Hiding

Reason # 127 why parents don't bother trying to have too many decorative items around the house. Elmo is hiding...good thing I don't light the candle till after the kids go to bed.

Avalanche Season

Ready or not, it's avalanche season. A tad early this year, too. This avalanche happened at mile 21 last Wednesday (we live at mile 6 and the church is at mile 29)...so we weren't sure we were going to make it to MP for Bible study/music practice. But, they had it all cleaned up by 2 p.m., so no problems. It wasn't terribly big, we heard it was about 30 feet wide and 50 feet deep, or maybe the other way around!
We had heard they were going to shoot down two other avalanches, but we didn't see any sign of them.
(For those of you not familiar with MP, its in a valley that has a several avalanche chutes...yes, some people do actually build their homes in past problem areas, "But there hasn't been an avalanche here for 30 years..." kind of mentality). We do not posess that mentality, which really cut down on our options when looking for a house, part of how we ended up here!

Hangin' Out

Anna hanging out with my parents and Rebecca. If she wasn't hanging on to Dad's glasses, then she was trying to hold on to his ear!



























Rebecca gave Anna this "adorable" outfit for Christmas...suits her well!

Firefighters

Don't you love the new firefighter get-up? I'm not often one to get the kids things "just because." Gifts are saved for birthdays or Christmas...but this was one time I couldn't resist. With Jacob's unabated infatuation with firefighters and fire safety, the jackets and helmet were just too much to miss. They already have the fire hose backpacks (Christmas gifts from Aunt Kimmie), and this will save them dragging in their winter coats and hopefully their boots and mittens, too (so their hands and feet don't get burned, don't you know. Maybe they will overlook that part since they have "real" jackets now).
My excuse for them was Valentine's Day gifts...they've been well worth the investment so far!

Anna's Predicament

"I've scooted under my crib and I can't get back out!" (I promise you she got herself into this by herself. I am the boys' alibi)!

Boys lately

One of Andrew's favorite ways to help me is to feed Anna! She enjoys it, and he does a pretty neat job of it, too!












I was nursing Anna the other day while the boys were eating lunch, and I heard Jacob repeating in a sing-song voice "my dog sled, my dog sled..." I looked over to see what he was doing, and he was "driving" around his sandwich, which he had eaten into the shape of a dog sled. Whether he had purposely eaten it into a dog sled shape or happened to eat it that way and then observed what it looked like, I'll never know. We had just watched a movie, as part of our unit on the Arctic, that had dog sleds in in. Could go either way!









Jacob's been working on shapes and colors in preschool, not that he needs a whole lot of work on either. But he likes these new Pooh and friends cards he got for Christmas, so we've been using them. He was quite proud of himself for matching the correct pegs with the cards!














Andrew's use of the puzzle-road lately: sometimes they're a house, sometimes a boat, sometimes a dog-sled, sometimes a bed...you get the idea!

Nap Time

Jacob likes to take his naps up in Andrew's bunkbed, to which Andrew graciously concedes (I think in part because he can pretty much be assured that I won't make him lay down if Jacob is already in his bed)!
The other afternoon, I had one of those heart-stopping panic moments that only parents can have. I peered up over the edge of the bunkbed to wake him up, and he wasn't there! Then I saw him...he had pulled all the stuffed animals in the "cubby space" at the head of Andrew's bed, and had fallen asleep there!

Jacob's Hat...

...after he put it on Anna!

Spelling

For our spelling lesson the other day, Andrew was writing the words in chocolate pudding powder. I had just given him the word "dig" to spell. I look over to see what Jacob is doing in his tray of powder, and he is furiously raking it all over to one side. I asked him what he was doing..."Look, mom...I'm digging!" :)

Snow troubles

Among the other distractions the past few weeks, this week we added snow trouble to the mix. Last Friday, under clear blue sunny skies, we headed to Soldotna for appts. and errands, spending the night with my family. We came home Saturday afternoon in the middle of a horrendous blizzard, and a freshly-fallen 14 new inches of snow at home. Wet, heavy, mixed with rain 14 inches of snow. Shortly after we got home, I was feeding Anna, facing out the dining room window towards our shed. The shed has (had) a lean-to roof off the side, and as I sat there it collapsed before my very eyes. Perhaps "collapse" is a little too dramatic a word, as the front half sort of slowly gave way. Not too much harm done, and Mark wanted to re-do the shed this summer anyway. I would post a picture of it, but it makes Mark grouchy to look at it. So I won't.

Anyway, he spent about 4 hours shoveling the roof of our house that night, and got the top two feet of snow off the front slope. The next day, it was warm and drizzly, and the snow started to slide off. (See picture #1 for the view out our front living room window). When Mark got home from work, he headed out to work on the roof again. A few hits to the bottom layer of ice, and it all came sliding down (see picture #2 for the new, current view out the front living room window). Alas, this also meant that we had to dig a path to our driveway...picture #3 is the "before path is dug" picture, and I didn't bother to take an "after."
The final phase was for Mark to shovel the back slope of the roof (which doesn't get the sun like the front does), but it was a warm, rainy day. Before he could get to it, it all came down...so now we also have to shovel out the back door! (See picture #4. It's a good thing the door was closed, or my laundry room would have been full of snow)!
So, we're distracted by too much snow.

Update on Mom

As of this afternoon, mom was home from the hospital. They had a very frustrating day yesterday, as her prolonged stay from the expected going-home day of Sunday was due simply to dr. miscommunication. One team of drs wanted her to stay till they did a few more tests, the other said she was fine, when the tests came back fine it didn't get communicated to the other team, etc...
Needless to say, she is very sore, but glad to be home. Please keep praying for a speedy recovery for her!

Mom Milligan

The biggest component of our life lately has been Mark's mom's health. To those of you who have praying for her throughout this ordeal, thank you! I know this is kind of lengthy...it's a synopsis of events that Mark's brother David wrote as a prayer update, so I just edited it a bit to post. If you don't want to read the whole thing, know that mom is doing well, but has a long road of recovery ahead of her.

Mom had chest pains on Monday, and went to the ER at Indiana Co. Hospital where they decided to admit her. She had an EKG which, when compared to an earlier one, showed some differences which caused concern. The decision was made Mon. evening to transfer her to Shadyside (outside of Pittsburgh) and to schedule a heart catheterization for the next morning (Tues). At this point, she was in good spirits, and feeling fairly well; this was just a 'simple' heart catheterization.

Since she had come in Mon. night, she was an 'add-on', meaning that we didn't know when she would fit into the schedule.

They took her to have the heart cath. done a little after 10 am. Apparently, shortly after they started the catheterization, they saw the tear in the artery, and started prepping her for emergency bypass surgery. On the way to surgery, she went into cardiac arrest; they were able to re-start her heart after about a minute.

Surgery lasted about 6 hours. Unfortunately, Dad had to wait throughout alone, as Pittsburgh was being hit by a horrible blizzard.

The surgery was successful as far as they could tell, but the concern was for how long she had been out when she went into cardiac arrest.

Typically, they 'reverse' the anesthesia, so the patient will wake up fairly quickly, in my mother's case, they did not 'reverse' it, so it would be much longer before she came out of it. She was on a ventilator and lots of tubes in the Cardio-Thoracic ICU. Our main concern at this point was whether she would wake up at all. To quote the surgeon regarding the cardiac arrest she experienced, “We won’t know the extent of the damage until, or if, she wakes up.” Needless to say, this news really threw us all into a tailspin, as it was quite unexpected.

God heard the prayers of so many that were praying (THANK YOU!), and answered them graciously: Mom began to respond late Tues. night, and by Wed. morning, she was off the ventilator, awake and alert. We Praise God! She moved out of ICU Thurs. She’s been doing quite well, all things considered, and feels like she’s recovering more quickly than she did when she had her heart attack/triple bypass almost 10 years ago.

Tom and Jenny were able to come from Lancaster to visit for 2 days, and David and Sue, being near Pittsburgh, were able to be at the hospital quite a bit. She was scheduled to be discharged on Sunday, but they put that off another day or two. Then she will go back into cardio-rehab and start that process again.

As those close to her know, after her last attack/surgery, she never regained her full energy and stamina. The amazing thing about this situation is that because she had the heart attack and bypass, part of her heart that has simply not been functioning well, if at all, will actually be working properly, and she should have more energy than she has had in years. God is good!

Jacob, Sleep, Ears, & Dairy...

...they do seem to all be related!
I've shared before how we've been struggling with Jacob's sleep. For a while now he's been getting up three-four times a night, for reasons varying from "I'm scared," "I had a bad dream," "My ear hurts," "I need my blankets back on," to just crying out in his sleep.

At first we thought it was just the house we had been staying in, since as soon as we moved into our new place, we had 2 full weeks of great sleep for everyone! Then it started in again. It was to the point that Mark and I felt like walking zombies. Keep in mind that as infants, all of our kids started sleeping through the night by the time they were two months old! So this has definitely been worse than having a newborn! And we were just going crazy trying to be proactive and preventative with him. For example, practice sessions for getting his blankets back on by himself, which we would encourage and praise him for...which in the middle of the night turned into "I need you to come watch me put my blankets back on." Sounds funny now, but at 3 a.m., it definitely is not.

Then in January he got an ear infection, so we took him to the chiropractor for an adjustment. (I know that may sound strange to some of you, but that's how we keep our kids healthy. In the combined 9+ years of our kids lives, antibiotics have been needed only once...and that time we were out of state away from our chiropractor)! I mentioned to her the sleeping trouble we were having, and she immediately said, "He's got a food allergy." Well, the connection between sleep and allergies was new to me, but just googling it proved that it wasn't new!

SO, the first potential food-culprit we're removing is dairy (his ear troubles makes it the most likely). We've been at it for almost 3 weeks now, and it's time-consuming, trying to work around a staple food group.

The good news is that we're seeing progress. Almost immediately after removing dairy from his diet, he began waking just once each night...significant difference for us (depending on who could pretend to be sleeping the soundest, one of us could sleep through the night-just kidding)! It can typically take 6 weeks to get a system cleared out from a food allergy, so we're pleased that we're seeing results already.

We were just at the chiropractor again on Friday, and his ears are clearing up. She'll take a look at the food diary I've been keeping for Jacob, to see if anything else stands out as a culprit...I'm praying that wheat is not one of his allergies. Dairy has been relatively easy to cut out (though our pancake recipe still needs some work!), but wheat would be a huge pain! And, along with his ears clearing up, HE HAS SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT FOR THE PAST 4 NIGHTS!!!

So, that's where a bit of my time and attention have been, keeping a food diary, searching the internet for dairy-free recipes, etc. Thanks for your prayers on this whole sleeping thing, and pray that it continues!

Sickness hiatus

It seems like the last few weeks have been crazy (hence the halt on blogging), and I'll post on them chronologically, not necessarily in order of importance.
For my own record, this has been absolutely the most sickness-filled winter we have ever had. At least one person in our house has been sick at least since Christmas. We're sharing nicely, and we've had go-rounds with the flu, then colds, then back again. Throw in a few ear infections to boot, and it's been a grand time. If I dare put it in print, I think we're all finally okay-at least physically!

All in a morning's work

In the front row, left to right, we have Gramps, Grandma, and Aunt Becca. They are standing in front of the house they just built. Then, they hid inside to jump out and yell "Surprise!" at all the kids that came to visit. They built a campfire under the slide...Gramps tended the fire, while Grandma handed out hot dogs and marshmallows. Then, a big storm (in the form of a metal bowl which was laying around in case anyone needed to puke in it) came crashing down. So the bird (see back right) carried the dog (also back right) to Indiana, to be safe from the storm. And all before 8:30 a.m....in the mind of Jacob.

Happy Birthday, Lesley!

Sorry this is a day late, Lesley, but we wanted to send you a big birthday hug! Sorry we weren't able to call you on Sunday!

We can hardly believe that yet another of our nephews and nieces have hit the double digits...makes us feel old, but it least it's not our kids hitting double digits! :)

I found these other pics of Lesley from a Christmas back east from Alakanuk, in 2001! Such a cutie!

Visitors

Today as I was cleaning up after lunch, I looked out the window to see a baby moose not so far away out my window! I called to the boys and got them situated where they could see...the baby skittered out a bit farther when it noticed us. Then is just started wandering back on our property even further, until it suddenly turned on heel and ran towards the house, down around the side out of sight. All I could figure was that a dog had startled it our something.

We ran to our bedroom, and could just barely see it at the side of the house. I stepped out on the back porch, and that's when we saw the momma! When he had come running, she must have snorted at him or whatever it is momma moose do when their little ones wander too far away. We watched them for a while, but not too long on the porch, as in the heat of midday it was only 3 degrees. (Cold for Sew., since it's on the water. MP was 25 below today...glad we moved south)! :) They eventually ambled off across the street and out of sight. A fun change of pace, and good teaching moment for the boys as to what they should have done if they were outside playing when they had ambled through.

Super-Safe

You can never have enough eye protection.















(Thanks for the new swim goggles for Jacob, mom and dad. He obviously loves them, though they haven't yet had a maiden voyage to the pool).

Saturday Fun

We've had a relaxing Saturday...


Mark and the boys made waffles for breakfast, after which they all got haircuts!












The boys helped get Anna ready for her date with Daddy. They went to the library to read together and get some new books!











While Mark and Anna were out, the boys and I headed out to go snowshoeing in the backyard. We had a great time!

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

Today is Mom Milligan's birthday!
Mom/Grandma, we're wishing for you...

...birthday hugs,











birthday fun,
















and a birthday nap! :)

We love you! Happy Birthday!