Christmas Creche

Tonight we had the oportunity to go to the Nativity Creche that our stake was putting on.  We were unsure how it would work out considering Charlotte was cranky again.  We decided to give it a go and if we needed to elave we would.  Russ took Charlotte whlie I took the other three girls.  Lily and Allie loved looking at the Nativities.  They were particularly excited about finding the Nativities that we had lent the stake to display.  Lily found her box nativity, and Allie found our nativy that Russ' mom had given us.  The display was small but it felt nice to have something like this put on by our little triward area.

After looking at the nativities we wandered into the Primary room where they were having families dress up in costumes and be part of a nativity. I misunderstood and thought is was just for the children.  Imagine my surprise when after dressing my children up, my friend Deborah started draping clothing on me.  I protested slightly and then decided to have fun with it.  I am so glad we did!  The picture was fun and I love having it to look at.

 

It was getting close to bed time so we grabbed some Nativity pictures to color at home along with some cookies before heading out.  I'm really grateful for the opportunity to go to this activity.  I feel like it has started off our Christmas season on the right foot.

November Projects

I was super busy this month.  Right before having Bree I got asked to be on The LilyPad creative team.  I do hybrid projects for them and i also blog a couple times a month.  They agreed to let me have time off to have Bree and this month I would get cracking on my assignments.  I'm really enjoying it so far and it hasn't been too stressful, which is the most important thing! If you want to see a list of products that I use for any of these projects you can see them in my GALLERY.


We are thankful for binder...
{This houses are daily thankful slips that we do in November}

You are the Apple of My Eye card

 

Car Card for my nephew's 16th birthday!

 

Merry Christmas Card

Money Envelopes for my wallet

February Calendar page for my family's Christmas present

Welcome Little One! card

 

Breanne 2 Month Checkup

Height:

23.75 in -- 90%

Weight:

11 lbs 9 oz -- 60%

Head Circumference

 37 cm -- 10%

Today's appointment was quite typical.  Bree is tall and thin.  However, I was surprised to find out that she has such a tiny head.  It doesn't seem tiny, but apparently it is.  I questioned the doctor again about Bree turning to one side.  She still refuses to have her head turned to the right.  We even tried switching her around like he suggested and she just ignored that and turned her head the way she wanted.  He checked her head again and said it is perfectly round.  he also checked her neck muscles and said they weren't tight.  She just has a large preference as to what way she lies and there is nothing wrong with that.  I explained how it makes her roll over because she yanks her head back so far to which he was surprised at.  But yet again he said not to worry about it.  We'll see if I stop worrying about it.  Everything else was fine.  Poor Bree had to get three shots today and the oral vaccine.  The nurse was REALLY slow about putting in the needles.  I wanted to jab them in for her, she was so slow.  I'm sure Bree will get the bumps on her legs from the nurse being so slow : (

At home Charlotte was very concerned about Bree's shots.  She kept touching them and saying ow.  Even though this is out of focus I thought it was a very tender photo of Charlotte gently touching them the shot area.

Little Thief!

Charlotte did not want to leave playgroup today.  I don't blame her.  She doesn't get to go out often and when we do it is never long enough for her.  So she was a bit cranky when I dragged her into the car.  We pulled away and headed home.  Charlotte was still screaming.  I didn't pay attention to her.  Eventually she calmed down and I saw in my rear view mirror that she had fallen asleep.  What I didn't see was that she had become a little thief!  I discovered her like this when I pulled into the garage {see picture below}.  Apparently Char knew she was tired and wanted a blanket so she reached over and pulled until she got Bree's blanket off of her!  Comfortable and warm she promptly fell asleep.  Silly little thief!

Bree Milestone: Finding fingers

Bree has found her fingers this week.  She loves to stick them in her mouth and slurp away at them.  She is so noisy with them too!  During the night I usually know it is feeding time because I'm woken up by Bree slurping away at her fingers.  She gets it from her daddy : )  She is super cute though when she has those finger in her mouth though.

ENT Visit

It has been 10 days since Charlotte was on her antibiotics.  We went in and saw Dr. H today.  She is the Ear Nose Throat doctor that was recommended to us.  We had quite a rocky start to say the least.  Charlotte walked in happily to to the waiting area but she then started freaking out.  I guess she recognized it as a doctor's office and didn't want to have anything to do with that.  I held her the the whole time I filled out the paper work, but she screamed that ear piercing scream of hers anyway.  The nurses and elderly people were staring at me with mixed looks of horror, distaste, and pity.  Bree was upset too, so I was trying to rock her with one foot.  Thankfully Allie sat down and read some books.

Char continued to scream on and on for the 30 minute wait.  Why can't doctors actually get you into a room on time?!  We finally got called back and squeezed ourselves into the tiniest room ever.  The girls and I barely fit.  We waited another 20 minutes with me constantly having to tell Allie and Char don't touch that, don't touch this, etc.  It was a lovely wait.  Bree needed to eat but I couldn't feed her because I couldn't control her and Char in that room.  By the time Dr. H came Bree was now screaming and Char was occasionally screaming.  

At this point the appointment went fairly quick.  Dr. H asked why were there to see her.  I found this a bit funny because the pediatrician's office should have sent over the records and recommendation for tubes.  Maybe she didn't read it, or they didn't do it, who knows?  So I briefly explained everything Char had been through in the last year and the fact that she had so many ear infections.  Dr. H took a quick look in Charlotte's ear and noted that she had fluid behind her right ear.  So her ear infection hadn't gone away 100%.  She suggested at this point to get tubes put in her ears and explained the procedure.  I listened the best I could amid the screaming.  

Dr. H then had me go out to talk with the nurse and set up a time for surgery.  We scheduled it for December 7th.  Less than two weeks away.  I was happy that it would be on a Friday since Russ would be off.  The receptionist gave Charlotte two stickers which pleased her.  She even remembered to say thank you.  They commented she was a very sweet girl.  Hmmm...they must have forgot that we were the screaming crew only 30 minutes ago.  Allie was pleased to get a sticker too.  I'm always grateful that the doctors offices here will give siblings a sticker too, so there isn't contention.

We left the office.  I felt relief to be done but a bit anxious knowing my little girl would be going into surgery.  Hopefully though this will help Charlotte begin to feel better and not get so sick when colds come around.

Old School

Lily has wanted to play Nintendo for quite some time.  Russ got the old machine working today.  Together they sat down and played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  It was fun watching them play the old games.  I got quite a kick out of watching Lily jerk the controller around to try and move her turtle.  Apparently she forgot that this isn't like the Wii and moving around doesn't help your turtle move : )

 

Lil' Ponies

Charlotte loves to get what little hair she has done just like her big sisters.  Normally I can only make one pony, but today we made two!  A first for her!  She looked absolutely adorable in them!  Well, that is for the five minutes she kept them before heading to church.

Thanksgiving

Planning for Thanksgiving this year has been sort of a joke.  Russ's outage was scheduled this month, and it was supposed to end right before Thanksgiving.  With outages we never know when they are going to end for sure though.  Starting last week every other day he would come home with news that yes he was going to have to work on Thanksgiving.  Then it would change to know he wasn't going to have to work on Thanksgiving.  Our plans for what day we were going to do Thanksgiving on had to have changed at least 10 times.

Yesterday, Russ called and said "Good news.  We are done early!"  The bosses had decided to let everyone have the Holiday's off.  Wahoo!  But, my turkey was still in the freezer, and I hadn't even begun to make preparations for the food since we were planning to have Thanksgiving on Sunday.  What to do?!  I quickly got my ticker in some cold water in the sink, and started whipping up some desserts.

It was a bit more hectic than usual, but we managed to pull off all the food for Thanksgiving.  I was happy that we ended up having it today instead of on Sunday.  It just didn't seem right.  Char and Bree didn't participate in eating with us.  They both had their meals early for the sake of getting in a nap.  We definitely were thankful for our whole family being able to be together today! 

Bree: One Month

Bree has grown so fast this past month and half!  I can't even believe that she is already almost two months.  I decided a better get on taking her one month pictures before she isn't one month anymore.  LOL!

I tried to get a picture of her whole body to show how long she is, but she kept scrunching up her legs.  I only got one slightly decent picture with one leg extended...and partially cut off in the picture.  Oh well!

Bree is quite an easy baby at this point.  She really only cries if she wants fed or is tired.  She doesn't fuss really.  However, she will get upset laying on her  back.  She much prefers to be sitting so she can see what is going on.  That or put on her tummy.  She has outgrown her number 1 diapers, mainly because she is too tall.  Width wise the tabs still overlapping in the middle!  We love our little Bree Bree and are so happy she is part of family.  She brings a lot of smiles and laughter to us all.

RSV

Bree's cough wasn't getting better since we last took her in.  So I made an appointment for her today.  Because I wanted to see Dr. H we couldn't get an appointment until 4:30.  I called Russ to let him know, and he could tell I was freaking out over the thought of taking all four girls with me to the doctors.  He called me back a few minutes later and told me that he had worked out with his boss to come a little early so he could take the other girls off my hands.  We agreed to meet at the doctors office.

After Lily got home from school we rushed to the doctors office and waited, and waited.  Thank goodness they had a movie on for the girls!  Finally we got called back.  By this time I was wondering where Russ was, he was late!  About two minutes later he showed up and took the girls down the road to McDonald's to play.

A bit later the doctor came in and checked Bree over.  He said she was still wheezing quite badly and would need to do more aggressive breathing treatments.  This time we would be mixing two medicine's together.  I wasn't happy to hear this considering the additional one is a steroid.  He asked if the previous doctor had done a swab of her throat when she came in.  I said no.  He explained that the swab test would have shown that Bree had RSV not bronchitis like she had been diagnosed with.  He said that he was going to change the diagnosis and make sure to put that at the fore front of her chart so that if she had an further breathing problems we would know why.  

Hearing the word breathing problems sent me into a bit of a panic and I asked Dr. H what he meant.  He explained that children who get RSV have 50/50 chance of having childhood asthma.  My heart stopped.  I questioned him if it was hereditary because Charlotte had asthma.  He said yes and that because of a family member having it her chances actually went up to 75/25.  By the end of the appointment I was quite numb with shock.

It appears that we may have a rocky road ahead of us for Bree too.  Right now we are getting her through this RSV..no more going out for awhile...and then hopefully we will get lucky and she will be part of the 25% of kids that never get childhood asthma.

Happy Mail

Eeks!  Today I got happy mail.   I rarely am the one who gets mail, and it always excites me when I do.  I feel like a little kid!  I was so excited to receive my package from Laura at The LilyPad.  Inside was my Snap binder.  I'm hoping to use it for a December Daily album.  Laura was so sweet to even include a note to me!  I'm so glad that I'm able to be part of their Creative Team.

Always Together

 

Today was Lily's first day of vacation for Thanksgiving.  I was not at all surprised to find these two spending a lot of their time like this.  These two are all always together.  Don't get em wrong they fight and have their moments, but they really are the best of friends. 

Festival of Lights

Festival of Lights snuck up on this year.  So much has been going on that we spaced it until we saw the Christmas Trees and decorations going up around town.  Russ and I discussed last night what we should do.  Charlotte was barely recovered, Allie was on the mend, and Bree was the same.  We decided if it was warm weather we would go to the festival.

This morning the sun was shining and quite warm, so we put on some coats and headed out.When we arrived we noticed right off that the mini trai wasn't there this year.  The had replaced it with some motorized animals.  These actually may have been better than the train!  Allie wasn't supposed to ride hers without an adult guiding her but I had Bree so they let her anyway.  Let's just say the workers had to keep running over to her and steering her from running into someone.  I was laughing my head off!

Char chose a giraffe.

Allie chose a monkey of course!

Lily chose a Panda since that is her school mascot.

We went and tried out a few bounce houses after that.  Allie actually went in one this year.  She must have gotten over that fear from last year.  Charlotte enjoyed it so much Russ had to go in after her to get her out.  Char was starting to lose her steam so we rested while Lily went and did some rock climbing.  I'm very proud of Lily for doing this.  She is quite adventurous!  She got a little scared the higher she went but we talked her through it and she made almost all the way to the top!

Impressive skills huh?!

Yup, a tad bit worried!

The girls begged to go on one of the carnival rides.  Russ spent some of his spending money to let them ride the merry-go-round once.  What a good daddy!  The girls loved it, especially Charlotte!

Walking back to the food booths we passed a Church booth that had clown making balloon animals.  They were free so we stopped and got one for the girls.  A lady there was surprised to find out all the girls were ours.  LOL!  We tend to get comments like that a lot.  Allie and Lily chose flowers for their balloons and Charlotte got a cute doggy.

We went and bought lunch.  Russ got himself a giant turkey leg.  He has been eyeing those since last year.  He shared with all of us, it was really good!  Charlotte and Allie shared some nachos with me, and Lily had a corn dog.  We all made sure to get some yummy fresh lemonade.  It always tastes sooo good!  At some point while eating our food Allie's balloon blew away.  This is the THIRD year in a row this has happened to her.  Poor thing started to cry, but we couldn't get her a new one since the clown had left.

Everyone was tired and ready to go home by this time.  We went and got our desserts to go.  Allie was still upset about her balloon and telling me about it.  A little girl standing behind us {10 or so} handed Allie a gigantic flower balloon and said, "Here you can have this!"  What a sweet girl huh?!  We went to the car and enjoyed our yummy desserts.  Fried Oreos, fried Snickers, and fried Twinkie.

We spent the afternoon relaxing.  After dinner we headed back for the parade.  It was cold but we all snuggled together and had fun watching it.  Bree slept all the way through it snuggled against me all wrapped up in her blankies.  I'm so happy that are little city puts this fun event on.  It is a fun tradition for our family.

Milestone for Bree

I forgot to mention in my previous post something very important.  Bree's sick right?!  But you would never know it by the way she is behaving!  She has been super happy all day.  Over the course of ten minutes she smiled several times at me.  She is learning to smile and they are the cutest smiles ever.  Bree was so happy and smiley that she couldn't help herself and laughed and cooed as well.  Another first for her!  Her happy attitude is exactly what I needed today.  It is probably one of the main reasons I was able to limp through the day.

Ear infections and bronchitis

After Allie fell asleep on the couch yesterday I called and made a doctors appointment for her, and decided to take Bree in too.  She has had a cough for a could of days and it is really starting to sound wheezy.  Also, by looking at her chest I felt like she was retracting a bit.  We of course had no luck getting in to Dr. H.  He was booked so we had to see the PA.  We are getting wary of the PA's but I figured it was better to see someone than no one.

Turns out Allie had a double ear infection and a pretty severe cold.  Really?  I shouldn't have been surprised considering she went into hibernation yesterday, but I still was.  I reminded the PA that she's allergic to most medicine, so she gave us the good old Z Pack for her.  Even though her cough was sounding pretty bad too the doctor said it was all in her head and hadn't moved to her chest.  She thought that if I had waited to come in it probably would have moved down there, but the Z Pack should stop it.

Poor Bree didn't fair quite as well.  Her cough was indeed in her chest, and she was retracting a bit.  The doctor said she was wheezing moderately, and had bronchitis.  The treatment?  Breathing treatments for five days.  

After the appointment I walked the girls out to the car and got in and cried.  I felt so bad for Bree.  She's so little to be getting sick and having to do breathing treatments.  I also just had no idea how I was going to do this.  Char was still on her breathing treatments and now I had to do Bree's as well.  Oh and lets not forget the tiny little fact that Russ should be starting his outage work any day now.  : ( 

Feeling kind of defeated for the day i elected to go out to eat for dinner.  Russ met us for dinner, and then afterwards we went and got the medicine for everyone.  I'm sure I'll make it through this but I'm not sure how.

Here is poor Bree getting her first dose of medicine.  She was a champ at it.  Fell asleep right away and just sat there for daddy.  She's so small the smallest mask doesn't even fit her and we have to just kinda hold it there.

Someone's Sick

Today Allie had sat down on the couch while I was feeding Bree.  She watched a little TV with me.  I finished feeding Bree, looked over and was shocked to find Allie passed out on the couch.  It was only 12:00, no where near nap time.  Sigh...somebody is sick.  Every time Allie falls asleep this early in the day she's sick.  Her body goes into hibernation or something when she is sick.  The funny thing is she only has a small cough.  Usually it takes more than a cough to bring her down.  Guess we will be going in to the doctors to find out just what is wrong!

Must Sit to be Happy

In general Bree is a pretty happy baby.  however I've noticed one major delineation from that.  If she is laying on her back she gets grumpy, and I mean grumpy!  I can't always hold her and the sling isn't always useful so I figured out a way for her to be happy.  I put a pillow or two under boppy and prop her up sitting like that.  SHHHH!!! Don't tell the doctor, I know it is a big no-no.  But seriously sanity outweighs things sometimes.  Also, look how happy she is to be looking around and the world!

Almost caught a smile on this one!

I get this look a lot from her...dude mom what is with all the pictures?

She is getting so big!  She is super long and is almost outgrowing this boppy arrangement.  No idea what i will do then with little miss.