And so it begins...

It's officially September, and I'm afraid that means it's also officially sick season. We've entered that vicious cycle, and I fear that we won't be well again until the spring. Ok, maybe I'm being slightly pessimistic. I'm praying that won't be the case! We've been hit with a case of hand, foot, & mouth disease around these parts. Poor Alaina is the victim, and she is miserable. She started running fever on Saturday, but she had a cold, so I thought that's all it was. Then last night, I noticed the dreaded rash on her feet and legs and her hands. At that point, I knew she either had HF&M or strep. We went to the doctor today, and it was confirmed that it is indeed hand, foot, & mouth. That means there's nothing we can do, and it just has to run its course. Oh, and it's also HIGHLY contagious, and since Alaina has been drooling like you wouldn't believe for 3 days now, if Aubrey and Jude don't catch it, it will be nothing short of a miracle. We're praying for that miracle. Especially since Aubrey is supposed to start school on Monday!

I've also STILL got a cold. I'm on about day 10 now. I'm SO over it!! I know I should probably just go to the doctor and get an antibiotic at this point, but I keep hoping it will just finally run its course. I was very tempted to ask our pediatrician for an antibiotic for me today. Haha! I resisted ;)

The good news is that TODAY is our last day on our 21 day cleanse!!! You have no idea how excited I am about a cup of coffee in the morning. Oh, and some bread. I'm totally setting my bread machine tonight so that David and I will wake up to some fresh bread in the morning. We're going to try to be careful and introduce foods back into our diet slowly and monitor how they make us feel. It's going to be tough not to just jump right back in, though! ;) This experience has been a good one, and I'll blog about it more at a later time.

We had some craziness yesterday. We had planned to have a low-key Labor Day. I wanted to go through the kids' closets and pack up summer/too small clothes, and I was also planning to shampoo our carpet. I was elbow deep in the closets, and our house was a total WRECK when our realtor called to say we had a showing in 3 hours. Which was right in the middle of naptime. I almost went into panic mode. I seriously considered saying no, but we haven't had a showing in 3 1/2 weeks, so I didn't feel like that would be wise. We rushed around like crazy and managed to get the house presentable. But then we never heard any feedback after the showing. I hate it when that happens! If it weren't for the fact that we came home to a clean, tidy house, I would have totally said it wasn't worth it! But the clean house WAS nice.... all that to say, I managed to snap some pictures while the house was semi-clean since David was home, so I'll finally be posting those soon!

So, now you're all caught up on the Howie happenings. I'm praying this sickness leaves us and STAYS GONE soon!!