I realize some things you just keep to yourself, but one day I will look back at this and it will be funny, so I will document it…

The kids woke up feeling much better today (or so I thought.) Although, Jaxon wouldn’t touch his lunch really. He had a few blueberries and drank a lot of juice.  After lunch Jason took them on a walk in the wagon and I cleaned up the kitchen. 

When they got back from their walk Jaxon was really clinging to me and lying on my shoulder and didn’t want me to set him down.  We took them down to the basement to play because it is much cooler downstairs and they were hot from the walk. Jax was still laying on my shoulder and as soon as we walked in the playroom he projectile vomited ALL OVER himself, me, the floor.. I mean projectile! I was drenched in stinky baby vomit! Without even thinking I stripped his clothes off and started filling up the basement tub. After I pried him off of me, I realized the extent of the damage he had done to me. I was soaked. I didn’t want to drip vomit all the way upstairs, so I stripped my clothes off too and got in the tub with him. Jason ran upstairs to get some towels to clean up the mess, while I cleaned off me and Jax.

Joss was getting in the way of Jason cleaning up so I told him to just toss her in the bath with us. Jason finished cleaning up and ran to get us some clothes/diapers.  It was then that I heard what I thought was a fart only to discover Jaxon had explosive diarrhea in the tub! Yes, the tub that Joss and I were in as well. I jumped up grabbed Joss out and stood there naked screaming “JASON!!! JASON!!! HURRY!!”  He came running down the stairs again yelling “Did he throw up again?”  “No… WORSE!!!”

I didn’t think it could get much worse than being drenched in baby vomit. I was severely mistaken.

Both of the kids are in full swing of this nasty cold. Jaxon's asthma has been acting up and he has been wheezing a lot. We took them to the Dr. yesterday and we are now doing asthma treatments every 4 hours for Jaxon. We have a cool mist humidifier cranked up in their room, and have been giving Tylenol or Motrin for fevers.

Since croup is worse at night, I wanted to be prepared for the midnight coughing wake-up call and had everything laid out ready to go. I had saline for the nebulizer cooling in the fridge, the second dose of steroid pills crushed up and ready to be mixed in with baby bananas, thermometer, Tylenol, nebulizer and diapers all ready to go!
Jason was up with Joss last night and was able to get her to calm down and fall back to sleep. I had the video monitor turned up so I could listen to them breathe. They coughed a lot but not with croup. Hopefully they are on the mend.

When they are not feeling good, they are not very delightful. They both whine and cry and hang on me. They get so jealous of eachother. They insist on being held, but push the other child out of my arms.  I can only hold one at a time or else they fight. So one kid is happy and content in my arms, while the other hangs on my legs and cries. I feel so bad for them. I wish they would both just lay on my lap and cuddle but they get so jealous! We have had 3 days of laying around in pajamas all day. It is getting old. 

The other day I was tickling Joss and I noticed her tonsils were enormous. I asked the Dr yesterday if she thought they looked abnormally huge, and she agreed, they were touching eachother in the back of her throat. She asked if Joss snores, and wakes up at night...she does. She thinks she may have a childs case of sleep apnea and wants to have her regular Dr check out her tonsils at her 2yr old well check appointment next month. If they are still looking swollen when she isn't sick, we may need to get them removed. I hate even the thought of doing surgery on my little baby, but if it will help her breathe and sleep better...It may be inevitable. I had mine removed when I was 8.

I worked out at the gym almost every day last week, and have a feeling the child center there is where they picked up this sickness. It looks like I will have to trade in my exercise for healthy kids. A small price to pay I guess.

Jason and I were in the computer room last night and I said "Is that Morgan barking?" He said  "no, Morgan never barks, it is the neighbors dog." A few minutes I heard it again and then I knew what it was. That is a croup cough! I could see on the video monitor Jaxon moving around. I ran in their room, scooped up Jaxon and brought him to my room. He felt a little hot and was stuffed up. Jason went to get the thermometer, and then I heard the croup cough again, coming from their bedroom. It was Joss! She was the one with croup, not Jaxon! I woke him up for nothing. I ran and grabbed Joss and she started coughing bad. It was the  "seal barking" cough with stridor. Her ribs were retracting when she would breathe in.
As a child, I had horrible croup and was hospitalized for it many times. I knew exactly what to do. I stripped her down and took her to the small bathroom. Cranked the shower on hot and let the room fill up with steam. We put ice chips in my asthma nebulizer and held the mask near her face to let her breathe in the cool mist. She had a spiking fever so after 10 minutes of breathing in the steam, I put luke-warm water in the bath and tried to cool her down. We tried to give her Motrin for her fever, but she kept spitting it out and screaming.
The worst thing for croup is crying. Her airway was constricted enough and the crying made her gasp for air even more. Jason and I were talking really happy to her so she wouldn't be scared, and trying to get her to stop crying.
The more I would hold the nebulizer mask to her face, the more she would freak out and scream. We finally pinned her down and got a dose of Motrin in her, and she screamed even more.
I realized, she was getting worse and we needed to take her to the hospital immediately.  I called Jasons parents at 11:00 and yelled "WE ARE DROPPING JAXON OFF AT YOUR HOUSE ON OUR WAY TO THE HOSPITAL JOSS CAN'T BREATHE!"  John said "we will be there in 2 minutes."  And they were!
I knew the drill of rolling down all 4 windows and letting the cool moist air blow on her. We did the "Croup Loop" more times than I can count when I was little. As soon as my mom would hear my seal bark she would say "grab your blanket and your favorite stuffed animal, we're going on a croup loop!" She would bundle me in my snow hat, mittens, and coat. We would drive past the fire department, (just in case) and make a big circle around the neighborhood with all the windows rolled down, breathing in the wet air.  I had many sleep overs in the back of the station wagon with my mom with kid music on the tape recorder, blankets and stuffed animals, and windows rolled down.
Croup is hereditary, I had it, my mother had it, and my granfather had an emergency tracheotomy when he was 10 from croup. I hate that I passed my crummy croupy, asthma lungs down to my kids.
I have a healthy respect/fear of croup. And the sound of the croup bark in the night, gives me flashbacks of not being able to breathe, and sends shivers down my spine.

I am so thankful that my mom took care of me when I was little, so that she could teach me how to take care of Joss. Even though I knew exactly what to do, it is hard to tell a 2 yr old to breathe slowly, and not cry or panic. Since crying is croups worse enemy, we ended up in the hospital. Hopefully next time we wont.
Grandma and Grandpa spent the night, and we all slept about a total of 3 hours. Both kids are napping right now, where hopefully they will stay for a LONG time!
Croup is a 3 day virus. It is worse at night. We have another dose of steroids to give her in the morning. I pray that tonight is not as bad as last night!

Here is a sampling of what we have been up to this week:

Unfortunatly I hardly took any pictures of our big party. There were 27 of us total. We all crammed in our house and ate, laughed, reminisced and had fun. I was too busy cramming pizza, ice cream, and cookies in my mouth, as well as making sure my kids didn't bite anyone or steal anyone's toys to take too many pictures.

This morning my brother Zak and his friend Hailey invited me and the kids to go to Cowabunga Bay Water Park. Zak works there, as a life guard. The kids had so much fun! We swam around the lazy river for a long time, and played with water toys in the pool. We ate lunch then went on waterslides. At first they were a little scared, but after we went down them once they wanted to go again and again and again. They passed out in the car on the way home, and I put their sleeping bodies in bed where they have been napping peacefully for a few hours. Nothing like playing in the water and sun to really wear you out! 
We are having a bunch of family over tonight for a pizza party. Pictures of that to come later!

Jaxon was referred to Early Intervention to help him with his speech. He is a little behind and we want to give him the extra boost he needs now so he will be ahead of the game. I would hate for him to struggle, and I know it is best to catch things like this at an early age so he can get the extra help he needs.
We had our first appointment last week. A really cute girl came over to our house and got right down on the floor with him and he warmed right up to her. She had to evaluate him on a few different areas so we could see where he needed any help, and to see if he would qualify for the Early Intervention program. 
On Gross Motor skills (Balance, kicking a ball, throwing, strength) he topped the charts. No surprise there! Even our Dr says he has never seen such strength in a kid his size before. The only kids who scored higher than Jaxon in this area are Ninjas. Jaxon is like a snake, he is one big muscle.
On fine motor skills such as feeding himself with a spoon, coordinating drinking out of a cup without spilling, working with his fingers.. he got 63 percentile. He still needs a little work here, and I have been practicing with him a lot on this. Makes for some big messes, but we are working on it.
Receptive language he got an 84%. This is how well he understands tasks.. like "go throw this in the trash, bring me your shoe, pick up that toy and bring it to me." He understands what we are saying perfectly.
Other areas such as self help (putting his shoes on, helping put his clothes on) and social emotional expression, and cognitive(learning tasks) he got within the normal range.
The only thing he scored low on was expressive language. He is in the 5%. Because of this, we qualified for the EI services and will have someone who will come out to our home once a month, or once every few weeks to work with Jaxon.
I really think a lot of Jaxons temper tantrums, biting, frustrations stem from not being able to express himself with words. He gets frustrated and acts out. I am really excited for this. I think he will pick it up so fast. He is such a smart kid and has already had a explosion of new words this last week. And has been a much happier child because of it. I can see how excited he gets when he says "open, off, up, down, please etc" and I understand him. Before he would just whine and point.  Hopefully this will give him the jump start he needs and he will be talking up a storm in no time. It is so awesome that they will come out to our house for this too!
Joss is a little jabber-box. Girls usually talk before boys anyway. They say with twins usually one will speak more than the other. What is the point of Jaxon needing to talk if Joss says "cookie please?" and I hand them both one? Or she will say "outside?" and I will take them both to the park. I am paying more attention to it now, and make sure they both ask for things, and both say please before I give in.

We went to Bonsai to celebrate Aunt Jenny's birthday on Wednesday. The kids loved watching the food be prepared at our table and ate with chopsticks for their first time. They loved it. Grammy was feeding Joss bites of her food, and all Joss wanted was the cabbage. It was so funny, She didn't even want the hot fudge sundae. Just cabbage and rice. Silly girl. They both ate a ton of food than ran around with their cousin Jase. Jase and Jaxon had a little face to face showdown, but they both backed down and hugged and kissed. Jase has a little crush on Joss and kept chasing her around hugging her. It was pretty dang cute! They are all 3 pretty much the same size. Jase came over yesterday to play with the kids while Jenny ran an errand. They had so much fun. Come back soon Jase!

While folding laundry for 2 freaking minutes I hear a loud shatter. Looks like Jaxon pushed the chair up against the counter, climbed up, and threw my oil and vinegar vases to their death. I grabbed them, and locked them in their room so I could sweep and mop the mess up. When I was done I entered their room to find that they had shared a TUBE of DESITIN for dinner. Joss looked like a freaking clown with her white painted diaper cream face mask on. Anyone else ever use their fingernail to scrape Desitin off the roof of their child's mouth? oh only me? ok then.
Now they are both securely strapped in their high chairs with a go-gurt until their father comes home! I am DONE cleaning up messes for the day.
Oh.. all of this after we had a sticker party and covered ourselves with stickers. Took me about 45 minutes to scrape stickers off of the tile and bookshelf and cupboards with my fingernails.

We took the kids to a new park. There is nothing cuter than a little brother and sister holding hands!

Today Joss fell down and bit her lip. It got really purple and swollen. I scooped her up and was rocking and cuddling her. Jason went and got the teddy bear ice pack. I guess we were making kind of a big deal about her because Jax got jealous. He walked over to the tile, bent down and bonked his head on the floor then ran back over to us fake crying and took her ice pack and put it on his head.
Jason and I were trying not to laugh because he obviously was wanting us to cuddle him too and give him attention. We picked him up and hugged him too and let him put the ice pack on his fake bump.
The dynamic of these two is so interesting. They are so smart, and know exactly what they are doing, and what it takes to get some special attention. It makes me want to be sure to spend one on one time with each child every day so they know they are special and get the individual attention they need.

Yesterday morning we woke up early, pulled the kids out of bed before they were even awake, got them dressed and drove to the park to meet Ninny and Papa to watch a big hot air balloon launch with lots of hot air balloons. Breakfast catered by Paradise Bakery. The balloon launch was scheduled for 8:00am. We got there at 8:04 and everyone was packing up and leaving. There were only 2 hot air balloons that showed up and by the time we got there they were gone! I was so bummed. We got back in the car and drove to Johannas kitchen for breakfast. We had been getting the kids so excited about the balloons, and felt so bad that we missed it so we took them to Dollar Tree and let them each pick out a balloon and a toy after breakfast.
Here are some pictures of breakfast with Ninny and Papa yesterday