Hooray for Hand-me-downs!!!

There are some advantages to having our cousins a bit older than us...we get their toys when they outgrow them. Thanks Petersens for sharing with us! Addison seems to enjoy the four wheeler the most and Avery is probably a close second. August was in school during the video and Aiden was napping. We'll have to get a video of those two together tonight. (If Aiden is as brave as her sister!) Thanks again!

There is definitely some loud squeaking in the video, but if you listen closely you can also hear Avery's giggle!

Halloween Stress!

Love this picture! Avery (ladybug) Aiden (pumpkin)

Living in a household of four little girls, Halloween really isn't that big of a deal. Everyday is a dress-up day of some sort. We usually don't stress that much about getting new costumes every year because their closets are already full of princess dresses, dance costumes, etc. Here's where the stress comes in though...between school, dance, pre-school, the trunk or treat (held on Friday not Saturday), and actual Halloween, I dressed up at least one kiddo five days in a row. Now, that's still not that bad, right? Well, you see when they don't have a set costume that leads to the changing of their cute little minds during the week. Oh joy! Good thing there is a lot of chocolate lying around during this time of year. I needed it this week! Good thing tomorrow is Monday and we can get back to our normal craziness, which is pretty much the same just with fewer bobby pins and less glitter. :) August was a princess the first 2 days of dress-up then shifted to Taylor Swift then to the more glammed up Taylor. Addison was consistently a ballerina during the week by made some major wardrobe changes, going from her dance clothes to August's old recital costume. Avery and Aiden only made one Halloween appearance as a cute ladybug and an adorable pumpkin.

Who doesn't love the fair?

Yay! I love the changing of seasons! Isn't fall the greatest? I mean kids are back in school, the weather is more tolerable (we don't have A/C), and most importantly the Eastern Idaho State Fair is in full swing. Yahoo! We went this week on a weeknight. Definitely the way to go. The crowds were manageable, which is important when you're maneuvering a double stroller around. We do the same things year after year. But why change a good thing, right? We check out the amazing photography (yay Papa!), are blown away by the quilts and crafts, get STUFFED by yummy fair food, and finally pet all kinds of farm animals. (Don't worry, a good hand scrubbing is always part of our routine!)

Addison started preschool this week. She was so excited. I'm so happy for her. I didn't realize how hard it is to be the second child. It has been hard for her to watch August get big and try new things. I'm afraid Addie is not incredibly patient. Hmmm...wonder where she gets that?

Dance also started this week for the girls. Addison's best friend Anaya is in her class. They were dying of excitement on the way over there. What is cuter than two little girls all dressed up for the first day of dance lessons?

Soccer is in full swing. August is pretty timid on the field. She says she's afraid to hurt the other girls. I think Aunt Brooke needs to come over and run a training camp for her in the backyard. She likes her coach and the girls on her team and the game was entertaining, so that's what's most important, I guess.

Let's see, how do I describe Avery and Aiden these days? Let's just say staying one step ahead of them is becoming increasingly difficult. They climb onto the counters, open doors, and today Aiden learned how to get onto the changing table and slather herself with lotion. Now if she could just learn to change her own diaper while she's up there. :) Needless to say the house is full of gates, latches, and doorknob thingers. Wow, it's hard not to wish away this stage!

Back to School

Yesterday was August's first day of FIRST GRADE! She seemed to do great. She ate chicken nuggets at lunch and enjoyed recess. That's about all the info she gave us. Aren't kids silly! I'm excited to be back on a schedule. All of our carpool arrangements are made and we're set for this new year. It shouldn't be as hard to load kids in and out all day now that Avery and Aiden are bigger. Addison starts preschool in a couple of weeks and they both start dance soon...so tune in for more pictures. August is also playing fall soccer and seems to like it so far. We'll see if that lasts when they're playing during some bad weather. :(

I finally tried out the "extreme coupon shopping" yesterday. (Thanks to my helpful sis-in-law...it's kind of confusing at first) I bought $90 worth of stuff for $32. Not bad for my first time. I can see how people get addicted to this!

Radioactive Mama

Okay here is the story of my summer, and Brandon and the girls' a little more indirectly. I feel that I can now blog about it because I'm not smack dab in the middle of it. I'll try and make it short and sweet. I've had thyroid problems for years which causes me to take medication and get annual thyroid ultrasounds. This year it seems my little thyroid nodules decided to grow slightly, hence the need for a biopsy. Ouch. Not fun...it's just not natural to see someone coming at you with a needle...repeatedly! Biopsy showed basically nothing but they couldn't rule out cancer. Okay, that's helpful. My doctor felt like surgery was needed and we decided to just take the whole thyroid out. Yikes. I had my surgery on June 26th...again painful and unnatural. Isn't it a natural response to try and protect your neck against sharp objects? They actually did find a tiny cancerous mass, so I'm so glad I had the surgery. Ooh...I forgot the most pleasant little tidbit of this whole process -"The Low-Iodine Diet." (spoken with a creepy low voice) I started the diet before surgery and remained on it for 8 weeks. What is the Low-Iodine Diet you ask? The most horrific, torturous diet ever. In my humble opinion. It's a way to starve your body of iodine because the next part of this fun summer is receiving radioactive iodine to kill any remaining thyroid cells left in the body. We'll get to that next. I'm still not done complaining about the diet yet. I couldn't have any dairy, egg yolks, chocolate, anything with red dye (bye-bye Cinnamon Bears and Red Vines! ), basically anything with salt in the ingredients because you don't know if it was iodized salt or not! Ask me when I'll ever eat a corn tortilla or a fruit smoothie again. Ugh! Gross! It took me 7 weeks to get my levels low enough for treatment. That means I had to be tested twice. How do they tell your iodine levels you ask. Good question. With a 24-hour urine test. Yes, that's correct...collect your pee for 24 hours and store the big pee jug in your fridge! April and I are sure my kids' primary teachers probably heard all about that one. Can you just imagine that conversation? This Wednesday I received my radioactive iodine treatment at the hospital in the Nuclear Medicine area. It was pretty easy...I just had to take these two tiny pills. The catch is that I couldn't be around anyone for 2 days and pregnant women and children for 4 days. The girls are all in Utah with the fam and we're going to pick them up TOMORROW. Yay! The treatment made me tired and a little weak, but that's all. I actually started my thyroid meds again today...finally. I hope that I can feel like myself again soon. One of the side effects of everything is my manly voice. My vocal chords haven't healed yet from surgery so when I answer my phone people always think I've been crying or that I've been sleeping. Nope, just don't have a voice. Oh well, if that's the extent of the fallout I'm good with that. I want to thank our awesome families for taking such good care of us this summer. You've helped so much with the girls and we appreciate it tons. Hopefully we're done with the drama for awhile. Great, just jinxed myself! If anyone ever has this problem...I'm your girl. Give me a call and we can chat.