Sunday, June 15, 2014

(Sickness, VBS, James Taylor and Father's Day 2014}

We finally are back!  After 12 days of someone being sick in our house, it is wonderful that all the boys are healthy again.  It started with Chat getting strep and flu two Sundays ago. He was sick for about five days, meanwhile Luke got sick with a crummy virus and had a fever for eight days, then Ben got sick (we even made a trip to Texas Children's last Sunday for breathing treatments).  It was a loooooong two weeks, but as of last Friday, no one had fever and everyone seemed to be in good spirits.

This was Ben when we were waiting at Texas Children's. Poor guy was a trooper!  Luckily we only had issues with his breathing on Sunday and the rest of the week he just felt crummy and had some fever. 


I felt like the boys were okay even though they had fever. We watched a lot of movies and tried to lay low, but they sometimes still played and goofed off.  This particular night, they picked their pajamas (Ben picked Santa pjs and Luke picked Micky Mouse pjs that were about two sizes too small) and then decided to raid my closet and try on shoes. At this point, I let them do whatever made them happy and kept me sane for those two weeks we were stuck inside.


The boys and I had VBS at our church and even though they missed a bunch of days due to their illness, they both got to be there on the last day.  I volunteered all week providing snacks to the 550 children that attended and it was super fun!  Except that most of the days, the boys were home with our babysitter because they were too sick to go.  But the last day was great and they got to enjoy the big celebration after it was all over...

 
At the carnival afterwards, Ben saw the teens spray painting kid's hair. He immediately insisted on green (of course Ben would want this)! Luke wanted red and unfortunately it didn't show up in his almost-black hair. The teens doing it practically sprayed his scalp from like an inch away, so days later we are still trying to get the red off his scalp. I am hoping lucky number five shampoo will do the trick tomorrow!
 
 

 

After those crazy two weeks, Chat and I really needed a night out. Luckily we had lined up a babysitter weeks ago because we headed to the James Taylor concert on Saturday. We love James Taylor so much. For some reason, I always listened to him during both of my pregnancies and we went to his last concert in Houston when I was pregnant with Ben. I just have a real connection to him and his music and the concert was amazing. For a man in his mid-60s he put on an amazing show!



Father's Day was seemed to sneak up on us...maybe due to the illness plaguing our house. But it was still a nice day. We all got up and went to church this morning.  This was the only picture I got of Chat and the boys.  It was walking into church hand in hand.  It is cute, but so sad I didn't get their faces! 


We then went to my parent's house for lunch. It was a zoo with all the cousins, but still fun. Here is good ole Grandad with his two grandsons.

 
The rest of the day we hung out at home and played in the sprinkler. These pictures are actually really nice looking, but let me tell you, there was a lot of laughing, but a whole lot of screaming and fighting between the boys. They were both getting upset because they wanted to be the 'leader' of the two going through the sprinkler. Well...pretty much in between the fits of giggles, there were screams and tears.  Yay!
 
 
 
(Luke has really gotten into climbing trees all of a sudden!)
 
 
(This was more like it!)
 
 
 
We still had a nice day even though the fighting was there. The boys and I took Chat to his favorite restaurant Lost Tios and then we headed home for the night.  Now the boys are in bed.  Luke is asleep and Ben is still talking in his crib trying to convince me to come back in and talk with him. Pretty much our typical scene every night!

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

{Me at 33}

Today I turn 33.  This birthday has been a bit different than most. Usually my whole family spends it down at our bay house and everyone is in summer mode. It has always been a blast! But this year, we are at home and Chat is super sick. We got home from DC for my cousin's wedding on Sunday and Chat started to fight something. Today, while I was at bible study at church and then a meeting for Vacation Bible School, he came home from work with 101 fever. He went to the doctor and he was diagnosed with strep and flu. And he couldn't drive home he was so weak. So I went and picked him and went to the pharmacy and got him soup, etc. I dealt with driving the boys to their activities and two rather large poop explosions. So it was a rather normal to hard mom day as is and throw it being my birthday on top of it....well, not super glamorous.
 
But after I fed the boys dinner, we went on our daily walk. While I was walking and talking with the two cutest boys and I realized this is what my birthday is about at 33. Counting my blessings and happy I have the two of them to walk with even through all the sacrifice. So although it wasn't quite the birthday I expected, this day truly signifies my life at age 33 -- wife and mother. The most challenging roles I ever had, but the most rewarding. So I am going to go get my husband his medicine and sprite and read my boys their books and tuck them in tonight and be happy that this is me at 33.
 
I am sure once everyone is back to normal we will go out in celebrate, but in the meantime, I have a cupcake waiting for me when everyone goes to sleep for the night. And I am super excited!