Thanksgiving

A house full of people, noisy kids, games, and lots of food means it is holiday time.  We spent this Thanksgiving with David’s family.  It is always exciting for the cousins to get together and play on the farm.  With the kids getting older, and playing together outside, the adults were actually able to play a few games together (even in the middle of the day).  Sometimes the adults were even able to enjoy naps.

Aunt S, being a teacher, often found ways to “teach” the kids through fun activities.  Even though she was on a break from teaching at school, she was still teaching.  God lead her to the right vocation. 

The kids were playing a tickling game with Aunt S.

We also took part of a day to visit Great-grandma Betty.  We all fit in her apartment, and even had room for one of David’s aunts and one his cousin’s family.  We did our best to take pictures of great-grandma with 10 of her 16 great-grandkids.

The kids cooperated better than expected.

It seems as the kids get older, I am taking fewer pictures.  These are the only pictures I have to share from our four days.  Hopefully, I will do better next year.

We hope that your family had a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.  We are thankful for both of our wonderful families, that all seem to get along, and love and support one another.  God has blessed us greatly!

Daddy, Dance With Me

There are few things quite as precious as a father and daughter dancing, no matter what their ages.  It is extremely precious when it is your own daughter.  “Daddy, dance with me,” is something David hears every night from Bentley for about a week now.  She sweetly comes to David and asks him to dance with her.  If we don’t have any music on she first requests that he turn on music just so they can dance together.  It would be impossible for David to refuse her.  They proceed to dance in the living room, either hand in hand or with Bentley in her Daddy’s arms.  It is the most precious thing.

I haven’t been able to get a video or even pictures yet, but hopefully there will still be many opportunities to.

Round Two

Since about last Thursday, when Bria was finally getting better, Bentley has had a slight fever off and on.  On Saturday she seemed to be doing alright.

We had an obligation at the kid's carnival put on by the local Lions club at the auditorium.  Bria’s class had a booth, and I had a booth for MWA.  My mom came to help with my booth, since she is the local MWA agent.  Not long after we got to the carnival, Bentley was looking more tired than normal.  (Since Thursday, she had been taking all of her naps and falling right to sleep both at nap time and bed time, this is not normal).  The carnival kept the girls up slightly later than normal, maybe 45 minutes.

Sunday morning Bria woke up, which means Bentley was also awake, at about 6:45.  Bentley was tired all morning and just wanted to snuggle during church.  Again, this is not normal.  After lunch, which she hardly touched, she took a 3 hour nap.  When she woke up from her nap, all she wanted to do was lay on the couch next to me.  Uh-Oh!

She had a higher fever now too, but I could tell it wasn’t as high as Bria’s had been.  We spent the rest of Sunday resting on the couch after taking some medicine, and Bentley stripped down to help reduce her fever.  She didn’t seem too bad through the night, so she just had some water but no additional medication.

This morning, however, she had a higher fever and just wanted to lay on the couch.  More medication and more fluids were given, since her fever was nearly 104 degrees.  Hopefully, this won’t develop into tonsillitis.  She has only said that her tummy hurts, nothing else.  Now that the medicine has kicked in, and she has had a ton of cold beverages, she is up and moving around.  She is still pale.  I expect this to last a few days, thankfully, she doesn’t need quite as much attention as Bria did.

Thank you everyone who was praying for Bria.  Now I am asking that you pray for Bentley to be able to fight off whatever this might be.  Also, pray that David and I stay healthy through all of this.

Last Weekend…Majorly Sick

I am not sure what made us so busy the week prior, but I was too busy to get the last post written and posted.  Bria was still fighting a bit of a cold the rest of the week, but it seemed to be better about mid-week.  Then on Friday, she came home from school and said that she wished she hadn’t gone to school that day.  That is not normal for her.  She loves school.  When I asked her why, she said she hadn’t been feeling well, but once she was home she said she was feeling better.

She and Bentley played outside for a while after school.  When they came in, I was helping Bentley with something and Bria laid on the couch with her eyes closed, curled up in a little ball.  I knew at that moment that she was really sick.  She wanted me to sit with her for a while.  As I was sitting with her, I reached over to see if she had a fever.  Her forehead felt like it was on fire.  When I took her temperature it was over 106 degrees.  That is scary.

We tried medication, cold washcloths, a lukewarm bath, and sleep, but couldn’t get the fever down.  By 3 am, her fever still hadn’t come down.  I couldn’t get back to sleep.  So at 4 am, I put some things together, got Bria out of bed, and we headed to the ER (an hour drive).  The ER is not in a big town, so we got in right away, saw the doctor pretty quickly, and started ruling out some possibilities.  Unfortunately, they couldn’t find anything at the time, but said to watch for pneumonia.

Bria and I came back home.  By early afternoon, I made Bria go to bed, she had only dosed off once since about 4:30 am.  After her nap, where she put on a blanket, her fever spiked over 107 degrees.  This causes panic in parents due to all the risks of a high fever.  I quickly got her more medication and another bath.  David called the PA in town and we rushed right into the clinic, which isn’t open on Saturday.  The PA took one look at her tonsils and knew it was tonsillitis (they were largely inflamed).  We got her some antibiotics.

We spent three more days just sitting and resting on the couch.  When I say we, I mean both Bria and I, because she wouldn’t let me leave her side.  The only time I could get anything done was if she was sleeping.  She only sleeps if she is in a bed in a separate room.  By Tuesday, I had to recruit some extra help.

David’s parents happened to be available for a few days, so they came out.  Just the arrival of the grandparents made Bria perk right up.  By Thursday she was back at school, although she had some side effects from her antibiotics.  Now she is back to her normal self.

A Late Post…Two Weeks Ago

The beginning of the weekend, two weeks ago, Bria had her first school field trip.  It just so happened to be on David’s regular Friday off, so he was able to chaperon the kids on their trip to the fire station for fire safety week.  Both David and Bria had a great time.

The picture is a little blurry (it was taken on a cell phone).  Bria wasn’t really very happy to put on the firemen’s uniform.

After the field trip and after a about 30 more minutes of school, we all loaded up in the car and headed to my parents’ house for the weekend.  My sister from the cities was coming back and my other sister who is in college was able to come back (between her golf and music schedules).  It is fun to have the whole family together, especially since it is getting more difficult to make it work.

Whenever we get together in the fall, whether it is early in the fall or not until Thanksgiving, we always take a family picture.  Because we were there early enough in the fall we were all involved in the fall decorating my mom does in the yard (corn stalks, bales, pumpkins, etc.).  Bria and Bentley were excited to help.

Aunt D, Bria, and Bentley with some of the pumpkins they were carrying to the front of the house.  They are standing on the newly poured cement patio that my parents added at the back of the house (outside the recently remodeled and expanded kitchen).

Aunt D and Aunt T figuring out where and how to put up the corn stalks.  Aunt D grew these pumpkins.  A lot of the pumpkins were ripe by August, so they were the deepest orange colored pumpkins I’ve seen.

Uncle C carrying his coffee in one hand and a bale in the other.

Uncle N’s girlfriend became the girls’ new best friend.  The girls wanted her to do everything with them, and they wanted to go everywhere she went.  She is used to having younger siblings around, so I don’t think they bothered her too much.  Here the girls were opening their birthday gifts from Uncle C and Aunt T.  They have already used them a lot.

Bria had a pretty bad cold by Sunday morning, so she and I stayed home from church.  That made Bria really disappointed; she loves going to Sunday School at grandpa and grandma’s church.  In the afternoon it was time for us to head back home so Bria could be ready for school the next day.

Before and After

It has been almost a year since our last indoor painting project.  Shortly after we completed that project we bought paint for the last two rooms of the house that still needed painting, the kitchen and main floor bathroom.  We were finally able to work out a time when I thought I would have time to do it and when David’s mom could be here to help.  A lot of time, hard work, and some change of plans went into getting the projects done, but the results are magnificent.  Everything feels fresh and clean.

 

Here is the Kitchen:

Before.  What a lovely color (with sarcasm).  We do like reds, but this application was not our favorite.

 

After.  The pictures don’t show it, but we had to paint the ceiling too.  That was not a small feat.

 

Now for the Bathroom:

 

Before.  (These pictures were not taken by me, and I don’t have any more recent “before” pictures.)

 

After.  We didn’t originally plan to paint the ceiling, but once we had some paint on the wall the ceiling seemed to really need a fresh coat.

Except for a few ceilings, everything in the house has been painted.  Owning a home is work, but the rewards are worth it.

Birthday Parties

Sunday was the family birthday party for the girls.  Both the grandparents, as well as my brother and a friend, came to celebrate with the girls.  We let the girls decide what they want for their birthday meals, and because Bentley doesn’t quite understand what that means, Bria did most of the choosing.  We had a wonderful meal of hot dogs and macaroni and cheese (from a box).  I decided to also make hamburgers, rainbow jello (I knew Bria would ask where it was if I didn’t), watermelon, and refrigerator pickles.

The theme of the girls’ party was rainbows, that is what they kept mentioning in the days before their birthdays.  It took me a while to decide how to make two different rainbow cakes.  Last year after I had decorated Bentley’s cake with rainbow striped frosting, I was sent a recipe for a rainbow cake that I should try.  At the last minute I did decide to try it.  It was a big success, the girls loved it and everyone else thought it was cool.

These pictures don’t do justice to the cake. 

The other rainbow “cake” was made from cupcakes decorated like a rainbow.

Because the rainbow of this cake was visible the girls both wanted this one as their own.  We put candles on both sides for the girls to each blow out their own.

So excited for the cake.  They ended up eating the other cake once they realized there was a rainbow inside.

The girls also had fun opening their presents.  It is amazing how excited they are about a ream of paper, scissors, stickers, etc.  They both like the clothes they received too, but I haven’t had time to have them try the clothes on.  Bria has worn her new tennis shoes and loves them.  Bria also wore her new necklace for her school pictures.

Thanks to everyone who made the girls’ birthdays a special time.