Walking in Memphis..

This past weekend the whole clan went to visit family in Memphis.

We had a lot of fun, but I was wiped out when we left on Sunday.

Never underestimate the noise level of 4 boys under the age of 3. Phew!


So Wild Man talks all week about how excited he is to go to "Uncy Andy's Zoo". On Friday afternoon when we first get the Andrew and Kat's house he gets out of the car and asks to see the lions and tigers.

I tell him Saturday morning that we are going to the zoo. We can't get in the car fast enough.

Then when we get to the zoo and I ask "Aren't you happy we are at the zoo?"

This is the look I get...



Can't you just seen the excitement bursting out of him?

*Sigh*

When we got to the Orangutan he started to warm up a little bit.



One fun thing about this Orangutan is that they had a bed sheet for him to play with and after we took this picture he covered himself with the sheet and was playing peek a boo with us. Of course we didn't get a picture of it, but it was really funny.

Wild Man as Marco Polo.



Here is something that I gladly do not have a picture of to share with you but it will be forever burned in my memory.

Have you ever seen a snake poop?

If you haven't, count your blessing.

That is now at the top of my list of the most disgusting things I have ever seen in person. The snakes were inside a building that was very warm. Which makes the perfect environment to make you nauseous. When I first walked in the building that was the first thing I saw.

A week later, I still gag a little when I even think about it.

Andrew took a picture of it. So if you are really curious (or just a little sick in the head) to see what it looks like, you can email him.

Someone who was looking at the snake also mentioned that we were lucky to see this because snakes only poop once a week.

Lucky isn't the work I was thinking about.

***

Romeo is slowly starting to walk. Not because he doesn't want to but because he isn't slowing down enough to steady himself he just wants to immediately start to run rather then walk.



Isn't that just the sweetest little bottom you have ever seen?

When we go to the Nashville zoo I tell Wild Man that the merry go round is only for the kids that come on their Birthday to get out of having to pay for anything while we are there. But since it is against a grandmother's code of ethics to say no to their grandchildren...

JJ took Wild Man on the merry go round.



He did love it and talked about it the whole drive home. So maybe now I will change my excuse to only when JJ is with us can we go on the merry go round.

We all had a great time at the zoo.

We also got to see a 15 day old giraffe and the sea lion show was great.

If you are ever in the Memphis area you should really try to go to their zoo. We highly recommend it.


Later that night, we had this brilliant idea to get all the boys in their Halloween costumes and actually thought we could get a good picture of the boys together.

Wild Man is a fireman, Romeo a dalmatian dog, Eli a turtle, and Griffin in cute Halloween clothes.

I told Wild Man that he had the most important job of all and that was to hold baby Griffin. He took this job with great pride, and did wonderful. That was also the longest he sat still the whole weekend.

I am thinking of getting a baby doll and telling him to hold it so that I can actual take a shower AND dry my hair... on the same day.

I know. I dream big.

Romeo LOVES Eli. Mostly because when Eli walks by him he doesn't hit him over the head or knock him down like he is a UT football player like his big brother. So when Eli is next to Romeo...well Romeo attacks him. Lovingly of course. Romeo tries to hug and kiss Eli and Eli.. he likes Romeo as long as he is not in his personal space.

So here is the picture:
Wild Man sitting still (Yeah)
Griffin fearing his life due to seeing Wild Man toss his little brother across the room earlier that day.
Romeo ecstatic to be next to Eli.
And Eli equally NOT ecstatic to be next to Romeo.





For more pictures of this action packed weekend. You can check out Kat's and Jenny's.

Thanks again Kat, Andrew, and Griffin for letting us all come to your sweet home. We all had a great time and are so glad that everyone could make it to make some fun memories that will last forever with our growing family.

Walden Farms

We went to Walden Farms a couple of weeks ago. I just haven't had time or been able to get on Mr. Genius' computer to put the pictures up. So better late then never.

I don't know when Walden Farms closes but it is a lot of fun and you can do pretty much everything for free.

Highly recommend it.

Happy Fall Ya'll

Today I thought I would try to take some fall pictures of the boys.

*Sigh*

It didn't go so well.

Wild Man wanted to have no part of it.




So Wild Man decided to make some calls to see who could save him from this torture.

I think he is trying to call DHS.



Wild Man: "Don't worry little buddy, I will tell them we come as a package."




"I told them not to judge us for wearing overalls and no shoes. They know it is our mom that is the crazy hillbilly."

Trying to be crafty

I decided that today was going to be a lazy day.

Why, you may ask?

I just woke up this morning with absolutely no desire to take a shower, put on makeup or get dressed today. Which means I am also crossing my fingers that no one just happens to stop by for a surprise visit.

Don't worry, I still brushed my teeth.

Because that is just gross.

So in an effort to keep Wild Man entertained today. I first brought out the game Chutes and ladders that I have had hidden for a long time. I know it says that the ages are for 3+. But he will be 3 in a few months, so close enough. Well at first Wild Man was very interested. He loved spinning the arrow to tell me which number it landed on. Then counting that number for the player to move. I was getting pretty proud of myself thinking this is a good learning game and we are having a good time also.

Then it happened.

I landed on a chute.

I slide down the chute and Wild Man was completely not interested into the game anymore he just wanted to slide his little player down all the chutes.

Me being the competitive person and not wanted to have a son that loses all the time, am screaming inside. "NO YOU WANT TO GO UP THE LADDERS, NOT DOWN THE CHUTES THEN YOU WILL BE A LOSER!!!"

You will be glad to know that I didn't say those things out loud. But after a couple of minutes of trying to keep him actually playing the game we both got frustrated and I put the game up.

Then we just watched Diego.

After lunch I had another stroke of genius.

On Sunday's I sit at the table and cut up all the coupons. Conner sits next to me (very still I might add) and cuts up the scrap paper that I had to him. He will sit there for almost 45 minutes just cutting away!

So I thought I would do something a little more crafty.

I got some paper and told Wild Man to draw on it and then we were going to cut out what he drew and glue it on another piece of paper. Well Wild Man was so excited to use scissors again. He just wanted to cut and not draw anything. So I drew a picture of him and I handed it to him to cut out. He cut it out in about 10 different pieces and then we glued it. Then he wanted me to draw a picture of Romeo so he could cut that up. Without thinking, I did. What I didn't do was remove the scissors from the crazy 2 year old before I put my head down. Then a second later I hear...

"LOOK MOM I MADE A HOLE!"

"Out of what?" Is what I believe I said.

"On my shirt!" He says so proudly

And sure enough there is a hole in his PJ shirt. All I am thinking is thank goodness it was his PJs and not Sunday morning in his Sunday clothes.

So see, you can actually benefit from being a lazy bum.





So I had to take a picture of him in his holey shirt, if anything to remind me that this is reason #546 why I should not home school my children.

Also, I case anyone is wondering. Yes they were kids scissors.

I was fed up

After our eventful evening. Today proved to be an event all on it's on. I had a 2 year old on very powerful steroids, a 10 month old who is getting sick AND is getting 3 molars, and a grandmother that doesn't like to say no to the two little crazy kids.


So I did what I had to do.



I threw them in jail.

Wild Man's first ER visit.

Well last night Mr. Genius and I had to take Wild Man to the ER for the first time.

Thankfully he is OK now, but I was scared to death for a little while.


Yesterday was a normal day, we weren't even outside very much. Which actually is unusual for us lately to not be outside much because of it getting cooler outside. Wild Man maybe coughed twice but nothing that concerned me at all.

At about 9:30 Wild Man suddenly woke up and started coughing really bad.

Now I feel that we are pretty experienced in the croup area. I think in the past year Wild Man has had croup at least 15 times. Even more the year before.


I went into the kitchen to get him some Robitussin and then went up to his room. He was sitting up drooling and his arms were shaking. (like when you are really cold and you have no control you are shivering so bad) and the cough it sounded like croup, but actually worse. It was a very deep and short cough. Like he didn't even have enough air to cough. His breath was very raspy and I could barely hear him cry standing next to him. I tried to get him to talk to me and he couldn't.

So I swooped him up and went into him bath to start a steam bath and when I sat him down his legs started shaking and he was still drooling. He was quite lethargic. At this point I started thinking this isn't croup I was thinking this was an asthma attack. We haven't had one before but with how much Wild Man gets croup the Dr's. were starting to question if he has asthma or not. So I brought him downstairs and called Mr. Genius, who had just gotten home from playing tennis. Told him to come in NOW!

Mr. Genius took Wild man up to take the steam bath and I called the Dr.

The Dr. told me to do the typical steam bath then stand in front of the freezer for 10 minutes and then back to the steam bath. When we took Wild Man downstairs to stand in front of the freezer, he started panicing. It probably didn't help that I was crying uncontrollably. So he wouldn't look in the freezer and he was breathing even faster and getting even more raspy.

With Mr. Genius and I thinking that this is more an asthma attack then croup we decided to go to the hospital.

My parents came over and we rushed off. I called my croup and asthma expert friend Beth and she could hear Wild Man breathing over the phone and said that the best place would be Vanderbilt children's. So we were on our way.

As we were driving he was having less trouble breathing but was still having trouble talking. I mentioned that maybe we should stop and walk around outside somewhere cuz maybe the cool night air was helping. We were in Smyrna and Mr. Genius pulled into the Smyrna hospital. We walked around for a second and then we prayed not knowing what to do. When we were done praying Wild Man asked to see the Dr. which we took to be the answer that God was giving us because if you saw the first reaction to when we told him we were going to the Dr. you would think this was a whole different child.

So in we went.

And 2 hours later then told us it was croup and gave him a very strong steriod.

I am still convienced that it was more then croup with the drooling and the shaking. But I guess we did everything we could and next time we will just drive around outside for awhile before we decide to go to the hospital.

Our amazing 2 year old

Like most 2 year olds, Wild Man has a favorite book. His is Polar Bear, Polar Bear What do you hear?

Wild Man is like a little sponge. He absorbs all types of things. He now remembers things, which is good and bad. Good because we can tell him stuff and he will remember it, bad because we can tell him stuff and he will remember it.

You know when you say something like "Ok honey if you go on and get into bed you can eat ice cream after your nap."

Then he wakes up wondering where the ice cream is.

So then you have to go to Sonic cuz your are a bad parent and didn't actually think you were going to have to feed your child ice cream.

Learn from my mistakes.

Back on the subject now. Wild Man got this book about 3 weeks ago, if even that long. I read it to him about 5 times. Mr. Genius read it to him about 5 times too. Then all of the sudden I was in the kitchen and I heard Conner "reading" the book.

He can't actually read.

We are not the type to produce prodigy children.

I finally got it on video and my genius of a husband edited the video to get it on here.

Enjoy!