Turfbuilding

when your tired of being cooped up and are feeling a little better.... play with pots and pans of course!!! They played for about 20 minutes and Baylor just giggled the entire time

The Tamiflu seems to be doing the trick...he's feeling better enough to be annoying to his sister and be upset by the fact that he can't go anywhere.

Thank you for the words of encouragement and keep the prayers coming that Baylor escapes it:)

We had a very busy weekend. Full of fun and friends. Music class and friends over for dinner Friday, a baby shower and a combined birthday party on Saturday, church and Life Group on Sunday...Whew, it makes me tired just looking at all that together!!


We all went to bed Sunday night feeling fine...Monday morning Christian woke up with a pretty bad cough. As the day went on he started sneezing and had a fever. He spent the day going from couch to couch and even took a nap. (He never takes naps anymore) By the time he woke up he was blazing...temp was 105' :( We started alternating Motrin/Tylenol and took a cool bath to get the temp down. He went to bed with a 103' temp and slept okay...woke up once and we gave him more Tylenol. He still had a slight temp this morning and the doctors office wanted to see him.

"let's just cover our bases" they said, "probably something viral" they said...After two swaps of the nose/throat we tested positive for Strep throat and the Flu!!!!

I have tried my hardest to avoid it, but now he is down with both. We are now on antibiotics and Tamiflu (very expensive by the way) for the next 5-10 days. He acts okay as long as we keep him pumped up with Motrin and Tylenol, but you can tell a huge difference when that all starts to wear off. Tamiflu should do its wonders in the next two days.

I can only pray that Baylor some how escapes it

My mom (KayKay) wanted to do something special with the kids for Valentine/Easter. (They will be overseas and miss out on all the Easter fun). So she thought it would be fun to go to Build-a-Bear b/c neither of them have ever done it. As you can see from the picture there are plenty of animals to choose from...not just bears.
After careful consideration Christian picked out a Triceratops. Baylor said no to every animal we showed her so Mommy finally picked out a bunny.
You get to push a pedal with your foot to help stuff your animal. Then you pick out a heart to make a wish and give your friend "life"
As you can see Baylor LOVED stomping the pedal

After stuffing you give your new friend an air 'bath' with little brushes in a bathtub that blows air This was Baylor's very favorite part...every time I turned around she was back there again:)
Here the kids are picking out clothes for their new animals and showing them to KayKay. Baylor has a love affair lately with a pair of red sparkly shoes (think Wizard of OZ) and would you believe she picked the same pair of shoes for her bunny?!?! We had to pick the clothes to match the shoes. Christian found a SpiderMan costume for his Triceratops so they could match when he dresses up.
Your last stop (before the all important cash register) is a set of computers where you name your new friend. Christian decided his would be named 'Spider' since he is dressed like SpiderMan and with a little help Baylor decided to name her bunny 'Ears'.
One other cool feature of registering your friend is that if it ever gets lost someone can take it to any Build-a-Bear shop and they have a tracking code inside the animal to try and find you. If you know what your doing it could make some kid very happy:)
Here are our finished products...Spider also has a mask but we wanted you to be able to see his face.
P.S. We thought the dinosaur would be great for our friend Jack's birthday...maybe his mommy could talk a grandmother into it:)

Baylor has become destructive. If you look closely at the picture below you will see a piece of wood propped up against her bed...that piece is supposed to be connected at the top!! She aparently told her daddy she pushed it. You can also see a loose screw sticking out...how did she do this?!?! This is a solid bed put together well. It made it through 3 years with Christian as a crib, toddler and full size bed. Baylor has had it for two years as a crib and has scratched it all up with her teeth and NOW has broken it into pieces!!!

Anna Kate and Jackson spent the day with us on Monday. Christian decided he would 'read' to everyone. Some of the books were ones we've read a lot so I wasn't surprised that he could recite them basically word for word, but some of them we had only read a couple times and he could do them too. Anna Kate was very impressed...she asked me "how does he know how to read? I don't know how to read." Later they were all snuggled up in our bed to watch a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Backyardigans

Valentines Day wouldn't be complete without something special for our girlfriend...Caitlyn. Here Christian is waiting for her to come down the hill at school
He was into giving it to her, but doesn't look into the hug:)
After all that partying all day long this is how my kids looked at 6:15 that evening!!

We had fun at Christian's school yesterday. The class had made these hearts to display Anna Kate and Christian working on their craft
All their bags lined up in a row...the kids sponge painted hearts on these early in the week and then practiced their reading each others names while passing out valentines
The whole class
Marshall and Christian just before bible story time with Ms. Janet

I know many (men in particular) don't especially like this holidayb/c they feel like its way too commercial and you are forced into doing things. I think it's just fun to have a day set aside to show your love:)

My husband normally doesn't do the flower thing (b/c our cat tries to eat them), but this morning I had these pretty ones waiting for me when I woke up and a very cute card.
Much like a man at church said on Sunday morning...nothing says I love you like an action figure. Christian recieved a new Planet Hero. Zip is from Mercury and goes super fast just like his planet
Baylor on the other hand has a sweet new Minnie Mouse book and bottles for her babies.
I had to include these pictures of our diva in residence...she cracks us up all the time. She sat all through dinner with her sunglasses :)

We had thr troups and greens over to watch the Super Bowl a few weeks ago. Jeff made chili, fries and hot dogs. We had all the fixins and our spread of oh so yummy dips. Caroline and Christian were having a picnic (We missed having fun with Caitlyn b/c she was sick)

Avery and Baylor always have plenty of fun when they're together

The surgery went well today...even better than the doctor expected which is great news. Papa will stay in the hospital for three days and then be sent home:)

My Mom's family needs prayers...her step-dad is going into surgery on Tuesday morning to install an artificial vein in his leg. He has next to no circulation anymore and has no real usable veins of his own (he has already had two double bypass surgeries). The doctor says they have to get him in & out of surgery as fast as they can b/c they're not sure how much his heart can take.

He sounded pretty upbeat when I talked to him this morning, but we are all unsure of what could happen. There is always the possibility that he will not survive the surgery or it just won't work. If that is the case they said the only other option is aputation.

Please pray for him and my grandmother, there names are Lawrence and Kathleen Wells, and for my parents as they travel up to KY to be there for the surgery.

Last Monday was my mom's birthday and we decided to meet Mim and Travis in Birmingham over the weekend to celebrate.
Christian loved riding the rocket
We spent our time walking around a big mall, eating, getting a back and shoulder massage (me and KayKay, anyway) and visiting
Baylor thought it was funny when Mim pushed her stroller b/c she did all sorts of funny moves

A ride on the carosel and an ICEE...what fun
Mim made Mom special little pies for the celebration. We love to make something we call Cherry Delight Pie and Mim found little individual sized graham cracker crusts to fill:)

Christian tricked everybody into thinking he had stolen one of Mim's cookies(she made cute little helicopter shaped ones)...he thought he was very funny!!!

This is how we spent a cold Friday evening last week. We built our first fire ever in this house and made SMORES!!! The kids loved and I did too...b/c it was my idea:) Even though you can't see the kids faces you can tell they're smiling

Yummy, Yummy...What a treat