The Flu...Ugh

We haven't posted lately because life has been busy and Jake got the flu! And, I tried as hard as I could but those boys could not stop swaping their sippys...or rather, one or both couldn't not steal his brother's sippy. So, just as Jake started to feel better, well, now it's Jonah's turn!!!! Oh, it's been fun. And, THANK YOU GOD, that I have not been ill yet. But it all started right as Neal was leaving for a trip. Perfect timing as usual. I've been trying hard to get them busy and out of the house because the weather has been faaabulous lately. With this lousy flu though, we have just had to put everything on hold. And I know the boys are going stir crazy with cabin fever...as am I.

Not much else is going on as far as news. They are busy busy still trying to chatter away. Jonah said, "I love you" the other day which was just so darn cute I almost cried. They're both just so clever and busy. And the flu has had them very mommy clingy. That has been hard on me because I want so badly to be able to hold and comfort them both but they just get their poor feelings hurt when I'm spending some time with one and not the other.

Here are the only photos I've been able to catch lately. Due to this crud we haven't really had some good photo ops. We'll try harder!

The boys got a new table to play and eat on. The high chairs are OUT!

Tables are awesome.

This is our fake smile.

Breakfast with our gal pal Reece pre flu.

19 Months!

Yesterday we were officially 19 months. It seems like the last month flew by. I should have posted sooner, but the weekend before last we went to the Plano Balloon Festival and Octoberfest. It was a busy weekend! We had fun and the weather remained somewhat cooperative, so that was a pleasant change. I have posted the photos below from the outings.

In other news...I took the boys to their Mother's Day Out today and NO ONE CRIED!!!! That was such a big deal for me. It has been difficult to leave them there while they're (or mainly just one) is crying. But we apparently had a good day! The boys have been bringing home some really cute art projects that just make me smile. I know someday I'm going to look back at them and probably cry because they're growing up so fast. :)

Yesterday, we had our 2 week Hemotogist appointment. Jake was a big boy but he still hasn't gotten to the point where he's ok with getting his blood taken. That's rough, but the rest isn't so bad. Our count was 21,000. I wasn't exactly thrilled at the tiny bump up, but I have to remember that it's still up...which is exactly what we need. But, we still need prayers. But until we're out of the woods, we're going to continue to take it easy and try to enjoy this fantastic fall weather! Yeah!

The boys eating their dinner at the Plano Balloon Fest

The boys got assulted by some Hooters girls with stickers! Awful...;)

Me n Neal

The boys with GG at Octoberfest.

Yes, that's milk in those sippys!

Jake was high fiving a new friend who was seated next to us. Friendly guy!

Jojo & his Grand-dad

Stinker face!


Oh and I forgot to mention Jonah's recent fascination with airplanes. He can barely say the word, but they've become a favorite toy for him. He often points to them in the sky and tries to say airplane but it comes out more like, "au-ju!"

Maybe Jojo's going to follow in daddy's footsteps someday...??

Picnic dinner at Plano Balloon Fest.

Cute Photos/Lots To Do

So I haven't posted in a while...my baaaadddd. We've been busy lately, but in a good way. So no Hemotologist appointment this week. I'm not looking forward to next week's visit since last week's SUCKED. It sickens me to the core that his count dropped again after we were SO hopeful that it would keep going up and we would be out of the woods. In other health news, we had to go to the Pediatrician this morning to check Jonah's Iron...it was normal!!! Thank God. At least that is one of my kids who has some normal blood. Now if only Jake would catch up. :( We have been staying somewhat active lately. The weekend before last we went to see Aunt Lissa and her dog Oden do a demo at an SPCA activity in Plano. That was fun. Last weekend, we went to Plano Balloon Fest and Octoberfest. I'll post those photos soon.

Jake was SO excited to see his Aunt Lissa. He was trying to jump out of the seat he was strapped into so she could hold him. Super cute.

Jonah & Granddad

Aunt Lissa and Jake makin bubbles. OMG Jake was facinated by this.

Hey gorgeous!

Jonah got in on the action too.

Aunt Lissa talkin' shop and showing off her AWESOME pooch Oden. He was so funny because the grass was wet and he did NOT want to sit in it.

The next night my mom & dad & I took the boys to the kitchen table of Buca. It was fun! The boys love to watch me in the kitchen so I thought they would be fascinated by this spectacle.

"Melmo's" World & Mom's Day Out

This week has been a busy one! Neal left Tuesday so it's been pretty much me n the boys for most of the week. Wednesday we started our Mom's Day Out program! The boys will be going to a 2-day a week 5 hour Christian based pre-school which should hopefully be LOTS of fun once we get past the initial freak outs. I was more of a basket case getting everything ready for them from nap mats to snacks, sippys, lunches, extra clothes, diapers, etc....it was like we were packing for a road trip. The boys did good! They get a daily report card that basically told me Jake was a little sad but mostly happy and a great eater (btw, totally surprised me how much he flipped out...that's usually Jojo's job). The report card said Jonah didn't even cry. Crazy!

Oh and I made them some homemade blueberry pancakes for breakfast and didn't realize that Jake had big blue spots on his shirt until we were in the car. Opps!

First Day of School Breakfast

Jake wasn't having it obviously.

This morning I took the boys to an open house at My Gym because ELMO was there! It was BA-ZURK with the amount of people there. I could barely keep up with them. But it was cute...until we sat on Elmo's lap. YIKES! And of course, as always, a few of our twin friends were there.

Here we are at arrival, taking shoes off and checking out the scene.

Jake got a little adventurous in the ball pit. This was about the farthest I let him get away from me.

Eventually, the staff had everyone sit in a "circle" (more like massive ameoba) to welcome Elmo. The couple in front of us are fellow PAMOM-ers with their twin gals. And the two boys playing with the big balls are also twins, whose mother is in PAMOM. And our twin-buds Jacob & Lucas were there with their mom n dad.

Hi Elmo!

This wasn't even everyone in this shot. C-r-a-z-y

I sat the boys on some elevated mats so we could see over everyone. They were a little in awe of the whole spectacle.

And here's the most classic photo of all! Ah, fun times. Sorry Elmo, they really do love you!

Good News for Jake & Somewhat Poopy News for Jonah

Well the boys have turned 18 months!!! It's hard to believe that in only 6 months, we'll be celebrating the big 2. Oh boy x 2! It seems like only a few months ago we had babies. Now, we have full fledged crazy toddlers. And it's very exciting.

In the meantime, we had our 18 month appointment. The boys had no vaccines to get and Jake had the week off from getting his blood drawn for tests on his ITP condition SO we decided it might be a good time to get the flu shots. And right before we had that done, they needed Jonah to get his finger pricked so that they could do a quick blood scan. Since Jake had been having this done nearly every week for 3 months, he didn't have to have this checked at this appointment. Well, unfortunately, Jonah was just under what the Dr. considered normal for his Iron levels. :( His reading was 10.8 and the normal range mimimum is 11.1. So, we are now having to give Jonah a daily iron dose. Jonah will go back to the Dr. in a month to see if this has helped, and if so he won't have to stay on it but will have it re-checked at his 2yr appt.

The following week (this past week), Jake returned to his favorite friendly Hemotologist's office. Since it had been a 2 week hiatus, the Dr. wanted to see him instead of just getting labs. So, we did the usual awful blood draw which as you can guess makes Jake go bonkers screaming. We waited for about 10 minutes before the Dr. got there. She cracked open the door and said, "Guess what....it's 33,000!" My jaw dropped and I was jumping up and down before I even realized what I was doing. I was so excited to see his count going from 10,000 to 33,000. That was news I had been hoping to hear for a loooong time. Now, this could obviously change and go back down, but we're very hopeful that it will continue to go up and we'll be back to normal soon.

Moving on from the medical hoopla, the boys are crazy talking! It seems like every day they say something new. It's really so awesome to hear them trying to say the words they've been hearing for so long. Jonah has gotten really good at "Thank You" which I love. He has the sweetest little munchkin voice too. Even when he says "NO" I have to stop from smiling because his voice is just so darn cute! And I love the way Jake says "dirty". It sounds like "du'dee" with a little almost swanky accent on it. He likes to tell us when his diaper is "du'dee" too. Jonah's new word of the week is "truck"...except his truck sounds like "chit" which you can imagine turned a few heads at first.

And thank God the summer is winding down. But we've had a fun time swimming these past few weeks at GG's house. Here are some cutie photos of recent swim days. Bye bye summer! And hello football season!!!!

The boys relaxing with Granddad on the swing after the pool.

And Ogden decided that he needed some cute photo ops too.

Jakie relaxing on GG's lap after swimmin'.

And Jojo chillin with mommy.

Summer Winding Down

Let it be known...I HATE Texas summers. I'm soo super glad that this is the end of August. And, school started back up today! I said to my mom today...just think, in 4 years, I'll be escorting my precious little men into school for their first day. We both made a sad frown. :( I don't want to think about them growing up too soon.

Even though we are still on ITP alert and not allowed to do a lot of stuff, we've been trying to stay somewhat busy. Two todders in one house for too long= tiny house and cranky toddlers. So, we're doing what we can when we can which basically means play dates indoors and trips to GG's house.

Jake is still what the dr. termed "severe acute ITP". Last week was the same drill, up to 10,000. But she explained that in there books, there really wasn't any difference between 8k-12k. Those numbers fall within the margin for error and could mean the difference between one measly cell. Basically, what that means is that Jake really hasn't changed his status for the last 7 weeks. He is still covered with bruises and petechiae (tiny red spots on the body caused by a minor hemorrhage).

The last time we were at the dr. (one week ago) she told us that she wanted to give Jake a week off so she would see him in 2 weeks. This made me both relieved and nervous. I was relieved because Jake is sooo aware of what goes on in that office and starts to freak out as soon as he sees the nurse. THAT SUCKS for mommy to know her baby is aware that he's about to be in pain. I was nervous because obviously we're not going to see the dr and/or get blood tested. So I have to live a week not knowing if he's gotten any better. I'm SO over this crap already, but I know that this could last up to 6 months or even longer. UGH!

But, we keep praying multiple times a day for healing. And I know Jake isn't in much pain over this (besides bruises and getting poked by needles to draw blood) which I am so thankful for. There are many things to be thankful for and sometimes it takes something bad to remind you of all the good.

Speaking of good, the amount of chatting that is going on in this house is absolutely astounding. Every day these guys repeat something new someone will have said. They are just carrying on complete sentences and conversations of baby talk...and sometimes it actually even makes some sense. It is ADORABLE to hear their sweet high pitched little voices just carry on as if they are speaking the same language. And I know they actually understand more and more what we're saying to them. They say these words a lot: momma, dada, GG, granddad, aa'lo (aunt lo), doggie, melmo (elmo), dirty, no-no, narni (Jonah's word for Noah), bath, no-mo' (no more), car, hi, bye-bye, gee-dow (get down), moo, quack and probably a few others I'm forgetting. We're still signing too. I've taught them to use the sign for Thank You and they've turned it into something like a kiss goodbye but with a different sound. A kiss goodbye sounds like, "mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmuah" and a thank you goes more like "ba". Big difference there. Jake uses Thank You a lot. Jonah is a work in progress but every now and then he'll suprise us.

Speaking of Jonah...he is becoming a little obsessed with "melmo" or Elmo. It's pretty darn cute but I hope it doesn't get any more obsessive than it is right now. He wants to walk around all day with his talking Elmo. He and I sat watching Melmo videos on YouTube the other night before bed and after each one ended, he would just give me the sign for "more". Super cute.

And Jonah and his GG....ugh, a whoooole other obsession. He is just in complete love of his GG more than ever before. It's great, until I come home from being out for a little while and he looks at me, runs past me and points at the door yelling "GG?" over and over. Hello! Mommy's home! No..."GG?" "GG?" "GG?". She just started this thing with him too where she rubs his back, man Jonah goes into this trance. He just has this "ooooooh yeeeaaaaahhh" look on his face. And the other day GG actually put him to sleep with her hypnotic back rubs. Apparently I'm not as awesome as GG. Oh well, she's pretty great!

Shopping for our Organic fruits. The guys don't mind grocery shopping with mom. Thanks!

Our recent playdate with the York Twins! We looove our Hayden & Ella.

Another recently playdate with the Colbrie-Fisher Family. Thank you Jake, Luke, Maddy & Lilly:)

The York Twins playin in our priate ship!

The guys at the park with Aa-Lo. It was hot!

The water hose at GG's seems even more appealing to the dudes then her amazing pool!

Sharing is sweet!

Ah HA! Gotcha! Does this face say guilty or what?

Slacker Mom Blogger

I know it's been a while. SORRY! Let me update on Jake. Last Tuesdsay (1 week ago today) we went in and got blood tested as usual. I should have suspected something when it was 2pm and I still hadn't heard back from them. I finally called up there with a "hello, what's up with Jake?" call...and the nurse finally let me know that Jake's platelet count had dropped yet again down to 8,000. I was floored as I was SURE it was on its way up. We had such a fun day that day and Jake's bruises looked better...I felt so confident. We were told by the nurse that the doctor wants to see him the following week.

SO, fast forward to today. We saw the doctor and got tested again. He was up to 9,000 (which in my book was no change). Again, dissappointed. The dr. began discussing when to make the call to take action. Again, I felt more dissappointment because why would I want to put Jake through something that could cause him additional health risks only for a temporary fix of his platelet count. These treatments are simply bandaids and unless his body was recovering from this, any interaction on our part would be short-lived. So, we're still waiting...frustratedly.

Neal did make a point of adding that this is the first week that he's actually been up...at all. And even though it's barely up, I guess it is a silver lining. But since we've been diagnosed with under 10k, our dr. said all activity related events/outings/play dates need to be put on hold. SO, we haven't done much lately. We did have a play date at our house with our buddy twins Jacob & Lucas. Yeah! And hopefully, we will get together with the York Twins again soon too ('cause we love our Ella & Hayden too). Other than that, we're having to keep Jake at a minimum because being under 10k platelets leaves us very suspetible to HUGE problems should he even fall down hard. It sucks...but we gotta do what we gotta do.

Since we haven't done much, I don't have a lot of photos but I do have some of when we took daddy to lunch at Chucky Cheese on HIS birthday last month. ;) They had fun!

Jake was ALL OVER this 3 wheeler!

You thought I was kidding...the boy loved the big wheel!

Jonah stuck with a truck, like his daddy!

"Hey...how you doin'?"

Jake getting out some aggression on baby Wack A Mole!

The dudes eatin pizza! MMmmmm