Here's what 21 wks and a few days looks like on me.....

What a fun week we have had! Miss A. continues to improve leaps and bounds. She is standing independently now (under protest, of course!), but the truth is that SHE CAN DO IT! She decided to take a few steps at physical therapy this week, which in turn made her momma (aka. me) bawl like a baby. Her therapists provided her with a walker, as well, and she is getting the hang of moving around in the upright position. Hopefully, this will facilitate her desire to continue to want to walk, and soon she won't need the apparatus anymore. One of her therapists hopes to see her walking w/out assistance by Christmas. That would be the greatest present for mommy and daddy!

Miss M. and Mr. J. received their report cards and both of them earned terrific grades. We celebrated by going out to dinner and then took a trip to the Dollar Store (our kids favorite store!) They have both set some pretty ambitious goals for next quarter. Miss M. is figuring on a horse (she has expensive taste!) if she gets straight A's, and Mr. J. would like another trip to the Dollar Tree. Something tells me that we will go for J's reward, not M's.

D' continues to crack mommy up. He comes up w/the silliest things to say. The other day, he was sitting on my lap and got a very perplexed look on his face. He started sniffing the air (think dog sniffing the air) and remarked w/a little bit of disgust in his voice, "hey mom, what's that smell you smell like?" I replied, "why D', do I stink?" He said, "no mom, you smell .......DELICIOUS!" After picking myself up off the floor from laughter, we went into the bathroom and sprayed his blankey w/my perfume. He walked around the house the rest of the day sniffing his blankey and telling me it was "dewishwish."

This past Friday, we had our 21 wk ultrasound. We thought it would be fun for the older two kiddo's to go along, and they thought it was great to see their little peanut up close and sort of personal. I have been studying ultrasound pictures on the internet, so I consider myself to be somewhat of an "expert" on determining what's what...heehee. We weren't going to find out the gender, but in a moment of weakness on my part, I blurted out the sex. If you don't want to know, don't read the next sentence....yeah right! It's a girl (at least we think at this point)!! We had a name all picked out, but now I'm second guessing, so any suggestions can be left under "comments."

Anyhoo, that's what's new over here.


And for you mom, as requested.......21 wks and a few days.....

Yes, you can see that I have an ever expanding "girthiness" about me.

Follow up on Isaac....

For those who have read the previous post (prayer request), I am posting this follow-up from the G' family blog. Praise be to God that Isaac is on his way to recovering from swine flu!!

Answered Prayer - Isaac
All,
We got the "ok" to go home today, Monday the 16th, with an IV! Meaning Isaac is doing good enough to let us take care of him at home and we will be responsible for administering the antibiotics for minimum of 10 days through the IV.
We can't tell you how excited we are to hear his laugh again and see the energy a 6 year old should have. We know we could not do it without all the support, prayers and strength the Lord gave us. Isaac will be on an IV antibiotic with the first check up in 10 days. This check will look at blood work again to look at the infection levels and to see how much longer before we can give him medicine orally instead of an IV.
He will be allowed to go back to school once we are comfortable with his strength. Tami did a perfect job keeping him up on the school work from the 4 weeks he missed, making a hospital room exciting for 3 weeks and always showing the love only a mother can give while I focused on keeping his tickle sensors active and movie watching capabilities up to par!
Isaac has had no less than 30 doctors working with him, 2 CT scans, 15 X-rays, 25 needle pokes and countless blood draws. In addition to the 2 aggressive antibiotics he was on, they had around the clock Tylenol and ibuprofen in him to combat the discomfort and fever.
There were 2 additional breathing medications he had to inhale for 15 minutes every 4-6 hours for 8 days along with wearing a vest that shook his whole upper body to break up the pneumonia.
He was in the hospital for 23 days, had a fever for approximately 27 days and missed 4 weeks of school. He celebrated his 6th birthday and Halloween while in the hospital and will need to gain back the 12% of his body weight he lost.
He has quite a bit of dead lung tissue which we are told should slowly come back. He still has some fluid along with an abscess. All of which are the reasons he is still on the IV antibiotic for an extended amount of time
Emily his sister met numerous new people with all the blessed help picking her up from school and occupying her on a non-school days while dad and mom traded off watching Isaac and working. Dad was saved from cooking cereal everyday for meals with all the support we had from families dropping food off!
Mom is with Isaac today going through the training for the home treatment and all the hospital check out procedures and with any luck will be home by this afternoon. We were told several times not to underestimate the amount of infection he had in his body and the fragile condition he is still in for the next several weeks. Please pray for continued recovery, protection against any relapses over the next several weeks and for Isaac to regain his muscle and strength during his recovery.
Ray, Tami, Isaac, Emily and silly dog Baile

A little of this....a little of that......

With all of the "goings on" around this place lately, I have admittedly been ignoring my blog. I have spent the past two weeks trying to get over a nasty cold and finally broke down yesterday and headed to the doctor. Diagnosis.....sinus infection and bronchitis. I took all four of the kids w/me to the appt., and they were awesome. I was very proud of them! I'm happy to report that after only a day on antibiotics I am feeling much better! :)

Since it's been a bit since my last post, I thought I'd bring you up to speed on what's new at the VK ranch.

1. The pregnancy is going well. I'm feeling little squirt move around quite a bit now.

2. Last weekend, my sister, brother-in-law, nephew and niece came for a visit from Idaho to visit their daughter (Bri) that lives with us. It was fun to spend time with them and have them around for a bit. Miss M. and Cousin Syd are b/f/f's, and they both LOVE it when they see each other. We were able to all attend one of Bri's college soccer games together. Since it was Halloween weekend, we decided to head off for our annual tradition of trick-o-treating at the local shopping mall. Miss M. was a hippie, Mr. J., jr. dressed in his traditional Chinese suit, D' was a skunk (thanks, Kathi for the costume! :), A' was a jolly little dinosaur, and Cousin Syd was a rocker-chick. We met up with my other sister(Auntie A') and nephew,Dunk for a fun night w/family. We polished off the night by going out to pizza for din-din. Fun times!

The week stayed fairly busy w/basketball, meetings, kid-running, etc. I'm afraid I have been bit by the dreadful commercialism bug of Christmas. Yes, folks....I gave into all of the beautiful displays and advertisements and shopped before Thanksgiving....gasp! The deals were great, and I couldn't resist! I am hoping to be completely done in the next few weeks, but we'll see how far I get.

Yesterday, we attended my nieces last soccer game of the year. She did awesome her first year playing at the college level and ended up being the 2nd highest scorer on their team. Yay, Bri! I can't believe how brutal girls of her age play. She came home with some nasty bruises, scratches, and cuts, but I suppose it is all in a days work. She's a tough little cookie.

Last night my sister-in-law (Auntie C), M' and I went out to dinner at Red Robin. We then went to the see the Sound of Music. The performers were SO talented! I wish that I could sing like them. I spent the greater part of the day pathetically trying to belt out Edelweiss, but I am no Julie Andrews, nor am I the lovely vocalist who performed last night. :) We enjoyed it so much that we are hoping to see The Nutcracker in early December.

A few prayer requests for those reading.......

Please keep my brother-in-law, Ben in your prayers. He is leaving tomorrow for Ft. Carson, Colorado to continue his service to our country in the United States Army. He will most likely be deployed to Afghanistan, or Iraq within the next month. May God bless him and all those who selflessly serve our country and protect our freedom.

Please keep my other brother-in-law, Dan in your prayers also. He will be leaving for basic training in about 23 days to serve in the United States Marine Corp. The whole family is so proud of these boys. Way to go Ben and Dan!

Please keep my dear friend, Kathi's cousin Isaac in your prayers. He is a young boy who is suffering greatly from complications related to swine flu. He has been hospitalized for a few weeks, and obviously it has been a very difficult time for his family and for him.