Trip to El Salvador

Kirk went to El Salvador this past week for a conference. He had a nice time, though he always misses us when he is away--or wishes I were there with him traveling. He got to see an Anthropology Museum, where they had displays of different artifacts.
This is one of the neat toys he saw in the museum. The boys loved this dog on wheels.
They also had displays about all the various products from El Salvador. This display shows the cacao beans and the various chocolate bars they produced. He brought back some chocolate and it was pretty good--not European chocolate, but better than most of the chocolate candy you get in Latin America.
He visited the main cathedral in San Salvador.
And he also went to the chapel where Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated in 1980 while he was celebrating mass.
At home
While Kirk was gone, I took care of sick children and cleaned the house. I also made a dress for Lucy.
The bodice is covered in pintucks.
It took me a very long time to do all the pintucks and then I cut out the bodice and sewed the dress.
We are very glad Kirk is back safely.

Fevers and flu update

According to the doctor, we probably do not have H1N1, though all the symptoms are similar. It is a "para-influenza," which I interpret as "some virus that is like a flu, but the doctor hasn't run a specific test so we don't know which one." Andrew's fever seems to be going down now on Day 5. Edward's fever was near 105 in the night, but today he seems to be doing a bit better (he's on Day 4). Lucy is pretty happy for being a sick girl (Day 3). She threw up all over herself and me this morning, but we managed to keep it all on ourselves and not on the chair. We clean much more easily than an upholstered chair. I started feeling better after the blessing on Monday. So far, Kirk hasn't shown any symptoms of any illness.

I am happy that no one had a croup attack during the night. I was running three humidifiers, one in each room, in an attempt to ward off croup. The one good thing about the trip to the doctor's office was that they, unexpectedly, had some flu vaccines. Andrew got both the seasonal and H1N1, while Edward and Lucy got the H1N1. We will keep checking back at the doctor's office to see when they have more seasonal flu shots.

November (finally!)

October was a hard month. However, we have higher hopes for November. Lucy is a cute girl, even though she is starting her "2s" pretty early, i.e., hysterical screams if she is told "no" or doesn't get her own way.
She likes to play with shoes, though mostly my shoes and those of her brothers.
Edward is busy with Edward things. Right now he is going through his "Peter and the Wolf" stage. This is where he listens to the CD (Prokofiev, not Disney, version) all day every day. I think Andrew did this two or three years ago because they dressed up as Peter and the bird for Halloween. The other day, while we were listening to the CD, Andrew asked, "What's a 'dar force'?" It took me a minute, but then I told him that the narrator, Sean Connery, was from England and was trying to say, "dark forest," as in the wolf comes out of the dark forest.
Andrew made some puppets a while ago. Here he is showing off his Darth Vader and his Obe-Wan Kenobi puppets with their light sabers and everything. He did them all by himself--ideas and execution.
Andrew loves kindergarten. This past week we went to the Halloween Parade at the school. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't 200+ parents and grandparents crammed in a gym to see their children in costume parade past. Andrew is next to his teacher, who is dressed as a witch.
I found out from his teacher that he had been telling everyone at school that he was going as a "map." It was a good thing I figured out a "map" costume for him (pajamas with maps sewed on them).
I even made a cape and put maps on that as well. He was thrilled.
All the children loved their costumes. Edward wanted to be a superhero, so he got, you guessed it, pajamas with an "E" (for Edward) and a cape. I'm glad Becky suggested using a pajama pattern for every possible costume. Lucy was a princess/ballerina/cute baby. The boys were playing one of their games and they made her be the "military princess." I guess they were "military people" fighting some war and she was the princess in the story.
We also carved pumpkins (a mad face, Darth Vader, and a happy face). The boys chose the pumpkins and the faces for them. Kirk and I got to carve them. I even tried making some donuts, and they turned out OK.