What a year it has been so far! We're heading into the holidays and I feel like I haven't had a minute to breathe. So we'll recap the last few months if I can even remember what happened.
Summer passed us in a blur. In July we took a short vacation to Michigan to visit D's family and attend a family wedding. The kids were treated to a trip to MSU and visited The Dairy Store. On our way home we stopped in Chicago to visit AJ's auto shop and got to see a lot of cool souped up cars. Both boys were in heaven as they absolutely love cars!
We finished the month of July by attending Ribfest in Chicago as well. Another fun time and this year all 4 of us attended. Declan had fun with some friends and Connor just had fun getting into everything and running around all afternoon.
August started off extremely eventful as on the 1st, I had to take Declan to the hospital for stitches right above his lip. He was at school and fell off of a stool and hit his face on the Lego table and the cut was deep enough to warrant stitches. So I left work in a rush, got him to the ER and he got 3 little stitches right above his lip. He recovered like a champ.
In mid-August, Declan officially changed classrooms at school and became a Junior Kindergartener. It's his last year in preschool before he heads to Kindergarten next year. Mom took it a bit harder than he did (how is my baby getting so big?) and he loves his new class with his teachers and friends.
Labor Day weekend, D and I got to see Shinedown in concert again and the boys got to hang out with a babysitter for the first time. Our teenage neighbor Emma watched them for the evening and they had an absolute blast with her. They built forts and played Legos and had snacks. Overall it was a successful night!
Shortly after Labor Day, I had to travel to Houston for work for 3 days. D held down the fort with the boys and then had to travel himself the following week. It was go-go-go most of the rest of the month. We also were in the midst of planning two little boys birthday parties.
Declan wanted his first birthday party with friends so we had to figure out when and where. We ended up hosting 10 of his class friends at a trampoline park. They all had the best time and Declan and Connor declared it the best day ever. After the trampoline park party, we had the family over to our house to celebrate the boys turning 5 and 2.
Right after the boys' birthdays, Connor was moved up to the 2 year old room at school. He has the same teacher Declan had a 2 and loves his friends in his class.
Our family attended Nicole and Matt's wedding on October 28th and it was so much fun! The boys looked adorable in their outfits. They were really attentive and good at the ceremony. At the reception, they spent most of the night with me out on the dance floor.
We celebrated Halloween with a party at my work on the 26th and trick-or-treating on Halloween night. Declan was The Flash and Connor was a fire truck (although he wouldn't wear his costume for very long). And, we have enough candy to last us until next Halloween I think! What was really funny is that Declan got cold and wanted to come home after a few houses and Connor (who is a clone of his dad) wanted to stay out and visit all of the houses for candy.
That brings us up to November and this month we had the scare of a lifetime. On the 7th, Declan started itching really bad. We thought he may have gotten into something at school that caused an allergic reaction. We gave him Benadryl and called the Children's Urgent Care hotline for some advice. They told us to keep monitoring him and go to the pediatrician if it wasn't better the next day. So Wednesday, D took Declan to the pediatrician and they gave him antibiotics thinking he had peri-anal strep. On Thursday, I worked from home and stayed with him. He was still itchy and his rash seemed to be spreading. We basically were waiting for the antibiotics to kick in and start working. On Friday, I had to go back to work so I took Declan to my mom's for the day. Around 2 pm, she called me to let me know he still wasn't better and I should probably call the pediatrician again. So I did and then raced out of work to get him into the last appointment of the day at the pediatrician's office. While there, they noticed he had developed an ear infection on top of the rash. She prescribed another antibiotic and advised that we get bloodwork done at the hospital. I raced to the hospital before they closed to get the bloodwork completed so we could hopefully get some results. The pediatrician called me around 6 and told me Declan's bloodwork was fairly normal and nothing was too worrisome for her. We got the additional antibiotic at the pharmacy and went over to my mom's again so we could see Connor and so the boys could spend the night. Saturday morning Declan's rash was getting worse and his skin was scaly and he was itching and burning everywhere. I opted to go straight to the emergency room to get this figured out. They checked him out and advised that they think he had Staph Scalded Skin Syndrome. SSSS stems from a staph infection and the body tries to rid itself of the toxins and over-reacts causing the rash and scaly skin. They told us that he would need IV antibiotics to treat the infection. They also let us know that he would be in better hands if he was transferred down to our Children's Hosptial. So they got him stable with an IV antibiotic and we headed down to the Children's Hospital in St. Louis on Saturday afternoon. We spent 2 days down at Children's getting antibiotics and fluids. I didn't leave Declan's side for those 2 days and finally Monday we were released to recover at home. Since Declan was still itchy from his skin peeling off, I kept him home on Tuesday and was hopeful everything would be going back to normal very soon. Thankfully he was feeling much better and got to go back to school on Wednesday. It was a stressful week and I'm so glad things are moving in the right direction. Tomorrow we go back to the pediatrician for a 1 week follow up from the hospital and hopefully we can put all of the illness behind us for a bit.
This week, we're also preparing for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is on Thursday and this year we're doing something a bit different and traveling to Chicago to celebrate with D's side of the family. Chicago is more centralized for us and saves us from driving 8 hours to Michigan. GG, Aunt Ashley and her family are meeting us at AJ and UP's house for a family Thanksgiving. John and Amanda are coming in from Utah and Colorado. Nana and Papa are also going to make the trip to Chicago from here so we'll have a houseful to celebrate.
It's so hard to believe the end of the year is upon us. We've got quite a bit left to do before Christmas but the kids were ahead of the game and we do have our Christmas tree up and are in the midst of shopping. Hopefully I'll be able to post one more update before 2024 but you just never know....my intentions are always good but life just gets crazy sometimes!
