My Funny Boy

Today Brett had his regular 6 month dentist visit. He took Cade with him to see if they would check out that funky thing growing in his mouth (see above picture). Cade was so awesome and grown up about the whole thing. I went to pick him up and take him to school and he was hanging out in the waiting room playing his DS while Brett was getting his teeth cleaned. I asked how it went and what they said. He said "well, basically, it's an extra tooth. They took an xray and the real tooth is up there so they will pull this one out so the real tooth can grow in." I was like, that's great! I am so glad there is another tooth and you won't have that crazy tooth forever. He said, "mom, that tooth never bothered me." I'm like, that's good (but I'm thinking you look like a freak, but whatever...). He said they could have capped it to make it look like a real tooth if there wasn't another tooth. So I said I guess I need to call and make an appointment for them to pull it out. (I was amazed when he was telling me about it that he was so calm about having it pulled out.) He said, "no. nobody is going to pull it out, we just have to wiggle it until it falls out." I assumed that was the truth and went with it. Brett called when his appointment was over and said I need to call and make an appointment to have his shark tooth extracted. I told him what Cade had said and we decided that Cade was trying to pull the wool over my eyes so I wouldn't make an appointment and he plans on wiggling it until it falls out. Silly boy...doesn't he know that mom and dad find out about everything? I can't wait until March 9th when that freakish extra tooth comes out! And by the way, I'm not telling him it's getting pulled out until a few days beforehand. I'll let him keep thinking that I believe he needs to wiggle and pull it out.

Cade has been telling a lot of tall tales lately. It's like he thinks I was born yesterday. He'll say crazy things and insist they're true until I say I'm going to call his teacher or friend or whatever to see if he's really telling the truth and then he'll come clean. So Sunday Brett, Cade and I had a lunch date while Maddi was at dance. Somehow Fat Tuesday came up and we were talking about how people eat what they want because on Wednesday they will give something up for lent. He is really looking forward to eating all day Tuesday, even though we are not Catholic! So I said, if you're celebrating Fat Tuesday, what are you giving up for lent? I said it could be food or a habit. He thought a bit and said he is going to give up lying. Woo-hoo! Kids are awesome! Today he told me some tall tale about something and I said, Cade, you said you were giving up lying to which he replied, it's not Tuesday yet.

Check out this box of Oreos. Does it seem appropriate that a child would consume a box of cookies this size for a snack after dinner? Look at the serving size and you'll notice it has 12 full size Oreo cookies in that box! If you look at the ingredients, the second ingredient is wheat flour! Maddi came home from Awanas tonight with a chocolate circle around her mouth and said "Oreos don't have gluten in them, do they?" "I ate a whole box of them for snack." In my mind I'm like, a whole box, they come in bags and yes they have gluten but I'm sure she didn't eat too many of them. She then showed us the box and Brett and I started laughing. Inside I was crying because we have been trying to be so good about keeping gluten from Maddi's diet. However, I know Maddi was upset that she ate something, a whole lot of something, she shouldn't have eaten so I didn't let her know I was upset. She said her leader told her they didn't have gluten so she ate the box of 12 cookies. 12 cookies...right before she is going to bed....filled with gluten no less!!! I can understand about the gluten mishap, I didn't know much about gluten before I started researching it either. We showed Maddi how to read labels and if she sees wheat flour listed then she shouldn't eat it. Of course many other things have gluten besides wheat flour, but that's a big easy one for her to know about. She even took her own bag of fruit snacks with her to Awanas in case the snack was cookies or crackers she couldn't eat. Oh well....today at dance she had 4 Twizzlers before she realized that they have gluten as well. The second ingredient in Twizzlers is wheat flour too. Who knew? Thankfully a little girl who has Celiac Disease saw Maddi eating Twizzlers and she told her they have gluten before she devoured too many more.

We took Maddi off gluten at the first of the year to see if there is a connection between gluten and her eczema. She was off of it for 5 weeks before we went to Disney. While we were there we let her have whatever food she wanted to see how her skin would react. It definitely flared her eczema so now we are (trying) following a gluten free diet again. I will take Maddi this week to get her blood taken to see if she has Celiac Disease. I'm really hoping she doesn't have it so that if she ocassionaly wants gluten filled foods she can eat them but she'll just know that her eczema will flare. We'll see what happens with that....poor little Maddi girl.

Friday was the day that never ended. Brett and I took Maddi to the doctor to talk about her issues with anxiety and things went well. After that we took her to lunch and then Brett and Maddi got their allergy shots together. Such a lovely daddy and daughter bonding moment : ) Later that afternoon we were at the pediatrician to talk about Celiac testing and had her swabbed for strep because her throat hurt a bit and she was getting a rash that looked like the beginning of scarlet fever. Maddi tends to get scarlet fever rash with strep. The rapid test came back negative so they are doing a culture. Now I'm pretty sure she doesn't have strep, but has 5th disease. It's not a big deal to have 5th disease but the rash is itchy and annoying. As soon as I got home from taking Maddi to the doctor my neighbor called to see if I could watch their kids while they went to the hospital to monitor her and her baby she is pregnant with. I was happy to help them out and I stayed for 45 minutes or so until the in-laws got there. Then I came home and took Maddi and her friend to dance for a sleepover (they stayed until 11:00 p.m., not the whole night). On my way there Brett called to ask if I wanted to play bunco with some neighbors. They needed a sub, so I headed over and played bunco until I went back to pick up Maddi at the sleepover. She was less than thrilled to leave the party because she was having a great time but we finally got home and made it to bed before midnight. Not a bad day Friday, just a busy day that kept getting busier as it went on.

Saturday was snowing and crazy windy so we never left our house the whole day. We didn't have to do anything so we stayed in our warm house and out of the blowing snow. It was nice to have a day of doing nothing. Sunday we made it out of the house for dance, lunch, playing with friends and Awanas.

Colds, Cold and love...oh my!

Colds.....
So, Brett, Maddi and I all seem to be fighting off a cold. No fever or anything, just real sniffly and stuffy and annoying. It seems like Cade might have been stuffy for about two days last week so maybe we are getting that cold he had. Maddi seems like she is getting better after two days of it so hopefully it's a short lived cold for all of us.


Cold....
Ugh...why won't winter just go away? We are getting another arctic blast tonight and it makes me realize that although all the cute spring clothes are at the stores it will be a long time before we are wearing any of that cuteness. I did see a sky full of geese this afternoon so maybe, just maybe the geese know something that I don't know. We had some crazy sideways snow this evening. Gotta love Chicago!

Love....
Today Maddi had a friend over after school. They were making cards and Maddi wrote this lovely note...on a napkin, no less....

Translation: I want to kiss you Ryan Mastro (boy from Cade's football team in 4th grade that she hardly knows) you are such a hottie. That is very true. Do you love me? turn over...Here is a special treat for you!

I smell T-R-O-U-B-L-E on our hands when this girl is old enough to date! I want to think that she was just being creative with the stickers they were using for the cards. But, I'm afraid that's not the case.

I've got Maddi who is in "love" with any boy with a pulse and Cade who only loves his mommy and wants to live with me forever. I'm telling you my kids are opposite in every way!

Disney Day 4

Our last day at Disneyland ended up being our nicest weather. Unfortunately this was the day that Brett had to work so he was inside all day and missed out on some nice weather. The kids and I had a great time. We got there for the last 10 minutes of the Magic Morning time so we had the park mostly to ourselves for a bit. We walked right up to ride space mountain then we headed over for the Star Wars Jedi Training. Cade wore his Darth Vader shirt and he was chosen to participate in the class. He was all smiles as you can see.
They learned how to use the lightsaber for attack and had to take an oath about using the lightsaber correctly. It was very entertaining. There is a video at the bottom of the post showing part of the training, then there's another one of Cade fighting Darth Vader. It was so cute and fun to watch and Cade really enjoyed it.

Here is Cade fighting Darth Maul. That guy is creepy with the spikes in his head!

Cade is showing off his certificate that he is a certififed padawon!

Spinning teacups. Fun for the kids...not for mom.

Toontown was pretty cute. They had all kinds of gags and the kids enjoyed playing in cartoon land. I enjoyed sitting in the sun and watching them play.

Of course we had to get a picture with Mickey!

This is a picture of the screen where they show you pictures from the ride. My little daredevil, Maddi girl, rode California Screaming by herself with her hands up. Her eyes are closed here, but I don't think she closed them the whole time. Since Brett wasn't at Disney with us this day she rode by herself behind Cade and I on the scarier rides because Cade was scared and wanted to be with me. We rode Thunder Mountain once and she rode at the back with her hands up. After the ride she was mad because that wasn't scary enough, so the next time she rode by herself, hands up and eyes closed. I don't know where the daredevil came from, but I'm glad she was so into the thrills.

Our last ride before leaving Disney was Space Mountain. This is a picture of the screen again, but you can see we were having lots of fun. Cade even got brave enough to ride with Maddi at the front so I was by myself. There were some tears leaving the park because nobody wanted to go home. It was a wonderful trip with so many fun memories.

Our flight home the next day was not so great. Brett stayed and worked in CA so the kids and I drove to LAX, returned our rental car and then checked in for our flight. We were scheduled on a 12:50 p.m. flight. We got there early and were able to get on the 11:01 a.m. on standby. However, when we were in line for security (that was moving at a snails pace), they paged our names and said it was the last call...the plane was leaving. So, we missed the 11:01 but then we got on standby for the 12:00. They took #1 and #2 on the standby list and that's it. We were #3, 4, and 5. Bummer. So we walked down to our gate to take our original flight at 12:50 to find out it was delayed until 1:20. No big deal, we'll wait...then it was delayed until 2:00. Ugh. So we get on the plane and sit and wait at the runway for 20 minutes because air traffic control wouldn't let us in Chicago yet because of rain storms and wind. Finally we take off and everything was fine. It was just a bummer that we could have been almost home when we were finally taking off. We were all glad to get back home and see the Cocoa dog.

Disney Day 3

On our 3rd day Cade finally adjusted to the time change and woke up closer to 7:00 a.m. Thankfully we had a suite so Maddi was still sleeping on the pull out couch and Brett and I snoozed in the bedroom while Cade spent the morning hanging out in the bathroom building his new Lego he bought the night before. When Maddi woke up she started building her Lego too. We hung out in the room for a while and then headed back to the parks. We spent the day doing all of our favorite rides again and exploring new ones at both parks. It was Brett's last day with us so we got in as much as we could.

It was a little rainy again, mostly off an on and still cooler than we had hoped for but still lots of fun.

Cade driving Brett in the car. Maddi was a horrible driver, we were cracking up. Finally at the end she learned to steady the wheel.

CA- we love California and the kids loved playing in the letters in front of CA Adventure.

Such sweet brothers and sisters, sharing their mickey lollipops with each other. Click on the picture and check out Cade's funky tooth. He has some shark tooth looking thing growing in the front of his mouth. I've got to get him to the dentist to see what the heck is going on. Luckily he's not embarrased by it and he even thinks he might be famous some day for his crazy tooth. If it was Maddi with this crazy tooth she'd be mortified. Gotta love the laid back boy!

Maddi has turned into such a daredevil. She went on every ride no matter how scarey. She'd even put her hands up on the roller coasters. She was so fun to go on rides with. We went on Malliboomer which shoots you up really high really fast and then drops you. She loved it. I was totally expecting tears. Cade even got brave enough to ride it, but he totally didn't like it. He didn't cry either, but was very close to tears. Maybe in a few years he won't be so scared. I forget that he's only 6 years old, even though he looks like he's 8.

Maddi and Mom at the end of the ride. Brett and I would take turns riding the scarier rides with Maddi while the other one would take Cade on more gentle rides.

I wasn't so great at taking pictures as the days went on. We didn't stay as late this night and Cade actually walked to the car himself this night. Brett had a dinner meeting so we headed back to the room and got some sleep to prepare for our last day.

Disney Day 2

The second day of Disney we went to California Adventure Park which is right next door the Disney. We had our friends "Flat Stanley" with us so we got a picture with him with one of the letters spelling California. We had some rain this day too, but not as much, which was nice but it was still on the chilly side.


There were so many fun rides at this park too. A few of our favorites were Soaring, Toy Story, California Screaming, Maliboomer.

Here are the kids waiting to watch The Bug's Life 3d movie. Anyone who has been to Disney knows how great they are at making everything so life like. Instead of just 3d glasses, they were bug eyes, the signs are all movies with bug themes, they just think of everything. It was a very cute show and kind of scary actually.

We watched the High School Musical Parade which was so great. Maddi LOVED it! She even got picked to be in the show. There were 4 people out of the whole audience who got to be the "stars" of the show and they picked her. They announced her name and where she was from. There is a video at the bottom of the post. We were sitting on the side so I didn't get great pics or video, but at least I got something.

Here is "Maddi from Chicago" walking back with the HSM cast member. Notice it was warm enough for her to take her jacket off for a while.

Here Maddi is all smiles showing off her Star Dazzle Award pin for being in the show.

Cade and Dad after watching the Pixar Parade. Again, so fun and amazing.

My goofballs with...Goofy.

The Incredible McDonalds! It was so nice since the parks weren't crowded we could walk right up and get pictures with characters or we'd wait in line for 5 minutes max.

We watched Aladdin, the Musical. It was hilarious and just wonderful and magical, just like everything else. We went to Downtown Disney for dinner again, but this night we went a little earlier so Cade wouldn't fall asleep. We had some yummy Mexican food and we let the kids have coke (a first) so they could stay awake a little longer. Then we went to the Lego store where they bought more Legos (can never have too many apparently), then back to Disney for some rides at night. We stayed until about 9:30 p.m. instead of until midnight when they closed, like the kids wanted to do.

Poor little Cade man fell asleep on the tram ride back to the car and poor little daddy had to carry big heavy Cade for the second night in a row. Having so much fun is exhausting.

Enjoy the video of Maddi in High School Musical.....

Disney Day 1

We had such a wonderful time at Disneyland in California. We left Friday after school and got into LAX late Friday night and then drove to our hotel in Anaheim. We weren't so lucky with the weather. It wasn't the warm and sunny CA we had hoped for, but we made the most of it. Funny thing is (not so funny to us actually) that Chicago was having a heat wave while we were gone and had 40's, even 60 with rain while we were gone. As soon as we flew back the cold returned and we should have snow again by the weekend. Anyway, we knew it was rainy season in California when we booked the trip but it was okay because it's a slow time of year and with the cold and rain it kept even more people away. The most we ever had to wait for a ride was 20 minutes. That was great!

Our first ride after entering Disneyland was Indiana Jones. It was incredible! I don't even like Indiana Jones and it was awesome...can't even explain it. Cade was a little worried as you can see on his face before the ride. It was very dark in the ride and he didn't love it the first time. By the end of the trip it was one of his favorite rides.

So here we are in line waiting for Big Thunder Mountain. Luckily I threw 3 umbrellas and Maddi's rain coat in the suitcase right before our trip. Waiting in line with umbrellas wasn't bad, but riding the ride in the rain wasn't so fun. So.....we made a stop for our first souveneir purchase of rain ponchos!

Here are the little ones modeling the lovely rain ponchos (that was our best purchase by the way).

So now that we are equipped to face the rain we head over to Buzz Lightyear. It was fun. So fun in fact that I forgot to grab my umbrella on the way off the ride. We were so busy talking about our scores that I forgot all about my handy dandy umbrella....until we left to go out in the rain. I went back to see if it was turned in, but no such luck. Worst part is that of the 3 umbrellas I brought, I lost the best one. Oh well.

We went to watch the Star Wars Jedi Training session but the stage was wet so they didn't have the show. But that worked out pretty well because we got some cool pics with the characters instead. They had the show several times each day if it wasn't raining so we were able to see the show and Cade was chosen to be in the training.

Maddi was afraid she'd look like a Tom boy to get her picture with Darth but she took this one because there were other girls in the picture. Silly girl.

Gotta love those rain ponchos for our family picture with Darth Maul. Ugh...

It was so fun to see all the people with their hats walking around Disney. After a while you don't even notice the crazy hats or think twice when you see them. We had fun playing at the Mad Hatter store trying on hats, but didn't buy any here. Maddi really wanted mouse ears but she didn't like the mouse ears hats because the elastic hurt her chin. Funny thing is that at the first birthday party she went to before she was one year old we put a party hat on her and it popped her chin. From that day on she would cry when she would even see a party hat. I guess we damaged her for life! We ended up seeing teenage girls with mouse ears on hair clips so we bought her the mouse ear clips.

Our favorite crazy hats.

The sun came out! We took off the ponchos and even wore sunglasses from time to time. Here's Brett and the kids in front of It's A Small World. Every ride the kids rode was their favorite when they got off. Then the next ride was their favorite. I told Maddi when she is feeling sad to remember back to this ride and the song playing and characters moving. How can you not be happy on this ride?

Mom and Maddi with our beautiful hair after enduring rain and humidity but still enjoying our ride on It's a Small World.

Had to get the picture of Having fun in the sun postcard at the end of the ride.

One great part about the rain was that we saw some beautiful rainbows. I love rainbows and it gave me warm fuzzies to see so many of them while we were having such wonderful family time. Saturday morning when we woke up and looked out our hotel window we were thrilled to see our view of the snow capped mountains with a double rainbow. I knew it was going to be a wonderful trip when I saw that. The picture didn't come out good but this one did. This rainbow was on our way in line for Space Mountain. We LOVED Space Mountain. I had no idea it was dark the whole time so Cade was not so thrilled, but by the end of the trip Space Mountain was another favorite for him too.

The last ride of the first day. Can't remember the name, but it was too much going in circles for me so I took pictures instead. We were all so worn out from the time change, getting in so late the night before and walking all around the park so we called it a day at the park. We headed to Downtown Disney for some dinner. Cade was in a horrible mood walking there and it took a while for us to get seated. While we were waiting for our drinks, he fell asleep and he slept the entire dinner. We tried to wake him up so he could eat but we couldn't get him up. Our little rooster had woken up at 4:45 a.m. that morning, partly because we were two hours behind and also because he was so excited about going to Disney. Poor guy.

After dinner we were walking back to the tram to get to our car. We were given the advice to walk to the parking lot because the tram was about the same distance as the parking lot and we'd have to wait in line for the tram. Bad advice. There weren't any sidewalks so we were walking through wet grass when Maddi made the statement "we look like homeless people, you know?" We made it to our car and we were glad to get back to the hotel to shower and get some sleep so we could get up and do it all again the next day.

Super Bowl

When my sweet friend, Leslie, came to visit this summer she brought Cade an Arizona Cardinals cap because she now lives in Arizona. It was perfect for Cade to wear for the Super Bowl! We rooted for the Cardinals, but they couldn't pull it off. We went to a neighbors for a party and we ate way too many snacks, pizza, and desserts. It was fun and the kids were very interested in seeing if they were winning any of the money in the squares they bet on. None of us won the squares, but Brettley won another special bets contest. He had to guess the coin flip, first team to score, how they would score, etc. Way to go! I can't figure out why they have the Super Bowl on Sunday evening. We all decided that they need to change it to Saturday or earlier in the day Sunday or declare Monday a holiday. We are too old to stay up late eating and drinking on a Sunday night! Another fun weekend down. We leave Friday for California and Disneyland!