Friday, June 19, 2009

Happy Birthday Chuck!

I am long overdue for a post but it has been busy in a not so good sort of way around here. Mike had his shoulder surgery last week and that went really well. It was his first surgery as you may have read but he did great and has no pain whatsoever. He did try to stretch out the sympathy for many days but overall he got back into the swing of things quickly. Ella on the other had has had a rollercoaster of a sickness. We are still trying to figure out exactly what is going on but it seems to have worsened over the last 2 weeks. When it started out it was just here and there with "the runs" and throwing up a time or two. Now every 3 or 4 days she gets really sick and hasn't eaten much in between. She has dropped a lot of weight - for a 4 year old 34 pound girl anyway. Her shorts yesterday wouldn't even stay up so after holding them up for half the day she just took them off. The doctor has tested her for lots of things and luckily (or frustratingly) everything has come back normal. I am very thankful that everything is checking out ok but I am still frustrated that she is so miserable. Her stomach and intestines cramp so bad that she cries in her sleep and she has zero energy. She has been napping for about 3 hours everyday (except today) and then going to bed on time and getting up on time or late. I think today she has eaten 6 saltines and about 10 very small sips of activia yogurt. We are hoping that this is over very soon. She wants to go and do so many things but just can't. Eli and Landon have been very good through all of this and allowed us to stay home and play in the backyard and during rainy days we have played lots of games and read lots of books. Ella felt like going out the other day and we thought she was "on the mend" but as soon as we got there she didn't play at all.

Today marks 2 weeks and 3 days since the first symptoms appeared but 2 weeks since it got bad. Please pray for her to feel better soon. She cries often saying "I will never, ever, ever feel better" which breaks our hearts.

Outside of that, summer is definitely here. In the 90's today and for the next couple of days. We had lots of rain earlier in the week but now that it is so hot we would really like to dive into the pool. The heat and rain has brought the mosquitos out like crazy. Eli must be really sweet as one morning we counted about 15 mosquito bites on him. Since then we have been pretty over the top about putting spray on him.

Some of our fun events since the last post was a visit from Pappy Lee, a trip to visit Damion, Kara, Aiden, and their new baby Abram; we also had a party for some friends who are moving to Georgia. We will miss you guys but you better keep in touch.

Lastly, the charcoal of Ella above was done by our good friend Joel Shelton - I will post the one of Landon as soon as I have that one back from being framed.