Recovering from the Plague

Maylee was released from the hospital on Wednesday morning, February 15th, the doctor told her she could go to school starting Thursday. Well unfortunately she didn't have school on Thursday or Friday due to parent teacher conferences. So instead, on Friday I took all of the girls and one of our friends boys to the school to play. I walked and pushed Albany and Rori in the stroller, Maylee and Dominic road their bikes and we enjoyed the awesome weather and NOT being sick. Except for the fact that Dominic joined us because his brother and one sister were sick and the other sister wasn't home. We do a lot of things with Dominic's family (they were the family that we went skiing with and shared a condo with back in November) so he is used to playing with my girls and I think he enjoyed himself!!

Plague...

On February 6 I came down with what I thought was the plague. It was the flu like I had never had before. All day Tuesday I laid in bed with the TV remote (gasp, no computer or iPad) and restarted Rio anytime it was over (the remote reaches from my bed to the DVD player). Poor Rori didn't want to watch Rio for days afterwards. I even had to call Darren home from work as Albany, at the ripe old age of 4, was the baby sitter came in telling me she got a stool to wet a rag and wiped Rori's (who is 1 lb smaller then Albany) hands, face, and nose.

Just as I was recovering from it, Rori got it. We were semi prepared for her and called the pediatrician immediately for Zofran. Once we got the Zofran in her she slept through the night and was fine. I then had time to totally disinfect our house and bleach, Lysol and wash anything and EVERYTHING in our way. Obviously I was to late, but I tried. Sunday night following Darren got sick like no ones business. He slept downstairs so Albany wanted to sleep with me which was fine, but she kept telling me her tummy hurt. SOOOOO..... I slept with a bucket on my bedside table. Of course not long after she woke up telling me she needed the bucket. After I got her comfortable I called the 24 hour pharmacy to get her dosage of Zofran. After she got that she was able to sleep and only missed dance for that week. Well we thought we were going to be done with it, but Monday night as I was taking Maylee to gymnastics she said she was going to be sick.

So I turned around and took her home; but Albany who hadn't eaten in two days wanted chicken nuggets, so I dropped Maylee at home and ran to McDonald's for Albany. By the time I got home at 6:15 pm Maylee had a dose of Zofran, by 6:30 the Zofran wasnt working. She got so dehydrated by 7:15 that we made the decision that she needed to go to the ER. We were at the ER by 7:40, were in an ER room by 8:30, on an IV by 9:15, second dose of Zofran by 9:30, through the first bag of fluid by 10:15, started on a second bag of fluid by 11:00, the decision to admit her to the pediatric unit by midnight, and in a pediatric unit room by 2:30 am. Fabulous Uncle Adam stayed the night with her as I had to get the little girls around in the morning (Uncle Adam didn't know how to do long static hair) and Darren didn't have anytime off work. I was in and out of the hospital dealing with little girls stuff and normal mommy things till about noon. By noon I had me and the little girls ready to camp out till Maylee was released. At 3 pm the nurse came in and said Maylee had to stay another night as she was not eating and drinking enough to sustain her without IV fluids. I called my parents and they came up to help with the little girls and Darren and I both stayed the second night in the hospital with Maylee. That night the nurse came in and brought Maylee the most amazing blanket gift. There is a group of women (piecedthings.blogspot.com) her in Lawrence that strive to give EVERY child who is admitted to the Lawrence Memorial Hospital Pediatric Unit a quilt for their stay.



(sorry about the quality its an iPad photo!)

The next morning the doctor came in and released her immediately. We were able to be home by 10:30 am Wednesday. Unfortunately Maylee didn't have school on Thursday or Friday, so she was READY to go back this past Monday. Thankfully our week was pretty usual and no big surprises, but I of course have been trying to play catch up.

All of this to say, I am sorry it has been so long since my last blog post. Check back soon though cause I am back in the saddle!!

7 Year Anniversary

Yesterday marked 7 years of marriage for Darren and I. Had I been asked 7.5 years ago where I would be now, I would not have said married for 7 years with 3 kids. But alas we have been married for 7 years and have 3 girls and many other things that we have successfully done... together! Looking back I will say that the last 5 years have been relatively easy compared to the first 2, in fact they have been what most people would call normal.

In our first two years, well really the first 18 months we got married, Darren changed jobs, had a baby, Darren was diagnosed with Lymphoma, I went back to work after having a baby, I changed jobs, Maylee turned 1 AND Darren got his remission, we bought a house and we sold a house!!

Like I said the last 5 years have been less of a roller coaster and more 'normal' for people our age, had a couple more kids, sent one off to all day school, have a second in preschool, still in the same house, sold the little compact car and bought a minivan, I quit working and started staying home. In fact, the last 5 years have gone bye a whole lot faster then the first 2 did, but somehow I feel like I have less to show for it. I guess I dont have a good way to measure time.

I am so very thankful for everything Darren is and everything he has ever done for me and our family. I don't know where I would be without him by my side everday. He is the most amazing father to our girls and the most dedicated husband I know.

Last night we had an in house date, Darren grilled steaks and twice baked potatoes. We fed the girls chicken rings, mac and cheese and bananas before our food was done. It was a lazy day where the girls didnt even get dressed, but it was a FABULOUS day!!





To add to the day, Maylee found some left over red heart magnets from Albany's Wizard of Oz birthday party last year and wrote on them for us!!



This one says: It is mom and dad anniversary



This one: rori and albany + maylee all love you

I do love the sweet, wonderful, caring girl that Maylee is becoming!!

KC Boat and Sport Show

Today we packed up the family to go to the KC Boat and Sport Show. Ross was very kind and gave us two free tickets that he had received. We ended up splitting them with Reece and Missy. We had a great time and spent some quality time together with Reece, Missy and Ryder!!






And then it was time to head home!

Without a morning nap...

I was going through some pictures and forgot that I had taken these. This is what happens when you play hard all morning and try to keep up with your older sisters....

THE Fingers... (yes they have a name)

Since Albany was a newborn, she has consistantly and constantly sucked her fingers. The pointer and middle finger on her right hand to be exact!





She first came to the conclusion, during the first of many attempts to make her stop, that if she covered her eyes then we wouldn't be able to see what she is doing.



The covering of the eyes didn't work the way she wanted so she moved onto the idea that if she covered her fingers then we wouldn't know they were in her mouth. Obviously this idea would work much better if a) I wasn't smarter then that and b) she was only ever seen from the left side instead of the possible right side.



So a week ago, I decided that I had had enough. Maylee was going to get a tooth pulled that had been hanging on by a thread. It really needed to come out as her adult tooth had come up behind it a couple of months ago. Rori was going to stop sucking her bink at all. That was easy on me as all I did was take all of the binks that I knew of and put them in a baggie, then into a drawer to never be seen again. Albany was GOING to let go of the fingers. That was going to be a task!

We had tried everything we could think of to at least have her give them up a little. She could have them only in bed, we would take her to the store to pick out ANYTHING she wanted, flick her cheek every time we caught her. Finally I decided that negative punishment whenever we caught her with her fingers in her mouth, along with a positive reward when she stopped sucking them, aka pierced ears, was going to be how we broke her. So on Sunday she got her reward!!

Family Photos Minus Mom

Yesterday we took all 3 of the girls back up to Potter Lake at KU to get a few more photos. I am wanting to redo the gallery wall in our living room and update the photos. My goal was to get a good photo of Maylee, Rori and some photos of the girls together plus a good group shot of all 3 for the main photo on the wall. Maylee has proven to be quite the challenge to photograph as she won't do a real smile, but I have plenty with her mouth just hanging open. I think between the two shoots I found enough pictures that will work. But here are some more pictures of the girls. Of course all of the pictures are minus mom as I was the run doing the pictures and camera! If anyone would like prints of the pictures either email me or leave a comment of which ones and your email and I will send you the large digital copy for you to send to your photo printer.