Mrs. Sick, Mr. Sick and the Whole Sick Family

What a stinkin' week!  The girls have had a cold since Sunday, and a pretty nasty one at that.  Poor kids!  Hailey and Brooke both have wet coughs and runny noses.  Brooke's cough is so sad, just sounds like there is a lot of stuff stuck in her chest.  So I hauled Brooke out to the doctor Tuesday, and they diagnosed her with a sinus infection and prescribed antibiotics. I was feeling good about getting her better.  Then Trevor came home with this disturbing story of a friend of a friend whose 8 month old daughter died in her sleep from pneumonia.  Probably not a great story to tell the mother of a sick 6 month old.  I brushed it off, thinking it was terrible, but they listened to Brooklyn's chest and said her lungs were clear. 

Wednesday Hailey woke up from her nap saying "I feel like I have a yawn stuck in my ear".  We blew her nose and she proceeded to cough until throwing up all over me.  I was sitting on the couch at the time and all I could think about was not getting throw up in the many cracks and creases of the couch.  I know, I'm getting thrown up on and I'm worried about my couch, nice right?  But seriously what a nightmare that would be to have to disassemble your couch to be sure that all of the puke is out of the cracks?  And the smell that would have made...ICK! Such a mom, I guess.  Wednesday night both Hailey and Brooke were coughing so hard and so often, it was sad!  We put saline spray in both girls noses, put Baby B Chest Rub on both girls chests and backs, and set them both up with vaporizers.  When Brooke fell asleep she was making a strange noise.  So Trevor and I decided she would sleep with me with a vaporizer while he slept on the couch... the pneumonia story still fresh in my mind I decided this was an excellent idea.  No one slept well Wednesday night, too worried about both kids.  I kept checking Brooke to make sure she was still breathing.  So stressful to literally fear that your kid might not wake up, I knew the nurse practitioner said she would be fine, but I was still stressed. 

Thursday morning we all were tired, but the girls seemed slightly better.  But something inside me was just thinking, what if we have another terrible night?  What if we don't have a second opinion on Brooke and Hailey looked at?  Will I have another stress filled night?  So I took the girls to the Grande Ronde Hospital ER with the help of my mom.  I was so happy when they called us back after only 5 minutes in the waiting room.  They were very thorough and we had an excellent doctor.  He evaluated each girl separately and gave me a better understanding of their colds. Brooklyn sounds so bad because she can't clear her throat, it just sits there and she coughs it up or chokes on it.  Makes sense.  Hailey has wheezing... uh oh! One chest x-ray later she is diagnosed with Restrictive Airway Disease.  She needs an inhaler every 4 hours as needed to help her cough and open those restricted airways.  Other than that, it 's just a virus and we just need to push the fluids and rest.  AWESOME! 

So today we are doing just that, and will continue to push the fluids and rest all weekend.  Poor kids.  I'm sure the Emergency Room was an over reaction, but when it comes to the health and overall well being of your children I suppose you cannot go wrong with a second opinion.  After all, I now have little fear of Brooklyn not waking up, and I actually got a little sleep last night.  I also know Hailey will probably not throw up on me again... at least for a little while. 

Happy Birthday my Friend

Today is the 29th birthday of my beautiful and wonderful best friend Crystal.  I have known Crystal since 1994!  How can this be?  How is it possible that we have remained friends for such a long time?  More than half of our lives we've been friends!  I love my friend!  I talk to her just about everyday, and she can relate to me in a way that no other person on this earth can.  Not only does she know me inside and out, she has 4 children and understands my daily obstacles, in fact she is almost always one step ahead in the child department.  We budget together, plan meals together, and find money saving tips for one another.  Crystal, you are a great friend in EVERY way!  I love you and would find it difficult to function daily without you. 

I love you!  HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

Family Movie Night

Trevor and I have tried to raise our girls the best way we know how.  Most of this comes from being raised by excellent parents ourselves.  Among the good values we took from our childhoods are eating as a family at the table, playing together as a family, and a fun family movie night here and there.  Tonight was our movie night, and we had a blast!  We rented Night at the Museum, which none of us have seen yet, go figure.  We made popcorn with peanut butter M&M's and had a few donuts.  We all really had a good time.  It's night's like these that make me think that maybe we are doing something right with our kids.  I guess only time will tell for sure. 

Tomorrow is Saturday and most of the time that means a day and/or night with our great friends Paul and Allesha.  We'll hang out, eat well, watch the UFC fight and relax in the hot tub (no worries for the concerned out there, we keep Brooklyn out of the hot tub--she sleeps in a crib while we use the hot tub and keep a monitor close by).

Since our home preschool animal of the week was the cow, after church Sunday we will track down those Texas long horn cows that are here in La Grande somewhere to show Hailey.  Now if we could just find her a horse to ride around here, we'd probably complete her tiny world. : )  We'll save that for another weekend I suppose. 

This should be a fun weekend!  Hope you enjoy yours...

Christian PreSchool at Home

We have found that preschool is ridiculously expensive.  Who would have thought that teaching/entertaining 3 and 4 year olds for a few hours a day could cost more than our truck payment?  Anyway, I am no dummy, I graduated high school with honors, graduated from Chaffey Community College, and finished trade school, seriously, how hard can it be to teach a 4 year old shapes, colors, letters, numbers, and simple vocabulary?  As it turns out, not hard at all with Hailey as a student.  Granted, Hailey has known most of this stuff since she was 2, so we are just raising her awareness of these things in her world.  But with the help of a few homeschooling blogs (Our Preschool Home school & Christian Preschool Printables) I was able to put together a pretty fun and educational curriculum for Hailey.  Since we are Christian and regularly attend church I figured, why not add a biblical element to our studies?  This made our home preschool into a Christian home school preschool. WOW!  I've added an element to our school that she wouldn't be able to receive at most of our local preschools.  And as an added bonus I don't feel lazy for putting my kid in preschool while I am a stay-at-home-mom, I get to spend quality time with my little girl, and I truly become a mentor to her, all for the cost of some paper and printer ink.  This is great!  Sure my house suffers here and there, I have less time to fold laundry, clean my kitchen and just pick up in general, but our kids will be little only once.  And when it comes down to it, our kids ALWAYS come before chores.  The way we see it, the house is clean and mostly picked up, but there will be plenty of time later on to have a clean house, there will be only one chance to watch our children grow up, only one chance to enjoy this time of their lives.  They've already grown so much in such a short time. 

So you ask, will we home school our kids for all of their schooling?  Who knows... we just started preschool this week, in fact today is only day 2.  Kindergarten is a whole year and a half away.  Maybe tomorrow I'll have a better answer for that, but for now we are just enjoying preschool. : )

Our New Life...

As of June 2010, I am a stay-at-home-mom.  I was fortunate enough to spend the last trimester of my pregnancy at home with Hailey.  That gave Hailey and I time to get used to the idea of a new person joining our family.  While this time has been difficult for us financially.  It has blessed us in many other aspects. 

Being at home has caused me to REALLY understand the value of the dollar.  And saving dollars has become one of my top priorities.  One of the ways we save money is by eating all of our meals at home.  All of them.  We spend $0 a month on eating out.  This puts more on my plate, but is healthier and saves us a ton of money every month.  In order to keep our meals interesting I have turned to the Internet.  I use blogs and websites of all kinds to get new and fresh ideas for meals.  And I thought it might be fun to share some of those websites with you.

Won in the Oven
Handle the Heat
Budget101
AllRecipes
Campbell's Kitchen
Food Network

Those are a few of my "go to" websites that rarely let me down in the dinner department. We eat well, and most often have a variety of meals each month.  Budget101 is a wonderful resource for using coupons, making your own cleaning products, recipes and a ton more.  It is one of my most used websites for being on a budget and not losing my mind.

Anyway, some of you are probably completely uninterested in any of these websites, however, I use them all on a weekly basis and thought it might be helpful for someone, somewhere.

Well, there have been a few changes.  Brooklyn Reese Winder was born since I last posted on this blog.  She arrived via c-section on Monday, September 20, 2010.  She was 7 pounds, 13 ounces, 20 1/4 inches long and born at 9:17AM.  She is awesome!  What more can we say?  She is a beautiful little girl and fits in with all of our family so wonderfully.  Is our family complete???  For now we are unsure... ; )

It's 11PM on a Wednesday, so I will update more to this blog this week and weekend, so much has happened and there are so many new things to update the family with. 

Good night, and God bless!