OK, so it was brought to my attention that, yes, I do actually have a blog audience and that I need to step it up as far as posting a little more than once every 5 months. I really cannot believe it has been that long since my last post, but surely enough, it has.
I'm in my last term of school, hoping to finish in late October. I'm taking 3 classes = 16 credits. Needless to say, I'm a tad stressed. I've been working 3rd shift for a couple of months for Metro Medical Labs, rotating between Trinity - Molne and Trinity - Rock Island.
Clayton started his second year of pre-school last month. He's attending a new school which is at the church where Nathan's grandma and parents attend. The change was a little bit of an adjustment for all of us, but he's liking it better every day. He's super excited to start Kindergarden at Cody Elementary next fall.
Nathan is working for S&V Fence in Eldridge and is doing GrassMaster on the side. I made a new site for him, http://www.qcgrassmaster.com . It's definitely under construction, since I did the site for a class I was taking and had to meet certain criteria. He's starting to offer a new service to his cutomers: mud jacking. I don't know much about it yet, but he assures me it'll keep him very busy. He also informed me that we're signed up to take a mud-jacking class in Rockford, date TBA....WOOO-HOOOOO! You know what they say: the couple who mudjacks together stays together, right? I know, bad attempt at humor, but I wonder if the credits will transfer....
That just leaves the dogs. Rainer is 10 this year and still thinks he's a puppy at times. But, his gray is starting to show up quite a bit. Fritz on the other hand...where do I even begin? His health is on a major decline this year, as he just turned 14. He does weird things like licking the couch constantly, or licking the walls. We have a spot on our bedroom wall where he licked the paint off down to drywall. Strange, huh? His back legs don't work very well and shake all the time. His feet slide out from under him when he tries to eat or drink. His bladder function is almost non-existent. We constantly have to watch him so he makes it outside, which is not entirely possible 24/7, so his house accidents have increased, yuck. He still throws his head back around noon-time and starts howling or barking, depending on the day. If find this amusing for about 30 seconds before I start to get incredibly annoyed, since it's usually during my sleep. It's amusing to me because when we lived in Clarence, there was a church across the street that had a bell tower that rang at noon and 5pm. He would sit at the end of our driveway, throw his head back, and howl. I'm afraid we're this close (pinching my fingers together) to making the decision no pet owner ever wants to experience. But, we feel the time is very close. Nathan, of course is having the hardest time with it, as Fritz was his first dog. Any tips/suggestions on how to make it easier? I have to extend a HUGE thank you to our friend Laura Bahns who is a vet and has already given some great advice.
Other than that, we're pretty much in the same spot as where I left off in my last post in April. I promise to post more frequently! Hope this HUGE post is finding you all well and having had a good summer. Can you believe fall is here???? I can't complain, it's my favorite time of year!
My cousin Jenny had her baby Tuesday evening. Her name is Isabella Sue-Ann Cornett. She weighed 7 lbs. 8 oz. and was 20 inches long.
Clayton 
and I went to visit them at Trinity at Terrace Park this afternoon. Jenny and Isabella are doing well. Isabella opened her eyes for a little bit...just enough time for me to take a few pictures and video.
Click on the video of her in the next column to the right.
Email Jenny and say Congratulations!
It's been a while since I've updated!
This took place the weekend of the 20th:
Clayton had been talking all week about going to his buddy Nataly Bahns' birthday party. He told us he was going to help her open her gifts and blow out the candles on her cake. I was excited to see him so excited! We all got into my car and headed to Nataly's house. A mile down the road I asked Nathan to call their house to let them know we were running a little late (as usual).
Laura had answered and told Nathan that it was OK that we were running late because the party wasn't until the next day! I had entered it into the wrong day of my calendar!
I turned the car around. I was afraid to look at Clayton in the rear view mirror. When I did, he had the hugest tears in his eyes. I said, "hey buddy, Nataly's party is tomorrow."
He turned his head toward the window and said softly, "Oh man."
I get the worst mom of the year award. That totally broke my heart! I knew we couldn't just go home and do nothing the rest of the day so I asked him if he wanted to go to the pumpkin patch instead. He perked right up and off we went.
What a save!
We went back to the same place we went to last year in East Moline. It was neat to take the same picture 2 years in a row, so I could see how tall Clayton had gotten. 
We played with the rabbits in their little petting zoo area. Clayton led us through a corn maze. He helped me pick a nice bouquet of Daliah's. We finished the day off by going out to the pumpkin patch and finding our pumpkins.
Clayton would find one he liked and kick it as if he were checking tires on a car. We tried to keep him from doing it, but he heard us laugh the first time he did it, so it was a show from then on for him.
I picked a tall narrow pumpkin with the intention of making a flower basket out of it. Clayton got a short fat one, perfect for making a scary face on it. Nathan opted not to get one, so I got another one in his place...a really cool huge white gourd.
The day turned out to be fun after all!
I'm cranking them out now! Maybe insomnia isn't so bad after all...
Craft time was interesting today.
We painted suncatchers and had a fun conversation. We had the windows open because the weather is perfect today...sunny and 65 degrees 
so far. The guys (Steve and Wayne) are at our house working today. At some point in the past few weeks, Clayton took notice of Steve's eyebrow piercing.
"Mommy, why does Steve have a staple on his face?"
Outside from below the living room windows I could hear a chuckle.
"Mommy, someday I want to have my own house." I asked why. He replied, "You can come over and clean and make me corndogs."
I started taking some pictures, playing around with different settings on the camera. I took a picture of Clayton painting, click. Another couple of pictures of our work, click click. Back to taking another picture of Clayton with 
his "thinking" tongue sticking out, Click. One more of Clayton, click, "AAAAAAHHHHH!!!" Clayton fell off his chair just as I took the picture. He had leaned over too far to paint. When he got back up, I asked what happened:
"Fritz pulled me off the chair."
Fritz is our nearly blind, mostly deaf 13-yr-old dog who lays under the table in the sunlight most of the day.
A couple of weekends ago, my mom and I took Clayton to a festival at VanderVeer Park in Davenport. The weather couldn't have been more perfect! They had a bunch of little stations set up all around the park where 
kids could do fun activities.
Clayton got to pot a small plant to keep. Then we saw a display of hundreds of bees.
After standing in line for 15 minutes, a funny clown made him an airplane balloon. 2 minutes later, it popped when he dropped it on the grass.
He and his cousin Charles tried feeding the ducks popcorn...which they didn't like so much. 
A lady standing nearby gave the boys each a slice of bread to feed the ducks. Clayton threw the whole piece in the pond and Charles started eating the slice like a sandwich.
There was a giant jumping balloon that we stood in line FOREVER to get into. Clayton jumped for maybe 2 minutes and decided he was done.
The boys had a lot of fun playing with the multi-colored parachute. They ran in and out from under it. Then they made pet rocks.
We ate lunch on a bench and then visited one more station. They made kites and flew them in the open area of the park.
After that, the boys were pretty tired so we called it a day and 
headed home.
