Oink, Roar, Splash, Waddle and Snort

You may have noticed a pattern with my most recent posts. They're all belated. Happy belated birthday, Jack. Happy belated birthday, Gillian. I've just been busy. My bad.

Here comes another such post. Happy belated Halloween.

Not that it's a big deal in our house, but I do find it fun to dress up with the kids and gather candy from neighbors. I don't talk to our neighbors as often as I'd like. Mostly because I am inside, making sure the little ones don't destroy one another. But Halloween marked a night where we went out as a family and got to chat it up with the people we live next to.

Last week was also Fall Break for Gillian's school district. I had never heard of Fall Break before. I know all about Spring Break, and Winter Break and Summer (woohoo), but a break in the Fall? Didn't we just start school? Why do we need a break already? whatever. It just means that while all the students from the other school districts are enjoying the sunshine in the middle of the day at the end of May, my daughter will still be in class for another week or so. (boo)

I had all these plans to drive an hour north for a couple of days during Fall Break to visit with some of Gillian's kindergarten classmates and their mommies who I miss dearly. The kids and I raked the leaves in our front yard Monday afternoon, and by Monday evening, Josh was a pile of sneezing, wheezing goo. He was miserable, and I wanted to kick myself in the rear for not considering his poor allergies. I'm sure that jumping around in piles of leaves isn't the greatest idea for someone who reacts everytime he plays outside.

But then came 4am, Tuesday morning. I heard Josh up, wandering around, crying and sneezing and coughing. He sounded delirious. Is there any other way to sound at 4am? I went to check on him, and he was burning up. I took his temperature, and it said the poor boy was 102 degrees. Yikes. There was something besides allergies going on. I cuddled on the couch with him, and we fell asleep for a few more hours. When his pediatrician's office opened, I called and set up an appointment for him to be seen later that morning. Turns out he had the dreaded swine flu. Which freaked me out only a little.

When we got home, Gillian was coughing, and I noticed a tickle in the back of my throat. As the day went by, Gillian's cough was accompanied by sneezes and fever-induced aches, and that tickle in my throat had grown up into a fairly large iron noose! By the next morning, Josh, Gillian and yours truly were all battling it out with the piggy flu. We all got really high fevers, coughs and extra portions of mucus. Gross. Gillie and Josh planted themselves in front of the tv and spent virtually all of the next two days there. I put Jack in his walker, let Ben - who was working from home - put out all the minor little fires that cropped up, and I laid in bed and napped in the afternoons.

I might should get the 'flu' more often!

Thursday afternoon, Josh was acting like he was feeling back to normal. That night, Gillian joined him in running around the house, appetites and energy levels back to normal (for a 4 and 7 year old). It would have lasted a lot longer had we not taken the meds that we did. I'm sure of it. We all had lots of echinacia, Emergen-C, oscillococcinum, and lots of fluids. I made sure to keep our fevers down since we were all too miserable to drink or eat anything while we were achy and sore.

By Friday morning, I was feeling better too. Well, enough to do some crafts, put some finishing touches on the kids' Halloween costumes, and cook dinner for the first time that week.

So our plans to visit friends was obviously cancelled because of us not being well, but even if we hadn't been contagious, sticky whiners in fetal-positions, we wouldn't have been able to drive an hour north anyway. Or go to Awanas on Wednesday. Or to Kids' Camp at another church...

because we got over 2 feet of snow in two days! yep. Not kidding. And it wasn't even November yet.

But by Saturday evening, a lot of the snow had melted away, the kids and I got all dressed up in our costumes (I was a nerd. Jack was a turtle. Josh was a shark. And Miss G was a lion) and hit up our neighbors for some of their sugar-coated sugar. Sunday started with a hangover vibe in everyone except Ben, who got up early to go celebrate one of his all-time favorite days of the year by going to Walmart and buying three large grocery bags full of half-priced candy. He came home, hauling his loot over his shoulder and looking jollier than St. Nick himself. I think it's silly. He thinks it's the best thing since, well, since anything.

Being the silly shutterbug that I am (no matter how sick), I documented our week in photos. So here are a few.

First off, I had said that I would show you my version of a Martha Stewart Living Magazine cover. Here it is.

And here are the kids in their costumes. For Gillian and Josh, I just took a hoodie and embellished them with felt. And then the kids wanted me to add eyeliner noses, whiskers and teeth. For Jack, I took a paper plate (no kidding) and sewed a piece felt to it that I had drawn on to make it look more like a turtle shell. Then I just pinned it to some of his pajamas. Instant turtle. And mighty cute.

The next photo was taken while the kids were sick. They were snacking on apples and watching one of their favorite shows, either Phineas and Ferb or Chalkzone, I'm not sure which one. When I looked over, Gillian had her arm around Josh and he was leaning on her. I had to capture that moment, since, and I know you won't believe this, it is kind of rare. But a feverish mind will befriend just about anyone in its time of need.

Here is our backyard after the snow. Crazy, right?!

Nothing says blizzard like driving a snowmobile down the street! I also heard stories of people putting on snowshoes and going to the grocery store or Starbucks or whatever. Actually, that's kind of awesome!

Shhhhh. This is a project I'm doing for Christmas. I'm making many, many of these with various people's faces or phrases on them. Aren't they sweet?