Yes I do realize it's already June 8, but I'm still amazed that June is here. It snuck up on me for sure! I can't believe in 12 short days my little sweetheart will be 1 year old!!! I have so enjoyed every minute with my precious baby girl. She is such a blessing in so many ways.
O.K., so I've once again got some catching up to do. Granted I have had an incredibly busy time the past couple of weeks. Hmmm, lets start with Memorial Day weekend. We went home for that weekend and the following week mainly to house hunt. That Saturday, May 29, was Atalie's birthday party (though her actual birthday is June 3). It was Elliana's first birthday party to attend and I think both girls enjoyed themselves. Amberly made Atalie's cake and it was adorable! She made a monkey face with chocolate and peanut butter icing. It was cute and great tasting! I'm going to have to decide on Elliana's cake soon. I'm thinking about doing a kitty cake since she really seems to love cats. Anyhow, the party was fun. Granny and Popie got to come and we all had a good time catching up and enjoying the babies.
We had planned to go to coolidge park the next morning to let the girls play in the water and ride the carosel. However, Bryson woke up sick Sunday morning. He had a stomach bug that was thankfully short lived and only lasted about 12 hours. I felt bad for him to be sick on his time off from work. We just decided to hang out Sunday since it also decided to storm that day as well.
Monday night we went to a cookout at the Rogers house. Amberly came with Atalie and lots of Bryson's family was there. It's always good to get together and eat with family. Atalie and Elliana enjoyed splashing their feet in the pool, though it was still too cold to get in.
Tuesday I had an OB appointment with my new doctor in Chattanooga. Amberly got to go with us since they were going to be doing an ultrasound. Apparently this doctor's office does an ultrasound every single visit, awesome! Baby Kade is doing great. He was sure to remind us that he is STILL a boy on the ultrasound. :) He was wiggling and giving us a show. I liked Dr. Brody. He was very personable and helpful. Everything looked great with the baby and we were soon on our way to one of our favorite restuarants, Sweet Basil. It's soooo good!
Tuesday night Elliana started acting like she felt bad. She didn't sleep well at all and woke up with a fever. Bless her heart, it was obvious that she felt miserable. We really didn't know what was wrong, but figured we better get her checked out in case it was an ear infection so we could start antibiotics a.s.a.p.. We took her in and her ears looked great. They decided to do a white blood cell count and swab her for strep. The doc said in the past they basically never even swabbed a baby under the age of 2 for strep because it was so rare for them to get it, but he'd had a rash of babies with strep lately. We waited in the room for the results and sure enough her strep test came back positive! Poor thing. I haven't had strep in a long time, but it is no fun! They were talking about giving her antibiotics and Bryson mentioned the fact that growing up he always ended up having to get the penicilan shot because the antibioitcs just didn't do it for him. He'd do a round of the anitbiotics and come back 2 weeks later and still have strep! Knowing this and the potential for Elliana to be the same way we opted to just do the shot and be done with it. With a sore throat who wants to swallow medicine for multiple days? Besides, the shot is a one time deal and it works more quickly. Having said all this in favor of the shot, let me say it was a mean one! That stuff is thick and they have to go deep! She still has a bruise from it today.
Later that day Bryson and Marianne went house hunting. I decided to stay home with the baby because I just couldn't leave her when she was feeling so rotten. Bryson didn't have a whole lot of luck, but at least we had gotten a start on finding a house. I had been working on a list of places to look at for about 2 weeks so we had tons to see.
Thursday was our official big house hunting day. Elliana was still sick, but seemed somewhat better so I left her with Marianne. Bryson and I took off for Chattanooga. We looked at several places, apartments, townhomes, and houses for rent. We have decided renting is our best option until we can save a decent down payment to build. Anyhow, either the prices just weren't right, the house was in horrible condition, or the places were in a bad areas. We were both tired from all the sickness and running around we'd been doing and were quite dissapointed to have driven all over the place with really no luck. We had really hoped to have a definite by that night so we could take Elliana to the zoo for an early b-day present. However, that did not work out at all.
Friday Elliana was still not seeming to feel right. The doc had said withing 24 hours we should see a huge improvement, but she was still running a temp. of around 102 and not feeling well at all. Also, Bryson woke up with a sore throat. Geez, does it ever end!? So we headed to chattanooga for a doctor's visit for Bryson as well as one for Elliana. They decided Elliana had a virus on top of the strep. Poor baby was having a rought time. Bryson's strep test came back negative, but they gave him a z-pack anyhow. As the day went on both Elliana and Bryson seemed to get better thankfully. Oh yes, my sister Amy and her friend Keeley had come up late Thursday night and so they were with us so they could see Elliana some. Amy is rarely home, she lives in Albany Ga, so it was great to get to see her.
Saturday we woke up with a healthy household and decided to go ahead and go to the Chattanooga Zoo. Bryson, Elliana, Amberly, Daly, Atalie, Ashley, and I all loaded up and went to the zoo. Amy and Keeley went as well, but quickly decided it was way too hot to be out so they headed home. The kids all had a blast looking at all the animals, and I did as well. I guess I still have a bit of little kid left in me. It was family fun day that day so they had some extra stuff going on they made it even more interesting for the kids. It's a smaller zoo, which worked out great with two babies. They were getting tired by the time we were finishing up walking through. They had a carosel near the entrance/exit so of course we had to stop by and ride that. On the way home we met back up with Amy and Keeley and ate at the Chinese buffet in Tiftonia. All in all it was a wonderful day!
Oh, I almost forgot about the house. Thankfully we found a house for rent in Bryant that seems like it will work out well. Thank you Lord! The rent is low, which will help us save more quickly for our house. It's small, only a 2 bedroom, 1 bath. Elliana will really be learning to share soon with her little brother's arrival in September. We do have a nice front and back yard and are close to both sides of the family, which will be convient when we need help with the kids. It's not an ideal location as far as Bryson's drive to work. I think it's about 40 miles away, but we'll make do. Of course we are looking forward to the day when we'll (hopefully) make our LAST move into our own home. (This move will make our 6th in less than 5 years of marriage!) We are expecting to save enough for our down payment in 2 to 3 years if things go as planned. In the meantime, we are thankful to have finally found a place to live.
Sunday was leaving day for everyone and now we are back to the daily grind. This week I am preparing to move, changing our address, canceling sevices, cleaning, etc... Two weeks from now we should be settled into our new place! That pretty much sums it up... in a nutshell, ha! I know I make a long story extra long, but I don't like leaving out details. Maybe if I'd blog more frequently I wouldn't have so much to cover!
Attie's monkey cake!
The birthday girl and part of her b-day crew
The birthday girl and her huge chocolate smile!
nana with 3 of her 4 granddaughters...and the monkey ;)
Well darn, it's not letting me upload the rest of my pics just now (I probably over loaded the system with all my blogging!) Anyhow, will update with more pics later. Time to register for baby Kade at Wal-mart!
