Cove Lake State Park

This past weekend we headed up to Cove Lake State Park for our 1st camping trip of the year. We camped with the Tomlinson's as we always do and had such a good time :) On Saturday a few of the families in our H2H joined us for some visiting and eating. All the kids had so much fun riding bikes or scooters, blowing bubbles, getting rides in the bike trailer from Aaron and playing on the playground. Taylor, Caleb and Madison received new scooters as birthday presents (Caleb and Madison's were early presents). They loved their new scooters.



Taylor, Clara and Kaleigh riding around the campground


Clara checking out the too hot slides :(


Some of our H2H families


Madison chilling out in the shade for a moment


Caleb enjoying his new scooter


Madison and Clara getting ready for a bike ride


We even got a little fishing in on Sunday. We didn't have any worms so used some leftover pancakes :) And Madison caught a fish with those pancakes (however neither one of the other 2 kiddos caught anything). Madison was the last one to get a turn at fishing. Matt helped her cast her line and said "it will be hilarious if Madison catches a fish." About that time the bobber/floater started bobbing a little and then all of sudden went under! Everyone started screaming "yeah" and Madison was grinning and so excited. Matt helped her reel it in and when they pulled it up out of the water Madison started climbing out of Matt's lap fast! I don't think she really knew what to expect but it wasn't that :) We released the blue-gill that was about the size of my hand back into the water as we were not interested in cleaning and fixing fish.





Madison's 1st time fishing...reeling the line with Daddy


She caught a fish!


It was a bluegill about the size of my hand and she didn't know what to think!


We had such a great time and can't wait for school to be over so we can go camping again.

Taylor turns 9!

Today my baby girl turned 9! I can't believe she is nine years old, where has the time gone? It seems like we just brought her home from the hospital :) I remember just sitting around staring at her little face and praying we didn't mess her up. So far we haven't :)

Her birthday week started off pretty rough and not what she was expecting but after lots of resting she is finally feeling much more like herself. I am so glad because I hate seeing one of my babies feeling so bad.

She went to school for a full day and was able to control her pain with only mortin however needed a dose of loritab at bedtime. She was really wanting to go today because it was Grandparent's Day and they had a special lunch planned for the grandparents. She was able to have all 4 grandparents be with her today. And managed to make it the whole day.

Tonight we celebrated her birthday (and Nana's too as her birthday is Monday) with dinner at Olive Garden. Both sets of Grandparents as well as Aunt Hope and Uncle Chris were able to be with us. After a wonderful dinner we finished it off with a chocolate cake with butter cream icing, yummy! Taylor received so many presents....clothes, new earrings, crafts, books and a new Webkinz! She is also getting a new scooter and having a bowling party in a few weeks.

I am so proud of now big my little girl is becoming. She is a joy to be around. She is sensitive and loving. She still loves to cuddle and sometimes even crawls in bed with me at night :) She is a wonderful daughter and I am so blessed to be called her mommy. I can't wait to see what wonderful things God does with her life!

Happy Birthday sweet Taylor!

(I have pictures to post but they need to be gone through. Hopefully I will get them on sometime next week. We are leaving tomorrow to go camping with some friends! Another one of the ways we are celebrating Taylor's birthday)

The Update Post

On a happy note, we proudly announce the arrival of 2 more baby birds...



WE are excited that all of the robin's eggs have hatched. Today we got to see the mother bird feeding the babies worms (so glad we aren't birds).

Also Taylor had to see the dr again today. Her legs are looking better, I guess. It has moved from the bump/hive phase to the bruise phase. It looks like someone beat her with a stick (I promise we didn't though). Here is her legs today







They look pretty rough right now. Even her nail beds are dusky purple. Hopefully that is going to start getting better soon. They checked her kidney function with a simple urine test and it showed some blood in her urine. She also had an elevated blood pressure. Both of these are things we didn't want to see. She has to go back on Thursday and have them rechecked. Please pray that 1) there is no blood in her urine and 2) her blood pressure is normal.

Her dr said that those symptoms can linger for up to 12 weeks so we will be seeing him regularly over the next 3 months. He said it isn't normal for it to last that long but that it might and he would rather keep an eye on her kidney function than have to deal with a problem later. Have I said how much I love her dr! I totally trust him. He has never steered us wrong in the past.

Her teacher is coming to see her Tuesday afternoon and I can pick up her school work in the Tuesday morning and she can work on it as she feels like it. Her dr seemed to think she would be able to go back to school by next week and might possibly be able to go back on Friday (we are aiming for Friday as it is her 9th birthday).

Taylor + red rash + leg/ankle swelling - HSP

Today started out like every other day. We slept in and had a lazy morning. My sister picked up Taylor around 11:30 this morning to head up to their church to get ready for a VBS fundraiser. Matt, Nana, Caleb, Madison and me headed down to Market Square to check out the Dogwood Arts Festival (post to come on that another time). We got a call about 3 from Taylor saying she had some bug bites and could we bring the cortizone cream. Since we weren't home they just picked some up at Walgreens. Well about 6:30 my sister called and said the "bites" were everywhere and Taylor's leg and ankle were swollen pretty bad. We hopped in the car and ran over to the church where we were expecting to see some bites and minor swelling. What we saw was this....



We went ahead and gave her some benadryl and decided we would be heading on to Children's. We were thinking she had gotten into something but were concerned about the swelling. We got there and they got us checked in. The immediately said they were almost 100% sure she had HSP. We had never heard of this. They put in an IV, did some blood work and checked her urine but came back pretty quickly with a "yep, she has HSP and there really isn't anything we can do besides treat the pain". HSP stands for Henoch-Schonlein Purpura. It causes the blood vessels to become inflamed and is extremely painful and looks pretty bad too. It is caused when a person's immune system doesn't fight an infection like it is supposed to. It normally occurs after a child has been sick with a bacterial or viral infection. It happens normally in the spring and affects kids ages 2-11. It may never happen again and it may. We are praying it doesn't. It is not contagious. The symptoms can last 4-6 weeks. Right now she can't go to school b/c the swelling is causing so much pain that she can't walk which means she can't go to school (we are hoping it is better by next week and she can return to school). The bad thing is that it can affect her kidneys and bowels so she will be going in to have weekly blood/urine checks. If they start seeing abnormalities we will be heading back to Children's but for now we just treat the pain with Loritab. There is no way to prevent or treat this as of right now :( They told us it may get worse (and we saw some literature that showed us worse) before it gets better. You can google it if you want to know more about it.

I am asking everyone to pray for my baby girl. Taylor never gets sick. This is the 1st time she has been to a hospital as a patient. She was so brave. It broke my heart to see her crying b/c she was scared and it hurt. Then she cried b/c she couldn't go to school. Her birthday is this week and we have planned her party but it won't be for a few weeks (boy, am I glad we didn't plan to have it the weekend of her birthday). She is scared that it may affect her kidneys.

I am asking for you guys to pray for some specific things:

Pray that there is no damage to her kidneys or bowels.
Pray it doesn't get worse.
Pray that the pain will subside.
Pray that it won't ever happen again.

Here are a few pictures from tonight. We took the camera so I could blog and scrapbook about it, cause that is what good moms do....always looking for good material :)

Waiting on the dr


One of her legs


Her IV


Chilling and watching cartoons after a dose of Loritab

Baby birds

This morning my sister came over and we were telling her about the nests. She got on a chair and looked in the ginny wren nest that I hadn't been able to see in and saw 5 eggs! Yeah, we are so excited :)

Our ginny wren eggs


We noticed a few days ago that our robin was doing a whole lot of sitting and rarely left the nest in fact we were able to walk out the front door and leave w/o her flying out (the only time she would leave was if you approached the tree the nest was in). Well when my sister peeked in the robin's nest this is what she saw...



We had 4 eggs and the best we can tell it looks like 2 have hatched. I plan to check again tomorrow and see if any more have hatched. We are so excited about our baby birds :)

Kings Firecrackers

This is kinda long but so worth the watch. Taylor loved it!

Just copy and paste the below link

http://blip.tv/file/get/Soonereyo-USNavalAcademyPerformance958.mp4

If that doesn't work go to "blip.tv" and then in the search box type in "kings firecrackers us naval academy performance". There are quite a few routines at different universities and you won't be disappointed in any of them but I thought the Naval Academy Performance was the best). I have never seen anything like this before. These girls are awesome...would love to see them in person :)

Easter

We always celebrate Easter with a huge family meal at my sister's house. This year was no exception, well except that my mom and dad weren't there :( This was the first Easter that we haven't been with them since Matt and I have been together. My grandmother has been having chest pains and had an appointment to see a cardiologist in Memphis and since she doesn't drive they had to make the trip and take her.

Taylor's loot...blanket (she had gotten so tall her feet stuck out from under her old one), sunglasses, Bath and Body lotion, sketchpad, stickers and a chocolate bunny!


Caleb's loot...Spiderman cup and plate, Spiderman notebook, sunglasses, dinosaur pj's, stickers and a chocolate bunny!


Madison's loot...Tinkerbell pj's, purse, stickers, sunglasses and the chocolate bunny!


After church we headed over to my sisters. Matt tried to get a good shot of me and the kids and this was the best one..


And all 5 of us


And a rare one of me and Matt


Aunt Hope and Uncle Chris got the kids baskets full of candy, there was cotton candy, whoppers, peeps, marshmallow bunnies, reese's peanut butter cups, hershey kiss's, decorated cookies, and huge suckers. I had left a "note" for the Easter Bunny asking him not to leave much candy as their aunt and uncle had taken care of that already :)

Here the kids are going through that loot!






This was the 1st time Madison had cotton candy....she LOVED it!


After lunch the kids enjoyed hunting for candy filled eggs in the backyard.

Causey Easter Egg Hunt and Party

Saturday we celebrated Easter by attending an Easter party and egg hunt at Abbie's house! Madison was so excited all day....she LOVES Abbie! The kids enjoyed playing in the backyard for awhile. Then had a blast feasting on some Bunny Cake and hunting for some eggs :)

Caleb enjoying the very fast slide


The girls enjoying the swing set :)


Enjoying some yummy cake!


Hunting some eggs




We didn't get many pics of the egg hunt as our camera battery died :( In fact, we didn't get any of Taylor hunting :( Matt went in and charged the battery for a few minutes so we could get a few more pics. There was a special golden egg hidden and the child who found it got a special surprise, well guess who found it? Madison! And when everyone started shouting out of excitement she hid behind Matt's legs...she doesn't like everyone staring at her! She had this look on her face like "I didn't mean to do it". It was great and there is no proof b/c the camera battery was still charging :(

Madison checking out her loot.


Taylor and I playing the bean bag toss game


Caleb shooting marshmallows


Matt and Taylor playing the bean bag toss

Birds

A few weeks ago we "temporarily" moved a fake ficas tree onto the front porch. We were planning on leaving it there for a couple of days while trying to decide where to place it plus it was a little dusty and we were planning on just spraying it off with the water hose. Well it turned out that we left it out there for a week and when we went to move it inside this is what we found....



granted the eggs weren't in there yet but there was no way we were going to tear down that robin's nest. She had worked so hard so we decided to leave it alone until she laid and hatched her eggs. About a week later the robin had laid 4 little blue eggs. The kids love that she is out there and laugh when we get ready to leave and go out on the front porch...she sometimes flies out of the nest and other times doesn't. She has almost flown into Taylor's head a few times :)

We also have a ginny wren that has built her nest over the light fixture. She is sitting so we assume their are eggs (she hardly ever flies out now). We haven't been able to get a picture since she doesn't leave real often plus my grandmother said she will leave her nest if we bother her too much so we are leaving her alone. Hopefully we can get some pictures once the eggs hatch.

We look forward to all the eggs hatching and being able to see the baby birds :)

Easter Parties

Today was one of those days when I wish I had a clone. Both Caleb and Madison had their Easter parties today. Madison had a "Son"rise breakfast and then later in the day a egg hunt.I couldn't attend her breakfast b/c it was at 10:15 and Caleb's party was from 9-10:30. This is the first time that I have ever had 2 school things at one time. My morning was crazy and went like this:

6 AM get kids up

6:45 take Taylor to bus stop

7:00 leave to take Caleb to school (I am not letting him ride the bus yet)

7:30 get Madison up and get her breakfast and cartoons started

7:30 get myself ready

8:45 leave to take Madison to preschool

9:00 Caleb's party starts

9:20 I arrive at Caleb's party, late

11:00 leave Caleb's party

12:00 Madison's Egg Hunt

1:00 Caleb gets out of school (Matt picked him up)

1:30 we leave Madison's school after hunting for eggs and having lunch

It was one very busy day but was so much fun! I dread the day when all 3 are involved in extra-curricular activities and I have to juggle that!

Here are a few pictures from their parties. I didn't get nearly as many of Caleb's b/c I helped with his party by manning the cookie decorating table and then leading 4 kids on a scavenger hunt!

Caleb's teacher and a sweet little girl in his class named Emily. She gave me a huge hug when I got there and once she saw my camera she asked me to take her picture with Ms. Gibson :)


Caleb decorating a cookie


Madison getting ready to go find some eggs, my baby is so short!


And the hunt is on....




After the hunt


Madison eating some lunch