Update

Things are going pretty well this week. It has been a bit crazy with Kaedra's schedule this week, school, Ethan and Michael being gone most of the week in Arkansas. We also had less time with our nurses (usually we have one night without a nurse, but this past week they gave us nursing every night - which was very appreciated, we just had less hours most of the nights). Kaedra is supposed to be done with her IV meds tomorrow and I CANT WAIT!!! We are praying they can take the picc line out at Dr. Carey's office tomorrow night. Then we just have to get her off the vent. WOOHOO! I have to say that Kaedra has been absolute sweetie about her IV meds. She hasn't complained at all about being followed around by a pump and her meds 15 hours of the day. She has tried to be VERY helpful, too, which is hard when you are trying to keep everything sterile. :-) Her ventilator is just too much of a temptation for Ethan. It has green and red blinking lights, makes noise when you play with it and alarms if you get it apart. I have looked all over it, but I can't find the Fisher Price logo.

School is going well. If you are interested in reading more, drop by my homeschool site and see why.

Ethan is almost walking. He has taken up to two steps at a time. We are all very excited. I'm not sure why....it just means more to clean up and keep up with!! LOL. Anyway, he is such a great baby. We are so blessed by him as well. There are many times during the day, if you could peek in our family, you would find us crowding around him making him laugh, watching him do something or seeing who can get the most slobbers kisses. He says several words including Momma, Daddy, byebye, Bubba, Nono & uh-oh.

I am about to kick him out of our bed and start working on getting him into his own crib. I got a great book called The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. I was reading this paragraph and I was just aghast that a mother could be this way:

"I've worked with many mothers whose babies are so used to Mom's presence in bed that Mom has to put herself to bed at 7:00 (or maybe 8:00 - my completely random note here) and stay there because her baby has built-in radar that won't allow her to leave him alone. Mommy also has to take daytime naps, whether she wants to or not!"

NO WAY! There are other mothers like that??? Ah-hem. (Note to self: start working on that right away.)

My parents are coming to visit in a week in a half, for Ethan's 1st birthday. We are excited but I am starting to have the "gotta have everything PERFECT"s. I need another reminder to self: make sure our kids feel comfortable with dirty houses when we come to visit. I have a hopelessly long list that I am sure I will barely make a dent in, but what would their visit be without a little pre-visit paranoia? Anyway, we are planning to go to the aquarium with them while they are here which will go perfectly with out marine biology study! (way to get the school in, mom...heehee)

Brittany is doing great with school. She is in co-op again this semester and loves that. She is also busy in her youth group and getting ready for another mission trip to Mexico. She has been in several skits at church and even had a chance to preach to her class once. She is going to have another chance to preach coming up. She loves it and really thinks God is calling her to be a missionary. (and I thought she'd be moving far away to pursue Marine Biology....at least she would have been in the SAME COUNTRY!!!)

Emily is working on her theatrics. Unfortunately she is not in any skits or plays. Those are just her daily theatrics. We have banned all TV that is not "little kid cartoons" (like Dora or Diego) because she was getting just a bit too much like Hannah Montana. She is doing great in school and learning so much. She still doesn't read, but she is on the verge. The problem is more with her thinking that she can't rather than her not actually being able to. (we had the same problem with Brittany when she was about the same age)

Michael loves his job. He is gone far more than he has EVER been gone and, unfortunately, we are getting used to it. He will be gone a week next month and another week in April. He went to Bentonville last week and really loved it. He was telling me how nice the library is, so I think he may be hinting at something. :-) I think we are going to go away for a weekend in March. Sherria is checking her schedule to see if she can babysit, and, if so, we are going to go away from a Friday night to a Sunday afternoon. We don't know where we are going yet. We have some ideas, but we haven't made our choice yet.

Well, I reckon I ought to get off of here and go do something else. This is the most time I have had without pressing matters in a LOOOONG time!! :-) I do want to tell you about 3 funny things Emmy said earlier today. I will have to save that for another post.