A Great Weekend

Phew....it is already Sunday night and the weekend is over, where did the time go. Eric started out our weekend by getting in his long run, 12 miles!! Great job Eric. I can honestly say I think we are ready for the 1/2 marathon in St. Louis on the 14th. I got in about 11 this AM and generally felt pretty darn good after 2 consecutive 12 plus runs the previous 2 Sundays. We are looking forward to racing, or well participating, and seeing the Gillaspie family. Saturday morning Eric saw a couple of clients while the kids and I spent some time with Hannah, Charlie, and Jody our neighborhood friends that are moving to the Twin Cities in a few weeks. Charlie isn't crawling yet but certainly had his eye on Kennon's new moves. I think Maddox wears Hannah out with her almost constant talking, moving, hugging etc. Hannah is the sweetest, quiet little girl ( at least at our house). I'm constantly saying to Maddox 'Maddox ASK Hannah if she wants a hug first'. She doesn't seem to be able to really curb her energy when we have visitors but then what 2.5 year old can? Saturday afternoon Eric did some more work on the garage organization project. It is looking really good and has freed up a lot of floor space for KIDDO toys. Saturday night Eric and I had a date night, sort of! We went to a TRIVIA night with several of my co-workers. I can definitely say I just basically held down my chair but Eric definitely was a viable candidate on our team. He is really a smart cookie and knows a lot of facts, which I would normally think of as 'useless' but when it comes to trivia they come in handy. I got to socialize with my good friend Katie while Eric manned the answer sheet. We had Jennifer come and stay with the kids. Of course she said they were good with Maddox really only giving her trouble when it was time to go to bed. She had Jennifer talked into watching the Lion King before Eric and I were even out the door. Sunday morning I put in my long run and then headed home to help get the kids down for a nap because we had BIG plans for this afternoon. Aunt Sue and cousins Zach and Ian were down from St. Paul. We met them at the Schweibert Park in Rock Island for some great outdoor fun. Maddox LOVED the boys despite their tall statures. I thought she might be scared of them as there isn't a lot of height in 5363 Judge Road but she jumped out of the car and said 'C'mon let's go play' asking the boys to take her from the parking lot to the park. It was really cute. Ian and Zach are both 6 foot tall AT LEAST. You can see from the pictures she especially liked cousin Zach. Zach goes to University of Wisconsin at Madison. Go BADGERS....well only if you aren't playing the Hawkeyes :) We had a great time chatting, playing, watching the ducks and enjoying the great sunshiny weather. We capped off the afternoon at Whitey's. Maddox ate a kid sized scoop of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream AND about 1/3 of Eric's mint chocolate chip shake. She didn't seem to be interested in my yogurt pineapple banana shake (hmmmmm wonder why??) So it has been a great weekend!! POTTY UPDATE. Maddox hasn't had ANY accidents since basically Saturday ( day 1 of the boot camp). She is doing SO WELL. We are really proud of her. She just runs in does her business and doesn't make a big deal of it. She needs a little help remembering to wash her hands and with wiping but other than that she does great during the DAY ( even at Kindercare too....no accidents there last week either). Nighttime is a different story. We are working through that. She is unfortunately waking up wet. I am thinking that she just sleeps too deeply to get the sensation that she needs to go. We are waking her up when we go to bed to have her GO in the hopes that this will keep her dry till morning but this isn't quite consistent yet. I know in time it will get better. We are still doing mm's and stickers but really now only for really big events like being dry after nap and in the AM. We are hoping this will stick eventually but for now we are happy to not have to change her diaper during the day. It is really SO NICE!! We went for Kennon's 9 month check up on Wednesday. He got a great review. He is up to 19 pounds 12 ounces and is 28.5 inches tall putting him at the 40th percentile for both height and weight! His ears looked great and his lungs sounded fine too, despite his almost daily cough. We talked to the Dr. about the possibility of Kennon having allergies and she agreed that with Eric's pretty significant environment allergies that Kennon could have some of that going on. The poor kid, today at the park he was just sneezing, coughing, rubbing his eyes and just miserable. She said we could give him a little Benadryl on the days when we know we are going to be outside a lot to help his comfort level. Maddox LOVES to be outside so we'll probably be giving that a shot in the coming weeks. She is hopeful that he will outgrow it but if it continues we might need to go on a more permanent allergy medicine but he is too young for that now. He has been happy happy happy since he can get around the home. In fact he is totally in sync with getting into what he SHOULDN'T be getting into!! He actually has this mischievous little giggle when he knows he is pushing Maddox's buttons and getting into her stuff. I can honestly say he isn't on her good side right now. He loves her lady bug nightlight and the stool she uses to reach the bathroom sink, both of which Maddox does not wish to share. There is going to be a LARGE learning curve for her to understand that he doesn't really get it yet. Wow!! This is getting long. Enjoy the pictures and thanks to the Kies family for taking time out of their busy weekend to meet us at the park, so fun!!