Look how big I'm getting! (Thought we'd start with some happier pictures from last week.)
You'll have your smile back soon little Samuel.
Not feeling good Mommy. Even without your smile you are still my beautiful miracle baby boy.
Noah was whining and crying almost non-stop all day. I was so happy when he finally settled down. I love the term Uncle Joel taught us when he came to visit...we use to call them "basket cases" but now our little masterpieces are "disasterpieces" :)
Kitty keeping Beka warm
My poor sweet babies tugging at my mommy heartstrings all day
Forgive any and all typos...I've got a whiny little Nehemiah glued to me again today.
Thank you all so much for praying for our little troopers. Some felt better this morning and ate some and spent about a half hour coloring with me at the table. Other than the coloring, I had them stay in bed and either rest, read, draw or sleep. It wasn't too hard to convince them. Little Eliseo and Samuel felt worse today :(. Samuel only drank about half his bottle at each feeding today; he's still losing quite a bit in the "diaper", so I'm watching him very closely to make sure he stays hydrated. The body aches/head aches seem to be the hardest on everyone and they say it hurts so badly when they cough.
Have you ever noticed that fevers always seem to go higher in the afternoon/evening? By around 4:30 pm, everyone was back to crying, whining, and only wanting to lay down. I'm monoriting their fevers every couple hours to make sure they don't get too high; I like to let the fever work if it's not too bad and they are tolerating it okay. If I keep them on the medicine, then they think they're better and always want to get up and do something, but then usually end up feeling worse than if they had just stayed down and rested.I'm going to put them all officially to bed in a bit and will give some tylanol or motrin to the ones who haven't had it recently so they sleep comfortably.
I've also noticed that the littler ones can tolerate higher fevers than the older ones. Eliseo and Samuel will rest even if they are on medicine, so I like to keep them feeling as good as possible so they'll drink well. But while my older ones complain after a fever of a degree or two, the younger ones just "act off" but don't seem to stay down unless they hit a bit of a higher temp.
Uncle Samuel spent all night last night in the bathroom :( Brother Carlos said he was moaning. It was just Daniel, Brother Carlos, and Elijah who headed off to church this morning. They got home pretty late because Daniel had to run Uncle Samuel's route and we also started our annual children's Christmas Choir practices.
After Daniel left for church this afternoon, I moved everyone into the family room as I needed to clean the kitchen and fold laundry. I pulled a tv out of storage and let the children watch some Moody Science dvd's. This worked out good as I was able to tend to them much easier being all in one room rather than spread out all over the house :).
Thank you for your "notes" of encouragement; they truly brightened my day. It was like getting a bunch of "get well" cards! I also appreciate the concern many of you have had for my infection. Daniel and I had already decided that if this round of medicine did not take care of the problem (3rd try now), I'll go down to the capitol city as soon as I can as I think we've exhausted all our medical resources in our area.
But I know we can never "exhaust" our prayers and how grateful I am for how the Lord always takes care of us. My dad would always say to me that there is no safer place to be than in the center of God's will.
Pray Uncle Samuel feels better soon; he's such a blessing to us here and we sure miss him. Pray for our church people as Daniel said some of the children in Sunday School were feeling sick and attendence overall was low. Tomorrow may be a good day to make my jumbo pot of chicken soup...some for us and the rest to share with our friends. Okay, now to offer some toast or broth for supper, give out medicine and begin the process of getting them all to the bathroom, transporting all their blankets and pillows and tucking them in with hugs, kisses and prayers. :)
I must say that I do thank the Lord so much for we have been blessed overall with very good health the past couple of years. We've had some major medical events :), but as far as the flus/colds/tummy bugs etc... that take down the entire crew, we've had few and far between. God is so very good.
