Good Day

It's been good!
Had a wonderful morning at church!
The 4th & 5th graders were really into the lesson I taught, which is always nice :)
Even the adults in the room told me they learned something, which is always a bonus.
Got to hold Ryan's hand during the service. It's always so relaxing to sit in church and just absorb what God has for me.
The kids are feeling much better. And I am too! Not perfect, but good enough.
I got to take a nap for about 10 minutes before being woken up by my little girl singing in her crib. She sings "Jesus Loves Me" all day long. Literally she does! You could call me anytime of the day and you could hear that sweet little song in her heart.
There was a great turn out at the coupon class my friend and I taught tonight! It was a fun night of fellowship and sharing.
My dad is officially moved in with us. My mom will be here next weekend. It's fun for all of us to have him. I hope we don't wear him out. The poor guy ended up watching the movie Cars today with Christian. I'm sure he was loving that.
Busy day, but so full of blessings!
I hope your weekend was great too!

Asthma

Do any of you out there have it?
I do.
It's bad right now.
Having to think about every breath.
Two doctor visits and no improvement.
I just can't get it under control.
Very frustrating.
Last night was scary.
Couldn't breathe for two hours.
I hate the feeling of not being in control.
Thank goodness my mom was here.
I actually made her hold my hand and sit with me until Ryan got home at 2am.
I think I'm going to have to go on a daily medication.
I've resisted doing that b/c 80% of the time you would never know I have asthma.
Then one of my kids gets sick and I catch a little of what they have,
and it spirals out of control.

Two different inhalers.
One nebulizer med.
An allergy med.
An antibiotic.
And a steriod.
I'm on all that junk just to try to clear this up.
I wonder if I would feel great if I just stopped it all?
Probably not a good idea.

So I'm learning that asthma might be unseen, but it's real.
Very real.
Time for me to pay attention
and figure out how to keep this from happening again!
People deal with chronic health issues all the time,
I've just never had to before.
I was hoping it would just go away.
Too bad that strategy isn't working!

McKenna misses Nate!

He's such a sweet friend (except when he says "told ya" which bugged Christian to pieces).
He's the perfect playmate for McKenna. And they spent lots of time together since Chrish was sick. She LOVED playing with him. I think he might have gotten tired of hearing "ATe...I need you." McKenna would call him over and over again and he always went running to find her.

He wanted a picture with McKenna, but she's too fast and not much of a picture girl!

We miss you Nathan buddy!!

Can't wait until you come to visit us again.

The Latest

Christian and I compromised and he was able to wear his "super hero headband" in one store. People were gracious and no one gave us any funny looks.

The trip to Target was not a dream come true. We went to get a new movie, because that's exactly what you need when everyone is sick. Christian really wanted Wall-E, but then his behavior was so bad he wasn't allowed to get the movie. Nice.

McKenna started eating today. Not a ton, but enough. Breakfast this morning was her first meal since Friday. She ate 2 grapes and 1 mini pancake. Lunch was better...she ate a whole kid's size yogurt. Dinner she ate several orange slices and some scrambled eggs. Yay!!!

The screaming girl has turned into the whining girl. I can tell that next week we are going to have to regroup and reinforce some of our rules around here. My parenting has been sloppy lately. I've let a ton of stuff go and now every seems to think that it's acceptable to throw themselves on the floor and scream when you don't get to watch TV.

McKenna's digestive issues are still a huge problem. But we've got a game plan and we're working on it.

Christian went back to school today after missing almost a week and a half. His teacher is so sweet...she sent him a get well card to tell him that she's been praying for him and it even had a train on the front of it. I just love his school!


We miss daddy a bunch!

The end :)

Thankful for you :)

Howdy....how has your day been?
I know I'm thankful to be able to sit down with you and "chat" for a minute. I realized yesterday how much blog relationships can mean sometimes. There is a blog that I read of an amazing sister-in-christ who God has used to change my heart in so many ways. She's an adoptive mom and is passionate about serving the poor in the remotest parts of the earth. She has opened my eyes to the injustice of this world and she's made me realize that stay-at-home moms are a part of God's big plan to bring healing to the orphaned and oppressed. Anyway, this sweet girl received some tragic news yesterday and I felt my world stop. I cried and I prayed and I had a hard time sleeping....all because of this girl several time zones away. This "friend" that I only know through her blog. And it's renewed my passion for blogging. I think it's been healthy for me to get my feeling out sometimes and I thank you for putting up with it. It's a treasure to have all the little stories of my kid's childhood recorded forever. And blogging has brought me new bloggy friends, new real life friends and prayer partners on so many different occasions.
So I just wanted you to know that I'm thankful that you're here. Thanks for checking in and being a part of my life everyday. And to those of you who have blogs...I love checking in with each of you too. I've been really bad about commenting lately...but I'm still checking in. I'll get better about commenting when life calms down a little (whenever that will be)!!

What do you think?

Should I let him go to the store looking like this? Ha! Did you know that you look like a superhero when you wear one of your mom's headbands around your head? Yeah...I didn't know that either.

I'm thinking that a little trip to Target might make us all feel better!! Do you think McKenna will scream the whole time we're at the store?? I think she probably will, but maybe a change of scenery is just what we need!

"Scream-fest" 2010

Welcome to "Scream-fest" 2010~

It's a fun place to be! Really it is. Let's see....it all started when McKenna woke up on Saturday morning with a high fever. She didn't feel good, so she started screaming. And so she screamed all day Saturday. Then she screamed all day Sunday. And she even screamed all day Monday.

I prayed and prayed last night that this morning would bring an end to the screaming...but so far she's screamed all day.

She's miserable. I'm miserable. Christian's miserable. And Daddy just escaped the screaming for a few days to deal with some work stuff far, far away. I begged him to take me with him :)

Now don't worry...I took McKenna to the doctor yesterday because I was convinced that something HAD to be wrong with her. She has bronchitis (which I already knew and she was already on meds for). I begged for some meds to knock her out, but my dear pediatrician wouldn't comply. Hmmmm....wonder why?

Honestly I think McKenna just feels bad so she wants to scream all the time.

She screams:

• when she gets a breathing treatment
• when she takes medicine
• when I get up off the couch
• when I try to make her eat something
• when I give her a drink when she doesn't want one
• when Christian gets too close to her
• when the sun gets in her eyes
  when we go outside
• when we go inside
• when I put her to bed
• when I wake her up
• when her belly hurts
• when she coughs
• when her nose feels "sticky"
• when I change her diaper
• when I get her out of the bathtub
• when she's cold
• when she's hot

--

You get the idea!

I've been a mommy now for almost five years and I've never had a child act like this for such an extended period of time. The last time McKenna ate a meal was dinner on Friday night. Since then she's licked the jelly off her toast or eaten one bite of yogurt and had half a french fry. She doesn't even want a popsicle. So please pray that she'll turn the corner soon. I can't take much more of this!!!

Christian is starting to become a better patient, basically because I threaten him with more shots if he doesn't do his breathing treatments. He got (4) Rocephin shots last week. And it was bad. Really, really bad. But he won't orally take medicine, so he leaves me with no choice but to request the shots. He does his own breathing treatments now. He sucks his thumb the entire time, but as long as it's going in his nose I don't care! He used to be terrified of the nebulizer, so I'm proud of him. He's also trying to be a good big brother to McKenna even though every time he gets close to her she throws things at him and tries to hit him. Nice huh!?!

Hurry Spring!!!! I need you!!!!

1st Hair Cut

McKenna just had her first haircut. It was really just a little trim to even things up along that back.
She didn't make it easy because she really wanted to see what I was doing, so she kept turning around. Not helpful. But it looks better now. There aren't any "after" pictures because I didn't think of it and because you probably couldn't tell much of a difference. Hard to believe my girl has reached another milestone. She's growing up so fast.