Poor Baby

Yesterday, I chaperoned Emily's class field trip to the Victory Ship. (If you've never heard of it, it's an old WWII warship that is docked behind the Florida Aquarium.) My Aunt Kathie kept Katie for me while I was out with Emily for the day. When I returned to pick Katie up, my aunt informed me that Katie had hardly eaten anything all day. Not such a terrible thing - maybe she just hadn't been hungry.

After Sarah got home from school, I took the girls (including one of Sarah's friends) to the Olive Garden for dinner. Katie usually loves it there because she is crazy about their breadsticks. I figured that since she hadn't eaten much all day that she would be pretty hungry, too. I figured WRONG! Not only did Katie not want to eat - even her beloved breadsticks - but she was miserable and yelling the entire time we were there. All I could do was beg the older girls to please hurry and finish their food so we could get out of there.

Once we got home, I took Katie's temperature and it was 102.7. No wonder she hadn't been eating or acting right all day! She was sick, duh! So, I gave her some Tylenol and rushed her up to the After Hours Pediatrics office, because I was afraid to wait until this morning to see her regular pediatrician. THAT was a HUGE WASTE of TIME and MONEY!

The "doctor" there said that Katie looked just fine to her. She could see no signs of infection, so her fever must be being caused by a virus, and we should just keep treating her fever with Tylenol and Motrin and wait for her to get over it. Something about her diagnosis just didn't sit right with me, and when Katie was still running such a high fever this morning (up to 103 by then) I called her pediatrician and asked if I should go with what the other "doctor" had said or bring her in to be checked out. He said to bring her right in.

Since I had to get Sarah to a friend's house for a ride to volunteer with our church youth group at Metropolitan Ministries, and get Emily to her soccer game, too, I had Phil take Katie to the doctor. As it turns out, Katie is NOT infection-free as I was told last night. Her throat is bright red and her glands are swollen. Luckily, it's not Strep, but it was still pretty bad. Since we had already wasted $30 on the After Hours co-pay, Dr. Bob gave Phil some samples of the antibiotic so we wouldn't have to pay for them. Hopefully, she'll be feeling better very soon.

So Very Tired

So, about three weeks ago, my doctor diagnosed me with anemia. I was a bit shocked, but it totally made sense to me since I had been so very tired. She prescribed me some iron pills, that my insurance won't cover by the way, so I thought I would start feeling better soon. Of course, I never thought I'd feel great, seeing as my asthma is a constant issue, too, but I thought I'd at least feel a little better.
Alas, I feel no change at all. I did feel okay for a few hours on Wednesday morning, because I had gotten to go to bed at 7:30 the night before, but that feeling didn't last long. By the end of the day I was worn out again. I don't know how I'm going to make it through the holidays feeling like this. I have all of this stuff that I want to get done, like shopping for Christmas, but I just don't have the energy to do much, if any, of it.

Doctor, Doctor

Katie turned fifteen months old today, so off to the doctor we went for her check-up. Katie weighed in at 20 pounds 4 ounces, and is 31 1/2 inches tall. She's tall and skinny, and well on her way to being a supermodel.

Katie also got a few shots today. Ouch! She got her MMR, her pneumoccochal vaccine, her chicken pox vaccine, and her flu shot. Gotta keep my baby healthy! Thankfully, Katie took her shots like a champ and has been in a good mood all afternoon. She even put up with me dragging her to the mall for a while after her appointment.

Hug-N-Farm

Tuesday morning, our playgroup went on a field trip to Granma's Hug-n-Farm. Katie got to see and pet lots of farm animals. We also got to go on a hayride. Katie had a blast.

Out of all of the farm animals, Katie's favorite one was this dog. So, of course, she had to give him a kiss!

Here Katie is showing me the donkey that she and Julianna were looking at.

Katie loved petting the soft little bunny in this picture. She also enjoyed chasing the bunnies around with the rest of the kids.

Look, Ma! No hands! Katie did so well on the "phony pony" that she thinks she's ready for the real thing.

Congratulations, Emily!

Congratulations to Emily for getting her first ever report card with straight A's on it. Emily is very proud of herself and I am very proud of her, too. This is especially exciting because at conference time I was told that she was borderline between A's and B's in four of her subjects and that her grades could go either way. And then she got sick and missed a few days right before the end of the quarter. Apparently, working so hard on the make-up work really paid off for her.

Another congratulations to Emily's soccer team, the Fireballs, on their first win of the season today. Emily missed the game last weekend, but from what I've been told, they played a team of Amazons and lost 7-3. Today, they were much more evenly matched with the team they played, at least size-wise, and won 5-0. Way to go, girls!

Here We Go Again...

This is what my dear eldest daughter looked like four years ago:


And this is what she looks like now:

She barely looks like the same kid. She definitely has lost all of her babyness, if that's even a word. She really becoming her own person, and very independent.

This Is Halloween

Happy Halloween! This is my daughter, Katie, not dressed up as a cute pink poodle. I had decided to buy her an adorable pink poodle costume, and then I happened upon this equally adorable Tinkerbell costume one day when I was in the mall, and I got all nostalgic. You see, Sarah and Emily were both also Tinkerbell for Halloween when they were Katie's age. So, I thought, why not stick with the tradition for Katie? She can always be a pink poodle next year if she wants.


Emily had wanted to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer for Halloween this year. Not the Sarah Michelle Gellar version, but the Kristie Swanson version. But we had a difficult time getting our hands on a decent cheerleading uniform (meaning not a cheap party store costume), so at the last minute, she borrowed a costume from my mother and went trick-or-treating as Little Red Riding Hood.


And then there's Sarah. I told Sarah last year that it would be her last year of trick-or-treating. So, this year, I reminded her that she would be passing out candy at home while I took her younger sisters around the neighborhood. Then my mother got all involved and whined and cried and insisted that Sarah be allowed to go trick-or-treating with us. SO, I finally gave up and said she could go if my mother came over to pass out the candy for us. And after all of that, in full costume, ready to walk out the door, Sarah changed her mind and decided to stay at home and pass out the candy.
I don't care what she says next year, her butt is staying home and passing out candy!

Forget It

Forget everything I said about wanting to lose some weight. I give up. Right now, I am dealing with so many health problems, most of them mine, some of them my family's, that I just can't even fathom trying to diet or exercise.
I still haven't gotten around to purchasing a new scale, but I have been to the doctors' offices so much lately that I've been getting a good reading at least once a week. And it's not pretty. At first, I did lose a little weight (1-2 pounds), but now I am up quite a bit from that. At my last visit on Monday, I weighed in at nearly 147 pounds. That's 12 pounds above my goal weight, and 5 pounds more than what I weighed when I started on this weight loss journey.
So, I am waving the white flag. No more worrying about my weight. At least not until I get my health issues under control.

Orlando Vacation - Part Two

I like mine with lettuce and tomatoes, Heinz 57 and french fried potatoes, big kosher pickle and a cup of milk? Hey, she's a baby! No beer for her yet. We had lunch on Saturday at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. This is a sort of tradition for our family. Pretty much anytime we are in Orlando, we eat at Margaritaville.


Here's Katie sitting at one of the dining tables in the food court of the mall at NFS. She is waiting patiently for Daddy to cut up her dinner so she can eat it.


My three beautiful girls. We were hanging out by one of the pools at NFS waiting for Phil to check us out of the hotel. Sarah and Emily can barely keep their eyes open because they were out partying the night away the night before.


We ate lunch at the Seafire Inn at Sea World on Sunday. We like this restaurant because they have a dueling pianos show. Katie didn't previously like strawberries, but as you can tell from this picture, she certainly loves them now. She was very unhappy when all of the strawberries were gone. I can't wait to take her strawberry picking again next year!


Because it is nearly Halloween, Sea World was all decked out in fall and Halloween themed decorations. They were actually having their Halloween Spooktackular while we were there, but unfortunately, shortly after taking this picture, it started raining on us so we decided to head home early. Of course, it was a good thing we did, because the girls were so tired they really needed some rest. Sarah fell asleep in the car first, followed shorty after by Emily. Katie lasted for a good half-hour longer, but eventually fell asleep, too.

Orlando Vacation - Part One

Welcome to the Nickelodeon Family Suites! Phil and I took our girls to the Nickelodeon Family Suites in Orlando for the weekend. Sarah and Emily had Friday off from school, so we thought it would be a good idea to spend the long weekend in Orlando. Unfortunately, Phil ended up having to work overnight Thursday night, so we got a very late start on our trip. By the time we were ready to head out, it was getting close to dinner time, and the after work traffic was still pretty bad. So, we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner. We eventually made it to Orlando. That is, after we got lost trying to find the hotel because the directions on their website were completely incorrect.


As you can see from these pictures of the swimming pools at the hotel, the girls had a great time while we were there. With all of the water slides, it was more like being at a water park than a hotel pool.


There was a party Saturday night at the Lagoon pool. Phil took the girls and they had a blast. Emily swam while Sarah danced and participated in contests. Sarah actually won the musical chairs competition, so she was very proud of herself.


These next two pictures were taken from up high on the Skytower at Sea World. They are of the new Aquatica water park that Sea World is building. Aquatica is scheduled to open up in the Spring of 2008.


The girls have been excited about Aquatica for a while now, but after getting a "sneak peak" of the park, they are even more excited about going. Good thing they only have a few months left until it actually opens!