Easter with Friends

Thought I didn't post any pictures or blog about it, last year, we celebrated Easter with our good friends (let's call them the Rrrs).  The Rrrs accompanied us to the Colorado Railroad Museum for a train ride and egg hunt a week before Easter then came over to our house on Easter Sunday for a lovely lunch and an indoor egg hunt (b/c it was actually too rainy to go outside).  This year, we, once again, met up with the Rrrs for an Easter outing...this time with my mom's Bible study group.  Each of the moms pitched in some Easter eggs and yummy treats for lunch, and we all had a wonderful time.  The day was beautiful so we hung around at the park for hours.  Needless to say, the kids had a blast (and were nice and exhausted by the time we got back home).


And The Hits Just Keep Coming

In November, I told y'all about dear friends of ours who were facing possible foreclosure of their home while their little girl Avery fights infant leukemia.  They managed to raise enough funds from good people such as yourselves to stave off foreclosure for the time being, but they're nowhere near out of the woods yet.

Before I go any further, I'll go back a bit and tell you about some of the things they've gone through since Avery's diagnosis.  For starters, the entire family came down with H1N1 for which they had to take Tamiflu, which is unbelievably expensive.  They've also had to deal with bronchitis and strep, and they were unable to spend last Thanksgiving with their family because of a case of mono.  Both Avery and her older sister Emily were wearing casts on their legs at one point because of injuries received in separate incidents.  Melissa's mother, who has been helpful and instrumental in the way only loving grandmothers can be, fell and broke her hip, was hospitalized, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, underwent surgery, was hospitalized again, etc.  Meanwhile, Kelvin (Avery's dad) had to take a job out of state because he couldn't find enough work here so my friend Melissa was left alone to care for their 4 kids, take Avery to the hospital for her treatments, and even help care for her mom, who lives about an hour away.  Even their fairly new dishwasher broke down and had to be replaced!  Talk about bad luck...this is country song bad!

As I said, the hits just keep coming.  The latest:  Their home was burglarized!  Three nights ago while the family was at home sleeping in their rooms, these brazen thieves broke a window in Kelvin's truck, used his remote to open the garage door, entered my friend's home, and made off with thousands of dollars worth of tools and Melissa's purse, which had her ID, ATM card, cell phone, Avery's prescription card, the babies' WIC checks, and all their April grocery money!  The bastard scum went into little Avery's room where she slept and even raided the family's freezer and stole their roast beast!

The problem now, of course, is that Kelvin is unable to work without his tools, and there is no telling what the insurance company is going to cover or how the family is going to get by in the meantime.  I thank God that no one was harmed....though I'm left to wonder why bad things keep happening to this wonderful family and hope and pray that this will be it for them for the rest of their natural lives...and also that they win the lottery. :)

I'm reposting the slideshow from November in case any of you would like to do something to help my good friends and need to know where to send your donations.

(Here's the slideshow. To see the full screen, click on the little square within a square below the video.)


P.S. If any of you know Oprah, please ask her to give me a call so we can chat about the Spicers. ;)

Midnight and All is Well

A couple of weeks ago, we held a small gathering at our house to celebrate QT's birthday. No jello shots this time, but there were still plenty of laughs to be had by all. Unfortunately, as our guests started leaving, one of the kids started coughing...a croupy kind of cough. Nooo!

I called my friend a few days later to ask after her daughter, and it turns out the girl, who suffers from chronic respiratory problems, was put on steroids and missed about a week of school due to that virus. That very evening, Pumpkin started up with a croupy cough of his own. Even though it was just a mild case of croup (cough, runny nose, hoarse voice, but no fever), I kept him home from school the next two days to be on the safe side. He seemed fine by Saturday so he and his dad went out to visit the model train store, have lunch, and just enjoy some guy time together. I guess somewhere along the way, Pumpkin must've been exposed to an allergen because, that evening during dinner, his left ear suddenly started getting red and swollen. It was also hot to the touch, and Pumpkin complained that it hurt when I touched it. Then, just as suddenly, it went away! So we gave him a bath, loaded him up with Zyrtec, and put him to bed, same as any other night. A few hours later, at around dawn, he started coughing terribly then he sprang up in bed crying and gasping and grabbing at his mouth.

As luck would have it...or perhaps by God's good graces, I'd decided to have him sleep with me in my room so that I could keep an eye on him so I woke up as soon as he did. I'd also (again, by sheer luck or what-have-you) read up on the latest in croup treatment after we'd put the kids to bed so I knew exactly what to do. I "calmly" gathered him up and ran downstairs and out the front door with him to breathe in the cold air, which is what the "experts" said was the best thing to do (one study found that hot bathroom steam didn't work very well after all). And don't worry, he didn't get resfriado. We didn't actually stand around outside in our pajamas. I held the door open, and we sat on the sill, and I covered Pumpkin with my coat, which fit like a full-size Snuggie only warmer.

Once he was all nice and medicated and breathing easier, I noticed that his left eye was swollen and puffy. Was it mere coincidence that it was on the same side as the ear that had swollen the night before? I think not! Might this weird recurring allergy have something to do with the sudden worsening of his previously mild croup? In my reading, I came across something known as spasmodic croup, which is a recurring fever-less croup that appears to be triggered by allergies. It seems odd that I hadn't heard of this before, but it seems to fit.

So Pumpkin missed school again on Monday and then again on Tuesday because I'd kinda sorta re-injured my back when I carried him down the stairs. And then on Wednesday, which was to be his last day of school and the day of his classroom Easter party, school was cancelled on account of snow. Darn!

You'll be glad to hear that Pumpkin is doing better. In fact, we all are. I haven't yet attempted to go anywhere with the kids that might require any heavy lifting of strollers or pulling of loaded wagons, etc. Perhaps tomorrow when the weather is nicer, we'll try leaving the house. Or not. Whatever.

In other news this month, we visited the Zoo, celebrated QT's actual birthday, went to the park, and played with mice and dogs. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.



Boo Boo

When I walked into Giggles' room this morning, she covered her eyes with her hands and said "Boo Boo" (as in Peek-a-boo). She often starts the p-a-b game when I walk in to greet her in the mornings, but since she couldn't say it for herself, she'd wait for me to say peek-a-boo before uncovering her eyes. Today marked the first time that she's ever actually said "peek-a-boo" to me, and it was sooo cute.

She's talking more and more every day. She says teta (bottle), Sunshine, Dada, Mama, No, Drink, Sit, papa (eat), ball, bowl, cat, bird, fish, thank you, and more. She's still working on getting Pumpkin's name, but she tries. It's sounding better and better.

Last week, we ran into a photographer friend at the park, and he snapped these beautiful pictures of Giggles playing on the slide. I think he captured her personality well in the pictures, but especially so in the one of her crinkling her nose and gnashing her teeth (below). That's totally her! I'm just glad she wasn't wearing her usual attire of dirty food-covered clothing that day, haha.










In less happy boo-boo related news, I decided, on the spur of the moment, to take the kids and meet up with some fellow moms and their kids for dinner at our local Chick-Fil-A last night. As I was tidying up the kitchen before leaving, I accidentally smashed Giggles' finger with the refrigerator door. Augh! At first, she was shaking and kicking and could barely make a sound, but when she got her lungs back, oh man, did she let loose! My poor little baby. Wah!!! As I rocked her and calmed her down, I started wondering whether we should just stay home after all. I bandaged her little finger up where it was bleeding and convinced myself that we should go ahead as planned. Then, just as we were walking out the door, Pumpkin inadvertently poked his eye with a toy he was holding and, of course, started to cry. Oh my gosh....I'm heaving a big ole sigh just thinking about last night's misadventures. What a weird night. I seriously wondered whether God or the Universe was trying to keep me home last night, ha ha.

BTW, you'll be happy to hear that her injured finger looks great today as does Pumpkin's eye (that was doubly injured yesterday, but that's another story).