Trophy Girl!

Maylie was so excited to win a trophy for being the girl in her class who walked/ran the most laps during their Walk-A-Thon in October. She tied with another girl, both of them completing 23 laps which is almost 3 miles!!

Mrs. Eby presented her with a trophy at the end of her preschool day on Friday, November 15th...

She was thrilled with earning it two years in a row and proudly displays and shows off her two trophies to anyone who comes to the house! 

Baltimore Aquarium

The kids had Friday, November 8th off from school so we spent the day in Baltimore to celebrate an early birthday for our niece/cousin Willow. 

We spent most of the morning at the Aquarium. We hadn't visited there in a long time and the kids all really enjoyed seeing all of the aquatic life. 

Hudson was a huge fan of all the fish, rays, and sharks!

We ended our day in the Australian area of the aquarium.

Where Abby found an Australian "Yabby" which she is pointing to here!

Afterwards we ate lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and stuffed ourselves full before making the drive back to Hagerstown. It was a fun family day!

Shopping Buddies!

Admittedly most of my shopping is done from my computer these days, including my grocery shopping where all I have to do is place my order and pick it up a few hours later!

But we do venture into the grocery store every now and then and on this day I relented and let them ride in the bright pink car together. It was Hudson's first time in the car shopping cart and he was quite the fan. He was so excited that he wanted to drive using both steering wheels!

Ninja Warrior Competition

Landon participated in the Ninja Warrior Competition at 4 Star Obstacles on Saturday, November 2nd. There were 18 competitors and he ended up being the very last one to compete. Talk about never-wracking! He did an amazing job and flew through most of the obstacles like they were no big deal!

He only failed on this one obstacle below called the Flapjacks. Only one kid got made it through this obstacle during the entire competition.

He ended up taking 3rd place (only missing out on 2nd place by 2 seconds!) He was thrilled with the whole experience!

Trick-or-Treat...a day late!

October 31st was actually kind of a bust in Maryland this year. It was pouring rain and we were under a tornado watch so the weather was pretty terrible. Fortunately the city of Hagerstown postponed Trick-or-Treating until the next night so the kids didn't miss out on anything. Plus doing it on November 1st meant we were out on a Friday night, which is way better in my opinion since we didn't have to worry about school the next day!

This year we had an astronaut...

A Troll Hunter...

A unicorn...

A pirate...

And baby shark!!

Oh we also had Daddy Shark and Mommy Shark too!

The kids all ready to hit up our neighbors for some candy!!

My sister and her family were able to join us again this year. Everyone was in costume and no one was crying during the pictures this year which may have been a first!

They ended up with full bags of candy and many full-sized candy bars which they were thrilled about. Hudson had to be taken home a little early as he was not a fan of walking around in the cold and basically thought it was the dumbest holiday ever! I'm sure he will be singing a different tune once he can actually eat some candy!

11 months!!

Hudson looks a little banged up for his 11 month pictures but I was still able to get that cute little smile!

This boy is into EVERYTHING now and definitely keeps us on our toes. He loves climbing the stairs and enjoys yelling at his minions (all of us) from the landing that overlooks our living room! He is super loud and doesn't sit still for a moment. He loves to eat and cries after every meal is over! We sure do love this little man and can't imagine our lives without him in it. It's hard to believe that he will be one next month!

Dog Bite

I was in the middle of making dinner on Monday, October 28th when I heard our dog Maya start growling and then lunge at Hudson. Hudson had been trying to use Maya's fur to climb up and when Maya barked at him, her bark collar went off which startled her even more and she bit Hudson hard across the face. Hudson started screaming and at first I thought he was just scared but then I saw blood running down his face. I had no idea where the blood was coming from so I hurried to clean him up as best as I could. He has a mark right on the edge of his nose, one on the side of nose and a pretty deep gash on his cheek. It took us a while to calm him down and then I called Jason who was at an MSO board meeting and he rushed straight home. We took him to UNI Urgent Care but they felt he was too young to treat so we took him to After Hours Pediatrics. The doctor there wasn't comfortable stitching on the face since the mark on his cheek looked like it might need a stitch of two. We weren't up for spending several hours at the ER that night so the next day we took him to another Urgent Care facility where they prescribed him some oral antibiotics and cream to help prevent infection and said they really don't like to stitch dog bites since the risk of infection is so high. He may have a little scar on his cheek but being so young, hopefully he will heal well!

We also took our dog Maya to the vet and she was put on a 10-day quarantine to stay away from all human and animals which is quite challenging to do in our home. This is just a precaution to insure that she doesn't have rabies (pretty unlikely since she is mostly an indoor dog.) Maya doesn't understand why she can't be around others and is always trying to escape. Once the 10 days of quarantine are up, we need to make a decision about whether to put her to sleep. She is 16 years old, her hearing and eyes are failing and she has some pretty bad arthritis. She has been a really good dog for us for many years but the last few years she has gotten really grumpy and this latest incident was very scary for all of us. We have a pretty tough decision to make soon:(