It's been cold

Here are some shots of the snow that I took around the house this morning.

Video clips

Here's some random video we've taken recently.

Below are some video clips I took on my phone while we were at IKEA. They're pretty low quality.

All Is Well

I am sure that as a result of many prayers, we have averted disaster. Brandon is fine. A little grumpy and having diarrhea a couple times a day, but nothing like his sister got! We're so glad and so grateful!

I took Brandon and Katelyn to see the endocrinologist that follows their growth and they have slowed down in the last six months, so we are going to be increasing the hormones a bit so see if we can gain some more ground. We'll go back in 4 months for another check.

Derek is a little better with his cough, but it isn't cleared up so we'll be heading back in to our dear pediatrician, and maybe my new bff. I talk to him and see him more than some of my closest friends these days! But I can't complain because everyone is ok! Thanks for all the prayers and thoughts for our family! We feel so blessed and loved.

Raccoon, Horse and the Boys

Brandon likes to dress in costumes and his brothers love to help him out. Notice Katelyn's tutu under his super cool Jedi costume.

Derek talking to his mom.

While the girls were in the hospital I got to take Brandon to his horseback riding therapy. I got more shots of him on the horse. He loves the horses and he gets excited when we just pull in the parking lot.

Spike, the cat, keeps getting his food stolen. Tonight we caught the thief red-handed. He was amazingly brave and posed for a lot of photos. I've seen and heard raccoons fight and they actually kind of scare me so I made sure the door was locked.

You can see how brave he was in this video. It took quite a bit to scare him off.

And the saga continues....

Well just as I was really feeling comfortable in my even-better-than normal day yesterday, Brandon threw up as he woke up from his nap. So I had to make some quick alternate plans for childcare while I took Derek to the doctor for his cough that will not go away. I'm so thankful for Brent's help, he deserves the Mr. Mom of the year award! We thought Derek might have asthma and the doctor agreed but couldn't find any proof of it, so he's being treated for an a-typical pnuemonia first to see if that clears it up.

I've been bracing myself for disaster since Brandon threw up. I'm not sure its coming, but its seems too unlikely that its not. He didn't eat much dinner, but he was drinking. Last night I left as soon as the kids were in bed to go help my mom and I got a call from Brent that both, YES BOTH! both babies had thrown up and Brandon was starting with the diarrhea. So I headed back home and helped deal with that. Once the mess was under control I sat down with a tub of cookie dough and watched Desperate Housewives. By 10:30 I felt a little better :D and decided to go to bed since the night could be pretty intense.

But I woke up this morning and everything and everyone is mostly okay. Brandon woke up once in the night with a fever, but no more vomiting or diarrhea. He didn't eat much breakfast but he did eat lunch. Could we be so lucky? Could it be so much less severe with him? Keep those prayers coming! I laughed at your comment this morning Whitney! I guess if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

We're still home.

Well we're still home with Katelyn. We've been on the edge basically since we came home, but she's doing much better today. She's even playing about as much as she is laying!

Our pediatrician is great and he has been in touch with us even over the weekend and he called in some medicine for her lip yesterday and it is helping so much. But by last night she still wasn't eating and hadn't increased her drinking at all and I had told him I would call him if that were the situation so I did and he called the on call pediatrician and we went to see him. I'm pretty sure that actually seeing the doctor saved us a trip back to the hospital because I even heard the secretaries saying how sad it was that she was headed back to the hospital and that our doctor had called. So when he looked at her he was surprised at how hydrated she actually was. But when he checked in her mouth it induced vomiting. A lot of vomiting. She completely soaked us both. I had clean clothes for her, but not for me. It was a cold, long ride home. She kept putting her arms up to be picked up and then she'd look at me and say "mommy wet" and whine. It was so sad!

One thing I forgot to mention in my last post was one of the highlights of our hospital stay was seeing Dr. Downy. He was Brandon's pediatric surgeon. If it were possible to credit just one person for saving Brandon's life it would be this brilliant man who did his illiostomy on his 7th day of life and in the process developed a new way to solve one of the problems Brandon had. We love him so much! He was in a serious mountain biking accident about a year and a half ago and broke his neck. He has recovered and is working again. He's probably not far from retirement, but he can go out on his terms. We didn't get a picture this time but its always exciting to see him. We saw another doctor who we got to know a little during our NICU days - the infection disease doctor. About 4 hours after Katelyn's stool sample had been taken to the lab, he was standing outside her hospital room door. This is not the guy you want to see in our situation! But he had the wrong room :D We were so glad it wasn't anything scary enough to require his opinion!

So hopefully each day will get better for our little princess!

A very long week......

This has been a very long week for our family. One that has reminded us just how fragile our little ones' bodies are still. Katelyn woke up from her nap on Sunday with a fever and within an hour was throwing up. The diarrhea started soon after and by Monday morning she was very lethargic and not keeping anything down. She was starting to show signs of dehydration and so I took her in to the doctor. Of course she perked right up for him but he said if she was any worse by that night I would need to call him for her to go the hospital to get some iv fluids. So we waited and although she finally did have a barely wet diaper, she could barely stand, we couldn't get her almost 104 fever down any lower than 101 and she was refusing to eat or drink anything. So we called our pediatrician back and went down to the hospital for fluids. We were surprised when he said that she would be admitted. Somehow I thought this was a simple outpatient thing that would only take a few hours. Boy was I wrong! We were there 3 nights and I think I realized just how bad it had been when I rejoiced in seeing her adorable smile for the first time in a few days on Wednesday night. During the worst of it her eyes were barely open, she wouldn't talk except to say no and she was limp and burning up. But she did improve and we brought her home Thursday, just after we found out what had been ravaging her tiny little body - rotavirus (a nasty GI virus). But by Friday she had stopped eating and was not drinking much and not having wet diapers, still having diarrhea and started throwing up again. I took her back in and the doctor said we were on the border again. But we also found some big sores in her mouth that would make anyone not want to eat or drink so now we're treating that with some lidocane and more anti-nausea medicine. So today is the day we are hoping to turn things around because if we don't she's headed back tonight. She ate a little breakfast and drank a little too but then filled a diaper. We'll see how things go today. Thanks for all the prayers that have already been said for her.

Princess Katelyn doing some watercoloring in the crib.

The first family visit. She was so happy.