We kicked off the week with our split night Monday of swimming and Taekwondo and then hair appointments for Dean and Graham on Tuesday night. Poor little Evan still doesn’t need his second hair cut yet. I did break down and cut the strands that were sticking straight up out of his crown, but that was it. Then, we moved on to the big day on Wednesday – surgery day! Graham seemed to understand that the doctor was going to have to go in and take that monkey or tube out of his ear. On Tuesday, we looked at the pics from when we went to the surgery center to have the tubes put in. He saw the pics of reading books in the lobby and having Tigger with him and seemed to understand what was going to happen. We packed up his new dinosaur backpack with some books, some stuffed animals and a new stuffed monkey and blanket to help him be brave!

We had to be at the surgery center at 730am, so Dean dropped Evan off at First Baptist and then met Graham and I there. We hung out in the waiting room for about an hour, reading, playing and watching Disney and then finally got called back. He was quite tickled with the hospital gown with tigers all over it and was such a good boy letting the nurse check all his vitals. He was of course very talkative to everyone who he encounterd. He weighed a big 41 pounds on the scales! The doctor came in and talked to us and then I got in a gown and followed along his bed as they rolled him to the OR and Dean went back to the waiting room. Last time, I held him in my arms and they put him to sleep, but this time he stayed on the bed and the anesthesiologist gave him the mask to hold on his face and told him to breathe in and out to make the balloon go up and down and sure enough - he “laughed” himself right to sleep!!!!! Then, the doctor walked me back to the waiting room and he told me that we had done an excellent job preparing him, that he did great! In about 15 minutes, he came back to get us. He said he easily removed the tube and put a paper patch over the hole to help it close. We went to the recovery room to see him and he was sitting there eating a popsicle and very calm! No tears at all the whole time we were there. He was a little quiet at first, but then he asked if he could have that mask again that made him laugh, so we got a kick out of that! He drank some water, we got our discharge orders and out the door we went!

He was very hungry since he did not get to eat breakfast, so since he was so good and so brave, we went to Dunkin Donuts for a late breakfast! He was quite tickled to get to that and ate an entire powered donut and a donut whole and drank some juice! He and Dean headed home after that and I went to First Baptist to get Evan. It was right at lunch time and they were having a Thanksgiving feast, so I ate with him and his friends and then we headed home. Graham played and ate and seemed to be completely oblivious to the fact that he had surgery that morning! So, that night, he and I went to Taekwondo and he got his fifth stripe and is officially ready to test for his green belt!

On Thursday, we headed out early for a Thanksgiving breakfast at Dean’s parents house. It was nice to see them and Opa made his famous Swedish pancakes, we had a fun visit and watched some of the Macys Day parade and then headed on to my parents. We had turkey and all the trimmings for lunch and Lillian and Graham and Evan had a big time playing and it was even warm enough to get outside too. Little sweet Molly pretty much slept the whole day, it reminded me so much of Graham and Evan when there were that little, just sleep whenever, wherever, no matter what is going on! And, lord knows it was loud! After dinner and playtime, we headed home and my parents followed us back to our house so that mama and I could go out for our earliest Black Friday shopping ever, we hit the stores at midnight and stayed out until 8am. We got home just as Dean, daddy and the boys were waking up! My parents headed home and I took a nap! We had lunch and then I finished wrapping all the Christmas presents!

We spent most of the weekend decorating for Christmas! We started a little earlier this year because we have a busy weekend next weekend. Graham was a good helper with all parts of the decorating and was most excited. Evan was interested in looking and touching everything. The weather was super nice on Saturday and while Dean was doing the outside decorating, Graham and Evan played in the driveway doing sidewalk chalk, bubbles and bike riding and cozy car riding! We did everything but the tree on Saturday and then had a super fun time putting the ornaments on the tree on Sunday. Graham really enjoyed seeing all his ornaments from past years and Evan seemed to get hanging the ornaments as well. Of course, they want to take them back off and look at them! They had on their Christmas PJs and Dean played Christmas music on the piano and it was just a really fun time! The house is all decked out and looks so pretty!!!!!

Evan is just exploding with his vocabulary. He can repeat pretty much any word you ask him too and he is stringing more and more sentences together and just communicating so much! He is consistently calling Graham “brother”, we are not quite sure how that came about, but there is no doubt that is what he is saying. It is sweet, but we are trying to teach him Graham as well! He continues to be so very very very active and just on the go go go. He will sit for a few minutes and watch Pooh and loves all things Pooh and gang, but overall, he would rather be on the move move move!

We headed in to another super busy week and ended up with some unexpected sickies. Evan's teacher called Tuesday morning to say that he had pink eye in one eye. Been there, done that, many many time - so I just called the doc and they called in eye drops and I went and got him and picked up the drops and headed home with him. Both Dean and I had busy afternoons, so my parents came down to spend the afternoon with Evan, they also stopped and picked Graham up right after Kindergarten. They had a fun afternoon and Evan never really acted like he felt bad. By morning, it was spread to the other eye, but he was well in to the drops and so he was able to go back to school. Amazingly, none of the rest of us got it!!!! Thank goodness!

Graham got his 4th stripe at Taekwondo and was excited to work towards testing in a couple weeks. He will be testing for his green belt, it always seem like it comes around so fast each time!!!He is wearing his sparring gear pretty much every class and getting a lot better.

Evan continues to really come along in his swim lessons, no more tears at all and he is just doing great. Graham had a good lesson this week too and he is keenly aware how good Evan is doing and he wants to "stay ahead" of him. So, that is funny, we didnt see that one coming!

We are still visiting churches and went back to one where Graham has a classmate on Sunday. He enjoyed sitting with her and going to Children's Church with her. Evan is doing great in the nursery and no tears for drop off so that is good. We had a low key weekend around the house otherwise, so that was good. Looking forward to Thanksgiving!

I broke out the wrapping paper and started getting ready for the tree to go up! Graham loved helping me cut and tape and wrap and Evan just liked the paper period, haha. We had some photo fun with it as well!

We all survived me being out of town through Thursday. The boys had a good week. Evan had a few night waking, but it wasn’t too bad. Dean took them to swimming and Taekwondo on Monday and they got that out of the way. I landed in time to get the boys on Thursday and we grabbed some dinner and headed to Graham’s Taekwondo class and then home. Graham had missed two weeks of class due to all of us being sick and Halloween, so we he was glad to get back in to the swing of things! It is coming up on testing time again soon, so we will see if he is ready to try for his green belt!

On Saturday, we headed out to swim lessons. Evan has turned that corner, where the tears and screaming are all gone! When I told him it was time to go in to the pool and see Ms Cynda, he took off running to the pool and jumped in to arms, ALL smiles! He was a champ and just floated and flipped and was amazing We took some great videos of him flipping, coming back up on his back, get to the side of the pool and jumping in! He got to this point even quicker than Graham did, so that is great and of course Graham didn’t even start his lessons until he was two! So, it makes us really excited to see how much more Evan progresses before we get back to the pool next summer! Graham had a good lesson as well and worked really hard. Evan doing so well is motivating Graham to work even harder as well, so that Evan doesn’t catch him, haha!

Dean and Evan headed home after swim lessons and Graham and I headed to a boys only birthday party for his buddy Theo from First Baptist. There were 8 boys and they played games inside and out and had lunch and cake and ice cream and even walked to a nearby park to play some more! It was great fun and Graham was very tired when we got home! On Sunday, we made another repeat visit to one of the churches that we like and one of Graham’s friends from First Baptist was there, so that was neat. Graham really enjoyed the children’s church and Evan was in a nursery full of kids. We went to the early service, so then we headed back home for lunch and nap for Evan and Graham rode his bike some.

Evan is continuing to say more and more words and sentences so that is exciting and Graham is really picking up more and more on his reading. It is so fun to watch them both develop and learn every day! We are starting to talk about Christmas and Graham is getting very excited for that, it will be here soon!

We kicked off the week with a super fun Halloween. As is our Halloween tradition, I went and picked the boys up just after naptime (well, they were both still napping when I arrived) and headed to my office. We went in to get changed in to their Buddy and Tiny dinosaur costumes and Graham was super excited. Evan, however, threw a full out tantrum and WOULD NOT put on his costume. So, off we went trick or treating with him in his Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin T-shirt. We trick or treated with Josephine and Vivienne and once he saw the three of them reaching in the bowls and getting candy and putting in their pumpkins, he decided he wanted me to put him down and he would give it a try. And, of course, a sucker helped as well. So, we went around for about an hour that way and then Dean arrived to join us and we stopped to take a water and candy break and rest from all the walking. While Evan was chowing down on some candy, I was able to slip his costume right on (I had been carrying it all around with us) and sure enough he was all set and ready to go for the second hour, so that was a lot of fun. We headed home with a MASSIVE amount of candy and Graham was most excited to put his costume back on to greet our trick or treaters. We had 24, a record for us, so that was fun. Evan even put his costume back on and we walked to our few closest neighbors and did a little more trick or treating! Needless to say, it was a fun filled evening!!!!

On Tuesday, we headed back to school dragging a bit, I picked up the boys and we headed home. Graham’s stomach was a little off, but I just attributed it to way too much Halloween candy and we headed back to school on Wednesday. Graham had his ENT consult appointment at 1pm, so I headed to pick him up right after lunch and arrived to learn that he had just thrown up his lunch in the cafeteria! We got him changed and cleaned up and headed on to the ENT. Sure enough, the ENT made the final call that we were expecting, Graham’s ear tube is still in there and needs to be surgically removed. Apparently it happens in about 1% of cases and is a very simple procedure. He will go in and remove the tube and then patch the hole. We scheduled it for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Graham understands that the doctor is going to go in and take the “blue monkey” out of his ear, but that is about as much as detail as we have went in to for now.

So, we left the doctor’s office and ran by my office to pick up my things and then headed back to First Baptist to get Evan and then headed home. Graham seemed to be okay and wasn’t throwing up anymore, and even wanted some candy, but we tried to take it easy. He had to stay home from school on Thursday because of the 24 hour rule, so Dean stayed home with him and he was very very puny all day, just laid around and didn’t want to eat or drink. Finally by dinner time, he perked up and was ready to eat, so he ate a little and then about an hour later, he threw up again!!!!

As it turned out my parents were coming to spend Friday and keep the boys, so that worked out good. Originally, Graham was going to go in for half the day for Kindergarten, but we just kept him home. His appetite was slowly coming back and no more throw up. He never ran a fever either, so just some kind of bug apparently, that the rest of us luckily seemed to avoid!!!!! The four of them had a fun day on Friday and Dean and I went to my annual PRSA awards gala on Friday night and stayed the night at the Hotel Roanoke. We slept in on Saturday and went down and had breakfast in the dining room and then headed home.

Since Graham was just getting his strength back and Evan’s nose is running like wild, we decided to skip swim lessons. So, we just had a lazy day at home after my parents left and even managed to nap a good bit! On Sunday, we headed to church, then lunch and errands and home to get ready for me to head to Minneapolis for the week.

We had Graham’s Parent Teacher conference with his Kindergarten teacher on Thursday morning and she gave us a little progress report and went over some of his work. He is doing really really well and she said he is really catching on to the new things that he is learning and his reading is really picking up. It is so neat seeing him learn new words and expand his vocabulary of words. He talks a little too much she said, wonder where he gets that from, haha! But, otherwise, he is having a really good year, so we are tickled with that.

Evan’s still kind of all over the place with his sleeping and eating. Some nights he sleeps great and others he wakes and wants to be up for long stretches. Some nights he isn’t eating a very good dinner and then he wants to have snacks at night. The only thing we know to attribute it to is all the new learning and developing that he is doing. Hoping that he decides to get back on track while I am gone this week!!!!!