Pumpkins

Last week in Primary the missionaries gave a lesson during Sharing Time. The primary President asked the kids if they had any questions for the missionaries so Charlie raised his hand and said, "Do you want to come over to my house and see my pumpkins?" They weren't even carved yet but he was so excited to have pumpkins. Since the end of September every time we have been to Walmart Charlie has begged us to buy pumpkins. We finally bought them last weekend and every day this week we've been asked when we would carve them.
Well, the day finally came on Saturday. After our Saturday chores we carved our pumpkins and Charlie wants to play with them constantly. This morning he woke up and came downstairs and they weren't in their usual spot. (Dan and I can't put them on the porch because our street is to busy and we have too many punk kids going up and down our street that would think it was funny to crush them and so crush all of Charlie's happiness, so we put them in the garage.) Needless to say, Charlie looked all over the entire house to include the backyard and finally found them in the garage. He came in laughing and smiling and telling everyone not to worry, the pumpkins are safely in the garage!

I hope you can all enjoy pumpkins as much as Charlie does!

Zweiback Toast

This blog is dedicated to my mom. Zweiback toast reminds me of my mother because she would teach her babies to eat with it. It also reminds me of my baby brothers and sisters because I LOVED watching them eat Zweiback toast. I remember watching Molly suck on her toast when she was a baby and she was so adorable.
Donald is pretty cute too so I couldn't stop taking pictures of him eating his first toast. He loved it!

Red Ribbon Week

For those of you who don't know, Red Ribbon Week is the week we celebrate NOT doing drugs.
We celebrated last week and this is how:
Monday: Hat Day, "Wear your hats and let's say hats off to those who stay away from drugs."

Tuesday: Inside Out Day, "Drugs will turn you inside out." (Adrian chose not to participate.)
Wednesday: Crazy Sock Day, "Doing drugs is crazy."
(There is no photo for this day because I was at the ER until 2 a.m. and it was a miracle that we even got up to get kids to school. They all wore cute crazy socks but I was never motivated enough to take a picture.)

Thursday: Backwards Day, "Drugs make you feel all backwards." (Again, Adrian was a non-participant but he wanted to be in the picture because he said he looked awesome.)

Friday: Red Day, "Wear red to symbolize your commitment to say no to drugs." (Also no picture for this day.)

Apparently preschool was on a different red ribbon schedule and I was unaware so on the day Charlie was supposed to wear red he went to school with his clothes inside out. His teacher probably thought I didn't know how to dress him. We did however get Thursday right for him which was, "Use your head, don't do drugs, crazy hair day!"

Teeth Again!?

Well, on Wednesday night Donald got another tooth! Can babies have excess brain fluid from teething!? Apparently ours can. We don't know that for sure, but along with teething he's had a fever, 2 ear infections, a swollen soft spot, and now a bizarre rash. We took him in to the Dr. for his follow-up yesterday and he seemed to think everything was a-o.k. The only problem is that Donald refuses to take his antibiotic. You might ask who is the adult here and why can't I make him take it? Well, we tried forcing it down his throat, mixing it in his milk, and stirring it into his applesauce. Needless to say, he gets shots instead. Poor thing.
Donald is not quite back to his normal lovely self yet. I needed sleep last night because another side effect of teething is migraines for mom, so I asked Dan to wake up with Donald. Usually it's just a couple times but last night Donald really wanted some extra quality time with his Daddy so he was up at 10:50, 12:00, 12:45, 1:30, 2:00, 3:20, 4:50, 6:00, 7:00, and every half hour after that until I left the room with him at 9:00.
Now he's sleeping in dad's lap; preparing for his next big night!

Waiting...

Donald has had a low grade fever for a couple of days. Yesterday afternoon I noticed his soft spot was swollen and I called our nurse hotline. The RN I spoke with said, "Page your Dr. and if he doesn't answer in 30 minutes go to the ER." I called the Dr. and told them I would be coming in that evening around 7. At the Dr's office I was told to take him to Primary Children's Medical Center ER for a lumbar puncture or spinal tap.

It was 8:30 p.m. before Dan and I were able to head to the hospital. Thankfully our neighbor, Meredith, came to sit with our kids. There are angels in this world! At the ER we waited...an hour and a half later we were put in a room and there we did a lot more waiting. They decided not to do the spinal tap because it doesn't seem like Donald has meningitis. Instead they did a CT scan to make sure he doesn't have any blockages in his spine. It wasn't horrible because Donald was very calm. Then we waited some more for results. The Dr. came in and said they have no idea why he has excess fluid on his brain but he does have an ear infection so he said he'd give us a prescription for that. We waited another hour to be told we could leave by a discharge nurse. We didn't get home until 2 a.m.

Hopefully the fluid will go away as will the fever and fussiness, so here we are again, waiting...

More Teeth

This week it was all about teeth. On Wednesday I went to Provo to pick up Molly after she had 4 wisdom teeth removed. Poor little thing. When I got home to pick up my kids I discovered that Donald has his first tooth! He bit me.
Molly was out of it for a couple of days and then we nursed her back to health with burnt cream of wheat (I've never made it before), applesauce, and yogurt. By the last day she was here we were able to feed her rice and ice cream. It was so fun to have her here even though she wasn't her normal self. Her cheeks didn't look very swollen at all. We drove her back to Provo Sunday evening and I was so sad to see her go. I hope your feeling better Molly.
Last night I think it was another big teething night for Donald because he was awake crying for an hour with no good reason. He was fed, his diaper was changed, he was cuddled up with mommy, he had a pacifier, what more does one kid need? I finally gave him some tylenol and he zonked out 10 minutes later. It could be the tylenol or just that he'd worn himself out finally. Let's hope we don't have many more nights like that.

October!

Are you ready for Halloween? Charlie has been ready for Halloween ever since school started! This weekend we went to Provo to visit family and buy shoes and clothes for school kids and of course vampire teeth for Charlie. Now that he's got vampire teeth all he can think about is buying pumpkins to make jack-o-lanterns.