Same fever, both boys!!

So now they are both running low grade fevers. Mark was running a pretty good fever last night and ended up staying home from work today. He slept most of the day away and seems a little better tonight. Jonathan has randomly been sitting at 99 off and on this week. He has gone to school though, and been happy and playing. I brought him home to Mark this afternoon and went to get my nails done for the party this weekend. I call them as I'm leaving the salon, and Mark tells me that his fever is at 101 and Jonathan's is 99.8. Yeah. Way to ruin my relaxing salon visit! The nice thing is that Jonathan feels completely fine. Showing no signs of illness except that he is warm when you hold him. So weird...

So now they are both sick...sorta...and we are supposed to be leaving in the morning for Vicksburg!!!! Mark has an appointment in the morning with his doctor. I guess I will be up at 7:59am calling the pediatrician to try and get Jonathan in as soon as possible in the morning. (You have to start calling before 8am so you can be the first on the phone with the receptionist when they open. Otherwise we'll get the 4:30pm appointment or the crappy doctor and NEVER get to Vicksburg.)

Oh, and we're completely NOT ready to leave. Of course. Too much drama to get anything together. At least the majority of the clothes are washed and their are piles on the floor waiting to go into the suitcase. Well, back to packing. Please pray for my boys that they feel better and that this is just a virus. And please pray that we have a safe and fun trip to Vicksburg and that the party goes well for my in-laws.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

Better?

Mark is doing better today. He wasn't running a fever this morning so he went on in to work. Crazy I know, but he has this HUGE project going on all week that they have been preparing for. He thinks he might have had a low grade fever off and on, but he worked all day. Came home and took Jonathan to his Gymboree class. After Jonathan went to bed, his fever was at 99.5. Gave him some more Tylenol and he seems ok now. Of course, this is almost exactly how Jonathan acted this weekend so I am sure it is a virus and will run its course in the next day or so. I just hope that Mark hasn't infected his entire office in the last two days. Could be a mass exodus!! So far, I feel fine, so knock on wood I hopefully will miss this one! It does help that I work with kids all day, every day. I have definitely developed some immunity to kid germs over the past six years. I think it helped Jonathan in the beginning to not be so sick in day care as a little baby. Ahh..the power of nursing immunity! At least, I like to think so anyway! Who knows, I could be full of it!!

Anyway, I am totally rambling now and it is way past time for bed. There is so much to do before our trip to Vicksburg, and I just don't know how I'm going to get it done!! So therefore I am just spending time on things like this to escape/ignore those things that really need to be done. Night!!

Same Fever, Different Boy...

Thanks for the prayers for Jonathan. He is feeling so much better and is pretty much back to normal. He is still a little tired, but he is pretty happy. He doesn't have an UTI, just a virus.

Unfortunately....now Mark has the same virus. He sent me a text from work this afternoon saying he didn't feel very good. By the time he got home, his temperature was at 102.5 and made it up to 103. Tylenol, cold water, and bed in short order. Jonathan was so sweet and tried so hard to help his Daddy feel better. He tried to take his temperature with the thermometer and brought him a blanket and tried to get him to drink his water. I finally got him out of the room so Mark could get some rest. Temps now at 102 two hours later. Advil in an hour and hopefully that will help to bring it down. So please say a prayer for Mark that he will feel better soon. And someone please take the thermometer away from him! I swear he has taken his temperature a dozen times since he got home. So funny.

I just got finished watching Jon & Kate. Now this isn't a show that I normally watch. I have watched it from time to time but never a devout fan. TLC has done a good job though showing previews for the "Big Announcement" tonight. Unfortunately, it all played out the way people thought it would. I was just so sad to see their family falling apart. Makes me so thankful for my husband and the peace that I have in our relationship. Not that I am arrogant in any way to think that I am better than them or that it could not happen to us. I know how hard we have worked at our relationship and I also know just how much I love him. We've been and continue to go through some tough times; but, yet, I have never waivered in how much I love Mark and I have never doubted his love for me. I pray that Jon & Kate can find some resolution and happiness and peace. Hopefully some Christian counseling can be pursued to help their relationship. Ugghh...hate for anyone's relationship to fall apart. Having one child, much less eight, I know just how important each of us is to our child. I do admire their devotion to TRY to maintain some semblance of normalcy for their children. Here's hoping they are able to succeed.

Time to get off the computer. Need to clean the house and get packing for our trip to Vicksburg this weekend. Everyone needs clean clothes!!

Visitors, Swimming, Fever, and Father's Day

Mark's parents went with his Aunt and Uncle on vacation this year to Yellowstone. They had a wonderful time and we were just sorry we didn't get to go with them. They were able to stop by our house on the way home. Mark's Dad stayed here for a few days to spend time with Jonathan. They have such a good time playing and just being together. It was pretty funny to watch Jonathan. He did not want to let his Paw Paw out of his sight! Mark had a meeting in New Orleans on Tuesday so he dropped his Dad off in Vicksburg on his way down Monday.

Mark's Mom couldn't stand not getting to spend time with Jonathan, so she came up Tuesday afternoon!! We had a really good time with her, and it was nice to have a little company and help while Mark was gone. She went with us to Jonathan's Gymboree class on Tuesday, and he made sure she was VERY involved! We were able to go shopping Wednesday to look for dresses for their Anniversary Party next weekend. Lucky for me, I found a dress, but we didn't find one for Mark's Mom. She stayed til Friday and left after Jonathan got up.

Mark came home Wednesday night and was off on Friday. We decided to go to Wild River Country water park Friday afternoon after Jonathan's nap and after I got off. We had a wonderful time. Jonathan just loves swimming pools of all kinds and was so excited by all the options there! He was a big fan of the wave pool. Sat, walked, played, pushed the tube all over the place. It was hilarious. And didn't get scared, even when the waves were on. He also liked the lazy river tube ride, but was ready to get out by the end. Of course, Mark and I could have spent the entire day on the lazy river! Jonathan's favorite thing though was the Little Kid Tube ride. One of us would get in the tube, put him in our lap, and go down the slide/ride. He was so very excited and just squealed every time. He LOVED when the tube would turn us backwards. Jonathan was very democratic and wanted Mark and I to take turns on who would ride with him. He would get off the ride with Mark and tell me, "Your turn now." After we would come down, he would look at Mark and say, "Your turn now." Hilarious. Of course, he was quite serious about it. Mark started walking with us one time and Jonathan stopped and told him, "No Daddy, Mommy's turn now." Turned around and continued walking back to the starting point. He definitely has his own ideas!! We probably rode the ride 20 times but it was WELL worth it for all the fun that he and we had. We ended up closing the park out and were one of the last ones to leave, he was just so excited that he had to tell every slide/pool good-bye on the way out.

Saturday morning, Jonathan woke up at 6am. Now he is NOT an early riser but I just thought it was one of those fluke things. He was happy all morning and took a good nap. When he woke up from his nap though, he was running a fever. Poor baby just wasn't feeling well. Mark and I got freaked out thinking he was getting another UTI and made an appointment at the After Hours Clinic. Ran him up there and did several tests. He has a red throat and enlarged lymph nodes, but the strep test came back negative. The urinalysis showed a possible infection, so we are waiting on the culture to come back. Of course, that meant that we came home and I had to call OKC to check in with his urologist. Needless to say, not how we planned to spend our Saturday night. However, after one dose of Tylenol, it has not gone back up that high. So, more than likely, NOT an UTI. His fevers always spike really high with that. Now we are thinking he just has a virus or cold and that we jumped the gun on taking him to the clinic. Oh well, better safe than sorry. And I know he would have gotten super sick if we hadn't have taken him. He has felt fine today and just had a low grade fever around 99 off and on today. Hopefully he will continue to feel better. This is the hard part of not having any family close by. We have to take off or someone has to drive 5 hours to keep him. Ugghh.. And of course, Mark and I both have a lot going on at work this week. Makes it hard sometimes. More importantly, though, we just want our little buddy to feel better and not get any sicker on us.

Today is Father's Day and I am so proud to have Mark as my husband and the Father of my child. I am so very blessed to have this wonderful man in my life. God has truly blessed me beyond my wildest dreams. Mark takes such wonderful care of us. He works so incredibly hard at his job to provide for our family and to prepare the way for our future. He commutes an hour to work each way so that we can live in a better place for us and Jonathan. He comes home and plays with Jonathan every day, cooks dinner most days, and has enough energy left to watch TV or talk to me after Jonathan's in bed. Mark keeps Jonathan home with him on his days off so they can have that quality time together. He never balked when I wanted to cut my hours after Jonathan was born, he just made it happen. Mark truly has stepped up and been the rock for our family. He never faltered through all of Jonathan's medical problems, he just did what needed to be done and never wavered in his commitment and love for Jonathan and for me. He loves his child unashamedly and prays for God's guidance in being a better Father. I am so proud of all that he has done and accomplished.

Also just like to send love out to my Daddy and Mark's Dad. My Daddy is a great man and a great Father. He always showed me love and guidance. I always hoped that I would be lucky enough to find a man like him when I grew up. I love you Daddy! Mark's Dad is a great man as well. He has always been there for Mark and I in our marriage and especially for Jonathan. We are so lucky that he is retired now and is able to help us out. God has placed each of these men in our lives and in Jonathan's life. They each teach him something wonderful and shower him with love. Love and thanks to each of them!

Mark's parents are celebrating their 4oth Wedding Anniversary this year. We are having a party for them next weekend in Vicksburg. We are so excited to be going home and spending the weekend with them, Kim, Russ, Katherine, Lucy, and the rest of the family. Should be a lot of fun. Plus the party's at Walnut Hills so we are guaranteed good food!! Love that place!!

Thanks for checking in with us. Please remember Jonathan in your prayers. We should have lots of pictures and stories next week after our weekend in Vicksburg. Hope that everyone else is doing well and that each of you has a wonderful week!

PICTURES!!

Finally added some pictures to the posts: Family Fun, Rain, Rain Go Away, and Never Ending Fever. FINALLY! Still need to add pictures to the most recent post! But it is WAAYY late and time for bed now. I did, however, add a bunch of pictures on his picture website so check that out for many more pictures. I had to pay and upgrade our picture storage on Google as we had exceeded the free amount for the picture website and the blog! How funny is that, I think we take a lot of pictures. But I love every single one of them! Hope everyone is having a great week, things are smooth so far at our house which is a really nice treat.

UPDATE: Added pictures to the Praise God post. I think I might be caught up!! Oh wait, still need to organize the pics out of my temp drive and add them to his picture website... Well, still making progress anyway!

Praise GOD!

So sorry to not have updated/posted sooner. Seems like the older Jonathan gets, the busier we get. I was under this misconception that as he got older, things would get easier, and life would slow down. Not really the way it works! In some ways, he is much easier, but he is also much busier!! Of course, I love it and him and all the things we do together.

ANYWAY!!! First and foremost, praise God!! We had a wonderful appointment in OKC. The appointments are always so stressful as we never know what they will say. WE think he is doing well, but you never know what they will say. It went well though and we are just so very thankful to God for the powerful healing of Jonathan's body. His kidneys looked great and they were very impressed with his progress. He will be having one more touch-up procedure in October. This is something we had known would need to be done, but they have been putting off til he was older and ready. So it is oddly satisfying to have made it to this point. This SHOULD be the last thing that will need to be done. Hopefully after this, then we will just be going for yearly check-up visits. How wonderful that would be! Thank you for praying for our little man. Please continue to remember him as we gear up for this last surgery.

May 25th was Mark and I's Eighth Wedding Anniversary. It is so hard to believe that it has been eight years!! since we got married. They have been wonderful and I just love Mark more and more as the years go by. The good Lord definitely knew what he was doing. Here's hoping for 80 more together!! We had a rather low-key anniversary as it was Labor Day as well, but we really enjoyed just staying home and being together as a family. We went out Friday night for dinner at Riverfront Steakhouse in NLR. They have a great steak and a really nice salad bar. The staff is always very polite and sweet to Jonathan, so that is always a plus as well.

My parents came to visit that weekend and Jonathan had a lot of fun playing with them. He is always so excited to be with them. Saturday morning was his friend Ali's third birthday party. The party was at Wonder Place and he had a great time playing with all the children. Ali's Mom, Edie, had done a great job on the invitations and party favors (she is my digital scrapbooking friend, and had done everything on the software we have).

Jonathan & Ali.

The party favors were very neat. The theme of the party was ladybugs, and for party favors, she had a bug catcher full of ladybugs for each of the children. They also got a huge bubble wand and bubbles. Jonathan loved the ladybugs. We released them Sunday afternoon and he thought that was so much fun. Did not particularly like the bugs landing on him, but other than that, he had a great time with it.

Jonathan & MaMa Deb. He was most insistent that she sit with him!!

Saturday night we took Jonathan to his very first movie at the theatre, UP. He LOVED it!! He sat so big in the booster seat and never moved. Had his eyes glued to the screen and would only move them for a few seconds to tell you something about the movie. He was VERY well behaved so I guess we will start going to a few more movies now. Hopefully there will be some acceptable movies coming out sometime soon! My parents went with us to the movie and had a great time experiencing this first with him.

Sunday night was the Burton's baby shower. Jamie has been on bedrest, so it was nice to see her and bring some goodies for the baby. The guys and kids stayed outside most of the night and had a great time playing. The girls had fun sitting inside and visiting. She's got seven weeks to go, so hopefully baby Jackson will stay in for a few more weeks!

This past Thursday was the Easter Seals Preschool Graduation. I usually go to see all the kids I work with. This year was especially special for a couple of different reasons. I was able to walk one of my kids across the stage in her walker to receive her diploma. To have seen where this child came from, it was a very special moment to see her actually walking on the stage. They always do a slideshow of the graduates and some of the kids in preschool each year. This year there was a wonderful picture of Jonathan from preschool. He is such a ham and just looked so cute! The real highlight though was a big surprise. I was the PTA Vice President this year. The President ended up moving to NC a few months ago, so I became the President. As a thank-you, the preschool made me a beautiful piece of framed art. When I went to accept it, they told me that Jonathan had made the art! It is just so wonderful and so unexpected. I cannot wait to hang it up in my office.

We had lunch today at Pinnacle Mountain with the co-op students from Mark's work. Mark ended up grilling the hamburgers and hot dogs. They were delicious and it was nice to visit with some of his co-workers. Jonathan had a great time throwing rocks, sticks, etc. into the little stream. He was also a HUGE fan of the M&M cookies. At last count, I think he had four. Only ate 1/2 of a hot dog, but four cookies! Not really a balanced meal, but oh well, he'll survive.

Once again, no pictures. We have had multiple computer problems lately and Mark doesn't want me downloading the pictures until he can fix our back-up drive. He's been working on it, so hopefully it will be fixed soon. We would be in so much trouble without his computer skills! Hope everyone is doing well. Send us a note when you get a chance and let us know how you are doing!