Crazy life with 3 kids!

The last couple of weeks has been really crazy!  I haven't taken the time to blog, but I thought I would post some of the highlights for you since I know you all missed me :)

- We rejoined the Cincinnati Zoo!  Our membership expired at the end of May and I didn't renew it since I was 8 months pregnant.  Our zoo is really hilly and every time I would go, I would end up having Braxton-Hicks contractions.  With the way my family is, I would NEVER hear the end of it if my child was born at the zoo, so I had to stop going.  Just in case.  But Ryan literally begged every day to go back, so I ended up getting another membership at the beginning of September. Here are some photos from our trip (and Molly's first trip ever) on Tyler's favorite thing...the train.

    

- 2 weeks ago, Tyler started "Cubbies" at Urbancrest Baptist Church here in Lebanon.  Cubbies is part of the Awana program, which is a Wednesday evening program for kids.  They have cute little vests, a cool workbook, scripture to memorize for each week, crafts, singing, playtime, bible stories, etc.  Tyler absolutely loves it and thinks it is so cool that he can go and Ryan isn't old enough.  Since we decided not to do preschool this year, I decided to have him in Cubbies as one of his activities to keep him around other kids in a classroom setting.  We are doing other things as well, but this has been good so far!

- Thomas the train came to town.  It's part of his "Day Out With Thomas" tour.  I'll post more on this later, but let's just say the boys had a BLAST!

- Steve started teaching.  Most of you know that my husband is an electrician.  He is working for a great company (Carr Electric) and his boss is his childhood friend and his father (who is also a deacon at his parents' church).  This past spring, he completed a 4-year long training program with the IEC.  Upon graduation, they asked him to teach!  It's a huge time commitment but I think he's enjoying the challenge.  Here's a photo from graduation with his proud papa sitting beside him.

- My awesome dad found a guy at work that was junking a Buick Rendezvous.  Apparently it was his kids' vehicle and he is a mechanic and was going to try and fix it.  Long story short, repairs would cost more than the vehicle was worth.  Since Dad knew we needed a couple of parts for our vehicle, we were able to go over and get everything we needed to make our vehicle better.  We ended up getting a sweet deal on a side mirror, key fob (clicker), spare tire, roof rack rails, owner's manual, center console and a tiny vent cover that was missing on ours and driving me crazy.  Yay for dads and his co-worker!

- Molly was sick this past Friday and Saturday.  She was puking up pretty much everything that she was eating, but acting normally except for that (no fever, pee/poop diapers like normal, not fussy, etc).  I didn't take her to the doctor because I wasn't that concerned, but Tyler had a hard time with it because he hated seeing "baby sister" throwing up.

- Tuesday I took Tyler to the doctor because he had a high temp overnight and was coughing.  I'm not one to rush to the doctor for every little thing, but I was supposed to start working (babysitting for a local MOPS  group) and felt like I needed to go see if he was contagious.  Turns out he has croup.  He has had it before, so he is one of the unfortunate ones that is prone to it.  The doctor gave us some steroids to help his lungs and told me to do ibuprofen for his temperature.  Unfortunately he is contagious until his fever breaks on its own, so we spent a couple days quarantined at home.  One funny thing that happened though, was I gave the boys some sprite and Ryan said his mouth was sparkling :)

- Molly is now 8 weeks!  Geesh, time has flown by!  She has now grown out of all of her newborn clothes.  I haven't weighed her as much as I should, but I'm pretty sure she is now over 11 lbs.  We have her 2-month doctor appointment next week.  I have already tried to convince Steve to go for one more, but he says no every time.  I really won't mind one more, but my body is definitely done.  I'm still trying to recover from the c-section....it's taking a lot longer this time than the 2 previous times.  The actual surgery was the same, but everything afterwards has taken almost double to heal.  I'm still having pain radiate in my abdomen...it's weird to describe, but it's not the actual scar that hurts, it's the inside stuff right below my belly button.  As a result, I'm still wearing maternity pants (boo!) and haven't been able to work out yet :(

- I made a day-trip to the Amish in Adams County.  With all 3 kids.  And Survived.  And bought everything that was on my list.  Amazing!  For those of you in Southern Ohio, I go to Miller's Furniture, Bakery and Bulk Food and Keim Family Market.  This is where I buy some of my supplies for my cake business, but I also love to buy things for our personal use.  This trip was successful and I bought some spices, whole wheat flour, steel cut oats, lunch meat and cheese and my favorite bread ever - Dill Rye bread. Then we made a quick stop at Blake's Pharmacy in West Union (they are in the list here, but they don't have an actual website.  Check out the photo in their listing to see their soda fountain!)  They have a cool soda fountain setup and their prices are cheap!  I got a cookie dough shake, large diet coke and 2 kids ice cream cones (birthday cake flavor) for $2.20!  Here is what the kids looked like when we pulled into the driveway.  You can't see Molly's eyes, but she is asleep as well.  Score!

I've been trying a few recipes and have a few DIY projects in progress, so stay tuned!

*Update....Tyler was feeling better this afternoon, so I decided to brave it and go to Target to get a few things and get out of the house.  We literally haven't been in the car since Tuesday morning to go to the doctor (and it's not Thursday afternoon).  Anyway, we were in the sporting goods aisle checking out the end of summer clearance and Ryan said, "Mommy, I'm going to throw up." and the look on his face told me that was true.  So I quickly looked for something he could puke in, but no luck.  He puked all over the floor, my hands, Tyler, the cart.  Yuck.  Fortunately, he missed Molly, the stuff I was buying and  the stuff on the shelves.  Back to quarantine for us :(