Slacking this week :(

I can't believe I haven't posted all week.

Let's see what has kept me busy this week:
1. 3 children home, one infant and two of whch are best friends one minute and evil enemies the other. :)
2. Tornado hit my house after 3 holiday parties last week. STILL have to clean up the destruction.
3. We had something to do every day. What can I say? Megan is on vacation and I want her to enjoy it!
4. When the kids are finally in bed, around 10-10:30 all week, I want to go to bed myself!
5. Sleeping in!! (Until Christian wakes up, that is!)

Hopefully I can get on later and post some pictures and recap the week a little bit better. :)

Monday Morning

I think Christian missed the memo that we are on vacation. He was awake at 6:45. I told him on a regular school day, this would be quite acceptable! But not today.

I have learned too that if I bring him into bed with me, he will sleep til about 8:30 or so. When he does this, he is still wide awake at 10:30 at night.

If I can get some peace and quiet at night, maybe getting up at 7 am isn't so bad. :)

Random Thoughts About Christmas this Year

1. Once Matt was able to help me out a little, I was able to get many, many more things done.
Example- Matt came along Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve and took 2/3 of the kids to do something else, wow, I got a lot accomplished!

2. While we were out doing our last minute shopping on Christmas Eve, we had lunch at the mall as a family. I think the last time we had lunch there as a family was the day we had Christian (we had stopped to walk around to try to go into labor, which we all know, didn't work!).

3. I really enjoy staying home on Christmas Eve. With all the hustle and bustle, I am glad Matt and I have carved out one evening to spend with our family.

4. I am also glad we finally, after 10 years, decided on a meal to make on Christmas Eve. Every year, we end up going out to eat because we cannot decide on what to make. Matt ALWAYS wants to get a lobster, but I REFUSE to listen to it scream in my kitchen!! I really wanted to eat at home this year because we have a nice dining room!
I knew Matt loved hamballs, so I offered them up as a replacement for lobster and it worked out great! I never made them before, but they were awesome! Now Matt wants me to make them at least once a month, we'll see. :)

5. We had one of Megan's friends and her mom and sister come over Thursday for a short playdate. They brought us over M&M cookies that were sooo good. There were about 8 left in the container and I went upstairs to put Christian to bed and when I came back downstairs, the container was open and they were gone! DELL!!!!!!!!!!! She ate all my cookies!!!! Those were mine! She looked pretty pitiful as she laid on the floor...I just wanted to say, "Now your're going to get sick, aren't you?? You dumb dog!" I was kind of mad at her, so to make up for those cookies, we had monster cookie ice cream for dessert on Christmas Eve!!

6. Speaking of Christmas Eve, I really need to wrap presents sooner. While our food was cooking, I had Matt keep an eye on all the kids and I locked myself in my bedroom to finish wrapping presents! I should've had this done days ago, but it's hard to hide out when there are 3 kids to keep track of! Afer they were wrapped, I snuck them downstairs and put them under the tree. I think we opened them an hour later.

7. It was fun watching our kids open the presents! Christian just wanted to eat the wrapping, Megan was thrilled that we are going to let her get her ears pierced, and Courtney loves her Bug sticker book! It was really hard shopping with Courtney and Christian along, so I think Courtney had seen everything I had gotten her, but she didn't seem to remember.

8. While we were in the Dollar Tree one day getting stocking stuffers, Courtney had seen this long, fake hair. We had some of this before but it got really tangly and gross, so I threw it out. But on this day, Courtney would not give up on this fake hair, she wanted it! I asked her why and she said, "Because Grace has some!" So I put it in the cart and it ended up in her stocking! She looked like a rock star when she had it on yesterday! And of course, she had a huge smile on her face!

9. This year, I have been terrible with presents. I forgot to wrap one of Matt's presents, I forgot to put one of Christian's under the tree, now I have lost one for my mom. Hopefully I can find it within the next hour or two. :)

10. I have also enjoyed trying new recipes this season. I am tired of making my same old fruit salad for every get-together, so I branched out this year. I really do enjoy making new things, but never seem to get time to experiment. These were out of our "5 Ingredients" cookbook, so they only took 5 ingredients! Easy!

Anyway, off to another party today and another one next week and then we are done! The house will get back into order someday!

Am I crazy??

Ok, so I was going to go out today to get a few groceries and to finish Christmas shopping, BUT I got behind in my day. I knew I wouldn't get out this morning, so I planned on going out this afternoon, with three kids in tow! We had some friends come over about 11:15 and stay til about 12:45, so lunch started about one and this usually takes awhile.

By now it is about 2 and Christian is just going down for another nap. Do I wake him up and have a cranky baby? Or do I let him nap for about 1 1/2 hours, then feed him, and then pack everybody up and head out? Plus I had two girls who were actually getting along and playing nicely- who would want to interrupt any of this???

So, I did not make it out today. I need to go out tomorrow. Yes, I need to. I have to get food for tomorrow night. I refuse to let Matt make a lobster, so we settled on ham balls. I've never made them before and I need a few ingredients. We usually go out to eat after church on Christmas Eve because we can never agree what to make at home, but we have a very nice dining room now, so let's use it!

So anyway, am I crazy for going out to get last minute items on Christmas Eve?? I think I am! (Plus Matt has tomorrow off and can probably keep one, two, or all three fo the children!)

We survived the first day of winter break!

I'm not used to having three kids home again. After two weeks, it will be wierd going back to two kids!

Today we had a chiropractor appointment, I have one week left to get as much medical appointments in as I can, and trust me, I'm trying my hardest! I think I have 2 or 3 appointments next week. The doctor continued to work on my back and then I've been having jaw pain, so he fixed that too! The only bad part was that since Christian was up 3 hours last night, he screamed the entire time. I put Megan in charge of pushing him around in his stroller, but it really didn't do any good. :(

After the chiropractor, we had an appointment at our pediatrician. Courtney has had this "bump" on her foot for some time and I thought, while everything is covered 100%, let's take her in. Well, it was a wart! The doctor sprayed something on it to freeze it off and boy did Courtney cry! The doctor warned us that it was going to sting and it did! They said the wart will turn black and fall off in a couple of days. Ok! I was also told to put duct tape on it to dry it out, but I don't know about that.

Our last stop was McDonalds. Megan helped me at the chiropractor and Courtney was brave at the doctor, so we stopped and had ice cream. It was a good time!

Tomorrow a playdate with one of Megan's classmates and finish the last of the Christmas shopping!!

I love nights like these....NOT!

Ok, Christian, you have set a new record for how long you have been up in one night.

Last night = 3 1/2 hours. Yes, from 11-2:30

I know you couldn't breath, but you should really work with me more.

I sprayed your nose with saline spray, I had your vaporizer on, I fed you before bed, I rocked you, I put you in your bouncy seat to sit upright, I gave you your pacifier but no, none of those worked!!

And yes, I know letting you cry it out doesn't work either, but don't you know that mom and dad need to function in the morning? Why do you keep us up???

Honestly in the end, I think you were cold from the vaporizer being right beside you. Once I swaddled you in a blanket and the stuff in your nose disappeared somehow and were able to suck on your pacifier, you fell fast asleep.

Really, can we make tonight a better night?? We were doing SOOOO good!

(I hope your dad is doing ok at work today, he was up with you too.)

We're pretty pitiful this year!

I was thinking this morning that Christmas is only 3 days away and we still don't have everything out for the main event yet!

For instance:
We don't even have our stockings on the fireplace yet!



We always put garland on the banister, but that's not done either!



No Chistmas cookies have been made, no cards given to any teachers, no plans made for our meal on Chistmas Eve, no presents wrapped! Yikes!

But on the other hand, we do have these things accomlished!

The most important Christmas tree with only 2 presents underneath!



The nativity scene is up too and we decided not to put baby Jesus in the manger until Christmas day this year!



I got the Chistmas cards and family letter out yesterday, so those are done!

Annual Uncle Night get-together to make Gingerbread houses is done!

Besides all this, let's not forget to celebrate Jesus's Birthday this Chistmas season!!

Christian's New Trick

Polly needs to have surgery!

Started Christian on cereal.

For my own record, I started Christian on cereal on Wed. December 15th.

When I was at the dr. Friday, she said, "It's about time you start him on solids." Yah, yah, I know...

I will probably do one box of baby cereal to get him started and then it's onto the homemade stuff, no store bought food for me! Then shortly later, we'll probably go right to table food!

My squealer...

Miss Courtney is the one around here who spills all the secrets.

I had dropped Matt's phone one day and said, "Now Courtney, we aren't going to tell dad that we dropped his phone unless it doesn't work anymore. Until then, don't say anything." She did anyway.

I broke the shades in the playroom and said, "Now Courtney, don't tell dad, he'll get mad about it." Sure enough, she told Matt.

So today when his Christmas present came in the mail, I hid it in my sitting room and guess who found it, yes Courtney did! So, I decided to move it. Well she followed me. Knowing her history, I knew this hiding place wasn't going to last long. She would probably lead Matt right to it.

So I wrapped it. Really, why not? It's a Christmas present. Courtney doesn't know what it is, just that it is for Matt.

I'm going to go put it under the Christmas tree in plain sight! She can tell dad all she wants! (I just hope there's one for me under there too pretty soon. :)

Time to call the school...

Megan is home sick today. She got the bug too.

I was sitting in Christian's room nursing him at 6:15 and I hear her coughing, it didn't sound like she was gagging, so I dismissed it. I was kind of stuck what I was doing anyway.

Next thing I know, I see her running by his room, I said, "Megan, Megan, I'm in here." She stopped and said, "I puked." Great!!

So Matt came to the rescue. She had gotten it on her floor and on the bathroom floor! Good job- you didn't get any in your bed!!!

By 7, both girls were back asleep on my floor. Megan is still throwing up a little bit, but she'll be fine.

No school for her today.

I hope Matt and I don't get this now!

Kindergarten next year???

Aldrich Elementary just called...I thought Megan was sitting in the nurses office sick too, so before I even answered, I was trying to figure out how I was going to go pick her up.

But no, they were working on their kindergarten lists for next year and wanted to know if Courtney would be attending kindergarten! I said, "No, we are going to hold her back a year." The secretary said, "Ok, we will see her then!" It about brought tears to my eyes, there is no way I could send her off to kindergarten next year!!! (Yes, I know she can technically go, but I would rather have her one of the oldest of the class than the youngest!)

And yes, I know she will have to go someday, but not today!

My Morning started at 3:20 am

We had a little visitor at 3:20 am this morning, Courtney had not been feeling well all evening while I was gone at mom's night out and she had a little accident in her underwear at this time. I got up, dealt with her, and tried to get her calmed down because she was quite upset about it all.

Matt got up too to help me, but by 3:45, Christian was crying too! Matt got Courtney back to bed and I rocked Christian for awhile. I put him down, but he started to cry again, so I decided to feed him. Why not? He's a little low on weight right now, so extra calories won't hurt. Plus it might send him back to sleep. :)

So I fed him, this took until 4:25. I laid him back down and he's out, so I sneak back to bed. By 5 am, he is back awake. What?? I go and put his pacifier back in his mouth, pat him, and he goes back to sleep. 10 minutes later, awake again. This is not the plan! So by 5:15, I just go and get him! I bring him into bed with me and he goes to sleep. It's been almost 2 hours now that I have been awake. Matt gets up at 5:30 to take a shower and puts him back to bed. Super! I fall back asleep and all is well!

6:00 I hear Christian AGAIN! AHHH. This time I let him cry it out awhile, I had already tried everything with him and I had just gotten back to sleep. So about 6:15, he's not going back to sleep (which I figured), so I drug myself out of bed and went and got get him, again. I brought him back into bed with me and he's kind of half awake/ half asleep. Matt comes out of the bathroom and entertains him a little bit and he stops crying, but as soon as Matt leaves, he's back to his "I'm so tired" cry. About 6:30, he falls asleep on my chest. Great! Now, do I move him back to his bed or do I just leave him?

I decided to leave him and catch some more sleep myself. At 7:15, my alarm goes off and at 7:25 Megan's alarm goes off. Now I have to get up, but it was so hard! I left Christian on my bed and surrounded him with pillows since he can roll now.

I got Megan up and off to school and then I stood there at 8:30 with two of my kids still sleeping! Needless to say, Christian woke up about 9 and I got Courtney up at 10. I think they were both a little sick, but they're feeling fine now!

Hopefully we can get out and do something this afternoon, we had playgroup this morning, but I cancelled. Maybe we can go finish some Christmas shopping OR put away the four baskets of laundry on my bedroom floor!

Dance Recital Day

Megan has her very first dance recital today. She is part of the Chinese troupe in "The Nutcracker." She is excited!

It is 5 degrees out with 50 mph winds- can we do the dance recital another day?? Imagine the costumes and hair that is going to be blowing around in this weather!

The girls have worked very hard though. A part of me wants to post-pone it due to the weather, but the other part just wants to sit back and enjoy it!

I'll post some pictures later!

Test Results

My Ultrasound/ gall bladder check- looks great, no cause for concern!

Matt's MRI- perfect too! a couple benign cysts in his sinuses, but no big deal!

How much did we spend on health care today?? I think around $3500! But thanks to insurance, it's all covered!!

Anything else we want to get done this year?? We have about 20 days left of 2010...

Christian's 6 month checkup

Today we had Christian's 6 month checkup.

We started by measuring his head and of course the nurse said, "He's really strong for a 6 month old!" Yes he is! We then got his length and that was 28 inches, he added 1 1/4 inches in 2 months. We then put him on the scale and it said 17 lbs. 3 oz. I thought that was odd because a month ago, he was 17 lbs. 8 oz. (with clothes on). I asked if we could use a different scale and the other one said the same thing. (Just for reference, he was 16 lbs. 12 oz. at 4 months- right after I fed him, so give or take a few ounces.) I swear he was putting weight on! They are supposed to gain a pound a month, we weren't even at 1/2 a pound in 2 months. I know this is a cause for concern, so my first thought was, "I'm going to get in trouble by the dr." Courtney did this exact same thing, she only gained 8 oz. between 4 and 6 months, Christian only gained 7 oz. The nurse looked at his chart, but seeing how active he was, she didn't seem concerned.

The dr. came in and I asked, "Am I going to get in trouble??" She said no because we had seen this before with Courtney. I also mentioned that I have had a thyroid problem lately and there for awhile, I didn't have much milk, but now lately, I've had quite a bit. I told her he's been eating better, sleeping better, and we're finally getting settled into a routine. I asked if thyroid and my milk supply would go hand in hand she said it certainly could! She told me she was not going to worry about it because things had changed lately and my thyroid should be leveling off. Yes! She said if there was no reason for it, then she would be concerned, like we were with Courtney, but she just wants me to keep doing what I've been doing and come back in a month. I can do that. (I wonder if this is exactly what happened with Courtney too, maybe I was having thyroid problems with her and didn't know it.)

I also talked to her about him being stuffed up for the last two months, she said we could try some allergy medicine, but then she also said he's a little young for allergies. She said if it doesn't bother him, then let him be. His ears and nose were clear, so that was good. (Matt's mom said he was like this when he was younger too, so this doesn't surprise me either). His skin is also broke out a little bit, so we have some sensitive skin going on again too.

We ended with our shots and he fell asleep in my arms going out to the car. Poor thing!

Doctor Day!

Today we have 3 appointments to see doctors and/or have a test ran. We've met our deductible, so let's get these things checked out!

7:30 am Ultrasound to check out my gall bladder. Done. Wait on results.

9:20 Matt's MRI. He's had a lot of occular migraines lately and his mom has chiari malformation, so they are going to check it out. Hopefully he'll do fine with an IV, he's never had one before and he doesn't take blood very well.

1:00 Christian's 6 month checkup/ shots. I think he will be over 18 pounds, we'll see! Maybe the dr. has a magic formula to get him to sleep through the night. He's been up on and off since 5 am!

We have a very busy weekend coming up with Megan's dance recital and our first holiday party!

PS My tooth is much better, but still a little tender.

My poor tooth :(

Wow, does my tooth hurt today!!

I thought yesterday was the toughest part of the entire root canal/ crown process, he was pretty hard on it. It can't really "hurt" because there is no nerve in it, maybe it is just very tender! yikes! I hope this doesn't last.

I think Advil is going to be my friend again today.

Root Canal is COMPLETE!

I went in to the dentist today for my final step in completing my root canal.

One hour and forty-five minutes later, I walked out with a completed tooth again.

Now hopefully my crown won't crack, at least the dentist said he would replace that for free. :)

3 hours

That is how long it took the girls to clean thier playroom last night. 3 hours.
It was a disaster!

It has been closed for about a week and the girls were getting bored with nothing to do around the house. They were arguing a lot, picking on each other, and just had so much pent up energy, especially after Megan got home from school.

Last night, I decided that I was tired of getting upset at them for their behavior, so I said they HAD to clean the playroom! They need something to do again! I am always constantly entertaining Courtney during the day too and am not getting anything done, so I wanted it back during the day too!

They got it successfully cleaned last night by 8:15! The problem was that since they had all their stuff back, we couldn't get them to stop drawing last night to go to bed!

I hope they keep it clean! (We have started a new chore chart where they can earn money, so hopefully this will encourage them!!) It's going to be a long winter if we have to keep closing it because it's not clean!

#8 is gone, literally

#8 as in tooth #8.

Last night before Megan went to bed, she had a very wiggly tooth. I didn't think it was so loose, so I didn't make an issue about her getting it out before she went to bed.

I should've.

When she woke up this morning, she looked at me with a very worried look and said, "Mom, my tooth is gone," and pointed to a whole in her mouth.

I asked her, "Where did it go?" She responded with tears in her eyes, "I don't know."

"Did you swallow it?" Upon that statement, she grabbed her throat and made a choking sound! I said, "Megan, are you breathing?" She said yes and then I said, "Well, then you didn't choke on it!" I think she was a little relieved.

We looked through her bed, but unfortunately, I'm pretty sure she swallowed it. I told her I would take her sheets off today and clean out her bed (needs to be done anyway) and look harder, but she sleeps on her back, so I think it went straight down!

She told me that she's just going to have to write the tooth fairy and tell her what happened! Good plan Megan!

Friday night and Destructo Christian

For about a month now, we have been telling Megan that we would take her to "The Nutcracker Ballet" at the Orpheum Theatre. The cheapest tickets, with our Rose Theatre discount, were $22. Grandma gave her money for her birthday, so she was going to use that on her ticket. Matt and I decided that all of us could go. I wanted to see the play, Courtney might like it, and sure, why not take Christian? It didn't start until 8, so I figured I could feed him and he could sleep through the ballet.

Well, plans changed. Don't they always. I called to the ticket place Thursday to see if we could get tickets for us. Sure, they said, but you will need a ticket for EVERYBODY. I said, "What, even my six month old needs a $22 ticket??" They said, "Everybody needs a ticket in their hand to walk through the door." Yikes! No way am I doing that! So, I decided to stay home with the younger two and Matt took Megan.

So, off they went for a great time at the ballet.

While they were gone, Courtney and I made a pizza, ate in the living room, and watched "Fairytopia." I sat on the floor most of the movie with Christian. I found out during this time that he is not our "sweet, lay on the floor and play with his toys" anymore, we are beyond that, he is turning into destructo Christian. I think the boy is starting to come out in him because this is what he was doing for most of the night.

This is a toy that you are supposed to lay under and play with the monkeys/ birds that hang down, but no, I think Christian is over that. He has decided that the rest of it is something to play with, well, not just play, eat! Right before I took this picture, he had the orange part in his mouth. About two minutes after I took the picture, he had fallen over backwards and took the toy with him! So there he is on his back with the toy on it's side and he's still trying to go after it!

I just love the look in his eye, "I'm going to get the best of this toy!" Like I said, he's not even interested in the monkeys anymore, he wants to destroy it! And he thinks he's funny!

Courtney on the couch watching her movie:

Soon the movie got over and I got these two to bed. I love these two kids, but I had spent the entire day with them!

Matt and Megan pulled in about 10:15 and Megan was obviously tired! She said she really enjoyed the ballet, but said her ticket was only $10. What?? I purposely called and asked about tickets and pricing! Matt said when they went to go buy the tickets at the Orpheum, they asked if Megan was a student and she said yes. Student prices were only $10! UGH! Matt still had to pay $22, but Megan's was half the price we expected. If I had known that, maybe we could've gone....do you think they have a discount for babies too??
<>

What's the secret, Christian?

It's amazing. I woke up at 6:30 this morning and then realized that I hadn't been up once with Christian! After he woke up last night at 10:30, I fed him and put him back to bed. He couldn't keep his eyes open! Right after I woke up this morning, I heard him crying and by the time I got into his room, he was just laying there wide awake and happy! What is the secret? How can I get him to sleep the ENTIRE night, every night???

Loss and a win

Sad that the Huskers lost thier game, but on the flip sign, a win for me. Christian slept through the whole thing!

He fell asleep at 7:15 and didn't wake up until 10:30, the girls went to bed at 9, so it was nice just watching the game in peace from halftime until 10:30. Thank you children!

Front Door Service!

Just got back from putting Megan on the bus. We were running about a minute late, so by the time we got out there, the bus was coming around the curve. I didn't want Megan running across the street in front of the bus, so I had her stay on the driveway until he went by. Lucky for us, he stopped right in front of our house and she got on right there!!

Really though, the bus stop is just a house over, I can't complain anyway! At least I don't have to take her to school every morning!

Crazy Hair Courtney!

This is how her hair was when she woke up this morning- CRAZY!!!

Blood Work results...again

I went back to the dr. yesterday to have my blood drawn again to check my thyroid.

The dr. called this morning with the results and he was even a bit confused.

There are two things they check:

1. Hormone that tells my body to make the thyroid hormone (or so I understand it).
I think normal is at least .19.
Last month my number was .01, the lowest it will register.
Now it was .14 or something like that. The point is that it is going up!

2. The actual thyroid hormone.
Normal is 2.9-4.1

Last month mine was 7.1!! a little hyper-thyroid :)

Now, it's 2.1...hmmm, now I'm hypo-thyroid?

The family dr. said I am either levelling off or I am turning into hypo-thyroid!

He said to go back in a month and have it checked again, but it is definitely getting better. I can tell too, I'm not having heart palpitations and I'm not shaking anymore.

I have to go see the endocrine specialist in a month to determine what to do with this all.

Please continue to hope and pray that this will level off, I don't want to stop nursing Christian and go on thyroid medicine!

We'll go with purple this time

Ok, so the books were "too orange" too me, I had to switch it.

Purple is a bit bright, don't you think?

I just had to...

dig out the baby piano for Christian to play!!

Long night. :(

Last night, Christian was up for 3 hours. Yes, 3 hours.

I tried to put him to bed as late as I could, so around 10 pm, I fed him and put him into bed at 10:15. I told him, "I don't want to see you until at least 6 am, ok Christian?"

Haha, 12:45 I hear him crying. So I go in there and put his pacifier back in and he doesn't calm down, so I go back to bed and every 10 minutes for the next hour, I am back in his room trying to get him back to sleep, but I don't pick him up.

About 1:45, I realize that he can't suck on his pacifier or even breath because he has a cold, so I decided to put him in his bouncy seat. That didn't work- he just screamed louder! I stayed in there for awhile and ended up laying on the floor and just having my hand on him to know that I was there. Eventually he calmed down, stopped crying, and closed his eyes...is he sleeping??

Shortly after that, Matt comes in and says, "Do you want any help?" and sneezes! Christian wakes up and screams and I am in tears, mostly mad because I had been doing this for an hour, he was asleep, and it was all ruined!!

Matt got the humidifier out of the closet and hooked that up, so that was all very distracting to Christian, but I know it will help him. Matt then brings up the fact that he has a sure-fire way of getting him back to sleep. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I said, "What is your idea?" Mind you, it's about 2:30 am and I have been doing this for almost 2 hours now.

He said, "I'll go get the TV and he can watch it." I said, "Go get it." He did and I went back to bed, I needed some sleep. He got it all hooked up, turned it on, and got Christian settled down. Pretty soon Matt comes back to bed and all is well.

I asked him awhile later, "Did you put the bar up on his bouncy seat?"(this reclines it a little bit more and I like it up while he is sleeping or his head falls forward.) He said, "No," so I went in there and put the bar up. That was not a good idea! He sees me and starts to cry all over again!

Now it is about 3 and I say,"Sorry kid, you're going to have to cry it out!" I went back to bed and about 3:30, he finally stopped crying. The TV had shut off and he was finally out. I went in at 3:40 to make sure he was out and all I heard was him breathing with his stuffed up nose.

Finally bed!

He's been taking good naps today, so hopefully he will catch up on his sleep and he will let Matt and I sleep the ENTIRE night tonight...

The whole Hasemann clan

Aren't we a handsome bunch??

Results from the Dentist

After having pain in my mouth for four days and thinking that I lost my entire temporary filling on my root canal, I found out today that it was not as bad as I thought!

When I bit down on a very nice and sweet piece of caramal last Thursday, I did break off a little bit of temporary filling, but nothing major! I thought they were going to have to pull my entire tooth out! ( I was kind of paranoid about it.)

He said I just broke off some blood vessels that were healing and that I bruised my tooth! He said it will take a couple of days to heal, but I should be fine. Wonderful!!

I am going back next Tuesday to finish my root canal, so hopefully we can be done with this all!!

Not fair! I want to sleep too!

Mr. Christian went to bed at 8 last night. I little earlier than usual, but he was ready. (We're usually in bed about 10 because he will only sleep solid for about 8 hours).

And sure enough, my theory proved true!

I saw him from 4 til 5, 6, and 7! Finally at 7, I brought him into my bed, fed him, and let him play while I continued to "rest my eyes." About 8:15, I look at him and he is sitting up with his eyes closed. Are we tired??

I lay him down and he's out!

Not fair, I want to go back to sleep too!

No rest for the weary! Off we go- church and then another family party back home!

Party Weekend

4 days of this holiday weekend = 4 parties

We're halfway done!

(3 thanksgiving/ family parties and one 80th birthday party)

No more Blue!

When I started my blog, we had learned that we were expecting a boy, so I made my template blue.

Enough of the blue, let's make it what I want!

Books! I love it!



By the way, my teeth hurt all night. It's not my tooth with the root canal, it's my front ones and ibuprofen is not taking away the pain. We might be calling the dentist again later today! I might also have to take a nap today, I'm so tired this morning!

Never-Ending tooth saga

We had a great day out at Matt's parents's for thanksgiving today, but of course, silly me, wasn't being too careful with my root canal and I popped out my temporary filling! Now I have a hole in my tooth!

I called the emergency line tonight and they said it was fine, but to avoid chewing on that side (how many times have I heard this in the last year??).

They said to take ibuprofen for the pain and if it gets worse this weekend, to call them back.

I have to go in Monday and get it filled up again. Ugh! Will this ever end????

Logical Friday!

Today is logical Friday because it is the end of the work week for everyone.
No work tomorrow, no school, nothing, except the start of the thanksgiving parties around here!

Actually, yesterday was logical Friday for Matt. He took today off of work to work on the plumbing in the basement, which lasted for about 1/2 a day. Instead, he decided to do something fun with Courtney. They went and saw "Tangled", the new Rapunzel movie. It was rated PG, which is usually a bad sign for our girls, but Matt said it was very good. He got by lucky too, I found a $25 AMC giftcard in my wallet, so him and Courtney blew the entire thing! Oh, he did have to pay $1.50 for popcorn and pop....on top of the $25!! Those movie theatres know how to get you!!

In the mean time, I went and picked Megan up from school and headed to Wal-Mart to get groceries. What a zoo! And of course, Megan hasn't been grocery shopping in a long time and wants to push the cart, so she is constantly in the way, heading towards people, etc. It was not a fun time for me! Christian was fussy, but there wasn't much I could do. I eventually took over the cart-pushing duties and Megan rode on the front. We eventually buried Christian in groceries, so he was stuck. Once I gave him pacifier, he quieted down and went along for the ride.
After spending $150 there, we headed over to Old Navy. My mom had bought her a pair of jeans for her birthday, but they didn't have enough elastic on one side to make them as tight as the other side. Very wierd! So, I was hoping to do an even exchange at Old Navy and be done. But no, they don't do even exchanges. They said they would refund me money, but they would have to send me a check in a week or so. I said, ok, fine. But knowing we were going to get money in the mail, I decided to take Megan back to her section and thought maybe we could find jeans that fit her, we would buy them, and be done. Again, didn't work out the way I planned.

We tried on 7 regular- not enough elastic (again), too big, we tried 7 slim- too tight!, we tried 8 regular and again, too big around her waste. They had enough elastic, but they were still too big. Crazy!
Actually we were in the dressing room so long, the employee came knocking on our door to see if we were doing ok! In the end, Megan ended up with a really pretty white sweater and a long sleeve t-shirt. She was happy. I really wish we could've found jeans, but now I know not to go there for jeans again, until she grows a little in the waist!

Now we're home, groceries are put away, Megan is modeling her new clothes and Christian is ready to go down for a nap.

Let the holidays begin!

Maybe he's growing?

Wow, we really go from one extreme to another around here.

Put Christian to bed at 10 pm last night.

I saw him at 12:05, 2:30, 5:00, 5:30, and 6:30. Finally at 6:30, I brought him into bed with me and he fell right back asleep.

Megan got up at 7:30, so he woke up a little bit, I fed him, and he went right back to sleep. It's 9 am. Who knows when he will wake up for the day!

What happened to my kid???

Sleep does a body good!

We are on a roll here. After waking him up at 5 pm last night to feed him before piano lessons, Christian was in a great mood until bedtime. ( I would be too if I slept for 2 1/2 hours!)

He was wide awake yet at 9, but about 9:15, you could tell he was ready for bed. I fed him and he crashed. I put him back in his bed instead of his bouncy seat. He has napped in his bed fine, so why not?

I didn't hear him until 2:50 this morning. I went in, put him pacifier in, and he went back to sleep. Wonderful!

5:00 same thing. This is usually when he wants to bed fed, but again, he went right back to sleep and I went back to bed.

I thought for sure I would see him at 6, but nope. Not until 6:50!!! I could hardly belive it. I bet I could've gotten him back to sleep again as tired as he looked, but I got him up and fed him. We have to get out of here early this morning, so I wanted him taken care of before I had to get the girls ready.

We're off to the Children's Museum today with all our friends- it should be a fun time!

Another sleep story...

Christian and sleep do not go together. I have known this for quite awhile now, but today has been very interesting.

Here is how this morning went:
4:30 Christian crying
4:35 I go in, put pacifier in his mouth, and settle him down
4:50 back to bed.

5:05 Christian awake again
I decide I am not going to listen to him cry for an hour until six, so I break down and feed him. For 20 minutes.

I was hoping to nurse him back to sleep, put him down, and not see him for another three hours.
Wrong! Christian decides to poop while nursing, of course, right?
So even though he is sound asleep, I need to change his diaper, and when this happens, he wakes up. And he is wide awake, now it is 5:30 am

I decide I'm not going to try to get him back to sleep, he doesn't even look tired.
I put him in his bouncy seat (where he has been sleeping because he has a cold), give him his pacifier, and let him be. I leave the hall light on.

I go back to bed.

5:45 I don't hear anything, so I go check on him. He is still sitting there, wide-eyed, sucking on his pacifier. I determine that he is still fine and go back to bed.

6:00 Still don't hear anything and thing maybe he has gone back to sleep by now, so I go check. Nope, still sitting there wide awake, so I go back to bed again.

6:05 Christian starts to cry. I let him cry it out for about 15 minutes.There is really nothing I can do and I don't want to leave my bed again.

6:20 I don't want to listen to him anymore, so I take him downstairs to Matt (this is what usually happens). Matt was in the living room watching the news and eating breakfast. I put Christian in a bouncy seat and put him in front of the TV. Good plan, right?

Go back to bed, again.

6:45 Matt comes up and says Christian is sound asleep in front of the TV and he doesn't think we should move him. I tell him to bring him upstairs and put him in his room. He should stay sleeping. Matt goes to work.

7:05 Christian is awake! AHHH, so I go get him and put him into bed with me! He falls back asleep almost instantly.

7:30 I get up with Megan and get her out the door at 8:25

I come back inside from taking her to the bus and Christian is awake. It is ok though, it's been 3 1/2 hours and he needs to eat and we need to get to the mall.

We go to the mall, have fun, come home at lunch time. Christian eats and takes a short nap. Great! About 2:15, he starts getting fussy, so I get his pacifier and off to bed we go.

2:20 Christian is in bed sleeping

It is now 4:57 and Christian is still in bed sleeping. Of course, he has been up every half an hour, but I've always managed to get him back to sleep.

Apparently somebody is tired today, I hope he wakes up soon because he hasn't ate since 12:30 and I have to give piano lessons at 5:30. I hate to wake him up, but I might have to.

Can we have a 3 hour afternoon nap everyday??

I love Saturdays!

I get to sleep in! Nobody needs to go anywhere, everybody can do their own thing.

Why can't we have Saturdays more often??

Little Sleep Required

Christian was awake at 5:30 am, I just put him down at 9:30 pm.

Naps: 15 minutes at 9 am
30 minutes at 11:15
60 minutes at 2:45!!! (I never get an hour nap out of him!!)
no nap at 6:45

Really? You were awake from 5:30 am to 9:30 pm with probably less than two hours worth of naps. Do you really need that little of sleep? I need more than that! (Hence, I let you cry this morning at 5:30 because I was soooo tired and you wouldn't go back to sleep. Wait, you never did go back to sleep!)

My new theory: the later I put him to bed at night, the later he will sleep in in the morning.

When I used to put him to bed at 7:30-8, we were getting a wake up call at 4.
Lately, I've been waited til 8:30-9 to put him to bed and we're making it until 5:30 or so.

I am refusing to feed him in the middle of the night, so we're trying this out.

Again, I don't know what is worse. 1. Putting him to bed earlier and then getting up at 4 and battling him for an hour to get back to sleep only to see him at 6:30 again. 2. Staying up later with him at night and seeing him at 6-6:30, but then he is up for the day.

I think he can only make it 8 hours at night.

Why can't he sleep in like the girls?? Why is he such an early bird?? I'm so thankful that Matt takes him in the morning while he is getting ready so I can continue to sleep! Then when he is ready to leave, it's time for me to get up anyway and he hands Christian back to me. Kind of works out nice.

Pictures

Ok, I said I would post these, so here you go.

1. Megan playing kickball and Christian is "holding" the ball for her.

I wish you could hear him laughing after she did this! It was hilarious, he loved it!
(Yes, I know she could kick him right in the face, but she wasn't!)


We do have video of it, but I'm not sure how to upload it yet!

2. The girls got ahold of lip gloss and decided to paint their faces.



Not as much fun as kickball, but they still laughed and giggled while they were doing this to themselves. They were having fun, so I let them do what they wanted. They weren't doing any harm, it just didn't come off very well!

I cut Megan's bangs.

Yes, I did it.

I cut Megan's bangs this morning.

She has pictures this afternoon and this morning at breakfast, I realized they were in her eyes. So I decided to cut them.

I figured that I watched my mom cut hair for 33 years, maybe I can do it too.

And, they actually looked straight. I'm sure my mom will let me know how I did, right mom?

I am not going to make a habit of this, but I really want to get her pictures done today!

Ten on Tuesday

I saw this on a freind's blog and thought I would give it a whirl!

Ten randon thoughts for the day:

1. I just LOVE my new dining room!! As somebody this weekend said, it takes about 10 years to get a house and to build up to a dining room. I am so excited for this! We ate in there for the first time as a family tonight!




2. When you get married and you stash everything away that you "will use someday," remember where it is stashed! It was sure fun getting stuff out of storage that we received 10 years ago for our wedding. We got some very nice glass bowls and vases and we brought them upstairs and put them in our china hutch! We also put our glass goblets in there! Wow, I forgot I had all this stuff.


3. I am not good at interior design. I bought two different sets of dishes because I couldn't decide- I did take one set back today. I want to get placemats and cloth napkins, but not quite sure what to get. I'd also like to get a picture on the wall, but again, unsure of myself.

4. Enough about the dining room, why does my son wake up at 6 am and go to bed at 9:15 pm? Does he not need sleep?? And to add, he's probably had under two hours worth of naps today and surprisingly, he's not cranky. I just don't think he needs sleep!

5. Mr. Christian has decided to stop waking up at 4 am, now we're usually up about 10-11 pm and then we sleep until about 6. Not bad, but these 6 am wake up calls are going to get old really fast!

6. I am going to Portrait Innovations to get Megan's seven year pictures done tomorrow and I do not want Nichole to take them. I had her when we did Courtney's in August and she was very rude to me! Is it bad that she answered the phone tonight when I called and made the appointment? Can I request not to have her tomorrow??

7. Megan sure has a great time entertaining Christian in the evening! Last night, Christian was laying on the playroom floor holding a ball. Megan decided that it was time for kickball, so she would kick it right out of his hands. Christian laughed and laughed and laughed! And yes, we know this could be dangerous, but we were watching her! I need to post my pictures tomorrow.

8. Tonight the girls got ahold of some lip gloss and decided to put it on their faces. I thought I had a football player and a kitty in our house. I wonder how old that stuff is...again, pictures tomorrow.

9. I love it that Megan can now write out her own thank you notes.

10. I am very thankful for our health. We found out the other day that one of Megan's classmates mom has lung cancer. She has four children and three of them attend Megan's school. She is a real estate agent, so she is self-employed. There is a benefit on Friday night, but I am unable to attend. I just want to send them a check, even though we've had enough bills of our own this year. Please pray for her health if you get a chance, her name is Renee.

That's all for now!

Do mommies make pink milk?

I was holding Christian earlier and he spit up a little bit of pink milk.

Odd, I thought, but then I realized that Courtney had strawberry syrup on her ice cream and she had seen me give Christian a little bit of ice cream, so I asked if she gave him any. "No" she said.

Ok, maybe it was just a fluke. Then she said, "But mommy, you drank pink milk for lunch."

Do you think I make pink milk if I drink pink milk for lunch???

Birthday Week is OVER

After celebrating Megan's birthday three times, we are done!!

We took her out for supper on Tuesday, had a friend party on Friday, and then had her family party yesterday, it is time to put all the decorations away until next year!

I love it and all, but it's a lot of work, plus my poor laundry is suffering. :(

We had over 30 people over yesterday and went through lots of food, but didn't go through my birthday cupcakes! Ahh, I don't need 15 cupcakes to eat this week! I just finally lost all my baby weight!

Megan had a good time. She got some great presents including some new art supplies and new books to read. Unfortunately, she only got one pair of jeans, so now we need to go shopping, she needs 2-3 more pairs! I think she had a great time having all her friends over and seeing people who haven't been over in awhile.

The best part is though that during the party Christian slept for 1 1/2 hours (which he NEVER does) and I think we wore him out becuase he slept all night!!! Yay for Christian, about 8:30-6:30. I was up at 4 though wondering where he was. But since he has yet another cold, I could hear him breathing from his doorway. Good enough for me, I went back to bed and didn't worry about him!

Next Birthday: Matt, November 20th!

Rules for Christian

Now that Christian is five months, I have made some new rules for him, especially in reference to bedtime.

1. Bedtime is around 8-10, whenever he gets cranky and needs to go to bed. I will feed him before he goes to bed and say good night.

2. If he wakes up in the middle of the night, I am not going to feed him anymore. He's been stuck at 4:30 for about three months now and I would get up to feed him, but I know he really doesn't need this feeding, it just puts me and him back to bed faster.

3. When he does wake up, I will go in and put his pacifier in his mouth and give him his blanket. I wil touch his face or whatever I can do to calm him down, but not pick him up.

4. If he doesn't go back to sleep, I am going to leave the room for 5 minutes and then come back and put his pacifier back in and try it over again. He needs to learn to sooth himself back to sleep and really, this is working. He is getting much better at going back to sleep in the middle of the night.

5. I know he is an early riser, so I will not try to get him back to sleep after 6-6:30. I will go get him and feed him, but then he needs to stay awake for awhile. This is where we start our schedule for the day. Usually an hour and a half after I feed him, he is ready to go back down for a nap. If I put him back to bed after I feed him right away in the morning, it messes our whole day up!

6. Throughout the day, our schedule is eat, awake time, nap. I cannot put him down for a nap after he eats, no matter how tired he is! (Thanks "Babywise"!) I need to stick to this!

We've been on this schedule for about 2 months and it is really helping. He is sleeping better during the day and at night and he is very predictable. I can get out of the house during his awake time and be home before his next feeding. I am realizing that Christian's sleep is precious, but is hard for him to get to sleep and stay asleep. I think I'm finally getting him figured out.

Yes, he has been our most challenging baby, especially in regards to sleep!!!

Birthday Party/ Mishaps from Friday

I stayed busy this week with my root canal and getting ready for Megan's party. I swear it takes me a week to clean my house because I spend half my day caring for Christian. Courtney and I didn't do anything wyith our friends on Thursday or Friday, we stayed home in the morning, got things for Megan's party in the afternoon, and spent time with the family at night. (AKA, finished the dining room).

Yesterday afternoon had to return about 30 books we had here to the library, I don't think the girls ready half of them. I'm not checking anymore books out for awhile.

Then we were off to Walmart for groceries. This actually goes really well lately with Christian. Since he can hold his head up now, I just prop him up in the seat with blankets, buckle him in, and off we go. Of course, I take the sanitize wipes and clean the cart off thoroughly!

Anyway, Courtney wanted to ride in the back of the cart too, so that was nice. I didn't have to constantly say, "Come on!" Unfortunately, by the time we were done, she was buried in groceries, but she didn't want to get out!

I have a love-hate relationship with Walmart. I love it because I can take ads from other stores and get items at those prices, I hate it because I am forced to go there because it's cheap.

Milk is something I always look for in the ads and for about every week for the last two months, it's been on sale somewhere. Yesterday, it was a half gallon for $1. Wonderful! While I'm there, I picked up 6 half gallons of milk (3 gallons). This usually lasts us a little under two week. For some reason though yesterday, I didn't look at the expiration dates. I just assumed it would be good for about 2 weeks like it usually is. I just grabbed 6 half gallons and put them in the cart. Little did I know, four of the six half gallons expire in 4 days!! Do I take them back and get new ones? Do I freeze them? What do I do with 2 gallons of milk in four days? I was kind of mad at myself when I realized this!!

Last night we had Megan's friend birthday party. All went well! I told Megan she could invite six friends, so she did and five we able to make it. It was much easier to control seven little girls (ours included) than 15 last year! I just did not feel like having a big party this year!

Megan wanted chili to eat, so I made that for her. Two of the girls didn't like chili, so we made them peanut butter and jelly. (I felt responsible for feeding them.) After they had half eaten their sandwich, they declared themslves done. I wasn't surprised because I've seen these two eat at school. About two minutes later, they tell me, "We ate at home. We had soup and chicken nuggets." What? You could've told me that before I made you sandwiches!

Then we decorated some mugs for hot chocolate and played a game of pictionary with the easel. It was pretty fun. I had just come up with some simple nouns for them to draw, but we were getting answers like palatypus and toaster. The girls were getting a little crazy towards the end of the game- I think it took longer than their 20 minute attention span.

We then opened presents and had cupcakes and ice cream for dessert. I went to put seven candles on Megan's cupcake and Matt said, "You're really going to do that?" "Yes I am". I will post a picture of her little cupcake with seven lit candles!

Then I just let them play the last 15 minutes until the moms came. It was a much simpler party and it was nice having Megan's friends over and seeing how they all interact. (Of course when the moms came, they were all covered in snow because we were getting our first snow fall of the season!)

Christian though, being his usual self, was kind of a pill during the party. He should've went down for a nap at 5:30, but that was a half an hour before the party started and I had a lot to do yet, so I just put him in my front pack and carried him around. He never did get a nap, I fed him at 6:30 while the girls were decorating their mugs and he was sooo tired, but I didn't lay him down, I just went back to the party. Well Matt ended up holding him all night and by 8:15 he was in major meltdown mode, so off to bed we went!! We let the girls stay up until about 9:45, I told them "Mommy needs to go to bed, so you do too!"

We have our family party on Sunday, so hopefully the house will stay clean and I can get everything ready today. Then birthday week will be over!

Root canal

I survived my root canal today, it wasn't so bad as everybody made it out to be.

Good thing they numbed me up...now, 5 hours later, the numbness is still hanging on.

I go back in a month to finish it, along with getting two cavities filled, and then I should be done.

I think I've seen the dentist enough this year. :)
(And given him enough of my money!)

Birthday Week

This week we get to celebrate Megan's 7th birthday!

Everyday we are reminded how many days are left until her birthday. She is excited!

To top it off, we are having a little friend party for her on Friday night and then a family party on Sunday afternoon.

I have to kick it into gear, I don't have any plans for either of these parties!

I also need to clean the house this week, it may take me all week!

Floor Accomplished!

Matt worked almost 12 hours yesterday to get the new wood floor down in our dining room. He had to rent a nailer from Home Depot and said he used about 1200 nails on it. Wow!

He laid about 4-5 rows last week, so he had some done before he started, so here he is starting where he left off.



Getting some more done!

Before Matt put the wood door, he put down this red paper to help protect the floor (or something like that). We thought it would be fun to have the girls draw on this paper and when they pull the floor up in the future, they can see their cute drawings.

Megan's drawings:

Courtney's drawings:

Finished! The floor anyway :)

Next step: the woodwork.

We debated today whether to put the old woodwork back on or put new woodwork on. I think in the end, Matt is going to put new woodwork on around the floor and quarter-round. Our old woodwork was scuffed up and didn't look very nice by the new floor. The new woodwork doesn't match exactly, but we think it is close enough.

Hopefully he can get this done before Megan's birthday party next week- that's his goal anyway.

Then we can move in our new hutch and new dining room table! As for now, they are in boxes in my piano room.

We already tore into the box on the left hand side, I wanted to see my hutch again!

I have piano lesson tomorrow night, so I need to figure out what to do!

Look for future updates later this week! We should have a completed room by next Sunday!

New Floor

Matt's mission for the day is to put the new wood floor down in the dining room.

The kids and I are leaving this place later, I don't want to listen to sawing and nailing all day long!!

We went and picked up our hutch and dining room table last night, so that's here ready to be put in the dining room.

It's painted with new paint, has new curtains, and a new chandalier.

I can't wait until it is done- I'm excited because I've never had a dining room before!

Sick day for Megan, Courtney, and Matt

Now that the nasty virus has attacked all 5 of us, I think it can go away and never return!

This is how we ended the day:

Christian- whiny all morning and constantly wanting to be held, he still has some nasty diapers, so after he went about noon, we had a happy baby the rest of the day!

Courtney- woke up great, playing, laughing, having a great time. Around 3, we sat down to watch a movie and by 3:30, she was asleep in my lap. Poor thing didn't wake up until 7:30!! I hope she sleeps tonight!

Megan- Woke up dizzy and couldn't function very well. Matt carried her downstairs and she laid on the couch almost all day. She slept from 12-2. About 3, Matt went out and got some children's ibuprofren because she was running a 102 fever and looked awful! (why don't I have any ibuprofen in the house??) We gave it to her and within an hour, we had our old Megan back! She got off the couch and was ready to face the world. Megan and I sat in the kitchen and colored and talked for a couple of hours while Courtney slept. I feel fortunate that I got one-on-one time with her, that doesn't happen very often.

Charla- I was fine all day, trying to hold down the fort!

Matt- Well, it eventually hit Matt today. He didn't throw up, but I think his stomach hurt pretty bad. He had quite a bit of pepto-bismol today. Towards the end of the afternoon, he came down with an occular migraine, so in addition to his stomach, now he now had a headache.

So, Megan is in bed and hopefully will be ready to go back to school tomorrow.

We'll see if Matt goes back to work.

Courtney, Christian, and I have MOPS in the morning that I would really like to attend. (Heck, I stood in the kitchen today making 6 packages of mini muffins for MOPS tomorrow, I even loaded all three kids up at 7:30 pm tonight to take them to church because I knew I wouldn't get there early enough tomorrow).

Tomorrow I also need to finish the laundry and continue to get things back to normal around here!

Things I've learned from this whole ordeal:
1. You need at least one functioning parent to take care of everybody while everybody else is sick.
2. Always keep gatorade and children's medicine in the house- we had to make trips to Baker's today to get these items.
3. Train children early to run to the bathroom to puke.
4. Thank heavens for water-proof mattress pads-we would've had to buy Megan a new mattress after last night!
5. The more people you have in the family, the more it's going to spread.
6. Have plenty of new toothbrushes available so you can throw the old ones out. (Like the one Megan used right before she threw up last night!)
7. Have lots of baskets for dirty laundry! Yikes, I don't even want to know how much laundry we did this week!
8. Know how to get puke off of walls, blankets, stuffed animals, carpets, linoleum, side railings for beds, and pillows
9. Oxi-clean is my friend
10. Be ready to apologize to whoever you spread it to and didn't realize it. yikes!

Further Evaluation

Megan- has a 100.4 temp, dizzy, can't walk, still very pale, can talk fine, drinking gatorade and keeping it down

Corutney- can walk, no temp, drinking gatorade

Christian- fine

Charla- not 100%, but good

Matt- hopefully not getting it, but has a stomach ache. But lucky him, he can take pepto bismol where I couldn't

I have a feeing we're going to be sacked out in the living room watching movies all day again!

Another one bites the dust

Ok, so it was too late to post last night but just as we were helping Courtney throw up about 10:30 last night, we hear Megan start to gag. Matt says, "She's just fine," but then takes off. He meets her in the bathroom...after the damage had been done.

When Matt and I put her to bed, we both asked her if she felt sick and she said no. Just in case, I cleaned all the barbies out of her bed and all the little toys and books. I left the stuffed animals and blankets. She told me if she was going to throw up, she would do it where her barbies were and then not get her stuffed animals dirty. Why do I listen to a 6 year old?

When she gagged, she threw up full force in her bed! I mean, it even splattered on the wall. She got it on her blankets, stuffed animals, sheet, mattress pad, pillow, and bed rail! She said she tried to throw up toward her bed rail but just couldn't! In the middle of this, she got out of bed and raced to the bathroom, leaving a trail on the carpet. When she got to the bathroom, she threw up again and it was all over thefloor, toilet, and the wall. I think it hit her hard and came out of nowhere! She definitely gets the award for making the biggest mess!! (And of course, we ask her again, "Did you feel sick when you went to bed? She said, "yes". Megan!!!)

With Courtney already sacked out beside our bed on her sleeping bag, we put Megan on her sleeping bag in our master bathroom (close to the toilet). She was up about 2-3 more times throwing up. We put towels on the floor underneath her, so she usually got it on those first and then made it to the toilet. I think Courtney was done throwing up by 11, where Megan was still going at it at 2.

To top the night off, Christian decided to be up at 1:30, so I let him cry for awhile, I think it took 25 minutes to get back to sleep, but of course, he woke everybody up. Then he was up again at 4:30, I fed him just to get some sleep. Then we all crashed! I woke up at 7:50 because Christian was crying AGAIN and I looked over and he woke both girls up. NO! I raced in to get him and shut our bedroom door. I need them to rest.

Now Matt is complaining that his stomach hurts and probably isn't going to go to work for awhile.

I called the school and Megan will not be attending today.

Courtney, Christian, and I will not be going to our MOMS Club meeting today. We're staying right here.

Now that everybody has had it, let's get this virus out of our house and get life back to normal!!!

3 out of 5

Yes, 3 out of our 5 family members have now gotten the 24 hour puking/ diarhea bug.

fun. fun.

Courtney threw up at church just as they were finishing her class. We got her home and she puked two more times.

She's sleeping in our room tonight.

Matt or Megan...who's next??

Found!!!

I was putting away some bibs in a storage container and in the middle of the stack of bibs was the baby brother shirt!!

I used to have these bibs stacked in Christian's closet, so I bet I threw his t-shirt on top of the bibs and then didn't realize it was there when I packed them away.

Do you know how many times I have been in this container getting things and haven't noticed his t-shirt?

The sad thing is, it won't fit him anymore. :(

I still want to do big sister, middle sister, and baby brother pictures. I was waiting until Christian could sit up, so hopefully I can do them for Christmas pictures this year. I will probably just have to make Christian a new one.

Matt also found some of Christian's socks stuck in the washer yesterday.

Maybe I don't really have a black hole in my house eating all my clothes. :)

Doing Better!

I'm so glad I don't feel like puking anymore!!

But I am weak and shaky this morning, but hopefully it is just dehydration/ low sugars from not eating much yesterday. I'm hoping to get this under control and get back to normal.

Today I head to the dr. to check out my high thyroid numbers. I have to pull Megan out of school to get there in time to do paperwork, ugh. I would've printed them off here and not had to pull her out of school, but our printer is out of black in and I don't think the dr. office would appreciate paperwork in blue, red, or yellow!

A big kudos to Matt for helping out so much yesterday!!!

I swear I AM going to take a shower today and I am NOT going to turn the TV on!

Sick Day..for mom:(

This morning, about 1:30 am, I woke up and felt like I had to puke! My stomach hurt so bad. At 4:30 Christian woke up to eat and when I stood up, I felt like I was going to fall over. I woke Matt up and asked him he would go get him. Matt brought him to me, I fed him, and then Matt put him back to bed. I couldn't move.

At 5:30, Matt was up. At 6:30, I heard Christian crying again (this is his normal routine). I stand up and I must've felt ok because I went and got him. Since Matt was in the shower, I know it would be awhile if I waited for him.

I fed Christian at 7 and in the meantime, I talked to Matt about what our plan was for the day. I still felt terrible so obviously I couldn't take care of the children. Matt had a work event this morning, but he said if I got Megan out of bed and started, he would come home around 8 and get her off to school.

While Megan is on her way into my room at 7:30, Christian pukes in my bed! All that good milk, so obviously, I wasn't the only one sick. I left the blankets (because I had no energy) and got Christian's clothes changed. I got Megan downstairs and got her breakfast. It is about 8 by now and her bus comes at 8:25!

Matt got home about 8:10 and we kept getting Megan ready. I sat down in the chair and let Matt take over. We saw the bus drive by at 8:25 and Megan was still getting her shoes on. Matt just put her in the car and took her to school.

Matt had originally planned not to go downtown to work today, but instead to go to Microsoft event at Sogeti- this is what he had to get started at 7:30. I asked him if there was any way he could stay home and he didn't even blink an eye. I think he knew I was in bad shape!

For the entire morning, I didn't get out of the recliner. My stomach hurt and I was a little cold and dizzy. Luckily, I was able to take care of Christian and Courtney (who didn't get up until 9:45!)

Around lunch time, Matt got him and Courtney lunch and I continued to hang out in the chair. I was getting tired of watching TV already, but there really wasn't anything else I could do! Around 1, Matt decided to go to his office to work, so Courtney and I watched "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." Then I turned the TV off!

Eventually Megan got home and we hung out as a family tonight. There would be times when I felt better, but other times when I felt worse. The girls and I did some puzzles and played some games instead of watchint TV.

As for supper, you know mom isn't feeling good when the rest of the family has a Tombstone pizza and eat it on TV trays in the living room while watching "The Biggest Loser"!

Eventually I got Christian to bed and Matt got the girls bathed. Ahhh. The day is almost over and I didn't do anything! Matt did quite a bit though, he took care of the girls and washed all the blankets/ sheets on our bed from when Christian threw up. He also did the dishes! What a great guy!

Hopefully I can snap out of this overnight and have a more productive day tomorrow! I see the endocronologist at 3, so I need to feel better!

PS Since I was feeing sick, I never did go vote! Matt did though!

Finally!

Today I left Christian on his back and I left the room to do something, I came back, and he was on his stomach. That's not how I left him!

Christian can finally roll over...let the fun begin!!

The Infamous Purple Blanket- Where did it go now??

Every night when Courtney goes to bed, she always has to have her purple blanket with her. Aunt Melissa gave her this blanket when she was born and it is her special blanket.

Yesterday (Saturday), we took Megan to dance and then went to the airport to pick Matt up. She somehow snuck the blanket into the car. She likes to take it in the car and then cover up with it because she is always cold from the air conditioner. I don't care that she does this, I just tell her the blanket needs to stay in the car.

After we picked up Matt, we stopped at Megan's school to watch her go across the monkey bars. She's been working on this at school lately and wanted to show us her progress. I remember seeing the purple blanket in the car while we were at Aldrich and I remember telling her to leave it in the car when she wanted to get out to play.

We got home and all was fine until bedtime. "Mom, where is my purple blanket?" I told her I didn't know, but that doesn't work, you have to look for it. So, Matt and I searched and searched. We looked everywhere in the house and in the car. I knew I saw it at the school, but it wasn't in the house anywhere.

We told her we would keep looking for it and for her to go to bed. Luckily, she took this ok and went to bed. Megan borrowed her a blanket to snuggle with last night. (It was sweet that she was curled up with Megan's blanket- they really do love each other. :)

Anyway, we all woke up this morning and since we were late for church and didn't have time for breakfast, Matt told the girls to just grab a granola bar out of the snack drawer. Courtney opens the drawer and says, "I found my blanket!!"

Silly girl had put her blanket in the snack drawer last night! I guess that was one place we didn't look!!

Need to change

I looked at my calendar today and saw that I have a 7 year old checkup scheduled for Megan at 3 pm on Wednesday.

I am supposed to be at the endocronologist at 2 pm.

Hmmm, I need to switch an appointment, can't be in opposite sides of the town within an hour of each other!

By the way, Matt got home safe and sound this afternoon. We're glad he's home! (Just in time to watch Missouri get beat by Nebraska!!!)

Update

I have an appointment next Wednesday to see an endocronologist, it's the same one my dad sees here in Omaha!

My family dr. called me back yesterday and said the thyroid dr. doesn't want to put me on anything at this time becuase I am breastfeeding, but he still wants to see me. He also said this could be caused by having a baby and might go away in a few months! After doing my own research online, this is very common.

As I sit here now, I am shaky. Glad to know it's not my blood sugar! But I will have to live with it for awhile. I'm glad the symptoms aren't too noticable and I can still take care of children/ myself with this problem.

It's my thyroid??

I went to the dr. yesterday, a bunch of things have been bothering me, so I went and got them all checked out.

1. I had a sore throat for awhile, but since I'm on antibiotics for my tooth abcess, that has gone away. In the meantime, I asked the dr. to check it out and he did and it was fine. He felt my thyroid andhe said everything was fine. He decided to check my thryoid with a blood test because I don't think it's ever been checked.

2. My blood sugar has been way low lately. I always feel weak and shaky, he mentioned to just eat some more since I'm nursing. Easy enough!

3. I also had him check my gall bladder. I've gotten really bad stomach aches lately when I eat high-fatty food. He felt it and it seemed fine, but he said I could go ahead and get it checked anyway (ultrasound, nuclear radiology test). I'm still debating what to do (but I need to do it this year if I do anything!)

In the end, the nurse came in and took a big vile of blood. He was going to check my thyroid, blood sugar, and my liver and kidney function because my back has been hurting.

Today he called with the results. Blood sugar, liver, kidney function all fine. Thyroid is not. He said my numbers were way high- I have hyper-thyroidism or Grave's Disease. And since I am breastfeeding, he cannot put me on the medicine that he usually would. He was calling an endocronoloigst (the same one my dad sees) and seek his advice.

I'm so glad he checked it, it has the same symptoms as low blood sugar, I would've never guessed! That would explain why I'm shaky, losing weight, palpitations, and can't sleep well at night.

We'll see what happens next!

Where is the hairspray?

I went into my bathroom to get the hairspray today and it wasn't where I thought it would be. I put a bun in Megan's hair and wanted to spray it.

Then I remembered, it's in the laundry room! I use the hairspray more on ink stains on clothes than I actually do on hair!

I want to go too!

Matt left today for a 3 day Microsoft conference (vacation?) in Seattle, Washington.

I am going to be a single mom for 3 days, but really, it's only 3 days.
Sometimes husbands are gone for months at a time, I consider myself lucky.

I can survive 3 days with my 3 children. Heck, one child is in school all day, so really 2/3 of my children all day, 3 children from 4 til bedtime. Not so bad.

It really comes down to Christian, if he would do me a GREAT favor and sleep through the night, I would be extremely happy.

for example, last night, I came back to bed after trying to get Christian back to sleep at 11:30 and Matt said, "What's going on?" and I told him what was going on, in a not so nice tone of voice. "You're son won't go back to sleep!" So in the end, we let him cry it out and it only took 20 minutes, now if only he would stop getting up at 4:30 too!

Matt will be back Saturday afternoon, just in time for Halloween. I can do it!

Clothes, Clothes Everywhere!

My goal for the day: Pick up clothes.

Thanks to my new method of putting clothes away at night, I now have piles of clothes all over...and it's beginning to drive me nuts!

My master closet, Megan and Courtney's room, and Christian's room.

You know you need to put them away when Megan asked me where her tights were and I said, "Look in the pile of clothes on your floor." Of course, there are dirty clothes all over their floor too!

I also have piles of clothes in my bedroom (kids clothes that need to be put away for the winter and put in the attic) and piles of clothes on my bathroom floor. (Thanks Matt!)

Really, who needs dressers or a closet in my house??

I should add that this is only clean clothes....dirty clothes are a whole other issue!!!

Christian discovered...

his toes!!

Just got back from...

"Go Dog Go!"

This is one of Courtney's favorite books and when I saw it was the Rose Theatre this year, I bought a membership.

Today we made the trip downtown and saw it.

Matt and I weren't quite sure what to expect because there is no real plot line to the book, but the actors did a great job. It wasn't the best play we have ever seen, but it wasn't the worse.

Along the way, the actors told the audience which page they were on, so the kids could follow along. Of course, Courtney had her book along and followed along with everybody else!

The play went page by page and they had props for about everything. They even had extra skits to go along with some pages, skits that aren't included in the book. It was interesting how they made the book come alive on stage!

Next up: Peter Pan!

Dragging this morning...

I am not moving very fast this morning.

Two late nights + hour up with Christian last night + him waking up an hour early this morning=
one tired mommy

Hopefully I'll snap out of this soon and get my day started. :)

Dentist today

Megan, Courtney, and I had our 6 month checkup at the dentist today.

Everybody had great reports, except for me. :(

Two cavities (where two teeth come together) and I need a root canal.

A root canal on my tooth that I just got a crown on 6 months ago.

This tooth has been sensitive to cold and hard to chew on that side since I had Christian and I have been to the dentist twice trying to figure it out. The answer came today.

They took x-rays and at the way bottom of my root, there is an abcess. nice.
That will be another $250, thank you very much.

If only I wouldn't have cracked my tooth on toast way back in February, I wouldn't be going through all this! They said it was bound to crack anyway, no matter what I ate because I had a big filling in it.

So, I get to take antibiotics for 10 days and then have a root canal. And two fillings.

Sounds like fun to me....

Moving Up...again

Today I pulled out 12 month clothes. My baby is 4 months old and is almost wearing 12 months. This is mostly for onesies and sleepers, we are still in 6 month pants. I have a feeling he is always going to be a size ahead for shirts and sleepers. (Can't buy any outfits!)

I feed bad, I have four 3-6 month pants outfits that he never wore. One was a gift and the other three I bought, at least I got them on clearance and can always regift them or sell them at consignment sales down the line.

I did find some cute 12 month clothes that I had set aside for the winter- cute overalls and shirts. I bought some white onesies the other day, so we are set on those (a mainstay in my baby's wardrobe!). We are good on sleepers too, we may just need some socks. Poor boy, his socks are already too small!

I just wonder how big this little boy is going to be in 18 years!

Note to self

Do not drink orange juice or anything that has a lot of sugar in it in the morning.

I've been having trouble with low blood sugar in the mornings and this is only making it worse.

It's getting cleaned!

Tonight at supper, Megan looked at Courtney and said, "Let's clean the playroom tonight." I think Megan wants to get back in there more than Courtney.

At the moment I hear, "Clean up, Clean up, Everybody Clean up!" They are both in there cleaning and it's almost done! They might get to play in there again!

I think it's been closed for over a week. I wondered how long it would take!

The apple orchard!

After church today, we headed down to Nebraska City to the apple orchards. We ended up at Arbor Farms and had a great time! We went on a nature hike and played in the kids section. Our girls were eager to learn about trees. Megan kept saying, "I love nature!" and I think she does.

They both got little trees with our admission, so we had to plant those when we got home.

Hopefully I will post some pictures soon!

Improvement!

I am loving Christian's new schedule! He eats every three hours, takes a nap between each feeding, and is a much happier boy! We've only cried about twice this last week due to being tired. Plus, we have started going to bed at 7:30 and getting up at 7-7:30, with getting up once in the middle of the night to eat. MUCH BETTER!!!!

Today we are off to church and then Nebraska City to pick some apples! Hope the weather stays nice for us!!

Fall Break!

Megan has had the last three days off of school, it's been nice having her home, but it's also hard to adjust to three kids again.

Last Tuesday, we had parent-teacher conferences for Megan. I left Christian for the first time at home with Chad and Kelsey. I had him fed and changed and he was good for about 3 hours. He did great! When I got home, he was a happy baby! We also got a very good report about Megan!

Wednesday morning (Megan's first day off), I had Christian's 4 month appointment at 11 am. It took us about that long to get out of bed and get ready, of course, I slept in! We made it and Christian checked out great. He weighed 16 lbs, 12 oz (80%) and he was 26 3/4 inches long (95%). He is right on schedule for development. Our doctor talked to us about solid food, but I'm going to wait until 6 months.

We got home around 12 and by 2, I was pulling my hair out from the fighting between the two girls! I said, "That's it, get your shoes on, we're going to the park!" They didn't want to walk to our neighborhood park, they wanted to go to the"spiderweb park" and it's not so far away. We got in the car and off we went. We played at the park for about 2 hours! Megan had made some friends and it was a beautiful day out, so we just stayed for awhile!

Thursday was another gorgeous day! We stayed home in the morning and then went downtown to have lunch with Matt. We picked up Matt at work and then headed down to Old Chicago. We needed quarters for the parking meters and Matt asked if I had any, I said no, but then from the backseat I heard, "Mom, I have quarters!" Courtney was eager to share hers. We had lunch and then headed back to west Omaha. At 2, we met some friends and played at another great park for another 2 hours! It was beautiful out again. We probably would've played longer, but everybody had to go potty!

Today is Friday and I had MOPS this morning. Since Megan was off of school and the church had no place for her while I attended MOPS, I called grandma Lu and she came and watched the older two girls while I took Christian to MOPS. They had a great time together while I was gone.

Matt decided to take the afternoon off and since it was in the 70's again, I did not want to stay indoors! I suggested we go to the zoo, so we did! Grandma Lu came with us and we were there for about 4 hours. We all had a good time!

Tonight we're home and we're ready for another weekend! We're anxious to watch the NE vs. Texas game tomorrow- Go Big Red!!!

Sunday Afternoon at Grandma's!

I took the kids on Sunday and went back to Scribner. My grandma had been in the hospital, so I wanted to visit her for awhile. After we were done there, we headed over to my parents' house to play with Megan and Courtney's cousins. My mom was watching Abby and Lizzie for the day and the girls always have great fun together!


We took Megan and Courtney's bikes out there and they could not wait to ride them with their cousins in grandma's garage!

(Notice Lizzie is riding the tractor and the dog is laying in the middle of the patio- the girls just rode around him!)

Christian hanging out in grandma's stoller as the girls rode bikes!



We thought it would be fun to put Christian on the tractor! He looks pretty good!



All the cousins, minus Rowan, by the tractor
Lizzie, Abby, Christian, Megan, and Courtney.



It's always fun to get together and play!