Topsfield Fair

Brady and Grammy

In front of the giant pumpkin

Cameron and his crazy face

Brady going down the giant slide

Last weekend we went to Topsfield fair.  Although it was PACKED we still managed to see somethings and have a good time.  My parents came with us this year and it was nice to spend some time with them.  They even took Liam around for a little while while we watched the tiger show with Cameron and Brady.  It was fun spending some family time together.

Belt promotion

The 3 of us and sempia Munoz after graduation

Brady holding strong doing push ups!

time for our front kick!

Cameron holding strong!!!!

The little Dragon's class

A little congradulations after receiving my certificate

time for some meditation

This past weekend we had our belt graduation. I received my Orange belt, Brady got his green belt and Cameron got his purple/blue belt.  I am so glad that we are able to do this together.  We all enjoy karate so much and we all look forward to the day when we reach our black belt.

Cameron's first day

OK While it is a little late I still wanted to post pictures of Cameron's first day of preschool.  This year he goes 3 days a week and absolutely loves it.  His first day was different this year because I no longer walk him in, we pull the car up and the kids walk into school themsleves. Cameron did awsome!  He jumped out of the car said "bye Mom" and off he went.  He loves school his biggest complaint is that he wants to go every day!  Sooon enough little man, soon enough.

School Days

This Wednesday Brady became an official Kindergatener.  He was so excited and nervous.  Tuesday night we went to the open house at the school and he got to meet his teacher  and see his classroom.  He aslo got a Pollard Pride T-shirt to wear on his first day. (it make s it easier to spot the kindergarteners on their first day)

Wednesday morning Brady got up and got himself all ready and was ready to go on the bus.  Luckily we have quite a few daycare kids that get on the bus at our house so he had lots of friends to get on the bus with.  He looked so small on the bus I will admit I did get teary.  When I picked him up from his first day he was all smiles and couldn't wait to go back the next day.  Today was his second day and last day for the week, When I pulled up at car pick up his teacher came over to my car to tell me that she had done her base line assessments for him and that he is already where they would expect them to be by the end of kindergarten.  It was so nice to hear.  As parents we all think our own kids are smart, but it was nice to hear he is definately where he needs to be.

A trip to the Children's Museum

Belt Promotion

Saturday was a big day , the boys got new belts and I got my first belt!! I am officially a yellow belt, Cameron is a purple belt and Brady is a blue belt.  Karate has been one of the greatest things that I have done for myself lately.  I love how positive it is and how I feel like I Really can do ANYTHING I set my mind to.

Liam's hospital stay

at the hospital not feeling well

Ready to go home!

On thursday Afternoon Liam all of sudden started being very whiny and just wanted to lay on me so after a while of that I realized he felt hot, I took his temp and it was 102.8  This was a little discouraging as we had plans to go to water country on Friday with friends.  We gave him tylenol and motrin all night and his fever was steadily rising.  Before I went to bed I checked his temp again and it was 103.8.  At this point Brian and I made the desicion to have me stay home the next day and take Liam to the doctors and he would tak ethe kids to water country.  I took Liam to the doctors pretty early, by this point he was pretty much just laying on me and sleeping his fever had started to go down.  I honestly was hoping for an ear infection, however the first thing the doctor checked was his ears and of course they looked fine.  They then did a urine cath to see if he had a UTI and a strep test and sent us for blood work.  becuae he had such a high fever adn was presenting so lethargic they decided to give him a shot of Rocefin ( a broad spectrum antibiotic) that would cover him for mostly anything he might have.  I went home with the instructions to call them first thing in the morning with an update and the test results would be ready by then.  That night Liam was completely lethargic and at that point didn't eat lunch or dinner and had a few sips of something to drink.  I put him to bed at 6:00pm, he slept through the night very restlessly. at 5:30 am I was woken up to Liam crying I went in his room and sat in the rocking chair with him and then next thing I knew he threw up on me.  He laid on me lethargic for the rest of the morning and threw up every time I tried to get him to take some water.  I took him to the doctors and ALyssa, Brian's sister came to stay with the boys. (Brian was at teh High school helping to run the Miss Plaistow Pageant and this was something he couldn't get out of, and something I was supposed to be helping with.) We both were feeling guilty that weren't going to be where we felt we were supposed to be that day so we decided that this was the situation that was handed to us and we would go about our day doing what we needed to do and NOT feel guity about it.  I took liam to the Doctors early again, at this point I was pretty sure that he needed to be admitted to the hospital for dehydration, I had NEVER seen him this sick before.  The doctor (not our normal doctor) said that his blood cultures were negative but because he was still so sick he would give him another shot of the antibiotic to cover him.  he didn't think he was dehydrated cause he had tears and was drooling, when the nurse came in to give him his shot she said she thought he looked worse than the day before.  I made the comment that if it were our primary care doc she would be sending us to the hospital cause this just was NOT my son.  the nurse didn't give him the shot, but went out and talked to the doctor, next thing I knew they were sending me over to Lawrence General admitting.  When we got there was a lot that needed to be done which included another urine cath more blood work and an IV.  they started his IV and got him started on some IV fluids while they waited for his blood work, they were questioning how dehydrated he was because he was still making tears and drooling.  The docotr came back with shocked look on her face, he had ketones in his urine and his bicarb level was at 14 (they like it atleast at 24)  they added more fluids and said they wanted to do more blood work in a little while.  right after I got him in bed for what I thought was the night, the team came back in to take blood to repeat some things and add in a blood gas. after that Liam didn't want to sleep in the crib so he ended up sleeping on me for the night, needless to say mommy didn't get much sleep, the next morning they said his levels were doing much better and seeing as all his cultures were negative it probably was a virus, so they would let us go!  We have been home all day and he's been drinking a little, we will go back to our primary care doc tomorow morning to follow up but it certainly was an intersting weekend to say the least.  Thank you to everyone who sent your love either on face book, in an e mail or in a phone call.  You all helped me get through a difficult situation.

Summer vacation 2011

This year we went on our summer vacation with Dustin and Elizabeth and Meredith Maciver.  We started off our trip bright and early Thursday morning. We met at eh Maciver's house for 7:30 and started our Drive to Clark's Trading post.  Brady and Cameron watched a movie, but sadly Liam is not a big car sleeper and although he was tired refused to fall asleep and pretty much cried the whole last hour of the car trip.  Luckily the older boys were so engrossed in their movie that it really didn't bother them, I on the other hand was ready to pull my hair out!  We go to Clark's when they opened at 9:30.  We slathered the kids with sunscreen and set off for our morning.  We went on the train ride and saw the wolf man, the boys and Brian and Dustin went on the bumper boats and soaked each other, and Of course we saw the bear show and the acrobat show.  after all that we had our picnic lunch and hit the road to head to our hotel.

playing in the bumper boats

playing with his brother on the train

the bear show

the acrobat show

and he finally decided to sleep

We got to our hotel and decided to let the kids go in the pool for a while, then headed out to North Conway for dinner.  By this time it was 5:30 we were all hungry and there was a wait at just about every restaurant we went to, so we ended up finally getting a table at Friendly's which was fine with the kids because they got ice cream with their meal.  After dinner we headed back and got the kids ready for bed.  When the kids went to bed the adults actually had time to sit and talk and we played a cut throat game of scattegories.  We haven't had a night of just adult time since we have all had kids.  The next morning the kids were up bright and early, so excited to be going to story land.  We were staying in a condo and had brough stuff to make breakfast so we had pancakes and turkey sausage to start our day.  We packed our lunch headed to Dunkin donuts to energize with some coffee and headed to storyland.  We were nevouse abou the weather, the day before when we had looked it was saying it was going to be in the 80's and sunny.  In the morning when we looked the forecast had changed drastically and was saying cloudy, rain and cold.  we decided to chance it and we could always get a rain check and come back the next day, but it worked out perfectly, with it being overcast there weren't alot of people at the parks so we really never waited more than a few minutes to get on rides, it wasn't too hot and it didn't rain until we had left adn were driving back to the hotel.  The boys had a great time.  Brady went on the polar coaster and the bamboo shoots a couple of times because there were no lines, Cameron still likes the slower rides but did go on the faster rides one time each.  Liam was great and slept in the ergo when he needed to enjoyed the rides he could go on.  We stayed until 4:30 and then headed back to the hotel, the boys went to the pool while Elizabeth and I stayed in the condo with the babies.  We ordered pizza from the hotel and when the boys got back they had dinner and it was time for bed.    In the morning we had breakfast and got cleaned up and checked out.  we went into North Conway to do some outlet shopping and of course make our annual trip to the life is good store, did some shopping, had a picnic lunch and headed home.  luckily this time Liam slept a little bit and only started to cry about the last 5 miles.  Much more managable.  We had a wonderful time and were happy to share our vacation with our firends the Macivers!  It's hard to believe that a year ago we were on the same vacation with  an 8 week old and this year he is almost walking.  It just shows us how fast time goes and how we need to cherish these moments we have together.

We are looking forward to many more summer vacations to come!

what a differance a year makes

Ok so Brian and I didn't change but the boys certainly did! Will post about our trip soon but just thought this was neat!!!

2010

2011

A day at the museum

Today we were all on vacation, Brian is off for the week and I am CLOSED!!!! (insert happy dance)  Liam had to go into MGH for his 12 month kidney check so we decided to make a day of it.  Brian Dropped Brady,Cameron and Me off at The Museum of Science and he walked over to MGH with Liam.  We had a blast, the boys got to see lots of things, we went to the live animal show and to the Electricity show.  Once again Brady surprised me when he saw a bike hooked up to a light bulb he said, "Mommy I think the bike is going to act like a generator for the light bulb and turn it on when you peddle"  Holy Cow that is a pretty astute observation for a 5 year old.  When we got out of the lightning show Brian was back with Liam and we were able to have lunch together and do some more exploring and the boys wanted to bring Daddy back to some of their favorite exhibits.  We had a great day and considering we can get the Library passes that get us in for 5$ each instead of 20$ per person we will definatley be going back at some point.

Cameron discovering magnetism

Being creative

waiting for the animal show to start

Liam playing in the kids discovery center

Playing with electricity