4/30 - Medical update, Pratt Park, & boys day

So let's catch up. I had a sleep study done about 1.5 weeks ago. Wow. It was horrible. Here is a picture that I sent Brad to say "goodnight" to the boys. This was before I got the second round of stuff hooked up to my face and nose. It was almost impossible to sleep.  I had to get there at 7:30pm and then I went to bed around 10:30pm. I slept a little worse than normal. They then woke me up at 5:50am and then I had to stay awake until 8am and then I got to take naps every two hours. That doesn't sound so bad huh? Well, let me tell you. It was horrible. I would just fall alseep and then they would come wake me up (you can't sleep longer than 15 minutes). After not sleeping all night and just my usual amount of tiredness, I was beyond exhausted.

I do not have sleep apnea which is good. However, I was right on the borderline for something called Idiopathic Hypersomnia. This means I'm sleepy all the time and my body actually needs the sleep but there is no explanation for it. Awesome huh? While I did fall alseep for all 5 naps, I did not reach REM sleep which is necessary to be classified as narcoleptic. I also just found at the end of last week that I have to do the study again. Blah. I was the only one there last time for the day study because 95% of people only need to be monitored at night. Anyway, I have to do the test next week and we are doing it without me taking my ADHD medicine. I only had one period of REM sleep before and it lasted for just 30 min which equalled about 9% of my sleep time. The average person gets about 20-25% of REM sleep. Well see what happens. I have had horrible migraines for the past month
 and it got really bad this past weekend. Even my prescription medication does not even make a dent in the pain/pressure that I feel in my head.

Here is Aiden below making bracelets for 2 little girls. He was so cute making them.

Both of the boys recently got gardening gloves. Here is Brad helping Aiden put on his gloves. I helped Eli put on his and then they went out and played in the dirt at the end of the driveway for a bit.



On Friday, Brad had the idea to pack-up dinner in the form of a picnic and go to Pratt Park. I wasn't so excited about it but that's because my head has been killing me and my ulcerative colitis has hampering me quite a bit. It was fun. I was gone taking Aiden to the bathroom and when I come back, I see Eli chasing something around a tree. I ask Brad about it and he then informs me that he told Eli he could pet a squirrel if he could catch one. Seriously!! I couldn't help laughing. Eli so wanted to catch a squirrel. He eventually asked me if he could pet the ducks and I advised him that was a bad idea.

While Eli was off chasing squirrels, Aiden asked Brad what Eli was doing. Brad then told Aiden that he could pet a squirrel if he caught one. Needless to say, it wasn't long before Eli and I heard Aiden yelling that he almost caught a squirrel.  In the picture below you can see Aiden in the far left and a squirrel in the far right.

The squirrel got smart and ran up a phone poll. Aiden waited for the squirrel to come down but that didn't happen so he and Eli went off exploring with daddy for a while.

On Saturday, Brad took the boys to the zoo in the morning. They have really been wanting to go and that is not a trip that I can do at this moment because of medical stuff. They had fun it looked like. This is the first time I haven't gone to the zoo with the boys. It was so odd. There are new white tigers at the zoo and Brad took a picture for me. You can see the white tiger laying in the background between the boys.



 The chick-fil-a cow was also at the zoo and Aiden actually stood by him. This is a first. Aiden does not like the big characters like this so I was glad to see that progress made.

Brad fed the boys lunch and then put them down for short naps. He then got them up and took them to a birthday party. It was just Aiden that was supposed to go but I thought I would be back from the dr by then and I wasn't so Brad had to take Eli with him too. It was a Lego Stars Wars themed party. Aiden is too scared to watch any kind of Star Wars stuff but he likes to look at the comic books and beginning reader books of Star Wars. All the boys had fun it seemed. Brad really got in to it (he's even wearing a mask in one of the pictures below) and was teaching the kids how to fight with their light sabers. He did a great job because in the very last picture on the bottom right, everyone is beating him up with their light sabers. It looked like a very cool party and the boys certainly had fun. 

After such a long day with the boys, Brad was a great sport and even gave them baths. He gave Eli a bath in perfect Eli fashion ... outside at the water spicket. Eli loved every second of it. Aiden wanted to come in for a more traditional bath but that's not surprising. He's starting to be able to make it through a bath without crying which is awesome. He still won't soap himself or anything but ..... baby steps forward it what our goal is and we are achieving that.

I was recuperating on Sunday from the massive amount of drugs given to me on Saturday. After the boys got home from church and had a nap, they played outside. It started to rain and Eli obviously doesn't care about that. Aiden ran inside on got his jacket and a hat (he already had boxers on) so he could still play a little. It was barely sprinkling but I'm so glad Aiden has the influence of care-free Eli in this situation. 

10/29 - Zoo Boo

So the night I got home last week we went to zoo boo. It was fun although we had to wait forever to just get inside. I didn't even think about dressing up the kids in their costumes but thankfully there was a mix of dressed up and non-dressed up kids. Here are the boys saying by a giant scarecrow.

We went on a tractor ride and the kids got to play numerous games. My camera wasn't working so great (actually, I don't know how to work it great) so I didn't get too many pictures. They played basketball, bowling, and a few other games and earned prizes and candy. They loved the hay ride and even got to play in the bounce houses for a bit.

Here are the boys doing the limbo. They were cracking me up. We'll eventually have to tell them the right rules.

Brad entertained them while we were in line waiting for some of the games. He's such an awesome daddy. He had them giggling and laughing all night.

They were wired by the end of the night but still having fun.

There is no doubt that these little boys love each other dearly. The are best buds.

7/25 - Our outings

I visited my first Bass Pro Shops a few weeks ago. We picked the boys up early one day from daycare and headed down the street. Bass Pro Shops is actually in Prattville (rather than Montgomery) so it was just a few minutes away. The boys had a great time. We just stared at all the fish for the first 10 minutes.

We headed upstairs where they had a children's event going on. The boys were not interested in sitting and listening to a lecture but they were up for trying a mini bow and arrow. Both boys got to shoot it with daddy's help and hit the target which means they got a prize too.

The trigger was a little hard for them to pull but otherwise, they enjoyed it.

They also got to play with fishing poles. I was surprised they were able to figure out how to push the button to lower the line. I didn't even attempt to teach them how to cast the line but they had lots of fun reeling in the line after they pushed the button to let it down.

They also had a ton of fun playing in the boats. Here is Aiden pretending like he's catching his daddy.

We participated in Cow Appreciation Day for Chick-fil-a about a week ago. Here is Aiden showing me the iTouch he was playing on.

Eli wasn't so excited to wear his cow costume because he didn't like the shirt. He could feel the giant black cow dots and that really bothered him. I would figure Aiden would complain about that before Eli. Eli wore his long enough to get his free meal. Brad made shirts for him and I and they turned out really cute.

We went to the zoo last week for the first time. It's about 20 minutes away which is half the time it took us to get to the zoo in Jacksonville. Oh yeah. Speaking of Jacksonville, we are headed back there next fall for Brad's Department Head tour. We let the boys play on the playground for a while at the zoo before we started walking around. Here are Aiden and Eli on the climbing ropes.

Aiden and Eli got to feed the giraffes which was pretty fun for them. Eli just dropped his lettuce leaf on the floor the first time but thankfully he got another one and was able to feed the giraffe the next time.

We got a year membership to the zoo along with unlimited train rides. We ended up riding the train two times around this visit. It's a great ending activity since they are so tired by then.

Here is one of the playgrounds across the street from us at the elementary school. The boys enjoyed playing and getting some energy out of their system before the rain came.

It was snack time so they both had snack on the playground. Aiden chose this bouncy platform for his snack area.

Eli just camped out by one of the slides to have his snack.

Since there was no one else there, we let the boys practice climbing up the slides. They always love it when we let the climb up slides!!

Here is little Eli drawing circles on the chalkboard. He's doing such a good job drawing (he's even holding the chalk correctly) and scribbling.

Aiden was being so cute the other day and told us he was going to read to Eli. Eli sat right down beside him and Aiden had a picture book and was telling Eli what each picture was. Too cute.

Here are both the boys in our new sitting chairs playing on the iPad and iTouch. These boys are starting to get really good at some of the games.

Today we went to the pool and tomorrow we will be going to the movie theater to see How to Train Your Dragon. Aiden also has a screening appointment to get the ball rolling to start any therapies he still needs. I have an early appointment to get some blood taken and Aiden will be going with me since he has an appointment at the base too (for his testing). This will be the first time we've taken Eli to a movie theater. Thankfully it's just the $2 movies so we can leave if he can't sit still that long. Things are going fairly well and we are just enjoying Brad's last week off before he starts school.