quarantine

This was Brooklyn 30 min after gymnastics class last week. So sad. She spiked a fever while we were on the way to the dr appointment I had made that morning for Ben, as he had been tugging on his ears for a few days. She curled up on the table and didn't talk or move.



Meanwhile, in the same teeny, tiny room, the medical staff took turns trying to torture Ben (those were his words) by trying to get an oxygen saturation measurement on his toe. He wanted no part of it. Screams could be heard throughout the building. Finally had one. The dr was not pleased by the 76% read and ordered an X ray to verify if he did or did not have pneumonia.

This was the only pic I got because he was hysterical, poor guy. This table/tube pinned his arms above his head and I was told by the nice technician that "the harder he cries, the better for the picture".

After this excitement we headed back up to the dr office to get Brooklyn officially checked out and wait for the results of Ben's films.

I am BEYOND thankful that Bethany had the day off from work and rushed right over to help me. She held precious Brooklyn (and bought the kids juice that came in these awesome dinosaur bottles *brilliant distraction*) and I tried to keep Benny distracted.

3.5 hours later we were finally home, with both kids, antibiotics, and a diagnoses of both kids having double ear infections a nasty virus and Benny has bronchillitis and pneumonia. Phew.

Benny is using a nebulizer to treat his poor lungs

Dr office- Brooklyn took this one



Thankful to have that week behind us. I am so sad to hear that many of our close friends now seem to have the same and/or similar viruses. "Just stay home" seems to be the theme of this winter. I feel blessed that my kids are going to recover just fine and we still have our true health. It could always be a lot worse.

A week in pictures

These kiddos are growing up way too fast! Right before my eyes they are turning into children, not babies. So awesome, yet so not. I want to freeze time (when they're behaving) haha, and just relish it.

I had been pretty pathetic about taking pictures for the last few months aside from the holiday's, so I made a point of getting out the camera.

Benny now makes the smile below as soon as he see's it come out. His sister did the same thing at his age!

born to be wild

longing to be outside with the big kids

Benny and his lady friend Quinny

These two :)

benny

brooklyn

These are silk pj's that belonged to my mom

Date night! Leaving for Grandpa aka Chuck's birthday dinner

Wonderful dinner, celebrating a wonderful man

Bedtime Prayer

Tonight was one of those moments I wish I could freeze for eternity.

Brooklyn's bedtime prayer tonight:

"Dear Jesus, thank you for the beautiful sunshine today, thank you for your love, thank you for my cousins Allie and Caitlin, and my baby cousin who needs to be borned. And please heal Kristin, and thank you for my family. Dear Jesus, amen."

This girl melts me from the inside out.

It's not funny...or cute

I was about to write a scathing post. A rant about how SERIOUSLY hard the last few weeks have been. I was about to tell you how my son refused to sit in his high chair tonight while out to dinner at Red Robin with a friend and her littles. Screaming bloody murder, I finally caved and let him out. He proceeded to take off across the restaurant, find the broom and then whack everything in sight including his poor disheveled mother with it. I was about to tell you how exhausted I am because the kid won't SLEEP at night!! Seriously, day 5 of 7 that he has been up over 3 hours during the night. I drove home this evening thinking ridiculous thoughts (all of which are true) but still ridiculous, and selfish, about how stinking hard this all is *right now*.

EXHALE.

Then, I opened up blogger (prepared to be truly raw, honest and candid) to find a post from fellow blogger on the top of my page. She is due any moment with her first baby.

The joy in her voice, the sheer giddiness leading up to those final moments before baby comes...it reverberates off the page. She's in love beyond her wildest dreams, but she has no idea what's to come. How her heart will grow even more than it already has! It is truly incomprehensible.

So, the truth is...life kinda sucks at the moment (and that's ok). It's hard to be a single parent. Have a husband who feels like utter crap, who works full time and is the throws of an ethics/law class and has a paper due tomorrow. Hey, I can be honest. It's a brief season, this much I KNOW.

HOWEVER, I needed that beautiful image in my head. The flash back to being "due any day". The picture in my head of how longed for these two stubborn, strong willed children of mine were. I ached for them in a way most can't fathom. So, tonight I am admitting this parenting thing (especially the ages- 3 & 1) is hard!!! But, it's still all good.

A precious older couple who had the misfortune of sitting behind our table at red robin walked out at the same time as we did. The gentleman looked at me and said "he's so cute, and funny!" I grumbled in my head all the way to the car (while Ben proceeded to screech in my ear and rip at my hair) "it's not funny or cute!". And it's not... to me right now. But that's the beauty of perspective, it will be, someday. When he's onto GI Joes and far too busy to snuggle me after school, these moments will have a lasting effect. They just give me wrinkles right now.

Beauty and the Beast

Matt is took Brookyn on a date last Sunday afternoon to see "Beauty and the Beast" in 3D. He told her the details of their "date" after her nap (she napped like 4 days in a row last week by the way- WOW!) She was beyond excited! She started clapping and jumping and asking what she could wear.

The joy in her eyes at the prospect of a special afternoon outing with just she and her daddy, and to see one of her favorite movies in the "FE-turr" about did her in. She asked every 3 minutes up until it was time to leave "is it time for our special date now?"

They didn't end up lasting through the whole thing, but Matt said the look on her face was priceless and it was great one on one time for the two of them.

I feel as though I have posted this before?!

We have been a little den of sickness lately. Actually, most of this past month has been filled with viruses. Yuck. Started with the never ending chest cold we all four came down with. Finally Matt ended up on antibiotics for his because it was going on a solid month. Then, just as I was getting over my cold I got the stomach flu last week. This is the 3rd year in a row to get that gem, and both previous incidences were in Jan and Feb. Weird.

Anyhow, Matt had to hold down the fort while I recovered, then exactly one week later he got it. Double ugh!

Well, last night he came home with a raging eye infection. It was pretty disgusting. So he went in this morning to find out he has severe pink eye (awesome) and then the dr decided to get an x ray done on his chest, which revealed he has pneumonia. Poor guy.

Brooklyn has finally recovered (almost completely) from her chest cold, Benny got one more round of it which seems to finally be tapering off.

I have been cramming vitamins down everyone's throat multiple times a day.
Sheesh! I am truly ready for some health! I sweat I do disinfect our house. Truly.

Other than all that, we are good =)

xoxo from our sick little house to yours.

a new year

Happy New Year! What? It's almost February you say?? How, how, how?

So...I still need to do a Christmas post, and everything in between. Very behind on the old blog these days.

Brooklyn had a few weeks off from pre-school over Christmas break and she was ecstatic to start back up again. She truly loves her school and I love it equally as much. There is so much love from her teachers and all the staff, and there is not a single day I pick her up and she doesn't tell me something she learned or discussed about Jesus. Pure awesomeness.

Matt started school again :( It's going well thus far, I think he's in a law ethics class. So probably going to be a lot of reading. We have one year left!

Benny is 14 months and is a total toddler! He continues to show his personality more and more each day. He's not lacking in that department.

Quite the temper at times:

Here he is getting jiggy wit it at the winterhawks game the other night, and yes that is MC Hammer's "too legit to quit" he's dancing to.

Last video, this is our favorite past time with Benny Boo. For some reason we just crack up when he shakes his head "no".

Brooklyn is becoming less and less of a toddler and more and more a little girl.  She just blows me away. The things she thinks about and wants to discuss are a cross between hilarious and truly thought provoking. She takes everything very literally, and has reached the stage where her feelings can truly be hurt. For instance, if she says something funny and Matt or I laugh at her, but she's being serious, she gets this very sad face and/or says "stop laughing, it's not funny!" at which point we have to apologize and assure her our laughter was not directed at her. Is this the right course correction in an instance like this? Your guess is as good as mine, this is both of our first time parenting a 3 1/2 year old. I sure hope so!

She continues to have a major soft spot for helping others. Almost daily she is offering up things, anything from a movie to a half eaten sucker, to give to a child who needs it more than her.

She woke up a little later than usual this morning (7:45) and Matt was gone. She looked at me and said "did daddy go to work again today?" I said "yes" and she said "so he can buy electricity, food and dresses for us?" Exactly sweet girl. What a gem.

Laying in bed tonight she was telling me that she had a sick horse when she was an older girl. We were reading the story of the plagues that God sent to Pharaoh, and the locusts were swarming around a man and his horse. This spun off into a whole gamut of thought on the horse that she had in the meadow with the flowers when she was an older girl and the horses name was Millie. Huh? She's a keeper for sure.