First Antibiotic!

Mackenzie my extremely healthy.....never gets a cold even when everyone else in the house does girl got put on her first antibiotic this week! Again, this is one of those posts for my memory keeping....It's a monumentous occasion for me! She started out with a horrible sounding cough and was starting to loose her voice on Monday. By Tuesday she was not acting herself.....just laying on the couch all day and I thought she had a slight fever, but I don't trust my new ear thermometer very much. Can someone please give me some advice on a good, reliable, quick and easy to use thermometer??? I am not one to rush to the Dr. one, because I feel like every time I make the apt. they start acting better and two, most of the time if it's anything it's a virus and they can't do anything for it anyways. My girls have been pretty healthy.....I think I filled a prescription for Kate once or twice when she got an ear infection and then when she had croup, I think they gave her something at the ER. So by Wednesday night Mackenzie was not getting any better and REALLY not acting herself, see previous post about our trip to Walmart, and I had seen on facebook some other kids having pneumonia and bronchitis, so I just planned on taking her in on Thursday morning. We are also having people for the weekend for Kate's birthday and I didn't want to wait any longer. So I make the apt and sure enough I'm second guessing myself as to whether I should take her because she was not seeming as bad..... she had a slight temp but was more herself. The PA listened to her chest and thought she might have bronchitis, but then with her large tonsils that she found and the fever she was suspecting Strep. Mackenzie really hadn't complained much of a sore throat, and I would ask her several times a day, so the PA wanted to put her on antibiotic to take care of it. Oh, I was so hesitant filling that prescription......I guess I should be thankful that we have made it over 5 years without one! She is still not completely herself, but with her meds, Mannatech, extra naps and a lot of TV time, I think she is slowly getting better!!! The first sign was the fighting with the little sister...it's been a little more calm and quiet around the house this week! I guess something good can come from your children not feeling well!

My baby is 2!

Today Kate turns 2 and at times I believe it and can hardly remember her as a baby, but for the most part it blows me away every time she does something that is so "2yr old" and can't believe how fast she is growing up. I know in a couple months when the new baby comes she is going to even seem SOO much older! That is when they truly "change" overnight....does anyone else ever experience that?
I know I just did an update on Kate within the last month, but just in the past week or so she seems so much older....doing "big girl" things and talking SOOO much more! Just yesterday she was playing babies, and I really mean playing....she knew what to do...she would bring the baby to me, tell me to hold it and that they baby was tired. So I told her to go put the baby nigh-night and sing her a song. She trots right into her room, where the baby doll bed is and sang her "Jesus Loves Me" and laid her down! She loves playing babies with Mackenzie, but yesterday it was all by herself as Mackenzie wasn't feeling well. She'll go and get one of her diapers to put on the baby, feed the baby food from her little kitchen and take the baby for walks in the stroller! If you ask her what the baby's name is, it is of course......Baby!
She can almost count to 15 on her own and LOVES to sing.....BINGO, Jesus Loves Me, Twinkle Little Star, Happy Birthday, etc. She is really into Dora and her new saying is "Come on, Vamanos!"
She is turning into quite the stinker....agitating her big sister! Isn't that what they are supposed to do for the the payback from the first 2 defenseless years??? She messes up what Mackenzie is playing with or will just go up and take something out of Mackenzie's hands if she wants it. Now I'm sure Mackenzie didn't have it coming as she is the one she learned it from. Although I will have to say Mackenzie is really growing up and handles it fairly well! She was starting to take swats at people, but has been doing it less after a couple "breaks" in her bed!
Kate has just been such a joy to raise....keeps us laughing all the time!

Since we aren't having her party until this weekend, I wanted to make the day special somehow and in a way that would be fun for her! Every time we talk about her birthday she always says "Grandma" and I'm not sure exactly why, except for the fact that she can be quite the Grandma's Girl sometimes. Since Mackenzie still wasn't feeling well and I was keeping her home we decided to go to Grandma's house for the day to play!
On the way home we met daddy at one of Kate's favorite places to eat (if a 2yr old really has a favorite)....McDonalds! After that we headed to Walmart to pick out some presents. I had one but I wanted to save till her party. I wanted her to be able to open up something on her actual birthday and Mackenzie wanted to pick out her gift to her. Thankfully with a 2 yr old you can just take them to the store with you to shop! It was fun...we let her play with things and see what she really liked.
In the middle of shopping Mackenzie sadly says she wants to go home....so instead she opted to just lay in the cart on our coats.....ok, this is not my Mackenzie..... healthy, energetic, no stop talking little girl. On the way home she says to me, "Mom, I don't think I'm going to be able to stay awake for Kate's birthday party, I'm too tired!"

We sang "Happy Birthday" and ate some ice cream! We got her a new Wiggles movie, so the girls wanted to watch that!

Since Kate is really into babies, Mackenzie picked out a baby that makes drinking noises when you hold the bottle to her mouth and coo's and giggles. This is the first baby we have that makes any noises or does anything special, so needless to say it has been a hot item in the house!

My Valentine's

What do we think of when we see Red, Pink, Hearts, hear the word Love...... Valentines Day of course!!!
We celebrated all week and started off our Valentines weekend with a couples fondue dinner at our friends house on Friday! We had the babysitter lined up in plenty of time, got my house cleaned (it's just so much more enjoyable going out when you know things are taken care of at home) and ready to go! It has been a long time since I have done fondue and I was so excited. There was 11 people and we had 3 courses.....1st course: Cheese fondue with 2 kinds of bread, apples, carrots, broccoli 2nd course:Vegetable Broth & Peanut Oil fondue with steak, chicken, shrimp w/ a plethora of sauces 3rd course: Milk Chocolate/White Chocolate/Dark Chocolate fondue with pineapple, strawberries, bananas, toasted marshmallows, pretzels, pound cake!!! Needless to say none of us went hungry. It was a great time of meeting new people and it's easy to fellowship around this kind of meal....taking the time to cook your food and just nibble rather than stuffing your faces!
All week Mackenzie had been making Valentine crafts....which is right up her alley! I was planning a Valentine Meal complete with Spaghetti (red), Raspberry Jello, Strawberry Kool-aid, Pink Sprinkle Rice Krispies, then peas and bread for substance!!! So I was encouraging her to make the decorations for the table....confetti and decorated hearts!
Sunday my brothers came over after church for lunch as my parents are out of town and we grilled out.....didn't eat till about 2:00 and stuffed ourselves, so I didn't know if the Valentine meal was going to get pulled off! Aaron gave me my gift that afternoon......a night alone at a local motel so I could get a good night of uninterrupted sleep and also get to sleep in. It was such a nice thought and idea, but I'm a chicken and didn't want to stay by myself and also wanted to be with him on Valentines Day, so we rearranged the plans a little. We took the girls swimming at the hotel pool and invited some friends to join us. We took the girls back home, put them to bed and my brother so graciously came and stayed with them overnight so Aaron and I both could sleep in! It was wonderful.....we got a couple minutes in the hot tub and slept in till 9:30!
Finally on Monday night we got to have our Valentine meal!

The greatest love that a person can ever receive is that described in this verse-
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

And how we respond to that love is described in this verse-
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. . .And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:4-13

January Happenings

I'm starting to see a pattern here....grouping a whole months worth of posts into one! To be honest I don't really like posting without pictures to go along and I haven't been very diligent in taking pictures lately. I'm blaming it on my camera.....I am not happy with the quality of pictures it takes. I rely on my mom for a lot of my photos these days! Hopefully soon we'll decide on which camera we want...the debate is a cheaper camera and then also get a video camera(ours broke a couple years ago) or just go with a more expensive camera that does both really well? Any ideas out there......advice is greatly appreciated!

On to the happenings
Aaron got to go to his first NFL game...the playoff game in Indianapolis watching the Colts win the game that took them to the Super Bowl! My dad got tickets through work and wasn't able to go so he sent my brother and Aaron in his place!

We had our first parent teacher conference and I was really looking forward to it. It's so reassuring when you get the good report from the teachers that what you are working on at home really is paying off, even if you don't see it at home all the time! Mackenzie is really enjoying school and is doing a great job!

We got to go back to Ames for a weekend to visit friends that we haven't seen a while. It was also the weekend for an event at our old church that I had helped organize when we lived there, and it was so nice to go back and see it from a different perspective! Being on the other side of it makes you even appreciate it more! We had a blast catching up with many friends, eating at some favorite places and going back to the church that we went to for 7 years. It was also fun watching the kids interact again....to be honest we haven't been away for what 6 months, but it seems so much longer than that! We miss everyone that became so much like a family to us!

Along with many snow days, meetings, girls get togethers and events at church....we kept quite busy and it is showing no signs of slowing down!

And since I don't like posting without a picture......

That would be Mackenzie's Dora underpants on her head!!!

What have you been reading?

Let me start off with saying that I'm not a huge reader...never have been. BUT when I get into a good book or series I'm engulfed...can NOT put it down. I am pretty sure I have read all of Beverly Lewis books about the Amish.....can't explain, but they just fascinate me! Now that I'm waiting for the next book of hers to come out I have somewhat recently been introduced to Karen Kingsbury. For Christmas I got the whole Firstborn series and within a month had dominated all 5 books!!! This may explain my lack of posts in January, which I'll attempt to catch up on, but they were so good. Ok, I do enjoy a good romance story, but what I really liked about this series was the salvation message throughout the whole story and how much scripture was weaved into it as well. It also caused me to stop and think about the many different relationships in my life and how I could improve them in some way. I guess I haven't read much fiction that has challenged me as much as these have....again I haven't read that much! I can't wait to get to the next series that comes next, but I know that when I do I'm not going to get much else done, so I'm putting it off!
Anyways...I guess what I'm saying is if you are looking for a good author/book you should check Karen Kingsbury or Beverly Lewis out...I strongly reccomend them!!! I do wish I would be as excited and engulfed in the many non fiction books that are on my shelf waiting to be read..or finished. I'm sure I would be even more challenged with them!

So what have you been reading lately?