Finley Anne Mooney

I am excited to announce (on behalf of my sister) the birth of my newest niece.

Finley Anne Mooney
Born AT HOME
on Sunday
November 1, 2009
at 1:18pm
9 lb 12 oz
21 1/2"

Poor Emily was about 8 days over due, but Finley decided to arrive after only 3 1/2 hours of labor! I was able to be present for the birth of Bridget and Avery (Finley's older sisters), but since I live in Utah now, I couldn't be there for Finley's birth...boy did that make me sad! But, I am So glad everything went well and both Emily and Finley are doing well! I can't wait to meet her!

Merry Christmas to ALL

We may be a little weird, but Nick and I just LOVE this time of year and for us, Christmas goes way too fast, so to extend it a little bit, we decided to put up our decoration (a lot) early this year! Yesterday we spent the evening with the kids putting up the tree and decorating our house. We did a lot of our Christmas decoration shopping last year after Christmas was over to get everything for more than 50% off! We'll increase our decorations again this year by shopping after Christmas again this year! :-)

We let the kids decorate the tree (with a little help from Nick)

The end result....Pretty good, huh? ;-)

We bought most of these little village things last year--my grandma Leslie and Aunt Maree create amazing villages every Christmas...eventually we'll something similar, but for now, this is all we've got. (I still need to buy the cotton stuff for underneath)

I also bought this cute little nativity scene...my mom has lots of nativities in her house each Christmas. I have 2 now and plan to increase them too over the years.

We also decorated the little ceiling/ledge between our living room and kitchen. We bought those Nutcrackers, and my Aunt Maree gave the kids those toys on the right last year! :)

I love this time of year and I am excited that "Christmas" will be around in our house for more than 2 months! :) Yay!
I'll post more pictures once we get the outside lights up too. :)

Happy Halloween

Thankfully, both kids were feeling MUCH better on Saturday (I forced them both to take a nap, just to be sure) so they got to go trick-or-treating! Yipee! At about 530, I started getting them ready, but at 6pm I looked outside and noticed kids everywhere already trick-or-treating! Good grief! So, we kicked it up a notch and hurried faster to get ready. Nick had to work so we went his parents house so Juli could take the kids with me. We got there a bit before 7pm and about 1/2 the houses on the block already had their lights turned off! I am surprised every year here in Utah--I remember trick-or-treating as a kid until 10pm or later! Here, everyone is done by 8pm! It's so strange!

The kids, on the way to Gma and Gpa Call's house

Trick-or-Treat, G'ma and G'pa

The 2nd house we went to had this vending machine thing and each of the kids got to play it and win a prize. It was a fun twist to regular trick-or-treating! My kids loved it!! But, this was the first stop to Preston getting scared....one of the guys there had a mask on and it freaked Preston out! He did not like it at all and started crying. Even after the guy took the mask off and smiled at Preston, he did not calm down until right before his turn at the toy. He was a very sensitive boy that night!

Preston preferred the houses that only put out buckets of candy, so you didn't have to ring the door bells, but even that was scary for him at times--one door had a poster of dracula or something....scared Preston again! And one guy's house was the worst.....he had a couple of dogs, one of which ran out as soon as the guy opened his front door. It was a little thing, but Preston is afraid of dogs....I think I've been telling him not to touch them too much because he is allergic and now it's made him afraid! He cried and cried and cried and absolutely refused to go up to the next house...that lady at the next house was fabulous! She practically begged Preston to take her candy. It was really sweet. After a bit though, he was fine again and happy to "play this game"
Ashleigh was wonderful, as usual! She was shy....a little hesitant at times, but was polite, and kind, and perfectly mannered like she usually is. That girl is just so wonderful! I love her so much and often feel bad that Preston gets so much more "attention", when she is the one who is being so good! I remind myself daily to focus more positive attention on her rather than negative attention on Preston so she gets the rewards for being good. I love that she loves the holidays and loves trick-or-treating and gets so excited to go and be all dressed up. I think we'll have 1, maybe 2 more years of her being Snow White and then we'll have to find her something else. That costume sure has had a lot of good use out of it! (Thanks, mom Call)

The end of trick-or-treating! The kids with their loot. They only did 1 block, but I think they did good....

We hung out at G'ma and G'pa Call's house until Nick got home from work and met us over there.



Every time the door bell rang Preston ran to the door to give out the candy. I think he liked doing that more than the actual trick-or-treating! Lol... We missed daddy with us, but we loved having Juli with us and I think we all had a lot of fun. :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!

Halloween at Wal-mart

This is only 2 of the MANY people I wanted to get pictures of who dressed up at came in to Wal-mart to shop! Seriously, though....

The first pic is an employee who came in wearing 1/2 his costume. We were all just shocked and amazed that he was "able" to squeeze in to those pants! Oh my....they were REALLY tight! Does anyone remember the Seinfeld episode where Kramer tried to wear an old pair of jeans that were so tight he couldn't bend his legs or sit down or get them off?!?! that's all I could think of when I saw this kid come in.

Then this guy came in....I was already off work but was shopping and I only saw it from the back. My co-workers took this picture and sent it to me....Boy-oh-Boy...some people. If you couldn't guess, he was dressed as "Adam" (aka: Adam and Eve). Thankfully, I never saw "Eve" come in, I can only imagine what her costume would have looked like. His was BAD enough! Oh-my!

Doctor time for Preston

Preston was ALL better on Thursday but Friday his temperature went back up and he was struggling to breath a bit so Nick suggested I take him to the doctor to get checked out. We went to InstaCare (quacks!) and the doctor didn't even bat an eye when I told him Preston had a fever. The doctor said--no he doesn't, his temperature came back 97.4.... Um...No, the nurse never took his temp! Seriously, she never took it! whatever!
So, he told me Preston's lungs sound really tight and he is weezing a lot (DUH!) so they did a breathing treatment (which we already do at home) I rolled my eyes as the doctor left. But, after 10-15 min when the treatment was done, ALL the wheezing was gone and he was breathing fine! (What the crap?!?!)
The doctor came back in with a "know it all" attitude and basically said--see, all you had to do was the albuterol and he would have been fine! So, I pushed him...I said there is NO way, that the only thing you put in the nebulizer was Albuterol! So he reluctantly asked his nurse....and with a little bit of humilty came back and told me that they put a steroid in it too!

A-Ha!

See, I knew Albuterol alone wasn't fixing the problem! I insisted that he give Preston a prescription of the steroid they used!
After that 1 treatment, Preston has been fine! He coughed some on Halloween during trick or treating, but otherwise has been fine! Amazing....

Preston at the doctor reading Snoopy

& with his dinosaur mask

Poor Ashleigh

Nick is better, Preston is better (90%), but now Ash is sick. Last night after school she just seemed off...when we asked her if she was sick she said "No". We think she was just in denial. This morning she woke up when her alarm went off, turned it off, then basically just collapsed at the end of her bed and went back to sleep. Nick decided she needed to stay home. When I woke up later, she was a little warm. She told me she was really hot, but then a couple min later would say she was really cold. So, I fed her some food and put her back to bed...she is taking her 3rd nap of the day. I really think sleep and lots of water/juice will make her feel better in no time.

She has really poor timing....today at Ballet they were able to wear their Halloween costumes, tomorrow at school too, then after school is a carnival. Saturday is trunk or treat and then trick or treating in the evening....it's a lot of stuff that she is going to have to miss if she doesn't get better soon! Poor kid.... every year, with out fail, she gets sick on or around her birthday. sigh.

Poor Preston

Nick was just starting to feel better from the flu when Preston started showing the same symptoms. Poor kid was really sick on Monday, but today (Tuesday) he has improved considerably! He has a runny nose and a small cough, but otherwise was up and playing and talking a mile a minute like usual. Lol. On Monday though, all he wanted to do was watch movies and play with his trains and lay around and sleep. Poor little kid. It's so much harder watching kids be sick.

So far, Ash and I have been able to avoid catching this and we are spraying Lysol and washing our hands constantly! Hope this is the last of it that we will see this winter--wishful thinking, right? Hey, a mom can dream!