Pretty In Pink

In honor of breast cancer awareness, I Heart Faces theme this week is "PINK." We celebrated the triplets birthday on Sunday and the girls got new headbands which Addison is showing off. She didn't nap today, so I let her up early and bribed her with M&M's to sit still and look at the camera for me.  I'm sure bribes will become more difficult as they get older, but yea for M&Ms!!!!

The Simplicity Challenge this week is Portraits, so I thought I'd link this shot up there as well!!

Bath Time Photo Challenge

I am busy preparing for a birthday party tomorrow, so I will leave everyone with a Photo Freak photo challenge entry.... Bath time Fun!!!  This is a picture of Cody when he was running a fever of 106 and we were desperately trying to pull it down.

Baby Steps for Mommy

Just this last week I started letting the kids play in the backyard w/o direct supervision. Don't get me wrong, they are still supervised, but I am watching from inside the house and the back door is cracked so I can hear everything clearly. It is soooo nice after naps to let them go out back and play a little while so I can continue to try and get things done inside. They are still adjusting to not having me out there with them. I get a lot of "Mooommmmmmyyyyy, come outside and push me on the swing," but they are learning sometimes they have to play solo  (Solo?  Ha, there are 4 of them out there after all).

It's hard for me to imagine a day will come when I won't have to watch them every single minute of every single day. But, I'm so glad that day isn't tomorrow and we will get there taking baby steps.

Kids 1st Field Trip

On October 13th, I mentioned the kids were going on their 1st field trip and I was looking forward to getting some pictures out and away from home...  Well, I woke up that morning not feeling well.  I pushed through and tried going, but half-way to the Ranch I had to pull the car over and became very ill.  My Dad was following us, so I took his car and went home.  Later that afternoon I started feeling better, but had a doctors appointment I felt I should keep.  Good thing I did.  The doctor had me admitted to the hospital just long enough for them to give me IV fluids and re-hydrate me.  I was a nasty 6 hours.

Needless to say, I didn't get pictures but I did give my camera to my Dad and he took pictures.  I think he did a GREAT job and I got to practice to some new editing techniques.  Our combined efforts turned out some pretty good shots.  Thanks Dad for capturing the 1st field trip!!!

OH NOOOOOOOO.......

I thought it might be a good idea to make my photos on Flickr private. I like keeping access to my life limited to the blog. Well, not such a good idea.... I changed the privacy on all my photos and it deleted the link between my Flickr photos and my blog. YES, YEP, You Got It!!!! No warning message, no "hey are you sure you want to do that", No, "this will hose your blog warning." So, I have spent the past who knows how many hours replacing 227 photos in my blog with the new Flickr link. FUN!!! NOT!!!!!! Fortunately, I only started using Flickr back in April so this was recoverable.... WHEW!!

If you run across a photo in my blog that says, "Photo No Longer Available...FLICKR." Please let me know so I can remedy the problem.

My photos on other sites have also been lost (ie; photo challenges), but that is beyond my control... No more tears can be shed, so I just move forward.... sigh.

Side Note: If you look in Cody's eyes in the shot above, you can see me in the reflection taking the photo... kinda cool I thought.

Wholly MAC-keral

Thanks to my lovely husband, I am now emailing, blogging, and photo editing on a BEAUTIFUL new computer...  a new Mac....  Yes, we made a switch from Windows to Mac so I am working to get everything set up correctly and trying to overcome the new learning curve.

SO, if I am not posting as often the next week or soooooo it's probably due to my efforts to get configured and trained.  Stay put!!!

A Bit of Fresh Air

We are currently experiencing some BEAUTIFUL weather and have been taking advantage of it as much as possible.  Most evenings we let the kids play in the back yard on the swing set or out front on their riding toys.  SPECTACULAR!!!  Jadon & Kaylee still haven't figured out how to ride a trike yet, but Addison has it down and quite frankly has had it down for quite a long time now.  I totally thought they'd all be riding all over the place by now.  Of course, Addison is still the only one with any concept of steering.  She is the only one we let drive their battery powered car for sure!!

Tomorrow, the kids go on their 1st field trip and of course a parent has to go and that parent would be me.  I think it's kind of a rip-off as I'm paying them to give me a day off, so no time off tomorrow, but I hope to get some good pictures out and away from home.  I'm still practicing and trying to get this whole photo taking thing down.

Walking with Dinosaurs

I had a bridal shower to attend this past weekend in the downtown area (not close to home), so we decided to turn the event into a weekend getaway for the family.  We got up at 6:30 Saturday morning and got everyone dressed and the car packed so we could be at the Zoo (also downtown) when it opened at 9:00.  The zoo was having a dinosaur exhibit which was AWESOME to say the least and the kids favorite part of the zoo.  You essentially walked through the land of the dinosaurs and huge automated dinosaurs (even the eyes moved) would roar rumble and some even snorted water as you walked by.  VERY COOL!!  The kids checked out the animals, but were honestly as impressed with a nearby squirrel as they were the elephants.  We've been to the zoo several times now and it's always fun.  Well, as fun as any outing for 4 little ones can be...  we had lots of whining, fighting, and misbehaving which during lunch made us question our decision to take them to the zoo, but overall it was GREAT... they whine, fight, and misbehave at home too.

We then went and picked up the gift for the shower and checked into a hotel where I got ready.  The family dropped me at the shower and Jerry took the kids back to the hotel to swim in the indoor pool, but I understand it was VERY COLD and they didn't stay too long.  I give Jerry props for taking care of them in a hotel by himself.  He is an AWESOME Daddy!!!

The next morning we returned home, napped the kids, then took them to our Annual Church Festival which topped off our weekend perfectly. 


OK, here are some "funnies"...

Me:  "Girls, don't run that brush on the carpet.  You are going to snag the carpet and make a whole."
Addison:  "Oh, then we might fall in?"

I picked Jadon up from school today.
Jadon:  "Look Mom, I made this for you.  It's a picture of a bo bo."

Here are some pics from the zoo.  The quality is a little lacking, but wanted them posted for the kids diary.

Let There Be Light

It's another exciting week at I Heart Faces!!!  I used one of my FAVORITE silhouette photos last week in the orange theme and was bummed I couldn't participate this week, but then I remembered this shot of Jadon!!  A sparkly silhouette!!

The 4th Annual Pumpkin Patch Visit

1st, I finally got around to re-reading the last post... whew, sorry for all the typos....  I was tired.

Ok, NOW - YEA!!!!  Pumpkin Patch visit was fun and turned out some pretty fun pictures.  (oh, it's Thursday and all the kids are doing better)....  Ok, on Sunday the kids seemed to be doing ok and they were getting stir crazy so we decided to take the kids to the pumpkin patch.   This is our 4th year going and one of my favorite outings.  They have hay rides and train rides through the Christmas Tree Farm, scarecrows, and sooo much more.

While their mouths were sore and they were reluctant to smile, we did manage to elicit some smiles and they had a GREAT time. 

Of course, some smiles looked like this.... "I'm trying to smile but my mouth hurts..."

And the... "No, I just can't smile right now..."

Kaylee kickin' back with the local "scary crow"

Here is a view from the hay ride... Gorgeous

There once was a spider.... Ahh, my heart smiles looking at Jadon.

If you haven't noticed yet, I'm kinda into photographing sun flares...

And... you just can't beat a good old black & white.. This is Addison loving on the turkey.

Is it just me or does this little man just get handsomer every day???

Toward the end of the day, everyone was getting tired of the camera. I think Kaylee say's it all here...

But, if I had put the camera down....

I wouldn't have been able to capture this photo.... one of my favorites from the day.

Happy Monday... not sooo Happy

Okay... thought I'd muster the energy for the illness run down...here goes....

Thursday morning Cody woke with fever and a very sore throat so he stayed home from school and I took him to the clinic because we had a party planned Saturday and I just didn't want to try waiting in out as I typically do.  He was tested for Strep, but the test was negative.  Because all his symptoms looked like strep, they went ahead and put him on antibiotics.  24 Hours later he was better... was it a 24 hour bug or the drugs???

Friday afternoon, Addison develops fever and a sore throat...  hmmmm does she need drugs?  Well, the party is already a bust at this point so we decided to wait this out a bit.  That night her fever is high and I'm up sponging her off and giving her meds.

Saturday morning, Kaylee develops the same symptoms, but the girls are now doing ok but by the evening Jadon is sick....  Saturday night the fevers aren't too bad, but I continue to give them meds. 

Sunday, Addison is doing much better and the others are doing ok.... ahhhh, just has to run it's course.  That night Addison & Kaylee are pretty much fever free, but Kaylee's sore throat has her up screaming during the night...  We did not set an alarm to deliver meds and just waited to see how the fevers went and all went good with regard to fever but the screaming fits kept us up.

Monday, Cody is fine, Addison is eating and doing well, Jadon's throat hurts but he is ok, Kaylee is BAD....  I took her to the clinic that afternoon and on a scale of 1 to 10, her throat is at a 10....  She tested negative for strep, but once again they wanted to get her on an antibiotic.  We were advised to bring in Addison and Jadon, so we took them in for a 7:30 everning appointment and we walked out with another prescription.

Tuesday, everyone is good except Kaylee....  she threw up 3 times this morning and she literally won't talk because her mouth hurts soooo bad.... 

It's strange how children handle illness differently.  Addison & Jadon are healing on their own but are getting a precautionary antibiotic, Cody is fine, and Kaylee is SICK.... 

Hopefully, she turns the corner tomorrow and I can get a full night sleep tonight.  I was soooo tempted last night to bring her into our bed, but the kids know (sick or healthy) they are expected to sleep in their beds and I soooo don't want to upset the system.

I think I got all the details right... if not, it's close enough and you get the idea.....  Blessings to all!!