***DANG it! I gotta go, I nearly burnt my first set of rolls because I was blogging!!!!! (Poor rolls, death by blogging. . .I guess I better eat all of those right now!!) Happy Thanksgiving.
No, I'm not making fun of Matt's chinese heritage in the title there. . . (come on, at least a courtesy laugh please. . .he he)
It's Whitney. Maybe we should have named her Mystery. This poor little allergy prone kiddo. First it was the MSPI, eczema, nasty colds/stuffy all the time gunk.
So, about 3 weeks ago, I take her in (you know the routine. . .she's a nightmare, not sleeping, please tell me something is wrong that you can fix. . .nada. . .strep test, neg.) A week or so ago, she wakes up (after being Mrs. Crabapple for about a month) with red, rashy, itchy feet. Turns out it's Coxsackie. . .aka Hand, Foot, Mouth. Alrighty, the older two had that, no problem. Until, last Saturday. . 
These pictures actually aren't so bad. . .they were REALLY bad earlier.
Honestly, she was fine one minute, and the next time I saw her she had hives. I swear.
"What DID SHE EAT?????" What the heck did she get into? Was it the nasty, wet leaves we were trying to rake outside? Did she get into the treat that Madison created??
A lovely "Turkey" plateful of peanut butter decorated with mini m&ms and butterscotch chips
Finally, I called the nurse to see if they wanted to see her. . .if it was related to the Hand/foot/mouth stuff, do I need to take her to the ER? After all that, I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "whatever." Not really, to the nurse I didn't, but to myself I did.
I have given up on trying to play the "What's wrong with the baby" game. I drive myself insane trying to do that. We kept her home from church on Sunday. Not because she was crabby, just because she looked so awful. I'm sure parents would have been snatching their kids from her presence and running for the hills.
Monday came, still a total rash, so off to the Dr. we went. Strep test. . .neg, proabably just a virus related rash that could go on and off for 2 WEEKS!!! Great.
So today a call. . .Oh, we sent off that other strep test to test for the rare types. . .
yep, positive.
Here's my little chicken! She was adorable (if I do say so myself), she also had a hat but usually ripped it right off! She has it on in the pictures below. The feet were my favorite. Just ignore the fact that it looks as though one is giving you "the bird" right now. By the third time she had to put this on she was finally used to it (Family dinner, Boo at the Zoo, and Trunk or Treat).
Hi cutie girls!! (This was the night we went to our Mar Family Monster Mash)
Here's my future Shirette (high school dance team) in action. Yes, that is my outfit. Yes, I used to be that small (I took it in a little), and no, I'll never be that size again. So many people looked at me in shock and said "that was YOUR uniform?" Yes, thanks.
Work it, Ariel, work it.
Here we are at the ward Trunk or Treat. I was the tooth fairy (I handed out toothpaste). Don't worry I handed out the best candy WITH the toothpaste! (I'm not that lame! The kids were actually excited to get the toothpaste!) Matt and some guys from work dressed up as another guy from work (always a tie and a sweater vest). I had to put this picture in so you could see the eyes from our car. (Apparently Matt thinks something funny is on the ground) The car was Matt's idea last year--I think it looks great. Next year we're going to drape the back of the car and do dry ice. OOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Oh, NO! It's them, we're going to miss it! Little did I know how S L O W these TV "reality" production shows take. This was actually the "practice limo". So we got down to the street. It wasn't as crowded as I thought it might be and we had an ok view of at least the street where the action was going to be goin' down. Madison was excited. We got to a spot right in front of a bush with no one in front of it so we kind of had an open view. If you squint a little you can see the dark top of the bus parked in front of the house. 
Oh, wait, let me Zoom in for you 
So, while we were waiting and waiting, some lady on the other side of the street wasn't feeling to well so the fire truck and ambulance arrived. . . .honestly, what some people won't do right? I'm happy to report that she was fine and the ambulance promptly took her away. . .ok, let's get on with it! 
John was the schmoozer of the designers. He was always trying to act like he was SUPER busy but kept hanging out by all the fans. Including this little one in front of us that had her little lamb/bear signed. All I had in my pocket was a Martha Stewart paint chip sample card, so we had it signed too. Madison wants to take it to school! 
While we were patiently being so good, one of the guys from the production team came over and said in his megaphone. . ."I need you to work with me and I need you to listen! I'm going to take a small group of you over to the other side. . ." Yippee! That meant us, so we got over where the volunteers and VIP's were and holy cow look who we saw when we got there!!!
Yep, that's him. We were so excited we got a prime spot. We were right next to the street on the next door neighbors property!!! Madison was making fun of me because I kept snapping pictures of Ty. Hey, I had no idea how they were going to turn out so I just kept taking them!!
Oh, here's a better view of the house. I'm still not in love with the blue trim but it's certainly a nice home. The front of the house has kind of a wood lattice effect where the normal brown is on the rest of the house. 
Yep, still snapping away.
Oh, look who it is. . . . These ladies next to me wanted their daughters hats signed. With the leopard print you could hardly even tell.
Here's all the people that we mad that we got over to the "other side"! Suckers.
After a lot of waiting and waiting. . .they brought out the big crane camera and did the overhead shots of the crowd. I think we were all screaming and yelling for like 15 minutes. It was funny to see the crew members going crazy up and down the street trying to keep people goin'. We knew it was close when the design team came out. Here is Tracy and Paul (and one of their makeup/hair/clothes people cleaning up Paul (with Tracy's help). She was grooming him just like a chimpanzee! The sweatshirt, the hair, I half expected her to lick her thumb and wipe a smudge off his face. It was kind of cute though. I like Pauli. 
Here's Paul giving a little squeeze.
Tracy looked great and I LOVED her leather boots. They were fab.
Here's the whole team, Preston, John, Paul and Tracy.
I didn't realize that what Ty says to the family is scripted. I guess I figured it was, kind of, so here he is reviewing his lines. . .
Here's Ty waving the limo in. . .after I took this picture I realized that the camera was aimed right at us so I better get yellin', and wavin' and actin' crazy so you can see me on TV! Madison had a light blue coat on so look for us!!
A big wave to the crowd! 
A chat with the fam and just how many times do we need to tape "Move that bus." Well, for the record I think it was at LEAST 25 times, in every direction possible! I'm "MOVE THAT BUS"ed out!
This was about 10 minutes of chattiness, and the anticipation was killing all of us!!
It was priceless. . .and just like you see on TV. We all were bawling like babies.
It took a couple of minutes before the mom and girls could get up off the street and the boys kept running all around, it was great.
Welcome Home Mahacek family, Welcome Home!!!
and went over. The home is located in the Havelock (historic) district of town. Neat little area. Old, but neat. I wondered how they would do this there, but it's looking pretty good. It was tough to get a good look at the house. It's in the middle of a block and they had it barracaded on the side streets. We were only a couple of rows back from the fencing. I overheard someone saying how the show offers the neighbors a hotel and a daily $1000 or so, to use their property, yard, etc. One house directly across they were using for the VIP's. Hey if it was my house, I'd stay there and get in on all the action (although it would be a little crazy, and noisy!) In this picture it's the third one in that they're working on.
The lots are small, so they won't have much of a yard. They were going for a "Tudor" style of home. 
I'm not sure if these are classic colors for a Tudor, but I was left wondering where the designers were when they picked it out. 
It's a dark chocolate brown with royal blue (more bright blue than the picture shows) trim/accents, then a light color rock for the front pillars. I'm sure it'll look better all finished and on TV.
