Bye Bye January!

Although we are thrilled that Emily turned 4 in January, we would like to say good bye to this month with your snow storms and your broken legs and the mean nasty stomach bug that swept thru our house this weekend!  We want February to be filled with well bodies and warm sunshine : )

Thursday night I went grocery shopping and then packed so the girls and I could leave first thing Friday morning to go to my mom's retirement luncheon in Montgomery . . . but waves of nausea woke me up from my pleasant slumber at 3:00 a.m. . . . it hit me like a ton of bricks.  I made it downstairs so I wouldn't disturb Joe  . . . but the heaving woke him up at 4:45.  So Joe took off work on Friday to take care of the girls and I tried not to move for the next 12 hours.  It was awful!  I haven't been that sick in about 8 years.  I finally was able to sit up a little about 4:00 Friday afternoon and came downstairs . . . and found Emily complaining about her stomach.  I told Joe to get the puke bucket ready because it wasn't going to be long for Emily.  Sure enough she got sick about 15 minutes later.  Here's where she stayed for about 48 hours:

 

 On Saturday, Emily and I felt good enough to lay on the couch and I could take care of Abigail's basic needs while Joe went to work.  But he got home Saturday night and a couple of hours later he was sick too.  So Emily and I camped out again downstairs while Joe quarantined himself to our bedroom.

On Sunday I had enough energy to start disinfecting while Emily slept on the couch and Joe stuck to our room.  I got everything hosed down with Clorox and Lysol and washed tons of laundry.  The second Joe moved out of our bedroom, I put on a hazmat suit and disinfected our bedroom and bathroom.  I hate that we missed the gorgeous weather this weekend but was thankful that it was warm enough to open all our windows to move fresh air thru our diseased house.

Sweet Abigail made it thru the whole affair totally fine.  I am thankful the Lord allowed Joe and I to get sick at different times, because if both of us had been that sick at the same time then Emily really would have had to put these skills to work:

She actually fed Abigail some yogurt on Thursday night . . . ironic that she practiced these skills right before the plague.  Emily doesn't realize how close she came to having to feed her sister for real : )

No Cast!

Abigail got her cast off this morning!  She wore it for 3 weeks.  She didn't really notice it was there . . .her daily activity didn't really change at all thankfully.  The only pain was getting a bath.  She will definitely enjoy a REAL bath tonight!  As if she knew I wanted to take a picture of her leg, she pointed to it right as I was taking a picture:

She did really well at the doctor's office.  She even giggled a little when they cut it off because I guess the vibration tickled her leg.  It was really loud.  She got fussy towards the end because we were making her lay still : )  Her x-rays looked good and they said we only have to go back to see them if we feel like she isn't back to normal speed in a few weeks.  Thanks for all your prayers for her recovery.

In other news I think my sewing machine is going to start generating some revenue for us!  I am now working with a fellow mom who sells doll clothes for these dolls:

I'm going to start out making underpants for the dolls.  She has so many orders she can't keep up anymore, so for now I'll be making at least 60 pair a month in these 3 sizes:

After I get the hang of this she has some other items she wants me to help her with.  I'm excited to be able to make some extra money but still get to stay at home while doing it!

Before my "sweat shop" hours begin I wanted to make this purse for myself.  My mom bought me the pattern last month.  So here's my new purse:

Emily is 4 Today!

Emily is 4 Years Old Today!!!!!!

 

Emily is 4 years old today!!!!!  We can't believe it.  This morning we gave her our gift to her for her birthday.  She got a Belle doll.  She will also have cupcakes today with her friends at Dawn's house.

Four years ago today Emily finally arrived after spending two nights in the hospital!!!!!  Here is Joe holding his daughter on Day 1 . . . and he's been a sucker for her ever since : )

 

 We love you Emily!  Happy 4th Birthday . . .

Birthday Party

We had Emily's birthday party on Saturday.  It was our first birthday where she invited several of her friends.  Emily decided she wanted to have a Belle birthday cake this year.  Here is the cake my friend Tara made for her.  Tara has made all of Emily's cakes for me.  Once again she did a FABULOUS job!

Emily told me she wanted a dress to wear for her party so I made her a Belle princess dress:

 

The girls made a princess wand and the boys made a tiger:

 When they finished their craft they could get a tattoo . . . 

Place the princess in her castle:

 and get their face painted:

As you can see we put my brother and sister to work at the party : )  When everyone was done we sang Happy Birthday to Emily and enjoyed some cake!

 

Emily was a sweetie and helped me pass the cake plates out to her friends:

Opening gifts was a hoot!  I've never seen kids get that close to the unwrapping.  They were hilarious!

 We had a great time and Emily loved her party!  The rest of the weekend my sister and her children hung out with us.  The kids played well together and had a good time.  Here they are painting Saturday night. 

I can't believe our baby girl will be 4 tomorrow!!!  Happy Birthday sweet Emily.  We love you!

Still Snowed In

Well Atlanta has shut down for the whole week!  All the snow has melted into shiny looking ice on everyone's yard.  The roads are still bad so school has been closed the whole week.  Joe went to work on Wednesday and Thursday and I worked some today while the girls went to Dawn's for a little while  . . . I'm a little ready for life to get back to normal : )  We all went to the store last night to buy groceries just to get out of the house a little bit.  We let Emily walk around with us for the first time without sitting in the cart.  She actually kept up with us really well and helped us get the food off the shelves.  So that was a fun activity for her!  I was only brave enough to do it because Joe was with me : )

For fun yesterday Emily decided to wear one of Abigail's jumpers all afternoon.  Never mind that it was only 32 degrees outside . . . this is what she wanted to wear:

And this morning Abigail kept pointing at Joe's hats and wanted to try them on.  She loves her Auburn tigers!!!!

 

National Champs!

War Eagle!!!!!!  Auburn and Oregon played last night in the National Championship and Auburn won 22-19 . . . their first National Championship since 1957.  We are very proud!  Here is Joe watching the game last night.  He got cold so he wrapped up in our Auburn blanket.  He really was excited watching the game . . .even though you can't really tell from this picture:

Here he is after the win last night:

 In other news we have been snowed in since Sunday night.  It started snowing on Sunday around 10:00 and when we woke up Monday morning we had about 5-6 inches of snow on the ground.  Joe's work actually closed so we knew the roads must be bad!  

Here is what the outside looked like on Monday:

And today looks no different.  We decided to go out for a bit today because we were all getting cabin fever.  Emily and Abigail have been fighting nasty colds so we didn't go out yesterday:

 

 

Joe didn't go to work again today so we'll see what tomorrow looks like.  It's supposed to stay in the 30s until the end of the week so looks like this will be our view for a while!

Abigail

Well the Wilson clan knows what it's like now to sport a cast.  Sweet little Abigail broke her leg yesterday at childcare.  I took her to urgent care last night when she kept crying and wouldn't put her leg down when I got her home last night.  They put her in a splint until I could get her to the orthopaedic doctor.  She sure was a trooper for me:

 I was told last night that the cast would need to be above her knee and she would have to wear it for 4 - 6 weeks.  Dawn (her caregiver) and I talked a lot last night trying to figure out how and when it happened.  Abigail had gotten her leg caught up under a mat yesterday and one of the children "helped" her get her leg out and that was all we could come up with that happened . . .

After NO SLEEP last night I got an appointment for 10:30 this morning.  This appt went so well.  The doctor said this was a very common break and happens all the time.  It happens from a twisting motion when children are walking and twist their leg when they fall or get their leg stuck in something and twist to get out.  Anyway, we've been trying to motivate Abigail to start walking but it's actually a blessing that she hasn't started walking yet.  Because of that they only put the cast below her knee and covered her toes so she could still crawl and not hurt her toes.  So she is still going to be mobile!  If she was a walker already she would have the cast past her knee to keep her from walking which would have been very frustrating for her. . . . and the doc said she should only have to wear the cast for 3 weeks!  Not the original 4-6 weeks I was told last night.  So we are so thankful for all the good news we got on this today.

Of course at a pediatric ortho clinic they are only going to have bright cast colors to choose from!  I asked them why they didn't have pastels : )  So we chose purple since that was the least "bright as the sun" color I had to choose from.  Abigail even smiled when I took her picture:

 The first thing she did when we got home was crawl all over the living room and play with her toys so I don't think this cast is going to slow her down any : )  She's just going to have to get sponge baths for the next 3 weeks . . . so if my baby seems a little "crusty" to you the next time you see her cut her some slack ok?