Happy Halloween

Iowa is odd.

We don't trick or treat on Halloween. Instead we do it the night before on Hallows Eve.

So last night was the big night.

Tom and I actually dressed up.

Shocking.

And Caleb once had a cute little nose and whiskers, but he took care of that on the car ride over to the Greenwood's (a wonderful couple in our ward who invited us over for dinner and trick or treating fun in their neighborhood).

The crazy Halloweeners!

Left to right: Hannah, Jens, Suzie, Collin, Talin, Jack & Ian.

And I had to put in Elizabeth's big butt.

She's been dieting for years, to no avail.

The Little Families

Starting with us.

Being a Jedi really brings out Talin's wild side. And Collin was more or less channeling Flash from The Incredibles. He ran from house to house with super speed. While Talin was the last one collecting candy at each home because he stayed back with the little ones to make sure they made it to the door to collect as well. So tender... so opposite of his brother!

The Bishops

The Greenwood's are Elizabeth's parents, they are the neatest, funnest family.

Todd, Jack, Ian, Jens & Elizabeth

The Squires Family

They are our kindred spirits hailing from AZ as well.

Betsy, Hannah, Chad & Suzie

Going through the goods after a long night of hard work.

Apparently Tom found something good!

October Picture Overload

I picked Talin up from school yesterday and he happily jumped in the car with news to share.
"My teacher came up to me this morning and said she was sorry I was sick yesterday, and I told her that I wasn't sick, my mom kept me home from school so that we could carve pumpkins together, she said okay...."
Should I care if Talin's first grade teacher is judging my parenting skills? Probably not. But I did throw in the towel on Tuesday and kept everyone home to watch movies and carve pumpkins. A lovely day of truancy.

On Saturday we did this-

Robin and my little Jedi dressed up and we took them to the Science Center for some Halloween fun.

Talin was tempted by the dark side...

He'd rather fight than join your dark cause!

Caleb turned into a devil for the afternoon.

He played his role to perfection!

Just kidding, the babe never makes a peep.

This picture is for my sisters.

They understand.

That night Caleb was put into a box. Apparently he can sit up if he's sitting in a box. It's one step closer to that milestone.

And I don't think I've recently documented the latest weight gain.

Can you see the chubby cheeks?

7 months and 13 pounds 10 ounces.

The carved pumpkins.

All three were dug out and carved within an hour.

I know, I'm a rock star.

An efficient rock star.

Can you guess who was who's?

I love the smell of the pumpkins when they're lit.

Thanks to Elder and Sister Hoopes, a missionary couple in our ward who took the boys out to a pumpkin patch when Caleb was in the hospital. They let the boys pick out a pumpkin, they are so sweet to my babies.

Front Porch Posing

If you didn't guess the owners of each pumpkins, now you know.

The wild men.

Oh how I wish I had a super fabulous camera. Some day...

Collin came in the house in tears.
"I didn't get a picture by myself with the pumpkins!"

Okay, superstar...strike a pose!

Everything must be equal.

We were unfortunately losing our light at this point.

So Far This Week...

First lesson taught in Relief Society, EVER

an 8 Year Anniversary Celebrated

a day of truancy allowed for the boys

three pumpkins carved

eight loads of laundry done

one Enrichment meeting

one nasty migraine

six baths for Caleb

one doctor's visit

four phone calls with nurses & doctors

two nasty swollen tonsils with crusty's on them

one more dose of medicine for Caleb (which makes it six twice a day)

one g-tube still not completely healed

four prescriptions from Walgreens picked up

Halloween candy bought-only some eaten

four plates of Halloween cookies delivered

Is it really only Wednesday Morning???

Fed Up

Just a few things I'm fed up with today,

in no particular order.

Attitude

Poison Ivy

Gender Confusion

Drip Feeding

Responsibilities

Fall Temptations

Home

You would look this way too if you spent three hours last night crying and fighting bed time.

Unfortunately being home hasn't been the easy break I thought it would be.
I've been spending time readjusting the schedule of three little boys who were aloud to do things like sleep for four days straight (in Caleb's case), stay up until eleven watching movies and play in the dirt all day without bathing or napping.
Back to real life this week, and it hasn't been easy for anyone here.

Here are some hospital highlights:

The good times-playing with the many cords attached to his body.

The bad times-having a new IV put in.

Seeing big brothers for the first time on Thursday.
Collin & Tom & Caleb.
Caleb & Talin.

Two big boys insisting on holding the little one.
No fear.
They totally handled it well, tubing and all.
Tubes coming out of bodies don't seem to phase even the youngest of us Chambers.

A gentle reminder to Collin to "watch out for his owie", made him reconsider if he really wanted to hold Caleb any longer.

So Talin took over.

And Caleb enjoyed being read to.

We were released on Saturday and Caleb has been doing okay since then.

He is a little uncomfortable still and healing up, but it gets a little better each day.

This has been our "break-in surgery".

By the time we're all emotionally and physically recovered from this "small" operation and hospital stay, we'll be ready for the big heart surgery at the end of November.

Is it really only a month away??

******

On Sunday we went on safari after church.

Talin loves Africa but constantly refers to it as African. I've tried to explain the difference between the two words to him, but it hasn't sunk in yet.

So on our safari we found African leaves,

an African dog,

an African dirty diaper on an African front porch,

which we threw away in the African trash can,

and you get the picture...

But the most exciting find was-

the African insect.

This little guy got his own photo shoot for like half an hour.

We're glad to be home.

12:00 P.M.

Surgery was a success!
So, we have our baby back! He looks absolutely thrilled to be alive. I guess he wasn't very happy so they gave him some drugs to calm him down and put him to sleep. In case you were wondering, that is a thermometer on his forehead. Just in case anyone was wondering what his temperature was. I guess there is problems with post-op patients getting too cold.

I personally think that this is the most precious boy in the world.

They only ended up making two incisions. One was in his belly button where you see the red, and the other was, obviously, where the big tube is coming out. I guess that we will get accustomed to that.
Please continue to keep us in your prayers.
We will continue to keep you posted on the upcoming situations.

9:00 A.M

They took our baby after being at the hospital since 7:15 the morning. It was so difficult to let him go. As you can see, he is the most beautiful baby in the world. Especially without his nose tube in.

Here is Caleb first thing this morning after we took the nose tube out. So Cute!

Here is our family right before we dropped the kids off so we could go to the hospital

Here is our cute little "BOY"! Yes, believe it or not he is a boy. Despite what every nurse and doctor thought he was. It was even worse when he had his hearing aid head band. We can not believe how big he is getting!

How cute are these two boys together.

Here is the mean nurse that stole our baby from us. She was actually nice but she stole our baby.

We will try to keep everyone posted on the updates throughout the day.

Today was yours, even if you didn't want it.

7:00 am- You woke up today needing a bath from your regular morning puke.
8:00 am- We took your older brothers to school and then headed home to finish the morning routine.
Medicine.
Your tube is quite handy in administering it.

9:15- We arrived at Methodist Hospital and found radiology to get an upper GI for you. Here you are in the waiting room. All the adults love you, except the ones that decide to stare with that confused expression.

You don't smile at those ones.

Neither do I.

9:30- They had the best toys for you to play with while waiting for the radiologist, and you looked smokin in the peach nightgown.

It was a good time until they held you down for the x-rays.

You hate being held down.

After awhile you tired out and relaxed.

It didn't take long and everything looked great.

10:00- The nurse sent us up to Dr. Irish (a pediatric surgeon). He sat and talked to us about putting a g-tube into you. Your dad and I discussed the pros and cons of each one and decided on the mic key. We made that choice because it was the less painful to change out. It feels like the right choice for you.

We also decided to do the surgery this Wednesday. You'll be in the hospital for 3-4 days. They'll put you to sleep in the morning and make an incision into your belly button where a camera will go and direct them where to insert the mic key. Afterwards you'll get all your drinks through an IV for 48 hours until we can feed you with your new tube. I think you'll like it a lot, it won't be nearly as annoying as your nose tube is.

After our decision we noticed that your nose tube was pulled out quite a bit. So dad had to put it back in. You hated that and screamed until dad rocked you to sleep on his shoulder. You really like him, even though he's the one that puts the tube in.

11:45 - We went and picked up Collin from Lisa's house. You slept the whole way. You slept for a long time, cause we drove out to Sam's Club afterwards and you never woke up once, unless you opened up your left eye slightly to glare at me. Then I would take my finger and gently close it and you'd be back to sleep. It was an exhausting morning.

2:00 - Once we were home for a break you snuggled up with dad and Collin on the couch for a bit. I snuck away upstairs to play spider solitaire and contemplate the organization of babysitters I'll have to figure out for next week. I also just zoned out for a bit and thought of nothing. Sometimes your mom needs that.

2:55 - Break over I packed you back into your car seat, which is becoming your second home, and we drove to Methodist Hospital again to see Dr. Boonstra for your pre-op physical. He checked you out and gagged you while trying to look inside your mouth. You then spent the next five minutes gagging repeatedly and throwing up on all their rough little blankets they lent.

Then you were given a flu shot.

You hated that, and were so sad.

4:30 - Where did our day together go? Once home you helped me make dinner. I put on the sling and set you on my hip (thank goodness for big hips eh?).

5:15 - After dinner we helped Talin with his homework and practiced spelling words, and then we went through Collin's school book with him and talked about his classroom. Then dad had to leave for the night so you helped me bathe the big brothers. You laughed and giggled at their splashing until it got too loud and we had to take off your hearing aide.
You thought it was very exciting to watch me rub lotion all over Talin for his eczema. Unfortunately you have the same skin as your oldest brother and will have to endure nightly lotioning as well.

6:30 - You laid on the floor and rolled around your big brother's room as we read scriptures and said prayers.

7:00 - Then we read stories. That was your favorite part.

7:30 - And after hugging and kissing everyone goodnight with me, I took you in my arms and kissed on you for awhile. I think you needed extra loving after your long day.

And then I gave you your nightly dose of medicine.

7:45 - And after singing you your lullaby I laid you in your crib for the night.

Tomorrow we don't have one appointment to go to. Just you and me. I promise I'll only put you in the car seat three times, just to drop off your brothers, pick up Collin and pick up Talin. Then the four of us can spend the afternoon playing at the park and I'll put you in the baby swing with your backpack and you'll think you're a big boy. It's going to be great.