Hmm...

We continue to fall over here.  Nicholas has a fever now too.  Connor had a fever for 6 days so we are taking him to get blood work done tomorrow.  We shall see!  I hope for some answers.  Today Connor's fever has been low grade of 99 point somethings all day and he seems to be more himself instead of the sleepy kid napping all day and sleeping solid 12 hours at night.  He couldn't even stand for very long without feeling tired and like he needed to lie down. 
Kyle is pretty much better aside from still having the cough, but no more fever.  He only had fever 2-3 days.  His main complaint of the moment is not understanding why his best bud, Nicholas, doesn't want to play.
Today is day one of fever for Nicholas.  Up to now, he has seemed fine aside from his cough.  Doctor thinks we have multiple things going on and it certainly seems like it.  Yikes!

Viruses

We are all sick over here, just not quite the same way.  We all seem to have the same virus, only it has affected us differently.  We all have the same cough and a little bit of sniffles.  However, Charlie, Connor, and Kyle have a super high fever to go along with it and Nicholas and I do not.  Thankfully, Connor is about 98% better, Kyle is about 90%, but poor Charlie (who was the last to fall) is still burning up and has no energy to do much of anything- poor guy!  Even now, he's trying to stay hydrated and keep the fever down.  I just checked him and he has a fever of 103.7.  No fun!  There are no pictures unfortunately, as I have too many sick people to attend to and not enough time to take any.

Big Boy

Today Kyle got his big boy bed!  He is so excited about it.  We got rid of the crib and got him a CARS bed.  He loves it and keeps adjusting which pillows and blankets he wants on it.  Let's hope he stays in it at night!

We successfully got him to nap in his big boy bed!  Yay!

Just another happy day at our house

Kyle got a hold of the Tivo remote again.

 Kyle decides to read a book.

 Reading his big brother's book while said big brother does his computer homework.

 Nicholas pretending to do his own computer homework.

 

 Reading Bone with Daddy

 This is really their most favorite part of the day.  

Both Charlie and Connor really look forward to snuggling on the couch and reading together.

Sometimes Nicholas will join in on listening to Daddy and Connor read Bone.

 He is holding the plush of the character from the book.

 Here we have me tickling him so he would smile properly. 

Death of a fish

Nicholas has three fish (one he acquired a few weeks ago when I took a fish to Sunday School).  It is one goldfish, a minnow, and a little white fish.  Their names are Silly, Swimmy, and Splashy.  While he cannot play with them, he does love them nonetheless.  We've had Silly and Swimmy for almost 2 years now.  They are the cheap $0.15 fish you can get at Petco, so I'm surprised they lasted this long. 
I checked them last night and they were all fine, but this morning I discovered that Silly was no longer with us.  I waited till after he got out of school to break the news to him.  He was sad but he took it pretty well overall.  I asked him if he wanted to be the one to flush Silly down the toilet and he said yes.  I dropped Silly in the toilet bowl and and Nicholas closed the lid of the toilet and flushed.  He walked away without saying a single word.  He closed the bathroom door very softly.  I asked him if he was sad and he said, "Yeah..... can we go buy a new fish?"  I told him we'd wait to make sure it was not that Silly was sick with something brought in when Splashy joined the crew and then we'd see about getting a new goldfish.  The super sad face you see below was only momentary.  After we flushed Silly, Nicholas was fine and his usual smiling self.

My New Love

We finally went out to buy my new vacuum that I wanted for my birthday.  We used my birthday money and some of our own money to buy me this wonderful Dyson DC41 Animal ball vacuum.  I used it immediately and have been going for a couple of hours now, totally cleaning my carpets.  I was amazed at how much dirt, dust, and filth it sucked up off the floor!  I just LOVE my new Dyson!!  I highly recommend it.  It is pricey ($600), but well worth it!!  I've also heard that their customer service is extremely excellent so that's even more reassuring. 
It picks up so much stuff, I need to empty it after each room.  The hallway alone was enough to fill up the canister.  I assure you this is because it picks up so much and not because the canister is small. 

 Below you see the contents of the canister after one room.

X

Every week Nicholas is supposed to take a picture or craft that starts with the letter of the week.  Next week's letter is X.  Not too many words start with X so the teacher said it was fine if everyone brought in a xylophone or an x-ray.  We tried to make our x-ray unique and Nicholas thought it was the funniest thing.

St. Patrick's a little early

Today Nicholas' class celebrated St. Patrick's Day at school.  Their class was visited by Leprechauns and those pesky little Leprechauns made a mess of green glitter everywhere!  They also left some clues that led the class to a pot of gold with enough for each child to have their own piece of 'real' Leprechaun gold that is accepted at all Leprechaun establishments. 

Naps

Connor used to be an excellent napper.  He slept a consistent 3 hours every afternoon.  It was a wonderful time to do a lot of chores and just refresh myself.  He napped up to about age 4 and a half that way. 
Nicholas was not as good a napper.  He napped for about an hour and a half to two hours and it varied from day to day how long the nap lasted.  Still, it was a nice chunk of time to myself.   Nicholas napped up till about age 3 and a half.
Kyle is by far the worst napper of the three.  He naps for most days for half an hour at most.  Once in a blue moon, he will nap for a whole hour.  It hardly is ever enough time for me to get much of anything done during his nap.  The really unfortunate thing is that this week he has been fighting his nap, and fighting it hard.  Monday he avoided the nap despite my many attempts to put him down.  He finally passed out for about 15 minutes and that was that.  Tuesday he fought it all day and seemed fine; I kept expecting a meltdown but none came.  He finally could battle no more at about 7:30 pm so we put him down without incident.  Today he fought it and finally passed out about fifteen minutes ago.  It is much later than I would have liked him to nap, but I figure I'll let him sleep anyway. 
I'm so afraid he's losing his nap already.  I would like him to at least nap for one more year.... is that too much to ask? 
We'll see what happens next week.  Maybe it is just the evil time change that is messing him up this week.  *fingers crossed*

Yay for days off!

No school today so we went to spend our day at Happy Hollow.  Today was the first time that Kyle really got to participate- getting on the rides, playing at the playground, running around.  He felt like and really wanted to be a big boy!  He refused to let his brothers help him with anything.

Good-bye Mousie!

Today the boys went with me to deliver Mousie to Marija's classroom.  They were a little sad but understood that the little mouse would only live a short time and that snakes have to eat.  After we dropped the mouse off, we discovered a Ladybug that they observed and played with for a long time.
They are looking forward to finding many more Ladybugs. 

 Ruby was  hiding in her rock when we got there so the boys didn't get a very good look at her.

 Our Ladybug friend

 

 Nicholas enjoyed observing but was not about to let Ladybug climb on him.

 Kyle was not as interested in the Ladybug but he did enjoy playing.

The Ladybug is climbing on Connor's grey part of his sleeve here.

 Who needs a parrot on your shoulder, when you can have a Ladybug?

 He thought it was hilarious that it was climbing all over his neck!

 And these are just two pictures of Kyle in the shower.  He was being goofy.