Miscellaneous July

We stopped at Trader Joe's one night after work and Jack got the "Shopper in Training" cart, which he of course thought was the cat's meow.

We turned on the jets one night during their bath and the soap we had in there from washing/shampooing them multiplied.  They both loved it but since then Charlie has decided he dislikes bubbles.  Hmm. 

 One night Jack played a matching game where we put the animal magnets next to the letter the animal starts with.  He did pretty good at most, but wasn't sure on a few.  For example, he thought Giraffe started with J, Cow started with K and Lion started with Y (because he still says his L as a W sound).  Not too shabby though for a guy learning his letter sounds.

 We also did the summer reading program at the library this year for the first time.  Jack loved reading all the new books and even earned two prizes: a flashlight after reading the first 15 books and a free book after he read another 15.  Fun!  They have a program for Charlie's age group too, but it seems we do most of our reading after Charlie's in bed so we didn't follow through with it.  He still doesn't like to sit still for more than a short book.  They both love going to the library though because there's a train table, a little house and mailboxes where you can color a sheet of paper and "mail" it.

 Charlie was sick for a lot of July.  He had a 102 degree fever one Sunday so I took him to urgent care.  The nurse practitioner there unconvincingly said he had an ear infection so we started an antibiotic.  That Wednesday day care called and said he had a fever, then he seemed better again.  Saturday he was a little warm and fussy but then seemed better until he got kicked out of day care for a fever again on Monday.  I took him to the doctor Tuesday and he said his ears were so full of wax there's no way the nurse practitioner we saw at the urgent care could have seen whether they were infected.  I knew I didn't have a warm fuzzy feeling there and wish I had trusted my gut instead of doing a senseless round of medicine.  Because once our doctor got his ears cleaned, there was no infection.  He was, however, concerned by a 10-day on-again, off-again fever, so he ran some tests.  Charlie was a total trooper and didn't cry at all when they got a urine sample, drew blood and even did a chest x-ray:

 All of the tests came back negative (testing for pnemonia, mono, etc) and the bloodwork showed signs of a virus.  Then the poor little guy was better after all that, but caught a cough from his brother which turned into and ear infection (for real this time).  After one Sunday of no sleep we went to OUR doctor again that Monday and got him on a new antibiotic.  He seems to be back in full health now, our poor sweet guy.

Charlie also got a hair cut in July, which is nothing new, but the gal asked if she should wash his hair.  I said "um, you can try...."  So she did and he just laid there with his nervous face and let her do it.  I actually thought he might fall asleep for a second there, which is what I usually want to do when I'm getting my hair washed!

One Saturday night we went over to the Minchers' house to play in their blow up water slide.  Jack had a blast - he, Nathan and Reghan were wild going down the slide!  Charlie was more low key and preferred to play in the pool, possibly because at Nathan and Tyson's birthday party in June I forced him down the slide once or twice, as captured here:

He didn't mind it that day, but I can see in this picture why he wasn't too excited to do it again.  Regardless, we all had a nice evening:

 On Sunday, July 21, we went to another Members Only event at the Magic House, this time with Grandma Clayton.  I have certainly gotten my money's worth out of that Groupon membership purchase!

One Saturday we had a late night with our fire pit on the patio, so the "big" kids snuggled up to watch a movie:

The last weekend in July we had a small BBQ and got out our blow-up swimming pool.

Jack being silly with cousins Mia and Lily

From left: Hayden, Addi, Mia, Jack and Lil (watch for a theme of Mia & Lily posing in every picture - funny stuff)

Lily, Mia, Jack, Addison, Hayden and Reghan

And here are some pictures my mom has sent me from the days the boys spend at their house.  They got a blow-up pool for the boys to swim in:

And one day it was really hot, so Grandpa got in with them, much to Jack and Charlie's delight!

 And then here's a picture of sleeping beauty - he was taking LOTS of naps at their house when he wasn't feeling well.  They would just look over and he would be asleep...

Another fun and very busy month!!!