We met a celebrity ...

Okay, I am not the type of person to get starstruck; and I wasn't, but it was still pretty neat to meet Lisa Lampanelli the other night after her comedy show. I think she is great. She is vulgar and raw and talks like a sailor, but she says a lot of things most people are thinking and things that if the layperson said, they would probably get assaulted! :-) Mike and I dropped the kids with Aunt Crystal and Uncle Jim and headed to the show. I wish we knew how cool that part of downtown Denver was, we would have gone earlier and enjoyed some of the little jazz bars and such .. we'll save it for the next time. Anyhow, we got to the show and had some very obnoxious lesbians behind us (but that is the kind of crowd she attracts!). It was fun, we laughed A LOT and after the show we stood in the line and got to meet her. I got to take a picture with her and get her autograph, so that was pretty neat. All in all, it was a great night. Next time, we will stay the night at their house. It was too late to be driving the hour back home after a long day!

Slideshow for your viewing pleasure :-)

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

We have a bunch of pictures from the last few days so thought we would share in a slide show .. it is just easier :-) Last night Ethan brushed Kaeli's teeth for me. She loves getting her teeth brushed and pulls her paci out for the occasion. She has finally started to grow one of her top teeth, although it popped through weeks ago! Poor things nose has been draining like crazy and chewing on everything in sight! Kaeli was coloring today and listening to her TJ Bearytales (thanks grammy). She could not color with just one crayon though, she had to have a plethera in her hand at all times. After dinner tonight we made cookies, Ethan's treat for being a good boy and a big helper. His new thing is calling his sissy a princess, he loves it and so does she! She really is his little princess ... and wrestling buddy!

We have food intake!

Lately, I have not been able to keep Kaeli from eating! She is an eating machine and on top of it, she is tolerating the new high calorie formula in her sippy cups and usually has about 4 of those a day. Her new obsession is egg salad sandwiches! She cannot get enough. She will eat a 1/2 sandwich and whole bowl of peaches for lunch! I am very hopeful that at her next checkup, she will have gained the 2lbs back. :-)

Ethan is on spring break. We have had some very beautiful Colorado weather lately, and I hope that it continues through spring break so we can enjoy the outdoors.

Mike and I are heading up to Denver this weekend for a date night. I surprised him with Lisa Lampanelli comedy show tickets. We are very excited about it, and grateful for our friends Jim and Crystal who have offered to watch them for us. It will be nice to go out with Mike, sans kids .. and laugh hysterically; because going to Lampanelli's show, that is inevitable!

Sorry for the lack of blogs lately. It has been my attempt at not continually discussing my sicko children! I can only write about that so much before it drives me nuts! Kaeli is on the mend from her virus, but man is she snotty as ever! Hopefully it is all draining out and with the new spring breezes she can get some fresh air and get better once and for all!

We are all anticipating our trip to VA in 5 weeks. I on the other hand, experiencing severe anxiety! Mike is flying out a week ahead, so I will be traveling alone with both kids. This venture is not something I would normally worry about, as I have done it many times; however, with Kaeli just starting to walk ~ I can see it now .. her and I walking up and down the plane aisle for 2.5 hrs straight! Oh the insanity! They still serve alcohol on the airplane, right? Do they serve mother's alone with 2 children? Who am I kidding, they will probably let me double fist it!

Love to you all!

It is a virus

Today I took Kaeli in to be seen. She has had this mysterious fever for the last 3 weeks or so and it comes and goes, it gets high and then breaks .. but it is ALWAYS there! She has not been eating; pretty much nothing at all and only drinking her milk, which is rice milk and does not have all the nutrients she needs. Last night was it for me with her waking and crying out in pain. She was thrashing herself around like she could not get comfortable or that she was hurting. It was painful for Mike and I to watch her, helplessly. I made her an appointment and demanded tests done (not that I really had to, the doctor was pretty good). He ordered a urine test and a blood test. I asked if she could have a urine bag instead of a catheter and he was not hip to the idea since we were trying to find an infection. He did not want do a urine bag because the possibility of bacteria getting in there. So, we proceeded with the catheter ... it was traumatic; for both of us! I sat at the top of the bed and held her arms and talked to her while a nurse held her legs and the other tried to get the cath in. Let's just say, Kaeli is a tough one! She is one strong 1 year old. The catheter never did get put in. She got so worked up, she would pee. The only problem was we did not have a 3rd person to hold the cup and try and catch it, so the nurse would have to hurry and try to grab it and get it up under her bum. After a couple of times like this, the nurse assumed Kaeli peed out all that was in there so we would just call it quits. She was so upset, and laying in pee, I picked her up and as I held her she started peeing EVERYWHERE! The nurse had thrown the other cup away, so she had to hurry and grab and open another and caught a tiny bit at the tail end ... literally about a teaspoon worth; but that was all we needed! Yay! No catheter and we got the specimen. Kaeli is no dummy. Next, blood work! They gave her about a 10 minute break and I held her and comforted her. They came in to do the blood work and she went nuts! She did not want anyone touching her AT ALL! They got the blood .. eventually, and off to the lab it went. Urine came back 100% negative, which is awesome, but sad to think we put her through that trauma for no reason (the way a mommy thinks I guess). The blood came back positive for a viral infection. Viral, meaning no medicine to make my little princess feel better! Just motrin every 6 hours and more sleepless nights I am sure. He did say there was an upper respiratory thing going around lasting 6-10 WEEKS, but not sure if that is it. She took about 1.5 hr nap (I was expecting a much longer one after what she just went through) but shortly realised, she just wanted to nap on me .. so she took an additional 2 hours on my chest.

She is in better spirits after a long nap. She will be getting another dose of motrin in an hour and then hopefully off to bed for the night. I just hope she eats soon! She has lost weight since her 1 year check up.

Love to you all!

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are ..

I know you're out there, and I'd love to hear from you! It can be a little scary to leave a comment on some stranger's blog. We bloggers really appreciate your comments! Your opinions and advice are always welcome! To make it easier, I have a few questions. Feel free to answer any or all of them. Thanks for stopping by!

**Where are you from?

**How did you find my blog?

**Do you have children too?

**Do you have a blog yourself? I'd love to check it out!

Big head

Let me set the scene for you. There is a restaurant in Denver called Casa Bonitas. It is a lot of fun and Ethan loves it! They have cliff diving, pinatas, arcade and real good mexican food. Anyhow, the last time we were there we had the kids' charicatures done and I just recently got around to getting frames for them. They were laid out and Ethan was inquiring about them:

Ethan: "What is this?"

Mom: "Those are caricatures of you and sissy"

Ethan: "That does not look like me!"

Mom: "Yes it does. It is a caricature, so it is meant to be a funny version"

Ethan: "My head is not like that" (as he motioned his hand upward, showing me his head was not that big)

Mom: "But they gave sissy the same head"

Ethan: "Yeah, but sissy does have a big head"

This kid keeps me in stitches I tell ya!

GROUNDED ... at 4?

So lately (who am I kidding), Ethan has been extremely mouthy and sassy; basically he has been like I was at 14. Paybacks really are hell :-) We have been giving him chance after chance to change his behavior and make better choices, and no dice. He has just kept on with the nasty words and the talking back. Today when I picked him up from speech was the last straw. He has a very bad day and did not keep his hands to himself, would knock down things other kids were building. I was very disappointed, not to mention embarrassed. I am not sure what is going on in his little head ... but whatever it is, is going to get figured out! I brought him home and sent him to his room so Mike and I could discuss what to do; parenting is not easy! We decided the best thing at this time is to introduce being grounded. We took away t.v. all together, he can only watch movies and when we choose, he lost his privilege to play Wii ~ which I think is most effective, and he has lost special treats. All indefinitely until we see a change. He is getting way too big for his britches and we are trying to reign him back in before it gets too out of hand.

Anyways, wish us luck. Any advice is always appreciated and welcomed. Love to you all !

A Miserable Failure!

Yesterday I spent a ridiculous amount of time (I will not disclose how much, because it was really way too long) trying to work on my blog and make it 3 columns. I have so many "widgets" I like to put up and having to scroll all the way down just to look at one is sort of annoying, so I wanted to make it bigger. Anyhow, by the looks of my blog, you can see that I failed miserably! I am usually very computer savvy and figure things out quickly, but encoding ... not so much! Anyhow, I have a friend who has offered to take a look and I may take her up on it.

Sorry I have been slack on updates. Mike and I have been house-hunting and it is taking up so much of our every day and I still have school and these little things we call children to tend to. On top of it all, Kaeli was sick (on the tail end, hopefully) and now Mike is horribly ill. I had to run out late last night to get him cough medicine, just so we could all sleep .. but especially him. Luckily we can do house contracts online now, no more meeting with the realtor to sign a piece of paper, quite neat actually. So, that is us in a nutshell. Hopefully soon we will have an update saying we are moving into a nice new house. Who knows!?

Until then, I will try and get better about updates. I have not even had time to speak with my mother .. so you know I really have been busy :-)

Maybe God?

Mommy: "Man Ethan! Where did this wind come from all of a sudden?"

Ethan: "Maybe God? He does that stuff sometimes".