Levi's Before and After...So Far

May 15, 2011

May 18, 2011

May 21, 2011

May 23, 2011

May 25, 2011

May 28, 2011

June 4, 2011

Utterly Amazing!

What A Week!

I'm not going to lie . . . this week has been rough! We have had rough weeks since having two little ones, but this week topped them all. It all started last Friday.

Lily woke up with a fever of 102.2, but had no symptoms - no coughing, runny nose, pulling at ear, etc. We took her to the doctor and found out she had an ear infection and strep. By Friday evening, her fever was down to 99 and she was acting like she felt fine. 

On Saturday afternoon, she started breaking out with these tiny red spots all over her body. You can kind of see them on her arm in the picture above. She didn't scratch them or act like they bothered her, so (after searching online) we decided she had Roseola.  On Sunday, Jacob and I took turns going to church so we could keep the kids home. 

We put calamine lotion on the rash we thought was poison ivy and put the socks on to keep him from eating the lotion.

We had plans to go eat lunch with Jacob's family and supper with my family on Memorial Day. Everyone was feeling/acting fine and we thought we were in the clear from the sickness since Lily had been fever free for 48 hours and Levi hadn't come down with anything.

Near the end of our time with Jacob's family I started feeling kind of bad. By the time we got home, Levi and I both had fevers. I felt so bad I could hardly move! Both kids went down for naps, so I lay down too. We slept about 2 hours! I felt great after the nap and both of our fevers had gone down.

My family said to come on and visit with them because all of them had already been sick/exposed the week before. So we went and the kids played the the sprinkler and went to the barn to see the animals. After a little while I started feeling really bad again. I had no appetite and just felt awful. We came home and I crashed.

Tuesday I was sick, so so sick. Thankfully Jacob was home to help with the kids! I was feeling much better by Tuesday night.

In the meantime, Levi started getting the same kind of rash as Lily, but he also had a different kind of rash on his arms and hands (you can kind of see it in the picture). The different rash was like fluid filled bumps. At first we thought it was poison ivy because after I got some of the fluid on me, I started breaking out on my hands and feet. I was so confused how I got it on my feet! I noticed Levi had it on his feet too.

On Thursday, we headed to the doctor. Turns out it wasn't poison ivy, but Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. Who knew?! After examining Lily, we found the same bumps on her hands and feet. The pediatrician thinks Levi picked it up from Children's Hospital when he had his surgery, but who knows.

Praise the Lord we are all on the mend now, and Jacob hasn't come down with any of it. . .yet! I've been pumping him full of vitamin C, garlic, and vitamin D!

I think the worst part about all the sickness is that we haven't seen our families very much! It's been really hard.

We have made a lot of memories as our little family though! We've spent a lot of time playing in the kiddie pool, one night we grilled pizza, we put the kids in the bike trailer/jogging stroller and went for a walk, we've read a lot of books and had tons of snuggle time!

Strep, Roseola, and Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease all in a week's time! Crazy. So thankful for His sufficient grace this week!

I'll be home with the kids again tomorrow, but I'm hoping to tune in to some live webcast services on Sermonaudio.com. Hope y'all have a great Lord's Day!

17 months

My girl is 17 months old! Where is the time going??!! 

Here's what she's been doing lately - 

• Talking up a storm - everything we say, she tries to say.
• Reading - we just signed her up for the summer reading program at the library.
• She wears 12-18 month clothes and size 4/5 shoes
• Eating - she eats everything we put in front of her. Thankfully she still loves fruit and veggies the best and she loves raisins for snacks.

• She's down to 1 nap a day (usually around 1-3 or so and she sleeps 11-12 hours at night.
• We play outside every minute we can stand the heat. It is seriously sooo HOT here and it's only the beginning of June! Ahh! 
• She loves the kiddie pool and Aunt Myra's sprinkler.

• Going shopping/running errands is one of her favorite things. I'm so glad she's good - especially when I take both kids to the store alone!
• Lily adores her Daddy! She wants to go everywhere with him and she gets so sad if she can't! If he's gone before she wakes up, she asks about him all day long.
• She makes the funniest faces!

• She loves animals - our dogs, my parent's farm animals, and Jacob's parent's dog. She has no fear of them...yet.
• She "goes potty" several times each day, but she's not fully potty trained...because mama hasn't been able to focus her attention 100% on getting her potty trained. 

Mama and Daddy love you sweet girl!!

5 months

Mr. Levi turned 5 months on Monday, but obviously I haven't blogged all week. What a week this has been. I will save the gory details for another post, but such things as strep and roseola and poison ivy are involved. Ugh!

Anyway... on to better things!

• Levi is healing up quite nicely from his cleft lip surgery! (At least he was until his sister accidentally dropped a toy chair on him tonight and made him bleed in a couple places! So sad!)
• We got to take his arm splints off today. He is one happy little guy!

• He loves being outside. Whether it's stroller rides, watching the dogs (and Lily) play, or just playing on a blanket, he loves it all.
• He weighed 12 lbs the day he had surgery but we think he's grown a little since then.
• He wears 0-3 months clothes. Some 3 month stuff is still too big! Grow boy, grow!! :o)
• You would never know it by his size, but Levi is a little piggy when it comes to eating! He takes a 7 oz bottle every 3 to 3.5 hours during the day. We'll probably start him on avocado once his mouth is completely healed.

• His sleeping has been pretty crazy during his recovery. He's had to sleep in the swing while he wore the splints so we could keep his arms snapped down away from his face. Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night and I put him in bed with us and he'll go back to sleep. Other times he won't settle down until he eats.
• Levi "talks" and laughs and interacts so well.
• He's rolling and scooting - although he hasn't had much practice the last couple weeks with his splints on.

He's our sweet boy and we love him to pieces!

Our Week In Review

Since all my posts this week have been about Levi's recovery, I wanted to post about some fun stuff we did this week!

Last Saturday, one of the youth orchestra's Jacob conducts performed at the US Space Center. After the performance we toured the museum and watched the IMAX. The rocket in this picture was built entirely from K'NEX! It took two guys a month to build. It was impressive!

Lily loved "driving" this video game. 

Most of Jacob's evening rehearsals are over for the summer! It has been sooo nice having him at home more! We played outside alot and got the kiddie pool out - both kids love it!

Lily had fun watering the flowers and bushes with the pool water. She would live outside and in the pool if we would let her!

We got to spend time with both our families this week, which was so nice! When I told Lily we were going to go to Papaw and Yaya's (my parent's) she ran to get her boots to wear to the barn. She loves all their animals!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Better Day

Yesterday and today were so much better for Mr. Levi! It's wonderful to see him feeling better and a happy baby makes everything much easier! We can't believe how wonderful his lip is looking!

Lil Man is getting smart about getting his arm braces off. Today I had him in the Nap Nanny with his arms strapped down so keep him from raising his hands and wiping his face. Anyway, I was fixing lunch and I heard something fall. Somehow he had wiggled his hand/arm out of the brace and then slung it over onto the floor! I couldn't believe it! If Lily hadn't been out with her Daddy, I would've suspected that she had pulled it off him. Got to love his sly little grin in the picture. He's a mess :o)

Recovery Update

Sorry I haven't updated in a few days. The last couple days have been kind of rough. Levi has been really fussy, not sleeping very well, and crying a ton where nothing will comfort him.

It's been so hard to see my little guy like this! The doctor said that normally kids have 2-3 rough days about this time in the recovery process. I'm really hoping today is the last day!

His lip is healing up so well! I can't believe how quickly little ones heal. It looks like once the scabs and stitches are gone there will hardly be any scar left. 

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers for us during this time! We appreciate it more than you know. Hopefully I'll be back to more regular posting very soon!