A Rainy Day

A rainy day is a great day to catch up on some reading - Elie and Kirstie wanted to read to Gabie, but she quite insistant that she wanted to read it herself!


Not long after tucking the girls in we heard some squealing and giggles. I discovered that Gabie had climbed out of bed and was using the door-way to play peek-a-boo with her sister, who was using her blankets for the same game.

Daddy Daycare

This month Amber was hosting the monthy BUNCO get-together so Andy and the twins came over to play with Mark and the girls. (for anyone that doesn't know, the twins were born the same day/same hospital as Gabie). As you can see Eliya did not heed her own advice about make-up, this time finding mascara and nail polish. We're not sure how she finds these things - you'd have to see our bathroom cabinet to understand, but let's just say it's impossible for us to even get to some of this stuff! But the dads had a nice time getting to hang out, the kids had fun together, and the girls night out was just what us moms needed!

A glimpse of Jojo

30+pounds later and somewhere between 8-10 weeks to go I am feeling huge. So due to popular request by those who haven't seen me lately....here's Jojo. Although my 'mother instinct' tells me it's another girl, this pregnancy is so different than the girls...like gaining more weight in 7 1/2 months then in my entire two previous pregnancies combined!




Now that Eliya is potty trained she is constantly telling Gabie how gross her diapers are and how she should "poop on the potty!" So here's our ever popular Eliya doing her 'Peeewwwww Gabie!' and Gabie nonplussed getting her dipaer changed.

Drama Drama Drama

so goes the life of an almost 3 year old - whenever she is quiet for more than a couple of minutes we panic, 'what is she getting into now?!' we wonder. Our little drama queen decided it was time to look the part, literally.
She found an old tube of foundation that I think I got in 2002 and applied it liberally to her face and the bathtub. (notice she also found some colored pens and tatooed her legs - all in the span of a couple of minutes!) She soon learned the somewhat painful side-effect of putting makeup on all around your eyes in getting it scrubbed off with soap and water, and we even made her scrub the tub! This also included some scolding of course, and when asked if she was ever going to play with make-up again we got a resounding 'NO!' The most puzzling thing I think in raising a toddler is how they find these things. I haven't worn make-up in years (hence the 2002 date), had no idea that I still had the tube and yet somehow she manages to find it. Now if only we could teach her to find more useful things like $ or Mark's cell phone that's been missing. :0) Last night her 'toddler' logic had us rolling. She had wiped out at the zoo and scraped her leg. Last night as we were tucking her in she kept whining and crying about her 'owie'. I finally asked if some tylanol would help (she loves medicine, or 'umy-nummies' as she calls it) of course she said that would help, drank it up happily and handed the cup back and asked for more. I explained that that was all she needed to make her owie better, "but mommy, I have an owie here and here and here and here" and proceeded to point to every part of her body she could think of "I need umy-nummies for those too!" she plead. Where did we screw up that our child is already addicted to drugs!?
In the mean-time while this drama was unfolding Gabie decided she'd had it for the night and climbed up on Elie's bed and went to sleep where I found her laying so precious. I know most of the pictures of her lately have been sleeping, but I think the last couple of weeks have really wiped her out.

Done in Sioux Falls!

What a beautiful day! Gabie's apt. wasn't until 1pm so we had a morning in Sioux Falls with gorgeous weather to waste. We decided to go to the zoo, even though we knew it wasn't anything spectacular it was fun to check out some animals and walk around a bit.The whole family hanging at the zoo
I'm not sure why my computer won't let me turn this picture up-right, but it's daddy and the girls checking out the giraffe.
We heard this crazy loud noise clear across the grounds and headed towards it. It was the monkeys. How do explain to a 2 year old who keeps asking 'what are they doing?' what a mating call is? We just went with 'they're hungry and want their lunch' instead, since we figured Elie could relate since it was almost her lunch time. I think they're loud noise scared her a bit because she decided to make her 'brave face' (for anyone who's seen Bambi II) so she wouldn't be so scared - basically your brave face means to growl as mean and loud as you can :0)

Anyway, Gabie's appointment went great. She weighed the same as her check-out weight, which is exactly where they were hoping she'd be (we expected her to lose some when we first went home, but wanted to get back up again). She's still 3 pounds below her 1 year check-up weight, but she's doing great. The thrush, c-diff, yeast, bacteria, ear infection, diaper rash, etc. are all gone - hooray! We have a much healthier little girl. There will be 2-4 more weeks of two of the meds and the formula supplement. But we are gradually weaning off all of those. As long as that goes fine we're back to normal. They are releasing her to a pediatrician out of Pierre which is a good 200 miles closer to home! Yay! Thanks for all your prayer and please continue to pray that she continues to get better.

Hotel Olson

I don't know what we'd do without the Olson's living so close to sioux Falls and being so willing to put us up with all the hospital stays we've had with Gabie from trying to come early to these past couple of weeks. With Gabie's follow-up appointment on Monday with the peds doctor she had through her Sanford stay we enjoyed getting to stay as a whole family for a change at Hotel Olson and got to give Ethan his belated birthday present. The kids had fun playing together and it was nice getting to hang out under happier circumstances.

Can't Get Enough

of our bath that is...
It is usually our tradition that I give the girl's a bath while Mark's at church Saturday nights. We did this an hour ago, dad came home and we were sitting around talking and the girls were playing. Next thing we know we here the bath tub water running so we go to investigate. "Elie, why is Gabie in the bath-tub and why are you painting the walls with water?" "Cause she wanted a bath and I paint the walls with water." I love the logic of a two-year old! :0)

So Sleepy

Today was national scrapbooking day - in other words, mom is gone for 15+ hours. When I got home a little bit ago, this is what was awaiting on my bed. Luckily they were quite content to be moved to their own bed, but what a cute way to fall asleep.

You Know You're Tired When...

It will never cease to amaze me how kids can fall asleep like this and not wake up with a stiff neck!
Both girls taking a nap at the same time allowed me to continue nesting - today I tackled the nursery. It's a tiny room so we utilize the large closet by taking off the door and putting the changing table in there. Hopefully this room won't be used for a few more weeks, but it's ready whenever Jojo decides to grace us with his/her presence. And for anyone still curious - no we don't know if Jojo is he or she, but we do have an ultrasound on the 30th to set the due date. Mark still hasn't decided if he will find out, but I am not going to, so we'll see if he does a good job keeping a secret!

Elie and Gabie's Room

It's amazing what a little spring cleaning can do. I think I'm in my 'nesting' phase, and one of the first rooms to get tackled was the girl's room. They did a great job of showing off their 'new room'.

Some Firsts

It's finally warm enough to move Elie's bed back in front of the windows where she likes it - her first observation? "Daddy, where'd all the snow go?!"
Cleaning up my toys!

Last night we had something precious happen - when Elie was saying her bed-time prayers Gabie folded her hands and prayed along for the first time. We've often done this for her at various times, but this was the first time she did it herself. This 'first' reminded me that we've noticed a lot of new 'firsts' for words coming out of her mouth. Prior to getting her tubes she really wasn't talking at all, just a lot of babbling. Although this really isn't abnormal for someone her age, when our first was talking in complete sentences by 18 months, well we couldn't help but compare them (I know, I know you're not supposed to!) But apparently she either just decided she was ready, or the tubes have made a huge difference or a combination of the two. She now says mama and dada to the actual individual. She says 'church', 'hot', 'ball', 'up', 'uh-huh' and does lots of copying/repeating what we say. Today the word she decided to add was brought about by her big sister. Eliya was insisting that Gabie come and play with her in the other room. Gabie did everything to try to avoid her and finally turned around and said quite clearly (and loud I might add...) NO! Okay, so this isn't my favorite word for any child to learn, because somehow they have this knack of making it their only word for awhile. But it's so good to hear her talking that we were just thrilled.

Getting Back to Normal

Aunt Amy brought Elie some pretty nail polish in Sioux Falls, which we promised we do when we got home. I just found it this evening so kept my promise so Elie now has glittery pink fingers and toes (and a great chance to get her to sit still to cut those nails!)

In the mean-time Gabie discovered the new sand-table that is going to the preschool tomorrow morning. I put all the preschool stuff that I need to take over for the sub and when we walked into the kitchen this is what we found :0)
Her appointment this morning went awesome! Her tubes look great - no worries about it coming out, and we don't have another follow-up for 6-8 months - woohoo! One doc down - two to go!

My Brave Little Girl!

Gabie has her ENT follow-up in Aberdeen for her tubes tomorrow. Originally we had planned on gettting the 'frog slide hotel'(as Elie affectionately calls it) again since her appointment is early tomorrow morning. With all the craziness of last week we had changed our minds, till we realized that we still have a little two year old that could use some 'attention'. So we came up to Aberdeen this afternoon and had a fun time in the pool. We're praying everyting goes well tomorrow.
What a slide! My brave little girl went down this slide about a hundred times (riding on daddy's lap of course) We were so surprised she didn't chicken out at the top!



Elie loves the frog slide!

Gabie and I did go swimming for awhile with them, but we didn't last very long. After we had a bath and a bottle (well Gabie had the bottle:0) we went to the upper deck in the pool room to watch.

Off to get the ice - I decided they were so cute together walking down the hall that I would get the picture before reminding them to take the bucket!

The Past Week

the first couple days in the hospital


We knew she was on the up-swing, when she perked up to smiling and climbing again!



We had lots of visitors the last couple days. Lori came down with Mark and Elie to drive one of the cars home, for which we were so thankful! Dan and Amy came all the way from Sauk Centre to check on their little niece. Susan, Ethan, Sylvia (Susan's mom), and Susan's grandma all popped in to see how she was doing. The last couple days there you wouldn't have thought there was anything wrong with her if you weren't there at a meal or seeing her labs. She was such a charmer and made friends with all the nurses and patients (that were out and about) on the floor. When dad brought her coat in a Thursday she grabbed and headed to the door waving good-bye to everyone as she passed. It was hard to convince her that she had to spend one more night.
Home at last, Eliya read all kinds of books to Gabie.
It seems like everyone's first question is - so she's eating now? Well, no, not like we'd like her to, but we saw a pediatric GI doc that said it will take her another 2-4 weeks before her digestive system is really healed, and it would be silly for us to stay in the hospital during that time when otherwise she's fine - especially since that could expose her to something else with all the other sick kiddos there. So we have a pretty envolved process for taking care of her for the next 10 days until we go back for a follow up in Sioux Falls on the 26th. If her labs/weight/eating are all better or at least improving at that point then we'll be done and can get back to normal life. So we ask for continued prayers for her eating to improve and her little GI track to heal. In the meantime, we have to be really careful that she doesn't catch anything, so no daycare, which means I'll be taking the next couple weeks off from work. She is so happy to be home - she ran from room to room cheering when we got here. Elie is so happy to have her sister back too that she's been playing so nicely with her.

Home!

Hi everyone! We're home. We are all exhausted so I will give a better update tomorrow, but just wanted to let you all know we are home safe and sound and giong to bed early tonight :0) Thanks for all the prayers.

More Prayers

Well we thought we might be looking at going home soon, but those plans seem to have changed. The problem is the diaper rash and diarrea are back and they don't know why which means more test/more time. She also has decided she's not too interested in eating. She had already lost 4 pounds from her one year check-up to when we were admitted so she can't go home till these two issues are resolved. She seems to like green beans which she'll eat a few of once a day, that's about it for in-take. We have a lot of options we're looking into. Please pray she starts eating and everything else gets back to normal soon. Thanks!

Catching Up

Sorry it's been so long since we updated, I just came to realize today that a computer was available to us with internet, so no pictures, but an update on Gabie. After I posted our blog on Friday evening she continued to scream unconsolably so we decided to take her to the Pierre ER. They ran some tests, some came back normal other didn't and they basically said we needed to get her to Sioux Falls. So Nana drove Mark and Elie back to Gettysburg (papa wasn't feeling too well) and Gabie and I took off for Sioux Falls Saturday am. They admitted her right away and began the process of 1. figuring out what's wrong with her and 2. treating it. This is what we now know: One of her ear tubes was pushing out because she had ANOTHER ear infection even with the tubes. Her diaper rash was caused by a fungus that actually started in her mouth (similar to a thrush kind of thing) which therefore had traveled through her whole intestines. They said this would cause she entire insides to look and feel like a bad diaper rash - no wonder she was screaming uncontrolably so much! Just to add insult to injury she's also getting her eye teeth right now poor thing! So the great news is they figured out what was a wrong and the even better news is that it is all treatable and fixable and hopefully no long term things. We see a peds ENT today to check the ear thing out, so we're possbily looking at another tube being put in, but the antibiotic through the IV has helped that ear considerably. We're still waiting on a couple other tests, but as long as everything checks out/looks good/continues to improve we're going home tomorrow or Wednesday. She's like a whole new baby - much happier and playful. Still weak, but that's to be expected. Mark and Elie joined us after church on Sunday and ELie is having a ball today getting to go to preschool with Susan - what a big girl! Sorry this is so long, but thought I'd fill everyone in. Thanks for your prayers. Hopefully we'll be back home soon and able to give more fun updates!

A Long Night and a Big Day

For the second night this past week mark and I were up since about 2am. Ugh! I wish we could figure out what is wrong with our poor goober (gabie). Nana and Papa came yesterday for the weekend and decided they wanted to take Elie swimming after seeing how much she loves it. So we came to Pierre today, did some shopping, walked down by the river, played at a park, went swimming, did sidewalk chalk, finger-painted, and so much more. Gabie has been really fussy all day today after such a long night. Please pray for peace for our little girl. Her breathing is better, but she still seems to be in a lot of pain. Pray we can figure out what it is and help resolve it.The pickle sisters!

eaing some lunch






It was absolutely gorgeous out today! No wind and our car thermometer said 67! Wow, hard to believe after last Friday's blizzard and negative degree temps only a couple of weeks ago. So we went down on the trail by the river and walked along to the park.

elie made a new friend at the pool that she played ball with

Elie sidewalk chalking

Gabie and Daddy played phone tag with the hotel phone.