Toothless Wonder!

Well, it finally happened. Harley lost a tooth!! She's almost 7, and this is her first one. Can I just say how jealous Ryker is!!! My goodness, the boy will be 8 next month, and not even a wiggle!!!

I'm Spicy!!!

I just HAD to share this!

At the Headless Horseman Event, while we were watching the marionette show, Marina was sitting on Thomas' shoulders. After awhile, she asked to get down because her foot was hurting. After a few moments, she let out quite a yell, and said,

"My legs are spicy!!"

I guess she took the tingling as a "Spicy" sensation!! She cracks me up!!

Aspen is 12!!!

I can't believe how fast time has flown! 12 years ago, Thomas & I welcomed Aspen into our lives. After being in the hospital for 4 days before she was born, we were just so excited to begin the new chapter of parenthood in our lives. She has truly been a joy to raise, and we are super proud of the young lady she is becoming. Aspen is an awesome big sister, adventurous, funny, shy, smart, a great babysitter, and most importantly our daughter! She is also officially a Young Woman...no longer in Primary! She is totally stoked about that. I can't wait for her to experience all the Young Women program has to offer... fun weekly activities, Girl's Camp & Youth Conference, just to name a few. I wish you all could be here to help us celebrate with her!!

We LOVE you Aspen!! Happy Birthday!!

I love Halloween in Indiana!

There is so much to go and do during the fall and Halloween season out here in Indiana. All at a pretty inexpensive price! We were really excited to be able to share a couple of these fun events with Aunt Trayci and Aunt Taneil too!

First off, we went to the Children's Museum's Haunted House. We didn't go last year, so we really wanted to go this year. During the summer, the library has a Summer Reading Program, and all 4 of the older kids earned a free pass to the haunted house by reading. Gotta love free!! It was really fun. At this particular haunted house, they do "friendly" hours and "frightening" hours. Basically, "friendly" is with the lights on, and "frightening" is with the lights off. Of course, we decided on the "frightening" hours!! Ryker led the way, which really surprised me. He did fine until we came to a bridge that went through a tunnel that was spinning. He thought he was gonna spinning with it, but it was just an optical illusion. That tunnel was really, really cool!! Aspen & Sierra, of course, were fine. Harley was scared to death, and I ended up carrying her through the whole thing. Marina, walked right through like she owned the place!! She must have thought we were walking around in circles, though, because she eventually asked Trayci, "Where's the out ??" She didn't say it like she was scared, just like we were lost!

The next night, we took Trayci and Taneil to a REAL pumpkin patch at a REAL farm!! Thomas had school that night, so Trent & Beth & Megan came to hang out with us. Again, it was a really fun night with lots of fun stuff to do. I love Waterman's Farm because it is so inexpensive ($4/person) and you get to do everything inside for no extra price. Not like in Vegas, where you would probably have to buy tickets for every single ride!! The kids had fun riding the big bikes, climbing and sliding on the inflatables, going through the hay maze, climbing the hay mountain, going through 3 different corn mazes, watching the pumpkin eating dinosaur, climbing on huge tractor tires and going on a hay ride out to the pumpkin patch!! Oh yeah...all for $4!!!

Then last night, we went to see if we could find the Headless Horseman!! We thought we were gonna miss most of the crowds, but when we got there....we knew we had thought wrong. The event was only from 6:30p to 9pm. When we got through the gate, we were given a ride time of 10:15p!! What!!! Everything at this event is centered around the story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. They had a marionette show, scary campfire stories, a play (which we didn't get to see), and of course the hay ride to go and see the Headless Horseman. We still had a lot of fun, and just made ourselves comfortable at the playground until it was our turn. The kids found these tire swings, and had so much fun that it quite literally made them sick!! Ryker, threw up twice, and Sierra just couldn't get her bearings after she was done. The hay ride was so much fun, and they added some new scary elements this year, with skeletons and such chasing after the wagon. I couldn't get any pics of the Headless Horseman, because you're not allowed to use a flash, and well, remember it was really late at night in some dark woods, so you wouldn't have been able to tell! All I gotta say, is if you are ever in Indianapolis for Halloween, you have to go!!

Hopefully, you made it through this post!! I just love the fall season here, and I love to share it as much as I can with all of you!!!

Yeah...we're still alive!!

Well...I think we are.

Have I ever mentioned that I have a red head?? I mean a true stubborn, fiesty, hot tempered, "my way or the highway" red head??

Well....I do, and her name is Marina! She's also the baby of the family, which makes it even worse!!

Let me explain...

Starting on Saturday morning, just like clockwork, Day 5 of recovering from tonsils began with a vengeance. The doctor said that day 5 would be the worst...you know what, that doctor knows what he's talking about! All 3 of the kids were in terrible, terrible pain. So bad, that I think they thought their throats were being sliced open. Ryker & Harley did great, though. They understood that as long as they were brave and took their medicine and drank lots of fluids, it would be okay. Marina...not so much!! Of course, Thomas was at school, and didn't have his phone with him. Marina was terrified to swallow, and wasn't about to! She wasn't going to swallow any medicine, juice, water, or spit, and there was no way anyone could force her. See, Marina is too young to really "get" the whole "you gotta just be brave & suck it up and do it" mentality that her older siblings understood, BUT she is also too old to be able to force anything down her throat. Trust me...I tried!! After 3 failed attempts, 2 of which ended up with Lortab Elixer in her eye, I gave up. Even when Thomas came home, he couldn't get her to take anything. Let's just say that Sunday is a big fat Ditto!

We kept telling her that all this stubborness was going get her was an all expense paid trip to the Emergency Room. Guess what, she did NOT care. In fact, at about 1am Monday morning (Sunday night) we finally told her enough was enough, she needed to go in and get some fluids. (We're pretty sure that she only peed once all day Sunday.) Guess what, she did NOT care. So, we loaded her up and drove to the hospital. Not a peep came out of her the entire ride there. She even had this look about her that said she was "calling our bluff!"

So, the doctor comes in, and says, "Well, let's try and see if we can get her to drink something." Thomas & I looked at each other like, "What?" The doctor seriously came back with a cup full of Gatorade and a popsicle, and said let's give her 1/2 an hour to try and drink something. He also explained how he had had to hold his daughter down before and force liquids, and he was sure the new environment would help her to drink. Yep, he saw it all the time. Kids come in dehydrated, and LOVED the hospital juice so much better, so they didn't have to get an IV. Guess what, she did NOT care. In fact, after about 5 minutes of hearing her scream bloody murder because we were trying to force it, he came back in and "Okay, I get that she isn't going to do it on her own. We'll start an IV." All I could think was, "Yeah...ya think!"

The nurses came in all prepared to hold down a 4 year old, that they KNEW was going to be hard to get an IV in. Guess what, she did NOT care!!! That's right, my little girl did not move a muscle, only wimpered a little. Yep, you heard me...she would rather be stuck in the arm with a needle (2 times actually, the first one didn't work...even after they moved it around and around in her arm...ewww!) than drink some juice. I guess that goes to show you how much pain she was in. She finished the hour long IV, and then we were told to get her to drink before we could go home. Nope, not gonna happen. The doctor ended up giving her 2 doses of Morphine, and she STILL wasn't gonna drink anything. After a couple of hours, she finally drank what she needed to to get released. Whew!

On the way home, we had this long conversation about how we did not want to have to do that again, and she agreed that she would be brave and drink lots of juice and take her medicine. You wanna know what she did the next day? You guessed it...wouldn't drink or take her medicine!!! I finally told her that if she wasn't going to let Thomas & I take care of her, that she would have to go and live outside, with the coyotes (yes, there are coyotes here), and take care of herself. I put her on the front porch and closed the door. She screamed for a couple of minutes, so I asked her if she was ready to let me take care of her. Her answer was still a No, so back out she went. After some 5-10 minutes, I finally got the message through. Ever since then, all I have to do is tell her that she is going to have to live outside and take care of herself and she quickly takes a drink!

Guess what....she has been drinking more than Ryker & Harley now!

Whew...after all of that nonsense, I think today we have finally turned a corner! After thier naps, they all woke up saying that they were starting to feel better. Do you know what that means? Ryker is back to being a boy and bugging all of his sisters, pretty much simultaneously!! And with 4 sisters, that's talent!!

We are getting along just fine...

Well, the kids are doing fairly well. In fact, when I thought about what I would be having to go through with all 3 of them, I NEVER thought my biggest challenge would be getting them to lay down and stay down!! They are kids, though, so I know it's gotta be hard to just lay down and stay still. At least when they get up, they are doing fairly quiet activites...except for Marina's ballerina dance today! They did really well staying hydrated the first day, but the amount of drinking has consistently gone down each day. This worries me a bit, so today we have been having a contest to see who can drink the most. It worked for awhile this morning, but as of tonight, they just don't care. The doctor said that day 5 is usually the worst, so time will tell how bad this will get. It really hasn't been all that bad, especially with Thomas' sisters here helping.

Whew! We made it!!

We are all home now, safe and sound, after Ryker, Harley, & Marina had their tonsils removed. It was quite an experience, and we felt like the freak show there at the surgery center. Everyone just had to come in and take a look at the insane parents. Before they went into surgery, the nurses gave them some medicine to help them relax.

Ryker & Harley definitely relaxed, and were seeing double in no time. Ryker kept asking me why there were 2 TVs. The medicine was very yucky, and Harley wasn't too happy to be duped into taking it, by the nurses putting a drop of juice with it. She wouldn't talk to them after that! Ryker was watching Dora, and looked at me me and said, "Dora is HUGE!" Just like some surfer dude on acid. It was pretty funny.

Marina, on the other hand, had a completey opposite reaction to this "relaxing" medicine. At first, she was super hyper, and literally couldn't hold still. She kept trying to stand up on the bed and bounce on it. Then, the mood swings came. She was last to be taken back to surgery, so we had quite a bit of time with her while she was on this stuff. She was quite literally laughing hysterically one SECOND, and then histerically crying the next. It was so wierd to watch your little ones act like they were on an acid trip.

It was quite the task keeping on eye on them, since there is only 2 of us, and there were 3 of them. They were in 3 different rooms, when they came out, and the catch was that none of them could be left alone in their room AT ALL. So, since Marina wasn't going to stay in her bed anyway, I held her in Ryker's room until they woke up...which didn't happen for a good 3-4 hours!! They were so zonked out. Finally, we were able to rouse them, and get them to eat a popsicle, which was one of the requirements to get to go home.

Well, now the fun begins!! They have been doing awesome, and have all had at least 6-7 popsicles since we got home. The doctor is really worried about them, and has already had his personal assistant call us to make sure everything is going okay. I, of course, forgot my camera, so you'll have to enjoy these crappy pictures from my phone. Keep us all in your prayers, we are gonna need them!!