1.15.2015

Recovering and adjusting

The last 2 weeks have pretty much just been us trying to get back into a normal routine after the holidays and being sick. It was a rather hard transition back to work and school. It was a looong week! Arden is continuing to grab at her ears and act like she doesn’t feel great. And she also tells me frequently “I not feel dood, I go to doctor.” in a sad pouty voice. Not sure if she’s playing me or really doesn’t feel good, but I felt bad enough I took her to the doctor on Friday morning. They put her on new antibiotics and she already had an appointment to see the ENT on Monday anyway.

She said she didn’t feel good, so I didn’t make her go to bible class- pretty sure I got played this time.

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We took the kids to Marvel Universe Live! in Little Rock last weekend. We gave Stratton the tickets for Christmas. The show was at 3:00pm so we grabbed some lunch on our way out of town and then hit the road so the kids could get a decent nap on the way there!

Lunch at Firehouse

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Before the show!

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Stratton LOVED the show. It was loud and a little scary, there were fireworks, lasers, fights, and stunts and motorcycles tricks. . . .all things that little boys love! Plus all his favorite super hero's were in the show! Iron man, Spiderman, the Hulk, Captain America, Wolverine. . .and more! And of course all the villains! Arden on the other hand felt slightly different about the event. She hated it. For most of it, especially anytime it got really loud or there were fireworks shooting off, she would burry her head in my shoulder and clung to me so tightly I could hardly breathe!! As it went on she relaxed a little. The popcorn helped.

After the show Jarrod called Steven to see if he wanted to meet us for dinner at Copelands. We had a yummy dinner and even better cheesecake! Then we headed back home. We got to the house about 10pm.

Monday morning, we took Arden to her ENT appointment, and as I assumed, they recommended another set of tubes. It’s been about a year since she had the last ones in, so I guess we’ve gone almost a year without an ear infection- that’s not too bad! We set up the procedure for next Monday. They will call me Friday afternoon and let me know what time. They schedule by age, so hopefully Arden will be one of the first ones!!

Monday night we decided to take the kids to Chuck E. Cheese. Stratton has been doing really well in school, and was promised a trip to CEC before the holidays and the sickness! We will only go on a weeknight, it’s so much less busy! Arden wasn’t keen on the rides moving. I forgot at this age they are happy to just climb on and off of stuff! Stratton took care of her tokens though! I only got one picture! Too much to keep up with!!

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Last week a little girl (and one of the girls Arden plays with a lot) scratched Arden’s neck up pretty good. The little girl wanted whatever Arden had and jumped on top of her, the Arden pushed her off and slammed her head in the ground – this is what the teacher told me she saw before she could get to them! Ha! 2 year olds are brutal!! I’m glad to hear that Arden took up for herself though that time! But then Tuesday, a little boy got her and scratched her up really good. He got in trouble and we had to sign an incident report this time, it was pretty bad! Poor baby!! This time however she just took it and then fell on the ground and starting crying?! I’m not sure why she didn’t fight back this time? Who knows. She doesn’t have a problem holding her own with Stratton!! A few hours after that she fell down and bruised her check! When I picked her up she looked just awful!! I also had to call the doctor’s office and ask them to change her antibiotic. She was giving us the worst fits about it! The new meds are much more palatable and she is taking it so much better!!

Scratches on her nose and head and check

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Arden and baby Lelia- we take her pretty much everywhere these days!

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She likes to try to dress herself. Sometimes she gets it, sometimes not. . .

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Wednesday morning she woke up in a particularly good mood. At least one of us slept well!

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Major bedhead!!

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“I sleep in mommas bed!!”

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She’s been waking up and coming to get in bed with us every night since we got her new bed. I am not as hard on her as I probably should be about this, but when you wake up to such sweet snuggles it’s hard!! And with her being sick and not feeling good I hate to make her cry it out in her room! Maybe once we get the ears situation over we can start working on getting her to stay in her bed for the night!

Last night after her bath before church I put her hair in pigtails for the first time! I was surprised that she left them in! The whole time at church too! She looked adorable! I took these right after I did it and her hair was still wet, it looked even cuter after it dried.

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When we got home Stratton did his homework (with some help). Since starting back to school they now have weekly spelling tests on Friday. So, I am having him write his spelling words 3 times each every night. Then on Thursday night we do a mock test. Last week he made a 100% on his test!! I hope this proves to him that a little work and preparation makes test taking easier! He told me the other night “that it’s not fair! None of the other kids have to do spelling words every night” and I said. . .”Well, you know what?? Life’s not fair!”. Yep, I sure did. I am about 99.9% sure I told myself that I would never tell my kids that when I was a mom. He has been doing much better in school till yesterday. He got in trouble for not listening. What a shocker.

I developed my own worksheet. There are 8 words, he must write them 3 times each. It takes him FOREVER. . . .

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Probably because he gets distracted very easily!

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Oh, yes. She is giving him a drink, I guess his arms are worn out from writing too much! I’m such an awful mom!!

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This has been a long week (that’s not over yet!) Tomorrow if Stratton can be good, I hope to take him to see the Paddington Bear movie. I think we might leave Arden and Jarrod at home! And then Saturday Jarrod and Terry are taking Stratton and Archer to the Monster Truck Jam in Little Rock, and Stratton gets to stay with Nan and Pa till Monday afternoon! They are out of school Monday! That will help us out since Arden could possibly need to be at the hospital at 5am, which would be hard to do with a cranky 5 year old tagging along!

1.05.2015

Christmas (Out)Break

 

Santa should have put Tamiflu in our stockings!

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3 prescriptions for Tamiflu, 1 antibiotic, Motrin, Zofran and Hydroxyzine

So, Christmas day afternoon Stratton started feeling bad. And then he starting running a higher fever. We thought it was just from running around and being tired from Christmas and I was still thinking he had a sinus infection and was at this point really mad that the doctor that saw him the day before hadn’t put him on an antibiotic or steroid. We left Nanny and Papa’s house around 6pm and headed home. Stratton laid around most of the rest of the night. And his fever never went down, in fact it kept going up. At 11:30pm I was on the phone with a nurse because his fever was inching up to 104, and he threw up shortly after we tried to give him a does of tylenol. She told us the normal stuff. . . if it gets up to 105 put him in a lukewarm bath, keep tylenol and motrin going and it was likely just a virus but we might want to take him to his pediatrician in the morning. . .Finally, after a new dose of Motrin at 12:30 (we were alternating tylenol and motrin every 3 hours but it seemed like the tylenol didn’t help at all) it starting creeping back down and once it was below 102 and he fell asleep we decided to let him sleep and not bother him for awhile. He slept till about 7am, and then we were all up.

I now felt really bad. I had been congested and coughing, but by this point I was starting to feel achy and just plain yucky! We decided that Stratton really needed to go back to the doctor (his pediatrician this time and not an urgent care doc) and Arden probably needed to be seen since she was coming down with the crud, too. So we called and actually got an appointment for 8:30am! We threw on clothes and headed that way! I’m sure we looked pathetic, because when the nurse came out to call Stratton’s name she just kinda chuckled and looked at all of us and shook her head and said “Ok, Ya’ll c’mon”. Of course they all know us pretty well around there. It seems like we are there a lot!

They did a flu and strep test on Stratton. This time he tested positive for the flu. Great. They didn’t test the rest of us, but his doctor was pretty sure I had it and that the rest of us should be on Tamiflu. Except for Arden, she didn’t recommend it for her as the symptoms and side effects outweigh the benefits in kids her age even though it has been approved for 2 and up. They didn’t test Arden for the flu, I guess once he was positive they didn’t really need to, but they did check her out and she also had an ear infection, so she got antibiotics instead. Nice. But it was very nice of the pediatrician to write me and Jarrod scripts for Tamiflu!

This was Friday- the 26th. We all stayed in all weekend, and most of the week. We all got sick. I can’t confirm it was the flu, since the rest of us weren’t tested, but I’m pretty sure it was. I mean we all had the same symptoms pretty much. The crazy thing is both the kids were running about a 102 fever and still playing and as active as ever- like they didn’t even feel bad! Meanwhile I’m running a 99.2 temperature and I feel like I’m going to die. Kids are so resilient! Jarrod went to the store one night, I can’t remember when. . .and Dillon and Brandye brought us soup. We did ok. Thankfully the kids had new toys and games and movies to play with and watch! We all took a nap every afternoon! Jarrod was feeling better and went to work Tuesday and Wednesday. I was starting to feel better too, I got out Monday night and ran some errands. But then starting running a low fever again on Tuesday night and Wednesday. By Tuesday night, both the kids were back to normal. No fever, and no trace of feeling bad! Wednesday night (New Year’s Eve) Jarrod and Stratton went to the NEA highschool basketball tournament at the convo and were out pretty late. Arden and I stayed in, since I really didn’t feel 100% and Jarrod didn’t want to take both of the kids by himself! I don’t blame him! So, Arden and I stayed home and watched Peppa Pig and went to bed! Happy New Year! It wasn’t much of a Christmas Break, not at all what we planned. I thought we’d do some fun stuff since I was also off work this week, but nope. I guess that is a good thing, being off work and the kids out of school no one missed any days, but it stinks to have taken our whole vacation time.

Terry and Margie came and got the kids on Thursday so Jarrod and I could get some rest and I could have some time to do laundry and clean! That helped tremendously! I got most of the laundry caught up, and cleaned the house really good! Jarrod and I even had a date night Friday night! We went to the movies for the first time in over a year I think!! Saturday they brought the kids back home and then Saturday night we finally got together with my mom and dad and Dillon and Brandye and Darcy so we could do our family Christmas! We had take out pizza and it was very low key (Yeah, I didn’t even take pictures. ) We had a good time even though we were having Christmas on January 3rd!

Here’s some pictures from our week in exile.

Arden got a couple nightgowns for Christmas! She loves them!

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Jarrod put Arden’s new bed together! She was so excited!

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She loved it! Well, until bedtime that is!

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Playing in her bed before bedtime

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Team effort vacuuming

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Arden ran the batteries down!! “It Not Working!!” She said!

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Caught them playing together, nicely!

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Playing together again in Stratton’s new Rocket Ship bed tent

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They like to get up here and watch movies on the ipad or just play

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We did a lot of playing, laying, sleeping, eating. . .in our bed! We spend entirely too much time in it this week! But I guess that’s why we have such a big bed! Oh and Arden found a lost pacifier in a bag we hadn’t used in a few months. Right in her mouth it went!

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Both of them napping in our bed, I was in the middle but had to get out! They were suffocating me!

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I hate when they are sick, but we spent a lot of time snuggling.

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New Year’s eve 2014, Peppa Pig and snuggles with my girl.

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A little New Year’s Day basketball! Everyone feeling better, finally! Sister wants to dunk it!

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12.25.2014

Christmas Lunch with the Gibson’s

Love these kids!! But they are growing WAY too fast!

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Great Grandkids

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Grandkids & spouses

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The kids and spouses

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And a little silliness

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Shall we get one of our family???

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Nope.

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Sweet Darcy, tucked away in a corner!!

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Yay, ANOTHER baby doll. . .that brings the total to about 12!

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So many people in such a small place!!! Aghhh!!!

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Crash.

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Christmas Morning!

Arden woke up about 7am, and then we got Stratton up, he was a little groggy and didn’t feel very good right after getting up and he didn’t even want to open presents. But Arden dug right in and not long after Stratton warmed up! Santa was good to them! And according to Stratton brought them just what they wanted! Stratton got the rocket ship toy he had been wanting and Arden got a highchair for her baby! Among other things from us, Stratton also got his own ipad mini and Arden got a new big girl bed! They had so much fun opening presents! Arden was more into it than Stratton I think! She was very disappointed when she was done!

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Calico critter babies!

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Checking out the goodies Santa left!

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So happy about “Frozen” Jelly Beans!!

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She LOVED the little cheap bear Stratton gave her! So sweet!

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Creating a mess, but having so much fun!

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“My Bestest thing I ever wanted!!” what he said about the chocolate Santa.

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Playing School with their new toy Santa brought for them both.

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I love that they are finally starting to play together.

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The Morning must have worn poor sister out! And the sun was “Too Bight!!” So she used her blanket to cover her eyes.

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