Dinner with the family

We had a great dinner last night at grandma and grandpa Hardy's. Izzy and Drew were so funny together.

Getting productive today at home. Spent the morning filing paperwork in my office and cleaning. Michelle and I have some good ideas for the house, so we will be off to Lowes this afternoon to pick up a few things.

I know this isn't the greatest picture, but these two were having a blast with each other! Maybe I will ask Santa for a new camera this year..... IMO I will be getting nothing this year from old st. Nick.

Drew videos on YouTube

This is the link to all of the videos I have posted on YouTube. I just added three new ones last night for those who don't get on Facebook.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_fcfjCBdd8w

This will take you a video of Drew playing drums and from there you can subscribe to my page and receive a notification when I post a new video:)

They have an App for this

I am not making any promises, but this blog may certainly start seeing a little bit more action in the future, thanks to a new app on my iPhone which will allow me to blog from anywhere.

My goal for this blog has always remained the same, and that was simply to chronicle our experiences as parents and all of our sons adventures and conquests. So that someday, we could look back and laugh about his childhood adventures.

Halloween night was not a great success this year, although Drew chose to be a member of a marching band and that was a fantastic idea. He was able to march in the halloween parade and even was allowed to lead the band!!

We spent the weekend in Kalamazoo with the Hoyts and had a wonderful time at Autumns soccer game, and also a first experience for our family with a college hockey game! That was a blast, and drew has talked about. Playing hockey since that night... we have a friend who's son plays and is Drews age. It looks like we may need to start a fund.

He has also started a love affair with the Toy Story movies, and a certain buzz lightyear. We look forward to Thanksgiving this year, we have so much to be thankful for, it's almost impossible to imagine.

First Day of School

Michelle goes back to work tomorrow, and we start the beginning of a "working" schedule. All summer long, we have been going to bed around 10-11:00 and getting up at 7 am...without a hitch usually....Michelle is getting ready for bed right now...It's only 9:30. This is always a tough time, a transition from focusing on Drew/ to focusing on an entire classroom of 4th and 5th grade students. My schedule...well, pretty much stays the same, other than now, it is my responsibility to get Drew to day care in the morning.Those summer days, where I would leisurely get ready for work, kiss my wife and son goodbye and head off for the day, are over tomorrow:)

Drew is nearing the end of a relatively quick potty training regiment. We found that bribing him with M&M's was the key to a quick transition. Say what you will....but it worked. It may not be the perfect way to train children, but it works.

What a Summer!!

The greatest thing about summer time, is to be able to spend time with family...and we have done a whole lot of that! With the 2010 school year on the horizon next Tuesday, Michelle has been steadily working on her classroom.

Drew has changed sooo much over the summer this year. He has grown about 3 inches taller, and added around twice as many, if not more, words to his vocabulary. It is incredible to sit down with him and be able to have a conversation ( at least until he finds something to wrestle,or jump on).

My new found career in "insurance" is taking some big steps in the right direction. I still can't believe that with all the things that I have done in my life, I somehow ended up in a work environment that is considered boring and nerdy. I have to admit that it has become very enjoyable for me. I have a very flexible schedule, and spend most of my time talking to people....and funny enough, 90 percent of conversations have nothing to do with insurance:)

Potty training had started about 2 weeks ago, and Drew is almost completely out of diapers! It was much easier that I ever imagined, witch is not typical of my son. We never pushed him to use the potty, it was just there....we made him aware of it. There was however, a strong motivation to use it....M&M's.

I hope everyone has had a great summer, since I have waited so long to post on the blog, I am going to list everything we did this summer....for posterity.

Hoyt Family visits for the month of July
Cherry Festival Activities
Mackinac Island Day Trip
Sand Dunes " Lake Michigan"
Kayaking
Gen-Fest
Cottage on East Bay
Lots of Beach Time
Friday Night live
Lansing Soccer Tourn.
Beer Festival ( that is today)


Thanks to all of our family and friends for a great summer!!

It's been a long while huh!!!

Alot has been going on lately!! Obviously, I have not had much time to do a blog entry in a while.....I have HAD time, but between work and face book..I am about done looking at the computer. Michelle and I had a great trip to New Orleans, and took lots of pictures that I am going to post tonight. Drew has been doing great. His skin has almost completely cleared up, once we figured out that he was having an allergic reaction to guess what......AQUAPHOR!! The exact thing we have been applying to his skin for the last two years to help his eczema. It is very frustrating, but we feel sooo much better now that we have figured it out....Now seasonal allergies are a whole other topic. New things going on right now:

We have about a 1,000,000 tent worms in our back yard.
A few of my friends and I have started a Beer Brewing Club.
Michelle is going to teach a 4/5th split next year.
Drew got his first bike on Tuesday.

That's about all I have time for right now!! Here is a video of Drew on his first bike...and I will be posting new pictures tonight!!

Helpless

Drew has had recently, one the worst skin breakouts that we have seen, in the last few weeks. Describing what it feels like to be completely helpless in making him feel better..is impossible. I can't help but to wonder why our kids are allergic to so many things. Michelle and I have read countless book, and see a pediatric allergist regularly to try and come up with as many helpful remedies for him as we can. I woke up a little angry and frustrated this morning with the feeling of helplessness that I have in this situation. I want to make him feel better, normal....something.
There is a lot of reasons that I believe he is prone to allergies, much like many other children, even though Michelle and I are not. One of the reasons is food, and I found this video a while back and wanted to share this with people, since there is not much else I can do to help him. If we can become more aware of what is going on around us, maybe Drew's children will not suffer the same ailments.