this little piggy

Well, Gray has H1N1 and pneumonia, but tonight he seems to be doing a little better. His fever started Wed. night, and Thursday morning he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Usually it wouldn't have settled in his lungs until day 3 or 4, but his respiratory system was probably weak from having croup a few weeks ago, so the flu settled in really quickly. He started Tamiflu today, and he still has a fever, but I just checked his lungs (with the neighbor's borrowed stethoscope), and they sound much clearer. I called family friend "Dr. Chris" and she told me all the trouble signs to look for with pneumonia, so we're just watching him carefully tonight. His CBC this morning didn't show signs of any secondary bacterial infection, but I'll take him for a chest x-ray tomorrow just to double check his lungs. Basically, the doctor said don't be alarmed, but at the same time, he's too little to take any chances.

Luke and Cole both have runny noses, but no fever, so perhaps the rest of us will stay well. I'm not very confident about Cole - he's acting pretty crabby and didn't sleep well during nap time today, but we'll have to wait and see.

On other fronts, Brad rebuilt the side gate today, so that should keep Cole from sneaking out of the back yard and riding his tricycle down the driveway.

While he worked on the gate, Luke and Cole built a dam and a mud pit and did some puddle jumping, while Reid went to Costco with Grandmother.

Here are the requisite weekly photos:

Happy Birthday Sweet Baby

We had Gray's party on Saturday night. Usually we have daytime parties, but Brad was working on the front entrance of our neighborhood, so we moved it to 5pm. Sarah and my mom arrived early enough to help with decorations, while I was at another party with Luke for a school friend. The usuals showed up: Ron & Freda, Aunt Jana & Uncle Stuart, Grand Pink, Cousin Mindy, Aunt Ann, Brent & Susan with Olivia (the triplets had to study for finals), Grandmama Pat, Sarah, Alf, Hannah, Sophia. My dad was having trouble with arthritis and had to cancel, but hopefully can make it in two weeks for Luke's party.

We have this birthday thing down to a science. I do a themed invitation in Publisher (and now just email it instead of printing & mailing), either Freda bakes the cake or I order it at HEB using the same design as the invite for the decoration, I buy theme napkins and then use whatever solid color plates are around, Jana & Stuart run by Costco and grab some pizzas, I throw some streamers up in the dining room, pick up a dozen balloons at HEB, and voila! DONE. I know someday I will hear about how every other kid gets a bouncy house and well-planned games and a pinata and goody bags, but honestly, I'm just not prepared to enter the Birthday Party Thunderdome. If the boys have "theme" parties up to the age of, say, 12, that's still 48 birthday parties. That's a lot of stinkin' goody bags. I just choose not to compete, much to their future chagrine. And until the start literally begging to invite friends from school, we will keep having our just perfect family parties. I mean, seriously, it's not like we have a shortage of cousins to play with.

Since it was our first "nighttime" party, the kids took full advantage and grabbed all the working flashlights in the house (including the mini headlamp ones out of the "secret agent" tote) and just ran around the back yard in utter darkness screaming like banshees. Aside from Luke running into the shelving unit on the porch so hard it knocked all the flower pots off the top shelf, a fun time was had by all.

Gray received his set of flags from my mom that flew over the Alamo on his birth date (a special tradition all four of the boys have gotten), some books, and some darling clothes from Mindy & Freda. It was just right - heaven knows we don't need more toys, and sometimes the kids get so overwhelmed if there are too many gifts to open.

Here are some photos - no time for cute captions, as Brad is already done with his chores and I haven't started mine.

Happy 4th Birthday Hannah!

We went to Ft Worth for Hannah's birthday this weekend. We planned on leaving right after school on Friday, but as you can see from a previous post, we had some plumbing "issues" we needed to tend to before leaving town. When Sarah comes to visit, she always feeds and bathes the girls, puts their PJs on and leaves around 7:30. They usually sleep most of the way, and they make it in 3.5 hours. We, on the other hand, drive during the day, get stuck in traffic, make 2 potty breaks, 1 feed-the-baby break, 1 I'm-so-hungry-I-may-die break, and arrive 5 hours later. So, the septic emergency prompted us to embrace the driving at night approach, and sure enough, it was an easy 3 hour drive.

We went straight to Tony & Milena's on Saturday morning (after Brad let me sleep late, of course), and the party started at 11am. Hannah's party theme of choice was Nacho Libre (she loves loves loves Nacho), and Tony & Milena bought all the kids luchador costumes the last time they visited Mexico (and Sarah made the tiny baby masks.) Milena had cut out and hung miles of prayer flags, and made not only a big Nacho pinata, but tiny star-shaped pinatas for each of the kids. She is Un.Be.Lievable. We ate Tony's yummy fajitas and homemade salsa, and enjoyed Sarah's Nacho Libre cupcakes (she made all those toppers herself...)


We ran home and took naps, then went back out for Trick or Treating. We just went around the block in Sarah's neighborhood, and it was just perfect - the kids had little paper bags, and we told them when the bags were full, we'd go home. Everyone loved their costumes, and I'm quite sure we will have numerous wrestling matches in our living room over the next few months.



Today we attempted to take a photo for my mom's Christmas card, while Brad and Alf went to the climbing gym. I'm pretty sure we'll be having another photo shoot at Gray's birthday next weekend. Unless, of course, my mom wants THIS on her Christmas card...

Happiness Is

A bed full of grandbabies.

Or so my mom tells us...

The Honey Wagon

Say you're a little boy. Your favorite things are:

(a) big trucks
(b) digging things up
(c) talking about poop

Tell me, please, what could be more exhilarating than an EMERGENCY visit by the SEPTIC TRUCK?

Thankfully, the issue was solved (partially by the nice septic man, partially by Brad sticking his head into the tank with a long shovel and hacking off the offending tree roots.) I will not be stepping out of the shower into a flooded bathroom anytime soon. Good times. Good times.

Happy Birthday Jana!

We had a little get together tonight to celebrate Jana's birthday. She's turning 39. Again. We ordered fajitas from Flores and everyone agreed they beat the pants off Mamacita's in Fredericksburg. The only problem is the salsa is so *&#%! hot you can't really eat it, but it is good. And at least we had some sangria to cool things off. And I always enjoy decorating for a party - Luke and Cole helped me clean up the back porch this morning and hang some lights. We didn't quite get the toys picked up, but let's face it, who has that kind of time?




We enjoyed visiting - it's been awhile since Jana and Stuart were here when it wasn't a crazy kid party. Grand Pink and Barbara came over, and the boys rode bikes and played in the back yard. We even got a freaky little rain shower, but it was over is less than five minutes.

Freda baked Jana's cake at Pink's (red velvet, her favorite), but AFTER baking it, they realized the bottom element was broken. I didn't see the cake in it's original form, but in a stroke of genius, Freda grabbed a big crystal bowl and just turned it into Red Velvet Trifle. Apparently it was delicious, but I wouldn't know, as I couldn't get my fork out of the chocolate brownie cake or the rice krispy treats. Mmmmm - chocolate, marshmallows, butter, flour tortillas, guacamole; all swimming around in a pool of sangria. I may need to detox this weekend.
Oh, wait....Saturday we have (1) all you can eat pancake breakfast, (2) brats and beer at the Pzynski's octoberfest party, (3) hamburgers and all the sweets you can stand at the Luttrull's halloween party and (4) Brad's 20th reunion at a bar downtown. So I guess tonight was just a practice run. Just getting my system ready. This shouldn't backfire at all.

OK - no other news today. Happy Birthday, Jana!

Go Horns Go!

We're back from our weekend in Ft Worth. We had a great time, and made it back safely. Reid went to Fredericksburg, but we had Luke, Cole and Gray with us. We took 281 on Friday to avoid the game traffic, and even though it took 5 hours, we had a good stop in Hamilton, the scenery was nice, and the boys did well. We took 35 home today, and all was well until (gasp) Hillsboro. How can one section of highway cause so much trouble? This time it was 45 minutes to get from one end of the outlet mall to the other. The truck driver next to us said it was an accident, but it had cleared by the time we got there, so we never saw it.
Anyway, we stopped south of Waco to stretch our legs, and saw Bevo at the gas station! At least 6 cars were there taking pictures, and the guys hauling the trailer (the "silver spurs") just went about their business - I guess they get that every time they stop.



Brad and Alf watched the game at Victory Park near the American Airlines center in Dallas, and had a great time. They went to a friend's house after that and watched another game, but made it home for dinner last night. Sarah and I just hung out with the kids - we played in the front yard until lunch time, then went and played at the "tubes" - a giant indoor playscape at a church in Irving. And everyone snuggled on the couch for cartoons...


In between all the comings and goings, the kids (and Brad) played on the climbing walls in Alf's garage. Alf has been climbing since college, and is really really good. And apparently, my husband is a "natural" - and I suspect will be browsing the climbing gear aisle at Academy in the coming weeks.


We're going back for Hannah's birthday party in two weeks - cake AND trick-or-treating in one day - should make for some interesting stories later.....

An Afternoon at Home

Here's how an average afternoon looks at our house. Pending, of course, on everyone's good mood, my mental state, and how soon Brad is coming home.....

Reid quietly drawing out of a bird encyclopedia...

Gray hanging out in the high chair eating cereal...

Luke and Cole in the back yard digging up something.....

And me in the kitchen starting dinner (no photo provided.)

Yawn.

But wait! What's that I see? Of course. Luke is now naked.

I truly cannot imagine how many billions of hours Reid will spend with his nose in a book, but he is off to a good start....

So today was a pretty good day. Luke and Cole had MDO, Gray played at Pink's for awhile, and Brad is finally feeling better.

Sarah and I started talking about all the birthday and holiday weekends coming up - it actually starts next weekend. For those who care (or are affected) here's a prelim schedule:

Oct 16-18: all hardins to DFW for OU weekend
Oct 24: Brad's 20th reunion (ack!)
Oct 30-31: all Hardin's to DFW for Luchadore party for Hannah's 4thBDay
Nov 7: Gray's 1st BDay party (ack! my baby!)
Nov 21: Luke's 5th BDay party
Nov 26: to West TX for Thanksgiving?
Dec 11: to DFW for Sophia's 2nd BDay

whew!

I was thinking of sending Brad and the big boys on the train for one of the trips, while I followed in the car, but the tickets are $48 one way, and I'm not sure they would enjoy it THAT much. We rode Amtrak to FtW 2 years ago for Thanksgiving, which was totally worth it to avoid the traffic, but it was still a LONG day.



I tried to take some pics of the boys outside today, but they only smiled for one:


Technically, they're laughing, not smiling, because (a) Gray kept crawling away, and (b) it's funny to see their mama try to take a photo of four boys. Hardy har har.


Then we tried to get one on the playscape to send to Becky Powell (philanthropist extraordinaire and giver of said playscape), but by then it was dinner time and they were SO OVER picture taking.



And just to document it, here's what Brad is in charge of every evening. Can you imagine?



I finally got smart and used the video setting to record Gray saying "dada". He loooves to perform. Can you tell?

Once he actually said it on the first request, then clapped for himself! Ahhhh. Baby talk.

Ignoring the past 21 days

I'm just going to pretend I didn't fail to blog for 3 whole weeks and start with the past few days.

So....we finally had some much needed rain.

Our yard is now a lovely green oasis.

Brad and Luke went to the game last week (Thank you Tim and Monte!)

Reid lost a front tooth.

And Sarah sent the cutest stinkin' picture of the girls.

And we've all been various forms and degrees of sick since Labor Day. Just that normal start of school "pass the virus" time. Hopefully we're done with this particular season.

And now it's 10:05 and I need to do dishes. Ta ta!