Christmas Vacation, Two Sick Kids, One ER Visit, in Four Days

So if you guys didn't think we were crazy enough for having 3 kids in 4 years, well our crazy Christmas vacation may just convince you. I had four days in a row off from work and we thought that we should visit family since there was no way they would all come our way. Our burden for being the ones that left town and moved away I suppose. The craziness started with Truly being sick with the crud for a couple of weeks. It fianlly got real bad the Wednesday before Christmas so I took her in and took Maisy along since she started with a little cough that morning. The doctor said she might have RSV and gave us some antibiotics and some steroids just in case it wasn't and advised us to take our nebulizer on our trip. Maisy was fine that day. Friday morning before I left for work, Maisy's cough was becoming highly suspicious, but we had already arranged for Santa to pass in Raceland, so we couldn't mess that up this late notice. After all Christmas Eve was the next day. I worked til 5 and Madison spent all day packing the car. When I got off of work, we stopped to eat dinner then loaded up for our long drive to Raceland. We were supposed to switch off, but Madison made the 8hr drive by himself. The girls slept most of the way. Truly had a few crying bouts, but nothing too bad. We arrived in Raceland at 1:30am. We spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Raceland and headed 2.5hrs to Monticello Christmas evening. All this time, Truly still had a nasty cough and Maisy was getting worse. We started nebulizer treatments that night on Maisy. By Monday, Maisy was pretty much just sleeping and crying. That evening, I only had one albuterol dose left and she was working pretty hard to breathe. Kiley, Madison's neice who is a family nurse practitioner, and I decided it was time to go to the ER. So we sent Kegan to Aunt Kathleen's, put Truly to bed and we headed to the ER in Brookhaven, MS. They confirmed Maisy had RSV and gave her a breathing treatment there and they sent us home with enough albuterol to make the trip home the following day. Our 7hr trip home took us 10.5hours with very tired and sick girls. The ER called us to let us know that Maisy's chest xray from the previous night looked like pneumonia. They advised us to head to the nearest ER if she had any signs of difficulty breathing. Maisy held on just fine. We took her into our doctor the next morning and she had bilateral ear infections to add to it. Even with the sick kids, it still was a great visit. It was wonderful to see all the great-grandparents and cousins.

Truly feeling pretty pitiful before the trip

But as you can see, she was better with cousins there

Gotta love that monkey hat with the new shirt from Nanny Jennifer!



Christmas Eve at Grammy's and cousin Hannah is taking care of the little ones....they adore her!



The day after Christmas in Monticello, we got to spend time with Grandma. She is an amazing woman. We love our Grandma.



Truly showing the boys her new Leappad Santa brought her.

Poor Maisy not too happy that day.

But this is the next day when we stopped for lunch on our way home. Funny how they can still be so sweet when they are so sick?

mobile nebulizer treatments. So glad our car has a regular outlet that we could plug it in to.

Chesapeke Lights

Chesapeke, with all of their natural gas drilling way to close to homes and neighborhoods which often makes me question the health and safety of it, makes all those feelings disappear when you get to see their awesome display of Christmas lights. The girls love it. We walked it three different times and would have done it every night if it were up to Kegan 

Kegan had me take a picture by every color tree, but this one, the pink one, was her favorite! 

The girls would run up to each tree and make us all run around them. 

This tree was one of the most inpressive. It was huge! 

This is Truly running around. I think Kegan fell.

Later that week for my birthday we went to the mall for some face time with Santa and to get Maisy some much needed bling. Truly was all about Santa until it came time to get in his lap. She was having none of it, so Maisy and Kegan sat with him. Oh, well.

Maisy and her blingy little daisies. She hardly cried at all. She is such a good baby.

Then we finally finished decorating the christmas tree. Only a handful of broken ornaments, so a great success.

Madison figured why stress over bath time, we should just have the girls bathe themselves.....that is safe right?

Truly makes sure Maisy's feet are all clean. I think we may need a bigger tub for this.

Kegan and Truly's birthday party

We celebrated Kegan and Truly's birthdays the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun because of the family from Raceland we had in town....Nana and Pawpa, Aunt Nikki and her crew. We also had the France clan and lots of friends from both Mommy and Daddy's work and friends from school. It was a great turnout despite the frigid windy conditions. Nana insisted the girls have a jumphouse (with a slide), so we had it tied down to the house and a few trees and it was great. The kids didn't seem to mind that it was so cold, the adults however would come inside to warm up periodically.



Silly birthday girl in her birthday suit....well in a diaper, but that is close right?

singin "Happy Birthday" to the sweet bday girls

Truly and Nick coming down the slide (special thanks to cousin Hannah for getting the kids all tossed up to the slide....it was kinda hard to get up there) 

Maisy says "hey whatcha got?" 

 Even though we requested no gifts, would you believe people still sent them:) Thanks so much to everyone who did. The girls loved opening gifts.....just sorry we did it after everyone left. Couldn't get the party-goers out of the jumphouse.

A monkey hat with a monkey doll and a princess tiara and a princess doll! perfect!


 

 Truy very interested in Kegan's Leapster, I guess that is how Santa knew to get her a LeapPad

Poor Daddy, he is just trying to get the baby to sleep

Pan and Pawpa decided while watching the LSU game that this is the new "honey badger"

 The next day when I returned after dropping Nana and Pawpa off at the airport this is what I found when I got home. Two sleepy girls watching Bambi.

Every blog entry should end with some sweet happiness....it is only right

The Last of My Maternity Leave.....So Sad.

So it's officially that time already....I have to go back to work. I have already worked half a day just to ease us into it. It wasn't too bad, I think Madison had the harder end of the deal. One of the CRNA's I work with said she had to quit after 2 kids because she didn't think she could go through the emotions of leaving another one for work. It is amazing how your views on everything changes when you have kids. I love my job and never thought I would have trouble going back after having kids, but I would stay home in a minute....not my lot I suppose, so I return to work because I love my kids and want to provide for them.

Enough of that now. Last Friday I got to escape to my familiar work and Madison got to figure out how to tote all three girls to dancing class. Luckily some of the mom's there helped out on him keeping tabs on Truly while taking care of Maisy. I came home at 1:00pm and Madison was very ready for me to come home. Tomorrow I work til 3:00 and next week it'll be 5:00pm. We may be eating sandwiches for dinner for a while. I don't think I could cook with the three of them.

Ahhh, this is the stuff I'm gonna miss!

Seeing these smiles every day. This picture was when Kegan helped Madison volunteer at a women's triathlon and she spent some quality time with Sasha her favorite triathlon dog.

Kegan and Truly modeling "kimnastics" clothes, love those Meredith hand-me-downs!

Truly holding Maisy's hand in the car.....so sweet!

Maisy modeling her new clothes from cousin Leslie

I know tummy sleeping is not approved of these days or on the Boppy which clearly states on the tag that it should not be used for sleeping, but Maisy was having tummy trouble this day so I left her napping and came back to find that Kegan had checked on her and decided she needed a little Monk to keep her company. I thought it extra sweet that she took the time and effort to place Maisy's hand just so on his back. I think it made her tummy feel better.

Kegan has become quite the racer at the Red Barn. Here she was warming up to compete against those two older boys. You go girl!!!

.......and there she goes

Finishing strong showing off her bobo's from her tumble, but she kept on going. Tough girl.

I bet this is what they are gonna do all day when I'm at work.....if only.

Addicted to the paci just like Kegan....hold on to it for dear life!

catching flies

watching World Series game 1 like a true Texan!

well, hello there Truly. Wanna watch that TV with me?

Silly baby sister, just look at her.



Head Mommy!

Truly give me back Maisy's pacifier!!!!

Paci returned, the world is now right.

and speaking of the world being right, my "before I return to work list" included changing the nasty brown paint color in our room!!!! and we did it!

much better! 

oh, and breaking news as of yesterday....Truly pooped in the little potty and Kegan is showing off Truly's big girl panties. Over the diaper of course, for now, but it was a cool reward to Truly. If only we can get her to repeat that performance on a regular basis. 

Are you gonna wake up sleepy head?

Nope, Mommy, I'm not gonna do it.

Awwwww, I'm just teasin!

I finally cut Truly's hair. I waitied as long as I could and got so frustrated I just did it myself. It is no where near even, but luckily you can't tell.

Madison took the girls and their cousins play at the park while we shopped and they had a great time being pushed on the swing by cousin Oliver.

Feeding the donkey at the State Fair is hilarious don't you think?

This is Kegan demonstrating her "kimnastics", that is until she got injured. Truly we have nicknamed Monkey-do because she does whatever Kegan does....always.