I can now officially say that I have become a statistic..

OK, so every winter you hear of the influenza outbreak state by state, and how there is x number of cases of people diagnosed with the flu. I always took a small amount of pride knowing that I was not one of those numbers. "Flu shot? Bah, that is for wussies" I'd think.

Well, guess who has now joined the ranks of the thousands who've contracted the flu? You guessed it, me. No, no, no, not the stomach, puke-your-guts-out flu. Everybody gets that. This is the light-headed, cold sweats, fever shakes, coughing until your sides hurt and you see points of light at the edges of your eyes, head pounding and body aching so badly that it hurts to blink kind of flu. I can assure you that I have never had this extreme of flu before. I would've remembered.

Between the boys and I, we came home with an impressive array of prescriptions from the doctor yesterday. I have some pill for the flu symptoms, a very powerful and slightly scary cough medicine. By scary, I mean, the "extra" stuff in the cough medicine to help me sleep put me into a daze 20 minutes after I took it. I also was given an Albuterol inhaler to help with the coughing fits. Thank goodness. I haven't coughed too much today. I'm greatful for that. Cayden came home with some anti-fungal cream to treat a ringworm rash that will not go away and Kieran has his own version of cough medicine laced with codeine to help him sleep, since his cough is much worse than mine.

We have beeen sleeping well, so far, at least. We'll see about tonight. I've been spraying Lysol disinfectant like crazy on my pillows and on various surfaces around the house to try to to stop the spread of the germs that I have. God forbid my kids catch what I have. I can't even imagine how sick they'd be. I'd feel so sorry for them, that I'd probably have them on my lap for 2 days straight.

So, I hope by my next post, we'll all be much better. I can only hope and pray.

These boys are soooo handsome!

This pic is just so precious

Our buried yard...

We won't be doing much swinging on these swings for quite some time...
We don't need a ladder to get up into the clubhouse.

We are kinda running out of room for where to put the snow. And with another 5-10 coming in on Sunday the 17th. It makes my brain hurt.

Star Student week!

In first grade, each child chooses a week where they get to be "Star Student" This involves being line leader every day, bringing a show and tell item every day, and bringing snacks and such. The star student also gets to bring in special pictures of themselves and family and friends. So Cayden and I put together a big tag board with lots of pictures. Jerod ate lunch with him on Monday, my mom and dad ate lunch with him on Tuesday, which worked out well, since Wednesday we had the biggest snowstorm of the season-11"! Thursday I read a Skippy Jon Jones book to his class, brought his teacher flowers and brought Cayden a happy meal to eat. I hoped to make him feel like it was a special week for him. he was bummed since he missed out on Wednesday and most of Thursday morning due to the weather. (how much snow is enough?) Obviously not the 80+" we've had so far.

Here are some pix of my time with Cayden at school..

Proud Big Sister!

The morning after Oliver was born, I had a rummage sale at the local elementary school. There were about 30 other booths as well. Anyways, the booth across from mine had a ton of little girl clothes. We all know how fanatic Ava is with her fancy, party dresses, so when I spotted this dress, I knew I had to get it for her. I ended up with this one and another peach frilly thing that she has been wearing regularly. So I took the dresses up to the hospital that afternoon and she immediately had to put it on. Then she and the boys were running around in the hallways. The nurses got a huge kick from watching her wrestle the boys in her pretty dress. She is definitely one-of-a-kind. We all love her so much. We also hope that she can adjust to a new baby brother in the house.

Introducing Oliver Jack!

This is my little peanut nephew. He melts my heart every time I see him. I am looking forward to playing a big part in his life, babysitting and such. It's good to have him around, it helps with the baby urges I was starting to have.

I had forgotten the precautions needed to do when changing a little baby boy's diaper. Yikes! Ol' Faithful has nothing on this little guy. He soaked everything, including himself. Ha!

Jess and Shane are still adjusting, and both sound exhausted when I talk with them. I have ordered the BabyWise books for them to read and hopefully get some help from. Some friends of ours have used it on their 3 kids and all of them are awesome sleepers, so I hope that this will get them some relief. Even Ava could stand to benefit from some of the pointers in there, I'm sure.