What I did over Christmas break

When I was thinking about writing what we did for Christmas I was reminded how we used to write (and when I was teaching, have kids write) about what we did for Christmas.  Anyways, here's how Christmas went down around here.

We spent the Saturday before Christmas with my family.  It was great.  We had fun, the kids loved presents and all was well.  All was well until Monday. About 11:00 Aiden told me he didn't feel well.  He had a 102.7 fever.  He said his body hurt and started getting a cough.  No good.  So, I tried to get him into the Dr. that day, but they were double booked and we got in on Tuesday afternoon instead.  He tested positive for strep and tested negative for influenza, but the Dr. was sure he had it. So we went home with prescriptions for Tamiflu and Amoxicillan.



How cute is he with that mask though?!







If we have learned anything from having 4 very young kids it's that they will get each other sick.  Christmas Eve the other 3 started with a low grade fever and a cough.  By Christmas day they all had the higher fever and were fairly miserable.  So, we were camped out at home instead of celebrating and I went to Walgreens for Tamiflu and Amoxicillian for the other 3.  I wanted to have a good attitude, but I wasn't doing well.  Noah started coughing, which meant he coughed until he threw up..a lot.  Then the meds were so strong that Reese and Devyn couldn't keep them down.  We made the best of it and let them open presents and Nate made monkey bread.  Monkey bread was a Christmas morning tradition in his house and he's keeping it going here.  The rest of the day we watched tv and did a whole bunch of nothing.  We hadn't slept much the night before, so we were all exhausted.

Aiden helping make monkey bread.

Sickie Reese.



Devyn enjoying the monkey bread.



Nate and I ended up with a cold, but thankfully not the fever or anything else.  By the weekend we were less miserable, but there was still a lot of coughing and snot.  Finally by New Years Eve we were feeling much better and had a blast celebrating with our neighbors and their kids.  Then New Years Day we celebrated belated Christmas with Nate's family.  It's one of my favorite days of the year so I was incredibly glad we got to postpone and celebrate another day.

I love this picture so much.  They were wathcing tv at Nate's parent's house and Noah had his legs on Aiden the whole time.  I love that bond that they have.

Poor Devyn was worn out from staying up until 10:00 the night before.

She can finally sport pig tails!!  That was a present for me.

 

 I guess it wasn't the best Christmas ever, but it could have been much worse too.  The next couple of weeks will be really busy for us, so it may be a while before I get on here again. 





The past (crazy) month

I haven't updated this lately and I promise I have many good reasons why.  The last month has been a bit crazy.  Here is what has been going on...or at least some of it.

1.  First all 4 kids passed around some nasty cold/croup virus.  Of course it his Noah the hardest.  His athsma makes a virus into something more difficult.  He was coughing until he threw up when he was sleeping and it never woke him up.  It got old really fast.  The first night that he got the cough he woke up at midnight and his barking cough woke me up.  A few hours later he was really struggling to breathe.  We tried all the things we knew to do and then decided he needed to go to the ER.  That is always such a hard decision as a parent.  We feel like we're overreacting, but then I remember our allergist saying athsma can go from bad to worse and even fatal in the blink of an eye.  It's just not something to mess with.  I would rather they send us home than second guess why we didn't do it.  He didn't seem to mind all the much.  Wathching TV and drinking a cocktail of steroids and fruit punch was not so bad.  I was exhausted, but we survived.  The treatments helped quickly and we were home within 3 or 4 hours.

I'm not sure what the actual order of all this is, but it really doesn't matter.  At some point Aiden was standing in the hallway talking to me when out of nowhere our key hanger/mirror managed to break apart and fall...right onto Aiden's face.  For those of you keeping track that makes a split open eyebrow, a fall at the zoo that scraped up his face really bad, bit through his lip..twice and now this.  That's all in less than a year.

 

 

Next was a bit of really great news.  Devyn got her first tooth!  She got her second tooth recently too.  The weird part is she got her "fangs".  Too bad it's not Halloween.  She could've been a vampire.  There are no other teeth in sight, so we'll see what happens with that.

 

The craziest part of the last month came when Devyn decided to try and walk down the stairs.  We had taught her how to turn around and go down on her belly.  She was doing great.  Then, one day she decided she wanted to be just like her brothers and walk down.  Of course she didn't even make it down one step.  She cried for a while and then seemed okay.  I could tell that when I moved her arm it hurt, but she didn't make a big deal out of it.  The next time she put pressure on the arm she cried.  I called my mom and she agreed that she should probably go in.  So, my mom went with me and Nate stayed with the boys.  The ER was CRAZY busy.  We thought she seemed to be doing better and even considered leaving.  I told my mom that we had come that far, we might as well wait.  Good thing we did.  It was broken.  They told us she had a greenstick break of her ulna.  They put a temporary cast on, questioned me about how it happened and checked her whole body for abuse.  People have asked if it bothered me that they did that.  My answer is no.  I would be bothered if they didn't.  That's their job.  After a few hours (which was much faster than I expected given how busy it was) we were on our way home.

 

 

Thank the Lord for Mimi!  I would have had a nervous breakdown from all the crying without her!  Plus, she's just pretty great.

 

The next day I called and made an appointment with an orthopedist at the University of Chicago.  I had just switched offices for Noah's allergist and thought that we were done going there.  Almost 4 years later I'm convinced we'll have reasons to go back there forever.  We have seen more doctors at that hospital than I ever would have imagined.  Anyways, when I got her up from her nap that morning she has done a number on her temperary cast.

 

 Thankfully there was a fabulous team who helped get her all set when we got to Comer.  The orhopedists came in right away to check her out and to tell us that she had not broken one bone, but 2.  She broke the ulna and radius.  They handed me a printout of her xray to show me the breaks.  So sad.  They put a pretty pink cast on her arm while singing to her, blowing bubbles with her, giving her stickers and doing whatever they had to do to keep her from crying.  It was nothing short of amazing.  She cried anytime they came near her in the ER and she never cried once they started singing to her at Comer.  That is exactly why we go there.  They know exactly what to do and who to call (thank you child life team).  It is worth the trip every time to receive such great care.

She gets to have this beauty of a cast on for 5 weeks.  It goes most of the way up her arm, almost to her armpit. It stinks and she'l learning it's a weapon.

All in all it's been a busy month.  I've also been asked a number of times if the broken arm was really hard for me.  It's really not so bad.  We have lived through SO much worse than this.  It's a bump in the road.  I felt bad, but at the end of the day she was okay.  Now on we go to Christmas.  So, it may be a while before you hear from me again.  At least now you know why it took so long this time!

Devyn

Sweet baby Devyn.  I had a hard time deciding where to start with her.  She's the little girl I never expected to have.  When I found out I was pregnant I was so excited to take out all the cute little boy clothes that we had packed away from the boys.  I loved having boys and couldn't imagine anything else.  I was nothing short of a nervous wreck to find out she was a girl.  What on earth was I supposed to do with a girl?!?  The cute clothes and girly colors started changing my mind pretty quicly.  Then she was born and I realized how incredibly special a daughter is.  The bond between Devyn and I (and Devyn and Nate) is so different than it is with the boys.  I couldn't have prepared myself for how different it is to have boys than it is to have a girl.  She is so different and yet fits in so well.

The last time I took her to the Dr. she chose to play with a monster truck over all the other toys I brought.  She plays with trucks more than dolls and She chooses her brothers' toys over her own most of the time.

When we painted pumpkins for Halloween she sat right at the table with her brothers and painted her little pumpkin pink.

 

 

She is so incredibly loved by her brothers.  They play with her, get things for her and love on her (which sometimes means telling her what she can/can't do).  They fight over who gets to push her in her swing outside.

 

 

She loves to help.  If she hears the dishwasher open she comes to the kitchen and starts taking things out and handing them to me saying, "Thank you".  Then I tell her to close it and she pushes the door closed.  Cracks me up.  She also never passes on an opportunity to sweep the floor.

 

 

 

She is best buddies with Noah.  Aiden and Reese love Devyn (Reese and Devyn fight the most..the 2 babies).  Noah LOVES Devyn.  She had a fever this past weekend and he sat on the couch so he could hold her on his lap.  He brings her toys, helps feed her and loves on her.  I love watching their relationship grow.

 She melts hearts.  She is so sweet and can snuggle up to anyone and just melt them.  She loves to snuggle up with her Daddy but she is always asking, "Where Mommy?"  She is a Mommy's girl, which of course I love.

 We are going to have serious issues when she grows up.  She absolutely loves shoes.  She is constantly bringing us shoes and saying, "Shoes.  Help."  or "Shoes.  Feet."  She loves when I taking her shopping too.  She sits in the cart and touches all the clothes and looks around. 

She has changed our family forever.  She brings such joy and such a different perspective on life.  That sweet smile just lights up our house, even if it's a toothless smile. :)

Reese

Reese.  Oh, Reese.  Where do I even start with Reese? 

Reese was our first baby to come home.  He came home at 3 1/2 weeks old.  He has made sure that there have been no dull moments since he came home. 

Reese is funny.  He makes us laugh.  A lot.  He says things that you don't expect to hear from a 3 year old.  He also tends to get things wrong, including lyrics from songs.  Recently he asked me if I saw the "PUS" truck (better known as the UPS truck) and asked me for a piece of bikini (zucchini) bread.  He loves to tell stories, which always start with, "Once a time".  He's just funny.  People always comment on how funny he is.  He's not trying to be funny, he's just a funny kid.

He LOVES to read books.  He would sit and listen to me read books all day long.  I love that.  I love that when I read to him he listens and really gets carried away in a book.  Later I'll hear him repeating what we read and even using the same voices I used when I read different characters. 

He is a very interesting dresser.  They pick out their own clothes and boy does Reese pick some crazy outfits.  He puts really strange things together and almost always has part (or sometimes all) of his clothes on backwards or inside out. Yesterday he wore a shirt that looked more like a dress.  I did turn it around for him because it was a button up polo and it was driving me crazy.  Most of the time I let him wear whatever he comes up with.

He is a Papa's and Grandpa's boy.  Somehow he always gravitates toward his Papa and his Grandpa.  He was the first to climb up into Papa's lap after the marathon.  He just can't get enough of his Grandpas.  Perhaps it's also because he's so darn cute and convincing and his Papa pretty much can't tell him "no".  He gets away with the most in our house because he can convince us in some adorable way to change our minds.  It doesn't happen often, but it happens more than it does with Aiden or Noah.  He just has an ability to soften people.  Every night when we tuck him in he gives me a kiss and 2 "monster" hugs.  I look forward to it every night.

He's so clearly the baby of the 3.  He gets Noah and Aiden, but especially Noah, to do things for him all the time.  You would swear he was much younger than the other 2 the way they do things for him.  That's just his personality.  He will forever be convincing others to do things for him.

 

Noah

Last week I told you a bit about Aiden.  Now I'll tell you about Noah.  Noah was originally our smallest.  He weighed in at a tiny 3 lbs. 8.6 oz.  He was so small and I distinctly remember crying over him because he was so tiny.  Now he's our biggest kid and an absolute brute.  He's in the 75th percentile for his age now.  He may not be a tiny baby anymore, but he's still a mama's boy.  He's also the child that gets under my skin the most.  He pushes every button and then some in an effort to irritate me.  The words, "Noah Henry" leave my mouth more than any other words.  So, here he is.

This is my favorite picture of Noah.  This was taken at about 10:25.  He was born at 10:16.  Not even 10 minutes old.  Isn't he cute?!

Noah is our "helper".  He always wants to help with things.  He wants to do grown-up jobs.  He is constantly taking out Nate's tools, my brooms and kitchen utensils and in this picture he took out Nate's earmuffs for work.  He always tells me he wants to do, "Daddy jobs".

This is Murray.  Murray is Noah's right hand man.  He loves that Murray more than anything.  He got it for Christmas when he was a year old and they have been inseperable ever since.  For a long time he couldn't even sleep without it.  I find Murray all over the place.  Yesterday I found him stashed in my corner curio cabinet.

Murray is also Noah's downfall.  A couple of weeks ago we were getting ready for church and one of the boys came upstairs and said, "Someone was sneaking cookies!".  When I went to check it out it didn't take long to realize who that someone was.  Murray was laying right next to a bunch of sprinkles.  Busted.

Noah is about as strong as a grown man.  When we were working on our garage/back yard earlier in the summer he would put things in the wheelbarrow and wheel it around the house. 

Noah is also the guy that has the hardest time when he gets sick.  A cold for Noah means his athsma is worse and we spend time with his inhaler and listening to his wheezing trying to decide whether or not we should take him in.  This picture is from this summer when he had croup.  We sat in the bathroom at about 3:00 in the morning. 

Noah LOVES Devyn.  It's one of my favorite things about him.  In this picture he was giving her a kiss.  They are buddies and he looks out for her.  She loves him just as much.

 

Noah is shy.  Painfully shy.  He is finally starting to come out of his shell and is a little bit braver all the time.  He has a smile that will melt your heart and sings his favorite songs all day long. 

 

He also thinks he's the boss.  He's the first to tell someone else what the rules are and probably the last to follow them.  He is such a stinker and is constantly getting into things.  He keeps me on my toes all day long. 

That's my Noah.  My sweet, naughty, shy little guy.

This is Aiden

I thought I would take the time to tell you a little bit about each of our children individually.  They are all so different and so unique in their own way.  Today, I give you Aiden.

Aiden was our biggest boy.  He came into this world as a "big" 4 lb., 16.93" baby.  He looked so big compared to what we expected.  He earned himself the nickname "big boy".  Now his nicknames range from Aiden J (his middle name is James) and Ace (Reese's nickname for him).  He loves trucks, trains, singing and reading.

 

He is also our most emotional child.  This particular day (yesterday) he was upset that he couldn't get his shoe on.  I told him to undo the velcro first.  Rather than try he sprawled out on the kitchen floor and cried.  Like any good mother I took a picture.  I worked around him until he was done crying and then reminded him that all he had to do was ask for help.  That's Aiden.  He needs to be left alone and come out of a tantrum on his own.  He sometimes puts himself in his room until he can be calm. 

He also loves to "work like Daddy".  He wears Nate's hats and pretends to go to jobs. 

He lines things up.  Cars or crayons or anything that he can put in a nice straight line.  I suppose he gets that from me.

He's also our child that gets hurt the most.  In less than a year he has hit his eye on his bed causing a deep gash in his eyebrow, bit through his lip twice and scraped up his face at the zoo.  This gem of a picture is the aftermath of falling at the zoo. 

 

He is also our polite child who loves to tell people how something they did was, "so sweet".  He talks to anyone who will give him the time of day.  He can go from happy and sweet to full blown tantrum in 1 second.  If he's hungry or tired there is no reasoning with him.  Again, he gets that from me. 

 

He is also known as the one who repeats things by one of our neighbors.  She's right.  He repeats things.  It's his way of learning.  He remembers things we say and repeats them in conversation.  I love putting him to bed at night because he repeats what I tell him.  Every night he tells me, "I love you. Good night.  Sweep dreams (although I say sweet dreams).  See you in the morning."  He knows exactly what to say to melt my heart. 

 

That's Aiden.  He's sweet and kind and full of emotion. 

A busy end to summer

As summer has come to a close we have been busy trying to squeeze in lots of fun before it's over.  I love summer and wish it would never leave.  These last couple of rainy, chilly days remind me of how long days can feel when we are all stuck inside together.  I miss sending the boys out to play in the backyard and not being following me around, "Mom, mom, mom"; which Devyn has now picked up and joins in.  Here's how we spent our last few weeks.

Labor Day weekend we went to Indianapolis with my family.  We left Friday afternoon and came home Monday afternoon.  We had a blast!  We went to the zoo, swam in the hotel pool, walked along the canal and downtown, mini-golfed (hilarious) and just spent time together.  Reese said his favorite part of vacation was "the hotel room and eating breakfast downstairs".  Kids are so easy to please.  I'll try to post some pictures soon.

We also celebrated 3 years since Reese had his "event" where he stopped breathing and his surgery.  It was last week Sunday.  As I expected I couldn't make it through even the morning without crying a little.  It's always a difficult and joyful day wrapped into one.  It's hard to relive the day, but at the same time a great reminder of how much we have to be thankful for. It could have ended so much worse.

We're now in the process of figuring out what is going on with Devyn (again).  She has been having some tummy issues for about 3 weeks now.  I took in a stool sample yesterday.  The Dr. called this morning and said the initial testing came back negative for things like parasites, c-diff (which the boys all had as babies) and some other things.  She's waiting on 1 test.  She suggested taking her off soy milk because she have developed some type of allergy of intolerance to soy.  So, now I had to switch her to rice milk.  Blah.  Hopefully She'll drink it.  The biggest problem is that I feed her soy butter and jelly for lunch a lot and now I have to rethink that.  She doesn't like sunbutter (made with sunflower seeds), so now I have to try and find another substitute.  I stood in an aisle at the grocery store and wanted to cry.  I don't know if I was just tired or feeling defeated by the fact that we're avoiding another food.  If this doesn't help her I don't know what's next.  I'm really hoping soy isn't the culprit!  Until we hear back from the Dr. and give her the rice milk for a few days we have to assume soy is it.  The good news is she hit 20 lbs.!  She is growing and even took her first step this week!  It was only 1 step and she hasn't done it again, but she wouldn't be Devyn if she wasn't stubborn.