Under My Tree

Owen told me one night that he wanted to be a Christmas gift under the tree...

If a cuter gift exists, I sure don't know what it is!

After that he said he wanted to play Santa so he started gathering a bunch of his toys and leaving them under the tree.  He came to me and said, "Look at all the presents Santa left under the tree, Mommy!"

It is always so much fun experiencing Christmas through your child's eyes!

Trimming the Tree

What better way to celebrate New Year's Day than with photos of trimming your tree?  I really can't think of any, so without further ado!

We tried to get Cameron to nap while we were decorating the tree (thus, the pajama pants), but he had other ideas.

Not too shabby for a 4-year-old, don't you think?

"Here, little brother, let me share the Christmas Spirit with you by yanking your neck!"

Christmas kisses from my baby boy!

Stay tuned for more Christmas photos in January!  You know how I love to drag out the holidays!  And who knows?  Maybe you'll even get to see Cameron's birthday photos before Owen's birthday in March!

Watching the Snow

Oh, how my boys love to watch the snow!  When we got some of our first snowfall this year they kept going to the back door and watching in awe.  Cameron would look at me with wide eyes and say, "Snow! Snow!" 

It's moments like these that no matter how hard you try, you just can't truly capture on film.

Thanksgiving and a Little Father/Son Bonding

It just occurred to me that I never posted Thanksgiving pictures!  Although, there aren't too many photos to speak of.  I guess I was too busy either cooking, eating, or sleeping to take any pictures!  Making an entire Thanksgiving meal by yourself can really wear a girl out!  In any case, here are the few that we got...

On Saturday, Cody and his dad made their way up to Minnesota for their Annual Bears/Vikings game.  Cody has been organizing this for the last couple of years and had a crowd of over 30 go this year.  They had a great time, but, unfortunately, the Bears suffered a loss.

This canopy was Cody's early Christmas present.  He was thrilled to get it and I was thrilled I didn't have to find a way to haul it to Murphysboro!

When you go to a game with both Vikings and Bears fans, the one thing you can agree on is that you all hate the Packers.

Father and son sporting their Bears attire

My apologies to Cameron and Grandma for not getting any photos of them!  Here's to next year!

It's Sleddin' Time!

A few weeks ago Owen and Cody went out for their first sled of the season.  I have been trying since then to upload the videos that went along with these pictures, but for some reason it's not working.  So, you'll have to settle for a couple of pictures.

They went to a great hill in town that is popular for sledding, as is evident by the statue in the above picture.  They were gone the entire afternoon and Owen had a ball.  You wouldn't believe the hill he went down all by himself!  He even met a couple of girls who were about 13 and were quite smitten with him.  Now every time we see a hill he says, "That would be a great hill for sledding!"


*Lots of posts to come soon.  I have so many Christmas photos to go through!  And I've been sick ever since we got home on Sunday. :(  Stay tuned!

Cousins and Girlfriends

Last month we attented the wedding of our close friends, Alyssa & Billy.  Alyssa is the sister of Cody's best friend, Matt, and Billy is Susie's (Matt's wife) brother.  Yes, it's confusing, but I can assure that the bride and groom are not blood related! LOL  Anyway, this was the first wedding that Owen has been to that he really remembers and he had a ball!  He spent the entire night running around and dancing with all the kids.  I, unfortunately, had to leave with Cameron because he was overtired but I heard lots of good stories about Owen.

Here he is with his cousin, Luca, and Matt & Susie's daughter, Gianna.

I'm told that Gianna and Luca became fast friends and it wasn't long before Luca told Owen, "Go get your own girlfriend!"  Owen obliged, and found Grace.  Grace is the daughter of Matt's brother, Dave, and is a year older than Owen.  They had a lovely time together and danced the night away.  Owen is still talking about her to this day.  Grace was also apparently pretty smitten with Owen and was talking about him with Gianna and Susie the day after the wedding.  Gianna was very concerned that Owen was their "real" cousin and Grace wouldn't be able to marry him!

And yet another change...

The past few weeks have brought even more changes with Cameron's therapies. You might remember when I detailed the different things his therapists suggested we do to help further his speech.  I thought long and hard about their suggestions and Cody and I discussed them at length.  We came to the conclusion that we were going to take some of their ideas and put them to use, while foregoing the ones we didn't think were a good fit for Cameron. 

Then his intervention teacher came for a visit.  I won't bore you with all the details, but she basically did a few things that I did not agree with at all.  I was frustrated with her the entire visit, but the straw that broke the camel's back happened when we were dicussing whether Cameron is on the autism spectrum and she went as far as tellling me that Owen is probably on the spectrum.  Owen, my bubbly, outgoing, 4-year-old whom she is not even here to evaluate and has spent only a handful of moments with.  Why does she think this?  Because he can read and he can be very particular about certain things.  It was at that point that I decided I didn't want her treating my child anymore.

It's not that I don't think there's a possiblity that Cameron could be on the autism spectrum, because I have thought that for the last 6+ months.  It was the fact that she said in the same breath that she is not even qualified to make a diagnosis like that about Cameron.  If she is not even supposed to make such assumptions about Cameron, she really shouldn't be making them about Owen.  Even though I don't think Owen is, if he were, it was most definitely not her place to say that.  So I started to feel like, if she's saying things like this about Owen, why should I believe what she says about Cameron?  Why should I believe that she knows what she's talking about?  Not to mention the fact that Cameron really doesn't like her.  She doesn't relate to him well and the last few times she was here it was basically the two of us talking because Cameron didn't want to be around her.

I also felt that she kept changing each week what our goals for Cameron were.  She would work on something for a couple of weeks, then decided it wasn't right and we needed to change it again.  How is he supposed to reach a specified goal when she keeps changing the therapy on him?

So we decided it would be best for Cameron to just take a break for a while.  We have cancelled all  visits with the intervention teacher as well as the speech therapist.  We will continue to work with him at home and re-evaluate things sometime early next year and see where we go from there.  Part of me feels like it's just going to be a time issue for Cameron.  He's proven time and time again that he will get there, he's just going to do it on his time schedule.  I've spoken at length about this with Cody's mom and she says that Cody was exactly the same way at this age.  She sees so many similarities between Cameron and Cody.

Of course, there is another part of me that worries everyday that we've made the wrong decision in pulling him out of therapy.  But I try to remember that there really is no right or wrong answer in this.  It's really what is best for Cameron at any given time.  And at this time, we think this is best for him.  Maybe in a month or two, it won't be the best thing and we will get back into therapy.  Or maybe we'll even try private therapists.  I don't know what the future holds, but right now I'm just trying to focus on the present.  And right now, all I know is that I have the cutest little almost-2-year-old I know who is happy, healthy, and makes me smile everyday.  I don't really think life can get much better than that.


*I promise to get more pictures up soon!  We are just having a crazy, fun-filled holiday season in the Muhs household and my blogging has taken a back seat!  Merry Christmas!

The Storm of the Century

That's what the meteorologist called it last night on the news.  He said we only see a storm like this about every 100 years.  After snowing all day yesterday and most of the night last night, we ended up with at least a foot of snow, maybe more.  Everything from schools, doctor's offices, places of business, churches, malls, and even universities have closed.  Iowa State is closed and I don't think that's happened in the 9 winters we've spent here.  And I think it is even their finals week!

Cody stayed home from work today, thankfully.  Even if he'd wanted to go, I don't think he would have even made it out of our garage!  I'm guessing it's so cold that the door won't even open!  Not to mention the fact that our driveway and road haven't been plowed.

I opened the front door this morning to take some pictures and snow fell in the house!

This is a planter I have on the front porch.  It is pretty tall and you can only see the top of it!

The bushes outside our front door.

This is where our driveway should be!

There was snow piled up against the back door as well, but when I opened it, it all stayed standing!

The grill

The deck stairs piled high with snow.  Poor Murphy has to find his way down them to go out!

The temps are supposed to get even colder, so I don't see this stuff melting anytime soon.  I wish it would though because I hate having to beg my husband not to go out in it!

Bears Bonding

A few weeks ago, the Bears had a night game and, of course, Daddy was watching.  Right before he went to bed, Owen crawled up on the couch and watched with him.  I walked into the living room and saw the cuteness and couldn't resist taking a photo...

It won't be long before all 3 of my boys are snuggled on the couch watching the Bears!  And I'm sure it won't be too long after that, the snuggling will subside and the yelling at the TV will commence.

"All I want for Christmas is..."

A belt.

Halloween in the Middle of November

My apologies to Grandma Lynn, to whom I told these would be up yesterday.  I think she knows me pretty well by now, though. ;)

Just like last year, we headed over to Pella to trick-or-treat with our good friends, The Knoxes.  I was pretty worried about how Cameron would do since he typically goes to bed around 7 or 7:30pm.  A late night is 8pm for him!  Thankfully, I got him to take a nap late in the afternoon and he was a perfect little angel all through trick-or-treating!  It really couldn't have gone better if I'd written the scenario out myself!

Cameron, Owen, Jason, and Brandon--this was the best I could get with all 4 of them.  As you can see, Cameron wasn't a fan of his hood.  Thankfully he left it on just long enough to get a few pictures. 

Is he the cutest little dog or what?  Notice Mickey had to join us for the evening!

The Fire Fighter and his Dalmation Dog

The first house.  Brandon was so cute running with the big boys!  He would say, "Wait for me!" when they got too far ahead of him.

Our little doggie just sat in his stroller cuddling with his blankie and enjoy some Cheerios.  Our little dog even stayed true to his costume at one of the houses when there was a big dog tied up outside barking at him.  He giggled endlessly everytime the dog would bark and then he started barking back at him to get the dog barking even more!  Then he would giggle more!  It was the cutest thing and I wish I'd gotten it on video!

These were on the porch of one of the houses we went to.  I thought the Mr. Potato Head pumpkins were so cute!  And much less messy and easier for little ones than traditional carving.

After the boys collected their loot, we made our way back to Chuck and Dawn's house to enjoy a little dessert that Owen and I had made:

This was Owen's idea and we had so much fun making it together!

Cameron not being much of a cake fan (I'm officially starting to question if he's actually my child), had a ball playing with all the Knox boys' toys.  I couldn't resist how cute he looked in his costume so I had to take a few photos.

I'm pretty sure your house would burn down if this fire fighter was on the job, but isn't he too cute?

I believe this concludes our Halloween festivities.  Who knows, maybe I'll even get Thanksgiving photos up before December starts!  A big thank you to the Knoxes for letting us crash their neighborhood again!

Pumpkin Carving Time!

We couldn't leave the Pumpkin Farm without a pumpkin to carve.  Cody and Owen picked it out and Cody said that as they were looking Owen said, "I have to find one that isn't very dirty because Mommy doesn't like dirt."  He knows his mama well, that boy does.  After finding a relatively clean one, we brought it home and carved it the following week.  Of course, we couldn't make it a jack-o-lantern like most people do.  We had to carve Thomas into it!  (Daddy wasn't nearly as excited about this as Owen was.)

Owen helped scoop the "guts" out, as he called it, and then left all the carving to Daddy.  I believe he was supposed to be the special helper, but I don't think there was much helping going on.

It's hard to see in the light, but it did turn out pretty cool.  The most important part, of course, was that Owen LOVED it!

At the rate Cameron is going with his newfound love of Thomas, I have a feeling this won't be the last Thomas pumpkin Daddy carves!  Next up, costumes!

Carroll's Pumpkin Farm

A town about 20 minutes east of us has a great Pumpkin Farm so we thought that would be a great activity for us to do while Grandma was visiting.  We had a great day for it, save for a bit of wind and some mud leftover from all the rain.  There were a couple of times when we thought our wagon was going to get stuck in the mud on our tour of the patch!  Thankfully it was being pulled by a monster of a tractor and we made it through!  Here are a few highlights from the day...

The World Famous Pumpkin Tree

Owen loved this dog!

Owen and Daddy having fun on the wheelbarrow course.

This was the highlight of Cameron's day.  He laughed and giggled in this swing for the longest time.  He just loved it and it was so cute!

One of the barns has a TMX Trike course.  We soon discovered Owen wasn't quite ready for extreme triking when he fell over trying to get his trike through a tunnel.  No injuries though and he shook it off pretty well!

Owen and Daddy shooting corn through the cannon.

This is what they called a Pumpkin Pillow.  Owen wanted to jump on it but Cody and I were a little leary because it just didn't seem too safe to us.  All we saw when we looked at it were a bunch of broken necks!  I told Owen he could only go on if Daddy went with him and Cody relunctantly agreed.  There are no pictures of them actually on it because I was busy wheeling Cameron around in the stroller!  But they enjoyed it and Owen walked away unscathed.

These next two photos are really for my Mom.  First up, the characters from "Arthur":

And we can't forget Curious George and The Man in the Yellow Hat!

We all really enjoyed ourselves and can't wait to go back again next where we hope Cameron will get to enjoy it and experience it even more!