Sock Snowman Sensation Sweeping the Nation

Harley is getting a little cabin fever. Who are we kidding, I am climbing the walls. She seems perfectly content with her life of solitude.  We decided to do something crafty to pass our time. Obviously something that didn't require a trip to Michael's.  We saw these cute little snowmen on Facebook, Pinterest, other blogs, everywhere,  and decided to try one of our own.  For directions visit HANDIMANIA!  

It took her about 30 seconds to name the snowman buttons and then express that he needed a little GLAMMED-up.  So, we made a flower for Button's snow hat.

 

This Kid

Every family's got one kid, or in my case two or three,  who is just a little unique, slightly left of center, beats to their own drum, thinks outside the box.  This kid, Atley, might win the prize in our family.  While Nash spent his Winter break playing video games, Atley went from one project to another.  His mind constantly thinking and creating and building something new and usually something messy.  If he wasn't studying a map and recreating it from memory, or washing and tumbling his rocks, he was building cities all over the house, complete with tiny road signs and bridges made from tooth picks and safety pins, reusing every scrap of card board and paper he could scavenger from our trash.  

 

 He also created an indoor scooter track for him and his brother and sister.  Every corner had warning signs. Notice the sign for DISCOUNT DOG. We are beginning to think perhaps our dog was at a discounted price for a reason. Let's just say she isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. She's definitely one bean shy of a burrito and an egg short of a dozen.

After telling him how beautiful it was to watch snow fall outside your window, this Kid did this, all over our front window.

His snowflakes are beautiful and unique just like him.  While, the constant messes are sometimes exhausting, I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world. I love him to pieces.

Harley's Hospital Happenings

Saturday morning Harley started throwing up. She did it a couple of times and then after only a few hours of sickness, she was totally back to her normal self-playing, talking non-stop, even asking for popcorn and Mountain Dew. We were all astonished by how quickly she recovered from what seemed like a stomach bug.  Little did we know that this was just a prelude to the big show. When we woke up for church on Sunday she looked pale and seemed unusually tired. I decided to stay home with her.  She soon began vomiting again. I also noticed she seemed a little congested.  She was also complaining of a headache and running a low grade fever. I attempted to give her some Ibuprofen but she would just vomit before it had time to help her. She began coughing which exacerbated the vomiting.  Soon her fever was 103.8 and rising. She was miserable, lethargic and the sickest I have ever seen her.  She wouldn't move or talk. She just lay there moaning softly with her eyes closed sucking her thumb.

There is nothing worse than having a sick child.  You feel completely helpless. Harley has an extremely high pain tolerance so, when she started crying because of the pain in her head, I got really nervous. She was dehydrated and her fever was almost at 104 degrees.  Then she started making no- sense.  It was like she was no longer speaking English.  She just blabbered and cried and didn't have the energy to stand up or even roll over. I took her to the emergency room.  It was so packed full of sick people-mostly children I was astonished.  In all of the boys' adventures I have never seen the ER so incredibly busy.  Harley was in a great deal of pain and her delirium was getting worse. On the car ride she kept screaming about worms in the apples. I was in a huge line to check in, beginning to panic, when two women, approached me. Both knew my name and said they knew me from church, from a ward I had not lived in for almost six years. I didn't recognize them but I am certain they helped me jump ahead in the line because we were called back quickly and seen by a doctor in less than 30 minutes. They were my guardian angels that night. When I went back to thank them for their help, I wasn't able to find them again. It was certainly one of the Lord's tender mercies, that they were there. At this point, Harley was completely out of it! She was having hallucinations or something because she started yelling, "That damn doctor keeps asking me if I'm a Catholic.  I'm a Mormon.  Tell him to leave me alone."  She just kept screaming it over and over totally inconsolable.  Looking back now, it was pretty hilarious. I caught a glimpse of what she might be like in the old-folks-home 100 years from now. Long story short, after a bag of IV fluids and some sort of cocktail that reduced her fever, and something for the nausea, she started making sense again and feeling better. In fact, she felt so much better that she snapped at a nurse who tried to put her in a hospital gown.  She colorfully expressed that the gown was "OBVIOUSLY not her style."  She tested positive for two strains of the flu and will be out of commission for at least 7 days, but she is home now and feeling stronger by the minute. By the way, the doctor expressed that hallucinations are often associated with a high fever. Thank goodness she isn't a whack job-YET!