4/18 - New camera and Crystal's visit

I got a new camera a few weeks ago and sadly, haven't used it much because it's so fancy I couldn't figure it out. I've read some of the instruction manual now and can at least take in-focus pictures! A few of these pictures are from a week ago. Here is Eli with his cool hairdo that Stephanie gave him.

Eli is such a good littler eater. I'm praying it will last because if he turns out like Aiden, I could do nuts.

On Thursday night, we went to a bounce house place to celebrate the mid-way point of Brad's cruise. The boys had a blast. I have pictures on my old camera from that and will post those in the next day or two. On Friday night, Crystal came over to have a grown-up celebration of the midway point. Unfortunately, my babysitter fell through but Crystal was a good sport and didn't mind.

Aiden and Eli just love her so she got lots of loving while she was over. The wrestled all over her and attacked her. I know that doesn't sound nice but they were just showing her affection. I just realized in this first picture it looks like Aiden is crying but he is actually laughing.

After the boys settled down some, it was bath time. Eli always loves the bath. Aiden is starting to get better again. I got a new plastic bendy cup to use for Aiden. He can't stand to get his eyes wet and I thought I'd give it a try. Apparently I need to get 2 cups because the boys were so busy playing with it I didn't even get to use it. However, Aiden thought it was so fun he started pouring water on himself (on his face). This was unbelievable seeing how he normally has a complete meltdown when he gets water in his eyes. Crystal and I did cheering every time he did it. 

As you can see, Eli had fun too. I love this new camera. It takes such clear pictures. Look at the water drops in the picture of Aiden. Amazing.

The boys were so cute after they had their baths.

Saturday was a silly day for the boys apparently. Aiden got to wear his new helicopter outfit. He wore a pen around his neck almost all day. He was also wearing his rain boots around the house. 

I found Eli sitting on the couch like this and just about peed my pants. He got those sunglasses at daycare a few weeks ago. He made them by putting stickers all over them and they had his name on them. He ate part of the 'E' and most of the stickers on the left side. It also cracked me up that Bronco was not sure he liked it - look at his ears back.  Too funny. He was watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse like this.

The boys were playing trains together in the afternoon. Aiden is getting so much more patient with Eli usually. At the end of the day it's a little crazy since Aiden isn't taking naps anymore though. He gets so whiney and emotional at the drop of a pin.

I'm off to take some more pictures with new camera. I'm meeting a friend and we are a picnic dinner tonight. I'm hoping to wear Aiden out and that he'll go to bed at his normal bedtime even though he probably took a nap at daycare. I'm have more work to do than I can handle right now but I'll eventually catch up. I've been beyond tired and am having a hard time staying awake to do the work. I'll post about the bounce house in a few days.

4/13 - Eli sick

So, it would be non-normal for us not to have something dramatic happen during the week. Although Aiden is recovering relatively well from his surgery, Eli was down in the dumps on Thursday. He literally fell asleep in the car at 9:30am (that hasn't happened since he was just a few months old) and then got home and fell asleep on the floor at 10:00am. I let him sleep for a little over an hour. It was so cute that Bronco came and laid next to Eli to protect him. I got up and started to do chores when I realized I didn't need to play with him. I went away for a few hours and came back to a baby who was sleeping.

Ms. Jen (our neighbor) watched Eli. She tried to take him to the swings and he didn't even smile. That is shocking. He slept in the afternoon and finally woke up at 3:00pm. He just sat in my arms for 1 hr until we left to get Aiden. He didn't really feel like eating and was starting to breathe pretty fast. By the time we picked up Aiden, he was breathing about 55 respirations per minute and I called the nurse line to see if I should be considered. The nurse line told me to bring him in the ER right away. I brought Aiden home and Keah (our neighbor's daughter) watched Aiden and put him to bed. To make a long story short, we were at the ER for hours but they did fast track Eli since he wasn't doing so well. By the time we got there, I had already done 2 albuteral treatments. His lungs finally calmed down and they chalked it up to an asthma attack and some type of weird virus (he had a fever all day too and was extremely lethargic).

Aiden has been feeling pretty good. He's had some problems with his left ear. I bought him some rainboots that I found on sale last week. I had been looking at them for a while and finally found some on sale. They are like firefighter boots.

 

We had a playdate with Sue on Saturday. Sue is an old-time friend (10 yrs now) and she has 3 boys (twin 7 yr old and a 4.5-5 yr old). We've been trying to get together for a while and it finally worked out. We went over to her house and my boys had a blast. Her boys were building forts and Aiden thought that was pretty neat. We ended up eating some dinner over there and they had fun doing that.

Eli loved to play with Carter, her youngest. He was wrestling with Eli and Eli was loving every second on it.

Aiden started to feel left out a little so he started to wrestle with Eli too. They both had fun. It was the first time I have seen Aiden not mind Eli sitting on him or pushing him over. Eli doesn't mind because they were wrestling and everything is fair in wrestling for Eli.

I am still battling Aiden with naps and getting to bed on-time. If he takes a nap, he's up way past his bedtime. If he doesn't nap, he's generally better about going to bed on-time (7:15ish). He took no nap on Sunday and fell asleep in the van on the way to AWANA.

On Monday, Eli had a hearing test which showed his hearing has already improved since his surgery. That's great news. We had almost 3 hrs between appointments so we went to the NEX to buy Eli a new outfit since he threw up all over himself on the way to the dr. We also went to a playground on base. The boys played for a bit (it was hot) and then decided to collect pine cones to send daddy. Aiden has such a big heart. Eli also saw his primary care physician and she prescribed him Flovent to help prevent more breathing problems. She looked in Aiden's ear too and saw that his left ear was partially blocked with blood so we are treating that too.

After bible study this morning, we just hung around the house this afternoon. I was pooped and needed 45 min of alone time. I put Aiden in his room and told him he had to be very quite and stay in his room until his bunny woke up. I knew he wasn't going to sleep. He played and colored and cut up stickers and paper for 1.5 hrs. He's such a good boy. I made some phone calls and relaxed for a bit and he never tried to come out and didn't make much noise. I let the boys watch the Cars 2 preview. They've been having fun on the sofa couch for the past 2 days. Aiden wanted to pull it out so he could make a fort like he did at Sue's house.

I started to get a migraine and didn't want to have to think about dinner. I took the boys to Chick-fil-a. I was trying to save a little money and decided to just get the meal with lots of chicken nuggets and we could all share. I brought milk for the boys and some fruit. It worked out perfect. They got to play for a bit. Aiden decided to put some mickey mouse cheese on his chicken nugget. I struggle so much to get him to eat so I told him he had to eat 2 "muscle foods" which is cheese or chicken so he just combined them. He didn't like it because he took one bite and then ate them separately.

It's been a good couple of days now that the boys are healthy. Brad pulled in to port yesterday and I got to Skype with him. That was AWESOME. We have a skype date tomorrow morning so the boys can see him too and talk to him. It was SO SO SO great to "see" his handsome face on the computer. Also, in 2 days, we have reached the half-way point of Brad's deployment! This last picture is another one of my new shirts and fun necklace.

4/6 - Aiden's surgery

The past week has been ... an experience. Aiden's sleep is all off and it's completely wearing me out. On Saturday, we to Gymboree in the morning. I wanted to stop by a store afterwards but we had to wait for it to open. To buy me some time, I bought them a trip on the carousel at the mall. Eli chose the duck and Aiden chose the racing car. They had fun. My friend, Stephanie, came with me shopping last Friday and was helping me learn about style and dressing for my body type. It was very helpful and I wanted to get a dress that I looking at last week.

Aiden decided to make a "cave" for Bronco while I was getting lunch ready. It was too cute. He was showing me in the picture where Bronco is supposed to get in and out. 

On Saturday afternoon, we were supposed to go to the beach but my our friends got sick so we didn't go. Aiden was heartbroken because we had talked about for the last week. To compromise, I walked the boys down to the sand volleyball courts and brought our new sand toys and let them play for a while. Eli instantly started scooping up sand and trying to eat it. [Yes, I almost had a heart attack]

Within 10 min, he had all kinds of sand in his hair and all over him. I looked at my watch and started to figure out how we could do baths right away because I didn't want him in my house and getting it all sandy!

Aiden had a lot of fun making "tracks" and "roads." He also enjoyed me helping him make sand castles. Eli really just had fun pouring sand onto ... anything.

On Sunday, we did our normal routine. The boys wanted to get out the mechanical Thomas the Train set. Aiden was actually trying to show Eli how to use part of it which was cute. Aiden hasn't been napping at all really and has been going to bed extremely late most night for the past week. I'm praying it's due to a medication he is on but we won't know until a week or so after he stops it.

On Monday evening, I met Stephanie and her 3 kids for dinner at Chick-fil-a. It was very yummy (as always). Stephanie also graciously took Eli for the night so that I could just concentrate on getting Aiden to the surgery center on time the next morning.

Tuesday morning was Aiden's surgery. I woke him up at 5:30 and changed his diaper and shorts and we left. It was slightly raining out and he was pretty tired. 

We got to the surgery center and checked in. Aiden played in a bus activity center they had. He was begging for a snack and it was only 6:15/6:30am. I felt so bad for him. 

They promptly called us back to the room and gave Aiden a finger puppet, little water game, and some stickers. We then did lots of waiting. He was #3 of 3 children going and the first surgery started at 7:00am. They let the kids stay in their regular clothes. No one even checked his lungs until the anesthesiologist came in the second time and asked about asthma. I would have never guessed the Navy was more thorough than a civilian surgery center.

Aiden got bored pretty fast but then he started to people watch and was hearing all kinds of equipment going off in various rooms/curtained areas. He's laying on his blankies in the one picture.

I have no cuddle and recovery pictures with Aiden because he recovered slightly different than Eli. He was only gone for about 15 min and was very asleep when they brought him back. After a few minutes, he started to come around and did NOT like that. He was crying a moaning for a long while. Once his stats finally got to a certain point, they took the oxygen off him and let me hold him. He was very fussy. He pretty much cried for the next 30 min. I was kind of expecting that because Eli did the same thing. The requirements at the surgery center were much easier to meet than those at the navy hospital. Aiden had to drink and be awake. He did both but was crying a ton and telling me he was going to be sick and then coughing like he was going to get sick too. We got him a pan to get sick in but it didn't happen. The nurse finally brought in a DVD player for him and put Dumbo in (which he's never seen) to try and calm him down. He said the movie was scary and she fast forwarded it some. It was too funny. He didn't like the thunderstorm at the beginning of the movie. He refused to eat anything but they thought he would feel better if he ate something. Needless to say, after staying there for an hour and him not getting sick and not calming down (he was crying 'me want to go home.'), I finally took a gamble and just left. We drove home in lots of rain and were on the road by 9:15/9:30ish. On the way home he decided to eat some animal crackers which was good.

Since he was starving, we stopped at McDonalds so he could get some pancakes. He inhaled 2 of them and then we left to go get Eli. When we got in the car to go to his surgery, Aiden looked over and saw Eli's seat gone and asked where he was. It was too cute. Aiden was extremely sensitive during breakfast (both hearing and his whining).

Our next mission was to get Eli. Stephanie and Eli answered the door and Eli had a new hair-do. It was too cute. Aiden said he wanted spikey hair too so Stephanie got the stuff to do it. She got his hair wet and spiked it up and then Aiden decided he didn't want spikey hair any more and started crying. We fixed his hair and then he calmed down. He was very emotional. He did have fun playing upstairs with Kyleigh so I let him do that for a little bit.

When we got home, our neighbor, Jen, brought Aiden some new stickers. While he didn't seem that excited at the time, after some lunch and a much needed nap, he was very excited about them. The rest of the day went pretty well  and Aiden's moodiness calmed down.

After Eli's nap today (Aiden didn't take one but was nice enough to play quietly to let me sleep for 45 min), I took the boys and Bronco for a rollerblade and then dropped Bronco back off at home. I then took the boys to a playground they hadn't been to yet. It was win-win; I got to roller blade more and they were excited about a new playground. They had fun but wanted to keep playing once we got home. Eli even put on a helmet to ride a bike. It was backwards but it was still pretty smart.

The boys were using my exercise bands tonight. I was playing tug-of-war with them. I had Aiden working his pecs and lats! :) He was also pulling his potty around the house. I guess he was trying to find other uses for it since he clearly doesn't want to use it to pee in.

I finally decided to tackle the task of building a new track for the boys. The last one had just one bridge; this one has three! I'm getting pretty good! Aiden is actually starting to help out quite a bit too. Aiden is standing in front of another bridge. After we got it all done Aiden wanted to "build another" and he tried taking it apart. I asked him to let mommy keep this one for a few days since it was so nice and he agreed!  

And finally, the picture that Jess and Nini have been waiting for (I bet Brad won't mind either). Here is one of my new tops with my necklace. Look Jess - it has 3 layers!! I included the long shot and just the upper part. I have even more necklaces too! Today I wore a colored one. How fun. The boys just stare at them because they aren't used to seeing me with jewelry on. It's kinda fun.

I've stayed up way too late working on this. I love the little ticker on the far right though that shows how many people are looking at the blog and where they are from (city, state). I felt bad that people were looking and there was nothing update. Have a great rest of the week. Please keep little sensitive Aiden in your prayers and let his ears heal. They are draining quite a bit now and tomorrow I have to start putting Afrin drops in them which I know he won't like.