A First For Us!

Several years ago the Dallas Cowboys were hosting Tampa Bay in Dallas on Thanksgiving. Taking the day after Thanksgiving off is a big no no at Fedex but Donna was able to convince her boss to let her off for this special occasion. Donna is a big Dallas fan, has been since high school, of course being from FL & the Bay area at that, I am a Bucs fan. Donna's best friend & I planned the trip to Dallas for Thanksgiving weekend. We booked a fancy hotel, bought airline tickets & of course tickets to the Thanksgiving Day game. The week of Thanksgiving Donna's boss received a directive from the Director that NO managers were to be off the day after Thanksgiving & at the very last minute he had to revoke her day off & spoiled all our plans.

Fast forward to the beginning off this years football season, I'm checking out the Buccaneers season schedule & low & behold Tampa is hosting Dallas on a regular old Sunday in November! I text Donna's BFF & ask her how I should go about buying tickets? She says no need, she has a couple extra season tickets we can use for that game. SCORE! We were both pretty excited as it's been a few years since we've been to a live game (before the boys came along) It was even more exciting for Donna since she would get to see her team.

Our original plan was for my friend & fellow triplet mom to babysit the boys. We don't leave the boys often & have always gotten a lot of grief from them when we have left them. I though a super fun playdate with their triplet bff's & their big sister would work like magic. They had been asking when they would see their friends again anyways.

Well a couple days before we would be going for the weekend Kellan threw up. The boys had had colds/allergies too & I didn't want to send them off to infect their friends. I asked Grandma if she would be available just in case they were still sick come the weekend. Good thing because shortly after arriving at my bonus mom's friday night Caden spiked a 102.5 temperature. Garren woke up with a terrible ear ache Saturday & by lunchtime he had a 102.8 fever. Donna whisked him off to urgent care since his ear had been bothering him too. Caden's fever hadn't come back & he said his ear didn't hurt & neither did anything else, he did however spike another fever that night.

So grandma ended up keeping the boys for us for the WHOLE day, 13 hours! It's a 2 hour drive from Grandma's to Tampa & we left early enough to meet for breakfast & get to the stadium early enough to find decent parking. 

Grandma did a great job of keeping the boys entertained, she made them pancakes for breakfast & took them on a long walk to visit some horses. She took them to get Garren's antibiotic prescription filled, to McDonald's for lunch & then to a playground. She said everyone was well behaved, took their medicine with no problems & even laid down for a nap easily.

Donna & I had a blast spending the day childless. I think we had forgotten what it was like to have a whole entire conversation without being interrupted by a child's needs, lol... Of course there is nothing like a live game at the Bucs stadium with firing cannons from the pirate ship & all the team spirit. Donna was not alone in her support of the Cowboys, there were probably just as many Dallas fans as there were Tampa fans at the game & it was a great game, especially since the Bucs won!

Sorry Donna...

Career Day, Nana's Birthday & Halloween!

Playing catch up again, I wrote this post but never got around to adding photos or posting... 

Oh & let's not forget it was also FL/GA Weekend... as in the college football rivalry game that cannot be missed. Of course Florida put a hurtin' on them Georgia Bulldogs! lol...

The village people, lol...

Kellan the race car driver

Caden the builder

Garren the firefighter

The boys school has Career Day instead of celebrating Halloween. It's Halloween really, with candy treats, spooky decor & all, I guess it was just their way of letting the religious kids dress up too. Garren wants to be a firefighter when he grows up so that is what he dressed as on "Career Day." Kellan wants to be a race car driver & Caden wants to be a builder. It was fun putting Caden & Kellan's outfits together although Kellan's had me stumped for a day or so. They were all so excited to show off their costumes at school & Kellan loved his so much he wore it ALL DAY & even wanted to wear it to bed, lol... They came home all sugared up & with a huge bucket of candy each (but not near as much candy as I sent into school)

Friday night we attended a block party & met some new neighbors. It reminded me of the neighborhood & families I grew up with. The boys made some new friends & had a great time & Donna & I actually got to enjoy some good ol' adult conversations.

Saturday was all about carving pumpkins (they don't last long here in the heat & humidity,) watching football, celebrating my mom's birthday & of course trick or treating.

The boys carved, but mostly stabbed their pumpkins with Nana & Papa. They were each very proud of their work & I discovered that our pups have a strong liking for pumpkin! Eason wouldn't even let me get the pumpkin cut open before he was trying to get at it. We watched the FL Gators put a hurtin' on the GA Bulldogs and had my parents, my sister & her family over for a birthday dinner to celebrate my mom & trick or treating.

I made a quadruple batch of chili for dinner & baked potatoes with all the fixins. Our family can put away some chili!!! My sister brought a delicious birthday cake for my mom from Publix (need I say more?! well maybe if you're not from the south, lol We had dinner, sang Happy Birthday, got our cake fix & then headed out into the night for trick or treating.

2 evil & 1 good minion :)

The trick or treat crew.

This was the boys first time trick or treating in not only a neighborhood but their very own neighborhood and it was spectacular!!! We loaded a stocked cooler in the wagon for some adult treats along the way. Our neighbors set up lawn chairs & some even had tables, towards the end of the driveways & handed out candy & other treats. Some people stayed inside & let the kids ring the doorbell. Garren & Caden along with their cousin Chandler & a couple of friends were so excited to run up & down the driveways & ring doorbells. Kellan was a little apprehensive about going up to doors & my niece Nadia was game for anything, especially with a sucker in her mouth along the way.  The boys loved seeing friends & neighbors dressed up & did their best Minion & Evil Minion impersonations. After about an hour & a half, Caden proclaimed that was enough trick or treating & he sat in the stroller my sister brought along for Nadia. Nadia was acting like a drunk teenaged girl by the end, she was so jacked up on sugar, she was singing made up songs & staggering through yards & driveways collecting more & more candy all while sucking on a lollipop.

It was really a great time & hopefully a tradition we will stick with every year, minus the sugar crazed toddler maybe, lol... :)

School Pictures - VPK

School pictures are what they are, right??? LOL...

The boys school sent home a flyer with a fantastic sample spread on it! I was actually kind of excited about the Christmas pics they were going to do (hence the red vests) Long story short, they didn't do the Christmas prop/theme photos & the fancy dance backdrop they used was nice but the boys were posed all kinds of weird. These photos are the best of the school photos, I'm pretty smitten with them... once I came around to the fact that they are posed photos :)

VPK, 4.5 years old

Caden

Kellan

Garren

They did take a group photo of the boys too, but the boys did not look thrilled in the slighted to be having the picture taken, so it was a no go. I returned it already or I would scan it just for fun, lol :D

Hits Home

I started this post a couple weeks ago, the day Donna actually left for her parents house. I was emotion fueled at the time & I considered not posting it since I didn't finish it but it consumed a good part of our October so I figured I'd go ahead & fill in the time gap.

When my dad died (a year and a half ago this week) I felt a level of sadness I had never felt before. 

In the weeks after his death I felt bad for not being more empathetic to my friends & family who had lost their fathers before I lost mine. I was truly sad for them & hugged my dad a little tighter every time I heard a friend had lost theirs but never could I have imagined how great the loss really was. I apologized to a close lifelong friend for it & she told me it's not an experience you are suppose to imagine, it's not something you can really relate to unless you have experienced it personally.

This week, Donna's uncle, her mother's brother in law, passed away. He had been sick for a while and after 26 days in the hospital this last time, he requested to go home. He went home on hospice care and passed away few days later.

This is someone we saw annually on our trips to NY but we didn't have much contact with him outside of that. The news of his death though brought back a lot of emotions from my dad's death. Memories from the week he passed came flooding back & I've found myself in tears frequently over the past couple days.

It has also stirred up emotions from my own uncle's death almost 4 years ago. My aunt called when my uncle got sick & went to the hospital. I had an awful feeling about that situation & told Donna we needed to pack up & go. While she tied up loose ends at work I packed up the essentials for 3, 6 month olds, 2 dogs & ourselves. We left first thing the next morning & made the 8 hour drive to my family in TN but we didn't make it in time, my uncle died early that morning.

I was crushed & even more devastated for my aunt!

Donna's mom called her last weekend to ask if she had time to take her to NY, she of course wanted to be with her sister during this time & Donna agreed of course! Her mom is terrified to fly though so they drove from her parents place just north of Tampa to Upstate NY.

Donna left for her parent's house on a friday evening after work. She & her mom left early Saturday morning for upstate NY, they arrived Sunday afternoon just in time to attend the Wake for Donna's uncle.

The boys were quite upset about Donna's absence. We explained that she had to take Grandma up north & would be gone for a week but it didn't help. They didn't want her to go, they begged to go with her & begged her not to go. We facetimed a couple times a day everyday & they urged her to "drop grandma off & hurry home." I did my best to occupy their time with special outings & activities.

Garren & Kellan

The first weekend we went to the pumpkin patch. We had their friend 'C' over that afternoon & baked cookies. On Sunday we had a donut picnic at the beach & played all day. Monday they went to school & then to the doctor for an allergy check-up & a double ear infection. I filled the rest of the week with playdates & even a trip to the zoo after school.

Kellan, Caden & Garren

Donna worked remotely while in NY & got to see & spend time with some of her extended family while her mom helped her aunt deal with all the stuff people deal with after their spouse dies.

It was a long & exhausting week. The boys were miserable from their allergies & extremely emotional, I assumed because they missed Donna. We all survived though, with the promise of my niece's birthday party at the end of the week & Donna being home after the party, we survived.