The good, the bad, and the gross

(Natalie here) Well it has been quite a crazy last few weeks here on quiet Oakwood Lane. The month started off really great. First, the Furni Family came up for a visit over Columbus Day weekend. My parents (Baba and Grumpy) took Ella pumpkin picking and Ella just LOVED playing her harmonica with her grandpa during the hayride and then later carving her pumpkin with Baba. She also had a lot of fun with Great-Grandpa Warner who has never visited our home before and turned out to be rather proficient at play-dough sculpting and story telling.


October wrapped up with more fun--a birthday party for mommy (can you believe I am 29? Yikes!) and a Halloween party for all the neighborhood kids the next day. Although I couldn't for the life of me tell you why I agreed to the Halloween party (too much money, stress, and energy), Ella had a great time and the whole Dennison family pulled together to host a great event. Also, God reaffirmed to me that it is Thomas, not I, who has a gift with other people's children. Really, he is so amazing with a room full of kids--I have no idea how he does it!


Of course, we also had the requisite trick-or-treating that evening. Ella dressed up as a princess fairy cat (her own creation) and Sam was a baby monster. Ella is such a funny girl; I had to practically drag her to go visit the houses and gather candy as she would much rather stay home and pass it out. I think this means she gets too much candy at home, but I prefer to think it is because she is such a giver.
















November turned out to be not so much fun though. The worst thing that happened was that Kathy had to have emergency surgery to have her appendix removed. She is so tough--she still tried to take the girls for the day, but as astute as I am, I determined that her being doubled over in pain indicated she should stay in bed. Thankfully, Pops was able to convince her to go to the ER and they pulled her appendix out ASAP. They are not sure it if burst, but there was a lot of puss in her abdominal wall and her white blood cell counts were very high. We are all very thankful that it was removed before she got sicker.

There is never a good time to have appendicitis, but this was especially unfortunate timing since Pops is still recovering from his back surgery and still wasn't cleared to drive or lift more than 10 pounds. Also, we were all planning on going on a mini-break to Deep Creek, Maryland that weekend and the cabin rental was already paid and non-refundable. In true Dennison fashion, though,the family pulled together, figured out the care for not only Kathy, but Sam and Ella as well since Kathy watches them during the day. We even managed to get up to Deep Creek on time and ended up having a great weekend (except for Aunt Jen puking in the back of my van on the ride up--that's where the gross comes in).

I was hoping things were finally settling down this week, but boy was I wrong. I was crazy sick yesterday with what I can only describe as a 24 hr e-coli bug. Thomas is in bed sick as I type and I just got back from Sam's pediatrician--turns out Sam has a double ear infection and a burst ear-drum in her left ear. Poor baby!

Here's hoping the rest of November turns out to be less eventful!

(p.s. Now you know why I never update the posts; clearly brevity is not my strong point.)