Taycee's Birthday Part 1

When did this tiny babe...

turn into this sassy 3 year old???

Where oh where does the time go?

I just can not believe that she is 3. The words 3 going on 16 were never so true.

She requested a princess cake again for her birthday. Actually first she told me she just wanted a banana cake. I asked her if she meant a cake that tasted like bananas because I know she loves bananas. But she shook her head and said "no mom, a cake that LOOKS like a banana" Then a few days later she changed her mind to a princess.

Her birthday was on a Tuesday and I knew we would not have time to have a party for her that day so we decided to let her choose somewhere fun to go the Saturday before hand. She decided to go to Jungle Jims in Salt Lake.

We couldn't take Addison out because of her cough so my mom came and stayed with her while we took the birthday girl out.

Taycee was pretty excited to eat her cupcakes. She had been asking me since the night before when I started making them when she could eat one. I think she was more excited about the cupcakes with sprinkles than the princess cake.

All of the kids ate their cupcakes before their pizza. Now that is a party!

Such fun friends.

Aunt Lisa and Baby Kara were nice enough to come and join the party. Isn't she a doll?

Taycee loves the ride that goes around really fast in a big circle. She screams the entire time.

After the ride guy spun their saucer around a few times I heard Kaden yell to him, "stop you are making me throw up." ...the guy didn't spin them anymore.

Taycee and Mason were checking out a few arcade games.

When we left Taycee and Kaden both immediately fell asleep in the car. It was such a fun time and Taycee loved spending the day with her friends.

Videos for grandparents

Just wanted to share the kids videos they made for grandma and grandpa Clayton this year.

First Snow

The first snow is always a favorite time of year for me. I think it is beautiful. There is something so peaceful about seeing the world with the first coat of untouched white snow.

We have to very dead trees in our front yard. They need to be pulled out, badly. They are so dead that the branches on them are curling. I think they are ugly, however on the night of the first snow I gained a new appreciation for them,

They looked like a piece from an art museum with all their curled snow covered branches.

The view from and upstairs bedroom window

Cough, Cough, Cough.... WHOOP!

SICK. That has been the word of the day around our house for the last few weeks. It all started about 3 1/2 weeks ago when I noticed Addison getting a really bad cough. At first I was worried about RSV. With her being a preemie I knew she was at high risk for it. I called the doctor to ask if I should bring her in and the nurse said that they wouldn't really do anything for her if she had it except to watch her closely to make sure her breathing was ok.

Taking 3 kids to the doctor is quite the chore, and I didn't want to do that if they were just going to tell me to go home and watch her closely. So I decided to just keep a close eye on her at home. A few days later her cough was worse. Especially at night when she would sleep. It was an awful hacking that sometimes ended with her vomiting. One night she was coughing so hard she choked and stopped breathing. Luckily I still keep her right next to my bed, I flew out of bed and yelled at Chris to get up and grab the sucker. We sucked all the junk out of her throat and she was ok. Our nights were long. I wasn't sleeping. She would have a coughing fit about every 20 minutes and I would immediately wake up and be on full alert in case she had more troubles. On top of all of this I noticed her thrush was back. We had had enough. I called the doctor, packed up the kids and in we went.

While we were at the doctor Addison wasn't coughing much. I was trying to describe the cough to the doctor but was doing a poor job. It was hard to describe just how awful her cough really was. He listened to her lungs and said they sounded clear... (thank goodness). He was just about to send me home with some thrush medicine thinking Addison just had the common cold with a bad cough. I had her lying on the table getting her dressed when she went into a coughing fit. The doctor immediately turned around and said "OH, that is a scary kind of cough".

Addison has whooping cough. When the doctor told me, all my mommy panic sensors went off. They had warned us about whooping cough in the hospital, wouldn't let me leave til I had the vaccination. The nurse who came to our home told us to have ALL adults who would be around her vaccinated. She told me it had already killed 5 babies this year. She warned it would be very dangerous for Addison to have. She explained that adults can have whooping cough but show no symptoms at all (except for ins some cases a persistent mild cough) they then pass on that cough to infants, who it is deadly to. Her awful Acid Reflux was making it worse, because she had so much junk already in the back of her throat. The doctor tried to be reassuring but it didn't do much good.

We left the doctor with 4 prescriptions, quarantine orders, and a teary eyed mom.

We are blessed to have such amazing friends and family. The day after we found out there was a huge fast in Addison's behalf. How grateful I am for the power of fasting and prayer. It is real. I know it.

It has been a long three weeks. The quarantine orders were for Addison's sake. ( She was not contagious after the first prescription was finished) but the doctor warned if she got any other sickness on top of this cough we would be in a bad situation. Whooping Cough has about a 6 week recovery time. So we are on the backside of it and hoping to kick it completely before Jenny come home from her mission on the 15th of December.

Addison coughs less now. The nights are getting easier and a little less interrupted. We feel blessed she is pulling through this without any of the major side effect that can come with it.

And sick or not, she is still one of the cutest babies I know.

The kids have been such great helpers. Addison had needed lots of attention from me. And since we can't leave the house the kids have been left to entertain themselves at home. It is times like these that I am SO GLAD we had them 18 mo. apart. They are such great friends and play together so well. I have come downstairs several times to find them played a new made up game. They have built houses out of couch cushions and played school with all the stuffed animals. They have just been so great and such good helpers.

Kaden was helping with Addison while I folded the mounds of laundry that had piled up.

PRIVATE!!

I've been back and forth on taking our blog private, but after seeing some of the search terms used to find our blog it has been decided.

We were private once before so if you sent us your email back then I still have it saved on here.

If not and you would still like to view our blog just leave your email here or send it to me @ jillwclayton@yahoo.com

Thanks all!

Baby Eats Cereal

At Addisons 4 month appointment the doctor recommended giving her a little cereal at night to weigh down her belly. He thought this might help with the awful acid reflux she has. The medicine doesn't seem to be helping and we are willing to try most anything to help the poor girl. So at 4 months and 4 days Addison had her first taste of anything other than mommies milk and medicine. I pumped a small bottle and we added a bit of cereal to it.

She wasn't so sure what to think of the new taste and texture, but she handled it pretty well and let us give her about 6 bites.

Not so sure about that stuff dad....

regardless of what he is feeding her... she is always all smiles for her daddy.

Halloween

Halloween this year at the Clayton home was a great success. I think I can say that by far this year was the funnest yet. We kicked off the holiday on Friday night with a Halloween party at our house. The adults were inside and the kids were in the garage watching a movie projected onto the garage door. Games were played, food was consumed, prizes were won, fun was had by all. It took a few days to recover after but it was a good time.

Monday the kids woke up at the crack of dawn begging to get dressed and go trick-or treating. I told them they had to wait til it got dark. They waited another 15 minutes before asking me again. :) It was a long day. But 5:00 eventually rolled around and we got dressed from head to toe in Halloween attire.

*Picture overload*

Spiderman

My little witch

We dressed her up on Thursday when Kaden had his pre-school Halloween party so I could take pictures of both of them during the day. When we got home that afternoon I washed both of their make-up off and put them down for a nap. When she woke up her right eye was almost swollen shut. We think that she must have had an allergic reaction to the make-up. So we couldn't re-paint her face for Halloween. She was pretty bummed about it so instead I let her put some of mommies make-up on and be a pretty witch. She cheered up pretty quickly. :D

Spiderman on Halloween night.

My precious little pumpkin. (who actually spent the entire night wrapped up in a blanket asleep in her car seat.)

My handsome Waldo

Waldo and Wenda on Halloween night

Taycee out trick or treating

They were SO excited at each house to say "Trick-or-treat!"

Kaden's scary face

This is what happens when I say "ok, we are done with pictures"

Such attitude

My 3 cuties on Halloween before trick or treating

right before we headed out the door to trick or treat

Totally Wenda... right?

getting ready to go to his pre-school Halloween party.

My little witchie poo

It's going to be a long year. I have been asked twice already when it will be time to go trick-or-treating again.

Hope everyone had a very HAPPY HALLOWEEN!