Thanksgiving Party

After the Halloween Party disaster at school I wasn't really looking forward to Thanksgiving...Axl did a pretty good job, though. :) We started out by making a place mat, which we used for a while to identify shapes and colors. I really liked watching Axl choose things to put on his place mat and telling me where to put the glue. Then we had a Thanksgiving meal, of which Axl did not partake, ha. He enjoyed his apple juice as usual.

Christmas Tree

Cooper Thanksgiving

Hamilton Thanksgiving

A few randoms worth remembering...

Axl has never been one to sing. For a while now he has been enjoying music, asking me to sing a song, or learning and doing the movements to songs at school and at storytime, but he has never tried to actually sing them. About a week ago I heard him trying to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I'd hear a babble of words, each kind of a different note and then "star" at the end of it. I pointed it out to Tyler and he wasn't really convinced that Axl was actually singing the song. Last night, Axl was getting bored in the car and we were all really quiet. He started singing, "waa waa waa...bus...waa waa waa...bus". I looked back and he was doing the movements for the crying baby in "The Wheels on the Bus". It was quite possibly the cutest thing I've ever heard. I then asked him to sing, "Twinkle Twinkle" and he very clearly sang to the tune, "Twinkle Twinkle da star, wawawa star". Love it.

Cooper started blowing raspberries a couple of days ago. She doesn't just use her lips, she sticks her tiny little pointy tongue out and blows. Everything gets covered in slobber but it sure is cute!

When I went up to get Axl up from his nap today he was stark naked lying on the floor neatly tucked in by his blanket pretend sleeping (making the breathing noises..ah-soooo, ah-soooooo). He was, of course, scolded for disrobing and removing his diaper in the middle of the day, but I couldn't help but laugh.

Random Cuties.

Dear Axl,

Today was the first day of your entire life that you had no nap. None. Not even a little one. Please, don't ever do this again.

I love you,
Mom

What the house looks like...well downstairs.

I realized I have not taken pictures of the house since we moved in. I know...it's been a long time. Anyway, here is some documentation of our humble abode.

Bactrim

This, and any other sulfa-drugs, will never find their way into our house again!! As much as I don't think we will even want to remember this experience, I think I should document it, because it definitely threw our family for a loop! This is an EXTREMELY abbreviated version of the story--I don't really want to think about it all that much.

On our way to Tennessee for a weekend trip, Tyler noticed a rash on the backs of his arms. The rash continued to spread and Tyler began to feel a little off. He wasn't sleeping, waking up burning up or freezing cold, shaking in his sleep. I, at this point, was very worried. Tyler was bound and determined to make the best of his trip, so he pretty much just did his best to ignore it. He got a steroid dose-pack called into the pharmacy and began to take it the day before we came home. The rash went away, but Tyler continued to feel worse. On Wednesday of the next week, I pretty much made Tyler go to the doctor, by making the appointment myself and sending him out the door. They told him there that they were pretty sure the symptoms he was experiencing were an allergic reaction to an antibiotic he was taking. They told him to stop taking it, which he did that day. He stayed home from work, but returned the next day. Taking even more call-outs than usual throughout the rest of the week because he still wasn't sleeping well. Saturday, Tyler wasn't himself. While he dozed on the couch, I was getting the kids and everything ready to go to a birthday party Axl had been invited to. I woke him up when it was time to go out the door and he told me he wanted me to take him to the hospital. I was more frustrated than anything (I feel bad about this now) because I had been trying to get him to explain to me for a week and a half what exactly was wrong and most of the time I got a, "I've just never felt like this before". When I saw that his fingers and lips were turning blue, I decided we just needed to leave. Erin met us at the hospital and took Axl with her for the evening. Beginning when they took Tyler back into the emergency room things just took a turn for the worse. The rash started spreading like wildfire and Tyler began itching and swelling everywhere. His face looked bruised and of course, he was feeling like crap. They admitted him that night thinking that he was suffering from a tick-borne disease called Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Late that night he was moved to an actual room where the plan for me was to take Cooper home at 11pm to put her to bed and then return in the morning. At 11, though, she was sleeping soundly and Tyler was having a ROUGH time. He was not very responsive and his face and ears were extremely swollen. When I talked to the nurses about leaving they didn't sound very supportive so I decided to stay there with our infant daughter. Tyler was sweating through the sheets in his sleep and after the second sheet change the nurse took me to show me where the clean ones were so I could get them myself. Another nurse saw us in the hallway and said, "Oh, you came back". I told her that I had never left to which she responded, "We're just worried about your baby". I asked why and they told me that we were on the INFECTIOUS DISEASE floor. I was fuming mad as I walked back to Tyler's room and saw that we were surrounded by people with the notice on their doors. I guess the nurses didn't think that was important enough information to share at 11...only at 3 in the morning after whatever damage could have been done was done. I kept Cooper quarantined in our room until morning and took her staight home after that. Neither of our kids returned to the hospital after that. Over the next couple of days they would determine that it was, in fact, a SEVERE reaction to the antibiotic. Our life was thrown upside down for the next five days that Tyler was in the hospital waiting for his liver to repair itself from the allergic reaction (HUGE thanks to everyone who helped take care of our children), and then even more over the next three weeks that he was off work. (though by the end of it we were just enjoying his time off! :) ) I wish we had taken pictures everyday to show the progression, but we came home with just these.

So extremely grateful that all is well now. :)

Thank You, You're Welcome

Trick or treating with the kids this year was a blast. Axl and Cooper went as Mickey and Minnie. I put both their costumes together mostly with things we already had and they turned out really cute! We were able to double dip as we went with the Coopers in Paris and the Hamiltons in Nicholasville! The highlight was probably Axl barging into random people's houses as they opened the door. I guess I'll be willing to admit later in life that I backdated this post for the sake of a funny. As you can imagine and relate, Axl had a whole weekend of the words "Thank You" being followed immediately by "You're Welcome". If I had doubts before, this experience has shown me that reinforcement really does work...6 months later, when I fill a bowl with goldfish and hand it to Axl, saying, "Say thank you", he answers with "Tank you, welcome" without fail. :)