I hung out in Mankato with my college girlfriends Friday night and Saturday. I was very excited to have a night away and to get a chance to just relax, have a couple drinks, and gossip with my girlfriends. (It's been a long couple of weeks if you haven't been keeping up with my blog.) Naturally I brought my camera, licorice, and Doritos to make for the ultimate night! Erica started putting the licorice to good use and I decided to join her!

Lisa was being silly too! She and I are on the same tolerance level with alcohol (not very high at all) so drinking together is nice since we never pressure each other into having more than we can handle. Hangovers are usually not worth it.

It was Becca's turn to be the sober one, as you can tell she is pregnant and just happy watching us all get goofy. Stay tuned for early spring when their baby boy/girl arrives; you know I'll be shouting the news here. She is carrying very, very low, so I'm predicting it's a boy as is most anyone that sees her!

I had a great time with the girls. They are always fun, and great at helping me through all sorts of problems. That weekend's goal was to take me shopping and help me find clothes. After having 2 babies in less than 2 years, I hadn't shopped for non-maternity clothes and I was getting pretty desperate. They were great and helped me continue to trudge along even after finding things that looked horrible! I wouldn't have made it through the day without them. Thank you ladies!

While I was gone on Saturday, Dusty and the kids were at Ukrainian Christmas with Dusty's stepfather's family so they were having plenty of fun without me. We were all a big happy family again on Sunday and I even got this gem of a picture as Max will occasionally get down on the ground to show Rory her toys.

It was a great weekend for all. Now I just need a weekend of strait sleeping and I may actually feel closer to my "old self". You know, the one that didn't have babies constantly under tow, would get 8 consecutive hours of sleep, and had Dusty all to her self? Yeah, I'll never be that self again, but a girl can dream of sleep can't she?

It has been quite the week. I have to warn you again, this may be TMI and will probably embarrass Max when he is older, but we've had some updates since my last TMI post on Max.

I took Max in to see the pediatrician on Wednesday morning because his "poo poos" had not stopped and had been going on for over a week and a half. The pediatrician informed me that he appears to have a case of the Toddler Poops. Basically, some toddlers tend to develop a digestive issue that lasts for about a month and then goes away on its own. Max seemed to fit this description since he has not shown any signs that he was feeling ill, he just can't seem to stop pooping. Thankfully, he is eating and drinking well, so he isn't getting dehydrated.

Every morning from Monday through today Max has woken up around 5:30am in the morning, crying, because he has leaked through his diaper. So every morning this week I have been in his room cleaning up both him and his crib. Both Monday night and tonight he has accidentally pooped while taking his bath; today Rory was still in the tub with him! So there have been multiple baths in this house this week.

We have been sanitizing our bathtub and toys almost every evening since we're constantly putting his poo covered body in the tub to wash him up. My poor bath rug has got white dots all over it now from the bleach splashing over the tub and on to it.

We were able to get the prescription Butt Paste for his derier and that has done wonders. With all the pooping, his rear end was getting burned and he was in a lot of pain. Diaper changes were horrible! The last couple times no tears were shed, which was quite the relief because I must admit, I did some crying with him on those.

Of course, Rory had to get some attention too. She started getting a red, goopy eye and both Dusty and Uncle Randy were convinced it was pink eye. This of course had to be on Wednesday, I mean, one visit to the doctor's office couldn't be enough. Thankfully the pediatrician agreed with me and said it looked like her eye was reacting to her cold and it appeared that she was draining out her eye instead of the dreaded pink eye. I love when I'm right! She's already showing a lot of improvements as she hasn't had nearly as much goop.

So it was once again a sick week in the Cochran household, with Max having pooped for 2 weeks now and possibly having 2 more weeks to look forward to, myself coming down with a bug, and Rory making sure to get herself some attention with a non-pinkeye, pink eye. I wish I could say Dusty has remained illness free, but he has started to feel a bit ill, so we'll see what tomorrow and the weekend brings.

We spent the last weekend up at my parent's lake house. The trip started out horribly, as the trailer we had blew a tire and we ended up sitting in a driveway waiting for Katie and Andrew to catch up to us with a new replacement tire. Luckily, the kids were amazing while we sat in the car and we eventually made it up to the lake.

My dad was busy getting shelves up in the closets and Max really enjoyed being his right hand man, as he would run back and forth between the closet and the garage as soon as he saw Bopa heading that way. It was pretty dang cute.

Grandma got to get lots of cuddle time in with her grandbabies. Here she is being goofy with Rory, who of course loved it!

Of course the cousins were adorable as always. Here they are playing with Lyla's dolly, with a little help from Auntie Katie. Rory is getting so big and just loved watching the two older kids play, and they were great at getting right up in her face and making her smile!

I wasn't able to get every scrapbook page done that I had hoped, but it wasn't because I didn't have the time, I was just ill prepared. Last week was really busy for me and I never really sat down to make sure I had everything I needed. It's OK though, I got a few pages at least mostly done and it isn't like we won't be getting together again. It was a nice weekend away.

Too bad Lyla, myself, and both my parents ended up sick on Monday. It appears we all shared some bug this weekend. It seems to be a minor bug as I am planning to return to work tomorrow since I'm feeling better and I'm really hoping it doesn't go any further than me in my family. We've had enough illnesses to go around for a while. Poor Max isn't even over his stomach bug yet!

It has been quite the week. I have to warn you, some of this blog may be TMI and may embarrass Max when he is older but I just have to share.

Starting last Friday, Max developed the "poo poos", as he so lovingly says when it happens. It was bad on Saturday but since then he has just been having issues once or twice a day. On top of that, two mornings we have gone into his room to find that he vomited in the middle of the night and then just went on sleeping. He's still in a crib so you can imagine what a mess both the crib and he are in by the morning.

The oddest part is that he is perfectly happy in the morning and just points to the mess and "talks" to us about it. I mean, who pukes and then continues to sleep instead of crying for us to come and get him?! He is such an odd ball sometimes! I've called the nurses line and they think it is just a stomach virus, as they are going around, and we've removed milk from his diet for the time being to try to help him out. But he is perfectly happy. I took these pictures the morning he threw up, does this look like a sick boy?

Daddy and Rory have been woken up both mornings that Max has vomited. Daddy is the one that does the room cleanup while I'm cleaning up Max in the tub. Trust me, both are very nasty jobs to have to do first thing in the morning!

Of course, Max and Daddy are goofballs in the morning. Here they are showing MaMa their "Zoolander" faces. As in Derek Zoolander's poses from the movie. You can thank Auntie Rosie for that pose.

Hopefully this little virus passes soon, it is really quite stressful having a little boy act perfectly normal when his body is saying otherwise!

We had Rory's 4 month checkup last night. A lot of people have commented that she looks older than 4 months in her picture and after visiting with the pediatrician we can now confirm that she is a lot larger than most 4 month olds!

Rory was in the 86th percentile for her weight at over 15 lbs. She was in the 83rd percentile for her height at over 25 in. And she was in the 85th percentile for her head circumference. We have a very large, but very proportional little girl.

She also got lots of shots yesterday and while she recovered well and was an angel while we had Acapulco's for dinner, the shots did not agree with her that evening. Dusty and I were up with her most of the night and I think we all got about 3 hours of sleep total last night. So we're going to be nice and crabby today. At least Max slept through it all!

Saturday Dusty and I took my cousin Lucas to Monster Jam for his Christmas present. We had a very nice time with him and I enjoyed watching the trucks. My favorite is Maximum Destruction. Yes, I'm that cool, I have a favorite!

Dusty and I always make little bets on each race and this time we added in a new twist where we had to try to guess the freestyle score exactly to add more points. I am proud to say that I was the winner with the most correct predictions. It's just a little something fun we've done since the very first monster truck show he took me to when we were dating.

Since we were picking Lucas up from the southern metro, we decided to take the light rail to the Metrodome. Dusty was very excited since he had worked on all the stops for the light rail previously but had never been able to ride it. It was quite the experience and I think we will be doing it again. Here's Lucas and I on my first light rail ride!

Don't mind my eyes, I was getting frustrated because my camera wasn't taking the picture. Of course it was operator error and that is what I get. While the picture doesn't show it, we all had a very fun time and it was great to spend some time with my cousin, Lucas.

Please take a glimpse into one of my busy days.

4:45am - get woken up by Dusty to feed Rory, try to protest until Dusty informs me that he has been up sick all night
5:00 - return to my bedroom with a soda and bucket for Dusty
5:35 - return to Rory's room with nebulizer in hopes of curing her sudden cough
6:00 - start to get ready for work
6:15 - Max wakes up, get him ready for the day, make breakfast, clean up kitchen from previous evening
7:00 - head out the door
7:15 - drop Max off at daycare
7:45 - get to work
4:00pm - leave work
4:30 - pick up Max from daycare and hurry home to help Dusty
5:00 - get Rory's 4 month picture (because I'm obsessed about doing it on the exact day!)
5:15 - give Max leftovers from last night, make chili for Dusty and I
6:00 - bathe Max and Rory
6:30 - give Rory one last nebulizer for the evening, feed her and put her to bed
7:15 - brush Max's teeth, read stories and get him to bed
7:45 - take shower
8:00 - complain on my blogger about my busy day!

The exciting news is that I got my most favorite picture of Rory yet when we did her 4 month photos. Isn't she just adorable here?

No, she can't sit up on her own yet, the Boppy is supporting her here, but she sure is trying! It is so nice to come home and have Rory give me the biggest grin when she sees me. (She is pretty fond of seeing her brother too.) And Max is cute about his sister, every time I get him from daycare he is quick to say "Rory?" and "Daddy?". I'd feel like roast beef if he didn't start dancing every time I show up. What can I say, I've got some amazing kiddos. Now if only everyone would let me relax!