The week with a series of unfortunate events...

No, the title is not overly dramatic, it's fairly accurate. This week sucked and it sucked big time.

Scott left for a conference in Clearwater on Sunday night. Before he was even out the door I knew something would go wrong. How did I know? Well, let's just say anytime one of us goes out of town all hell breaks loose. That time I went to DC? Jillian had strep within hours of my departure. That time Scott went to Tallahassee? Aaron wound up in the emergency room. I knew this time would be no different.

On Monday I had just sat down at my desk, ready to dive in to my leftover homemade pizza and my cell phone started to ring. I knew the number. I knew who would be on the other end. The school nurse told me Aaron had broken out in hives and needed to be picked up. Awesome.

So I make it to the school in record time and here comes Aaron with...a rash? Definitely not hives. I mentioned this and then remembered that this is the same nurse that argued with me that my children are epileptic (they had febrile seizures) and just left it at that.

I called the pediatrician and they literally told me tough luck, go to urgent care. The one urgent care we normally go to did not have any availability, so we had to go to another one. They told me he had fifths disease. I gave them my "oh, mmmhmmm" face and went on my merry way. I had fifths disease as a child and I knew this wasn't it, but okay.

Tuesday came along and Aaron was off to stay with Mimi for the day, Jill went to school and I went to our staff breakfast. Have I ever mentioned on here that I have an almond intolerance? Well, I do and it's not fun. Unlike an allergy, symptoms don't start to show until a few hours later. So again I am sitting at my desk for lunch and I'm not feeling that great. I walked over by my boss and asked if anything besides the almond croissants had almond in it. She didn't think so and told me to go home (apparently I didn't look so good). Then it hit me...all the croissants were cut with the same knife. I went home, threw up, slept for an hour and was back to my old self.

Thank you, Ryan Seacrest, for making me feel better about myself.

I should also mention that during this time Centurylink was digging up our front yard and we lost internet. We wouldn't get that back until Saturday (hence no Thanksgiving Thursday this week).

Scott finally made it home on Tuesday night and all was right in the world, until I woke up the next morning. My eye had that familiar crusty feeling. I had pink eye...again. I had pink eye and no internet, which meant no Netflix, which also meant no Breaking Bad. Sigh...

I could not stay home another day, so Thursday I made my way into work early to make up some time. I wasn't even in the office a half hour and the phone rang. It was the nurse, Jill had a fever and needed to be picked up. PawPaw came to the rescue and then Scott took her to the doctor. I knew the diagnosis before she even went in. She had strep. Scott then made an appointment for Aaron because I was fairly certain he had it too. Of course he did.

As if having two kids with strep wasn't enough, Jill woke up on Friday with pink eye...in both eyes. Oh.My.God. I wanted to just burst into tears. The poor girl was miserable all night and was still spiking fevers, Aaron wasn't eating because his throat was so sore and I was hanging on by a thread.

Thank God Michelle wanted to run with me on Saturday morning. Those five miles were exactly what I needed. I even ran up the hill by her house (by hill, I mean mini mountain) because I knew I needed to boost myself somehow.

Saturday was a better day. Our internet was back, fevers broke and children slept for more than twelve hours each.

I'm hoping we are over whatever this is and I'm hoping I have used enough Lysol to kill the pink eye beast. I know for a fact I've done enough laundry.

Here's hoping the week of Christmas is a better one.

What My Family Ate For Dinner - Week 9

Another week and another child with strep. Sigh...

I honestly have lost track of how many times Jill has had strep this school year. Hopefully we will be able to have her tonsils pulled over the summer so we do not have a repeat of this next year.

Anyway, back to the real reason you're here. This is what my family ate for dinner this week:

Sunday, April 27: Turkey Burger Casserole. I know, this is made biweekly in our house. It is one of Aaron's favorite meals.

Monday, April 28: Brown Rice with Roasted Veggies and Chicken. This was DELICIOUS! Aaron had two servings of it, with all of the veggies. You can really tailor this to your family. We used carrots, green beans, corn and asparagus. It also warms up really well.

Tuesday, April 29: Tuesday's are crazy in our house. Scott and I both had sandwiches (on thin sandwich bread) with our addiction, Angie's White Cheddar Popcorn.

Wednesday, April 30: Zesty BBQ Chicken. This is one of my favorite slow cooker meals. Instead of using hamburger buns, we used the sandwich thins. I served it with some corn and zucchini.

Thursday, May 1: Chicken Broccoli Alfredo. I happened to have a spare jar of light alfredo sauce in the pantry, so I threw that with some grilled chicken and orecchiette pasta.

Friday, May 2: Crescent Roll Pizza Ring. I posted this recipe yesterday. It was pretty easy and seriously delicious.

Saturday, May 3: Ground Turkey Tacos. Tacos are the most popular meal in our house. Naturally, but tacos I mean nachos.

I hope you enjoy!

Birthday Week - Age 31 (Yikes!)

So much has been going on over here and I have not taken the five minutes to sit down and write about it. I mean, if we're being honest, I did spend this past week celebrating my birthday.

If we're being completely honest, 31 was a hard one. I think it's the fact that I'm officially "in" my thirties that is strange/depressing. The thing that keeps me going is knowing that Scott is a lot closer to 40 than I am. *wink* Love ya babe!

Like I mentioned, I spent the majority of my week celebrating and eating truly awful for you but totally delicious meals. My frolleauges took me out on Tuesday to Mellow Mushroom. Let me tell you the backstory on this one. When I went to the Vocus conference last year one of the sessions was led by the PR director of Mellow Mushroom. She talked about a campaign that they did on Twitter and I have brought this up in many meetings declaring it the best campaign ever. Take a  peek:

Anyway, the creepy mushroom is a staple in my office. I give you exhibit a:

If you have a Mellow Mushroom near you, go over and have a calzone. You won't regret it. 

Wednesday was my actual birthday and when I arrived at the office apparently I was too early. Alyssa slammed my office door and yelled at me that it was my birthday and I should learn to sleep in. The door slamming was worth it though. The girls did an amazing job and made me feel the love!

There was also another birthday lunch (Qdoba!) and then we went to volunteer at Second Harvest Food Bank to sort donations. I really wanted to make volunteering a part of my birthday. I've been volunteering there for almost a year and I love being able to give back.

After the food bank I met up with Scott, the kiddos, Mimi, PawPaw, Aunt Buddy and Karyn at Abuelo's.  It's seriously my favorite Mexican restaurant. 

Thursday was birthday lunch part three, this time we went to one of my favorite places on campus, Burger U. I love their garlic parmesan fries, they are worth the two sticks of gum and handful of mints I have to consume after the fact.

Thursday night is when everything kind of went downhill. Aaron was complaining of a sore throat and then he puked all over us in the middle of the night. I knew in that moment...strep. How he managed to catch strep I have no idea. All of the times Jillian has had it this past year, he has not caught it once. 

I took Friday off to confirm my suspicion. I think the test turned almost immediately. Our afternoon was spent snuggling, eating yellow rice and drinking strawberry kiwi juice. 

The rest of the weekend was spent letting Aaron rest and a girls lunch with my Jilly. I will thank the awful strep virus for making me actually deep clean my house. So...there's that. 

I think we're finally caught up! Phew! Hope you had a fantastic weekend!

Do Not Sit By Me...No, Really.

Jillian has strep...again...Seriously, I feel like I write this post as least once a month. Anyway, she's on antibiotics, again, and I'm going to talk to her pediatrician about yanking her tonsils.

But, I had to tell you this to tell you about what happened in the pharmacy while we were waiting for her antibiotics. Jillian and I were just sitting there, minding our own business and here comes this woman with a medical mask on. My eyes get huge because I instantly know she has the flu. I shoot her my "if you sit next to me I will cover you in Purell" look and Jillian asks why she has a mask on. I told her that it's to keep her from spreading germs. This is around the time the woman lost her shiz.

So, her husband is in line to drop off her prescription and she starts talking on her phone. "I have the FLU! I have a fever of 102.4, I have to miss 4-5 days of work." Okay, here's where I give the "you gotta be kidding me" look. I don't want to hear you complain about a 102.4 fever. Until you have a child with a fever of 105 that is seizing, and the only way to reduce her fever is to give her a shot, I don't want to hear you complain about a "high fever." Furthermore, I don't want to hear you calling at least four different people to tell them that you have the flu, we get it and trust me, the pharmacists heard you and are working a whole lot faster on yours to get you and your flu germs out of here.

End of rant. Thankfully, Jillian's prescription was ready and we were able to leave. I definitely scrubbed my hands and followed that with some Purell.

Influenza

It's been quiet on here because we've been battling the flu.  Aaron came home from school on Thursday   and we kept him home of Friday. Jill started getting sick on Saturday. I had to admit it by Saturday night that it was probably our worst fear.

We took them to the doctor Sunday and found out they had a double whammy, the flu and strep. So needless to say we've been laying low over here.

I have no idea how you do this....

Right before midnight last night Jill crawled into bed with us saying she felt sick. Scott informed me she had already thrown up before he came to bed. My poor Jilly Bean was also running a slight fever, so I snuggled her up with me and got her some Motrin. 

She kept running a fever on and off all night, which translates to very little sleep for Mommy. When we got up in the morning though she made it very well known to her brother that she was sick. The conversation went like this:

Aaron: Hey Jill! Jill let's play!

Jill: I don't feel good Aaron.

Jill: Mommy, where's Daddy?

Me: He's at the office honey.

Aaron: Jill's a big girl, not a honey!

Jill: AARON! I.Don't.Feel.Good!

Aaron: I KNOW you don't feel good!

She was feverish on and off all day and then this afternoon she told me her ear hurt. If you know us, ear infections are like second nature over here, so I called the pediatricians office so we could get her ears checked. I was able to get her in ASAP so I got the kids dressed and we were heading out the door. As I was grabbing my purse I heard "SPLAT!" and then "Oh Mommy". It was like the damn exorcist in my hallway. Jill had just had a cup of Bolthouse Farms Green Machine or whatever it is, and my floor was now green. Like a good area of my floor was green. Aaron, being Aaron says, "Mommy you need to clean that." He got the Mommy look and slowly backed away and sat down, in silence. 

After getting her cleaned up, changed, and grabbing a bucket for good measure, we headed to the pediatrician's. Thankfully, it was not a busy day and we got in pretty quick. The doctor didn't see anything wrong with either ear and then she looked at her throat and said it was pretty red. "It might be strep, we'll have to swab." Can you give her a shot, too? I mean really. 

I can't even begin to tell you how many times my poor throat has been swabbed for strep (never once coming back positive I might add), so I was not looking forward to the scene that was about to unfold. Me, two four year olds, a nurse that will probably be covered in some bodily fluid in mere moments, and the cotton swab. Bring it, there's Skinnygirl Margarita sitting in my fridge at home, I got this.

While giving Jill the pep talk before the swab the nurse walked in. She looked just as excited as I was, so we came up with our game plan. More work went into this play than the winning pass of the SuperBowl, I promise you. The swab happened and then Jill puked, in the handy bucket I brought with. She took it like a champ though and was just excited to get a cup of water and sticker after. 

After 10 minutes the doctor came in and told us it was negative, but we'll see what the other culture says. As she's going over all of this with me Aaron chimes in with "I have to POOP!", extra emphasis on the poop. The doctor looked at me, shook her head and said, "I honestly have no idea how you do this." Amen sister, amen.

Poor Jilly's fever finally broke when we got home, she's been sleeping since. 

I broke the possible strep news to Scott (who can catch strep just by saying the word, I swear) and he freaked. "I'm going to have to be on the other side of the house from her." Um, we've been in the same house all of this time, we've been exposed, the puss is probably forming on your tonsils as we speak. Sigh...

I'm hoping this isn't strep, but I want to know what's going on besides the blanket "viral infection" diagnosis. In the meantime, I think extra snuggles and lots of Lysol are in order.