Legoland

We arrived in San Diego on Saturday afternoon. We drove to the beach house and my, my... It was awesome!!! This is the view from our living room balcony. It has been cloudy each day, so I'm waiting for a sunny day to catch and awesome sunset...

On Sunday, we went to Legoland. We stopped at IHOP (per Reed's request) for breakfast. On the way, I think Reed was about to jump out of his skin by how excited he was. He was so excited that he was almost yelling the entire day pointing out stuff to show us. Here we are at the gate. And yes, I still match my boys. I will do it until Reed gets embarrassed... Maybe I have a couple of more years.






We got there a little early, so we had to waste a little time up front near the gate. They had some dinosaurs and other neat things all made of Legos.





Other pictures of statues and things we encountered...


A triceratops...









DadDad and the boys with Lego Indiana Jones







We rode a few things- this rope thing was fun. You "pulled" yourselves up and then let go and it would slowly fall. Reed and I tried to race Brian and we won! I was pretty pleased about it until I realized he wasn't really even trying.






They had racetracks that the boys rode around on and received their Lego liscense. Hudson's was just an oval track.







Reed's course was a little more complicated. He had to stop at stoplights and stop signs. He had fun.







Lego Darth Vader.







Hudson hanging onto DadDad like a monkey. (Side story: I took Hudson to the doctor the day before we left because he had another abscess on his leg. He got on antibiotics, but those things develop rapidly and are VERY tender, so we have had to be careful how we hold him. Whenever anyone held him, we had to be careful with positioning so that we didn't hurt his leg. )






Me and my sweet boys waiting in line...






Lego Miniland. Awesome. They have built copies of all these cities and landmarks in Legos!! First we have Mount Rushmore. So cool!







Here is New York...







This was in the New York section... Can you guess what it is? The Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park! So cute!






Grand Central Station







The Star Wars section. Reed loved it. So did Brian :)

















All in all, Reed LOVED Legoland. He kept saying "This is the best day of my life" over and over. We had a great time.
Later that afternoon, we went over to The Sealife Aquarium. They evidently have a partnership with Lego, because they had Lego people all over the place. It was cute.











First time I have ever seen an octopus in person. It was... bizarre.


















Brian almost got eaten by a shark. :)





The boys holding hands. So cute!






It was a fun, but tiring day!

Our Anniversary

Today is our 9th anniversary. Last weekend we got away for a night at the Gaylord in Grapevine. I had never been there before, so it was a treat! What a beautiful hotel! We went out to dinner at Old Hickory Steakhouse. Here we are before dinner.

Dinner was awesome. I had the most tender filet mignon I had ever had. We had a nice slow relaxing dinner and they served us with a complimentary dessert.


It was a white chocolate caramel creme brûlée. It was wonderful!
It was so nice to get away, just the two of us. Happy anniversary to my best friend and love of my life!

An exchange between the boys yesterday-

Reed picked up a toy and said "Why is this wet?"

H- "Somebody licked it."

R- "Did you lick it?"

H-"Nope."

Breaking News

Hudson is officially potty trained. Seven years of changing diapers has come to a close. I am beyond excited.

That is all.

4th of July

We had a really fun, but TIRING 4th of July. It was SO hot and I think it drained us all of our patriotic energy. :) We started out the morning heading to the parade. We got to our spot with some time to spare, so we decided to look around the square a little bit. We saw a booth selling little turtles and Reed has been wanting one for a while now. We looked and I was instantly sucked in because they were so cute. I caved and Brian bought Reed one. We have heard lots about them carrying diseases, so Flame (the turtles name) will not be handled much and when he is, hands will be washed immediatley and thoroughly. :)

We were in the shade for the parade and it was still HOT. (When we got in the car afterwards, my thermostat read 108. Yikes!)

We sat in front of a friends' business and Grace and Hudson spent a lot of time inside eating cereal. :)

Here we are, sweat and all...

We spent the afternoon swimming at Gammy and DadDad's (thank goodness we had access to a pool!!!) That evening we gathered in our usual spot to watch the fireworks. I always enjoy sitting and talking after a long day of sitting and talking. :)

The fireworks were great - they are always my favorite part of the day. Hope you all had a great 4th of July! God bless America!

A great day

I spent the entire day with my two boys and we had the best time. We went to Reed's dental cleaning (his pediatric dentist is in Fort Worth, so it made for a good day to run errands). After his appointment, we went to Target. The boys were great as I looked at flip flops and tank tops and other girly things. I wanted to eat somewhere that we didn't have in Granbury, so the boys chose IHOP. They both got the chocolate chip funny face pancake. We had a fun lunch with lots of chatter and yummy food. :) Then it was on to the rest of my errands. We went to Old Navy, Hobby Lobby and Academy. In each store they were very patient and well behaved while I did what I needed to do. After Academy, I decided that we needed to do something fun just for them, so we went to the Movie Tavern and saw Mr. Popper's Penguins, shared an Oreo milkshake and some yummy cookie dessert. We returned some movies to Redbox (my new favorite thing - I know, I know, I'm behind the times) and I got Reed a Mario Brothers movie that he is enamored with right now. :)

Today was one of those days where everything seemed right in the world. I was complemented on how well-behaved my children are, and I agree they were. There was never a fit thrown, please and thank you's were said and they were very patient in each store while I shopped for things that aren't fun for a 3 and 7 year old. I love my sweet boys and I am so thankful that I have them and their awesome daddy. I am truly blessed by these three boys and so thankful that God chose me to be their wife/mother.

Blevins Vacation

The rest of our week on vacation went well. Hudson felt much better and was able to have fun, so we were too. :). We went into
Wimberley and had a cupcake...

Took pictures with my cute hubby...


Sat on some frogs...


Played games (this may be the only picture in existence of Brian playing a game)...


Pulled a very loose front tooth...


Gave Dad a hug for doing a quick, painless job... :)


Held sweet cousin Jake...


Got thrown in the pool...





Watched Cars 2 at the theater and The Little Engine that Could on the couch with popcorn...


And went to the outlet mall for Mom... And Dad thought we needed these hats. :)


We had a fun vacation. Here we are as the Blevins four...


And the Blevins ten.

Vacation

Hudson Update: He is doing great. Hasn't had a fever or thrown up his medicine since Tuesday. His leg is doing awesome- I know God healed him- thank you for all your prayers!

We are having a great time!! Lots of swimming...

Lots of hanging out...





Lots of playing games (is this ridiculous or what- all three kiddos playing an ipad)...






My favorite picture of the day would have to be when Hudson asked to hold Jake. Too cute!

So. Tired. Of. Sickness.

Let me begin this post by saying that if you are grossed out easily, you may want to skip it. There is talk of pus and pictures of bumps and for all of you who know me, you know this kind of stuff is almost more than I can stomach. Just wanted to send a warning out before reading... Proceed at your own risk. ;)

Friday evening Hudson started scratching a bite on his inner thigh. Saturday it was red and festered and he developed a low grade fever.

Sunday he really couldn't walk well because of the pain of the bite rubbing his diaper/ underwear and the spot was very tender- he would barely let me touch it. It had developed into a larger bump that was hard underneath and his fever had gotten higher.


I called the doctors office and since it was the weekend, the on-call nurse called me back. She told me that if his fever got higher, like 102, that we needs to take him to the hospital. At midnight, he had a temp of 103. Brian stayed here with Reed and Hudson and I headed to Cooks. He was none too pleased that someone was going to touch his leg (or that he had to wear the hospital gown).


Turns out the bite got infected and it turned into an abscess. The doc squeezed on it until all of the pus came out and Hudson screamed bloody murder the entire time. They put neosporin and a band-aid on it and sent us home with instructions that we had to squish the pus out 2-3 times a day for the next couple of days and a anti-biotic prescription. We got home at 3:45 a.m. and went to sleep. We were supposed to leave on vacation that morning with Brian's family, but I wanted to make sure he felt okay to go. We went and got his antibiotic along with some other things we needed for the trip. Here is his antibiotics for the next 10 days.


FIVE bottles. Okay... We'll do what needs to be done. So I give him not even half of the first dose and he throws it up within 20 seconds. Um... Okay, we try again and same outcome. I call the doctor, give her nurse the lowdown of what has happened over the last couple of days and she wants to see him. In the meantime, it's time for us to do the warm bath and squish the stuff out of his leg. We do the bath and I go get Brian and ask what he want to do- hold Hudson down or squish the thing. He let's me choose, so I hold down my sweet baby. Brian squeezes around on it and the whole time Hudson is crying and screaming at the top of his lungs "Ow!!! No, Dad! No!" over and over. It was terrible. :(. So we get a band-aid on it and have some time to rest before our doctor's appointment. We go I'm and his doctor tells me some very interesting things... First, that particular antibiotic evidently tastes horrendous. (How the ER doc expected me to get 5 bottles of it down a 3 year old, I do not know). Second, when I told her the dosage, she said " Wow, that's a lot for a little guy." Seriously???? Lastly, he never took a culture of what came out of the abscess. It didn't occur to me while we were there, but after she mentioned it, I was annoyed... That is why I went to Cooks- I thought they would make sure and do all those things. Anyhow, she gave us a different antibiotic and told me that the spot on his leg looked really good and we didn't need to mess with squishing on it anymore. Hallelujah!! I forgot it had been a while since his last Tylenol dose and while we're waiting on the new prescription, his fever starts to rise. By the time we get home he is shaking and teeth chattering. When he gets a high fever like that, he has trouble keeping medicines down... Low and behold he throws up a little of his antibiotic. We get more Tylenol down and put the rest of his antibiotic with his drink in his sippy cup and it goes down too. The poor kid slept from 5:00 last night until 3:00 this morning.


He woke up very hot, threw up, got more Tylenol down him and he went back to sleep. Woke him up at 7:00 and gave him Tylenol and his antibiotic and so far so good. I really think if he can keep his antibiotic down, he should start feeling good soon- bless his heart!! I'm sure he's ready to feel better too!

Update Tuesday evening:

Hudson did great on the 4 hour drive to the vacation house. He swam, ate a few chips and when I noticed he was getting warm, I got out the Tylenol. He promptly threw up. Tried to hide the Tylenol in his cup and he threw up again. Please pray for healing!

My sensitive boy

Reed is sensitive. Yes, he is sensitive emotionally. He cries pretty easily when his feelings have been hurt or when he gets in trouble. But that's not the type of sensitivity that I'm talking about...

Reed likes things to be soft... clothing, blankets, pretty much anything that touches his skin. We have to cut tags out of his clothes and he often tells me that his shirts are too itchy. He gets excited when he puts on a new pair of socks and one of his favorite Christmas gifts was a pair of soft fleece Star Wars pajama pants. There is no doubt in my mind that he has inherited this from his daddy. (Brian also loves soft clothing, but really loves soft sheets, so all of our sets are high thread counts.) On the rare occasions when he has slept in Reed's bed (when Reed has been sick and slept with me) Brian has said that Reed's Star Wars sheets feel like '80 grit sand paper'. For the last few months, Reed has made little comments here and there about how much he likes our sheets. As I was putting new ones on our bed tonight, he laid his head down and blurted out "No wonder you go to sleep so easy - your sheets are so soft!" I've looked on-line for him a set, but I really think he will be a little picky about the softness, slickness, etc. So tomorrow I'm taking my 7 year old boy shopping for a soft sheet set. :)

Summer

So far, we have been having a great summer. We have been staying up late - and I mean late. The boys and I will usually go get in our (mine and Brian's) bed and watch TV, play on the computer or play games on the iPad or my phone. I often fall asleep and Brian carries the boys to their beds when he comes to bed around midnight. :) I have been sleeping until 8:30 or 9:00 and it is totally awesome. (Once I was woken up by a very loud whispered "Mom! Sun says wake up!" from a cutie pie little 3 year old.) Our days usually consist of one or more of the following - swimming, playing games, watching TV/movies, etc. The least fun thing we have done is go to the gym. The boys aren't really fans of it and since yesterday was the first time I had been in 3 weeks, I was none too pleased either. :) We had a game fest of Tuesday and played Monopoly, Lego Creationary (I don't know if it's just me, but that game is hard!!), Uno, Skip-Bo Junior and some other Lego game of Reed's. All in all, we are having a great time! It has been so nice to make our own schedule and not have to be anywhere. Summer Rocks baby!!

Memorial Day Vacation

Reed's last day of school was on Friday and I picked him up in a decked out vehicle ready for summer...

We left town and began the trek down south to the Hill country. The boys wore their glasses their Mimi got them...





And watched some movies to pass the time.


My parents rented a house near Johnson City on lots it acreage. We brought the 4wheelers and fishing poles ready for a long weekend of fun. The boys fished a little yesterday, but I got in on the game today. My first try wasn't so great...


I was totally grossed out by pulling the hook out of the fishes mouth- when I could hear the skin cracking, it was all I could do yo keep going. Here Becky and I are tag teaming a fish-



After moving to a different spot, we could see the bigger fish swimming around. After a couple of casts, here was my catch of the day- a catfish!


And here was Brian's... :)



We are having a great relaxing vacation and looking forward to more!

Ugh.

I am beat down. This year for sickness for our family has been the worst by far. Reed has had strep 3 times. Hudson has had strep 3 times. We all had the stomach bug. I'm pretty sure there were some ear infections mixed in also. Last Wednesday evening Hudson came down with a virus that caused horrible diarrhea and a high fever (104ish) unless he was constantly on tylenol/ibuprofen. I honestly don't know which was worse, the 15-20 diapers a day (seriously) or the no sleep from trying to keep a fever down. The fever finally stopped late Saturday and I thought we were out of the woods when the diarrhea started to tone down yesterday... until they both snuck back into out lives today. I was supposed to help with Reed's end of the year party at school tomorrow, but I think I have to take my little one back to the doctor instead. I'm asking that you would pray for our family and that wellness would come soon. We need a break. :)