Tooth #8

Upper Left First Molar

Crafts of the Day

Daddy Daycare

Daddy daycare was in session today since Adam was off work for Confederate Memorial Day.  I dropped the boys off at MMO on my way into the office and he picked them up around lunch time.  He went after school to get them their favorite lunch, Chick-fil-A, and then took them to the Flowood Park to have a picnic and play.

Happy boy!

My little firemen.

"Hey, Daddy!"

Poor guy fell asleep in the car on the way home.  He was worn out from all of the fun playtime with Sam and Daddy.

I'm so glad these three had some "boy time" today.  These little guys just adore their Daddy and I know there wasn't anywhere else they would have rather been than with him.  So thankful for my sweet family!

Lissa's Baptism

Today was a very special day for a precious little girl in our family.  Our baby cousin Lissa was baptized this morning at Chapel of the Cross in Madison, MS.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to make it to the church service because we had to teach Sunday school and keep the nursery at our own church.  

My handsome big boy all dressed up before church.

This was the best I could get of these two sweet peas.  They didn't want to stop long enough to say "Cheese!" for Mama!  Aren't they handsome?  :)

After church we were able to join the family at Phyllis and Clinton's home for a luncheon following Lissa's baptism.

Sam & Meme

Daddy & Jack

Sam was thrilled to see everyone, especially Lissa, and couldn't wait to take his turn holding her.

Sam, Lissa & McCall

We are so thankful for Lissa and loved spending time with our family on this special day.

Dogwood Splash Pad

Happy Birthday, Hayes!

After Sam's t-ball game this morning, we drove over to Pop Pop and Bobi's house for Hayes' Thomas the Train birthday party.

  

All of the kiddos took a quick break from playing outside so we could snap a picture.  

The boys enjoying some yummy lunch.

Sam had a ball helping Hayes open his gifts and checking all the toys out.

Last but not least...cake time!!  

The sweet birthday boy riding his new Thomas the Train.  He looks like such a big boy!

  Happy Birthday, Hayes!  It is so hard to believe you are already two years old.  We love you and can't wait to watch you continue to grow!

T-Ball Week #4

My sweet little slugger coming up to bat.  Not sure where this lefty came from!

Jack loves watching his brother and daddy out on the field.

Meme and Sam after the game.  She is such a good cheerleader!

Sophia's Birthday Party

Tonight we went to Chuck E. Cheese's to help Sam's friend, Sophia, celebrate her birthday.  Sophia has been in Sam's MMO class this semester and he was so excited to go play with her and his other school friends.

Kaley, Sam & Chuck E. Cheese
Sam wasn't too comfortable with the big mouse at first!

After playing some fun arcade games, the kids settled down for some pizza and birthday cake.

These two had a blast playing together tonight. 

Happy Birthday, Sophia!

Crafts of the Day

Sweet Surprise

After we got home from the Rebel Road Trip tonight, Sam was busting at the seams to show me the "surprise" he had in his bag for me.  He had colored this precious picture and put it in a "Mom" envelope with some Mickey Mouse cards.  The envelope was taped to the top of a plate of "I love Mom" cookies he and Jack had baked earlier in the day with Lili's assistance.  Such a sweet surprise from my angels!

Rebel Road Trip 2013

Ole Miss head football coach, Hugh Freeze, and athletics director, Ross Bjork, rolled into Jackson today for one of the stops on the Rebel Road Trip 2013.  

I was at work this afternoon so I got a glimpse of the bus when they pulled up downtown.

Adam picked up the boys from Lili's house after he got off work and they met up with me and our friends Jim and Jacqueline at the Downtown Marriott.  We got there just in time to get one of the last pictures with Coach Freeze before he took the stage.  He was so kind and even signed a 2013 football schedule for Sam and Jack.  Despite his face in this picture, Jack is definitely a Rebel fan, but there was something about Coach Freeze that made him cry his "you're not my mama" cry.  Poor guy!

Take two...great picture!  

We had a fun night getting together with our Rebel friends, watching a cool highlight video of all the great things happening at Ole Miss right now and listening to the speakers.  Proud to be a Rebel!  

Crafts of the Day

Playground Fun!

Mowing with Water?

This afternoon Adam went outside in hopes of mowing the yard.  He went to crank the mower and couldn't get it going for some reason.  It usually starts right up so I immediately thought there was probably trouble.  Jack had been resting inside and Sam was watching T.V.  After Adam had been messing with the mower for a few minutes, Sam walks out curious about what we are doing standing around in the driveway.  Adam proceeded to explain to him that he thought the mower was broken and then Sam replied with a story that is much funnier now than it was at the time.  "Well, Daddy, 'yesterday' (his time of reference no matter how long it has been) I unscrewed that (pointing to the gas cap) and put a little water in your mower."  Oh man...

I went inside and got a turkey baster, the only thing that I knew we could use to try and get some of the water out of the mower.  We sucked out as much as we could with the baster and put it in an empty milk carton.  By the time we got most of the liquid out of the mower's tank, the carton was full of mostly water and only a tiny bit of gasoline had floated to the top.  No wonder the mower wouldn't crank!  

About the time we finished removing all of the water/gas from the tank, Shuffie and our neighbor, Andrew, showed up to try to help fix the wet insides of the mower.  They took a few things off and dried what they could and then put it all back together, all the while I held my breath.  After their hard work it was only a few pulls before she cranked right back up and a big smile returned to Sam's worried face. 

Look at that sweet face!!!  He means well....he really does!  ;)

T-Ball Week #3

This morning at Sam's t-ball game we spotted a few familiar faces across the field.  Adam's good friend, Chris, is an assistant coach for the opposing team and his daughter, Anna Rachel, was a player on the opposing team.  

Adam and Chris meeting mid-field before the game.  :)

High fives for a great game!

Sam and Anna Rachel

Look at those sweet hands!  Aren't they precious?

Strep - Round Two

Sam woke up pretty early this morning and crawled in the bed with me.  I love our early morning snuggles and he was able to sleep for another hour or so.  He was slowly waking up and coughing a little and before I knew it he had thrown up in the bed!! Oh no....we all know what it means when my kids throw-up.  Surely strep had not struck Sam too, especially since we had just been at the doctor yesterday afternoon and she said he looked great!  He had an appetite after we got him cleaned up so I tried not to start worrying yet.

Jack woke up shortly after Sam and I got up.  He was burning up with fever and not a happy man at all.  He just wanted me to hold him and snuggle.  Holding Jack grew challenging as the morning went on and Sam kept throwing up - I needed more hands!  By mid-morning I called Dr. Sherwood's nurse and after checking with Dr. Sherwood she said it would be best to bring Sam in for a strep test.

In hopes of avoiding more germs, I decided to leave Jack with Lili while I took Sam to the doctor.  When we drove up at Lili's house Sam started saying he was about to get sick again.  I quickly got him out of his car seat and we barely made it out before he started throwing up again.  This time it was mostly foam and bile and when he finished he almost went limp in my arms.  I panicked!!  He never really passed out but was very weak and pale so I scooped him up and took him inside Lili's house for a minute.  She got a cool wash cloth to place on his forehead and slowly but surely the color started coming back to his face and lips.

Poor Sam fell asleep on the drive to The Children's Clinic, but not before asking me a thousand times if he was going to have to get a shot like Jack did yesterday.  I was pretty sure I knew the answer to that but told him we would just have to wait and see what Dr. Sherwood thought.

While we were waiting to see Dr. Sherwood, Lili texted me this picture of Jack.  It was confirmation of how bad I thought he felt.  He had been playing on his favorite truck at her house and just laid down beside it and fell asleep.  He didn't sleep well at all last night so I'm sure he is exhausted.

Dr. Sherwood was shocked to see me and Sam back in her office after less than twenty four hours had passed since our last visit.  She looked at his throat and said it looked bad and she couldn't believe how quickly he had gotten sick since it looked fine yesterday.  Sure enough, Sam's strep test came back positive and he ended up being the second victim of the Penicillin shot in my family this week.  He started crying long before the shot arrived because he had watched Jack's pain the day before and knew what was coming.  I hated he was so upset but knew it was our best choice to help him feel better soon.  

Go away, strep!  You've been at our house long enough!

Crafts of the Day

Ball with Lili

I only worked a half-day today and then was able to go pickup the boys from MMO - what a treat for me!  We drove through Chick-fil-A and took food to Lili's house for a picnic with her before nap time.  While we were eating lunch, both boys started coughing pretty bad and were more congested than they had been earlier in the week.  I knew it was probably just allergies from all of the pollen but I decided it had gone on long enough and I wanted to let Dr. Sherwood check them both out just to be on the safe side.  

After we finished eating I called the Children's Clinic and got lucky enough to snag an open double appointment slot right after lunch.  Dr. Sherwood took one look at Jack's throat and said it looked awful.  My children are famous for strep, and the kind of strep that comes with vomiting and not just a bad sore throat, so I immediately thought Jack probably had strep when she commented on his throat.  I started to think back on his vomiting over the weekend and it was all coming together except for the fact that he had yet to run any fever, which I thought usually always went along with strep.  She did a strep test and then checked Sam out while we waited on the results of Jack's test.  She thought Sam looked pretty good and said his congestion and coughing was probably just allergies that we could treat symptomatically.  Unfortunately Sam's good news was followed by some sad news for Jack - his strep test was positive!  This poor guy has probably had it since last weekend and that was the cause of his vomiting.  Dr. Sherwood was a little surprised he hadn't run fever at all but said it was in fact possible to not run any fever with strep.  We chose the treatment for Jack to feel better fast..the dreaded shot!  Jack worked out those lungs and squalled to let us know he did not enjoy the shot but it didn't last long and we were on our way.  Bless his sweet little heart!

We had spent so long at the doctor's office that we pretty much missed our window to take a nap so Lili offered for Sam to come back to her house and play so I could run a few errands with just one friend by my side instead of two.  :)

When Jack and I finished with our errands and drove up at Lili's house to get Sam, we found them practicing baseball in the front yard.  To not have much of an athletic background, Lili is always such a good sport to play ball with Sam!

Tooth #7

Lower Left Lateral Incisor

Crafts of the Day

Sick Travelers

After Sam's t-ball game yesterday, we hit the road to go watch the Grove Bowl and a little Ole Miss baseball for the first time this season.  Little did we know how challenging our trip would be before we actually even made it to Oxford.  

It all started in the drive-thru of the Madison Chick-fil-A.  The sound coming from the back seat was unmistakably the sound of poor Jack vomiting in the car, which is unusual for either one of my boys.  We quickly made our way out of the line before we even had a chance to order food and drove across the street to the Shell station to try to clean everything up.  When I opened up the door to the back seat Jack was all smiles despite the mess he was sitting in.  Sweet Sam was quite a trooper, as usual, and was talking sweetly to Jack and telling him he was going to be okay.  Adam and I were covering our faces with napkins to keep from gagging over the sour milk smell and couldn't believe how unaffected Sam was by all of it - maybe he'll be a doctor!!  We ended up stripping Jack down to just his diaper and Adam took the dirty clothes inside the gas station bathroom to rinse them out and get a plastic bag to store them in for the rest of the ride.  Fortunately we had a few different outfits in our overnight bags so we put some fresh clothes on Jack and buckled him back in.  He seemed fine and wasn't running fever so I was a little perplexed as to why he vomited.  All I could think of was that he probably gagged on all of the junk in his throat that he's been dealing with since the pollen arrived.  We decided to get back in line at Chick-fil-A and to continue on our journey to Oxford.

About eighty miles down the road, the silence in our car was broken when a snoozing Jack started vomiting again.  Adam and I just looked at each other in disbelief and then took the next exit we came to.  We pulled into a gas station and cleaned Jack up again.  At this point I was questioning whether we should go back home.  I was still concerned something was wrong with him even though he was still happy and smiling with no fever.  We finally decided that we had spent too much time packing and getting ready to turn around now so we put a second clean outfit on Jack and got back on the interstate.  About fifteen minutes after we had gotten back on the road Adam announced that the gas light had come on and at that point we realized we had forgotten to fill up during our last pit stop.  Luckily we made it to a gas station with about ten miles to spare in our tank.    

With all of our unexpected delays we missed being able to go to the Grove Bowl but made it to town with just enough time to throw Jack's car seat cover in the washing machine and head to the baseball stadium.

Ah!! It's Michael Myers from Halloween! 

Am I seeing double?!

We spotted the Rebel bear in the Diamond Club and got him to jump in our family picture.  Neither one of my boys were too sure of him!

You would never know from this picture what a tough car ride this little trooper had been through earlier in the day.

Sweet and patient big brother that probably thought we would NEVER make it to the ballgame after the many stops we made before actually making it to Oxford.

Jack and Daddy celebrating a Rebel win on the walk to the car after the game.  

For some reason almost as soon as we drove into Oxford yesterday afternoon I started having a horrible sneezing, watery eyes allergy attack.  On our way back to the condo after the game we stopped at CVS to get me some Zyrtec in hopes that would bring me some relief.

The allergy medication didn't help much and unfortunately I didn't sleep as well as little Jack did last night.  When we woke up this morning Adam was congested and I was worse than yesterday so we decided those were our signs it was time to go home.  We ate some breakfast at IHOP and then headed south in hopes of getting a good nap in our own beds and waking up feeling better this afternoon.

Here's hoping our next trip to Oxford is a healthy one!