Easter, the "Disease," and other randomness...

Happy Easter Everyone!!

I finally get to put up a picture of our kiddos in their cute Easter attire, because they finally got to WEAR their Easter clothes... today. (Two weeks AFTER Easter.) Don't they look so cute? Samantha went to church on Easter Sunday, but Spence and Natalie and I stayed home, since both of our little ones had yucky hand-foot-mouth disease. Then they missed last Sunday, too, because they still looked like lepers even though they weren't still contagious. 

So yeah... it made for a less "festive" Easter celebration. Luckily the Easter Bunny still found us... lots of jelly beans, robin eggs, and chocolate. I didn't even remember to take pictures. Rats. The kids got reading lamps, which were VERY exciting gifts... until I told Spence to be careful not to put any blankets close to his or it could start a fire. Now he's terrified of burning the house down and wants to give the lamp away. Nice job, Mom.

Anyway, so back to hand-foot-mouth disease. (And no, it is NOT the same thing as foot-and-mouth disease or hoof-and-mouth disease... I kept getting asked that, so I thought I better clarify, even though I am not taking time to explain the difference... google it if you're as curious as I was.) It wasn't too fun. Once Spencer started getting spots around his mouth, I looked online and thought it might be impetigo, which is treatable with antibiotics. So I took them to the doctor the day after Easter. Nope. Just hand-foot-mouth disease... a 6-7 day virus, treatable with tylenol and neosporin. 

So, our little cutie boy looked like this for just over a week...

 And his hands looked like this...

Actually, by the time he went to the doctor, his hands looked MUCH worse than that. So did his feet and face and bum. The doctor was so "impressed" with his case, she called in the other pediatrician, and the med student who was observing that day, to show them how bad it was. She said it was probably the worst case of hand-foot-mouth disease she's EVER seen. ugh.They all stood around gawking at him like he was a leper. Poor thing.

Then Natalie got it, two days after Spencer. Her case was just starting when we went to the doctor, so she mainly just had fever, and blisters in her throat. But eventually, she looked like this...

 And her hands looked like this...

And her knees looked like this...

And her feet looked the worst. She got huge blisters all over her feet. I'd say she lost 80% of the skin on her toes, poor baby. It was sad. And it was a long week, holing up in the house so we didn't infect other people with our disease.

We made the most of it by doing fun things that Mom doesn't do often enough. Like making a HUGE blanket fort in the living room...

 And making cookies together and getting frosting all over us...

 And reading lots of stories. (Natalie finally decided she's interested in books, which is sooo fun.... except when she wants to draw on them with a pen. oh dear.)

 Spencer decided it was time to mess with the camera, like most 4-5 year-olds do at some point. In a matter of an hour when he was supposedly watching LeapFrog on Netflix, he took over 100 different pictures. Like this...

 Did you hear that? 100. In many different rooms of the house, from many different angles. The bathroom counter collection...

If you wondered what the view out our bedroom side window looks like, you can now see how unfortunately close we are to our neighbors, thanks to Spencer's handiwork...

 Or if you heard the rumor that we put up bunk beds, and were dying to see the finished product, treat yourself to this beauty, thanks Spence!...

View of his wall art, from atop the bunk bed, which he's not suppose to be on. ahem..

 
My favorite (below). It's kind of a half outie, half innie. Up close and personal...

The artiste... self portrait...

Kay, so I made the mistake of laughing as I deleted 90 percent of his pics. So, he did it again the next day, and killed the camera battery. Note to self: don't laugh, even if that belly-button pic is too funny!

That's all for tonight, folks!