Home Sweet Home

Oh, how sweet it is!
We were able to put up our Christmas tree on the day after Thanksgiving. Gage and Ryan sure have enjoyed the Lionell Christmas train that their grandparents bought!

Ryan's glad to be home!

Fuzzy picture but HOW cute are all my boys???

Ryan and Gage in complete and utter amazement!

Gage is happy to be home too...

Me and the boys...

Ryan's Trip to Sacred Heart Children's Hospital

...What a scary time for our family! Ryan spent 7 days at SHCH this month. He was diagnosed with CMV, a virus in the mono family. The virus is common but manifested itself worse than average in Ryan.

In case any of you have to deal with this virus, these were his symptoms in order of appearance : rash (esp. behind the knees and elbows), fever, ear infection, wouldn't sleep through the night, vomitting once daily, chills, swollen eye lids, distended stomach. These symptoms all transpired over the course of three months! We thought it was "just that time of year" but obviously something worse was going on.

It's through the grace of God that we are able to tackle these scary times. Thank you all for your continued prayers and support. He truly answers prayer!

Thank goodness for digital cameras! I took this photo the day I took Ryan to the ER and was able to show the ER doc exactly how Ryan looked when he first got up from his nap. You can see how swollen his face is- especially his cheeks and eye lids:

This is on Halloween- see his cheeks? Totally swollen.

This is a bad picture, but you can see how distended Ryan's stomach was- super tight and very big. The ER doc said it was 'normal'. We won't be taking him back there again.

JD and I took turns sleeping with Ryan/sleeping on the couch.

The ER doc bought Ryan a front-loader. As you can see, even with his favorite tractor in hand, he's just not himself ;(

Ryan was so excited about getting balloons that he wouldn't let them go... :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Happy Halloween everyone!!! I took these photos of Gage yesterday on our deck. He is playing (okay, eating) an oak leaf from our "mighty oak tree". I preserved the leaf and plan to use it on a scrapbook page someday...

..little Ryanie Pie...

What do you see in there Ryan?

..."seeds".


mom carves with a knife...

dad carves with a drill...

Hope your Halloween is FUN!

Special Gifts

Grandma Gayle made the boys some SUPER cute (and snuggly) fleece blankets. Gage got Tigger:
and Ryan got "Cars":

and as you can see, he's becoming quite the HAM these days. Must be a McElroy :)

It's that time of year...

It's that time of year again- cold and flu season! Nothing is more frustrating that coming down with a runny nose and cough. Ryan seems to be very suseptible to colds these days...probably has something to do with starting preschool :) Check out the photo below: perfectly healthy kid, right? This photo was taken 10 minutes before...fever, chills, throwing up...the works.

What I do for a Living:

I teach middle school and some people say that middle school teachers are "cat herders". Check out what I do for a living:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Pk7yqlTMvp8

JD's Building Projects

One thing is for sure- being a homeowner is a lot of fun! JD has discovered his talent for building: He built our fire mantle and hearth- along with the box for it on the outside of our house, built our fence, a play structure for Ryan, and a pergolla- complete with a sun shade and Christmas lights (mood lighting for outdoor dining). Check out what he's done:

The BEFORE picture of Ryan's play structure:
...and AFTER:

the pergolla:

See the sun shade? Neat, huh? And if you look really closely, you can see the Christmas lights too. That mop of a plant is called "Silver Lace". It grows 12 feet per year!