My Three Sons...: A year later....

So I haven't updated the blog in quite a while. Here's a quick overview of what we've done over the past year...

August 2009
David started 1st grade

September 2009
Christopher and Jacob started Mom's Day Out three days a week. I worked on the three mornings they were in school.

Christopher ended up having an overnight sleep study performed to try and figure out why he was waking up so often at night. We found out that he was actually waking up far more often than what we thought. The pediatric pulmunologist described his sleeping disorder as a type of seizure (sounds worse than it is). He does not have any control over his limb movements and that was waking him up. There were times he was waking up four times an HOUR! He was put on some anti seizure medicines (and they didn't work). So they kept trying with some different medicines. He was also diagnosed as having reflux (duh!) and asthma and put on some preventative medicines for that.

Christopher strapped up for his "sleep" study. I'm not sure how anyone could sleep wearing all of that!

October 2009
We visited an area Pumpkin Patch with my parents and for Halloween. For our family Trick-or-Treating party, I dressed up like Nadia Sullman (OctoMom)! I guess I live a boring life for that to be one of my highlights for October!! :)

This is me as Octomom. I had two more babies strapped to each ankle! :)

November 2009
Brad and I went on a much needed solo vacation while Brad's parents watched the boys. We found a cheap cruise to Mexico. This was our first (and LAST!) cruise. For some reason, after no hurricane activity all summer...a hurricane decided to come through the gulf in NOVEMBER! We just happened to be on a cruise ship in it's path. So the boat was extremely rough which made it to dangerous for the shows to go on, it also made it to dangerous to be out on the decks, it also made it to dangerous to swim (so they took all of the water out of the pools)... It was still nice to get away, but I think next time we'll find an alternative means of transportation to get there! :)

After ten years of living in Maine, my twin sis decided to move down to Baton Rouge. Being the great sister that I am (and someone that looks for any reason to travel!) I decided to support my sis on her new adventure! I flew to meet her and we drove her car from Maine to Baton Rouge! We took a few detours (New York City, the Biltmore Estate...). It was a great road trip, if you can get past my sister's driving skills - or lack thereof!)

Julie at the Statue of Liberty Park with NYC in the background.

December 2009
Every member of our household is an official member of the "Underwear Club"!! :) No more diapers!!!

We enjoyed Christmas at our house. My twin sister and parents stayed the night and helped look out for Santa. It's great having my twin sister in town!!

January 2010
David turns seven years old!?! How can he be so old?? He wanted a rock star party and so we did! It was a blast to plan. I'm not sure who had more fun - the kids or me!?

Dave Man and his fanclub.

February 2010

Brad and I went to Washington DC for a mini vacation before his Chick-fil-A Conference. It was right after their huge snow storm so the snow was still everywhere, but thankfully a little warmer. The city was beautiful! After all of my letters to my senators, they were able to get us in to tour the White House!! And that my friends, is one of the reasons you should always keep in touch with your Senators! :)

Christopher turned four years old and Jacob turned three!! They still mostly share the same friends, so I had their birthday party together. They ended up having a snow birthday party! Yep, we had a guy come in with a snoball machine and he made "snow" in the backyard! We made snowmen and had snowball fights!

March 2010

We celebrated "Christopher, the survivor" at the American Heart Associations Heart Walk. We joined a group of other families that have children with Congenital Heart Defects (or diseases). It's great to see how active these CHD children are, especially considering how much these kids have been through!

The boys each had their own Easter Programs at school. It was a blast to see them stand up on the stage and perform. None of my kids seem to have a shy bone in them...not sure where that came from! :) We also did our annual tradition of dying our hands...uh, I mean easter eggs! :)

It had been quite a while since I had a girls slumber party, so I gathered a bunch of my girl friends and we had an "old fashioned" slumber party. It was a blast-complete with the same games we used to play as kids and we threw in a few adult activities too! A friend of mine came and taught us all how to paint.

April 2010

Spring baseball season begins! All three of the boys were able to play this year. I coached Christopher and Jacob's team. This was David's first season to play coach pitch. He played in Gonzales this year, it is a lot more competitive (and organized) than the Y.

We took a family road trip up to Indiana to see my big sis and her husband. I have to admit, it was much prettier than I thought it was going to be! We stopped at a few places in Tennessee and Kentucky on the way and really enjoyed our spring break!

Brad and I went on a couples trip to Rome!!! ...georgia... :) We went to the Winshape Retreat Center for a couples retreat. It is a retreat center that Chick-fil-A sponsors and it was awesome! Anyone can go and I would suggest it. Each session has a different theme. We went on the Romantic Adventure. They had a ropes and obstacle course set up for us. One of the challenges was climbing a really tall telephone pole, standing on top of a small 8X12 platform that is on the top of it and then jumping off to reach a trapeze...oh, did I mention both of you do it at the same time??? Yep!!! I was scared to death and the entire pole was shaking, but we made it alive.

We had the fourth annual LPCF Tennis Tournament and Fundraiser, as always, it was a great hit and very successful thanks to the generous families and businesses in our area. The money raised and the Foundation was created to help support families affected by CHDs that have to travel for medical care. Baton Rouge does not have a pediatric cardio-thoratic surgeon and most of the children in our area with complex heart disease travel to Boston for their medical care. The last thing that these Moms and Dads need to add to list of worries and stress is how are they going to afford the meals at the hospital or a place to stay while they are up there...that is where LPCF comes in to the rescue! :)

May 2010

The boys did their annual swimming lessons and then we took a beach trip to Destin.

The boys finished up school with end of the year school parties and awards programs. David earned A's in every subject all year long! He's quite the little academic student! I'm pretty sure he got those skills from his Mom! :)

For Memorial Day, the boys and I went down to the National Cemetery in Baton Rouge. It was quite touching to see all of the tombstones there. I think it was a real eye opener to David too as I explained that people had to die for us to have the freedoms we have...so we can go to church where we want, say what we want, go hunting-if we want...

June 2010

My brother came back from his tour in Afghanistan. While on leave, he was able to go to my parents house. My sisters and extended family were all able to go. It was the first time in many years (7 or 8, I think) that all of my siblings were all together at the same time. It was great and I hope we're able to do it more often.

After almost a year of keeping our eyes open and trying to decide what we should do about our living situation, we finally found our dream house! The only bad thing was another couple also wanted the house as bad as we did and were in the process of negotiating a contract when we went to see the home. The seller was not wanting to wait until the buyer could sell their house (and ours wasn't even up for sale!!). So we did what any crazy irrational competitive couple would do and made a non-contingent overpriced offer so we would "win" the house. The next day the offer was accepted and Brad and I just looked at each other like "uhhh, duhh...what do we do now?" So we quickly got rid of a BUNCH of stuff at our house, took pictures and posted them on the for sale by owner website. The stress set in...we did NOT want to be stuck with two house notes and the expenses that would go with both of them!! So thankfully, six DAYS after putting our house up for sale - we received an acceptable offer on it!

July 2010

We went back to Destin for the Fourth of July. The beaches were still clean and the water looked great. The waves were rough, but clean! :) The boys all had a great time. It's always entertaining when you have five little boys ranging in age of 3 1/2 to 7 (my nephews were there too!)

We moved!!! After seven years of living in Longwood and many memories, we moved into the house we have dreamed about. Each of the boys have their own bedroom (all upstairs so we don't have to trip over their toys or hear them argue!), a huge backyard (with plenty of room for a pool!), a ski lake (yep, it is a water skiing lake - but you can fish too!) and wonderful neighbors. I have to admit, I was very sad to leave Longwood. That was our first house and where we met our best friends; the place where my babies 'grew up'. The potty training days, the sleepless nights worrying about kids, their first steps...