Hanson Party of Five

Thank the vegetable gods

In general I feel like I haven't done the greatest job at getting my kids to eat well.  Just another thing to feel guilty about, right?  

I've heard many, many times that exposure is everything, that kids need to be exposed to new foods 10 or more times before they'll take an interest in it.  I've done really well with carrots and cucumbers.  And Ranch.  They know what Ranch dressing is, for sure.  And ketchup.

We have a pasta dish that uses grape tomatoes, so I had some on hand recently.  ABBY ASKED FOR THEM.  I was putting them on my pasta, and she asked for them.  WHAT?

I tried not to start jumping up and down.  I mean, I'm totally cool with this.  Not shocked at all.  

Our friend Nebby

Will's first winter he had an AeroChamber with an inhaler that we had to hold onto his face.  Last year we went ahead and invested in a nebulizer for him.  I had just started to wonder about when we should begin treatments for him when his cold got out of control and he started wheezing.

He's such a trooper with this.  He'll sit and turn it on, and hold it up to his face for as long as it takes to get the medicine out.  This time around, he was put on steroids for 4 days to help knock this out of his system.  A friend had warned me about kids on steroids, so thankfully, I was prepared a little bit.  Not fun times to have a kid on steroids.

He's all better now -- we just have to give him treatments regularly (note to self) so he doesn't have another flare up.

It was fun and all, what with me sleeping on the floor in his room for 3 nights, but I think I'd prefer to do a few treatments a week than risk the Roid Rage again.

 

I'm baaaaa-aaacck!

I just blinked and two months have gone by.  Sheesh.  Time really does fly when you're having . . . well, there's been some fun worked in there, along with a bunch of work, family visits, and activities.

I'm going to have to work my way backwards to catch up.  I'm fresh off of a photography workshop in Atlanta, so we'll see how long my enthusiasm lasts.  

We've entered Josh's last year in his twenties.  He says he feels old.  Ha.  That kid will just never catch up with me.  I suppose the shoulder injury is helping his cause . . . did I tell you about that?  Oh, yeah.  Back in March, he was playing softball and hurt his shoulder.  So, now he's got a big old permanent bump.  

That was before Abby fell and cracked the back of her head open on the monkey bars.  Did you miss that too?  I'm not so great on details, I guess.  I am doing a FABULOUS job working my way up to the maximum out of pocked on our medical deductible for the year, though.

ANYWAY . . . Josh's folks just came for a visit.  Ethan got to come down for the first time, since his big sister had to stay home to go to 1st grade.

So, this image isn't so great.  I intended to take a group shot outside, in natural light, but that didn't happen.  So, my only light source is the overhead light in our den, which is why everything looks so yellow.  I didn't take the time to put the flash on my camera to even out the light, so I had to slow my shutter speed way down.  Which explains the blur.  

I'm trying to be better about taking photos with family when we're together.  I really want the kids to have photos to look back on.  Not sure how that's going to happen, considering all these images are just sitting on my hard drive.  

I seriously have the best intentions to put together a yearbook with our images from the year.  You can imagine how that is going.

Happy Wednesday!