The Cuteness In Our House Is Killing Me!

These sweet little faces are making me crazy, in a good way!!! Sometimes I can hardly look at them they are all so stinkin' cute!! Other days they just make me crazy, as in lost my marbles! Enjoy the cute with me a moment will you?




****Oh, I almost forgot, Maisie got the "all clear" today at the follow up visit!!! Yay! No blood in her stool, ears look gorgeous and her lungs are clear, she is back to her happy, SUPER smiley, thriving little self!

I love to squeeze them.

For some reason or another this has become his favorite chair in the house!

Sweet, clean, smiley baby.

Melt my heart.

I LOOOOOVE this picture.  Sophie is in love with her little sister and is always talking to her and making sure she is happy.

Health Updates

***ETA (edited to add): Since posting this originally, on Saturday, we have been back to the doctor....AGAIN because Sophie was complaining of ear pain, and with her all her congestion and coughing I wasn't taking my chances.  Luckily, our office has weekend hours from 8:30am to 5:30pm Saturday and Sunday.  We got a 10:45am appt. today, Sunday, and low and behold the girl has an infected left ear and the start of an infection in her right!  All this sickness and craziness must mean we are in for one awesome summer!!!

 

It seems as though we may be on the mend over here (fingers crossed) after what seems like forever.  Jonah seems to be showing no signs of his ear bothering him, but is still coughing and while Sophie is still coughing too, the super duper cough medicine that the doctor gave us a while back (originally for Jonah) seems to be doing the trick and helping her get some sleep at night.  Maisie on the other hand had another trip back to the doctor on Thursday, she was pooping quite frequently, which is a side effect of the antibiotics, but that was not my concern, no it was the the color of her poop.  I had changed her diaper that afternoon and noticed that she had yet again pooped, but this time the poop was a pinkish red color, hmmmmmm, that's interesting was my first thought, my second thought to take a picture (no really it was) and send it to my mom or Neal and get their thoughts.  The picture thing did not end up happening because the pinkish red color did not show up in the shot.  My next thought, well her antibiotic is pink so maybe the dye is coming out in her poop, but just to be sure I put in a call to the nurse at the office and she told me it could be her meds or it could be blood and that I should bring the diaper by and they could run a quick test on it while I waited.  I loaded up all 3 kiddos and the poopy diaper in the car and off we went.  The test came back positive for blood in my sweet baby girls stool.  I felt so sad for her, no wonder she wasn't showing any super signs of improvement and was still fussy after several days on the antibiotic.  Sure, the antibiotic was healing her ears, but was wreaking havoc on her GI system or so we believe.  So, what was supposed to be just a quick run to drop off the diaper turned into a full blown appointment with the doctor.  Thankfully, my knight in shining armor showed up just as the nurse came out to tell me the test was positive for blood, he had heard the stress in my voice all day and knew that another trip to the doctor even to drop off poop was maybe more than I could handle.  We met with the doctor and she seems to think that the amoxicillin is irritating her GI system and is the root of the blood in Maisie's stool. She took her off the amoxicillin and gave her a shot of rocephin (another antibiotic) to continue to clear her ears.  We will go back on Wednesday (2/22) to test her stool again and see if blood is still present, if it isn't then we know it was the amoxicillin and if it is then we dive deeper to figure out what is the cause.  On a good note though her ears looked great and are healing well and her lungs were clear so the RSV is on it's way out of my sweet girl's lungs!

While Thursday was not a particularly awesome day, at least we figured out what was possibly causing Maisie even more discomfort and the weather has been pretty mild here so we were able to get the kids outside and enjoy some fresh air.  I also had a very sweet and dear friend drop a little ray of sunshine on my front porch late Thursday afternoon to help lift my spirits after what is proving to be a very challenging month for us. 

Love.

Out for a stroll.

She loves her some chickens!

Enjoying some mild weather, with his first official solo catch of a chicken.

My "sunshine" that made me smile.

Finally seeing my baby girl get back to her old self.

Happy Birthday Gigi Slimick

 

 

 

I Love A Good Deal

Visited the local Value Village thrift store and came home with some great finds. Two pairs of flats for me; the navy pair was a $1 more than the red because they were never worn, but still a steal at $3.50! Some great old school stories for Sophie circa 1950s. My favorite find a pair of flawless condition Pediped brand shoes for Maisie for $1.50 these retail for $33, I know because I have several pair that used be Sophie's in the attic awaiting Maisie's sweet feet to grow into them!

Sweet Sick Baby

RSV is taking its toll on my sweet baby girl. After spending 3 nights in a row sleeping in the rocker in her room rocking the pitiful little thing to sleep and then staying in there all night long because in my arms was the only place she would sleep, Sunday night I decided it was time to pay another visit to the doctor. Monday morning rolled around and we made our way to the doctor, sure enough sweet baby has double ear infections and is wheezing which required breathing treatments at the doctor's office and at home, so we now own our very own nebulizer machine Yaaaaaaay (hopefully you can sense the sarcasm there). As you can imagine she isn't a huge fan of the breathing treatments, but we get them done as quickly as we can because she needs to have it done. My heart breaks watching her cry and wiggle in pain while trying yo get comfortable because of her ear pain and then to listen to her raspy, wheezy, "junky sounding" breathing is just pitiful and makes me want to stand in her place. She is such a trooper though and will still flash her beautiful gummy smiles and grab at her toys in her baby gym (a new skill), but naturally we can tell she is simply not herself, which is to be expected. We are praying that the antibiotic starts working quickly, that the Tylenol eases her pain, and that the breathing treatments help to open and clear her lungs, please pray with us. 

 

Sleeping in my arms.

Waiting to be seen at the doctor's office.

 Still a pretty happy baby.

 

This is where she slept last night and for her nap this morning, upright in her baby rocker.

A Date With My Big Girl

Neal and I have been feeling like our big girl needed some one on one mama time, so this morning she and I hit up Target for a little Starbucks (hot chocolate for the little one) and shopping! Oh what fun we had!

Its Been A While (this is a long one)

Clearly we have been busy around here since I haven't posted anything since DECEMBER! Holy cow time flies when you can't remember what you did the day before!

We have literally just been trying to survive. It appears that since Maisie's birth back at the end of October at least one of us has been battling some sort of ailment. Three days after Maisie's birth Sophie and Jonah had horrible colds of which Jonah's ended being croup that scared us half to death. Then a week after we were over that Sophie came home from school with lice, LICE! I don't do bugs, ESPECIALLY bugs in
my child's hair! Thank goodness for my mom, even though I am pretty sure she was as skeeved out as I was, she came and vacuumed, washed bed sheets, and bagged up anything that couldn't be washed. Seriously y'all I felt like I should have had a HAZMAT suit on! Not long after that we discovered Maisie and I had thrush......Yaaaaaay. Anyhow that was a really fun ride that took a bit to time to clear up. Somewhere in between I think Jonah may have had an rad infection.....not sure things are still fuzzy. Then at the children's well visit, yes I said children our doctor is that awesome and that brave that he willingly put himself in an incredibly tight space with Neal and I and our 3 children, at this visit it was discovered that Maisie's left hip was a bit looser than the right. This warranted a referral to the Pediatric Orthopedist to have an ultrasound to rule out hip dislocation just like her mama who had to be in a harness for 4 months as a baby due to a dislocated left hip from birth. So naturally my mind there to all the negative possibilities my baby would have to endure. Luckily, two ortho visits later and a very hefty bill, all is well in that department and she goes back for a recheck and X-ray in a couple of months. Pretty sure there were a few runny noses and coughs in between there, nothing chart topping just normal annoying winter sickness. Through all of this Jonah just hadn't been the same since his battle with croup and therefore still had this nagging, lingering cough that just wouldn't clear and got progressively worse. At his well visit the doc gave us some super duper cough medicine that worked for a while, but not long enough, soon my baby boy was up several times a night crying and having coughing fits, hats off to my fabulous husband who got up with him EVERY TIME! Two more doctors visits for Jonah and both times we were told allergies, well it got so bad, with him coughing so hard he would gag and we were worried he was going to damage his vocal cords his cough was so violent. So Neal and I figured there was no way this was allergies alone so back we went to the doctor. Which brings us to our current battle of sickness; Monday night Sophie woke up throwing up while I was in nursing Maisie so poor Neal had to field that one, I walked into our bathroom to find Neal holding her hair back while she was covered in puke along with a nice pile of it on our bedroom carpet. Jonah was up and down all night coughing,
gagging, crying and now sweet Maisie started coughing.....not good. Sophie was on the mend by Tuesday night, but Maisie and Jonah weren't looking or sound so great. Back to the doctor Wednesday, again not sure what I would do without my mom she came to keep Sophie so I didn't have to take all 3 kiddos. After a full exam and two really invasive and really painful nose swabs (one for each kid in each nostril) it was determined that Maisie has RSV a lung infection with no course of treatment other than watch and wait. Jonah has an ear infection and the root of his 6 week long violent cough is still undetermined the hope is
though that the antibiotic for his ear will clear his cough. And Maisie, well she is a trooper, but oh so pitiful, she will still smile every now and again but she is obviously not her normal "Princess Happy Pants" as we like to call her. And that is where we stand as of today, still two sick little ones, but at least we have some answers. Through all of this we have prayed really hard I have talked to God on a daily basis and asked for clarity in the situation and for Him to reveal what He is trying to teach me. Patience? Strength? Gratitude? Thankfully the Lord always provides and He did so for me through my amazing husband who took time off work to help and suffered many sleepless nights caring for Jonah and just being there to listen to me vent, and through my best friend Heather who just listened and provided me with Scripture and support and reminded me that He is in control, and of course my mom who helps in any capacity she can. So I guess in the end this whole roller coaster of sickness isn't all negative since my Faith was strengthened and I was once again taught to be grateful for the people in my life who love me and my children and grateful that my children's illness are short lived and curable. However, once we are well I think we are just going to stay in the house until summer!

On a fun happy note Neal and I got iPhones! We scored a really awesome deal through his work, they had new ones in the box never issued to the big execs so we were able to buy them for $25 each! Couldn't pass that up! So I have a bunch of awesome pictures to upload and share that I took with the iPhone that are awesome quality, I always knew Neal had an affinity for Apple products and now I know why!

Now for the fun part....PICTURES!

Always the helpful hubby!

Sophie made herself at school, can you guess which one is hers?

 

Clean diapers in a pile yet to be folded....as usual!

Sick girl, but happy.

RSV is no fun.

Lunch Love for my loves.

She was calling herself "Chef Sophie"

The state of my living room one day amidst all the sickness!

What a bunch of cuties!

Sweet bedtime smiles.

Playing Angry Birds on the iPad.