Jewelry Giveaway at Simplemom!!

Isn't this necklace beautiful??!! It's by Lisa Leonard, and Simplemom is having a giveaway of this necklace. Simply leave a comment on her blog here, telling her one thing on your Christmas wish list, in order to be entered for a chance to win!!

Yum!!

Mmm...we were spoiled tonight!! My friend, Louise, from the moms group, brought dinner for us. And boy, was it yummy! Grilled chicken and tri-tip, corn on the cob, potatoes and onions, garlic bread, homemade mac & cheese...and the finale - apple crisp! And a special surprise - I get to keep the beautiful baking dish she made it in - how sweet is that?! I've totally been craving apple crisp lately, too, since we're getting into fall. I can hardly wait until we go apple-picking with the moms group in a couple weeks...I smell more apple desserts coming!!

School time

Anthony has been very interested in school lately. He has several workbooks, thanks to my mom and Darrell, and some flashcards I got him, but I admit that I rarely sit down with him to work on any of them. He, however, is SO interested in them that he will, of his own accord, get out a workbook, and stand at his desk, tracing letters and numbers for an HOUR, uninterrupted!! Anyway, I feel like I'm failing him, because he obviously has SO much potential and I've done little to encourage continued learning and growth in this area...not like I've had my hands full of anything else...but still! So, about a week ago, I told him that we would start doing "school time," during the day while daddy is at work and the girls are asleep. That's usually my "hurry up and get things done" time, but I'll just have to figure out other ways to get my work done!

So he hasn't forgotten my promise, and has been begging me to do school time...so finally, today, we did it. First he did some worksheets on colors and matching, then some worksheets on shapes, then he did some addition flashcards using dry noodles to count, and finally, he glued noodles onto paper to spell his name...he thought that was VERY cool! We probably spent about 45 minutes total, and he still wasn't ready to be done, but it was lunch time and I was starving!

Weekend Pics

On Saturday, we had lots of company. My brother Eric, his wife Chrissy, their son Jake, and Chrissy's niece & nephew came to visit from Palm Springs. Chrissy and Jake left for a while to go visit Chrissy's grandma, who lives not far from us, and when they came back, they brought a yummy chocolate cream pie! Mmmmmm.

That afternoon, our dear friends Dan and Gloria came over too. They had gotten us a patio swing a while ago, as a housewarming gift, so Dan, Eric, and Darrell got that put together for us. I got to be the "tester" when it was done - and almost fell on the ground b/c something wasn't quite right...he he he. They figured it out quickly and fixed it, but I was a bit less willing to be the tester at that point!! Nonetheless, it was awesome to be able to sit on the patio and swing with the kids later that evening!!

Eric and Mackenzie - don't you love the look??

The big kids had fun playing with play-doh...both the regular kind and some peanut butter play-doh.

Eric and Darrell making plans for the back yard...at least, I think that's what they were discussing!!

The awesome swing...it even lays flat, so you can lay down on it and take a snooze! (Not that I have time for that...but I can dream, right?!)

Somebodies who love cheerios!!!

Mmmm...pink lemonade cupcakes!! I made up a batch yesterday afternoon. They are soooo yummy!! I've made them twice now, though, and both times, they didn't rise properly. The recipe uses a boxed white cake mix, so it's not like I'm leaving out an ingredient. I even added some baking soda yesterday, which the recipe does not call for, hoping that would help, but it didn't. And the first time around, I had used my stand mixer, and mom thought maybe I mixed it too long, so this time I used the hand mixer, and only mixed it 90 seconds instead of 2 minutes, but alas, they didn't rise. Not sure what to think. I bought the two cake mixes at the same time, and while they don't expire for another year, I'm wondering if they were a bad batch? Or maybe there's just too much liquid in the recipe? Though I would think others would have the same problem if that were the case. The website where I found the recipe is down right now, due to the hurricane, so I can't go on there and leave her a comment asking advice...hmm...what do you bakers think?? Oh, the other thing I do differently from the recipe is that instead of lemon juice in the frosting, I use pink lemonade concentrate, since there's some left over from the cupcake batter. Yum!

In other news, the moms group I joined when we moved here has been unbelievably fabulous to us during this trying time! They've been sending so many supportive text messages, emails, etc., and one mom and her daughter even sent some CD's for the kids and a card for me and one for Mackenzie. So sweet! And, they've been bringing us dinners!! Such a HUGE help!! The mom who brought us dinner yesterday also brought some toys for Anthony that she had cleared out and I had expressed interest in. Boy was he excited this morning when I surprised him with them - they are all from the movie Cars, which is his favorite right now.

AND, if that wasn't enough, yesterday, one of the moms (whom I've never actually even met yet, I don't think!), blessed us with a king-sized Sleep Number bed - FREE!! It's 5 years old, and she and her husband just didn't care for it. We've been wanting a king-sized bed for a while, but they are quite pricey. We had considered the sleep number types of beds, too...they sell another brand at Sam's Club. This particular model sells on the Select Comfort website for $2149.50 (though, if you ask me, after having seen the parts and all...they are WAY overpriced)!! Anyway, Darrell and Dan went and picked it up yesterday and put it together yesterday afternoon. After the first night, we aren't sure what to think. My back was hurting when I got up - but that's not new - it's almost always hurting when I get up...our old mattress wasn't much better. I'm hoping maybe if I adjust the firmness of the bed, that will help. Darrell said he didn't sleep well either, though it didn't make his back hurt or anything...just was new and different. We'll see how it goes...at any rate, you can't beat FREE to try it out, and we are definitely keeping our old mattress set, so there's no problem if it doesn't work out.

Blessings all around!! :) Tomorrow I take Mackenzie for her follow-up with the plastic surgeon. One of the moms from the moms group is going to come over and watch the other two so I don't have to drag them along. I don't need a repeat performance of Makayla tumbling off the exam table!!

Cool Blogs!!

As you can see, over on the right, I have quite a long blog roll, and it keeps growing! That's because I continue to find such awesome blogs that I can't stop adding them to my list!! :) Anyway, I wanted to highlight a couple of them for you. You all know that I absolutely heart SimpleMom, so I won't go into her wonderful-ness again.

A new one I've discovered (in fact, I don't think I've even added her to my blog roll yet), is Unplug Your Kids. This is a completely awesome blog from a mom who has three kiddos - 2, 6 and 8, and they have no television and no video games - imagine that! Every week she posts an Unplugged challenge with a different theme - some cool activity to try with your kids. This week's theme is sand...I'm trying to decide if I can scoop up enough sandy dirt from the back yard and call it sand!!

Have you wondered what the "I'm a Company Girl," button is for over there on the right? It's for the blog, Home Sanctuary. Every day (weekdays), she posts a "small thing" that you can do to make your home more of a sanctuary...often they are little things that get unnoticed or overlooked. Things like tidying up the mess of electrical cords behind your computer/t.v. set, or wiping down the washer and dryer. Today's small thing is cleaning the corners of just one room (b/c the corners often get overlooked). Then she gives you points for each day's challenge, which you keep track of yourself, and at the end of the month, she awards prizes - one for the person with the most points, and one for a random drawing from all those who participated that month. Cool, huh?

I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!!

Hopefully I'll be back later to post some pics from the weekend. But just in case I don't get a chance, let me update you on our girl!! She's doing pretty well. Her appetite still isn't back to normal; she's eating about 2/3 of what she normally eats. She has a hard time going to sleep, and I'm thinking it's b/c her wound itches her. I give her the Atarax, but it doesn't seem to help. She wants to constantly be rubbing her face, with her hands, or when we put the arm splints on her or swaddle her, then she tries to rub her face on the bed, our shirts - whatever she can. And she cries. Actually, she screams. She's developed a new sound to her crying, now that she can hear, I guess...I swear, she's throwing a temper tantrum sometimes!! She has this new high-pitched screeching, furious scream that she's perfected! She's been keeping Makayla awake with her crying, unfortunately! Tomorrow is her follow-up with the plastic surgeon, so we'll see what he has to say. But all in all, she's looking really good, her fever has stayed gone, and she's only a coughing a little bit.

Before & After

Free at last!

We are home!!! Yay!!! I don't have time to write out the whole long story now, but on Wednesday, Mackenzie got very sick and even turned blue b/c she was having such a hard time breathing. She had to be on oxygen and received IV antibiotics. Turned out she had gotten pneumonia. By yesterday morning, she was much improved, but still was eating very little, so they kept her. Finally today, she's back to her normal happy, jumping self, and ate a full 4 oz this morning!! She'll continue on antibiotics for another week, as well as ear drops and meds for pain and agitation. But she's smiling and happy!! We got home a couple hours ago, and she's sleeping peacefully in her own bed right now!!

Thanks to everyone for your prayers and well-wishes!! I will write out the whole story sometime in the next few days, in all the messy details! :) And I'll try to get some pics posted soon!!! (By the way, we're having internet issues - the wireless router seems to have stopped working, so I can't access the internet on my laptop - have to share Darrell's desktop!! So I probably won't be online as much as normal!!)

Oh, and I realized after the fact, that I never really did post about the actual surgery, with all the other drama going on!! The surgery went very well. Her lip looks great. The ENT was able to put the tubes in her ears - and that's a great thing, b/c there was fluid in both ears, and her right ear (the one with the perforated ear drum 2 weeks ago) was getting infected again. The best news of all is that after they put the tubes in and drained the fluid, the audiologist did the hearing tests and got "near normal" results!!! She said we'll have to re-test in 2 months and continue to monitor, since they results weren't perfect, but that she felt very reassured with the results. And I noticed an immediate improvement - actually, I think that may be part of why Mackenzie was so agitated the first couple days - she's not accustomed to being able to hear! All of that noise in the hospital must have been rather overwhelming for her!! But she's laughing more and babbling more already- yay!!

Keep Praying

I ran home b/c I had to get out of the hospital for a bit, and I needed a bubble bath and a couple hours sleep. Things haven't been going well there. Mackenzie is still running a low-grade fever, and they restarted her on amoxicillin last night (she had just finished it Friday); today they were discussing changing to something stronger. She is extremely agitated and her pain does not seem to be well-controlled. Initially the plan was to keep her one night, but she is no where close to being ready to come home today. She has had very little rest since surgery, and even when we finally get her to close her eyes, she still is frequently flailing her arms/legs, and thrashing her head from side to side, in her sleep. They've had her on tylenol with codeine (which seems useless) and morphine, which we wonder if she's having hallucinations or some other reaction to...they gave her a BIG dose this afternoon, and she was STILL awake and agitated. They've also tried Benadryl, which at 4:00 a.m., seemed to finally do the trick and she did rest for a while (which meant mommy finally, after 23.5 hours up, got to close her eyes for a while), but then later this morning, the Benadryl didn't help at all. I finally lost it and started crying this afternoon, b/c I am so tired of seeing her be SO uncomfortable. And of course, every time they call Peds, a new pediatric resident or attending comes...and with every doc, new ideas about what to do. When I left, she was in her swing, awake, thrashing around, refusing to eat, and had already had Benadryl and 1 mg of IV morhpine. The nurse said, "Well, we can't give her any more meds, I don't know what to do for her." Um...this is when you call the doctor and tell them the meds AREN'T WORKING!!! All night, her heart rate alarm kept sounding b/c her heartrate would be 200-210, and then she'd also breathe too fast so that alarm would sound, and then she'd get all worked up and desat (oxygen level would go down to 75-90%), so that alarm would sound...then she'd pull off her leads b/c she'd get so worked up...it was really a bad night. And the afternoon wasn't going much better.

Meanwhile, on the home front, Anthony's running 102 fever, so Darrell will be staying home with him. Makayla, ironically, the "drama queen," has been dealing totally fine with mama being gone!! Go figure! (Though she certainly was happy when I showed up this afternoon and she got some of her fave milk!! :))

Anyway, I'll be heading back for another night in a little bit. Hoping it goes better...hoping they've figured out some drug that will work for her, while I've been gone (I kept suggesting Ativan - I know they used that in the NICU for babies for agitation). Keep the prayers coming!! If tonight goes well and she starts eating better, hopefully we'll get to come home tomorrow.

More stress relief!

Sewing is turning out to be great stress relief and helps to keep my mind off surgery and all that!! So last night I traced one of the girls' bibs onto a piece of paper, cut it out, and used it as a pattern to make my own reversible bib...isn't it cute? Great colors for fall! The fabrics are from the Cotton Blossoms line by Moda. I added a layer of fusible fleece in between the fabrics to add some padding and thickness, and I top-stitched around the edges after I turned it right side out (which was the hardest part of the whole project, I might add!), for a nice finished look. I added velcro to the top - I hate bibs that tie!!

So the plan is a bit revised for tomorrow. My sister-in-law Chrissy is going to come to the house around 10:00 a.m. to stay with Makayla and Anthony, so that Darrell can come to the hospital and be there by the time Mackenzie comes out from surgery. That way we'll both be there to hear what the doctors have to say, and we can take turns being with her after the surgery.

Pre-Op

Darrell took Mackenzie for her pre-op appointment yesterday afternoon. Good thing I didn't try to take all three of the kids alone...he was there for about 3 hours!!! First they had to meet with a physician's assistant in the surgery department, and she had to see the anesthesiologist, and she had to have blood drawn. Funny - one of the Past Visit Summaries indicates she's 12 lbs even, the other indicates she's 12 lbs, 12 oz!! Slight difference in scales, eh?

So here are the details...we have to be there to check in at 6:00 a.m. on Monday. Her surgery is slotted for 8:00 a.m., and they expect her to be under for about 3 hours - 1.5 hours for the lip repair, 30 minutes for the ear tag removal, and an hour for the hearing test. She can have formula up to 6 hours before surgery, breastmilk up to 4 hours before surgery, and water/apple juice/pedialyte up to 3 hours before surgery (talk about being WAY more do-able than how they torture us adults, huh?).

I think the plan at this point is that I will be taking her in the morning. Only one parent can be with her at a time in the pre-op and post-op areas, and no siblings under 12 are allowed in those areas. Darrell will stay home with Anthony and Makayla. Then later in the day, he will come to the hospital with the other two. I'm thinking that once she's out of recovery and in a regular room, the other kiddos should be okay to visit. If not, we'll have to just take turns being with her. Then I'll take Anthony and Makayla home later in the day, and Darrell will spend the night at the hospital with her. Then if she has to spend a second night, we can switch. (It depends on how she does with recovery, whether she has to spend one or two nights.)

Wish I knew how to crochet - I'm thinking I'll probably have a hard time concentrating enough to read a book while I'm sitting there for the 3 hours she's in surgery!! Will have to pick up some magazines to flip through. And of course, you can all feel free to send text messages to ease the waiting time!!!