Never a Dull Moment

Some of the pictures are a little older, like this one of Noah in Allison's carseat. Which is actually his old carseat but he doesn't remember.

Duck head! Allison was just a few weeks old here.

This is current. Noah is a great older brother!

Noah's most recent preferred sleeping position.

Now that Allison is all recovered we have been trying to get back into a more normal rhythm. I started a few new piano students this week. In all, I have 6 new students since the first of the year.

Last weekend Keith and I went to see the National Symphony play. They had a pianist named Leif Andsnes (not sure I spelled it right.) He's Norwegian and VERY good. They played the Rachmoninoff 3rd piano concerto. It was amazing! It's been a long time since I've been to the symphony and I forgot how much I enjoyed it. I got tickets for this week's performance of Symphonie Fantastique and took my mother-in-law. It was also very enjoyable. I hope to attend more NSO performances in the future.

We got a second car this week. We bought my brother's 98 Camry. We got it for very cheap and it's perfect for me to drive around with the kids on occasion. Most importantly, it has 4 doors. I was getting so tired of getting those kids in and out of a 2 door car.

The kids have been their usual selves. Allison has really taken a liking to solid food. Particularly the sweet ones. She really likes banannas and applesauce. But, who doesn't? Noah just about gave me a heart attack the other day by drinking gasoline. Yes, GASOLINE. How did he get gasoline, you might ask? Well, we ran out of gas a few weeks ago and Keith left the gas can on the porch. It was the second time I had to call poison control in the month. (The first time he drank all purpose cleaner.) Surprisingly, gas isn't all that hazardous when swallowed. We just had to keep him away from any open flames for a few days. Never a dull moment.

Nothing but the Good Stuff

I figured out that Noah actually didn't erase the pictures. He just somehow moved them to a separate folder on the camera. So here we go. These pictures were all taken around Christmas time.

Christmas Eve luminarios.

All of us.

Allison has mastered the poker face.

Noah in the new play room. I got it all on craigslist. I love cragislist!

This girl has an iron grip and she love to grab hair.

Learning to roll over.

Every morning Noah likes to watch Mommy put on makeup. He always insists on holding everything after I use it. Most of the time he can't get any of it open but this time he did.

BTW Allison is all better. She came down with some bad diarrhea last night and we ended up in the ER. Since she didn't respond to antibiotics so they decided she must have a virus. Today her fever is down and she's sleeping much better. The diarrhea has finally subsided this evening. Needless to say, we are very relieved. Just when I thought she couldn't get any worse, she very quickly got much better. She is very lucky to have so many friends and family who were praying for her.

A Good New, Bad News Day

So I've been meaning to post about Christmas and now we're half way through January. Where did the time go? I'll just give a brief synopsis about Christmas so as not to bore anyone with a ridiculously long post. We spent Christmas Eve with Heather's parents. They came over to our house and we made treats. Then we had a nice dinner and went caroling to a few families we know. It was really fun to see how happy they were to have carolers. It seems to be becoming a lost tradition. Then we made luminarios (sp?) which is a Huling Family tradition. We also watched a Christmas Carol which is a Stephenson family tradition. I really enjoyed combining our different family traditions to make something entirely its own. Noah REALLY enjoyed helping make the treats. He was really good at eating them too. Overall, it was a wonderful day. (I HAD pictures, but Noah got a hold of my camera and erased them all.)

Christmas Day was spent in Woodbridge with Keith's parents and also his brothers and lots of cousins. Two of Keith's brothers came into town and it was really great to spend time with everyone. We all went to Lurray Caverns and did many other fun things in the week that followed Christmas. It's was a really fun time for everyone!

So, that's the good news. Now come the not so good stuff. On Monday afternoon Allison came down with a fever. I didn't think much of it but when it didn't subside by the next day I became concerned. When it peaked at 103.7 I called the doctor. She doesn't have any other symptoms besides fever and generally being unhappy. We went in and about a dozen uncomfortable tests later, they still don't know what's wrong. Her white blood cell count is very high and she tests negative for a virus. That leaves bacterial infection. They did blood and urine cultures and we're waiting for the results. Meanwhile, they gave her two injections of antibiotics last night and two more this morning. The worst possible thing is that she has a blood infection, which is potentially life threatening. Best possible outcome is that the cultures will be negative and she'll just get over whatever it is on her own.

The doctor is optimistic after she made it through the night last night without get any worse. But, she hasn't gotten any better either. Sooner or later, she has to get better.....or worse. The doctor thinks that if she was going to get sicker she would have by now. I'm a little more skeptical, but I'm not a doctor. They gave her antibiotics which might have prevented her from getting worse but I still worry that this could be very serious. Maybe I just worry too much. I won't stop worrying until the fever breaks. We will get the results of the blood test by tomorrow. Here's hoping.