Potty

I promise not to turn this into a theme, but this was too funny! Lydia had to go potty and lifted both lids and sat right on the cold toilet. "Mommy! I'm a boy! I'm going potty like a boy!" Laughing hysterically. Then she fell in the toilet and hit the cold water and jumped out in a flash! Her laughing turned into what we call 'crafting' that blend of a cry and a laugh. I think she's cured of trying that again! ;-)

Hallelujah!

This too has passed! We are all so excited to have Jeff pain free! It happened last night and it was quite a celebration! Jeff was so cute, he called me in so excitedly, "Karen come here! I think this is it!" Made us all cringe a bit to see the size of them. Praise be to God and thank you for all your prayers! Everyone is healthy and we're back to our normal state of chaos! ;-)

Some Pictures

Some pictures from the last few months ...

Emily on a winter photoshoot:



Lydia and I at a basketball game. (More basketball pix later!)


Lydia wearing her patch. She only had to wear this sticky one for a week or two - we found her a soft one that goes over her glasses, but I don't have pictures of it yet.

She's a goofball. :)


Matthew going sledding.



Mom and Dad playing chess. =)



Lydia drinking orange crush on New Year's Eve. :D







Robbie reading to the kids.

4-man piggyback. :D

Dad's birthday.


Mom and Lydia against the blue wall at the doctor's office. =)

Sick of being sick!

It's the hardest part of being a large family. Hardly ever does one get a bug of some sort and keep it to themselves! This season, however, has been our worst ever! It started out with a flu bug, short lived, but still required a review of our vomit 101 class! It thrills my heart when kids get old enough to hit a bucket! Cheers! Then we had ear infections and colds, to wrap it up with another round of a respitory flu that ended up turning to pneumonia for the younger 4.

Out of pity our Dr. even quit accepting our co-pay because we were going there so much. By the time a kid was better he was being reinfected by someone else. I have medicine bottles all over my counter. To get the right dose in the right mouth at the right time is a part time job!

We even took in another older friend who was sick and by herself, so she's been staying with us for the week. It's been such fun to have her, but I know she's praying to heal quickly so she can get back home!

Lydia had it the worst, she had a 103 temp for about 30 hours! Tylenol and Motrin every 4 hours, baths, cool cloths, nothing would bring it down. Her tummy looked like she had just taken a hot shower and was red and blotchy. Her lips blistered as if burned. In all my parenting years I'd never seen anything like it. She would say to me, "Mama, will you love me?" I'd answer, 'Ofcourse I love you all the time!'. Then she'd say, "Will you love me sitting down?" so we'd have to go snuggle.

Then there's Jeff. He had kidney stone surgery on February 1st. I keep track of him pretty good in our makeshift hospital ward! ;-) He's still in a lot of pain trying pass the remaining stones. He hasn't done anything in the past 2 weeks so any little bit of exertion wears him right out. He can't handle the pain medicine so he's just taking Motrin and that doesn't come close to managing the pain. I feel so bad for him! He did preach on Sunday and it wore him right out. It's exciting though that he said it's given him more compassion for those in pain and a drive to further the gospel even more because he can't imagine what hell would be like because this is...well...miserable! ;-)

And then there's Daniel, who has miraculously remained healthy! I told him it doesn't pay to be so because we work him like a horse trying to keep up with meals and laundry! It's much better now, but there were a couple of days I thought for sure I was going to turn green and grow one eye!

But by God's grace we're still counting our blessings and playing a lot of games and puzzles! I think we're on the up side because last night I was only woke up 3 times! We're back to getting a full day of school in. I'm not complaining by any means, I love taking care of people! A much better option than to be the one to be taken care of!

I love winter. At least, not the cold part! but its very beautiful out! I (Emily) went out with my camera the other day: consequence: you get to look at pictures!!!If anyone looks at our blog at all?? Anyway:





This is the rope to the swingset-I thought it looked cool!



These are mice trails--We have alot.(of mice)





These last two are my favorite!






Keep warm. If you can!

Lydia has new glasses! She looks SOOOOOO cute! She is really far sided in one eye and far sided in the other. So her right pupil was twice as big as her left so hopefully this will correct it. She picked out the purple ones all by herself!



Three year olds can be so silly!

She is so good about wanting them on, she remembers first thing every morning. When we went to Wal-mart she kept saying to Mom, 'Wow, Mommy, look at this! Look at this!' And when we walked by the fish she said, 'Look how big the fish are!'. She pushes them up with her fingers on the lense, and then asks to have them cleaned several times a day!

Hi Everybody!
This was supposed to be posted like a long time ago, but I'm getting to it now-MY fault. Anyway, I got this buck the last day of Indiana gun season - the 27th of November. It was really exiting!
Dad was so funny, He USUALLY is really calm and collected, but when this buck walked out he "queitly" shouts "Big Buck, BIG BUCK" He reaches over and clicks off the safety. "Shoot him, SHOOT HIM!' I shot him and he ran about 50 yards!
We forgot the deer carrier for the sub, so the boys came and picked it up. The inside spread is 18 inches and I'm not sure about the other 8! It was really fun!

Sleep?

A couple of months ago I trecked back to the doctors, I'm beginning to feel like an 80 year old, bringing my list of issues. They put me on a heart monitor for 48 hours and the good news is that what I am feeling isn't my heart in any dangerous zones. My 'racing' and 'slowing' are within normal ranges, so they atest it to hypersensitivity or an adrenaline feed. So nothing to do about that.

But when I mentioned that I can't sleep, they wanted to see what my heart was doing while I sleep and discovered I have apnea. So over several weeks I have had 2 nights of sleep testing. The first one diagnosed the apnea, the second was adjusting a c-pap machine to fix the apnea. I'm pretty certain this has to be a highly entertaining job! When air is pressured up your nose, and you open your mouth in the slightest, it will trigger your gag reflex, and you can't talk with it on, or kiss your hubby goodnight!

I stop breathing 9 times and hour in my normal sleep and 15 times an hour in my dream sleep. My oxygen levels drop below 80% and don't recover before the next episode.


They believe that if I can get good or even better sleep, the rest of my heart issues will dissipate. The example they used was if you drove your car all day and when you pulled it in the garage left it running, it wouldn't last long and wouldn't be good for the car. If my heart has some legitimate down time, and can actually rest and rejuvenate then it may behave better when it's up and running.

So now instead of just reading and taking a sip of water before bed, I have to hook up and adjust, turn on the machine, adjust some more, adjust pillows, adjust blankets, adjust some more, repeat as necessary! Providing all this entertainment for Jeff! Thankfully he doesn't hear the machine and isn't bothered the least by it, and I can still hear the kids when they wake up!

Before my machine I was sleeping I was averaging 4 hours of sporadic sleep each night. After a couple of weeks of adjusting I'm now sleeping 6-7 hours of straight, knock out, don't even move sleep! Which I haven't done in a very long time!

One Saturday morning I even slept in until 10:10! I couldn't even believe it! It was so quiet!

They seem to think that if I can sleep better that these remaining issues will go away, so I am so determined to make it work! I have seen great improvement on my chest pain and headaches! I think the symptoms from the apnea are what allowed them to discover the hole in my heart. Usually if an adult has a hole it's discovered by a stroke or heart attack. So I'm thankful for the apnea! The world is a different color with sleep!

Thank you for your continued concern and prayers!

Daniel's pictures

These are Daniel's birthday pictures ... I also have pictures of his actual birthday, but haven't gone through those yet. :) Daniel turned 14 on October 24th!

Pics

I don't know if the cat likes it or not. Lydia does.

Grandpa lets me drive his truck, I get stuck!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grandpa hunting.

Sunset.

I like the blue sky with the tree.

Sunset again.

James Monroe's dollar.

A wheat penny.

Squirrel.

Another squirrel.

Bird.

Birds.

A bird about 6 feet away.

Squirrel.

Squirrel.

Bird.

I love red.

Lydia hanging under a chair.

Squirrel.

Squirrel.

Love, Matthew