104+

no I'm not talking about the weather here...it's Rachel - sigh, the two weeks on the antibiotic didn't do the trick. We were back at the ER on Saturday with her temp up to 104.8. She now has a uti. So we are now on her 5th antibiotic in 2009 (is anyone else thinking back to 2 years ago Gabie????). So I cancelled school for today and we called the peditrician down in Pierre this morning and they got her in this morning (thankfully we made it home before the blizzard we are currently in hit!). They ran some blood work and are doing some culture things. We also have a CT scan scheduled because they are suspeicsious about a couple of things that could be causing all this. So we will wait and see - please keep her in your prayers in the meantime, and I will keep everyone updated here when we know more. (this was taken right after she woke up)

As for a cute Rachel moment - she got a little frog for being such a good girl when they drew her blood - I think they just felt sorry for her almost screaming herself hoarse. She loves frogs and ducks and is hilarious if you ask her what a frog is by pointing to it she calls it a ribbit and if you ask her what it says she'll say "frog", I tried getting a video of it, but gabie's being rather loud in the background, it's still pretty cute though....

Treats from Across the Ocean

Bridget and Austin went to Germany, Switz., Austria and Italy over the past two weeks. They somehow made it back through the yucky weather we were having and Bridget came over with treats for us all tonight. She got each of the girls a little animal that yodels when you push his belly and these kinderegg things that are a chocolate egg with a plastic egg inside that has a toy inside that. So this was the girls bedtime snack and they enjoyed finding their little toys inside. Mark got a swiss chocolate bar that he declared was awesome (although not the kind of candy bar you eat in one sitting) and I got some crystal earrings from the swarovski store - beautiful! What special treats, and it brought back a lot of memories for me from when my own parents took a similar trip when I was younger.

Another Blizzard

The girl's hate not being able to see out the windows - we all feel a bit closed in when the snow is blowing so sideways that there is more on the sides of buildings than on the ground - ha!

It's Coming

The girls enjoyed some outdoor time toward the end of our nice days as we await the great storm that is supposed to hit. These couple days of 50s has finished off most all of the piles of snow around - so of course we wouldn't want to ground to stay uncovered!

Spring Break's Quick Trip

A little walk outside our hotel room in Mitchell before heading home...

This week is spring break in Gettysburg. Bridget and Austin (kirstie's mom and brother) went to Germany on a class trip for Austin's German class. So we offered Kirstie an adventure to get her mind off missing her mom. We left Thursday afternoon after Mark's circuit meeting and drove to Dan and Amy's house. We went for a nice walk when we got there and the girls had a 'tea party' before bed.

On Friday we got up and drove to St. Cloud for Gabie's follow-up with the dentist. He said everything looks perfect and we should be great now because the rest of her teeth look excellent - whew! Hopefully we're done with the dentist for a little while.

Then it was off to Sioux Falls for Mark to do some hospital visits. He dropped the girl's and I off at the mall and went to spend some times with the families at the hospital. We had some fun shopping although you can imagine the looks and the comments I got with 4 little girls.

I found a great deal on a hotel room in Mitchell for on the way home that had a water slide/kids pool and everything. The camera did not go along to the pool however, but the girls had a blast!
Although we had brought along Dora beds and sleeping bags they all insisted on sharing one of the beds - although you can see if was an interesting arrangement...

On Saturday we got up and drove to Pierre for one more hospital visit before heading home. Eliya loves the lady that Mark was going to visit so she went with daddy to the hospital while the rest of us went to the mall in Pierre. We made is home about 48 hours from the time we left on Thursday ~ talk about a packed quick trip!


Tea Party at Dan and Amy's house:

* Side note from our mall trip in Pierre*

We walked in at the end of the mall with the bathrooms - two sets even. I ask 3 times if anyone has to go. No, no no. Okay so we walk clear down to the other end where the little dinner is and the girls get some drinks and popcorn. They had bug juices and so I told Gabie and Kirstie to grab themselves one and then to get Rachel and Eliya one each as well. As the guy is handing me the popcorn and I'm telling him I have four bug juices as well Gabie grabs her crotch and says rather loudly "Mom, I gotta pee NOW!" Oh great - "Can you hold it? I've gotta pay."

"Mommy, I'm gonna pee my pants."

Did I mention the bathrooms are at the other end of the mall?

Did I mention that I asked THREE TIMES if anyone had to go not minutes before this?!

I'm trying to get my money out to pay the guy and in the meantime she is dancing so I tell her and Kirstie to start running that way (in the direction of the bathrooms) while I literally throw some money at this poor guy - he was a very good sport and got a chuckle out of this whole charade.

So I take off running after the girls grab Gabie and haul it down to the bathrooms - literally running through the mall pushing a double stroller with Rachel in it, carrying Gabie and Kirstie just trying to keep up running behind. What a picture we were!

We made it to the bathroom in time! She goes and as she's washing her hands I'm looking through the stroller and realize we have 5 bug juices.

So now we trapse back through the mall and go back to the same guy who is looking at me rather strange (like why on earth would you want to come back here and embarress yourself some more?!) and I explain that I told him 4 drinks, but ended up with 5. I think he got a good chuckle out of us for his day and he thanked me a couple of times for coming back (like I wouldn't?).

Let's just say that that coupled with Rachel 'escaping' the stroller a couple of times to try and run off made me very happy to see Mark and Eliya rejoin us to head home from our little trip.

Disgusting!

WARNING - DO NOT LOOK UP CLOSE AT THIS PICTURE UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE THOROUGHLY GROSSED OUT!!!!!

Sorry I just had to take this - and yes I did wipe her nose immediately after the pic!

Cutey - Patutey!

Uh-oh - Look! Mom's got the camera again

I've got something in my nose here that needs....

Oh mom - don't take a picture of that!

Alright mom, I guess you can have one picture. Isn't my ear cute?

Those Weird Places

I'm always finding odd places/positions that the girls fall asleep in - here is another one. (too bad there's not sound to this picture - she was snoring away!:0)

My Cup Runneth Over

In my devotion time I read something a couple of months ago that really got me thinking - if we prayed each day for God to fill us up so much with his lavish love then we won't be so keen to seek other's to "fill us up" with their thoughts, words or deeds. When we fill up with God first then those extras we get is when our cup runs over - those happy moments, kind words, gifts, etc., plus our days attitude doesn't depend on the circumstances around us or the mood that someone else is in. I'm still striving to work on this, however, God demonstrated something of this to me this past week....

Our grocery store has a system that each week when you shop there you can get a card punched saying that you shopped there. Then everyone that has a card getting punched also has a card in a big cage that they draw from each week. The pot starts at $50, if the person/family whose name gets drawn does not have their card punched than that 50 carries over to the next week and then doubles to 100 and so on. It's not enough to have a receipt, you have to get the card punched. Sometimes the pot has been over $1000 because people haven't had their cards punched for quite a few weeks in a row. Anyway, they do the drawing on the weekend and when we came home to a message on our machine that our name had been drawn I almost cried knowing that I had been to the grocery store a couple of times this past week, but had not gotten my card punched. However, Mark had been at the grocery store too and his card was punched - yay!!!! I had no idea how much was in the pot, but was excited none the less (and thrilled that Mark had gotten the punch!). He went down to pick it up and about 10 minutes later I got a text message from his that read "WOW - $800". WHAT?!!?!?!

I fell to my knees and thanked God for his amazing blessings - and I realized that although that devotion I had done was right in that we should be filled with God first, but more importantly that He is still the One in charge of it's running over.

Out and About

Today was a beautiful day - warmer (I still don't consider 50's warm, but I will concede that it is warmer), little to no wind, sunny, etc. So we went for a nice long walk. Only problem is that with all the snow we still have there is SO MUCH flooding all over! We tried going to the park, but honestly these pictures were all taken in a less then 5 minute time span because that's all the longer we lasted in the icy puddles. Rachel fell over right away and her coat got all wet so we hurried home after that (hence why she's not wearing a coat in these pictures - we did have one along). She borrowed daddy's on the ride home.

Left-over Snow

The weather has been warmer - in fact I believe we hit the 50's today! But for all of you that have been wondering about our remaining snow - I thought I'd share a few pics to give you an idea....

this is the east side of the house
the backyard

the front yard

this is the front section by the mailbox - this is where some of the snow got piled by the plows - still taller then Eliya!

Dinner and a Movie

Due to the fact that we all (minus Mark) have been under the weather we had a very lazy day today. We did some cleaning up around the house and just relaxed. Both Eliya and I ended up getting on antibiotics as well as we were both running fevers today so went in to the doc, but hopefully this will clear everything up and we will get over this hump. This evening we decided to have dinner and a movie in mommy and daddy's room. Eliya picked The Sound of Music and surprisingly they all enjoyed - it's a favorite of mine, but I didn't think Rachel would really sit through it. We didn't watch the entire thing, but it was fun to just veg out.

Sick, Sick, Sick, Sick and Un-well

Rachel - (sick) started with some ear infections that the tubes weren't clearing up back in January, well 4 antibiotics later and having fevers spiking over 105 a couple times we still couldn't get things under control. Turns out a lab result was misread from back in January so an infection had not been treated with the 'right' antibiotic, we've just been treating the symptoms. The good news is she is now on the right thing and has perked up quite a bit. Hopefully this will clear things out for good.

Gabie - (sick) We thought she had missed out on everything since everyone else had been dragging and she was still going strong (surely she's gotta have some immunity built up by now!). But last night she just wasn't herself at church and when we got home sure enough her temp was 102 and by this morning was 104. We got her in right away and it was her tonsils, so she is now on an antibiotic too.

Eliya - (sick) Eliya's temp spiked this past weekend (esp Friday) and she's been battling a cold. She's a pretty tough cookie though. We haven't had to go to the doc yet. She seems to be feeling much better these past couple of day.

Allison - (sick) I haven't had the fever that the kids have, but caught a nasty cold over the past couple weeks. I finally gave in and took some medicine, but haven't quite felt the need to go to the doc yet.

Mark - (un-well) Thankfully miraculously Mark has shown little to no signs of sharing in his girls' sicknesses. However, he also made a trip to the doctor to get his colesterol checked. It was checked about a year ago and wasn't good, so we've been really striving to change our diet and he has been exercising consistently 5 days a week. Well, even with all this it was still too high (although all the numbers were much better!) so the doctor said he had done an awesome job of doing everything he could (I was pretty proud of him too!) and it comes down to genetics, so he started on some medicine for it that he will have to be on for the rest of his life, which stinks, however from the wife perspective I am overjoyed that it is being taken care of to make him healthier so he will hopefully be around a lot longer!

A hide-away

I could hear the giggling, but couldn't see till I peeked behind the couch, kids just love having the 'spots' - I remember having them myself growing up.

Teacher-in-training

Considering both of Eliya's grandmas, one aunt and her mom are all teachers I don't know if I can fully claim the "she's following in my footsteps" idea, but I'll gladly share the title with them all. She loves school and decided to have all her stuffed animals be her preschool friends and she got to me "Mrs.M" since she was missing preschool on our day off (we don't have school on Tuesdays or Fridays). Wow - if only all of our students listened and sat still so well! - ha!