Early November and Sick of Sick

November 1st began our so far two month long battle with all kinds of sicknesses.  Can we say we're sick of being sick?  But when we weren't vomiting or dealing with other fun things about being sick we tried to get out whenever we could.  Giant Springs Park is still a favorite and we spent one of our off days there with the girls.  

 There's a fish hatchery in the park and a place where for a nickel you can feed the fish.  These girls love it - even when mom and dad forget to bring so much as a nickel and random strangers from Kentucky donate fish food for our kids.  

 Cora and Daddy pulling faces at Mama on the hike.  

 Syd with her Daddy's hat.  

 One of the rare times we had all three in tubby time and no one was screaming.  They are cute.  

So back to being sick.  Our family kind of went into hibernation since Halloween.  Syd woke up throwing up the morning after, then had 10+ days of an on and off fever with way too much diarrhea.  That cycled through everyone over the month, then more fun came in.  We finally had insurance to get all of our girls their well-checks, and Katie needed her 5 year old immunizations (the school had called me twice to let me know she needed them).  Katie also had her first Montana eye appointment.  The closest pediatric ophthalmologist to us is three hours away in Missoula.  She and I took a day off school, she was coughing the ENTIRE drive and time there, and we drove through the beautiful canyons to get there.  It was a great trip, but that started the nasty cough we all ended up with.  About a solid week of coughing and fevers, with no medication able to really touch it.  Jeremy and the twins got it after her, then I got it right before Thanksgiving.  I forgot to mention that Katie got a rash that sent her home from school for 3 days after her immunizations.  When I got it, it made me so sick I couldn't eat anything.  Literally nothing.  I had a fever for about 12 days and could not lay down to sleep because I was coughing so hard.  There was a lot of crying in our house from just about everyone.  Jeremy still had to go to work, though he was sick too.  My mom came up the first weekend of December, which also happened to be my birthday and just fed and cared for us.  I had been to the instacare twice with no diagnosis.  We finally got me on an antibiotic that killed the fever and a steroid that mellowed the cough.  About three and a half weeks after all of that I was starting to climb out of the sick hole.  Just in time for Christmas.  We all woke up with fevers and coughs for Christmas.

I don't know how people who lived before medicine had things like this and didn't die.  They probably did die.  We're trying to get rid of all our colds we have now.  I'm a little worried that we'll all get better just in time to send the girls back to school to pick up more germs.  Hopefully this year is just giving our bodies a chance to acclimatize to school and Montana germs and next year we won't get sick.      

Amazing Family Pictures

We love, love, LOVE our family pictures.  Our friend, Wendy Parrish, took some amazing family pictures for us this year and we have been so happy with them.  

Better Confess

Here's the serious post.  October was a crazy month for us.  Jeremy took his board exam in Phoenix, then after he got home we found out I was pregnant with number four.  Well, this kinda meant all kinds of changes for us.  We have the five of us in three small rooms upstairs - do we move someone downstairs?  Find a way to cram a crib and rocking chair into the small rooms?  Put the baby in a dresser drawer?  We decided we'd push back our house building plans.  We drove a Subaru.  We made it work with the three in the back, but that's not so legal with four, so when we took a whirlwind trip to Salt Lake (down Thursday night, left Sunday morning) so we could get family pictures with my family, we bought a new car.  Not really new, two years older than our Subaru, actually.  We got a Toyota Sequoia.  We felt good about it, and it'll be nice to fit family in the car when they come to visit.  I also got to go to the temple early Saturday morning to see the new movie.  It was amazing.  I felt so uplifted and excited.  I spent some time while I was there talking to God about what it meant to have a new baby coming.  We were excited.  We were a little nervous, because we are well aware of what pregnancy and babies mean, but it felt so good and we knew it would be a great blessing for our family.

The Thursday after we got home, we lost the baby.  We'd already started to tell people because we had told people early on with Kate and the twins and had no problems.  This was something different.  I cried a lot that day, then was exhausted and not sure what to do with myself.  During the two weeks I had been pregnant I hadn't thrown up yet, but was already feeling weird and sick, really tired, and overwhelmed.  When I started to bleed that Wednesday night and told to do nothing it was really frightening to realize what it meant to have three little girls who can still do so little to really take care of themselves, let alone not kill each other, and have to be on bed rest.  We were sunk.  We will have no choice but to get a nanny if we get pregnant again, and it's not as easy as I thought it would be.  Not to many people want to nanny with mom THERE and needing help as well.  But Jeremy's schedule is not flexible enough to have him get the kids to and from school, do meals and laundry, and all the other stuff that you do when you "just stay home with the kids."

So all kinds of mixed feelings about this.  The next couple of days after I was so grateful I could do things again like carrying milk jugs from the store and not feel it in the core of my body that I'm pushing too hard.  Or just switch out the laundry without it putting me on the floor for a little while after.  Or pick up the girls in my arms.  Grateful for the body I have, heartbroken for the loss, guilt for the relief, wondering why it was so easy before and not this time, and still totally confident in God's timing.  It is very easy for me to trust Him with this.  He knows who needs to be in our family when, and if He says not now, I trust Him.  I just wish the hormones in my body had a better understanding of that.  Most days I'm fine, but if I'm pretty tired and it's been cloudy, and I've been inside too much, I feel very angry.  The wilderness is a very potent drug for me.  Being there helps calm me down and soothe my spirit.  There's always more that I'm thinking and feeling with this, but this is the jist of what happened.  Most times I really don't want to talk with anyone about it because there's not much to say, but I felt a very deep stretching with it that I cannot explain in words.  I'm grateful I have the husband I do, that we can go through things like this together.  And I'm grateful for the plan God has for each of us.

Can't Quite Call it a Corn Maze, Honey's B-Day, and Halloween

We heard there was a corn maze in Vaughn and made the drive to see the corn maze and pick pumpkins.  I was a little disappointed since the corn was not quite waist high in most places and there was no pumpkin picking available, but the kids had a great time.  

 The girls got on top of a hay bale maze that was a lot of fun to jump over.  

 Rubber duckie races with Daddy.  

 They did have pumpkins there and there girls were pretty excited to bring them home.  

 Syd being a farm girl.  

 Cora ridin' Susie Q.  

 So happy.  

 Check out that moon rise.  

 Here's the amazing store bought cake.  The day was made crazier by lack of a car (it was getting the check engine light figured out) for most of the day.  But we had a good time.  Happy 34th Honey!  The best part was he had already taken his oral boards a few weeks before and we found out sooner than expected and he passed!  34 years old and he's done with school and tests!  Something to celebrate for sure.  

 The girls helped me rake leaves to help them earn money to buy bikes.  Too bad Katie was stung by a bee seconds after I took this picture.  And, by the way, I HATE crab-apple trees.  The girls would say I shouldn't say hate, but those are messy, messy trees and no fun to rake up the mushy things.    

 The twins in their favorite "booteeful spin dresses" and my boots.  

 I had great intentions of making Rainbow Brite costumes for Halloween this year, but things came up and I was glad last year's witches outfits were still wearable.  Add a new $3 hat and they were more than happy to be witches again.  

 Throwing darts at the ward Halloween Carnival.  Jeremy actually got four balloons with three darts.  That's how he gets the IVs in at work, just stands back and throws them like darts.  He's just that good.  

 So funny to watch this little girl go for that doughnut!  

From Early October

It stayed warm most of the month.  We were definitely busy with the day to day things.  Here's Cora and Syd.  They love dress up, especially if they get to wear their mother's shoes.   

 The art wall:

 I have to take advantage of every sunny day, even if it's a cold wind.  We went behind the Lewis and Clark Center to go "fishing" with their sticks and "explore the little canyon."

 This is a little spot just above Giant Springs and is a wonderful place to play.  It's protected from the wind, there's water, but it's not a big deal if they fall in it.  

 Pele was with us and NOT amused at having to stop so many places.  She was ready to run every direction.  Poor dog.  And below we have that beautiful Missouri River.  If you ask Cora it's called the "moouri river."

 My super tiny bag I use for a purse that my sister gave me when she got back from Argentina 8 years ago started to fall apart - so I made a new one.  Syd is modeling it for me.  

 All dressed up and so much work to do.  I bought a couple of rakes for the kids, too bad they broke within days.  Jabby.