"Because I love you"

I'm not real sure how kids learn to be so sly, but man do they perfect it at a young age. Lately when Addison does something she should not have and we ask her why she did it, she comes up with a very clever response. Apparently she does bad things because she loves me. I suppose I should feel honored that she would risk getting into trouble on a regular basis to prove her love for me but instead I am a bit suspicious of her TRUE motives!
Here are a few examples:

Me: "Addison, why did you hit your brother?"
Addison: (with tears in her eye) "Because I love you."

Me: "Addison Rose, why would you take that toy away from your brother? He just wants to play with you!"
Addison: (chin quivering) "Because I love you."

There are many more scenarios, but you get the picture. So after trying to get her to understand that her defense doesn't make much sense, she really gets the water works going (she is good at fake crying) and looks up at me so pathetically and says "but mom, I really just love you so much." Where does she get this stuff from? My response usually depends on the severity of what she did and/or the mood I'm in. If It's not too bad I'm usually just trying not to laugh at her miserable attempt at self pity and give her a hug and tell her I just love her so much too (even though I know her declaration of love was somewhat insincere at that point). Otherwise I try to explain to her that I know she loves me, but the best way to show it is by being obedient and treating her brother nicely.

Oh that girl, what am I going to do with her? She drives me crazy sometimes, but I JUST LOVE HER SO MUCH! =)

A picture is worth 1,000 words

and these pictures just break my heart, especially the first two. This pretty much sums up our last two weeks and explains why I've been M.I.A. in the blogging world. We have all been so sick. Luckily we're all finally starting to feel better.

It all started with a trip to Las Vegas. We were going for a friend's baby shower and to see my brother so we could give him a bunch of baby stuff because he and his wife (congrats on the wedding by the way!) are expecting a little guy the end of this month. Going through so many of Urban's cute baby things sure gave me the baby blues. But then getting sick for 2 weeks reminded me how much I hate that feeling and am not sure whether or not I'm ready to do it for months on end again. Anyway, back to the point. Jared had been sick before we left but felt like he was getting better. While we were gone he started feeling pretty bad again and I started feeling sick too. Then of course Urban started getting a cough and it was all over from there. If Urban comes within a 50 mile radius of someone who barely sneezes you can bet that he's going to get sick. He always gets the most sick out of everyone in the family and it always hangs around the longest. Addison on the other hand has an amazing immune system, I love it! That girl very rarely gets sick and it's usually not very bad. She didn't get sick until the rest of us had already had it for about a week or so and hers only lasted about 2 days. We ended up taking Urban to a quick care because he wouldn't eat or drink anything for about 3 days and what little he did eat he would just throw up. He had a cough, fever, upset tummy, runny nose, swollen eyes, all he would do is fuss and sleep. He had an ear infection so the doctor gave us an antibiotic for that but the antibiotic totally upset his stomach which then resulted in a horrible diaper rash. Luckily he's pretty much all better, just has a little cough hanging on. I'm so glad he's feeling better, it's so hard to see him sick.


Doesn't he just look so miserable? It makes me so sad, my poor little man. It was after seeing him like this that we finally decided to take him to a doctor. I hate going to the doctor and being told "it's just a cold" or something, it makes me feel like a hypo. It takes a lot for me to actually go, but I just couldn't watch him suffer any more.


Oh yeah, while we were in Vegas we had to take Addison to the ER. This is her lying in a hospital bed. She stuck a little plastic doll shoe up her nose and we could not get it out. We must have tried for about an hour and a half to get it out (as I mentioned before, I hate going to the doctor) but she shoved it up there pretty good. We tried to get her to blow it out, we tried making her sneeze, we tickled her to make her laugh hoping it would shoot out, we had tweezers...nothing worked. She ended up falling asleep while we were in the waiting room (it was close to midnight) and Jared and I sat there the entire 2 1/2 hours sticking tweezers up her nose hoping we could save ourselves a hospital bill, but nope, no such luck. Her nose was bleeding like crazy so we figured we should probably stop and let the professionals handle it. When we got back to the room they told us that they see a lot of kids with stuff stuck in their noses. Even though it was a simple procedure it was very hard for a parent to watch. They swaddled her in a blanket so she didn't have use of her arms and one nurse held her body still while another nurse held her head still. Then the doctor stuck a tube in her nose past the obstruction then inflated it and pulled it out. She started screaming saying "mommy please help, make them stop, I want my mommy!" I've never heard her sound like that before, it was heart wrenching. My eyes immediately filled with tears, I felt so helpless, just as the first tear started to fall down my cheek the doctor turned and showed me the shoe and said "all done". I'm so glad it only took a few seconds. We're hoping she's learned her lesson. She's never stuck anything in her nose, other than her finger of course, and we're hoping that she never does again.

There was one day when Urban literally could not keep his eyes open for even a few minutes at a time. He fell asleep in the middle of getting his diaper changed, on the couch, on our laps, on the floor, wherever he happened to be.

We spent the majority of our time lounging on the couch or in bed. I love his little man boobies. hee hee!

So it definitely wasn't the best couple of weeks we've ever had, but we did get to see both of the grandmas and grandpas and Uncle Nick & Aunt Melanie while we were in Vegas so Addison was in heaven. She keeps asking when we can go back to the hotel to see her grandmas and grandpas. I do feel bad though because not only did I not get any pictures of any of these wonderful people but we also managed to get every single one of them sick. Just a little something to remember us by, so sorry about that! The only good thing that came from this sickness is that it jump started our diet, although I definitely don't recommend this method. Jared lost about 10 pounds and I lost about 5 (why do men always lose it faster?). Now if we can only keep it off once we actually start eating food again. =)