Merry Christmas...

... from our family to yours! We hope that you have a beautiful Christmas!

Jesus, Light of the World
by: Third Day

The most beautiful night of the year
All the stars light up the sky
And the city is sparkling with silver and gold
From a million points of light
A reflection of something that’s deeper within
Just a flicker of something more

Jesus, Light of the World
Shine through the darkness
Bright as the day
Jesus, Light of the World
Shine in our hearts
Show us the way tonight

Who is this child in a manger?
Kings bow down and angels sing
The Lord of the Universe
Has come here to save us
A precious Offering
All the heavens above and the earth below
Are filled with the light of Your love

Jesus, Light of the World
Shine through the darkness
Bright as the day
Jesus, Light of the World
Shine in our hearts
Show us the way tonight

Jesus, Light of the World
Shine through the darkness
Bright as the day
Jesus, Light of the World
Shine in our hearts
Show us the way

Jesus, shine, shine
Show us the way
Light of the world
Shine in our hearts
Show us the way tonight,
Oh, Show us the way tonight

May Jesus be a light in your world today and always! He is the way, the truth, and the life! God Bless and Merry Christmas! Thank you, Father, for sending your Son to us... born a helpless babe... raised by a young girl and her husband... to lead a group of disciples and spread The Word... to die on the cross for all of our sins. You are an awesome God, and we worship you!

With love this Christmas Day,
erin

Talking to "Gukie"

(Please note that this is a video. In order to view it, you must visit my blog. Thanks!)

One of Julia's favorite friends (she positively LIGHTS UP when he is around!) is Lucas. (We also call him Lukie.) Julia knows Lucas through daycare and Lucas' mommy is one of my besties. Lucas is off with his family to North Dakota for the holidays, and Julia is sure to miss him. She was ever so excited when I put their holiday card up and it was low enough for her to see... and talk to... and play peek-a-boo with...! SO CUTE!And... I realized, that besides "Jesus" and "Raven" (neither of which she does very often and they are hard to understand), she absolutely knows who Lucas is... "Gukie!", she screams. "Gukie!" SO CUTE!

erin

Conversations

(Please note that this is a video. In order to view it, you must visit my blog. Thanks!)

I have tried lately to be better at capturing video of Raven as she is starting to make noises and such. Julia is very interested in what I am doing when I am videoing, so she is often involved as well. Here you can see the three of us having a multitude of conversations.

New Family Hobby: Cheese

We decided to start a "family hobby" and our family hobby is making cheese.  We haven't made actual cheese yet, but we have started with the basics (so far we have made yogurt and labneh).  We are taking an "online course" that Adam found here.

Our first course was making yogurt, and it turned out well.  It required a half gallon of milk and store-bought Dannon yogurt.  We ended up with two quarts of yogurt... and it is good, good!

Our second course was making labneh (pictures seen here).  Labneh is yogurt that has been... strained of the whey... for lack of better description.  Here we have stirred the yogurt (with salt added to it), then scoop it into a clean and sterile cloth and hung so that it can weep.  Twenty-four hours later, labneh is formed.  Labneh is a traditional food of the Middle East and Southeast Asia.  And labneh goes really well with pita chips!

So, after getting our labneh started, Adam and I made up pita bread (yes, from scratch -- pictures seen here).  The next night, Adam baked us up some pita chips, balled up the labneh, and we had ourselves a snack.  DELISH!

Our next course is Neufchâtel... what you also might know as a form of cream cheese.  We were planning to do it this week, but my hives episode got in the way of things... so this next week we'll be diving into the next course... and eventually working our way to other cheeses.  It has been a blast so far and we even get Julia involved with stirring, etc.  For now, Raven enjoys being held and watching everything take place.  But I'm sure that eventually she will be a cheesemaker as well.  :)

erin

Good Day

I turned out to be a good day after all.

Raven laughed.

:)

Back to the Doctor

I went back to the doctor today again when it seemed like things were starting to get bad again.  (I started to break out on my neck, chest, and face this morning around 8 am.)  I saw a different doctor as my doctor was out.  While I am the most severe case they have ever seen of hives, they didn't think it warranted IV drugs (yet).  I am to take my Prednisone (taken), along with Benadyl and Zantac.

The allergic reaction could have been triggered by something new, something old that I am suddenly allergic to (which would make it very hard to pinpoint what that would be), or nothing at all.  If it was the hops, even though the hops are out of my system by now, the hives can last up to six weeks in some form or another.  If it was the beer/hops, drinking it again to determine that could cause an even worse reaction and land me in the hospital... so probably won't be doing that!  But, it might not be.  It could have been any number of things that day separately or together... that's the hard thing with hives... they can come out of seemingly nowhere and caused by seemingly nothing.

I have deep purplish coloring where the "old" hives were; so my skin is very blotching.  The doctor said that most likely the discoloration will eventually go away.

I am unable to nurse Raven until I am completely off the meds, and my milk supply is diminishing rapidly.  I only hope I'll be able to nurse her again after this is all said and done.

At any rate, I'll be sleepy and grumpy and itchy for the next several days... yay!  But, here's hoping I'm finally on the mend.  While today's hives are bad, they aren't as bad as they were yesterday.  So that's a positive!

erin

One Visit Too Many

I thought I would write a blog post to update you on my hives sitch.

I had my steroid shot at 12:30 and by 1:30 pm, my body was on fire.  Bad, bad, bad.  By 2:30 pm, I was able to get the girls down for a nap so I took my next dose of Benadryl and laid down too.  An hour later and my hives were looking a lot better.

However, tonight we had an appointment and on the way there, Julia puked all over herself and her coat and the DVD player and... yah.  It was disgusting.  This would be about the time my hives started to act up again in a big, bad way... basically, I was having a stressful moment deal with a husband screaming about puke (sorry, Adam, I love you, but you were yelling loudly about the puke) and a kid who was covered in puke... trying to clean her up in misty 30-some degree weather... oh, yah, my hives loved that.

By 6 pm I was having a full-on hives attack again and I could hardly drive back home.  I dropped Adam and the kids off and went straight to urgent care.  By the time the doctor saw me, my hands, feet, and face were swelled up bad with hives all over them.  (My whole body was/is covered in them, including inside my ears and even my lips now.)  They gave me a shot of Benadryl, a shot of epinephrine, and two pills of some sort that I don't recall what they were but, hey, that combo seems to be helping.  After about an hour, my body was calmed back down again and my face (minus my lip) had returned to normal size and not so hive-y.  I am not terribly itchy right now which is good; just in a lot of pain.  But, it is not bad pain... just that achy muscle pain.  I am to keep taking Benadryl pills and then go see my doctor again tomorrow.

We hope Julia was just suffering car sickness or something; she seems fine now and hasn't puked again and doesn't have a fever.  And Raven?  Well, she's a peach.  Good news for the day amidst all the crap: she slept 10 hours straight last night.  Wow!!!  That will be helpful when we move her to big sister's room (Adam is nearly done with the bunkbeds).

Here's hoping that tomorrow is a better day.  Through it all I remember that God is good and that there are lessons to be learned in all of this.  Today's lesson?  As much as I like to think I have an iota of control over my life, I really, really don't. 

Off to bed soon; will let you know how I'm doing tomorrow.

erin

ps. Mom and MIL... I had just laid down for a nap when you tried to chat me... sorry I missed you!
pps.  I do not have shingles.

Hiveville

I have some fun and positive posts coming soon full of great pictures and videos of the girls.  However, this blog is about my life too and well, I need some prayers.  On Sunday afternoon I started developing a case of hives (possible due to a beer?  but not sure; it could be anything, really).  They got progressively worse overnight so I went to the doctor yesterday.  They gave me a shot of steroids and a prescription for Prednisone... low enough doses of each to make sure I could continue breastfeeding, but hopefully high enough to send the hives packing.

Fast forward to this morning and my hives are worse still.  Sleeping last night was next to impossible, and today I'm light headed and dizzy... not a surprise since the hives have climbed up my neck and have attacked my face and my scalp.  (Of course I can't help but have thoughts every now and again that Adam will come home at lunch to find me passed out from shock and the girls screaming and crying.)  I called the doctor again today in tears... I am not just itchy, but my hives sting and burn and some are really painful too.  It is so bad that Raven nursing hurts and itches terribly and simply carrying Julia from one room to the other sends my hip and arms into a painful itch attack.

I am headed back into the clinic while Adam is home for lunch for another steroid shot in hopes that I will start to find relief.  I also told the nurse that if I needed to 'pump & dump' (due to a higher dosage) so that the hives went away quicker, I would do that, because seriously, I cannot function.  Writing or putting away the dishes or washing my hands hurts, walking causes my clothes to lightly graze my skin which causes me to itch, etc., etc.  So, if you pray, prayers would be appreciated.  I know hives doesn't sound like it should be all that terrible to deal with, but it's difficult to handle when trying to take care of two small children.

erin

Oxymoron or Ironic

It is too late to decide definitively whether the incidence from last night is an oxymoron or simply ironic, though after looking into it a bit at Merriam-Webster's Online Dictonary, I think it's a little bit of both.

Last night, as we were watching a show, we heard a faint beeping sound, but couldn't figure out from where it was coming.  After a little bit I realized that it was coming through the monitor in Julia's room.  Upon further inspection (i.e., looking out our front window), we realized that there was snow removal equipment out in front of our house removing snow from across the street at the Pella Manor.

Oh, yes.  Snow removal equipment that beep, beep, beeped as it backed up over and over again... outside the front of our house... at 10:30 pm... on a Sunday night.

So, you might be wondering where the oxymoron or irony in this is... well, if you live in Pella, you might *get* it right off the bat... since we have lived here (five years now), there is an unspoken rule that you shouldn't mow your lawn on Sunday.  We were even jokingly told this by the Chamber representative who drove us around looking at the town while we were here for our interviews with Pella Corp.  So, to keep peace with the neighbors (and you must know we are "neighbors" with approximately 100 older folks across the street), we don't mow on Sunday.  Even though Sunday might be the only day we have "free" to do yard work, we don't do it.

So, it was quite a surprise to see SNOW REMOVAL EQUIPMENT clanging and banging and BEEPING around out front last night (which is also out front of the homes of approximately 100 older folks) on a SUNDAY night until MIDNIGHT.  Midnight, people.  MIDNIGHT.  I have no idea how Adam fell asleep or how Julia and Raven stayed asleep, but I laid there whilst the beep, beep, beep played on and composed a blog post in my head...

erin

Update on Julia

A quick update on Julia... she has been fever-free since this morning.  Of course, will keep her home and relaxin' a day or two more and hopefully she'll be able to go back to daycare on Monday.  Yay!