Scenes from Fall

Did you like those pics? I thought you would like to see some scenes from fall around the Cheerio Household. :) Today we carved the pumpkins that we picked last weekend. It was a beautiful sunny warm day here today very strange for WA this time of year! But also very welcome. I got out and cleaned out the minivan today and washed it and vacumed it. The boys got to ride their quads today that was a lot of fun for them! Yesterday Honey Nut went to a bday party that was also a costume party...she is Hannah Montana this year and was so excited that Mommy finally let her wear makeup and glitter on her face to complete the look. She also won the costume contest at the party!! Well this week is another busy week so posting will be minimal but I am trying to keep up!

wordy Wednesday...

I was going to do Wordless Wednesday but anyone who knows me understands that me and the phrase "no words or no talk" do NOT go together. lol I wanted to post these this pic of Trix and Daddy mowing the lawn yesterday it was so precious! He loves to mow with daddy and waited by the window all afternoon until Daddy came home. At first Hubs mentioned the mower would not start and he had to work on it a bit but Trix waited patiently for him to get it started. Yes you read that right...Patiently. Normally the word patient and Trix go together like oil and water but that is not the case lately. You see those vitamin supplements coupled with him going off dairy or (either/or) seems to be leading him to be calmer and much more focused! It was such a gradual change that I did not notice at first until he went to OT at the school the other day and the OT asked me if he was on ritalin now. I said no why? she said she got focus out of him and patience out of him she had not seen before and Trix told her he was taking a new medicine that was sweet. lol I explained to her that He is now taking : A multivitamin with a big immune booster, DHA oil (omega 3 fish oil) and most recently the passion flower. That is really strong but he is such a good sport about taking it. To me it smells yucky and does not look much better but he is taking it and I am really noticing a difference. I know the DHA helps as well for brain power, focus, behavior issues, etc. So far so good. Anything to keep him off medicine if I can.

It has been two weeks to the day that Trix went dairy free and also our whole family...we agreed to eliminate dairy from our diet as well in support of Trix. I have made a few recipes that everyone seems to like. I also just got a new cookbook titled cooking dairy free. I noticed our systems were "cleaning out" the last couple weeks...I was afraid everyone was sick but the nutritionist said no it is your body ridding itself of toxins and cleaning itself out. I also noticed another pleasant change as a result of going dairy free...I have lost about 3 pounds without dieting or exercise! That is always nice.

Otherwise things here are fine...the kids are doing well, hubs is having fun at work, he and I are saving for our trip to Vegas this January to celebrate our 10 year anniversary! Neither of us has ever been so we are excited.

To go with my post mainly being about our families diet I would like to link you to one of my favorite bloggers Katherine over at "raising five" http://raisingfive.blogspot.com/ She has a cool personality and I love how she is so humorous about the antics of raising five kids. She is definitely a cool mom in my book. Her blog today is about eating at home at what my kids call "the family table" lol do ya think they watch enough nick at nite? Anyway just go check out Katherine's blog you will be glad you did. :)

Ciao for now!
The Cheerio Queen

weekend fun...

So this weekend was almost a really nice weekend! I will explain the almost part later. It started off with Saturday when the kids Grandpa came and got them and Hubs and took them all to the local model train show. I was going to surprise my Grandma and take her too lunch but she had already left to do some errands so all of a sudden I found myself in an empty clean house (I know perish the thought but since I was plannign on going out I wanted it cleaned up) with nothing but the deafening silence! My hubs said to me...honey you can have alone time today. Huh? What is that? I have not had "alone time" where I was not running errands or the like in about 8.5 years. So I sat down to "catch up on my tivo shows". But after one of them I was bored. I forgot what it is like to feel that way. I decided to go to the Sunshine Nutrition Center up the street that a friend had recommended to me, so I could pick up something called "calm child" for Trix. When I went in there I swear I heard that music you hear when you discover a great revelation. The guy behind the counter was so friendly and knowledgeable and for the first time I actually got advice that did not make me feel like my son is a hyperactive freakazoid. No docs have not put down my child of course not...but for those of you with kids like Trix you know what I mean. The looks you get when your describing what you think is your child's ahem..charms, only to find out that they think your child is either not disciplined enough, doing something weird, or needs some sort of medication to slow him down. No this guy actually explained that he thinks my son my have an iron deficiency, and need more vitamin B to help his focus, however unlike most vitamin stores..he did NOT try to sell me 12 different vitamin bottles at the bargain price of 50 dollars each, in fact he listened to me describe my son, and then made some suggestions but insisted I should start with ONE thing first. That's it. One thing. WOW I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of the calm child he gave me Passion Flower. The only problem is Trix hates it. I will have to see if I can disguise it in his food. It is pretty strong and smells gross to me. we will see. If not I will just go get the calm child lol.

Sunday I taught Sunday School at church and then in the afternoon the kids and I went to the Pumpkin Patch while Hubs stayed home and got his "alone time". Of course silly me did not think about the fact that this is WA state and we are not known for being super sunny and dry but are known for being rainy. But hey it was pretty dry when we left, I did not however factor in the muddy terrain of the pumpkin patch. OOPS. See above picture and you can see the kids shoes...yes you heard me right. I forgot to bring rain boots. Actually to tell you the truth I am not sure their boots fit this year I will probably have to get some. Oh well. They had fun, especially watching Mommy try and push a wheel barrow with 3 pumpkins the size of each child through that slick mud. I managed to not fall on my own pumpkin but the kids got muddy enough that we had to go back home before we went halloween costume shopping which was the original plan. So I called hubs and asked that he set out three outfits for the kids so they could change on the hardwood square by the front door rather then decorate the house in muddy pumpkin theme. After that we were off.

I have an 8 year old daughter...any of you who have an 8 year old daughter are probably very familiar with Hannah Montana. It is a cute show although a little corny. But in any case that is the latest craze with the girls in that genre...however I am not complaining...after all when I was that age Madonna and her torpedo bras were the role model me and my friends were wanting to follow. In any case honey nut wants to be Hannah Montana for Halloween so we headed off to Party City to find the coveted outfit. They had one but not in her size and frankly I was secretly grateful to not have to pay 30 dollars for something she won't wear more then once or twice. So we settled on the hannah montana wig, and then we will make one of her outfits out of clothes she already has...Honey Nut was concerned she would not look enough like her until I told her she was goign to get to wear makeup...that did it. After that we went to target to find the boys costumes because what they had at party city was not really what they wanted and so expensive.
So we walked down the strip mall towards target and that is where the "almost" part of our weekend fun came in. As we were walking merrily down the sidewalk Trix was a couple feet ahead of us as he always does and all of a sudden he stopped and covered his ears. He only does this when nervouse or upset about something so I asked him what was wrong and then I looked further ahead to see what he was looking at and low and behold there were two guys...probably in their twentys FIGHTING. I mean really beating each other down. Ok so the area we were in was not a bad area but not the yuppiest either but come on. Like I want my kids to witness this...so I shuffled the kids back behind a pillar so they would not see this and tried to talk to them louder then the shouts of expletives we heard until things dissapated enough that we could either go into the store, or back to the car but it was a walk to the car and I knew that the kids would be turning around to watch. After a few minutes things settled down and the disagreeing parties each left. Then when I saw that a few families with young children went into the store I figured it was ok to go in. I just explained that some people don't get along and handled things wrong and lets go costume shopping. All was quickly forgotten luckily by the kids when Trix got his "race car costume" actually it is motocross but hey it had a cool helmet mask and he thinks it is racecar, and then Lucky Charms got some sort of a warrior thing with padded chest and arms. He was disappointed to find out it did not come with a gun though lol. Figures he is such a boy.

Hope you all had a good weekend!
The Cheerio Queen

Decisions Decisions....

Lately my life has been full of decisions. It seems no matter what I do I have to make 35 billion different decisions a day...and hubby still cannot figure out why I get frustrated when he comes home and says "whats for dinner I don't want to decide" grrr. lol I know all this comes with being a mom and wife and I am not the only one on the planet who makes deicsions all day. However I have been into making some big LIFE decisions. God has been doing an awful lot of "overhauling" in our family. With it has come new decisions etc.

For me personally I have been feeling serious callings to do lots of things when my own schedule is already full. I have been cranky, over tired, frustrated, no real fun to be around, and irritable. Just ask my hubs and kiddos. They have taken a lot of "cranky mommy" lately. Before you ask no it is not just a "certain time of month" lol. I just reached that point lately where you feel like you are doing everything but at the same time not really doing anything at all. Does that make any sense? I think a lot of us mom's feel that way. I have gotten to the point where my career as a daycare owner is no longer a career but just flat out a boring job that I am starting to resent. I feel as if my own children are with me all day but never get to really see or spend time with me. So after much consideration and juggling of finances I finally made one huge decision. I am closing my daycare in June. I wanted to give the parents time to find new care but specifically one of my families has a child with special needs and it will take them a long time to find a caregiver. Personally I will miss all the daycare kids, however on another level I have to say that for the first time in quite awhile "I FEEL GREAT"!

I feel great that I will be able to work with my own kids again, not to mention get my house back lol. I feel great to know that i will be able to work with Trix on his issues more. All 3 of my sweeties have been complaining for a few months now that they are tired of sharing mommy and I don't blame them.
You are probably wondering if I have come up with anything new for a career that I can actually work around my kids..why yes I have...but you will have to stay tuned for that revelation later I am still putting finishing touches on it!


As for a weekly update...this week has been busy and has flown by. Yesterday we had a windstorm that while it was consistenly stronger then normal, was not quite the "tornado" the news made it out to be. It was enough to knock out power and screw up traffic, as well as keep the kids excited. We turned it into a homeschool lesson on nature, hubs had the camera so I could not take the darling picture I saw yesterday. THe kids all lines up in kitchen chairs in front of the back door drawing and writing their observations on the windstorm! It was darling to see them laughing their little hearts out as the wind whisked away the flag on the 10th green of the golf course we live on lol. Afterwards when we lost power and all the daycare kids had gone home we decided to go to the store, and get some firewood and stuff for smores and we made those in the fireplace in the living room where we ate our dinner too. This was a huge treat for the kids as they never get to eat in there but they loved it.

Hope you all had a great week!
The Cheerio Queen

It's Fab Friday...or is it?

This is what happens when you let a six year old play up in his room when he promises to be good. That my blogging friends is baby powder a full economy size bottle of it. Even the poor gorilla was not safe. It has been a heck of a week in the cheerio household. Mainly all the daycare kids have been sent to me sick all week. Between teething and colds it has been busy. Isn't it funny how some parents insist their kids are "just fine" at home even though they are sick with you all day? lol. Apparently their kids only get sick at school and daycare...that is where they have all their fevers, green snotty noses, nausea. Once they get home their crabbies go away, their fevers miraculously disappear, and they are perfect angels for their parents. yeah right. I gotta get outta daycare soon lol.

Trix started with a new occupational therapist this week. The lady he was seeing was in a car accident over the summer and still has not recovered we are praying for her recovery. The new lady was great! She also had the patience of an angel since my regular babysitter was not here to watch my other two kids so I had to take them in addition to extra daycare kids in with us. So in I march yesterday with 6 ACTIVE kids in tow. She wisely directed us to the indoor gymn type room. I can tell this lady is going to be great!

I saw a nutritionist for Trix on Wed evening this week. We are going to try a few th ings but the first thing she wants to do is eliminate ALL dairy from Trix's diet. The doc and the ENT neglected to tell me that the chronic ear infections that led to Trix's tubes in his ears was a classic sign of a milk allergy. I had tried to take him off milk once before because I had found through some research that it can help calm down a lot of his sensory issues, but after about a week he was so obnoxious and frustrated and honery that we finally gave it back to him and he was fine. So I thought he needed it. He LOVES milk and after talking to the therapist I realized he also loves cheese. I started thinking aobut his favorite foods and almost all of them have some sort of dairy in them. She explained to me that he craved it because your body treats foods your allergic too like a drug. So basically my son is getting "high" off of milk...if this is what he is allergic too. She also explained the reason he was so obnoxious when I tried to take him off it before is that he was going through withdrawls. She told me for the next two weeks to keep him completely off dairy and then after that we will slowly reintroduce certain foods and see if we can pinpoint anything. I will say this lady is great! She told me the reason the docs never told me this before is that they are trained to treat symptoms but not necessarily find out why or what is causing it. I do not want to make it seem like i do not like docs though because I do. I just think that from a preventative side this is a better idea.

Otherwise we are deep into the school thing and getting ready for the holidays. :)

Yay it's Friday and a new post!

YES you are seeing this right a new post in under a couple weeks! lol Told ya I would try!

I am going to try and get back to posting about some topics again but here is another quick update.

The boys and hubs and I have a small tummy bug but nothing with fevers or anything just enough to keep us feeling yucky. Don't ya just love fall? New germs etc.? lol No seriously I am praying that we have a much healthier year then last year. About every 3 years or so we will have a bad winter when we are just sick all the time with colds,stomach flu, fevers, etc. That was last winter and part of spring and even into June. So this year i am hoping good will come out of it! Other then that we are pretty good. Hubs is getting ready to go out of town on business next week so this weekend is laundry weekend. yay...NOT. Oh well at least we will be inside snuggling with the kids in between loads. :) The kids alwasy look forward to "mommy daddy days". They have to share me the rest of the week with daycare kids so the weekends they love.

Anyway the subject I picked for today is more like a shameless plug. We are homeschooling this year again and LOVING it. However I heard about a program last year that I meant to do this year and that is called K12.com
I realize some people might not consider this homeschool as it is technically public school online. However there is different ways to enroll. You can retain your status as a homeschooler, and only enroll part time, OR you can enroll full time and although your status is public school...it is done at home under the teaching of the parent. We chose to do it full time this year just to get a feel for it. The best thing is if I decide it is too rigorous and don't like it then I can pull them out. They do all the testing etc. I get to talk to a teacher once a week by email or phone and go over anything I am having trouble teaching, my kids can ask her questions too. Even nicer...they send you all the materials and curriculum free because it is "public school" and run through a public school district. They keep all the records etc. I was a little hesitant at first but went ahead and took the plunge and so far it has worked well. It was like and early Christmas when the UPS man backed into my driveway and unloaded about 6 boxes full of stuff. When I say they include all supplies they really do...there was really nice magnifying glasses. 11 full bottles of tempera paint, compas, world maps laminated etc. all the workbooks and teacher guides too. I return some of it at the end of the year except for unreturnable stuff like paint , used workbooks etc. they pay the postage to return it. it is great. I log in every day to find out the days assignments and they walk me through what to do with the kids and how to do it..including teacher and kid tips. what I really love is that Trix has an IEP (individual education plan) or special ed thing where he can do a shared district meaning he stays enrolled in our district for his occupational and speech therapy, but is enrolled in this other school district for the rest of the stuff. (k12.com is only done through certain districts in the different states). Anyway there is my topic and plug for the day. For us it really works. :)

Have a great weekend !

A FALL MEME

So I am still trying to post more frequently but things have been so hectic around here lately. Trix has been having a lot more seizures than normal so we have been dealing with that and schoolwork. :) Trix did have a checkup with his neurologist yesterday and they decided to up his meds dosage to see if that helps. I personally am not all that thrilled with the idea because it makes him super sleepy and his appetite decreases when he ups the dosage. I have that motherly instinct that i can help these seizures decrease or not occur at all by changing his diet. All 3 of the kids had checkups last week and they are all healthy but my pediatrician advised me against the ketogenic diet for trix because there is apparently a lot of side affects and it is very strict and hard to follow. He does not usually advise me against anything so instead I called a nutritionist. I am going to meet with her next week. I figure she studies foods and it's affects on people and maybe she could help me design something for trix tht would help not only his seizures but also his sensory issues. I know all the docs say it has nothing to do with it but there is far to many stories of success with changing diets and helping childrens medical issues go away or minimize to backup my instincts.

Anyway that is a brief update. Here is a fall meme that one of my most favorite blogs posted today. She made it up herself. I love this blog because it is such a comfortable cozy blog the way she writes it that it is almost like curling up with a good book and a cup of hot cider on a blustery day. Seriously she almost writes like "chicken soup for the soul" type. She is a homeschooler who has many great ideas. I always check there to see what neat project she has come up with. Oh and her kids are sooo cute!

Ok her is her meme:

When does fall begin for you? For me it starts around labor day. I start looking forward to it in August though.

What is your favorite aspect of fall? I love the falling leaves and letting the kids jump in them, the apple picking, the hot apple cider, and the new homeschool routine for me and the kids.

What is your favorite fall memory? it is always taking the kids to the pumpkin patch and apple picking.

What do you like to drink in the fall? I love cider, sleepytime tea, and starbucks carmel apple cider.

What's your favorite fall food? I would have to say the return of "comfort food" all the casseroles, stews etc. I love to make homemade applesauce, and pumpkin bread. Starbucks makes a yummy cream cheese pumpkin muffins.

What is fall weather like where you live? At the beginning it is crisp and sunny and pretty but towards the middle and end it turns rainy and colder, however I like that because I love to curl up inside with the kids.

What color is fall? different shades of orange: bright orange, burnt orange, mellow yellow, deep greens beautiful!

What does fall smell like? apples, cinnamon, hot cider (do you see a cider trend yet? lol), pumpkin spice, nutmeg, woodstoves burning

Holiday shopping in fall: yes or no? Yes I try, but I don't decorate till the day after thanksgiving.

If you could go anywhere in the fall, where would you go? I like it here but have always wanted to go to new england or vermont for fall. I hear it is unebelievably beautiful.

What is your favorite fall sport? none I am not a sport person unless it is spring and baseball.

Do you have a favorite fall chore? I like getting the school supplies organized for the year!

What is your least favorite thing about fall? the fact that before halloween has even arrived the stores have all their christmas stuff out. grrr. fall is my favorite season
What is your favorite fall holiday? Thanksgiving

What's your favorite kind of pie? Pumpkin pie or fresh apple pie with extra nutmeg.

What was your favorite Halloween costume? One year i was minnie mouse and my mom designe the costume it was fun.

What was your favorite Halloween candy? Candy Corn and snickers

What was your least favorite Halloween candy? black licorice YUCK

Which do you prefer, the Farm or the Fair? farm

Do you have a favorite fall book? no not really.

How about a favorite fall poem? no on that one too lol.

I tag anyone who wants to do the meme. Please sign my comments and let me know you did it so I can go read your answers:)