Corn Maze and Pumpkin Picking

We went to a corn maze last weekend and pumpkin picking yesterday. Just thought I'd share some of our fall activities.

Starting the corn maze. I'm leading the way...Oh no!

At night the corn maze is a haunted corn maze, so we saw some scary figurines along the way. Audrey wasn't scared though. She loved them!

OOOoooo.... can I have that?

Got it! Now what do I do with it? Stick it in my mouth?

No outing with Granseur is complete until he does something silly.

Granseur takes over leading the way.

Aren't they precious?

We've arrived at the pumpkin patch!

This looks like a good picnic spot.

Maybe I can take Mommy's drink while she isn't looking.

Picnics are fun!

On the tractor ride to get to the pumpkin patch.

Here we go!

My workout for the day: Squating down with an 18 lb. baby strapped to me while also picking up pumpkins to add just a few more pounds. Repeat a lot!

Granseur checking out pumpkins.

A baby pumpkin! Apparently pumpkin picking is quite exhausting...especially when you don't have to walk or pick up anything.

The ride back after picking out our pumpkins.

Everyone knows that Daddy is the "fun one." Here they are going down the slide.

Gotta check out the animals, too.

Pumpkin carving time

Me attempting to make a jack-o-lantern. I've never carved a pumpkin before. I would just pick out one I liked, draw on it what I wanted, and someone else would get all the guts out for me, scrape the inside and carve it for me. Doesn't that just sound like me?

Oh and notice the glow from the oven behind me. We're roasting pumpkin seeds! I've never done that before either or eaten any. They were good. Too good....I ate too many. :(

Audrey getting in on the action. This is her baby pumpkin.

The final product. A daddy, mommy, and baby pumpkin. You can totally tell which one is Granseur's. He's a little (okay...a lot) more creative than I am.

Adventures in Mothering

This is the MOPS theme this year and it is so true. Here's yesterday's adventure.

Audrey and I left the house at 8:30 a.m. to go to her neurologist appointment in Concord. Before we walked out the door, I changed two poop explosions. One happened while Audrey was already strapped into her carseat carrier and we were about to leave. It got all over her clothes and up her back. She's been having horrible diarrhea since she's been on her daily antibiotic and it was not a pretty sight.

Audrey had her appointment at 9:30. The doctor said her EEG looked "abnormal" at first and then I gasped. The doctor then said, "Oh, I'm sorry, I mean it looked normal. Everything looked fine." Way to make me lose my breath! So, Audrey seems to be fine. The good thing is that all of Audrey's seizures were while she had a UTI so it is likely that they were all febrile seizures but they will continue to follow her to make sure its not epilepsy.

Audrey does not like doctor's offices! She totally knows what's going on now and as soon as she lays down on the crinkly white paper she starts to cry because she knows what's coming....usually a catheter or shot! The neurologist didn't have to do those things so when I picked Audrey back up, she had this confused look on her face like, "you're not going to hurt me today?"

After her appointment I went to the hospital bathroom to change her diaper. She had pooped everywhere again so I had to change her clothes. While I was changing her diaper and changing her clothes, Audrey decided to pee again before I could get the new diaper underneath her. The biggest problem with that was that I had laid down my own changing pad on top of the table provided in the bathroom because I think those things are nasty. The changing pad is vinyl so it made her pee slide around everywhere! It was ridiculus.

We finally left the hospital around 11:30 and went across the street to the mall so I could go to the food court and get a quick bite to eat and feed Audrey as well. After I only took about 30 minutes to eat we were back in the car to go to Audrey's pediatrician appointment. We get there and while I'm walking back to a room in the doctor's office with Audrey to be seen, the power goes out! It was a perfectly sunny nice day, so I don't know what the deal was with that. Audrey got a catheter there to make sure her urine was clear (and it was). The fun part? She got a catheter by a nurse while another nurse held one of those little lights that doctor's stick in your ears so that the nurse doing the catheter could see what she was doing. It was pretty funny.

So now we're on our way out of the doctor's office to go home. Phew! I get to the elevator and realize that it doesn't work because the power is out! I'm on the third floor with my daughter in a stroller. Audrey was in the carrier that clips into the stroller. So, I had to unhook the carrier Audrey was in and carry her down to the first landing. Then I went back up and carried the stroller down to the first landing. We did this sequence about halfway down, but then since so many people had to use the stairs a nice man walking down helped me get the rest of the way down.

What a day!

Fun pictures and video

If you take my milk I'll give you a knuckle sandwich!

Audrey playing with her toys.

Hello everybody!

Audrey checking out our new fall decoration.

Audrey is so happy when she's with her daddy!

OOooo... I can see myself.

Can you believe this used to be the baby that screamed all the time?!

Audrey having fun in her bumbo.

This is video of Audrey playing in her exersaucer that my good friend Rose is letting us use.

Me with long hair.

Same day...new haircut!

Update on Audrey

We had three doctor appointments last Friday. I left the house at 8:30 and didn't get back home until 6:45 that night. We went straight from one doctor to the next.

We went to the urologist first. He's concerned that Audrey may have some kind of urine reflux thing going on but since she is so little and still sick that he would wait on doing a VCUG for a little while. So he gave us a low dose antibiotic for Audrey to take every day for the next six months so if that is what's going on, it won't ruin her kidneys with all the frequent UTIs.

Then we were off to the pediatrician where she got another rosephen shot which was the last of three for her most recent UTI.

Then we went to the neurology place in Concord. They did an EEG on Audrey. She was a little fussy....who wouldn't be getting all that stuff smushed on their head though. Then I held her and she went to sleep in my arms during the EEG. It worked out great since it lasted over 30 minutes. We go back on Monday morning to the neurologist to get the results. We went to the neurologist because she always gets seizures with her UTIs. At first the pediatrician just thought they were febrile seizures but since her last seizure happened when she only had a temperature of 100 and she also had a seizure the next day with no fever at all, it was cause for concern. She also looked to the right when she had her seizure instead of looking straight forward or up. I'm not sure what the significance of that is but it was different from her previous seizures. We also go back to the pediatrician on Monday to make sure that she is over her UTI.

On top of all that, the entire family is sick and has been now for almost a week. It started out with a sore throat for a couple of days and now we're all congested. It made me miss a MOPS meeting that I was so looking forward to, but I didn't want to go and get other people sick or other babies. I've only been to a couple of MOPS meetings but I love it so far. There's a lot of really nice ladies there who I'm looking forward to getting to know even better.

Granseur and I also had the pleasure of going to the periodontist yesterday for our receding gums. Granseur is lucky and doesn't have to have any surgery on his teeth, but I do.

That's all for now.

Our new home

No, we're not moving but I feel like our new home is the doctor's office! I'm so tired of going! I had to take Audrey to the doctor again this morning because she had a fever and seizures again. She has ANOTHER urinary tract infection. She had to get her finger pricked again, a catheter, some motrin, and a shot in the leg. Poor girl. Her screams today were the most awful yet. We just finished her last dosage for her previous UTI on Sunday morning. She went to the doctor two weeks ago for that UTI, then we had a follow-up on Monday and now we were back to the doctor again this morning and she has to go back again tomorrow to get another antibiotic shot. Ugh! Not to mention, for her previous UTI, the morning we had to take her to the dr. office was the same day I had to go to Concord for a doctor appt. of my own. A few days after that I had to go back to Concord for a different doctor appt. In December I have to take Audrey back to the cardiologist office in Concord for the hole in her heart. I'm just so sick of doctor's office. It's not that great for my pocket book either! At least Audrey's napping now and I finally get a chance to take a shower.

Oh, and we also have to take Audrey to go see a urologist now because of her frequent UTI's (this is on top of the kidney ultrasound we already had done) and a neurologist for her seizures.