April in Pictures

Will winter ever relent?  We'll soon find out.  Here are a few from April so far.

Want to see more pictures?  Click the link below!

March in Pictures

This month I celebrated my birthday surrounded by snow.  Winter just wouldn't relent, and spring would have to wait a while longer to make its entrance.  Jesse and I also celebrated our 15th anniversary.  I continued editing my manuscript, both on my own and following the suggested edits of two friends who read the story and made their adjustments.  The kids ... well, the kids were ready for a break, so we took a week-long spring break, and then hit the books after with great gusto.  Gusto to get through the end of the year and get it over and done!

Want to see more pictures?  Click the link below.

February in Pictures

February was miserably cold and snowy.  We had more snow than I've ever seen in my life, and most of the "natives" up here ... born in Minnesota and not transplanted ... said it was one of the harshest they've seen as well.  Cabin fever set in, but we made the best of it.  All the time inside helped me complete the first draft of my very first novel, and I couldn't be more scared or excited about the prospects.

Want to see more pictures?  Click the link below.

January in Pictures

Pretty much the only "resolution" I made this year was to take at least one photo of the daily goings-on around the house, to keep a photographic record of our family for a year.  Life in Pictures, if you will.  

Here is January's album.  If you click on the pictures, you can see a larger slide show.  Enjoy!

Want to see more pictures?  Click the link below.

A Conversation with Isaac

This evening we went to the bowling alley.  At one point, Isaac had to go to the bathroom.  This was the conversation we had while he was using the facilities:

Isaac:  "Mom, this is the ladies room.  You're not a lady.  You can't come in here."
Me:  "Yes, I can.  I'm a lady."
Isaac:  "No, you're not.  Ladies wear glasses. You don't have glasses."
Me:  "Sometimes I wear glasses to drive.  Does that count?"
Isaac:  "Um, y-eah.  Maybe.  But you don't drive, Mom."
Me:  "Yes, I do."
Isaac:  "You don't drive Daddy's Buick."
Me:  "I know.  I drive the Suburban."
Isaac:  "Does it have a name?"
Me:  "Yep.  The Beast."

(At this point it's good to know that Isaac is convinced the Buick Rendezvous is a Transformer.  We play mind games with the four-year old.  It's fun.)

Isaac:  "He's not a Transformer like Rendezvous."
Me:  "Yes, he is.  He transforms every night."
Isaac:  "Into what?"
Me:  "The Abominable Snowman."
Isaac:  "That's not real, Mom."
Me:  "Yes, he is."
Isaac:  "What do they do?"
Me:  "They transform and have snowball fights every night."
Isaac:  "Hmph.  I'm done.  You can wipe my butt now."

Belated Birthdays

Yeah ... just a little delinquent here on two birthday posts.  Doh!

Riley turned 12 on October 28th.  I can't believe our oldest is twelve already!  One more year to go before we enter TeenHood.

And Isaac turned four on December 1st.  Where has the time gone?!

Favorite Holiday Guessing Game

This was a conversation I just had with my Brookie:

Brooke:  "Mom, Mom?!  Guess which holiday is my favorite."

Me:  "Ok.  Hmmm.  Your birthday?"

Brooke:  "Nope.  Try again."

Me:  "Christmas?"

Brooke:  "No."

Me:  "St. Patrick's Day?"

Brooke:  [Blank stare.  Thinking face.]  "What's that?"

Me:  "Never mind.  How about April Fool's Day?"

Brooke:  "No, no, no."

Me:  [Sighing.]  "Uh, Halloween?"

Brooke:  "Mom, no.  Listen.  You know that time we went to Grandma's house and got cookies?  That holiday."

Me:  "You're going to have to give me a little more detail."

Brooke:  [Throws her hands up in the air.]  "Ok, it's something like ... it has to do with Jesus.  Rooster? or something like that?"

Me:  "You mean Easter?  The day we celebrate Jesus coming back to life?"

Brooke:  "Yep!  That's it!"

Me:  "Ok, what about Easter?"

Brooke:  "Oh, nothing.  I just like it."

Happy 10th Birthday!

On October 20th, our Savvy-girl turned 10 years old!  Happy Birthday to my sweet and sassy Savannah!

Happy 6th to our Brooke!

Allergies Suck

Yes, yes they do.  Our poor Savannah can tell you all about it.

Yesterday she had an appointment in Duluth with her allergy doctor to test for a milk and nut allergy.  She's had some pretty bad reactions lately to almonds, and she has had signs of a milk allergy as well.

The good news is that she is NOT allergic to milk or dairy.  Praise God for that!  Doc thinks a lactose intolerance is causing those problems.  She does, however, have an allergy to peanuts and tree nuts; mainly almonds, pecans, cashews, and walnuts.  In addition, Dr. Munson tested her for soy, and she's allergic to that as well.

You may be wondering why I'm putting this on the blog.  The answer is simple:  this was an answered prayer.  And I love to praise God in times like these!

Not that we wanted her to have food allergies.  Heavens, no!  I'd prefer that she not have any; but, unfortunately, that's just how she's made.  Fearfully and wonderfully made, I might add.

Lately, Savvy has been praying at night for a better appetite and that she would want to eat.  She hasn't felt good at all for a very long time, and I will admit to not believing it to be genuine and thinking she was just avoiding foods she didn't want to eat.  But I think all along she's been feeling pretty yucky, and I am in line for Worse Mother of the Year Decade.

That said, the hives and itchy throat reaction to milk and to almonds is what spurred us to have her further tested.  And the test indicated that she is allergic to soy and peanuts, two things that she has a lot of in her diet.  She ate peanut butter every single day, and I know soy is in a lot of processed snacks, cereals and breads.

Could it be possible that her chronic headaches and sore throat are directly related to food allergies?  Her doctor said, emphatically, "YES!"  Prayer answered.  Could it be that eating peanut butter every day is making her sick and not want to eat.  Pretty sure that's a yes too.  And maybe, just maybe, knowing this new information will allow her to eat the foods that are good for her and make her feel well will increase her appetite and desire to eat more.

God does answer prayer, but not always in the way we think it should happen.  I wasn't looking for allergies, but now that we know about them, we'll deal with them and help our little girl eat healthier and get better.

Strong Savvy Girl and Divine Intervention

Those close to me on Facebook were able to follow our adventure yesterday.  For those not on there, here's the low down.

Monday night around supper time, while I was embarrassing myself at Zumba for the first (read:  last) time, Savannah was home starting to feel rather yucky.  By the time I got home she was in tears.  But anyone who knows my Savvy knows that she tends to exaggerate her aches and pains.  Just the way she is.  Something about the pain, and the tears, however, seemed legit.

I examined her with my limited knowledge, and determined that a "wait and see" approach was necessary.  She had abdominal pain, nausea and a headache.  And generally felt really bad.  Flash forward to Tuesday morning, and I walked down the stairs to find a crying Savvy laid up on the couch, where she had been since just after 5 a.m.  I sent her to bed to rest, and checked on her periodically.

About 10 a.m., she started with the fever.  Still had the other symptoms, but more pain, and 102° fever.  The fever is what made the call for me.  I've never had any child have a fever with a stomach virus, and she still wasn't vomiting or anything else nasty.

So off we went to the urgent care doctor in the nearby small city of Virginia, and the doctor there did his exam.  He suspected appendicitis, and told me to head on over to the emergency room.  The ER doctor also had the same exam results.  The CT scan she had a few hours later confirmed their suspicions:  appendicitis with a leaking appendix.

Thankfully, the surgical team had been given a heads-up before the CT scan was even performed.  The same surgeon that did my vein surgery back in November was the one on-call for Savvy, and I was thankful that I knew him and knew he'd do a good job.

Savvy's recovering well this morning.  I stayed at home with the kids, since I still have a little booby vampire that likes me close in the bed at night, and Jesse stayed with Savvy.  Her pain this morning was down to a 1 on the chart, after a dose of morphine at 11 p.m. last night and a night's sleep.

Here's the divine intervention part.

Last week we had a little scare with Jed.  Yeah, follow me if you can.  I'll try to keep it simple.

Jed has ear infection.  -->  Jed takes amoxicillin.  -->  Day 8 of antibiotics, Jed breaks out in head to toe rash.  --> Jed is determined to be allergic to the meds, put on different ones.  -->  I come home and research amoxicillin rash, and find out that it can be an indicator of mononucleosis.  -->  Savvy has had all the symptoms of the very contagious virus, mono.  -->  I take her in to get tested because we have a birthday party planned for the weekend and I didn't want to spread germs. -->  She has strep test, monospot test, and a complete blood count workup.  All normal.

Now we're back to yesterday at the ER, where the doctor has done a urinalysis and another CBC to test her white blood cell count.  The reports come back that she did have some white blood cells in her urine, and the blood test showed the levels to be on the upper range of normal.  But it's also normal for kids to have higher wbc counts because of all the stuff their bodies fight on a daily basis.

The doctor wasn't convinced just based on the lab results that she had a serious infection.  BUT (here's the cool part ... ) she had a CBC just last week that was "normal".  And I thought, hey, I'll have the clinic fax over her results from last week so we can compare the two levels a week apart.  Last week, the count was 7.7.  Yesterday in the ER, up to 13.

I'm convinced that last week's motherly paranoia was a God-send.  I'm also thankful for high fevers that got my butt in gear and got her to the hospital before the appendix ruptured.  Because it was already leaking, and five times its normal size.  Rupture was imminent.  God is good.

God is so good that he designed her little body to be able to wall off a leaking infection to keep it from running rampant in her gut.

I'm simply humbled at His great design, and thankful for that little nagging voice in my head that said, no demanded, that I get her to a doctor and soon.

Life in Pictures

Just to catch up a little on blogging, a few pictures of the last few months.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Isaac!!

Just waking up on his birthday ... love the smile on this guy!

Mommy and her little man

Half chocolate, half vanilla cake, made to look like the pit mines that Jesse and Jesse's dad, John, work at.
Isaac just calls it his "dump truck cake".  

Brothers

October 29, 2012

Isaac, almost 3 and Jed, 4 1/2 months

Happy 11th Birthday, Riley!

You are beautiful, intelligent, creative, unique, flamboyant and just a little ditsy.  We love you so much, Riley. Happy Birthday to our first-born!

Happy 9th Birthday!

Wishing my sassy, sweet, funny, sneaky, joyful, intelligent, lovable daughter Savannah a wonder-filled birthday today!  We love you, Savvy-girl!

The Whole (Crazy) Crew!

Oh, Those Fall Colors!

Autumn in northern Minnesota is absolutely gorgeous!  I've been meaning to get out and take leaf pictures for a while now, and just haven't gotten around to it.  So it's a good thing that my in-laws have a beautiful maple tree in the back yard to snap photos of.  Here are a few.  Oh, yeah, and trying to get Isaac to stay still for a picture nowadays is next to impossible, so I didn't get any of him in the leaves.

My Blessings

Love these kiddos!