Whew! What a week!

The last 8-10 days have been absolutely miserable for us! Early of last week Olivia started coughing at night and she would cry when she coughed. We looked in her throat and her tonsils were MASSIVE with white puss pockets all over them. I'm not even sure how she could swallow because they were engulfing her entire throat. So I took her to the doctor last Thursday and they confirmed her for strep. The doc peeked in Gray's ears (this seems like a weekly occurrence) and he had a double ear infection. Again. Time for tubes! We have an appointment with the ENT on March 1.

So, they both started on antibiotics on Thursday and by Saturday, Olivia took a turn for the worse and started running a high fever. Sunday Grayson also started running a fever. At 3:30 Monday morning, Olivia's fever spiked to 106.2! I've never seen a fever that high. I took her in first thing Monday morning and the doc said her throat looked worse, even after being on the antibiotic for 4 days. So she tested her for mono which came back negative. She gave her a shot of antibiotic and sent us home with another one.

On Monday we realized that a lot of the kids we are normally around have had RSV and Grayson's symptoms were matching up perfectly. Since RSV is viral, I wasn't going to take him in, I was just going to let it run its course. Then yesterday his hands started turning blue and he was still running fever so a rushed him back to the doctor. She said his body was shunting blood and taking the blood away from his hands to his chest. Poor guy is very ill. She confirmed the RSV and did a chest x-ray to check for Pneumonia which was normal. Then she said the wanted to check him for strep (which should have been killed by the other antibiotic he had just finished) but of course it was positive! Because they are both allergic to penicillin and he had recently taken the other 2 they normally prescribe, she put him on a REALLY strong one that causes horrible diarrhea. Time to fight the diaper rash!

4 doctors appointments and a grand total of 5 antibiotics later, we are hopefully on the road to recovery!

Oh the drama! After getting her shot on Monday, Olivia would not walk all day. All we would hear is "can you carry me to the couch?" "can you carry me to the potty?" "can you carry me to the playroom?"
Tuesday morning she woke up and called from her bed "mommy, come get me!"
I told her I was not carrying her around anymore and she was going to have to learn to walk again. Eventually she came out of her room dragging her foot behind her walking at a very slow pace. Michael and I laughed so hard at how dramatic she was being. By the end of the day, she decided she could walk normally again. For whatever reason, she is calling the scab where her shot was a nipple!

Which brings me to my next list....

Things My 3 year has said lately:

"Mommy, you are wearing me out!"

"What in the world?"

"Daddy, what's your favorite animal?" M: a turkey. "That's not an animal, that's food!"

"When I'm 5, I'm going to college" (In a very sassy voice)

And lately her thing is..EVERY DAY she comes out of her room wearing a summer dress and flip flops and tried to convince us that she is wearing that today. When I tell her it too cold for that attire, she throws a huge fit and cries all the way back to her room.

With all of this said, I have never been more ready for summer! Not only because my kids are never sick in the summer, but also because we can have drama free mornings when it's time to get dressed!

I'm a big girl!

Olivia has sucked her thumb since she was 3 months old. I have never known how I was going to break this terrible habit, but for whatever reason I thought I would wait until she turned 4 to buckle down and get her to stop. Luckily, we didn't have to wait that long!


Last week we had dental hygiene students at my work, educating our clients on the importance of oral health. I got the kids from preschool and took them back to work with me for a couple of hours. The sweet students talked with Olivia and gave her a new toothbrush. I explained to them that Olivia was going to have bad teeth from sucking her thumb. They then began to talk to her about why she shouldn't suck her thumb. They showed her a picture of a little boy with mal-formed gums and teeth from extensive thumb sucking.


On the way home our coversation went something like this:


O: "Mommy, I'm not going to have ugly teeth if I suck my thumb"


Me: "yes you will, princesses don't have ugly teeth."

O: " I don't want to have ugly teeth!"

Me: "Then don't suck your thumb"

We get home and she runs to Michael and tries to get him to get on her side. He didn't and he explained to her again about the ugly teeth.

That night when she got her Night Nights (her blankets that trigger the thumb sucking) she cried and and said " I want to suck my thumb!" but she wouldn't do it.

Since then, she hasn't sucked her thumb! I really didn't think that would break her of it but it scared her bad enough for her to stop. And it was pretty easy!

I told the dental students that if none of our clients learned a thing from them all week, it was still a success in my book because they broke my child of her awful habit!

Grayson's First Haircut

We had to get Grayson spiffed up before Christmas so we took him for his first haircut. He did great! He was really still and didn't get upset until she turned the hairdryer on at the very end.

Christmas 2009

Christmas 2009 was eventful..To say the least! On Christmas Eve, it started snowing pretty hard while we were having our Christmas at Michael's parents. We then traveled to his Aunt Robyn's to celebrate with his Mom's side of the family. Travel was starting to get treacherous on the way to her house, but we really didn't think much of it. After staying at her house for a couple of hours, we realized it was starting to get pretty bad outside so we decided to make our 3.5 mile journey home. IT WAS NOT EASY! We literally had to be pushed 1/2 mile up a hill to get out of the neighborhood. The blizzard (it was officially a blizzard) was so bad that it took us 45 minutes to get home. By the time we got home, there were 8 inches of snow covering the roads. The kids woke up Christmas morning and were delighted to see their Santa presents.

After opening presents, we headed to Broken Arrow for the Bippus Family Christmas. The roads were in such bad shape that it took us 2 hours to get there and there were cars running of the road left and right. I do not do well emotionally in bad driving conditions, so I was a nervous wreck the whole way and emotionally exhausted by the time we arrived. We opened presents and then say down for our always wonderful steak and shrimp dinner. As we were eating Grayson started acting pretty lethargic and started feeling warm. Within 1-2 hours, he was burning up and not even able to hold his head up. We tried to take his temperature but the thermomoter just kept saying "high" and we new it was at least 104.5. We knew no urgent care or doctor office would be open, so we decided to head back to Owasso to the ER, thinking we would get in to see a doctor fast there. It took us an hour to get back to Owasso and once we arrived, we waited and waited and waited some more. After 4 hours of waiting, poking and proding on my baby, the finally diagnosed him with Pnuemonia. We then waited another 2 hours for them to give him antibiotics through an IV. The poor baby was so sick! He ended up bouncing back a couple of days later, thank Goodness. Between the blizzard and ER visit, this was certainly a Christmas we won't forget!

Making a gingerbread house, this is a tradition I've started.

Happy Birthday Jesus! Also a tradition for us!


In the ER, he was so sad:(

Santa Came!

Playing in the snow!

Chirstmas Morning

Look at that hair!

He loves his firetruck!

Thanksgiving in Seattle

Yes, I'm playing blog catch-up today. I've missed blogging the last couple of months but since I intend to get this blog printed into a scrapbook one day, I'm going to write about all of our recent happenings.

Starting with our first trip to Seattle. We went to Seattle (actually Tacoma) to visit Aunt Sissy and Uncle Jesse. Dado and Susie were able to meet us there as well. We had a wonderful week of family time, sight seeing and a lots of good food.

It was the first time for us to fly with Grayson and Olivia both and they did pretty good. Olivia loved the take off and landing of the airplane. She watched movies on the laptop while we were in the air. Grayson slept most of our first flight and then stay awake the entire second flight. By the end (6 hours of traveling) they were both ready to be off the plane and running around. Olivia started to get a little defiant towards the end and she started acting out using "preschool profanity." She started shouting things like "poopie doodie" and "booty dooty" much to our embarrasment. We were trying to be stern with her but it was really hard for us not to laugh under our breath, because everyone that could hear her was also cracking up at her outburts.

Once there, we got to see Aunt Sissy's pregnant belly for the first time. She was so adorable and I am as excited about her baby's arrival as I have been for my own children. We got to see their new house. We went to IKEA (one of my favorite stores that we do not have here), we visited Pike Place Market a couple of times and stopped at the very first Starbucks for coffee. We made a mixture of southern and northwestern Thanksgiving dinner and Jesse's family joined us for a great meal. In our down time, we pretty much just shopped and looked for Mt Renier from their upstairs window. It was certainly a visit we won't forget and we can't wait to go back when the weather is warmer. And just like Seattle does, it rained every day we were there. On the last night of our visit we had authentic Dungess crab bought straight from Pike Place market. It was AMAZING!