Busy Week

So over this past week we have been quite busy.   The first part of the week was business as usual.  Just the kids and I staying home and enjoying the sunshine.  Then on Wednesday our washing machine decided to break.  So we are now without a way to wash our clothes until we can afford a new machine or get this one fixed.

Then on Friday the kids and I got up early and walked to the library for our first ever La Leche League meeting.  We went with Teresa and her new baby Breelynn.  It was lots of fun and I met lots of really nice ladies.  But at times I almost feel like maybe it's too easy for me to breastfeed, if that's possible.  I just have never really had troubles with it.

Then Saturday it ended up raining all day.  Then when it stopped raining Josh, the kids and I went out in the backyard to pick weeds.  Pretty much since we moved in we have had a crappy backyard.  It's a nice size and all but it's too rocky to plant grass and covered in weeds and burrs everywhere.  I am the kind of person who never wears shoes.  Shoes and me just don't get along.  So my prickly backyard just plain sucks. 
So in a couple hours on Saturday and a few more on Sunday we got the majority of the yard done.  I am hoping that soon we will be able to get rid of the weeds fully and maybe even plant grass.

Then come Monday we are back to our boring selves.  But after going to the LLL class has really got me thinking about if and when I have another kid.  But I will write about that in its own post.

First trip to the ER for Bristol

Well I know people say that boys are more accident prone than girls and that it is normal for boys to have bumps and bruises and what not.  Well for me that has always just been another reason I didn't want to have any boys.
So Bristol made it almost 18 months without having an accident serious enough to warrant a trip to the doctors.  Until yesterday that is.
Yesterday started like a typical day.  Josh wanted to use his new weed eater int eh backyard to continue trying to get our yard in nice shape for the kids to play.  So while he worked on the weeds the kids played in the sand box and I was in my office working on scrapbook swaps.  Then I decided to go sit out there with the kids.

As I was sitting in the doorway in the backyard watching the kids Bristol came over and gave me one of his slobbery kisses and went back to playing.  What I didn't notice was instead of walking back to the sandbox he went and sat in an ant pile.
After about 10 minutes he stands up crying.  That's when I noticed where he was standing.  I screamed for Josh to come help me while I picked him up and started brushing off ants and pulling off clothes, all the while still screaming for Josh to come help.  He was on his way, but I don't think I quit screaming until he was right next to me. 

My baby boy was covered head to toe with red ants, all biting him and holding on for dear life.  I has trying to pull them all off and brush and the ones still crawling before tehy had a chance to bite.  After we got all his clothes off and stripped his diaper we noticed that he was also poopy.  So I was running through the house looking for wet wipes while Josh carried Bristol around at arms length trying to not get poop on anything.  The poor boy was screaming at this point.  I can only imagine what he was thinking.  He was in horrible pain and his daddy wouldnt cuddle him.  Of course the wet wipes were no where to be found so we just put him in the tub and rinsed him off. 
As soon as he was rinsed I scooped him up to cuddle him while josh got a diaper.  He immediately wanted to nurse away the pain and I let him while I called my mom's store.  Of course I never call in the middle of the day so when my sister answered she asked what was the matter.  I told her Bristol was attacked by ants and I needed to talk to mom.  So now they were all in panic mode as they have no idea how bad it is.  I asked my mom what I should give him to soothe the bites and take away the pain.
Of course I had nothing in my house for the pain.  I gave him some tylenol and had josh start making a baking soda paste.  Then I told my mom I would call her later and let her know what happens.  Over the next few minutes Bristol just kept screaming and crying in pain.  Trying to nurse one minute and the next squirming on the floor crying.  The whole time Josh is asking me if we need to take him to the ER.  i really didn't think it was that serious since ant bites are only dangerous if you are allergic.  Of course I don't know if he is allergic and at this point I counted 1 bite on his thigh and around 15 on his neck and upper chest and back. 
Then Dega starts getting scared because her brother was all red and wouldn't stop crying and couldn't even nurse to calm down.  And Josh was still asking if we should take him to the ER.

I am not one to take my kids to the doctor over every bump adn bruise and bite.  Mostly because it's just a waste of money, but at this point we weren't going to be able to soothe bubba and I thought maybe they would know what medicines would help adn soothe him at this point.  First we made a quick call to Camille to get a natural remedy for bites and hopefully avoid the ER.  No answer.  Most likely they were in church, so I told Josh just to go, take him to the ER and I would keep Dega calm at the house.

I felt like I was sending my boy off to war.  Part of me wanted to go, but knew it would just be chaos with Bristol not able to stop crying and getting Dega all worked up.  So I stayed home and turned to the internet to try and soothe my mind.  No such luck.  I called my mom and let her know what we decided to do and then called my sister and let her husband know.  I basically just needed to talk to someone so I wouldn't sit and freak out. 

Josh thought they were fire ants and I don't know the difference between regular red ants and fire ants.  After using my Swagbucks toolbar to search ant bites I just got more nervous.  Josh called and told me to call his parents for him.  I could barely hear him over our screaming baby.  Everytime he called i got to feeling worse.  My baby was uncosoleable and I wasn't even there for moral support for my boys.
I eventually found Josh's parent's number and put aside my phone anxiety and called them.  I was shaking the whole time, not sure if I had the right number, not sure what to say, not sure who would answer.  But I made it through the phone call and then just sat back and waited.

I still had no idea how Bristol was doing.  If he needed medicine or if he was allergic.  What if the recalled tylenol I gave him made him worse?  What if I gave him the wrong dose.  What ifs consumed my mind.  All the while Dega sat contently watching cartoons.

After about two hours Josh finally pulled up to the house.  I was out the door and to the car before he had a chance to turn off the engine.  I looked into the back seat and Bristol's carseat was EMPTY!!!!  Panic set in AGAIN.  Josh gets out of teh car and I ask where is Bristol.  He said he was in Dega's seat because it was easier to put him in.  Instead of lecturing him about teh saftey of the straps I just opened the door and scooped up my sleeping boy.  He looked soo bad with his rash around his neck and his exhausted look on his face.  I just went and sat down with him and stared at him.  I didnt want to let him go.  I felt so guilty that he sat in the ant hill for that long and that I didn't move him.  If I hadn't went out there he would have stayed in the sand box with Dega and never would ahve went near the ants.

As all the guilt started to over come me, Bristol woke up just enough to want to nurse and start pulling at my shirt.  I gave in and he nursed for an hour before drifting back to sleep.  I finally felt it was okay to let him sleep in his bed rather than my arms and set him down.  At this point Dega realized Bubba was home and just wanted to wake him up and make sure he was happy. LOL I told her to let him sleep.

After a 3 hour nap he woke up and acted like he did every other day.  He went and joined sister in the wading pool and they played in the pool on and off for the next four hours.  Over that time his rash started fading out and he wasn't even grabbing at his neck anymore.

This morning he woke up with no trace of the bites.  If you didn't know better you would have no idea he was attacked by ants and spent the afternoon in the ER yesterday.  Dega says it's becuase the popsicles healed him to feel better.  MMKAY!! Whatever you say silly girl.

It's been a while!!

So it has been about a year since I have blogged.  I haven't even used my myspace blog or even journaled.  For a while I was keeping a journal in a group on cafemom.com and then the next thing I know that group has all but died and the new owner of the group went and deleted the journal forum.  Thanks a lot!  I had some nice posts I wanted to keep, but can't now.  Oh well.

So I have decided I do need a place to keep a journal and blog.  So this as good a place as any.  I will try to keep this on a positive note, but as my previous blog readers know I like to keep it honest.  sometimes the truth isnt pretty.  So be warned. 

If you are looking for a sugar coated version of what's going on in our life, then just call me b/c my blog will not be sugar coated.

So enjoy! 

Has it really been that long?

When Spring and Summer got here I got soo busy that I almost abandoned blogging all together. So sad!! But I still check my blog all the time and so much happens that I think, hey I need to blog about that, but I just don't. Another So Sad!!

Here's a quick update, well I hope it's quick, lol.

In March we moved again. This time to a three bedroom townhouse. I LOVE everything about my new place. Nice neighbors who don't stink up my house with their pot smoke. A backyard for Dega to play in which backs up against an even cooler place for Dega to play, A PARK!!! I have room to have all my scrapbook stuff set up and accessible. It's not shoved in totes any more. And my laundry room is to die for huge!

So other than our nice new place I have gotten into my hobby soo much more. I joined a scrapbook group on CafeMom.com and I spend way too much time in there. So much so that this passed week I was made assistant admin. Way cool! But it eats up all my free time away from the kids so that's most likely why I have stopped blogging soo much.

This summer Dega turned THREE!!! She is quickly going from baby to toddler to preschooler before my eyes and it is so sad some days. She loves to sing and dance to Mama Mia and The Little Mermaid almost daily.

My lil baby boy is no longer little. He is almost 8 months old and already has four teeth and is crawling everywhere. This past week he has learned how to pull himself up on things and climb the stairs. Although he only gets about two stairs before he is stopped.

And that pretty much sums it up. Tomorrow I will do an update in picture form because everyone loves pictures!

Bristol's first trip to the park

So a couple weeks ago when we were in the process of moving we had a really nice day so we decided to take a trip to the park. Talladega was starting to get cabin fever so I figure it would be a good time to get out and let her run and get Bristol out and some sunshine.

We decided since the new house has a park right in our back yard we would go the Park Discovery. Plus they have awesome swings and tons of slides that Dega loves.

So when we got there I decided to see how Bristol liked the swings.




Then Talladega wanted to swing with her brother so we let them swing together for a bit.


And then let Dega try out the red swings all by herself.


Then after that Bristol got a bit tired and hungry. So while Bristol and I hung out on this bench Dega and Daddy went off to go play.







This is what Dega did while I was stuck on the bench...

She found another slide to go down all by herself...

peeking through the many "windows"...

and climbing through holes on the boat...

ahh there's her pretty little face.

All in all I think Talladega had tons of fun and it definitely was a new experience for Bristol.

The Baby Gate

When we lived in Salem we had stairs for the first time. With a toddler we were going to need a baby gate. My mom and I went to the store and she picked us out this really nice one that has a door on it and opens up so we wouldn't have to climb over it since I happen to be vertically challenged (short). It was probably the most expensive one and had lost of hot selling points. It only has vertical bars so kids can't climb over it and lots of cool stuff.
When we moved back to Utah I put this baby gate at the entrance to my laundry room/pantry to keep her from getting into all the food. She has a habit of getting into cereal and that sorta stuff, just like every 2 year old I'm sure.
So not too long ago she figured out a new trick. She realized that Mommy keeps all the candy in the laundry room. And since Dega has discovered stools I keep all of them in there too.
Well she has once again proved how determined she really is.

2 months already!!

On February 19th it was time again for Bristol's Well Check. This time he was going to have to get shots. I was a lil nervous for how Dega would react to them making him cry, but she turned out to be a trooper.

When we got there they weighed him and measured him. He weighed 12 pounds 2 ounces and was 22 3/4 inches long. He is getting quite heavy. But everyone keeps telling me that's because he's a boy.
While they were weighing him Josh asked the nurse about getting Dega's ears pierced. She had been asking to wear my earrings lately so we thought we could consider it and I personally was thinking maybe when she turns three. The nurse brought in the earring choices they have and Dega immediately decided she wanted stars.
The nurse said she could hold them until we decided we were going to get it done. Then the doctor came in and checked Bristol to make sure he wasn't broken or whatever it is they look for. This time Bristol even giggled for the doctor. My kids are like polar opposites, I tell ya.
Then we went over questions and we didn't really have any. Pretty much been through this stuff before. Then Josh asked how much they charge for ear piercing. They told us it was only $15 and I said ok we would get it done at Dega's check up in July. Well while they gave Bristol his shot Josh decided he wanted two screaming kids and told them that we would go ahead and get her ears done then.
So while I waited for them to come back with the earrings and stuff I told Dega what was gonna happen and she was excited. I also nursed Bristol to get him calmed down. So then Dega sat on the table and they marked her ears. That's when she started getting nervous. I mean, there was a stranger touching her. So she started asking me what they were doing. So I told her they were going to pierce her ears. She just kept repeating "Mommy, what is she doing?"

"Uhh she's piercing your ears Dega."

I waited for the cries to come and.... Nothing. Not a peep. Just, "Mommy what are they doing?"

Are you kidding me kid? She never cried. They did the second one and then I took her to the bathroom to show her her new pretties. She was excited to have stars and had all the nurses and doctors flabbergasted and talking about how awesome she was. They couldn't believe she didn't even flinch. The said she did better than some 14 year olds who come in and get their ears pierced. Well, what can we say? She's a rockstar.

And since once again Bristol is another month older we took his picture with the Care Bear. He seriously looks like he has doubled in size.