Sick Children

What a crazy 2 1/2 weeks! Both Taryne and Hayden had an ear infection and pneumonia over a 2+ week time period and Taryne also had a UTI. BLAH!!!

It all seemed to happen so fast. No one has really had much allergy issues since we have been here (yay!!) but all of a sudden everyone was sniffling. Then I get the call from daycare that Hayden is having trouble breathing and they think I need to immediately take him to the hospital. Well, I pick him up and he is okay, but I have scheduled a doctor's appointment for him later that day. About an hour after I pick him up, I get a call that Taryne is coughing uncontrollably and needs to see the doctor too.

So, we get to the doctor (and this is a Wednesday, so I am missing my afternoon class, but Kyle meets me at the doctor so I can attend a mandatory meeting at 5) and Hayden has an ear infection and they want to try a breathing treatment for him since he is coughing so much. They finally check out Taryne and thinks she is wheezing a little too. By this time, I have to leave and Kyle stays with them both. They both come home with antibiotics, breathing treatments and steroids. Yuck!

The next week, we have a follow up appointment and both kids are doing great except that Taryne has a 102 fever at the doctor's office. What?? Really?!? So since she has been on antibiotics, they rule out strep throat (even though she has "throats") and determine it to possibly be a UTI. Great...

We get the results of the UTI test on a Sunday afternoon and guess what, she has a UTI. So another round of antibiotics for Taryne. During this time, Hayden starts having diarrhea and we think he has picked up a stomach bug from school. Joy, because I start throwing up on Sunday. Two sick kids and a sick mommy, no fun! And I was praying Kyle didn't get it.

The next Tuesday, Hayden was sent home for his diarrhea and we kept him home the next day hoping it would clear up soon. We were also getting concerned about dehydration since this has been going on for several days. But he was drinking his bottles perfectly fine, so I knew he wasn't dehydrated.

On Wednesday, I stayed home in the morning and Kyle came home for the afternoon since I could not miss my stats class again. When I came home, Hayden looked awful and had started coughing and had a fever. Well, I missed the doctor's office "open" hours by about 5 minutes and we had to take Hayden to Children's Hospital to be seen. When we got there, the dehydration (our big concern earlier) was not even a concern for them, it was his coughing/breathing. After some x-rays and seeing the doctor, they determined he had pneumonia. Yay...so another round of antibiotics.

We are home with him on Thursday and Friday. On Friday, we had scheduled a 3 year well child visit for Taryne (months ago) and we brought Hayden back in (needed a check up in 48 hrs from hospital visit) for a check up. During our appointment, our doctor asked if we had any concerns about Taryne and we mentioned that her ear was hurting her and that she still had her cough. The doctor informed us that when someone has pneumonia, the cough often lasts for several weeks. Kyle and I exchanged confused looks. And we asked when Taryne had pneumonia. Apparently that is what she had with her FIRST round of antibiotics. How did we not realize/know this?? Well, she had an ear infection. Her first EVER ear infection and guess what, another round of antibiotics because the one that she was currently on for the UTI did NOT treat ear infections. Oh and our doctor did not think Hayden had pneumonia, maybe bronchiolitis, but not pneumonia. They also took another urine sample from Taryne and the UTI was still there. Great.

We had to take Hayden back in the next morning for a follow up and he was better and I am happy to report that he is back to normal and healthy now.

Last week we got a call from the doctor's office that the bacteria in Taryne's UTI was a "tricky to treat" bacteria and they wanted to do further tests. So, I had to take the poor girl to Children's Hospital and have a catheter put in to take a "clean" sample. My. Poor. Little. Girl. How do you explain to a 3 year old what this involves? I did the best I could and she seemed super brave up until the moment they asked me to remove her clothes from the waist down. Then it started. The panic and crying. Luckily these ladies were super fast and it was over before we realized it. We talked about it afterward and that seemed to help. We got ice cream and brownies at Chick-Fil-A on the way home.

This week I got a call that there is no more bacteria and all is good.

Today, the day before Thanksgiving, I am so very thankful that both of my kids (and both of us) are healthy.

I hope we have used up our "sick quota" for the next year.

I know I am not in Texas...

...when I walk through Target and see an ENTIRE aisle devoted to SNOW fun!

Yes, that is a SNOW BALL blaster

Smoky Mountains Fall Visit

So, the day after our impromptu visit to Bass Pro Shop, we made an impromptu visit to the Smoky Mountains Park...again. We had originally planned for Boo at the Zoo, but right before we left, I checked the website. Thank goodness I did because Boo at the Zoo was only from 5:30-8 at night on certain nights. It was going on that night, but we were ready for the zoo at 1 pm...

When it became clear we were not going to the zoo, we had complete mayhem ensue and we opted for anything to get out of the house. We didn't have a plan and just drove. We ended up on a motor tour on one side of the park. It was a great little tour. There were several spots to stop and check out the view and old homesteads.

 I just LOVE the fall color here! I have never experienced this before and I don't even know how to describe this except as awesome! It is truly amazing to watch the trees change colors. Everyday it is a little different and I am pretty sure a few of the trees here were green one day and yellow or orange the next. Absolutely beautiful!

And we ended our trip at Joe's...yum-yum!!

Halloween 2012

I love Halloween!! It is just a fun holiday! This year, Taryne had planned to be Tinkerbell for Halloween. Awesome, I thought. I will make Hayden Peter Pan so they can coordinate. I had searched Pinterest and the web and had a pretty good idea of how I was going to make both costumes. Then Taryne decided she wanted to be Rosella (Ro) the Barbie Island Princess. Well, have you ever seen this character?

Well, as you can see, the costume is a bit more involved than I had wanted to deal with this fall. So I thought, if I can just find an inexpensive dress to start with, I think I can do the rest. Well, lucky me, I found the dress on ebay for just $7. A steal with cheap shipping.

I decided not to add all the glittery embellishments on the dress...then it would be difficult to clean if needed. She already had a pink tutu from the Target Dollar Spot section that was perfect for the little pink accent on the dress. I just cinched it up in the front and it was perfect. So the next major part was the peacock feathers. This posed a bit of a challenge. I decided I needed to make it with a wire form, I just wasn't sure if I should use coat hanger wire or something else. I also purchased some pink, blue and purple tulle to make the feathers. I had no idea how I was going to get it on the wire form.

Then I remembered the excellent site called Pinterest. I searched and watched videos on how to make butterfly and fairy wings. This gave me the idea for the final version: make the wire forms and use tights to cover the forms. I picked up three pairs of hot pink tights and some glitter in silver, blue and purple. After several hours of forming the hangers (had to use the heavier wire so the tights didn't collapse the wire form), stretching the tights, and adding the details, the peacock feathers were complete. Well, almost. We still had to assemble and figure out the best way to attach them to Taryne and her dress. We found some blue stretchy ribbon that matched her dress perfectly (how that happened I have no idea, but very thankful) and I made a little pocket (think holder like you would see for a flag bearer...sort of) to rest the feathers in since they were a bit heavy.

Okay, since Taryne was no longer going to be Tinkerbell, I felt no need for Hayden to be Peter Pan. So, we decided he would be Yoda. He was a super cute Yoda and best of all, I found his costume for a steal!

We managed to participate in 4 separate Halloween/Trick-or-Treating activities this Halloween season. We did Boo at the Zoo, a Halloween party by our apartment complex, a 4-H Trick-or-Treat on campus and then on Halloween, we went Trick-or-Treating in the mall.

Hayden's 1st Halloween!

And we can't forget our pumpkins! Taryne insisted that she have Hello Kitty on her pumpkin and she picked out Yoda for Hayden's pumpkin. I really like it when pumpkins are not completely cut out. I scraped the outer layer off and then scraped down the inside so the light will "glow" through. You really can't see the "glow" in the pictures, but they looked awesome! We won a free pizza for each pumpkin at our apartment pumpkin carving contest.

Happy Halloween 2012!!

Outings

One Saturday after the A&M game, we needed to get out of the house and do something. So, we visited the Bass Pro Shop in Sevierville. It was a sort of crazy, last minute thing, but Taryne and Hayden had fun.

Shooting game...it has been forever since I shot a gun, but I did pretty darn good! Hit several of the targets.

Watching mom, dad and sister shoot.

Kyle's turn.

"test driving"

We missed the free picture time by about 30 minutes. So, we had to take our own pics...I could not get both to look at me at the same time.

posing...

Cuteness

Soccer Fun!

Yes, I just typed soccer in my blog post title. I do not like soccer. However, Taryne has a soccer ball. She picked it out on a trip to Academy months ago and really wasn't ready to attempt soccer. Well, we have lots of green spaces here in Knoxville, so one evening we "played" a little soccer. She had a "lesson" at school one day and wasn't sure if she liked it or not. She has decided that she doesn't want to play soccer except for maybe a little with us.

Watching Sister kick the ball around

Kyle was trying to explain how it was "supposed" to work

(yeah, my phone was getting some of the glares from the setting sun...)

Surprise!

This is what we found one evening when we went to bed...

Taryne and her 4 (yes, there are 4, one is super tiny) Ariels, Barbie Island Princess (tiny figurine) and Snow White