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Well, we definitely have Hand-Foot-Mouth disease running amok in the family. So far Dylan, Alisabeth, and Ethan have it. Dylan got it first, and today was the first time in 5 days he could put something in his mouth and not cry. It was painful just looking in it, and seeing all the blisters/ulcers invade his through, gums, tongue. He saw me looking up pictures on the internet to help diagnose it, and decided that he wanted pictures of his mouth too. I will spare anyone the graphic details of that, however! Ethan and Alisa’s case is much more mild, some in the mouth, and Alisa has some on her legs. Thank goodness those are painless and itch-less! Reese hasn’t shown symptoms of it (though she does have a bad cold and two teeth trying to erupt.) I read that HFM gets more rare as kids approach puberty and Zach said “Well, I have a zit, so does that mean I won’t get it?” So far they seem ‘clean’.

Mark took the kids fishing on Saturday (they felt well enough to go, and were seperate from anyone else, so I gave the thumbs up.) Zach needed to catch and clean and cook a fish for his fishing merit badge, and they actually came home with 3 keepers. Zach did his first cleaning/filleting job, and didn’t do too badly. (I guess, I don’t watch, EW!) Nobody thought they’d want to eat it, but after seeing Zach’s finished product, everyone wanted a bite (which is all they got!) Zach now just has to show the merit badge counselor the required 5 fishing knots from memory and he’ll be done with that badge. I sent the camera with Mark, but since there were no sunsets, dead deer, or bears involved, nary a picture was taken!

I am doing a frantic search for Zach’s last signed physical form (they’re good for 3 years, so I have 1 year left) because I put it in a ’safe place’ and can’t remember where that is. In doing so I ran into a box from college where I found a funny letter written to me by one of my sisters when I was a Freshman. I got to thinking that Gabby is now that age and growing up so quickly. But last night she fell asleep on the couch watching a movie and I let her stay there, and in the middle of the she came in crying because she was scared, and she slipped into the bed with Mark and me (Dylan was on the floor too) and I held her like she was little. It was so nice to comfort and cuddle her! This AM she told me that she’d had a bad dream about little green worms crawling out from a fishing bait container all over her, and when she woke up she thought she saw them all over her so she ran upstairs. Not sure if she’ll be doing any fishing for a while!

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With bittersweet feelings, we welcome Reese to our family blog, as opposed to her being updated in her regular blog. I want to thank everyone who came out to her party! We had fun, and hope you come this way again soon! I know Reese was kind of boring with her smash cake, as she hated being messy and was so delicate with what she ate. The next day we gave her a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup that she had gotten with one of her gifts, and she demolished it. We should have designed a big chocolate cake in the shape of a Buttercup! Reese enjoyed her presents of clothes and books, and especially her doll from Kirk and Shara! For those who forgot to sign her book, I’ve added you name and your gift for you. So thanks! Below is Reese’s last month-by-month picture with her stuffed animal. A comparison of all 12 months worth is at the end of her montage, linked below.

On Wednesday Dylan had headaches and spiked a fever of 102º. The next day he had red spots in his mouth, and blisters. I’m wondering if it’s Strep, Hand-Foot-Mouth disease, or the initial outbreak of blisters children often get with their first cold sore (though he hasn’t been exposed to that.) I’m hoping to find out if someone at the party or at church the next day had Strep or HFM. It’s likely to spread through all the kids, and maybe even the adults! Poor little guy is in pain. There isn’t anything on the tonsils, no raw-redness, he can eat OK, drinks fine, and it’s summer and he’s only 3, all of which point away from Strep. We’ll give it a day to see what happens and then bring him in.

Mark has been looking for a riding lawn mower, and one of Zach’s friends let us know our neighbors (and church friends) had one for sale. Mark went to check it out, found that it was kept in nice condition, only a couple of years old (they wanted a bigger one) and came with a bagger. What used to take us 3 days with the push mower we did in 4 hours!

We also have pretty much everything we need to finish the last of the basement projects. We need a counter top for the homeschoooling room, and tons of bookshelves, both of which are non-essential and can wait. I think we are going to take our time with the rest of the projects and just enjoy life for a while. The basement stays about 10º cooler than the rest of the house, so we haven’t used the air, we just go downstairs!

And here are the links to her birthday montage page and the birthday pictures page. Enjoy!

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Until Reese’s birthday (and thus, her birthday party!) At that point I will cease writing in her own special blog, and add her to our family blog. This is always hard for me, the ending of a ’season’. It will be nice to not keep two blogs though. Her party is on Sunday, and everyone should have received an invitation in their email. I will be sending a reminder tomorrow as well. In getting ready for her party, I’ve been working hard on getting her baby book done and her photo album started. I ordered pics from June-July, but hadn’t ordered pics since then. And hadn’t put any in the photo albums (I also keep First Year pics separate from the regular family albums) so I had around 1000 pictures to date, sort, and add put into sleeves. Over half were of Reese alone. Well, Reese’s first picture album only holds 400, so I had to really limit myself on what to put in. But I did it! Here’s a picture of the stacks of photos:

Dylan has discovered the John Mayer song “Say What You Need to Say” and loves to sing it. If you’ve heard the song, you know that it has the title line in it, apparently 71 times or something. And that’s all he sings. It is annoying at best, believe you me! We went to a parade yesterday, and it was half tractors. The other half was princesses from various cities. So Dylan shouted ‘Mom, it’s a tractor’ while Alisa kept standing up and saying “Mom, it’s a princess” and then waving daintily! By the end, she had Dylan on her team, so he waved to the princesses too.

Oh, and did I say that the basement is done? Well, done as in livable. I think it will be forever until the doors and knobs are on, the books are on shelves, pictures on the walls, etc. But we couldn’t be more happy to have room to grow. Here is a picture of Dylan sleeping at the bottom of the stairs. Dylan can sleep just about anywhere. I think a good portion of my pictures were of him sleeping!

And I also want to say something about the horrible tornado/scout camp incident in Iowa. My heart goes out to those families of the 4 scouts that were killed. Every year that I send Zach to scout camp I fret and worry the entire week, but have faith that he’ll come home safe and sound, and better for the experience. It was all too easy to put myself in those parents place, and I am just heartbroken. My prayers go out to them all.

Jen

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