What a week!

Yeah, so for most of last week, Zekes had an ear infection with a constantly high temperature. Finally, on the third day, I scheduled a doctor appointment. He was responding to Tylenol and Motrin, but the fever kept coming back. Poor baby! I also scheduled a well check for Ailey Grace at the same time so she could get her first round of shots. Yeah, not really in a hurry with her apparently. ;p

Anyway, the doc confirmed my suspicions of an ear infection and after discussing options, we both agreed that antibiotics probably wouldn't help greatly and there's always the issue of possible yeast infection as a result. He's been on antibiotics several times since he was a baby, so I'm really leery about putting him on them if there's no real need. Also, his fever seemed to be coming down bit by bit, so... Anyway, she said she thought it would be a good idea to put him on a nose spray. Yep, we were thinking along the same lines again. I just love it when that happens! So, he got a prescription for generic Flonase, Braden got his renewed and now we all have our own Flonase prescriptions. I'm glad we have one of those labeler thingys. ;) So, he now takes Zyrtec, Flonase and Sinupret. We'll prolly get him off of the Zyrtec when the Flonase has had a chance to get built up in his system. The cool thing was that late in the day after I had given him the first dose, you could tell it had made a difference. I'm VERY grateful for Flonase! Praise you, Lord!

Ailey took her shots like a real trooper. She only cried for a second. Sweet baby girl! By the way, I have to brag on Scott and White yet again. I really am glad that they are the providers we have gone with. We love their regular and substitute doctors and the nurses are marvelous! Man, they are quick on the draw with those syringes! Awesome!! Totally makes the pain bearable for both kiddo AND parents! Haha! Anyway, we got her stats and I will post those when she is 6 mos in a couple of days.

Our week on through the weekend was super busy, so now we are recovering. Poor Zekey didn't get very good naps and I'm pretty sure, we'll be having a couple of movie days along with some pretty long naps. I'm thinking all day pjs are in order! Nice.

We had a busy Saturday and Sunday, but boy did we have fun. On Saturday, we went to the post office and Target to buy birthday presents for some friends of Braden's and Zekey's from church in the morning. Then we went to Texas Land and Cattle to eat lunch because it was Sam's birthday and its one of his favorite places to eat and we have talked about going there for the last three years and it just didn't happen. Well, it just so happens that it wasn't as expensive as we thought AND the kids meals were FREE!!! Yeah! You can get two kids meals free on Saturdays until 4pm with the purchase of an entre. Hey-hey! Can I get a whoop-whoop up in here?! So, we continued homeward after that for naps and to wrap birthday gifts and make birthday cards for the girls' birthday party at 4pm. We got all that done and headed to the party....late, of course. We really didn't want to wake Zekes, but it had to be done. The party was at the spray park and the boys had a really fun time. Braden even got in the big pool without floaties because he was able to stand up and the water was right at his shoulders. He thought that was pretty special. Zekey also got in the big pool because one of the life guards got him and was twirling him and floating him around. So cool. The same lifeguard played with Braden in the spray area when there weren't any kids in there with him. She filled up little buckets and was dumping them over his head. It was pretty funny and he was eating that attention up! The birthday cake was super yummy and very cute and I didn't get one picture of it. I'm 0 for 2 cakes and taking pics this past weekend! Go figure. I did get some pics of people milling around and of the girls (they are fraternal twins) giving out candy ulas (Samoan way of saying lei) and of the treat bag that the kids got to get a party favor out of. I also got several of Ailey Grace and Tazia (not sure of the spelling here, but....) hanging out on the picnic blanket at the party. Here are some pics of that:

Doxa, Stephanie and Chrisma (yeah, totally butchered her name on the card. I spelled it Krysma...oh, well.;)

Zekey and Braden with their party favors

Zekey wearing his ula

Braden and his ula and party favor

The twins handing out the ulas

Kids grabbing for party favors...I really like this idea instead of the party bags....

This is Tazia hangin' with Ailey Grace

They were playing peek a boo and Tazia had Ailey belly laughing. It was pretty funny.

This is a shadow pic of Tazia's mom, Tasha and her sister Tiana who is an absolutely wonderful babysitter!!! We know them from church as well.

Ailey loving the room to roll around on the blanket.

Sunday was equally as busy. We went to church which was really, really good. The pastor spoke on how we should bless/praise God even in the midst of our trials. We now have a new saying in our house thanks to Pastor Rick - "So what, Bless God!" We got invited by the same family that had the birthday party on Saturday to have dinner at their house that evening. After church, we headed to Sam's club to get some groceries and an outfit for our nephew Grasyson. We all got to have a few samples to tide us over until lunch - don't ya just love samples?! Then we got home, cleared out the leftovers from the fridge by way of lunch and then Zekes went down for a looooong nap and Ailey Grace did too after a while because she and Sam were on the couch and he put her in a sleeper hold. I got to clean up quite a bit because the madness of junk everywhere was creeping in. That made me feel much better. After all of that, we headed over to Eses and Stephanie's house for a bar-b-q. It was yummy! We had a good time just hangin' out and fellow-shipping. We even got a to-go box of food and everything! Yay, lunches for a couple of days!!!:) Anyway, after all that fun and excitement, we are vegging for at least a few days this week. We might even have to stretch it into the whole week....I like the sound of that! Hope your week is restful, too!

Happy Birthday, SAMhead!!!! (posted waaaaay late;)

So this whole past week, I've been planning and scheming and engaging in clandestine activities in order to surprise the pants off of my husband for his birthday. Every year I try to do something surprising for his birthday and EVERY year he finds out!!!!! Soooooooooooooo frustrating! This year, I got him. I started last Saturday putting my plans in motion and thankfully I was able to have the van during the day three days this week so that I could arrange things. I made a super yummy from scratch three layer German Chocolate cake and a White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake on an Oreo crust. I had to buy three round pans and a springform pan because all of mine are in storage. I also had to make many visits to the grocery store. Shopping with three kiddos solo mio is quite distracting!!! Then today, I went to the church to decorate for the party and got all the last minute stuff done. His birthday is actually tomorrow, but there is another party we are going to and its a good decoy. :) I got our friend and one of the pastor's at our church, Ricky to be the stalling tactic. He told Sam he needed his help to help someone move this evening and that he would pick him up at 6pm. The party was to start at 6:30, so I needed to be able to get to the church before him. As soon as he came to pick Sam up, I loaded the kids up and away we went. We got there and got everyone in just in time to turn out the lights before they walked in. In Sam walked and when the lights came on, we yelled surprise and the look on his face was priceless!!! We all had cake and visited and had such a good time. Thank you to Katrina, Andrew, Martin, Sarah and ESPECIALLY Ricky for all the help and making Sam's birthday so special! Here are some pics:

Ricky, Ailey Grace and Sarah

Sarah and Ailey Grace

Emmalee, Braden and Zekers playing with pool balls

Little Miss Emmalee

Katrina and Andrew

Birthday Man:)

Martin

Okay, let's all get out our girdles

Here are two more cookie recipes from the Chickens in the Road blog. All I have to say is Yuuuuummmmmmmyyyy!!!!!!!

Cheesecake Cookies - yeah, they're as good as they sound. Here's a pic of what they look like (I made them and they are divine, but I'm too lazy today to take pics of them.) -

Coffee and Cream Cookies - mmmhhmmm, you know you want some (made some of these too, but again, too lazy to take my own pics, so I'll show you the originals;)-

C'mon....moo with me!

Sam found this on youtube:

Sparkle, Sparkle and some other long overdue things

Sparkly...ooooooooh! Yeah, I did a little experimenting. Not too shabby for the first time painting my nails in, oh about a year and a half!

Everything is going well. We are having a great time getting more involved in our church and getting to know our church family even better. We are still looking for a house, but we are taking our time and not getting in any kind of a hurry. :)

The kiddos are growing so much every day. Zekey is paying lots more attention to Ailey Grace and its so sweet. Both of the boys can get her giggling, which is so much fun to watch.

Braden is ever the social butterfly. He has befriended an older man that lives in a couple of spots down from us. He's a very nice man and Braden tends to come home with random things. For instance, a cow bell. various types of bread that he cooks on his grill (its pretty good, too) cookie dough. There's a lady across the street who sends things home with him, too...apples, juice, toys... They really like that Braden visits them. It honestly reminds me of me when I was little. I didn't know a stranger and I would come home with all kinds of things, including stray animals....actually, that still happens on occasion! When that starts happening with Braden, we are going to have to have a chit-chat. :) His cousin Luke gave him his Leapster and I found a couple of games on ebay and he's been having a ball with it. Thanks Luke!

Zekey has been so much fun recently. Its like he decided to let his personality come out and play and it's stayed out. He laughs a lot and is lots more playful and talkative. I love this age. Zekey has taken to calling me Ama at times, especially when he's saying a longer sentence. Funny. Every morning when he gets up, he is so excited to see whoever is awake and makes his rounds to say good morning to everyone, hugs and kisses all around. He also says thank you all on his own whenever anyone gets or does something for him. He also automatically says "Bless You" when someone sneezes or coughs. So cute. We are working on "please", but he's catching on pretty quickly. He's just such a bundle of fun.

Little Miss Ailey Grace is still such a good baby. I started putting her in long pjs at night and wouldn't ya know it, she has been sleeping better on the whole. All of my kiddos so far have been like that. They get cold at night and as soon as I remedy that issue, they sleep so much better. Right now, though, she is still teething even though no teeth have actually made an appearance. I have a feeling they will be coming in twos and fours. I have gotten reacquainted with having to give tylenol and orajel on a regular basis. Zekey really spoiled me. I would check his mouth periodically and viola! there would be four more teeth! It was crazy.... Ailey is definitely taking after Braden, though I don't think its quite as severe. Oh well, I believe we'll get through it just fine. God is so good! She is also grabbing at anything close enough to her to get, especially if it has a crinkly sound. She was cracking us up today because I had one of those little travel packs of tissue and I was trying to get one out and she was grabbing it away from me at lightening speed. Anyway, her fine motor skills are developing nicely. I think she will be crawling soon. All the signs are there. She tries to pull herself forward with her hands and manages to get her feet up under her at times. We shall see.

Okay, there's more but I've got to go see a man about a dog. Okay, not really, but I am tired of typing one-handed!

How cool is this?!

This thing is called a Tummy Tub. A friend on Facebook got one for her baby. I would love to have this for my babies, but its quite pricey. Its still cool though, isn't it? ;p Here's the link if anyone is interested:

http://www.tummytubusa.com/site/index.html

What do you get when....

... you mix a zoo, 100+ degree heat, 4 kid, 2 babies, 2 lactating mommies, 2 good-natured husbands, strollers and baby paraphernalia? A great 5-year reunion! My dear friend Reina let us know that they were gonna be in the Austin area for a week and wondered if we could get together. Oh, yeah! Both of our families were having a packed weekend, but we were able to make it happen on Sunday afternoon. At first, we were trying to figure out where to meet. I suggested the zoo. Before you laugh at me, I was trying to think of a kid-friendly place. We weren't eating, so.... Plus, the Austin Zoo is small and just a nice place to go. Yeah, I wasn't really thinking about the heat. Silly me! Anyway, we did meet up there despite a strong urge on my part to try and find a different place at the last minute once it dawned on me about the heat... We had a really great time talking and enjoying each other's company. We also got to meet each other's latest kiddos. The last time we saw each other Braden was a baby and Adara was a much younger and shorter girly. She's gotten so stinkin' tall!!! Both Adara and Aislyn are such sweet-hearted girls and little Q is a cutie-pie. Its funny because he is as fair-skinned as I am and Ailey has an olive complexion like Reina. We were joking about how we must have had the other one's kid! Funny. Now they are embarking on the sunscreen adventure that I passes on to my eldest son....I feel for ya! I am so grateful for sunscreen, but it is a pain to put on. ;p Anyway, we ended up at Marble Slab to cool down and finish out our visit. Finch, Reina's hubby, looked it up on his Palm Pre and Reina took pics of the kiddos on hers. Thanks Reina! We didn't realize we'd forgotten our camera until we were well on our way to Austin.....rrrrrrr! I now have Palm Pre envy. It has a flash for the camera built in, plus gps! Niiice! Anyway, we really enjoyed our visit and hope that we will be able to get together before another 5 years has flown by! I'm thinking the more kiddos we have the more someone needs to actually invent the Star Trek transporter... We had such a great time with you! We love you guys! Okay, here are the fabulous pics:

Another haircut bites the dust

BEFORE:
AFTER:

And of course everyone had to get in on the photo shoot. Sillies!

Kids Sinupret Coupon

If any of you use Kids Sinupret, I found a $4 off coupon! Here's the link. Its good until 8/30/09.

http://www.bionoricausa.com/coupon

Oh, my! More Yumminess!

Yeah, so my friend Emily sent an email with this ladies blog address and I'm already in love! She mostly posts recipes and her life events involving those recipes and I'm telling you, I'm already hooked and probably in trouble! Here was the clincher for me and the link for it as well: (I'll update on us soon, just got a bit busy and didn't realize how long its been!)

Link: http://tinamommyx3.blogspot.com/

Clincher:

Cake Mix Dinner Rolls

Yeah, I want some of those!!!!!