I Won't Go Down!

True story.

Yesterday Emily came home from school with a sore throat, chills, headache and fever. The fever got worse and worse, so today she stayed home from school. She continued to be sick today, complaining of her inner groin (lymph nodes) hurting, her throat hurting (more lymph nodes) and her fever was super high. We started giving her antibiotics.

"Oh great, strep throat."

Tonight she was feeling better (Tylenol) and we were outside when I noticed a big swollen spot on her lower right leg, by her ankle and what looked like a nasty bug bite close to it. I showed it to Matt who thought she might have gotten stung or something.

Then at bedtime, Matt came and felt the spot and realized that it was a major infection of some kind because it was hot and hurt to touch. Then about 10 minutes later, we noticed a red line extending about halfway up her calf.

(The "T" is our mark of how far the blood poisoning had gone)

 

An emergency call to Matt's dad (a PA) confirmed Emily's probable diagnosis: poisonous bug bite? and definitely an infection with blood poisoning. Luckily we had some shot antibiotics on hand and Matt and I explained to Emily that she could choose a shot at home or a night in the hospital with antibiotics.

(Salt water to draw out the infection)

(Side note: we made the hospital sound really unappealing, because 1) it is and 2) we don't have insurance yet).

Emily chose home shot and Matt gave her a priesthood blessing and then we got ready. I was holding Emily and she started screaming.

"I won't go down! I won't go down!"

She stopped screaming right as Matt gave her the shot. After a minute she said, "That was a close one. I almost screamed my head off."

Emily, you rock.

Living In A Mansion

 So. We went to Utah at the beginning of August. For the special occasion of my sister's wedding. The kids were AWESOME on the plane. I was very amazed.

(Downstairs family room with pool/ping pong table)

 And then we stayed in a mansion. Seriously. The upstairs had two bedrooms and two bathrooms. An enormous kitchen with a table, a family room, a dining room, front living room, foyer and a laundry room.

(Upstairs family room with big screen TV)

The downstairs had five bedrooms with two bathrooms, a family room and a laundry room. 

(Indoor pool middle, foosball table area top right, exercise room top left, the doorway by the hot tub leads to two saunas, a full bathroom and the doorway underneath the foosball table area leads to another laundry room)

Did I mention this house has an indoor pool? Several saunas? An exercise room? Hot tub? Foosball area? 

 Oh. The pool had a slide.

 Formal dining room, which leads to a formal sitting room on the lower level.

 Master bedroom and...

 Master bathroom.

Enormous kitchen! Apparently this family had 9 children, so there were nine bar stools around the island. That's why they had 3 laundry rooms, 7 bedrooms, 2 family rooms and an indoor pool. Obviously.

Guys, this is how the other half lives.

My Sweet Girl

 Dear Emily,

I can hardly believe today was your sixth birthday. Where has the time gone? I sit here, holding your third sister and wondering where my first little baby is.

You are amazing. You have been so patient with us, who, as parents, are completely lost sometimes. I often feel bad that you are the subject in our experiments and that you teach us as much as we teach you. I feel bad that you carry the burden of being the "oldest" and that you are older than your years.

You bear that responsibility well. Your sisters adore you. You are a huge help to me. You love to tackle new things and find new ways to grow. You are funny, bright, creative, talented, nurturing. You were born to be the leader of your sisters and I can see that.

I hope that as you grow you will realize that I mess up. That I want to be the best mother in the entire world, a perfect mother, which isn't feasible. I hope you will forgive me my mistakes in parenting and see the immeasurable amount of love I have you. That love trumps everything else.

You are my special buddy. I can count on you to hold Lydia when I need to shower. To make your own pb&j sandwich when I'm changing Charlotte's diaper. To read to your sisters when I'm not available. To be responsible. And you are responsible. And determined. You have been so dutiful with taking care of the rabbits, Dad and I will have to keep our promise to get you a horse!

Don't lose sight of how incredible you. Don't be swayed by other people's opinions and actions. You are smarter than that. Always stay close to the Lord. As we mentioned yesterday, you can't go wrong if you listen to the Holy Ghost. Remember that the love I have for you is a speck of dust compared with the love our Heavenly Father has for you. And unlike me, He is a perfect parent.

I love you more than my own life.

7 Reasons I Love Matt

7. He is super goofy with the kids. And they soak it up, since I'm not really goofy.

6. He loves watching cooking shows. For real. River Cottage has been his favorite for the last few years-- he has watched every episode several times.

5. He talks to himself all the time. Really. It's pretty funny to watch/hear sometimes.

4. He is a great cook. This goes along with the cooking shows, but when he can, he pretty much kicks me out of the kitchen except for cleanup.

3. He's very patient with my idiosyncracies. Like how I eat cereal. Or how I like to organize things.

2. He's a great handyman. Definitely a quality I was looking for when I thought about marriage.

1. He loves me.

And I love him too. Happy 7 years!

First Visitors!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 We just got back from a whirlwind trip to Utah for my sister's wedding. But before I go into that, let's celebrate! We got our first visitors!

 Grandma Tammy and Grandpa Chris are some of our closest friends from Ohio. So close that we consider them family and our girls get the added bonus of extra grandparents! They were on their way down to Florida for a vacation and decided to detour a few hours to see us!

 It was wonderful. Grandma Tammy loved on her babies. And they loved on her back.

 It was a short visit but we loved every single minute of it.

Thank you, thank you, for coming.

For the first time ever...

(My skinniest, running 4 miles a day pushing a double jogger)

 I'm having trouble losing the baby weight. This is a first for me. I gained 40 lbs with Emily and fit into my pre-preg clothes when she was 4 weeks old. I gained 35 lbs with Nathalie and fit into my pre-preg clothes when she was 3 months old. I gained 25 lbs with Charlotte and fit into my pre-preg when she was 2 months old. But with Lydia I gained 45 lbs and I'm still not into my pre-preg clothes.

(Comfortable size, not exercising very much)

 I don't know how much I weigh. We don't have a scale. I do know that my comfortable easy-to-maintain size is a size 8. And right now most of my size 10s fit...but I have a bit of a muffin top in them and they're really, really tight, so I'm not wearing them. Size 12s are only a touch too big.

(Lydia is 2 months, clothes look bad)

 

Since moving to GA, I've been trying to walk or run 2-4 miles, 4-5 days a week. I'm seeing a little improvement. I've only been doing this for 3 weeks, so it's probably unrealistic of me to expect to fit into my clothes, right? I've also been watching what I eat and have cut back some.

 

The real problem behind all this is that Lydia and I are done nursing. It's a long story, but during the month of June, I was taking Reglan, MoreMilk Plus tincture, drinking 80-100z of water a day....and trying to eat 3000 calories a day. All this was in an effort to keep up my milk supply. It ended up not working (a post for another time) but in the meantime, I put some weight back on after I had lost it in May.

 

I know, I know. You're probably thinking, "Michelle, relax. You've had 4 kids in 6 years. Real women don't bounce back." But even though this post is pretty shallow, I do wish I fit into my clothes. I like my clothes and don't have money for a whole new wardrobe.

 

My goal is November. By then, I'll need to start wearing jeans here. I can get by with skirts until then. By then, Lydia will be 7 months old.

 

So what do you think? Too shallow? Too ambitious of a goal? Any tips or tricks?



Ocean Water

 Since being here we have probably gone to the beach about 6-7 times. Usually we go twice a week, although I think this week we only went once.

 Tybee Island is our beach and it's great. Hilton Head is great too, but when we went this week, it was SOO crowded. We'll save Hilton Head for when all the vacationers go home.

 The kids love the beach. Emily can't get enough of the waves. She goes out as far as she can and rides them in. Nathalie runs into the waves screaming and her favorite thing is to get completely bowled over and dragged along by the waves.

 Charlotte is afraid of the waves, but loves, loves, loves the sand. In the above picture, the tide was coming in and Charlotte was refusing to move from her sand fort so she kept getting hit in the face by waves!

 We're still perfecting our beach routine to maximize fun and minimize sand in the van. I'm sure we'll get there!

 We also went blueberry picking, where Charlotte and I had our first unfortunate experience with fire ants. Ouch!

 Even this girl likes the ocean. She is always calm there, probably because of the sound of the waves.