Another Build a Bear Workshop

A short but sweet post. Not much going on. Kind of the calm before the storm.

We couldn’t pass up doing another workshop. This one makes our 3rd workshop. The first workshop was a stuffed dog in golf attire that was made for Todd for Father’s Day probably about 2-3 years ago. It has a recorder in it that recorded the kids saying “Happy Fathers Day Daddy”. (It actually had more my voice and Ashleigh’s since Aidan wasn’t saying much about 2-3 years ago.)

 

The second workshop was done this last year when we were at Disneyland. They have a workshop in Downtown Disney. That particular store is the only store in the chain that carries Disney only merchandise for the stuffed animals. Ashleigh made a stuffed cat there. Aidan wasn’t too into making a stuffed animal then so only one animal got stuffed.

A week or so ago I got a catalog in the mail advertising the new Christmas plush available. Frosty the Snowman was irresistible so we had to make one. Off to the mall we went last weekend.

Both kids had a great time!

First you select the animal you want stuffed than off to the stuffing machine. Aidan got to step on the pedal to get his bear stuffed. The noise was a little loud so Aidan was covering his ears then.

 

Here is Frosty all stuffed.

Just as a side note if your wondering why Ashleigh’s hair seems like such a mess and why some of her hair pieces seem longer than others. I am irritated beyond belief. Her bangs were cut too far back so we have been trying to grow some of the pieces out. I try to clip and pin some of the longer pieces but it never stays so it ends up just as you see it in the pictures.

She had to give Frosty kisses on the heart that gets placed inside the plush before its sealed up

 

Now they had to clean them up and give them a bath.

The finished product!

Aidan picked out a camouflage bear dressed in Sacramento Kings basketball attire.  Frosty could not be alone…he needed Hocus and Karen too. Oh, and when you lift Frosty’s hat he lights up as you see in the picture and you hear a magical sound. (No “Happy Birthday” like in the video)

          

It’s candy season again

October has come and gone.  I love the holiday season and October starts it off with Halloween. The one tough thing though that comes with the holiday season is all the candy. I have such a sweet tooth and everywhere I go I seem to see candy and have to buy some. It seems that for roughly 6 months our house is overflowing with candy, Halloween through Easter. I can feel the weight coming on just thinking about it. Happily, I didn’t open the Halloween candy early. Unfortunately, the kids did well at trick or treating and I have to admit I’ve been digging into their stash daily since.

The kids had a great Halloween this year. Aidan got to dress up for his Kindermusik class the Monday prior to Halloween. Since parent(s) or caregivers come for the last 15 minutes of the class I was able to snap a couple pictures of him in costume with his teacher and some of his classmates. 

Here he is (looking away) with his Miss Sunny.

   

Ashleigh has gymnastics every Tuesday so the following day she was dressed in costume as asked by her instructor. I was wondering how well costume wear was going to pan out with all the tumbling, etc. Here are a few pictures from her class.

She had a to wear another shirt underneath her costume because her straps kept falling.

 

 

Since I already had my time to carve my pumpkin with the neighbors the prior weekend I left the rest of the carving of pumpkins for the kids and their daddy to enjoy.  You will notice in the pictures that Todd is wearing latex gloves while carving and scooping the goop out of the pumpkin. (He always has a bunch of gloves since he works at a prison.)  What’s funny is Aidan tried to mimic him by grabbing a clean pair of socks and wearing them like gloves.

On Halloween day our LPA chapter had their Halloween party at a beautiful local park. Lots of good food, crafts, games, and park fun to entertain the kids.  As always, both Ashleigh and Aidan had a great time there. Many pictures were taken so I am putting that one in an album.

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Later that evening my sister and her fiancée, Clint came over to my house to pass out candy to to all the trick or treaters while I took the kids from door to door. Todd had to work that night so it was either they come over or I have to trust the trick or treaters to take a piece or 2 of candy. It was a good thing I never opened up the Halloween candy early because we ran out of candy. This is the first Halloween where Aidan was totally into it. He was running from house to house holding his bag wide open and yelling trick or treat. Last year he went to a couple of houses and wanted to be carried from house to house. What a difference a year makes. We finished in about an hour. Some how Aidan came out ahead of Ashleigh in the candy count…hmmmm…I wonder how that happened?

 

  

Now the big question. Should I make candies this holiday season? I haven’t made divinity in a couple of years. I’m thinking of that and some caramels.

Time for some pumpkin carving

I had a little bit of adult fun at our neighbor’s house over this past weekend. (Get your mind out of the gutter.) My neighbor Rachael held her 5th annual pumpkin carving contest/party.

It’s great getting together with the neighbors and catching up on things. We don’t do it nearly enough.  All of us seem so busy coming and going that we wave in passing or we chat a bit if we happen to be outside at the same time.

While I was carving away outside. Ashleigh and Aidan were playing with some of our neighbors kids. Most of our kids are within a few years of each other.

Since my hands were preoccupied with carving and/or drinking and eating I only managed a few photos as well as a video of the completed carvings.

Someone snapped a lovely shot of me creating my outline

Aidan says this is the perfect sized house for him!

 

 

 

All our munchies.

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This was so disgustingly good!

  

 

Here is a video of our finished product. Sorry for the shaky hands. Try to guess which one was mine. The answer is below the video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No fair cheating

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not quite an artist but my carving of Michael Myers from Halloween. It looks better when lit up. You’ll need to view the video again and see what I mean.

The final 3 winners!

 

A view of our carvings on the front lawn of our neighbors house.

All of us with our pumpkins. The picture came out a bit too dark…sorry. We were way in the back.

To preserve the pumpkin since it was carved a week ahead of time…..you need to soak it in 50/50 water and bleach solution.

Now to go roast some pumpkin seeds! The kids love them.

Our annual trip to Apple Hill

Every year we go to Apple Hill. It is a short hour’s drive east of Sacramento in Camino. I’ve been going ever since I have met Todd, so since 1998. It is kind of a little family reunion as we have family that lives in South Lake Tahoe, and across stateline into Nevada in Carson City, and Reno/Sparks area that meet us there. This always turns out to be such a fun weekend.

We went the weekend following the LPA convention on the Friday after Ashleigh got out of school. The weather turned out to be fabulous. At this time of year you never know whether it will be rainy or not. Every year it seems to attract more and more people. In order for us to take our time and visit as many orchards as possible we stay a couple of nights nearby at Westhaven Inn in Pollock Pines.

There are so many orchards that you can’t possibly visit all of them even during the weekend we stayed.  We try to get to 1 or 2 new orchard visits in but always have to go to our usual visits which are at High Hill, Abel’s Acres, and El Dorado Orchards. There are so many things to do there for the kids to keep them busy as well as a ton of shopping for us moms. Crafts galore! Apple wine, fritters, pies, breweries, etc. We have to go back to Rainbow Orchards next year….that was the score for us this year with apple cider donuts. Saturday night we followed up all our walking with a dinner at Los Hermanos Mexican Restaurant in Pollock Pines.

It is so wonderful seeing a new generation of family make some lasting memories.

Please view the album. I took so many pictures during the weekend that posting individual pictures would take too long. The cute little blond girl is our cousin’s daughter Katelyn. The three boys are my nephews (Todd’s brother’s boys), Kyle, Kameron, and Cody.

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So if you happen to be out this way during the month of October, Apple Hill is definitely a place to visit. If not for a weekend, at least for a day.

LPA Fall Regional

Well, I finally have some time to catch up on doing some blogging.

After months of planning and preparation, our chapter, the San Joaquin Valley chapter of LPA hosted the District 12 Fall Regional. The conference took place the first weekend in October. I think it turned out very well.

Conveniently for me and my family, the conference took place in the same city we live in so it was a short 20 minute drive for us to the hotel.

We drove out for the reception so we could “meet and greet” everyone on Friday night. I just love meeting new LP families. It was especially nice to meet up with those I have met through POLP, Facebook, and of course the blogs.

I could not imagine having 2 Aidan’s

My in-laws came to help out.

Saturday the kids enjoyed themselves in the kids rooms while Todd and myself attended the parent discussion group. At this regional we did not attend any of the medical clinics…happily we don’t have any pressing medical concerns.

The hotel was conveniently located next to a mall. Many of us ventured over to the mall and had lunch at Johnny Rockets. We enjoyed some shopping in the mall afterwards. 

Prior to the dinner was a magic show. The kids were kept very entertained by the magician.

Fun in the sun!

Sun or no sun….they still have fun

Ashleigh really enjoyed meeting Sam and playing with her.

The day ended with a nice BBQ dinner and then dancing. Aidan barely ate anything…he was too distracted by all the people and fun. He was all over the place so by the time dancing came along he was pooped. We stayed for maybe a half hour, then left. Aidan fell asleep in the car on the short drive back home.  Ashleigh would have lasted longer….bummer….what do ya do.

On Sunday morning, Todd went back to the hotel while I stayed home with the kids. He sat in for the membership meeting and the Raffle. We ended up winning a Hello Kitty stuffed animal which went to Ashleigh as well as a foosball table. Currently the foosball table is sitting in our garage. There is no room for it. What the heck!

It was a fun filled weekend yet an exhausting one and we didn’t have to travel anywhere. Our plans are to attend the Spring Regional in So. Cal. and hopefully go to the National conference in TN. I just can’t say enough about how great LPA is! 

Off to Petaluma and then some

The day following the state fair we took off to Petaluma to visit Todd’s dad and stepmom. Think the wine country. Petaluma is about an hour north of the Golden Gate and about 1.5 hrs west from us in Sacramento…depending of course on time and day.

This trip was long overdue! I am going to digress a few months back to put you up to speed on this post. Some of you might recall that back in April and May respectively, Todd’s dad had cancer surgery. In March, I believe, Todd’s dad was diagnosed with renal clear cell carcinoma. Actually, they didn’t have a for sure diagnosis till after the first surgery was done and they did a biopsy. (They weren’t sure whether the cancer started in the kidney or the adrenal gland.) When they found the cancer and did a battery of tests his cancer had already metastasized and was found in one of his kidneys as well as in an adrenal gland on the opposing side.

His first surgery didn’t go as planned and took much longer than anticipated. Each surgery was roughly 6-8 hours long. The first surgery, they removed his kidney and the “good adrenal” gland. If you look at the anatomy, the adrenal gland is very small and sits adjacent to the kidney. It was too hard to remove the kidney without removing the adrenal gland so unfortunately, the good one went. The second surgery involved removing the 2nd “bad” adrenal gland. The surgeries were a success and he has 1 good functioning kidney. The tough thing was losing both adrenal glands. That threw him immediately into having what is called Addison’s Disease. Now for the rest of his life he has to take hydrocortisone to give him that cortisol that we all need…that “fight or flight” response. That is one tough thing to nail down….trying to give yourself the right amount. Much like a diabetic needs to take insulin but in varying amounts depending on the type of foods eaten, he has to do the same.

On top of adjusting to Addison’s Disease, he was told that he was going to have to start a chemo treatment. They believe they got all the cancer but with it having metastasized, doing chemo was the plan for him. On a more positive note, he is getting chemo in pill form and not intravenously. The side effects are a bit less. He was not given a good prognosis on life either. They feel that cancer will return and that they give him only a 25% chance of making it through 5 years.

All things considering, he is doing very well. After he healed from the surgeries, he and Todd’s stepmom went on a 2 week long vacation touring a few states. After returning from his vacation the chemo started. He takes the pill for 4 weeks and then is off 2 weeks, then back on for 4 off for 2. He states by about week 3 is when he really feels the effects and is very lethargic.

We happened to visit at a pretty good time. Todd’s dad had just finished week 1 of his second round of chemo. He seemed like his regular self. He can really tell, though, when he needs his hydrocortisone and once he takes it he is back to himself in about 15 min. He actually found a support group for those with Addison’s disease. As for what the doctors told him about his prognosis on life…he thinks it is all just numbers. He has a very positive outlook on life and is very healthy otherwise.

We had a very nice visit with them. They had their backyard re-landscaped and looked beautiful. The kids had a great time playing in the backyard. I always forget just how much cooler it is in Petaluma than in the Sacramento Valley…sometimes a good 15-20 degrees cooler.

Here are some pictures of the visit. Don’t ask me why Aidan was dressed the way he was. Actually, having the shirt under his Sacramento Kings tank top wasn’t a bad idea as it started to get a bit chilly there.

Finally, a fairly decent picture of the two of them.

Chasing each other!

Stuffing his mouth with grapes!

A nice picture of Todd and his dad

Todd’s stepmom with the kids

Aidan relaxing in Grandpa’s chair

Of course, what grandparent doesn’t like to spoil their grandkids. Aidan got a couple more trains (like he really needed more) and Ash got “Puppy in my pocket”.

Grandma Robin playing with Ashleigh.

Our ride home took about 3 hrs . Right smack dab in the middle of us is Infineon Raceway and they had either Nascar or Drags going on then. Oh well, we had plenty of things in the car to preoccupy us and the kids did great. We hope to visit them again soon!

California State Fair

I keep saying to myself that I will try to keep things current on this blog but it doesn’t seem to happen. Another state fair has come and gone. We went to the state fair the first weekend it opened which was about a month ago. Todd miraculously got time off that weekend!! Woohoo!

There was so much to do there. We didn’t have enough time in the day to see everything. Lots of good food, wine tasting, rodeo, horse races, concerts, rides….most of which was height restricted on Aidan (boo), vendors selling their latest crafts and gadgets, petting zoos, and many many exhibits.

We luckily went on a weekend that was a little bit cooler than most of our summer days here in Sacramento so it made it that much more enjoyable.

Here is a pic of my kiddos as we were waiting in line to ride the monorail.

In practically every picture of Aidan you will catch him with some sort of silly grin. I can’t get any good ones of him any more. Here he is with his daddy riding the monorail.

I don’t often get pictured and for a good reason, I am liable to break the lens. Here I am with Ash.

The kids were playing with an “earthquake exhibit” and had some good fun seeing things they make get destroyed. Nothing to fun about what some “real” large magnitude earthquakes can do.

Many of the counties of California had their own exhibits to display. Here are the kids in front of the Sacramento County exhibit.

This was a cute exhibit that the kids enjoyed to play in. For the life of me I can’t remember which county did this one.

Good ol’ Smokey the Bear. Teaches the kids about fire safety. The kids got a bandana out of it. One of the volunteers fit the bandana around Ashleigh’s cap.

At the main entrance/exit to the state fair was a large gold colored grizzly bear which happens to be the state animal. I took this opportunity to get the kids on there for another picture.

That was a few of the photos from our outing to the state fair. If you happen to be in Sacramento during the month of August you’ll have to check out our state fair…as weird, wild, and wacky as it is.