Fun with the Youth Group!!

November was such a busy month with our youth group. The first 3 Wednesday nights we put on "Meals for Missions". This was a fund-raising event to raise money to buy Christmas gifts for 2 of our missionary families. The teens showed up, set up, served the meal, and cleaned up, and I made the food - chili for 60 people! Jamey was such a huge help!! She helped me shop and brown 25 lbs of beef!! Thank you Jamey!! At the end of the first night, we found out it was actually chili for 120 people because we had 6 big crock pots of chili left over! Better too much than not enough is my motto - so I went a little overboard on this one - hee-hee! We had "chili-mac" and taco salad for dinner #2 and used the left over - SHHHHH! The teens, or should I say the teen's moms made wonderful soup for the last meal! We made over $700 for our missionaries!!! The next Sunday, Ben took all the teens to Toy's R Us and let them loose to buy presents for the children. We actually were only able to buy presents for one of the families because of the over-seas red tape - so we sent the other family $$$ for amusement park tickets. This was a fun project, but I have to say I am releaved it is all over now.

Our other big activity for the month was the "Turkey Cam". This was so fun!! The teens had to go around town and take pictures of themselves doing rather... interesting things. The pictures tell the story. What a great night!!

Birthday Boy!

November 2nd was Ben's birthday! The boys and I made his favorite chocolate cake and we partied all night long - well, until 8 o'clock bedtime rolled around at least.

Halloween -yeah, so it was a month ago!

Jamey comes for a visit!

It was so great to have Jamey come for a visit. I must say it was nice to have help getting the boys shoes on, the diper bag re-filled, and best of all, another set of hands on the way up to our 3rd floor apartment! We drove down to Virginia Beach for Rebecca's wedding, which gave Jamey the wonderful experience of a 3 hour drive with Ethan, the wiggle worm, and Luke who HATES his car seat! Fun, Fun!! The wedding was beautiful and we got to see lots of friends - thanks Don and Katrina for the hotel accomodations and child care facility- I hope your dog has rested after the day long chase and your fish recoverd from the occasional tank pounding. All in all, we had a great week. More pics and stories to come of our week of fun.

Get Your Own! View Slideshow

Saturday Morning Cinnamon Rolls!

Everyone (Ben and I) decided that we wanted cinnamon rolls for breakfast this morning and Ethan was such a big help!

Octoberfest!

Last weekend Andy and Davina came up to visit us and we took all the boys to Octoberfest. Bright lights, tons of people, and you can't forget polka! Ethan and Caleb even took their turn dancing under the big tent to the sounds of the polka band. You know, bearded german men in green overalls and knee socks! Ethan's newest of words: "Oh wow!"

The latest pics!

Sick baby!

Luke's stay in the hospital

This last Thursday Luke started acting very irritable to the point of crying very hard every time I would move him. He had a temp of 102.5 that afternoon, so we headed to the Dr.'s office that evening. By the time we got there, his temp was back down and he was giving the goofy grin to the doctor! The doc believed me despite the smiles and took some blood anyway and told me to keep a close eye on Luke through the night. Well, the temp was up to 101 by the time we got back home and it stayed there all night - even with Tylenol. At 4am it was up to 103, so we were back at the door of the doctor by 6. This time he saw how horrible Luke really was feeling and sent us straight to the ER. Because of Luke's age, they decided to do the full work up. Urine, poopie, and blood tests to boot. Luke is a rather chunky baby (hee hee), so it took about 7 pokes to finally get blood and an IV. It was so sad to hear him scream every time. I really felt like punching those nurses a few times! All the tests came back negative, so that only left the one more thing... a spinal tap to check for Meningitis. The doc sat down and explained to me all of the horrible things that could go wrong and then asked me to sign a consent!! I could not stand to watch this one, so I stepped out to only hear my poor baby crying. Then I heard him crying again. Come to find out, after 2 tries, they did not even get the fluid!!! They admitted us now for observarion and did some chest x-rays. A little later they decided to give the ol' spinal tap another try. So, again the I have to sign the consent and 2 more tries later, they finally have what they need. Luke was so tired and uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Ben is stuck at home because I took the car with Ethan's car seat. Thankfully, some girls from our youth group came over and stayed with Ethan, so daddy could come to the hospital. Later that day a doctor came in and said he thought that Luke's heart looked a little large on the chest x-ray and that he was hearing a heart murmur. So now, they did an EKG and an echo-cardiogram which all came out completely normal - just wanted to make this whole experience even more worry-some! They put Luke on antibiotics just incase this stuff happened to be a bacterial infection and we settled in for a 3 day stay waiting for the fever to go away and the tests all to come back. Friday night he peaked to 103, Sat. 101, Sun. 99, so Monday morning, they decided that it must have been a viral infection and we could finally go home. I was so happy to see him unhooked from all those wires! He is doing better and better every day. His smiles are returning and I can hold him without him crying!!

These are our two boys - Ethan on the left and Luke on the right.

Future site of Ben, Carissa, Ethan, and Luke Smith