Saturday, October 31, 2009

So you think you can dance...

Well our family had a dance party today. Maddox and Preston decided to bust out their best moves to the Black Eyed Peas...All I can say is that Maddox, who is happy sitting around all day watching TV becomes a totally different kid when the music starts...


Preston - aka Tasmanian Devil

Yesterday was a very rough day for us and Preston. I had planned to have a donut relay race for Maddox's class. I made the terrible mistake of leaving Preston alone for about 2 minutes. In that time he ate 6 of my 20 donuts. I must admit that I did not keep my cool very well. Bob can attest to this, due to the fact that he got a hysterical phone call from me an hour before I was supposed to be at the school. That said, we got more donuts and everything was fine. That was until Bob was left alone with Preston. He sat down to check his Facebook, and came out to find this:
He had gotten into the new donuts Bob had bought for the party, spilled a cup of Dr. Pepper, tore artwork off of the refrigerator, was drinking another glass of pop, poured out all the candy the boys received at their class parties, and started emptying out the pantry. Beware! This is not a child that can be trusted with a step stool!!!

Halloween Parties

Every year as Halloween approaches, the big question in the Ross household is, "What are you going to be for Halloween?" This decision is not taken lightly. Once the kids are old enough to decide, they get to pick their costumes. Caden always gravitates to some kind of occupational theme and Maddox goes with super heroes. This year Caden decided to be a Pioneer and Maddox went with a Muscle Man costume. This was Brennen's first year to pick his costume. He chose to be a dragon this year.

They each had parties at school this year. Brennen's was on Thursday. He had a little parade too. The kids all looked so cute.

Caden and Maddox had their parties yesterday. They started with a parade through the school and into the gym. (It was REALLY cold and then started to rain. I was thrilled they moved it inside!) Here are the boys parading around the gym.

The parade was followed by the classroom parties. This was the first year that I had to juggle two kids. This was made even more difficult in that I was the Head Room Parent for Maddox's Halloween party. While Maddox's class ate their snacks, I got to take a peek in on Caden's class party. Here's a few pictures of the fun from his class.


I had a great time doing the party for Maddox's class this year. We played Halloween Bingo, had a donut relay race, and the kids played a mummy wrap game.


It was kind of nice to break up the party festivities with the craziness of Halloween Day. I'll post more pictures later of all the kids before they go trick or treating tonight! Happy Halloween!!

Sunday, October 25, 2009

The many faces of Ella


I haven't really updated my blog lately with any current pictures of Ella. I can't believe how quickly time is passing. At her two month appointment she weighed 12 pounds 8 ounces and was 24 inches long. She's in the 90th percentile for both height and weight. (If they measured cheeks, I'm sure she'd be off the charts!) We're already wearing 3 to 6 month clothes. I guess she's figured out pretty quickly that with four older brothers, she'd better grow fast in order to hold her own!

She's a wonderful baby. She's a little more needy than any of her brothers were, but I've been told that's just girls. She's become quite the smiley talkative girl also. She really likes to do this about midway through a bottle just to drag out mom time a little bit!

The boys have adjusted without any issues to having her around. They love to kiss on her and talk to her, which she of course doesn't mind one bit! Caden won't leave for school without making sure to give her a kiss goodbye everyday and then has to make sure to say hi when he gets home. Maddox adores her also, but likes to keep it a little more under wraps. When he thinks nobody's looking, he just sits and talk to her all about how he's her big brother Maddox. She looks so much like he did at this age. Maddox loves to talk about how she looks just like him. I'll have to scan in some pictures of him so you can see just how much they look alike. (He was born before the days of our digital camera!)

I guess enough of my rambling. Here are some recent pictures of our favorite daughter!









We're on the mend!

At Friday's doctor's appointment for Maddox, they discovered that he had diminished capacity in his right lung. So we were sent to the hospital for blood work and x-rays. Immediately upon doing the x-rays, they discovered that he had pneumonia. Not something you care to hear about your 5 year old. However, there was a certain amount of relief in feeling like at least now we had something to work on curing. His blood work came back good. His white blood cell counts were high, which is exactly what you want high in order to fight an infection. We were able to go home and start in on antibiotics. That night our prayers were answered when his fever broke and it's been normal ever since. Praise the Lord!! We feel confident that he is on the road to recovery. He has to go back to the doctor tomorrow to be checked. His cough is still pretty nasty sounding and can get bad at times. He is no longer lethargic and is finally acting like himself. We are now sending up our praises as God has once again shown us how faithful he is!!

Friday, October 23, 2009

H1N1 and Us!

Well, it actually happened.

Anybody who knows me knows that I am probably a borderline germaphobe. So when the swine flu started going around, it immediately put me on edge. I started carrying tons of hand sanitizer, keeping the boys away from water fountains, and constantly feeling cheeks for fevers. Despite all of my precautions, this week Maddox came down with it. Talk about one of my worst nightmares coming true! I know to some that it may seem like I'm a little dramatic. However, I take my kids getting sick very seriously. I get down when they contract a cold. I wish that I could be one of those, "Oh it just builds up immunities," kind of people, but I'm not. I'm a worrier.

He has been running a fever pretty much non-stop since Monday afternoon. It's been as high as 104.2, but lately has been down to only 104.0! I took him to the doctor on Wednesday and she said that his fever should be gone by today. However it is not. It's still 104 once the Motrin wears off. She said that if that was the case, then she wanted to see him today to make sure that there's not any kind of secondary infection going on as well. He's so wore down and says that his head hurts a lot. We're waiting to hear back from the doctor and possibly get him in again today.

Thank you for all of the prayers for Maddox and our family. Please continue to pray for his health and the health of the rest of us as well. So far nobody else is showing any signs of this, but we've been told it could take 4-6 for it to take hold. So we'll see. I'll try to update again after we go to the doctor.