Greyson is all better!

Good news! Greyson is officially better. Yesterday his fever broke and he is definitely back to himself. Actually, he's not quite himself... since he was the center of mom's attention for 3 days (as I was worried sick about his high fever that wouldn't go down!), he has turned into a spoiled one! He is now not grumpy because he doesn't feel well, but instead grumpy because he isn't being held or cuddled all the time. We know this because as soon as you pick him up he is as happy as can be. So, now we have to reteach him how to be content even when he isn't being held and reteach him to sleep at night again (since he isn't doing that either!). Oh well... I'm just glad that my little boy is well again. Thanks for your prayers!

Our Winter Wonderland

It has snowed quite a bit in the last 36 hours. I think we may have gotten a little over a foot of snow. Not as much as the forecasters said we were going to get. But then again, they are NEVER right. At least they were right about a snow storm coming. Anyway, we woke up this morning and Ben called the weather hotline at work and it said that they weren't opening until 10am. So he got out and snowblowed while Madelyn and I got out and "helped". She ended up playing with her snow (AKA, sand) toys. It was a great time!


Ben snowblowing the driveway

Madelyn and I playing in the snow.

Madelyn playing with her "snow" toys.

update on Greyson and weather

The little one seems to be doing better today. The Tylenol is starting to break through to knock down the fever and he isn't so crabby either. I'm thinking that he is "over the hump" in this illness and on his way back to being well again. I will update again soon.

As for the weather, I'm glad that I didn't have to go anywhere today! It is snowing A LOT! It is predicted that we will have at least 12 inches before the night is through. I took this picture a few minutes ago. It is beautiful right now, but if in about 24 hours it gonna start looking dirty and then when it warms up just a little, it gets very slushy! Oh fun! Ben will get out and snowblow the driveway soon (he was sent home from work for the first time due to snow since we moved here) and then probably again tomorrow morning. We'll see if the forecast proves to be right. Maybe Madelyn and I will go play in it after her nap.

Greyson is sick

After coming home from day care yesterday with a 102 degree fever and no other symptoms, I gave Greyson a dose of Tylenol and then he went down for a nap. An hour and half later he woke up still running a 102 degree fever! This surprised me and I called the clinic. They said to bring him and off we went. They checked him over and took some blood to check his white blood cell count. Then they came back and said that his WBC count was high and I should go to the children's hospital ER - ughh, not only was I not looking forward to an ER visit but this also meant that my baby could be REALLY sick! So when I got there, it was 3:30pm so we were sent back pretty quickly. The doc checked him over and said that they needed blood, urine, and they needed to get an xray for their tests to determine if he had a bacterial infection. Hmm... my thoughts immediately came out of my mouth by saying, "and how do you get those?" The lady doc looked at me kind of amused and said, "it is a little more difficult with these little ones..." So they ended up give Greyson an IV and taking his blood that way, cathing him for his urine, and strapping him down to a backboard for the xray. Needless to say, Greyson was not happy! Every time I would get him settled down from the last procedure, they would come in saying they were ready for the next one. He got to the point that he would just cry every time someone walked in our room. All the tests came back without indications of a bacterial infection so they used the IV to give him a prophylactic antibiotic and sent us home saying that it is most likely viral and that it just needs to run its course. Greyson is still running the 102 degree fever and I'm giving him Tylenol in an attempt to make him comfortable (with little success). I hope his fever breaks soon! I have to call in a little bit to get him in for another appointment at the clinic this afternoon. Wish us luck...

Greyson with his IV in his ankle.

Greyson getting his antibiotic.

"Rhodes' pictures" updated

Just a message to tell you guys that I have attempted to get my Webshots pictures caught-up. I have pics posted through the end of January now... whew! That was a lot of work getting them all out there! Sifting through the tons of pics we have and choosing which to post and them name them.... but they are out there now. Here are the January pictures. You can see other albums by clicking on "Rhodes' pictures" in the sidebar. Enjoy!



January 2007

The right weekend to be in Dallas!

This past weekend, I took a trip to Dallas. I had planned it to get out of Minnesota and warm up a little and since tickets to Dallas are CHEAP (relatively speaking) and I have friends there, I decided Dallas was the place to be. And *yipee*, I picked the right weekend! While I was gone, the high for the weekend was O degrees and the low was -17 degrees (that does NOT include wind chill)!!!! I took Greyson but had left Ben and Madelyn at home. With the exception of the routine excursion to church, they huddled inside the whole weekend. With those temps, I don't blame them! So, now you ask, "what did you do in Dallas?" I was visiting some friends (AKA my sisters-in-law and mother-in-law). One of Ben's sisters lives in Dallas and the others drove in. We had fun visiting, passing Greyson around, painting pottery, watching movies, making meals, dyeing our hair, and going to a high school musical. We had a great time! Here are some pictures to enjoy...

Hanging out at Hobby Lobby - There was a LOT of stuff I wanted

but didn't have room to bring home!

Steph made us a FANTASTIC pasta dinner!
And Christina got the china out for us.

Stephanie gave Greyson a bath!

At Paint Yer Pottery - this was so much fun!

At the high school musical during intermission.
Brandon, Christina's husband, was the music instructor/sound guy.

Highlighting our hair - it hurts to be beautiful!

The only snag in the trip was the flight back from Dallas. I was scheduled to take the 5:30 pm flight non-stop to Minneapolis. We boarded and left the gate on time but as we got out to the runway we pulled off to the side and watched other planes pass us by for about 20 minutes before the captain came on and told us that there was a warning light that wouldn't turn off. They were getting input from the mechanics back at the gate and would try again. 10 minutes later they said that didn't work and we were going back to the gate (ugghhh!) so they could give it a try. So back to the gate to sit for about 10 minutes before they announced that we needed to de-plane (double ugggghhh!!) and that a replacement plane was on its way to arrive at 8pm. As I got off the plane I called NWA and asked what my options were. They basically said that the plane arriving at 8pm was my only choice. So, now I was stucking sitting at the gate for almost an extra 2 hours.... As I was walking back into the gate area, I realized that I hadn't eaten in a few hours so I headed to the food court area. I was surprised to see most of the food joints closed except Taco Bell. It was obvious that the manager had caught wind of our delay and had required his workers to stay on to serve us - the workers were obviously unhappy. So, I got a taco combo and thanked them for staying open. There were a couple of other families with small children waiting too, so we all kinda clustered in the same area and talked and let the kids play together. Thankfully, the plane arrived at about 8:30pm and we were able to board about 9pm and took off without incident. Unfortunately, when we arrived at MSP at 11:30pm, with everyone itching to get off and get to there destination, the jetway (the ramp that extends to the plane) wouldn't connect to the plane (ugghhh again!). We sat there for 30 more minutes waiting for that to get fixed! It was quite interesting watching the jetway go back and forth trying agian and again... and again! The captain even announced, "This is quite comical from the cockpit. Not sure if we have a dumb jetway driver or if there really is a problem, but we will get you off and on your way as soon as we can." Finally, I was able to get off the plane and get home... I'm actually quite fortunate, with all the flying that we have done, we haven't had a major delay like this in a very long time.

Unfortunately, as soon as we got back from Dallas, Greyson started acting sick. It took a couple of days to set in but today he started running a fever and had to come home from school. Now, I have to try and keep Greyson as comfortable as possible and attempt keeping the rest of us from getting sick!