EKjourney Backup

A quick note.... First, we have a big 3 year old girl!!! Jubilee turned 3 on May 27th. Grandma Tracy came down and spent two days with us. It is hard to have a big birthday bash when Mom is sick but we did lots of fun little things to make it special. We had a small celebration here at home that included a yummy dinner of waffles, syrup, strawberries, whip cream, and ice cream cones for dessert. Thursday, we played at the park and had a picnic lunch at Daddy's work during his break. Friday, my parents took Jubilee to the carousel and shopping. Today, we are having a hot dog (health food kind!) lunch cook out at Auntie Tina's and Uncle A's. I wanted to say also, how much I appreciate the help that my wonderful Mother-in-Law gave us while she was down here. She cleaned the kitchen several times, caught us up on laundry, sent me inside to take a nap while she watered the garden, and entertained the children. There is NOTHING that speaks to me so much and makes me feel...

This is the first of 8 (I think) new posts. The last three weeks have been really really hard. Being sick and having the children sick really took a toll on us and with Phil working extra jobs, it felt like we were barely holding on. The house fell to pieces, meals were bland and made me gag, laundry piled up, everything just seemed to go out the window. There were lots of tears on my part! This past week, I saw some evenings where I wasn't laying in bed shaking violently with nausea. Even though I still have nausea bouts throughout the day, I have gained a few hours in the evening where I can function. I really struggle during the first trimester and wonder how I am ever going to make it through. This time around I felt almost panicky at the chaos and how sick I felt. I am FINALLY posting our little bunnies. This is Phoebe This is Suzie (Sawyer picked the name.) Hard to believe these big rabbits are actually still babies.

Is this not the most beautiful rabbit hutch you have ever seen! How lucky we were to get free windows and doors. It made this an affordable project. We still need to finish trim, paint, and roof but it is coming along nicely.

Collecting Rocks The car made a perfect wind block! How handy to make lunch, change diapers, load up favorite rocks, etc. with the car right there.

This actually only lasted a few minutes. It was just a bit too chilly for a full sand coverage. Tickly sand Is it a beached whale?? Everyone got in on the action

HILLARIOUS!!

My parents took Jeremy (a student from Switzerland that is on Sabatical) for a day of 4 wheeling and jet skiing. We caught up with them at the lake and Phil took the children for a ride. Even Jubilee tried it (I am still reeling from the shock - this is the girl that cries if she gets wet from the sprinkler!) They both decided that they didn't like going fast.

After a very wet April, we are finally enjoying lots of sunshine. Perhaps I should get the children bathing suits. They started out playing in water and soon shed their wet clothes.

...when walking through the yard and encountering this giant creature in our grass! I am not unfamiliar with snakes, growing up in the country in Southern Oregon, we had our fair share and variety of them. However, since living in Silverton, we have seen nothing but little Red Racers (which I am constantly rescuing from the cats). I didn't even know there were other varieties around. This guy was probably at least 3 feet and once disturbed hissed and rattled his tail. We knew he wasn't a rattlesnake so we looked him up online and discovered that he was a Bull snake. We took a short walk to a vacant field down the road from us and let him go on his merry way.

We have our first water baby! Playing in an icy cold hose! The other two stand back in disbelief. Jubilee especially!

Jubilee had a bit of a relapse yesterday and spent a good part of the day on the couch. She was quite whiny and said her tummy hurt. Appetites are still are not normal but I think we may be heading out of the woods. Thank goodness! Phil has been working like crazy to build.......our new rabbit pen. It is the most deluxe rabbit pen you have ever seen!!! We decided to go ahead and get our two Flemish rabbits. Phil has been doing some tutoring after school and teaching a technology course so we have a few extra dollars coming in to pay for the set up. We canceled our membership to Netflix because we simply don't have time to watch movies. The money that is freed up there, pays for rabbit food. It is fun to start adding animals (besides the insane number of cats we have aquired) to our urban farm! My plants will LOVE the contribution (he he). I will post pictures soon!

Well, the night before last, Sawyer was up until about 4:30 with diarrhea. Then, about the same time his system was calming down, Jubilee's was starting up and she went the next several hours with the same thing. Their fevers died down and then they both slept and slept and slept. For the past 24 hours, they have only been awake for 4 of it. They were up around 1:30 and back asleep around 5:30. I took them outside and put them on a blanket with their pillows so they could soak up some sunshine and fresh air. Jubilee is up this morning and asking for food. Sawyer is still sleeping and thankfully Phil (who was up for 3 nights straight) is too. This tops the worst flu of all time for the Kelly family. I am hoping this day brings some healing, eating, and good naps. Children feeling better would be the best Mother's Day present of all.

The two sick children camped out on couches ALL day today. They only got up when I carried them to use the potty. They just lay there, feverish, whimpering, uncomfortable, sipping fluids, dozing on and off. I have NEVER seen either one of them laid out to this extent. While I am pretty much anti "drug" medication, I think I will give them each a dose of Tylenol tonight before bed in hopes of making them more comfortable. Poor things! This has been just awful.

Uggg, the flu hit. It started with poor Evi on Monday night. She had diarrhea and was quite cranky for a couple of days. Then yesterday, poor Sawyer started vomiting in the evening and vomited ever half hour for about 12 hours. It was so bad that Phil took a sick day and took him to the pediatricians while I tried to purge the house of germs. I washed all the sheets, opened windows, hung pillows outside, scrubbed the bathroom, and did tons of laundry. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late, Jubilee started vomiting this evening. We are gearing up for another long night. The nice thing is, despite having no sleep last night, this is the best that I have felt in several days! I had the energy and felt well enough to really clean up and take care of what needed to be done. Here is Sawyer. This is probably the sickest he has been (or at least it ranks up at the top). Here is Jubilee. So far, she has bounced back after vomiting fairly well. Towels, blankets, barf pan, Check ...