A moment break

There's a therapist from Immanuel that has worked with some of our residents. Rachel was also mom's lymphadema therapist after her surgeries. In January, she was in a severe car accident and has been in a coma since. She has two little boys that are at home with dad trying to make a new way.

I've never met Rachel personally. But I know of her, that no one has anything but wonderful things to say about her. I know that she is the same age as me. I have seen the therapists at work, heard the nurses discussing whether she can come to our building for therapies, read her husbands Caring Bridge page about his struggles while he tries to find his way through this almost impossible situation. I know that for all the grief the family is going through, they will never know the amount that other people are caring, praying, grieving as well. Sitting  on this side of a traumatic, impossible situation has given me pause and a few tears during the past 2 months.

On Saturday, they are having a fundraiser for Rachel and her family. If you wake up feeling like having pancakes, this might be the place to go instead of Village Inn. If pancakes aren't in your plans, if you have a spare prayer for Rachel and her family, that would be great too.

Can you March?

That's right - we're Marching for Babies! If you would like to walk with us, we'd LOVE to have you! We have a taem for our Quiet Light Foundation. It's free to sign up to walk, you can raise money if you can. What else would you rather be doing on a warm May morning than going for a walk with 2 adorable little twins???

March for Babies

Clicking the link will take you to our team page to sign up with us. It's just 38 days away! Here's some more details -

May 1, 2011

Mahoney State Park
28500 West Park Hwy
Ashland, NE 68003

Walk Distance: 3 miles

Registration Time: 9:00 AM
Start Time: 10:00 AM
Chapter: Northeast Division
(402) 496-7111



The park

This past weekend was the first time it was nice over the weekend. No snow, above 40 degrees, no rain, not lots of wind - it was awesome. So to celebrate, we had our first ever trip to the park.



Parker LOVES to swing. He smiles and looks all around then bounces in the swing. 

 Payton was pretty concerned with some girls running around near by.

 If we would have tried this last year, they would have fallen through the leg holes in the swings.

See the smile on Parker's face?

 We tried out the little bouncy things. Parker thought they were fun, but still needs some help maintaining his balance up there.

 I showed Payton the handles on it and she got it after a minute. She's deep in concentration working on her ride.

 Payton likes to slide, but was more interested in trying to climb up it as soon as she reached the bottom. She was mad when we took her off the slide to go do something else.

Super cool man in his hoodie loved the slide. Can you tell?

It was a great way to get outside and celebrate the 1st day of Spring. Who wants to meet at the park?

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Last year, this was us...

This year, this is us...

Time flies when you're having fun...or when you're too tired to notice :)

Hope you had a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Winter hats

Aunt Bo got us special winter hats for this winter. They are SUPER cute, but we haven't worn them in a while. If we're lucky we're totally done with them (fingers crossed). In case you haven't seen them, we wanted to make sure that you do before they get put away. :)

Another winter night

We try to avoid lots of people, crowds, etc. since we tend to catch anything that we come into contact with.  It's been a long week and it's only Tuesday. The babies have been more than a handful and super crabby, I've been sick, they've been sick, no ones sleeping, and gosh darn it, we're sick of being stuck at home! What do you do on a Tuesday night when it's about 35 degrees and raining so that you avoid most people? You go where they aren't - getting ice cream! So, we packed up with grandma and went to see Aunt Bo at Christy Creme.

Time for some vanilla ice cream and a couple french fries (at least for Parker).

Random pics

1-1

We're 1-1...1 sick kiddo, 1 well kiddo

I got the call Thursday morning from respite care - "Amy, Payton is sick. You'll have to come pick her up." Ugh. So I took off from work and went to pick them both up and go home for the day. She couldn't keep anything in - either end. Yuck! It got so bad Thursday night, I had to dunk her in the tub to clean her up while she was screaming at me for not feeling good and Parker was screaming at me because I left him in the living room by himself and he chased me with his backpack on.

A short term fever Friday when she stayed home with dad, a weekend of her being totally blah and not wanting to eat anything and by Monday afternoon I'd had enough. We went to the doc. He checked her over, nothing else going on. He could test for different flu viruses, but why? No reason to make her more mad and she wasn't dehydrated or anything. She screamed the whole time he checked her out, Parker cried because sister was mad. Fun times. And you realize when the doc says that her puking for 5 days is the healthiest he's seen her in a really long time, just how chronically sick your kids are.

I kept her home yesterday just as a precaution. There were 14 kids out of respite care Monday for being sick. The doc said he'd seen lots of flu, pneumonia and RSV. Great. They had had to admit 3 kids directly to the hospital from the office in the past week. So glad that wasn't us this time.

She was happy to go back this morning. She squealed when she saw her girls who were very happy to see her too. She's a little unsteady and sleepy still but hopefully she'll have a good day. And mom can get some laundry and cleaning done. And keep my fingers crossed Parker doesn't get it.