All the leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down . . .

First, an update:  Sister was up all night long last night and is now onto her third antibiotic.  While she does not love how the medicine tastes, she is keeping it down.  But, she still has a fever.  I think she is teething, too.  I have high hopes for her feeling better tomorrow . . .

 

Amazingly, we managed to end our Halloween festivities and begin the process of our 2011 Thankfulness Tree!  I’ll have to take a few more pictures of it in its current state to show what it looks like, but we try to do it every day or so . . . and we start the boys off by talking about their day and saying “Thank you, Jesus, for . . . “  As you may imagine, their answers are hilarious.  I think William said “forks” tonight . . . which is a step up from his usual response of “NOTHING!”  Hudson normally says “God in the Manger” and then something having to do with his immediate surroundings.  Hopefully, after doing this exercise for almost 30 days, they will have some clue as to what we are talking about!

(I love that Anna is smiling in this picture!  Ah ha ha ha!)

This year, we decided to paint the tree . . .

My boys were working hard on it.  We used both finger paints and watercolor . . .

Sister got to watch from the sidelines while enjoying a little snacky.

Here is the status of our tree tonight  . . .  some of our leaves are made from our hands, some are made from the boys’ artwork (thank you, cousin cameron!), and we have two amazingly huge yellow and brown acorns on our tree that came from the boys’ art class at school this week!  How fun!

The leaves around here are AMAZING.  We talk about them everywhere we go—the colors are so vibrant and beautiful, and the weather has been so nice.  We have loved being outside this fall!

This is my poor attempt at trying to capture the color of the leaves last week . . .

Sister was sitting on the stoop while the boys were running and I was taking pictures of the sky.  ha ha.

Hi little love!

Rascal!

And, this is one of my favorite candids of the fall.  Such sweet faces!

Once we made it back inside, Anna grabbed Baby by the pig tail and took her for a stroll . . .

Hang on, baby!  Hang on!

And, our little trio had some surprise visitors this past Friday morning:  Uncle Chris-fer-fer and “Uncle” Yar-wa!  So, we did our FAVORITE thing to do with them, and we headed to Maymont!  Bumpa played hookie and came, too!

Looking at the bunnies with Unkie.

Checking out the donkey . . .

So sweet!

William’s new friend . . . or not . . .

Feeding the sheep with Bumps . . .

My big boy with Unkie—this year and last year!

We had such a fun visit with y’all!  Thanks for coming to see us all!

tuesday (night)

First and foremost, three things:

ONE:  HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY CHARLIE!  We adore you little man, and we are so very thankful for your sweet self!  We love to be with you and play with you, cousin!  Have the happiest of birthdays you big ole 2 year old!

TWO:  In a moment of sheer over-productivity, I managed to post two blog posts yesterday.  (I am still shocked with myself)  It seems that the first one may have gotten lost in the shuffle somehow, so if you did not see the precious pictures and blog post about AnnaBug BananaBug, check it out here!

THREE:  I forgot to post these pictures of my precious giraffes!  Oh, I just love these wild animals of mine!

***

And, onto tonight . . . well, we made it through most of the day without any major glitches . . . Anna has been so tired and sleepy seeming, so I was beginning to wonder if she was a little off and I realized she had a big ole fever around naptime.

 

I put her down after some Tylenol, and she woke up just screaming and sweating like a sweet little piglet.  My WONDERFUL neighbor (mother of the adorable puppy from the Halloween) willingly welcomed my boys into her home so I could head to the doctor to have Anna’s ears checked . . . my guess was that her left ear was still infected since she had a fever while on antibiotics.  And, I was right.  So, we marched over to the pharmacy to pick up our next prescription (I was having flashbacks of ear infection trauma from this past spring . . . )  When we got home, we were greeted by some adorable brothers and a tired Daddy, and after giving puny Sister a tiny dinner, we tried to give her her medicine.  For some reason, she was standing on the rug of the den with one of her Dad’s shoes in her hand . . . and, for some reason, this seemed to be a fine time to give her her medication . . . but, Sister does not like the way that this medicine tastes.  So she gagged.  And gagged some more.  And then she threw up.  Onto her Dad.  Onto our sofa (she hit the cushion that was not colored on by Sharpie—we are equal opportunity destroyers around here).  And, wait for it:  Into Hatch’s Shoe.  There was a combination of horror and laughing and more horror as she began to cry and cry.  William had to slink off of the sofa without getting messy himself, and this act alone threw him into a full blown panic.  William threw his chubby fingers into the air and covered his mouth in disgust and began weeping and screaming and bouncing up-and-down in terror:  “I GOT ANNA’S GERMS!  I GOT HER GERMS!  OH NO, I GOT ANNA’S GERMS!”  Meanwhile, Hudson (BLESS HIS HEART) has grabbed a towel and is trying to help us clean up the mess.  This child has a servant’s heart—he got that from his Daddy.  He is precious.  We cleaned Anna up . . . we calmed William down (I think he was genuinely terrified) . . . and, Hudson helped finish out the cleaning process.  We headed upstairs to get everyone ready for bed.  Anna’s temperature was 102.8, so we gave her some Tylenol and sleepily got her into her jammies.  We tried the medicine again, and same thing:  Gag, gag, and vomit.  We rushed her into the bathroom for a quick bath (bless her heart, she shivered the entire time) and then got more Tylenol in her and put her down.  I talked to the doctor and he told me that little ones who “do this” (ie:  gag and vomit on command) tend to really dislike augmentin.  So, we will try again tomorrow, and we will change up the medicine if needed.  (I have a feeling I know how my morning will go tomorrow.)

After Anna was in bed, I called to tell my mom about it.  She was concerned about everyone, but as I told her about Anna gagging and William freaking out about the germs, she began to laugh and said:  There are two of them, and they are both like you!  One refuses to take her medicine and throws up if you try to make her, and the other is worried and panicking that he is getting her germs.  Oh, WOW.

Thank you for the encouragement, Mom!  :)

Happy Fall Y’all!

We have been loving the fall weather!  It has been surprisingly mild, so we have had some great days outdoors!   Grab a seat for an onslaught of October pictures! 

My little ones are getting big . . . they love to explore . . .

and see the sights . . .

and, even taste their surroundings (no eating mulch, sister!)

You may be looking at these pictures and wondering to yourself “shouldn’t these children have on helmets, even if they are riding tricycles?”  And, my answer to you is "Yes, Yes, they should.” And this is why:

We had a Halloween/Birthday Bash at Uncle Bubbles and Kellie Bo Peep’s house, and it was very fun!  Our whole zoo was there—zookeeper Daddy and all!

Alladin and Jasmine Kardashian were also there.  Every time I see this picture, I cannot stop laughing!

A headless horseman also made an appearance, and Anna enjoyed playing with his pumpkin head!

Sister loves to strike a pose!

Anna had a heart-to-heart with big girl Emily to thank her for handing down all of her cute clothes!

While the girls were chatting inside, the boys were up to no good on the inflatable slide outback!

Please note the lack of fear in the eyes of my not-even-three-year-old son as he careens down an enormous inflatable slide FACE FIRST.

Tiger Charlie (son of Alladin and Jasmine) with Emily . . . all partied out!

And, before we knew it, it was Halloween!  We had Nana, the Grans, and some family over for soup while our animals got warmed up and ready for their evening!

We had giraffes!

And a monkey!  (With her favorite “ash” or Ash-yee, as the boys say!)

AND, the cutest little elephant that you have ever seen!

And we happened upon an adorable little puppy!

One giraffe was partial to skittles . . .

While the other requested M&Ms everywhere we went . . . (It seems the zookeeper may not have done a thorough job of training his animals on the etiquette of Halloween!)

Is this not an adorable little trio?  (Did I mention it was raining that night?)

Mama and her littlest monkey . . .

Oooh ohhh, eee eee, ahh ahh AHHH!  Does this picture remind you of anyone?

How about now?

The elephant had some padding in his rear that made him look so cute and so hilarious!

Rear view . . .

The blonde gorilla and his tiniest monkey

Zookeeper Daddy with his animals.  If you asked the boys what mommy was they would say “Mommy say:  ‘Don’t feed the an-mals!’”

This little Monkey was so cute, I could have eaten her up!

Her little monkey self got pretty bold and decided to walk across the room!

She was so proud of herself!

YAAAY, Sister!

Oh, I love this little monkey!

Our Elephant was into collecting blocks in the pink stroller.  He was adorable!

And, monkey see . . .

Monkey do!

Anna got some snuggles with her Nana

. . . and, inevitably, someone lost their pants and had a candy-overloaded, sugar-induced meltdown . . . but, it was fun while it lasted! (WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CANNOT EAT ALL OF THIS CANDY RIGHT NOW!?)

More Fall to come . . .