Mikey's broken arm

Some of you have already heard that on Saturday morning Mikey broke his arm. We have a portable dishwasher that usually (not usually...Always!) is locked up in the bathroom so neither Honor or Mikey can mess around with it. Well.....Friday night everyone wasn't feeling great, we all have colds so Darren and I decided to leave the dishes until the morning and left the dishwasher in the kitchen instead of wheeling it back to the bathroom. Saturday morning comes around and Mikey decided to get up before everyone and make his way downstairs. Soon after he got downstairs Darren and I hear a thud, crash and Mikey screaming! He must have unlocked the dishwasher door, pulled it down and kept pushing it down because that's the only way we can figure the he pulled the whole machine over on it's door with the door on his arm. We are so lucky that it only got his arm! Because of how it fell on him it hit in 2 places, his hand and right above his wrist. I rushed over to the Urgent care with him while Darren stayed with Honor and Thorin. Luckily again we got there just in time before they got busy there and we were rushed from one place to the other. At first the doctor thought he was fine and would just have a bad bruise but sent us to x-ray anyway. After the x-rays we found out both bones were indeed broken right above the wrist. They rushed us over to the treatment room where they fitted him with a splint that hardened over 24hrs to conform to his arm, which is so much better than having to put him in a cast! He's miserable of course because he also has a cold and an ear infection right now so the poor thing is on Amoxi, tylenol and cold meds to keep him comfortable.
Here's some pics of Mikey with his splint and also some of Thorin at 2 months old!!

Thorin Nova Alanson Slocum

Here are pictures of Thorin when he was only minutes old. We're still trying to figure out who he looks like....he definitely doesn't looks like Mikey when he was born so we're going to have to dig out some pics of Honor

He was born 7/8/08 at 2:29am
Weight: 6lbs 14 oz
Length: 19.5 in





Labor and delivery story for those who are interested:
Around 8:00pm on the 7th I started having my usual nightly contractions. These normally lasted a few hours and stopped by the time I went to bed. We finally went to bed at about midnight and the contractions were still going about every 5 minutes. By 12:30 I couldn't lay down anymore and felt like things were getting serious, I was up every few minutes peeing or pooping (which I know is a sign of your body getting ready) but I still didn't wake up Darren, I guess I didn't want to face the fact that this could be it. A little after 1am I figured I should get him up since the back labor started just like I had with Honor and knew it was time. We called Mimi, Beth and the doctor to let them all know what was going on. By 1:30 we were on our way to St. Vincent's Hospital with my contractions about 1-2 minutes apart and all back labor. Once we got into the ER and over to registration I started really getting anxious, knowing it wasn't going to be too long until my body was going to give this baby the boot! I asked the lady if someone was coming down to get me because I needed to get to L&D now! They sent down this lady with a wheelchair for me who was probably in her 70's and walked as fast as a snail in molasses. Luckily she didn't put up a fight when Darren told her he was going to push me and off we went through what felt like a million doors and hallways. Once we got into the room they made me change into a johnny and pee in a cup which was very difficult to do between contractions! I kept telling them to get the Dr. in here to check me because I go quick and feel like I have to push. The nurse ended up checking me since the dr. wasn't coming too quickly and found that I was 9.5 cm already and told me I could push if I felt like it. She went to get the hook to break my water but it was too late! My water exploded seconds before Thorin made his entrance at 2:29 am. One more push and he was out and crying! No time for IV, no time for monitoring me or the baby or to get a team together for the delivery! I couldn't believe when Darren told me he was a boy, at first I thought he was kidding...the nurse asked if we knew what we were having and Darren looked and said I do now! It's a boy!
For being born exactly at 36 weeks Thorin's doing amazing, never needed any time in the NICU and has been eating like a champ! As long as all goes well we'll be heading home tomorrow.
It's been nice and quiet here at the hospital but I'm ready to get home!

Baby #3's almost here!

Just a few more weeks and we'll be a family of 5! Crazy!! I went in for my appointment this week and found out my blood pressure's creeping up, no big surprise there. At least it's been under control up until this point much better than it was with Honor or Mikey. It just stinks that now I'm on bedrest. My dr. was worried that I was measuring small so I had an ultrasound yesterday too. Things look good, the baby's head down and s/he is measuring just over 5lbs. And no, we don't know the sex. I don't think the tech could tell me if she wanted to since the bum and feet were in the way. It'll be so exciting to find out boy or girl with everyone else! Darren and I decided that I'm in charge of the girl name, he's in charge of the boy name. I made my final decision yesterday but I think he still has yet to decide on his. But he really doesn't have to worry since I still feel this one's a girl.
We're also getting ready to close on the house next weekend!! So many things happening! It's nice though that we don't have to get out of the apartment immediately so we can take our time moving. It's also nice that we're only moving about 4 miles from the apartment!
Honor's having a great time in school. This week they were learning about bugs. They each have a caterpillar that they are watching grow and become a butterfly! It's tough to get out of her what they did at school when I pick her up but she was excited about telling us about the bugs! :) Also last week she was so excited to tell us she had an important job as the door holder. She got to hold the door and let all her friends out to the playground and they all said thank you! It was a very big deal!
Mikey's enjoying his time making Mommy crazy being the monkey that he is. Any chance he gets he's up on the bathroom counter, sitting in the sink, turning the water on and soaking his diaper. He's also figured out 2 words that get him attention, Ow and No. Now any time he wants attention for something he says OW! even if there's nothing wrong. And he voicing his opinion about pretty much everything with a shake of the head and a definite No!


















Darren's been miserable for the past week....he's getting over a horrible brush with poison oak. What we think happened was the dogs got it on their fur from the Tufts field where we take them running a lot. Then Darren got the oils on his arms and spread it from there. Honor and I got a bit of it too but not as bad as he did. Thankfully the worst of it is finally over and his neck and arms are healing. Next time we're going to be a lot more careful, we don't want to have to go through it again!
My Athena's business is going fantastic! My first party was amazing! All the ladies had such a great time and I was so happy to help them with whatever problems or questions they had. It's a nice feeling knowing that you helped other women feel more comfortable and more confident about themselves and in turn make their partner happier too. I can't wait to do more parties in July since I'm taking the rest of June and part of July off (hoping that's when the baby comes!!) ...Have you been touched by the goddess? ;) www.athenashn.com/goddess/2131 (I love what I do!)

What we've been up to....

Geez! I can't believe it's almost June! So for those of you who remember the fiasco we went through with the other house.....we bought a bigger, better one!! The only thing is that it's in Millbury, not in Grafton. I know lots of people keep asking what's the big deal, it's one town over, but we just love Grafton....nothing really against Millbury. We are right over the border from Grafton into Millbury, the house next door is actually in Grafton! Any way, we couldn't pass this house or this property up. It's a 4 bedroom farmhouse with almost 4 acres with it. The previous owners had horses so there are 2 corrals, 3 stables and plenty of room to expand! It's funny how things seem to always work out.
We're closing on the house the end of June which gives us hopefully a few weeks before the baby is born! Right now I'm 30 weeks, (boy time flies!) and when we move I'll be about 35 weeks. If this one's anything like big sis and big bro s/he will be here at 37 weeks. But it'll be so nice to bring the baby home to the new house!
Also most of you know about my new business venture. I went to a party at a friend's house (you know who you are....) and had a fantastic time all the while thinking....hmmm, I could do this...and then...who wouldn't want to do this?? So now I'm proud to say that I am Goddess #2131 with Athena's Home Novelties. It really has to be the best home based business opportunity out there. The parties are so fun, not your typical Tupperware or Tastefully Simple or Avon, this is stuff that can change your life! It's about making women feel good about themselves, making them more self confident, making them feel like Goddesses!! I really believe that Athena's can do that. The products are top notch and everything is confidential (unless you want to share) I like to say that I sell bath and body products along with products that keep couples together and happy for a long time :) My website is www.athenashn.com/goddess/2131 and if you click in the upper left corner "shop athena's" and you can see all the products and order if you'd like or contact me and I'll help you with anything. You can book a party and have the party that everyone will be talking about for years! I do girls night out parties, couples and bachelorette parties. So much fun!!! Especially couples parties...have you and your other half been in "those stores" and bought some thing just to bring it home and have no idea what it's used for or just laugh every time you see it because you're embarassed? I actually went to training over mother's day weekend so I know what all those things are used for! :)
Ok, enough about that (can you tell I'm excited?)
Honor's doing really well in school. Everyday she comes home with a new song. Today I think it was Baa Baa Black Sheep...she already knows her alphabet and can count to 50! Next week she moving from Nursery school to Preschool, 1 of the teachers moves with the kids to the new room so they're comfortable and they'll get 1 other teacher that's new. They really think about making a safe comfortable environment for the kids at the Early Learning Center, I'm happy we went with them.
Mikey's doing great! He's learning new words like "ME" and "NO" which he likes to use often! He also has his favorites like cup, ball and bubbo (which is balloon). I swear he's going to be a jock when he gets older....always wants to play catch or bounce a ball and he's not even 18 months yet! Well, almost 18 months. But he already can throw a ball, kick it and he's working on dribbling! Crazy! He still loves to climb....he's so strong! He can pull himself up into the kitchen and bathroom sinks, which he tries to do any opportunity he gets. Darren even found him almost on the top of the fridge the other day because he pulled himself into the kitchen sink, on to the counter, stepped on the toaster and knocked stuff over (which made Darren jump up to see what was going on) and he was pulling himself up onto the fridge! It'll be exciting to find out what #3 has in store for us!!

First Day at Davis' Farmland 2008!!

This is Snickers the llama :) I love llamas!

So I picked Honor up from school early and told her we were going on an adventure! She kept asking if we were going to the park and if we could go to Dean park which is the big playground around here. When we finally turned on to Redstone Hill Rd. where the farmland is she started to figure it out.



Honor actually stopped for a minute and let me take a picture before we went in. It was such a gorgeous day 0ut and I even got a bit of a sunburn on my arms!
Our first stop, after face painting, is usually the calf pen. The baby cows are so cute!!


The clowns petting them are pretty cute too. :)













I was great this year that Mikey is able to do more, he had so much fun feeding the sheep and goats!! But for some reason he's scared of the black sheep....every time one came near him he would run for me and bury his face in my leg!
Honor did a great job this time milking the milk goat named Milkshake (that was a lot of milks in a row.) She even got a high-five from the farmer.
We were (or I guess I was) pretty excited to know that Snickers the llama was now in the "advanced cuddle corner." The cuddle corners are pens that you can go into and feed, cuddle and pet the animals in there. We had a great time seeing Snickers up close and getting "llama kisses."
We also got to see every one's favorite cow Annie. She's a Dexter cow that LOVES to eat! She'll stick her tongue out for you to pour as much food in there as possible and then stick it out again for more. She did eat the rest of the food we had but it's was ok since we were off to the play area.
The first day each year I take a picture of the kids at the growth chart there...it'll be great to look back at each one years from now. I was lucky to get Mikey's though, he was more than ready to go play in all the play grounds.
Here they are in the "camp ground play area"







Mikey's vacuuming the wood chip in the little village area.





Honor's enjoying herself in the little pond they

just added this year. I'm not sure how I feel about that one yet but at least she had a ball!


We even got to see Moo Moo before we left.










And here's the aftermath of having some good clean fun!!

Updated pictures

These pics are from today when we went across the street to play at the playground. Honor was really excited about using chalk but Mikey decided it was more fun to throw them down the storm drain!

Hooray!....It's Spring!!

So let's see....there's lots to catch up on (yet again) :) The house that we put a bid on way back on the day after Christmas is about 99.9% ours. The banks have finally approved the offer and hopefully we'll be closing at the end of the month. Even though it took a long time I think it worked out for the best since it'll be less time that we have to pay on the apartment if we can't get anyone in before September. Also I think more people are looking for new places now that it's Spring.
Things are going well with the baby. The ultrasound showed that it's a perfect, healthy baby and even though we don't know what it is yet I'm still pretty sure it's a girl. I say girl and Darren says boy but seriously, I'm all hips and butt so it has to be a girl. Also I eat anything bad for me and I gain a pound.
It's so nice that it's finally getting warmer out...I think we've hit every playground in the area. It's great to see Honor and Mikey be able to tackle parts of the jungle gyms that they couldn't before (even though Mikey almost always gives me a heart attack!!). We're anxiously awaiting the opening of Davis Farmland, I think it's going to be so much more fun this year now that Mikey will be able to interact more and Honor understands more about the animals.

Honor's 3!

It's a little late but Happy #3 to Honor!! We went to Chuck E. Cheese's to celebrate and Honor's friends Kaitlyn and Alison joined us there. There were lots and lots of other kids there so it was good that we were a small group and everyone had a great time.
Honor's happy to finally be 3, now instead of saying she's almost 3 for the past 4 or 5 months she can say "I'm Feree" :) as she holds up her pinky, ring and middle finger (her thumb is holding down the index finger)
Also now that she's 3 it's time for preschool!! Honor is going to the Early Learning Center in Grafton and seems to enjoy it. She does have a hard time in the morning when I drop her off but the teachers are really great at getting her involved with something while I sneak out. She usually gets to feed the fish or paint which she loves!
I've been trying to get her a bit prepared for the new baby since she was too young to really remember anything about when Mikey was a newborn. I keep asking her if she wants to be a big sister again and she says "Sure" which usually her answer for everything. Then when anyone asks her if she wants a brother or a sister she always says a brother. Even though we don't officially know what this one is I'm sure it's a girl. Hopefully she won't keep calling the baby her brother if it's really her sister. :) I think she thinks of herself as the sister and she can only have brothers since that's what she's used to and always hears. The other day I told her to be careful around my stomach (like not elbowing me or trying to sit on my stomach) because there's a baby in there and she could squish it. She asked me if she could sit and watch the baby hatch! I told her she'd be there a while since the baby won't hatch until July so now she keeps telling me that she has babies in her tummy (a boy and a girl) and they're going to hatch really soon. Too cute sometimes! :)

Scan of the new peanut

It's not a great picture but it's the first of the new addition. For those who have no clue what your looking at, the blob in the middle of the black circle is the baby. It's sleeping there face down with the head on the left, it slept during most of the ultrasound which is why there weren't any good pics. Hopefully after the "big" ultrasound March 3rd there will be some better pics to show off. :)
I had an appointment yesterday and was surprised I lost 6 pounds!! Aren't pregnant women supposed to gain weight? But it's good, my Dr. and I were pretty happy. She only wants me to gain about 10 pounds at the most instead of the gazillion pounds I gained with Honor but I did good with Mikey only gaining about 12 pounds, hopefully I can do it again!!
Everyone here has been sick for what seems like forever! It started with a cold that went from Honor to Mikey to me and now Darren and once it seemed like Honor was over her cold she got a tummy bug that then went to Mikey and now I think I've got a touch of it. It's hard though to tell between my all day nausea that I get when pregnant or an actual stomach bug. It would be nice if finally no one was coughing, sneezing or having to run into the bathroom for one thing or another. Plus Mikey's finally teething again, he hasn't gotten any teeth since he was about 7 months old so it's about time! Anyway, enough of the misery here....Mikey's learned a few more words! He's been saying Dada for a long time but now he's got Mama, Nonah (Honor), Mimi (Grammy), Pipi (Pippin), Gum (come), Go, Dis (this), Dat (that), baby and goobah (goodbye)...very cute. :)

Pic Overload!!

I haven't posted any new pictures so here they are!.....

This is the kids today, Honor was being a good big sis and making sure Mikey was ok while I vacuumed. It was very sweet.



This was at Higgins Armory Museum Jan. 5th 2007



Mystic Aquarium




Mikey playing with Foster



Mikey's first Horse-back ride, Honor's an old pro already



Mikey's first birthday party at Tiny Toes

Baby Update

So I finally got an appointment with the OB on Monday. Everything looked good, I got a quick ultrasound to check how far along I am....I was guessing about 9-10 weeks and the baby measured 11 weeks 1 day! (That was a little different than when we went for our ultrasound for Mikey thinking I was about 8 weeks and find out I was only 6 weeks.) We got 1 picture, the baby wasn't cooperating much for good pics, it was sleeping with it's back to us. The next big ultrasound is March 3rd but it won't be that exciting since we're not finding out if it's a boy or girl but it's always fun to see the baby! She did put me on an aggressive dose of antibiotics just to be safe since I did drink some of the milk affected by the Whittier farm recall but hopefully it's only a precaution and I didn't actually drink any milk with listeria in it! It's nice to know that I'm almost out of the 1st trimester so my "All day sickness" will be tapering off soon. And the new due date is July 31st!

The Cat's out of the Bag! ;)

Cat, Baby, either way most of you know already that Baby Slocum #3 is on the way! We think s/he is due early August but not exactly sure yet....hopefully we'll have a better idea after the first OB appointment on Monday 1/7/08. It would be really neat if the birthday was 8/8/08 especially since Darren's birthday is Aug. 8th but since these 2 came early (3 weeks early) I doubt this one will make it into August. We kept it a secret from most up until the Family Christmas party last Saturday where Mikey wore a shirt I made for him saying "Big Bro 2008" Not everyone got it at first but as the day went on a few caught on to it and then it snowballed from there. :) It was fun to see everyone's reactions! We'll keep posting as we find out more although we're pretty sure we're not going to find out boy or girl this time until the big day.....how many times in you life do you really get such an incredible surprise??

Christmas 2007

What a great Christmas this year! It was so fun to see the kids get excited about Santa for weeks and then get up on Christmas and see all the things that he brought for them. Honor had asked for Baby Born which most of you would know if you talked to her between Thanksgiving and Christmas! :) Santa brought her Dora's Magical Castle and Mikey a neat wooden workbench. Of course the magic wands that came with Dora's castle are more fun to play with than the actual castle (Honor like to point them at someone and say "Shazam!") and the tools that go with the workbench are more fun to play with but that's ok. Santa did bring Baby Born and Honor's actually playing with her right now, sitting on the couch asking Baby if she's cold or hungry and telling her not to cry....very cute. :) And Santa also brought Mikey a Big Tonka dump truck, big enough to sit in and go for a spin in the bed of the truck. Santa had left these at Mimi's house so she could bring them later in the morning which was a good idea, that way there wasn't too much chaos in the morning.

We had a great dinner of roast beef, orange glazed carrots, spinach, green beans and sweet potato casserole by Mimi. Overall it was a great, fun, quiet day for all....probably the last time I can say that about a Christmas!