The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of November

THE GOOD: I love playing and walking in the leaves -- the smell, the sound of them crunching underneath my feet, the autumn colors -- it just isn't fall without it! This year we took advantage of a warm day outside and even got a few cute pictures. Oh, I love the Fall!!

Cole loved being buried in the leaves

Garrett in his beanie -- I just love beanies on babies!


THE BAD: When I say bad, I mean tough, not really "bad". Russ' Uncle Myron came for a visit and we had a fantastic time! He came to lecture at the Ortho school, but we took advantage of every second while he was here. He played with the boys non-stop (Cole crawled all over him any chance he could!), reviewed some cases with Russ, took us grocery shopping (thanks for the diapers, formula and baby food!), and even had time to fit in a morning of pheasant hunting. It was a fun weekend and were were so glad for his visit!

The "bad" boys


THE UGLY: The night Mryon arrived Garrett had an ear infection, so we started him on Amoxicilin. It was a ten day treatment and throughout the next week he continued to be fevered. Finally his fever broke and then next day he was covered in a rash. When I say covered I mean it was on every inch of his little body -- his scalp, his fingers, his bum, and everywhere in between. He had an allergic reaction to the amoxicilin. We stopped the medicine on Saturday and figured the rash would go away and we would wait it out. But, after his morning nap on Sunday morning the rash had gotten worse and he also had hives. I decided we should get it checked out and took Garrett to the Quick-Care, just to be safe (I know I'm a little paranoid, but when it comes to my kids I don't take risks). Our neighbors took Cole to church (Cole was a champ and went by himself, not to mention that he didn't even wet his pull-up the whole three hours of church because there was no one there to take him to the potty!) The only person working at the Quick Care was a nurse practitioner (heaven forbid we actually see a doctor) and she took one look at Garrett and told us it was out of her scope and that we should take him straight to the ER. We arrived at the ER and they looked at us like, "Are you serious?" They gave him a dose of Benadryl and sent us on our way. It was expensive Benadryl -- I could've bought the whole supply at Walgreens and still been money ahead for all we spent of the visits. Oh, well -- better safe than sorry! I felt so bad for Garrett and there was nothing I could do but wait until it went away.




What an exciting few weeks! I hope Thanksgiving isn't quite as eventful as the first few weeks of November. But, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly are all pretty cute if you ask me!!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love the orange and black colors, dressing-up and trick-or-treating, pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns, and candy and more candy. I love it!! This year was no exception and we had so much fun the week of Halloween. We water colored pumpkins that I later hid for Cole to collect and put from largest to smallest, made a Dracula box that we put a few treats in, made pumpkin sugar cookies, decorated them and took them to Russ at school, made a seven layer dip that looked like a spider web (for book club) complete with a tootsie roll spider, sang Halloween songs, carved pumpkins, went to the ward's trunk-or-treat (Wednesday night) and trick-or-treating. I think I enjoyed myself more than Cole and Garrett did.

Trick-or-treating was so much fun. We went to an older part of town that had the most beautiful old houses that have been restored and taken care of. Russ' program director, a professor, and classmate live in the area so we were able to visit all of them and show off our little guys. Cole was so darling and polite. He said "thank you" and "Happy Halloween" at almost every house, without having to be prompted by his parents. Garrett was mesmerized by the lights, sounds, and costumes. He just observed everything and didn't make a peep the entire night.

As for the costumes -- it was a drama this year! I was trying to be so frugal, so I waited and waited to find costumes. We found Garrett's cow costume at a second hand store for $5 -- what a deal! Cole was going to be a spider that a girl in our ward was going to loan us. I even had Cole learn a Halloween song called "The Very Scary Spider" to go with the outfit. Well, when I got the outfit it was black crushed velvet with purple satin and black lace on it. Not quite what I pictured my little guy wearing. My cute friend, Traci, saved the day and sent us the fire fighter costume. It arrived the day before the trunk-or-treat. Thanks, Traci! I would hate to have to explain to Cole in years to come why he was draped in a crushed velvet costume!! After all the drama and stress, they sure looked cute!! I think next year I will start a little earlier and be a little more prepared...

Darling kids! Aren't their costumes so cute?!


Decorating sugar cookies (and eating them too!)



Carving pumpkins -- what a great jack-o-lantern