Crazy Halloween Weekend

Lets start with pumpkin carving. We carved our pumpkins a week before Halloween. Brooke liked helping.
Ryan carefully carving out his pumpkin

The finished products. Of course we had to honor the Texas Rangers for making it to the World Series. Brooke picked out her own design from a booklet of carvings that I had.

The following Wednesday was the Halloween party at Brooke's school. She dressed up as a cowgirl this year.

I love her smile in this picture. We had a cowgirl hat (2 in fact) to go with her outfit, but she refused to wear it. We also bought a stick horse, but she enjoys watching us trying to show her how to play with it. So, I let her just carry her stuffed horsey to school instead.
At the Halloween party, they had a parade around the school, then the kids played with each other in the play room before having fun snacks. It was neat to see all the kids dressed up.
She didn't make it home with her horsey, so I had to call up to the school the next day and go look for it. We searched everywhere in the room and couldn't find it. Just as I had about given up, I decided to look through the play kitchen. Well, I guess Brooke thought he needed to be baked because that is where he was neatly placed, right in the oven! It gave me a good laugh.

That Friday night, a friend of mine from pharmacy school, Kelli, stayed with us and we went to Canton on Saturday. Kelli, unfortunately, got to experience first hand what it smells like when a dog gets sprayed by a skunk. I had let Sam out to go to the bathroom for the last time before going to bed. I noticed that he had run out of my sight and I stepped out on the porch to call him back and heard him scuffling with something. He came back and ran right inside. I immediately smelled some foul odor and sent him right back outside. It was extremely pungent and smelled like burning rubber/heavy garlic. He was literally in our house for less than 10 seconds and it stunk up the entire house. We began furiously searching the internet for the best solution to bathe him. I bathed him in a peroxide/baking soda/shampoo solution at 11pm and 60 degrees outside. It was cold, but everything said time was of the essence and to bathe the dog right away despite me not wanting to go out in the cold. Anyway, it only moderately helped so we have been keeping him quarantined to the garage. He has had 4 baths since, two more in the recommended solution and 1 today with a shampoo I bought from the vets. Ryan's mom gave him a bath today and said she thinks the smell is finally gone. Luckily the weather the next two days was nice and we aired out our house. I can only imagine what our neighbors thought when they saw all of our windows and doors wide open. I kept thinking we would get some uninvited critters, but just a few flys. I think the smell has dissipated and there are only a few pockets that I can faintly smell the odor where air circulation isn't good.
I hope our dog has learned his lesson and won't mess with any skunks anymore because I don't want to deal with that again!

On Saturday, Kelli, me and Heather went to Canton and met up with a couple of friends of hers from Houston. I had not been since I was 15 and it has grown a lot since then. I thought Heather would have done better on our outing, but she didn't enjoy the crowds and was fussier than I expected. So, we kept our visit short and headed home after lunch.

On Sunday, I woke up with a tickle in my throat and it was the kind that got better as the day went on, but by the night time I was sneezing up a storm and I felt a full blown cold coming on. I hate being sick, but worse I hate seeing a sick child, but I will come back to this story...

Sunday evening was Halloween and I took Brooke to the Alpine trunk or treat. G-dad brought his goat for the kids to pet.

Brooke had a lot of fun on the riding pony and she was dressed perfectly to ride him.

Ryan's cousin Jill goes to this church and we met up with their family and took some pictures.

Jill's kids on the left, Lizzie, Grayson, Olivia, Brooke, and Heather.

After the trunk or treat, we stopped at my mom's house so she could see the girls in the their Halloween outfits.

On Monday, I woke up with a horrendous headache and pressure in my head, the cold had set in and I knew I was just going to have to let it run its course. Well, Monday night I was getting Heather ready for her bath and noticed she felt warm to me, so I took her temperature, 101.5. I called the on call nurse for pediatrics and she said any baby less than 2 months and a fever >100.4 rectally was an automatic visit to the ER. I knew this was probably from my cold, but to make sure nothing else was going on I decided to take her to the ER. They did a full work up. She had blood drawn, chest x-ray, urine test, and a strep test due to exposure with kids Brooke's age. All the results came back normal, so we had to do the lumbar puncture to rule out meningitis. That was the worst thing I have ever had to witness my child going through. I hope I never have to do that again. Her LP came back normal, so by diagnosis of exclusion she has a viral illness. Before they discharged us, they gave her a dose of antibiotics just to be on the safe side. I took her to a follow up visit with her pediatrician the next day and he concurred that it is viral. We are both trying to recover from this nasty cold. I hate seeing her sick!

Here is a picture of exhausted Heather with her IV for her antibiotics. They wore her out with all the sticking and prodding. I felt so bad, but at least everything turned out to be normal. On a good note, she weighed 9lbs 5oz and that is in the 30%.


Here is a picture of how high Heather can hold up her head. She is doing great with tummy time and has good head control.

So, the only thing planned in this house the rest of the week is rest and recover from this past weekend.