Quel Nightmare!

A little update on Dustin...each day he's improving dramatically! The doctor's decided against any grafting so he's taking it slow and working on his hand movements daily. I still do his daily dressing changes and still cannot believe how much the human body can heal in the matter of a week. We continue to thank God that it wasn't worse and are eternally grateful for all of the thoughts and prayers.

In light of all the drama lately, my blogs have been lacking...to say the least. So I figured I better get my act together.

I had been giving Dustin baths to help avoid getting his hand wet so last week Josh thought it would be funny to switch things around and give his Daddy a bath for once. He thought it was hysterical and Dustin and I were touched by how much he wanted to help his Daddy.




It was so cute!! Josh wanted to make sure he cleaned his hips (who knows where that came from) and then he had the cutest little giggle when he told me he "washed Daddy's 'nickles'"!

In other news, Miss Lauren went potty on the potty!!!! I had noticed she was dry from the night so I thought, "Ah, what the heck!" and threw her on her potty chair. Two seconds later she went potty!!!



Of course she's not done it since.

Josh has been going through a phase where he doesn't want to wear pants. He'll wear them to school - because that would be just silly - but when he's home he'd rather just have a pull-up on. So the other night I told him to get ready for bed. He ended up wearing the sweater he wore all day, a pull-up and his Curious George slippers.



Quite the fashion statement, wouldn't you say?

As if my life hasn't had enough stress I decided to schedule Lauren's 9 month photos and the kid's Easter photos for Sunday afternoon. It always sounds like a good idea and I always love seeing the result but the actual process is enough to make me lock myself in a padded room.

The first hurdle is timing the naps. The is by far the most crucial of all the steps. I scheduled the appointment at 4 assuming that Lauren would wake up from her nap at 2:45, I'd get her dressed and we'd hop in the van and make it there just in time. Yeah, when she woke up at 1:30 I should have walked directly to the phone and cancelled our appointment. On top of that Josh wouldn't even lay down so I already had two strikes against me.

The next step was getting his suit on him. This is always a battle. "I don't want to button the top button." "These pants are tight." I don't like these shoes." "Why do I have to wear a tie?"

I kept threatening him by saying, "If I don't get a good picture we'll just keep going back like we did at Christmas!!!!" Then Dustin was kind enough to chime in and inform Josh that his entire life would be made easier if he would just succumb to the fact that mom gets what mom wants. "So do what she says and don't complain." While that theory may work on a "trained" 28 year-old man it does little to influence a 4 year-old boy.

The next step was to fix his hair. He didn't want me to put the sticky stuff in it because it freezes his neck (hairspray). So I showed him how I was doing Daddy's hair and then reached for the hairspray to do his. At this time Josh looked at Dustin, turned around and headed straight out the bathroom and said, "I'm out."

This story just keeps getting worse and worse....I forgot Josh's tie so we had turn around as soon as we got to the mall, Josh feel asleep in the car so he was cranky and had the imprint of his seat belt on his face, Lauren didn't want anything to do with the photographer and I sweat like a pig while trying to lovingly threaten my children to smile.

Miraculously, I did get a few good shots and will attempt to get them on the blog this weekend. But here is a preview of Lauren...



Funny Josh story:

I went to pick the kids up from mom's on Wednesday. I was greeted by Josh at the door and he had his hand on his butt.

Josh: Mom, I had an AWFUL poop.
Me: You did?
Josh: Yeah, it was hot.
Me: (laughing) It was?
Mom: I may have given him too much juice.
Me: Ahhhh.
Josh: Mom, it was hot.
Me: I'm sorry.
Josh: Like lava.
Me: (laughing) Yeah, Grandma said she may have given you too much juice.
Josh: Well, don't let her do that again!

Then we got home and I drove up the mailbox to get the mail.

Me: Josh, can you believe that the snow is all the way up to the mailbox?
Josh: Yeah, you sure don't see that every day!

I swear...I don't know where he comes up with this stuff.

Have a great week!!!

For better....for worse.

Thank you for all the thoughts and prayers over the last few days. Dustin is improving every day and we are slowly making adjustments in our every day life to make all the recent changes work.

We had an appointment at the University of Iowa Hospital Burn Unit on Saturday and they decided to cancel surgery for Monday. We have another appointment tomorrow and hopefully we will have a better idea of what we are up against. His index finger is probably the worst of all the fingers and that's the one I am most concerned about. His thumb and back of the hand are probably the next worst.

Every day I have to change the dressing and clean the wound. Yes, it's about as fun for both of us as you can imagine. He's been a great patient, though. He hasn't screamed or thrown anything at me. :-) I cannot fathom the pain he is in and he does his best to put on a strong face for everyone.

You can imagine what something like this can do to an active family of four. Life has turned into quite a circus but thankfully God has given us wonderful family, friends, co-workers, daycare providers and church members to help. I keep telling Dustin that his main focus is to heal and everything else will fall into place.

We continue to thank God that it wasn't worse. After being on the burn unit for a few days it doesn't take long to realize what COULD have happened. The hair on each arm was singed up to his elbows and it is an excellent reminder of just that.

Prayer Request

I ask that everyone reading this post will please say a prayer for my husband. He had an accident at work yesterday morning and received 2nd and 3rd degree burns on his hand. We have another appointment on Saturday morning at the University of Iowa Hospital Burn Unit and will know more then about the extent of his injury.

I will be sure to post any updates on the blog.

Snow for Sale

First I want to say that I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day. Dustin had to work so I actually ended up making dinner for my brother and his roommate...and doing their taxes. So I can't really say I had a romantic dinner...but after two kids I can say that I don't really have high expectations for this particular holiday anymore.

Even without a romantic dinner Dustin was able to get the message across...



Josh picked out the balloon and Dustin found the cutest card from the kids. So I guess I can't complain. :-)

My gift to Dustin was to go with him to the camper shows on Saturday. I had gone in to work VERY early Saturday morning and got off mid-afternoon, took a 15 minute nap then got ready to look at campers. He was happy, I was tired, Josh was happy and Lauren was just glad to be brought along.

And while there is no camper in our driveway yet....I'm thinking there probably will be soon. I've only been hearing about getting a camper for 5 years now and coming up with reasons why we shouldn't get one is getting harder and harder each year.

Then Sunday....

Yet another snowstorm has dumped on us. And because a challenge never scard Dustin or me...we decided to brave the storm and even went it to church in the middle of a blizzard. We are crazy.








While the boys "played" out in the snow, Lauren and I made potato soup and watched their progress from the comfort of indoors.



As soon as they came in from the cold they were pleased to enjoy the fruits of my labor and warm up with some of my yummy soup. Miss Lauren liked it too!




I honestly cannot remember a winter like this one. Thankfully, I hadn't planned on working today anyway so the kids and I have been holed up at home all morning. And since I haven't had to go out in this stuff yet today I can't complain too much.

But talk to me tomorrow morning when it's time head to work.

Wii Free Weekend

I'm not sure if it's the fact that the weather has not permitted outside play or the fact that mom and dad are working a ton of hours, but Josh is hitting a bit of a rough patch.

As of Saturday morning he had lost all rights to the Wii for the entire weekend. As much as he loves that machine you would have thought that would have taken care of it. Oh no.

Saturday afternoon after I had gotten off of work we had to run a few errands. Normally, he is a my good little shopper. Saturday...not so much. Whining, yelling, running, crying, throwing toys out of the cart, screaming...he did all this and more. I was so frustrated by the time we got home I sent him straight to bed for the night.

Then Sunday morning. I got up and made breakfast. Everyone came down to eat and Josh started playing with the kitchen drawers. At first he was just opening and shutting them. Then it turned to opening and forcefully shutting them. Then it turned into opening really fast and slamming them. Dustin and I each told him at least twice to stop. Then it happened. He slammed the door so hard that the actual drawer shot back towards the wall and the front broke off.

The drawer slammed so hard that the board connecting the drawer to the front split in half exposing eight nails. Dustin and I sat there completely stunned for a minute or two. When you see the front of your kitchen drawer fall to the ground it takes a second to realize you aren't imagining things.

In the time that it took my brain to register everything, Josh had scooped up the front and had begun trying to figure out how to fix his problem. When the front kept falling down he finally turned around and smiled at us all while holding the front of the drawer in place...like maybe we didn't see anything.

That's about when Dustin freaked. All Dustin did was yell, "Josh!", get up from the table and start to walk over to him and Josh buried his hands in his face (thereby dropping the drawer front) and immediately began crying.

At first Dustin just stared at the piece of wood in disbelif...at least so I thought. I punished Josh and told him to go to time out and returned to Dustin. I surveyed the damage and Dustin looked up at me and said, "YES! I get to use my nail gun!"

He is a 6'2" child. I swear.

Needless to say, Josh now has the tv taken away, too. Not having any other distractions allowed Josh to get all his Valentine's signed and assembled.





Then the kids had a field day opening their many Valentine's Day gifts from everyone.


Let's just hope that Josh comes back around and that Dustin doesn't need to use any more power tools in the meantime.

As promised....

It's hard to believe that just 24 hours ago we had little to no snow on the ground. That's certainly not the case anymore. Depending on which news channel you watch, they are saying around 12 inches of snow in about 12 hours. Josh is overjoyed and Mattie hops through the backyard like a bunny rabbit because the snow is cold on her tummy.











When we pulled down our street this afternoon the sight was similar to the water display in front of the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas...except with snow. Every house on both sides of the street had their snow blowers going. I laughed right out loud because it was so odd looking.

Tonight I went out to get the mail and the hum of snowblowers and the smell of gas fumes hang in the air.

The six o'clock news said that this isn't the end....we're expected to get snow for the next three days. This is about the time when I miss snow days.

Step Aerobics

Here it is February 5th and as if we haven't already had enough snow and winter weather, we are preparing for yet another major snow storm. This storm is expected to bring 8 - 13 inches of the white stuff and when I told Josh he shot out of bed with excitement.

In other news....Lauren has figured out how to climb the stairs!!!! The kids and I were playing in the family room and all of a sudden Josh started screaming, "Lauren!! Lauren!!" I looked over and she was just topping the stairs into the kitchen. Josh and I were screaming and jumping up and down and she looked back at us just long enough to crawl like hell into the next room.

Being the good mother I am I didn't want Dustin to not see it so I made her do it three more times so that I could get it on video.



In our attempt to get Lauren to climb the stairs several times, I caught a cute video of Josh encouraging his little sister.



Jaime, our daycare provider, had a "Pajama Party" last week and all the kids wore pajamas for the day. Somehow, even though it should have been an easy morning, we were running a little behind. So that morning it would only make sense that since I have to leave the house by 7:10 that Lauren would make a "dirty" at 7:05. This "dirty" wasn't just any "dirty". This was the KING of all "dirties"! It went up her back and almost touched her neck. I kid you not and if I thought you each had the stomach I would have taken a picture! I basically had to give her a bath with baby wipes and find her a new set of pajamas. It was disastrous and disgusting.

Nonetheless, I was able to grab a quick photo of the two of them in my haste to make it out the door.



It was a good thing that they were already in their pajamas that day because by the time I got home with them in the evening they were wiped. I thought it had gotten quiet in the back of the van and after pulling into the garage I opened the van door to find this.



I guess playing hard all day can really wipe a person out!

I'll be sure to post pictures of all the snow. And if we really get that much snow I guess Punxsutawney Phil was right!



Stay warm!

It's chilly in here!

Anyone who knows me knows there are two things I will never do: one is wear pink and the other is wear hearts. When you see my daughter you would never guess my disgust for pink and hearts because she's usually covered in pink...hearts, not so much. But last week I was out shopping and saw that they had little girl swimsuits out and I just had to get one for her.

When Dustin got home from work I pulled the swimsuit out of the shopping bag and he immediately went running for the thermometer. It is pink AND has hearts!! I know, I know. I'm not quite sure what came over me. Nonetheless, she's adorable in it!





Ironically the day I purchased her swimsuit turned out to be the coldest day in over a century. However, I'm quite certain that it wasn't because hell had frozen over.

Saturday we decided to venture out of the house and go bowling. Josh was thrilled and I must admit, I was anxious to see if all the bowling we've been doing on the Wii would actually help my average. I'll tell you right now...Wii bowling is much easier than actual bowling.

Just look at our scores. PATHETIC!



We all had a good time and Lauren had fun laughing at Josh.







Lauren will be eight months old on Thursday. If anyone has any tips on how to make time slow down....let me know.

Teething hell

The title should say it all. One of Lauren's front teeth came through early last week and we kind of thought there were two more working their way through. However, according to all the baby books, teeth move up and down many times until they finally break through the skin so when the other two teeth we were watching went back down we thought we were in the clear. WRONG!

Wouldn't you figure that at 9:58 on Sunday night her teeth would start on the move again? I was just lying down for bed when I heard her start to scream. Between her screaming, her crying and Josh waking up to yell at Lauren I'm working on about two and half hours of sleep.

That aside, she has mastered the art of standing and pulling herself up on things. She'll pull herself up into a standing position from anything; the couch, a stair, the dog, your leg. At first it's kind of cute but soon you realize that she can crawl as fast as you can walk and you end up having a 25 pound ball and chain around your leg.



Don't get me wrong...I need the exercise. But dragging your child around on your leg is probably not a method of exercise Richard Simmons would endorse.

Stupidly, Dustin and I did not think much past the amazement of her new found ability. Sunday afternoon we decided to all lay down for a nap after church. We got about a solid hour of quiet time before we heard Lauren laughing and playing in her crib. I shoved Dustin out of bed and told him to go check on his daughter. He yelled for me to come see this...



Needless to say....the mattress is being lowered ASAP!

Once Josh heard all the commotion he came running in and they both started laughing uncontrollably. I'm not sure at what....but it was cute.



I realized last week, when Lauren's feet were dangling out of her car seat and when I nearly buckled Josh's "pee-pee", that it was time to get the kids bigger car seats. You'd think that this would be a simple feat. I mean, everyone carries car seats, right?

I ended up going to five different stores and ended up spending $250 for car seats on Friday. To say that the shopping process left me irritated and broke is an understatement. The stores either had $30 seats, which in my opinion my children would be safer with a phone book and a roll of duct tape OR $270 seats, which in my opinion my children would have to ride in until they turned 18 in order for me to get my money's worth.

So when I found one in stock for Lauren for $149.99...I grabbed it. I lugged them out to the car and informed my children that their mother loved them even though she couldn't bring herself to buy the "Cadillac" of car seats. Josh didn't care...he was just happy he didn't have to wear a nut cup to get buckled in anymore.

Two Josh Stories:
1) We went to a Chinese restaurant last Friday for lunch. The waitress was of Eastern decent and had a very thick accent. I struggled to understand what she was asking and quickly gave her our drink order.

Amazed, Josh looked at me and said, "MOM.....I didn't know you knew how to speak Spanish?"

2) Dustin's been fighting a cold for the last two weeks. Unfortunately, it's sitting in his chest and throat so his voice is really hoarse. I asked Josh to go wake Dustin up on Saturday morning because breakfast was ready.

He came running down and said, "Mom, Daddy's voice sounds awful. I think he's got some froggies in there."

Too cute, huh?

Other than that, not much else is new. It is snowing for the millionth time this winter and the temperature is unbelievably cold. Hope everyone is staying warm and driving safe!!

Dancing Machine

I think it has snowed every day since last Thursday but less than an inch each time. Actually, having a nice, clean blanket of snow to cover all of the dirty snow was a welcome sight so I'm not complaining.

It had started to snow while Josh was in school on Thursday so by the time I got there to pick him up he was itching to get in his snow pants and boots. We got home and I barely got Lauren out of her car seat and he had Mattie at the back door and was begging me to let them out.





This week we found out that Lauren has a new trick...she can dance! Well, she rocks back and forth real fast to music so as far as I'm concerned she's dancing.


We all had such a laugh watching her. It was absolutely hysterical! Then tonight she was down on the floor crawling around and I thought I'd see if she'd do it with just me singing and sure enough! Too funny!!

We didn't really do too much this weekend. I worked my first Saturday of tax season - BOO! Josh and I played the Wii for a good chunk of Sunday. His new favorite game is Playground. It has a bunch of games like dodge ball, slot car racing, paper plane throwing, Nerf darts and MY favorite...tether ball. While Josh and I had fun playing together...I cannot lift my right arm above my shoulder. As pathetic as that is I guess I'm not going to win any arm wrestling contests any time soon.

I kept losing one game, I don't remember which, and Josh came over, grabbed my remote and said, "Mom...watch and learn." Seriously.

Lauren is working on a few new teeth. Three to be exact. So we can go from this..


to this...


in no time flat. It certainly makes the weekend feel like it's a whole lot longer when you have a child screaming and crying. But with all these new teeth she is eating big girl food. We have moved on from baby food to REAL FOOD! Ah....now she can feed herself!

And now that she knows the goodness that is REAL food...she wants a piece of everyone's food. To end our weekend we all came up to our bedroom and watched Tom and Jerry before we all went to bed. The kids were all cuddled up with us and we each had a bowl of ice cream. Lauren obviously learned her begging from the dog because she was frantically crawling around the bed trying to get a spoonful before she could finish swallowing the last.

All in all...it was the perfect way to end a weekend.

The small things in life

Some say that it's the small things in life that make life worth living; like a gentle breeze on a hot day or a child's laugh.

A small thing that made my life worth living this week was watching my husband play Guitar Hero III...on EASY...for over an hour...on one song. Yeah, I think we heard "Hit me with your best shot" about 40 times. Unfortunately, we only heard the song in its entirety once because every other time he got Boo'd off the stage.

Josh and I were laughing so hard and Dustin just got more and more frustrated with every "Ker-plunk" from a missed note. Anyone who's played this game before can verify that this game causes the "player" to have a greater appreciation of the talent of guitar players.

I was on the phone with my father for most of Dustin's "show". So I had lost count at how many times he had been "Boo'd" off the stage. So I asked Dustin...and was quickly interrupted by my son screaming, "EVERYTIME, MOM! He's been Boo'd off EVERYTIMES!"

SO FUNNY!

Another moment I'm happy for this week...Josh learned how to spoon feed Lauren. Do you hear the angels singing?




You know that saying about the greatest inventions come from the things that are the most obvious...yeah, I should have thought about this a loooonnnngggg time ago! Yes, she was messier than usual and yes, most of her food was either on her shirt or her high chair. BUT, I was able to cook an entire meal without Lauren screaming at me and Josh begging for supper to be ready. He was proud, Lauren was full and I was happy...so the mess is immaterial.

Other than that the weekend was pretty uneventful. Dustin and I took Josh to see Alvin and the Chipmunks and we loved it! He laughed so hard and I even busted him dancing to some of the music. We will DEFINITELY be getting the DVD when it comes out.

Josh pushed Lauren around the kitchen in her high chair on Sunday. Of course I was telling him to stop but as soon as Lauren realized she could see Josh through the back of her seat I had to grab the camera. God, do they have me trained?

Me: Josh, stop!!
Josh to Lauren: Look cute and smile and she'll stop yelling at us.
Me: DUSTIN, grab the camera!!!!



Josh cleaned under his bed this weekend and found a toy for Lauren. I cleaned it up and she was ready to ride all over the house.



Now that Lauren is eating some solid food she tends to have bits and pieces of food that stick to her and fall off throughout the day. Mattie has caught on to this fact, hence, her following Lauren around on her toy.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

How much is that doggy in the window?

I know you will all be shocked but we got yet another snow storm this past weekend. It started snowing very early Friday morning and by the time the afternoon rolled around we had another 4+ inches of the white stuff.




As soon as Saturday morning came the boys were ready to get started on cleaning the drive and sidewalks. Dustin went out and got all the "toys" started and Josh brought me his snow pants and boots. I was playing with Lauren in her room and quickly got the bottom half of him dressed so that he could catch up with Dustin. I told him to yell out to Dustin and ask him to help get his coat and hat on.

Josh went running down the stairs and did just as I said. Then I heard a scream and Dustin yell, "MATTIE!". I went running down the stairs to find Josh laying on the foyer floor. I helped Josh up and yelled for him to "NOT LET LAUREN OUT OF HER ROOM!" and I quickly threw on my boots and a jacket.

I am the first to admit that if you didn't know better...you'd think Mattie was deaf. You can yell directions at that dog as loud and as much as you want but you might as well be banging your head against the wall because she DOES NOT listen.

You add freedom, plus a bunch of snow, plus us running after her and our normally "deaf" dog all of a sudden gets a sense of humor.

After the first 30 minutes of trying to catch her Dustin was ready to give up. It was bad enough to have our dog mock us by hurdling four foot snow drifts in order to make it impossible for us to catch her, but it was even worse that all our neighbors were outside and more than happy to enjoy the show.

I kept yelling at Dustin that we needed to keep trying. At that point I was not worried about the dog. Our luck she wouldn't get hit by a car; she'd cause a 10 car pile up and we'd be in financial ruin because every driver would get a lawyer. AAHH!!

I was frantic by 45 minutes. I mean, the kids were home alone and the door to the garage was wide open. By 55 minutes, I wanted to catch her only to strangle her. FINALLY, some kind Samaritans pulled over and the wife got out of the car and yelled, "Here doggy!" And guess who came trotting right over to her?

I grabbed Mattie, threw her in the van and thanked the lady with tears in my eyes. She understood and said she'd been in our position many times before.

I looked at Dustin and told him to hop in the van and I'd drive him home the 5 blocks. He looked right at me, put up his hands and said, "I need to cool off."

I sped home to find my son protecting his sister. I was so emotional to find him barricading the door to her room. Lauren was trying to get out and was already half way out the door but he kept pushing her back in. He looked up at me and said, "Mommy, she didn't get past her door. I kept her safe. I'm sorry Mattie got out."



I could have died. I just gave him a big hug and a bunch of kisses. He's such a good boy and a great big brother. However, needless to say, Mattie is in the "Dog House" and I am so thankful that the kids were okay.

And even though it's been a few days...finding humor in it is still a little difficult.

Other than that we didn't do much this weekend. A lot of laundry and cleaning but that's about it.




Uncle Joel had surgery on New Year's Eve day to remove his abnormally large kidney stone. Thankfully, he is "stone free" and we all did our best to see he had excellent care upon his release from the hospital. I brought him to our house after surgery and in light of that, we didn't have much planned for New Year's Eve. Joel felt good enough to play a little Wii, but that was about it.

Today we all pretty much laid low and only moved around to eat and find a new place to take a nap. While I certainly don't envy my brother's delicate condition, it was nice to have him around the house for a few days and we were bummed to send him home.



May 2008 bring health and happiness...and no more kidney stones.