Tooth #3

Mackenzie lost tooth #3 today. Her top front tooth...
Of course it had to happen while we were out & about in the van! Her tooth has been loose for quite some time but Tom and I were both too chicken to pull it ourselves, so we've been waiting for it to come out on it's own.

All of a sudden as we were driving around looking at lots of land, she told me she thought there was blood in her mouth. I looked back & her mouth was full of blood! Great...I threw a kleenex back at her & found a gas station to stop at & get some wet cloths. By then the bleeding had stopped, but I gave a quick yank & out the tooth came. But then came more blood, so I told her to shove more wet kleenex in her mouth till we could get home. Luckily she did a pretty decent job of keeping it off everything in the van!

She was so proud to finally have her tooth out! Here's some pictures:

Weekend at the beach

Here's a few pictures from our weekend at the beach:

Camden took a little bit of warming up to actually sit & play in the sand, so he sat on the bucket for a little while first:



The girls had a ball playing in the sand:



Mackenzie checking out the ocean:



We also saw about 8 dolphins:

Yesterday

Boy was yesterday an interesting day! I'm glad it's over. Basically we had a horrible day with doctors! It's a long story, but I've tried calling the doctor that I had picked out for the kids twice to get Camden in to be seen. I kept thinking he has an ear infection or something. Anyways, both times I've been told they don't have any appt. available that day for new patients! Well, yesterday Camden was miserable with a runny nose, cough, and just looked bad. So when they told me they couldn't get him in, I let them have a piece of my mind! I asked what in the world was I supposed to do with a sick son in a new town where I knew absolutely nobody?? (I had asked the last time about any clinics, and supposedly there are none) Pretty much I got nowhere so I just told them I'd find a doctor who could actually see my kids when they're sick, not at their convenience!

I ended up calling a pediatrician's office in town & they got me in right away. The doctor wants to keep an eye on Camden's adenoids...he said they are big, and could be causing his problems with his constant runny nose. But he's gonna try a round of antibiotics first to see if that helps. Either way, he said his ears are OK, which is good.

So, back to the other doctor's office. I had already had our records from Ft. Wayne sent to them, so I had to deal with some poor lady in their medical records office who tried to tell me she couldn't release the records to the new doctor's office because they had never seen my kids. (Whose fault was that??? It wasn't like I hadn't tried to get them to see them!) Once again, it was not a pretty conversation, and she got an earful from me about how mad I was that I had a sick kid and that they couldn't see him. I know none of it was her fault & I apologized that she was getting the brunt of my anger, but I had had it! What doctor's office can't see a sick kid???? By the end of the day, they had called me back again & said I could pick the records up at my convenience! Thank you very much!

We also went to the Birmingham zoo yesterday afternoon. It's probably close to the size of the Fort Wayne Children's zoo. The kids really enjoyed it, and we found out that our Fort Wayne membership gets us in for free here, too, so that was nice!

Today has been much better! We're headed to the park since it's nice out to play. Hope you enjoy you day!

A nice weekend

Ok, so I screwed up really bad! Tom planned a little weekend get-away to get out of this spacious 2-bedroom apartment! It wasn't really that organized as far as packing, mainly because I kept procrastinating to actually pack stuff. Anyways, Tom had looked up the weather in Destin, FL, and it was supposed to be just in the low 70's. Nice, but not hot or anything. The girls were excited to go to the beach, so I threw stuff together & off we went.

Well, we spent Friday night in Pensacola, then went to Fort Walton Beach on Saturday. The girls got to play on the beach for a little while Sat. afternoon, but the water was COLD and they got chilled, so we went to our hotel room to hang out. Sunday we got out to the beach around 10:30 a.m. or so....I wore my jeans & a jacket cuz I was cold, Camden had on sweats & the girls were so excited to be on the beach that they stayed in their bathing suits! As long as you sat in the sun, it wasn't bad. The water was cold still, but the girls had a ball playing in the sand! Tom kept talking about how he was gonna get a sunburn, but I kept saying "nah...it's not THAT nice!" After a while, he asked for some sunblock. Well, I didn't bring any sunblock! I didn't really figure we'd need it - I figured it would be too cold to really be out on the beach for long. Boy was I wrong! The girls LOVED it, and Camden did his thing too. By now it was noon, and Tom set off to buy some sunblock because he assured me we WOULD need it. Of course I was skeptical still, and figured a little sun would actually do us all some good. Fast forward a few hours....Tom went & got sunblock, I put some on the kids (arms & faces - not their legs), and we enjoyed the beach until around 2:30 p.m. We then packed up & headed out to get a bite to eat before heading back home. As we were eating lunch, I casually mentioned to Tom that I had been right....the girls had gotten just enough sun, and it would probably do them some good. Fast forward again about another hour or so....the girls fell asleep in the car, and when they woke up, we stopped at McDonalds to get some ice cream. As we went to get out of the car, Mackenzie started to complain that her arms & legs hurt. Suddenly I looked, and noticed that she was BRIGHT RED!!! Yikes! So much for "just enough sun"! She was BURNT! Jenna was also red, but not quite as bad as Kenzie. That's when I realized Tom was right! We should have had the sunblock on from the get-go! We made a stop at a Wal-Mart to get aloe vera gel, and then finished our trip home. When we got home, I got an even better look at how bad the burns are, and felt horrible! Camden is the only one who doesn't look like a lobster. Probably because he actually had taken a nap in the shade for quite a while.
Anyways, I feel horrible!! Lesson learned...down here in the south, you wear sunblock!!! Well, I guess it's probably not just in the south, but just because it's not hot doesn't mean you won't burn. How stupid can I be?? Luckily, the girls are doing OK today but they still look horribly red!

So sorry for such a long post, but I had to let everyone know just how stupid I can be!! Other than all that, we had a nice weekend away, and now this week Mackenzie is on Spring break, so we're gonna try to do some fun stuff.

Hopefully I'll have some pictures in the next few days of our weekend! Take care until then!

Prayer Requests

I have a couple prayer requests to share:

1. We still haven't been able to figure out what to do about a house. We met with a builder this week, and we kinda liked that option, but along with that, it means we'd have to find a piece of land. But, it also means we'd be in this apartment a WHOLE lot longer than we thought! We really don't know what to do, so please pray for wisdom for us!

2. I'm exactly half way through my pregnancy today! I feel good other than having to get my progesterone shots twice a week! They are SO extremely painful, and there are days when I can hardly walk because it hurts so bad! Usually by the time I get my next shot, my other one has stopped hurting, but my shot Monday is still really painful, so the shot I got yesterday has just added to the pain! Both of my sides are killing me. I hate to complain, but it's hard to get up & around to do anything when it hurts so bad. If I take 2 tylenol that usually helps with the pain, but I hate to take so much pain medicine especially being pregnant. I can't imagine it's really that good for the baby. So, please pray that the pain would ease up, and that my appt. with my new doctor on the 31st would yield some new answers somehow.

3. I guess we're gonna head down to Florida this weekend. Please pray for safety on the roads for us.

Thanks for continuing to hold us up in prayer!

Pictures - finally!

I finally got Tom to download a ton of pictures from our camera onto the laptop. SO, I've created a few posts below with pictures from the past couple weeks. Enjoy!

Jenna's surgery

Jenna got her tubes in her ears today, and did absolutely great! We had to be at the hospital at 6:30 a.m. and were back home by about 9:30 a.m.

Here's some pictures from her day:




She had to get a breathing treatment before surgery (she's watching TV):


Arriving back at the room after surgery:


Here she was wearing her surgery cap & waiting to go home:

Saying goodbye

Our last couple days in Fort Wayne were spent saying good-bye to family & friends...

Mackenzie's kindergarten class at Washington Center school:



A final lunch with friends at the mall:



Mackenzie's bus stop crew:



Saying goodbye at the airport to G-ma & G-pa Palmer:

Moving pics

Here are some pics of our house after it was packed up, and the truck as it was loaded:

Sorry for the delay...

I always have the best of intentions, but then my days actually slip away.

Things are actually going pretty well around here. I’ll post an update for each person…

Mackenzie: Started school yesterday at Kennedy elementary school. The school day down here is 1 hour longer than she had up in Ft. Wayne. But, on top of that, the bus schedule is ridiculous! She gets on the bus at 6:35 a.m. and doesn’t get back home until 4:10 p.m.! I may end up just taking her in the mornings because I think that is WAY too early for a kindergartener to get on the bus! We’ll see. Otherwise, Mackenzie is adjusting well down here and we’ll see after today what she thinks of school.

Jenna: We had her appt. yesterday with the ENT down here. We met with Dr. Naviwala (pronounce that!) and he said she does need tubes, so she will be getting those next Monday. Yeah! I’m so sick of her saying “what” all the time! We’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

Camden: He is crawling around like crazy and finally took 1 small step on his own the other day. He gives the biggest smiles now, but still has no real interest in walking. He is becoming a mama’s boy again around the apartment….he always wants to be in the same room as me (I mean, c’mon there are only so many “rooms” in this apt!), and cries like crazy if he isn’t. Once in a while he gets sidetracked long enough to push buttons on the TV.

Tom: Really seems to like his job. He is in Milwaukee this week for training, but after that, hopefully we’ll be back to a normal family all together.

Ruth: I’ve been to the Laundromat twice, and am getting used to living on “bare minimum”. I’m still trying to get doctors figured out for all of us, and paperwork filled out that needs to be filled out. And in the midst of that trying to keep my eyes open for any new houses that might go up for sale. The housing situation is still depressing, but I’m not really worried yet…it will all get worked out in God’s time. As for baby news...I'm still not showing (no big surprise for those that know me well), and all my clothes still fit just fine. I've JUST started feeling the baby move very slightly - maybe 2 or 3 times is all. In that respect I wish I could feel more, but again....all in God's timing.

Ok, I need to run. One last little side note - I was sitting here typing up this post before I went someplace to post it on the internet when all of a sudden on my laptop a note popped up saying my computer had connected to some wireless internet! Yeah!!! I had tried before but all the networks around here were protected by security (wise for the people that have them), so I don't know what the deal is, but if I can get internet here at the apartment, it will make my life SO MUCH easier!! Do you realize how hard it is to get anything done at the library with Camden to keep track of? :)

So if I can continue to get this connection, there might actually be more communication from me! YEAH!

Ok, now I really do need to run...

First post from Alabama!

Well, we made it to Alabama safely! Our flights on Saturday went as smoothly as possible, and everyone did well on the planes. We were at our apartment by about 2:30 in the afternoon….just in time to enjoy the beautiful weather! Tom took the kids to the playground here at the apartments so I could get in a quick nap, and they loved being outside to play. They both said they like Alabama, so let’s hope it stays that way!

Things were going well, until I ended up getting sick during the night Saturday night. I was in bed ALL day Sunday & felt pretty miserable. I’m still not sure exactly what the “diagnosis” was, but I was able to at least get out of bed yesterday to take care of the kids so Tom could go to work. Finally by last night, I felt much better & back to myself.

That means today there’s lots to accomplish! Going to the grocery store, stopping by the school to see about getting Mackenzie registered, and other odds & ends stuff.

I have to tell you one last thing that I’m already learning about the weather down here. Evidently there was a tornado that hit earlier this week before Tom got back. It knocked down quite a few trees at the civic center in town. We happened to drive by yesterday & see the damage. Anyways, they were calling for another storm last night, which didn’t really phase me. But, at 3:15 in the morning, all of a sudden there was this announcement over the loud speakers that are all over the place down here. It said: “Attention, a severe thunderstorm warning is in effect” and then the siren went off. It seemed like forever, but the point is that it sounded like some person was standing right outside our window with a mega phone making this announcement, and the siren was ridiculously loud. Luckily none of the kids woke up, but I guess there’s no need to worry whether we’ll know if a tornado is coming or not! And to top it all off, the storm ended up not being bad at all. Oh well….

One of these days I will actually try to get some pictures on here again. It’s just a little more difficult since we don’t have internet access at our apartment. I’ll try to update again in a couple days!