and then... and then....

we got a cast today. daddy insisted that it be red, in support of our landscaping company Red Shovel Landscape & Design. i offered to take grayson to go get it branded if he wanted.. anyways, we were up all night with the little guy who had a fever on top of everything else. and when i say all night, i very much mean all night. i had him in a swing in the backyard at 5:45 a.m. because i just didn't know what else to do with him. he wouldn't really eat, etc. and then i noticed blisters on his hands. oh. my. gosh. so, we're getting a cast and the PA says that they could be a sign of strep throat. i was happy to hear that because i'm thinking hand foot and mouth disease. we decide to go straight to his pediatrician after the cast party, who says it must be HFM, but since you mentioned strep i'll test for that too. well, the strep came back positive. so, the dr. thinks its both. NEAT. he is absolutely miserable. i solicit your prayers for the broken legged throat and hand blistered kid. i hate seeing him like this. i haven't put him down in about 4 days now. the Lord gave me a perspective check on the way out of the dr's office however. i was VERY down, really feeling attacked and not understanding why so much is being thrown at my son. why not ME. why him? i looked over and saw a teeny little boy, probably too small for his age, maybe 7 years old, getting out of a car with his oxygen hooked up to his nose, pulling the oxygen tank behind him. i'm not sure what he had, but it didn't look good. and i thought, you know, it could always be worse. always. all grayson has is a broken leg, an infection and a virus. they will all go away. it was clear to me that this little boy's issue wasn't going away anytime soon. it just reminded me once again to be thankful in the tough times. my husband reminds me of this daily, and i just stare at him. but he's right. we should thank God through the trials. but its really not easy. we're not even going through that much bad stuff and i still find it hard to thank him for this time. it doesn't seem natural, but maybe that's the point. anyways, all that to say, pray that our little man fights the good fight and KEEPS IT TO HIMSELF!! and i'm sorry in advance for the onslaught of HFM that is coming since we were at my niece's bday party on saturday. whoops...

scene of the crime...

as mentioned previously, oddly enough i was trying to fix a little point and shoot camera, when i accidentally took this picture. the camera wasn't mine, so i have been waiting for it via email. weird and creepy huh. this must have been the moment, just milliseconds before his little leg broke, as it got caught underneath the leg of one of his favorite people. :) i post this, in the hopes that one day, when he's older, he'll look back at it and say "COOL!", as many little troopers would.

well.. he finally got a break...

no seriously. a break. of the leg. not even kidding. he's doing fine, just pretty bored and he's sleeping a TON. he gets frustrated because he can't really crawl yet (though he crawled a couple feet today) and he can't stand because it hurts to put pressure on it. liam let grayson borrow his dump truck chair and he LOVES it. he just sits there, so sweet, eating fritos (i found out fritos have only corn, so that works!) and watching a new dora video that liam is also lettting us borrow! he is a great sport about it. he's on motrin, but not all the time. just when i think it hurts. how did he do it? well, scarily enough i have a picture of it actually happening, but i'm waiting for that to be emailed, then i'll post. we were at a play place, with blow up toys. and he was going down the slide with one of his favorite people in the world, and his sweet little foot got caught under hers. she of course, feels awful, but she shouldn't. because ITS NOT YOUR FAULT!! when they got to the bottom, he was crying, and super lethargic. i tried to get him to stand but he'd just collapse onto me and cry. i couldn't even get him to walk for a rice cake. so i KNEW something was wrong. i came home, put him down for a nap, and debated on what to do. when he woke up and i STILL couldn't get him to stand, i took him to the ER. we got there at 3:30 and didn't leave untill 10:30. oh. my. gosh. its so fun taking your broken legged one year old to the er for 7 hours. really, try it sometime. and he LOVED being pinned down for xrays. the ortho team was backed up because of a bad wreck, so it was 9:30 before they started putting his splint cast on. he actually fell asleep during the process. he's such a good boy. when we got home, we discovered that aislyn had been super sick all day, runny nose like crazy. so one of these is a pic of the two of them, snotty and gimpy with their snuggers, watchin dora. sweet babies. we have had one heck of a weekend. yesterday was kenny and i's five year anniversary, more on that later. here are a few pics for your enjoyment. or your empathy. OH, if anyone has had a toddler in a cast, PLEASE comment with your advice. i MIGHT go crazy over the next six weeks...

oh, and tomorrow, we are taking some drastic measures with this allergy stuff. more on that later too, but i'm kind of excited. possibly crazy, but hopeful.

just being thankful

i was looking through some old pictures, and was reminded of a time where we had no break from grayson's little face just bleeding and oozing for months. when we had to pin him down every time he took a nap or went down for the night. where i spent all day holding his hands to his sides because if i didn't he would make himself bleed.. again. we are not done with the allergy eczema battle, but i am so thankful to the Lord that he has cleared up so well on his face. his little body takes a beating here and there but its nothing like it was. thanks to faithful praying friends, and friends who gave of their finances and selves to rip up our carpet, he's much better. ultimately thanks be to God who remains faithful even though we are not. this is little g around 7 months i think.

i have even almost forgotten how bad it was!! thank you LORD!!!

we were supposed to test six more foods today, but the last patch test really did a work on his back, and three of the patches are still eczemafied. they just look like red scars now but we have to wait until the are completely gone to trial more foods. so we'll try again in two weeks. he's happy with corn and rice for now. :)

oh...and soy

yea, i think soy is out. he keeps trying to scratch his neck off after i give it to him. so we may have to wait on that one, as i'm thinking that's a bad sign...

corn corn corn

well... corn is definitely different than rice. he ate a couple kernels the first night, none the second night, and then threw them at me the third night. so i decided to smoosh it up and mix it with the rice cereal.. or shall i say, HIDE it in the rice cereal, and he loves it now. i guess when you spend months eating only rice, you kind of halt your taste buds from anything else. i guess you could say they are no longer your taste "buds" but really, just your taste "acquaintances". i hope someone out there is laughing as hard as i am right now at the hilarious joke i just made.

a girl and her daddy... and her "pop"

i really liked this one of she and kenny. he is out of focus, but she isn't, so oh well... no chance of shooting this one on the right settings anytime soon so we'll go with this...every time i place a photo order from the lab i use, they send a tootsie roll in the box with the order. and it is HEAVEN time for aislyn. i hope tootsie rolls don't have eggs. man you can get this girl to do anything if you have a "pop" waiting for her on the other side. except pee in the toilet...

75 recipes with only corn and rice...

WE GOT CORN! it passed! there was no red mark! we have to trial it slowly, but STILL. that's huge. also we got one other thing to pass, we THINK. either milk or soy, probably soy. there may have been a slight mix up with which patch was which. so we ran a prick test which only takes 15 minutes to read, and soy came back negative and milk positive on that one. (the patch results were opposite, but like i said, they may have been mixed up). SO.. we get to try a teensy bit of soymilk tomorrow and wait for a reaction. that would be fabulous. his back took a BEATING, but oddly enough, it didn't seem to bother him at all. he was highly allergic to wheat and egg, so that's a bummer, but i really expected that. but i didn't expect to get two negatives! praise God, we're praying the tests were right and he handles the foods well. so, in the pic, the five squares are where all the patches were (the three to the left were the positives, you can see the circles) and the markings were where the prick test was. so sad, huh. but man, he just doesn't care. he's so happy. thanks for the prayers.

patch testing

so.. on monday, our allergist put 5 different foods (corn, milk, soy, wheat, egg) on grayson's back, in tiny wells with tape on them and tomorrow we get to have them taken off. they measure the red area, thus determining an allergy and/or degree of allergy. PLEASE PRAY that we get something that's negative. this is basically to disprove the RAST test (blood test). so we'll see. I WANT TO GIVE HIM CORN TOMORROW!!!! how cool would that be... a very nice change from tasteless brown rice. but luckily, my sweet boy LOVES his brown rice. he's so cute with a rice cake in hand. you would SERIOUSLY think that it was ice cream. sweet boy.

a very chill 4th

quite the change from the last few years....kenny's grandma katie came over and we grilled out and did our own fireworks, aislyn had been talking about them all day. katie brought over a giant watermelon and i THINK aislyn may have eaten half of it...WITH great grandma's help of course...grayson seemed to like the fireworks ALOT. he would point and yell, happily, each time kenny set one off. aislyn was a BIG fan of the sparklers. but when she's done, she's done, and she'll just drop them wherever they fall, and run. its kinda scary.grayson's new thing is rocks. putting them in his mouth, over and over, no matter how many times i pull them out, tell him no, he keeps doing it. this is him thinking about when i will look away so he can eat one. and just LOOK at those curls on his head. i'm so excited he might have fun curly hair like his daddy!this is him eating one.this is him looking at the one on the ground that he would like to eat next.thanks grandma katie for joining us for our low key fourth! we'll bring out the big guns again next year and set the cul de sac on fire as is the norm.. OH, the random kid on the side- they walked over to see our fireworks. all four of them.

fishin' for the frenchies on the fourth...

my sister in law, currently is in france to recreate her american wedding to my french brother in law. she has been begging for some new pics to share with our french family SO we went to shady lakes today to fish with the kids so we'd have something to post! first of all, to our french family, we miss you dearly! we wish so much that we were there. however, i will not take two toddlers to france, and i have an irrational fear of flying that has only gotten worse since having kids. i will get over it. just not today. i hear drugs help.

so, a bit about the post. let me first say, when you ask aislyn if she wants to catch a fish, this is what she does, as if you are about to throw one at her..
these are a few of our little man, he's getting so big. and cuter by the second. by the way, update on his allergist appointment this week. they were going to do food patch testing on his back, however, he didn't have a spot that was clear from eczema, so we have to wait until we can clear his back. we'll try again monday and we'll find out on wednesday if we can add any foods!!!
and princess aislyn, also getting bigger by the second. and SASSIER, which i hear from mom and dad that she comes by it honest. she and kenny looked absolutely adorable just sittin' on a log, fishin' away. she loved it that daddy was letting her hold the reel. pole. or whatever the heck its called. clearly i go fishing often.

and by the end of the day (and by day, i mean the 30 minutes that we were there), we had caught nothing. however, this kid did.

and he asked about 5 times if i would take his picture.

anyway, we miss all of you over there in france terribly and hope that you'll come back for a visit soon! kenny says happy independence day to you! we are about to have some chickenpork and chickenchicken with great grandma, and then set off some illegal fireworks. :) (oh, barbara, you'll have to explain to the french the chickenpork thing- aislyn thinks everything should be chicken so we have to trick her).

HAPPY FOURTH! AND HAPPY RE-WEDDING!! La mariage- is that right?

BONJOUR!