Why I have had a hard time blogging lately...

This poor little guy has had all of my attention...

Zac is not well... It all began Saturday as we were together with family and friends and noticed Zac was not his normal happy self. By night time he was running an extremely high fever and by Sunday morning (after being up a lot of the night) he had two pimples near his mouth. By the time I returned from church, he had 7 or 8 "pimples". By night he couldn't sleep and they looked more like blisters. We figured they were fever blisters, maybe cold sores but not likely. By Monday he had over 20 on his face and I noticed they were in his lips and on his tongue.

A trip to the doctor and he was diagnosed with the herpes virus. Essentially any child can get this from a simple cold. Andy had cold sores a lot as a child so we blame him for Zac's predisposition to them. I was told to continue Tylenol and ibuprofen to control the pain and try to keep him hydrated.

Two days later and I feel as though we have been and are still going through a nightmare. Zac's face has close to 40 blisters and the inside of his mouth has at least that many. In talking to the doctor again we were thinking chicken pox but now we are back to the herpes. Zac has not slept for more than an hour at a time in the last three days. He has not eaten anything and he has gotten to a point where he cannot drink either. Just trying to get the medicine in him has been a nightmare as his mouth is killing him.

Almost getting a smile out of him

I sat tonight, holding him as he cried hysterically. I began to cry - probably from lack of sleep and lack of knowing how to help him. It is a helpless feeling when your child is in so much pain and there is nothing you can do to take it away. We have tried every home remedy there is to give him a little comfort and nothing is working. I can honestly say I have never experienced anything so hard with any of my kids in my life... Sure Hayden cried for the first 10 months of his life and had horrible reflux, sure we thought Brynley had spina bifida, and yeah Zac puked every day of his life and had abdominal surgery... but nothing compares to this. The only thing I could do was walk and cry right along with him. The screaming of course aggravates his sores in his mouth and he can't suck on his pacifier because it hurts so badly.

This too shall pass... eventually, when, I don't know. Soon I hope, not sure how much more I (or Zac more importantly) can take!

On a side note, Andy has been fighting to pass 4 kidney stones for the last three days. Really? Did it have to happen right now? I can't give him any of the attention he deserves because it is all focused on Zac. Andy is a trouper though, he's been helping with Zac when it's been too hard for me even with the immense pain he is in.

So hopefully I can get back to blogging soon, for now I am off to bed! On second though, I just heard Zac wake up screaming... back to the grindstone.

Redecorating the kid's rooms!

I finally hit a point of being so annoyed that my kids rooms were still sitting with white walls after 6 months of living in this house. I set a goal for myself, by the end of August I would finally have all of their rooms done! I'm pretty proud of myself for all that I've gotten accomplished in the last week, it has been no easy feat that's for sure. Working around nap times and little hands trying to get into the paint has proven challenging to say the least!

Zac's room is finished with the painting part, I just need to get things hung in his room! I love the way the stripes turned out, and even with our textured walls, the stripes are perfect, no leakage! I have thought about refinishing the bed to go with the rest of the room but that is at the bottom of the priority list.

Another angle of the room

The last angle of his room

I love this canvas (I still need to rehang it) we found it in my Grandpa's house after he had passed away. He signed the bottom with the date (12-31-84). When talking to my Dad about it years ago he thinks my Grandpa was drawing it for my cousin Jordy, but then after my Grandma died he never finished it. I especially love the Zamboni included as a major vehicle (we were all ice skaters so it makes sense!) Zac's bedding has vehicles on it and so it fits perfectly! At one point when I had it up in Hayden's room I had thought of painting the vehicles to "finish" it but I decided I love the simplicity and that it is all Grandpa Ernie. Something my kids can have from the Great Grandpa they never knew.

Brynley's room is obviously not done because we are doing white Bead Board on the bottom 4 feet of the wall. That will be done this Saturday, I can't wait because I am so excited about the raspberry color we ended up choosing, I think it will pop next to the bead board!

A sneak peak at Hayden's room. 2 of the walls are this color (it's not quite this dark in real life) and the final decision on the other color is still pending... stay tuned...

2nd Day of school!

I won't post every day of the first week, or maybe I will... But I just have to show how cute Hayden is. He has become quite the fashion buff. He picked out his own outfit again with no help from me. I guess the cute clothes I bought him make it possible (and the Pumpkin Patch going out of business sale has also helped!) but really, I think he's done a great job!

He let Brynley in on the picture taking, we tried to get Zac in there but he just walked off!

Being a ham again... He's been asking to where his "Allstar" shoes and I finally let him, I'm not so sure they go with shorts but they're cute. I have to mention that I got these shorts at Goodwill, aren't they great? They are Gap cargo frayed shorts and they look perfect, they were $1.50! My sister has turned me on to thrift store shopping and I must say it's kind of fun! Hayden thought Goodwill was the best place on Earth and has asked to go back... We haven't yet but maybe some day!

I need to add that Hayden had a fantastic first day of school. This morning he asked if school was long or short, I said I think it's pretty long. He corrected me and said it is way too short because he loves school and wishes he could stay longer!

First Day of 1st Grade!

I let Hayden choose his breakfast this morning, he chose blueberry pancakes. He hardly ate any of them, he said his stomach hurt, I think he was a little nervous!

Hayden set out his clothes on Thursday for the first day. He was so excited to finally get a pair of Sketchers - Z straps and so he chose the perfect clothes to go with them. He also decided to wear his church glasses because he had to look extra nice!
What a ham!

The "nice" pose for Mom

So proud!

Dad walking Hayden to the playground, Hayden was a little embarrassed to hold his hand, check out the hands closely!

Hayden is starting at a new school this year which is making me extra nervous for him. One of his friends, KC, is also attending this school but they're not in the same class. They were a little sad but found each other right away when they got to the playground!

And he's off, headed in with the rest of the class. I'll update later on his first day! Now if only I could get Brynley to be a little more independent, she has been "needing" me ALL day, I haven't been able to get anything done!

Hayden's "Special" Dinner

Last year before Hayden started Kindergarten, we decided we wanted to make the night before school starts special for the kids. This year we let Hayden choose the entire meal and we served it on "real" plates (instead of kid plates) and had "real" glasses for them to drink out of. Hayden felt like a king last night and said it was his special day!

Hayden and Brynley waiting for dinner to be served

Hayden's meal choice was grilled steak and shrimp, baked potatoes with bacon, broccoli (no cheese sauce), rolls, and jello. The drink he chose was rootbeer followed by cookies and rootbeer float ice cream. Hayden insisted that he have his own stick with shrimp on it!

Getting ready to eat

The remnants of Hayden's shrimp. I think he is getting messier with age. He had a big plate to eat on and he still managed to leave shrimp tails all over the table, nice. I must also mention that he ate about half of the tales, we always tell him not to eat them but he insists they taste really good!

More of our vacation...

While we were in Peoria the kids found many things to keep them amused. Zac was most thrilled with exploring all of the kitchen cabinets which were virtually empty. I'm not sure why he chose the smallest cabinet to spend most of his time in!

The pool was fantastic and actually felt cool. Our Aunt's pool and most others around here are quite warm and not very refreshing. Zac loved the beach entry, he would just crawl into it until he was almost drowning and drink the water and then come back, it was really cute.

Zac was so uncooperative when it came to picture taking!

Brynley's barely keeping her head above water!

Hayden probably went on the slide a couple hundred times while we were there. He went down just about every way humanly possible!

Brynley wasn't tall enough for the slide but they let her ride it if she wore floaties, she was thrilled!

If we weren't at the pool we were inside watching movies together or reading and coloring! We also went out to eat a lot and saw Ice Age 3, we all loved it!

Our last day was spent up in Prescott where we met Meredith and her kids, I'll post more about that later!