Coburn Kids

I know, I know I haven’t updated in a month!  Terrible really.  I’ve been busy with work is all.  I have pics that I’ll try to get up in the next few days.

Quick updates though:

Caden is learning ASL like mad now!  He’s really getting into it so we’re trying to use sign every chance we get.  Which is hard, because we have the videos and we watch them but it’s just pieces here and there.  Would love to take a class and I’ve looked online but nothing is close to where I live.  Not to mention the logistics of getting babysitters and finding a time that my husband and I could both attend that would make it impossible.

We’ve got both the girls in summer day camps that they adore. They are making new friends, experiencing new things.  The thought of my 7 year old just hanging at the pool alone twice a week though, without myself as a parent hoovering over her, still brings a small piece of panic to my heart… but I’m learning to overcome that.  To really trust her new found independence.

We’ve been having a blast all summer. Swimming, bike rides, carnivals, friends, family, walks, running in the rain, naps, parks, exploring, movies, fireflies, BBQ’s, picnics, puppet shows, playing in the sand, games and just fun galore. It’s been a wonderful few months.  And to all of our UT friends, it’s in the 70’s here!  It hit the 80’s for a couple of days but it’s been so nice.

We have Caden’s birthday next week!  My little guy is going to be 2.  Which is just… so overwhelming to me for some reason.  But more on that when it’s his actual birthday.

So my parents have gone home to UT, my brother is back home too.  We had such a blast with them while they were out here!! We’ll run through the week:

Thursday - Wednesday night my parents flew in and Thurs. we all planned to go to the Aquarium… until we found out it was free aquarium admission week for Chicago. The wait to get in was 3+ hours!  Thankfully there’s a whole bunch of museums all close to each other so we just decided to head over to the Field Museum of Natural History. It was absolutely fascinating, highly recommend for both kids and adults.  Pics below:

Walking through the mist into the Water exhibit

Sitting in an Indian Lodge on Buffalo Skin blankets

Gena and Caden pushing buttons to hear bird sounds

Outside the museum posing with their souvenirs they got

Caden was so tired by the end of the day he fell asleep like this in his stroller

Posing by Soldier’s Field Remembrance Wall

Friday - Thursday night my brother Jason flew in and Friday we were supposed to go to Six Flags.  This was what Adessa wanted to do for her Birthday instead of a party.  But it was raining with possible chance of hail!  So instead we headed over for some fun bowling and playing games at Brunswick XL.

Gena and Adessa riding a simulator

Uncle Jason and Daniel racing

Caden playing his first video game!

Saturday - Was the big Six Flags day.  We left a bit late but spent the entire day there until 9PM. Adessa went on her first big roller coaster, she begged to go again she loved it so much. Gena is ready to just take on the whole park by herself.  She’s big enough for every ride there. We also went to the Six Flags water park and that was fun.  The kids area was great for Adessa and all the big water slides kept Gena entertained and running Grandpa around ragged. After 2 hours of that, it was enough and we headed back to the rides. The kids did not want to go home at the end of the night. I didn’t take very many pictures, because I was too busy having fun!

Picture of the whole gang, minus me taking the picture of course!

Picture of Caden playing in Wiggle World

Sunday - We got to celebrate Adessa’s Birthday, Uncle Jason’s Birthday and Father’s Day! We started out with a wonderful BBQ (thank you Daniel!) and then moved on to cake and presents.  We had the whole gang over from my family to Daniel’s family and that was wonderful.  I can hardly believe my little Adessa is now 5 years old!! I love you ‘dessa!

Adessa and Jason blowing out the candles on their Birthday Cake!

Angel, Gena and Adessa posing

Gena and Adessa Oo’ing and Ah’ing over the water baby

More presents!

Jason opening up his Birthday presents

Jason and Adessa opening up a present together

Caden thought the water baby box made a perfect seat for him

Daddy opening up Father’s Day presents

Grandpa opening up Father’s Day presents

Monday - Sunday night my parents flew home. Daniel went back to work on Monday and the rest of us had a down day, just playing with toys and hanging out at the house with Uncle Jason.

Tuesday - Legoland.  The girls had a fun time and so did Caden! The lego exhibits were very cool to look at and the girls were both proud when they made and raced lego cars and won some of the other kids there.

Sitting outside Legoland

Posing with lego R2D2

And of course they insisted on a photo with Darth Vader, though I think Adessa was a lil’ nervous

Chicago done in Lego’s

Gena and Adessa on a ride they have at Legoland

Caden playing in the lego’s

After Daddy came home from work the girl’s and him had a water fight outside!

Wednesday  - Transformer’s 2!  Jason and I went, we both loved it.  Recommend it.

Thursday - Caden’s marathon Cleft Team Clinic which I reported on below.

Friday - Jason left for the airport and within 2 hours of his leaving Adessa and Daddy were in the ER.  Adessa “saved” Caden from swallowing a penny.  Which she then promptly put into her own mouth and accidentally swallowed.  I actually heard some gagging and went to check on Caden but it turned out it was Adessa who then started yelling and becoming hysterical that “Caden made her” swallow a penny.  It all made sense in her 5 year old brain that “saving” her brother from swallowing the penny by taking it away from him made her then swallow it. Now, I didn’t think anything of it but being a good Mommy I called her pediatrician.  The nurse told us that we indeed needed to go and get some x-rays.  So off they went and I stayed home with the other 2 children.

Cool x-ray of my 5 year old and the penny in her tummy

Finally, LAST BUT NOT LEAST, I have the most adorable picture of my 7 year old Genevieve singing a made up birthday song to Adessa on her birthday.  It’s just the best picture of them.  It was taken in the car on the way to the Museum.

Isn’t that picture just adorable!!

I had a wonderful Mother’s Day.  It started on Saturday when I went to the salon and got my hair done.  The on Sunday Genevieve gave me a beautiful plate and Adessa and Daddy gave me storage containers for my China that I’ve been asking for.  Daniel made me breakfast and later in the evening we went to my Sister-in-law’s house for a great barbeque.  The kids had a blast playing with their cousins and it was good times all around.

On Monday I took Gena and Caden to their new Doctor.  3 finger pokes, 3 shots, 2 physicals, 3 referrals and 1 exhausted Mommy. Gena doesn’t do shots well.  At… all.  The mere mention of a shot starts off a panic attack in her. All my kids are healthy, the Dr. couldn’t believe how big Gena is, she’s not even on the growth chart for her height.  She’s seriously tall.  Obviously she does not get this from me.

I have Adessa’s Dr. appointment coming up on Thursday which should prove traumatic for her and I. She has to go in for all her Kindergarten shots, as well as a TB test (out in IL all kids get tested for TB), and some finger pokes.  I expect a full scale meltdown.  Hopefully, maybe, not as bad as when Gena had to get her shots done for when she was starting Kindergarten.  That took 4 nurses to hold her down and me crying along with her. If that child knew obscenities she would have cursed and screamed every one. Instead the worst she could scream was “Bad Doctor” over and over again.

Fun times.  Fun times.

Starting on Friday, the girls were driving me crazy wanting to do something so I told them to get their swimsuits on.  Not to go outside though, considering it was 50 degrees.  You see, we have a big bathtub.  Huge.  So I told the girls they could swim in it. They were really skeptical but ended up staying there for 2 hours. They loved it!

Notice that Caden is holding a doorstop in his hand.  He takes them ALL off and walks around with them.

On Saturday we went to the Brookfield Zoo!  The girls had a blast and so did Caden. It was nice and cool so was wonderful to walk around. Pics below:

Caden’s very first ride!  We had to pry him off at the end, he absolutely loved it.

Ahhhh, look at how happy they all are!

In the kids Zoo brushing the goats.

Looking up at the T -Rex in the Dinosaurs Alive exhibit.

In the Kangaroo pouch.

Gena hugging the giraffe.

On Sunday the girls wanted to ride their bikes so we headed outside in the backyard to ride around the pond.

Gena!

Adessa! 

And last but not least, here’s what Caden was doing while the girls were riding their bikes.  The pantry was left open… he started helping himself. 

So my goal for this year was to simplify my life.  Funny.  Things are more complicated and busy then ever right now with the move and just settling in.  In some strange way I need this stress in my life though, I function well under stress.  Better then without it as a matter of fact.  It keeps me focused, motivated, ready to take on anything and everything.  Where when I have no stress, things are just creeping along, I lose all ambition and just want to lay around.  So I’m actually thankful to have all these happenings in my life.

I promised pics so you can see some below!

Gena is loving school.  Truly and honestly loving school.  Everything is “terrific”. She loves the bus, loves her teacher, loves her class and is just adjusting so well!  I was so worried about her being the new girl. You can see a pic of her off up there on her first day of school. Adessa cries every day that Gena leaves for school because she wants to go to.

Above is Adessa’s new sitting spot, she’s taken over my laundry baskets. Oh!  Best part, kindergarten in Adessa’s school district is for the entire day. That makes me really happy, more so that I can schedule Dr. appointments for Caden and that Adessa can play with her friends and learn all day.  Right now she is just desperate for a playmate and Mommy can only play with her so much during the day.  Plus, she wants to get on that big yellow school bus so much.  I can see that gleam in her eye whenever Gena gets on or gets off it.

The kids have been having a great time exploring their new digs and the new neighborhood.  Below is a picture of Gena and Adessa doing a “cooking show” with their Easy Bake oven.

Then there’s the neighborhood kids, of which there are a ton.  Lots of boys and little girls. They all congregated outside in front of our house tonight.

And here’s Daddy and Caden watching them.

So my kids told me I should tell more about our trip to Chicago on the blog.  The thing is, I took pictures of absolutely nothing relevant! So here are my pictures from my trip to Chicago.

First up is “The Blue Monstrosity”.  We named the car.  It was a requirement when I saw it.  I apologize if you love your Teal Blue PT Cruiser but honestly… being able to pick out your car from 3 parking lots away in a downpour is not my cup of tea. Great for a rental car though admittedly.

Next up is a picture of Daniel in the airport.  HAHA!  He doesn’t even know I took it.  He was talking to my mom at the time on the phone as well, in case you were ummm… wondering. This picture serves as proof to my children that airports are indeed boring places and not glamorous at all.  Look at those people in the background, having the time of their lives.

Next up, I thought it would be cool to show my kids a picture of us above the clouds in an airplane.  The 7 year old was not impressed.

“Look at this picture Gena!  See how cool that is, we were above the clouds.”

“Mommy… you just turned the camera upside down.”

“Wha… NO I DIDN’T!  That’s an actual picture of your Daddy and I in a plane above the clouds!!!”

“Mommy, if you turn that picture upside down it looks the exact same as from the ground. Why is that neat?”

*grumble, mumble*  I give up trying to impress my kids.

Not much to report.

Job search continues, it’s been 5 months! Hard to believe. For updates on the states, since my mind has melted with the sheer number of companies and people: North Carolina, Illinois, Florida, Utah, Washington and Texas are the contenders right now.

Caden continues to learn more signs. No new sounds yet, still just Ha, Ga, Ge and… that’s about it.

Parent/Teacher conference for Gena went well. Her only struggle is handwriting, but she is a full year younger then the other kids.

Adessa loves preschool, loves her teacher, loves her friends. Though she is mad at her preschool best friend Peyton for telling on her because she wasn’t sharing. Preschool drama, I love it.

We’ll start with Gena.  Daniel had a phone conversation with Gena’s principal today at the school and they brought in a bunch of kids to find out what happened and who exactly it was. They were able to identify the boy and they talked to him.  The custodian also went out to the playground and filled in the hole in the woodchips that they had been playing in. Hopefully that’s the last of the incident.

On Friday I went up to the hospital with Caden and got his thumb x-rays done. The bones look fine and Caden’s odd lil’ thumb is actually “soft tissue swelling”. Make of that what you will.  Since he’s had it since birth it’s not really any swelling that will go down but just the way his thumb is and will always be. A little odd and off-kilter. This doesn’t help us figure out why he’s not using the thumb correctly unfortunately.  So we’ll wait and see.

I had promised the girls that on Friday night they could have a Pajama Party.  Which they were so excited about, so as we drove to Wal-Mart to pick up snacks and a cheap movie I asked Gena how her day at school was.  She responds with “Mom, it was terrible.” Gena is so hard to get information from usually.  She’s the type of kid that you ask her how her day was and it’s always, “fine”. Ask her what she did at school, “stuff”. If you push her she gets upset and feels like she’s being interrogated,  but when I asked her what happened she just started spilling the details.

At recess, she was playing a monster game with some of the kids.  They had dug out a hole in the woodchips and they were trying to get the eggs from the monster who was a boy in Gena’s grade. This boy apparently turned on Gena without any provocation and began to repeatedly punch her in the stomach. I asked her why she didn’t run away and she told me that he kept pushing her to the ground and then started punching her again over and over. I asked her if she told him to stop and she said she did and told him that he was hurting her.  She doesn’t know the boy’s name. She knows her classmates who saw the whole thing though. I asked her if she went and told a teacher on the playground but she told me that the bell rang to line up so she did to. When she went inside she told her teacher who dismissed her and told her not to play the game or with that boy again. She went to the bathroom after that with a friend because she didn’t want to cry in front of her classmates and her tummy hurt.

Needless to say, we left a message with the school and I will be going in on Monday to talk to them about this.  For 5 hours aftwards she was complaining about how her stomach still hurt and she couldn’t bend over. I am, of course, livid. Even more so when one of Gena’s friends tells her that this same boy has pushed her down before and started laughing at her. Obviously, this kid is a problem. Gena does not want to go to school on Monday, she’s afraid to see this boy. I am just hoping that I don’t go mother bear on whatever poor soul at the school listens to this story on Monday as I think of my little 7 year old girl getting punched repeatedly in the stomach and pushed to the ground. She did the right thing, the thing we TELL our kids to do when something like this happens: don’t fight back, go tell an adult. Then she was ignored by her Teacher. I’ll let you all know on Monday how this turns out.

That night though, in conjunction with the PJ party we also let the girls do a “camp out” in there room in their little tents.  They love that. It was pitch black in their room but I got the picture below:

The past 2 weeks the girls and I have been doing a lot of arts & crafts that I had to share. First up are Daniel’s birthday presents that the girls were so excited to paint and do. Daniel was so excited to get them and see the effort the girls put into them:

Adessa assembled and painted the birdhouse and Gena helped mix and mold and painted the stepping stone

Next up are the school projects Gena needed to do so I got Adessa in on it as well:

We dyed the soap and then poured it into the molds. Gena mixed together Orange and Adessa did the purple.

We did these T-shirts with fabric paint. Gena did the left one tracing the dog and bone with a template. And I did the outline of the flowers while Adessa colored them in.

These are the suckers we did.  I wasn’t able to grab a picture of the red vanilla ones Adessa did, but Gena choose to do Peanut Butter.