Scary Fever...

Riding bikes after dinner has been the norm for us lately.  Since Charlotte can't participate she just runs around in the road having fun.  Don't worry we live on a very non busy cul-de-sac, and I typically follow a few feet behind. 

Wednesday night was no exception.  She was out there laughing, giggling, and scraping her knees as she fell down.  We came in around 7:30 and she was out immediately.  Around 10:30{?} we woke up to Charlotte screaming.  Since her teeth have been bothering her it wasn't too surprising.  Russ finally went in to check on her then whispered me awake through the monitor.  He needed me to take her temperature.  She had a fever of about 101.9.   High enough for Tylenol but not really enough for me to get concerned.  I figured it was her teething.  Russ tried to get her to sleep but every time he laid her down, she would wake up screaming.  Again nothing unusual about this.  When Char has a fever she likes to be held.  Russ brought her into me and I held her next to me in bed while I rocked side to side. 

I drifted in out of sleep.  I woke to her fussing a lot, and also the heat from her made me to hot to sleep well.  I mean I already have one baby inside me making me hot, the second baby on me just made it intolerable.  Around 3:00 I nudged  Russ awake to go get more Tylenol.  He came back and gave it to her.  In his slightly more coherent state he asked, "Can you feel that?  She's trembling...shaking."  I woke up a bit more, but by that time if she had been shaking she was done.  My mom radar went a little bit higher.  This didn't really seem like just teething anymore.

Thursday was miserable for Char.  She spent most of it sleeping with Tylenol in her system.  After a four hour morning nap I knew something was wrong.  She likes her naps and all, but that is WAY long even for her.  I went in and got her for lunch and she was just so sad.  I had to set her down to get something, and she freaked out.  She started crying and tried to make it to me, but her legs started shaking and she couldn't move right.  She tried to grab the table to help her but she ended up falling on her bum and staying there crying until I picked her up.  She ate a few pieces of food at lunch.  Afterwards she curled up on my lap and promptly fell asleep.   I called the doctors and crossed my fingers that they would have something the same day.  Of course they didn't....Friday morning was the earliest.  I went with it since I had noticed Char's fever coming down slightly.  I was optimistic that she was getting better on her own.

Thursday night she was able to stay in her bed by herself for most of it, but she still woke up frequently.  Friday morning we made it into the drs to receive the news.  A very bad ear infection.  The doctor even showed me her good ear and her bad ear.  Let's just say....ewwww!  The cause for this ear infection?  Massive teething.  Doc said there was no doubt that since she was getting all four molars at once, and by all the congestion manifesting, that it had to be chalked up to the teeth.  He did keep quizzing me about how long she had been pulling her ear, which I replied that she hadn't been.  He was shocked that she went from being congested to having a fever and not walking without any other signs.  I wasn't shocked my girls tend to do that.  Lily and Allie would be healthy one day and the next have double ear infections that doctors would declare "the worst they'd ever seen". 

With the medicine allergies running around in our family the doc took the time to check what she had been on and put her on a different antibiotic.  So grateful for this!  I don't want another Allie situation on our hands again.  After getting Char on her medicine she spent most of Saturday being shaky and complainy still.  By night time she was shaping up and her fever was gone.  Today she still is grumpy but can walk again without being shaky.

It kills me how worse Char's ear infection was than my other two girls.  Allie and Lily have never stopped walking because of their infections, even though theirs have been more severe.  This is just a good reminder to me how different each child is and how we need to treat each one according to their needs.

At the park with daddy

Lily had been invited to a birthday party today.  Poor Allie felt left out and wanted to join her, but we quickly stomped on that idea.  Instead Russ promised her a trip to the park.  Allie was thrilled with this proposition.  Going to the park with daddy is so much more fun than going with mommy, because daddy will actually play with you at the park.  We decided to take Sprinkles with us instead of leaving her cooped up in her cage.  We had a lot of fun.  Daddy taught Charlotte how to go down the slide by herself.  Once she got it you couldn't get her off of it!  She went up and down that thing for a good 30 mins.  I got to play with my camera a lot without worrying about the kids safety.  The only sore spot of the day was that the infant swing shaped like a car had been broken so Charlotte didn't get to show daddy how much she loves to swing.  All to soon it was time to go home. 

 

 

Shhh....I'm dead!

Allie and I have worked out a great little routine in the mornings.  I put Charlotte down for her nap, then I put in a movie for Allie.  I lay down on the couch with Allie sitting on my feet.  I sleep and she watches her movie.  If she moves at all I wake up.  I don''t have to worry about her getting into trouble this way.  When her movie is over she wakes me up and we go about the rest of our day.  Last week, Allie's movie had ended but I was still sleepy.  I got up and got her an apple for a snack and then laid back down on the couch.  Allie came over to me and said, "Mom is this a red apple?  I need a red apple!"  I assured her it was.  I began dozing in and out but for the most part I was awake.

Allie happily munched on her apple for awhile.  Then I heard her talking to herself.  This is not unusual at all.  She tends to tell stories to herself under her breath.  I didn't pay much attention and her murmurings lulled me to sleep.  I woke up a few minutes later and cracked an eye open.  With my one eye I saw an apple lying on the floor.  I get quite angry when the girls leave food around so I promptly told Allie to pick up that apple right now!

Allie's response was....

"Shhhh....I'm dead!  I'm Snow White!"

I opened my eyes a bit wider and noticed the apple was laying on the ground next to Allie's outstretched hand.  She was laying on her side just how Snow White does in the movie!  Apparently Allie had been pretending to be Snow White and I {the queen} had given her a red apple.  Upon eating the apple Allie fell to floor dead!  When all of this fell into place in my head, I got quite a chuckle and was officially awake. I wish I could have got a picture of the scene, but Allie promptly got up and finished eating her apple.  Guess it wasn't so poisonous after all!

Diaper Woes

All the girls were playing nicely in their room together.  I was laying on the couch waiting for dinner to be done.  I heard some screaming coming from their bedroom, and Lily yelling "ew gross!"  I looked over to the hallway to debate whether or not I should get up and go investigate the problem.  Turns out the problem came toddling out of the hallway holding her diaper in one hand and laughing delightedly, all the while being completely without apparel!  I guess since I hadn't put any clothes back on Charlotte after she had made a mess on them earlier she had easy access to her diaper.  I giggled right along with Charlotte long enough to take a picture.  Then it was back to business.  A new diaper on AND some clothes.

A Day at the Park

Days where the weather is in the 80's with little humidity are treasured around these parts.  We've been lucky enough to have a bit of Spring weather this year, and we've been soaking it up.  Lots of park days have been happening and the girls have been in heaven! 

Today I tried to get us all to the park in time to meet some friends there, but it just didn't happen.  Both Charlotte and I took too long of a nap.  I decided that even though we had missed our friends we were going anyways.  So off we went.

It was about 1:00 before we arrived and it was getting hot even without the humidity.  I let the girls play for about half an hour. MacLean park is one of our favorites and they really enjoyed themselves.  Days like this are so fun.

Don't Tell Daddy!

There are a few things around the house that I let the girls do that really...perturbs Russ.  He repeatedly asks me not to do it.  I smile and say okay, and then I still let the girls do it.  Today for example my little cutie Charlotte  felt like helping with the dishes, and I let her!  But don't tell daddy or we might get into trouble. lol!

A bit of news...

A Good Storm

Living in South Texas you are required to take out hurricane insurance.  Kind of a duh thing to do, but regardless it is mandatory.  When buying our house one of the guys {I can't remember his title, could have been the realator, but I'm not sure} assured us that we wouldn't be living in a flood plain so there was no need to buy flood insurance on top of hurricane insurance.  I remember turning to Russ and asking "doesn't everything flood with a hurricane?  And why isn't that included in it?"  He just shook his head and told me it was dumb insurance thing.  That has always nagged me in the back of my mind, because it just doesn't make sense how a hurricane with loads of rain could come through, but it won't cause flooding.  I pass it off as just "one of those things" that I worry too much about....until now....

Last night around midnight Russ and I woke up simultaneously to a large crash of lightening.  The rain had already began and our poor little house was getting a beating from it.  The lightening was so close you could barely count between it and the thunder.  I was expecting the thunder to shake the house like it does in Utah and Idaho, but even though it was just as intense as those storms it never shook the house.  Oddly enough the girls slept through the whole thing.

We went back to sleep amid the storm.  Russ told me that at one point he woke up again to the storm and thought our window had broken because the sound of the rain was sooooo loud.  Nope just the rain beating on our house.  Russ got up and left for work at 5:20 like normal.  At 7:30 the girls and I headed to the school.  The roads had a little bit of rain still in the gutters, but the storm had stopped.  I dropped Lily off with at school with the reminder that if it was raining she was to wait for me at school and I would pick her up.  After dropping Lily off at school, I take a long route to get back to our house{very annoying!}  As I drove through the neighborhoods by the school I noticed that all the ditches were filled to the brim of water.  I remember thinking, "I hope it doesn't rain more, or these roads are going to flood!"

Allie, Char, and I got back home and went about our normal day.  Russ sent me a text around 10:30 warning me to be careful since there was a flash flood warning for our county.  About 15 minutes later I walked outside to get rid of some garbage.  Returning from the garbage I reached the front door just as it started to rain.  At first I was in complete shock.  I was for sure it was hailing!  I reasoned with myself that it was to warm to be hailing so I braved the weather and stepped out from under the roof.  The rain was popping back up just like hail, and the drops were HUGE!  They were leaving provably over two inches of splatter.  I scurried inside.  Me, Char, and Allie curled up on the couch and watched TV as the thunder and lightening began. Eventually our TV went out and we read books.  Poor Allie was scared, but at least she didn't cover her ears the whole time like she did with the last storm that went through.

All day it continued to rain.  Around 3:15 the rain began to lighten up but I still hauled the girls into the car to go pick Lily up.  As I opened up the garage door I got a bit of a surprise.  Our road was completely flooded!  I ran back into the house and snapped these pictures.  I was standing in my garage at the time.

I carefully pulled out our driveway.  The water was really deep on the edges of the road but as long as I stay in the middle it wasn't too worrisome.  I waited 20 minutes in line.  I was appalled when I saw some of the kids walking behind a teacher from the school to walk home.  The teacher had an umbrella to protect her, the poor kids had just their coats.  My horror continued as I saw the kids reach the street and start taking off their shoes and socks, and began to roll up the pants so they could wade through the water.  I thought to myself how glad I was that Lily wouldn't be walking home in that mess.  I turned back to focusing on the cars ahead of me.

As I was watching the car line move slowly in front me I noticed a girl with a blue shirt on get pulled out of the car rider line and told to run to catch up with the kids that were walking home. I thought to myself, "No that can't be"  but as the girls ran closer I saw that it was Lily.  Thankfully by this time I was right at the corner and she was able to jump in the car without going through the road.  I questioned Lily why she was pulled out of line, to which she replied that she didn't have a note.  With anger rising I asked her if she had told her teacher the instructions I had given her that morning.  She said yes, but the teacher said it didn't matter.  By this time I was seething and about two car lengths from the school.  I crazily debated in my mind whether I should pull into the school and go give a few people a piece of my mind.  Not only about Lily but about those poor other kids who were forced to walk home!  I reasoned with myself that they teachers at this time didn't need a crazy pregnant woman yelling at them when it was a mad house there anyways.  So I pulled past the school and went home.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that on the intersecting road by the school their were police man helping the cars through that area because the water was so high...but it was okay to send kids home walking in that!

The rain fizzled out around 4:30.  Our road didn't drain for another two hours.  Funny how we don't live in a flood plain, yet our road was flooded today!  Hmmm...maybe we should look into that flood insurance!

Baby faces

Charley woke up from her nap in a good mood today.  I decided to take some pictures of her in her crib and these are a few of my favorites.

15 month checkup -- Charlotte

Height:

31.75 in -- 90%

Weight:

23 lbs 6 oz -- 50%

The nurse measured Charlotte three times to double check the number.  Growing half an in in three months is unusual I'm sure.  The doctor wasn't concerned about it when he came in because she is still following her own growth curve.  I'm not concerned about it because the way she has been eating and sleeping lately I'm sure she we will be growing soon.  The said again that all her congestion is due to teething.  He was surprised when I told him that she had been this congested since January. He did say that their might be a possibility that she has some seasonal allergies then, but she is too young to test for that.  Her ears looked amazingly clear considering the amount of congestion she has in her head.  He again repeated that within the month her molars should be in.  I chuckled considering he had told me that at her 12 mo appointment.  Charlotte likes to drag out the teething experience!

Doc had Char show off her walking skills.  He got a good laugh at how wide her stance is.  I told him she had only learned to walk last week.  He was really surprised that she was walking so well for only a week of practice.  He expressed that her stance should even out with even more practice.

Two shots were given today and the nurse was sooo much better.  Char cried a teeny bit but as soon as I was holding her she was done.  I think she was just mad that the nurse had been having a conversation with her and that pulled the dirty trick of "pinching" her.

Easter Weekend part 2...

Early Saturday morning Charlotte woke us up.  She has been on this kick lately of waking up between 5 and 6.  Since we were up and the girls were whispering in their bedroom we allowed them to come out.  They were super excited to see that the Easter bunny had came and left them their baskets.  The Easter bunny likes to visit our house on Saturday because he knows we like to try and focus Easter Sunday on Jesus.  We had the girls go eat their breakfast before they could actually dig into their baskets.  The had fruit loops since Russ thought it would be fun to have sugary cereal for breakfast.

I wanted a picture of the girls with their baskets.  But Charlotte still isn't feeling well so I settled for this...

The rest of the morning was spent getting ready for the city egg hunt.  I love the fact that we only live two blocks from it and can walk!  The parking lot was already full when we got there 15 minutes early.  It was a bit scary this year that all three girls were in different age groups.  We had to leave Lily at her section with strict instructions to meet us somewhere afterwards.  Russ took Charley and I took Allie and we went our separate ways.

Parents were allowed to help Allie's age group which is ridiculous but whatever.  I walked behind her and when she stopped to open the eggs I kept encouraging her to get more.  She got a ton of eggs!  Charlotte fared pretty well because they put out a ton for her age group but not many kids come.  Parents are pretty grabby in that section where as Russ just tried to get Charlotte to pick them up for herself.  Lily...well she was in an age group that involved a lot of older kids.  Also, she lost her flip flop during the mad dash for eggs so she only got a few eggs.  Allie was kind enough to share some of her duplicate prizes with Lily.  That cheered Lily up quite a bit.  Oh and Lily did a great job at meeting us exactly where we asked her to.  PHEW!!!

We got home and had lunch.  Afterwards we went and did some quick last minute shopping that needed to be down.  The girls were required to come in and help put away groceries while daddy took Sprinkles out to go bathroom.  Turns out when daddy came back in he had news that the Easter Bunny had visited with some eggs and left them in the back yard.  We quickly finished putting away the food and headed outside.  They were ready and waiting to be let loose.  Can I just mention here how adorable Charlotte is in this picture?  And also how incredibly unfair it is that she is already wearing 2T clothes!!!!

The girls were quick to find some of the eggs...

Even Charlotte found ones with a C on them!

Sprinkles enjoyed running around with the girls and finding eggs for them too!

Lily got a little concerned towards the end when she couldn't find her prize egg...

but after awhile she found it hiding in the tomato plants.

The girls quickly opened their eggs to find they had gotten a bunch of candy and even some money!  Charlotte loved opening the eggs.  She shoved a ton of jelly beans in her mouth while I wasn't watching.  The girls also turned in their prize eggs to daddy and got some fun things.

Lily got this bad mitten type game...

Charlotte got some chalks to make a mess play with...

Allie got a Barbie movie...

Russ and Lily quickly broke open her bad mitten game and tried it out.  Russ promptly broke the racquet but fixed it with tape.  They both need a little practice on hitting towards the opposite person.

It was getting hot so we headed inside.  Charlotte was demanding some more candy so Russ letter have her way with a bag of M & M's.  Isn't she lovely?

After her candy adventure Charlotte was one tired baby.  We put her down for a nap and pulled out the boiled eggs to dye.  I had seen all over Pinterest that dying eggs with Kool Aid was an awesome alternative to the normal PAAS dye that we buy.  We decided to give it a try.  Turns out it doesn't work that well for us.  Not sure if it is the humidity thing or if we got a bad batch of Kool Aide, but our colors didn't stick well.   The girls had so much fun and kept begging for one more egg, but we had to limit them to three each.  The girls can tell you the most unfun part of dying eggs is waiting their turn for the highly coveted color.  This year everyone wanted green and red.

Waiting....

 More waiting....

Are you done yet?

I don't remember where we got this idea from, but we now use old wisks to dye our egg.  You just slip the egg through the wires and the girls can dip the egg themselves with out it falling off.

Each year we make sure and right everyone's name  on an egg.  It is a tradition I always did as a kid and now I make Russ do it.  He took it one step further this year and made a dog bone egg for Sprinkles.  How thoughtful of him huh?!

Because of our less then stellar Kool Aid experience not all our names showed up very well, but Lily and Russ's did.

We finished up with a dozen of mostly red and green eggs.  Maybe we are getting ready for Christmas early? LOL!

About this time we ate some dinner, and then sent Russ on his way to Houston.  We figured it would be best for him to go up and get the bookcase exchanged.  I crashed on the couch watching TV as soon as the girls were in bed.  Two fun packed days left me exhausted!  Russ called when he arrived at IKEA and told me the bad news.  Apparently the birch bookcase cost more than the white bookcase.  Of course when we rang up the bookcases we had just scanned the top bookcase three times, which turned out to be the birch bookcase.  The only way we could get our money back was to bring in the bar codes from the packaging with the receipts.  AHHH!!!!  This is why we don't buy furniture!  Something like this happens every single time!  So at some future date we will be making ANOTHER trip to IKEA.  Russ came home and we went to bed.

Sunday arrived bright and early....thank you Charlotte!  We went to church and had great lessons on Christ and Easter.  For sharing time the teacher did the lesson with Resurrection Rolls.  I was so sad because I had planned on doing this with the girls for an after dinner treat.  Oh well, we will  do it again next week or something.  For my lesson I helped the kids make a FHE lesson about Jesus's Resurrection.  The kids loved laying Jesus inside the tomb, putting the rock over the tomb, rolling it away, and having Jesus come back out.  They spent more time repeating the story and doing the actions than they did on coloring it.  So happy they liked it!

After church I spent the rest of the afternoon resting and Russ watched some kid movies with the girls.   We had a yummy dinner of steak, potatoes, beans, and Kool Aid.  We talked about the real reason for Easter and dinner and Lily seemed to be understanding it and remembering it.  Allie liked to tell the story of Christ's Resurrection.  Hopefully they both will continue to remember it.

It was nice but exhausting weekend!