Sandholm Family Health-o-Meter

Apparently Midwest winters (or I guess it is technically only late Fall...good grief) do not agree with the Sandholm family. We're pretty much a wreck. I'm not so bad as the other two (maybe I can thank my flu shot), but I'm still not feeling amazing with a bit of a cough and sore throat. Yay.

Sullivan has been fighting off some sort of ailment for about three weeks now...it started with a cough, runny nose, bit of a fever, crusty eyes and fussiness that had Gabe and I staying home with him for a week. Then it got a bit better for about two days or so, but then progressed into coughing until puking, a mild fever, not eating and grumpiness over the Thanksgiving holiday. We went to the doctor yesterday, and Sully has his first, bona fide ear infection. Poor bugger. He has lost weight, and now isn't even 20 pounds anymore. He is on amoxicillin and Tylenol, so hopefully will be perking up here in the next three to four days. We can't wait for him to be healthy again.

And then there is Gabe, the man who is never sick. That track record is broken as he spent most of the wee hours of Saturday into Sunday in the bathroom for a non alcohol-related session praying to The Porcelain God. He stayed home from work Monday and Tuesday, but is on the mend now. He still manages to have a cough that sounds roughly like a barking seal, and I'm concerned I may be getting that flattering cough as well. Like I said, we are quite the group.

I think I need to buy some more hand sanitizer, wash my hands more frequently and get more zealous with the cleaning of surfaces with Lysol wipes. At least then I know we tried everything to keep this from being the Winter of the Chronic Cough and Runny Nose. Although I would take that as long as Sully would start eating again...not sure how Gabe and I have made a kid not interested in food, but we apparently have. And I know he isn't adopted and that he wasn't switched at birth -- he had on that Baby Lo-Jack thing and we were wearing matching wristbands the entire time we were in the hospital. Not to mention he bears a mild resemblance to Gabe.

Our New House

We sign the papers to officially own our new house on December 3. I managed to pull a few photos off of the listing Web site before it was removed, but they aren't all the same size. Oh, well. You can get the gist, at least.

You have no idea how excited I am to be going to a house that we will be able to live in as our permanent residence and make our own. And it has a dishwasher. You can't tell that as I didn't manage to pull a photo of the kitchen, but it does. Trust me. :)

We have some painting to do before we move in (the dining room is not going to stay navy blue, thank you very much), but we should hopefully get to that in December. We also have a few other odds and ends we want to get done before we move in, so we are definitely thankful we have another place to stay while we get things figured out at our new home! I think we'll probably be putting the Christmas tree up in the rental. That's OK though. We'll have Christmas in our new house next year.

Sullivan's First Haircut

Sully had another big milestone this past Saturday -- his first haircut. His bangs were hanging in his eyes pretty frequently, so Gabe took Sully to get his haircut at Kid's Hair while I was also off getting my hair done at Esthetica. Fair trade, I think. And both places equally hip in their own way: Sully gets Dora the Explorer on TV (not that he cared, but if he did...), and I get Aveda products and cool ambiance.

No photos of me needed, but here are a few of Sully. Poor kiddo was just coming off a week-long cold, so he doesn't look too perky here.

Gabe and I actually took two days each off last week (for four days total) to stay home with Sully. He had crusty eyes, but it wasn't pinkeye, a cough, gross nose and was really lethargic. I took him for his flu shot finally last night, and then I find out that he's supposed to have another one in four weeks, but they may run out of the vaccine by then. So much for being a mom up on what my kid needs medically. Everyone's really good about making sure you get in for the well-baby checks. No one really explains the whole flu shot thing. Oh, well.

Found the Camera Cord

All is right with the world. We can now take pictures again because I've just uploaded all of them off our previously completely full camera. This means I can also update you all via photos on Sully's great first Halloween!

First, here are the photos of Sully, Gabe and me picking out pumpkins at Minnetonka Farms. This place was actually an apple orchard that just set out pumpkins, but it was still a good time. They had a big hay pile to play in, too, that Sully that was pretty neat.

And then came Halloween, and out came Sullivan in his full pirate regalia. He's a little too happy to be scary, but I think people would probably hand over their gold to him anyways just because he's so damn cute.

He actually kept his pirate pants on all day at daycare. I took him to school in his outfit with the hat, and I took him home in the full outfit as well. That was pretty fun. He didn't actually go anywhere to trick or treat -- we don't know our neighbors, and it's enough to just get Sully fed and bathed before he's too grumpy to see straight -- but it was still a good day, and we did get a few trick or treaters that night, which was a first for us!

The Littlest Pirate

I’ve been trying to wait to show you Sullivan in his Halloween glory until I’ve uploaded the many pictures from our camera. However, I’ve been unsuccessful finding the cable we need to upload the pictures from our camera to our computer. All is not lost though--Gabe did get a cute shot of Sully on his cell phone, so this one will have to do until I figure out exactly where that cable has gone. I’m sure it is in an obvious place; probably one of those places where I stick things so that I’m sure I can find them again. Every time I put stuff in a “safe place,” that seems to be the times when I lose things for good.