locked out

The other day we were out celebrating Garrison's birthday when Thomas started receiving a bunch of phone calls from the same number.  He didn't recognize the number and figured if it was something important they'd leave a message.  They never left a message so he thought nothing of it.  Until my youngest sister, Joanna, called and left a message.

He immediately called her back and found out that my other sister, Jackie, the one that lives with us, had locked herself out of our house.  We were over 2 hours away and obviously couldn't come help.

Jackie had arrived home from school, removed her shoes, put her phone and keys down on the counter and let Lady, her dog, out.  Lady is known for not getting off our deck to use the restroom and Jackie decided to step outside for a moment to yell at her to get down.

Our door automatically locks when you shut it.  Jackie knew this and so didn't shut the door all the way, but at some point while outside the wind blew and sucked it shut.  She immediately heard the click of the door and ran to see if it had really locked.  Sure enough... locked!

She began to panic because she knew we were over 2 hours away and not coming back for a few days.  She could also see her keys and phone on the counter in the house.  So she picked up Lady and ran over to our neighbors house and asked to use her phone.  One problem... this day and age most people don't memorize phone numbers.  So she went to call, but didn't know anyone's phone number.  Luckily, we've given our numbers to our neighbor.  That's the number that kept popping up on Thomas phone.  Jackie said she didn't leave a message for two reasons...  1. She figured someone would figure out if you're getting a call over and over then something must be wrong.  2. If she left a message she knew as soon as she'd start telling him what happened she'd start bawling.

Jackie eventually had our neighbor lady look up the number for our church and called the secretary who gave her our brother-in-laws phone number.  Jackie called him and he said he'd come over and break down the door if need be.  I think he was joking.  :)

Joanna was do to come to our house at some point that same evening just to hang out.  When Joanna arrived Jackie ran out to her car and that's when Joanna called Thomas.

Thomas informed Jackie that our friend, Ryan, had a spare key.  Thomas called Ryan, but his wife was working and he had just laid his daughter down for the night so he wasn't able to come over, but Jackie and Joanna were able to drive to his house and grab the spare key.

After 2 hours of being locked out Jackie finally made it into the house.

That night I had a dream that Jackie was cooking something as well and burned our house down.  Luckily, it was just a dream.

We all learned a lesson through this... spare keys = must have!

Our birthday surprise

Thomas decided to surprise Garrison and I for our birthday's by taking us on a little trip to the cities.

Thursday morning Thomas asked that I leave the house and go do something fun by myself.  I didn't know how long I was supposed to be gone.  He was going to call and let me know when I could return home.  So I took a book and headed to the local McDonald's.  I bought a coffee and some breakfast and read WITHOUT having to take care of anyone else.  It was awesome.

About 2 hours later Thomas called and said I could come home.  I thought that while I was gone they were going to be decorating the house, but when I walked in the front door I saw no decorations.  Only my three boys standing there with suitcases yelling "surprise."

I was pretty confused.  

Thomas told only two people of his plans... his two brothers.  Not even my sister who lives with us knew we were leaving.  (stay tuned to hear her adventurous story while we were gone.)

Thomas had an entire schedule done up of everything we were going to be doing.  This guy is AWESOME!!  I used to complain a lot about him always being able to come up with fun things for the youth group to do, but never being able to do that with our family.  Well, he got me!

To celebrate Garrison's birthday Thomas had arranged for his older brother, his wife and their three boys to meet us at Chuck E. Cheese.  I was a lot of fun!  Garrison had a blast.  He loves playing with his cousins and at Chuck E. Cheese... bonus.

The next day we dropped the boys off with their cousins again.  This time they were going to be spending the night.

Thomas had gotten us a hotel room for the night.  He also treated me to dinner and a movie.  We went to eat at Don Pablo's, a very good Mexican restaurant, and saw the movie "Breaking Dawn."

On Saturday, we picked up the boys and headed home.  It was a wonderful surprise and a great way to celebrate Garrison turning 4 and me turning 30.     

haircut

My sister, Jackie, is in cosmetology school and needed a "model" to do a haircut on.  I was her first human that she's practiced on.  All the other haircuts she's done thus far were on the dummy heads.  

Before

  After

I decided to try bangs.  I can't remember the last time I've had bangs.

I LOVE it!  She did an awesome job.  Thank you, Jackie!

Winter?

I'm beginning to wonder if we're going to be spoiled all winter long and never really receive any of the below zero temps we normally are experiencing this time of year.  I'm not complaining or wishing this weather away.  It's been absolutely wonderful having this weather with small children.  I was not looking forward to lugging two children in and out of the car in below zero, freezing cold, numbing conditions.

The other day the boys and I went outside to play in the snow, before it melted away.  I shouldn't say we went out to play.  It was not my intention to join in their fun.  I just wanted them to release some energy.  Plus, if we would have stayed inside one more minute someone would have blown a gasket.  (We were just sick for the last week and barely left the house at all.)

It ended up being the most fun I've had in a long time with my boys.  It felt so good to get out and just play with them.  I didn't see the piles of clothes that needed folding or the dishes or the bathrooms that needed cleaning or the piles of toys thrown all over the house or...  I saw my boys and their need for some fun with their mom.  We had a blast together!  I pushed them down our driveway on their sleds, they dug in the snow with their shovels and we had an impromptu snowball fight.  Which had us all laughing and having fun together.

I'm glad we ended up going outside!

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Our New Year's Eve

My brother, his wife and their two girls weren't able to spend Christmas with us as they were sick.  So instead, they came for New Year's Eve.   My dad was also able to celebrate both Christmas and the new year with us.

The 4 cousins...

Maggie (6 months), Adeline (2 yrs), Josiah (2 yrs) and Garrison (3 yrs)

 My dad with his 4 grandkids.

 My brother, Tom with his oldest Adeline.

My dad with Josiah.

 My sisters Jackie (left) and Joanna (right) with Adeline, Garrison and Josiah.

  As a side note... the only one to make it to midnight was Joanna, her husband Shane, Thomas and Jackie (barely).

ear infection... to... God

Garrison brought in the New Year with a cold that eventually led to an ear infection.  The Wednesday night after the new year Garrison went to bed as normal, but within an hour he came looking for us in lots of pain.  For the next 6 hours we tried all we could to make him feel better, but to no avail.  

Around midnight we called the on-call doctor hoping that they could prescribe us an antibiotic and we could get our little guy some relief.  Nope!  They needed to see his ears first.  (This is our first time being parents of a child with an ear infection.  I remember getting an ear infection when I was younger, but I don't remember the process.)

At 2 am Thomas and Garrison headed to the ER.  Two and a half hours later they were home with lots of meds and one exhausted little man who ended up falling asleep before he could take any meds.  Sitting up in the car and all the activity must have been enough to numb the pain.  

Garrison's diagnosis... double ear infection!

Garrison didn't do so well taking his first dose of antibiotics.  Well, in fact, he kept spitting it out at us.  Frustrating!  Finally he took his last 3ml and I got this great idea to tell him that the "white guys" (the color of the medicine) were marching up to his ears to fight all the bad guys that were hurting him.  His eyes lit up and he got so excited.  After that we never had to fight him to take his meds.  In fact, he would ask for it.  He would ask for new white guys because the old white guys were getting tired and needed more help.  He would even put his finger in his ear and yell "don't worry new ones are coming."  

Thomas also made a sticker chart for him so he could mark off each dosage.  Garrison colored a Dinoco helicopter and taped it to his chart.  We said if he took all his meds we would buy him a Dinoco helicopter.  See there's a Dinoco helicopter in a shadow box at the ER and he wanted to take it home the last time he went to the ER.  So as a nice incentive for taking all the meds we promised him a helicopter.  Now we are waiting for it to arrive in the mail.  

I've been so impressed with Garrison through all this.  The other day we were talking about how we new the medicine was working or not.  We can't see that the medicine is working, but we know it is by the way he was getting better.  How his ears weren't hurting anymore.  This made for a perfect teachable moment!  Thank God for sparking me to plant a seed.  I started talking to him about how God is also fighting for us and helping us even though we can't see it.  He then asked me how we know.  Is my child really old enough to have these conversations?!  I told Garrison, "We know because God told us," and he said "oh" and ran away!  

I'm so glad I was able to plant that seed.  God sparked that conversation in me and now he is watering it.  

Back to work

It's always hard to go back to "reality" after having Thomas home for almost two weeks, family over two weekends in a row and being able to stay in our pajamas and veg on the couch all day long.  Well, the jammies and vegging might have something to do with us battling colds for the past week and Garrison having a double ear infection. (I'll explain more later.)

This morning when Thomas told the boys he needed to go to work this is actually what they did to him.  I feel their pain.  I love having Thomas home and being able to hang out as a family ALL day long.