Pumbaa sure can make kids happy!

As we entered Wal-Mart today, there was a Pumbaa ride right inside the door. Parker LOVES to ride those silly things, so I fished some quarters out of my mom's wallet, and let both the kids have a ride. Parker had a blast, and Peyton was having fun too, until a man walked up to use a pay phone nearby. You would have thought he was trying to take her. Her mood immediately changed and she scowled at him the rest of the time. Here's a few pics!

This is before the "SCARY" man showed up!

Can you tell he LOVED it?
This is after "SCARY" man...she cracks me up!
He is such a cutie!

I would have taken a pic of Scary man, but I don't think he would have appreciated it. In all honesty, he really did look a little scary, but Peyton had nothing to worry about.

Prayer Needed!

I could go on for a LONG time with my whole prayer list, but tonight I have a special prayer for my friend Jeff's Papa! He has been in a nursing home for a long while, and today was taken to the ER and not expected to make it overnight. They did some testing and discovered that it was Pancreatic Cancer. He is going to make it through the night, but has requested for the cancer to not be treated.

Jeff's Papa means the world to him! Since he has been in the nursing home, there have only been a handful of days that Jeff has not gone to visit him. He is literally like a father to him and I am really scared for Jeff right now.

Please pray for Papa, whose real name is Burton Aday, for Jeff, and for his family.

Thank you so much!

Sick of it All

The past few days have been full of excitement! There is a lot of sarcasm in that statement! BTW, just a warning that this is probably going to be a long post!

On Monday I noticed that Parker's bottom was looking bad again and he also complained again that night of his ears hurting when Adam put his plugs in for bath time. I called his pediatrician on Tuesday morning and he told me that the strep infection is common to come back if the original antibiotic isn't strong enough. He was originally on Amoxicilin; now he is on a 10 day round of Augmentin. Dr. Lin said that with the stronger antibiotic, it should be gone for good. Let's hope so anyway!!!

I also called his ENT Tuesday morning to get an appointment and we go next Thursday. When Parker was diagnosed with an ear infection a couple of weeks ago, Dr.Lin said it was very mild and just slightly red. There is no reason, especially after being on antibiotics, for his ear to still be hurting. I could just be paranoid, but with all the problems he has had with his ears, it makes me wonder if something else is going on. When we go to the ENT, he will be able to do a thorough exam and also test his hearing. If for no other reason, it will give Adam and I peace of mind.

On Wednesday morning I woke up with some slight pain, but with all of my tummy issues, I just disregarded it as my usual symptoms. Throughout the morning my pain started getting a lot worse. It was from underneath my ribs to about two inches below, on my right side. As the day went on, the pain kept getting worse and WORSE. I couldn't get in to see a doctor, so I eventually went to the ER. I HATE the ER!!!!

I got there at 6:45 and was finally called back at 9:00. They did the normal tests; a urinalysis and blood work. The doctor came over and went over all my symptoms with me and a background check. He was pretty sure it was my gallbladder, but couldn't do a diagnosis without doing a sonogram. They got me into a private room (forgot to mention I was in the hallway!), and the doc came in with a portable sonogram machine. He discovered that I have sludge in my gallbladder that was/is causing the pain. If you click on the highlighted sludge, it will take you to a website that explains what it is.

There is pretty much nothing I can do for the pain, except take pain pills, which I won't do. Pain pills have never done anything for me in the past, and if there was one that actually worked for me, how would I be able to take care of the kids? I am going to go see my regular doctor tomorrow for a follow-up and see if there is anything she recommends. The pain will come when my gallbladder "flares up", so luckily I won't be constant pain. When I have a flare-up, the pain could last anywhere from 1 to a few days.

If anyone has ever gone through this personally, let me know if you have any suggestions. The doctor last night told me that it would feel a lot worse when I ate if I was having a flare-up, and he was NOT lying. I ate dinner tonight and am so regretting it. Not only is the pain back 100%, but I feel nauseous!

Whew! That was a long post! Sorry! I will give y'all an update tomorrow after my appointment and I will give y'all a Parker update next Thursday afternoon.

I hope everyone else is feeling well. Love you all!

What an Imagination!!!

Parker has been playing pretend since he was about 18 months. His imagination started very early, and gets more and more vivid everyday!

Parker has had an imaginary friend for about 6 months now. At first, Pablo (the friend) would only show up when we were playing outside. When I asked where Pablo lived, Parker said, "on the front porch." In the past month or so, Pablo has decided to start living in our house. He has made several appearances, but not on a frequent basis. That is, until today!

Andrea and Claire were over all day today. We all sat down to eat lunch, and as usual, Parker fought me almost the whole time. He ended up getting underneath his chair. I could hear him mumbling to himself, and when I asked him what he was doing, he responded, "I am playing with my friend." Alrighty then! After lunch it was nap time and since we had company, Parker fought me on his nap as well. I had to go in several times to put him back in bed and he told me repeatedly he was playing with his friend.

Anyway, tonight after bath, I lotioned Parker down as I always do. As soon as I finished rubbing him down, he told me that his friend needed lotion too! So I asked him where his friend was and I had to pretend to put lotion on Pablo as well.

I love that he has an imagination, but I have to admit, that for some reason, the imaginary friend sometimes freaks me out a little bit! Do any of your kids have an imaginary friend? Sometimes it makes me wonder if it means he needs more attention, more friends to play with, or if it is completely normal. Somebody PLEASE tell me that this is completely normal and I have no reason to worry!

Oh, and I just remembered something else from today! Before bath tonight, for about 20 minutes, Parker was a cat! I had the pack-n-play set up in our room for Claire to take her nap in, and I hadn't taken it down yet. He climbed in the pack-n-play, got on all fours and started meowing! Thought some of you might get a kick out of that!

Love you all and hope you had a great weekend!

Must Wear Shoes

I received an e-mail from Andrea tonight that I thought I would pass on in a post. I am the world's worst at letting my kids play outside barefoot. This story will definitely make me think twice about sending them out without shoes on! Here's the e-mail that was sent to her:

Hi everyone, I am sending this to all my friends and family, whether you have a child now, in the future or just know people with children.

This week at daycare, Jacob was outside with his class running through a sprinkler for the water play portion of their week. They were playing on a grassy area, but it was very close to their parking lot. It was a very hot day and unfortunately, Jacob stepped out on the pavement and got second degree burns on the bottom of both of his feet. His right foot retained the blister, which is good, and is doing pretty well, but his left foot started bleeding and was burned pretty bad up near his toes. He is doing okay. Not walking very well but getting there. He is bearing weight on his right foot and only on the heel of his left foot. We're changing dressings a few times a day and keeping them well padded. We have an appt. with a plastic surgeon who specializes in burns on Monday to make sure it is healing well and there is no permanent damage.

I tell you all this because I am asking, no begging, you to please make sure your children never walk around outside without shoes on, especially on hot days. There are obviously some issues with our daycare that we are addressing, but if your child is in daycare and they have water play times, please make sure they mandate water shoes.

Thanks for reading and please spread the word to anyone you care about.

Take care,
Diana

This is pretty scary! Hopefully this e-mail will help prevent any of your kiddos from getting burns on their feet!

Golfing with Daddy

Parker was begging to play golf this morning. Adam took the kids out in the front yard, with their golf clubs, and attempted to teach Parker how to hold the club. It was so precious! Adam was blessed with WAY more patience than I was, so he is great at teaching the kids how to do new things. I am so thankful that we have each other; we are a great balance.

Trying to teach Parker how to hold the club. Parker did not want to do it Daddy's way.
He actually hit the ball several times!
Peyton didn't do much hitting. She just wanted to hold the ball and club because her brother had them too!
They alsmost hit each other WAY too many times for my comfort level.

Lucky Lou a.k.a. Fatty McGee

I was fiddling around with my new camera and decided to take some pictures of Lucky. The camera has a pet eye feature that is really cool. Then I realized I have never posted any pics of my Fatty Girl! So, for your enjoyment, here's a few:

Here's one I took tonight. See how her pupils are black instead of "glow-in-the-dark"?

Here's another from tonight.
Here's Fatty a few years ago when she was still somewhat skinny!
Here's Lucky Lou all dressed for Christmas! Can you tell she was excited?

I just wanted to let you all know that Lucky has been on several diets and none of them worked. I don't want anybody reporting me for animal cruelty because of her weight issues. She is just "big boned".

Also, I love my new camera, but I am still trying to figure it out. It has a lot of special features that my other camera didn't have. It may take me awhile before I am a pro at using it!

Lunch with Daddy

On our way home today, we stopped in Downtown to have lunch with Adam. We were all missing him and the kids were SO excited! After lunch with Adam and some of his co-workers, we took the kids to Renaissance Tower to see their Daddy's office. Parker was so cute. He was so impressed by all of the cool stuff in Daddy's office.

Of course Adam wanted to show off his babies, so we walked several floors in the building to say hi to a BUNCH of people. Luckily the kids were in great moods until the very end, so we decided it was time to leave.

I was able to get a couple of pictures at lunch.

Precious Peanut Adam and Parker...I like this pic!
No clue what she was looking at, but it's a cute picture!
Silly girl LOVED her taco!

Fun with Lotion

Who knew playing with lotion could be this much fun?!?! Peyton started this mess and Parker quickly joined in. I am normally a very anal mom, and would not have allowed this. Since they were in their jammies and we hadn't gotten dressed for the day, I decided to let them have some fun. Not only did they rub it all over their body, face, jammies, and hair, they also ate some! It was so disgusting to watch, but apparently they think it tastes pretty good. After going through an entire bottle of lotion, they went straight into the bathtub. It was hilarious to watch! Hope you enjoy the funny pics!

It's hard to tell in this pic, but his face is COVERED in clumps of lotion. Peyton's favorite thing to do was rub it in her hair!
He's showing me the empty bottle of lotion...they wanted more!
Bitty's trying to get the bottle open. She didn't believe me that it was empty.

Out and About

This week has been an extremely busy week. I left for Hachie on Tuesday because we had family coming into town for my Great Uncle's funeral. The visitation was Tuesday evening in Ennis and the funeral was on Wednesday. My family headed home on Thursday and I didn't leave my parent's until today.

Thursday evening we decided to go try a new restaurant that opened in Cedar Hill, called Matt's. It was Mexican food and was VERY good. To me, all enchiladas and fajitas are the same, so I base a good Mexican food restaurant on their chips and hot sauce. Matt's were awesome! For those of you that live close, you need to go check out the new outside mall. It is very nice! It's very similar to Firewheel, which is by my house.

Anyway, here are some pics that I took as we were leaving the restaurant. The kids were all wound up and Grumps bought them candy.

"Cheese!"

Mom, Aunt May, and Dad...Brothers and Sisters are never too old to pick on each other!
That's much better!
She loved her green frog candy...it tasted like apple!
Such a cutie!
My handsome man!
Believe it or not, he wanted to take this picture...so funny!