Family Love

We were able to all be together at Thanksgiving this year.  Thanks to the Nims getting bumped from a flight last Christmas.  

Weewa and Papaw with all the kids.  Their personalities show in this picture.

Lillian's Papaw sharing a Peppermint shake with her.  This was the treat after Dad's nurse pinning ceremony.  Way to go Dad!

Josiah is still in love with his baby.  He calls her his "honey bunny"

Have  Merry Christmas!!!

Warm your heart

I hope this brings a little warmth to you on such a cold day.

Golfer snowman

golf hat, golf ball nose, club arms, and tee's for eyes, mouth, and nose

 The poor thing wasn't properly dressed.  Luckily her little hands weren't frost bit and her legs weren't icebergs.  I sat her on the warm register with a blanket and hot chocolate.  She thought she was awesome.

dirt bike snowman

 We went back to the Dr. again for a follow up on Cora.  She is still fussy, but her poo is better.  We've added another medication for her GERD. I've completely cut dairy from my diet.  It is in everything!  It took me 2 hours to grocery shop since I was checking the labels.  Next time your in your kitchen just look at the allergy listing under the ingredients.  (If it doesn't contain dairy and it's something tasty let me know!) I'm starvin' marvin all the time.  I guess she had quite of bit of inflammation in her rectum from the dairy & maybe soy.  They said is would take a bit for it all to heal up.  I am currently nursing and supplementing with an outrageously expensive formula.  So I'm going to nurse as long as possible, but if my sanity becomes an issue I'll be bottling her all the time :)

 We put the tree up one cold evening.  The kids loved it. 

Lillian doing her Twinkle Little Star ballet moves.

Yes, my kids wore their halloween costumes while putting up the Christmas tree.

Updates

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.  We had lots of fun with Grammy being in town to meet Cora and the Nims spending two weeks at Weewa's house.  As some of you know the past two weeks have been slightly chaotic for us besides all of the family being around.  I'll start with Cora.

Ever since Cora has been born she's been a "fussy butt"... literally.  Almost 3 weeks ago I finally took her to the Doc to see what's going on.  She's been fussy, gassy, and pooing funny.  The Doc sent us up to St. V's for some test.  Praise the Lord (not being sarcastic)  it wasn't what they thought it was, Hirschsprung's disease.  So today we finally received some answers!  I saw a great specialist who explained everything incredibly well, and told me every problem I've been having with Cora before I even told her.  To say the least I'm so thankful to have solutions and she told me, "We are going to make you a new baby." 

 So here it is:

1) Bacterial Overgrowth- causing stimulation of the internal sphincter (that word makes me laugh)

caused from some antibiotics I was on before I delivered her

This explains all of her grunting or as we call them her "squirrel noises"

treatment: 7 days antibiotics

2) GERD aka Acid reflux

this surprised me, but made sense when she explained.  

It's causing her stuffy nose which in return makes it hard to breathe while nursing, causes more air intake, therefore adding to the gassy problem

Also, leaves her with heartburn, therefore never wanting to lay down (eg. always wanting to be in her wrap or held).

treatment: Prilosec 

3) Allergic to dairy

This was not a surprise even though it's not what I wanted to hear.  

This is linked closely to #2.  Anyone who knows me personally knows I love dairy.  She should outgrow this around 6-8 months.

treatment: I have to cut all dairy (soy is not an option)

 & use a special formula

Anyway I hope that clears some things up for those of you who have been following what was going on.  We appreciate all the prayers that were said.

Jojo fell this week and had to get his chin dermabonded together.  Thank goodness because Grant nor I could've handled watching the stitches.  He was such a good boy.  He did just as the Dr asked and never cried while we were there.

 Lillian was holding onto the coat of hers he was wearing and then let go.  He landed chin first onto the wood floor.  I saw it all and he was not able to break his fall at all.  I knew it was going to need medical attention the second it happened.

Lillian is now starting to have a hard time sharing mommy's attention.  She has been a pistol lately and very needy.  She looks at me and says, "hold you".  This was a day where she fell asleep on the kitchen table not long after breakfast.  I should mention she's also working on getting some more molars.

This was a picture I came across on the camera.  I'm glad Grant took it.  There's nothing more that I love to do than to take naps with my kids.  

Amanda's gift

I am so excited for everyone to take a peak at Amanda's wonderful talent once again.  She took maternity photos, family photos, and Cora's newborn photos.  I can't say enough how much I love her amazing eye for capturing our family the way we are.  Her art freezes us for a special moment the way I want to remember our family forever.  Enjoy the slideshow.  She put all three sessions together so it takes a few minutes.  

www.amandaelpersphotography.com

portraits...clients...password...cora

Thank you Amanda you are such a blessing!  For anyone else that appreciates Amanda taking our pictures as much as I do leave a little "love" down in the comments (she does read this :) or let us know which ones you really enjoyed.

warning

So I should just say before you call CPS on me know that I was with my kids the whole time they were "playing" with the space bag.  I was working on my blog with the kids in my bedroom when they were making lots of noise and I looked over to see this...

No, the bag is not zipped

I hope you got more of a laugh than a scowl at this. ;)

Chili Cook Off

Danny and Erin had a chili cook-off down at their house.  It was a beautiful weekend to go eat chili on their porch in Brown County.  We benefited from the naps on the ride down, getting to spend time with mom, and getting out of the house with Cora.  There were about 9 chilis I think and they were good.  Nathan and Hillary's won.

Danny had little boxes hidden around for the kids to go find. 

Lillian with her box 

You tell it was a good time from just looking at this picture :)

Hillary holding Cora (6 days old) 

They just found out they are having a baby boy.

She literally was going around and eating any candy she could find. 

All the kids playing on the "hill"

 Josiah was scared of the hill last year

Lillian wanted to be a baby too.  Cora is on my chest wrapped up in her moby.  The moby wrap has been wonderful with her.

Danny with Eddie... Cora and I
Danny and I were born 1 month apart and the kids are 3 months.

Lillian's 1st Haircut

So I finally did it!  I held off as long as I could.  Lillian had her very fist haircut.  She was squirmy and loved making silly faces at herself.  It made her look like a big girl.  Of course I had to fix it in a couple of days to even it out.  She was just too busy during the cut.  She looks so cute and everyone has said how old she looks.  I sure do miss her cute pigtails though.  I'll put them back in soon, but for now it has been kind of nice not having to mess with "The Scraggle."

We've been getting this looks a lot lately.  It's her scary dinosaur.

It's actually shorter than this now and it flips under.

I didn't realize just how tired I looked until I saw these pics.

Josiah went missing during the haircut.  I found him in the bathroom located in the middle of the salon, door wide opened, wiping his bum.