Thankful Thanksgiving

We had a great time at our Thanksgiving gathering once again this year :) We all went to my sister-in-laws parents house. They are always so gracious to let all of us invade on them :) I'm pretty sure they are the coolest grandparents ever! We had an amazing meal with all of the goodies of course and the weather was unseasonably warm so the kids played outside all afternoon! Jake was in heaven of course!

Addy spend time with her favorite person, her cousin John :) Poor boy, she would not leave his side!

Fortunately, Mama took over and entertained her with some singing at the piano :)

She also had a fantastic time tackling and rough housing on the bed with her cousins :) They thought it was pretty funny that she was being the aggressive one!

Little Man had a great time being entertained by everyone as well, unfortunately I can't show you that but I think it's safe to show this:

I brought the little kids home and Scott and Jarika headed out to do some shopping. Scott has been the master so far this season! I'm pretty impressed with his mad shopping/deal skills! I've done some shopping online, I MUCH prefer it! I despise shopping most of the time! He went out some through the night to get some staggered deals while I stayed snug as a bug in bed :)

Yesterday we braved the 41 degree weather to have some family pictures made. I can't wait to see them but unfortunately won't be able to share them since Little Man is part of our family right now :) Jarika and I went to see Twilight last night and hope to get some of our Christmas decorations up this morning. I have a Thirty-One party this afternoon, I love helping people get some great Christmas gifts!

I hope everyone had a very blessed Thanksgiving! Now onto celebrating the birth of our King!

Angel Tree Time

I have been meaning to put this post together for two weeks and things have been crazy but the time is now! Once again I am a Christmas Warrior for a precious orphan overseas who has Down syndrome. This beautiful little girl needs a family to love and cherish her just as we love and cherish Addy. Corinne is almost three years old and has spent her life in an orphanage with no mama and daddy to love her :( You however can help her! International adoption is very costly and Reece's Rainbow is an international adoption ministry which provides grants for families to be able to bring these precious angels home. My dream is to adopt through RR someday. If it will happen, I don't know, however, I do know that I can share about RR and about beautiful little Corinne who deserves a family. Any donation amount is greatly appreciated, however, for a tax deductible donation of $35 you will get a beautiful ornament with Corinne's picture on it. You will be able to see her beautiful face on your tree and know that you have done something to try to help her family find her and bring her home! I have donated to the angel tree every year since it began and jsut about every child that hangs on my tree is now home with their forever family decorating their own tree with a family that loves them. My angel from last year, Ashlyn, now has a family working hard to go and get her :) Click HERE for your tax deductible donation!

Hoping it gets better!

The past month has been full of activities and illness and I am more than ready for things to get better! I was home with Addy on Thursday since she was sick. It was amazing all I got done with just the two of us at home :) I feel like I'm always coming and going around here! We have things every night of the week that I'm running someone to at some point, that Thursday I wanted to be a stay at home mom, it was so nice to know that I had things finished that I wouldn't have to do after working all day :)  I went to Bunco Friday night, I needed to get away for a little bit for a break. I was super tired since I had been up with Addy the night before with her vomiting :( Well, I should have known it was coming, I had to leave Bunco because I got sick :( It hit hard and fast I didn't get out of bed yesterday until late afternoon to soak in the tub to get my fever down. Little Man was so fussy too, poor Scott, must have been a very long day for him!

I had Addy and Little Man back to the doctor on Friday morning for re-checks and both have been RE-referred to the pulmonologist because I haven't received appointment times yet. I didn't get a chance to call their office Friday afternoon (I was back at work) so I will try to call tomorrow after school if I don't hear anything during the day. Our ped decided to go ahead and continue nebs morning and night until pulmonology has a different plan. She went ahead and gave Addy her flu shot too. She wasn't sure she was going to since she was still a little puny from her stomach bug but since it had been over 24 hours since she had thrown up or had a fever they went ahead. Addy had been sick A LOT this school year already and we will be in for a very long winter if this continues. I had to give Addy's doc a hard time about being in Hawaii while Addy and Little Man BOTH had pneumonia, she's never allowed to leave again! It's never good for us around here!

I have been better today, still not 100% by any means but I'm out of bed and able to keep things down :) Now I pray that no one else gets this nasty bug!

Lungs :(

If you have followed my blog for awhile you know that Addy has significant issues with her lungs. She was born with pulmonary hypertension and chronic lung disease. She has had pneumonia more times than I can remember. She's had it three times in 2012. Last week she had multi-focal pneumonia, it affected all four lobes of her lungs. Thankfully she responded extremely well to Rocephin and stayed out of the hospital and she hasn't coughed or wheezed in at least four days :)

I can't really discuss Little Man but let me just say I was really hoping we weren't following the same path but he's wanting to follow suit :( pneumonia hasn't changed for the past month following three rounds of antibiotics so we get to visit our pulmonologist soon. What's the deal with my kiddos and their lungs???

Happy Halloween!

The 25th

I don't like October 25th. My dad died six years ago today. I miss him soo sooo much. I was already dreading this day and it was worse than I imagined. My Addy is SICK! Yesterday at her 3 o'clock feeding at school she felt warm so the nurse took her temp and it was 101. On Monday we were at her ped for an injured foot (she sprained it, no idea how). She finished Zithromax on Sunday for a respiratory infection but her cough was still pretty bad. Her doc listened to her and said she sounded good but wanted us to continue with her nebs but add Pulmicort, so we did. I knew she really wasn't improving but I just had her checked out. When I got her yesterday I could tell she was NOT GOOD. I called the doctors office (knowing her ped is now in Hawaii/stinker!) but was hoping the on-call doc would call her something in. Nope, needs to be seen. Weeellll, that was what was supposed to happen. We went in this afternoon and her temp was 103.8 this morning and ran around 101/102 this afternoon. Her pulse ox was 89 this morning (yeah, NOT good). It has hovered around 93/94 this afternoon and evening. She is usually inpatient when it goes to 93 or below. The on-call doctor listened to her for quite awhile and said that she had good air movement on the right side but not at all on the left. Addy was coughing when the doc was looking in her throat and apparently she is coughing up some lovely yellow goo. Nice huh? We went to the hospital for x-rays and sure enough, my little princess has Multi-focal pneumonia. She has it in all four lobes! She is SICK! We went back to the ped and got two shots of Rocephin and another neb and pulse ox check. She was 94 so we were fortunately able to come home! Scott is in Seattle until tomorrow night, he's been working there since Sunday. Not a great time for Addy to go inpatient! I take her back in the morning to be monitored to see if the injections did anything for her. If not, in we go. If she's improving then she will get two more injections and sent home. PRAYING that is what happens! I am not loving having such a sick baby girl!

Addy is SIX

Unfortunately I haven't been able to keep up with my 31 for 21 this month :( first time since I started blogging. I guess having an extra child at home and practically being a single parent with Scott working two jobs (just for two more weeks though!) I just haven't had the time. I'm exhausted at night when the littles go to bed!

Addy turned six on the 18th. If you ask her, she is 18! Too stinkin funny. We've worked on it so now she says "Eight.... no six!" Oh how I LOVE this girl!

Here are pix from her actual birthday:

Her most favorite gift! A book that I made on Shutterfly for her to start recognizing her family members names in print. She absolutely LOVES it!

Zoey sent her a darling doll that Ruby's mom made! It is so cute and has the best pink hair ever! Addy is a little scared of her right now but I'm pretty sure she'll warm up to her soon!

Today we had her birthday party. It was an amazingly good time!!! Several friends weren't able to make it which was a bummer but she had a great time anyway! Her PHENOMENAL Music Therapist, Morgan, came to put on the show :) The kids had a mini therapy session and then made a drum and guitar. Addy's favorite part was Karaoke  :) She sings a pretty fantastic  "Call Me Maybe! I have it on video on my phone but it doesn't want to upload so I'll have to try later. Here are some pix of the party, her "boyfriend" Marc was able to join us, she was so excited, she's pretty enamored with him!

Her friend Isabella, she's in her kindergarten class with her.

She LOVES her shaker eggs!

Addy and Marc

She's really trying to get a kiss, he wants nothing to do with it!

Making their drums :)

Addy has done something to her right foot and is not wanting to bear weight on it so she's having to be prodded to participate! Guess we'll be heading to her ped tomorrow... sigh

YUMMY cake!!! You can't see them in the pic but the icing is covered in sparkles :) It was chocolate with banana cream filling, soooo goood!

She's trying sooo hard to blow that candle out herself! lol

I got her to try a tiny bit of icing, girl has no idea what she's missing!

You gotta love the attempt of group pictures!