Hillabolt.com

It has been a very interesting week! I’ll try to piece it together…

Derek had a small fever Tuesday morning, which lasted a couple days, his highest fever was 102.7 (not too bad), but he was seriously cranky. On Thursday I finally took him into to the dr office. He in fact had an ear infection and a fever virus. So we got some antibiotics for the ear and the fever virus was supposed to go away on it’s on. When he wasn’t contagious anymore then he would get a rash.

That’s right…contagious…let’s back up a little. So Wednesday after supper Sophia walked straight over to the couch and laid down. She looked tired, so we covered her up and let her sleep for awhile. She woke up 45 minutes later. I felt her foot and it was on fire. I took her temp and it was 104.5. With her fever and her behavior, it was really scary!!

So between the ear infection and both kids having this fever virus, we got an average of 3-4 hours of sleep each night during the week!! It was a sure nightmare!!

Friday both the kids’ temperatures had finally come down, which resulted in both kids sleeping all night on Friday and Saturday. It was so nice to finally get a couple nights of full sleep.

However, the antibiotic that Derek is on made him really loose (if you know what I mean), so each morning we’ve had to wash down his entire room and clean his sheets!! It has also resulted in a really awful diaper rash.

We will make it through this!!!

Another image from our photo shoot yesterday. I really like the composition on this one.

Can you believe how longs its been, since I’ve posted pictures of Sophia? My little model doesn’t seem to like having her picture taken anymore. She’s either running away, or shaking her hand at me, while yelling NO!

Anyway, we decided to have another picture day. It used to be so easy, now we’re begging and pleading Sophia to stand still and smile.

Originally uploaded by khillabolt.

I’ve been playing around with HDR imagery as of late and decided to post several examples of the Daylilies (thx. Alana) in our front yard.

While I’m not completely happy with the way the turned out, it does give a pretty good example of what can be done with HDR.

In case you’d like to play around with HDR yourself, I’d suggest reading this first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging.

It really is quite cool what can be done, but its easy to go way overboard with surrealistic images. In the eye of the beholder I guess.

The other night we were getting the kids ready for bed. Sophia was naked and doing everything she could to stay that way. She ran into her giraffe tent and laid face down, with Derek in hot pursuit. Derek latched his arms around her waste and proceeded to blow raspberries on her bare butt. It was so funny!! That kid just cracks us up!!

Anyway, Sophia didn’t find it as cute and started kicking at Derek, so the fun was over and it was seriously time for bed. We have problems every night getting her to bed, but she seemed particularly defiant that night. I think Sophia sensed the tension, because after awhile she came over to both of us, put her arms around our necks and said, “AH, I love you guys”.

On a Derek note…he stood all on his own last night (twice), and once tonight. He is getting so strong!! He’s not feeling very well today. I’m not sure if it’s his teeth or if he’s still fighting his cold, but he just wasn’t himself all day today. I sure hope he’s feeling better soon!!

Derek has had lots of firsts over the last few weeks, including first plane ride, first diaper change in a plane, first time to Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Zion National Park and to Grandma and Grandpas. (Sophia did all that last year). We even took him to a restaurant where we gave him a bunch of big people food and let him go wild. He loved the mashed potatoes, peas, and cheese we gave him. He didn’t stop shoveling it in until the second plate was empty. Needless to say we left a huge mess at the restaurant and Derek had an awful tummy ache that night. Since then he’s eaten bananas, chicken and noodles, carrots, granola bars and of course gold fish. He loves big people food!! Another big first was his and our first night away from each other. We missed him and Sophia so much!!

Derek is so mobile. He walks along the furniture like a pro; sometimes we even see him let go and standing for a short period of time. He’s so fast that he’s even tried some Lexi food before we were able to catch up to him. If he heads into our bedroom, we usually hear the bath water running soon after. He’s so intrigued by the funniest thing. We certainly couldn’t live without his “Fridge DJ” toy that Melissa and Josh got Sophia for her birthday. We take that wherever we go (even on the plane) and it seems to calm him down and distract him for quite some time.

Tonight we went down to Indianola and had supper with Grandma Robin and Dick. After supper, we drove to the school parking lot where we watched all the hot air balloons take off. Sophia thought the balloons were really neat. On the way home we occupied her by playing hide-and-go-seek with the sun. Long Story…but it kept her occupied for quite some time.

Derek was so tired by the time we got home that he was HUNGRY and tired!! It didn’t take him long to pass out. Sophia walked into the bathroom and said she wanted to “Cel-brate Mommy!” So we stripped her down naked and sat her on the potty. We were in there for 10 minutes talking when she flashed a huge smile at me and said, “I poopied Mommy!” Sure enough she had, so we celebrated by singing, dancing and making a huge deal about it. After our celebration I said, alright, time to get our jammies on. Turns out she wasn’t done. We sat in the bathroom for an additional 20 minutes and she poopied 2 more HUGE times! We celebrated big and rewarded her by letting her sleep in her giraffe tent tonight. We’ll see how that goes!!

I know Sophia is smart enough to be potty trained. I knew it a few months back, but when she took her pants off and changed her own diaper (all by herself) the other night, I realized she really can do it. Now it’s just getting her to want to do it!! Wish us luck!!

It’s kind of nice, that it’s nearing the end of July and we still have some flowers alive in the landscaping.

Here’s a macro shot of a rather nice red flower (anyone know what this particular flower is called?):

Sophia was standing by my side while I took this picture, repeating: “Daddy, you takin pict-tur of da frowers?” It was cute, my little photography assistant.

You really can’t appreciate this, unless you have a boy

Has anyone missed us?? I don’t even know where to start; I hope this post doesn’t get too long!!

Thursday July 11th after work Kevin and Sophia went to an I-cubs game, which ended up not being such a great idea, since Sophia had no interest in watching baseball, even though she talks constantly about it. Derek hung out with me while I spent the night packing for our big trip. While we were downstairs Derek headed over to the stairs and climbed all the way up…what a big boy!!

Friday afternoon all four of us headed to the airport for our big family trip to Las Vegas and Southern Utah. The kids were perfect angels the entire flight and on the bus to the rental car. Then it turned into a nightmare…It took over a half hour to get signed up for our (already booked) rental car, then we spent another half hour in the super hot, really busy garage trying to find the car, another half hour in line trying to tell the lady our car wasn’t there. Turns out the car showed up while we were waiting in line. So back we go across the hot black pavement to the car, only to find that our second rented car seat was not in the car. This time I was not nice and I went straight to the front of everyone and finally got the car seat. By this time it was rush hour in Las Vegas, so we decided to hit the nearest McDonald’s for some supper. Sophia was tired and cranky, but it got even worse when she decided to share her chocolate milk with Derek, who picked it up and poured it all over his lap and Sophia. After outfit and diaper changes it was back to the car for the 2 and a half hour drive to Grandma and Grandpa’s. We were all so happy when we got to Grandma and Grandpa’s house!! Sophia got a second wind and ran around the house for a few hours, Derek was just happy to get his feet on the ground to crawl around, and Kevin and I were exhausted and happy to let the stress roll off!

We all had a great time while visiting Grandma Marilyn and Grandpa Steve. We spent a day at their friends pool, which the kids just loved. On Monday, we packed a picnic lunch and drove to Zion National park for a day. Zion was gorgeous and we went on a little hike up a paved trail. At the end of the trail was a little river, so we spent some time enjoying the scenery…until it started to thunder. If only we had left 10 minutes earlier!!! We hurried back to the bus, but didn’t make it in time. The sky let out the largest rain drops I’d seen in a very long time!! There were so many people trying to get on the bus, that it took about a half hour to get onto the bus and another hour to make it through the park back to our car. Whew…I didn’t know it rained in the desert!!

We had a great time visiting Grandma Marilyn and Grandpa Steve, but on Tuesday it was time for Kevin and I to head back to Vegas for some much needed alone time, which meant Sophia and Derek got to have some fun with Grandma and Grandpa. As we drove away all we could talk about was how much we already missed the kids…it was the first time we’d ever left them!!

The real reason for the entire trip was because I had a conference Wednesday through Friday at the Mandalay Bay, which was a great hotel. So while I was at the conference during the days, Kevin was…I’ll give you one guess. Yup, in the hotel on the internet. I should be happy that he’s not a big gambler!!

Despite me being at the conference most of the time, we had every night but Wednesday to explore Vegas. The furthest we went was to MGM Grand, but we did a lot of walking and spent some time in almost every arcade trying to win the kids gifts (we just ended up buying them gifts since we never really won anything good). Did you know there is at least 2 Starbucks in every casino?? Thursday we had a wonderful romantic (expensive) dinner and Friday night we got tickets to Kathy Griffin.

On Saturday Grandma, Grandpa, Sophia and Derek came to pick us up. We were so happy to see them. Time to ourselves was great, but we missed them so much. They seemed pretty happy to see us too!! We spent Saturday night relaxing at the Hilton. Grandpa Steve got a great deal on rooms, so Sophia ended up having a room all to herself!!

So the kids slept every night all through the night for Grandma and Grandpa, but Derek welcomed us this morning with a 2:30 wake-up call. Neither Kevin or I could get back to sleep after that. The rest of the day got even better. We got to the airport and through security by 6 am, then a little breakfast and boarded the plane at 7:30. The plane got about 10 ft from the gate and stopped…we sat on that non-airconditioned smelly tin can with 200 sweaty, drunk people for almost an hour when it finally headed back to the gate to deboard. After the long wait for our next plane, we were the first to board, where we sat in yet another non-airconditioned smelly tin can with those same 200 sweaty, now completely hungover and grumpy people for another hour before we finally got into the air. Since Derek has a very bad cold and somewhat fever, he was completely miserable and Sophia spent half the time screaming and kicking the chair in front of her. Once we took off the kids were pretty good as long as we kept food in front of the. It was a pretty challenging flight, but we made it (3 hours late)!!

All in all it was a wonderful trip. Thank you so much to my wonderful parents for showing us such a great time while we were there. And most of all for watching the kids while we had some alone time!! We truly appreciate everything you did to make the trip a great one. And a huge thank you for Grandma Robin for taking our furry child, Lexi, for the week. I know she had a great time too!!

I’m sure looking back we will only remember the good times and not the bad experience of our travel days. However, Kevin and I decided that we will not be flying anywhere for family trips until the kids are out of diapers!!