Jay is out of town for the rest of the week in lovely LaCrosse, WI. Thankfully he hasn't been gone mush oer the past few months. But, even though he was gone for the 6 weeks straight at the beginning of the summer, Madeline has forgotten all about that. Today she asked about a dozen times "Daddy going to be home after nap", "Daddy coming home tonight?" Poor little thing can't understand that he will be coming home, just in a few days.

Took Emma to gymnastics tonight equipped with an apology letter to her coach for "not listening" last week and a stern discussion about listening and keeping her hands to herself. She is 100% better then last week. There are a few other girls who get pretty crazy in class, and Emma (scary enough) just follows along wanting to do what they do. Hopefully she grows out of that by the time she is 13.

We enjoyed Jambalaya tonight - typically what the girls ask for when Jay is out of town. Then some snacks while watching Dancing with the Stars. A good evening all around. Tomorrow Emma is going on her first school field trip. Thankfully Grandma Kim has the day off of work and wants to go with her. So they will hop a school bus to a local farm for the day. Should be fun!

Holy cow, I have really been slacking on my blogging duties lately!! I think that with the weather being so terrible that by the time the girls go to bed, we are not far behind. This cold/cloudy weather makes you just want to hunker down in bed.

Nothing too terribly out of the ordinary last week. I think in my last post I gave you the update about my Dr appointment and I discussed how terrible Emma was at gymnastics. Thankfully the week got better!

Madeline had gymnastics on Thursday and she, along with Emma, just love doing it so, so much. With Madeline's class the parent still hs to do it with them. So happy that Jay is willing and likes doing it with her because it is so exhausting and I think that after she has been forced to listen to me all day she is not so entertained about doing it at class. They look like they have a great time.

At school on Friday, Emma was awarded Ted E. Bear to bring hom for the weekend. He is a stuffed bear that we take hom and he goes on "adventures" with us and we write about it in a ournal to share with the class. She was ssooooo excited.

Saturday morning I was very, very excited to see that Jay was ambitious enough to tackle another window. He took out and replaced the kitchen window. That window was terrible. I think that we lost a lot of heat out of it. But, even better then that the window was so dirty you could barely see out of it anymore. We had tried cleaning it, but the previous owners had screwed the outer window part on and the screws were stripped so we couldn't take off to wash. This is like looking out onto a totally different enighborhood. We only have two more windows to replace now. Hping that those can get done soon. We still need to finish the insides so that there isn't the exposed wood. But, that is a whole new ball game as far as what we need to buy. The girls and I played outside in the breif sunshine while Jay worked.

Saturday evening we got dressed up for a Halloween party at the recreation center. On our way there we drove by Paisley Park, home of Prince (my favorite), where a couple hundred people were lined up to get tickets for the concert that he was putting on there that evening. I didn't have money to buy tickets, so I had to forgo the show. I was really dissapointed. Oh well. We had a great time at the party. The kids played games and we rode on a horse drawn wagon.

Today was church and nap. After nap we went to a friend of mine to pick up her old carpet for Madeline's new room. I can't wait to have her room done!! Logistically, it will be great for when I get the girls dressed or ready for bed, but also it will be nice to not have her in limbo anymore.

Off to bed. Jay has a week of lots of driving and travel. A mostly girls week here.

This past weekend Jay and I felt like we were living like rock stars, or at least people who didn't have kids. The girls spent the evening and night on Saturday with Grandma Kim and Grandpa Don. Jay and I went out to dinner - yes, an adult dinner that was uninterrupted by "I need to go potty", "Where is my milk" then out to spend some times with some people that Jay went to high school with. It was a nice time and it was fun listening to old stories - who would have thought that we wouldn't get home until 2am! Holy cow! I am too old for that. And even thgouth I was able to sleep in until 9am - totally unheard of otherwise - it was hard to recover from staying out so late. So nice to be able to spend some time together!!

We went to church sans the kiddos and had a nice lunch and took in some football with some friends we haven't been able to hang out with much lately (they do not have kids and that puts a much different aspect in putting something together). We had good intentions of finishing installing our windows, but the previous evening was still catching up with us so it didn't happen. We picked up the kids and all came home for a nap.

Today Madeline and I dropped off Emma at school and were off to my neurologist appointment. It was a regular check up. We did go over the regular stregnth tests and stuff, and we also discussed some things aout MS in general and in my MS that I had not previouly known. Such as he said that it is beginning to be widly accepted that MS is developed in the body from conception to age 15. I start to worry about Emma's dislike of Vitamin D milk when she was a year old. Before I knew about this Vitamin D importance. Ugh! But, I had also been wavering back and forth in getting the H1N1 shot (whenever they become available) because people with MS that get the flu tend to be far more affected then others who don't have diseased brains. Also, he reviewed my MRI and we discussed anticipated thoughts of the future. He said that I am in the middle on the spectrum. I am certainly not on the "highly affected", but I am not on the most midly affected. I am right in the middle. Could be worse, right? He said that it is very tough to decipher what will come in the future since the brain is so complex. There has to be lesions on both side of the brain to create a physical malidy. Not sure what that tells me. But, I know right now I feel just fine and hope to stay that way for many years.

Unbelieveably "winter" has already set in over MN. Just lovely. It isn't even the middle of October yet and it is already dull and snow covered. It is 8pm and I am eeling stir crazy here in the house already. Thankfully, for about the last 5 minutes, the girls are entertaining themselves playing and not fighting. But, I am thinking that this seems like a long winter without much to do.

Jay was home from work today and Emma was so excited that daddy was going to bring her to school. After school we all went to the local community center for some swim time. They charge and arma nd a leg to get it, but we had a good time. Emma is a little wuss in the water. That isn't all bad. She didn't want to go past the depth of her chest and she just kind of stood around. Madeline on the other hand follows suit with how her personality is starting to develop. She is a daredevil. She loved going down the water slide and didnt' mind if she went under water. And it wasn't long before she didn't want us standing at the bottom to catch her when she came down head first down the slide. She loved it!

Packing up, in the showers, we had a near major incident. The metal seats that they have in the shower feel on top of Madeline's face and threw her against the wall. She is a tough kid. Lots of crying, but no blood and hopefully nothing broken. She has a big bump on her nose and forehead. We filled out an accident report when we left. The commuity center seemed concerned that the stool had a faulty part (it did), but weren't as concerned about Madz face.

Nap time for the girls and Jay. I elected to stay up and watch Oprah interview Mike Tyson. I thought it was interesting.

It was/is a mellow night. Jay has now put on a movie for the kids. The summer is go, go, go with playing outside right up until the 9pm bedtimes and now we are just stretching to make it to 9 without dying of boredom. I suggested that we play Wii, but Jay got rid of the game so I guess that is out.

Have a busy week and I think that I designed our schedule to be like that. Although now I am finding that we are pretty short on days available for playdates.

Today we were to go shopping for winter outerwear with Great Grandma and Grandpa. They love taking the girls - all the great-grandkids - shopping for winter coats and snowsuits. And you would think since we live in Minnesota that shopping for outerwear in mid-October wouldn't be unreasonable. Well, we had the fashion industry all wrong. After going to three stores and having very slim pickins in all of them we left the shopping event empty handed. Not sure what the heck I am going to dress the girls in this weekend when it is supposed to be cold with a high possibility of snow. Just lovely - frickin' lovely.

But, after shopping we went to Grandma and Grandpas house where Grandpa Al came to meet us for lunch. We had fun playing around with great grandma's old wigs and enjoying lunch. Emma can be such a stinker sometimes. She throws mini-tantrums about the tiniest stuff. I suppose that is what being 4 is all about.

This evening we had to negotiate gymnastics without daddy who is trying to get some projects done at work. This was a perfect time to put the thoery to the test of the "type" of child Madeline is. I spoke to her teachers on Tuesday about this and we came up with a perfect way to describe her. She is a "strong willed" little girl. She knows what she wants and is not satisfied until she gets it. Thankfully she is very funny, because trying to accomodate her when she is activly working on her indepenence is pretty tough.

Things are getting crazy around the house. Things are so busy and so many things at hand. Hopefully somehow that will make winter go by a little faster. Again, I need to go buy a lottery ticket. I must find a way to get out of here!!

I am here and all is well! It has been a long time since I posted. We have just been so busy with school starting and getting back into our new schedule. I am trying to do the workout thing and get all sorts of other stuff done as well so by the time the girls go to bed at night I am ready to call it a day as well. I will have to write a little bit more substance tomorrow. We just got back from the neighbors and watching the Vikings walk all over the Packers. That was fun. I think that Emma may be coming down with something. She was pretty quiet and mellow tonight. Cross our fingers!!