We said "Shape up or Ship Out"...

Soooooo, any takers?? ;)

He's Too Sexy For His Shirt

Halloween Traditions

So, with 4 inches of snow on the ground and it feeling more like Christmas than Halloween, we carved pumpkins tonight...errr, well, shall i say, Doug and the boys carved pumpkins. You know, i've never really gotten into the whole pumpkin carving thing. Too much gooey-gut stuff for me. This is really the first year Bode has gotten into it. He was super-excited to do it--kept asking Doug to get going on it tonight. And when we asked what he wanted to carve into his pumpkin he said, "A fireman." Hmmmm. I think we have a theme. He wants to dress-up as a firefighter, too (and i have this super-lame-o costume for him. i should have spent more and gotten a good one!). I got online and found one firefighter design (i was surprised to find even one). Doug sketched it out (he's totally amazing). He and B sat down and gutted the pumpkin. I was sure B would be totally skeeved out by the guts. He wasn't too sure of things initially but really got into it. Then they used the pokey tool on Doug's design and it came out great! I did contribute in that i made a pot of hot wassail that was actually really yummy. I used the cider from the apple farm and threw in some brown sugar, a cinnamon stick and some whole cloves and voila, wassail. And of course i "ooooohed" and "aaaaaahed" over their creation.

It's the Great Pumpkin

We made our annual trek to the Happy Apple Farm about an hour from us to enjoy the hayrides and pumpkin patch. Apple-picking is long since done (I really need to remember to do that next year, which is what i said last year, too). Anyway, it's a small, quaint place. Bode and Keegen love the fact that we ride on a wagon pulled by a tractor. The boys found three lovely pumpkins and then we got some candy and gourds at their little store. Followed by ice cream and another haywagon ride to finish it all off. A fun family outing. Funny to think that last year Keegen was this tiny thing in the Bjorn. And this year he was wrestling pumpkins off the ground. Bode is getting so big and able to hoist his up and look forward to pumpkin carving.

Doug makes the front page

This fine-looking crew made the front page of the Castle Valley Outdoors newsletter.

I personally accounted for at least half of those birds (don't let anyone tell you otherwise).

This is the ultimate manly trip (we really rough it), where you are in beautiful, rugged country, we hunt, hike difficult terrain to find birds, beat bushes and wear Cabellas.

That is all not to mention what we have to endure with the 5-star accomodations, on-call chef, cable TV, pool table, exercise room and guides who carry, clean and freeze-pack your birds for you.

We always have a really great time and as you can see we are the most handsome group they get out there on the ranch.

MAJOR Upheavals

Wow, what a week. Wednesday night Keegen started throwing up and it continued until about 2:30AM when Ashlee took him to the Emergency Room. We needed to be sure that the naseau wasn't related to his head injury. It turns out that while at the ER for stitches we contracted a horrible GI bug that typically gives you 24 hours of puking, followed by 5 days of diahreea. Well, Bode started throwing up Thursday night and both the boys had hopefully there last puke Sunday morning. Ashlee and I both felt awful, though we never actually purged like the boys. It was a good 5 days of constantly laying up with the boys and washing sheets, towels and clothes. Here are some of the high and low points.

• Holding Keegen while he throws up and looks at you with those eyes that say, why aren't you helping me?
• Holding Bode while in between pukes he says "I don't want more stroats" and "Daddy can't you help me?".
• One morning Bode started throwing up, I grabbed a towel and caught most of it in the towel. Two seconds later Bode says, in his sad little voice "nice catch dad".

Hopefully we are well on the mend and won't run into anything like that soon again.

ALSO, I interviewed last Monday for a new job in my current company. I am going to be moving from my current job "Business Process Analyst" which none of you know what I do to a "Business Operations Manager". It will be a promotion and give me a team of 6 people to manage and have reporting to me. The new business I will be managing is also working on this huge opportunity with the military, where they will be spending 45 Billion dollars over the next 20 years to move, build and consolidate military bases in Guam and Hawaii. We hope to win a large chunk of that business, which would be great for my career.

Keegen Potter

Keegen has pretty much always been an accident waiting to happen. Always climbing on things. No matter how i shove the chairs under the table, he finds a way to climb onto one and promptly fall off. Or pulls one over on himself. He already likes to jump off the stairs (ala Bode). He rolls his body on the big kickballs we have and does faceplants onto the tile. Zero self-preservation. A definite thrill-seeker...

What was meant to be a lovely playdate at Kristen's went awry today. We'd been there maybe 30 minutes when we headed to the playground. The big kids were at the top of the playset and Keegen toddled on over to the steps. He started stepping up them when he lost his footing and smacked his head into something. I saw a dark line on his forehead and sent up a silent prayer that it was a piece of mulch. Until that line started gushing blood and Keegen started crying. Oh. My. Gosh. Kristen ran off to get a wet towel and in the meantime i used my shirt to apply pressure, which truly pissed Keegen off. It was so deep I thought it would never stop bleeding (it actually did stop bleeding faster than i'd imagined) but i was fairly certain he would need stitches.

Luckily, Kristen had neighbors willing to keep an eye on the older kids and she drove me to the ED while i sat in the back with Keegen. As soon as it stopped bleeding and I took the towel off of his head, he acted totally FINE. Unbelievable. We checked in around 3:30. He looked a mess! The RN who triaged him was joking about bar fights and the like. Ugh. We were all covered in his blood. As most ED trips go, we waited a long time. Finally the doc came in and cleaned his cut out and said we could probably get away with gluing it. But on second thought he decided that cosmetically it was better to stitch it since it was so prominent on his forehead. So they put some numbing gel on his wound and we waited 1 1/2 hours and then he came back and stitched it up. Keegen was AMAZING while he was being stitched. They swaddled him so he couldn't move and a nurse held his head. And he just looked around. Smiled at Doug. Did this funny blinking eye thing (almost like, "well, can't move my arms, so i'll blink my eyes!"). A nurse and doctor came in from the hall because they couldn't believe he was being so good. They went on and on which was something really nice in the midst of something so unpleasant. He got 5 stitches and I hope it heals well.

While he was being stitched I noticed that his right pupil was dilated and asked about it. While the nurse put the numbing gel on his wound I think she got some in his eye, so i asked if that could cause the dilation. And while, yes, it could, they decided Keegs should get a CT scan just to rule out a head trauma (since a blown pupil can be an indication of that). So, another 1 1/2 hours later, we were in radiology, again swaddling my sweet baby, putting a lead apron on him and loading him into the scanner. Bizarre. And again, he did great. Couldn't hold his head still to save his life, but did awesome (a tech came out and held his head so they could get a clear picture).

Finally, the CT came through and the ED doc looked at it and said he was OK to go. Poor baby. Sooooooo past his bedtime (it was almost 9 when we left). Thank goodness "Finding Nemo" was on the TV. We watched it 3 times during our stay. It was perfect for him. He totally vegged to it. I am so grateful he's OK. And I can't thank Kristen enough for taking such good care of all of us--acting so quickly to get us to the ED and then heading home to take care of her kids and Bode (he was having too much fun and not so excited to see his dad when he went to pick him up!). While I never want to go through anything like this again, I have a feeling this will not be the last time we're in the ED with our boys. At least things ended well. And Keegen is happy to be sound asleep in his own bed!

Fun Stuff

With Doug out of town, I try to stay extra busy since I know I will have no one to hand the boys off to in the evening. I want them good and tired when bedtime comes! We spent the afternoon with some friends and the boys played so hard--trikes and scooters and the playground and more. Here's a new favorite picture of Bode and a video just for the fun of it!