Rage

Now that it is a month behind us and I have slightly calmed down from the episode we had last month, I thought I needed to write it down... although sometimes I wonder if it something I would rather forget. It is rather embarrassing. Steroids are a wonderful thing. I am still trying to grasp the concept of them. I think I am counting down the days until we are done with those, rather than the actual chemo. (only 18 more times after this week:) This week it hasn't been so bad. Last month. Oh last month. I still want to cry from the pain of it. Our poor babysitter will be traumatized forever and it is my child's fault. Me and Jeff went last minute to a pre-showing of New Moon. Our cute little neighbor watched our three precious children. Apparently as soon as we walked out the door, the light switched on to activate the steroids in our oldest child's body. At full force. (And I am really not exaggerating when I say "full force".) He wanted 7 eggs and no less than 7 eggs. He got 3 eggs instead, which set him off. He was going to break all the forks in the house. He decided to try to run away. And then he was going to run in the street and try to get hit by a car. And the list goes on. Luckily, my cute babysitters mom was home and was able to come and take care of things. She took him to a different neighbors house that knows how to deal with the 'roid rage. Thank goodness she was home. (Whatever would I do without you, Tara?) Fun story, eh? The next few days the effects of them slowly wore off, but it seems to be staying in his system longer and affect him worse each month. I guess it can't help that his dosage keeps getting increased each month. His counts were a little too high again at 2,500 this week, and so far has been doing great on the 'roids. No rage yet. Maybe we will get lucky and skip that part this week.

Ho Ho

We go every year to see the cutest Santa ever. As you might be able to tell, Crew was not at all pleased to sit on his lap. He kept screaming for "ma" (grams) to come and save him, probably because I was the mean one and told the photographer I don't care if he cries, I just want a picture with him and Santa.

For the last couple of years, Santa has sent us an elf to watch the boys and make sure they are good. He flies back to the north pole at night and tells him if they deserve any presents this year and if they have been good or bad that day. Jake and Cole named him Conner. So, Conner hides in a different spot every morning and every morning, both boys run to find where he has hidden. Crew has even gotten in on the game. We are able to threaten using Conner as backup for them to be good, but my favorite part of having him around is being able to listen to Cole talk to him. If he does something good, he says, "Hey Conner, make sure you tell Santa I just did that!" Or, if me or Jeff get mad at him, "Conner, you tell Santa how mean my mom is today!", or if he is watching cartoons and a commercial comes on with something he wants, "Hey Conner, tell Santa that I want that for Christmas when you go see him tonight!" It makes me giggle all day long.

stuff

Just in case you were wondering if we were alive. We are. Barely. Trying to make it through the craziness of what we call life.

New happenings at our house:

Jeff gets a new job

Thanksgiving

oh... eye doctor for the eye infection on the way to Thanksgiving dinner

Jake traumatizing our poor 10 year old babysitter because of his newly raised steriod dose (now, that is a fun story. Remind me to share that one later)

Heidi works about 800 hour weeks or so it seems

family pictures

seeing santa (or 'ho ho' as Crew calls him, whom he was petrified of)

Crew learns the word "NO"

Cole still getting sent to the 'principals' office at least once a week

Christmas shopping... already???

And lots more stuff that I can't think of at the moment seeing that it is 2:09 in the morning. I really need to go to bed.

Soooo, continuing on from the last post... the weekend after Arizona, we flew down to California. My uncle had passed away from cancer. Hate it. That is one nasty disease and is way too prevalent. It would be nice if someone could figure out a way to kick it's butt once and for all. It takes too many people way too early in life... and the treatment is no picnic either. But, as sad and awful as it is, the funeral was beautiful and a wonderful tribute to his life.

Funeral on saturday, and disneyland on sunday. (that doesn't sound too good does it?) Our kids LOVED it. Crew is obsessed with "mow" (that would be Mickey Mouse in case you were wondering) and apparently our older two boys are adrenaline junkies. Jake rode California Screamin' 5 times in a row. They didn't want to do the 'baby' rides, only the big fast ones. I think this is one trip to Disneyland that Jeff enjoyed more because he doesn't like the 'baby' rides either. Poor boy.

Yes, they have problems on so many levels. (Jeff and my brother Tyler)

Fluffy and Crewsers (again, don't ask about the nickname... I have no idea where this one came from)

What good would a post be if we did not have at least one picture of Crew covered in some sort of food???

Cole is still obsessed with meeting the characters. Jake skipped this stage. Crew just yelled "pooh" wherever we went or "mow" for all of them. Whatever works.

Du-du-du-DUMBO!!!

One of Crew's favorite rides. He thinks he is so big.

If you can't see over the steering wheel, do you think it is safe to drive yet?

I must say, it was probably one of the funnest trips to Disneyland I have ever been to. The weather was great, we are able to take advantage of our immuno-compromised child and not have to wait in lines, and very minimal whining and crying. Perfect days!

Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of our next weekend birthday trip to Palm Springs. My wonderful hubby spoils me. I think I read four different books and just sat for five days. It was perfect. And apparently I needed to rest up for the next week because two of my children then tested positive for the swine flu, one of them being Jake. We have just realized if there is something you can catch, Jake is bound to bring it home. No surprises with him any more. He came home from school on Monday sobbing saying that he has a fever and he broke his arm at school. There was definitely something wrong with the arm and within an hour he had a fever spiking up to 103. We were one of the lucky first people to visit the new ER at Riverton Hospital. They did a very good job if you were wondering. We were able to stay there until 12:30 in the morning and had a bazillion tests run and lots of x-rays taken. They could not see a break in his arm... it was too swollen, but I think he is fine considering he is now moving it all over the place. CBC was good... counts were too high again ANC is at 3,000, and positive for the H1N1. Two days later Crew was sick and we were quarantined to our house for the week. And that my friends, was our fun month of October.

October October October

Where to begin? Let's back up a month and start with Jake's birthday... who turned SEVEN this year. (Which in fact makes me feel older rather than the fact that I turned 30. Ugh.)

He started out wanting a Star Wars party, and then decided to have a superhero party, (yes, again) where everyone dressed up. Obviously, he had to be superhero, Obi Wan Kanobi.

We only had a family party this year and kept it really simple, but everyone came dressed as their favorite super hero.

Aunt Brinly, Aunt Rylie, (don't ask... we are just one of those 21st century typical families) Jake and Cole

cake and ice cream and presents and a little bit of brotherly love... (don't knock my cake by the way. It was awesome! I am a professional cake decorator if you can't tell. Actually, I think I may need a little bit of help in that department.)

(And one of Superman saving the day by spinning around as fast as he can on the tire swing)

There are so many things that we love about this kid... it is hard to pick my favorites...

~He is the smartest thing you have ever seen and does not forget anything. (sometimes I do think we might be able to do without the remembering thing. It can get a little much sometimes considering he remembers things from birth.)

~He is very loving and will tell you he loves you all the time. He is on this kick about saying how cute Crew is and will drop anything to help that "baby brother".

~His favorite place to go is to clinic. (Sorry. Have to put that in there considering that last year it was my worst nightmare come true every week to walk into that place)

~I love his laugh. When he giggles it makes you want to giggle too.

Just LOVE LOVE LOVE him!! Happy birthday Jakers!

Fast forward a couple days and we are off to the pumpkin patch where Cole and Crew were fantastic and our newly turned 7-year old was kind of a nightmare and decided it would be a fun game to kick in all of the pumpkins. Seriously. Where do they get these ideas from?

And on to the weekend.

I am off to ARIZONA on a heavenly and relaxing with no kids and no husband trip. (Did I mention no kids?!) It was a much needed break and tons of fun....

We went to Time Out For Women and were spiritually uplifted by singing sensation Kenneth Cope. (Hey Hill... how do you feel about that guy again? I forget.) Just kidding. It was really very good. The speakers were amazing and it was nice to just sit and actually be able to listen for a change.

Of course because it is an all girls trip we did some major shopping damage. My new favorite store Last Chance had some great deals.

Shopping and EATING. What more could a girl want out of a vacation?

Okay. Enough for now. Crew is having a meltdown.

Crazy Life

Yup.  We are still around.  I keep telling Jeff that I don't have 5 minutes to sit down much less take the time to blog.  It has most likely been the busiest month of my life.  Jakers has been off track, we went to Arizona for a much needed girls trip only!  An unplanned trip to California for my uncle's funeral and a stop at Disneyland along the way, and now, Jeff surprised me with a trip to Palm Springs for my birthday... (the kids are home by the way!)  That must be some kind of record for me with going out of town three weeks in a row!  It has been much fun and I feel very spoiled!  I have lots and lots of pictures to share, but they are at home.  I did have this that we took in Disneyland I have been wanting to post since we got home.  We were in California Adventure and were watching the roller coaster where it takes off and shoots you away.  You have to watch what Crew did EVERY single time it would go by... it will give you something to laugh about today! 

Bedtime

Bedtime used to be one of my favorite times of the day. No kiddos, time to myself to do what I need to get done. Ya know, the quiet time of the day. It is not so much that way now. Some nights, it is almost dreaded. And it is all because of this child, right here:

Are you surprised? Didn't think so. Ahhhh! What am I going to do with this kid? This is what bedtime and wake up time USED to look like:

Oh, so sweet you say? Not anymore! Now it goes something along the lines of this:

He gets out of bed around 14 times and gets into something, whether it be a marker (see above) toothpaste, or pouring soap all out on the floor. At first we would shut the door and lock him in his room, where he would then end up falling asleep on the chair or the floor or somewhere other than his crib. But now, he has learned how to open the door. So, in the middle of the night two nights ago, between the hours of 11:00 pm and 1:00 am, I see a little head peep over the side of the bed that starts yelling, "Mom! Mom!" It was cute the first time. The twentieth time, not so cute anymore. So what do I do with Mr. Trouble here? I am not seeing a whole lot of options. The joys of children. I think part of the problem is he is too stinkin' cute for his own good. Just look and you will see what I mean...

Now you tell me how you are supposed to get mad at that??!!

Our Crewsers

18 months old and busier than ever. This child never slows down as I am sure you have heard me mention before. He is starting to talk a little bit better ever since he got tubes put in... (someone told me they thought he talked like he was deaf before and now, he doesn't) So apparently he can hear now. His words include-- 'goggy' (doggy) for every animal he ever sees, 'lolli' is for Holli, 'la-la' is Elmo, 'mom' is said on a consistent basis if he wants any attention or if I am not looking at him, 'yeah' is for yes obviously. And then all the normal baby words... mama, dada, baba (which if anyone has ideas to get rid of that dang bottle, we will gladly take them any advice on this. The child is obsessed with his bottle and binky and blanket.)

He thinks that he is as big as Jake and Cole and can go anywhere and do anything they do like jumping off the couch onto their heads or ride a bike into the street, or do a kamikaze move off of the trampoline... ya know... all of the crazy things boys like to do. (And yes, he has done all of those things mentioned above.) He loves airplanes and his cowboy boots and balls. He also thinks he was born part fish. We have gotten to the point of him jumping in the water with no one around. In fact, we did have a drowning scare this summer... everyone was in the pool and I thought someone else had him who thought someone else had him. Jeff found him out swimming by himself. We don't know how long he had been under for, but he was blue and was struggling to breathe. He had not passed out yet, but was very close. It unfortunately did not deter him from the water as he was back in five minutes later. He is our giggler and loves to laugh. He also thinks he is hilarious and will laugh at himself all the time which is hilarious because he is only 18 months old. He has each one of us in this household wrapped around his finger and definitely makes life more fun.

I wasn't really planning on doing these pictures of Crew when I took Cole, he was a pain in the neck to and I don't have any that I absolutely love. I am thinking I might have to take him somewhere else to get some really good ones because he is so naughty for me!

Not the greatest picture... but I love his facial expression! It is totally him!

And I had to share this one of Cole... I didn't download it on his post and it is one of my favorites of him!