I am combining 2 posts for sake of it being easier!! This week Kaitlyn and Colin celebrated their 4th birthday at school. They each had their own day at school which meant mommy had to buy treats for the class two different days:) They were very excited to celebrate, be the line leader, help pass out treats, hold the flag, stand on the "flash" and all kinds of other things that come along with being the special kid for the day! Here they are from Tuesday and Thursday in their birthday hats! They are VERY excited for their first kids party on Sunday!!! I have to say that since Kaitlyn celebrated her birthday on Tuesday and Colin on Thursday she kept telling Colin that she was the "big sister" since she was 4 already at school.

I guess its true in a sense that she is 1 min older:)

The week of Halloween we went to an event at Gymboree. Included in the fee was a free professional portrait at one of the portrait studios in the mall. The kids had fun at Gymboree (I already posted those pics). Here are their professional pics that we picked up this week. They are scanned in so sorry for them not being as clear!

Pictures at the Park

Last Saturday Kristina and I decided, last minute, that it would be fun to take some fall pictures at Veteran Acres Park in Crystal Lake with the 4 kids. We had SO much fun!!! By no means do we think we are photographers but we enjoy taking pictures of our adorable kiddos:) Kristina was actually the photographer since she has a good SLR camera and I was making faces at the kids, making sure nobody, especially Makenna, fell in the water and carried all of our bags and bribery treats around with us! I think we learned some things while we were there too so next year we will be more prepared, go earlier when the leaves are still on the trees and bring the dads with so we can get some family shots. I have a ton of pics to share out of the 682 pictures Kristina took:) Yes, we are picture crazy!!!! I am not going to write anything just enjoy the story that these pics tell about 4 best friends who love eachother so much! :)

Colin smooched Madi right on the lips:)

Taking a treat break and resting our smiles!

Let me tell you....fruit snacks go a long way for making kids smile:)

Cute story: Kaitlyn knows how much I want an SLR camera!!! Last night she told me that when she sees Santa she is going to tell him to buy me my "big camera"!! :)

Last Week

Last week we had Heidi, Tyler and baby Connor over for a play date. The kids were very busy playing so I only have a few pics:) Here is Kaitlyn with baby Connor.

Isn't he so cute?!?!

K & C LOVE babies!!

Tyler was having fun checking out all of the kids toys!! Thanks for coming over Heidi and the boys!! We had so much fun!!

Daddy was gone late 2 nights for conferences at school. We went over to Grandma and Papa Young's house for dinner and to play dress up. Grandma loves shopping the "after Halloween" sales to get more dress up stuff for our collection at her house. Our newest addition is Spider Woman and a Power Ranger(??) costume.

Look at those muscles!!!!

Kristina and I decided, last minute, on Saturday morning to take the 4 kiddos to Veteran Acres Park and do a photo session just for fun! Stay tuned for a post with some of my favorite pictures from that day!!

Dress Up Time!

I am finally catching up on the blog!!! I did SEVEN posts tonight and can barely see straight right now from all of the typing:) So for this post I am not going to write anything....enjoy these pics! Today when we were babysitting Quintin the 3 cousins were playing dress up. Kaitlyn had to be a power ranger since she was outnumbered:) We laughed SO hard and had a great time!

Kaitlyn Update

Kaitlyn has been having pretty bad stomach pains which have been going on for longer than Cam and I are comfortable with. On Monday we went to see her GI Specialist at Lutheran General to reevaluate the issue. Poor Kaitlyn asked Cam and I when we arrived at the hospital why she has to always go see doctors and Colin doesn't. Broke our hearts! We know that in the scheme of things these are minor problems that we have dealt with but it still is frustrating! We pretty much have to go back to the OR to have a test done. But just for kicks we are doing a 2 week trial before we make a final decision. She has so many small issues going on and they want to try and get to the bottom of it. We are going to start probiotics twice daily to try and balance out her good vs bad bacteria. It could help with the gas and tummy pains. The dr got a smell of how bad her gas is when she walked in the room...Kaitlyn was having major gas problems today. She did say when she listened to her tummy that she was FULL of gas which seems to be an all day thing! We also have an emergency prescription that I need to fill for when she has her screaming fits because her belly hurts so bad. This medicine will relax her intestines and make her more comfortable. Then we need to up her fiber and make sure she is getting at least 9 grams a day. We will call the dr back in 2 weeks and report how things went. Then we will schedule the Endoscopy. She will have to be put to sleep which stinks! They will rule out things like Celiac Disease and some other things. She originally tested neg for Celiac but she said their are false positives and negatives with the blood test and the only way to truly test is with the endoscopy. It may be that Kaitlyn has IBS (Irritable Bowel syndrome) so we just have to see how things pan out. I am going to make a call tomorrow to her plastic surgeon to see if there is any miracle they can work so she wont have to be put to sleep twice and do both her lip surgery and the endoscopy at the same time. The huge problem is that its with two different surgeons at two different hospitals so probably no way to swing it but I will still try for Kaitlyn's sake. The poor kid has been to the OR already 5 times and is going again in 2 weeks for her lip. Bummer!!! We have seen the OR more times than we would like! So thats our scoop! I will update more when we know what the plan is!

Imagination Movers Concert

Sunday morning Colin woke up feeling great! We were so happy and decided to still go to the Imagination Movers concert as scheduled! What an awesome concert and we had great seats!!! Here are all of the kids: Colin, Kaitlyn, Amanda, Ella, Tyler and Bella.

Colin just adores Amanda:) He kept talking about her when we got home how much he likes her!

Video of the Imagination Movers coming onto the stage. I had a ton of videos but they were too dark:( Yes, thats Heidi in the background screaming for the Movers...she was too funny!!!

Tyler and Heidi:)

Kaitlyn was a dancing machine that night!

I have to admit that I really didn't watch the Imagination Movers much but now I think I will appreciate them so much more after seeing the concert. They are such a nice down to earth bunch of guys!! They put on a great concert too!!

Heading to Bills pizza for some yummy dinner after the concert. What a fun night!!!