Grayson

Grayson missed the memo on third children being easy and go-with-the-flow.  He is a crazy, wild man!!!

He is currently climbing up anything he can ...

We have to keep our kitchen chairs like this right now or if I leave him for 10 seconds, he's on top of the table!!!  No Legos are safe right now!!!

And look at that crazy hair!!!  It does not do well in dry, cold weather!!!

I met some friends with Grayson at Above All the other day.  He was a little sacred of the trampolines at first but eventually warmed up to the idea of crawling on them.

When this guy FINALLY decides to sit still, this will happen.  Too bad he doesn't sit still too often!

Carter and Rylan wrestle way more than we like (actually, we don't mind the wrestling - we just hate that it always ends with someone crying because they got hurt).  Grayson is a sponge with them and copies everything they do.

We love this guy but he is wearing me out!!! :)

Ortho Appointment

Carter had an orthodontist appointment on Thursday.  His last appointment was at the end of November when he had this appliance put in.

It wasn't really doing anything at this point.  Dr. Lucas wanted him to get used to having it in for awhile.  He's really stepping Carter through everything slower since he's so young.

The appointment on Thursday was to have brackets glued to his 6-year-old molars and then wires and springs connecting those brackets to the appliance to help push back the 6-year-old molars.  Unfortunately Carter somehow bent the bracket that is attached to the appliance on the right side.  So they were only able to do the left side on Thursday.  Once the 6-year-old molar is pushed back far enough on that side so it can finish coming in, Carter will have to have a new appliance made and put in so they can do the same thing on the other side.  Right now the 6-year-old molars are coming in at a funny angle and eroding away the last baby molars.

Luckily the new stuff isn't bothering Carter too much.  It's been rubbing some on the inside of his mouth but the wax we have helps with that.  I think he was feeling a little pressure/pain for about 24 hours but he hasn't complained about that today.  The spring is really tight so I'm sure it's already forcing that 6-year-old molar to move a little already!

Carter picked pink for the rubber band on the bracket.  He says that pink is his favorite color right now :)

Carter goes back to the orthodontist in 6 weeks.

Sick Baby, Again

Poor little man is sick again.  He picked up a cough on Tuesday that didn't seem too bad.  His last day on the augmentin for his ear infection was Monday.  He was still pulling on one ear some and started running a low fever 101F.  We thought maybe his ear infection didn't clear up and were considering bringing him in.  Then yesterday afternoon he suddenly started running a temperature of 103.3F and his breathing was labored.  It reminded us a lot of how he was when he had pneumonia last month so we got in for a late appointment at our pediatrician's office.

We saw Dr. Myers which is who we also saw for Gray's ear infection a couple of weeks ago.  She said his ears were clear but his chest sounded junky.  She also didn't like his fever.  She decided to have him do a breathing treatment in the office and then wanted to listen to his lungs afterward.  She also did a strep test since Brian and I had it last week even though kids younger than 2 don't usually get strep.

Gray did not like the breathing treatment and screamed himself into a half-asleep state.  It worked well though.  When Dr. Myers came back in, Gray had a good cough and when she listened to his lungs, they sounded much better.  Also, the strep test was negative.

Dr. Myers gave Gray a dose of motrin to start bringing his fever down and sent us home with a nebulizer.  She wanted us to do a breathing treatment with him every 4 hours through the night and also give him tylenol or motrin (switching back and forth) every 3 hours.

The 10 pm treatment:

I fed Gray after this and he went to sleep relatively easier.  However, after the 2 am treatment, nursing him did NOT help him get back to sleep.  He was wide awake and ready to play.  After I continued to fail at getting to sleep, Brian took over and let me sleep as he managed to get Gray down.

We took Gray back in this morning to see if the breathing treatments were helping.  Gray was acting much better and other than the fever that would start creeping back up if we were late on the tylenol or motrin, he seemed to just have a cold.

We saw our regular pediatrician this time.  Dr. Huss said Gray's lungs sounded great.  He is guessing that Gray has a tough virus that is just hard on his little lungs (for the older boys, this would just be a bad cold).  Some of the viruses hit the hardest around day 3 and that matches up with Gray's symptoms.  Though he didn't think we'd need it anymore, Dr. Huss is having us keep the nebulizer through the weekend in case Gray needs it.  I did end up doing a breathing treatment this afternoon since we already had the medicine and he was sounding a little worse again.  But generally, we seem to be past the really bad stuff!

Carter's Birthday Party

We had Carter's 7th birthday party at The Art Attic in downtown Franklin.  Carter's birthday fell on a Sunday this year so we had his party on his actual birthday (November 15th).  One of Carter's absolute favorite things to do is art.  He loves to draw, color, paint, anything.  Carter and Rylan went to The Art Attic once this summer to try it out (I knew Carter might like it for his party) and enjoyed it.  It was a pretty easy sell when brainstorming party ideas!

I copied an idea I saw off Etsy and made these cute invitations.

Carter invited all the boys in his class and three from his class last year.  He ended up with 8 guests (plus him and Rylan).  It was a perfect number - enough to celebrate and feel loved but not overwhelming and chaotic.

The Art Attic is above a little store called "The Shop Around the Corner" and is just off of Main Street on Third Avenue.  The weather was still pleasantly warm so we were able to spread out onto the back deck when needed.

The party was from 2 pm to 4 pm so I didn't have to provide much for the kids as far as food.  I made cupcakes and had a few packaged snacks and drinks.  Carter chose Nilla Wafers and white cheddar popcorn for the snacks.

I made an art palette out of form board and grouped cupcakes frosted in the same colors so they'd look like splotches of paint.

I also made a banner based off the invitation.

Carter really wanted some balloons too so we added some to the tables where the kids painted.

Decorating was pretty simple but turned out cute!

Ms. Shannon had several options that Carter could choose from to paint and he chose to do hot air balloons.  Before the kids arrived, Ms. Shannon did a basic outline of two balloons on each canvas.

Lliam:

Ian:

Nicholas:

Charlie:

Daniel:

Pierce:

Wyatt:

Whit:

Ms. Shannon giving the boys more paint to fill in their hot air balloons ...

The boys all did amazing!  They all worked so hard on their paintings.  They were focused yet still had fun talking quietly with their neighbors.  I was extremely impressed!

While waiting for everyone to get to the same point in their paintings, Ms. Shannon got out her photo booth props for the boys to use as they finished.  It was a perfect activity for the boys to burn off a little energy and get to play together.

I passed out some snacks as the boys sat back down and they enjoyed those as they continued to paint.

Gray was at the party as well but he and Brian hung out on the porch most of the time :)

When all the boys were done painting, it was time for cupcakes on the back porch.

Carter loved his birthday party.  And I've heard from most of the moms over the last several weeks that their boys all say they want to have their parties at The Art Attic too!

Brothers

Grayson loves his big bros!!!  So sweet!!!

Brian Too!

Brian went to the doctor yesterday afternoon and he has strep throat too!!!  I'm guessing we picked it up with all our recent doctor office visits.  But that penicillin shot is awesome and I'm feeling the best I've felt in a long time today!!!

Rylan starts school tomorrow and Carter starts on Thursday.  Hopefully they are healthy enough now to fight off anything they are exposed to when they return to school!!!

Make It Stop!

My throat has been hurting for about a week and has gotten crazy painful the last couple of days.  I finally went to the doctor this morning since I was running a low fever.  And when I tried to drink water from a straw, it came back out my nose because my throat was so swollen!

I have strep.  Good news, Grayson and Rylan are just starting their antibiotic so hopefully they are safe.  Carter finished his up a couple of days ago.  Hopefully he doesn't get it!!!  I got a penicillin shot at the office - I will never make the boys do that instead of oral antibiotics.  It HURT.  And continued to hurt for about an hour.

On top of that, my tooth that has a root canal (and crown) broke off at the root.  So now I need to root removed and need to get either an implant or bridge.  According to the dentist, when you have a root canal, it makes the tooth weak and this is common.  However, it is not cheap :(

We are going to eat ramen and peanut butter for the next month as our high deductible health insurance doesn't cover anything until we meet the deductible :)

Rylan, can you hear me???

Rylan has been sick for awhile, like the other boys.  But he's the only one that's had a consistently runny nose of thick gunk.  Also, for about 2 weeks, we had to almost yell for him to hear us.  And it was not a case of selective hearing - he really couldn't hear us.

After trying Flonase and saline drops (in his nose) to try to clear some of the congestion in his ears, we were about ready to take Rylan in to get his ears checked.  But then on Friday morning, yellow goo starting pouring out of his left ear.  Yay - another ruptured ear drum!  Luckily, unlike Carter, the pressure didn't build up in the same painful way before rupturing.  However, Carter's fluid was clear and thin (more like water) while Rylan's is more like snot.  Here is a totally disgusting picture in case you're curious - haha!

Carter's ear drum ruptured on Christmas Eve and luckily our pediatrician's office was open.  Unfortunately they were closed on New Year's Day (as were most urgent cares).  We made a judgement call and since Rylan wasn't in much pain (Motrin relieved any pain quickly) and he wasn't running a fever, we waiting until yesterday morning when our pediatrician's office was open for a few hours in the morning.

Rylan was diagnosed with a ruptured ear drum (obviously) and put on Augmentin (the same antibiotic that cleared up Carter).  I asked the pediatrician to also take a glance in Grayson's ears because he'd been pulling on them and acting a little more cranky.  He has another double ear infection.  She decided to also put him on Augmentin.  She believes they've all been fighting the same bacteria and since Grayson got another ear infection after being on amoxicillan and a Z-Pak, he needed to try what worked on Carter.  And all of this probably stems from them all having RSV.  Please, please let this finally make everyone healthy!!!

And by the way, Rylan's ear is still leaking 30 hours after first rupturing - I just took the picture above!