Monsters vs Aliens

Weird things happened to the kids when I fed them Chic-fil-a.







Tyler and Eliza spent about an hour playing in that funny mirror. I was laughing so hard at them my stomach hurt. I had a hard time getting them to leave.

Fun with Counsins

I had to cut a toy boat out of Tyler's hair.

The funny thing is that he wound it up, put it right back on his head and got it stuck again about 5 seconds after I handed him the boat back. I guess he was as curious as me as to how it got stuck the first time.
Don't worry...I caught her. Hannah loves this slide even though this is how she looks each time she goes down it. She has serious thrill issues.

It's not cold

I watched my brother's kids for a couple days over Spring Break. They wanted to go to the pool really bad. I told them I thought it was too cold but they insisted that it was warm enough. They continued to claim the water was warm as they got in. I guess I was wrong.

Doctor Drama

We spent hours and hours at the doctors this week on three different days. We took Eliza on Monday. Then we spent hours at the blood work lab on Tuesday. When I think about how much Hannah rolled around on the floor at both of those places, it is no surprise we were back in the doctors office on Thursday for Hannah's 103 degree fever. I figured it would be the usual ear infection from what I thought was a minor cold. Her ears and throat looked great but her lungs did not sound good. Surprised is an understatement, when the doctor told me her x-rays showed she had pneumonia and asthma. She has a history of bad allergies and eczema but this was the first time a doctor has discovered the asthma. I thought Hannah was a child who got croup a lot (Hind sight is always 20/20). We went out the door with four prescriptions. Hannah had the hardest time accepting the fact that she had to use the inhaler. She screamed through the first couple treatments claiming the inhaler "smelled like poop". Then we started giving everything and everyone breathing treatments in the house. Her favorite stuffed animal, bunny bear, is having his breathing treatment in the picture. This seemed to help but it wasn't until Josh bought popcycles that she was able to look on the bright side of using her inhaler.



Eliza had to get blood drawn for the first time on Tuesday. I did not explain to her in detail what was going to happen because I was worried I would never even get her into the lab. I also figured she would suffer more having to worry about the procedure and then would still have to go through the pain. Let me preface the next part of the story by saying that needles do not scare me one bit and that I am a person that very rarely cries. Well when I saw the surprised and pained look in Eliza's eyes and watched her bravely sit very still while the lady filled up four tube things...I teared up. It is much harder to see your child suffer than to have to suffer yourself. I'm only now beginning to realize how hard it will be for me to watch her go through whatever challenges she will face as she grows up. I can not even begin to comprehend what our Heavenly Father goes through when he watches us suffer through the pains and sorrows of this world. On a lighter note, Eliza did not even cry until they made her put a band aide on. She continued to cry for about 10 minutes until I figured out the problem and let her take the band aide off. A trip to Friendly's Ice Cream and 3D glasses to read the kids menu made us all feel better.

Green Thumb Practice

The Easter bunny brought us some fun craft/growing projects. They loved planting their own seeds and watching them grow. I got my first herb garden starter kit. I have had bad luck with house plants in the past so I am very excited to see all of my herbs have sprouted. My goal is to start our first garden outside next Spring. This was a good confidence boost for me. I'm a little overwhelmed with trying to get my grass to grow and and the weeds to stop growing in our yard this year to take on the challenge.

Eliza spent hours and hours painting her cat. I think he turned out really cute.


Hannah spent about 2 minutes painting her cat and loves it the same. She takes it everywhere in the house with her. I had to hide it...I mean her cat got lost for a couple of days so the seeds could sprout. The grass is slowly disappearing because she is loving it to death.

-Melanie

Air Plane Survival 101

This post is to show how I barely survived 11 hours of traveling alone with the girls. We flew to Washington state to visit Josh's family and poor Josh could not come with us because he had to work. We are grateful for his job just sad to be away from him.

Eliza packed her bags over 2 weeks early. I waited until just before we left to repack them because I didn't feel like battling over what would go in her bags for 2 weeks. She had packed huge Pom Poms that took up over half the bag, old shoes that don't fit her and magic wands. She insisted that she would use the Pom Poms on the plane but I knew we would already have enough screaming and yelling on the plane and that adding cheers would not be a good idea.

I actually made it to bed my 10pm the night before which is something I have NEVER done before a trip. I think this is because Eliza told me repeatidly for two weeks that I needed to be packing. If you know Eliza, then you know I really mean it when I say she told me repeatidly.

Hannah loves planes and cars so she loved the great view.

Josh had to drop us off early to get to work and so we had 2 hours to spend in the airport before we even left the ground. We had eggs for breakfast and resisted the donuts and cinnamon roles. I had read on the internet somewhere not to feed your kids sugar before they fly because it will only make them more anxious. That was the last thing I needed when traveling with a 2 1/2 year old. I normally would have shoveled sugar down their throats all day trying to keep them happy while traveling which only caused them to cry and fuss for more candy and be cranky because they felt so sick from too many sweets. I had a hidden bag of candy that I was going to whip out if I got desperate but I never needed it. Truthfully, the times that I really needed it my mind was drawing a blank and I forgot I had it. I added my thing about needing more protein and less sugar for you Amy because you have to hear me blab about my weird ideas the most. :)

Luckily, the Orlando airport provides a playground for children to play on so we had no trouble spending an hour waiting.

Hannah doing Ballet. Yes, I let Eliza wear her night gown all day.

Next time I am not going to pack paper for her stickers because she put them everywhere but on paper. I had these sticker books that had shaded areas on the pictures for the girls to put their stickers. This was their favorite thing to do. It was like doing a puzzle and stickers at once.

We did a lot of this thanks to Grammy and Pa Pa for getting us a player with a 6 hour battery. A huge life saver.

I love the aqua doodle because the picture starts to dry before Eliza is done and therefore it is a never ending activity.

I don't think I would have ever made it off the first plane without this Grandma's help. She was wonderful with Hannah as I packed everything. She remembered what it was like to travel with children unlike the women who sat in front of Hannah on the plane. I have never seen Eliza make that face before and have no idea what she was pretending to be. She even gave Eliza a quarter which was her highlight of the flight. She insisted on holding it in her hand the next 5 hours or should I say trying to hold it in her hand. I was soo relieved when she finally let me hold it especially since I kept having to pull quarters out of my wallet and pretend to find her missing one. I was going to run out soon.

We had a 3 1/2 hour layover in Denver. Luckily, the marshmellows and toothpicks where a huge hit. I actually had to pull them away from the activity when it was time to get on the plane. I figured eating food off the ground and chairs would strengthen their immune system.

Hannah trying to lift her dumbell.

I made the message for Josh who I will miss very much this week. Hannah made about 50 dumbells and describe each one as a monster or house.

I asked Eliza what she made below her name and she said, "It's just a design."

Hannah is making a fruitloop necklace.

Eliza did wonderful and allowed Hannah to get her way when picking movies and seats so that things could go more smoothly. She received many compliments from the stewardesses. Eliza asked one of the sterwardesses how Hannah did and I think she put it best when she said, "Well, Hannah tried...she really tried...", then there was a pause because the stewardess could not think of anything else positive to say. Ninety percent of the time Hannah did great it was just the 10% of the time that tramatized everybody on the plane. She did the usual seat kicking and the lady in front of us kept staring at me. She got stuck under her seat twice and screamed until I could get her unstuck. I never got a picture because everybody on the plane was staring at us until I got her out. I knew they would not have understood the needs of a blogger and may have viewed it as neglect.

Another time I had just helped Eliza go to the bathroom and so I was washing my hands while Eliza went back and sat down. Eliza started screaming non-stop and I could hear Hannah laughing. It took me a minute to get to them to see what was going on. We had everybody on the entire planes attention as I rushed down the aisle to see what was going on. Hannah was standing on her lap with tennis shoes on and stomping. She had decided to use force instead of her words to get the window seat.

Another embarassing moment was when Eliza would say repeatidly very loudly as the plane took off, "The seat is tickling my bum bum!"

We made it finally and we're greeted with hugs, kisses, and beautiful flowers. Just like any other day...we laughed, we cried, I was embarassed a few times...and it was all worth it. :)

I pity the foo'...

Hannah has recently become obsessed with necklaces to the point that she now resembles the ever famous Mr. T.








- J.E.B.