Lyrics

OK, this will only be funny to Bon Jovi fans, but I had to share.

In anticipation of the concert I recently attended, I listened to a fair amount of Bon Jovi music. Logan and Liam always particularly enjoyed Living on a Prayer for its "rock" quality, so it got a lot of air time in the van. Little did I know, they were memorizing the lyrics...sort of.

I overheard both boys singing separately this morning...

Logan's version

"Shake my hand, and we'll make it I swear.
OoooOH! Bring it on, Claire!"

Liam's version:

"Take my hand, and we'll make it out of squirrel.

OoooOH! Make it out of squirrel!"

Hanging Out With Friends

Our Tennessee friends (Matt, Shelly, Joel, and Amanda) came to visit us this weekend! With the culmination of Matt's ENT residency in a few short weeks and a move to Kansas in the works, they have been very busy! We are so happy they could spend a couple of days with us before they made their way to Kansas to close on their new home. We spent Saturday morning playing outside: bubbles, sidewalk chalk, and baseball!

Logan drawing a bubble

Joel Patrol

Joel gleefully showering Logan with bubbles

A grin from Liam

Ready at the plate

Run, Logan, Run!

Batter Liam

"Lil Slugger"

The kids played well together, and the grown-ups had fun playing board games and chatting. Here are a few more photos from the weekend. Best of luck in your new home, dear friends!

Matt and Jason catching up

Amanda

More Amanda

Matt, Amanda & Shelly

A Blog Protest

Isn't this a cute picture? Want to see more like it? Then put your comment at the end of this message and join me in a petition demanding fresh posts from my fellow bloggers. I won't name names, because they know who they are (cough coughLISA...ahem, ahemLESLIE ~ I love you guys.)

With you, dear friends and family, we can and WILL see action on neglected blogs.

Happy Birthday, Leslie!

"Have A Nice Day!"

Happy Birthday, Aunt Lisa!

It's your special day!  Have fun!  Wear stickers if you want to!  

Bon Jovi!

Happy Birthday Liam!

Liam turned three today, starting off with a nice breakfast in his ball gym.


For his birthday he got a new Batman big wheel trike and a basketball goal (not pictured). He was pretty excited about them and hopefully will be able to ride the big wheel a little better than the tiny little fire truck he rides now.

He had a bunch of friends over this evening for hot dogs and Scooby-Doo cake (on Scooby-Doo plates, with Scooby-Doo napkins, followed by Scooby-Doo party favors...sensing a theme?), and everyone had a good time.

He's quite excited about having his Batman and Spider-Man cake tomorrow. We have no idea why he thinks he's going to get a Batman and Spider-Man cake tomorrow. Hopefully he won't be too disappointed.

Anyway, in Liams' words: "Happy Birthday!"

Congrats Jayhawks!

What an INCREDIBLE season

and a PHENOMENAL championship game!!

ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK KU!!!

Happy Birthday, Uncle Andy!

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Wish we could see you! Haha.

How Nice to Have a Niece!

It should come as no surprise to most of you that the boys and I spent spring break in Lenexa, KS. While we were there, we welcomed a new special someone into our family...a baby GIRL!

Kate Addison arrived on March 20th (8 pounds, 7 ounces), and she is just adorable! But you don't have to take my word for it...

























See, I told you so! And do you see what she's wearing? PINK!

Who knows what Kate will have to endure with two older brothers and two older nephews to contend with? I'm guessing she will learn to hold her own pretty quickly.

We are so excited that you are here, Kate! Sending out a kiss for Kate and two big hugs for her two big brothers, Jack and Alex! We love you all!

Pineapple Empanaditas

Due to popular demand, here is the recipe for the yummy pineapple empanaditas featured in our last post.  (Recipe courtesy of Eating Well magazine, February 2008.)  

Happy Baking!

Pineapple Empanaditas
Makes 2 dozen empanaditas

1 c. whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 c. cornmeal
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. reduced fat cream cheese (Neufchatel), cut into small pieces
2 Tbsp. canola oil
4 Tbsp. low fat milk
1 and 1/2 c. chopped fresh pineapple
1/3 c. pineapple or apricot preserves
2 Tbsp. plain dry breadcrumbs
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
confectioners' sugar for dusting (optional)

1.  Whisk flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.  Add cream cheese and oil and blend with your fingers until crumbly.  Sprinkle the mixture with milk, 1 Tbsp. at a time, and stir with a fork until the dough just comes together - the mixture will still be a little crumbly.  Knead a few times in the bowl, then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead a few more times until the dough comes together.  Divide in half and shape into 2 discs.  Wrap in plastic and refrigerate until chilled, at least 30 minutes or up to 2 days.  

2.  Combine pineapple and preserves in a small saucepan.  Bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook, stirring often, until syrupy, 12-15 minutes.  Mash the pineapple into smaller chunks with a potato masher or fork.  Remove from the heat; stir in breadcrumbs and cinnamon.  

3.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.  

4.  On a well-floured surface, roll out one disc of dough at a time into a 1/8-inch-thick circle.  Cut circles of dough using a 3-inch round cookie cutter.  Repeat with the remaining dough, re-rolling scraps as necessary, to make 24 circles.  

5.  Place 1 tsp. pineapple filling in the center of each circle.  Fold in half, press edges together and crimp with a fork.  Place on the prepared baking sheet.  

6.  Bake the empanaditas until golden, 12-15 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack and let cool slightly.  Serve warm or at room temperature, dusted with confectioners' sugar, if desired.  

Tropical Winter

Jill bought a pineapple at the store earlier this week, which turned out to be fantastic. As luck would have it, she also had her hands on a food magazine with pineapple desserts. The result?

Pineapple empanaditas:

Amazing that we can make a tropical fruit dessert in Missouri only a day after a major snowstorm shuts down the entire city. They were delicious. Logan said "this is the best dessert I've ever had in my life." Of course, he says that about all kinds of things at least 3-4 times a week.

Ever Been Stalked By A Cheetah?

It's a little unsettling.


We're in the midst of a weekend of unseasonably warm weather here in St. Louis (it's almost 80 today) and to take advantage of it we took the boys out to the zoo yesterday. There's a new amphibian exhibit that we wanted to see, and Liam wanted to check out the elephants. So off we went.

Liam picked up a little stick on the way into the zoo which became his "shooter" for the day. He got really excited when he saw any animals. Then he shot them with his stick. I'm not sure we're doing a good job with the whole idea of zoos and conservation and nature appreciation and whatnot.

Most of the animal exhibits were fairly empty, a lot of the animals were either still wintering or just not interested in sharing the warm weather with us.

Until we got to the cheetahs.

The cheetahs

The cheetah exhibit is one of the newer, open area exhibits where the animals have a lot of room to roam and there really isn't much between them and you other than a ditch and a little bit of wire. There were five or six cheetahs out in their enclosure, including a couple that were (and I think this is really the most accurate description) stalking the crowd. Particularly the kids. There were a couple of times that a group of kids would run by and the cheetahs literally locked on like heat-seeking missiles and sprinted along, keeping the kids in sight. One of them looked to be seriously trying to work out how to get over the ditch and into the crowd. It was a little unnerving, but really cool to see. Most of the time the big cats are fairly languid. Not this time.

Afterwards we wandered over to the Asian elephant area, which is home to a new baby elephant born last year. Again serendipity struck and we found ourselves in the midst of an impromptu performance. The trainers were trying to get some of the elephants separated and needed to distract a group of females, so we got a show. The little elephant did a lot of food stealing and was obviously a bit of a stinker. Kids.

The elephants mid-performance

All in all a fun day! Today is even warmer, so instead of having fun we washed the cars and did yard work. Hooray. At least the kids are having a good time. Logan is actually outside playing with other kids instead of hopping in front of the Playstation (it's a miracle!)

Update on the Pandemic

For those of you who weren't aware, Logan shared his influenza with the rest of us last week and Jill and I had a rough few days. Tuesday a week ago I went to work to help with a major Boeing-U.S. Navy meeting, left work with a headache at about 10am, and by 4pm felt like I'd been hit by a truck. My temperature went from 97.8 (I took it in the morning before I left for work, just to be sure) to 103.4 within the span of about 12 hours. Jill had approximately the same experience. I was off work for most of the week, and both of us are still a little weary from the ordeal. But, we're mostly better. Except for Liam, he seems to be bent on keeping the sounds of coughing ringing throughout our house for awhile yet. That's about it, though - it isn't slowing him down like it did us.

In other news, it continues to be dreary and wintery. Jill and I are both sick of it, and I predict massive improvement of mood and outlook once the sun and 60-degree spring temps finally roll around.

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Liam's had a few good one liners lately, just a few things I've tucked away for a post footnote like this:

After I dind't shave one weekend, Liam asked me "Dad, why do you have whiskers like a tiger?" Seriously, it had only been a weekend.

Last Sunday morning he wanted to know "When is Grandma Sue coming to drink coffee?"

The other day - and I don't recall exactly what was said - but he had a comment that definitely included the phrase "I want to go make babies". Jill and I just looked at each other with expressions combining "Did he just-" and "What the?" then burst out laughing. But kind of nervously.

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Also, this is the 100th post on Cobapple. For as long as we've been doing it, it ought to be higher than that. I bet you were expecting some sort of gala bash. Alas.

A Round of Applause and A Round of Antibiotics

First, for the round of applause...

Logan had an incredibly successful day at his elementary school's Knowledge-A-Thon PTO fundraiser! The students were given a list of 100 grade level-appropriate questions to study for several weeks, and family and friends made pledges for each correct answer. The event took place on Friday, and Logan answered ALL 100 QUESTIONS correctly (as well as 3 bonus questions)! Way to go, Logan!  And thanks to all who supported Logan with donations to his school!  

And now about those antibiotics... 

I took Logan to the pediatrician this morning because he has been coughing and running a fever the past two days. (Pneumonia was the obvious suspect...but he's never run a fever with it before.) The diagnosis was pneumonia AND influenza. Antibiotics are underway, and we are more anxious than ever to proceed with the pulmonologist evaluation next month. (This makes 5 episodes of pneumonia since last April...I thought they were a little closer together than that, but that's plenty close enough!)

How sad that I was posting about antibiotics for Logan exactly one month ago today, and here we are again.  This kid deserves a break!  

By the way, Liam's eye continues to improve.  One more week ought to do the trick.  

Unstoppable

So it's been fairly quiet lately, which Liam decided to rectify the other night by introducing his skull to the coffee table. Table, skull. Skull, table. Nice to meet you.

I'm not sure exactly what happened - well, that's not true. He slammed his face into the coffee table. That's pretty much it. There was some sort of mischief with hopping around and some unstable footing, but the actual head-smacking was blindingly obvious. His eye swelled up quite a bit, and he did a lot of hollering. Typical head injury stuff.

Unfortunately Liam, although performing this stunt a mere 3 feet in front of me, managed to pull it off in a record 0.4 seconds, thus preventing me from doing anything about it. See, they learn this stuff when trying to get away with things, and sometimes it backfires on them. Live and learn.

The frozen compress was applied, and he calmed down. We didn't take any pictures of the swollen eye (regrettably), but here's what he looks like three days later:

Alright, get your namby-pamby cringing and gasping out of the way, cause there sure wasn't any of that around here. That's MY boy. Next morning, he was right back in the saddle, baby. Did a little swollen eye slow him down? Slight lack of vision, tender bruising? Not that little guy. He ain't taking no SMACK from no COFFEE TABLE.

Well, he sort of did take a smack from it. But you know what I mean.

Anyway, he's fine. Jill called the pediatrician as soon as it happened and they said "ice it, he'll be fine." And he is.

The coffee table is on notice, though.

Logan Update

Just wanted everyone to know that Logan will be seeing a pulmonologist next month (3/13) to do a little detective work regarding his chronic pneumonia.  We are lucky that the doctor we were referred to has opened up a new office in West County, so we don't have to drive all the way downtown to St. Louis Children's Hospital for the evaluation.  Yay!  

*****

We enjoyed one of our favorite cold weather meals tonight: chicken pot pie, or as Liam calls it "chicken pot-pot pie".  I don't know the reason for the extra "pot", but it sure is cute to hear him say it!

You Don't Know the Power...

A little backstory. Logan got a Darth Vader mask for Christmas. Life size. Very cool looking. It has buttons that play various quotes from Vader from the movies. Liam, surprisingly, loves the thing. Loves to put it on and stand there staring at you with big Darth Vader eyes while the mask says things like "You don't know the power of the Dark Side..." and "Your powers are WEAK..."

It's actually kind of creepy.

So last night Jill's bathing the boys while I do the dishes. I finished up and went downstairs to play a little guitar before the whole bedtime routine. Just to unwind. You understand.

So I'm working on the opening to "Little Wing" when I'm told once again that I don't know the power of the dark side. I turn to look, and there on the stairs is Liam, wearing the Darth Vader mask.

Wearing only the Darth Vader mask.

Just when I think I've seen it all, one of the boys quite forcibly reminds me that, no, in fact, I haven't.

Pictures are, for legal reasons, unavailable.

Amoxicillin, Augmentin, and Flovent...Oh My!

Well, it was a banner day (of sorts) for us at the pediatrician's office yesterday.  Liam had been experiencing a morning and post-naptime cough for awhile, and over the past few days Logan had started coughing too.  I decided both boys needed to go to the pediatrician's office, and for ONCE, the co-pays were justified!  (Not that I'm happy that the boys required something other than the "virus" speech, but you moms out there probably understand what I was feeling.)  

As it was a Thursday (one of the days our pediatrician sees patients at a different office), we saw one of his associates, Dr. Hanson, who ranks right up there with our own Dr. Bob.  

It should be noted that prior to seeing Dr. Hanson, the nurse took down all the pertinent information and did all the usual assessments (weight, temperature, pulse oxygen reading, etc.) During this time, Liam was talking away...just acting his usual bubbly, chipper self. Here goes another co-pay down the drain.  Temps normal, pulse oxygen readings excellent at 99 (Liam) and 98 (Logan), nary a cough during the entire nurse evaluation.  Sigh...I mean GREAT...but sigh.  

So the assessment of Liam begins.  Liam cooperates beautifully with Dr. Hanson and breathes deeply while she listens to his lungs.  She tells me that they're perfectly clear.  Then she asks him to stick out his tongue and gives me the lovely news that he has pus on his tonsils.  She asks Liam to pick an ear for her to examine first.  He chooses his right, and lo and behold, he has an ear infection in his right ear.  This is newsworthy simply for the fact that Liam has never had an ear infection before (and Logan has just had one at 3 months old).  So the treatment plan is Amoxicillin to tackle both the ear infection and the icky tonsils (Dr. Hanson didn't see the point in culturing for Strep when she would be treating him with the antibiotic anyway.)  

One down, one to go.  

Logan's diagnosis was made quickly, but it was certainly not what we wanted to hear. Pneumonia again...fourth time since August.  There was one change though.  This time the infection was in the right lower lobe instead of the left lower lobe.  Dr. Hanson actually let me use her stethoscope to listen to the difference between Logan's lungs.  I have often heard pediatricians using the term "crackles" to describe what they hear when Logan breathes (when he has pneumonia).  It's a very accurate description.  On the lower right side, I heard a crackling sound.  On the lower left side, nothing.  

Dr. Hanson sent us off for an x-ray and said that she thinks Dr. Bob will want to refer Logan to a pulmonologist because of his recurrent bouts of pneumonia.  

Logan did very well with the x-ray, and it did reveal pneumonia.  We trekked back to Dr. Hanson's office, and she sent us on our way with a prescription for Amoxicillin for Liam, a prescription for Augmentin for Logan, and instructions to continue Logan's Flovent and Xopenex inhalers.  Both boys follow-up with Dr. Bob on February 1st.  

I can assure you that both boys are happy and not acting as sick as this post might make them sound.  Logan came home with 4 stickers on his shirt yesterday, and Liam came home with 2.  They wore them all day like badges of honor.  

So, the boys and I are home today, which isn't such a bad thing considering the temperature outside is 25 degrees.  Ask me if I missed walking Logan to the bus stop!  

Well, gotta run!  My boys are ready for a round of HiHo Cherry-O. Time for a healthy dose of fun.  

Big Boy Bed!

The transition is complete! Liam has been sleeping (and yes, even napping!) in his new big boy bed. Surprisingly, we have only had to deal with the pitter patter of little feet a few times...and just one "thud in the night" (no tears, Liam was still sound asleep when Daddy came to his rescue).

Liam seems pleased with his new bed and has adjusted to it very well! No getting up once he's fallen asleep, and he continues to wake up at a very reasonable 7:00. We have no complaints!