Monday, November 2, 2009

Happy Belated Halloween

It's 12 degrees here this morning. Brrrrr.... But still no snow. I think the lake might finally be icing over. It was frozen solid by mid-October last year. What a crazy, beautiful fall we've had! There have been days when it feels like summer! (Well, summer here.)

On Saturday Oct. 24, we went to a Halloween Carnival at Brenden's school. Brenden wore the He-Man costume he wore last year (and was utterly embarrassed to do so - until he saw all the other costumes that had muscles - batman, spiderman, superman...) Ethan was a doctor and Nolan was a police man. Doug is in the habit of taking his camera in the car with him in case there are some nice views on the way home, so I don't have any pictures. It was very fun and turned out to be more expensive than I planned. I didn't have any cash in the house, so we took our change jar and made it through the evening with only the few dollar bills and change in the jar.

I would have left once we were out of change, but it was my job to make sure my dear friend Tiffany stayed until the end of the carnival. Her husband Jeremy was setting up a surprise birthday party for her and I was having to be really obnoxious to keep her from leaving.

Wednesday, Nolan went to his first gymnastics class. The poor boy gets hauled to so many things for the other kids that he deserves something of his own. When I took him, he said, "Gymnastics JUST FOR ME!?" After seeing the way he hangs and flips from the bar on my treadmill, I knew he would love gymnastics. Again, no camera.

When I signed Nolan up, I told the lady that my brother and sister-in-law were gymnasts and my sister-in-law used to coach. When I told her that was in Texas and my sister-in-law used to coach Mary Lou Retton's daughter (I didn't make that up, did I, Paulette? - I think you told me that once...), the lady looked horrified. She said, "Don't expect that from us - Texas is the heart of some very competitive gymnastics - we're just in this for fun."

Gymnastics was slightly frustrating - for me at least. Nolan is the oldest kid in the three year old class, but also the only kid who wasn't in a class there last year. The teacher would expect him to know what he was supposed to do without demonstrating and then he would get in trouble when he did the wrong thing. She changed her mind about how she wanted things done as soon as he figured out what she had wanted before. He will figure it all out, it will just take time.

Thursday we had Parent Teacher Conference. Brenden, as usual, is doing well in school. He played school with Nolan and Ethan during the conference and it was so cute to see. Brenden has a wonderful teacher who truly cares about him.

After the conference, we headed to Anchorage. It was so nice not to be in a hurry like we usually are. We stopped to see the swans at the Seward/Sterling Highway junction.
I drove and Doug entertained the boys.
I was relieved to have an uneventful trip. It always happens that way when Doug comes along, but when I'm alone, it's utter chaos and horrific.

We planned to do some shopping. Brenden has already grown out of all of his school clothes and shoes. When we got there, we checked into our hotel and then went to eat dinner. Brenden has been begging to go to the used book store - he asks if we can go every Saturday. We spent WAY too long there, so we never made it shopping. We went back to our hotel and I put Ethan to bed while Doug took Nolan and Brenden swimming.

Friday morning, our first appointment at was 9:00. Brenden had his hearing evaluation and we found out his implant was working horribly. It has been frustrating since his last appointment. Both of the programs were terrible and his left implant microphone was going out, so it was very quiet. The audiologist totally revamped his maps and he is doing great now - it has been better, but it is great right now. Brenden goes back on New Year's Eve.

Ethan's hearing has dropped significantly in his right ear. That used to be his "good ear." The audiologist has suggested that we implant his right ear right now and leave the left ear for later, since he still has some useable hearing left in the left. I swore that when it came time for Ethan to get implanted, I wouldn't put him through it twice and I would do both at once. Now there is the big debate - do we risk losing his hearing in his left ear or do we wait for the left ear to drop? I suppose we can do one at a time, but it was so hard for Brenden and I will admit, hard for me. The audiologist is going to send Ethan's file along with a family history to the surgeon in Seattle and see what he thinks we should do. The likelihood of the hearing in the left ear maintaining at it's current level is not high, but should he beat those odds and maintain that small amount of hearing, he would have access to some sounds that some cochlear implant users are never able to hear. We go back in three weeks for more evaluations.

Halloween was a fun day. We got home late on Friday night, so we had a lazy Saturday morning. We had Pumpkin Whole Wheat Pancakes (with chocolate faces, of course) for brunch.
We all dressed up as doctors. The boys have tags on that have "Doctor Boehme" on them. I also wore scrubs and Doug wore his pharmacy lab coat.
We went to the church Halloween Party.
Ethan won this at the cupcake walk.
I made a meatlof hand for the potluck.
I find it utterly disgusting.
I smashed it too far into the potatoes, but it was still pretty gross.
I also made hot dog mummies, but I took them in and set them down to go back out to the car for my meatloaf hand and when I returned, they were gone. Sorry, no picture. They were really cute though. They looked like this:
and the dip looked like this:
Our jack-o-lantern won the contest...
(The sign says:
Boehme Household Rule #5
Thou shalt not bite thy brother)
and we won this:

6 comments:

John Zakimi Kelly said...

I love all of your stories! I tell my family (Extended family too) all about you and your adventures! I am so impressed with your Halloween food! Incredible. Keep on blogging, it puts a smile on my face!

The Porter Family said...

WOW! That is a great pumpkin! Good job! :D

Anonymous said...

You guys are so creative - I love the jack-o-lantern!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the update and congrats on the Halloween fun and festivities. I want to be updated on Ethan, sorry you are having to make the decisions again. I am sure it is not easier. I also loved the sign for the Jack O Lantern! Jamie

Dustin and Paulette said...

Looks like you all had a ton of halloween fun! And no you didn't make up the gymnastics stuff.

Ter said...

We loved your costumes at the Party! You all looked so cute.... I had so much fun doing the games and Brendon kept coming over to play it because he said that it was the only one he could really win at.... LOL I laughed so hard....