Freedom tomorrow!

I was stuck at home all day today because my van wouldn't start. We knew the battery was bad for awhile, we just never changed it. Last night, we had to jump my van twice while we were out. Unfortunately, it wouldn't start this morning. But Matt changed my battery tonight and I'm ready to roll tomorrow! I think we're going to get the water pump and the gas gauge fixed on Sunday, then it will be like new. :)

Plan Failed :(

I thought I had such a good plan until I looked at Christian and saw this: Those are wood specks on his onesie- he was eating my baby gate like a little beaver! Christian Maxwell! Maybe we'll need to invest in a plastic gate!

I found a solution!

What do you think? I think I found a solution to chasing Christian while I am upstairs. Put the baby gate up in Christian's doorway, he is trapped and yet he can see everybody! He also has all his toys to play with, but too bad he doesn't know how to sit down from this position! He might be there awhile. :)

Laundry?

You know you're behind in laundry when you give the kids baths and the dirty clothes from baths two days ago are still on the bathroom floor!

And she drew blood...

We've been having trouble lately of Megan "accidently" pushing, shoving, hitting, kicking her sister. Sometimes Courtney instigates it, but not always. Tonight she drew blood by scratching her on her back. Courtney is not innocent either though tonight, she had a mask and put it in front of Megan's face. Well, Megan didn't like that, so she scratched her! Megan just could've handled it better. She got her only sad face for her attitude tonight on her chore chart and lost triple nickels. Here's our rules: 1. One nickel per happy face. 2. If you complete the row with happy faces, you get double nickels. 3. If you complete the entire chart with happy faces, you get triple nickels! Notice the only sad face is the bottom right- this one is for attitude, otherwise she had a perfect chore chart for the week! (except for Tuesday, she didn't get a smiley face either because she kicked Courtney in the back while they were putting thier clothes away.) She really needs to stop, but it may only be getting started. Is this why everybody says they would rather have a house full of boys than a house full of girls??

Random Pictures from Today

I had the camera out today, so I thought I would post a few. :)

Courtney has discovered this Peek-a-boo block train and thinks it's the best toy in the world lately!
Christian on all fours!

Megan BEGS me to take her antibiotic, she thinks it is soooo good - today is the last day! Now Christian is on his yet for another week.

Snow pictures. Ok, even I don't like getting snow at the end of March, but it was really pretty this morning, right??

What to do with an extra shelf?

I just got through cleaning out Christian's room. There are things in there we don't need anymore (swing, bouncy seats), other baby items that needed to be packed back away, and it was really, really dusty, so I cleaned it up! The kids were playing great, so why not?

I cleaned off one of Christian's shelves in his closet and I looked at Courtney and said, "Courtney, look, I found a shelf. What should we do with it?"

Her response,"Let's buy more stuff!!"

My response was "Absolutely not Courtney!!"

Much Better!

Christian is back to sleeping from 9-7 and nobody is wheezing in my house anymore!

Everybody still has some nose drainage going on and we still have to suck Christian's nose out once in awhile to eat, but he's much better than he was!

I love medicine! And my sleep!

By the way, Christian is starting to really crawl now, he gets on all fours and will crawl for a couple of feet and then go back to army crawling. We are going to have to get some gates really soon.

Matt and I have also decided that we might need to invest in a new swing set, one with 3 swings! Ours only has two and we're constantly taking one off, putting Christian's up, taking Christian's down, putting another swing back up, etc.. Kind of a mess. And it's only going to get worse this summer. So, we're on a look out for a new swing set!

And the doctor says...

it's an ear infection!

I was a little concerned about Christian last night. He's had a low-grade temp for awhile and the typical cold symptoms, but with Megan having bronchiolitis, I've been keeping an eye on him.

He didn't even sleep in his own room last night, I had right beside me in his new jail (pack n play) so I could listen to him breath. He slept great after the vaporizer was going for awhile and after he wore himself out by crying so much! Poor thing, I felt helpless!

Anyway, the doctor listened to his lungs and said she couldn't hear anything- I told her that if she made him cry, I'm sure she would hear something! Oh well, she gave me a prescription for albuteral anyway and a prescription of antibiotics for his ear infection. She said he could have RSV, but it wasn't bad enough for her to tell yet, which is good.

So, I think this afternoon, we are all going to take a nice, long nap, well, ok, just Christian!

Merry Christmas to ME!!

I got a new cell phone today!! Yippee!!

Matt has been waiting months for the new Windows phone to come out at Sprint and today was the day!

I said, "Do you think I can get one too?" I really don't like the one I have now, it's just out of date and I can't do anything on it very easily. He agreed, so I got one too!

We got a great plan and we bought two brand new phones!! Yay!! I'm out of the dark ages!

Is this getting ready??

I leave Matt in charge of getting the kids ready for church today and I come downstairs and they are all playing Super Mario Brothers on the Wii!!!!

This is their new addiction, it's great fun because the girls can play along too, but in the meantime, I am trying to get Courtney breakfast, the dog outside, myself ready, diaper bag packed, Christian finished dressed, etc, etc., etc.

I can say that the girls (and boy)are dressed and their hair is brushed, so I will give him credit for that. :)

I guess we might have TOO much time now on Sunday mornings!

Not such a good idea...

Today we really didn't have any plans to do anything. I wanted to hang low and rest a little bit and get over this cold or whatever it is. I wanted to keep an eye on Christian too. But knowing me, I usually come up with something to do!

By this afternoon, we were all feeling great and Courtney had started "Mom, let's play Wii Party. Mom, let's watch a movie. Mom, when is it snack time?" Ahhhh! What ever happened to quiet time when you leave mom alone for two hours???

Anyway, I had discovered that we had about a hundred boxelder bugs (we call them democrats around here) underneath our front window, so I told Courtney we could go kill them. She hates bugs, so I thought this would be fun. :) So I went to the garage and got the bug spray, but couldn't get it to work. It was about 2:30 and I looked at Courtney and said, "Do you want to walk to Megan's school and get her instead of killing the bugs?" We did this a lot last fall. Courtney would ride her bike and I would push Christian in his stroller. It's about a mile or two to her school. We get Megan and then I let the girls play on the playground awhile before we head home.

So I got all the stuff together that I thought we would need and off we went! Courtney had a long sleeve shirt on and Christian and I just had t-shirts on, it was warm out, so I assumed we would be fine! We got about 2-3 blocks away from the house and I thought, "Wow, it's getting windy out here." I didn't grab jackets for Christian or I, but I thought, "It's not so bad." So I kept going.

By the time we got to school, I was thinking that this wasn't such a good idea anymore! We had walked against the wind all the way to school that I was pretty cold and so was Christian. I had a plan though- as soon as we saw Megan, I asked her for her jacket and put it on Christian. It is bright pink, but who cares, he's a baby! I let the girls play awhile and sat there and talked with a neighbor whose kids usually take the bus with Megan, but she was up there picking her kids up too this afternoon.

She was getting ready to go and Christian was starting to get fussy, so I thought we better start our walk home. She looked at me and said, "Would you like our jackets?" I said, "Would you mind?" I would LOVE a jacket to wear home. I took hers and then she had her 7 year old give me hers too for my girls! How sweet is that! I put it on right away and rounded the kids up and headed home! I told her I would just bring them to her house when we got home. But of course, I had to feed a baby, get a baby down for a nap, and then give piano lessons before I even thought of heading to her house. I saw her pull up in our driveway soon after piano lessons were over, so I grabbed them and headed out there! I told her we were much warmer coming home! I was tempted to call Matt to come home early, go get the van, and come pick us up at school!

Next time, when you think you have everything you need, grab a jacket just incase!

Update

Two days later...

Matt- feels great, back to work, no problems! (Actually thinks he had strep throat on Monday)

Charla- still sore throat/ runny nose, but can function. When do moms get a break?? Really?

Megan- Doctor called yesterday (3 days after we took her!) and said her 48 hour strep test culture came back positive, so now she's on antibiotics in addition to her albuteral. I asked, "Do I take her out of school now?" I think it's kind of too late, she's been there for 2 days already! She says her throat hurts and she is still coughing, but you can tell it's better. I haven't heard her catch her breath like she was last weekend. The nurse also mentioned the rest of us should go get checked for strep now.

Courtney- No problems!!

Christian- You can tell he doesn't feel good, he might end up at the doctor too. He coughs and it's starting to move down his chest. I am going to watch him today and call the doctor if I need to. I'm so thankful he sleeps good! I just don't want him to end up with RSV and bronchitis too. His nose has been running a lot lately, so something is going on.

Come on Spring!!

This Morning

Matt- sore throat/ home from work, didn't sleep much

Charla- sore throat/ cancelled playgroup, didn't sleep much

Megan- back to school! still coughing, but doing much better at her breathing treatments

Courtney- Great! Doesn't feel bad at all!

Christian- snotty nose, sore throat, we've sucked so much mucus out, it is disgusting! Has been sleeping the morning away!

I think we're staying at home today and drinking lots of water, let's get rid of this bug!

Thoughts from the Day!

1. Bribery goes a long way...even if the kid doesn't necessarily need it.

Megan needs to take Albuteral three times a day with a nebulizer. She had RSV when she was 9 months old, so we've had the nebulizer before, but we were in control of it. Now she knows better! She was not happy yesterday when we sat her down, put a mask on her, and made her breathe in medicine. Matt worked with her and they got the job done, but she wasn't pleased.

This morning, I was home with her and had to give her the breathing treatment. What should've taken us 5 minutes, took us about a half an hour! She was whining, crying, turning her head, turning the nebulizer off, everything she could to delay the process. She eventually settled down and breathed in the medicine, but still. After this, I didn't know how our afternoon session would go.

In the meantime, she had found a quarter in the car and when we were at the mall this afternoon, she wanted to put it into a gumball machine and get some candy. I said, "Hold on, you're just not getting free candy because you found a quarter," so I struck up a deal with her. She can get the candy, but she needs to take it home. She can only have it IF she takes her medicine well. She agreed!

We got home and I told her it was time to do her medicine. She sat down and picked up the tubing. (We gave up on the mask, we're just letting her hold it in front of her nose). I put the medicine in and turned it on. We were done in 4 minutes! There was NO whining, NO crying, nothing! I was shocked...all for candy!

She did it perfect again tonight. Now only 3 more days of this!

2. Children and Daylight Savings Time

Nobody in my house tonight was ready to go to bed at 8:30.

Not even Christian. He's been in bed sometimes by 8:15, which was perfect because then I could work with the girls at 8:30. Not tonight, he didn't go to bed until 10:30!! And he was wide awake until then! I hope this doesn't happen every night!

Courtney would not settle down, I think I told her about 10 times to go back to bed. Megan settled down and finally stopped coughing, I gave her some medicine. I did let them sleep until 9 this morning, so hopefully tomorrow won't be such a rude awakening when the alarm goes off at 7:25 am! Maybe then we can get back on schedule!

3. My dog is like a driver at UNO

If you never attended UNO, you may not get this.

There are so many drivers/ cars at UNO and not enough parking spots that when you see someone pulling out, you pull up behind them and wait for them to leave thier spot. This can be rather irritating if you're the one pulling out.

Well tonight, I realized that Dell is like the driver in the car. She sat and waited beside Christian's chair after supper for me to clean him up so she could clean up his chair. She just stared at me like it was taking too long. I told her to go away a few times, but she always returned. I don't mind that she cleans his mess up, but really, have a little patience!

Ok, since all my kids went to bed late and I need at least some time to myself, I am finally going to call it a night, at 11 pm! I hope things will change tomorrow night!

It is NOT a competition!

Last night we paid the girls out for the money they earned for doing chores.

Usually Megan gets twice as many nickles as Courtney.

Not last night.

Courtney- 72 Megan- 47

Courtney was jumping up and down and was VERY excited that she had earned more money than Megan. We had to keep telling her, "Courtney it is not a competition!"

Megan forgot to feed the dog one night last week and she didn't get triple nickels because of it. I bet she will never forget again!

And I think Courtney realized what you get when you do ALL of your chores for the week. She seemed very excited when she realized she didn't have any sad faces and that she earned more than Megan!

Hopefully the motivation will stay up and we can continue to be good helpers around the house!!

Bronchiolitis it is!

Megan has been coughing lately and just not sounding right. She almost sounded like she had asthma and couldn't breath right. This morning she woke up with a 100.1 fever, so Matt and I decided to splurge and take her to the doctor.

I got home from church and took her over to Urgent Care. The doctor looked in her ears and nose and all was clear, he then listened to her lungs and said they were all clear- I told him to listen again! He had Megan cough and then he listened and sure enough he heard her wheezing. I could hear it without the stethoscope!

He wants her to take albuteral treatments through a nebulizer for the next 4-5 days. Of course, my first question is, "How much is it to rent a nebulizer?" He replied, "I'm not sure, it's all up to insurance!" That is not what I wanted to hear. Hopefully it's not too much. They said the albuteral probably won't be so much either- we'll see when Matt comes home from the pharmacy. They said she could end up turning blue and we'd be rushing her to the ER, so we're going to treat her. :)

Now, we just need to keep Christian from getting it-she has a hard time sometimes keeping her hands off of him! It said online that the most common virus to cause this is RSV, I do not want him to end up with RSV and have him hospitalized! We are constantly reminding her to wash her hands. Hopefully she will sound better in a day or two.

Ma Ma Ma and Sign Language

This is all I hear lately out of Christian: ma ma ma ma

He can say babababa and dadada and a bunch of other sounds, but it always goes back to ma ma.

I feel loved. :)

I think this child talked non-stop yesterday! It's so sweet!

I think we're also figuring out the sign language. I have been signing "milk" and "more" for a long time now and last night, Megan was eating animal cookies and he looked at her and of course, he said "ma ma ma" and did "more" with very big movements, but it was the right concept! Every time Megan stopped feeding him, he did it again! Even this morning, he looked at me and did his "more" really big, he wanted milk! (maybe it's his sign that he just wants to eat??) He can do "milk" with his hands, but he hasn't really signed it when he wants some milk, so we'll keep working on it!

What should we do next?? How about "No" or "sister" or "puppy?"

9 Month Checkup

Christian's new statistics:

Height- 29 inches, 70%
Weight- 19 lbs. 2 1/2 oz. 30%
Tall and skinny!

Our doctor was pleased that Christian is moving up on his growth chart, he was 18 lbs. 7 oz. a month ago, so we gained almost a pound this last month. He should, he would eat constantly if I let him.

I was looking at the girls' numbers at this age and this is what they were:

Megan- weight- 16 lbs. 12 oz. 25%
height- 27 3/4 inches 60%

Courtney- weight- 18 lbs. 3 oz. 50%
height 28 inches 60%

Christian is the heaviest and the tallest kid out of three at 9 months of age!

What do I do??

Today after school, it was beautiful out!

Christian and Courtney both love to be outside, so we went out. We put Christian in the wagon and Courtney got on her bike. We stayed out there and waited for Megan to come home.

Once Megan got off the bus, her first question was, "Can I ride my bike too?" I said "sure" and the two older girls were riding up and down the sidewalk.

Before this though, Courtney had mentioned going to the park. I LOVE taking the girls to the park, it's not a very nice park, but it's only about 6 blocks away and makes for a nice little walk.

My problem is that I have not figured out how to get everyone to the park in one piece. I had Christian in the wagon, which was perfect, but then Courtney AND Megan wanted to ride their bikes. Problem, not a big one, but a problem.

I am still leery about watching Megan ride her bike, she is really good, but she still scares me. Especially on a busy street like the one we take to the park.

In addition to trying to watch Megan, there is Courtney. She is pretty stable on her bike, but needs some help sometimes, like to get across really slanted driveways, up hills, and when she gets her training wheels stuck in the sidwalk.

How would I pull Christian in the wagon, help Courtney get across driveways and everything else, plus keep track of Megan on her bike?

It's just not going to happen!!!

So we stayed home. I told them if they wanted to walk, we could go, but I got a very bad response when I mentioned that.

Eventually I will get there with Megan. I just need to trust that she does fine. Courtney is getting better on her bike, but still. Maybe by the end of summer.

They eventually found the sidewalk chalk and bubbles and the park was far from their mind. :)

I feel bad, but I also had to feed Christian and get him down for a nap.

Soon Matt came home and them three are gone on a bike ride! Yay for daddy!

I just need to grow an extra set of arms, maybe that would help.

Ten on Tuesday

1. Why must my baby be into EVERYTHING??? I can't sit here and check email without him getting into the cords under my desk. I can't have the dishwasher open doing dishes and he's over there "helping" me. Ugh...I know this is just the beginning too!!

2. Megan went back to school yesterday. And then brought home FIVE sheets of homework. Really, five for one night? She got them all done though and didn't complain. She shouldn't, she had two free days off last week.

3. Courtney cracks me up more and more everyday. Tonight at supper, she said, "Dad, I have something funny, well, not really funny, but kind of funny." Then she proceeded to tell us this story of a girl at supper who was supposed to drink her milk. Well, the girl spilled it on the floor and then cleaned it up before dad came back into the room. Then dad thought she had drank it all! Good story Courtney!!

4. I really wish my root canal/ crown would stop bothering me!!! I just feel it and my mouth hurts. I'm going to the dentist Friday, seriously, enough already, figure it out.

5. I think I'm addicted to going to the chiropractor. I just love feeling better and learning new ways to make my life better. I would probably go everyday if I could, but unfortunately, I can't. Why can't I just feel good everyday? Why am I falling apart already?

6. I take Christian in for his 9 month appointment tomorrow. I think he has some ear trouble going on, I'm too cheap to pay the $150 it would cost me to take him in, so we're waiting. And yes, he is a little cranky sometimes and not taking very good naps, but I'm willing to wait. The chiropractor looked in his ears yesterday and said they was quite a bit of drainage, whatever that means. I'm very curious to see how much he weighs. He would eat non-stop if I would let him!

7. Matt and I have been discussing homeschooling our children lately. I'm not going to go into much detail, but just that we're giving it some thought.

8. I bought some fresh blueberries today and made some blueberry muffins from scratch, they were delicious! I usually buy pre-mixed packages of muffins, but I thought, I should try something healthier, especially since they are so easy to give to Christian to eat. We'll try them out tomorrow morning, I'm sure he'll love them.

9. I am not looking forward to the time change next week. Christian was up by 6:30 this morning, I don't want to be getting up at 5:30. I might need to feed him and put him back to bed for a couple of hours.

10. I just love how much my kids love each other! I love that they they play so good together (most of the time) and I love how much they love their brother! Courtney loves to push him around in the dump truck, if he even hears it, he starts kicking his feet and whining! Megan just likes to play with him, oh, and pick him up! I'm always saying, "Megan, put him down!" She replies with, "But mom, he likes it!" She just wants to help him walk, but I'm afraid she's going to drop him. For the most part, I love having older children around with the baby! They are my extra set of eyes and ears!

Anyway, that's all for today.

Home again, home again :(

I was very excited to send Megan back to school today.

I had MOPS this morning, lunch, groceries, and a chiropractor appointment. A whole day planned.

But after breakfast, Megan headed to the bathroom and informed me that her stomach hurt again. What?? NOOOOO!!

This was after I was up at 6:45 to get ready, after the girls were up, after I had her lunch packed and ready to send her upstairs to get dressed!

So, we're home another day with her. No MOPS, no lunch with Courtney.

I do need to get groceries though and we'll see about the chiropractor. It would probably help to go, but I'm not having really bad headaches like I was. I went off my Levoxyl for my thyroid, so I think that is causing some issues. I really don't want to drag three kids there anyway. And of course, it would cost me to go too.

So I've been up since 6:45 and the girls have been up since 7:30, hopefully we will get out this afternoon and the day won't go so slow!

Megan will go back to school on Monday! And of course, she's not even acting sick today either! She's irritating her sister just like always!

I think if I had her eat something, it might have effect her, so we'll see what happens after lunch. :)

Are you really sick?

Home today with a not-so-sick kid. Megan was sick yesterday, but not today, but the school has a 24 hour policy. So we're going to go have some fun today.

If it was up to me, I would take her to school!! If she can irritate her brother and sister, she can go to school!!

What did you put him in now??

Matt has a thing lately for putting Christian in things- it is kind of funny and Christian loves it!

This is one of my mom's mesh bags.



This is the bag to one of the girls' sleeping bags.

He thought this was funny at first, but that didn't last long!



Ok, I just had to add this one. Yes, Courtney had put the basket OVER Christian and then sat on it! She didn't stay up there very long, I came to the rescue, even though he was quite content under there. :)

50 Degrees Outside!

Courtney, Christian, and I just came in from being outside for 2 hours!!!

Yes, we should've been inside having quiet time, cleaning the house, napping, etc. BUT it was 50 degrees out!

We played in our own backyard for about an hour and then went down to the park for another hour. There were some other kids down there, so we stayed awhile.

We only came home because poor Christian needed a nap AND we had to get home before Megan came home from school.

I don't think we'll be spending much time inside this summer. Christian LOVES to swing and go on wagon rides!!