12/31 - The Close of the Year

So here are the last few pictures from our Iowa trip. It was great to see family and the boys had fun (once they got over their sickness).

Kassie playing with thrill seeking little Eli. She taught him how to say "Peas and Carrots" and thinks it's adorable.

Eli wanted to "help me" with the camera and taking pictures. 

While I packed up stuff, the boys played with grandma and eventually their cousins. Grandma Jo bought a gingerbread train for them to put together and decorate. Here she is helping the boys put it together. 

Eli lost interest after about 2 minutes and he realized that he wasn't aloud to eat all the candy. That said, Aiden and Kassie decorated the train with candy.

Eli was busy being naked (it was about 15 degrees outside and about 70 degrees inside). That boy is really starting to hate clothes. I'm not sure what to do about that. He asks right when we get home if he can "be a naked boy?" He knows that he has to have a shirt on to eat meals so he'll put one on just for that and then take it off after eating.

Bryce and Kassie entertained the boys quite a bit. Here they are pausing for a second while giving the boys piggy back rides around the living room.

I set up my camera and got a family picture of all of us. Below from left to right: Stephanie (Brad's sister), Ruben (Steph's husband), me, Bryce (in the back; Steph's son), Aiden, Brad, Kassie (Steph's daughter), Eli, Dave (Brad's dad), and BettyJo (Brad's mom).

After we took the family picture, Aiden asks me in the sweetest little voice, "Can you take a picture of daddy and me?" I couldn't pass that up. He even wanted to pose with the Christmas tree in the background.

We had a hectic trip home on Friday. Delta didn't seat us together so on the first flight, we finally found 2 people willing to trade seats so that at least we were on the same side of the plane and just in 2 rows. Trying to get to that point proved challenging in though and after juggling lots of stuff, when it was all said and done, we lost our entire case of DVD's and a ziploc bag full of Lego mini figurines. In other words, we lost about $300 worth of stuff!! By the time we realized it, it was time to board our next plane. Brad went back to the gate but the plane had already taken off. Our second flight was delayed a bit and it was getting late. Our second flight was short and again, Delta sat us in separate parts of the plane :(  We got home about 10:15pm and made it safe with all of our checked luggage and car seats. We just stayed home on Saturday and the boys enjoyed playing with their toys and opening a few last presents that were under the tree.

 Great grandma Hagan bought the boys these magnetic pieces that all stick together and you can build fun stuff. The boys had a ton of fun exploring them and seeing exactly how they work.

Saturday night was awesome!! It was the first time in 8 nights that we all slept through the night and no one was throwing up or going diarrhea. We got such broken sleep for so long that we were exhausted and it was nice to not have to have a bodily fluid interruption in the night. I felt pretty yucky on Sunday and Aiden said his belly hurt. That said, we went to sunday school but then came home and I took some medicine.

Monday, today, the boys went to daycare for the first time in 1.5 weeks and enjoyed themselves. I got lots of unpacking done and had some blood drawn this morning for labs for my endocrinologist. This afternoon I met up with a friend and just hung out (with no kids) for about 3 hours. It was awesome and the first time I've done something like that since moving here (6 months ago)!! I miss being in academics and more of the workforce and being able to talk work stuff. I love my boys and could talk about their craziness all the time but it's refreshing to find other parents that you can relate in regards to their attitudes, mindsets, and experiences about raising kids.

I'm exhausted and it's 9:30pm. I'm going to bed soon. Brad is already falling asleep on the couch watching LSU beat Clemson. Tomorrow hopefully we'll hit up a playground (or find some other way to let energy out of the boys), watch some football, and then have some dinner with friends. What are your goals for 2013? We will be making some family goals this year!

12/27 - The rest of IA Christmas

So we learned that Eli truly doesn't like the cold. He won't stay outside longer than 10 minutes and he looks miserable the entire time. We put food coloring in water bottles and took the boys outside to "paint." It was hard for the boys to initially pull the trigger but then he got the hang of it.

I had to take about 5 pictures to get this one picture in which it appears that Eli is having fun. Haha. He promptly went inside after this picture and then Brad and I stayed outside with Aiden to help him build his first snowman.

Aiden enjoyed spraying the snow and making pictures.

Aiden really had fun when he built his very first snowman. Brad helped him put the chunks/balls of snow together. We've tried to make a snowman for the past few days but the snow wouldn't stick and we couldn't make a ball. Aiden painted eyes on the snowman and then put a carrot on his face for his nose. We found sticks for arms and a twig for the mouth. He was pretty excited about his creation. He then thought the snowman needed buttons on his chest so he created them with the water bottle (see bottom left picture).

Aiden decided he was cold and wanted to go inside. He got inside and wanted to help grandma with her with her new christmas present: a shredder. He had fun (and was very safe) putting stuff in the shredder.

I was not feeling well most of the day today. Once I finally got up, it wasn't long before Brad and I had to leave for an appointment with our financial advisor. When we got home, Aiden and Eli were playing nicely and all ready to go down for their naps. Kassie and Bryce let the boys play with these puff ball toys (when you squeeze the tummy of the animal, balls pop out of the mouths). It is actually great therapy and Aiden had a hard time doing it at first. He started putting the balls that popped out of the mouths onto his Hex Bug track.

Someone found Brad's old legos and brought them out today. The boys (all 3 of them) had a blast playing with them. Brad has lots of cool pieces and little men. He also has lots of wheels (to make cars).

Kassie and Aunt Pat were playing the piano tonight and Eli was dancing all around with Brad. It was too cute to watch. Eli loves himself some music and cousin Kassie is pretty darn good on the piano.

Eli even had fun putting together the legos and experimenting with them. He was watching daddy play and seeing and hearing the noises he was making and started mimicking that. They did a good job sharing as long as they had their own little pile.

We attempted to take a family picture tonight. It turned out pretty good. Tomorrow we are going to take a full family picture of the Hoyt household in IA right now.

I'm not sure how we are going to make it back with all our luggage once we add in the christmas presents. Thankfully Delta lets military (even on personal travel) check up to 2 bags for free. I've missed my kitties and can't wait to see them. We are praying for a healthy, uneventful trip back to AL and for all of us to be healthy.

12/26 - Christmas Eve and Day

So I spoke too soon. I finished the last blog saying how everyone was fine. I should have known better. Aiden got sick on Christmas night, BJ got sick yesterday afternoon, and I started getting sick last night. Boo on the rotovirus. So let me back up some and tell you how the few days around Christmas were. On the 23rd, I took Eli to urgent care. Aiden stayed home and got to help make cookies!! It was a great therapy exercise for him because it took lots of finger/hand strength to push out the icing. He had quite a bit of fun doing it.

After rest time, Eli started feeling much better. He even went out in the snow for the first time. He wasn't a big fan of having to get all dressed up in a snow suit but he played outside for a little bit. When I say little bit, I mean enough for me to take 2-3 pictures. He said it was too cold and wanted to go back inside.

Aiden on the other hand was having a great time. He saw Kassie shoveling snow earlier in the day and wanted to try his hand at it. He finally found a shovel he could maneuver and use. He also got to try out the real sled with Kassie.

Daddy didn't want to come play in the snow with us because he still wasn't feeling that great. 

Here in the Hoyt House in Iowa, they do the opening of presents on Christmas Eve after brunch. That said, we played around during the morning of Christmas Eve and the boys had some fun taking pictures with my camera and the cool christmas picture apps.

It was so good to see Eli back to his old self. He was full of spunk and energy.

They boys loved handing out presents to everyone.

They were both great little helpers. They were excited to open their presents and it looked like a bomb went off in the living room with all their stuff scattered everywhere.

Here is a cute picture of Brad and his mom. We gave her this mousepad for Christmas. It was Aiden's handprint at school that he (and his teacher) turned into a peacock. I really thought she would like and appreciate it (and she did).

We went to bed late on Christmas Eve because the boys were having so much fun playing with their toys. On Christmas morning, we went upstairs and the boys saw that Santa had visited!! They were pretty exciting and opened their present that he left before their stockings. Aiden got a breakaway truck and Eli got a dancing/rhythm microphone LeapFrog thing. They were both pretty excited. 

Aiden started a picture for Nana after he had some breakfast and also played with his stencils.

Eli was determined to be naked the entire day. He and Uncle Rueben watched Cars 2 for a bit.

After a long day filled with lots of playing, we tried to get some energy out of the boys before bedtime. Aiden was dancing around and Eli and I were playing with his new toy. It has a freeze dance game on it that he finds highly entertaining. 

Brad was feeling better and was playing and wrestling with the boys. I love this picture below Aiden is about to whollap Brad with the pillow. It's been about a month since we have stopped cow's milk and Aiden had made some HUGE strides. Coincidence or not, I don't know but am so grateful for the progress. Eli was finally feeling good to and having a great time playing.

Aiden even danced around the living room half naked for a while.

 

Brad thought it would be fun to wrestle with his sister so he is actually sitting on top of her. It's fun to watch them interact.

Minus the rotovirus, it's been a pretty good trip. The past couple days have been rough with dividing time between sick kids and/or parents or letting someone get rest/sleep who didn't get any the night before because they were sick or taking care of sick kids. The Hoyt family loves to play games but it's hard for Brad and I to stay up too late since the boys get up so early. At this point, I'm exhausted and not feeling great and haven't even felt like I've seen Brad that much. I'm hoping for a few healthy quite days in Alabama before Brad goes back to work. It's been great to visit with the Hoyt family and get to play in the snow a bit though. I'll post one more blog tomorrow to finish up our Iowa trip.

12/25 - Catching up to Christmas

I meant to write a blog post before we left but that didn't happen. We celebrated Ms. Jennifer's (Aiden's daycare teacher) birthday the week before we left. Ms. Jennifer is so great to the kids and they had fun celebrating with her. Here are a few pictures from that day:

I've been having fun with my new dehydrator. I made a bunch of stuff to take with us to Iowa for Christmas. 

Fruit roll up AKA fruit leathers are so easy to make and are SO SO SO delicious. The boys love them (and so do I) and they have no sugar, preservatives, etc.

The boys found some puppies that I've had stored on a shelf and they have adopted them and are taking them around everywhere. Aiden's puppy is named Winston and even though Eli's have name tags that say otherwise, he calls his Woofie and Bronco.  They wanted their puppies to eat with them the other day so here they are all at breakfast.

Aiden even decided that he needed a blanket for his doggie so I bought some big washcloths and he made Winston two blankets.

We got all packed up and headed out for the airport last Friday. After two successful flights, we made it into Cedar Rapids, IA safely. Eli was feeling under the weather and wouldn't eat all day. We did lots of waiting on the tarmac after our planes pulled in, especially in IA.

It was a long day of travel but the boys did great. The boys went to bed very late and actually slept in for the first time ever (they slept in an hour). Eli was actually up in the night and threw up too.

The beautiful white snow was picturesque. Aiden was very excited to get outside and play in the snow. It was challenging because Aiden was feeling great but Eli was not. Aiden wanted us to do stuff with him and Eli just wanted us to cuddle with him. Thankfully, big cousin Kassie took Aiden and played with him for a bit.

Kassie was so good with him. He was so cute describing what the snow felt like and just discovering snow. He didn't like walking in the "deep" snow but thought it was pretty cool that he left "big footprints." He found a spot in the driveway where there was no snow and said it was missing some and decided to kick a little ball of snow over to the spot and then proceeded to stomp on it to cover the bare spot (see upper right). Kassie and Aiden walked down 2 blocks and then Kassie made a pass through the snow with the disc and then let Aiden go. He did a great job although he seemed a little nervous/scared the first time he went down. Kassie had to teach him to walk up a path by where they came down at (rather than in the same spot the came down) and then he wanted to go again but sitting on Kassie's lap this time. I took another picture and then took off back to the house to check on Eli. 

Eli was feeling quite miserable and aunt Steph was cuddling with him. He continued to not eat all day and was extremely lethargic.

Aiden finally came back with Kassie. He got pretty cold and asked to come back. His feet were bright red and almost frozen. He had so much fun. We warmed him up and put some new socks on him while he cuddled with Stephanie. 

Eli just laid around all day and watched the same DVD about monster trucks, airplanes, etc. He continued to not eat all day. In the evening, Eli seemed to brighten up a little and we thought he may be on the road to recovery.

 

Aiden took a great nap from all the playing in the snow but wanted to burn off some more energy later that night by running on the treadmill. He gets so excited that he is able to run faster and faster on it.

We went out to dinner this evening and poor Eli just layed in my arms the entire time and didn't eat a thing. He even asked to go to bed. I wanted to get a family picture but Eli just wasn't in the mood for that yet. Here is a cute one of Aiden with his parents.  

On a slightly side note, Aiden has made so many improvements in the last 2 months in therapy that it is amazing!!! He was even attempting to wrestle with his cousin Bryce. My Aiden. Trying to wrestle. That means voluntarily touching someone and understand that they are going to touch him too. AMAZING!! And he was having fun - not crying!! 

Eli ended up getting sick 2 more times throughout the night and he was just throwing up bile. I wasn't hesitant to take him to an urgent care clinic because he just had a low-grade fever and was lethargic and not eating. As long as he didn't eat, he wouldn't throw up or go diarrhea. 

After some praying and conversing with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, I decided to take Eli in to the clinic. My MIL drove us in to town (about 20 min) and we waited over an hr to see the doctor. The dr was really nice and she thought it was the rotovirus. I thought he had been vaccinated for it but I guess they stopped doing that a year or so ago because it was causing some type of intestinal issues. She thought he was on the hump of getting better since it had been so many days since he had first showed signs. He dropped 4 lbs in just 2.5 days!! He fell alseep right after we got back in the truck to head back home. Poor little guy.

The doctor prepared me that Aiden may also get sick because the rotovirus can spread easily. Brad stayed home and was sick the entire time I was gone to the doctor. It was looking like we were about to have a pretty miserable christmas with Eli and daddy sick and a high chance of the rest of the family following in those footsteps. I'm happy to say that Eli significantly perked up later this day and is doing great. I'll update more tomorrow or the day after but didn't want to have to catch up on too much time.  God is good and He answered our prayers for better health and an enjoyable christmas together.