Quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep

As I mentioned in my Halloween recap, our girls have been sick. Very sick.

Gracie got sick the Thursday before Halloween. By Monday, Ellie was sick too. A visit to the doctor confirmed they had Influenza A. Because they both received the seasonal flu vaccine, the doctor diagnosed it as H1N1 (a strain of Influenza A). We also found out Gracie had double ear infections.

By the end of the week, Ellie's fever was getting higher. Another doctor visit diagnosed an ear infection and pre-pneumonia for Ellie. By the middle of the following week, both girls seemed to be on the mend. Then Ellie got grumpy and started running a fever again and rubbing her ear. Back to the doctor: another ear infection and second round of antibiotics. Two days later, Ellie was much happier. Could we be done??

Nope. Gracie ran a low fever during the weekend. Then Sunday night it spiked, hitting 104.8 at its highest. Add two bouts of puking, a late night call to our wonderful pediatrician and two tepid baths to bring her fever down, and it was a long night!!

There was also a doctor visit and ear infection for me (Candice) in there. It has been a rough couple of weeks. In spite of it all, I was able to spend hours snuggling my girls. As I did, I often thought about these words:

Halloween Now, All Day

I am a little slow getting to Halloween on here, but there have been two very sick little girls in our house the past week. We did manage to get some Halloween fun in among the sick days. When I asked if she was feeling better on Halloween morning, Gracie simply answered, "We can go trick or treating." She wore her Halloween costume most of the day and started asking before lunch when we could go trick or treating. She finally just announced, "We can go trick or treating now, all day." We finally headed down to Springville to go trick or treating with cousins Parker and Xander (with a quick stop on the way to show off their costumes to Uncle Brian and Aunt Becka).

Our girls: Ariel and a butterfly


Our butterfly in action while Ariel waits for the real fun to start

They were all excited to get started, but we were glad to have the stroller. Our little trooper, Ariel, was ready to head "back to Parker's" long before the rest of the kids. She hung out in the stroller while Ellie continued to fill her bucket with candy.

We made a quick photo stop at the Jacobsons. Gracie was so excited to be able to trick or treat with Paige!

After trick or treating, Gracie was happy to get back to Parker's house, get her jammies on and snuggle on their couch to watch some TV. The rest of us finished off the evening with some yummy chili thanks to Jenn! And of course some candy.