Keeping Up With the Joneses

A few funny kid quotes that I don't want to forget: Max while I was making turkey cranberry sandwiches: "Please can you not put blood on mine?" Myles while I was telling him to do something: "Mom! You can't just make me in your image. I'm my own person." Mason when he was discussing with his friend that we eat out more than their family does: "We eat out a lot. We are very wealthy." That one just about knocked Marshall and I over. We really only eat out once every few weeks, and usually we just meet Marshall for lunch at the Arctic Circle near his work because it has a playground. Last Saturday, however, I had a bunch of coupons and gift certificates for Olive Garden that expired at the end of the month so we had lunch there. I noticed that Myles was really watching the waiter closely and after he brought us the bill Myles lit up and exclaimed "Mom! If I work really hard in school and go to college and major in math, do you think I...

My poor little "baby-cakes" is so sick. I'd been warned about the dangers of having a newborn in the winter and thought he had avoided all the colds floating around the house after Christmas, so this one totally creeped up on us. Last Saturday he was just fine. We went shopping, out to lunch as a family, and hung around having fun. Then that night he slept from 9 PM until 9 AM. Starting at about 4 AM I was checking on him every hour, but he was always sound asleep. When I finally did find him awake he was trying to cry and scream but nothing would come out! He was completely hoarse. As the day progressed he started coughing and his nose got really stuffy. Because it was Sunday I just called the nurse at our pediatrician's office and she said to monitor his temperature (come in if over 101.3) and told us the respiratory distress signs to watch for. That night about 10 PM his temperature reached 101.3 but fell pretty quickly with tylenol. I took him into the pediatri...

We hear the phrase "my stomach hurts" from Mason at least 3-5 times a day. On a good day. On the bad days we just hear him moaning and see the tears from his eyes, often in the middle of the night. For a while we thought it was giardia but the treatment didn't make a difference. We went back to the pediatric gastroenterologist and did some tests that ruled that out.  The tests he had done indicated that something was wrong (elevated SED rate the last 3 blood tests) but didn't diagnose anything specific. So. . . Yesterday Mason had an upper GI scope and biopsy under general anesthesia. I'm sure I was more nervous for it than him but he did great. Marshall took him while I stayed home with the sick baby and he was home in two hours. Mason had a bit of a sore throat for the morning but nothing a little computer game time with his dad couldn't remedy. The scope looked normal, and we will find out about the biopsy in a few days. If the biopsy shows not...

The kids kept pointing out that we needed to get new family pictures taken so McKay would be in them, so finally a few weeks ago we took a quick trip to JCPenny to get some taken. I still want to get better portraits taken, but I had a coupon for all the pictures for $19 that was expiring so we just went ahead with it. Here are some of the best shots. Myles really wanted one with just him and McKay.  Poor Max had a super-swollen lip from chewing it when it was numb from the Dentist's visit.

About a week before Christmas Mason started complaining about sharp pains in his stomach. We took him into the doctor's on the 21st and after a thorough exam the doctor suspected that the cold virus going around was making his lymph nodes swollen against his intestines and prescribed rest and fluids. The pain continued and at times seemed worse, and so last Friday we took him back to the doctors. This time another doctor again did a thorough exam, couldn't find anything, and sent him for blood tests and x-rays of his abdomen. The x-rays came back fine and the blood work was mostly fine but showed shifted blood parameters indicating some sort of virus. The doctor prescribed rest and said to come back in Monday if it was not better. We scheduled an appointment with the same pediatric gastroenterologist that Mason saw last year for next week, and hoped that he would be okay until then. He went to school Monday all day and suffered through the pain, and then Tuesday and Wednesday h...

McKay in the blessing outfit his Grandma Delta made. McKay had his 2 month check-up yesterday and is doing great. I've loved being able to go back and look at these milestones with the other kids, but just ignore this if you aren't interested in how he is doing. He weighed 11 lb 11 oz which is in the 34th percentile. So he is dropping a little bit on the curve, but that is pretty normal for my kids and the doctor said he is still growing great. He is 60.2 cm long and is in the 80th percentile for height. He is hitting all the two month milestones like holding his head up during tummy time, cooing, and smiling. He is a great eater and has been doing great at night. He eats about 8 PM and then sleeps until about 330 AM when he wakes to eat and then falls right back asleep until 730 AM or so. Once in a while he will throw an 11 PM feeding in there too. He got his 2 month shots which I remember as being terrible with all the other kids but he only cried for a few minutes. Tod...

I planned to have a lower-key Christmas following McKay's birth. I even only got out about 1/2 of the Christmas decorations. But, as always I got carried away and we ended up with a busy but very fun few weeks. Here are some highlights. A few weeks before Christmas the kids watched the movie Elf and became obsessed with elves. They made these Elf hats (and Mason made a costume) and for a few weeks held daily "Elf School" in the basement. Mason was the teacher of "Elfmont Elementary," the other boys were the students, and I was the "office lady." My awesome sister-in-law sent the kids "ninjabread" cookie cutters. The kids had a great time making,  decorating, and fighting with these.  Their elf Mr. Goodie made an appearance and brought a Star Wars Advent Calendar. We loved having a baby over the holidays.  The kids spent hours decorating this gingerbread house. We never get through the holidays without illness. E...