Why Leave?

We are still waiting to hear about the house…. Hopefully tomorrow! Not that we are in a hurry. Living with my folks has been a cake walk. They aren’t really doing anything that would make us want to leave… check out the perks of living here;

Free rent, help with cleaning and cooking, once a week my parents have literally kicked Matthew and I out so we can go on a date while they watch the kids (for free), the kids have a huge yard to play in, they just built a beautiful huge play structure (otherwise known as the ice castle… thank you Disney), we have 2/3 of a beautiful house all to ourselves and there is always someone to hold a crying baby! Maybe we would be silly to move!

Love This Boy!

P.S. We put an offer in on a house tiday! Yikes/yippee!

JANIE!

 

I had wanted to do a big, long blog about the Chapman visit… but now that it’s almost been 3 weeks I’m realizing that I just need to post some pictures and do a little blog about it.

Janie and her beautiful family came to visit for 4 days (in reality I only saw her for 2 ¼)… and I’m sure if she could stay for a month it wouldn’t be long enough, so you can imagine how short 4 days seemed! It was a beautiful weekend (shockingly hot) so we spent most of the time outside, chatting, watching the kids play (Frozen… The movie, what else?!?), going on walks, nursing our babies and just loving being in each other’s company! It was such a joy to meet their newest little addition Charlotte (aka Lottie). She is Beautiful! And so mellow! Oh, and with the most adorable husky little cry I’ve ever heard. Janie looks stunning (as always) and I sat in ‘ah’ as I watched her juggle parenting 4 kids…while traveling!!!!! Very impressive! She also was able to help me a ton with the G.F. eating! It was so wonderful to see them all, but it felt like heaven to spend so much time with Janie! It’s like my entire childhood/adolescence and adulthood comes back and converges all in one person! Janie is truly that person where our friendship standstill and flourishes all at the same time. She has always been there, even if it’s in a different state (though I do keep trying to get her back here) especially since our kids get along sooooooo well!!!!! I even offered her to opportunity to move in with us… here, at my parents! They wouldn’t mind another 6 people!

Any way, it was a wonderful visit. Practically magical! Thank you all for making the long trip out! I love you each!

High Hopes

No pressure kid, but momma has HIGH hopes for you too! ;)

Home Stretch

Well I think we are over the worst of it! Wesley is feeling better and is not nearly as such a grouch. Thank goodness! The blisters
are clearing up and he's eating again! So far dDarren hasn't skipped a beat...so fingers crossed we're in the clear! He is really getting big! According to my scale hes just over 10 pounds now!!!! He's going to be a tank!!!!! Also he rolled from his tummy to his back today...while i wasnt looking (i had him next to me while i was changing Wesleys stinky diaper.) The next thing i know hes on his back. It's killing me how quickly he's growing up!

Freak Out

Oh my goodness! I had a HECK of a scare yesterday! I mean one that I still get all jittery about even 14 hours after it happened!!!!
Yesterday my dad and Matthew were putting together a beautiful HUGE play structure for the kids. You know one of those beautiful wooden ones from Costco (except they got it off craigslist). So there is wooden beams, screws, bits and power tools all over the place, Matthew and dad are hard at work, they bigger kids are playing in the sand (and underfoot occasionally), Darren is in his swing in the shade and mom and I are moving patio-bricks.
Next thing I know, Mallory is screaming! I look up and see her running to Matthew, the DeWalt power drill sticking out of her HEAD!!!!!!!! Matthew is screaming at her to stop! Stop! STOP! As he reaches her the sound of the drill stops and that when I realize that she has been holding down the trigger that entire time! I rushed to my baby girl fully expecting to be dealing with blood, a fractured scull and potential brain trauma! As I reached her I saw that Matthew was supporting the drill and there was NO blood! (first thought was that the drill bit was just occluding the blood supply... so do I leave it in and risk potential intracranial hemorrhage or remove it and risk extracranial hemorrhage?)
Turns out neither!!!!!!!!!!
As my hand went to her head I was relieved to feel there was NO DRILL BIT! She had picked up the drill and turned it on and her hair had become entangled in it... the more she pressed the trigger the tighter it wound... which was why she was screaming. It was literally pulling her hair, not drilling into her scull!!!! THANK GOD!
I yelled for mom to grab the scissors, but somehow my dad was already half ways across the yard on his way.
Moments later he was back with them, and a thick 'snip' of hair later she was free!!!!!
As I pressed her to my chest I had to suppress my urge to cry and vomit all at once!
That fear was horrible. The potential was horrible. I have since thanked God countless times for keeping her safe and just letting it be hair that we were having to cut!
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On a lighter note, but still sad (an highly annoying) Wesley has Hand, Foot and Mouth disease! He's over the body rash/fever stage, and now we are at the painful oral blister and very cranky stage! We are cleaning everything continuously and practically quarantining Darren to keep him from getting it too!

G.F.

Literally from the day that Darren was born he was stinky! I don’t just mean sour… I mean nose hair singeing rotten-like sour! I jokingly told him that if this is how the next 18 years are going to be then he is going to be living in a tent outside! Seriously! Rotten! I figured that, like with my other 2 it was something I was eating… probably dairy (like the others). And as a side note I wasn’t smelling like roses either (gag!). So I removed all dairy. Nope, we both were still rotten. I tried the BRAT diet (bananas, rice, apple sauce and toast) for 48 hours… still rotten. Then I thought (horrors of horrors) maybe it’s due to the bread/pastas (aka the gluten). Now for the past 8 days I have removed gluten and dairy and I am doing great, Darren is doing better. Still gassier then either of the other 2 kids ever were, but no longer painful/uncomfortable and not nearly as rotten. Sigh! I am hoping that as both of our hormone levels level out we’ll be able to get back on gluten and that Darren isn’t always going to need a special diet… but we’ll see. As of now I am learning how to eat gluten free… it’s not as bad as I thought, but still not super fun. If anything, I figure it’s a great (forced) diet!  

Short & Sweet

I have so many things that I want to talk about… Darren’s birthmark, diet changes, Matthews injury, Mallory’s sickness, Krush’s injury/sickness and our visitors! But seeing as how I am typing one handed because God-forbid I actually put Darren down without him screaming bloody murder (who’s sick of it?!?!?!) I’ll keep it short and sweet.

Darren has a birthmark (I have yet to find one on Wesley and Mallory has two). Anyway, Darren’s is on the top of his head, just left of midline. It’s a small Port-wine stain oval mark. When I found it a few weeks ago I thought that maybe it was a little boo-boo, but then I realized it wasn’t going away or getting worse/better. So there you have it.

And Matthew got a nice shiner at his rugby game this past weekend, thanks to a nasty gash under his eye from a team mate (which his brother closed with super glue at the field so he could continue playing). Crazy man! It would have needed stitches, but it was SOOOOO sealed over with super glue that it was doing to job just fine… just might have a little bigger scar then if I would have closed it. Oh well, scars are sexy!