All Better.....

Well, as the title states it... we are all (finally) better. All the kiddos are done with their antibiotics and back to their old selves. The boys are back to not napping during the day (unnnghhh) tho I do put them in their rooms for "quiet time" most days just to have some "me" time and get things done around here (shower, clean etc). But we've been enjoying the GREAT weather and getting the boys outside a lot... they LOVE it out there. Nothing like some good fresh air and running around to wear them out for a good night's rest. :) Last week I even was adventurous enough to haul all three kids with me in to go shopping at Walmart (hate that place). Walmart has these new carts that work REALLY well for two kids, and we had a small list of things to get so Evie and her car seat fit nicely right in the main part of the cart. Everyone did really well so it was a positive experience ... must try it again sometime :) And just this last weekend Grandma Diane came up to visit and got her fill of her grandchildren - so that was a fun time for everyone.

Evie... poor little Evie. Though she is feeling better she is going straight from illness (ear infection) to teething. She is fine most of the time but nighttime is a little worse than normal. She has a hard time getting to sleep and wakes frequently and is obviously uncomfortable. I've given in and given her some motrin on a few occasions and that seems to help. So we're just waiting for her to pop through that 2nd tooth that seems to be bothering her. Now that she's feeling better she's gotten her appetite back too. She is just scarfing down the solids and back to drinking a decent portion of formula daily (still not the recommended amount, but if you look at her, she definitely isn't suffering and has quite a bit of chub). She's just such an easy and happy baby. When she does cry (which isn't often) it is usually something big .... she's hurt, very overtired or just REALLY wants that bottle that she sees in your hand. Otherwise she is just all content and smiles all day long which makes her such a breeze to care for. Lately she loves standing up too - she will grasp onto your fingers and pull herself up into a standing position and is just happy as can be standing there for a very long time. Even does some deep knee bends/ple-ays to show off her leg strength. She's just so very sturdy. Now we've just got to work on crawling with her ... tho she seems content to get around by "butt scooting" across the floor. Very often she will be feet from where I had originally put her just bouncing on her butt and smiling proudly at her accomplishments.

The boys... well they are LOVING being outside. Mainly they love putting on their new boots. While at Walmart last week I let the boys pick out a new pair of galoshes/rain boots to stomp around in outside. Our yard is SUCH a mess from last fall/winter's construction with dirt and much everywhere, so the boots are a must if we are going to spend any amount of time outside. They wanted to put their boots on right there in the store... but I was able to put them off until we got home. They wore them around for the rest of the day/night and refused to take them off. It has now been explained that they can only be worn outside cuz they are dirty and they seem to understand that.. but now just want to put them on all the time and romp around outside. You should see their face light up when I even MENTION going outside. MacKay was always more about digging up the remaining patches of snow (now it is all gone - bummer for him) and picking up and showing me rocks, while Oscar just loved going in the garage to look at "Daddy's Traaa-Ker" (riding lawn mower) and running to the edge of our yard to point at the school bus parked just a couple houses down from us. Just obsessed with buses and tractors lately. I've had fun snapping pictures of their outside fun though.

The boys have also been little chatter boxes lately. They constantly want to show their knowledge of things and point things out and label them... and they keep repeating themselves over and over and over and over again until you FINALLY acknowledge it and say, for example, "Yes Oscar... that is a semi truck" :) Oscar is obsessed with ownership as well..... in this last week I have found out that it is "Daddy's Traaa-Ker", "Daddy's Shower" and "Daddy's Vacuum" .... but it is "Mommy's Garbage" and "Mommy's Sink". Interesting..... :) But they are very inquisitive asking what things are, loving to be read to ... or should I say loving to look through pages and point everything out that they know. They know most of their colors now and can count to 10 with me pretty well.... but a lot of the times they will get distracted and the numbers don't go in order anymore. It's so fun to see them learning all of this new stuff.

Well here are some of their newest pictures.... again, sans the nice camera. Which I can give an update on. We received it back from Nikon late last week, only to immediately run it into Best Buy for service and find out it will be yet ANOTHER 3 weeks before I see it. Good news is that they will know in the first 7-10 days if it is able to be fixed or if they will junk it.

Oscar sucking on a grape freezy pop - this was when he was sick and had a raging temperature. He really liked this treat, tho MacKay didn't want anything to do with it.

Evie during one of her baths... and a picture of Evie wearing her first pair of jeans. I know I know, weird that it has taken this long, but I just love sticking to onesies and sleepers for the first 6 months - so much easier.

Oscar and MacKay (not feeling well) sorta cuddling up on the couch watching "Up" together one morning

Oscar and MacKay sporting their new boots .... and Oscar with his new set of golf clubs. He thought the golf bag was a vacuum...

Goofy MacKay with his bud Angus. First picture he was leaning over and pointing out his eyes and counting them "One.. Two.. Eyes"..... and the second picture he just decided to go lay down on Angus and cover up with his blanket saying "Angus sleeping"

Next is just a ton of pictures shot of the boys playing outside.

Oscar with his prized possession, "Okar's Traa-Ker" .... love the picture of him in his hat. He's the only one I can get to wear hats like these just for the fun of it - MacKay will only wear his winter hat when it is cold.

MacKay running around and playing in the last bits of remaining snow we had ... and lastly showing me one of the MANY rocks he found and wanted to save (putting in the back of Okar's Traa-Ker)

MacKay and Oscar trying their best to figure out how their Schwinn Low Rider trikes work - they haven't quite gotten the concept of pedaling yet.

Just a few cute pictures I was able to snap of the boys together.. even working together to scoop snow into the trailer of Okar's Traa-Ker

MacKay worked diligently for about 20 minutes scooping snow and putting it into the trailer of Okar's Traa-Ker .... I couldn't believe how that kept his attention.

Oscar on his Thomas the Train trike and with his hoe. Love the last couple picture with the bus in the background... can just hear his sweet little voice repeatedly saying "Skoo Bus, Mommy..... Look Skoo Bus ..... Daddy's Bus" - love that he thinks that is Daddy's bus. :)

Lastly, just a happy picture of our smiley little girl. If you look close enough you can even see a hint of that little protruding tooth on the bottom.

Geez.... I look at these pictures and I just want my Nikon D40x back ..... soon hopefully.

Until next time...

More Evie photos ....

I can't help myself, I just love the pictures Trina (LuminousPrints.com) snapped of lil Evie a few weeks ago. And came across a few more favorites that I cannot believe I missed in my original post. Enjoy.

Stay tuned.... lots of pictures (sans "good" camera) of the boys playing outside in their new boots (galoshes)

Evie's 6 month (really 7 month) photo shoot

First off, I just need to say.... if anyone in the Brainerd area needs a good photographer, look up Trina Sutton at LuminousPrints.com. She is fantastic. I LOVE these pictures and she is SO good with kids - really takes the time to get to know them and let them get to know her. Thanks again Trina.

Let's start off with Evie in her adorable little Matilda Jane knot dress. Was going to save this for her 1 year pictures, but using it now just gives me a reason to find another cute outfit for her 1 year pictures. :)

Gotta always have the plain white onesie pictures (we have these of the boys for their 6 month pictures as well). The cute red rocker she is in was borrowed from a friend of mine, another fellow mother of twin boys - Shawna Williams. Thanks Shawna.

And the petti skirt we borrowed from my good friend Heidi. This was definitely the highlight and I just couldn't seem to pare down the pictures of her with this one. She loved sitting there in all that frill .... playing with it, being bashful and hiding behind it. SO CUTE.

Some pictures in a cute hat we also used from the big bag of stuff Heidi sent our way. It was just such a cute and simple hat. Note, two of the pictures are the same, just one is in BW with the pink flower.

Lastly, something I had seen in other photos and wanted to try ..... naked little Evie on our bed. I was just praying she wouldn't pee or poo the entire time.

Well hope you enjoyed them. I LOVE them and cannot wait to see what we can get from her 1 year pictures. Once we have all those we're going to look through what we have for the boys' and Evie's first year of pictures and figure out what we want to put up on the wall - hoping to do some creative canvas prints.

Ahem.... correction...... THREE children with ear infections

Well, last night was a hard one. I got home from my last photography class last night around 8:30 to the boys running around the house in their PJs and Evie screaming in her bedroom. Found Chris (a very exhausted looking Chris) in there trying to console her - apparently she had been doing that for over an hour. She was also up a lot of the night which isn't normal for her - uncomfortable, lots of congestion, lots of crying ... and eventually having a temperature early this morning. She also was showing signs of an ear infection - tugging on her left ear, wouldn't suck on her nuk (usually that calms her back to sleep VERY quickly), and would only eat 1-2 oz out of her bottles before crying again. So ..... I made an appt for her (and me) for urgent care this morning. And after waiting 1 hour in the waiting room, and then over 30 minutes in the exam room I finally walked out to one of the nurses and asked "What the heck is going on - my husband has been driving my two year old twins around for over and hour and a half and they are getting restless... is it going to be much longer?" .... something I obviously should have done sooner as it got the doctor in right away. Not sure if they forgot about us or what.... but I think it would have been pretty hard to miss the bawling baby (Evie) in our room. Urgent Care up here really stinks.... but back to Evie. Turns out after she has a double ear infection ... that is after the doctor scraped her ears out multiple times getting out chunks of wax (man did she scream for that) .... and did an RSV test (sticking a pipe cleaner up her nostril - another thing she wasn't a fan of). Luckily no RSV... but now she is also on antibiotics.

Poor thing didn't even give me a smile until just recently.... she was just so out of sorts. For those of you that know Evie or have spent some time with her, you know she quite a content, happy, smiley little baby. This was NOT the Evie we saw last night and earlier today .... poor thing. But the good news is that she is coming around now.

Anyway - thought I would also let you know.... come back VERY soon as I am now working on getting my favorite pictures from Evie's 6 month photo shoot together. Trina (love this girl) stopped by yesterday evening on her way into town to drop off the finished CD of the images. Immediately ran down to the computer to check them out and noted my favorites. So if the boys will give me just a few more minutes of peace here (they are watching Madagascar) I will have them up momentarily. Hopefully my next post will find us all well again... and here's hoping you and your families are well.

Sick Oscar, Sick MacKay, Sick Evie = Exhausted Mommy and Daddy (who are also sick)

Does it get any worse than sick kids... while also being sick yourself? unnngh. Well it started with Oscar early last week (Tues 3/2) with intermittent fevers and just a little bit of a drippy nose. Well the drippy nose got worse (as did the fever) and by Friday (3/5) MacKay was starting it up... and of course it was the same as usual. Oscar always gets these bugs first and it just lingers forever with him... and when it finally hits MacKay it hits HARD. By Saturday Oscar was bawling every time he coughed so we decided he needed to be seen. So I reluctantly accepted that yet ANOTHER photo shoot was going to go awry and called up Trina to tell her she didn't need to rush over like previously planned as we weren't going to include the boys in the shoot.... just Evie, as she was the only one (at that time) feeling decent. So Chris took Oscar into Urgent Care while we got ready for Evie's 6 (really 7) month photo shoot. And luckily, Grandma Chris had come up to visit and help out during the shoot (gets a bit crazy) ..... so she just kept MacKay occupied playing with puzzles while we blazed through Evie's pictures. Trina even joked that it might have been a record, 5+ changes in outfits/props etc in under 20 minutes time..... and I should say, all smiles and no tears whatsoever. Evie was a trooper and LOVED flirting with the camera. If you want to check out a sneak peak of the pictures from the photo shoot check out the photographer's blog (http://trina-luminousprints.blogspot.com/2010/03/babies-galore-2.html). Can't wait to see the rest of them - will be sure to post my favorites, as I always do, as soon as I get them. P.S. The trip to urgent care didn't find anything with Oscar other than just the common viral cold going around. Lungs sounded fine (which was shocking to us, his cough made it sound like it was BAD) but it was good just to know. AND... I'm glad we kept the photo appt with Trina (we were thinking of postponing to the next weekend) as Evie started getting the runny nose on Sunday. So that was good timing for us.

As a followup to all the sickness, I had called the kiddos' pediatrician on Monday (wanted to know Benadryl dosing instruction for Evie) but they could hear Oscar coughing and crying from over the phone and asked that I bring them all in instead. So we booked up back to back appts for all of them for Tuesday. Glad we did, cuz later that night Oscar told me, on two occasions, that "It hurt! It hurt" while pointing at his ear. One was bad too as he was in bed and started crying. So Tuesday we hauled them all in.... and found out that Oscar DID in fact have an infection in his left ear (the one he was pointing at the night before)... and MacKay had an infection in his right ear, yet the doctor noted that his left ear didn't look so hot either. So bummed... we had made it this long (2+ years) avoiding ear infections and here we were. So I am hoping this is just a one time thing and we don't have recurring problems with this. Evie looked okay but the doc did tell me that she probably hasn't hit the worst of it yet and to really watch her in the next few days. (fun fun fun). Weird tho, cuz all she had was the sinus stuff.... no fever the whole time. All in all though, the boys are doing a lot better now. And I will say, tho I HATE when my kids are sick.... the ONE piece of silver lining in this..... my boys are NAPPING. :) I know I know, I am horrible. But really, it was nice to see that whenever MacKay was starting to get tired he would just say "Bed Mommy.... Nap" and would walk right into his room and lie down and go to sleep. I'm just going to enjoy it for now, as I know it won't last long I'm sure.

Here's some big news...... Evie got her first tooth. We just noticed it last night, and it is her left bottom one. I guess that might explain the congestion with her considering she never had a fever like the boys did. Chris noticed it while rolling around on the ground with her while I was giving the boys their baths. Which I should note .... just prior to us finding out that our little princess cut a tooth, she got PEE'D on by her big brother. While getting the boys ready for their bath I took Oscar's diaper off and in the 2-3 seconds it took me to turn around and grab MacKay's diaper (to throw in the pail) Oscar had peed on his little sister. I didn't even witness it, just noticed that Oscar was unusually interested in his .... well.... manhood... which is something he's done the other times (which haven't been many) he's peed on the floor. Sure enough the floor in between him and Evie was wet as was her entire back. I just kept laughing later that night at that sight.... Evie sitting there so innocent and sweet while her brother was standing above her showering her. So Evie had a very eventful night last night. Can't wait to tell her years from now how the night that we discovered her first tooth was the same one where she got pee'd on by Oscar.

Oh well, that is enough.... not a lot of pictures for this post, as I still don't have my nice Nikon back. Long story, but we had forgotten that we had purchased the extended coverage/warranty on that camera through Best Buy. So instead of paying Nikon over $200 (what they wanted to fix it), we instead opted for them to send the camera back to us so we can bring it into Best Buy like we should have to begin with. Either they will fix it for free... or if they cannot fix it they "junk it" and give me credit to buy another similar camera in the store. Meanwhile I'm having anxiety attacks cuz I feel naked without my camera... it's normally like another appendage for me :)

Here is Evie in her first pair of real PJs.... tho it's like she was shoved into them, they were already too small (size 12 months). So now we've moved onto 18 month PJs.

I love this picture of the boys cuz they just look like "James Dean WannaBe Studs" - just hanging out waiting to go to ECFE class the other week

Evie hanging out in her high chair while I got the boys ready to go in the car for ECFE - she's just always smiling.

Okay.... warning, these are a bit goofy. My good friend Heidi sent up a bunch of hats/tutus etc for me to use for Evie's photo shoot and here were a couple of the "head wear" items ... at the same time. We laughed and said she looks like one of those old ladies who doesn't know when to stop accessorizing. :) And the last picture is with just the hat..... one that we used for the actual photo shoot.

MacKay and Oscar chillin' in the chair we borrowed from the Williams family as a prop for Evie to sit in..... Evie really didn't get much time in it (aside from the actual picture taking) as the boys wouldn't give it up :) I should note, this is when they started getting "the crud", you can sorta see it in their faces.

Well unfortunately that is it for pictures this time around. Will have more when I get the CD from Trina from Evie's photo shoot and will post some of my favorites. Take care.