No More FLUbruary!

Had to report my exceeding gratitude that our FLUbruary is over with. Every single week last month, there was at least one person sick in our little family. It actually started mid-January with Savvy, moved on to Ruby...and it just went on, and on and on! So friends, I am sorry for not returning your calls, e-mails, and generally forgetting about everything else important in life beyond the basics of feeding the family and getting them clean clothes to wear. I'll not think fondly back to the week that I was sick, as well as all three of my kids, and Kyle was out of town. I wanted to cry. And I did. Ashamedly, I didn't express a great deal of sympathy to Kyle when he was sick while out of town.  A little self-absorbed at the time, I was comparing our situations and thought he had it much easier-- him not having to be up all night with the kids sounded like a dream.  Anyway, not my proudest of moments as a wife.

Fortunately, the stars aligned for our family vacation which took place the 2nd week of the month and all of the kids were better. Kyle wasn't feeling great by then, but not so bad that he had to lay in bed all day.  Of course the day we got back, Cade battled an on and off fever for almost a week. Then came the stomach flu. Oh my. Cleaning up puke doesn't get any easier as I tuck more years of motherhood behind my belt.  Though good did come from my children having the stomach flu. They kept referring to it as the "sickness that mommy has when she's pregnant."  I got an awful lot of empathy from my children the few days they were throwing up.  Unfortunately, the stomach flu came around right when we had several family members in town for Little Benjamin's funeral.  I quarantined the kids until I was sure they were completely over it, but still... I hope we didn't get everyone sick.

It was so terribly sad and pitiful when Ruby caught Savvy's cold/flu/sickness. I took her into the hospital twice one night to get her nose suctioned out. Fortunately it didn't "turn into" RSV, though it was thought to have for about 12 hours. It was so sad. And scary.  Now that we're all healthy we all have a renewed sense of gratitude for being able to breathe through our noses, being able to swallow without wincing, being able to eat without fear it may come back up, and being able to see Ruby's grins and hear her giggles again. Life's so good I just may have some time to play catch-up on the blog.

I'll go ahead and start with some Before and After pics regarding some exciting things happening in our lives right now....

This is my sister Melody BEFORE (a few days..or maybe even the DAY before??) giving birth to little William

*yet another darling top I am thrilled she will be adding to our sisterhood community maternity bins. It's so funny because for about 7 months she refuses to wear ANY maternity clothes and gets away with wearing her "fat clothes" or my "skinny clothes" that I still couldn't squeeze into since Ruby. Then all of the sudden she pops...and she finds herself buying maternity clothes after all.

This is Melody AFTER {picture courtesy of my Dad}



This is our master bathroom BEFORE the demo/ re-tile

* don't let the seemingly pristine-ness of the white tile fool you. There was TONS of mold underneath the shower tile. We learned about it when we did the home inspection before bought the house...we're just finally getting around to having it done....like most things around here.

This is our bathroom DURING

And by tomorrow I'll have a lovely after picture to post. :)

And here's some of my favorites which you have my permission to steal off my blog to put as your desktop background. Who wouldn't want to?!

This is Ruby BEFORE trying to get her to smile for the camera during lunchtime {lest you fear our baby is not getting enough to eat, I had to take a shot of her with squash and rice cereal all over her face for proof. Because her bulging cheeks aren't t a dead give-away that she is far from skinny.}:

And this is Ruby AFTER trying to get her to smile for the camera:

If you're really good you notice her expression has changed ever-so-slightly.  I think her cheeks are so fat that it just takes too much out of her to push them apart with her lips for a full-blown smile. I love her big blue bug-eyes!