Christmas pictures

So sorry I didn't post on Christmas day.  We are still staying home a lot, nursing day 8 of a fever.  For about 4 days now it seems like it's breaking and she feels wonderful all day, then about 5:30 or 6 hits, and she starts shivering and sits on the couch under some blankets.  Then, she gets hot again running a fever.  At least now it's more like 101 than 104!!  She's not eating much, has lost 2 pounds in 7 days (not that my girl didn't have 2 pounds to lose, she outweighs most of her friends by 5-10 pounds!  She's my solid girl!).  The kids are in bed now and I'm trying to organize after I write this post.  My mom got me a big new 'cropper hopper' that I'm going to organize all of our crafts/homeschool supplies/learning activities in (like flash cards, puzzles, matching games, etc.) (It was on sale for $25 on black Friday!) . I decided it's too small for all my fabric, and since I'm going to digi scrapping mostly, I'm going to be getting rid of a lot of my paper scrapbook supplies.  Praise God that everyone else has stayed healthy.  I'm glad it's 'just' a fever, but since it's been a week, I will put a call into the doctor tomorrow, and see if she wants to see us again.  I may just email her tonight.

(bailey and the scarf I knit her)

(Matt and Bailey and the girl booties---I'm willing them to have a girl!)

Ok, so we went down to Santa Fe on the 23rd to hang with my family and Pawpaw.  We spent the night and woke up on Christmas Eve and had a nice breakfast, and waited for Bailey, Matt and Shawna to get there, as well as Darrell's mom, Lillie. 

The only picture of me all day

We opened gifts and Cara got entirely too cranky and kept wanting more and more.

 We are seriously going to put a cap on the number of gifts for the kids next year (from others, we only give each child 3 on Christmas morning).  Her behavior (which carried over to Eric's parents house the next day) was completely unacceptable, and now our tiny house is too full.  We did have fun spending time with family.  We left after noon and headed home.

 The kids both conked out in the car and then we went to the Christmas eve service at church (side note: she had not run a fever all day, and sat with us far away from people in the balcony quietly the whole time.  I assume if we aren't sick, since she's not coughing or sneezing, no one from church got sick from our 40 minutes there). 

We came home and did our last advent pocket (which Cara doesn't understand why it's over, she keeps asking for it each night) and the kids opened up their matching Christmas Eve jammies.  They were so cute!

We had to WAIT for the kids to wake up after 8 on Christmas day.  Cara was running a fever and feeling overall bad, so this was her lovely face the first time she saw her bike.  Nice.

She did get over the crankiness and had fun with Daddy riding her bike later that morning. 

Micah really liked his tunnels, especially when sister would play with him.   He, as usual, was in a great mood.  We had our traditional Christmas morning breakfast, monkey bread, but somehow I messed it up a bit, it must have sat in the pan too long because the top was a little hard.  But oh it was still scrumptious. 

We layed around, played with our few toys, and then got ready to go to Eric's parents house for Christmas lunch.  We opened gifts there, and then had an amazing lunch! 

 

His mom really knows how to do broccoli rice and cheese right, and his dad makes a mean stuffing! :)  We had our happy birthday Jesus cake for dessert, which Cara helped me decorate on Christmas eve. 

Afterwards we let Micah nap and watched UP with his family.  It was a cute movie.  Then we played a few games, and Cara ended up taking a nap in her Daddy's lap, such a sweetie (guess what, she started running a fever again too!).  We went home and Eric and I cuddled and watched Transformers 2 on the couch after the kids went to bed.  Well, that was our Christmas!  Tomorrow my mom is coming up to spend the day and she's letting us go see a movie!  I think the Blind Side is what we will choose! :)  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Swine Flu and a new camera

(I'm going to preface this by saying pictures from my new camera will be all throughout this post and may not go with what is being talked about) :)  Well, around midnight early Sunday morning, I checked on Cara, and she was burning up.  So Eric and the kids stayed home from church and she seemed to feel fine all morning after a dose of motrin.  That evening however, she kept saying she was cold and sat on the couch and shivered for awhile.  Then got up and played.  We were confused, but knew we wanted to take her in Monday morning before the doctors office closed for Christmas.  She spiked her fever again (102.5) overnight, so we were in the doctor's office at 8 am. 

(love the tongue action)

My girl yesterday

They first tested for strep, because she had no other symptoms besides a fever (no cough, lungs clear, no runny nose, no sneezing, however she did say Monday morning her stomach and legs hurt, aka ached) and it was negative.  Dr. Khan came in and we talked for awhile and she said we needed to test for flu.  So we did that and it came back positive for Influenza A.  She said 70% of the time it is H1N1 and it is most likely what Cara has.  She said the bad part of H1N1 is that it is so highly contagious (for up to 24 hours after the fever breaks), and the good part is that it is pretty mild, and shortened with Tamiflu, so that's what our girl is on. 

And motrin/tylenol rotating every 3 hours to get her fever down (it always goes down during the day and spikes at night, last night to 103.5!).  And her red puff puffs (albuterol inhaler) and orange puff puffs (steroid--kind of like a pre-emptive don't get inflammed med) 3 times a day, until the fever breaks and she starts feeling better.  I was worried about the still high temp today, so I put in a call to the doctor and she called me back.  She said it is normal, we usually spike at night because we are resting and our body is trying to fight the virus.  She said with tamiflu, hopefully by Friday we should be down to 101, yuck!!  She is still worried about her breathing, but praise God that seems to be fine still.  I don't know if I could handle my baby girl in the hospital for Christmas (I know I could, but still, not what you wish for your baby) on breathing treatments.

The doctor called in a prescription for everyone else for Tamiflu, but said not to start it unless we start showing symptoms.  So we are waiting and hoping and praying that no one else gets it.  It is hard in such confined spaces, but so far so good, no fevers or achiness in the family.  Micah is still having teething (1 new tooth (his 7th) popped through the other day on top, so now 4 on top and 3 on bottom), bad diaper rash and frequent diarrhea, though it seems (sometimes) to be subsiding.  

(what's not to love about that face!!!)

We put up new (to us) bunk beds and played room switcheroo on Sunday.  The bunk beds for Cara (and Micah when he is old enough to sleep in a twin and not a crib, probably next summer), went into Micah's old rom, as well as her dresser and toy shelf Eric built, and dress up bin.  Micah's crib and changing table went into Cara's old room along with some of his toys.  We left Cara's twin bed in there, assuming that when baby #3 comes along Mommy might want to rest in there between night time feedings, and now we have a place for my mom to sleep (besides the couch/blow up matress) when she comes to stay.  I really love rearranging, it's like FREE new decorating fun. 

And I love organizing, so today has been rearranging the closets, moving clothes over from one to the other, making space for toys and baby clothes that are no longer in use, storing all the summer clothes and hand-me-downs that are too big still for both kids.  I'm weird that I love organizing so much, and it always gets me in a cleaning kick, so after the kids went to bed tonight, I went into my room and cleaned off the dresser and bed side table, dusted, organized, etc.  Yes, I admit, I have an (ocassional) cleaning problem! :)

Cara is just so sweet.  Yesterday she wanted to cuddle on the couch and watch the Little Mermaid all day.  After about showing #4, we got tired of it, so last night, we showed her a new movie that I had gotten for her (for her stocking), and said she could watch it today.  It's two short stories with Jasmine and Sleeping Beauty in them. 

We watched that probably 10 times today.  We are not a TV family, but that's what my girl wanted to do, and so that's what we did.  She does love playing in her bunk beds, so when she wasn't on the couch, we were playing in her new room in her 'tree house' as she calls it.  Micah was just crawling around playing all day, oblivious to all the organizing, sickness going around :). 

Anyways, our Sony Cyber shot point and shoot digital camera of 3.5 years (we got it the day before Cara was born) died recently.  I took it to the geek squad to look at, and they said it was going to be $275 to fix, so we decided originally that we were going to just get a cheap digital camera to last us through Christmas and save up for a DSLR. 

So we got a 10 megapixel camera for $60, plus a 4 GB card for $15 on Saturday (side note that we paid over $400 for our very first digi camera in 2003 that was only 2 or 3 megapixel and the cards were almost as much as the camera for way less space!!). 

We went to the show at 2nd baptist, and played around with it all day, and I hated it.  It was poor quality and poor resolution, and took AA batteries, so I knew we'd just keep flying through those, so I returned it.  Here is a picture with it of me and my girl at the show.   

So, I started researching DSLRs.  I didn't want to spend $200 on a good digi camera, just to replace it shortly with a better one.  I asked all 'my Jens' (3 friends who named Jen who love their DSLRs) which brand they liked, etc.  Thank you all for the great links and reviews you sent me!! 

We decided on a 10 megapixel Canon EOS Rebel XS with lens kit.  Merry Christmas and Happy 30th Birthday to me (and 31st) :).  We decided to splurge, since I was the only one with no gifts under the tree and nothing in the stocking, because I refuse to shop for myself and wrap gifts for myself!!  That and Eric hadn't bought anything yet, so I told him not too.  I'm so excited, I've been playing with it a lot, mostly when the kids are asleep. 

I first pulled it out Sunday night after they were in bed, and it's just not as fun to play with it with the dogs or Eric and I!  So anyways, I'm super excited about Christmas, and all the Surprises it brings!! :)  I will post again probably Christmas morning....and I hope you all have a very Merry Christ filled Christmas with your family!

My girl with her rosy red cheeks.

ready

I was so ready for this weekend.  We had one birthday party for a dance class friend that was at 11 today, but besides that (and church) we have absolutely NO plans this weekend, YAY~!  The kids even kinda slept in, it was wonderful!!  We did go out to 2nd Baptist Church in Katy this morning for their Kids Crazy Christmas (free!) program, and it was very entertaining!!  Thanks Hannah for putting that on Facebook, or I would have never even known about it.  Micah danced or stared the whole time!  Cara was funny, just sitting in each of our laps.  We asked her to sing or dance and she didn't want to, but when we got to the car, she said, "Thanks mommy, that was so much fun, I like the puppets" :)  She really liked the donkey puppet (probably her favorite part of the little people manger we have besides baby Jesus, for some reason), she kept asking if it was going to come back out, and boy I'm glad it did so I didn't lie! :)

We are enjoying this Christmas season so much.  Everything is purchased, wrapped and under the tree (which is nice for Mommy).  We are excited to be celebrating my upcoming niece or nephew (and finding out which it is on 12/28!!) and the fun times babies bring.  We are extremely excited that Micah is somewhat aware of what all is going on, he loves driving around and looking at Christmas lights.  We are so thankful our families live so close and we get to celebrate with them.  We are happy Cara has really taken to our advent countdown this year, she talks about doing her pocket each morning (and we don't do it until after dinner!).  Thank you Lord for coming to earth to save us all, and for the plan you had in place for this before time began!

Update

It has been so busy.  I'm not hustle/bustle busy, because I've been planning/purchasing my Christmas gifts since August :), however we've had lots of showers and parties (4 this weekend alone) and I've had a lot of sewing orders.  I'm trying to capitalize on the pre-Christmas rush and make as much money as possible, because I have a feeling it will die off after the holidays (that, and I will get even busier as tax season approaches).  With that said, I feel like I'm almost done with  my sewing, so if you've ordered something from me, or requested me make something, please email me and let me know so I can make sure you're on the list to be completed! :)

Tomorrow is dance class Christmas program and party :)  I'm so excited to see Cara's dance, she's been dancing SO MUCH lately! 

I will also be posting new pictures of the kids soon that my friend Jen took, I should get the CD this week and I'm very excited!! :) 

HP TouchSmart 600

I wish I could say I was giving away that computer to my readers! :)  Oh how I wish I could (because that probably means I got one to review....teehee...)!  BUT, MckMama is giving one away, and you can enter too!  I read her entire review, and am drooling currently over our new HP Laptop we got on black friday.  We saved up and used christmas money from my pawpaw for it, however, the organizational aspects of the one she is giving away is making me drool yet again! :)  Go enter and here's hoping we win! : )

Funny kids

VID00066
Originally uploaded by mistylnewsome

They were much cuter before I pulled out the video camera, but here's a little video of my sweeties playing together. Disregard the tubs of Christmas decorations....still sitting in that same spot!! :)

Micah Man

I feel like I need a kid update :).  Micah is just the sweetest thing!  I have to brag because, well frankly, he's the 2nd child and I really don't keep up with all the stuff as much as I should!!  He already says mama, dada, yaya, nana, and see, I already can't remember....but his new word he started saying over the past few days is ball!  Tonight while I was getting him ready for bed (he's 13 months and I've started changing him on the floor instead of the changing table because he's so active he practically flips off.....while Cara was 2.5 and I was still putting her night diaper on up there!) he saw two little balls and was saying "ball, ball" and signing it! He also thinks some of the Christmas tree ornaments are balls :). He can CHUNK those balls too, is it too early to sign him up for pitching lessons? :)  We need that Astros income in the family baby!  (totally kidding!)

He's a signer too!  He currently can sign mom, dad, milk, ball, hi, bye, all done, more, shoes (which looks very similar to more!), and some others.  He is a drooler!  He currently has 3 teeth on top and 3 teeth on bottom and about 6 more coming in.  He's been a little cranky lately, so I think a few will break through soon.  He's even modeled a few of my hats for sale on my etsy shop lately....though he doesn't like too!  Most pictures he's trying to pull them OFF his head!  He's still not walking alone yet, but he is oh so close!  He took his first step the Tuesday before Thanksgiving while we were waiting at dance class.  Nana came up to watch and he took a step from me to her.  He continually will take one or so, but that's it.  But he cruises all over the house.  He's definitely getting more and more brave, so it'll come in the next month I think! 

Here's us trying to get a good shot of the 4 of us in front of a tree at church....did not go so well! :)

And the two cuties at home before church last Wednesday.

Micah so wants to be a big kid.  This was last Tuesday on my best bud Valerie's birthday.  We had the family over for dinner, and after the kids were all playing.  Cara climbed into Val's lap so she could read her a book, and instantaneously she had 3 little boys all over her too!  Micah is getting to where he loves to be around Cara, and Jack and Sam too.  He just follows them around!

It's sad, I've been taking lots of sewing pictures lately, but not as many of the kids.  This is from a few weeks ago, when both kids were on breathing treatments!  He was so good for the most part.  Just sat there trying to chew on the thing! :)

And here he is at Uncle Gerry's house a few weeks before Thanksgiving for Pawpaw's 78th birthday!

Such a sweet face. 

Oh!  And if you are ever in the Austin area, look my friend Jen Barnes Photography up!!!!  Look at this link of some pictures she took of my kids.  She's amazing!!  I will post more on Cara tomorrow :)