Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween! We had a very successful Halloween this year. Some of you may recall that Halloween is not Alex's favorite holiday at all. In fact, last Saturday we tried to take the kids to this trick or treat at the mall thing and he threw a fit about what costume he was going to wear and after about a 10 minute temper tantrum it was decided that I would just take Anna (who by the way had a great time). The picture of Anna with the scarecrow was taken at the mall. Anyways, by Wednesday night when it was the annual trick or treat at the nursing home, he was on his best behavior. I think this had a lot to do with the fact that Anna got to keep all of her candy she got at the mall and we didn't make her share any of it. For the last couple of years, Alex has refused to trick or treat and then Anna would just end up sharing her candy with him when she got home. So anyways, this year Alex was very motivated and actually didn't even want to come home from trick or treating. Anna, as usual, had a great time. She loves scary things so this was a great night for her. She couldn't make up her mind on what she wanted to be this year so last weekend she wore the clown costume, the race car driver outfit on Wednesday night and by the end of the week she had moved onto the princess costume- as Chris says, typical woman, can't make up her mind!
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3 Little Pumpkins

Alright....I'm catching grief for not updating the blog often enough. As most of you know, I went back to work 2 weeks ago. We are slowly settling into yet another new routine. Work is pretty much the same, after the first day it feels like I never really left! Anyways, we did the pumpkin thing this weekend. We let the kids draw the faces on their pumpkins and then Chris helped them cut them. Here's Alex with his "creepy" pumpkin as he called it .

Anna decided to draw a pretty girl pumpkin (with hair and everything)- she must think her dad is a whiz with the carving knife. Here's what it ended up as: (not bad I guess)

Sarah just had to look cute- she did a good job at it I think :)





Here they all are (even the dog- there was food involved if you are wondering how we got him to sit still :)






Up next: Cute Halloween Pictures (we hope)

Smiles and Stuff

Just a brief update on Anna. Her VCUG went well, she was super cooperative, the tech said she was the best 4 year old she'd ever done one of these on- didn't even attempt to kick her once. I'm not sure if that was the whole truth or not, but I was happy that Anna was so cooperative. Kudos to the Child Life staff at Woodwinds because they really helped a lot. The radiologist who did the test said everything looked normal, but that he would have to review the films closer and then send the final report to our pediatrician. Still haven't heard the final report, but I'm assuming no news is good news.

Onto more fun things....Sarah has been quite the smiler lately and I finally caught some really cute smiles on camera that I thought I'd share. Enjoy!

Another boring, medical type update :)

Ok....so I feel like the blog has turned into some kind of medical journal. I really wish that I had other excitement in my life besides my frequent trips to the Pediatrician's office. Although, he is expecting his first baby any day now so it has been kind of "fun" to count down the weeks and now days with him. Ok, maybe not fun, but when you see the guy 2-3 times per week you have to have something to talk about (well, besides our sick kids that is). Anyways, I am grateful that he is as on top of everything as he is and it has been really nice to have someone that we trust so completely answer all of our questions. He has been our Pediatrician for as long as we have needed such a specialty. He actually saw Alex the day he was born and we've been with him ever since. So, if anybody is looking for a Pediatrician, just let me know!

Ok....onto the update. Anna is 200% better than she was a few days ago. Turns out she had the lovely e.coli growing in places it shouldn't have been. Luckily she has responded well to the antibiotics and is finally eating and drinking again. Because this is her second infection of this type and because of our family history of kidney problems, she gets to have a VCUG done on Thursday of this week. (for those of you unfamiliar with this test, just google it and you'll get more info than you ever wanted about bladders and catheters, etc). Chris is quite thankful that we were able to schedule this before I return to work next week. I don't think he was too excited to take Anna for this fun event. We are hoping the test will be normal and that her infection was just bad luck. It will be good to know though, if there is a problem, as we want to catch it early on. I'll let everyone know how it turns out. We should know by Friday.

In other (sadly) medical news...Sarah has her first official cold. Poor kid can hardly breathe. We're doing the warm mist humidifier/baby vaporub treatment. Seems to have done nothing but fog up the windows and make the dog extremely interested in licking her chest, but there aren't any cold medications she can take so I guess it's what we can do for now. I'm hopeful today was the worst day of it and she'll improve tomorrow. Although, I mean, only 2 visits (not counting the ER visit this weekend of course) to the Pediatrician in 1 week might be dangerously below our new quota. I'm hoping to get my own chair in the waiting room soon :)

Onto other news....NOT medical this time. Chris and I went to Alex's first official school conference tonight. We are absolutely so proud of that kid. His teacher actually said that she wishes she had 22 Alex's in her class because he is always respectful, always listens and pays attention. She said she uses him as an example for the other kids and said that he exceeds her expectations of what a kindergartner should be doing. This is great news, of course! However, it seems that Alex has a bit of the jekkyl and hyde (ok....pretty sure I spelled that wrong but I'm way past caring about spelling and grammar on this blog) syndrome as he's really really good at school, but really really bad at home lately. He has just been testing us with everything. I guess he's used to so much independence at school that he doesn't want us controlling him at home. I don't know. Oh well, I'd rather have him be an angel at school and a devil at home than vice versa. Hopefully he'll adjust soon and start behaving at home again.

Ok..that's all for now. Here are some recent pictures of the kids.

The week's not over yet.....

Well...from the previous post you can see that we thought Anna had the stomach flu- key word being "thought". However, last night she spiked a fever of 104 and we couldn't get it to break. She was shaking so violently and just looked miserable. Since she'd been sick for over 48 hours and seemed to be getting worse, not better, and also because no one else had yet to catch this "flu" we thought we should bring her in. So, we spent the night in the Children's ER. Turns out she has pyelonephritis (essentially a nasty kidney/bladder infection). She was also pretty dehydrated so she ended up getting some fluids and IV antibiotics and some oral antibiotics to take at home. Poor little thing, she's had a rough couple of weeks! She was really brave with the IV and the blood cultures though so I have to get to Target today for her Ken doll I promised her. On the one hand, I'm so glad they found a cause (and it's not contagious, thank GOD) but on the other hand, she just looks so darn miserable I just feel awful for her. Of course, when you ask her if she feels ok she just says, "yeah, I'm fine". She's not a complainer and never has been so it's tough when she gets sick because she just tries so hard to act her normal self. We're hoping she'll turn the corner today and start getting better. The good thing is with all of our repeated MD visits, ER visits, hospitals stays, etc I'm sure we MUST have reached our out of pocket maximum on our insurance by now :) Here's hoping for a very uneventful, quiet weekend.

Our week in a nutshell...err...is it a nuthouse?

Just a random update on how our week went.

The Good
My sister got married on Monday. It was a very quiet ceremony in Hudson. I'm thankful that I'm still on maternity leave and was able to be there. I'm very happy for them and hopefully sometime next year they will be able to have it blessed in the church and we can have a party for them.

Sarah is very consistently sleeping through the night now- every night from 8pm until 4:30 am. I think this timing will be perfect actually if she keeps it because I have to get up at 5am for work anyways so if I just get up with her at 4:30 I'll be able to spend an extra half an hour a day with her. She is super smiley lately and has the absolute cutest little dimples- they make her whole face just light up when she smiles.



We celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary this week. By celebrated I mean, did the laundry, dishes, etc. It was quite uneventful. I am thankful for 8 happy years though and am really blessed with a great husband who is also an awesome dad to our kids.

The Bad or Sad
My maternity leave is coming to an end. Only one more week and I have to return to work. I am very sad about having to leave not only Sarah but also Anna. I have really enjoyed my time spent with Anna (and Alex although he's been at school so much lately that I sort of feel like I've already left him again). We really do have great kids, even though they have been known, on occasion, to drive me insane :)

The Ugly
Anna has the stomach flu. She has been running a high fever and throwing up for 2 days now. We are trying to keep her away from Sarah and hoping she doesn't catch it. I'm also hoping Chris and I don't catch it because based on the way Anna looks, we'd be useless.

Alex received a Bus Conduct letter in the mail this week. It said he had been spitting on the bus. So, Chris went to the bus stop in the afternoon to pick him up and talk to the bus driver. Thankfully it turns out it was a different Alex (there are 3 on his bus). I categorize this as ugly only because Chris yelled at Alex and we had taken certain privileges away from him (his video games, etc) before we found out it wasn't him. Since then everytime he feels he's been unjustly punished or if he just wants some sympathy, he brings up the fact that "Daddy yelled at me and it wasn't even my fault".....talk about guilt trips! It was a lesson learned for us that we shouldn't assume they have the right Alex. Man, kindergarten has taught us a lot- already!


I think that's about it for the highlights of our week. For my last week of maternity leave, I'm hoping for healthy kids and days that don't go too quickly.