Lesson NOT learned

Seriously folks, you have got to watch your toddlers! In the 3 minutes (or 10) it takes to make out at deposit slip (aka checking email, looking at facebook, staring into space....) your almost 2yo twins will destroy everything that has taken you years to accomplish. They will climb mountains and open doors to a whole new world.....or they will climb up cupboards to get your makeup and open the front door to call for the dog and any other varmint in the neighborhood. Good thing daddy happened to be near the house and heard a little boy voice calling for Fletchy or who knows what or who we would have had in the living room. It was only the large daddy voice that brought me out of my stupor and alerted me to the trouble in the other wing of the house. This is what I found.

But darn if he isn't cute! A little bronze eyeliner really brings out his smile. One day I will learn to pick up after myself and I will eventually get the entire house Nate and Zak proof....most likely when they leave for college. Whatever.

The face of mischief....

Hi. My name is Zak. I like to make life exciting. I think that it is funny when my mom pulls on her hair and her left eye twitches. It's super fun when she yells at me, but says my brother's name by mistake....sometimes Nate is being naughty too, but usually it's all me, baby. I have recently learned to crawl out of my crib. I am awesome!

This, this is the face that greeted me at 12:37 AM on Tuesday morning saying ever so politely "Mother, may I please have smidge of milk? And I would also enjoy a private viewing of my new favorite movie Cars. If you could be ever so kind as to do these things for me, I would be forever grateful." or maybe he just said "Milky?" "Cars?" and then ran around in the dark.

This is the boy that makes us do this to his bed, so that he can't ask for drinks and private viewings of his favorite movies during the wee hours of the morning....

......some very ingenius thinking on Kevin's part....especially at 1:30 in the morning. Yet another use for pool noodles! Unfortunately, Kev had to go out to his garage to get said noodles and at 1:30 AM it was COLD outside!!!! Yay Daddy! Zak actually thinks that his bed is super cool now and has been safely tucked in for the past 2 nights!

Both boys have continued with their fasination in potty training. As if I could possibly fit one more thing into our day. Here is Zak's newest take on potty training. I'm thinking that maybe his lil bum was chilly or maybe he just wants to drive me crazy.

The REAL Santa Claus

Santa Claus made an appearance at Big G and the Kissinger Kids were eagerly anticipating their meeting witht he big guy. Zachary could hardly contain himself....he hollered "Santa" all the way to town. Nate was silent. I think that he was mentally cataloging his list. Ella had her schpeel all worked out.....an American Girl doll, Get a Clue books, and a New York fashion designer game.

We got to Big G and the big moment had finally arrived....Santa!! Zak froze...a deer in the headlights. Who was this huge man in red and what was that white stuff on his face? Where was the Santa he'd been expecting? You know the one with a black top hat, button eyes, a carrot nose and a corn cob pipe....our poor Zak thinks that Santa is a snowman.

Ellie, having all of her ducks in a row, marched right up to Santa, sat down, got the list laid out for him and got her candy cane. Love a lady that gets right to the point and gets the job done.

Nathan had business to do with the man in red and actually mustered up the nerve to sit on his lap. I think that it helped to have his big sis there to hold his hand and tell him that it would all be okay.

Now that Christmas morning has past, Ella told me..."Mom, that must have been the REAL Santa at Big G, because I got everything that I asked for." What a good listener that Santa is and a very lucky little girl Ellie is.

Apparently, Santa needs to go on a diet. I asked Ellie to get his plate of cookies ready and this was all she gave him. She's lucky the Big Guy thinks that she's cute....

**Santa didn't know what a NY fashion designer game was and his American Girl doll wore Madame Alexander doll shoes, but the books were the real deal!!**

Mommy in Grouchland

Office visit ...... $30
ER visit ......... yet to be determined unbelievable amount of $$$
Call to on-call pediatrician ....... FREE!!
Office visit ...... $30
2 day stay at non-luxurious MLMH ...... yet to be determined ungodly huge amount of $$$
Seeing the Nater smile again ........ truly priceless

Warning....Really long and quite boring....

It has been a long couple of weeks. Ella got the flu (down for a few hours), Kevin got the flu (down for 2 days), Nate got the flu and pneumonia (down for a full week with multiple dr visits and eventual hospital stay) Ella got the flu again (down for one night), Zak made himself puke cuz he felt left out and I am yet to get truly sick (althought I am tired beyond belief). Life is finally getting back to normal here at the Kissinger family home.

I am so thankful for our family in this time of stress and need. My parents and Kevin's parents were so very helpful and patient and understanding. I am still trying to get my schedule back to normal...spending a full week in bed with a sick kids has taken its toll on my house, our laundry situation, and seriously cut into my mindless computer time.

Nathan got sick on Wednesday December 17th. Just the run of the mill puking all over his mom and the floor and in his parents bed. The start of some super fun times. Thursday afternoon the poo started, so I thought that maybe he should be seen by a "real" medical professional. The PA at our pedi's office said that he was not yet dehydrated and gave us Zoforan to deal with his nausea so that we could keep something in him and start to get him hydrated. Things started looking up on Friday as he was more animated and actually ate some lunch. They looked up until 4:30 when he started puking and pooping what can only be called "the most foul smelling stagnet water on the earth". Of course at 4:30 on Friday afternoon is now after hours at the clinic. The on-call PA said that he needed to be seen and unfortunately that meant the ER. So Nate and I trekked on in to Hastings and the most exciting ER at MLMH. Poor Nater. It took 3 tries to get his IV started and about 6 different lab draws plus a chest X-ray before they left us alone to let him get his fluid. They determined from the x-ray that he had pneumonia and gave him IV antibiotics. They called the pediatrician on call and he said to send us home after the appropriate amount of fluid was given. I should have known that this was a mistake because as soon as we got home from the ER he puked all over the family room.

Saturday my mom took the other Kissinger Kids for us. God Bless her. Most of our day was spent lying around listening to Nate moan and cry and watching him sleep. After he ate a couple of crackers, we decided to try his antibiotic and not 20 minutes after he took it, he puked it all out. Hence our call to the office once again. We were told to give him the medicine in 2 half doses in stead of one large dose. OKAY....

Sunday, Kevin went to Christmas at his Grandma's house and to bring Ellie home for school on Monday morning. My mom decided to keep Zak for us until Nate started to feel better. Nathan slept almost the entire day on Sunday and when he wasn't sleeping he was moaning, wailing, or pooping.

Monday, we called the office to make an appt, because he was so listless and "not Nate". Kev's mom took him for a while so that I could actually get a little sleep. That was so appreciated. I had only slept for at most 2hrs at a time since Weds evening. Hanging with a puking, pooping, restless, crying 22mos old is not condusive to sleep. Anyhoo, enough about my sad story, back to Nate....our appt was at 3:45. At 3:00, the school called saying that Ellie wasn't feeling good, had had an "episode of diarrhea" and that they would like for us to come and get her. Arrrrgh!! So, Kev's mom went to SC to get Ella, and we took Nate to the dr. While we were waiting to be called back the poor kid started to puke all over me, the floor, himself. Amazingly he totally missed Kevin. Imagine that. Did you know that puking in the waiting room does NOT get you called back any faster? Loved sitting out there discussing my sons woes with a stranger and a girl that I barely knew from high school. When we did finally get back, they took one look and said that he needed to go to the hospital.

Our stay at MLMH was decidedly unfun. They had a very hard time finding a vein to start his IV, but fortunately were able to get his IV started on the first try and lab was able to get their draw on the first try as well. He only slept from 10pm until 12:30am that night. He finally started to settled down when they allowed him to have some ice chips and I put in the movie Elmo in Grouchland. I think that this brought him some comfort because we have this movie at home and he had seen it several times in the past couple of weeks. (It was a welcome repreive from the horrible All About John Deere movies) We watched Elmo (all 1hr 15mins) twice before his IV stopped. His vein had blown and his little arm was so swollen and he was in lots of pain. I just couldn't take it anymore. I was so tired and hated to see my little boy being put thru so much pain...the tears started and I couldn't get them to stop. I had to leave him, for the first time in days, while they tried to get the new IV started. I felt like such a bad mom, I couldn't help him and I left him in his time of need. I am thankful that this took place at 5am so there weren't many people around to see my mental break down in the halls of the 2nd floor. They were able to get his IV done, but it was in a very precarious position. I was so nervous about holding him and moving him, because I didn't want him to lose this IV. By the grace of God this one withstood the test of time and held for the rest of his stay. The drs decided to let him eat a little on Tuesday morning and I tell you what...he at like a trucker. All of his eggs, all of my eggs, a piece of toast and some cinnamon roll. After he got his little belly full, we were off to sleep. We basically slept all day on Tuesday, which was both a blessing and a curse. While the sleep was a welcome retreat, it meant that Nate was still very sick. They say that rehydrated babies really perk up after recieving fluids and Nate just wasn't perking up like they would have liked to have seen, so it was another night for the two of us and Elmo. That darn little red dude kept my little pale dude happy, so I endured.

Christmas Eve morning brought many good things for us. Nate love the rides in the red wagon, up and down and up and down andupanddownand...you get the picture, the hallway of the second floor. There are 15 doors on the west side of the hall and 15 doors on the east side of the hall....Nate pointed them all out many times. We saw many beautiful hearts on the 24th. A little girl brought up a few gifts for the children in the hospital and someone had donated stuffed animals as well. Pastor Remmers came to visit before lunch. Before we left the State Patrol brought up a bunch of teddy bears for the kids, but Nate was the only one on the floor. They came to visit him in his room and let him pick out a bear. How very thoughtful of them all!! We got home about 2:30 on Christmas Eve afternoon. We were all so happy to be home.

This whole ordeal with Nathan really made me doubt my parenting ablility. I don't think that I'll every feel completely competant as a parent. I guess that I'll just keep plugging away and praying that I'll do it right and without too much lasting trauma to the Kissinger Kids. I am thankful that God gave me these children to love and protect and I pray that we don't have to go through this again any time soon. I hate it when my kids are split up and away from eachother and from the entire family. I am also thankful that God has given me the patience to get through watching Elmo in Grouchland 876 trajillion times since we've been home from the hospital...seriously...I wouldn't lie about something so flipping important as Elmo's search for his blanket. It is high drama, on screen and off, especially when Mommy says that Melmo has to take a nap and Nate and Zak pitch a fit. Good times.

Wow...if you made it through all of this, then I applaud you. It was really just a cathartic release for me. It was a hard week and I am glad that it is over.

Gingerbread Decorating Party

Did I say party? I meant complete chaos, craziness, and was I on crack when I offered my house to do this fun little project? Really, how messy can 11 children (10 of them under the age of 6), enough frosting to mortar my house together, and bags upon bags upon boxes of candy, in my dining room be? MESSY! But totally worth it. The children had an excellent time and they even left a little bit of the candy for the houses, which turned out pretty spectacular, if you ask me...(and if you didn't ask me, then quit reading my blog, cuz it's all about me). Thankfully all of the mothers were laid back and went with the candy induced flow. Kevin, however, sat in the family room, his eye all a twitching. He stayed there because I didn't want him to scare the children. He was having a freak out attack at the amount of sugar and frosting and mess and number of small children and who was going to clean all of this up???!!

A fun time was had by all. Amazingly enough, it was cleaned up in no time at all. It's whatcha call or.gan.i.za.tion, my friends. All of the leftover candy went into one tiny ziplock bag, the freezer paper that I had taped to the table beforehand was pulled up and thrown away, and the floor was vacuumed. Presto, snap, boom.....the room is clean and Kevin stopped twitching.

Now, this is my kind of party!

Could there be any more candy in this picture?

Natalie and Ellie collaberating on Ellie's house. (There is only 2 weeks difference in age with these two ragamuffins.) We are blessed to have them as our backyard, thru the trees neighbors here on the compound. I guess that we are also blessed cuz they're related to us and have to live on the compound too.

My friend Ann, whom we refer to as Dr. Ann D.D.S. She twitched a little bit at the sight of all of the candy and such, but she got over it when she realized that she was all of our dentist. Then she saw her kids college being paid for and the twitching subsided.

The finished products!

One down, Two to go

We did it. We finally broke down and took one of our children skiing. We are officially crazy and broke. And much to our joy and our pocketbooks dismay...Ellie loved it. Skiing is cool and I am really good at it.... so says she.

We had a fabulous time together. Ellie at ski school, Kevin on the slopes, Me napping and shopping and what not. Good times. If you ask Ella what her favorite part of the trip was she will tell you the hot tub and the pool. Yep that's our girl....all about the water sports. Seriously, she couldn't stop talking about the hot tubs...they were outside, my friends....in the cold and snowy outside! She just couldn't get enough of that concept. I, on the other hand, thought that the dry sauna was perfect and warm and dry and indoors.

Ella did 2 days of ski school. We dropped her off at 8:30 and picked her up at 3:30. Do you know how much napping one can do in that amount of time? It was awesome. On the second day Kev thought that he might catch a glimpse of her skiing, so he made his way over from his double black whatevers to the baby bunny green carpets. He tried in vain, looking for a sweet little one in a white coat and brown pants, but much to his dismay, he couldn't find her. Little did he know our budding snow bunny was wearing a brown coat and pink pants that day. I am, I mean, she is a diva. Can't wear the same thing twice! Thankfully the super expensive goggles that Amy lent us went with both outfits. Can you imagine the damage to her(my) psyche if she didn't look cute as a button on the slopes? Fortunately, we were able to see her skiing down the mountain when we went to pick her up. She did a fabulous job! She was first in line...we assume this was because she was the slowest and they didn't want to leave her behind on the slopes. We are so proud of her! Now she wants to bring all of her friends skiing. Probably not going to happen any time soon.

Still smiling after her first day!

Mommy and Ellie

Coming down the mountain!

Skiing with the cool kids....

Ellie and the most patient instructor, Liz.

I did get a little video of her at the end. You know, after she was down the mountain and standing in front of us and I finally remembered that my camera also shoots video. If I knew how to post video, I would because it is a fine work of craftmanship, I tell you. A rivoting 47 seconds of Ellie skate-skiing into the ski school area and some ladies head that kept getting in my way. The nerve of some people!

I shudder to think about ski trips with the boys. It makes my head hurt, so I think that I won't worry about it until the time comes. Life is good and I should just enjoy it as it comes....Right?

They just keep growing!

They grow up so fast. Lately the boys have been hating their high chairs and have been wanting to eat anywhere but there. Since we didn't plan on 3 children, the island in our kitchen is not big enough to accommodate 3 chairs. This is where we eat most of our meals....you know quality family together time...Kev and Ellie at the island, the boys in their highchairs along the kitchen wall and me standing somewhere trying to get my food while it's still luke warm. We do try to sit together at the dining room table when we can, unfortunately our schedules seem to be all over the place lately and it's just a job to get everyone fed. Anyway...we do have a new top for our island ordered. It will be big enough for three chairs with the option of an extra when we need it. The only problem is that the guy that is doing our pool is doing the counter top as well. Soooo, we will probably have that done when the boys reach Jr High.


Here are a couple of pics of our big boys acting like big boys.

Ellie, the little stinker, thinks that she is a big girl too! She recently got to help Kevin put the Christmas lights on the house. I may have had a moment of weakness when I allowed this and then of course had to take pictures of it. She said that she had fun, but was upset with her father when he made her stop dancing and jumping on the roof. I guess that big girls don't know the meaning of "Stand right here and DON'T MOVE!" She had a fun time helping her dad and is very proud of her work. I'll have to take a pic of that some night.

And then there are the days when I wish that they/he, would just act their/his age. Kevin is such a little boys sometimes. The other night he went out to burn some trash. He comes running in the house, giggling like a little girl, "Go look out the back window!" I, the obedient wife, do as told and see this.....

a huge raging fire from the small amount of trash that was to be burned. I asked the little pyro what was going on and he giggled again "I built a really cool, big fire." He had found some cardboard and started it on fire as well. The cardboard was really tall and he couldn't fit the cover on the barrel to keep the burning trash from blowing all over and starting the house, trees, shop on fire. I lost interest in his little show and went back to my child care giving, until I heard him say "Oh crap, the grass is on fire!" The big cardboard piece fell out and started the grass aflame. Thankfully, nothing became of the grass blaze and all the excitement settled down. For the record I did not take the picture of the fire. That was all Kevin's doing.....his I am 15 years old, I love fire, and want proof of my big fire doing.