I've wanted to post this week but it seems like I'm just too busy to get to it. And now that I've gotten to it I smell that Halle has a diaper issue- it's just been like that this week.

My parents came in this past weekend for Amanda's birthday (which is actually today) and we had a nice visit- except for Halle. She was sick and really just acted- well really bad. There were fits and tantrums and crying and fits....gaaa! Halle has a strong personality, there's no denying that but this was so incredibly out of character for her. I've never seen her act like this before. On Monday she seemed better but after she got up from her nap she screamed and screamed and screamed (50 minutes-no joke!). I held her- or tried to- I sang to her, cradled her and took her outside. Taking her outside always works but this time she just screamed, "go inside, go inside!". I finally distracted her with some flowers and we played outside for about an hour and the end of the evening was pleasant. Yesterday she seemed better but she complained a couple of times about her ear hurting. I thought that the ear drops I've been using must not be working and that I'd probably have to take her to the doctor. So last night after her bath I asked Travis to put her ear drops in and a few minutes later he called for me to come into the bedroom to look at her ear. It turns out she had a piece of cotton jammed into her ear canal. She had pushed it so far into it that you had to use a flashlight to actually see it. Wow, that explained some things! So I held her down while Travis used a tiny pair of tweezers to fish it out. She was crying and saying "Ow, ow!" and "thank you Daddy!". I-felt-awful. After that she was laughing and playing and jumping around the room- my sweet-feisty little girl was back! She was just the same this morning and I am so thankful.

I've worked on the sunflowers some more and am almost finished. I just need to fill in a little bit more and seal it, I'm actually ready to be done with it and move on to something else. I did have to fix a bit of a mishap though. Halle got some of the leftover paint when I wasn't looking and painted a huge patch of white, yellow and green on the canvas. Thankfully I was able to wipe some of it off and paint over it in the ultramarine that I used as the base color. It made the blue darker than I wanted it but it still looks OK.

So tonight will be another birthday dinner and cake for Amanda and we'll be grilling out for the very first time- fun, fun, fun! OK, now I'm off to fix that diaper issue of Halle's....