholarship to UVSC (thank heavens that isn't wasn't what I really wanted to do). I make lots and lots of list (and I even try and make them cute!), and I can still play two of the five instruments I used to (piano and trumpet, but not the bagpipes, french horn or soprano trumpet).


4 Favorite Movies- Ever After, Shawshank Redemption, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and now, thanks to Don and Brennan, Transformers the Movie


4 People I'm Tagging- Well, none of them blog, but maybe it will give them something to blog about: Tammy, Janet, Gram and Elaine (I know you all can do it- If I can, you can!)

Illinios in the Fall

This past week has been almost uneventful. Almost-

Brennan was out of school on Friday, which was nice because we had an Indian Family Report to do together. It took us a few hours, but we completed this really cool looking, touch and feel Anasazi Indian book. It was probably more than was needed, but I've been lacking a creative outlet for a while now and well, I was in my element. (It was a scrapbook of Indian information!!!) I wish I could have posted a pic, but it was due today.

Saturday was spent raking leaves. It was very reminiscent of my childhood and the never ending piles of leaves from the Poplar trees. How ironic we now live in Poplar Grove!! Anyway- I raked while Brennan pretended to rake and then jumped in the piles I made. What began as a quick yard clean up turned into an all day event, eventually ending with the paying of the neighborhood teenagers to bag the leaves. We bagged 40 big black garbage bags and put them in the garage until next Saturday when the compost pile is open to dump them in. And I've learned a few things about bagging and storing leaves: they are continuing to decompose inside the garage. It smells like a COMPOST PILE in our garage!!! It got to be so bad that last night we left the garage door open for a few hours to air it out. We figured if anyone wanted to take anything and made it through the smell, they deserved it!

Just an FYI about Nolan- we started him on solids yesterday. He loves bananas and rice cereal but will not eat pears. I tried to feed him pears this morning and all I got was a gagging child and pears all over the high chair! He would not even open his mouth for them. It was actually quite comical :)

Scrapbook pages

One of the main reasons that I decided to join the blogging world was so that I could share my scrapbook pages with Tammy and Stephanie. These are a few of the last pages I've done- nothing fancy, but I'm trying!

A Weekend with Papa and Gigi

After much debate, and a few phone calls from Nolan, Papa and Gigi decided to come and visit us this past weekend. Brennan was so excited and because Brennan was excited/happy, so was Nolan. Papa and Gigi arrived late Friday, so both boys were asleep (Nolan in his crib, Brennan at his "best-friend" Gabe's house).

Saturday was filled with a lot of playing, shopping and eating!!! Our first outing was to the mall where we went to nearly every store looking for matching sweater vests for Christmas, socks for Nolan (Do you have any idea how hard it is to find cute little boy socks?) and a coat for Brennan. We also had a few good finds at the Yankee Candle Store...yum cinnamon candles! After a quick lunch at the mall and some more shopping, we were going to go to a pumpkin catapult contest, but were too late for any of the action, so we proceeded home where we took some much needed naps and then went to church.

An interesting side note about church... I must say that for not being Catholic, I knew more of the songs than Don did :). It was kind of weird- they have the same music/melody as some of the LDS songs, but with different words.

After Church, we went to a fabulous restaurant, Granite City, that I have been trying to get Don to go to since we moved here. The food was amazing, though Papa pulled a quick one on us. You see, we (Don and I) told them that we were paying for dinner, then right near the end, the waitress brings a receipt for Papa to sign- I didn't even see him pass her his card!

On Sunday, Papa had to fly home early for work, but Gigi stayed to play with the kids. I taught her how to make Pot Stickers (here is the link for the recipe I used: http://www.cdkitchen.com/recipes/recs/78/TGI-Fridays-Pot-Stickers73801.shtml) which turned out wonderfully!

And since it was time to get Nolan's four month pictures, we decided to do that as well, so we went back to the mall and Nolan got the cutest pictures done! Here is the link to view those as well (though you may need to sign up to see them): https://www.searsphotos.com/?shareid=S205778394lR8BCKMHNQ6

Now comes the not so great part of the weekend. Last night was truly horrid! Brennan was sick all night, so he slept in our bed and just tossed and turned and coughed like he was dying. When we were getting into the car to take Gigi to the bus, Brennan threw up all over the garage floor! I called the doctor's office to see if they could squeeze him in at the same time Nolan had his and they were able to work him in. Nolan had to have his four month shots and Brennan ended up having to have a breathing treatment for his asthma and x-rays to diagnose his bronchitis. He's going to be on streoids for at least the entire winter and using his inhaler daily. I just hope he's okay. Both of them are asleep right now (FINALLY!!) so I decided to post this blog- I know it's nothing great, but just wanted to let ya'll know what's going on.

-Janice