quiet time

Sorry guys that the blog is quiet. I'm back in hospital. I've had to have a total hysterectomy so it will be a while before I'm back blogging. But you just waity because when I am back I have some great stuff from Christmas.

Christmas Eve

Eoin making reindeer food of glitter and oats (the glitter helps the reindeer to see Eoin' house). After the reindeer food we made Santa's chocolate cookies to go with his glass of chocolate milk.

Gingerbread Train

 Today we made our gingerbread train. Eoin was really into it though he looked like a green elf by the end of it as he had smeared icing everywhere!

Tomorrow we are going to make cookies for Santa and glitter reindeer food.

Bubble Craziness

Happy Holidays Everyone

Picture Album Noir Christmas Card

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 So I might be just a little late getting cards out to everyone after my adventure last week but just in case you don't get your card on time here is a sneak preview.
Happy Holidays Everyone!

News blackout

Eoin on a recent rainy day.

 So apologies for the lack of photos and news this last week but we have had quite a week. Last Wednesday morning Eoin decided I was the coolest Mommy on the block as we had a fire truck at our house. This was down to Andy calling 911 as I was very ill. Fast forward 48 hours, a contrast CT and ultrasound and I was headed into the OR for exploratory surgery because the doctors couldn't work out what the heck was going on (apart from maybe deep endometrial pain).

Eoin enjoying a hike in the local bay lands.

So it turned out that I had appendicitis but here was the kicker my appendix was stuck to my left ovary. The surgeon also discovered I was about a month away from a full bowel obstruction from some of the worst endometriosis she had ever seen. Fast another 24 hours and I'm healing nicely till I start coughing and having a fever. I had bi-lateral pneumonia!

But after five days in hospital I am now home and doing really well. Today I actually managed a few chores and a walk round the block. Andy has been amazing a real rock. He has looked after Eoin and done a great job. Our friends rallied and delivered food to our door every night I was in hospital and offered tons of babysitting so Andy could see me in hospital.

Overall Eoin did well. We had a few behavioural issues after day two of me being away but now he is back to normal. On my first night home he cuddled up to me in bed - every part of his body had to be touching mine and he looked at me and said 'Mommy I love you. Will you be here in the morning?'
 He broke my heart but I am very very thankful to say yes I will be home for a long time to come.

Holiday Train

 

Over the weekend we headed over to Niles Canyon for the holiday train. We were very glad to find seats inside as it was freezing. Eoin had a blast on the train.He didn't seem that interested in the lights just what type of engine was pulling us. Santa visited all the kids on the train. Eoin told Santa that he wanted a ride on train for Christmas.

Doddy the Horse

  

Back in October Eoin received this great tire horse from his grandparents in Ireland. He has been a little reluctant to us it but that changed when we decided to bring Doddy (as Eoin calls it) inside. The weather has turned cold and so we have hung Doddy off the rafters in the garage. Now Eoin loves to climb on. He is still a little tentative and won't swing fast yet but I'm sure give it a few weeks and we"ll be begging him to slow down!

Message to Santa

Yummy Crabs!

 

Eoin trying crab for the first time on a recent trip to Monteray.

A band aid makes everything better.

Here's Eoin 'fixing' Uncle Joe's head with a pink Dora the Explorer band aid. Eoin thinks a band aid fixes everything luckily 'Frank' (Joe's tumor) has gone but I'm sure the Dora band aid helps a little.

Thanksgiving Football Game

Uncle Joe and Auntie Martina trying to tire Eoin out before Thanksgiving dinner.

Taking things literally

Last night we celebrated National Adoption Day with pizza. Eoin and I love to have ranch sauce with our pizza however Eoin ended up with quite a lot of ranch sauce. Uncle Matt was rather surprised and when I said 'oh don't worry Eoin would drink ranch with a straw if he could' Eoin insisted on a straw to drink his extra ranch sauce. Man we have to be so careful what we say now a days!

A day of climbing

 

Eoin certainly got up to much mischief today - mainly climbing to try and get at stuff. Every now and again I would here him shouting through the house 'Mommy I need a little bit of rescuing'. Cue the camera and trying to keep a straight face and tell him that climbing on the counters was not allowed. 

A visit to Santa Cruz

 As today was looking like the only dry day Uncle Matt would see while he was visiting from the UK we decided to go to Santa Cruz. We weren't expecting everything to be closed up (but it makes sense really) so we only got to play crazy golf and do a couple of other fun games. Eoin played air hockey for the first time and tried to play foos-ice-hockey. Once we hit Eoin's nap time we drove up route 1 which was sunny and stunning and then we grabbed a late lunch at Alice's.

Advent Calendar

Today I finished painting Eoin's advent calendar. It is the first painting project I have done - normally I am a paper crafter. I enjoyed this one but have learnt many things I would do differently next time. Still I hope Eoin enjoys using his calendar for the month of December.

Double Success

 

Today has been a double success day! First off Eoin got another swim ribbon this morning. He now has Level 1 and Level 2 under his belt. Then after a very short nap Eoin decided he wanted to not wear diapers and wear underwear. Now he has done this before so I was so proud of him when he went the whole afternoon without any accidents and even used the bathroom at a neighbors house. Maybe just maybe it has something to do with his new Jelly Belly dispenser - he only gets jelly belly beans if he uses the bathroom. So far he has made it to the bathroom 4 times without any help from Mommy!

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

 

Here is Eoin showing off his leaf garlands that he made with Mommy. We are busy decorating our new place for Thanksgiving and can't wait to have friends and family visit us.

What happens when.....

a three year old picks out his own clothes!

3 year check up

Yesterday Eoin had his three year check - up with our family doctor. Eoin loves going to see Dr Walton normally but this time round he was a little apprehensive. This check up was very different to his past check ups - we were told it was a big boy check up now. Eoin had to get into a gown and have his blood pressure checked!

Anyhow the stats - at three years old Eoin weighs 42 lbs and is 42 inches tall (19 kilos and 106.6 cm). That put him firmly on the 100 percentile for his age group. In fact it puts him in the 80 percentile if he was 4 and 30 percentile if he was 5. So I guess right now we have a 3 year old who looks like a small 5 year old! That in itself brings its own issues but another blog entry I'm sure will turn up about that soon.

 

Eoin had his eyes and hearing tested and he passed all the developmental milestones with flying colors. Now we just have to work on getting him to dress and undress himself and not getting so easily frustrated.

Finally at the age of three Eoin is sleeping through the night which is HUGE. He is a happier kid and we are happier parents :-).

Imaginary Friend

Eoin has an imaginary friend called Dino. Dino arrived about six weeks ago right about the same time as his play structure and our move to our new home.
Dino is a red creature maybe a cross between a dragon and a dinosaur from what we can tell. Dino comes with Eoin most places and if we forget him we have to open the car window to let him fly in.
Dino seems to have a family too and often the neighborhood is deafened by the noise of Eoin shouting Dino to come play.
So far Dino hasn't been blamed for any bad behavior but I'm sure that is the next step.

The best sound ever!

Eoin was in fits of laughter when he realized that using the arrow keys he could make videos of himself and his swim teacher move faster or slower.

Fall Time

 

Eoin and I spent all day making our Fall/Thanksgiving door wreath. We traced around Eoin's hand and then cut it many times out of felt. I covered a foam circle in red ribbon and then we covered the circle in the felt hands. Finally Eoin helped pick out all the buttons to be glued onto the wreath. As you can tell Eoin (and me) are super proud of our little craft project.

Halloween

 

Halloween was a little bit subdued for us this year. Eoin really didn't want to dress up at all. This stems I think from a very firm sense that he is 'Eoin'. If we say oh thank you you were a gentlemen for opening the door he'll say no I'm Eoin. Or Eoin your jumping like a kangaroo - no Mommy I'm Eoin not a kangaroo. Eoin has never liked dressing up so we weren't too surprised that this Halloween he really didn't want to participate. We got him a train engineer costume and we got as far as getting the pants on him. 

However it all changed once he realized candy was involved. Then he was leading the pack of kids door to door saying 'trick or treat'. He even tried going first and then waiting till everyone was done and going up again to see if he could get more! We did come up too one house that was just a little too scary for him though. He stood for quite a while trying to build up the nerve to walk through the display with weird scary noises. Eventually he decided he didn't need to walk through he would just walk around it! Clever kid.

Jamming

Swimming

Eoin has always loved water and has been going to swim lessons since he was about 14 months old. Now that he is three he was allowed to progress out of the waterbabies class and into proper 'level' swimming. Today he started to learn to swim with his arms forward and to do 'pop'-ups' so that he can breath and swim further. He always cries when he gets of the pool and tries to jump back in for more swimming time.

Sorry about the quality in some of the video - the sun was pretty intense (and yes for you folks back home  we are swimming outdoors at the end of October!).