Happy birthday!?! (and Valentine's Day too!)

It's been quite a week or two! Last Wednesday, the day before his birthday, Joey saw the ear nose throat doctor for a check up. We thought everything was going well except he wasn't passing the hearing screenings at school and snores occasionally. He's able to hear at normal levels, but not at higher frequencies which may be why he is having some articulation problems. There has been fluid in his ears regularly and Dr. Abbott thinks that's why he's not hearing everything. So during spring break, Joey will have his third set of tubes put in and his tonsils removed to solve the snoring issue.
Wednesday night I was feeling some mommy guilt, I hadn't gone to Joe's appointment and had to work on his birthday. I whined to my sister that I thought I should call in sick since I'd never worked on Jon's birthday and had worked most of Joe's. About 5 minutes later, Joey woke up crying. He'd been sick all over his bed, so I did end up calling in sick but the clean up was not fun!
He felt okay on his birthday. We hung out and cuddled a lot. He got to wear his dinosaur pajamas all day which made up for not getting to see his friends on his birthday.
He was feeling all better Saturday for his birthday party. It was a huge success, which means very crazy for the adults. We made dinosaur eggs for the kids to break open. We played hot and cold with toy dinosaurs and stick the little dinosaur in the big dinos mouth (instead of pin the tail on the donkey.)
During the party, my sister Jessica was having some contractions. She and Dylan decided to go to the hospital as the party was winding down. She was only 33 weeks, so this was not a good thing. The doctors determined she was in true labor and were able to stop it. Jessica will be on bed rest for the next several weeks. We took care of Garrett for Jessica and Dylan several days this week. Having 3 kids six and under does not make life simple, but Joe loves having his favorite cousin here.
There was a pretty good snow storm last night. So we had a snow day today. Joe, Jon, Garrett and I did some coloring and lots of tickling and even made homemade noodles. It was a fun Valentines day, if not exactly romantic. Dylan came down tonight and worked on the basement bathroom. He took Garrett home so it's back to "normal" for now.

Making the dinosaur eggs, coffee grounds, flour and salt. Yum: )

Joey with his fabulous cake made by Monica at Jones Food Center. Yes, I know the four is backwards.

Joey on his actual birthday wearing his dino pjs and showing off the great dinosaur gifts from Uncle Bill, Aunt Heidi, and Nikko.

And this was Joey on February 7th, 2004.
Amazing what four years can do.