I finally gave up after listening to them play for over an hour when they should have been napping...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEMOO8VqANo

Haha! look what I stumbled across today. A kid's CD about food allergies. Ashton needs this. Yesterday he told me, "that's the new Foo Fighter's Cd" in the car and then he requested the Pixies. Wes is breeding little rock stars so he needs a kid's CD and this one seems perfect. Any suggestions for other fun kid's cd's?

We tagged along with Wes' band to Six Flags last weekend. Here is Ashton with Nicklas, Wes' coworker Robert's son who is about 4 days older. Their favorite thing was the mist at the cooling stations!

Riding the Carousel took some convincing and he held on tight!

Ashton was encouraged to ride things with Nicklas who was a bit braver! Here they rode the airplanes all by themselves! We kept telling them to push the button on the steering wheel which would lift them into the air. Nicklas kept waving instead. Then finally Ashton pushed it by mistake but he didn't seem scared which was surprising. He's still our cautious little guy!

Collin enjoyed the day and got to ride some trains! I love this grin.

We had a picnic in the back of the van for lunch which Ashton loved and gave Collin a chance to move around a bit too. Have I mentioned how much we love our minivan! I love this picture. I'm not sure what they are looking at!

Here are the boys playing with some new toys from Mimi the next day before church. They loooked so cute I had to take their picture and I am so glad I got Ashton smiling!

Good Ol' Kroger

It doesn't take much lately to please this mama. Last week I told my Kroger store manager I would be thrilled if they started carrying some non-dairy rice cheese and only one week later, it was on the shelf!! Wow! I made a difference. Vegans and Dairy Allergens of Chamblee-Tucker unite and buy this cheese so the sweet lady of the natural foods section who knows me will keep stocking it! Vegan Nachos and grilled cheese here we come and we didn't have to truck it out to Whole Foods to buy it. Hooray!! I figure Kroger owes us this big time considering we spend a TON of money there weekly. We may drive older cars, have basic cable, and be the only ones left with flip phones but by golly we Yorks like our organic food and considering we eat out maybe once a week and have to buy so many allergen free foods, you can imagine what our grocery bills are like. But for tonight...bring on the rice cheese!!! (Have you ever tried the stuff??? Yuck! But our sweet boy doesn't know the difference!)

Ok, so these first pictures are painful but I wanted to get some good ones on our last day with our babygirl last weekend. We took her to the park where she has spent so many days with us and she loves. Wes and I took her on hikes all the time before the boys came along and then in recent years, she spent most of her time hanging by the playground. The manager of my office has taken Haley and she is in such good hands, but we had such a hard time the days before we took her to her new home. I had taken her to the vet to get all her records and talk about giving her away and broke down in the vet's office. He was so nice and kept handing me tissues and telling me that it was ok, I was "losing my first child." Then on her last night Wes and I were both just petted her crying. But we felt so much better once we dropped her off at her new house. I get to talk about her all the time at work now and check in on how her days are with Jan, my co-worker. Sounds like she is adjusting better than I had thought and spending some good time in their yard outside and on their porch which I am so happy about. We do miss her terribly though. I feel sad whenever I see the empty spot in the kitchen where her food bowl was. It makes me sad to know Collin won't get to know her. Wes was remembering how Ashton would chase her as he learned to walk and she would run away and he would say, " Oh Hey-la!" (as he called her). Ashton asked if we were getting a new dog when we told him she was going away. He has only asked about her twice though and I think he is adjusting well. Yesterday he told me he heard her which made me sad. We sure do miss you sweet girl!

Now onto some happier times. Last week we had a scare that Collin could have some milk allergy due to some symptoms he had been having. Wes took him to the allergist and he tested negative. Praise God! Anyway, we had given him some soy formula and let Ashton feed him which was so sweet. The allergist had a "hay" day with Wes. He had some testing done too and his arms had hives so large that they ran together and the doctor couldn't even measure them. Wes said the doctor was in his glory and loving it. He hadn't seen a patient as bad as Wes in awhile. It was a hilarious story. The doctor urgently asked the nurse to get Wes Zyrtec and Wes said his arms were on fire. Poor guy. Our allergist said we didn't have to go far up the family tree to realize where Ashton gets it. Now we are the poster family for his office.haha

These last pictures are from a park visit with Wes' parents when they came last weekend.

Picture for their Graduations/Wedding Slideshows

April Fool's

Forgive me. This is going to be really sad, but I am really sad. I wish I could say this was an April Fool's joke. Ashton and I started out April Fool's Day in the ER at Scottish Rite due to his breathing. In fact at midnight, our nurse said, "Happy April Fool's Day." For over a year now, Ashton has had difficulty with breathing whenever he has colds but he had an episode last Thursday night that was especially scary and we had no idea what caused it. We thought he may have had some trace of milk because he was just playing and instantly started coughing and choking and struggling. He even asked me to help him so as you can imagine, I cannot even describe to you how I felt. Wes and I quickly got his inhaler and Benadryl and it helped thank God but throughout the night he kept breathing too rapidly so we finally woke him up at 11 or so and told him we were going to the doctor. He was so sweet on the way there and just went with the flow not even questioning why we were going in the middle of the night. They took us back quickly and he had a breathing treatment and was doing much better. We left and the next morning, he still wasn't breathing as well as I had hoped so I decided to make an appointment with his allergist. When I described the event to him, he said he definitely has asthma now, or as they call it when kids are too little to do the official test, reactive airway disease. So now he's on chronic meds and doing much better already. The only thing is that they did some more skin testing for environmental allergies and now he's allergic to dogs and horses which are more triggers for his asthma. We are devastated. At first the doctor told me he never tells families to give their dogs away, but the more I described our living situation he felt if there was a way we could find Haley a new home, it would be best for Ashton. Wow, what a shock this was to our little family. We have not talked about this around Ashton and I have been holding back tears while he is awake all weekend. I feel sick to my stomach whenever I left myself think about it at all. We've had Haley for six years and as anyone who has a dog knows, we can't imagine life without her. She's just always there and always experiencing life with us. She's been the best dog anyone could ask for and was our first baby. Please pray with us as we try to find her the best home and pray for Ashton as we try to get his breathing controlled especially with the pollen. I can't write anymore without breaking down so I'll stop...