Oh hey, Disney Jr, thanks for making my kid a hypochondriac!

There is a new show on Disney Junior called Doc McStuffins; it's a cute concept, a little girl acts as a veterinarian to all of her toys.  At first glance, it seemed like a good thing...it will show Jake examples of compassion and give him insight into a valuable career. 

What I didn't take into account was the fact that it would make my 4 year old believe he has every single medical issue that appears on the show.  Cue the hypochondriac!

"I can't go to school today.  I'm dehydrated.  That means I don't have enough fluids in my body, and I need to get a lot of rest."

"I can't clean up my toys.  I broke my arm the other day, I should probably get a cast put on."

"What?  I can't hear you.  I probably need a hearing test, just like on Doc McStuffins."

"It's really important to exercise every day.  Also, I might need some band aids."

"Liam doesn't feel well.  He might have sand stuck in his parts.  We should probably drain him, we don't have to get rid of him."

God help me when the show decides to tackle things like appendicitis or swollen tonsils, I'll probably catch Jake on the phone with the pediatrician, trying to schedule his own surgery. 

Knock, knock--anyone home?

We're still alive!  Drowning in Lysol, laundry, and self-pity...but still alive.  The illnesses at our house have been out of control recently....it's been hard to keep track, but I'm pretty sure at this point, the total looks something like this (I'm only going to post about the past 2 weeks, if you want to read our full history of winter illness, I've already whined about that in another post here)

Jake: 1 random fever...a few days later, the stomach flu...a few days after that, another fever (104 this time, causing him to miss his first t-ball game last weekend)
Brian: 1 day of fever, a few days of feeling blah, followed by an ear ache last week
Emmy: (knock on wood, I've had it the best so far) just one day of fever, many headaches
Liam:  Oh, my poor little Liam.  1 ear infection, followed by a fever/virus and impetigo (2 weeks ago-see picture at the bottom of post); last week, double ear infection (#5 since January), more fever, and a respiratory infection.  He's on antibiotics and a nebulizer right now, and we have an appointment schedule with an ENT this Friday to see if tubes are the best option for us at this point. 
Gracie: On top of her chronic allergy issues, she also has a UTI and is on antibiotics for that. 

Yes, even the dog has gone down for the count.  I had crying kids, headaches nearly every day for a week (due to my own illness, lack of sleep, a combo of both of those, who knows?), a dog who couldn't hold her bladder for more than 3 hours at a time, my house was in shambles, our pets heads were falling off (bonus points to anyone who knows what movie that is referencing); thank God, the reinforcements arrived last Thursday.  GG to the rescue, to assist with breathing treatments, vet visits, house cleaning, and Liam watching (today was his first day back to school since last Tuesday)  Thanks for the help, mom! 

The good news is, this week is starting off better than the past 2 weeks, so hopefully everyone is on the mend.  And when they're not completely miserable with their respective fevers, these two have been cracking each other up lately.

You can see the impetigo spots on his face, he also had them on his arms, back, torso, hands, legs and feet :(

New favorite salad

Ok, it might not be my favorite (because it doesn't involve ranch dressing or french fries), but it's my new favorite semi-healthy salad.  I'm always very blah about salads (unless they involve the aforementioned ingredients); I'll eat them, but never get a ton of enjoyment out of them.  I found the champagne dressing at walmart and the bag of slivered almonds at Aldi....throw in some lettuce, strawberries, and cucumbers, and I was all set with my tasty summer salad!

11 months down, 1 to go.

Liam is going to be ONE in a month from today...unbelievable, right?  I was looking back at my posts from this time last year, and it was funny to read this one from April 18th, where I stated that I had a dr's appointment that day and was told that we would go ahead and plan for an induction at 39 weeks.  HA!  Liam (and my blood pressure and doctor!) had other ideas, and he made his appearance at 36 weeks, 6 days instead.

We've dropped all purees at this point, and he's pretty much eating whatever we have for dinner.  He still seems to have a problem with textures of some food (cottage cheese, for example, is hit or miss....sometimes he gobbles it up, others he gags).  He kept spitting out strawberries up until this past weekend, when he finally gave one a chance...then he proceeded to shovel the whole pile into his mouth.  Other favorite foods include hummus, mum-mums, and yogurt.  He is notorious at school for swiping the food off of the other babies' trays...they sometimes have to move him away from them so that he doesn't steal it all. 

He has started crawling, or at least his own version of it.  He can move all around (he's very speedy!) but instead of a traditional crawl, he either drags his right leg or kind of hikes it up in the air.  It's kind of hard to explain.  Here's a video of him demonstrating his signature move (it also contains a good shot of his hair that is in a constant state of looking like a mad scientist in the back-I love it!):

He does a lot of babbling, his constant noises are mama, dada, geh (we're not sure what that means), and I'm 99% sure that he is saying doh-doh and meaning "dog", he's been saying it pretty consistently when looking at Gracie.

Really, baby?  Can't you see it's my naptime?  I am exhausted from all of the important work I do all day around here.

He claps, and waves, does the sign for "more", and will pull blankets or toys up over his face and play peekaboo with you, and he's all around a snuggly, perfect, adorable little guy.  :) 

Happy Easter!

Jake spent a lot of time Easter morning searching for eggs....Brian's family takes egg hunts very seriously. 

Later in the day, we were joined by Brian's aunt, uncle, cousin & grandfather.

  It was nice to see everyone & of course, the food was delicious!  I'm pretty sure Liam consumed his own body weight in turkey. 

I was excited to get some good pictures of the family and the kids...sometimes these opportunities are very rare!

We hope everyone had a great Easter!

Get outside!

We spent Easter with Brian's family this year, and it was nice to be able to take two extra days and have a loooong weekend.  And the weather was great almost the whole time!  There was a lot of tball practice:

And walks:

And, of course, Gracie served as overall activity supervisor:

Brian and PopPop took Jake to a local state park to walk the trail 2 days in a row (I joined them on Easter morning...I figured if I walked a bunch in the morning, I could justify eating more that afternoon.  That's how it works, right?)

Finally!

Well, it only took over 10.5 months, but Liam finally cut his first tooth! (bottom left)  He is now a drooling, hand-gnawing machine, and I'm pretty sure that the top right tooth is ready to pop through as well.  No pictures to post of the new pearly white, it's just the ridge that's sticking out right now, so it's hard to see, but definitely there.

Easter Fun and Kid Celebrities

Unfortunately, Jake was home sick with a fever one day last week; he was feeling a bit better after his nap, so we decided to dye our Easter eggs.  It seems like a nice, relaxing activity, right? 

Everything went well, Jake had fun and the eggs looked nice.  I thought everything was perfect....until the next day, when out of nowhere, I realized that I had forgotten a very crucial step in egg dying: hardboiling the eggs FIRST.  Oops.  I have no idea what I was thinking....I got the dye ready, pulled the eggs directly out of the fridge and let him have at it.  I'll blame the sleep deprivation.  Oh well.  The eggs stayed in tact and we were able to put stickers on the next day.

The kids made some cute Easter crafts and got to dye eggs at school, too (I'm assuming they remembered to hardboil them). 

So do you remember Liam's little run-in with the Easter Bunny the other day?  That incident might force him into therapy later in life, but for now, it got him (and Jake!) onto Ellen's website!!  Click here
 to view their Hollywood debut: http://photos.ellen.warnerbros.com/galleries/bad_easter_photos#192553

Happy Easter!! 

Recipe: Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti

Baked Cream Cheese Spaghetti

12 oz spaghetti
1 (28 ounce) jars prepared spaghetti sauce
1 lb lean ground beef
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1 clove garlic, minced
8 ounces cream cheese
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated

-Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.
-In a skillet, brown the ground beef until cooked through; drain fat and stir in spaghetti sauce.  Set aside.
-Cook spaghetti according to directions on packet.  Drain and place cooked spaghetti in bowl.  Add cream cheese, Italian Seasoning and minced garlic.  Stir until cream cheese is melted and the spaghetti is thoroughly coated.
-Lightly grease a 9x13" pan.  Spread a small amount of meat sauce in the bottom of the dish.  Put spaghetti on top of sauce and top with remaining meat sauce.  Sprinkle parmesan cheese on top.
-Bake for 30 minutes, until bubbly.

*I cut this recipe in half since I wasn't sure how it would turn out, it seemed like a lot of food to commit to.  Cutting it in half served me, Brian, Jake, and Liam (Liam's was obviously a small portion!) with enough for lunch leftovers for one.  I put it together the evening before, then put it in the fridge overnight to heat up the next evening (I love make-ahead foods!)

*I didn't have fresh grated parmesan cheese, so I just used the shaky kind. I also used a little over a half jar of sauce because it seemed a bit dry when I mixed it all up, so I would imagine if you're making the full portion you might need a little over a jar to coat the whole thing.

*Recipe found on Pinterest.com, originally posted here.

We all enjoyed this and will be adding it into our regular rotation!

Rat Tail, no more!

I couldn't deny it any longer, Liam was definitely starting to develop a rat tail. But the hair was really only growing long in the back and a bit around his ears, so I really didn't want to have to take him somewhere since he didn't need his whole head trimmed yet.  We decided to try out a DIY hair cut at home. 

Here is the before shot:

Liam was not happy with the process...we started out trying to use tiny baby nail scissors, but that was pretty useless.  We had to break out the big guns and use a real trimmer.  Much better results!

And the after!  It's not perfect, but it's an improvement.

And just for fun, Liam rocked a mohawk at school yesterday...apparently, the teachers were quite amused by his new style:

You got a problem with my hair??

Time to terrorize the baby!

Have you ever looked at a picture you've taken of your kid, patted yourself on the back, and thought, "wow...I can't wait to embarrass him with this later in life!"?  Don't lie...you know you do it.  Everyone needs blackmail, especially when they start bringing girls over.  I had one of those moments over the weekend....I present to you, super creepy bunny and my super freaked out baby!

It looked for a brief moment like we might actually get a good pic of both boys sitting on the bunny's lap...until Liam slowly turned to the side and looked up in horror.  Brian happened to be snapping the picture at that exact moment of recognition. 

I think Liam is scanning the room, on high-alert for bunny sightings...

Other than that little incident, we had a great time at a Lunch with the Easter Bunny event.  The event was held at a nearby college, and it was really nice; they had lunch, arts and crafts, games, face painting, photos with the bunny, and an egg hunt. 

Jake and his friends from school :)

New Doors!!

When we bought our house, we knew that replacing the doors was something we'd need to take care of pretty soon.  The windows were all new and energy efficient, but the doors...not so much.  So we finally bit the bullet and purchased a new front door, patio doors, and the door that goes into our garage.  we're really happy with how everything turned out.

Before (outside):

 After!

 Before (inside of the front door):

After!

Before (patio doors/playroom-see the nice scratches from the dogs that lived here before?):

After (inside and out):