Happy Thanksgiving!

This is for you, Aunt Kathy.. I am updating my blog today! It's Thanksgiving evening, and we have spent most of the day at my in-laws just enjoying the day and eating way too much. My MIL is wanting to go "Black Friday" shopping in just a little while at midnight and I was crazy enough to volunteer to go. So, we shall see what happens. :)

As for updating the past few months, I will make it a goal to add some pics and some info. Life has just been busy and never slows down, even when I think it might. Hope to be back on soon..

Summertime!

Can't believe it's been 3 months since I last blogged. Oh yeah, I forgot that I'm working full time now and usually am too exhausted to sit and blog at night. Instead, I'd rather veg! So, here's to catch up...

Stone had tubes put into his ears and his tonsils and adnoids removed at the end of March.. that went really well. I admit, I was nervous the whole time, but all went well. Stone rebounded as if he didn't have any surgery at all! Since then, he's done well and hasn't been sick. Should have had this surgery done for him 2 years ago! As a result, he's hearing a lot better, feels better and is talking a whole lot more. Yeah surgery!

Speaking of Stone, he's one smart cookie. He's learned all his letters and numbers in preschool this year, and we haven't helped him at all at home. However, due to his October birthday, he won't be able to go to Kindergarten in the Fall. On the one hand, this is kind of a bummer, as most of his classmates are going on to Kindergarten as well as his cuz Mercy, but on the other hand, I feel that he really needs another year. But I'm excited to see how much he'll grow and take off with his language skills as well as his academics this next year. He'll be in our preK program (5's) and in our after school program again. So, the best part of my full time job is that Stone gets to be with me all day. Since he was in the 4's this past year, he got to "graduate" with the rest of his classmates. It was cute and sad at the same time cause he had a great preschool class.

So, March through May flew by. I got to hire an Assistant for the Preschool part of my job, and she just started. She has been with the program for a year (moved up here from Charlotte last year). Can't wait to hand some things off to her! I've been doing too much work at home these days.

In May, we got to visit K's sister Gini and her family. So much fun and every time we get together, it reminds me how much I miss being closer to them. I'm thankful for the time we had when we lived just 10 minutes away and sometimes wish that were so again. We got to see my parents at the end of May and haven't been to WV since Christmas due to bad weather and us all being sick all the time. My parents did come down for Stone's surgery so we got to see them briefly at the end of March. And we saw Kevin's parents for Easter in April. Other than that, we've been hanging out at home, spending weekends together, since our time during the week is so limited.

Oh, and we recently discovered the Farmer's Market.. so much fun. In April, we tried our hand at growing tomatoes. It's gone well so far.. I think not too much longer before we'll see some tomatoes! It's been fun, especially since we planted them from seeds. Stone has loved checking on them every day and watering them.

That's all for now..

New Shoes, New Work, and New Time Adjustment

Once again, I let too much time go by without posting.. I really don't intend for that to happen.. it just does! So, to play catch up, here's what's been going on..

First, I have to say that February was a crazy month. First off the bat, we had 4 snow days at the beginning of Feb (maybe one of those was justifiable) but whatever. That kind of threw things off a bit. Then, Stone got better from the last time sick, but still was fighting off a cough. Then hubs got it (all this towards the end of Feb). I somehow avoided it, although I had been to the doctor and had my ears checked (was feeling off) and did have fluid in the ears, but didn't do another antibiotic.. which I was thankful for. So, literally, during the month of Feb, between the 3 of us, we were in the doc's office a LOT. No exaggeration! Here it is March 14 almost, and Kevin and Stone are STILL getting over a stupid, nagging cough. I'm totally amazed I didn't catch it this time (knock on wood.) That in itself is a miracle.

Then, all month long, it had sort of been in the works for me to assume new job responsibilities. I am already the director of an after school and summer camp program where I work (at a church). We have a part-time preschool as well, and this is where Stone attends in the mornings. The current director has decided to step down and wondered if I'd be interested in taking that over as well. Of course, there were a lot of steps to go through, and it all happened pretty quickly, as these things go. So, as of March 1, I became the Director of it All, as I joke around. I guess my new title is actually "Director of Weekday Programs" which includes the preschool, after school and summer camps. I am a bit overwhelmed, even though it's been 2 weeks into it thus far. For my first 2 weeks, I've had several teachers out (who are normally not out at all) and unfortunately, one of those teachers lost a parent (she had been sick and in the hospital). Thankfully, the current director is sticking around to help with training and to help finish up some projects. I also get to hire an assistant, so that is next on my plate. So now, I am officially a Full-Time working parent. I have to say though, that this hasn't changed my schedule that much. I was already "working" on things in my office most days while Stone was in school. This is good, because we were both used to this kind of schedule. My day is just now extended by an hour or two. My home duties are suffering a bit, but I know that will fall into place soon, as we all adjust to me not having as much time at home as before. Poor Stone thinks we live at the church! But he's doing pretty well with it all.

So, the new shoes reference.. I bought Stone new shoes the other day.. I hadn't realized that his tennis shoes must have been getting tight on him.. he didn't want to wear them and then complained when he did. Once I bought him the new ones (buzz light year that lights up) he has LOVED them and has gone around showing them off to everyone.. so cute! And then, while at the store, I found some I wanted for myself but refrained, as I really didn't have the money to spend on me right now.. and that is because we are having the surgery for Stone to get tubes in his ears on the 26th. We are also having his tonsils/adnoids taken out. I'll admit, I'm a little scared (okay, a lot scared) about all this even though I know it's "routine" surgery. It's still surgery on my child though, so no matter how routine it is, I'm still going to be worried. I will trust God though and try to be calm.

And, that brings us to the new time adjustment.. that was a reference to my time spent working, as well as daylight savings time, which is tonight. Which means I should be in bed, but here I am on the computer. I have to say though, I'm actually excited about Spring this year, which is not the norm for me. I am very much the lover of Fall and Winter and not so much of Spring and Summer (I hate to be hot!) However, with the winter we just had, I am looking forward to the Spring temps and being outside without freezing or sweating just yet. If only it could be 70 year around, I'd be one happy camper.

Until later...

And more bad weather and hurting ears

Well, to round out January, poor little Stone had yet another ear infection (about a week ago) that included one of his ears rupturing and draining out. Yuck and poor little guy.. so much pain! I think a visit to an ENT is in order and hopefully tubes (if recommended) will help relieve the constant irritation he seems to be having lately. I think fluid is just not draining off, thus causing infection after infection. Maybe we'll get some relief on this soon.

Then, this past weekend, major snow storm (at least for NC). School was closed Monday, then again on Tuesday and yet again on Wednesday. Then, they had a 2 hour delay today (Thursday) and they already closed it again for tomorrow (Friday) due to some snow and ice that is supposed to start around midnight. This also means our after school program and preschool have been closed. I've been working from home, but Stone had definite cabin fever. He was happy as a clam to be in school today and then after school this afternoon. He was tugging on his ears and complaining of them hurting again, but happy to be out of our apartment!

The weather, and Stone's bad double ear infection, caused a postponing of our would-be trip to WV to celebrate my dad's and nephew's birthdays. My nephew Nate turns 6 tomorrow. Hard to believe! We hope to go up the 3rd weekend in February, so we shall see how that turns out.

So tonight, Stone had me literally laughing out loud and in hysterics. Sometimes, it's the unexpected things your kid does that really tickles the funny bone. He comes up to me and says, "Look Mommy! I'm a St. Bernard!" and then proceeds to lick my cheek like a dog! Hilarious really, since I had no idea where that came from. Love the spontaneity of that moment! Love that kid and thankful every day for him!

There are some things in the works for both mine and Kevin's jobs.. we shall see what the next few weeks brings concerning them both. Hopefully, these are good things. I say that because Kevin's company has been laying off a lot of employees lately and we pray that we escape this possibility this go-around. We would love to not have to go through that again so soon. And due to a stupid mistake on my W2 form, we now owe our great country taxes instead of breaking even or getting a refund. Nice. For once, I wish our taxes would all work out instead of us having to owe! And it's not a little amount either. Praying that God provides, cause I have no idea where that money is going to come from. One day at a time. And that is all for now.

Sick

I'm sick and tired from being sick and tired. Something of the nature of a sinus infection/flu hit me last Wednesday night and I'm still getting over it. It was really bad over the weekend and ended up having to go back to the doctor on Sunday afternoon and got a breathing treatment, which helped a lot. The doc then gave me an inhaler, put me on antibiotics and gave me cough syrup with codeine.

Then, poor Stone starting in coughing... thankfully though, no ear infection or anything like that, just the typical cold stuff and the horrible coughing. I've kept him out of preschool this week (he's going back tomorrow) and now Kevin's fighting it.. hopefully we'll all get over it soon and on with our lives! It seems like when you're sick, life just stands still for a while. I've missed a good bit of work, which I know was necessary, but still puts me a bit behind on projects I need to get going on and finished soon. Then, we have half-way taken down our Christmas decorations... again, interrupted from being sick. Hopefully, we'll finish tackling that this weekend. And, on top of it all, we desperately need to clean and then "spring clean" and by that I mean do a "clean sweep." So, that is where we are and have been.

My dad celebrated his 65th birthday on Jan 10. I hadn't planned to go up there last weekend, due to the fact that we're planning another trip at the end of Jan to celebrate both dad's and cousin Nate's birthdays. But, it was a good thing that I didn't plan on going, cause I was too sick to travel anyway. Glad that my dad's been on this earth for 65 years and thankful for both he and my mom for so many things. He got to preach this past Sunday, due to the pastor of their church being out of town. He said he had fun and then the worship leader had the congregation sing happy birthday to him at the close of the service. I hope you have many more years to celebrate dad!

And finally, this is sort of a "p.s." to the previous post.. as I was saying Happy New Year, I totally forgot to include what we did to celebrate the new year. Normally, since our lives are pretty uneventful, we would just hang out and watch the ball drop in NYC, say happy new year and then go to bed. This year, we had already planned to go see Kevin's parents in Apex New Year's weekend since we were both off a few days and since we had celebrated Christmas with my parents. What became a surprise for us though, was that Pop was playing his sax at a ballroom dancing club's gig on New Year's night. Gigi got Kevin and me tickets to go and kept Stoney for us. So, Kevin and I got to dance the new year in...literally! Pop was playing in a big band that had been hired to perform live dancing music, and so they played all sorts of fun classics. Then, they had a little dance "presentation" that didn't live up to my expectations, but was still pretty good. But the most fun part was watching all the other people who I guess are regulars at this dance club out on the dance floor dancing. You had all kinds of different people who actually could do all kinds of different dances.. swing, jitterbug, fox trot and a variety of un-named dances to boot. The best part was that there was no smoking allowed inside.. you had to go outside if you wanted to do that, so there wasn't a haze in the building. It was a lot of fun and we were thankful for the date night out, especially since it was New Year's Eve.

Happy New Year!

2010.... I remember when the year 2000 seemed light years away, and now we're already in 2010. Hard to believe.. and hard to believe another year has come and gone. It's been a good year though, despite it starting off with Kevin getting laid off AGAIN, when it just happened less than a year before. However, God provided Kevin a new job and quickly, so we were most grateful. He also provided me with another job, one that was more hours and therefore a little more money. This also meant that Stone started a different preschool this past September and so far, he's doing great. He hangs out with me in the afternoons and does well with that too, although he is one tired boy at the end of the day.

Do I have goals/resolutions for 2010? Yep, but not going to post them here. Kevin is becoming a health nut, which is good and is rubbing off on me some. We continue to hack away at paying off debt and we keep our eyes and ears open for other possible job opportunities.

We work daily with Stone to help him with his speech and conversational skills. He improves daily. He's already really recognizing his letters/numbers which blows my mind! I'm sure he'll be reading before I know it. He's a whiz at puzzles and love building with blocks of all kinds. He still likes to color/draw and does really well for a 4 year old. He LOVES his grandparents and cousins and loves spending time with them and is addicted to Nick Jr. on TV! We seriously have to limit his TV time, cause he could watch it all day. He's still into all things Space and firefighters and loves books and learning in general. We keep working on his eating issues though.. too picky for a 4 year old if you ask me! And I swear, he grew over Christmas break alone! He's getting big!!! 41 inches high and 40 pounds (of mostly muscle, as he's one strong little boy). He has the sweetest heart and says the sweetest prayers and hangs with us in "big" church cause we continue to visit around to find the place where we're supposed to "land." He recently has started "retelling" Bible stories in his own words as he remembers, which is hilarious to listen to as well as it warms my heart. I love that kid!

Looking forward to what this new year will bring.

So, Happy 2010!

It's almost Christmas!

I've been very neglectful of my blog lately.. in fact, I think pretty much this whole year I've not done a very good job keeping up my blog or checking friends' blogs, so forgive me! I've been quite distracted playing on FB and then I've been reading.. nothing important, just fun thriller type novels.. it's actually been a long while since I just read for the pleasure of reading.. so, when not on FB or watching something on TV, I've been reading!

Oktoberfest 2009 ended with Halloween-related activities with my job (after school director) and taking Stone trunk or treating at the church where I work. He loved it, but more importantly, he loved dressing up in his astronaut outfit his Gigi got him for his birthday. He still likes to wear it, still into space and still cracks me up. Some of my favorite quotes lately:

• "Happy Birthday Thanksgiving Dinner!" (obviously a combo of Happy Birthday, since we just got through with all our birthdays in October and Happy Thanksgiving, combined with eating Thanksgiving Dinner..)
• "Baby Jesus is Boring" instead of Baby Jesus is Born.. with his Auditory Processing Disorder, he will often mishear words and think you are saying something different, when you are clearly giving him the correct word.. case in point with this phrase. Of course, we have told him "Baby Jesus is BORN" but he still hears "boring" and thus, while it's cute, we do try to correct him.
  
• same thing with this phrase: "Santa Closet" instead of "Santa Claus" ... makes for some funny things we hear around here!
• "Mommy, turn off the sun!" he doesn't like the sun shining in his face and has told me this numerous times. I try to explain to him that I can't turn off the sun!
  

I'm sure there are more, and I need to record them so I don't forget, but that's all for now.

We are gearing up for this up coming week.. a short work week and then off to WV to visit my folks for Christmas. Stone has literally been praying for snow since after Thanksgiving and we got a good bit yesterday. However, late Friday night, we had sleet/rain mixed in, which turned our great snowfall into ice. Not much fun to play in! However, he was really praying for snow while in WV so he and his cousin Nate could build a snowman. We shall see how the weather holds out this week.

Over Thanksgiving, we traveled down to AL to visit K's youngest sister and meet her daughter Claire who was born in mid-August. We hadn't had an opportunity to meet her yet, so that was way cool that we got to love on her (and the rest of K's family) for a couple of days. Of course, Stone and Mercy had a blast, Wy tried to keep up, and he was actually jealous whenever I would hold Claire, since I guess he thought he has some claim on me! (Well, he does have a claim on me, but I still had to love on that beautiful baby girl!!) He was actually jealous whenever anyone else held her and didn't pay attention to him, but I like to think he reacted that way just when I did it! :)

That's it for now.. will post some updated pics soon.

A new woman!

I really should be better about setting aside a little money every month so I can get my hair done more often... the last time I even had scissors or fake color touch my hair was May 9th! So today, I went from this.......


....to this!!

I'm loving it and feel like a new woman! Thanks to my mom and my hubs for letting me get my hair styled! Happy 35th birthday to me (a few days late!)

Hallquist Oktoberfest 2009

I can't believe it's the middle of our annual Hallquist Oktoberfest already! Where has this year gone? We've already celebrated Stone's 4th birthday (yikes) and Kevin's birthday and mine is just a few days away. We've had fun with my family visiting and K's parents and a few friends who were able to make it to Stone's birthday party. We look forward to cousin M and W coming in about a week and a half, if we all stay healthy! We've already visited one pumpkin patch and plan to visit at least one more, plus do a couple of hayrides, trunk-n-treating and who knows what all else! And inbetween all this we still have work, school and the every day business of life. Happy October!

300th Post!

Wow.. can't believe I've actually had enough to say to post 300 times! Then again, those who know me might say otherwise!

Tomorrow starts the annual "Hallquist Oktoberfest 2009" traditions! Yeah! I'm thankful to celebrate another year with my little family and of course, all our extended family and friends. It's a busy month ahead, even without all the birthday celebrations. This coming weekend, I will be attending a 1.5 day conference in R*aleigh for my job. K and I are taking advantage of his parents who now live close to there to keep Stone so we can officially celebrate our 5th year anniversary! So, a partial weekend of work, and partial of fun with my hubs, sans child.

The next weekend, we'll celebrate Stone's birthday and we have family coming up on both sides! Too much fun! And in between all this, I hope to get some family pictures taken from my brother in law, celebrate mine and Kevin's birthdays, go to Fall Festivals where we can and do all the fun October things to do. Work will be a busy month too, but good.

I also need to finish recaping September, which flew by faster than a blink! Gee! Where did it go? And before we know it, Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here and then we'll be in 2010. So, I'll try to keep my blog updated a bit more!

Happy Fall Everyone!!! My favorite time of year!!