Halloween recap...

I am a little behind but at least it's getting done. We had a WET Halloween here in the peach state, we thought we had gotten by without it but right as we're walking out the door it started raining. We waited for a bit and then me and the 2 dads (James & Tim) walked around with the kids while Sandra and Kerry hung back at our house, handed out candy and prepared dinner. We had mummy dogs and french fries. They were delicious! We didn't have many trick or treators at all so we were left with a kettle FULL of candy. We poured it out on the floor and divided it up between all 4 kiddos - my god, they'll have candy till they are 18! Then we sorted through all of it and made our usual trades. Reagan and Alex both have peanut allergies so they make trades to get rid of it all.

Remember, back in our day, when we had haunted houses that made you feel things with your hands, like eyeballs, brains and fingers?! Well we did what we could and made the brains and eyeballs. Silly me wanted to video that but was just too involed in grossing the girls out. We blind folded all of them and made them feel everything. Lots of giggles and screaming. I think we had the Nightmare before Christmas on at some point, but a good time was had by all....

p.s. the next day we found out that poor Reagan, Alex AND Aidan all had strep, RVP and signs of pneumonia. We were on lock down on the block for a week until everyone got better. Sheesh!

1st day of school....

So, I finally gave in and this year Izabella will be riding the bus to school. BIG step for me...I know I'm being silly, but... The bus stop is at Ms. Jackie's house, the house directly behind us, so it's not too bad. Me & Ms. Sandra parked and watched the kids get on the bus the first day and then I did by myself for about a week. Now, we spend most mornings yelling for her to get there on time. She's got the weird thing with sock seams and if they aren't just right then it can literally take 20 minutes to get them on....ridicuulous! I don't remember being this difficult at her age :)

All the kids on our block are growing up way to fast!

Time for more catch up!

So...now that I have my computer back I can upload new photos, etc. These are from our trip home to Lubbock in July. We had such a great time and it's always hard to leave. Enjoy!!

Busy.....Busy......

We are SO busy this weekend! 2 birthday parties on Saturday and a Fall Festival at the school. Remember those? I remember being in elementary school at Stewart Elementary and fixing the whole school up as a giant haunted house. It was always so much fun. I loved that school, I hope Izabella loves her elementary as much!

FUN..FUN!!

P.S. First report cards for the year came out last Friday and Izabella got all O's and S's. That's O for Outstanding and S for Satisfactory. What happened to A's, B's & C's? Or maybe I like the O/S way of things?! can't decide. The note from her teacher on her report card said, and I quote, "Izabella is AWESOME!!". I promptly wrote back in the note field for parents, and I quote :), "She takes after her Mother!"

Cookies anyone??

We had our annual Autumn Fest at the park 2 weekends ago (before everyone got sick!!) Izabella spent the WHOLE day there while I had our garage sale. I only got to go for about an hour while Steve and a neighbor gave me a -much needed- break. She got to help out the local Brownie troop sell brownies to raise $$. She didn't want to wear this at first but then she got into it. The leader told me she was great and helped sell ALL of the brownies they made. I know she's wearing a cookie, but I don't think they make brownie costumes and I'm not sure that would be a good idea anyway :) This is the Brownie troop that she would have been with had we signed her up after she was in the Daisy's. I have all kinds of pressure to do it now, which I think we will since she really seems to love it. + it's all the same girls from last year.

The day after this picture was taken she woke up with the 105 fever and ended up out of school the whole next week. I don't know about you but she doesn't look too bad here!? Go figure! She's always been the kind of kid that didn't show any symptoms which can be tough sometimes.

Flu.......ugh!!

So, we've been hit with the flu bug in our house. We had a GREAT weekend until Izabella woke up Sunday with 105 fever!! Took her to the Dr. on Monday and sure enough, the flu got her. She's been out of school all week and her fever finally broke yesterday so it's back to school Thursday! YAY! she's excited about going back and seeing all of her friends. BTW-Christina and 2 others on the block got it also. The downfall of having lots of kids on the same block!

The fire ant and the EPI pen!

Well, we had a little scare over the weekend. Friday night all the kids were out playing in the front yard. I had noticed Thursday that there seemed to be quite a few ants in the driveway/yard, etc. I've been told they were coming out of the wood work because of the 3 weeks of rain we've had. Anyway, I had gotten a couple of bites on the top of my foot Thursday night but didn't think much about it until Friday. I saw so many ants that I couldn't see the pavement. I got out the Amdro and started the killing spree. In the meantime, Izabella was doing some kind of "go away ant" dance at the same time. Can you guess what happened next? That's right, she got bit on the pinkie toe! She started screaming and went inside and I gave her a benedryl. About 15 minutes later she was real itchy and I took her in the bathroom to check everything out. By the time we got in the bathroom, she had turned a nice red color ALL over. Then I notice hives popping up EVERYWHERE on her body. When I say everywhere, imagine any skin of hers that you could see was now red, puffy and hive-y! On top of that, her eyes were swollen, lips were 3x the size and purple. Cheeks were blue. We jumped in the car and were off to urgent care. She had no complaints of not being able to breathe. It took about 10 mins to get to the urgent care, by which time I could see that everything I just described above was about 10x worse. I'm not exagerating either!

They took her back right away and gave her a shot of epinephrine to calm the reaction but the hives were just not going away. They watched her for about 10 minutes and then decided that she needed to have some fluids, so they gave her a saline drip to help flush out the poison. The poor thing, she took the shot with not 1 tear and then when I had to explain to her about the IV, she listened and looked scared but didn't cry one bit when they did that either. I was SO proud of her. She was very quite the whole time and just wanted to make sure she was doing everything that the Dr. told her the right way. We stayed for about 2 1/2 hours until it seems that everything was under control. She's been on a steroid for the last few days and now has to carry an EPI pen with her everywhere. I have one on me too. They told me that typically, if they are bitten again, the reaction can be worse than the original one. Which means, she could have breathing problems the next time it happens. WHEW! what a night. We've never been allergic to anything before this but now we know Izabella and red fire ants DO NOT mix! She went to school this week and quickly told everyone about her ordeal. I'm just glad nothing worse happened and we were able to get to urgent care so quickly and life is now back to normal. Well........as normal as it gets in The Mingolla Kingdom!