Merry Christmas (late) to you and yours!

Sooooo, that little boy on the left? The cute one with the sweater vest on? He's trouble. And he's trying to surpass his brother's hospital and doctor visits at the ripe old age of 14 months. At the rate they are both going, I'm never going to pick out who's my favorite!!!!

So, I believe in my last post I mentioned that both boys had been ill, that we had been to the PCP and allergist with Rylan and to the ENT with Max and had scheduled surgery for Max to remove his adenoids. What, you may ask, was our December missing? An ER trip? Why yes, yes that is what it was missing.....Max (aka Evil Knivel) doesn't walk, he runs. And putting the door of the dishwasher is a sure bet that you'll get a visit from Max. On the exact day that I posted about Max and Rylan's health issues, Max ran into the kitchen and tripped, hitting the dishwasher and biting completly through his lip.  A few hour in the ER, 3 stitches, lots of tears (by him and me, I think maybe more from me? I was a hot mess) he was good as new and back to being crazy.  

You know when life is crazy and its better to laugh than cry? I find this conversation with the ER doctor funny.

Doc "Because the cut is so close to the mouth and all kids his age put gross stuff in their mouth, I'm going to prescribe an antibiotic."

Me: "Actually, he's already on Augmentin for double ear infections."

Doc: "well, that'll cover him. You need to make an appointment in the morning to have these stitches removed in 5 days."

Me: "Actually, in 5 days, he's having his adenoids removed and maybe the doctor can remove the stitches while he's under anesthesia?"

Doc: "Well, you've got all your bases covered, don't you?"

Oi vay.

Well, Max reported to surgery. He was issued his cuter than normal yellow surgery pj's and he set out to make a new batch of girlfriends. It was hard for him to be sad about not eating or drinking when various women were taking him on trips down the hall to visit. He was most interested in pushing the nurse call button running around the bed and trying to find a new spot for some stitches. 

Cuteness

Closeness of stitches

Santa came for a visit, he wasn't impressed, he wanted him to see this dog that's in his Brown Bear Brown Bear book.

The surgery went awesome. He did great, had a little trouble with anesthesia because of his reactive airway, but luckily my crazy self had requested the Head of Anesthesia to be his anesthesiologist. He was a crazy person when we came to see him in post op, but finally settled down, and once they took out his IV, he was ready to go. We were prepared to feed him applesauce and milk, but he downed 3 biscuits and several nurtrigrain bars within hours of surgery.

Drugged

"get this flipping thing out of my arm and we can go the heck home, MOM"

Later that day, still a little stoned, but feeling fly

Then on to Mountain Home for some Christmas craziness on my side

Ry got an art easel, Max was a fan of the box

Really loved the box

And his new dog blankie

Rylan;s new tent

Post unwrapping bath using new bath toys, a must

"decorating cookies" with Grammy, And by decorate, I mean eat a bowl of frosting

Zoe's present, a dog named Millie

And then, the present opening celebration at Rob's parents'

An ugly doll, literally, that's what he's called!

After we stuffed our bellies with deliciousness, we decided to take a pic with all the cousins, wearing their Lyon college tshirts they received for Christmas (Grandpa works at Lyon college). This involved waking Max from a nap, which sound mean, but we needed to get in the car and leave and we were hoping that Max might sleep in the car. He wasn't happy about being awake.

Still angry

More angry, look at Marley posing in the back

Not sure about this pose, Rylan. nicely done, Marley

And then the happy cousins decided to meet

\\

Totally cute, may the peace be with you, Max

We had a lovely weekend at my parents house and traveled to Rob's parents' house on Monday for some more gift opening festivities. We are truly blessed and look forward to what 2012 has for this family.

Earn some gift cards AND help a sister out!

Have you ever noticed the link on the left side of the blog for Swagbucks? There are lots of scam programs out there promising all sorts of things, but Swag Bucks is one of the few programs I've found that really works.

If you're unfamiliar with Swag Bucks,basically it's a search engine that randomly rewards you with points just for doing online searches, taking surveys, or printing coupons. Seriously, that's all there is to it.I mostly use swagbucks as a search engine and to print off coupons. You randomly get rewarded swagbucks for your searches (I earn about 10-30 a day) and every time you redeem a coupon that you printed off of swagbuck's website, you earn 10 swagbucks. These add up, and when you get enough swagbucks, you can order gift cards. My favorite are amazon gift cards. I recently paid $5 for a box of 204 diapers for Max. Because I had $15 in amazon gift cards that I got from earning swagbucks.

So, Swagbucks is offereing a 70-point bonus when you sign up for a new Swagbucks account and use promo code HOLIDAYSWAG. This promo code is only good for new sign-ups and must be used when signing up to get the free points. You’ll also get an additional 30 points when you sign up, so altogether you’ll start out with 100 points. Not too shabby!

Anyway, if you want to sign up, help a sister out and click on my link on the side of the blog or anywhere on this post where Swagbucks is highlighted and I get a little credit for you being my friend!

I have used this for a full 2 years before I felt comfortable putting a link to it on my blog. It really has helped us through the last two years. Not by making me tons and tons of money, like many online places offer, but by giving us little help here and there. I stock the cards up and save them for birthdays, Christmas, or just because.  You can buy so many things off Amazon, and having $5 giftcards here and there, its just nice. I started buying bulk items like diapers and deodorant on Amazon, using these giftcards to help, and we've noticed a major difference in our grocery bills. A few times I have chosen a Restaurant.com giftcard and we've enjoyed a nice meal for a quarter of what we would have paid.

October and November in December part 4: Rylan turns 3

Its been a month and I still cannot believe Rylan is 3. And, it seems like the minute he turned 3 he suddenly started spouting off all kinds of new phrases and understanding so much more.

He loves to read the ABC book by Dr. Seuss. He is seriously into any Cars paraphenelia. He got to go see the new Muppet movie recently and he wants to talk about Termit and Ms. Titty alot. And some guy named Walter. Apparently there is a new Muppet named Walter. He won Ry's heart. He has become a huge fan of almonds and fruit snacks, and chicken nuggets. He misses Max when Max isn't with us or while he's sleeping, then the minute Max is back, he's ready for him to leave again.

When your kid starts talking, there are little things they say wrong, that you are sad when they go away and your kid starts saying it right. Like, when we first named Max. Rylan called him Maksh. And his friend Harper? He called her Harpert.

Right now, Rylan calls going #1, going "he pee." And he likes to make a palate on the "poor" and watch tv. He still calls a drink a "nurch", and he enjoys "ticken nuddets" and "pied rice."

For his birthday, we were in Fayetteville, so he got to share his birthday party with his cousin Zoe, who has a birthday 2 days before his. We had it at a bounce house place called Boingo Bounce. It was seriously fun. The kids ran and ran and ran. And then ate cake and drank juice and then they all passed out.

Awesome awesome cake

I love the way kids get so mesmerized by a candle lit cake. They lit 5 candles for Zoe, which she took care of immediately, but there was a lot of suspense for Rylan's 3 candles.

Rylan getting some help from his cousin Marley

Max getting help from his aunt Staci

My new favorite shirt of Rylan's

He looks a little bored with that hug

I wasn't supposed to be jumping due to ankle injury. The next physical therapy appt, the therapist was noting that it was swollen in all new places. Whoopsie. Oh well.

Debbie and Justin got to come too!!! Love them!

Rylan's Grammy, Poppa, and aunt Tammy