Let’s start with Thanksgiving because it was sooooo much fun for all of us. Shane and Mitch finally decided that they were coming to visit. We picked them up at the Loveland Wal-mart on a rather chilly Tuesday evening. They said it was even colder than Rexburg–can that be possible? Because we planned to paint Amy’s room over the holiday, we moved Misha’s new twin bed into the guest room with the new queen bed and the boys slept in there. I don’t know how they decided who would get to sleep in the queen vs. the twin, but Mitch won out on that one.
We sold our futon to one of Chris’ coworkers and Shane and Chris delivered it to her in Longmont on Wednesday morning. It was nice that we didn’t have to go to too much effort to make the sale. She had just moved into a new condo and needed furniture and our offer was just too good to pass up. When Chris and Shane got back, we got ready to go to Flat Iron Crossing to have pictures taken at Kiddie Kandids. I figured since it was the day before Thanksgiving it wouldn’t be quite so crowded as the day after. I was wrong. At least every other mother must have had that same idea about getting pictures taken because when we got there, they told us it would be a three hour wait! We decided that since we were already there, we would wait.
Shane and Mitch went shopping and since it was noon already, my family decided to get some lunch. That was our big mistake. Actually, eating at McDonalds for something fast and cheap was our big mistake. After lunch I went back to Kiddie Kandids to check and see if they had any cancellations and they were able to fit us in right then. They have two studios at that mall, and we raced off to the other one to claim our spot. Chris raced out to the car to pick up all of our clothes and we hurriedly changed in the bathroom. I was wishing that it wasn’t such a harried experience...
Amy took awhile to warm up and Misha didn’t at all. She never smiled once and after a few shots, it was pointless to even try for more. After trying to get a picture of the two girls together and not succeeding, I finally decided to have a picture of Chris and I taken just so we could get the process over with. At that point, I was beginning to feel a bit nauseous but didn’t think much of it. The pictures were finally done though I wasn’t all that impressed with the quality of them.
Chris changed back into his clothes, and then Amy and I went to change into ours. While we were doing that, Misha threw up all over her dress. No wonder she didn’t feel like sitting still for pictures or even smiling. Shane was taking forever finishing his shopping and by that time my stomach was feeling awful. I finally took Amy and went out to the car. Chris waited for Shane and for our pictures to be printed, but after waiting and waiting they still weren’t done. I felt awful and Chris was beginning to feel pretty queasy too. Finally we left around three o’clock, three hours at the mall. We were both feeling pretty gross and not able to wait any longer for our pictures to be printed. Chris drove for about ten minutes and then had to pull over to the side of the road to throw up. He stood on the median just off Sheridan Rd in Westminister and heaved for about 5 minutes.
Poor guy. He was having cramps so severely that he could no longer drive. I wasn’t in any mood to drive either, but we had to get home. Fortunately the girls slept when we got home, cause neither Chris nor I were in any condition to take care of them. About ten minutes after arriving home, Chris threw up and began to feel a lot better immediately. I wasn’t so lucky. We began to suspect that it was something we ate at McDonald’s that had given us food poisoning. Misha threw up within an hour after eating and felt pretty much better since it wasn’t in her system for very long. Chris threw up within three hours and though still not feeling as though he could run a marathon, he was doing much better.
Lucky for us, one of us was able to function. I was pretty sick. When Amy woke up from her nap, she wasn’t feeling too great either and laid in bed snuggled up beside me. After awhile she got up and acted as though she was doing ok, but I heard her throw up downstairs and things went downhill from there for her. I thankfully threw up around 8:30 pm and felt kind of better though still pretty queasy. Amy came into the room just after I threw up, saw it and asked if I was having soup. UGH!
Poor Shane emptied the bowl for me. Mitch sequestered himself into the guest room saying later that he did not realize that we were all still so sick. Yeah right.
Amy continued to be sick after her first throwing up experience. She was laying in bed beside me and threw up all over the sheets. I was feeling so awful that all I could do was lay on the floor while Chris changed the sheets. About a ½ hour later, she threw up all over the bed again. By this time, Chris was a little edgy. Ok, a lot edgy. I think he did 5 or 6 loads of laundry that night. I finally got Amy used to barfing into the bowl beside her instead of on the bed.
Chris slept in Amy’s room that night, and she slept with me. Poor little thing had the dry heaves all night long. I gave her a tums and she threw it up, she had a sip of water and threw it up. Finally I wouldn’t let her have anything else. By morning I dared to give her a little bit of water again, and this time she kept it down. Ahhh, Thursday morning, Thanksgiving Day, and I still felt pretty awful. Chris was mostly better and he took Mitch and Shane and went to get movies in Longmont at Blockbuster.
Though I didn’t feel like preparing anything big, I still made a Thanksgiving dinner. Probably the least amount I have ever eaten for Thanksgiving. One good thing you can say about having food poisoning.
Friday morning, I woke up around 4 extremely hungry. I got up early and ate something then paid all of our bills online. I even did a short workout downstairs on the treadmill. Shane woke up early with the stomach flu. And so it continued through our entire weekend.
Chris and I and Mitch painted Amy’s room in the morning. She got to paint on the walls as well. It turned out a little darker than I thought it would be, but still it looks good. I will probably try and finish the border over the holidays and then Chris is going to put up some moulding to finish off some edges. Next I want to paint Misha’s room a pale yellow and then our bedroom. Not sure on the color yet though.
Anyway, back to Thanksgiving. We drove up to Estes Park for a Christmas parade. Mitch and Shane were decidedly unthrilled about being there. Shane even went back to the car early. It was pretty chilly so we had him take Misha with him. We didn’t even stay for the whole thing because it was pretty cold. And that was one of the warmer years for them to have the parade. I wasn’t feeling so hot and once we got back home, Chris was feeling rather sick. He puked and had diarrhea all night long, so I guess we caught whatever it was Shane had. Mitch was the lucky one and got through the weekend unscathed. We figure it just served to convince Mitch and Shane that our house is not a great place to visit. I drove them back to Loveland Sunday morning and they were on their way home.
In the past month, Amy has had a lot of accidents and has refused to sit on the potty. It has been extremely frustrating for me and Chris. Moreso for me since I am home with her all day. We tried everything from spanking her to being really nice about it. Nothing worked. I finally started praying about it. Things aren’t completely improved but I have just eased off on stressing Amy out about using the potty. I try to remind her to go pee throughout the day since she has been having a lot of those kind of accidents too. I have started having Amy sit on the potty every morning for “poop” time. And...this morning she went. I am so proud of her. I know that at some point everything will click, but I also think Chris and I need to be patient with her as her little body learns the signals.
Misha is ever the climber. I bought her a slide for Christmas so that she would have something that is “legal” to climb on. I imagine Amy will try to take it over as well, but they should both have some fun new toys. Every morning when I exercise and see some of the toys I have hidden from garage sales, I think that I need to take time and clean them. Probably won’t get done until the night before.
Last week, I was wrapping presents in my room and both girls were “helping” me. Misha got into my night-time mouth piece and kindly hid it for me. I think it was a least a week before I found it. I scoured my room thinking she didn’t really get that far from me. I looked under the bed, in the garbages, through the drawers, in the closet, in the shoes, in the bathroom, through the wrapping paper and bags, everywhere that I could think of. I kept praying for help in finding it, but nothing. I even took off the heater vent and felt down into it. No luck. I got the feeling that at some point it would just show up. And it did. I was putting the videos away in the guest room and opened up the Toy Story case to put in the video and there my mouth piece was. What a little stinker. I guess from now on I will have to keep it in the bathroom out of reach of small hands.
It was Amy’s birthday last Wednesday. She started out the week with a snuffy nose and passed it on to Misha. Amy was better in a day but Misha’s cold lasted through most of the week. We had planned to take Amy to a Christmas concert for her birthday and had even made arrangements for Misha to go to Allred’s for a couple of hours. With a cold though, we didn’t think that was hardly fair, so I stayed home with Misha and Chris took Amy to the concert. She loved it. Just after they were seated and before the concert started, she called me and told me that there were lots of people and that she was having fun. When she walked in the door she was so full of things to tell me about her fun date with daddy. She loved the music, and Santa Claus came, but he wasn’t the real Santa Claus because he took of his “hair” and played the trumpet. Chris said she was dancing in the aisle and all of the people around thought she was adorable. When the music ended she would bow. Wish I could have been there to see her delight.
On Wednesday for her birthday we had a small party with balloons, party hats, and cake–and french fries. She got to open some presents in the morning, but frankly it was a hard day for all of us. She was pretty cranky, had nothing but accidents, and was pretty naughty all day long. She didn’t even open up her last couple of presents because she had been so ornery and we put her to bed early. So much for staying up late.
Grandma Ball sent her a fun Fisher Price house with people and furniture that she got off of ebay. We got the same house at a garage sale a month or so ago for 50 cents but with no people. I gave her a new outfit. She liked the shirt because it had ribbed lines in it like some of my shirts do. Plus she got some chalk and brush for her chalk board that we got at a garage sale this summer. I spent a couple of hours sanding it, priming it, and painting it white. She got a cape from Grandma Rice plus a lot of other fun things this Fall when we were there.
Grandma Andrews sent her a card and MONEY. She was so thrilled to have her own money--$20–which is a fair amount, though she wouldn’t know the difference if it was $1 or a $20. Chris talked to her about paying tithing and she was excited to give some of her money to the Bishop. Don’t know if she realized or not that she wouldn’t be getting it back.
On Thursday night, we met one of Chris’ coworkers and her boyfriend for dinner at Olive Garden. They watched the girls one night and there is a mutual liking of each other. Amy had a great time and got a new back pack and the movie “Spirit”. That would be the same “Spirit” movie that inspires her to say “Spirit, I LOVE Spirit!” every time someone mentions that word when praying.
On Friday night, Chris had a party here for some of his co-workers. We had pizza and played games and sat around and talked. They are a nice group of people and we enjoy being with them.
Amy is looking forward to Christmas and presents. She believes that Santa brings treats and toys. She and Chris went shopping last night to buy things for me. The first thing she said to me when she walked in the door was, “Wes what (guess what) mommy! We got earrings.” She doesn’t know much about keeping a secret.
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