Shingles

We have a talent in our family of contracting strange illnesses and diseases. Will is no exception. 

On Tuesday Stephen noticed a rash on Will's left leg while changing his diaper. We both looked at the rash, decided it was eczema, we put some eczema cream on it and went on our way. On Wednesday I noticed that the rash had spread to more parts of his leg and it was not getting better. I put some anti-itch cream and some of my impetigo medicine on it and hoped it would get better. On Thursday, the rash was even worse and Will was crying and just not acting like himself, so Stephen and I decided it was time to visit the doctor.

Four different doctors came in to see his rash and decide what it was. It was decided that the rash was shingles, apparently shingles generally travels along only one nerve line and Will had it across 3 so it was tricky to diagnose. 

We left the doctor's office with some anti-viral medicine and the instructions to keep Will inside away from other because shingles is super contagious until it scabs over. 

Since then we've hung out in jammies for the last few days, watched Cars 15 times, Thomas and Friends 10 times, and Will has knocked on the front door and said "play outside, fun!" 12 times, but who's counting. He's actually been a trooper through it all. He does come up to me, pat his leg and say, "ouch-y, leg, ouch-y." It breaks my heart a little.

His shingles are scabbing over so we might hazard a trip out to the grocery store today, as long as Will wears pants and keeps away from other kids.

 As always, Will is cool as a cucumber through most painful things. I love this little boy!

P.S. The doctor said that in rare cases the chicken pox vaccine can cause shingles in children. Also that when they get shingles once, they'll get it on and off for the rest of their lives, kind of like cold sores, it hides out in your spinal cord. I think I'd rather have the rest of my kids get chicken pox instead on the vaccine because we've proven that in our family, we are rare cases.

Silly Will

Since Will has started sleeping in his toddler bed, he plays a little before actually going to sleep. Tonight when I went to check on him, this is what I found. He was just too tired to get all the way into bed.

I love my little silly Will!

Family Fun and a Little Bit of Ice

Last week both Stephen and I had family come into town. My younger brother, Cameron, came Sunday night to go to EFY at BYU and my little sister, Anne, came up to hang out with us for the week. 

Anne and I are very similar in that we love dolls and love to do artsy stuff. We had fun making ruffle tote bags and painting. Yes, I said painting. I'm not an incredible artist, not even a good one, but I love painting on canvas. there is something magical about a canvas that makes me a better artist and transports me back to childhood when I didn't know anything about art and just painted however I wanted to. Anyway, we also went to Seven Peaks (a local water park) and splashed around in the kiddie pool with our quad friends.

Anne loves Will and Will loves Anne. They have such an amazing time together!

 All our little quad friends loved Anne.

 This is our friend, Oliver, he's often featured in my posts. I'm good friends with his mom, Liesl, so we see them quite often. Also he's just so darn cute, I can't help but take pictures of him.

 This is Will's beautiful friend Maddie. Her family moved away this morning. I'm very sad.

I can not believe how grown up Anne has gotten. She's 16 years younger then me and when she was a baby, people used to tell me how cute my baby was, which was slightly mortifying to my 16 year old self but now I just look back on it and chuckle. What a difference a few years make, huh?

Anne is a great pal now and an even better helper with Will. I'm glad we got to spend time together.

Funnily enough, Stephen's niece, Sabrina, came up for the same session of EFY as Cam.  Stephen's brother, David, and his family came down from Idaho to pick her up and we got to hang with them for a few days.

On Thursday, it was Stephen's niece, Summer's, birthday. We celebrated with them by going to the park and playing.

Stephen and his newest nephew, Joseph.

 This is Wendy, Stephen's sister, and her son, baby Joseph.

 Will had a grand time but was SO tired.

We also had an improvised BBQ (improvised meaning that it was raining outside so we cooked all the food inside and watched a movie. I wish I had taken pictures of that. I was just having too much fun.

My dad came up on Saturday to pick up Cam and Anne. We only saw him for a day but I loved having him around. Will ADORES him and I love seeing them together.

On Sunday everyone came to church and then it was time for good-byes. My least favorite part. 

It was great fun to see all our family!

On a completely different and slightly humorous note. On Wednesday our window air conditioner wasn't working well and Stephen removed the filter to see if something was blocking. Boy was there something blocking the air filter. ICE. That's right, a build up of ice had formed on our cooling coils. Ice in 90-100 degree weather, really?

A New Blog Address

So our other blog ran out of picture space and we don't have the funds to pay for more so I decided to make another.