Moments to Remember

After a late night of fireworks and fun this is what I woke up to in my bed.  Chunk has been sleeping with us since he's been sick and Cute Boy apparently climbed into bed sometime after Chef left for work.

Fourth of July Fun

*Chunk is 13 months old*

So this week, we celebrated America's birthday.  I surprised the boys that morning with some homemade playdough (our first batch!)

A hit with Cute Boy!

Chunk wasn't so sure

But of course we had to taste test it.

Squish!

Even Spawn had to get in on the fun.

Mixing colors.

Smushing some blue and red together to see what they make!

Purple!

This kept Cute Boy occupied for a long time.  Spawn played for about 15 minutes and Chunk for about 2.  He wasn't thrilled with it at all.

Overall, it was a hit with the fivester.  Chunk played a bit but really wasn't thrilled with it.  Or the taste of it :D

Chunk had more fun dumping things out of kitchen cabinets.

Just the right size for a baby hideout.  I did have to relocate some things, but I keep a few things in there still. He's in the pull it all out and then put it back stage, so things like the colanders, sauce pans and lids and frying pan keep him occupied in more ways than one.

Cute Boy tossed some of his cereal on Chunk's tray.  He earned Fruity Pebbles as a reward (yes, he chose cereal over a toy) and Chunk was working really hard on picking them up.  Not that he gets it often, but he gave his pincher grip a good workout.

And that paintbrush spent many a day in his hand.  He likes the noise it makes when he crawls.

Not thrilled that Mommy made him get dressed so she could get a picture.

Then we headed outside to play!

Cute Boy and J from the other apartment with their sparklers.  Such a fun surprise from MaMa and Pa.  They dropped them off right as we were eating dinner, so Cute Boy ate FAST so he could go out and do them.

FIREWORKS!

I had walked outside to put away Chunk's push car and watched Nature's Fireworks.  It was so awesome.  No thunder, but an amazing lightning storm in the clouds.  Even Cute Boy who hates storms came out to watch.  This picture really doesn't do it justice.

Happier with this 4th of July Shirt.  Waiting for the fireworks to begin on TV

Transfixed.

Him Too.

We're in the middle of a big construction project at work so the boys steal my phone as soon as I come home to scour for new pictures.  This one is a favorite.

Then we got to go to a birthday party this weekend for Chunk's best buddy.  It was a blast between the pool, pony rides, bounce house and quad rides (Spawn's FAVORITE)

Coyboy Cute Boy

Chunk even went!

Ride em cowboy!

Lil S blowing out his candle with Mommy.  Thanks for inviting us to your awesome party!

Chuk also went into the pool for the first time.  I didn't get any pictures, because well, I was in the pool with him and my assistant photographer Spawn was exploring with goggles.  He did take that awesome pic of Cute Boy though.  Anyways, back to Chunk, he was unsure at first, but ended up loving it. 

Yelling at me for disturbing his book "reading"

I went up to my mom's last week to pick up a box of clothes that my dad was giving the Chef and my mom had pulled out the box of stuff she kept at the house when Spawn and Sweet Nut were little.  So we have a whole bunch of "new" books for Cute Boy and Chunk.  They were going through the box this afternoon and were having a blast.

Time to explore!

We decided to play and make a mess today.  Chunk had a blast exploring different textures.  We started out with just some cheerios on his tray...then I added a spoonful of butterscotch pudding.  Yum.

He figured out very quickly how much fun it is to smear it all over the high chair tray.  Then we added in some ice pop pieces to the mix.

I was surprised because usually he doesn't like things that are really cold in his mouth, but he sucked on hat ice pop for a few minutes!

In other Chunk news, he's officially in a big boy seat.

He's the only one of the goobers to make it past a year 8 months in an infant seat.  Spawn and Sweet Nut both outgrew them by weight by 6 months, and Cute Boy was about 8 months when he outgrew his.  Chunk made it to 13 months and 2 days!  The only reason we switched was because we couldn't loosen or tighten the seat belt anymore.  He was at the limit.  He still has a while to go to his the weight limit (he was 28 pounds at his 1 year check up, and 25 pounds at the immunologist last week).  To say we are happy with the seat is an understatement!  The seat he had was the Graco Snugride 35.  It's a little sad, I'm slightly attached to the seat, but happy with what we got.  We bought the Graco MyRide 65.  I've been eyeing it for awhile, and I was actually trying to hold out for the Graco Size4Me to hit stores, but I didn't want to wait longer with not being able to adjust his harness.  And we got lucky-our Target has all the MyRide65s on clearance (so I know the new seats are coming...darn) So we got a deal on it.  It was a pretty easy install, or as easy as an install can be in the Beast.  We did it in the Target parking lot and he had no problems getting into it.  The one thing I don't like, and might end up still getting the Size4Me is that I'm going to have to uninstall it to rethread the harness when he gets bigger.

Still not to sure...

what's going on with Chunk.

We met with the pediatric allergist/immunologist today.  He's not totally sure that chunk's issues are environmental.  He did tell us to go ahead with the plan to get rid of the carpeting left in the house and the mold test.  He said there is a definite wheeze there, but that there's also a lot of upper respiratory noise.

The plan is to switch up his meds.  He'll be on Flovent and Singulair instead of Pulmicort.  He's also doing another round of antibiotics and prednisone.  The hope is that by switching meds we see a change in his breathing and that the antibiotics and prednisone clear up what's causing it.  He thinks that there's some bug causing him to get sick and that last time he was on the antibiotics it didn't get it all.

So, no real answers yet.  Hoping to see some change this weekend.  We go back Monday for a recheck.

And in Spawn news, we've made the decision to go forward with taking his adenoids out.  He responded well to the antibiotics, so they think that there was a long sinus infection causing some of his troubles, but he's still having issues sleeping and still has a small annoying cough and stuffy nose.  He feels that since he's responded well to treatment so far that this is one of the last puzzle pieces in figuring out what's going on.  He even told Spawn that he feels that after surgery he might be able to wean off all his meds and be med free this time next year!  I like that he really includes Spawn in all of our discussions and makes sure that he understand every thing we've done or are planning on doing.  Spawn did admit that he's nervous about having surgery, but he's excited at the prospect of not needed to be on an inhaler and nasal spray all the time.  His surgery is scheduled for Aug 7.

So I've been a downer the last few posts...but Spawn wants to start some stuff school wise, so we'll be jumping into a light schedule this coming week.  He's so excited!

Looking for answers...

Chunk is sick.  Again.

Over 2 weeks ago he came down with a nasty cold.  Fever, coughing, wheezing, the whole 9 yards.  Today we went back in for a recheck.  Last Wednesday he sounded so much better.  Then Saturday night he started back coughing- and ended up throwing up a few times.  This has happened a few times since then.  Get to the dr's today and he listens to his chest and isn't happy with what he hears.

We have to keep up the albuterol and pulmicort and get into the allergist for allergy testing.  If I can't get in within the next week I'm to go back to the regular dr for more prednisone.

We were also told to get rid of the carpets in the house and to do a mold test.  There's something that's making him sick and we need to find out what.

Luckily we didn't have much carpet left in the house.  Just the stairs and living room.  The Chef spent the afternoon ripping the carpet off the stairs and removing all the nails and nail strips.  He's going to paint them and we'll get something non slip to put on them for the goobers safety.  Tomorrow we'll check and see what's under the living room carpet.  So far since we moved in and ripped out carpet we've had decent wood floor underneath that just needed to be repainted.  So we're hoping to find the same thing in the living room.

Pink eye is still going through the house too.  The Chef is getting over it, I have it and Chunk had a gunky eye after his nap.

We also head back to the allergist with Spawn on Friday to see what course they will take next.  I think he's done better since his heavy duty round of antibiotics, but I'm interested to see what he says. There was talk of taking his adenoids out this summer, so I'm sure we'll talk about that as well.  I'm hoping they can just squeeze Chunk in at the same time, but we'll see.

No fun.

The heat is on....

It's the first heat wave of the summer here in NY.  And it's H.O.T.

To top it off, Chunk got a cold that *almost* developed into pneumonia.  It was a rough weekend/beginning of the week...fevers of 101-103, lots of nebulizer treatments, antibiotics and our usual prednisone battle.  The boy can not STAND prednisone.  He won't just spit it out, he gags himself on it and makes himself sick. The last few times we went the shot route as opposed to battling him, but this time, we decided to try it.  I think we're going to stick with the shot.  Anyways, the worry was because his O2 sats were low...between 83-85.  But he's better.  Thank goodness.  I'm sleeping again instead of being up all night with a cranky baby.  And when Momma is happy, everyone is happy.

Thankfully Chunk started feeling better just as the tempratures started to climb so we pulled out his new water table the other night for him to play with.  We had no idea it was going to be such a hit with the big Goobers too!

This is the water table we have...it's pretty neat.  We also added in some of the water toys that Chunk got for his birthday from his buddy.

I'm not sure where it was bought from, but I found one here.  We keep the big boat in the bath tub, but let them take the other pieces to the water table.  The neat thing about the boat is that all the little pieces fit inside.  You lift off the top and store away!

The other hit from his birthday was this.

We still have the ball pit section and the tunnel, but the tent section got ripped at his party.  Not Happy.

He's happy though with the parts he has left...especially since he can throw the balls out and then yell when he runs out to have someone to toss them back in for him.

Sweet Nut turned 7 too this month.  And his "bestest" present by far was this

And Cute Boy-who helped us pick out presents also chose this and this for him.

I'm excited, because, well, it is a neat game.  But mostly, because I can do this with Cute Boy...and Sweet Nut too!  

I'm all for things they they DON'T think are educational, but really are.  And I love that when they are playing it together, the game kind of MAKES them work together.  The goobers are very competitive and they are slowly getting that teamwork can be fun too.