Update on Faith's foot/ankle

So I took Faith to the orthopedic surgeon today and he believes that she has a stress injury to her growth plate. He has put her in a cast and we go back in 2 weeks for a check up. He said that this type of injury usually happens from jumping on a trampoline and I know she hasn't done that lately! She is still crawling around and not wanting to use it. I am hoping she decides too before she has to go back to school next week!!! Here are some pics of her and her purple cast....Just like Paige's was!

Good news and bad news....

The good new is that I FINALLY found a job. I am very excited about it. It offers a flexible schedule and to me would be a very rewarding career. I will be working as a Senior Care Provider. Basically, I will be matched up with an elderly client (or 2,) and I will go to their homes and do for them what they can't do for themselves. I'll cook, clean, bathe them, feed pets, grocery shop and take them to appointments. This is something that I have wanted to get into for a while. I've helped my grandma do a lot of these things and I think it will be a rewarding career, knowing that I am making someones life easier.

Now onto the bad news.....Faith has hurt her (right) foot/ankle. Right now we are not sure how bad it is. I took her to the doctor today and they x-rayed it. Her pediatrician said there is an area that looked suspicious and referred us to the orthopedic surgeon. For now she is in an aircast and will NOT walk on it at all. She crawls all over the place or I have to carry her. I am guessing that she hurt her foot playing in the snow on saturday...I'll update after her appt. with the orthopedic surgeon. I can't believe this may be my second child to have broken her foot.....

SNOW!!!

From Christmas Eve to the Saturday after Christmas, it snowed continously! We got over a foot of snow. Some of the snow drifts were up to 3 feet tall. The girls were anxious to get out and play in the snow and sled! Here are some pics of the snow and the girls (and jason) playing in it!

Christmas Day!

We had a great christmas. It was a beautiful white christmas. We got up early to open presents and stayed in for the day. It was too dangerous to get out with the 8-10 inches of snow we received.

Paige and Faith were very excited as they came down the stairs to see what Santa had brought them. They both received NEW bikes!! Other things included zhu zhu pets and accessories, board games, DS games, a cupcake maker, walkie talkies, dolls and boots. We spent the day at home playing with their new toys and visiting with my brother and sister who were brave enough to drive in the snow and come visit us!! Poor Paige is coming down with a cold or something so we didn't get to go out and sled in the snow today. Hopefully, she's feeling better this weekend so we can play in the snow and get some good pictures to show off!!

Another visit with Santa

Today we took the girls and their cousins to Crown Center to see Santa. They have a nice play area that the kids go through to see Santa at the end. Here are the girls about to go down the slide. Crawling out of the tunnel..

Playing in the Crayola Crayon Playhouse...

Here are Paige and Faith with Santa.

And here are all the kids with Santa. Paige, Christopher, Faith, Charity and Brittany. This has been a tradition every year that we have been in Kansas for christmas. We have like 6 years of photos of all the kids with the same santa at the same place! It's amazing to look back and see how much they have all grown and changed.

More Holiday Pictures

Paige, Faith and their cousin Christopher. According to the girls, he's their "boy!" Every year my step dad, Dan is Santa at the local American Legion Post. They do a christmas party for less fortunate kids. Here is Faith with Papa Santa.

This, of course is Paige with Papa Santa. Her other little friend is "Flat Paige." Her first grade class read some stories about Flat Stanley. Each student made a Flat character of themselves. They are supposed to be taking their Flat character along with them on adventures over winter break. This was "Flat" Paige's first adventure.

There is also a magician that comes to the American legion post every year and puts on a show for the kids. Jason was chosen for a magic trick again this year. He had to stand with a cup of water upside down on his head. The magician moved the paper out from underneath the cup of water....somehow the water disappeared and Jason did NOT get wet!!

Lots of Holiday Pictures!

The girls wore their christmas dresses to school on their last day before break. We had to take some pictures of them posing by the tree! Here are the girls!!

These pictures are of the girls at their "winter sing along" before their winter parties at school! This if Faith and her friend Alexis and then my Paigie girl "cheesin" as usual!!

First good Snow of the winter!!!

We received our first good snow of the winter last week. We only got a few inches. The girls LOVE it when it snows. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to play in the snow this time. Hopefully we'll get some good snow over christmas break!! Here are some pictures of what it looked like out our back door.
The patio furniture covered in snow..

Pictures with Santa!!

I hope everyone has received their christmas cards!! Here are the individual pictures of the girls with Santa. We got these taken at walmart. We'll be going to see Santa again next week so I'll have more pictures then!!

Annual Bonfire with our friends (neighbors)

Last weekend we had our annual bonfire/christmas lighting with our good friends and neighbors. We started this last year with our friends and the kids had such a good time that we decided to make it a yearly occassion. This picture is of Paige and Mackenzie roasting their marshmallows.... Here is Jason and Faith...

The marshmallows are roasting...

Paige and Mackenzie playing rockband. The really enjoyed playing. Paige is an awesome drummer.

Lastly, here is a picture of Paige and Faith. It was taken by Paige's teacher. She thought they looked so cute one day last week wearing their school sweatshirts!!

We took the girls to see Santa over the weekend.....will scan and post the pics soon.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at our house!!!

We put up our Christmas decorations the friday after Thanksgiving and the saturday. We have soo many decorations and not enough places to put them. Here are some pictures of our house.

Here are the stairways....

The outside of the house...

The chest with our stockings, past christmas pictures with santa and some other christmas decorations......

And the Christmas tree.......

Expeditionary Learning Night

Above are pics of Paige speaking at her school tonight!

The girls attend an Expeditionary Learning School. Tonight they had Expeditionary Learning Night. It is an opportunity for them to show off what they have learned so far this year. They started off the night with a "community circle," which the school has twice a month. It is a time when the whole school comes together to talk about what they are learning and to show the other students in the school. At the community circle tonight the kindergarteners sang a song called "Put a wing on it." The song is about caterpillers and butterflies which they learned about in their first expedition of the year. The song was to the tune of Beyonce's "All the single Ladies". The song was sooo cute. They sang and did motions to the song. Here are some pictures....

Here is a short video of Faith and the kindergarteners singing their song.....

On the road to recovery....

As some may know I have been very sick lately. On November 1st, I spiked a fever and started coughing and feeling really tight in my chest. I took some nyquil and went to sleep that night. The next morning I never woke up, I slept all day and again into the next day (which was now tuesday and this started sunday). When I got out of bed on Tuesday I felt horrible. I finally decided to go to urgent care. I was coughing uncontrollably, my body hurt, my chest hurt, and I was still running a high fever. Urgent care diagnosed me with "H1N1" after doing a flu swab. I was put on medications and warned by the doctor that if I did not improve or in the least bit declined that I needed to come back in because I have asthma and it is common for people with asthma as an underlying condition to become very ill with "H1N1." At this point, I was scared. The doctor had really scared me. I went home and went straight to bed. I took my medicine as directed and did not feel better at all. On thursday I called the urgent care because I was feeling so bad. They instructed me to call my primary care doctor who wanted to see me immediately. My mom took me to the doctor on thursday afternoon. My doctor took my oxygen levels (which were 83%) and one look at me and told my mom to take me straight to the hospital to be admitted. After arriving at the hospital they took a chest x-ray and informed me that I had pneumonia. The "H1N1" had become pneumonia in my right lung. I was admitted to the hospital and put in isolation since I was "h1n1" positive. Every doctor and nurse that came in contact with me wore safety goggles, face mask, body gear, shoe covers. It was like I had the plague. I was admitted to the hospital on thursday (nov. 4) and was not discharged until tuesday (Nov.10). While in the hospital I was given tamiflu, z-pak, and prednisone for my lungs. I was on oxygen for 3 days while in the hospital. My oxygen levels were not stable for a lot of the time in the hospital. Upon being discharged my fever had been gone for 2 days. My oxygen levels were much better (in the 90-92) but I still had pneumonia in my lung. The doctor said that was normal as it takes a while. I have been to the doctor for a checkup since being discharged for an x-ray. The pneumonia is still in my lung and I will be going back to the doctor next week for another x-ray. I am feeling much better. I have been tired and weak compared to what I was before being sick. The doctor said that I was "a very sick person" and it will take me at least a month to get to where I was before. This was very difficult for me to go through. I didn't get to see the girls for 6 days. I talked to them everyday. They were so strong through it all, which helped me get better. I turned 30 on Monday(the 16th) and this whole experience has made me appreciate life a lot more. It's crazy how I went from being such a healthy person to being soo sick in the hospital. I am soo thankful to be alive and home and well. It was the best birthday present I could of had.

Getting Started

I have started this blog to try and keep family across the country involved in our lives. The girls are growing up so quickly and it's harder for us to travel these days with them in school. Hopefully this will help keep everyone updated on what is going on in our life!! I will try to get some things posted over the next week.