September in Review

Spent a Saturday at the park flying planes. It was a great day

Legos are the thing around here recently. They're everywhere!

We made homemade rootbeer over the holiday weekend. The kids thought it was super cool!

This is Black Beauty, she's our rental. We didn't exactly love each other but I'm thankful we had something to get us from place to place. We drove her for three weeks before a rental van became available (who we only had for a week & never named.) Our van spent the entire month in the shop waiting on the insurance people to get things together & then waiting on the shop to do the work correctly. Needless to say, it was a complete headache. I'm Thankful though that they accepted 100% fault & the lady was fully insured. Yet another blessing!

Who said a sedan wasn't a family car? My kids clearly love being so close.

The Saturday chores still continue.

We did a lot of hanging around the house.

We took the kids (& Black Beauty) camping one weekend

And had a blast! They've already planned out next outing.

I love this picture of Randy being an awesome Dad. I think they where discussing what causes a tree to fall in the forest. Also, before he took them on this "hike" he made each of them a walking stick. The kids thought they were the coolest things ever!  

 The Daughter rode a horse for the first time at a her good friend's house.

We went to The Daughter's Back-to-School night to check out her classroom & met her teacher.

 The Daughter had games on Saturdays. She's become a much more confident player, it's been so enjoyable to watch.

Baby Girl started sleeping through the night!!! It's amazing what a good nights sleep will do for a Mama.

Bike repair is a common activity around here. Someones bike always has a flat tire.

The many wildfires in our region have left us with very smoky skies. It was so smoky we couldn't see the mountains that surround us. Several games and activities where canceled due to the horrible air conditions.

We read while waiting for the school bus in the mornings. It's a great motivation to get ready quickly.

Evening snuggles with her Daddy. Melt my heart.

When he comes home with dyed hands you know it must have been a fun day at school.

Our poor Baby Girl has gotten worse. She's still inconsolable, losing weight & projectile vomiting. To make things worse she recently started having extremely bloody Diarrhea too. Something no parent wants to discover. The first diagnoses was Salmonella until her labs came back indicating that she was actually fighting an allergy. We began cutting things out of my diet with no avail so on to formula we went. I could no longer nurse my baby, very emotional. Sniff, sniff. We had to do a 12 hr Pedialyte only diet to get her re hydrated and give her tummy sometime to heal before we could try formula. Then we began trying several different types of formula to see if we could get the bleeding to stop. After about a week of different formulas we we discovered that she had a milk protein allergy and that the amino-acid based prescription formula, Elecare was the one that seemed to be helping. Of course it was the most expensive one. Luckily between our two insurance plans the cost is pretty much covered. The insurance arranged was another week's battle involving phone calls, visits to a dietitian and lots of paperwork.  Our amazing doctor gave us several cans at no cost to use while we hashed out the details with the insurance companies & waited for our first order to come in from the medical supply company. Have I mentioned how wonderful our doctors have been?

And to make things even more stressful, she refused to take a bottle. She was too sick to not eat so we had to syringe feed. It was an all day, week long progress. It was overwhelming at moments.

Once we found a formula that worked (no more bleeding or vomiting, yay!) and she started gaining weight, we began the bottle battle. It took about a week of fighting & refusing to eat before she finally gave in! She's still very picky about the bottle type but she's willingly eating so we'll take it!

The Little Man & I always stop and get a snack after his social group each week. We have about twenty mins between when he gets done when we have to pick up The Daughter from school. Most of our Mommy/Son moments involve a treat, it's the way to his heart.

The Daughter still helps out at her Papa's store once a week and still very much looks forward.

 I love spending my days hanging out with Baby Girl.

The Little Man's view of people. A fun perspective. This time he was taking pictures of me speaking with his OT after an awesome social group.

Happy 3 months Baby Girl!

There you have it. It was another busy month filled with some crazy stressful moments and even more blessings.