Chase

About three days after we brought Chase home from the hospital Abbie started in with a cold. It did the rounds with the family and settled on Chase. He started with it about 3 days before Christmas. On the Friday after Christmas we thought he was doing better. However, Friday night he started disintegrating and by Saturday evening he was seriously retracting and head bobbing (a really bad sign I found out later). We took him to the ER where they gave him an albutiral breathing treatment. Then they took xrays. Before they even came back with those they calmly told me that Chase and I would not be going home for several days. The xrays looked like this:


If you look on the rights side of his lung (the left side on the picture) you can see a fuzziness. The doctors said it was either pneumonia or RSV, both are very serious for a three week baby who weighs less than 6 1/2 pounds. After a bunch of tests and blood draws they wheeled the two of us up to the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit).
I was very distraught at seeing my son hooked up to a bunch of wires and tubes. I have never had a child sick like this before. Here is my pip squeak in his red jail sale.



The final diagnosis: RSV. He was in the PICU until Sunday afternoon. Then we moved to a step down unit and were there until Tuesday night. We asked all of our family to pray we could bring home Chase by Tuesday and sure enough by Tuesday late afternoon they released us with oxygen. We strongly believe it was because of so many of your faith and prayers that he has done so well. I took him to his pediatrition yesterday and he told me that Chase is much better than he had expected.

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas. We were greatly blessed to have one set of grandparents for the last few weeks. This was the first time we have had any immediate family come to our home for Christmas. Abbie, Porter, Makelle, and Chase have LOVED having them here. The kids really enjoyed the wonderful gifts from everyone. Everyone had more fun being together than actually getting presents.

We welcomed Chase Patrick on Monday, December 1, 2008. He weighed in at a whopping 5 pounds 11 ounces. He is long and lanky at 20 inches. He looks similar to Porter. We will post more later.

Feeding the Birds

So the same day we went to the park we met up with some friends who brought bread to feed the ducks and geese. I tried to get pics of the other two feeding the birds, but the best one I had was of Makelle. The goose actually ate the bread out of her hand without nipping her fingers which was impressive to me because one of the morsels she fed him was the same size as her little fingers. She loved it though. Abbie was fine with them until she turned around and realized that there were about five of them waiting for bread right behind her. Then she got a little scared. Porter just loved the whole thing. Makelle also loved chasing after the birds. Reminds me of my other little girl who we have pics of chasing ducks. Maybe they have some farm life in them yet.

More Fall Pics

Fall Pics

I just can't resist taking the kids to the park on a beautiful fall day and take pictures of them. They love playing in the leaves and sticks. The down side is that it is hard to get three kids to pose for you as well as be the photographer. Makelle especially has a hard time sitting down or standing still for the moments I want here to. But, then again, how do you convince a not-quite-two year old to hold still.

My mother had a rocking chair that I remember being rocked in as a child. After she passed away it fell into disrepair and somebody had broken the arm. I asked my dad if I could fix it and it has taken me almost two years to get it done. I would like to thank my Father-in-law for doing 98% of the fixing and stripping of it (I stained it). Since that time it has taken the last ten months and three sets of cushions and material that I destroyed to finally come to the finished product. It isn't great, but looks okay from far away. It was such a learning project and I am so grateful to be done. This next baby will be the first of the grandchildren to be rocked again in Mom's chair. He will be pretty special.