Lili loves brushing her teeth and her hair is getting so long. Look at those pretty little curls.
None of the walls inside the house are insulated, so we are having to remove alot of them to install it. Mike was upstairs removing alot of the bead board from the walls and ceiling in what will be Lili's room when he discovered a patched hole that is in the roof. See the plywood? Right beyond that is the tin roof! So, insulation will be a good thing!
This is one of the downstairs bathrooms. We are converting it to a pantry right off the kitchen.
The past few days have been full of lots of questions, seeking, applying topical lotions, benadryl, steroids, swollen feet, aching feet, swollen hands and fingers, burning, stinging, and ALOT OF ITCHING. Wednesday morning at 1 am, Emma woke up itching all over her torso with what looked at the time like 20 or so mosquito bites. By 7 am they were full blown hives. They spread all over her body with hardly any relief at all from the itching and burning. Finally, after trying everything we could think of, even Aveeno oatmeal baths, we tried Aloe Vera and that seemed to work the best of all. The hives ran their course til Saturday pm/Sunday am. And when she woke up Sunday morning, they were completely gone! WE WERE SOOO EXCITED!!! And relieved! We likened it to the story of the man with leprosy in the Bible. We prayed each night for God to help Emma's hives go away and to give her some relief from the itching. Through it she learned how to apply aloe vera wherever she was itching and she had such a since of accomplishment about it! She also learned a great lesson about having to do things that may seem unpleasant at the time but are good for you. She hated the taste of the steroid and I can't blame her! She only had to take 5 doses of it and she did really well each of the first 4 times, she had a little hesitation but it took no time at all for her take it. Well, the last night of her medicine rounds she could not bring herself to take it, she kept jinxing herself and thinking too much about the taste of it. She'd stick her tongue in the medicine cup and shout "Yuck" only making it worse and drawing it out even longer. Granted, we could've "forced" her to take it and risk her spitting it out and choking on it but we wanted her to learn a lesson from it. We wanted her to choose to do what was best for her. And sure enough, 40 minutes later she took it! And boy was she glad to be done with it! And she was so proud of herself b/c it was hard but she did it!
This was day 3 of the hives. This is pretty much what it looked like all over her body. Her legs were cold, she had just gotten out of the bath when I took the picture, that is why they look so purple next to the redness of the hives. The hives were very hot to the touch also. I have never experienced anything like this and didn't know that hives could be like this.
Hopefully, I can figure out what caused it.February has already gotten away from me! We have had one thing after another since Christmas, various sicknesses, an abscessed tooth, an allergic reaction, a 2nd birthday, and Valentine's Day!!!
Our little Lili is now 2 years old! And since her favorite character is Elmo, she had a small Elmo cake with family.
Boy, time flies!A dear friend of mine was telling me about this book. Started reading it yesterday and couldn't put it down! It's not a guilt trip kind of book but a very encouraging and insightful read so far! Granted, I'm only just starting it at about 50 pages through, it has already opened my eyes to the Psycho babble we are constantly fed and exposed to. It's "Back to Basics" approach is helping me regain perspective on what it really means to "parent" our children. I've always thought of parenthood as a battle for children's souls, and most days I catch myself in the midst of the battle looking toward the next "attack", but it's so important not to lose perspective. Why am I doing this? What are our goals in parenting our daughters? I'm really excited and encouraged to read this book and am so thankful my friend shared it with me. For all you readers out there, I think it would definitely be worth your time....you know, the time we don't have that much of for ourselves.
And right after!
