Dogs, Bikes and Thumb Sucking

Luke has a new place that he loves to play.  I have a feeling that playing in the dog kennel is going to be one of those stages in life that all my children will go through.  What's the allure? That fabulous dog aroma?  The dog hair carpet?  Who knows, but Bella and now Luke have at one point in their lives loved the doggie kennels.  Go figure.  As long as they are safe and having a good time I say more power to them!

 So, about a year or two ago Josh and I got a Princess bike for Isabella at a garage sale.  She was too young for it at the time.  Well, since last summer she has been hounding us about wanting to ride it.  The problem was that the bike's chain was off, the tires were flat, the training wheels needed to be put on, and the seat wasn't secured to the bike.  Josh kept telling her I'll fix it and have it ready for you after work, or for sure this weekend.  This talk continued for about a month or two.  Well, on Monday guess what??!? I, the mommy who has never owned her own bike in her entire life, broke out the tools and the air compressor and fixed it MYSELF!!  Woohoo!  It is now in perfect running order.  Isabella enjoys riding it often. Oh - and Uncle Skeeter and Aunt Sharee gave us this wonderful princess scooter which is a big hit with all of the kids (mine and the ones I babysit).

Luke has this funny fascination with the princess bike helmet. I know, it's totally girly and not masculine at all.  But, he loves wearing it.  I figure I'll let him enjoy it before he figures out about how boys shouldn't be wearing girly stuff like that.  He wears it ALL the time!

Uh oh!  It looks like we might have a thumb sucker on our hands. Elizabeth is starting to "find" her hands.  She loves to suck on them.  Recently she has found a favorite finger - the thumb of course.  She's having a really bad hair day.  You'll have to forgive her.  She is just a baby after all.  I take all the blame for not fixing her hair properly of course.

Allergic Reaction

Elizabeth is growing like a weed!  She now focuses on her hands.  I don't know if she knows they are attached to her yet, but she looks at them now.  She also makes coo and raspberry sounds as well as a happy (not quite giggly) sound when I tickle her neck.  Another thing - I now have to be careful where I place her because she can also roll on her side and push herself up so that her chest is lifted off the ground.  I just can't believe how fast she is growing.  How can she already be 3 months old?  Time has just flown by.

 Luke  has had a bit of bad luck this weekend.  On Saturday morning Josh and I noticed that he had a little bubble of fluid on his left ear.  Hmmm, that's weird.  We decided it was probably nothing and continued on with our day.  We went over to my brother Brandon's house.  When we arrived I took the kids out in the backyard to play.  That's when I noticed that there was definitely something wrong with Luke's ear.  It was not only a bubbly ear, but a bubbly, red and swollen ear.  I got a little nervous because the bubbly part of his ear reminded me of one of the signs of a brown recluse spider bite.
We decided to take him to Care Now to have them took a look at it.  Well, it turns out that Luke was bitten by some kind of bug, just not a brown recluse.  The doctor informed me that if it had been a brown recluse spider that had bitten him, there would have been a blackish brownish color to the bubble.  I felt like an idiot because once she said it, I could remember the picture in my health book showing exactly what a brown recluse spider bite looked like. So anyway, Luke was having an allergic reaction to the bite.  I was prescribed some cream to put on his ear along with some Benedril.  He's doing much better now.  I wish I would have taken a photo of his ear earlier, because this photo doesn't do it justice.  This photo is after an entire day of treatment.  I swear he looked like the elephant man before the doctors visit.

Bad Ear

Bad Ear

Good Ear

Trouble with Luke

I should have waited to watch my Celebrity Apprentice recording until nap, but I didn't.  I watched it in my room and had a great time doing so.  It wasn't until it was over and I began the decent down the stairs that I knew that something was wrong.  Something in the air smelled awful.  What could it be?  Did one of the dogs throw up?  What is that white stuff on the stairs?  Nope, not throw-up.  Hmm... I guess I'll follow the trail.  The trail took me to the kitchen.  This is what I found.  Lots and LOTS of Parmesan cheese  ALL OVER!!

When catastrophes such as this occur I always try to think, "What would Christie do?"  (Christie is my sister-law).  She's so sweet and loving.  I was not feeling like being sweet or loving at the moment.  Then, it hit me.  Christie would take a picture!  So I did, and do you know what?  It did help.  It gave me a little extra time to calm down and put my emotions in check.  So here's the damage:

While cleaning up Luke's cheese mess, he was able to get himself into more trouble.  I separated the hard floor attachment from the vacuum so that I could vacuum the carpet.  I set the attachment to the side and almost immediately Luke reached for it.  Ah,ah,ah, no you don't.  I snatched it away and as I did Elizabeth (whom I was carrying in the baby bjorn) smacked her head into the corner of the wall.  Poor thing.  She's okay now, but it wasn't pretty, and she didn't like it one bit.

So, I finally finished cleaning everything.  I look over at Luke and he has the dog toothbrush in his mouth! EUWW, YUCK, DISGUSTING!  I immediately retrieved it from his mouth and went to put it away.  As I was putting it away I could hear him fiddling around in the bathroom.  I hurried and pulled him out before he had a chance to make a mess with water (which he also likes to do a lot).  Why does he have to know how to open doors?  I would just put a child's lock on the bathroom, but then I would constantly be having to open the bathroom door for the other kids I watch.  Lets face it, I'm lazy.  So, I deal with water messes occasionally instead.
After pulling Luke out of the bathroom he immediately starts tearing the back cushion off of our gliding chair.  I grabbed his hand and moved him away from the chair.  Well, I guess I "moved" him a little too forcefully because he fell back and hit his head on the base board of the wall.  Now I have baby and Luke crying.  Ahh!! I'm going insane and it's still 20 minutes before our designated nap time.  You know what?  I say, "Hooey" to designated nap times for the day!  So with that, both Luke and Tucker were sent to bed.
I finally have some semblance of peace....sigh

Easter catch-up

Okay, so I totally forgot to take picture's of the kids in their new Easter clothes.  I remembered right after everyone had changed into casual clothes after church.  I was tuckered out and I don't think there was any way I was going to make everyone change back into their nice church clothes for picture taking.  So, I took some pictures today.

 In this picture you can see that everyone is reverently folding their arms.  This is the best we could do with no wiggling and no funny business.

One of my friends from church took these pictures of Elizabeth.  I especially like, "the bum" picture.

I wish I had taken a picture of Luke the other day.  He was trying to do a handstand up against the wall.  Jordan, the little girl I babysit wanted me to watch her do one.  I did and said, "Cool."  After she finished Luke immediately went up to the wall and attempted to walk his feet backward up the wall (which he failed to do).  Once the attempt was complete he looked up and said, "cool".  Too funny.  I just wish I had a picture to solidify the memory.   Well, I guess I just did that with this blog huh?