Thanksgiving pictures

We spent most of Thanksgiving day at my in laws and had dinner & pumpkin pie. Then later we went to my parents house and played games & ate more food. It was an overall very good Thanksgiving, very tiring, but good.

What a week!

So Monday night I wasn't feeling very good and so I decided to make the kids some good ol Ramen noodle soup. The kids are always wanting to watch me cook and so they were both standing on the stool next to me. When the soup was done cooking and I had taken it off to serve into bowls Garrett reached across in front of Nikki and touched the burner I had just turned off. I immediately ran him to the sink & rinsed his hand in cold water for a minute. Then I had to think of what I should do. I didn't want to take him to the ER unless I had to. I mean, why take to the ER and have them do something that I could've done at home right? So I called my sister Tamara who had taken her daughter to the ER before for a burn on the hand. I remembered also that I had some burn gel in my 72 hr. kit and a first aid kit. So I put the gel on first and then when Tamara had said that the ER put burn cream on and wrapped it up I found a little pack of burn cream in my first aid kit. So I put that on and wrapped up his hand and gave him pain reliever. Then cuddled him in a blanket on the rocking chair and he finally calmed down and fell asleep. It was only 7pm and he didn't even get a chance to eat. Poor guy. But he slept the whole night. I then called his doctor's office the next morning and they had me bring him in. The doc said it was a minor 2nd degree burn and didn't think it was necessary to put anything on it or wrap it up. He just said when the blisters start to peel off in a few days to put ointment on it at night time with a bandaid but not during the day. And he said to just keep it clean. He also gave me a prescription for him of an antibiotic that would help prevent any infection. Unfortunately, Garrett doesn't like the taste of it and I have to give it to him 3 times a day for a week. Ugh.

It was really hard for me to have Garrett burn his hand because my stomach had started hurting and turning Monday afternoon. Sometimes it would feel a little better, sometimes worse. All I know, is I didn't feel like eating very much Monday night and all day yesterday. So I had to call in for help from family. The first night I thought maybe it was just gas pains. Since Garrett had just burned his hand and I wasn't feeling good I called my sister to come over. She brought a movie for Nikki to watch "The King and I" cartoon. And then she went to the store and bought me some Gas-X, Tums, Pepto, and apples. I never tried the Pepto though because I wasn't sure I was able to take it while pregnant but I knew the others I could. I decided to try the Tums first and took a hot bath right before bed. My tummy still rumbled all night long. And it was still doing it in the morning. Then I needed to take Garrett to the doctor. I called Stillman and Michelle on the way to the doctor's to ask for help watching the kids during the day. I dropped off Nikki on the way to the doctor and then dropped Garrett off on the way back. With my stomach still turning and hurting all the while. After dropping off Garrett I went to Walmart to get his prescription and some Gatorade, soda, crackers, & chicken noodle soup for me. I had to wait a long time to get his prescription so I had to sit on a bench and wait. My back and legs were starting to hurt quite a bit. Finally I made it home and watched a bit of TV while sitting on the couch and then took a nap. By the evening I was getting really frustrated with my stomach because I didn't know what it was doing. Why had it been turning and rumbling for so long? I kept thinking all day that for sure I was going to throw up but my stomach just kept going from feeling a little better to hurting again, especially when I stood up and walked around. So I had white rice for dinner and then went to Stillman's to get my kids. I ended up trying a half slice of pizza and a breadstick while I was there and didn't head for home till after 10pm. A little before leaving the diarrhea started to kick in again and more constantly and then the stomach started rumbling more. So I figured I'd better book it home just in case. Boy was I right! I barely made it. I could feel it coming and stopped the car and got out as fast as I could, leaving the kids behind in the car (who were both asleep anyway) and running to the kitchen sink in the dark. Finally it had come out, which I was actually thankful for because then I could get it over with and get feeling better. After cleaning myself up I put the kids to bed. I threw up a little more and a little more diarrhea and tried taking another bath, but it didn't feel good to be in there. So I finally laid in bed, only getting up a couple more times to go to the bathroom. Then I slept good the rest of the night. And now I'm feeling much better but still eating a little cautiously with toast, an oat muffin, & Gatorade for breakfast. I didn't get out of bed until 8:30 and realized I needed to get to the computer soon to talk to my hubby. So glad I'm feeling better before Thanksgiving! I hope nobody else gets sick on my account but I really really appreciated the help!! :)

This dog showed up in our neighborhood a week ago Wednesday and has been mostly hanging around our house. Yes, I have been feeding him because I felt sorry for it so I think that's why. My friend brought over some dog food and a kennel. He's cute but it's really annoying that he won't let anyone come near it, even after feeding it and giving him shelter. I didn't do anything the first day he came but after he slept on our patio on our rug I decided to take a picture and make a "Found Dog" poster and put it up on a power pole. I also posted it on craigslist but haven't heard anything yet. I had animal control come out on Monday and all they could do was set a trap, which was a cage that has a trap door that shuts when they go in to eat the food on the other end. Somehow he triggered it the first night but he was still outside the cage. I tried setting the trap again yesterday and putting some dog biscuits to trail inside. He got the ones on the outside of the cage and I could tell he wanted the ones on the inside but he didn't dare go in that cage again. So now I'm not sure what to do. The only reason I've been trying to keep him here is so if someone comes looking for him then he'll be here, whether it's animal control or the owner.

Well, that's only part of my week. I did go see the movie "Twilight" on Sat with my sister, my mother in law, & 2 sister in laws & brother in law. It was a good movie. I definitely want to see it again. Of course it's not as good as the book but I figure it will be like Harry Potter, the more I see the movie the more I will like it. The acting was better than I thought it would be too.

Anyway, I'm sure you're all tired of reading about my little dilemmas, etc. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone tomorrow!

Happy Turkey Day!

Nikki has been having fun making all kinds of turkeys for Thanksgiving. The one on the left sitting on the table she made at a story time she went to with her friend Spencer. The turkey in the middle I printed off the internet and she colored here at home. The last one she made at preschool this week, which happened to be here also. It was fun trying to come up with a turkey the kids could make that wouldn't be too messy or difficult. They really enjoyed making these ones. Well, if I don't post anything before I wish everyone a wonderful and Happy Thanksgiving!!! And I couldn't help it, we started listening the Christmas music today. I just love Christmas music and this time of year!

Sippin' cider & dressin' up

This morning we had eggs, toast, & hot apple cider for breakfast. The kids wanted to share a cup and had their straws to sip with. Earlier this month they were sharing an apple and now they are sharing apple cider. Nothing like apples to bring siblings closer together I guess.



The other day Nikki decided to dress up. She kept telling me I needed to get some boy dress up clothes so Garrett could be a prince. I said we didn't have any and then she wanted me to put him in his church clothes. I said no because we need to keep those clean for Sunday. Next thing I knew Nikki had Garrett dressed up anyway, even if there weren't any boy clothes.

Curtains!

Yay! We can finally have some privacy in our family room. My dad came over on Thursday and put up our curtains for us! And thank you to my sis in law Shauna for the actual curtains. I bought the rod at Wally world (Walmart). I just couldn't have a picture of just the curtains so Nikki is posing for us. She is wearing my black hat so that's why her hair looks so dark.

Baby name poll

Please take a moment to help us pick a name for our baby by voting for your favorite. You'll see the poll to the right and under the world clock. Go cast your vote!
I'll probably put another poll on later with middle names but for now we're doing just the first name. Thanks!

1 month gone

As of yesterday Curtis has been gone for a month now. I don't know how I've survived this long and I really don't know how I'm going to survive the rest of it. Some days I feel trapped (like today). I know it really helps when I stay busy but then I have days like today where I'm just tired and don't feel like doing much and the kids just really test my patience with the things they do and the messes they make (that I usually end up cleaning by myself after countless times of asking them). I finally just broke down and cried. Nikki then felt bad and promised she would never make another mess. Ah, how nice that sounds but how unrealistic. I had to tell her that everyone makes messes but we just need to clean them up when we're finished. Finally, to somewhat preserve my sanity I found an excuse to get out of the house. I went to my dad's house to return some borrowed items.

And it did help a little that before we went to my dad's house we were outside watching our neighbor's cats play around our yard. There were at least 6 at one time. One of them was a little kitten that was just so adorable. I had opened our garage door to prepare to leave and some of them invited themselves in. So I kept seeing them run in and out. The only exception was the kitten. It didn't want to leave as soon as it found somewhere warm to hide. The kids had fun with the cats and so did I. It was probably the highlight of the day.

I also took out some frustration by going through Nikki's toy bucket and getting rid of some more toys. I will be going through Garrett's toys hopefully tomorrow as well. There are just so many that they really don't appreciate having them. So I have some cleaning and reorganizing to do. I say reorganizing because I need to find a way that the kids can't get to all of the toys all at once. It drives me nuts when kids just run into a room and start throwing out all of the toys onto the floor and then they don't even play with most of the things they got out. And now that our house is bigger, there are more places that they have to take and dump them.

I pray that the next 3 months go by quickly. I'll have a little baby to keep me happily busy and I'll get to see my husband again for his first R&R. *sigh*

Tis the season for apples!

Yesterday Nikki asked me for an apple and I was trying to lay down and rest so I just told her to get her own and that she could have the whole thing. She was excited about that. After she started eating it I then told her to let Garrett have some bites if he wanted some. They started sharing the apple and when they started taking bites at the same time I couldn't lay down any longer without having a picture of it. I think that was the first healthy thing she ate of the day. I think all she had for breakfast was candy. My niece was over here helping me and I thought she was going to get Nikki some breakfast but she did not. And I was a little preoccupied with talking to my hubby on the webcam.

Yes that's right, we have finally found a way to both talk to each other and see each other over the computer. To be able to see each other we have to use MSN messenger but to be able to hear each other we both had to sign up for Yahoo! messenger. So we finally got something figured out. Yay! And it's been so nice to see him and hear his voice and to have him make me laugh again.