Let it rain, Let it rain, Let it rain

Well, we aren't expecting a white Christmas, but today, while at our former home it is snowing, we are experiencing a downpour. It is a fun change (though I couldn't do a photography session today) and Elia gave me a good laugh:

You know you've lived in Arizona too long when your kid says,

Elia: "Mama, what are those?"

Me: "Those are windshield wipers."

Elia: "What are they doing?"

Me: They are wiping the rain off the windshield

I guess all that singing of "The wipers on the bus go, swish, swish, swish" didn't prepare her for the real thing. It got me wondering, "Just what does she think about when she sings that song?"

Another thing that cracks us up about Elia is her infatuation with these princess shoes I bought at an after-Halloween sale. She insists on having them put at the end of her bed at nap time (she'd wear them if we let her) and when she wakes up we hear this "clop, clop, clop" as she makes her way through the kitchen. She loves wearing them (though we don't let her go out of the house with them) and has them on almost every chance she can.

In Ethan's world, things seem to be much better. Though he might never be a doctor because he now has a fear/hate of things over his nose and mouth and so would never want to wear a mask, the breathing treatments are finally done and he seems to be better. Tomorrow we come out of our quarantine (though it isn't officially that, it has sort of felt like it). I've had to rely a lot on people to help with Elia so that she wouldn't go crazy being cooped up in the house with us. I usually drop her off at the determined activity, take Ethan away, then rely on someone to bring her home, or I go and get her at the end. He's finally sleeping, which is a miracle because when he was on that medicine, he would sleep for about 30 minutes the whole day! Eric liked this sceen and insisted I take a picture of just his arm sticking out of the slats (left side).Yesterday, Ethan's tooth finally sprouted! So far, it's only his right one that has pushed through, but the left bottom one looks like it is close behind. I wonder if there is any correlation between which tooth comes through first and something like personality... I bet that would make a good dissertation for someone.

Today I spent from 10:00 until 2:00 (with a break at 10:40 for flue shots) making two "Super Saturday" (Church craft days) crafts. I couldn't make it to the real activity, so I had to find time to make the crafts. The girl who was in charge of all the crafts kindly spent four hours helping myself and two others who also missed the event. One of the crafts was a family home evening board, and one was this cool antiqued clock:

Elia was extremely patient for those four hours and Ethan took a nap part of the time. It helped that there were three other kids there to provide entertainment.

Tomorrow, Eric leaves us for two days to go to one of his best friend's wedding in Salt Lake. I'm supposed to do two photography sessions (if it doesn't rain), one baby shower, take Eric to the airport, and I want to go to this mini christmas-boutique where a friend is displaying some cool vinyl-lettered tiles that are for sale. Let's see. Is that it? I hope so! I'll let you know if I make it through the weekend!

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend with my mom, who came up from Yuma. We relaxed a lot and got to spend a lot of time with Eric, which was great. We also played a few games of Settlers of Catan (my mom's favorite).In spite of our best efforts, we still cooked a rather large, but delicious, dinner which (much to Eric's dismay) we will probably be eating for a while. We really do have so much to be thankful for and in the spirit of the season, I thought I would mention that I am really so thankful for my wonderful family: my supportive and always encouraging husband and our two beautiful kids who keep me smiling (and on my toes)! What more could a person want?
On Thanksgiving, Eric got together with a bunch of people (t-birds and people from church) for a turkey bowl (football).

Ethan is pushing up two little white teeth on the bottom. They haven't poked through yet but there are definite bumps and he's been pretty fussy. We expect them any day now.
In other news, after two weeks of persistent coughing, we took Ethan in to the doctor today. He has bronchiolitis.

For all of you who are curious, here is the difference between bronchiolitis and bronchitis (I didn't know, so did a little research):
Bronchiolitis is a respiratory disease in which the lower airways in the lungs become inflamed and swollen. It is an acute viral infection of the bronchioles seen mostly in infants and young children, caused most frequently by the respiratory syncytial virus.
What's the difference between bronchiolitis and bronchitis? bonchiolitis should not be confused with the better known bronchitis, which is an infection of the larger upper airway in the lung (the bronchi), and mostly affects adults, particularly those who smoke.
The result of this is that Ethan is now on breathing treatments of Albuterol every four hours (even in the middle of the night)! Considering he screamed for the almost ten minute duration of the first treatment in the office, this is going to be a fun two nights. The doctor said it's likely he has RSV, but he doesn't know for sure and the treatment is the same. He goes back in to the doctor on Monday morning, but the doctor said if he gets worse to take him into the ER. We are definitely hoping he improves with the treatments. Here's a pic of him with his little mask prior to treatment. We didn't think a picture during treatment would be possible because it takes two of us to hold him still! Man he is strong when he is mad! However, the third time we did the treatment, he gave up and went to sleep. (Bottom picture)I guess I should write something about Elia. She is just growing and getting smarter and more independent. When there's a semi-crisis, like with Ethan's sickness, it seems he gets all the attention, but really, Elia is so great. When Eric went to play football on Thanksgiving, I went with him and played soccer with a group there. For about an hour and a half, Elia entertained herself by playing in the dirt and climbing on things on the side-lines. She is also doing a lot better staying in her bed at night, though one morning, we found her laying outside our door with her blanket on. That's a new one. As always, she is Ethan's care-taker and will remind us by saying, "I'm in charge of Ethan!" How could we forget! During the break, she especially loved playing with Papa. She loves it when he takes her swimming because he does all sorts of fun things like this:

Eric had fun too, though was a little annoyed with the water dripping off Elia into his eyes. (At least he hopes it was water:). Last time we went swimming, Elia even did a little version of the butterfly stroke. She wants to be just like her Papa and wants HIM to buckle her and HIM to push Ethan and HIM to... I guess second place to Papa isn't too bad. :) At least Ethan prefers me, though I'm not sure if it's me or the food.

Busy Bees

Well, it's been sort of crazy around here. Eric has had a crazy week at school -- it seems like every class has had a paper or group project due last week. I've been busy too. I did three photo sessions last week (you can see them on my photo blog (http://www.pettyphotography.blogspot.com), but here are two pictures of our two loves: ... then on Saturday taught a cake decorating class at church. Actually, Saturday was really crazy. We went to a church service activity at 8:00 in the morning, I taught my class at 10:00 (meanwhile, Eric went to a meeting for one of his projects and didn't get home until 12:30). My class lasted until about 11:30. We went home and I got the kids in bed. Eric went to school and studied, then at 2:00 we all went to a tour of the University of Phoenix stadium (where the SuperBowl will be held next year). We went with two other families from Thunderkids. It was pretty impressive:

Belated Halloween Project

Well, first things first... Our sleeping arrangements are working out great. We have a new thing with Elia. Instead of getting into bed at 7:30, we get her ready earlier and put her in bed by about 7:10. She can then read... or rather look at books by herself while I feed Ethan and get him ready for bed. I put him to bed and she can read about 5 more minutes while I pick up a little. I then go in and tell her it's time for bed. She looks at books for about 20 minutes! She stays in bed and is quiet! It is working like a charm. I feel she is more willing to go to sleep and I feel less hectic too. A victory for the parents!!! Yeah!!!

Our friends Craig and Lynette left yesterday. We went by their house yesterday evening, but we missed them (Sorry guys!), but before they left they gave us this Halloween gingerbread house kit. Today, we attempted to make the kit with Elia (Lynette, be glad you didn't do this) :)!

Below you'll see what we were trying to make and what we did make. Of course Elia was more into the frosting. Here are the results of her beater licking:

Doesn't she look cute with her mustache and goatee?

We both tried to help make the house. She wanted to squeeze the frosting onto the gingerbread herself...

But after a while, decided to go straight for the frosting:

So the results? Here is what our house looked like compared to what our vision was. So, we didn't quite make it, but we had fun (and made a mess). No more orange and black frosting projects! And, so Ethan doesn't feel left out, here is a random bath picture of him. He is moving even more and pulling up on things. Danger! We're really going to have to start baby proofing. He's been sick again (story of his life), but when I took him in the doctor said his nose and lungs sounded fine. Now, though he's developed this hacky cough. Hopefully it will go away soon.
Well, not much new for Eric and I, we're just staying busy with the usual things. Eric is definitely looking forward to this tri to end. He'll be done with student government and be done taking an overload of classes like he had to do this trimester, plus he's so distracted about this job stuff. Go figure. Pray for us to find a good one!

A trip to the zoo (No, not the one that happens every day around here)!

Well, last night wasn't a total flop. Elia was so excited to have Ethan sleep with her and they both went to bed great. In the middle of the night however, we ran into the same problem we've had before... Elia doesn't want to sleep in her own bed. She came into our room and wanted to go back to sleep in the portable crib. So, I guess we've half reclaimed our room. We'll see what happens as time goes on. Now we just have to reconvert the toddler bed that was Elia's crib back into a crib for Ethan so we can get rid of one pack 'n play. Then we'll have one dresser for each kid and one sleeping place for each kid. Yes, that room is pretty crowded, though less so, now that the love sac has taken over the living room again.

Today we went to the zoo. Thunderkids was taking a trip, but I wanted to go earlier because they weren't going until 10 and I wanted to get back in time for the afternoon nap. I called a friend, Katie Taggart to come along. After several detours (we were talking too much) we finally got there. We had a great time walking around looking at all the animals. Sometimes I think I'm getting a bit bored with the zoo, but Elia never does and her excitement keeps me going.

Ethan, who is usually the happiest baby on the block, has been under the weather with 100 degree temps (and sometimes more) he wasn't happy almost the whole day. It always seems worse when your baby is fussy around other people.

Two monkeys:

The best part of a day at the zoo is spending two minutes on the carousel watching your daughter with the biggest grin on her face. Every time around she waves to her audience (in this case Katie) and never stops smiling. Although it costs $2 (what a rip off), we do it every time and she wants to ride on the shark every time! I think it is because of this shark book that Eric used to read to her all the time.

The zoo goers:
Back at home. Daddy's girl:

Into the unknown night

After a very fun weekend which included the America's regional night at Thunderbird, we have again revised our sleeping arrangements. Yesterday I sold the green and wood rocking chair I bought before I had Elia and bought a toddler bed and dresser. I sold the rocking chair for $75 and bought both the bed and dresser for the same! I pretty much feel like I scored! Plus, the dresser is really cute and both seem really well made. (I'll include pics next time). So tonight, Elia was really excited about this new bed... and really excited about sharing a room with Ethan (I've been working on this hype for about two weeks now), so we moved both of them in together. Cross your fingers, we'll see how it works. So far, Elia went to bed about 5 minutes before Ethan. She called Eric in once and told him she wanted Ethan to come to bed too. I finished wrapping Ethan up and put him in there too. He complained for about 10 minutes, then went to sleep. So far (one hour later) we haven't heard from either of them. I'll let you know next time how it worked, but we are ready to reclaim our bedroom!!!
Back to the cultural night, we had a great time eating cuisine from Latin and North America (One of the items was fried chicken. The school ordered 800 pieces, which was the largest order any Fry's store has had in its history!). Then they had entertainment complete with traditional Mexican dancers, salsa performers, hip hop dancers and a fashion show from around the U.S.
After America's night we went to some friends house for games and cake to celebrate our other friend (Erika Hanks)'s birthday. (Happy Birthday Erika). We love going to play games and we're glad our kid status hasn't excluded us. The reason this is, is because Elia and Ethan can go to bed anywhere. Elia just climbs in an extra bed and we put Ethan to bed either in his car seat, or if available, an empty crib. We're grateful for such flexible kids! Let's just hope they'll both be flexible tonight!