Pumkin Carving

I know it has been several days since my last post but life in the Rice family has been busier than normal since I had a mid-term to study for. Now I beleive that life is starting to get back to our normal busy ( whatever that is). The good news is that I passed my mid term yahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
We started carving our pumpkins finally last night and so far have only got 2.5 done.
Conrad wanted a vampire and Nikki just wanted a face so we got both of them finished. I wanted a 2 diminshinal rose so James is currently working on that one it is turning out really neat I will try to post pictures when he is finished with it. After that one I think we only have a couple left.
Last Sunday we went to Trunk or Treat at Nikki's school which they do every year.
They usually have a chilli contest (which I think I may enter next year we'll see), a costume contest and of course trunk or treating.
It is a really fun time for the kids. Nikki was very excited when she won first place in the costume contest and that just made her day, and mine to because this means she will let me make her costume next year. She won a pumkin and I guess you would call a lite brite kit for the pumkin it is really neat I had never seen that before.
Conrad is his normal onery self, he decided tonight that he was going to pee in the trash bag that we had put pumkin yuk in, mind you it was on the front porch, I'm sure the neighbors got a good laugh out of that.
He had me choking on my dinner tonight I was laughing so hard I had to leave the table. We had just sat down to dinner

CJ: where is my water

we of course give no response when he demands since he knows the proper way to ask.

CJ: I'm still waiting for my water ( which he repeated several times)

He eventually asked please dad may I have a glass of water so James got up to get him some water and accidently put it in front of Nikki and his response was:

CJ: did you just never listen

He is so so funny sometimes I'm not sure how he comes up with some things. We were trying to figure out what time his halloween party is tomorrow so we asked CJ if he knew what time his party started and he stated in just a minute. I think we might be saying that a little too often.
My kids are so amazing they are like night and day in personallities and it is so much fun watching them grow and learn about the world around them.

Breast Cancer Awareness

I was sent this video from a friend and was so amazed that I had never heard of this before especially since I go to my well woman visit every year. I have do not know anyone who has or has had breast cancer but beleive this is something that every woman should know. Please pass this on to every woman you know. We may not be able to know about everything, but knowing something helps us prepare.

Parent Teacher Conferences (Again)

Today was CJ's turn for the parent teacher conferences and he is doing just great. He is also doing things we had no idea he could do, like eat!!! Boy does he have our number. Although he is still not eating much he is eating more and that is very exciting. I guess that at snack time he is eating almost all of his snack (if it is crunchy) and usually drinks his whole pint of milk or at least 2/3 of it, but at lunch they said he seems kind of lost (maybe too much food at once) so they are going to try giving him one kind of food and expecting him to finish what they give him during the lunch hour.
This got me to wondering why he does so well at snack but not at lunch time. And my conclusion was that he gets his tube feeding at 10am and it takes 45minutes to dose out his required amount, he would then usually eat again at 2pm but because I am not comfortable with the school feeding him we chose to move his 2pm to 3pm, after school is out.
Lunch is at 11:30am which he has just finished eating 45min prior to lunch so he is not hungry which would explain his disinterest and snack time is around 2:30 pm, 4.5 hours later so now he is hungry.Are you confused yet? I think I might be.

I wish there was some way that I could not feed him during the day and only feed him at night. I can't help but wonder if this would make a difference in the amount of food he ate. The problem with feeding him at night is bedwetting. He soaks through his pull ups now and if we fed him a full day’s amount at night then we are afraid that he won't sleep much. I don't know what to do! If someone has that book let me know because I need it.

I may try this theory out on the weekends when I can devote more of my time and we'll see if it makes a difference.
On the other hand he has mastered or is emerging at most everything and can take one step down stairs without support which is just awesome. His gross motor seems to be improving allot we are so proud of him. Keep up the good work Cj we are so proud of your accomplishments. We love you so much. XOXOXOXO

Powell Pumkin Patch

The Powell Pumkin Patch is an annual tradition of ours we always have so much fun. We tried to change our tradition this year by going to the KC Pumkin Patch in Gardner, we heard that it had all these activities for the kids and was so much fun that we just had to go. So we did.
It was so crowded which being closer to the city we kinda expected this, but what we didn't expect was that on top of the price of the pumkins we had to pay $6 per person (even Cj) to just get in and this did not include the pumpkin which would have been an additonal charge (they charged by the pound.) CRAZY!!!!! I looked at James and said no-way. It was crowded and much to expensive. We talked about it for awhile and decided that it just wasn't for us, we are much simpler people than that. I think people forget the reason behind holidays and they try to market it too much. Our kids only wanted a pumkin not all that other stuff not that it wouldn't have been fun but it wasn't why we were going to the pumpkin patch.
Needless to say we chose not to go there since it was so commercialized and drove back to Louisberg to Powell's Pumkin Patch. We had a blast it wasn't crowded and the kids had so much fun trying to find the biggest pumpkin they could. After everyone got their pumpkins we went and played in the hay maze, climbed on the tractor tires and hay bales and just had simple fun. Nikki had her best friend Lilly with her and they laughed and gigled the whole time. Besides that we got 4 very huge pumpkins for less than it would've cost to just get into the other park.
We will never go anywhere else again (lesson learned).
On the way home we also stopped at the Louisberg Cider Mill and watched them make fresh apple cider and donuts (which we had to sample). It was an awesome day.
Next weekend we are going to go to Cedar Cove also in Louisberg for their Halloween Cat Walk kids 6-12 are only $2 and under that is free and adults are $5 they will get to tour the park and see the tigers and trick or treat.
We are really excited about seeing all the tigers, we have never been there so maybe this will be a new tradition for us.

Offense Taken

I was sent an e-mail from a friend that I thought was really a touching story. Until we had Conrad I looked at the world in a completely different way than I used to. Although we don't believe that Conrad has any mental disabilities he does have delays in other ways. He didn't start walking until he was over 2 years old and still doesn't really run he kinda just trots and he is also tube fed still.
He will eat a little by mouth now (when he is at school) but still not enough to sustain himself by any stretch of the means. It is so hard to answer some of the questions we are asked in regards to his eating like the most common one, When is he going to start eating? unfortunately no one can answer this question we will just have to wait until he is ready. The other famous question is, Why doesn't he eat? Well besides having an oral aversion we don't know this answer either.
Sometimes I feel like people think we have not tried hard enough or done the right things by their reactions. Although they are are not saying this sometimes I feel like that may be what they are thinking. Maybe I'm just thinking to much who knows.
We were at Wall mart today and Cj started retching and when he does this he starts gasping also and will sometimes spit out white foamy spit. (gross) Anyways, this woman gave me a nasty look then looked at him and asked if he was sick. NO!!! like I would take my sick kid shopping at wallmart. I realize that she was not aware of his situation but sometime I get tired of having to always explain it I suppose because I don't understand it myself sometimes.
I'm not sure why her reaction affected me so much because normally it doesn't bother me. Maybe I was just extra sensitive today.
Here is the e-mail address I hope it will work I tried to post it but couldn't figure out how to post the video. http://www.selfadvocacy.com/offensetaken
I suppose the point to my babbling is that we should never judge another person because we don't know where they have been nor do we know their situation.

Parent Teacher Conferences

Way to go Nikki!! We had Nikki's first parent teacher conferences for the year tonight and Nichole is doing just awesome in school. We are so proud of her. It is great to go into those things and find out that the teacher has absolutely no concerns with anything that she is doing.
They have these graphs that show where she should be by the end of the first grade and Nikki was way above that line and on her phonemic awareness (which is how she pronounces words and sounds while reading I think!) she was completely off the charts. Needless to say we were just beaming!
Her teacher said that if she were to need work on anything that it would be spacing in between words. We did find out however that Nikki did get a card pulled last month sometime for talking in class but the teacher said that she starting sobbing really hard when she was told to pull the card that she felt so bad she let her put it back.
Nikki is our emotional child she can cry on a dime, she is also the type of person who always wants to do the right thing so when she realizes that she did something wrong it just breaks her heart to know that you are disappointed in her. We had to laugh though because she did fail to inform us of this whole card pulling situation so when we asked her about it her response was that it didn't count since the teacher let her put it back. I suppose she somewhat has a point! Good job on your school work Nikki we are so proud of you and what you are accomplishing in your life. We love to see the excitement you are starting to gain about reading books it is so neat to watch you reading silently to yourself. Its hard to believe that a year ago you were learning sounds and now your reading chapter books. Keep up the good work. Hugs and Kisses. XOXOXOXO

Tagged

I was actually tagged several days ago and forgot to post it so here it goes.
About me

I hate a cluttered and unkept home.
I will not wash out poopy underwear they go in the trash
I don't like to speed
I have found that I love blogging
I haven't scrapbooked for some time and I'm like 3.5 years behind and running
I will not use someone Else's shower cushy ( not even my husbands)
I think bathrooms are gross
I have to sleep with earplugs because my husband snores really bad
I hope my children always have everything they dream of and that their lives are always filled with happiness.
I spend way too much on hair products
I organize the clothes in my closet (t-shirts,work shirts,slacks,tank tops etc.......
I love showtime late night shows (Dexter,Weeds,Californication)
I love reading my kids stories at bedtime
I try to always take one day at a time and not worry about tomorrow
I don't like to rush I would rather be late
I miss my family and wish we lived closer to Nevada
I wish my kids could know my family better
I love my house
My family is my life without them I'm not sure where I would be
I have the most wonderful husband
I love to hear my children laugh
I tell all of my kids every day how much I love them
Thinking about my children makes me smile
I wish I knew how to help Cj learn how to eat by mouth

FUNNY LITTLE MAN AND DENTISTS

OK I have to start writing about the funny! funny! things my children come up with because I will never remember them. Yesterday morning while getting ready for work Cj came downstairs and was sitting in the dining room watching me so I said..............................
Me: I love you sooo much
Cj: I love you too
Me: You do? How much do you love your momma?
Cj: (after much thought) 4 dollars.
He is such a funny man I just love the things he comes up with. If I'm having a bad day all I have to do is have a conversation with my kids and I start smiling and laughing again. I love you both so much. XOXOXOXOX
Well on the other hand Nikki has had several dentist apt. here lately. She has lost her 4 front teeth 2 on top and 2 on bottom as well as having 4 fillings. Her teeth are really soft so they get cavities easily. Anyways her dentist sent us to a pediatric orthodontist (she had that apt. on Tues.) because her adult teeth on the bottom are growing in behind her other baby teeth causing everything to twist and turn. Her jaw is too small for her adult teeth. Can you say $$$$$$$$$$$.
So now she has to have 2 of her bottom teeth pulled (which we do in 3 weeks) this will help make more room for the 2 adult teeth that are currently growing in as well as have a couple of teeth coated with something (I don't remember what it is called) since they are soft but have not gotten cavities yet, after the 2 teeth are pulled she will then have to have a pallet stretcher put in to widen her pallet I guess after it is put in we have to click it twice a day for several months. I hope it won't be uncomfortable for her, I'm not looking forward to this. After we get her pallet stretched she will then have to get braces on her top 4 teeth to pull them together to hopefully make enough room for her adult teeth on top. Whew! She is so so brave at the dentist office and sits so still and patient. I hope that all of this work we will be doing in the next year does not ruin this for her and make her afraid of the dentist. I wanted to wait until she was older but they said it would be easier on her now being young so we have to do this all within the next year. Stay strong baby girl mom and dad and Cj will be right here with you to help any way we can. We love you so much. XOXOXOXO

Horoscopes

I was sent an e-mail a couple of weeks ago about horoscopes and found it interesting that the kid's horoscopes were so right on.

Nikki is the Sagittarius, although I don't believe her to have Peter Pan Syndrome and I hope she doesn't enjoy gambling the rest is pretty accurate. She is definitely good-natured, social and outgoing. She knows everyone in her school and is friends with everyone. Last year during school conferences we found out that she protects the other kids from bullies as well as befriending the bullies and at the end of kindergarten she earned the friendship award. We call her our princess and she holds up her end of the bargain. She loves anything soft and shiny and definitely hates being confined and tight or bumpy clothes (this includes her socks). We love that she is so tender hearted and always tries her hardest to do what is right and is always willing to help out as long as it doesn't mean cleaning her room. lol:)

Sagittarius:
The Happy-Go-Lucky One (Nov 22 - Dec 21)Good-natured optimist. Doesn't want to grow up (Peter Pan Syndrome). Indulges self. Boastful. Likes luxuries and gambling. Social and outgoing. Doesn't like responsibilities. Often fantasizes. Impatient. Fun to be around. Having lots of friends. Flirtatious. Doesn't like rules. Sometimes hypocritical. Dislikes being confined - tight spaces or even tight clothes. Doesn't like being doubted. Beautiful inside and out.

Conrad is a Leo. I found it funny that it called him the boss because that is what I call him. He loves to be in charge and boss everyone around (especially his sister). He is very outgoing and loves to be the center of attention at all times and makes sure of this. He likes to help others as long as it is on his terms. He definitely has a creative energy that to this day still amazes me. He is going to be the class clown I can already see this since he loves to make people laugh. Tonight he was laying down watching TV when he just out of the blue started singing: Here comes the bride all fat and wide. We laughed till our sides hurt!! Not sure where he came up with this one nor why he started singing it. He is definitely full of himself in every sense of the word.

Leo:

The Boss (July 23 - Aug 22)Very organized. Need order in their lives - like being in control. Like boundaries. Tend to take over everything. Bossy. Like to help Others. Social and outgoing. Extroverted. Generous, warm-hearted. Sensitive. Creative energy. Full of themselves. Loving. Doing the right thing is important to Leos. Attractive.

I love my children so much ,they make my heart swell more every day as I watch them grow. I never knew it was possible to be so happy I would cry until they came into my life. I love to listen to there stories about there day and have learned to ask not how was there day but what did you do that was fun today? and they start talking non-stop. It is wonderful!! I love you both so much I hope you always know this.
I love you both forever and always
love mom
XOXOXOXOXO