An update

 Well, to continue the story from the last post, the sickness in our house didn't stop like I had hoped. Last Saturday and Sunday I became very sick and ended up having fever, a sinus infection, pink eye in both eyes and a stomach virus!!

I took 3 days off work to recover.  I don't think I have felt that bad in a very long time!! Thankfully, my wonderful parents took the kids for us.  We didn't want them to get sick and I knew I couldn't take care of them very well. Tony was tending to me, but careful to not get too close. We didn't want him to get sick as he recovers from surgery!

During the worst of my sickness, God gave me a little encouragement from my bed.  My bedspread happened to stick up like this (the under side) and there was a cross...reminding me that He is with me always!! Love how God does small things like this to help us through difficult times.

After a couple of days, I was feeling better and the kids returned back home. We missed them so much, but were so thankful for time to recover.
Upon their return, I took Kaitlyn's temp. and you wouldn't believe....that girl STILL had fever! Her fever ended up lasting 17 days. Oh my!!!
It finally ended and I have never been so glad to see a fever go!


One of the fun activities we are doing to count down days until Christmas is something I saw on Pinterest.  I wrapped 24 Christmas books (books I had, my mom had, and some I borrowed) in newspaper and placed them in a little red bin under the tree.

 Each day until Christmas, one of the girls gets to open a book and we all read it together! It's a wonderful cost free activity and my girls are REALLY enjoying it! It's a surprise every night (even if they already know the books).

We also made a Christmas chain and each day we take off a link and read what it says to do.  Sometimes it says, "Bake Christmas cookies " or " Have a picnic by the Christmas tree" etc.  Our church provided this for us and they love this too!

Nothing fancy, but here is the little red bin with 24 books

 wrapped with love (in newspaper!) :)

 The first night, Kaitlyn got to tear off a link from the chain. It said "Retell the Christmas story". She used the nativity set to help. (They love this set!)

 I thought the picture below was cute of the girls....all dressed up for church and sitting at the piano together. They really want to learn how to play. I started lessons last summer, but we weren't very consistent. I need to start them up again while they are so interested.

 We had to move our piano out of the office and into our breakfast room to make room for......

 A baby grand piano! :)  Someone GAVE us their piano! I have always wanted a baby grand and we are so thankful that we were able to have this one. How fun it will be to have all the girls playing on it one day.

Just as things were settling down and everyone was finally healing, we had one more little bump in the road. Tony called me Monday and told me he was at the ER. He was having a pain in his chest. He was worried about a possible blood clot. They ran many tests on him, and thankfully everything was clear. Not sure what's causing the pain, but we are all thankful it doesn't seem to be serious.  He got home around 9pm that evening. Poor thing.

Tomorrow is our last BSF (Bible Study Fellowship) before Christmas break and I'm thankful that I get to go. My eyes are still recovering and I'm still wearing my glasses instead of contacts, but I'm sure it will continue to heal and the pink eye will be gone soon. (They said it could take up to 2 weeks)

Here's hoping that NEXT week is a healthy one! :)