"Mommy, can you wake up and take care of me?"

That is what my 4 year old said to me at 3 AM this morning. Now Dallin is not one who complains about not feeling well. Even with a stomach virus he never gave us any warning that he was feeling off (not really a good thing in that case) but this AM he woke me up with his pathetic little voice in between coughs "mommy...cough...cough...can you wake up...cough...and take care of me...cough cough...cough..."
So we got up (yes, we includes Maddie who doesn't sleep through ANY.THING.) and took a warm bath at 3 AM. Then I dosed her with benadryl for her nasty nose and Dallin got Delsym cough syrup and benadryl. When he told me his ear hurt I knew it had to be infected because he just doesn't complain unless it's bad.
I woke at 7 to get ready for the plumber (who never showed up by-the-way...how RUDE!!!) and at 8:30 I got the kids ready for the day and we waited...and waited...for an HOUR and Dallin coughed and coughed...so I took them in to Urgent care. Thankfully we have an awesome Urgent care clinic about 2 minutes from the condo and the wait wasn't bad (about 30 minutes in the front and 10 in the back). While waiting I peeked in Dallin's ears. BLOOD red. SO SOOOO infected. Poor guy!
Dr. came in and told me what I already knew, perscribed antibiotics for both kids (Maddie has a sinus infection) and a cough syrup for Dallin. Hopefully we will see some serious improvement now. It's been too long.

Getting ready...

Christmas is fast approaching and I am struggling to get my head on straight so I we can leave Wednesday or Thursday (depends on the weather).

I have a few sewing projects to complete (shhh don't tell Todd, he thinks I'm done!) I need to finish packing, wipe the bathrooms down again, mop the kitchen floor (which I did tonight, but it will need it again before we leave) change the fish's water and feed it, get several packages in the mail (including one going to Canada, which means I have to go to the Post office and stand in line)...

Dallin has his Preschool Christmas program tomorrow night. He has a cough. Do I send him? I think I'll give him some cough/cold meds and pray he can stay awake for it. I think he'd be really sad if he missed it and besides, I KNOW that's where he picked it up!
I'm praying VERY hard that the kids are better by Friday because I really want to get together with Rachel, but I don't want to subject her children to the crud mine have. PLEEEEEEASE get better kids! Can we be healthy for just 1 week? Please?
I really don't have anything exciting to share. Too tired. Please tell Maddie to go to bed. We took a late nap and I'm sure she'll be up till Midnight again. Problem is, the landlord is coming at 8AM to check on the heater which means I need to be dressed and presentable by then. Heaven help me I need a break please!

Whew!

How long has it been? Uh. Too long.

Lets' see. Thanksgiving we went home to Pinetop and spent some time with Todd's family. We also had the pleasure of spending time with my wonderful Grandma and Grandpa. Papa let me play with his nice camera. Oh how I would LOVE a camera like that (Nikon D80) but it's SO not in the budget this year seeing as Todd already bought me a laptop and an ipod nano. Can you belive this is the first ipod I've ever owned. Yes. I live under a rock.

The kids had a wonderful time swinging on the huge swing outside. If I can figure out this windows vista bologna I'll get those pictures loaded.
And of course Maddie is sick again (what would a post be without an illness???) This time I scheduled her in with the allergist in town who also happens to be the ENT that did her tubes. Her appointment was today and he agreed that SOMETHING is not right with her and ordered a full allergen screen. They took 3 HUGE vials of blood and she was SO angry about being held down. Thankfully she has a rockin' vein in her right arm so they only had to poke her once. And let me tell you, once was enough thankyouverymuch. Oy! So now we wait for the results and HOPEFULLY at that point we'll get some answers. Say a little prayer for answers, I don't know how much testing I can put her through :(

And here are some pictures I took with my new camera (that I bought with my very own sewing money woot!) that will probably be made into Christmas cards if I get busy and get them done...but yeah. I'm not really motivated right now. And yes they are sideways. Sorry. Just turn your head. Like I said...still trying to figure out this windows vista. Blah!

Back from the dead...or something like that

So the kids have been sick, then we went to Phoenix for Josh and Emma's wedding. It was awesome, BTW. We got to see Adam and Tiff's little sweetie. Then this past week I have been trying to get caught up on laundry and housecleaning so we can go back to Arizona next week for Thanksgiving. Oh, and the list of custom orders is getting smaller too. Finally.

But yeah. Now I am sick with the crud the kids have had and I feel like poo so it's been forever since I've written. Not like anyone is really reading this or anything but still.
Here are some pictures from our recent trip to Albuquerque. Maddie had a pediatric cardiology appointment (everything is fine). We decided to take advantage of the situation and made it a mini-vacation. We stayed in the Embassy Suites and went to the zoo. And even better, my mom


met us there and the kids had a blast.

Adventures in Parenting

Please forgive my lack of updates. We have had the plague. Well, not REALLY the plague, but a stomach virus which, in my humble opinion, may as well be the plague. This is kind of gross, so if you are easily nauseated please skip it LOL!

It started Sunday night at 11:15 with Dallin. He got sick all over his bed, the carpet, the floor on the way to the bathroom. As I was taking care of the barfy sheets, Todd wiped up the floor outside of Dallin's room. Meanwhile, Maddie was on my bed screaming hysterically because I was nursing her and left to help Todd. She was beyond mad at me. SO I'm rushing to get the barfies in the washer and came tearing out of Dallin's room only to hit the wet floor and went skidding into the wall in front of me, breaking my toe. Oh how fun that was. I almost said a bad word. I certainly thought a bad word. It hurt so much. I fought back tears as I hopped into the other room to get a stack of towels. Things calmed down somewhat after Todd bathed Dallin and I nursed Maddie back to sleep but Dallin was up every 2 hours getting sick. Thankfully, Todd took care of the barf catching, and I just cleaned up the aftermath. By Monday morning he was doing better, but didn't want anything to eat/drink. By that night he was better...or so I thought.

Fast forward to Wednesday. We go to the park in the morning. We had been cooped up in the house for a few days. Kids played. Fun fun. We get home and Dallin says he's cold and tired. I asked him what he wanted for lunch. Mac and cheese. Fine. I make it, we sit down on the floor picnic style. Maddie eats all of hers. Dallin doesn't touch his. I asked him if he was ok. He said he didn't know. He looked at me funny, burped and threw up what I'm pretty sure was a gallon of water. Apparently he drank too much too fast and his sensitive tummy didn't appreciate it. Fun.
So I cleaned up what I could and put both kids down for a nap. I actually managed to finish one order of sewing.
Later that night Maddie was whining at me. I got her ready for bed and was nursing her on the couch when she popped off and said "hurt" pointing to her tummy. Before I knew it, she threw up all over me, the couch, the floor, the rug...it was a MESS. So I ran her to the bathroom, cleaned up again, put her in the bath, washed her up and got the barf bowl back out from under the sink.
After several more rounds of vomiting she seemed to be doing better. She woke at 1:30 begging for water. Thankfully I had some pedialite from my 3 AM trip to Wal-Mart on Monday when Dallin was sick so I gave her a few teaspoons of it. She cried for more. I gave her about a cup of it over the course of an hour, followed by two popcicles and a short nursing session. All of it stayed down and we finally got to sleep around 3 AM.
This morning, everyone seems to be doing MUCH better. Thankfully this was a fast bug. Hopefully Todd and I won't get it. We've been washing our hands to the point that they are bleeding, but hey...we are germaphobic.

Having kids is never boring. That is for sure!

Here's the Daddy warewolf...and my silly girl.

And here are some more of that fun day: Oh, and that little girl behind the wolf...yeah she kept coughing like she was hacking up a lung. We were a little irritated that someone would bring a child w/ such a gunky cough on an enclosed train ride with 100's of other children. Thanks a lot lady.

Isn't Dallin just the cheeziest little guy ever? ---------->

Durango vacation...and a warewolf family.

This weekend was a lot of fun. We met up with Todd's family (Michelle and Aaron and their girls and Mom and Dad Wahlin) for the "Great Pumpkin Patch Express" in Durango. The family flew in Thursday night and Todd went up to meet them. Since Maddie was still looking a little pale, I decided it would be best to keep her out of the wind and stay home. Friday afternoon we all went up (Todd came back later Thursday night and worked Friday AM). We hung out and ate at Serious Texas BBQ for lunch and nearly lost our lives on the way back to the hotel when a Hispanic man in a huge suburban completely ran a stop sign and came FLYING at us at about 45 mph. I screamed (which I never do) and Todd slammed the brakes on just in time. The guy didn't even slow down or ANYTHING. It was SO not fun. I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn't screamed.

Saturday AM we went to the train station and rode the train up to a farm somewhere. On the way up, there was a family of warewolves (people were encouraged to wear their costumes). Dallin "doesn't like wufs" but Maddie was fascinated by the "bears" as she thought they were. As you can see from the pictures, they weren't friendly looking warewolves, but she liked them so much she wanted to SIT with them. So the daddy warewolf held her on his lap for the entire ride there and back (30 minutes each way!) which is SO unusual for Maddie. She's usually so incredibly shy she won't go to anyone she doesn't know REALLY well. She was SO relaxed she fell asleep on the way back.

More in the next post...