Once Upon a Halloween

Well, if you read the previous post you should know by now that the Once Upon a Time curse has hit our house hard! Upon marathoning the first 2 seasons on Netflix (which I should mention was a much more enjoyable marathon than the one I actually ran), the 2 oldest kiddos were officially entranced by the show. So without further adieu, I give you their custom all nighter Once Upon a Time Halloween Costumes :)

The Evil Queen

Killian Jones aka Captain Hook

Their poor teachers

Stealing his teachers stool

Once Upon a Time... I graduated and became a, um, yea.

Due to popular request, I guess it's time I start blogging about the kiddos again! That pesky college thing got in the way for a while but now that I am officially a graduate from the University of Kentucky...

Yup! That happened :)

I've moved on to bigger and better things... Once Upon a Time Dinners. Yup. The things Rachel and I do to keep Ally (now 6 and 1/2), Cooper (5), and Spencer (3) happy. (Let's all pretend that we don't have equally as much fun as they do. No... we're much too mature to attend Royal Balls in the Enchanted Forest and Under the Sea dinners in honor of Ariel. We'll go with that.)

Well for those of you who don't watch Once Upon a Time, you should. I don't want to spoil anything (because it's too awesome to spoil!) but if you love Disney, TV, life, yourself... you will watch this show. We introduced it to Ally when she was sick a few months ago and now both she and Cooper are unhealthily obsessed. It's so bad that when we went to Disney to run the Wine and Dine Half...

That also happened...Quack Attack!

We spent half the trip meeting Princesses and Fairies and eating at the castle with COOPER. Sorry Henry, but I do have to say that I think Cooper has the heart of the truest believer.

So excited to meet Snow!

The Book! (If he ever asks...)

If he ever asks... this is THE real Once Upon a Time book. He was just too excited to tell any different.

More importantly, I have to say that this show has helped Cooper get through a very rough couple months. Incase anyone missed the memo, Cooper has Cerebral Palsy and has had to endure some pretty tough surgeries and treatments lately. I can't even begin to express how wonderful this show has been as a distraction for him. Special shout out to Adam Horowitz, Edward Kitsis, and the rest of the cast. You sure know how to take a kid who is having such a rough time and make him smile :)

Anyway... I'll start you off with our Once Upon a Time Royal Dinner in the Enchanted Forest. Of course in true fashion, we planned an entire dinner expecting to have Snow White, Charming, and Prince Eric in attendance. So cute right? What kids wouldn't want an entire dinner based around being royalty! Yea... that.

Instead we got:

Regina/Evil Queen

Ally is absolutely obsessed with Regina/The Evil Queen. She absolutely loves her. No Snow White for that girl (Really, no one who knows her should be shocked). After 6 years of shoving Princesses down her throat she's made her feelings very clear. It's a villains life for her. 

Coop as Nice Peter Pan (Before we knew the real deal)

Cooper loves Captain Hook and Neal/Baelfire. However they'd been showing the Neverland promos so both boys were going through a serious Peter Pan phase.

Spencer wanted to be "Evil Peter Pan"... if we'd only known.

Spencer loves Peter Pan. Yep. Of course he does (cringe).

Anyway, back to the fun... or you know, the things I do that makes my Mom roll her eyes and question my sanity. This was our Enchanted Forest Royal Ball a few weeks ago.

Needless to say, we had a great night and have continued with the tradition every Sunday since!

Notice the custom made Once Upon a Time Wine glasses, specifically made for our favorite Once Upon a Vine Wine.

It's a puppy party!

About a year ago it became clear to be that I was going to have to adopt my children. Why, you ask? Well I came to the conclusion if I couldn't handle the stress of my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Lexie being pregnant, clearly I'd have to be sedated and possibly institutionalized through my own pregnancy.

But my Lexie made it through with flying colors, giving birth by C-section to quadruplets on July 17 of last year. I was so relieved to see 4 healthy puppies, 2 girls and 2 boys. All had pallets, eyes, and legs and none of them were the dreaded 1 in a million "water puppies" I'd googled for weeks. I could breathe again.

The relief was short lived when I realized that occasionally dogs reject their puppies which my rotten little Lexie did for the first 24 hours. Puppies die, get smothered and occasionally get eaten by their mothers. I slept on an air mattress beside their whelping box for 2 weeks. I set an alarm for every 2 hours to make sure Lexie was feeding them (and not eating them). There was an incident involving the county fair when the puppies were about 8 days old that may or may not have led to me being taken home due to a thunderstorm and my fear of Lexie panicking, smothering, and eating her little bundles of joy. Like I said, I need psychiatric medicine.

This is when I came to the conclusion I may have to adopt a 2 year old. If newborn puppies stressed me out that much, clearly my own future children would be doomed. Ask Ally, Cooper, and Spencer. They all probably have scars where I poked them in their sleep for their first 6 months of life to make sure they were still breathing.

But magically, they all survived. They all found wonderful homes, they all thrived, and now they're all turning ONE!

So in honor of all my babies, we are having a first birthday party on Sunday! Now if you know me at all, this shouldn't be at all shocking. As I've said before on this blog, yes. I do throw my dogs birthday parties and I'm really not ashamed of it. With so many depressing things going on, why not have a party? Especially one that involves friends and puppies.

It actually looks like we are going to have an amazing turn out. I was expecting just the puppies and maybe a few friends. As of right now I've counted about 25 dog friends coming. I'm happy to know that I've raised some popular pups! Unfortunately we will be missing one puppy at the party.

Dietrich who now lives with my Dad in North Carolina won't be attending due to the fact that he has taken on the role as prodigal dog in my Dad's life. My dad called and said sincerely that he would just miss him too much, that if he could hand picked the perfect dog, it would have been Dietrich. So Dieters will be celebrating at home with his friends Bevin the Chihuahua, Spot the mutt, and Finnick and Gaby the Papillons.

So now everyone cross your fingers that it isn't 110 degrees, it doesn't rain, and most importantly, that my baby dog Sprinkles behaves herself. She has some jealousy issues with her sister Cera that usually end in Sprinkles trying to rip her throat out.

Terrible Palsy

The past few days I've submerged myself into CP blogs. The best idea? Probably not. But sometimes I think the best research that can be done is the kind you find through blogging. You get to see in a way first hand, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I can see why so many people refer to this diagnosis as "terrible palsy". There are kids on all ends of the spectrum, all with varying ability levels and all struggling for their own "normal". On one hand these blogs make me so thankful that Cooper's CP is so mild. 90% of people who saw him on a good day would never know anything was wrong. I will admit, I've even tricked my mind into thinking "Wow, why am I worried? He's got it so easy! He can walk, talk, and play!"

And then he trips, or chokes on a drink, or tries desperately to tell me something I can't understand. He doesn't have it easy at all. Mild is in the eye of the beholder. Even at it's mildest he still struggles with so much more than his siblings and friends have too, and that in itself is enough to make the whole thing simply unfair. What makes this all even worse? I've never once heard this little boy complain about what he can't do. If he falls off of a kitchen stool because of balance (which happens about once a day) he gets right back up.

I normally try not to think about the things Cooper can't do or the things he's struggles with. There is so much that he CAN do that overshadows everything else. Unfortunately the past week has been a real challenge. When he falls, he falls hard. If there is an uneven surface, he does trip over it. Today at lunch he chocked on his Cars 2 Mater juice box 4 times which is pretty unusual for him (normally he chokes once or twice and then slows down). I'm not really sure what's going on. Maybe he's tired from traveling, maybe he's growing, maybe it's simply just a bad week. Whatever the deal is, it needs to end. Selfishly I'm enjoying the extra snuggle time, but I'm ready for him to be back to his happy-go-lucky "hiya" self.

So everyone please say a little prayer for my favorite "yellow" loving boy. He needs one this week.

Beach Blog

It's been a great week so far! Cooper finished his infusion and did amazing. We've been on the beach everyday. I don't blend in with the albino population anymore. Life is good. Here are a few beach stories for those of you who enjoy laughing at my suffering.

We caught sand fiddlers on the beach today along with periwinkles. Cooper called the periwinkles"buttons" but was deathly afraid of the sand fiddlers. He definitely doesn't like anything resembling a crab. The other day a crab washed by us in the surf and we showed him. He proceeded to sprint out of the water, run to our beach house steps, and look for Mommy. When we finally caught him he was saying "Hand boo boo! Crab bite hand!" In case you didn't know, NC has these amazing crabs that can become invisible, fly through the air and actually bite 2 year olds. It's rather scary.

Ally has been her usual self. All she wants to do is catch animals and cook them. Crabs, fish, sand fiddlers, sharks, you name it. She's obsessed with eating "baby lobsters" aka shrimp to the rest of the population. I'm guessing there's no chance I'll have a sister join Peta anytime soon.

Today she decided while relaxing in her favorite "rock rock" chair here that she was getting married... to a dog. Not just any dog but Dexter, our amazing dog trainer Becka's, old english sheep dog. Ally kind of worships Becka and Dexter. Apparently it only made since to marry a dog since she is going to be a lion vet. Shortly after this announcement (and cheating on Dexter with my sister's Papillon, Finnick) she decided to become a dog. She gave me the option of either letting her pee either A) on the beach or B) on a dog pad. She made it very clear that there were no other options.

It was really difficult to rationally explain to her why she couldn't become a dog when Cooper has recently become a nudist who enjoys doing interpretative art with his own urine. He's really quite talented.

Now i'll leave you with my current facebook status:

It's kind of funny that our beach rental doesn't allow dogs, but they have no problem with a 4 year old who forgets where she left her Popsicles, an almost 3 year old who has decided to become a nudist (that isn't potty trained) and a 10 month old who is, well a 10 month old... if they only knew...haha.

Cooper

I have no doubt...

that no matter what happens...



this little boy



is going to conquer the world.

I love you "Yellow Hiya"!

Lazy day with my piggy

Today Ally and I had one of those days. You know the kind where you stay in your pajamas all day and watch The Lion King 4 times in a row? Best. Day. Ever.

After our 4th time watching Mufassa die, Ally decided she felt really bad for Simba and wanted to send him a letter to "The Lion Kingdom" to make him feel better. For all of you who don't know... Cartoons ARE real animals and they have feelings. And they live in a place called "Ikyka-poopy" (because EVERY sentence must somehow include the words "Poop, butt, booty, pooty, poopy" or it isn't a productive sentence)

I was quite proud of my favorite little piggy. She drew this picture all by herself (minus the spelling help). For those who can't quite read 4 year old hand-writing it says "I heart my daddy" and she signed her name and drew a picture of Mufassa.

Afterwards she and I had a lengthy conversation about how she wanted to go to the cartoon animal heaven and be a vet to help the dead Lions. I was so proud...but a little un-nerved. This was NOT a typical day with Ally. She was being so...sweet?!

Then...

Spencer ran over her toe in his walker and our Chihuahua Mansie's tail, who then lashed out at Ally by growling and air biting.

Ally: Son on a "bench" you stupid Chihuahua butt! You can go die and live with Mufassa! Damn it!"

And I remembered why I love that girl so much.