Cubs Win the Division!

Go, Cubs, Go!
Go, Cubs, Go!
Hey Chicago, what do you say?
The Cubs are gonna win today!

The Cubs won the NL Central Division tonight! My family is pumped up...we love baseball in October and for Cubs fans it doesn't come often enough! Most of you reading this blog couldn't care less, but I am a Cubs fan, bleeding red, white and blue, ordering my cable to make sure we get WGN, spending thousands of dollars to watch the Cubs...elated that they are going to be in the Post-Season!

Ahh...Life is GOOD!

Ikea

I went to Ikea today with a couple of friends. Kelly's dad took the motorhome, so it was a nice relaxing ride there. We went to the Canton Ikea which I hadn't been to before, so that was fun too! I managed to pick up some fun things. We wanted a new table for our kitchen since the one we have really only seats 3 people and now Henry is at the table with us. I also hoped to get a new duvet cover and was successful there as well! Yeah! Here's a couple of pics of those things.

We have another busy week and I'm already a little tired from today! Henry doesn't have speech on Thursday though, so that will be nice to have Thursday and Friday not be so busy.

It's 11:28 at night as I type this, but still my mom's birthday...Happy Birthday, Mom! Love you!

Go Michigan!

Abigail is ready (a day early) to cheer on Michigan as they play #10 Penn State tomorrow. Go Blue!

Little Hands Big Ideas Has Started!

Yesterday we had our first Little Hands meeting of this year! We had an amazing turn-out, around 17 kids in the 2-4 range, plus siblings and parents. Deb led the activities on "ants" and the kids got to go on an ant march, make egg carton ants, sort ants and make a picnic with ants invading. The kids had an absolute blast! Henry was so good and had a great time doing the activities. He especially loved using the glue stick! :) If yesterday is an indication, we will have an AWESOME year!

Another Week, Another Day

Well, since my hard day and the positive post things have been about the same. We have good days, we have bad days. The joys of parenthood! :)

Not much going on really. Today was such a beautiful day! After Henry's speech class we went to the park. It was fun to get a little time outside and let the kids play for awhile before naps. Tonight they played with the neighbors for quite awhile too. It's great having this warmer weather.

Tomorrow Abigail has school and Henry and I will be going to Little Hands. It's the first meeting of the year and we are SO excited! Looks like we will have a great group of parents and kids this year! It looks to be a BIG group too - around 15-20 kids tomorrow and that's not including the parents or younger siblings! Tomorrow's theme is "Ants" and I'm in charge of snack. In a couple of minutes I will be putting together ants out of grapes and toothpicks. Hmm...hopefully they turn out!

Not much else to report. I put up a new banner. I don't love it, but needed to get rid of the "back to school" one. I am just so tired lately from getting up early that when I finally have time at night to do some stuff (like scrapbook), I am just so tired and don't feel like doing anything. I need to find some evening energy back!

More later...

Hmmm...

Struggling today. Well...almost yesterday, as I blog at 11:59 pm on Thursday night. It was a long, hard day. Money issues, kid issues, my foot killing me, etc., etc. I guess I could blog about that. I could blog a "poor me" post. I could blog about my anxiety over all this, but what's the point? I don't think I'll feel better and things won't get better instantly (but wouldn't that be awesome if they would?). I think instead I'll blog a positive post. :) How about the things I love about my family...

COLIN
If you know Colin at all you know that he is the most patient, easy going guy in the world. He's my rock in my crazy, anxiety-ridden world. He does so much around the house and with our kids, always giving me time to myself. He's positive in so many things that he does, especially in his job and with parenting. I love how he gives the kids a bath each night (I've probably given them 30 baths in 4 years), how they have their routine with the bubbles and lotion, how the kids laugh the whole time during the routine. I love how he teaches the kids funny things and how they love joking and teasing with him. I love how supportive he is.

ABIGAIL
Oh, Abigail. She sure is something. Abigail loves life. In a serious way. She finds amazing goodness in everything. She's full of drama and passion (which is often good, sometimes bad). I love when she crawls in bed with me in the morning and snuggles with me. I love when she tells me "Jesus' heart is happy." I love when she prays. I love when she signs. I love when she hugs Henry. I love when she uses her imagination, playing with her princesses, getting embarrassed when we ask her what she's doing. I love her spunk.

HENRY
This is the hardest to write today...he's been a piece of work! :) I love when I go in his room every night before I go to bed and wake him up just a little bit, just enough for him to give me a kiss and say "night-night." I love when he talks...I will never tire of that! I love how he's just starting to sing along with songs, in his sweet, high voice. I love how when I sing "Jesus Loves Me" to him every night, when we get to "Yes, Jesus loves..." he sings "mama" or "daddy" or "Abby" instead of me. I love how he laughs when I say "I'm going to tickle your bones off!" I love watching him sleep. I love holding him when he's fresh from the bath - the only time he's real snuggly!

And that, my friends, is just some of what I love about my family.
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In other news...
I haven't scrapped in a long time. I've been so tired and going to be so early because of the early mornings lately. I just don't have the motivation. Hopefully I can get something going soon! I'd love to get some new stuff done!

Here's a funny auction for you to check out...a guy from Byron Center...they talked about him on ESPN today. U of M Football Allegiance


Tomorrow is our quiet day! No school, speech, playgroups or anything else. I really like that...we need that at the end of the week! I think we'll head to Target for a couple of things, but other than that probably take it easy at home. I really should clean my house...anyone taking bets on that happening?? :)

Night all (this is the latest I've stayed up in awhile now!)

A New Recipe

Day 1 of this week down...6 to go! :) Henry did great at Jean's house today, so that was great! Abigail had a blast at school, so that was great! Abigail was a nightmare at the dentist, so that sucked! I have NO idea what was going on with her...she was perfect the other times she's been there. Today she made up million stories why they couldn't take x-rays or put a mirror in her mouth, or clean her teeth or anything! She cried so much that we had to reschedule. Yeah, I was embarrassed and ticked at her since I know she can do it without problems...she has before! Ugh!


Changing subjects...do you all get the Kraft Food & Family magazine? If not, go to their website and sign up for it - it's free and full of great, easy, kid-friendly recipes! You can also go to their site and search the recipes there. Yummy stuff! Tonight I made "Bacon, Cheddar, Potato Chowder" from the current issue. I altered a couple of things and it's great! Really good! Here's the recipe card I made. If you want the card (in jpeg form), click on the link to download it.

Download recipe card HERE.

That's it for tonight...I still don't feel so hot, so time for an early bedtime! Night!

First Full Week

We are beginning our first full week of the new school year. Here's what our week looks like:

I'm thinking we will be pretty busy! Luckily the kids are feeling a lot better. I don't feel real great, either a terrible cold, strep or allergies, but because I'm the mom - tough! :) I'll make it, I just may need a little nap!

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We took the kids to Cranes apple picking today. It was a gorgeous day to go and lots of fun! We picked a bunch of apples and also some raspberries. Here are a couple of quick pics from the day.

Always a fun time!

Have a great week!

First Day!!

The kids are on the mend for the most part. Henry's doing well and seems pretty much back to his old self. Abigail is still struggling. I took her to see a Nurse Practitioner yesterday because her fever was so high and she was miserable. They did a strep test (which was negative) and said it seems to be viral and needs to run it's course. I asked about her going to school today and was told it was up to us. Her fever was about 103 degrees yesterday, but totally went down in the night. She was drenched in sweat and much cooler this morning. I think she still has a low fever and doesn't feel 100%, but it doing a lot better.

She did go to school today. It was her first day and only an hour long and I got to go with her. She did a great job. She had fun finding her locker, playing with play-doh, listening to a Bible story, coloring, listening to a book and coloring a head band. She had tons of fun, but was definitely tired toward the end. Tomorrow she goes for the full morning (2 1/2 hours), so I'm a little worried about her energy. Here are some pictures from today. Isn't she so cute?




Henry has an open house tomorrow for Early On. Early On is his speech program for the school year. It's 2 mornings a week for 1 1/2 hours each time. Busy, busy!
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One more thing...

~Yoplait Yogurt is running their Save Lids to Save Lives campaign again. The concept is so simple and easy to do. Save the pink lids from the Yoplait containers, mail them in and Yoplait donates 10 cents for every lid, up to 1.5 million dollars, to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. We go through SO much Yogurt around here, so I definitely will be saving these lids. How about you?? Will you help? I'll gladly pick them up from you, clean them, mail them, whatever needs to be done...just PLEASE save them! This cause is becoming more and more important to me and this is such an easy, easy way to donate. Please email me if you are interested or leave a comment on here. THANKS for your help!!

Still Struggling...

The kids are still no where near 100%. Actually, Henry is doing pretty well. He HATES taking his medicine, but is eating, playing and sleeping normally with no fever. Abigail is still very hot and just watches movies and sleeps all day. Poor thing...her first day of fourschool is tomorrow too...ugh, not fun!

The Sickies Have Invaded Us

It's been a hard day at the Mulder house! Yesterday Abigail seemed pretty warm and by bedtime was burning up. We had gone to Blockbuster earlier in the evening and each kid had picked out a movie (Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for Henry, Veggie Tales for Abigail) and when we got home, after baths, Henry was on the couch watching his movie and Abigail went into her room and watched Veggie Tales on her mini tv/dvd player. Abigail fell asleep around 8:15...NOT normal for her, especially when watching a movie! Henry also fell asleep on time. Abigail woke up in the middle of the night on fire - poor thing. After a little Tylenol (she takes medicine like a CHAMP) and some snuggling she was back asleep.

Henry was out of sorts today, crying a lot, not eating and just looked like he didn't feel well. Both kids ended up taking 3 hour naps today. Henry also ended up throwing up twice. Poor kids! Both are now running fevers. I have to admit I also took a 2 hour nap, not feeling so well myself...yuck! We pretty much have let them watch movies since they woke up...here are a couple pics of the sick angels...

Since I started this post I talked to my parents. My dad said that he saw Henry pulling at his ear this afternoon. Great. My mom and dad came over and my dad checked Hanks' ears. Both tubes had fallen out when he went to his 2 year check, but that's totally normal since he had them in for about a year. Well...he does have an ear infection. Poor little guy! I'm so thankful for my dad! Had he not seen him pulling at his ear I don't know if we would have even thought about an ear infection and then the office is closed tomorrow for Labor Day, so we wouldn't have been able to have him seen until Tuesday or would have had to go to the ER. So thankful for him!

So...Colin and I are just hanging out tonight. Last night we watched a movie, "Perfect Stranger" so we are just chilling tonight, trying to stay as healthy as possible!