12/25 - Catching up to Christmas

Tweet

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.