Hydrogen Peroxide will induce vomiting

I made our second call to Poison Control last night. It's only been a little over 3 months since my last call, when Reese ate several children's Tums.

The kids had cleaned up, gotten in to their pajamas, and we were watching the end of a movie on TV. Elle started to complain of her throat hurting. They have all had mild colds, so I thought it was probably just drainage from her nose in to her throat. We gave her a little milk. She continued to complain. Then she said she thought she knew why it was hurting...

Come to find out, she drank from a cup in the bathroom that, instead of water, contained hydrogen peroxide.

I usually soak their toothbrushes in peroxide if they've been sick or sometimes when I clean their bathroom. I never leave the cup. Apparently {I can't imagine why}, I got distracted and left the little cup with the peroxide sitting above the sink. She came in, turned it up and drank hydrogen peroxide. She said she only drank a swallow, realized it wasn't right, and poured the rest out.

I called Poison Control and the woman said to try to give her a little juice or cracker to get the taste out of her mouth. She said she could possibly vomit. She was correct. Thankfully, Elle was standing at the sink. But I did get to scoop vomit out of the sink in to the toilet.

Anyway, she was fine after she threw up and had a good night's rest. I went in to her room this morning and we talked about what each of us had learned from the incident and thanked God for taking good care of her and getting that stuff out of her body quickly.

These wonderful kids

We are here and doing well. Just haven't had much time to blog or take pictures. Hopefully soon. But I had to get these quotes down:

I was brushing Grady's teeth tonight and he was just staring at me.

I said, "What are you looking at buddy?". {I thought maybe I had something in my nose.}

He said, "You. You're just so cute." 

Later, I was laying in bed with Elle. We finished reading and were talking with the lights out, getting ready to pray.

She said, "How will we worship God in heaven?"

I said, "Well, I guess some of the same ways we do here, but perfectly and without sin."

She said, "So we'll all sit in a bunch of benches and God will be the preacher?"

We may have laughed a little after that.

Oh, and Reese and the potty was a total fluke. Won't even consider it now. :)

It's Potty Time

I just needed to put in the record that Reese used the potty tonight! We've been talking about it for awhile, reading potty books, and sitting on it occasionally before bath time or right before bed. I had taken his diaper off and we were cleaning up the aftermath of the day's activities before getting in to pajamas. I said, "Reese, if you need to pee-pee, go put it in the potty. Do NOT put it on the floor. It goes in the potty."

A few minutes passed and I went in the bathroom to toss dirty clothes in to the laundry basket, and there it was. Pee pee in the tiny green baby bjorn potty. I'm not sure who was more excited, me or the two big kids! We all yelled and high fived and hugged our big boy. And then he got some chocolate chips.

I remember Grady first using the potty a couple of times and then nothing for a few months before it really clicked. So this might not be the beginning of the end of diapers. And I'm okay with that. But I am very excited that Reesie made this first big step!

We had a fun and full weekend with special friends celebrating special birthdays. None of which I captured with my camera. Elle and Steven continued the celebrating yesterday afternoon with a little horseback riding. Thankfully, Abby was there to get some beautiful pictures of their fun.

Give me some candy

Photo shoot before the festivities began. Not sure why the bee is not happier.

Maybe she's ready to get the candy party started.

Grady is realizing that Batman must not suck his thumb.

And Reese beat Princess Leia at arm wrestling.

Grady woke up this morning and told me he had a dream that I ate all his candy and my tummy hurt. Partially true. I did eat some of their candy last night, but not enough for a belly ache. Elle also told the librarian yesterday that "We bought two bags of candy for the fall festival, but Mommy ate one bag so we only got to take one." Also, partially true.

Bring on the fleece

I'm not sure my children are going to survive the bitter fall  of Southeast Alabama. It dipped below 70 this week and they were frozen. They certainly won't make it through the winter. Happy weekend!

An Attempt at Camping

We inherited a projector from my mom a couple of months ago. As soon as she gave it to us, I thought it would be so fun to have an outdoor movie. We've also been itching to try a little camping. So we started small, in our own backyard, this past Friday night. The five of us went to Wal-Mart around 5:00 and filled our cart with head lamps, tarps, marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate bars, lighters, a white sheet, a fire pit and a movie. While Steven got to work setting up the outdoor theater, I whipped up some grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. After dinner, we started a fire, enjoyed a little fall film, and finished off with s'mores.

Elle and Grady wanted to try to camp out so we set up the little tent for them. We put Reese to bed inside and Steven and I sat by the fire pit while Elle read stories for them in the tent by the light of their head lamps. They lasted until about 9:30, then we let them sit with us by the fire for a bit, and took them inside. They were pretty happy to see their own warm, cozy beds:).

Saturday morning, we decided to take a day trip down to Gap Lake. We packed food for a camp fire lunch, the tent, some chairs and toilet paper. I went skiing a few times on this lake in high school, so it had been, let's just say "a lot of", years since I'd been. It was more beautiful than I remembered.

Steven cleared out around the fire pit, got a fire roaring and cooked us lunch. About a month ago, we went out to some friends' farm land on a Friday night to hang out. There were several couples and lots of children. Our host forgot to bring the tools to cook the hot dogs over the fire, so he improvised and used the rake. Steven was apparently very impressed by this method, because he chose to copy it on Saturday. These delicacies are affectionately known as "rake dogs".

After lunch, we hiked and explored. Notice how wet Grady's pants are already.

We came back from our hike and the boys rested in the tent. I tried to lull them to sleep by reading aloud, but was unsuccessful. Then, Steven decided to let them wade in the water. Or in Reese's case, go right on in with his boots. Needless to say, all three pairs of pants were wet by the end of the excursion. Mommy failed to pack a change of clothes, so they all rode home in their tshirts and underwear:).

It was, by far, one of the most fun weekends we've had. We've already had another movie night and plan to keep our outdoor theater set up for awhile. And maybe we can get up the courage to try to stay in our tents all night somewhere other than our backyard!

We had company

This sweet little face was with us for a couple of days. She belongs to Steven's sister and husband and she has the biggest and brightest smile. It's been a long time since we've had a baby in the house and it was fun for everyone! She just turned 9 months old and was crawling and pulling up like a champ. {Check out that toe point!}

During 95% of her waking hours, she had at least two, if not three, faces in hers constantly, making sounds, calling her name, playing peek-a-boo. She was precious and smiled and laughed and never got upset with her overly-excited cousins. Her parents were just as gracious.

It's funny how I still thought of Reese as my "baby" but he was huge in comparison to Andi. I helped her drink her bottle one time and remembered how sweet it was to have one in your lap, snuggling, filling up that tummy with good milk. I think Reese would have made a great big brother too:).

I had high hopes of a family trip to a local pumpkin patch, but the weather did not cooperate with my plans. So instead, we treated Andi to her first ever experience at a mall food court. We like to treat our out of town family in style. They left us for their home this morning and five minutes after they pulled out, Grady said, "I miss Andi already." We are excited that we'll get to see them again in a couple months for Christmas at Callaway Gardens. Thanks so much for making the trip Aunt Rhonda, Uncle Luke and Andi! We loved every minute!