Liam is Three and Fire Ant Invasion!

I know it has been way too long since my last post, I just don't spend much time on the computer these days!

So Liam turned three on July 17th....sniff sniff. He had a great little family birthday. It was wonderful to see him in the spot light all day. He was so excited and thankful for his presents and he sang with us when we sang him 'Happy Birthday'. He has such an adorable personality and we are so so so proud of him.

Three fingers are hard to hold up!

We filled up their sandbox and thanks to all the Aunties for the toys. They love them!

Big boy bike. He loves it and feels so special getting to ride like Landon.

Sweet Birthday Boy.

One of Lyndi's creations. It's so nice to have a cake-maker in the family!

(Klaire on the right)

We are starting a few chores around here and the boys are doing great!

Kevin and I probably hated fire ants more than anyone else in the world last week. It all started with a couple bites on the boys. We chalked it up to playing outside. Then the next day we found a few more bites on them, so we investigated and found 8 or 10 by Landon's bed. So we moved his bed and sprayed and called our exterminators. They came out and sprayed the boys room thoroughly and the exterior of our house. That night Kevin heard Kallie crying and so he went in calmed her down and patted her back to sleep. A few minutes later she was hysterical again so I told Kevin to bring her out to me and I would rock her for a while. He hands her to me and I immediately (we were not in very good light) notice that her face is all red, there is blood on her eye lid, and she looks like she has a black eye. So I jump up and we turn on all the lights and with in moments we both realize it is fire ant bites. ALL OVER HER. Her eye is swelling because she got bit so many times on it and she got so mad that she scratched it and made it bleed. Kevin runs in and grabs Klaire, who is sound asleep, and checks her and she appears to be unharmed. He turns on the light and finds Kallie's crib just crawling with them. Meanwhile, I am getting hysterical and anyone who knows me well, knows that things like this REALLY upset me. I felt so terrible and so scared b/c my dad is HIGHLY allergic to fire ants and she has never been bit before so I don't know how she will react and her eye is so swollen. Kevin and I felt like we were going to vomitt we were so upset. So I call our pedatrician and manage to articulate the situation in-between my sobbing. She assures me that Kallie's respiratory system would have already been affected if she was highly allergic and that we should just give her liquid benadryl and put some soothing topical cream on all of her bites, except the ones by and on her eye. So we do all that and put Klaire in the pack-in-play by our bed and Kallie won herself a night right next to me. I hardly slept a wink because I felt so bad for her. She ended up with at least 30 bites. We had the exterminators back out first thing the next morning and they sprayed every inch of our house and 'dusted in the walls'. They were nesting in the walls and coming out through our outlets. We baited the kids rooms for two nights to make sure they were gone and found nothing. I have killed a couple stragglers, but we think they are gone and the girls have returned to the nursery.

The girls are seven months now. Klaire has one tooth, Kallie is about to get one any day now. They are both about to be very mobile, Kallie has taken a step or two crawling. She mostly gets up on all fours and rocks back forth and grunts in frustration. She will also push up into a bear crawl position (up on her toes rather than knees). She seems to be the more hyper of the two, you ought to see her in the bath tub....she is a wild-woman!!! Klaire is MUCH better at taking a bottle, but Kallie is a little more content to play on her own for longer periods of time. We love watching their personalities emerge, they are getting so interactive and interested in life!

We leave for Canada for Drew's Memorial tomorrow. If you would like to know more about it you can visit the website at:

www.adayfordrew.com