Ok, so Caleb did NOT run a fever yesterday or last night. We thought "alright, he's getting better!". Then this morning he came into my room and said "Momma, LISTEN!" and he took a breath. He inhaled, exhaled, and then you hear this crinkly sound. Don't know really how to describe it. I jumped up and said "DO THAT AGAIN?!" He did, with the same results. I asked if it was his nose and he said "No, it's in my throat." He did it a total of about 6 times. I did NOT like the sound of it. I immediately grabbed him and stuck my ear to his chest, telling him to BREATHE! I couldn't hear much. So, waited a while (until offices opened) and made appts. for both him and Georgia. Georgia was the one who seemed really sick by now. Fever of 102 yesterday, continuing into the night. Coughing at night..the works.
So, took GAb to her appt. this morning~she was fine and on the mends. Took Caleb to his appt (different office) and she listened to me explain and said "Hmm...we don't want sounds like that. Let me listen to him..... Oh..yeah, his lungs sound HORRIBLE." So it's atypical pneumonia~ he gets breathing treatments every 4-6 hours and some antibiotics. Next was Georgia. Her lungs sound good but her cough sounds bad and she has an ear infection. So antibiotics for her and the dr said if her cough starts to sound worse, or like Caleb's...then she can get the same breathing treatments.
Fun. Fun. Fun.
Makes me want to bang my head against the wall. For a week we've been doing all we can. Humidifier. Elevated ends of the bed. Vicks (on chest and feet). Honey. Meds meds meds. Alas, none of it made much of a difference.
You'd never know Caleb is sick. He's acting perfectly fine. Georgia is the one looking sad and puny. Poor thing.

So...continued prayers for recovery.

For those loving the bows...she makes all sorts of different ones and they are FABULOUS! The ones on here are both a bit different, the orange one having a bigger bow behind it. They both have these really neat flowers with sequins. She makes custom flip flops too that have the same bow and flower. She can even do the fabric covered buttons with a monogrammed letter on it for the center of the bows for hair bows or the shoes. They are all sooooo cute! She doesn't have a website but I CAN take orders for her. :0) The prices range from $8-$12. The hair bows are $8 and headbands $10. The shoes are $12. I THINK that's right....I could always find out. :0)

:0)

Here in the Land of No Nods we are a little ahead of the game. I'm going to go with ahead rather than behind. See, with Caleb not going to school all week and Brandon being off yesterday, it's really thrown my mind for a loop. Add to that the VERY little amount of sleep I've been getting and well...I have no idea what day it is. ALL day today I would have sworn that it is Monday. That is how my brain is working. It makes sense really given the days we've had. And honestly..it doesn't really matter here in our world EXCEPT it gives me a good excuse for not doing Wordless Wednesday. Couldn't do wordless Wednesday when yesterday was really Sunday. Right? (just agree with me here...really...I'm at that tired/delusional/goofy stage).SO....let's go ahead and post the photos for Wordless Wednesday 2 days early and then I'll update y'all on our health status.













Aren't the bowheads hysterical! My friend makes these bows
in headbands or on clips and she brought two over for me. The
girls said they were "princesses" and laughed every time they
put them on. They were a riot!


Next are our spring time photos. Every year I've drug my family
somewhere for our bluebonnets photo. We've driven hours to find just the RIGHT spot. My hubby has endured it for years and it is NEVER fun. I get frustrated with what I have in my mind for the photo and how things are really panning out. The kids' endurance ranges from zip to plentiful. Candy is usually around for bribing and we all leave exhausted and swearing we'll never do it again. Last year I toned it down A LOT. We drove somewhere here in San Antonio and made it through the photo shoot fairly unscathed. This year though....the kids and I walked around the corner to a neighbor's yard! No, they aren't actually bluebonnets but hey..they're still pretty! :0) I'm getting better at it each year! Maybe when they're older we'll go back to finding the FIELDS OF BLUEBONNETS but we'll see. I'm tempted just to plant them in my own backyard!





































Ok...now that we've done that. I'll update you. Yesterday I took Caleb to the dr. It was blessedly a good trip in that I didn't feel like an idiot. For all of you moms out there, you know what I mean. You go to the dr. explaining all of these horrible symptoms your poor child is suffering of while your little one is either sitting nicely or jabbering away~ NONE of those horrible symptoms actually making an appearance. You feel like you have to convince the dr. that your child REALLY HAS been suffering but inside you think "Man, maybe we should just set up camp here where my little ones always seem to be fine!". Well yesterday was the first time I took my child to the dr. sick and he was obviously sick. Fever of 102.4 and he coughed his head off the entire time. Now in between expelling his complete lung mass, he chattered away, acting fine. I was praising the Lord that although he acted fine, the symptoms presented themselves and saved me from looking like an idiot. The dr. flinched every time he had a coughing fit. She said it was a virus on top of his allergies and a cough that had progressed to "a definite croup cough". She gave us some steroids for the cough but that was it. If he runs a fever tonight he is supposed to go back tomorrow to be reevaluated and possible chest x-rays for ruling out pneumonia. So far, no fever! YEA!
Georgia though always seems to be about a day or two behind Caleb. She coughed all night last night and ran a fever close to 102 throughout the day.
We are medicating, medicating, medicating.
We have been pretty much quarantined for the week. Only time going anywhere was to the dr. yesterday. All in all though, it hasn't been too bad. Normally I'm pretty close to losing my mind by now but it's been ok. Sure I'm tired and craving some adult interaction during the day BUT I must say...Caleb's behavior today was the best I've seen in a long time. For the past couple days he's been pretty good but he was also pretty out of it...just watching a lot of tv and feeling puny. Today he seemed to be feeling better and was AMAZINGLY nice, endearing even, to his sister! He actually handed her things she was wanting (without throwing them at her), soothed her when she cried, and even shared toys without being reminded.
Good to see that at least when his baby sister is sick, his love for her kicks in and over rides his inclinations to bully her. He showed his softer side to her today and it was precious. It seemed to fill me with a calmness and joy that my exhaustion needed to revive my spirits.

We're praying for them both to be on the mend.
We're praying for tomorrow to be like today.

:0)
~robin

Ok...so the title says a lot. Caleb has a HORRIBLE cough and it's annoying me probably more than him. Neither of us got any sleep. I know he needs a nap (well...we both do) but he won't stay in bed. I lay down with him to keep him in bed and HE JUST WON'T STOP COUGHING!!! UGGGHHH! It's driving me crazy. It's not a nasty, wet kinda cough. It's a deep, seal sorta' cough. The kind I used to get a lot. I have no idea really how to treat it other than cough med (which seems to be doing NOTHING). So, no sleep, he kept Georgia up so she is pretty grumpy today...although napping. And my house is a mess..that sorta' not dirty but super cluttered mess that I should be picking up but just don't feel like it kinda' mess. I'll do it in a bit. I really will. I at least know (and can keep telling myself) that once I start it will only take MAYBE an hour at the most. Then I'll be able to breathe easier. If Caleb could stop coughing, we would all breathe easier. This week is Fiesta week here in San Antonio too and although that has meant nothing to us the past 2 years, this year since Caleb is in PreK it means A LITTLE more. They have a huge Fiesta celebration on Thursday. Problem is..will Caleb be well by then? He of course does not want to miss the party (nor do I want him to miss school the next two days ;0) and we were all planning on having a lot of fun. Even decorating his tricycle for the trike race! Bummer. Hope he is well by then. I hate not knowing how to make him feel better.

ok..I'll go pick up now. Maybe I just needed to vent a little. Maybe not. We'll see.
~robin

A while back I took on the job of rearranging pretty much our entire house. I decided that I wanted the kids to share a room. Why you ask? I talked to a lot of people and it confirmed my thoughts that kids' relationships can grow when they share a closer space. Why not then!? I know that EVENTUALLY our kids won't be able to share a room, when they are older....so why not do it now while we could. So I approached my hubby about it and much to my surprise, he agreed! First thing first...the "girlie room" that was Georgia's was going to be the room that they would be sharing and we can't have it be girlie...so I had to come up with a theme. Here is a photo of the room as it was...well, as the walls and border were....

So once I decided on a theme from a border I picked, I spent a lot of time trying to decide a color for the walls. I decided that if the border came down easily then I would do TWO colors and put the new border at "chair rail height". If the border didn't come down easily, the new border would cover up the mess. Much to my surprise, the border came down SUPER easily, with no problems. Took me only a couple of hours.
Next was the primer. This actually took two coats to cover up the bright yellow but it wasn't too bad. For this job though a friend of mine wonderfully took the kids for the day so I could get it done all in one day! YEA!
Now was the fun part...the colors! This I did a little at a time. The top color that was some sort of "wheat" color, only needed one coat. The bottom dark brown though, required two. After the painting, we waited a LOOOONG time to do the border. My hubby and I had never put a border up before (my MIL had done the last one for us) so we were a little intimidated by the idea, especially with it not being up against the ceiling. BUT we finally went for it and it wasn't bad at all! We even got the entire border to wrap around, matching up PERFECTLY! It was shocking! (there are a few little areas between doors, closets, etc which we thought would make it a bit trickier). Anyway, I LOVE it! It looks great and I love the colors that are in it that we can bring out with decorating. So far I'm bringing out the red, blue, and some green.

I thought I was going to wait and post this photos when I was completely finished with the room...as in decorating, putting up shelves, etc. Right now the walls are bare. BUT I decided not to wait. With as long as it took me to do this much, who knows when I'll finish AND post!
:0)

Oh, as far as the rest of the house, Caleb's old room has been remade into a guest room with my computer desk and such. Our bedroom has been COMPLETELY rearranged with different furniture (ones we bought last summer for Georgia to use but ...well...it's too nice!). And the playroom was rearranged when we took out the twin bed for Caleb to now use! Lots of changes...and the only new purchases were the border and paints! :0) FUN FUN FUN!

Hello all! Here are some photos of G,Gab, and "number 5"!
I'll be back tomorrow with more of other things, updates on us, chatting, etc! This is really just so my sis can feel like she "saw" number 5...she wanted to come over and I told her no! (I know, I'm mean!)
Is there anything better for 2.5 year old girls than powdered donuts while watching Dora?
:0)

I realized (and was pointed out by a friend) that I am seriously behind on updating everyone for Baby Boy. He is doing really well but still in the NICU. He has been moved though to the intermediate care of the NICU so that is fabulous. Now they are just waiting to see if his breathing can stay regular, get enough oxygen, and not lose anymore weight. My Sis has gotten to hold him, bathe him, and like all of her kids..he's a natural for nursing! YEA YEA YEA! So...it's a waiting game now.
In the meantime, I've had her "number 5" with us since last week and it's been going great! On some days it is 3 two year old girls...no problem! Of course, throw in the 4 year old boy and well..sometimes that's a problem. BUT as much as I love him (and I do!), he is just a handful lately. He's gotten SO much better with social skills when it comes to other kids BUT when it comes to his sister...ughh...it's just such a pain in the rear! We're working on it though and I have NO DOUBT that we will work our way through it. :0)

ok...off to clean up from breakfast!
:0)