C-l-a-i-r-e

Claire has really been working hard this weekend writing her name all by herself. So after practicing for a while, she came and showed me her paper... she says, "Mom, you spell my name C-l-a -r with a dot - a hump - and a loop!" Lol, I guess we should be working on knowing our letters, too! Funny girl. But, at least she learned how to write her name... :)

I'm feelin' a bright future ahead for this one....






We have reached a milestone...

No more bottles for the Ferrell house (yea!)... now, it's just getting rid of the paci (this may take a while... he is the baby afterall :)

There's Never a Dull Moment...

Well, I haven't completely given up on blogging... not yet anyway. Life has just been a little busy, to say the least. Since my last post, we've had several things going on around our house. The biggest of which is this place....




This is the home of Healthy Families Medical & Dental Clinic. Back in May, Charlie and I were told about a brand new building going up for sale in our hometown. A friend of the owner called to see if we were interested in looking at it. We both kind of thought it was a little out of reach, but we decided to take a stab at it and make an offer. Now we both have our own practices and we're close to home. It has been an adjustment... but also a blessing! It is so nice being close to home and close to the kids everyday. And yes... even spending 8 or 9 hours at work together has turned out to be a good thing... so far anyway :) We try to keep busy!





Another big event was the start of school. This year Allie is in kindergarten and Claire started pre-k... the girls love being able to be together at school.





We also had birthdays! Levi turned 1 and Olivia turned 3!
We celebrated (several times)...





My big boy... can't believe it's been a year! And he's in to everything....







Here's a few more shots of the office...





Waiting area

Medical exam room (we each have 3 rooms)

Dental operatory...

Unfinished x-ray room turned playroom... the girls stay at the office afterschool...

More to come....

Happy Father's Day to two pretty fantastic dads...

It's the Happiest Place on Earth.... Really?

We recently returned from vacating in Orlando... Disney World , of course. One week later we are still in the "I'm not taking you anywhere till you're ten" mode. Well, at least I am. No, aside from our traveling woes (delays, cancelations, layovers, crying babies (ours of course) and lost luggage... it was actually a fun trip.... see for yourself...





















I was serious about the "ten" thing... or least till everyone can walk on their own :). We really did have a good trip, and it was really nice to spend some time away from the stresses of home and just chill with our kids and each other. Not to mention we all came home with really nice tans...
Now that we're home, we are busy with a new business venture. So please be praying for us as we are about to go through some big changes in our careers and for our family as well. A great opportunity has opened up for Charlie and I to go into practice together, actually open an office together. We are really excited about this and we just pray that God will use us in amazing ways. We'll keep you posted on our progress...

I guess he's not really into Noah's ark...

Let's review, shall we?

Here's what's been happening around our place:

During Feb. and March we had a little remodeling done to our house. We expanded our living room and breakfast area (we enclosed our back porch, actually)to give us a little more space, then added on a new back porch. It turned out great and we love how it made the house look and feel more open.

Allie is getting a little anxious for school to be out, hard to believe summer break will be here in about a month. She is doing well still. She lost another tooth, bringing her count up to four. Now we have a little snaggle tooth girl running around... it's pretty cute.

Claire just enrolled for pre-k next year. Hard to believe we will have two kids in school! I think she is excited about it, but Claire is kind of a hard one to read. I'm sure she will enjoy it, but she's not quite as gung-ho as her older sister is about learning. She got a little goody bag at registration that had a book, crayons and scissors and that made her day. Miss priss will have her 4th birthday on the 24 of this month!

Olivia has decided she IS going to school next year. I told her it would be her turn the next year, but she wasn't satisfied with that. And to be honest, if they would let 2 yr olds in, I'd probably send her. She is such a character, good and bad! :) But I think she will really miss having Claire and Allie around. Oh well, at least Levi will be here to keep her company.

Levi is getting so big. He will be 8 months old on the 18th of April. He is sporting two bottom front teeth. Olivia told me the other day, "Mom! Levi has teeth, now he can walk!" Ok, maybe not, but he is getting close to crawling. He is such a friendly baby, smiles ALL the time. He likes to raise one eye brow when he smiles, quite the little charmer!

I threw in such pics of Easter. We had a great time with lots of people over for a big Sunday lunch and Easter egg hunt. The weather was great besides the ever-blowing wind. But hey, at least it was warm.

Seeing all three girls huddled near the dog, watching intently:

Me: "What are you guys doing?"
Allie: "We're watching Brownie eat a rat!"
Claire: "Yeah mom, she's H-U-N-G-R-Y!"
Me (now disgusted): "Why don't you go play on your bikes..."

Never seen such excitement about discovering the food chain...

Alright God, I'll let you explain this one...

At bedtime the other night, we read the Bible story of Abraham and Isaac. I tried to explain to the girls (mostly Allie and Claire) that God was testing Abraham by telling him to sacrifice his only son. Then Olivia pipes in, "We need to tell Jesus, that's not nice!"

Happy Six Months

My boy is six months old as of last Thursday! So hard to believe. He had his 6 month check up on Friday, weighing in at 17.2 lbs. He's definately growing and right on track. Don't ask me how he compares to his sisters at this age b/c I lost track of that kind of thing once Claire came along, but I'm sure he's keeping up. He's a very friendly baby, smiles all the time, but cries if you leave him in a room by himself. His sisters are still pretty crazy about him, especially Olivia. She just loves him to death (Sometimes I think that could be a literal phrase.). She loves to kiss his little bald head, but we have to watch her b/c sometimes she likes to casually sink her teeth in (I guess love does hurt sometimes). But she's always eager to help feed him or dress him. We are on to real food now. We've tried green beans, sweet potatoes, bananas, apples, mashed potatoes and carrots. He's liked pretty much everything except the carrots, so maybe we'll try those again. His first tooth/teeth have yet to make an appearance. I can feel the bottom two just under the gums and he's been soaked in drool for two months, so hopefully it will be soon. I just love seeing those first teeth... so cute! I love my rolly polly!

Mystery Diagnosis...

So I think I'm finally on the road to recovery after a pretty hard few days. Last Wednesday morning I rolled out of bed around 5:00 to feed Levi. I noticed a dull pain in my upper abdomen. I don't think much of it and go on with the day. Later that morning I start feeling chills come on and a little achiness. Again, no big deal. Well, by about 11:00, I had to take Olivia to a doctor's appointment and by this time I am freezing and my aches are worse. So I get back to work and take some Ibuprofen and eventually I feel okay. Later that night it all comes back. This time I check my temp and it is 102.8. So I take more medicine and decide I've come down with some virus. All night I run fever and every inch of my body is killing me. Charlie tells me I'm probably getting the stomach bug going around. Well, the stomach bug never hits (at least the stomach part). Thurday, I lay around the house and enjoy more fever (even higher this time) and more body aches, all the while expecting this little bug to let up. Thursday evening rolls around and my doctor husband is questioning me. I tell him I've got fever, body aches and this dull pain in the abdomen. I was finally chalking it up to the flu so he does a flu and a strep test on me. Both negative. He says maybe it's your gall bladder or something. So, by Friday there is still no change. Still high fever, still body aches. Charlie calls me from work and gently urges me to go to the doctor (actually he said, "How long are you gonna wait to go to the doctor?" So I give in and he gets me an appointment. We go see the doctor and she at a loss as well, so she decides to do lab work just see if it shows anything. Lab work comes back pretty inconclusive. White count is a little high but my other levels are normal suggesting it is not a virus. This makes me a little nervous, b/c now we really don't know what it is. So then she sends me for a CT scan b/c of the abdominal discomfort. The radiologist looks at the scan and finds about a 2.5mm mass on my left kidney that he says is not a cyst, but could be an abcess. So they decided to work it up and have a urologist examine it. As soon as he sees it, he says it's a lobar nephronia (a big urology word). All other doctors call it a focal pylonephritis, basically a bad infection that condenses itself. He sees about 1 of these a year. And... he adds, I have the classic symptoms. So mystery solved, they stick me in the hospital overnight for a megadose of antibiotics, then send me home on more antibiotics. So here I am now, feeling some better but still having fever and abdominal pain (you would think back pain, but no). Had no idea a kidney infection could make you feel so bad. Hopefully this medicine will kick it soon.

OLIVIA

She's about the most interesting person to talk about at the moment. She has started her day off with some fever, runny nose and nonstop cough. So after a nice dose of Tylenol she is feeling better. She is actually sitting in my lap as I type this. She is going through this strange sleeping phase (well, for about the last couple of months) where she gets up in the night, usually 3 or 4 times. So usually I march her back to bed. Well, recently, she gets mad when I send her back to bed. So now, when she comes to our room, I just tell her to go back to bed and I don't get up. Being the smart girl that she is, now she just comes equipped with her pillow and blanket and she makes herself a bed on the floor next to our bed. I haven't quite decided what to do with her now. She doesn't do it every night, but she seems to do it in little spurts. She did stay in bed all night last night, so we'll see what today.

From the lips of Olivia:

Hingleburg: hamburger

Wipertowel: papertowel or toilet paper

I fell off the blog wagon (obviously). Actually I'm not sure people really read this anymore, but if you do, here's a little update to what we've been doing. We survived Christmas and New Years, actually the holidays were really nice, but really tiring. Traveling with 4 kids...is.. well... tiring. No other way to put it. But we were able to spend time with both sides of the family so that is the important thing. And we even got a white Christmas at my parents' house. We had to drive through a blizzard (seriously) to get it, but nonetheless the snow was nice. We even got to go sledding which was a lot of fun.
We've started off our new year with nothing too major to report. Olivia and Levi are both getting over ear infections and a cold. It took Levi crying for three days and finally running a 104 temp to make us finally realize that "Oh, he's probably sick." So to the doctor we went. Later that afternoon, Olivia woke up from her nap saying her ear hurt. So the next morning we made another trip to the doctor. Two sick kids make for a long weekend. I think only Allie and Claire got to sleep at night. But finally after lots of drugs, I think we are all doing better. We've had to put ear drops in Olivia's ears which takes Charlie and I both wrestling her to put them in (She can definately hold her own). Finally last night she told she didn't need them anymore b/c her ear didn't hurt anymore (except that she winced in pain when I touched it). I think this may be a sign that she's going to be a noncompliant patient :).
Today everyone seems to be doing better. We're back at work and the kids are all at school/daycare. We'll just cross our fingers no one else gets sick for a while.