Finally over her fever

Awyn is finally feeling better. Her fever came down Sunday morning, but rose again that night, right back up to nearly 103. Saturday she was hitting 103.5 when the motrin or tylenol would wear off. But yesterday she woke up without a fever, and hasn't had one since. What she does have now is a nice red rash on her torso that should clear up in a few days. I'm taking her to the doctor tomorrow just to have her checked out, as her pediatrician's office kept calling me to check on her over the last couple of days. This afternoon the nurse told me to keep the appt. I made with a local Alpine doctor, and to call and let them know how it when, if any prescriptions get written, etc. I happen to know that the nurse practitioner we'll be visiting has no problem calling another doctor to consult, so that's how we'll do it. We had a great feeling when we picked our pediatrician, and so far, his office keeps reaffirming our choice. Not only did the nurse keep calling, but the on-call doctor was calling after hours (I called him Saturday morning, and he kept following all the updates through the weekend and called last night to see if she was better, and if we had any questions!) So we're happy with our Midland doctors, but sad that they are so far away. Well wasn't that a long story? Awyn seems to have had a virus, probably roseola, but is feeling much better now.

Coming Soon!

Coming soon to this blog, Sam's album! Sam has been learning how to use our old digital camera. Once we install the software needed to download the pictures, I will post some of his masterpieces. Typically all he shoots are his fingers, as the lens is exactly where he wants to hold onto the camera, note his hand placement in this photo. He has taken some surreal pictures of himself, the dog, his sister, and even his parents. 

Mashed Potato Girl

Awyn loved her mashed potato dinner. The funny thing is that when I try to feed her potato, in anything, with a spoon, she gags and won't eat it. Apparently it's a self feeding thing. She will eat anything if I let her feed herself but is extremely picky otherwise. She'll eat peas and carrots mixed together, but if it's peas, carrots, and potatoes, nope, won't eat it. While she still doesn't have any teeth, she does pretty good with the chewing and swallowing. Today she had her first Cheerios. We've been giving her some Gerber fruit puffs for a few weeks, and she really liked them, and since she's chewing them so well, we decided to move on to the O's. Much cheaper and less sugar! 

Playing "together"

Sam likes to sit at my sewing table to color. When Awyn consents to play on the floor this means that I can use the computer for a couple of minutes. 

Awyn and Tasha

Awyn likes to chase Tasha around, but this time she was content to play on Tasha's bed with her. Tasha is very patient and puts up with the baby and her rough play. 

Craft Day Project

I hosted Craft Day on Friday, and we made Big Bend snow globes. The dinosaurs were a little big for the baby food jars, so I had to cut off the tails. I made my sample snow globe using those tails and called it a 'tailings pile' globe. I think the kids liked the finished project, but it was one of those projects with limited kid work, mostly moms doing the craft. The hot glue hasn't really held tight, so all the dinosaurs are coming off the lids already. So I guess the lesson is that we could have just let the kids put the dinos loose in the jar, add glitter, water, let mom glue the lid, and presto. Originally I thought we should glue rocks onto the lids, but it was a little boring, so I added dinos, then the rocks weren't glueable. (is that a word?) Sam and Awyn like the globes I made, even if the dinosaurs don't stay glued. At least they don't float. 

Tie Day

Today I put a dress shirt on Sam to see if it still fit (it's been hanging in the closet, so I forgot he had it) and when Eric came home for lunch he added the tie. Don't they look spiffy? 

Standing Tall

Awyn is standing all over the place. She pulls up, and almost lets go. She wants to cruise, but hasn't entirely figured out what to do with her legs and feet, so sometimes she moves, but she still resorts to getting down and crawling when she wants something out of her reach. She'll also climb. Sam wasn't much of a climber, but Awyn sure is. Today she chased the dog all over the house trying to climb on her. Poor Tasha kept having her naps interrupted. Sam is trying to feed Awyn, and tell her what to do. 

Employment

I accepted a job on Thursday. Another VUA job opened up, again part-time. (fee collecting, aka ranger-in-a-box) I'm thrilled, because it will get me out of the house from time to time, and get the kids used to following somebody else's rules. Sam seems to behave better when he's been going to Lily's house regularily, he loves and listens to her. Also, I'm glad to get this job because it will put me back in contact with people, and I enjoyed meeting all the people from all over when I was at the front desk at Fort Smith National Historic Site. I won't be working often enough for it to get tedious, just enough to enjoy it. A paycheck won't hurt me either. Now I just need to convince my darling husband to let me put my uniforms in his uniform closet...

Bat

Sam learned a new word on this trip, Bat. He really liked this sign. I think we all had fun on this trip. If you can tell from the posting issues, earlier I'd posted some family pictures we'd taken while driving around taking shots for our photocards. I deleted them after they were seriously affecting my blog settings. Anyone who knows how to download pictures BACK to the computer from photobucket should feel free to let me know. I have several pictures there that just won't fit right on my blog and I no longer have anywhere else. Tasha went with us on this trip because we can't afford to board her and couldn't find a dog sitter. 

Sleeping Princess

This was how Awyn was through most of the cave touring. Isn't she precious? And before you ask about a hat, it was a little chilly in there, but not cold, and she wouldn't keep the hat on. I just kept her little head covered by the shade flap on the carrier. 

Nutella even goes well with vanilla wafers! Actually I just liked this trippy picture of Eric. 

I saw this picture after I posted that other one. This is a great shot of both kids getting lunch. 

Awyn liked her pears and chicken. She slept through my lunch, and woke up around the same time her brother did, so we all got to eat. Notice the bib, Keri. It's the same one that you sent for Sam while we were living up in the Basin in the motel two years ago. We still use the plate, cup, bib, and whatever else you sent. In fact, these items inspired us to get more of the same later on. 

Lunch!

Sam really liked his bread and nutella. We took 'sandwich' makings with us into the cave. Instead of buying a lot of processed meat or taking along peanut butter and jelly, we thought that nutella not only tasted better than all that, but couldn't be much worse for us. We also had crackers (see my sponge bob post), apples, carrots, cookies, raisins, water, cokes, and mini snickers bars. 

This is just a cool picture, so I thought I'd share it. It's actually the base of a very large stalagmite. Sam loved the agua in the cave. He learned all about caves, and was talking about bats and caves and trying to talk softly. 

Here I go again with another picture. I think this was taken in the Big Room, but I don't remember. We didn't take very many pictures, as it was rather hard keeping the flash from washing out all the color. Also we've been fighting red-eye, something that Picasa allows me to correct a little, but it isn't perfect, especially with Awyn's very light blue/grey eyes. 

Carlsbad Caverns

We decided to take advantage of Eric's three day weekend and go up to Carlsbad Caverns. The original plan was to camp at Guadalupe Mountains, but the high winds, cold temps, and blowing snow kind of had us a little worried about the stability of our sanity and our tent. So we stayed at the motel at White's City right outside the entrance gate. We hiked down the natural entrance of the Cave, and then followed the self-guided tour around the Big Room. We ate lunch in the cave, down in the lunchroom. Awyn liked looking at the top of the cave but slept through most of it. Sam fell asleep towards the end of the Big Room, and woke up just in time to eat some lunch.
I'll be posting more pictures. This one is a test because I've tried changing my posting options and resizing the pictures. I like it when you can click on the picture to enlarge it into something printable. 

Bob Esponja

Eric and I bought some cheezits for our short trip up to Carlsbad Caverns, among other grocery items. They were a nice themed box, Bob Esponja, even shaped like the character. I was reading the box, after we'd eaten most of them, and the box was all about the new movie, coming soon only to theaters! For anyone in the know, the movie came out in 2004. So I looked for a date on the box, none printed or stamped. I have no idea how old the crackers were, but unless there's another Sponge Bob movie in the works, I think they were around 2 years old! Good shelf life, dude!

Crawling

Awyn has finally figured out the movements needed for crawling. She's now crawling all over the place. I guess now I actually have to clean up the living room. Before we could get away with clearing off a patch of carpet, but now she can get to that used tissue and eat it too.

Not to be out done, Sam decided to take over the neighborhood watch from Tasha. While Tasha sat quietly and patiently in her corner, Sam ran barking to the door when a maintenence guy walked up the driveway. Sam did a fairly good impression of his doggy, low pitched wuf wuf noises instead of high arf arf ones.

Raspberries

Raspberries

This is a test to see if this will actually post a movie. If not, I'll try it the other way. 

Antler Boy

Sam took a liking to this antler. We thought it was cute enought to warrant a picture. 

River Road West

I can't remember the name of the mountain right in front of the jeep off the top of my head. Eric will tell me tomorrow, I'm sure. This was a great trip, we had lots of fun driving. Most of the road was in really good shape, only a few rough spots. Still nothing I'd take the van on, as I like my suspension too much. Sam and Awyn seemed to have fun. Sam kept trying to tickle Awyn, and Awyn would let out her patented "He's touching me!" shriek. She likes to laugh at him, but not when she's trying to take a nap. 

Gingerbread boy

Sam licked the beater after I made ginger bread. Hey, I've noticed that these pictures aren't posting quite as large as they used to, and I'm not sure how well they'll print out. If you, and I do mean Joyce and any others, want a higher more printable resolution picture, let me know, and I'll e-mail it to you. I'm sorry about this, I'm still learning all the workings of the new software I'm using. The bummer is that I don't think it will let me increase the resolution by much, if at all. I shall try. Right now I'm just happy that all the pictures I posted before our computer died are saved in that old high res format, as I'm downloading them to our new computer. 

Cup!

Awyn loves taking sips from cups, especially her brother's cups. We have to check what's in the cup, sometimes he's got water, sometimes juice or milk. This time it's watered down apple juice, so we let her take a few swigs before giving the cup back to Sam. 

Off the Road Again

Today we drove the river road, starting on the Glenn Springs road, turning east on the river road, and all the way west to Castalon. It was a great drive, took about 4 hours, I think. I'll post the couple of pictures we took later, as it's late, I want to go to bed, and I still need to get a grocery list made up for tomorrow. We're headed up to Midland to take one of the SCA's to the airport, get Awyn her second flu shot, do some shopping, and head home.

I need to change the oil in the jeep. This means I have to go buy oil. We don't have a manual, so I don't know what kind of anything to buy. So I'm adding to my birthday list of things I want. I want a repair manual for a 1998 jeep wrangler, 4 cylinder/4WD/manual transmission. I can always take it to a friend to change the oil, but I think somehow I should be able to do this myself. I've been taught how to do it, but it's been many years. (For some reason, dads who change their own oil insist their offspring learn basic car stuff, like changing oil or tires when teaching offspring to drive) Now I think an oil change is a nice easy way to start basic car care on my own, and the jeep is nicely off the ground for me, no jacks required. (gotta love high clearance off road vehicles!) So, basic question is what kind of oil and filter do I buy, and how much? Poor jeep needs it desperately, as it's been nearly a year since the last change.

Yes, Sam is sniffing a flag. Isn't he cute? During the Christmas season, we were putting up a Snoopy Christmas flag every day and Sam got a bit attached to the routine, so Eric now has to hang flags pretty much every morning before going to work, and he takes them down after he's home for the night. Sam likes to help. Anyone want to guess what kind of flag this is? For extra credit, tell me the date it was used... 

I thought this would give a good sense of the chaos that has descended upon our 'study'. Right now there are boxes everywhere and I can't find my sewing machine, it's buried under the piles. Luckily I did manage to finish one of the baby carriers I'd been working on so I can send it to the volunteer who bought it at the aution. It was really the carrier I'd been saving for myself, but she really liked it and I won't have the others ready in time. 

Awyn and a Panda

Awyn is showing off her new pink dress and panda bear. Actually, I put it on her to see if it was too big. I think she'll have a long use time out of this dress. The fabric is very soft and it's a pretty shade of pink for her, but the dress is a bit large and I had to keep pulling it back onto her shoulders. I love the style, wrap around kimono style. 

Three Martini Play Date

For my birthday, Eric gave me a book called, "Three Martini Play Date". An hilarious example of parenting skills, it includes a martini recipe to teach your child. Look it up on www.amazon.com, seriously, I laughed constantly while reading it. Any parent who is currently struggling through the early years of parenting will love it. I'm still not sure how serious the author is about all of her suggestions, but I think she actually means most of it. Anyway, I'm not sure how Eric discovered this book, but I'm glad he thought to get it for me for my birthday. Last night we went over to a friend's house to watch an episode of Battlestar Galactica. Netflix is supposed to have the first half of the second season starting January 10, but I still want to own it! It's only $30 or so on amazon, $50 elsewhere...

Sam's Ball Pit

Sam loves his new ball pit. It was our big Christmas present this year. He had a neat inflatible banana boat ball pit that he got for his 1st birthday from Alisha and family, but inflatible and cactus/desert don't do well together, especially when the dog brings thorns in on her paws... Sam loved that ball pit. So when we saw a neat looking one in a catalog, we thought it would be a great use for all those balls we already had.

Now all I have to do is tell him to go jump in his balls, and he runs to the 'house', as he calls it, and dives into the 200 balls and swims around. Today he even invited Awyn. He said, "Awyn sit. Awyn house. " Then actually chanted her name a few more times. How could I resist? So I put Awyn in the ball pit, and soon got sucked in myself, as Sam was going to go in too, and he's a bit rough with his sister. He's finally calling her Awyn, not just Baby.