Strange Halloween!!

This month has been kind of crazy for us! After Jaxon's birthday, Uncle Bryan, Brady's brother, came out from South Carolina to visit for a few days. We had a great time with him. He came out to go to a BYU football game. I think he picked the worst weekend to go!! Not a great game, but he and Brady still had fun together. We got to go to the temple with Brady's moms family to have her deceased brother and his wife sealed together. That was a nice afternoon!! Other than that, we didn't do anything spectacular. We just hung out together and played games and the kids LOVED having him here. I think they drove him crazy!! He had to go home to get some rest. At home he is not a novelty, but here he sure is!!

Just as Bryan was leaving, my older girls both got a fever. Lauryn's only lasted through the weekend and then she was fine. Katelyn on the other hand, has had a fever for over a week!! Last week she hit 104.5!! That scared me into taking her to the doctor!! By this point, she and Dylan were both fevered and had coughs, but I took her figured I would take him if there was a problem or if they even treated Kate for anything. I bet you can all guess the diagnosis...last years viruses have become swine flu!! I used to get so mad when I would take the kids to the doctor and every time we would go, it would be a virus. Well now, I think they have changed that to the swine flu. We didn't see our normal doctor, of course it was her day off, but the doctor that we did see said that she was going to give her a diagnosis of an unconfirmed case of swine flu. So they didn't test her, but based on her symptoms, she would guess swine flu. In pediatric cases, unless you have asthma, or are under two, they don't do anything to treat it. So it was back home to watch her and make sure she didn't get worse. At that point, I was glad that I didn't take Dylan, no point in paying two co-pays for them to tell me to keep on eye on them!! I was already doing that anyway!!

I must say, if they do have swine flu, fortunately it has been a mild case of it!! They have had high fevers and a cough, but nothing more than that!! They have to go 24 hours without fever or medications for fevers before they can go back to school. Today is the first day in a week that they haven't needed Tylenol or Ibuprofen. Hopefully tomorrow they can go back!! Katelyn and Dylan missed their Halloween parties at school, they missed trick or treating and they missed their cousins birthday party last night. They are feeling pretty picked on.

My sisters brought their kids over on Halloween to go trick or treating with Lauryn and Megan, by Saturday, Jaxon was starting to get a fever, so he could not go either. I talked Brady into taking a bag for Katelyn and Dylan, and even though he was not fond of the idea, he did it and they were so happy to get candy. My parents came and hung out with me and the kids while everyone else was off trick or treating. My mom made a huge pot of her home made chili, which is the best chili ever!! And we just hung out and had fun together!! Once the Tylenol kicked in for Kate and Dylan, they were back to normal and you wouldn't have even known they were sick. For them, it was not their favorite Halloween, but they were pretty good about it and did not complain too much!!

My dad grew pumpkins this year in his garden so that he could carve them with the grand kids. Sadly, my kids missed that night too because they were sick, but Papa still carved them and they brought them over to put on our porch. Brady's grandparents also do an annual pumpkin carving family night...we missed that one too!! But grandma sent some pumpkins and some treats up to us with Brady's aunt and uncle. It was sure nice of them to do that!! With everyone bringing pumpkins, we had one pumpkin for every child that was there that night, so there were 8 of them. When it was dark and they were all lit up, they looked really cool. We decided that we have a "Pumpkin Perfect Porch!"

Here is my little "pumpkin." All of our kids have worn this costume. It has a headband with a stem on it, but he would not even think about keeping that on. I tried a couple of times to get a picture, but it did not work, even without it, he was still a cute little pumpkin!!

Megan was a Care Bear, I don't think she really even knows what a Care Bear is, but she was sure happy to be one, and she was so cute!!

Dylan was the best looking Captain Hook!! He was so darn cute. When I took this picture, he was fevered and pretty out of it, but a good sport!! I was really sad that he could not go out...he looked great!!

Katelyn wanted to be a clown. My mom had a costume that we wore as kids, but it needed some TLC. She fixed it up and made it really cute again!! Thanks grandma for making Katelyn so cute!! Kate was not feeling great so I was not going to mess with the make-up, but Aunt Jana took over and put it on for her to have her pictures, and I am glad that she did. Kate was not a fan of the make-up, it came off as soon as the pictures were done.

Lauryn was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. She was so cute!! She was excited, because her cousin Laura was a witch and they were excited to go out together. They always go trick or treating together, but this year because we had sick kids, they didn't come. I don't blame them, but we sure missed them!!

We had a good time even though we have craziness at our house!! The kids are already excited for next year and hoping that they all get to go trick or treating!!