Congratulations Mom!!

Friday was my mom's very last day of teaching. She has been a fifth grade teacher for ... years (I should know how many, but I'm not quite sure...I'll have to update that part later). She decided to retire this year and I must admit that I'm thrilled about it for very selfish reasons. Whenever one of her friends asks her what she's going to do with her free time she says; "I have 8 grandchildren." That says it all! She's going to be busy!

On Friday, Christian, McKenna and I decided to surprise my mom. We drove 2 1/2 hours to her school and surprised her with flowers and balloons. It was a great moment when she was walking down the hall and Christian ran towards her with an arm full of flowers.
Needless to say my mom was a little emotional about this. Christian's hug was definitely the best part of her day. I think this entire retirement weekend has been a little more emotional than she thought it would be, but I think that's a good thing. It should be a little sad to leave your coworkers and the profession that you have excelled in and loved for many years.
Christian was thrilled to be out of the car and especially happy that Grandmom found a ball for him to play with. He entertained all the teachers, running around and being silly. That's Mrs. Gray (Christina) in the foreground of this picture. She's taught with my mom for the last 8 years and they've become great friends. Christina if you're reading this I told my mom that I thought you should start a blog!! You'd be great at it and then we could all keep up with your little sweetie, Austin!
This became a very familiar sight. Teacher after teacher came to give my mom a hug and tell her what a great influence she had been on their lives and how much they would miss her! The teacher on the left, Miss Rosa, has been my mom's teaching buddy for over a decade.

Christian thought Grandmom's work was really fun. They even had ice cream cake and a "tiny park" (aka a playground). Unfortunately I didn't let him play on the tiny park because it was way too hot and he still has a terrible cough.

Congratulations Mom!! We are all so proud of you. You have blessed and touched countless lives over your teaching career. Not to worry, you've still got 8 little people who have a lot of learning to do!

Little Miss McKenna

In case you've been wondering, McKenna is still pretty sick. She has been running a fever of 100 degrees or over (as high as 102.4) for nine days now. We've been to the doctor three times and had tons of tests done and everyone tells me it's a virus. I'm pretty stressed about it because her cough is terrible and I don't know what to do to help her. She has a rough time sleeping because she coughs so much, so I've been breaking all the rules. She's been sleeping with a pillow under her head (I know, I know, you should never do that...but she's not rolling over yet so I'm not too worried). I've also let her sleep with me (I know, I know I'm totally against co-sleeping, but right now I'm just trying to survive). Last night I almost took her to the hospital because her fever spiked again and it was almost 102. I feel like she really needs a nebulizer treatment or something to help break up the congestion in her chest, but so far no one with a medical degree agrees with me, so we're just waiting this out.
Feel free to give me some feedback about this. I will be taking her to the doctor AGAIN on Monday if she still has a fever. I think nine days of a fever is a few too many at this point, but maybe it is a virus. I haven't been that assertive with the doctors because I really want to trust their judgement, but I do have a pretty sick girl that needs to get better. At least she loves the taste of Tylenol!

Thanks for the package!

Uncle Tim and Auntie Erin sent all five of the kids a package this week. All the kids got so excited about opening the package and they all got new clothes.Abby showing off some of her new stuff, while Emma gets Nate dressed in a new shirt.
Look at the pile of clothes around that boy.
Auntie Erin wrote each child their own note. They loved opening them and then Emma read everyone's note aloud.
Getting ready for VBS in her new outfit that matches the twins. She can't wait to see Hannah and B-Beth so they can match.
Emma loves these new pants because they feel like pajamas but "you can wear them in real life."

Thanks Brinkley family for giving us a special treat this week!!

Catching Up

I am so behind with blogging, so this is going to be a super long post to catch up! These pictures were taken last Friday before my kiddos got sick. It was Emma's last day of school so we had a pool party and McDonalds for dinner. They had a blast!


The following pictures are all from this week! We tried to have some fun even with a very sick boy with pneumonia.

Here's the next Rachel Ray baking a cake. Seriously Emma thinks she either wants to be a teacher or Rachel Ray when she grows up. I'm encouraging the teacher idea because she's so much like me. She loves to have a plan and is constantly telling everyone what to do. All qualities that would make a great teacher.
Here's Abby working on a special art project for her Grammy Crawly. It will be in the mail soon Grammy!
McKenna and I working on a special Father's day surprise. It's an apple tree made with her footprint and finger prints. Christian was supposed to be doing this project too, but he doesn't like to have paint on his hands, so he's refusing to complete the project. We ended up buying a card for him to give Daddy today. He really hasn't been in the mood to cooperate much lately.

This was a big event. Emma has been doing chores and saving her money to buy a razor scooter. Her dad bought her one with hand brakes to have at her house, so we thought about changing her goal to buy something different but she decided she wanted to have a scooter at my house and her house. Sounds good to me! So today was the big day. She was so mature paying for her purchase by herself. She was really proud of herself. Counted out the money herself and she put the receipt in a special spot. Here's the best part: At Vacation Bible School they were going to take an offering tonight to buy some "talking Bibles" for missionaries to give to illiterate people that they minister to. I told Emma that I thought it would be a good idea for her to give a little bit of her money and that I would match whatever she gave dollar for dollar. After she bought her scooter she counted out her left over money and realized that she had five dollars left. I told her that I thought two dollars would be a nice amount to give. She thought about it for awhile and then asked me if I would still match her money if she gave all five of her dollars. Of course I agreed and she proudly took ten one dollar bills to church tonight. She was so excited about giving her offering. She couldn't wait to get to church to give her offering! Oh that blesses my heart!

This was a frequent sight this week! The four of us all strapped in heading to the doctor's office. We did that three times!

I finally took my camera today to McKenna's doctor's visit. She has had a fever for a week now and the poor girl has had every symptom she could possibly have; fever, cough, head congestion, diarrhea, rash, fussiness, etc.
Look at my chubby little 14 pounder! Emma is always right by her side taking care of her. The other big excitement this week has been VBS. Emma and Abby have had a great experience. Awesome teaching, fun games, exciting crafts, yummy snacks! They have learned so much about Creation, the flood, the Tower of Babal, etc. They are really excited about their closing program tomorrow night. I'm going to miss it but both their mom and dad will be there and that is a big deal to them!
Amy and I were going to team teach this week. It really would have been fun to do it together, but my little man was too sick. So she took over for me on Thursday and did a great job! Can you tell our VBS was an Amazon theme?
Emma is in the pink shirt in the forground of this picture. She had such a good time with all of her new friends. She even volunteered to go up on stage to participate in a game. She was the only first grader who volunteered. It was some sort of bean bag toss and she couldn't stop talking about how she got more points than Jeb (our Pastor's son) who is in third grade. I've been hearing about it all week.

McKenna's Hospital Visit

This is going to be super quick because I have exactly an hour to get ready for tonight's Vacation Bible School and I still have way too much to get done because my entire weekend was spent taking care of sick kids!!

I took McKenna to the pediatrician's office today.
They sent us to the hospital for lots and lots of tests.
She's had a fever since Friday and they couldn't figure out why.
Thankfully she wasn't admitted.
After several hours of blood being drawn (awful, awful...poor baby),
A chest x-ray (Have you ever seen how they do that for infants?? It's totally torture!! They sit them on something that looks like a tiny bicycle seat and then they strap their torso into a clear plastic tube when their hands above their heads and their face sticking out of a hole. The technicians took forever getting her into the perfect position while she screamed her head off. I did get just a little feisty with them and told them to hurry it up).
and a catheter they determined that she just has a virus.
At least they were thorough and I'll probably sleep better tonight.
Wonder how much all that is going to cost?
She still has a fever that's over 101 degrees.

Christian is totally miserable. Still has a fever of 102. Coughing like crazy! He's asleep on Abby's bed right now with only a pull-up on. He's so HOT. I'm still worried about him.

This is Emma's first day of Summer vacation. Bummer for her! I did get her a milk shake at Burger King, but we haven't gotten to do any of the fun stuff I had planned. She's swimming in the pool right now and I'm hanging out in the kitchen so I can see her.

Gotta go!!

Please pray that Christian will start to improve! I hate to see him like this.

The drama continues...

Look at my sweet little sick boy!

I'm feeling like the worst mom in the world tonight. I finally took Christian to the Urgent Care Center today after he threw up for the 15th time and much to my complete shock he has pneumonia. He's had a nagging cough for about 3 weeks now, but I really thought it was allergy related. It's not bad, it just sounds like he has a little itch in his throat that makes him cough. I felt horrible when they told me it was pneumonia. He was such a little trooper. We had to wait almost two hours to be seen. Thankfully they moved us to our own room once he threw up in the waiting room. He couldn't even walk he was so weak, but he managed to say "cheese" and smile when they "took his picture"...aka an x-ray. He was such a good sport about all the poking and proding. He even said "thank you" after they gave him a suppository to make him stop throwing up. The medical staff loved him. He ended up with 6 different stickers from various people and a beanie baby rainbow fish.
The worst part of the day was when he had to get antibiotic shots of Rocephin in each leg. He's had this before and it was awful. Those shots are so thick that the pain doesn't go away even when the shot is over. He whimpered about that for a long time and pretty much refused to walk the rest of the day.

One of the stickers one of the nurses gave him had a heart on it. As soon as he saw it he told me he wanted to give it to McKenna and that's exactly what he did as soon as he got home. He also gave me his Lightning McQueen sticker because apparently I love Lightning McQueen too!

Ryan really needed to go to work today but never got a chance to do that, so he did a little work from home. He's going to have to go in extra early tomorrow. McKenna was pretty good while Christian and I had our 4 hour doctor visit. McKenna's going to the doctor tomorrow because she still has a slight fever. Thankfully it's gotten much better over the weekend, but I'm not taking any chances.

FYI to any of you local moms. We went to the Washington County Hospital Urgent Care Center on Rt.11 right off of LongMeadow. It was a great experience and they're open seven days a week. I would absolutely go there before going to the ER anyday! We had the sweetest Irish doctor named Dr. O' Sullivan. She had the accent and everything. She even referred to Christian as "lad" and I love it! I told her she should have been a pediatrician because she was great with Christian. Everyone from the receptionist to the x-ray technician to the orthopedic person they brought in just to hold Christian down for his shots, was so kind, warm and sympathetic with Christian. He did look totally pathetic, so I guess he earned the attention.

I am exhausted

How I spent my day:
up with McKenna at 5am
two sick kids with fevers over 102
a husband that worked half the day
95 degree heat
working on VBS stuff at church
cleaning up throw up four different times
teaching Christian how to aim when throwing up
going to Walmart on a Saturday (never a good idea, but sometimes a necessity)
rocking McKenna for several hours to comfort her
wondering why I can't get a doctor's appointment for my kids when I live in America for heaven's sake
9:40pm...one child down for the night (I hope) and one to go

McKenna's Update

Well, this day hasn't turned out like I thought. I called the doctor's office as soon as they opened this morning (like they told me to last night) and they told me they couldn't see McKenna. They're booked! So they told me to take her to the hospital. What? I gave them a hard time about that because unfortunately with our insurance every time we go to the hospital we have to pay the first $300. I was not going to pay $300 to have them tell me she has a virus or something. And I've had enough hospital experience with my children to know that we want to avoid that place if at all possible.
McKenna's fever was 102.4 this morning, so I'm still worried BUT Christian is running a fever now too. I'm actually feeling better about it now that Christian is sick too because it probably means they just have some kind of bug instead of meningitis or something. So after talking to my sister, my mom, my family doctor(who won't see her either because she would be a new patient and they're not accepting new patients) and Ryan we've decided that we're NOT going to go to the hospital unless McKenna's fever keeps going up. She's still eating and smiling so I'm not as worried as I was last night when she wouldn't stop crying for 2 hours.
So today we're trying to keep ourselves busy inside and we're going to monitor everyones temperature. It's way too hot to go outside, especially with a fever. So far today we've taken naps, eaten cookies (that's all Christian will eat), played with play dough, painted, put puzzles together, played with the Lightning McQueen race track and now we're going to build a new train track. I can already tell that I'm not going to get anything done today except playing and snuggling with my kiddos, and that's not such a bad thing!

McKenna

Would you mind praying for my sweet girl tonight? She has a fever of 102.1 degrees. That's awfully high for such a little girl. I just talked to the doctor and we're going in first thing in the morning to get her checked out. Why do these things always happen in the evening on a weekend?

All Done First Grade!

First day of first grade.

Last day of First Grade.

(Can you tell they did some face painting at school??)

Christian, McKenna and I were waiting for Emma on the front steps. Christian even had a little present for her.

I'm finding it a little hard to believe that the school year is over. It seems like it was just last week that I watched Emma get on the bus for the first time and I drove behind it crying the entire way to school. I think I was more nervous than she was. She's had a great year. She is a self-assured strong girl. She has so much confidence now and she has excelled in everything that she's done. She was a great friend to her classmates and a delight to her teacher. Emma's teacher "loops" which means she'll have the same teacher and be in the same class next year. I think it will be great for Emma to have that consistency. I always remember feeling sad on the last day of school. I don't think there has been a year (as a student or teacher) that I haven't cried. I shared that with Emma and she said she felt the same way. So she had a good cry and I joined her (I know, I know...I can't help it). Then she headed out to the pool and had a grand time in the freezing water!

I hate inflatable pools!!!

This is the cute little pool we enjoyed so much last summer!
Look at how young the kids look!

Well, that pool died! After patching 3 holes and still having a leak somewhere, I gave up. I go through this every year. Every year we get a new pool because the old one won't hold air. This year I've decided that there will never be another inflatable pool. I'm over it!

Here is our cute little new pool! No inflating this one! I hope it lasts!

We're looking forward to lots of good times this summer!

Much Better

Whew...we've had a much better day today. It rained so we played in the garage and our "fort." We watched a movie and played some number and color games. We also got out some toys we don't usually play with on a daily basis like our pop up tents and tunnels. Overall things went well except for Christian waking Nathan up from his nap. Thanks for all your encouraging words on my last post. Motherhood can be discouraging at times but the rewards are great. Nate prayed at lunch today for the first time (Christian and Abby usually do it) so that was very sweet. McKenna has learned how to blow bubbles with her spit (not something Christian ever did). I know it sounds gross but it's totally cute! I'll have to get a video sometime when I've got a moment.
Emma has two days left of school so she is very excited. I'm excited too! I think it will be fun to have her around more. We've got lots of things planned. Next week is VBS, then she's doing 2 weeks of swimming lessons, she'll be spending some time with her dad, she's going to camp, she's going to do the reading program at the Library, she has a journal to complete for her teacher next year, the list goes on and on! Her summer is going to fly by! She's the only kids in our family (meaning all the kids) that doesn't have a scooter, so she has been doing chores to earn the money to buy a razor scooter. She was a little miffed at first that Amy or I wouldn't just get her one, but we decided that she is plenty old enough to earn it. She has a bar graph that she's using to keep track of the money she's earned. She is also learning about tax because she has to earn the money for that too! Thanks to the tooth fairy, the tooth fairiy's helper (thanks Sarah!!) and a little hard work she already has $25.00. She was asking for chores today after school. One of her favorite things to do is vaccuum. You know I'm loving that!! I'm sure I'll do a whole post on her new scooter once she gets it!

Venting

Usually I blog about the positive things in our lives...the happy times...fun things we do...cute things everyone says...accomplishments...etc. Well, not today! Today has been one of those days! Today we have had way too much crying, lying, hitting and pushing. Far too many temper tantrums and time outs. Our time out chair was basically occupied all day. There was actually one moment when four children were crying at once and I found myself laughing because otherwise I would have been crying too! Everything we tried to do today caused conflict including the sprinkler...go figure! I'm hoping all the bad moods and cranky kids will disappear overnight and the precious joyful group I'm used to will appear again tomorrow!

The Sand Box

There was great excitement when PopPop (my dad) arrived yesterday. Christian knew that he was coming and that he was bringing a surprise, but he had no idea what it was. Even after PopPop got here and Christian saw all the boards in his truck he couldn't figure out what it was all about!
By late afternoon the assembly was complete and the sand was added and then Christian figured it out! He was thrilled with his new sandbox!! This was an early birthday present from Grandmom and PopPop and it's quite a work of art. PopPop spent many hours measuring, cutting and sanding it down to get it just right.
The very first thing Christian said this morning when he woke up was; "I play in my sandbox now?"

Remember how Abby cut her own hair a few weeks ago...well you can really tell in this picture. Check out her bangs!

We have established two rules for this sandbox:

1. Keep the sand in the sandbox

2. Don't throw sand on anybody

You would think that two rules wouldn't be that hard to follow, but they have already been broken muliple times in the last 24 hours. I guess that's just part of the fun of a sandbox ((sigh)).

This is a present that everyone can enjoy!Thank you PopPop!!

Remembering

There are so many things I want to remember about McKenna while she's still tiny. It's so easy to forget the little details of life because the months just seem to fly by (although the days certainly seem long at times). Here's just a few things I want to remember forever about my little girl who will only be three months old for a few more days:

1. McKenna always folds her hands (like she's praying) when ever she falls asleep or when she's eating.

2. McKenna loves to be rocked to sleep. She usually falls asleep in about a minute when I rock her.

3. McKenna can burp like a champ!