saturday.fun

We went to a really fun mom and pop farm festival on Saturday afternoon. Josh and I were supposed to help Jill and Andrew move on Saturday (without Claire and Meredith). However, due to some unexpected circumstances, we ended up taking them along. I was going to stay home, but we were celebrating my Dad's 60th birthday on Saturday night. I thought I should be there :)

Anyway, so I searched online and found this particular spot. It was so cute. They had a ton of kid-friendly activities. There were little playground areas, a tic-tac-toe toss, miniature golf, a corn maze, hay rides, pick-your-own pumpkins, and more! We spent about 3 hours there, and the kids had a blast. Meredith was exhausted after our outing (search for her sleeping with her pumpkin in the collage!).

My mom kept Amelia while she helped Jill at her new house. Amelia is pretty content to lay on the floor, sit in her exersaucer, or sleep. Mom said she was perfect all day...not surprising because Amelia didn't have two big sisters poking and prodding her all day likes playing by herself!

Josh helped carry lots of big and heavy stuff, and I enjoyed a nice day with two of my three favorite girls! It was very relaxing to only have to keep track of Claire and Meredith...not that Amelia wonders off yet. It was just nice to not have to stop to feed Amelia, and we moved around much more efficiently!
So, in light of our fun fall festivities...what fun things do you do in the fall?

new.fav

This is just a peek of what we did over the weekend, and it's one of my new favorite pictures!

seriously.september 23

Claire came running in the house today, and said (with big eyes and slightly out of breath), "I just heard a noise outside. I think it may have been a tiger."

I think I would rather have the giraffes.

Seriously.

like.father.like.daughter

Look what I caught two of my favorite people doing the other day.

That's right...staring at the television...chewing on their fingers.

Josh does this all the time when he's concentrating on something intense (like a football game or the Bourne movies). It drives me CRAZY (though I still love him)!!

I hope that I don't have to remind Amelia every Sunday to stop chewing on herself while watching the big game. At least she has a good excuse for the moment.

vacation.with.the.fam

I know everyone has been on the edge of their seats waiting for the post about the family vacation. So, without further ado...

We had such a fun time on our family vacation. A few years ago, Josh's family decided that we would quit giving all of the kids (and siblings) birthday gifts. Instead, we would use the money that we would have spent and go on a full family vacation every three years. This was our first outing. The weather wasn't the best, but we still had a blast.

We rented a huge house with 6 bedrooms (enough beds for 21) and 5 bathrooms. It had 4 levels, and the kids (all 11 of them...9 and under) spread out. Everyone enjoyed the space...especially since it rained every day that we were there.

Some highlights of the weekend:

1. Running down the "mountain".

2. Watching every kid biff at least once while running down the "mountain".

3. Listening to Meredith cry (while completely covered in sand), "Yucky! Yucky! Yucky!"...I know,I know...I'm a terrible mom.

4. Watching my mother-in-law take a thousand pictures.

5. Shopping for Josh because he forgot to load his suitcase into the van (oops).

6. Getting 2 shirts, 2 pairs of shorts, and 4 pairs of boxers for $21. (Clearance racks...my favorite!)

7. Ice cream.

8. Shopping with my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law.

9. Pedicures by Aunt Gina...

10. Realizing (again!) that I married into a pretty great family! I'm so thankful for all of you!

And I just couldn't pass up two adorable pictures of our "little-melia" from vacation...

we're.home

...from vacation. Sometimes you're so tired that you just want to curl up in the corner of your room and hide behind your pillow! That's about how we feel right now.

We've been on vacation with Josh's entire family. Great house. Rainy weather (boo!). Fun memories. More on all of this later.

Claire is feeling much better, but she's still a challenge when it comes to her meds. Josh has worked his negotiation magic (he gets lots of practice at work!), and he is in charge of giving it to her. The first day of negotiations took about 20 minutes. It has progressively gotten better. I think they are down to about 5 minutes from start to finish. Thanks for the suggestions! She is one stubborn little child.

question.of.the.day

Claire is sitting up at the counter counting her money. She has in front of her 2 $1 bills and 5 quarters (plus a whole bunch of nickels, dimes, and pennies off to the side). She asks...

Is this a hundred dollars? No.

What if I add these two dimes?

Thank you, Lord, for comic relief. :)

last.nerve

I think I have one nerve left. Sesame Street is helping me try to find a couple more at the moment.

We had round 2 with the meds this morning. Unfortunately, Josh was already at work. It was just Claire and me. We screamed, cried, fought, got really sticky from a certain someone spitting medicine all over the place barely survived. At least it's over. Josh called right at the end, and thankfully it was him. If it had been someone else, I think they would have thought I was a really angry person. Picture me, eyebrows together, lips pursed, almost ready to cry (and slightly annoyed that someone was calling at this inopportune time) saying in a gruff voice, "HELLO!" I probably would have hung up on me. There was a slight pause before Josh said anything, so I think he probably thought about it, too!

It was good timing and bad timing all at the same time. I cried.

If you have any suggestions for getting this medicine down her in an easier fashion, please leave it in my comment section. Fortunately, she only has to take it twice a day. Unfortunately, it is super thick, so even when you think you're done, you still have 1/4 teaspoon left. I tried to mix it with her jell-o yesterday...she was way too sharp for that one. She took two bites, and said, "I know you just tried to poison me with that medication...I'm smarter than that don't want any more."

Prayers, please.

10:35 p.m.

Well, we had an eventful afternoon. I called Josh to come home early so that I didn't have to load the kids up and head out for more meds. He didn't have too much craziness at work today, so he was able to come home.

Around 3:00, Claire said her head hurt and she didn't feel well. We took her temp and it was 105.2. With the headache, that number was high enough for me to call the doc's office. They wanted to see her.

We took her in, and they looked her over and had her pee in a cup. She didn't want to. On a side note, when I was prego with Amelia, I had to pee in a cup at every OB appointment. Each time, Claire would ask, "Can I pee in a cup, too?" No. Well, here was her big chance, and she didn't even want to! She did anyway (with a little encouragement from the trickling water in the sink).

Anyway, the sample showed that she had a urinary tract infection. I was thrilled! I know that sounds bad, but I was just thankful to know what was wrong with her. A couple of years ago, we sat in that hospital for 4 days having temps consistently register around 103 and get as high as 107. No one knew why she couldn't keep her temps down, and she didn't want to take her meds. She would be fine for an hour, and then she would shiver, shake, sweat, etc. I felt just helpless. I was starting to feel like we were getting ready to have round #2. So, the UTI was the best news I received today!

So, thank you all for your prayers for Claire. Her temp was up again tonight before she went to bed, but we were easily able to get her to take her Motrin since we purchased the chewables. The first round of the UTI meds didn't go down so well. She screamed really loud and spit part of it out didn't like it. She's not looking forward to more tomorrow. It's only 2 times a day. Tomorrow a.m. will be an interesting time. I'll keep you posted...

1:15 p.m.

My little Claire is still as sick as a dog. Poor thing. She's sleeping right now, but her temp isn't going down. It went down before Josh headed to work, but then it spiked back up around 11:15 to 104.1. I just took it again about 15 minutes ago, and it was 104.7.

We're just alternating between Motrin and Tylenol for the time being. Daddy is on his way home with the Tylenol. Plenty of fluids too. I feel like we're having flashbacks to September '06. This is exactly the same way things went. I guess it's slightly easier since we've been here before, but it's hard to see a typically full-of-energy child currently down-and-out. Thanks for the prayers.

sick.kids

No fun. Meredith and Amelia have been sick since the end of last week. They even stayed home from church on Sunday with Josh. Amelia has definitely been improving, and Meredith only had to "officially" wipe her nose once yesterday...much better than the previous day. (By officially I mean that she used a tissue instead of her sleeve.)

Claire, however, has taken a turn for the worse. She had been fine over the weekend but had woken up yesterday (Monday) with a fever of 102. Not too big of a deal, but by the time she went to bed last night, she was up to 104. We were giving her Motrin and did the tepid bath thing (which she didn't enjoy because she had just taken a bath an hour before that).

So, we continued to check her every hour or so, and she had dropped to maybe around 102-103. We gave her more medicine at 2:30, and she woke me up at 4:00 with a temp around 104 again. We went back and forth about whether we should just head to the ER, but alas, we are still home because she's dropped a bit again (102ish). She's fairly perky for 5:30 a.m. (much more-so than her mother!).

We're going to call our doc later this morning. I'm typically not one to panic about these types of issues. However, after our bout in the hospital a couple of years ago with the same issue, I'm a bit more paranoid about the whole thing. Hopefully, it is nothing, but if you could send a prayer or two up for her as you are reminded, that would be greatly appreciated!

politics.politics

I love politics. However, you won't see me blog about them too much (although I often read political blogs).

I get most of my info from WORLD Magazine. It is a conservative Christian magazine with the tag line "Today's News/Christian Views", it's a fantastic read. I look forward to reading it every other week when it arrives. Josh and I ask for it for Christmas each year.

Anyway, back to my point....I am thrilled about John McCain's VP choice of Sarah Palin. I might even get a bumper sticker (if I can find one cute enough). I read THIS ARTICLE tonight that captures a lot (not all) of my attitude toward the upcoming election. If you have a few minutes, I would recommend the read. It makes me proud to be an American.

labor.day

I am finally getting around to posting about Labor Day. I apologize for not having pictures. I was too lazy to get the camera out of the computer bag busy enjoying a little quality time with the fam.

We went to the lake on Friday night and spent the weekend with Mom and Dad, Jill and Drewski, lots of long people, and a whole lot of beautiful weather. We went tubing on Saturday afternoon. Fun, but I felt like I had been hit by a train by the time Sunday came around.

Amelia woke up early in the morning to eat, and I almost dropped her because my arms were giving out on me! Thankfully, no baby drops, but my arms were crazy sore.

We went to a big party at the neighbor's house (at home) on Sunday evening. To say that they go "all out" would be a bit of an understatement. There were hundreds of people (supposedly fewer than usual), lots of great food, a huge salad from one of my favorite Italian joints (yum!), snow cones, a HUGE moonwalk-type slide for the kiddos...oh yes, and they had fireworks at the end...seriously good ones. (Not the little bottle-rocket-type that are firework wannabees...like go-to-the-park-and-sit-on-a-blanket fireworks.)

Anyway, so we had our little party on Monday afternoon. There were about 25 of us (family and friends included). T (who always reads my blog, but never comments) was there! I told you that I'd mention you here, T! Maybe she'll comment someday!

Well, we had a great time of talking, eating, corn hole....and the neighbors practically begged us to bring all of the kids back over during our party to use their blowup slide. The rental place wasn't picking it up until Tuesday, so we wandered over and the kiddos played for a bit. Fun times. Thanks all of you for coming over. We had a great time with everyone. We'll have to do it again sometime!

question.of.the.day

Today, Claire was looking at our cheap stickers, the little circle ones that come in tablets of like 1,000.

Here are some examples of the stickers:
"Great!"
smiley face
star
"Yeah!"
frog
whale
"WOW!"
"Super"
various animals
and...

#1

Claire asks..."Is there a #2 on here somewhere?"

Hmmmm...I don't think they make #2 stickers...I think it has something to do with self-esteem issues :).

5.months

Happy 5 month birthday, baby girl! In the last month, Amelia has grown so much. She has gotten 2 teeth, rolls over from belly to back and from back to belly, and smiles ALL the time (especially for Mommy...I'm her favorite). She is such a cutie! What an easy baby. I couldn't ask for more with the craziness of this year.

She loves to look at her big sisters, and I'm convinced that she'll start pulling their hair this month! She is so patient with Claire (who loves to hold her)! We love you, Amelia!

open.season

Josh has the 7:00 shift today, so as he heard the geese fly over the house this morning, he decided to go out and shoot a few of them. mmmmm....gooooooose. Four down, lots to go. I can take this type of hunting outing any day. It was literally an hour from start to finish (cleaning and all!). Josh loves the country...I think I'm starting to like it a bit better as well :)

seriously.september 1

It takes me at least 2 full days to recover from a fun afternoon of tubing on the lake.

Please remind my body that it is 29, not 19.
Big difference.

Seriously.