November

Amazon delivery day keeps this kiddo busy for at least an hour!

We've been playing games like crazy around here!

Happy birthday Florence!  Sierra and I took a trip to Portland to celebrate Florence's 2nd birthday.

The kids started begging to put up decorations at the beginning of the month.  I made them wait until after Thanksgiving.

It will be a couple of weeks before we get our real tree, so for now they are very excited about this one.

We missed the Downtown Corvallis parade because Sierra was sick, but Thing 2 had a crazy night out.

School germs are such a bummer.  Sierra ended up having a fever the week before Thanksgiving that lasted 9 days.  She also had a sore throat, cough and runny nose.  The fever was pretty high and lasted and lasted.  I took her in after about 5 days of high fever (between 103 and 104 with Tylenol and ibuprofen) but we were sent home because it was just another virus.  I rarely take the kids to the Dr because I'm pretty anti-antibiotic and for the most part unless there's something super scary and abnormal going on, there really isn't much that can be done for a virus.  And 90 percent of the time it's just a stinking virus.  A high fever for that many days without some signs of improvement paired with a sore throat made me worry about strep.  Luckily she's only had that once in her life, the only time she's been on amoxicillin.  We've been blessed with straight and healthy Eustachian tubes and have never had an ear infection in this house.  I also have also done lymph massage on the kids glands around their ears when they are sick and maybe that's part of the reason?  Jaxon ended up getting sick on Thanksgiving but didn't have much of a fever at all.  It's so weird how their little bodies manifest the same germ differently!  He did end up getting a horrid croupy cough and between the two of them being sick, Jess and I went for several weeks with very little sleep which meant we got sick too.  We still made it to some turkey day feasts, but didn't stay for long.

Sierra and I took an overnight trip to Portland to celebrate my niece's 2nd birthday.  Sierra loves to take trips and loves her little cousin as well as her Aunts and Uncles that she doesn't see very often.  Jaxon stayed at home with Jess.  I left him partly because he still takes naps and the party was at his nap time and partly because I need a break from him sometimes.  He's a good sweet boy, but he's with me every minute of every day and it's good for both of us to have some time apart.  I don't get to spend as much time with Sierra now that she is in school all day, so it was also a good chance to have some mother daughter time.  That does include her sleeping on top of me for the whole night in my sisters bed.  We're talking some "close" one on one time :)  

Christmas is right around the corner.  It's hard to believe that it's here already.  We'll see how far into December we can make it before getting our tree :)