Off to the ER we go!

The Saturday before Dennis was running in his first half marathon and me in my first 5K, we decided at the last minute to carb-up at home instead of going out to eat. Dennis ran out to the store to grab a few ingredients and I planned to start prepping for dinner before Drew woke from his nap. As Dennis left, Drew woke up so I was holding him and Emmie was trying to get him to play with her. He was still a little grumpy so Emmie wanted to make him laugh. One of the best ways to make Drew laugh is to fall down, so Emmie started rolling off the couch acting like she fell. Drew giggled a few times, but then it all went wrong. Emmie was going for another stunt couch roll off and landed on her hand first. She immediately started crying, it was like a cry she's never done before, so I knew it hurt (not even when she took a tumble from the stop of the stairs to the bottom). It took some time to calm her down, but it was still hurting her and beginning to swell. We iced it down with a bag of frozen peas, and she was able to skip dinner and watch 2 shows while she relaxed with her bag of peas.

After we finished up dinner, her hand was still swollen so we decided to head to the ER just to make sure nothing was broken. I had mixed up the name of the small hospital and the ER clinic by our house so we actually ended up at the ER clinic; which turned out to be a blessing since they saw us immediately. I didn't have time to even start filling out the paperwork before the nurse came out and started examining her hand and took us back. It was a good thing because not 5 minutes after leaving the house did Emmie start whining about wanting to go home. She didn't want to see the doctor; I think she might have thought she was going to get some shots or some thing.

They had a nice kids' room, which was decorated with a Noah's Ark theme. We distracted Emmie by talking about the different animals all around the room. When the doctor came in to examine her hand, she shut down immediately. Even as the doctor applied pressure to her hand she didn't react at all, she just stared ahead stone cold. At one point she turned her head to face me, so I'm thinking that's when it hurt the most. She's a tough little cookie! They ended up taking a few x-rays and confirmed there were no broken bones. They wrapped her hand up in a splint, told us to ice and elevate it and we were outta there! It was probably less than 45 minutes!

Afterwards we went for ice cream, as a treat for her being so good. I wanted to get a picture of her little splint but she was not having it. If you look real close you can see the green splint on the right.

After a week, the swelling went down but her knuckles started bruising. It looks like she was in a fist fight. Now she only says it hurts when she wants some kind of snack she knows she shouldn't have. She's a tough and cleaver little cookie!

Holiday Season 2010

This year was the first year that I was able to take off a long period of time during the holidays. Since Baba went to San Diego, I got to spend a two weeks at home with my little babies! It was a good time, but tiring since I brought home a stomach virus that infected the entire family (more on that later).

This year Christmas was a lot of fun since Emmie was really into the Christmas spirit (meaning she loved all things dealing with gifts)! Everything was on her list and she even put things on Drew's list for him. The very first present under the tree was a gift for her from Drew. She picked up that gift everyday and shook it and reminded us it was hers. Even though she was into what she wanted, she also got into the giving spirit. I took one day off in early December to commit to an entire day of shopping, which was a little derailed because Emmie wanted to come with me. Before I said she could come, I told her we would be shopping for everyone else and not herself. I didn't know how well that would go over, but she did great. She looked at things for herself but also picked gifts for the babies and Drew. It was an awesome mommy and me shopping day!

But it wasn't all just about the gifts, we had a great time decorating the house and the tree. We painted about a million ornaments and made that one perfect strand of popcorn garland (which included a giant popcorn mess on the floor)! I might be rethinking the whole popcorn garland thing next year!

Our first Christmas gift exchange was in Austin with the Anderson's! Mica, the brave mama that she is, drove her two little rascals, all by her lonesome, to meet us in Austin to exchange gifts! Emmie and Drew loved staying at the hotel. Every time Emmie sees a Holiday Inn logo she asks "Is that Austin? Can we go see Ella?" So glad that we got to see Mica and the kids got to play. And of course we had yummy food with visits to Pluckers and Kerbey Lane. Wrapping up the adventure at the Austin Children's Museum. After the little Austin trip, we had a gift exchange with the local babies and boy are those babies adding up! (Side note: If you recall, during our trip to NY Drew picked up a Sing-a-ma-jig at Toys R Us! A few days later, I decided that was what I wanted to buy all the babies for Christmas this year. So I went out and bought them up in bulk! I just love those little things even if they do look a little freaky!) Since no one in the group wanted to take the dive and have a get together at their house for the little ones to exchange presents, I decided to suck it up and do it! We had everyone over and the kids all got to tear open their presents. We even attempted to take a group picture of the babies...not so successful...maybe next year! During the first week of vacation, Dennis ended up being home the majority of the week, so we had a lot of family fun! We went for an ice skating adventure at Discovery Green! This was the second year Emmie and Dennis went but mine and Drew's first! We met with Tita Sisi, Ash, Tita Janette and Uncle Khiem. I had purchased discount skating passes for 4 of us, so only Emmie, Ash, Khiem and I actually skated. Emmie loved the baby rink and bravely said she wanted to go to the big rink. The instant she stepped in the big rink she fell to her knees, and I picked her up as quickly as I could (fearing that I might fall on her). But after that fall, she wanted nothing else to do with the big rink, I made it a quarter of the way around and Tita Sisi was sitting at a table there so I handed her over! She rested for some time before she finally decided to go back to the baby rink...where she wasn't shy to show off her skills! Drew was happy to watch us all skate after he ran around the park!

A couple of nights before Christmas Eve, I was invited to an old friend's son's birthday party! I was particularly excited about going since I hadn't seen this friend in years and hadn't had a chance to meet her baby! I got a little less excited when I found out it was up north and Dennis wouldn't be able to attend because he had football. My consolation to Dennis not being there was that Alisa would be there with Maddy and Paige! Well turns out I should have never went to that party since that is where I contracted the stomach virus from hell. The virus did not hit until 2 days later (the first day that Dennis went back to work), and I thought it was food poisoning at first. I spent Christmas Eve cursing Fuddruckers! I was able to get through the morning with the kids on my own but luckily my in-laws came to the rescue and came to watch the kids while I "napped" (waking every 20 minutes to run to the bathroom is not what I consider full on napping). I needed what little rest I got so was thankful for every second I got. After the in-laws left, the Hoang's came over to shift 2. I was just pretty much completely useless so it was nice to have them there to entertain the kids. If I knew it was a virus I would have never asked them over, luckily the Hoang's all have strong immune systems and no one caught the virus. Finally Dennis was home and I just passed out on the couch! Dennis took the kids out for a little bit so I could have some peace and quiet...it was anything but peaceful for him...since that's when the virus hit Drew. Drew threw up about 5 or 6 times while out with Dennis and it didn't help that it was pouring rain and he was waiting out the rain at Target! I slept peacefully on the couch while they were out!

Since I spent most of the day sleeping, I was wide awake that night. I was feeling slightly better so, I was able to prep up all of Santa's gift. I also allowed the kids to open one gift each before going to bed, and they got coordinating PJs from Old Navy! And I was happy that they both were willing to wear them to bed that night (last year my coordinated PJ plan didn't work too well). Only disappointment was we didn't get to bake cookies for Santa as planned. But the gifts still made the impact I was looking for!

Christmas morning, Drew woke up before Emmie, so we just hung out and waited until Emmie got up! And then it was downstairs for some Christmas fun! Emmie got the dollhouse that she emailed Santa about (since she didn't want to sit on his lap at Bass Pro). When she lifted the wrapping paper and peered into the house, the first thing she said was "There's no Barbie in there!" (I had planned on getting a new Barbie for her on Christmas Eve, but that didn't work out).

She got over it the second, I mentioned that she needed to help Drew open his present from Santa! She rushed over and called for Drew but he didn't really want to come over since he was busy checking out the dollhouse. But after she tore off the paper, Drew immediately darted over to the trampoline and started jumping. He didn't care to open anything else, so Emmie was able to open the rest of their gifts herself. Since I still didn't know we had a virus, Drew tends to throw up when he gets sick, we packed up our stuff to head out for more Christmas festivities. First we went to my brother's house for Christmas with the Vinh's. The kids were showered with gifts and the adults had a fun white elephant gift exchange (old and new). We had a good time just hanging out with family and catching up! Then we headed over to the the Quinio's for more Christmas presents! The kids were definitely spoiled here! The gifts would not stop coming! We couldn't fit all the presents to bring home in the car!

The next day, I was finally feeling good enough to eat again! By that time I lost a whopping 8 pounds! Drew was still throwing up and had plenty of dirty diapers for me to change! Dennis called home from work saying he didn't feel too hot...he ended up throwing up at work twice before coming home. So that's when I decided, yes we had a virus! Then we found out that Lolo, and Tita Janette were sick too. And then a day later, we found out that Ashley, Sisi and Keith all got sick while at DisneyWorld! We thought that Emmie got passed it, but turned out she ended up with a mild case of the runs. It was a rough night when she caught the bug since she couldn't sleep with the tummy ache and if she was up, Drew was up! I spent the whole night running in and out of their rooms. She spent the next day sleeping, waking just for a few minutes then sleeping again. Even Baba caught the bug when she got home after I thought we were all fully recovered. Horrible virus that went everywhere and I felt horrible for bringing on the entire family (although no one from my brother's house got sick)! When the McCullough's got back from Disney, we took the whole family out to eat as an apology!

Although the virus wrecked havoc on our Christmas, we didn't let it spoil the upcoming New Year celebration. Dennis stopped by a fireworks stand and got some sparklers and poppers! We lit them up prior to the heading over to Lam's for the annual NYE's party! This year we were Lam's only guests since he planned it so last minute everyone else had plans (shows you how cool we are, right)! We had a good time over there since we got to play some Xbox Kinect! I'll be looking to buy one of those soon! We thought Drew was finally over his vomiting but he ended up throwing up all over me around 930. We packed it up and were home before 10. Emmie stayed up late enough to watch the ball drop in NY! Dennis and I didn't even make it to midnight, but we still had a New Year's kiss before we went to sleep!

It was a tiring two weeks off work but it was a lot of fun nonetheless! We have a lot to look forward to this year, so I'll try to keep this updated more often! February is a BIG month for us!

Bye Bye BaBa!

During this holiday season, I was able to take off pretty much two weeks to spend at home with the babies. Baba decided to go to San Diego and visit her sister, so I had no choice but to take up the rest of my vacation to take care of the babies! Baba left for San Diego on Tuesday, 12/21, and the trip to the airport was good. We said our good byes and the kids and I were back in the car headed home within 30 minutes.


That's when Emmie started asking (ok, really whinning) for Baba.


Emmie: "I want Baba. Where's Baba?"
Me: "Baba went on the airplane to California."
Emmie: "Baba, Baba, Baba. I want Baba! Oh is that Baba's airplane!"
Me: "Probably not! She's still waiting to get on her airplane."
Emmie: "Baba, Baba, Baba. I want Baba!"


That lasted for pretty much the entire ride home...until 10 minutes before we got home when she passed out. I assumed she was grumpy and that's why she was being whiney...but when she woke up she was still looking for Baba! So throughout the rest of the day she was missing her Baba, asking about her every now and then. I thought it would pass soon enough.


But the next day, she must have had a nightmare of some kind because she kept telling us about "a lomb time ago" she rode her bike into some water and neither Dennis or I would come get her, we just left her there...and she was missing us so much. Every time she brought it up, you could see tears building up in her eyes and her bottom lip would quiver a little. So then I realized that she might have thought that Baba had abandoned her. I felt so bad giving her a hard time about whining so I gave her some lots of extra hugs and kisses.


So the entire time Baba was gone (a week), she would ask/whine for Baba in every car ride and when she was going to bed. Of course when we went to pick Baba up, she acted like she didn't miss her one bit. I'm sure she just wanted to punish her for leaving her for a week, stuck with her mean ol' mama. She was excited about showing Baba all her new toys and clothes from Christmas.