Honey Bunches of Oats Giveaway!

Recently, the nice people over at Purex Insiders and Post sent me a box of newly improved Honey Bunches of Oats to try. The new formula has way more of the "bunches," which is nice since they are delicious! This is Cory's absolute favorite cereal of all time. (He calls the "Family Size" box "Cory Size.") I had hoped to take a picture of him or the kids eating some as the picture with this post, but Cory at it all before I had a chance! So, obviously, Honey Bunches of Oats gets a big thumbs up from the Yeager family. Even the kids love it. Your family can try it for free, too, because they gave me coupons good for free boxes!!! Three lucky winners will be chosen. Follow the blog and leave a comment saying you want to win. I will choose the winners one week from today: Friday, June 1, using random.org.. Good luck! ***This giveaway is open to U.S. residents only.***

Miss Adeline turns two!

It seems unbelievable to me, but almost a month ago, baby girl turned two! Wasn't she just born, and how could it already be a month since her birthday?!?! Despite my best efforts, she keeps trying to stop being a baby. Sigh. My borderline crazy love of planning birthday parties helped lessen the sting a little. Since Little Miss has strong opinions of what she likes and wants already, I decided to go all out with a theme that I chose, since this is the last year I will probably have any say in what kinds of birthday parties the children have. Pinterest had sooo many cute rainbow party ideas, so a rainbow party it was! Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate, so the party was held at our church instead of the backyard, but my friend Mandy told me she saw a rainbow after the party, so that was pretty neat! The kids played, gorged themselves on colorful candy, and had a pretty good time, I think. And all the moms were super thrilled that I forced them to take candy and marshmallows home with them and gleefully plied their children with the cavity inducing rainbow punch (Koolaid ice cubes in Sprite. Healthy.) Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate with Addie!!! Here are the pictures!!! Here is the sweets table!

Food

The cake that Cory made!

And Finally.... The Birthday Girl!!!

thank you

A little over a week ago, it was the one month anniversary of Harry coming home. I had hoped to do this then, but didn't get to it. The next day, while we were at Celebration, a girl we didn't know approached us and said, "Is this Harry? I've been praying for you." It was a pretty amazing moment, and made me think how much I needed to this this. And finally, eight days later, it's getting done. Actual thank you notes are in the works, and will hopefully be done sometime this week, but I still wanted to thank everyone who has been so wonderful during this whole ordeal.

My kids are lucky enough to be blessed with the greatest aunts this world has ever seen. Erica and Aunt Elaine literally flew across the country, more than once, to take care of Jack and Addie. They took them on two hour plus road trips on the weekends so Cory and I could see them. Aunt Jane and Uncle Todd were at the hospital when the helicopter landed, when Cory and I couldn't be. They staked us out a spot in the family lounge, and ran all the ridiculousy crazy errands I thought of (like going to more than one store in search of rainbow Twizzlers!) (Also, a big thanks to Nick for hanging out with Jack.) And Sara brought "The Blue Power Ranger" that pretty much got Harry through every sucky thing he had to go through, and also ninja-ed more than one doctor. Thank you all.

We are so, so grateful for the wonderful grandmothers that our children have. Both my mom and Cory's mom used A LOT of their vacation time to take care of Jack and Addie. One of them was with us in the hospital with Harry pretty much all the time. At one point, my mom was probably starting to forget what her own house looked like. We all love you both, and appreciate all that you do.

Melinda, Steph, and Holly, you are truly like sisters to me. Thank you for everything: watching the not yet litter trained kitten, chauffeuring Jack everywhere, installing and reinstalling carseats, and much, much more. Thank you to all my friends and Moms for Moms members for feeding my family and for all that you did.

Our church family at Central has been completely amazing. Thank you to everyone there. Also, thank you to the extremely generous and understanding Charleston Police Department and FOP.

Big thanks to Cory's uncle, Dave, and everyone at Wilson Tire Shop, Kansas United Methodist Church, Prarie State Bank and Trust, the Charleston Firefighters, everyone at Harry's school and EIASE, the Springfield ATF office, Charleston Family Practice, and many, many more. Thank you to all my Carlinville friends, and The Card Girls, and all of our families. We are also so thankful for all the wonderful doctors and nurses at St. Louis Children's Hospital. We appreciate the hundreds of thoughts, prayers, and gifts from literally all over the world. We will be eternally grateful for all of you.

Finally, we are so thankful to God for blessing us with this sweet boy four years ago and for bringing him back to us.

the sweetest little three year old in the world becomes the sweetest little four year old in the world

It's 4:45 am, and Harry is sleeping, really sleeping, not the sedative induced sleep he's had for the past few weeks, peacefully. Some time after this is all over, I'll probably reflect on it and thank everyone here. But right now, I'm going to tell you all about this sweet boy's birthday. His illness started a week to the day after his party, and in the mad rush of worry, prayer, heartbreak, and difficult decisions, I haven't had time or felt comfortable taking time to share all about it. But things are definitely on the upswing now, so here are all the details of his special day.

Harry loooves Wild Kratts, so he decided that he wanted a Wild Kratts party months ago. The easiest place to have an animal centered party, and a place he loves to go anyway, is the nearby nature center. So, the planning began! The most important part of transforming into a Wild Kratt is the Creature Power Suit. So armed with t-shirts from the Dollar Tree, bargain bin fabric from Walmart, and my hot glue gun, I made the special vests for each party guest. Harry wanted a green suit so he could be Chris, rather than Martin, who wears blue. Harry's next request was to play bingo, and he also wanted to incorporate cheetahs, so the kids earned cheetah Creature Power Badges for playing. The two other games he chose were the cocoon game (each team wrapped their caterpillar in crepe paper. Once all the covered, the kid who was the caterpillar broke free as a butterfly!) and the bumble bee game, (the kids popped balloons filled with prizes. Big thanks to our PBS station for providing the Wild Kratts stickers.) This was a good alternative to a pinata in an indoor space. Then we had the amazing cake that Cory made. (I'm so glad he is so good and creative with the kids cakes, because I am not!) And he opened his presents. Then it was time to run around and "be cwazy" in the nature center. Harry had so, so much fun. Thank you to everyone who made his birthday so special. We love you all.
Here are some pictures of my sweet boy and his party.

Here are some websites that gave me ideas:
Thunder Clouds and a Furrowed Brow

Crazy Wonderful

Kara's Creative Place

Purex Winners!

I chose Purex winners last night! Congratulations to Stephanie and Bethany, who won the Ultrapacks, and to Pat and Trisha, won won the Triple Action detergent. Trisha, I will need your address, please :) Everyone else, I'll hand them to you in person next time I see you. (I meant to give Stephanie hers today! Oh well!) Thanks to everyone who entered! Hopefully, in the next few days, I will post all about Harry's birthday party. Congrats again to the winners!

Purex Giveaway!

Remember a few weeks ago when I did this Purex review? Well, last week, they sent me some coupons for FREE products to use for a giveaway! There will be four winners total. Two people will win a coupon for a free full sized package of Purex Triple Action Laundry Detergent, and two people will win a coupon for a free full sized package of Purex Ultra Packs. Yay!!! To enter, as always, follow the blog and leave a comment saying you want to win! I will draw the winners one week from today, Friday, February 17, using random.org. Good Luck!

P.S. If you can't wait to try the new products go here to get a free sample of Purex Triple Action. (They will be giving away free samples of the action packs in a few weeks. You can only get one or the other, so if you want the action packs, don't request the Triple Action detergent!)

Happy Groundhog Day!

For the past few days, Jack, who wants to celebrate everything, has been asking what our big plans were for celebrating Groundhog Day. (Seriously, two days ago, he asked how we were going to celebrate it being the last day of January.) My reply that we would read Ten Grouchy Groundhogs did not impress him. (Side note: Why is it that I happened upon the groundhog book 148 times in the weeks before today, but couldn't find it anywhere when we actually needed it? I ended up stealing an extra copy from the box o books that are meant to be gifts. Oh well!) So to make it seem more of an occasion, the boys and I decided to make groundhog cupcakes. We have a family of groundhogs living near our backyard, two parents and their ten, yes ten, offspring. So, step one for groundhog cupcakes was setting out the groundhog traps. Just kidding! The part about the groundhog family living near us was true, but, instead, we tried these Fun-da-middles cupcakes that I got for a crazy good deal at the salvage store. Jack has been begging me to make them, so it seemed like the perfect occasion. Harry and Jack helped bake and decorate the treats, and nothing makes it seem like a party like cake, right? So here's to six more weeks of winter and having a party just because you can! Now I need to get the kids to bed so Cory and I can enjoy some Bill Murray goodness that I forgot that I bought at a yard sale a few months ago :)

Addie liked the cupcakes too!