This Minivan Life

*first published here What do snow at Christmas, $20 found in an old coat pocket, and blood draws have in common? They are all potential surprises. One of them is a little bit less “great” than the others. I took Zach to the pediatrician for his asthma management appointment and they surprised use with a blood draw. If you’ve never seen  a 3 year old get his blood drawn it’s basically like watching someone draw blood from a rabid bear.   No really… Our appointment started out badly. Zach only “likes” to go to the doctor when he can’t breathe, he was doing just dandy today… that’s why we were going to a management appointment, he didn’t feel that chatting with the doctor was a good use of his time. Except here’s the deal, you can’t have a “management” appointment when there is an emergency going on… so we’ve had to wait until things have calmed down enough to  actually  make this appointment. He’d just finished gymnastics, his grandparents were in town, and we had

Zach is no joke obsessed with halloween. He loves everything "scary". His latest favorite song is "Ghostbusters". If he could watch horror films he would.  He loves scary masks, figures, inflatables, and other decorations. He thinks skeletons are the best, can't get enough of creepy vampires and werewolves, and thinks fake graveyards are awesome.  He loves ghosts and goblins, and anything else scary. He's requested a "spooky" birthday party... his birthday is 9 days before christmas.  It is so fun to take him to the store this time of year because he loves EVERYTHING. We go to "see the scary things" at Walmart at least once a week, he's going to be so sad when Halloween is over! He picked out this grave for our yard. We tried to push him towards a cut cate or pumpkin, nope we have a grave.   He decorated the windows with scary pumpkins  went to school dressed as harry potter  There are several houses near us t

 These are the best photos I got of Michael playing coach pitch this season. We decided it was time to graduate from t-ball, even though given his age, Michael had two seasons left. He went into coach pitch this fall and it was a challenge, but he did great! He's still working on all his skills, but he has improved drastically this season, and even managed to get quite a few decent hits! Now we are all done with baseball and on to basketball, then back to baseball! Good job Mikey, go cardinals!

Grace very much wants to be one of the "buddies". She prefers to wear jeans (accessorized with lots of mardi gras beads),  t shirts, and dress up in "boy" costumes. She has been a superhero, astronaut, Harry Potter, and fire chief... today.  Now that she's mobile she's up and about with the boys all the time. She climbs into the treehouse, runs with them at the park, and totally forgets that they're big and she's 1.   She loves playing spaceship with them, and luckily mach's old costume almost fits so she can really play.  Theyve taught her to escape... love this part of having a third kid.  She even refuses to do the "baby" section at the bounce house place in favor of running and SCREAMING with her brothers.  She spent most of the day in the foam pit chasing Zach and his friends while ignoring the girls her own age.