Pumpkin Patch pics

W'as happening...

I know, I know! I haven't been around to update! I am sorry!! See what happens when I get home and real life happens??

Speaking of real life...Saturday morning, 6am, all is quite and then KABOOM, KABLAM, SMASH, BREAK. I came running downstairs to see our nurse running towards the school room. We ended up on opposite sides of it, staring at the damage.

The bookshelf had fallen down. Now on this bookshelf are our games, photo albums, pictures, manipulatives, instruments, puzzles and science kits. Not the kind of stuff I want scattered all over the room! Especially since some of the pictures had glass frames that broke. (didn't find that out until last night)

Sooooo, I put it off as long as possible and finally got it cleaned up, with lots of help from the girls, this afternoon. Apparently a few containers of glitter exploded and we are all sparkly now. But so is the room:
I also packed up all of our photo albums and some of our games. At least that is out of the way now. :-)

Kaedra came home on Friday night. She has been thrilled to be home, although she was a bit worn out at first. Friday night was a very stressful night for all of us. We had some misunderstandings which ended up in no dinner, we were trying to get used to the new IV meds, we had lots of unpacking to do from the hospital and the whole family wasn't used to being together, so we had a little re-adjustment. Honestly, I was a bit freaked out by all the noise. (don't worry, I am back to normal now! I was just used to being in a quiet hospital room for a week! well, quiet if you don't count the "dora movie, dora movie" that was yelled about every 47 minutes)

She is doing really well. She isn't allowed to go anywhere (except the dr, of course!) until she has her picc line out a week from Friday. I don't want her going outside with it either, so she has been a bit cranky about it all. Once her lungs are a little stronger, I may allow her to venture into the backyard for a little, if the picc is completely covered up, but we will see. She is only off of the IV meds for very short periods during the day. She has been an absolute angel about the IV meds...hasn't gotten mad or irritated about it once. Okay, I say absolute angel...but you have to imagine an angel that likes to take her meds and swing them around like a yoyo doing "around the world". That freaks me out a little.

The rest of the family is doing great, getting back to normal. The girls are so excited we are home and Ethan wanted to cuddle for days! We took the weekend off to catch up on sleep and do some crafts (and ignore the above schoolroom). We used Monday to get caught up on some errands and Tuesday to go to a pumpkin patch and get pieces of costumes.


Today we started back to school, which went great. Brittany had her first "real" test today...not open book, not oral, not multiple choice - just a real 20 question, short answer, test on the Joy Hakim book "Making Thirteen Colonies." She got a 96% which we were all thrilled about!! WOOHOO!!! Great job, Brittany!!



We got some FABULOUS news yesterday!! Michael found out his contract has been extended for 6 months!! That means he will not be automatically demoted in 2 weeks. Hallelujah!!! God is so awesome!! We have 6 more months for him to find a store. AND, he has an interview for Springfield, Illinois on Friday.

So, I think that is all the news I can think of right offhand. I am going to go take my glittery self and start another IV for Kaedra. Fun times, fun times.

Thank you for all your prayers!! They are working mightily~

Our God is an Awesome God!

Kaedra watching TV while she waits for her IV to finish so we can go home:



So I have an AWE-some praise report!!

Wednesday night, our Doctor came in to Kaedra's room late in the evening. He told us that her x-rays (from the day before) were about 60% better than the x-rays on Friday. Michael and I were a little disappointed in that, thinking that wasn't a very good percentage. However, our doctor was very happy! He basically said that she should have been much worse as far as what bacteria she had and how her x-rays looked. "On paper", she should have been a great deal worse than she ever seemed. He said this had been a VERY, VERY severe case of pneumonia. Much more serious than most he had seen. However, he was **THRILLED** with how well she was doing in general and how well she was healing. He said "the only explanation was prayer!" HALLELUJAH!! He just couldn't get over her miraculous (his word) recovery and how well she did during the whole thing.

More praises:
*she has never gone on her ventilator this whole time! So, we don't have to wean her off again! HALLELUJAH!!
*she is on the lowest setting of oxygen the hospital regulator can do, which is almost nothing!
*Dr. Carey said as soon as she is up to it we can continue the decannulation process!!(getting her trach out)

MANY MANY Hallelujahs

Thank you for your prayers. Now you have PROOF they are working!!

"I sing praises to Your name, Oh Lord,
Praises to Your name, Oh Lord,
For Your name is great,
and greatly to be praised.

I give glory to Your Name, Oh Lord,
Glory to Your name, Oh Lord.
For Your name is great,
and greatly to be praised."

The Kaedra Update, brought to you by Mommy

I can't believe I haven't written since Tuesday. It SEEMS like I have written everyday! I am sorry not to keep you more informed.

Kaedra has steadily gotten better everyday. Tuesday, she sat up and painted for a few minutes and had to rest for quite awhile after that.


Wednesday, she was able to sit up several times and play, color and read.


Michael's friend, Jeff, came from OKC to see her and brought her a HUGE stuffed dog. She loves it.


Michael Kaedra-sat that night so I was able to go to church. I got to hear an awesome message from our pastor, Danny Zirkle.

Thursday, Kaedra had a picc line put in early in the morning. After they did an x-ray, they realized it was positioned wrong, so they had to do a little messing around with it until it was right where they wanted it to be. Kaedra and I did a craft project in the morning (I just made it up out of what I had on hand).



Kaedra's Sunday School teacher also came to visit her, which was very sweet! Thursday afternoon, I headed to the beach with Brandi and her family. Well, at least in spirit. check out her blog about it.

After my trip to the beach, we rested for awhile and then Sherria (my neice) came and kept us company. She brought Olive Garden (YUMMY!!!), Boggle, Battleship and Mancala. We had a blast playing games and hanging out. I kicked her out around 10ish so I could put Kaedra to sleep.

Today Kaedra has definitely shown that she is ready to go home. She had me rearrange the whole hospital room and then decided she didn't want it that way. She is cranky, moody and ready to go home! Once her IV is done at 4:30 we get to head home! We have been officially discharged! YEAH!!!

Thank you all for your prayers and support while we have been in here. I have a wonderful praise report, but I am going to write a separate post about that....

I guess an update is in order

Please excuse my mood...long, rough afternoon.

The cultures are back: Kaedra has three nasty bacteria. Pseudomonas is one of them and I didn't recognize the other two. Apparently this whole episode has been extremely serious with really, really nasty bugs. However, she is mostly over the dangerous part and on her way to feeling better.

We have had 2 IVs put in today and two x-rays (I don't know the results yet, the doctor was too busy to look at them). We are getting a PICC line put in tomorrow. Thank goodness they are going to sedate her for that. She will be on IV antibiotics for three weeks. She is on three different antibiotics.

Doctor said she won't be able to come home until Friday at the earliest, but most likely Monday. I freaked out a little. Not for Kaedra so much, but for my other kiddos at home. Michael asked his mother to come and stay with us until we can come home. That made me feel a lot better.

I did have one really nice thing happen today. My friend Tamara and her daughter Brittany came up to see Kaedra and me and hung out with us for awhile. It was really nice to see them and catch up

Here is a picture of Tamara and her other daughter, Katarina, when they came to visit Kaedra in the hospital when she was about 5 months old.



Thank you for your prayers. They really got us through a rough patch that we didn't even necessarily know about. God is so good.

Because once is just never enough...

Sooooo, tonight we were camped out in Kaedra's bed, finally starting Babe (those of you who know the Babe story can giggle a little now) and I noticed Kaedra's bed was getting wet. I checked her diaper but she was fine. I traced the wetness to her arm, called the nurse and told her the IV was leaking. Um no, I was wrong, the IV had come out and was spreading all over the bed. Guess what that means?

Yup, another IV. Two more pokes, lots more searching, little veins running and screaming, Kaedra screaming, the bed stained with blood...altogether a good time. And guess what, we never did get to watch Babe.

When good IVs go bad

Kaedra decided she wanted to get up at 4am this morning. Since the bed was soaking wet again and she needed to be changed, I decided to let her, at least until I could clean her all up. In the process of that, I noticed her IV dressing was coming off. I called a nurse and a nurse showed up promptly to put some coban on it. (as a side note, this nurse is the ONLY nurse that Kaedra has spoken to right away and not completely shunned. She wasn't even our nurse, just a helpful nurse that heard what we needed.) After a few minutes, the dressing was still coming off and when I went to push it down, Kaedra cried and said it hurt. I called the nurses again and they came in and realized that the IV was no longer a "good" IV. Her hand was swollen and red and obviously in pain.

Now it's not so bad to get an IV out. However, Kaedra screamed loud enough to wake up the people 3 floors up.

No, what's worse is getting a new IV in.

Our nurse asked a nurse to come over from the PICU to do it for us. She kindly did and is probably still regretting it. Kaedra's veins are very hard to find. They hide from anyone holding a needle-like implement. Although I sang Kaedra almost every song in my repetoire, I am not sure she heard much over her crying. Poor baby. I wish I could do this for her. Eventually the nurse did find a vein. At that point the bed started to look like a crime scene. Somehow the little vein managed to get blood everywhere.

She is now asleep again, exhausted from her early morning torture session. We are supposed to go get an x-ray in a few minutes, so I am not bothering to lie down again.

Hopefully I will be going back to my busy at-home, no-time-for-blogging life soon. But, until then, plan on hearing from me. I have nothing better to do than share everything with you!

News from the trenches

Okay, today it seems less like a spa and more like the trenches. Maybe it's just the extended stay.

We finally saw our doctor this morning (he had been out of town until now) Kaedra has gram-negative pneumonia, which is a bad type. It usually only hits people with lung damage so that's why it hit her. They said that other people could get the same bugs and never even know it. We are still waiting for the cultures to come back to tell us more about the bacteria.

We had a scary incident a few minutes ago. I was changing her trach ties (the ties that hold her trach on) and Michael was holding the trach in. She tried to pull out the trach and he had to push it in hard. That caused her to vagale. (don't worry if you haven't heard of that, we hadn't either, even though it is really common) Her heart rate plummeted over 40 points in about 10 seconds, she voided everything, her eyes were rolling back and she looked awful. I started yelling but by the time the nurse got in there, she was fine. Very weird. Very scary (and unfortunately Emily was here for it) but very normal, apparently. Ya learn something new every day. Or at least every hospital stay. ;-)

Well, looks like she won't be coming home as quickly as we were hoping. They are waiting for the cultures to come back to make sure the antibiotics are correct, we are going to get an x-ray tomorrow showing how she is doing and hopefully she will be feeling a ton better!

Thank you for your prayers of agreement.

Brought to you by the Color Purple

I HAD NO IDEA!!! The Color Purple is a registered trademark of Kimberly-Clark! Do you want to see proof? I just happen to have it:


I discovered this while suctioning Kaedra in the beautiful purple gloves provided by the hospital. (oh no, do I have to pay Kimberly-Clark royalties now? What about the fact that it has been my favorite color for years? Do I need a lawyer?)

What is Crayola doing? Are they fighting back?

and Think of poor Harold...


Harold and the yellow crayon just doesn't hold the same appeal, somehow.

I am telling you, Sesame Street is off crying somewhere. I wonder who will take one of their letters next.

Multimedia message

update from spa St. John's

Well I sit her with Kaedra at "spa" St. John Hospital. She has this ultra-cool bed that she can put in any position she wants, she gets massages chest physiotherapy (beating on her back and lungs) three times a day, she gets everything she asks for, balloons and toys from a friend, drawings from said friend's kids and Emily, room decorations from Britty, bubbles, coloring books galore, and DORA ALL DAY. (update: I just found channel 76 which has soothing music and nature videography. I am telling you, we just need some aromatherapy) I am thinking this is all a grand plan of hers. "Hey, I'll get double pneumonia and go to the hospital and get all this special treatment and get to watch TV ALL DAY LONG and Mommy won't tell me no! WOOHOO!"

I think she might be regretting the decision a little though. She doesn't like the constant suctioning and the coughing that hurts when she does it and she misses her siblings quite a bit. (Emily came today to visit but Ethan and Brittany aren't feeling well so they couldn't come up) She doesn't like all the stuff hooked up to her and having to stay close to it all the time.

As for how she is doing: earlier today I would have said she wasn't doing that well. She seems to be doing better tonight. She is ready for bed, so I am off to sing her to sleep. Thank you for your prayers.

Kaedra in the hospital

Kaedra had a fever starting last Saturday. She had no other symptoms so we were not worried about it. Wednesday she started coughing. Thursday you could tell she didn't feel so well so I took a trach aspirate into the doctor's office so we could see if she had any "bugs." Friday morning, Kaedra's nurse let me know she wasn't doing well. While evaluating her, her fever skyrocketed to 105.3. Her breathing was also getting very labored. I loaded her in the car and brought her right to the hospital. She was admitted through ER onto the regular floor at St. John's. (she's never been on the regular floor here)

After her xrays it was decided that she has pneumonia in both lungs.

It is hard for me to say how she is doing. She seems to be doing much better, as long as she doesn't cough. Her regular doctor is out of town so the doctor that is treating her seems to be doing things a little differently. It will be interesting to see what her regular doc says when he gets back. We are praying that she is doing so well that he will just be thrilled and send her home. :-)

Thank you for your prayers and support. I appreciate everything.

Brittany is being such a fine young lady and taking care of the rest of the family and house for me. I am so very proud of her. We are trying to think of a suitable "thank you" for her to show how much we appreciate her. Any ideas?

Thinking of Jacob, Zoe and their friends in heaven

Jehovah-Jireh

Another of my all time favorites!

We Will Dance

Praise through my circumstance!

More waiting, more casting

We didn't get the Oklahoma City job. I am actually stunned. We now have a month for him to find another store somewhere in the US or he will be demoted. (we can't make it on that salary, so different big changes would have to happen) We didn't think this would be the case, but it ends up being so. Please agree with us that we will find the perfect place and the perfect store. And please pray for the whole family's spirits which are pretty low at the moment.

Change, waiting and casting it.

Sometimes big changes sneak up on you. You are married with a baby and a whole future ahead of you and surprise! your husband has a "little" problem that you didn't know about. Or you are expecting a healthy baby and surprise! you have a baby with some, um, missing ribs.

Other times you sneak up on the big changes. You contemplate having a baby and finally decide to get pregnant. You think a lot about quitting your job and you finally decide to do it.

This time, there is no sneaking. I know (and the change knows) that today or tomorrow is a big day in our life. A lot of things will be decided in this 48 hour period. Things WILL change. Big things.

I hate waiting. In some way surprises are easier...there is no waiting for them. They just pounce on you and you have to react. (I think that is why I procrastinate. As much as I try not to, I am more of a react-or than a proactive person....but I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me, including becoming proactive)

Anyway, I am waiting. There will a phone call to Michael and then a phone call to me. Then there will be a phone call to Brandi and to my parents. There will be a text message sent. There will be a status update on Facebook and a blog post.

As I am waiting I am trying not to worry. I am giving it to God. Over and Over and Over. I need to CAST it. AWAY FROM ME. Onto Him.

Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.
Isaiah 12:2 KJV

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is life not more important than food and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life.
Matthew 6:25-27 New International Version

Craft from "One of THOSE days"

Projects

Wow, I have a ton of things going on right now. I feel like I need to write them all down here just so I can keep track of them and perhaps remain somewhat accountable. I am finding it somewhat hard to prioritize and I am definitely getting sidetracked from one project to another! Add to that full days of school and running a busy household and I am a very busy girl! I haven't had a chance to talk to my friends hardly at all (as you probably know) and I am missing that too. It feels like one of those "seasons of my life" things. I just got out of summer where I had a lot of time to chat with my friends and email them and all of I sudden I seem like I am *kabam* in the middle of a busy year! Not busy with outside things, just the stuff I listed above: school, projects and housework! Thank goodness for Facebook and Blogger where I can keep up with y'all at least a little. The part I am missing is the "real" person...behind the blogs, how are you doing. Well, that is neither here nor there. Just a thought.

Okay, here are my projects (non-school related):
1. Writing a guided prayer journal with specific prayers and confessions for each day of a month.
2. Writing a curriculum for next year
3. Packing the house for the move
4. Crocheting Brittany a scarf for her Halloween costume (she is going to be Penelope)
5. Crocheting some Christmas presents
6. Cross stitching a Christmas present
7. Getting our financial papers and bank account stuff back in order
8. Posting a ton of stuff to ebay
9. Posting freebies on Craigslist or Zwaggle.
10. Learning to use my "new" videorecorder
11. Making a year-end video for the family
12. researching a few big ticket items coming up
13. teaching the kids piano and how to read music
14. Getting Brittany a new Social Security Card and all her medical stuff changed over to Lynn
15. A ton of house stuff we still need to do to get the house ready to move.
16. training the dog
17. finishing potty training Kaedra (got the tinkling down, still working on the other part...at least she asks for a diaper first!)

Any one or two of these would keep me busy enough. But no, I have to have them all going at once. Well, at least I am not bored.

So what are you all up to?

The Revelation Song

One of my most favorite songs:

The Invisible Woman

Do you ever feel invisible? Remember who you work for....

Prayers for a friend

Almost anyone that has been reading my blog knows of my very-best-friend-in-the-whole-wide-world, Brandi. She and her family have had a bad October. (I know it's only 2 days long, but it has started out bad) Among other issues, they received some news that was very disappointing for them and has sent them in another direction than what they planned. Please pray for the Zandis. Satan is trying to attack this wonderful family of God. But the awesome thing about them is, they know the Joy of the Lord is their strength!



Brandi, my heart is so heavy for you all. We are keeping you continually raised up in prayer and I know that God has AWESOME plans for you. Michael sends his hugs and prayers too. There is a door that no man can shut, that is open for y'all. (I don't know where the door is, but I know that it is there)

Give the kids hugs from Auntie Kahri and give Jim our love, too.

Excitement

The big excitement around here today is a Sam's Club manager opening in Oklahoma City. Although my husband has carefully indoctrinated me for almost 11 years about the evil's of OKC, he is now inexplicably excited about a job opening there. It just might have to do with the proximity to home, the fact that it would involve a good raise, and, um, the proximity to home. So now I am trying to forget all the things he told me and start fresh with a positive outlook on OKC. LOL! Silly man. Not the first time he has had to eat his words. He opted in today and should have his interview early next week. I will let you know more as I know more.

The other excitement came from me begging him and calling out all my feminine wiles (well maybe not all....gotta keep some hidden away for a new pda emergencies) to get him to watch the little people tomorrow night while Brittany, Emily and I go to the annual FAITH campout! Since he is working overnights again starting Saturday, it did not work out for us to camp overnight. However, we are going to go and spend the evening there with everyone and cook on the campfire and listen to Jim Walenciak sing. :-) (even if it takes Emily begging 3 times) We are VERY excited. We thought we would have to miss out on the whole thing and, since this is our last year here, we were very bummed. Now happy times (and s'mores) are here again.

One of "those" days

Today was one of those days. No no. Not THOSE days where you wonder why you ever thought of homeschooling...the other kind. The kind where you get to the end of the day and say, "WOW! Why can't all our days be like this?!"

What was so wonderful? Well, we got it all done, for one. And included in that was 3 (count em....1-2-3) craft projects!! WOOHOO!! Pretty good for a mom who usually hates, abhors, can't stand shies away from that stuff! We made an oiled paper window, a few bows and arrows and some cool sun catchers. I will post pictures tomorrow.

Also, we didn't have any tears. Wait, did I say "did not?" That might be an exaggeration.

Okay, we had few tears.

But I'll take that.

That and a day with 3 crafts can make this mom darn proud.

Outside

by Emily Lynn (7)

On Saturday we cleaned out backyard. We raked up leaves. My daddy got a fire of sticks and leaves. We covered the pool. Bubba swinged. I swinged. When Mommy was washing the top of the porch I was on the other side and I saw a rainbow. And then my daddy walked out, of course because he was taking a nap. We washed the table, the sticks, the little table for the kids, the toys and we got all wet. I can still remember today that our Daddy brought the sticks over by our pool.

Yesterday we did school outside. It was kind of hard because Kaedra didn't obey Mommy and she was crying and in time out for an hour. (note from editor...it was Kaedra crying and in time out, not me. Although it was close) Yesterday I fell off my sister's swing. I found berries. Yesterday we saw squirrels and we went into our fort. We were coloring outside too.