I know, lots of people get flowers on Valentine's day. This is not what this post is about.
Trevor came home from work carrying these flowers with a big bag over them. Jason saw it and said: "WOAH! That's a big trash."
I thought it worthy of blogging so I can remember it later.
PS He also brought home little tiny balloons on a candy box for each of the girls. What a great dad! (And husband :) )
Recognize this rash?
When I was in Dental Hygiene, we studied different things that could occur orally as well as other places on the body. For some reason, I can remember the name of this stupid rash, but I can't remember what movie I watched last week. It's Erythema Multiforme. See the bullseyes/targets all over? Crazy. I came up with the acronym B.E.M. (Bullseye=Erythema Multiforme) to remember it when I went to take our written boards.
Anyway, here's Jason's story: (It's a long and boring one...but it's less for my readers, and more for my memory.)
I noticed red dots showing up in the diaper region, but not on his bottom, just on his tummy and inner thighs. The next day it was much worse and spread out. Plus he was itching it. I didn't want to take him to the doctor, what's the doctor going to do? Tell me it's a rash and it'll go away?
So the next morning it was MORE spread and I was getting worried. So I made an appointment with our doctor. When I took Jason's clothes off to show the doctor, I noticed the rash had changed. It wasn't just red welt looking things, but more of a "target" shape. As soon as I saw that (while in the doctors office) I thought: "hey! I know what this is!" The doctor says: "Ah, see the targets?" Like it's common knowledge that everyone knows what this rash is and how it looks. Maybe they do, who knows. And then told me it was Erythema Multiforme. Even though in my head I though: "BEM, Erythema Multiforme." Because I'm ridiculous like that.
So he asked me a bunch of questions to make sure it wasn't a more serious case--apparently this particular rash can be much worse, and cause all sorts of problems. Then he sent me home. And said it will go away. Of course. To be fair, he did call me that night to see how Jason was doing. Not a whole lot of change.
Then next day, Jason's feet were so swollen I couldn't get his shoes on. At all. Not even close. I also noticed his hands looked swollen. I had to take the other kids to school, and every time I put him in his car seat, he'd cry because he had to move his hands. So sad! He wouldn't hold anything, either. As I was going throughout the day, I noticed his hands swelling more and more. And he wouldn't walk. And his fingertips and toes were turning purple. So I called the doctor's office again. This time I saw the doctors wife, who is a nurse practitioner. The doctor wasn't there, he was doing hospital stuff. This is fine, because I like them both a lot. Anyway, she asked me some questions, called her husband, and then said they wanted to get some blood and a urine sample to check some other things out because swelling doesn't usually go along with this rash. She looked pretty worried about this swelling.
This is where it got hard for me. I don't really have problems holding my kids to get vaccinations. Not a big deal. But they stuck Jason the first time and he was SOOOO good. They got some blood and then he squirmed a bit and they couldn't find the vein again. Then they tried again, and again. And Jason's getting pretty upset because he knows what they're going for. So I'm really having to hold him down. And they tried again, and again. They kept giving him breaks, like this would calm him down or something. They tried for a freaking hour to get more blood and I'm getting upset. Really mad. I know it's their job, and I'm sure it's really hard to get blood from a squirmy two year old. But come on, an hour? And he's mad. And I'm trying to hold it together because the poor kid is really sad that I'm holding him down. Also I forget to mention that the other 3 kids are with me because I just picked them up from school. And we are all in a TINY room. Or it seems tiny with myself, four kids, and two phlebotomists. And the kids keep asking questions. Not the normal questions you would think, like: Is Jason Ok? More like: "When can we get our suckers?" "When can we leave?" And the likes. They finally decide they're going to stop and see what they can do with the blood they got on the first stick. Great. And if they decide he needs more tests, they'll try again tomorrow--or send him to the hospital to get blood drawn. Awesome.
So they gave Jason a sample of a steroid, because the pharmacies in our town are closing down at this hour. And she gives me a prescription for the same steroid to pick up in the morning. Plus I'm supposed to give him a couple antihistamines each day--just in case. So we go home. Jason was finally able to walk right before bed. It looked like the swelling had gone down a lot in his hands and feet. And the rash was already a LOT lighter. The above picture was taken this night.
The next morning, he woke up and you could BARELY see the rash. It was crazy. It seemed like each day was so much worse and I figured when it started to go away, it would be gradual. Also his hands and feet looked great. As we went through our morning, Trevor and I noticed his ear was swelling. We still had to go pick up the prescription, so we went and got that. By the time we got there, his ear was like twice the size of his other one. We gave him the steroid, and down it went. Weird. Also when I was supposed to give him a dose that night, I was getting his pajamas on and noticed it looked like the rash was starting again in other places. I gave him his medicine, and put him to bed. And the next day--fine again. Good times. Also the doctor was great. Wanting to check on him each day, and calling each night to make sure he was doing all right.
The happy ending is: he's fine. Totally fine. But just so you know, steroids make little boys hyper.
How can we pass up $15 lift tickets two weeks in a row? We can't. And Hailey's free anyway because she's 6. This was Hailey's first time skiing (and Tyler's second--although he was quite the expert when discussing skiing technique with Hailey). She loved it, too. YAY! I was a little nervous there at the beginning because she looked much more nervous than Tyler was, but she quickly got the hang of it and can even turn and stop a lot more effectively than Tyler. Shhh, don't tell Tyler.
Don't they look cute?
We were finally able to take Tyler skiing for the first time. Trevor and I love to ski, and we really want our kids to like it too. So it was a relief when we took him and he loved it. On the way home he asked if we could go again the next day. Yay! He did great. Half the time we went skiing altogether, and the other half Trevor and I switched off helping Tyler. Here are some pictures:
Tyler getting ready. He couldn't wait to get on the snow after walking around our house in his skis for a few days. We got his skis, boots and poles on Craigslist for $20 bucks! (Although we ditched the poles until the last couple runs so they wouldn't get in his way.) We figured it was a good investment seeing as how we'll make all four kids wear them when they grow into them :)
It should also be mentioned that once he got the hang of the ski lift and getting off, he wanted to go by himself each time. A lot of the time we just hung out at the bottom of the bunny hill watching him get on and off the lift and coming down by himself...
They had a little obstacle course for the ski school kids. When they abandoned it, Tyler wanted to try it out.
And for some basketball:
Tyler loves basketball this year. I love watching these kids play. Even though the picture is really blurry, I had to put in the one above because it's funny to watch them guard their own team sometimes. These kids learn to keep their arms up, and they take it very seriously.
I do bake cakes. I promise. But it was such a busy time and Jason wanted a Thomas cake, so I called WalMart. He's such a sweet little guy. His favorite toy right now is Thomas the Train, he talks non-stop, and he loves playing with his brother and sisters and gets mad when they leave him out.
Ashley had a preschool Christmas Program. She had so much fun. Here are a couple pictures in her reindeer hat and witch hat (for a skit). I didn't get any pictures of her in her Santa hat because I videoed the whole thing, but in one little skit she played Santa and did GREAT.
We wrote a letter to Santa and asked if he would come to our house early. You see, we didn't have enough room in our van to take all the presents with us to Idaho, then bring them all (and more) back. So we had an early Christmas. The kids loved it! It was a lot of fun seeing them open presents. They were so excited. This time of year is so great for so many reasons!
We took a trip to my brothers house that he has been building (and doing an AMAZING job). His English Bulldog just had puppies six weeks ago. Apparently I thought this was the only thing picture worthy. Forget that all of my four brothers and their families were there, my little sister and her family, my mom and stepdad, my dad and stepmom. Oh we BROUGHT the camera, it just didn't make it out of the bag much...you only get the pictures taken from my phone (and I'm not so good at holding really still to take a good picture)So HOPEFULLY my stepdad will share with me all the pictures he's taken of everyone else...
Hailey wants this puppy more than anything in the world. It's a little sad. And it's the only one left for sale. She wanted to hold this puppy the whole 3 days we were there. She cried when she didn't get to help take them out, and she didn't even want to go to bed because the puppies would cry (and she KNOWS it's because they needed her to hold them. :) ) 
This is Ashley and my little niece, Emily. My nieces live so far away, so it was nice to see them and finally have some girl cousins for Ashley and Hailey to play with.
HAILEY. Hailey had a birthday not too long ago. I can't believe how fast time flies. Here's picture before we sang Happy Birthday.
That night when I put Hailey to bed, I was telling her about the day she was born and when I went into labor, etc. She looked REALLY worried when I got to the part about how she had aspirated a lot of fluid and one of her lungs didn't inflate, so they rushed her off to the newborn intensive care unit . I told her it all turned out fine because she's healthy now and just fine, but she still looked terrified. I guess it's still a little early to include ALL the details. Poor girl.
This is Hailey's Thanksgiving Program that her kindergarten class performed. It was REALLY cute and fun to see her and all her class sing and say their lines. I didn't even know she had any lines until I got there. Her line was even the longest and she said it by herself when all the other kids said their lines with two or three of them together. Had I known, I would've helped her practice at home. She never told me, though and I never got any papers telling me about speaking parts. She did great and spoke so loudly and clearly.
