Halloween - I know...finally.

These pictures are at least a week and a half late. You'll have to forgive me. We had the bug from hell make it's way throughout our entire house - it somehow missed me and while that might seem like a good thing I am utterly exhausted from taking care of 2, no...3 sick babies. I almost wish I had gotten sick so I'd have gotten a break from it all and had an excuse to lounge in bed.
The whole thing actually started right here... Yep. The annual Boo at the Zoo. This time it was Scarlett and Carson's 2 year anniversary! Can you believe it? It breaks my heart that she was sick. Here are the previous years - first play date with Carson, 1 year anniversary. We started off strong. Scarlett was so excited to get the zoo and see Carson. And then once she saw him she started fading. She wanted me to carry her everywhere and she wasn't being her typical spunky self.

She perked up long enough to run around in the haunted maze which she LOVED.
Did I say LOVED?!
But she must have spent all of her energy running because it was all downhill from there.

We went on the princess girl horses and, well, just look at her.
Poor goose.Val bought her a special cupcake and she didn't even touch it. If that's not a sign that a 2 year old is under the weather, what is? Then things got a little scary. She fell off the bench she was sitting on (and she rarely falls). I couldn't get her to stop crying. She got really hot and by the time I rushed her home her fever was 103.7! But the "fun" doesn't end there. I got her home from the zoo and Joe was holding a screaming Holden. Now Holden never cries - and he was inconsolable. I had been with Bubs all morning, so I was incredibly worried about her. Joe had been with Holden all morning, so he was incredibly worried about him. Scarlett was lethargic and Holden wouldn't stop screaming. It was so bad that we packed everyone in the car for a trip to the emergency room.

On our way there we ironically heard a radio commercial saying to avoid the emergency room because of H1N1. Of course I panicked after that and we started calling friends while we were driving to see if they could recommend a walk-in clinic somewhere that was open on Sundays. We finally found one. We took our sick little guys out of the car relieved to have found a place that would see them. Only, and here's the clincher, they wouldn't see Holden because he's too young. I have never felt so helpless in my entire life.

Scarlett was still barely moving and Holden's entire face was swollen and red from crying so hard and we're just holding them in the waiting room in disbelief that we would actually have to bring them home without being able to make them feel better! And then, of course, emotional mom over here starts crying too because I didn't know what else to do. We got back in the car and drove home. We gave them both baby Tylenol. Scarlett's fever went down to a tolerable 101. She got sick in the middle of the night and seemed to be quite a bit better the next day. Holden was up all night, but he was okay as long as I was holding him. So I did. All night.
At the pediatrician's the next morning, we discovered that Holden had a double ear infection and pink eye in both eyes. Scarlett appeared to have had a 24 hour bug.

Halloween fell almost a week later. Holden had been on antibiotics for at least 5 days, so we knew he was fine to go out. Scarlett was better from the initial bug she had and Joe wasn't sick yet either. We had no idea the best was yet to come. We got everyone dressed up and ready to go. We met up with Carson, or course.

Goose was super excited to trick-or-treat.
Here she is leaving the first house in complete and total shock that getting candy was that easy.
Scarlett went from house to house until she had decided that she had had enough after about an hour. I asked her if she wanted to get some more candy and her response was, "no mom. I have candies already." But Scarlett...don't you want more? "No mom. I have candies already."

Holden was awesome. He just sat in his stroller looking adorable and fully absorbing all of the compliments he got on his bat costume.

Until he did this. Huh. And I thought bats were nocturnal.We went back to Carson's house for pizza. It was about an hour after we got there that I looked at Joe and decided that he had caught Holden's pink eye. We gracefully left in an attempt to avoid giving it to anyone else (we succeeded, luckily). Flas forward 2 days. Both Joe and Scarlett have wicked viral infections and pink eye. Scarlett was out of daycare all of last week. Joe was out of work for 2 days (and a giant pain in my butt for 5 days). Holden probaly still had the antibiotics in his system, so he was unscathed. But we're good now. Finally...admittedly, it was an absolute week from hell. It was a lot of sick to handle in less than 2 weeks. I was so exhausted from it all that I didn't even have the energy to get these pictures up here! But now they are. And we're caught up. We're back at work/daycare/life. And we're all going to be just...fine.