ahhh fall...

i am always ready for the change of season. don't get me wrong, i love summer. i love going to the beach, the pool, and the free air conditioned movies. but by the end of the summer, i am so ready for the cool weather. since it is now officially fall, it is about time the weather caught up. and today it did. the weather was absolutely bea-u-tiful! it was sunny, low humidity, and upper 60s. a perfect early fall day. so we decided to seize the day and head to the park. it was so nice and actually a little bit cool when we got there (hence brooke in a sweater). brooke enjoyed riding her bike and then playing with friends. it also gave me a chance to spend some time playing with just brooke. i want to try really hard to make sure she feels special and not just like a "middle" child. so i got to take some cute pictures of her while she was riding her bike! she is so cute!! (which is good because madeline looks a lot like her!)

super proud of her bike riding skills!
so cute!! those eyes!
playing with taylor (i guess brooke enjoyed hanging on the bar more than tay did :)
ahh fall...

today in pictures

this is by no means ALL that we have done today... but all of these happened today. so alas they are "today" in pictures.
i got my camera out to take a pictures of brooke and her "big" ponytail. she is very proud because she is not pulling her hair out (as much) and therefore has a tiny bit to put up in a ponytail.
then hana and brooke wanted to give hugs... which turned out very cute. but in the end, was a little too rough. but whatever, they are very cute pictures!
and lastly we have daddy and madeline. madeline loves being held by her daddy. they are so cute!

brooke meets the floor

even though the girls have been sharing a room for a couple of months, brooke has still been napping in the crib. it allowed both older girls to have a separate room for naps and helped ensure that brooke would actually sleep. i also just hadn't had a good reason to move her (besides the birth of our 3rd child). well today she gave me one. as i was sitting on the couch nursing madeline, i heard brooke playing. the next thing i hear is a loud crash and crying. i run into the room and there is brooke laying flat on her back... on the floor. apparently all of the playing i heard was her figuring out how to climb out of her crib. so i picked her up (made sure she was ok) and promptly brought her into her "big girl" bed. sadly i will now have to accept the fact that she will most likely not sleep during her nap time. in fact as i write this, she is playing with the curtain and looking out the window at the people across the street... (i mean, they are pretty interesting). sigh.

thankful

today i was watching a new (to me) tv show on TLC called mystery diagnosis. the family in the story today had a 4 month old baby with a condition that was causing her to cry. they first thought it was meningitis. they described the spinal tap that she had to have and the agonizing wait to find out the results. all of these things i could definitely relate to. but this is where things changed. for them this was the beginning of a long road. their baby did not have meningitis. she had some other rare disease. she needed a bone marrow transplant which came from one of their other children. but her body rejected the transplant causing the little girl to become gravely ill. they spent 100 days in the hospital. she ended up leaving the hospital ok, but the ordeal caused her to loose her eye sight. why do you share all of this you ask? it just hit me that while our hospital stay was difficult and scary, things could have been MUCH worse. i am very thankful for the fact that madeline is fine. i still do not wish to repeat the hospital stay, but i am so thankful for the gift of healthy, happy children. thank you Lord for your blessings... the big ones and the small ones.

the meek squad

once again our church has totally outdone themselves. we are doing a series on pride... or being "meek".
here is the video "commercial" they produced for the series... so impressive! there is even a website!

these boots are made for...

when nanny was here she brought some dress up clothes for the girls. one of the best items was a super shiny pair of pink cowboy boots... so my style (can you catch the sarcasm... "good because i am laying it on pretty thick"). anyway, today i was just kind of annoyed with the girls, annoyed with the fact that i am pretty much stuck in the house these days. so i am complaining to jack after he gets home and what do i look over and see? you guessed it, hana decked out in the super pink cowboy boots. and it was too cute not to share.

of course brooke could not be out done!

i love how the Lord gives me laughter when i am most in need :)

madeline 3 weeks

i finally got around to taking a few pictures of madeline. so along with that, here is how life with madeline is going... she is starting to wake up a little more. she is (for the most part) happy to sit and look around, but there are definite times when she will scream until you pick her up (very reminiscent of hana...). she is sleeping super well. we put her to bed around 10 and she wakes up only once at night, usually around 4:00am. last night she slept from 10-5 which was great! hopefully she will keep doing this because it makes life with 3 girls much easier!! it is hard to believe that she is 3 weeks old. for the most part it feels like a lot longer than 3 weeks. i am not sure if it was the hospital stay or just newborn life. but whatever the reason, here is 3 week old madeline...

what are we up to now?

i am always interested to know how new moms are doing... so i thought i would share how things are going for us.
so far so good. the last of my post-baby help is leaving today so the "real world" of three kids will be hitting me full force monday morning (but friends bringing meals starts today!! super exciting!). hana is going to preschool 5 mornings a week so that will leave just brooke, madeline, and i here each day. i am still super aware of germs so i am trying not to take madeline very many places. we have gone out a few times, but i keep her in the sling to ward off the scary germies.
the girls seem to love her and want to see what she is doing on a regular basis. they want to hold her or kiss her, but we are still keeping them apart. which i admit, is sad but, i can not handle going back to the hospital... so we will just have to deal with the sadness!
so far madeline is sleeping really well... i am afraid to say just how well in fear that i may jinx it. but let's just say that jack and i feel rested.
she went for her 2 week check up on wednesday. she is doing well and fully over her meningitis scare. she now weighs 7 lbs 7 ozs and is 20.5 inches long. this means she is in the 25 and50 percentile respectively. she is by far the biggest one we have had (hana and brooke were both in the 5-10% in height and weight).
so all in all things are going well!! hopefully things will continue in this direction :)

life goes on...

i had planned to blog this before our hospital incarceration... but never got around to it. but alas life does go on. several things have happened since madeline was born...
hana had her first day of preschool. it was last monday and she only went one day last week. they have staggered enrollment the first week where only a small part of the class comes each day. her first full week will start tomorrow. hana loved school! i hope this continues to be the case!

she wanted to pose with her book bag...just looking cute!

brooke also learned to ride her tricycle. we have not been to the park lately... with it being so hot and me being so pregnant, it was not conducive to me sitting outside while she learned. while we were in the hospital (while madeline was born) nana took them to the park and showed brooke how to ride her bike :)

brooke was so proud...she even learned how to put on her helmet... slightly wrong!

and here are a few new pictures of madeline (pre-hospital stay)....

so cute!blowing kisses

the longest 5 days of my life

it all started monday when we woke up and madeline felt a little bit warm. i chalked it up to being wrapped too tight or sleeping on someone. as the day wore on and she still felt hot, i took her temperature. it was 99.4. not too bad but still not good in a 6 day old baby. so i called the pediatrician and they said to bring her in. so i did. the doctor said that she looked fine and that most likely the cause was being too hot on a warm day, but he suggested that they check her temperature rectally to make sure (when we got there they took in under her arm and was 100.4). well the nurse did and it was 101.4... way too hot for an infant. so the doctor sent us over to the hospital. he said that they were going to run some tests. in my mind this meant, do tests. us go home. well not in hospital land. they first told us that we would stay while they did the tests. then it tuned into 48 hours to have the cultures grow... with out going in to great boring detail... we were there for 5 days while they ruled out a lot. the final diagnosis was viral meningitis. now i will say that i still have no idea exactly what that is. i have not looked it up and i am not sure that i want to. i just knew that my baby was sick and she needed to get better.
during this time there was a lot that i learned. many of which i hope NEVER to use again... like how to diaper a screaming baby with 5 cords attached to her, how to read the monitor attached to all of those cords, and which lights and buzzers to ignore and which ones will have the nurse in your room pretty quick. but during this time, i felt a peace and calm that i know only came from the Lord. i was never really worried that she was not going to be ok. i just knew that this was something that we had to fight.
i also felt all of the support from the many friends and family praying for us. i felt the love from so many calls and texts that i could not even answer them all. i am truly thankful for the support. knowing that there were so many people out there that cared for us really did make it easier to get through the long days.
it always amazes me how much closer to the Lord i feel when tragic things happen. hopefully i can put into practice what mike (our pastor says) "Lord please humble me by your presence and not by my circumstances" if only i can learn to practice that and never have to go through something like this again!

i really did not want to take pictures, i already knew it was something i would never forget... but what is a blog with out a picture?