1/26 - Sick boys update & Brad picture

I forgot to update on the boys. We went to the dr last Friday for a follow-up for Eli's pneumonia and we found out his right hear tube had fallen in to his ear canal. Boo. Aiden has been messing with his left ear so I asked their dr if she could quickly look in Aiden's his left ear tube was completely out. Wow. Thankfully, Aiden already had an ENT appt scheduled for today and the dr said if he gets another ear infection, they will have to put the tube back in. Regardless, we go back in 3 months and the might take his adenoids and tonsils because of the level of snottiness the child has even being on 3 allergy medicines year-round. We'll see. Aiden has some negative pressure in the ear that the tube fell out but no ear infection thankfully.

Brad got a mighty honor the other day. The Secretary of the State was on-board the USS Enterprise and Brad got to meet him. In fact, he came in the ready room where Brad spends a lot of time. He has spent a lot of extra time in there lately because he hasn't been allowed to fly because of a nasty infection on his eye. His right eye is fully open now and it's healing appropriately. We miss Brad dearly. He the rock of this family and as the kids get older, it's more apparent how much they need their daddy!

1/26 - Chuck E Cheese & St. Pete

Eli has been doing a good job of trying to play on his own. The sad thing is that now Aiden doesn't like to play by himself He is always trying to get Eli to come play with him. I've started intervening more and telling Aiden he has to play by himself because Eli doesn't always want to play with him.

Aiden is getting used to putting together the marble run but it's definitely a learning process and much harder to construct (correctly) than a train track.

Last week, I took the boys to the gym with me for the first time and rewarded them for sitting in a small little room for 40 min with 40 min at Chuck-E-Cheese. They had a blast. Aiden loves skeet ball but he is horrible at it. He likes watching the balls come back down.

As you can see on the scoreboard, Aiden has zero points. He can roll is just hard enough to make it over the little ramp for .... 0 points. He's gonna be so excited when he wins more than one ticket when he gets strong/bigger.

Eli just likes walking around with 2 or 3 tokens and not spending any of them. He's so cute by saving them. He has fun just watching the lights and sounds on the machines at this point.

I taught Aiden about the ticket chomper that counts your tickets. He and Eli were a little nervous to get their fingers close but they eventually found that putting tickets in was really fun. When they found out the could get a piece of candy for their tickets, they were REALLY excited.

On Saturday, we went down to St. Pete. It was fun for the boys to see their nana. It was a smooth drive and Eli started yelling "Nana's house" the closer we got. I let the boys play for a bit and then it was naptime. Aiden didn't nap at all (he tried) and Eli was starting to go down that same track. I eventually put Eli on Nana's bed with her and he was out like a light. He slept for about 1 or 1.5 hrs.

After Eli and Nana woke up from naps, we just hung around and played for the rest of the day.

The boys just having fun rolling up in blanket and sitting in special chairs at Nana's house.

Aiden is getting better about blowing bubbles and actually blew a few really big bubbles once Nana taught him how to blow nice and slow. He was excited about the huge bubbles he could blow.

Here are the boys and I at the park by my mom's house on Saturday night. It was a gorgeous sunset.

On Sunday, I took the boys over to my dad's for naptime and then he took them for the afternoon so I could go to my cousins babyshower. Dad took them to go see Great grandma Hagan which was good.

It was a busy trip. We left papa's on Sunday morning and went back over to my mom's to get the rest of our stuff. I got a run in while my mom watched the boys and then we all went for a long walk/bike ride to the bridge by my mom's house. This first black and white picture is Eli staring out over the water.

This is the picture that you get when you take a helmet off a little boy who loves his helmet. No "cheese" for me.

I had to stop taking pictures at this point because if you look very closely, Eli is in the background and his little feet are off the ground. I had to go be a better parent and make sure he didn't fall off the bridge.

This isn't the best picture of Eli and I because my face is so red from running an hour before but Eli's face is so cute.

We had a good visit to St. Pete even though it was pretty short. We'll be going down to visit more often when Brad is actually deployed.

1/17 - Getting healthy

I actually took these pictures last week at Aiden's occupational therapy session. Here he is swinging in the tire and having fun. That is Ms. Lisa, his therapist, holding his hands. She is great with him. He had to swing for a while and then pick up froggies and throw them in a bucket. He normally does something similar to this so that he can work on his trunk/upper body strength. Today, Aiden cried almost the entire time through therapy. I have no idea why. It was so frustrating. He wouldn't do anything Ms. Lisa asked and then curled up under my chair and cried for about 10 min (therapy is only 30 min long). I was so frustrated he wasted my time today. Hopefully next week he'll be back to his normal self.

We've been trying to get healthy back here at home. Eli is on the mend although he's still pretty tired. The other night we had movie night and watched Tangled (which we just bought). Aiden actually watched the whole thing and Eli did too for the most part.

Aiden got some Lincoln Logs for Christmas and when Grandpa Dave was here, he showed Aiden how to build houses (daddy helped teach Aiden too). I was shocked that Aiden knew which pieces to put on the bottom and he actually built a door and window into the house, all on his own. He pile of logs you see by him are ones with a straight side on them and he said "Grandpa Dave said to put these in a pile." He's so cute.

Aiden was trying to tell Eli that he had a pile of separate logs. Eli didn't really understand but tried to listen.

Here is the marble set the boys got for Christmas. I actually followed the instructions and it was worth it. We built a super cool marble run that has 4 entrances and 6 bottoms. The boys love it.

Eli is starting to feel much better. He's still pretty sleepy but overall, he's doing much better. Mommy, on the other hand, is still sick. I go to the dr tomorrow and maybe they can give me something to help kick this nasty, mucosy cold.

Last night the boys played on their cars carpet. They love this thing. I moved it to Aiden's room and they both had a fit so now it's back out in the living room. They really could spend hours playing on this. I wanted to take it away so it won't loose it's novelty but apparently the boys are not ready for that yet.

Brad is keeping very busy on the ship right now. My on-line classes started today so I've been trying to get ready for that. Other than that, I've been doing some crafts to keep busy at night while Brad is away and to relax me some after dealing with sick kids for a majority of the day (especially last week).

1/12 - Sick boys & Brad is gone

Aiden has decided he is going to be a super hero so he's had daddy tying his "cape" around him. Eli finally decided it would be cool too so now we have two regular Super Why super heros.

They were having so much fun chasing each other around the house.

We let them get out the Take and Go Thomas the Train stuff and they loved playing with that for 2 days.

Brad took time to make sure he got to play with the boys before he left. Here is Aiden and daddy playing on the matchbox cars tracks.

Well. God is funny sometimes and I don't understand His sense of humor. On Sunday night, Eli was up coughing (sounding like a seal) most of the night and was having a hard time breathing. I took him on Monday morning to pediatrics and they sent us to the ER because he was wheezing. They didn't know what was wrong and told us to go to pediatrics on Tuesday. [Brad leaves on Tuesday morning although he sees both kids are sick and so is mommy; he felt bad he had to leave but it's not like he had a choice] On Tuesday, we saw Eli's doctor and she thought it was a virus. He had a 103.2 temp though and had an extremely fast heart rate and respirations. They gave him some drugs and then made us hang around for a while to see if he was getting better. His temperature started to go down but breathing and heart rate remained high. We went home but that night, he got worse and was struggling to breathe. My neighbors came over to watch Aiden and I took Eli to the ER. They fast-tracked him because his heart rate and respirations were so high but then didn't do anything for him because they said his lungs sounded fine. So, we went home, I slept on the futon in Eli's room again because I was scared he was going to stop breathing in the night (and I got no sleep because he was coughing and crying all night). On Wednesday morning, we went back to his doctor and she heard crackling in his lungs and ordered an x-ray. We found out he has pneumonia. She gave him antibiotics and after 2 doses, he was already feeling a ton better. Here is Monday night (see all the stickers Eli collected from having x-rays and being a good patient).

Below is sick Eli and Brad the morning that Brad left.

Needless to say, because of all the sickness, there hasn't been anything to take pictures of. Also, I've been pretty sick myself and have barely been able to take care of the boys. To make up for the lack of pictures, I finally took the camera out last night. Aiden was playing "x-ray," a game he developed, by putting a clear bin over him and letting Eli lay on top of him. He was having a blast. Eli was happy to oblige to lay on top of the bin too.

It was bath time and Aiden actually cheered. He was so excited he ran to the tub first and even took all his clothes off by himself. I would have bet a solid dollar amount of that never happening a month ago! I asked the boys to say "smile and say cheese" and this is what I got from Aiden.

He then was so serious. So I had a completely goofy picture of him yelling or this picture which looks like he's the saddest kid on the block. Oh the choices.

Cute little Eli feeling so much better.

They were having a blast just throwing water on the wall. Eli was belly giggling over it most of the time. We have a bucket of toys and Eli thinks the funniest thing is throwing water against a wall.

Eli even got dunked a couple of times and took it all with a grain of salt.

After baths were done and I got jammies on them, this is what I found after I came out from cleaning up the bathroom:

That is Eli on the 2nd level of the cat gym. Little stinker. It was pretty funny.

1/6 - Playing outside

Eli has been loving finally having a bike that he can call his and not have to fight over with his brother.

Brad decided that he was going to make the boys into burritos like he used to when they were little (and he would swaddle them). Aiden thought it was a blast to get swaddled up and then try and get out on his own. He would eventually roll off the couch and onto the floor and laughing the whole time.

Brad would swaddle Eli up but then once Eli realized he couldn't move, he would freak out and start crying. It was amusing to us.

Aiden got a new helmet. He had one with trucks on it but I think we left it at the playground at some point. I've looked everywhere and couldn't find it. I bought him one for 3 and under but it was too small. Now he has a helmet that almost fits. It's a tad big on him but unfortunately, with his sensory issues, he doesn't like anything tight on his head. The helmet also came with a bell which Aiden is a master at using now.

Brad introduced the boys to this the other day: riding down the driveway on a skateboard. My heart skipped a couple times but Brad was safe about it. Brad taught Aiden how to go up to the top of the driveway, sit with his legs out, hold on to the underside of the skateboard, and then go down the hill. Brad would "catch" Aiden at the bottom. Here is Aiden getting set up to catch Brad ... haha.

Here is Aiden coming down the driveway. He was loving it. He had the biggest smile on his face.  

Eli was just enjoying watching Aiden go down and would belly laugh pretty hard. Here he is laughing at Aiden coming down:

You might be able to see in this close-up picture of Eli that his front left tooth is discolored. He hit his face on Brad's knee a few months ago. It bled slightly and the tooth was a little crooked, but it seemed to be okay. The tooth started turning grey/black a few weeks ago and I finally took him this past week. We have to wait another 2 months to see what to do. But yes, he does brush his teeth every night. :) 

Eli finally decided to take us up on our offer of letting him go down. He was a good listener and watched Aiden very carefully. He had a great time of coming down on the skateboard. He was laughing so hard while coming down the driveway that he couldn't even hold on. 

As you can see from Eli's smile, he loved it. This last picture was taken as soon as Brad pulled him off the skateboard when it went down the curb part. I can foresee lots of this skateboard riding in my future.