Quintet Vignette: Happy Easter!

04.09.13: Today I'm home from work for the second day with two sick children. Jared and Julia were diagnosed yesterday with Influenza A. Jared became sick last Thursday, missed school Friday, and was pretty miserable all weekend. With Julia starting a fever Sunday night, I scheduled them both an appointment Monday morning. Julia's onset of symptoms was recent enough that she was prescribed Tamiflu. Jared's onset was too far out to prescribe Tamiflu at this point and his body has to continue fighting it on his own. I'm quite hopeful the medicine helps Julia recover more quickly and easily, as it cost $106. In the meantime, they are dealing with fever, fatigue, stomach ache, headache...they pretty much feel like they've been hit by a truck. Jenna is standing strong and I pray she is able to steer clear of it. Yesterday after their appointment I cleaned and disinfected the house, washed the bedclothes, and made some vegetable stew.

Trying to catch up from my last post, on Holy Thursday (3/28) Jenna played a weeping woman at the school's live stations of the cross. She enjoyed telling me about it. I was home with Julia that day also (been using a lot of sick time lately) with a stomach bug so I missed it. Friday and Monday surrounding Easter the girls didn't have school and I had taken those days off. Thursday and Friday were very nice out and the kids finally got to play outside. The girls got the tractor out of the shed and played with that. Jenna rode her bike and played basketball. Jared went to Conner's and they played in the creek.

Saturday I worked on some things for Easter, made the mashed potatoes and lettuce salad, and a breakfast casserole. Julia sat up an audience for me:

Jared and Jenna actually hung out a while and Julia played playdoh. The kids all got their hair trimmed and I pampered myself with a wash and style also. We came home and colored eggs and painted the girls' nails.

On Easter Sunday (3/31) I awoke to a text from Dad; he was already at Big Cabin on his return trip from Texas. He left at 2:15 a.m.! The kids peeked at their baskets and noticed some eggs (Julia's surprised gasps were too cute) but decided not to go through them or hunt eggs until after church. We went to the Newman Center this year and it was very enjoyable. After church they delved into their baskets and found all the eggs. The girls got a webkinz (horse for Julia; owl for Jenna) and princess (Rapunzel for Julia; Ariel for Jenna); Jared got a beyblade and legos. They all got some new jammies and the girls got a dress and a vest/shirt combo. Jared also got some shorts. The kids played outside quite a bit - it was a beautiful day! Eventually Gigi made it over. We started on dinner (our menu: fried chicken, mashed potatoes/gravy, corn, salad, deviled eggs, and apple pie; we had little Hawaiian roll sandwiches to tide us over after church). Grandpa made it that afternoon with a cooler and flat full of strawberries, oranges, tomatoes, and cucumbers from the Dallas Farmer's Market; also some onions and a few other things for Grandma. He was able to get a cat nap in before dinner. Grandma brought the kids a new monopoly game with an ATM they played while we were cooking dinner. We enjoyed a delicious meal together (after Jersey got in trouble for drinking Jenna's strawberry milk) and then just relaxed a while.

Easter Delivery from Dallas Farmers Market

Easter Sunday

Julia asked me to take a pic of her pretty nails before church

Jenna and I; Easter Morning

My son is taller than me!

Just before church at Newman Center, and below:
Grandma frying delicious chicken!! Extra legs for the boys, their fav --

Playing on Easter in their new shirts from Aunt Tiffy

On the following Thursday, Jeremy left for Ohio with his dad and uncles. They went to a Ford swap meet and I think they all had a really nice time. This is the night Jared got sick. It was 60 degrees out and the girls got to enjoy another afternoon outside.

The Boys - Uncle Andy, Uncle Eddie, Dad and Uncle Frank

It seems I have been to doctor appointment after doctor appointment. Between mom's surgery and pneumonia, Jenna's broken finger, Julia's gross-looking wart on her hand, my own wellness exam, and now the flu...it seems all I do lately is call in sick to work and shuffle people to appointments. We have the orthodontist yet this month, plus a follow up xRay for Jenna and a follow up for Julia with Dr. Cleaver. Also mom goes back to Columbia for her surgery follow up tomorrow. It's times like these I really wish I didn't have to work outside of the home and could focus on taking care of everyone without the guilt of missing work. I also have the search for summer childcare hanging over my head which also makes me wish I could be at home with the kids. I hope we find a good solution; we are really going to miss Gina this year.

I have to add a few pics Gina took last summer. The girls LOVE her!

Gina's fishergirls!

Julia is ready for me to snuggle with her so I am going to sign off. I hope to get my pictures uploaded soon so I can post them on here.

04.15.13: And here I am, after the weekend and no pictures ready to post. Somehow I never get to editing my pictures as soon as I'd like. I'll just update how our weekend went and add some pics from my phone. Thankfully, Jared and Julia seem to be over the flu except for an occasional cough that the doctor said could last up to two weeks. Friday night Jared went to spend the night with Gigi and the girls went to a game night at the Newman Center. Jeremy and I got to enjoy a dinner to ourselves at the Dukum. Afterwards we picked up the girls and they had a great time. I also got to talk to a college student about summer childcare. She is going to be working at the YMCA but mentioned that her sister could come stay with her if she had a sitting job. I got an email from her later telling me more about her sister, a freshman at Rockhurst Jesuit University in Kansas City, so I'm hopeful that something will work out. Saturday, Jared ended up going to Columbia with mom. She was clothes-shopping and he spent his time at Barnes and Noble, read an entire comic book he said, Game Stop, and Target. They had Chinese for dinner and I was glad for him that he got to spend some time with her on his own. I called her phone when they were on the way home; he answered and sounded like a grown man - he's growing up so fast. I spent most of Saturday cooking, cleaning, laundry, truck billing, paying bills...general catching up around the house. That night the girls and I watched the movie Girls Just Want to Have Fun - they liked it; Jared was home by then and elected not to join us ;) Sunday Jared and I went to church together and then I did some grocery shopping. It was a nice day, up to 70 degrees I think but very windy. The kids got to play out quite a bit. After all the grocery shopping and putting everything away, I helped Julia with A LOT of homework. She had 15-20 pages of work to make up from missing 3 days last week. I think she is getting better with her reading and we are working on making her letters the correct size and when to use capital/lowercase. She still gets mixed up with "d" and "b" but she is working on it. After that I finished up dinner and relaxed with the girls a while before bed. This week brings dance for the girls tonight, basketball Wednesday night (part of a 3-night package Grandpa got her at at silent auction to work with the high school girls), and Jenna starts softball on Saturday. She doesn't get her finger xRayed for over a week after the first day of practice, so she is going to have to be very careful. I think I will have to say no catching for a while; batting may even be tricky. We found out that Jenna will be with Coaches McLain and Chapman again. She's been lucky to have them every year. No Coach Corbett this year so he must be coaching another team. This will be Julia's first year and she is going to be on my friend Amy Feeney's husband's team (Steve) and their little boy Joel plus Sophia will be on the team. I'm glad she will have a friend on the team and that we know the coach. Pretty soon we will find ourselves coming and going to softball practices and games. Since Grandpa got the basketball practice sessions for Jenna, Julia has been hot after him to find "something softball" for her. I think he's working on it ;-)

I'll end with a few miscellaneous pics taken over the last couple of weeks -