We made the drive down south again for Ethan’s follow up appointment with his surgeon. We first stopped at the dealership where we got the van to have them replace some bad tires they gave us. Then we wasted time at the big outlet mall before finally getting to the doctor’s. Ethan’s been coughing the past ten days and when he first started coughing we both thought he might have been getting another infection but it never worsened. I knew that we had this appointment coming up so I relied on God to help me not get anxious or worried that Ethan was getting another sinus infection and He was gracious to do so. The doctor said his nose looked great and there is nothing wrong. Yay!

We are leaving Saturday morning to drive up to Atlanta for a few days and then on to Chattanooga. George found someone who can install the laminate flooring for us in the bedrooms but the guy wants to do it while we are out of town. The guy offered a good discount on the cost of installing it next week because he is in between jobs. Sooo…that means not only do I have to pack for the long drive and prepare for being gone for ten days but we also have to pack up the boys rooms so they can be painted and then the flooring put in while we are gone. Why do we do this to ourselves? I remember when we first renovated the house, we were supposed to have the kitchen installed while we were out of the country and we returned from a very long flight to find the guy still in the house, having only just begun hanging the cabinets. All I can say is “Oy!”

We spent our weekend cleaning out the garage and planning out the boy’s bedroom. It took twice as long as it could have since we had to entertain the boys at the same time. We need the garage organized so we can store the things from their rooms while they are being worked on. We have two rooms we are working with and I had been planning on having the boy’s share what is now Ethan’s room. George measured everything out and decided we should have them share what is now Ian’s room. While Ethan’s room has more square footage, the other room has more wall space to fit furniture. (earlier this week I had two closet people out to measure the closet in Ethan’s room for a closet storage system which turns out to be a waste of their time) I’m hunting for bunkbeds and trying to figure out how to install a fireman sliding pole in the room. I really wanted to do diamond plate along the bottom part of the wall (the metal stuff that is on a fire engine) but have found that is really expensive. I have found a fire engine light that they will have fun with (like what’s on top of the fire engine and police cars). In case you are wondering, there will be NO siren in the room:)

Ian is 18months today and he had his 18 mo. appt. at the pediatrician’s this morning. The past two nights he’s woken up in the middle of the night crying for quite a while so I had been wondering if he was coming down with something. Usually when he screams in the middle of the night it’s either teeth or an ear infection. Well he has all of his teeth except his two yr. molars so that leaves his ears. Anyway, at the appt. we learned that he had grown 2 inches since January and gained a pound. The dr. found that one of his ears had a lot of fluid in it but wasn’t infected. I found that to be strange since he hasn’t been congested at all in weeks. So we decided to wait and see what happened. Of course a few hours later I find that he has a fever of 101. So I’m sure we’ll be back at the dr.s next week for an ear infection. Thankfully this is happening this weekend and not the following weekend when we plan to go to GA for a week.

That’s what Ian kept saying all the way to music class today. What he means is “Rabe Music.” Miss Rabe is his music teacher and she teaches out of her home. He’s been going about six months now and it is amazing for me to see his progress from when we first started. Six months ago, he refused to turn back in his instruments and help clean up and he rarely participated in circle time activities. Now he is marching in line with everyone, helping to clean up and even tries to sing the scales. He continues to love her piano and guitar and tries to play them whenever she lets him. He’s been learning basic musical concepts, the scales and playing the beat on drums and other instruments. Can’t wait to see what he’s doing another six months from now!

Our church has been supporting a local daycare center located in what would be considered our “inner city” which really doesn’t mean much when you consider the wealth of our area and our small size. Our pastor encouraged me to get involved there and said I should go there and read to one of the classes. So the boys and I went this morning to read one of Ethan’s favorite books, Firefighter A-Z. I brought along some of George’s fire gear to for the kids to look at while Ethan and I read the story. Four year olds have the tendency to say whatever is on their minds and I held my breath hoping that Ethan wouldn’t ask why every child there was darker skinned than he but he didn’t say a thing and instead told me that the kids were so cute, just like Ian. And they were, they hugged on my legs and gave us all high fives when we left. They both wanted to stay and play but I had to go the the chiropractor this morning because my neck has been bothering me and giving me headaches. Usually I go with just Ian and I can keep him under control and entertained. Why is it when I have two of them it all of a sudden becomes a circus? They ran laps around the waiting room and ate every snack I could find. Ian had to touch everything in the doctor’s office and while I was face down on the table, I could feel him trying to climb on top of me. The poor doctor was trying to adjust me and then use the ultrasound machine all the while keeping them from damaging anything. I lost count of how many high fives he gave Ian to distract him. I can’t move my neck much and I’m hoping I won’t have to return with them both on Friday, but if I do, I’m bringing the DVD player-that’s for sure!

I’m behind on updating my posts so I’m going to put them all into one. Ethan started baseball this week. He’s been looking forward to it for weeks, checking the calendar each day to see how many more days until we go. He loves playing baseball on the Wii and fancies himself an expert already. The last few preschool sports that we’ve done had 20 kids at the most so we were very suprised to arrive and see 50 or more kids, plus all the parents and siblings. I think the coach was overwhelmed and didn’t have plans for that many. He had fun practicing catching and throwing. On the weekend we had a BBQ and pool party. George had wanted to invite some guys he works with at the FD and their families over. I’ve not met any of them and they live at least an hour if not more away. Since Ethan didn’t know any of the kids that were coming we also asked a couple of other local friends over as well. It turned out to be a great day, the pool was warm and the kids had a blast. There wsa a funny moment when Ian got his diaper off and was riding one of his riding toys around naked (that picture won’t make it on here). My Aunt and Uncle came into town Saturday evening from MD and enjoyed the tale end of the party. Ethan had a great time swimming with my Uncle today, they even had a water squirter battle. We drove them down to the lighthouse and for a walk on the beach. Ian did not enjoy the one time George got his feet wet in the ocean and refused to get near it after that however he did seem to enjoy throwing sand around.

We went on a date the other night to the same restaurant we’ve been going to and ordered the same thing we’ve gotten every other time-we are so old:) This date night revolved around us planning some renovations for this summer. We want to move the boys into the same room so we can have a guest room again. So we went to look at flooring and decided on some laminate to put in all the bedrooms. I’m really excited about it and hope it will help Ian’s and my allergies. We also tried to plan out how in the world we will have flooring put in three bedrooms with the kids, where will we put everything? And we have to paint the walls first as well. So we spent our date night strategizing. Sounds unromantic I know but we never really get to sit and plan things so it was really helpful. I enjoyed coffee at B&N while we researched ideas on the laptop. We are also hoping to put in a murphy bed in the the third bedroom sometime this year and get bunk beds for the boys. I’d like to do a fun fire dept. themed room for the boys and want to have one wall be brick. I also have a fire hose I want to figure out how to mount to the wall so they can pull it out to pretend to put out fires. All in all and nice evening and certainly productive though maybe next time we should try a new restaurant or at least a different entree:)

About a year or more ago we started using a family devotional that teaches godly character and is designed to teach children our family rules. There are 24 of them and they are called our family “ways.” The devotional uses God’s word to teach what God expects of us and how we interact with each other as a family. Some examples of them are “We love and obey our Lord Jesus Christ with wholehearted devotion,” “We encourage one another using words that only build up and bless others,” and “We are thankful to God for what we have, whether it is a little or a lot.” In the beginning, Ethan wasn’t old enough to get much out of the devotions so we just focused on teaching him our “Fox Family Ways.” The past couple of months he has been able to get involved with the actual devotional part of the book and recently he asked, “Mommy why do we have 24 commandments and God only has 10?”

We were invited to my friend Marilyn’s parent’s house for Easter dinner. The boys enjoyed hunting for eggs in the back yard even Ian knew exactly what to do. We also enjoyed a great dinner with her family. Thanks for having us Marilyn!