Preschool Halloween Dress Up Day

Sarah was so excited this morning to be able to dress up as a "friendly ghost" (her words) for preschool. Her school has a tradition of all students wearing their Halloween outfits all day on the week of Halloween! Below are some cute photos of Sarah, her teachers, and other students at school.

Sarah is dressed and ready to go! She couldn't stop saying "Boo!" all morning! When we arrived at school, people kept calling her Casper (she would glance at me with a puzzled look. I will have to show her some footage of our "old school cartoons" later.)

Here is our cutie hiding under the sheet.


Mrs. Christie is dressed as a ladybug today.



Sarah sharing a special conversation with the resident Transformer.

Here are some other friends in the 3 year old preschool class. We saw many Dorthy's this morning but also Elephants, Pirates and more!

I snuck into the four year old room to get some photos of other students. Here is Peyton, a little girl from Sarah's daycare, working on the letter of the day with her other princess friends.

Ian arrived wielding his hands (aka his lethal weapons) as a Power Ranger

Mrs. Joan played along in the role of scarecrow!

I loved this brother and sister duo. Logan and Madelyn are Batman and Bat woman!

Zale came with is had and bandanna as a very cute cowboy.
Look at this adorable little farmer! I love this expression!

We had quite a few ladybugs show up int the two year old class!

Two little ladybugs in the two year old class.

Avery (aka Dorthy) gave the class a little wink. So cute!

Mr. Terry the PE teacher said he was dressed up as a UK coach. Go cats!

Here is one last photo of Sarah's class. Of course, it is impossible to get a room full of three year olds to say "cheese" at the same time.

It is obvious that Building Blocks students love coming to school, love their teachers and love learning about God, letters, numbers, etc. We feel so blessed to have a place for Sarah to go and make friends and learn about our world today as well as the heavenly world to come. She is thrilled to be there and we are equally thrilled to send her.

Till next time,

The last weekend in October...

Boy, a couple of weeks can make all the difference...The first half of October boasted 70 and 80 degree temperatures and blue skies. All this changed around October 15. As our family illnesses began, so did the descent into colder and wetter days in the Bluegrass. As of now, Sarah is 95% healed (except for some scabs where blisters have been). I on the other hand, cannot seem to shake my sickness. I moved from a stomach virus to a sinus type infection that is leaving me with half a voice since Wednesday and no end in sight. I am already looking forward to spring and winter hasn't even arrived! I am definitely a warm weather fan. I like an occasional snow in January, but beyond that, give me the sun!

We used this last week of October to visit with friends and family as well as give a final nod to pumpkin season with a trip to Bi-Water Farm.

We went to our favorite Midway restaurant with Karen, Yoshi, and Nico on Friday night. Afterwards, we ran over to Jason and Ashley's to give her a birthday present. Believe it or not, she is a Halloween Baby! When we arrived, we found the rest of the family (Caden, Cohen, Brandy, and David our "sorta" family) playing with Ashley's new birthday present a Wii (spelling???). Needless to say, everyone was focused on the screen for the majority of my photos. That is, everyone except Cohen, who used the opportunity to climb up in the kitchen chair to snatch some M&M's while no one was looking.

When Cohen gets his mind set on something, there is nothing stopping him. Here he is caught in the act! Sarah was pretty excited to find ghost shaped cookies at uncle Jason's! The rest of the crew was completely focused on game play. Here is Caden sharing a cookie moment with Sarah. On Saturday, we decided at the last minute (as is customary) to go to Bi-water Farm to visit the pumpkin patch for a final time. We have actually gone to three farms this year! This is a new record for us. We have loved every minute of it.

Here is our Sarah standing at a whopping 3 feet tall! We took a photo at this site last year. What a difference a year can make! She seems so much like a little girl now, rather than a baby!

I just loved this photo. These goats are standing at attention for food!

This photo makes me think of one of Sarah's books "Llama, Llama, Red Pajama". Aunt Amy accompanied us on this trip. She truly is one of Sarah's best friends and is such a blessing to us. A rare family photo. If only we could get everyone looking at the camera at the same time...

Got it!

Time for a hay ride! It was a beautiful, chilly evening on the farm.

Here is the view of a hay ride from a two year old. Isn't it cute?

I wanted to jump off the ride and just sit and stare at the beautiful field.

After the hayride, the family found some playground activities to keep us occupied. I guess you could call this a hillbilly swing!

Sarah enjoyed herself on the small slide (though nothing like the gigantic one she tackled at Boyd's Orchard)

Amy is such a good sport. She will play part Sarah asks of her. Sarah riding the choo-choo train. Our little blue-eyed cutie! Chris and Amy got a little "held up" along the way.

This was Sarah's favorite part of the whole evening. She LOVED the spooky house. Here is a clip from the house. Sarah is dancing with the ghost (though you can't see Sarah). I included it because she likes watching it so much!

Would any blog post be complete without this shot?

All in all, it was a great outing!

More to come. Bye!

The Road to Recovery

Hello all,
We made it through! This was one of the hardest parenting weeks in my life. I was trying to find something positive to say about the whole experience, and I came up with this: I cannot claim that this fall break just flew by! Sarah is finally eating as of Sunday and she is eating a lot! I thought I would use this blog to catch you up on our week.


Sunday-Tuesday: Sarah was home with the grandparents in the mountains. She had a blast and so did we! We ate out, lounged around the house and actually CLEANED! You know, not the lame attempt parents of small children do to pick up the house in case company comes. I truly cleaned each room in the house for the first time in months. I was amazed how much time we seemed to have after work. I got so much done between 6:00 and 11:00pm that I felt like I had been off for three days.


By all accounts, Sarah's visit was a success. She played outside with Mamaw, ate out with Mamaw and Aunt Nancy, went shopping and was bought some goodies, and was spoiled endlessly! We met my Mom and Dad on the Mountain Parkway on Tuesday evening and I could see Sarah was crying as they pulled in. Mom said she had been complaining that her tooth hurt.

She whined the whole way home. By the next morning, I called home from work to find that Chris was taking her to the doctor. She was diagnosed with Hand, Food, and Mouth virus. She refused to eat, had huge blisters on her tongue, inside of her mouth, her thumbs, bottom, and feet. Here are a couple of photos of her during this illness.

Isn't this a pitiful sight? She ate nothing but chicken broth and drank nothing but milk for three and a half days!

You can see that her little cheeks are so swollen. No smiles for us this week.

By Sunday, we finally saw signs of the old Sarah. She began eating and wanting to get out of the house. She still had the blisters, but her attitude was remarkably better. We decided to go down the street and visit Mamaw and Papaw and Granny. We met granny outside.

Sarah was spoiled by grandparents on both sides with get well gifts. Mom sent her activity books, stickers, and candy. Chris's mom also bought her some stickers. She was so happy to be out of the house!

She was so happy to be out of the house, she couldn't stop running!

On Monday, she was finally well enough to venture out into the world. We took a trip to the library and I promised her a date at McDonald's! She ate her entire Happy Meal! I guess she is catching up on her calories. Here she is sitting with some statues at the entrance to our library. I guess she is so starved for attention that she will interact with anything!

We are so fortunate to have a local library that is so kid friendly. Sarah always finds something or someone to play with here.
I had to show another running photo. She can't seem to stop running now that she is feeling better.

Here are some of the cute characters in the children's area.

Sarah finally found someone to play with...or so she thought... This little girl wanted nothing to do with her. Oh well, maybe it is too early for play dates anyway...

I wanted to leave you with a photo of a smiling little girl. I cannot tell you how happy we are that fall break is over! (I never thought you would hear me utter those words). We truly feel blessed that hers was a fleeting illness. We are ecstatic to have our happy, healthy girl back!

But now I am getting a sore throat...More to come.

Sickness descends upon the Coleman Household!

Ugh! My fall break is here and just when Chris and I were so excited about taking Thursday and Friday off as a family, Sarah and I both ended up ill. Sarah has hand, foot, and mouth virus/disease...whatever you want to call it, it stinks! She has bumps on her bottom and feet, and large blisters on her thumbs. She has so many blisters in her mouth and on her tongue that her face is actually visibly swollen! She can barely drink milk and forget about eating anything else. When anything or anyone gets within touching distance of her mouth, she lets out a blood curdling wail. The doctor said we must wait it out for 7-10 days with no medicine! I believe this is the worst illness that she has ever had to battle in her almost 3 years! I am also dealing with some sort of stomach virus. I almost fainted at Kroger! I need a vacation from this vacation!
More to come.

Going to Grandma's house!

This weekend was no exception to our busy fall adventures. My mom and dad came up on the way to a funeral for a family member in Ohio. We celebrated Mom's birthday at the Cracker Barrel and came home for cupcakes and ice cream lovingly created by Sarah and myself. Then the real fun began. Sarah began dancing and became more wound up by the minute! Below you will see some video of the night. She stayed up way past her bedtime. Ashley and Jason also came by to visit, which explains Sarah's enthusiasm. She loves an audience! Check out the fun below.
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The next day we were greeted by some hungry ducks on our lawn. I have noticed a few of them around much more lately searching for food. On Saturday morning, I obliged them with a few crumbs. Apparently they spread the word and here is the proof. I called out to Sarah to bring some bread.

Mamaw fed them too close and they ended up on our porch.

Sarah was not too happy about them being so close to the house.

Papaw opted to watch from the sidelines.

On Sunday, we went to church and had dinner with our extended family (the Crutchfields, McReynolds, and Coleman's). On the way home, Sarah says "I'm going to the mountains with Mamaw and Papaw". I waved this off as "toddler talk" but she was not going to let this one go. I told her that mommy and daddy would not be with her and she would have to stay for a couple of days. She seemed fine with all of this. When we got home she says "Why are we here, are you two getting out?" I knew at this point she meant business. Mamaw agreed to take her and I asked Sarah how long she would like to stay. Her answer was "two days". I have never sent her home with them thus far because I honestly thought that I would be making a late night trip to Pikeville hours later. This time seemed different. She had an idea, and she was going through with it. I have agreed to pick her up on Tuesday at a halfway point on the Mountain Parkway.

Here is real proof of her leaving. Keep your fingers crossed. I will let you know how this adventure turns out! I don't even know what to do with myself. Maybe a long hot bath is in my future...

Bye for now