A Mini Update (since I've been a slacker...)

November was rough health-wise. Well, I suppose it all actually started the week leading up to Halloween. Allie came home with a slightly pink eye, which progressively worsened over the weekend, so much so that she had to get Vigamox eye drops and stay home from school... on the day of her first field trip, which happened to be to the pumpkin patch. A bit of a head cold developed along with the Pink Eye, but not enough to keep her home more than a day. It wasn't long after when my throat began to hurt and Sami began coughing and running a fever. We couldn't keep either one of us away from the Halloween festivities, though. Sami had been planning on being Princess Leia for months. We still had to go to the ward Trunk-or-Treat, turning our trunk into a "snowball toss" to go along with my theme of dressing up as one of Santa's elves and Kevin being Rudolf. (By the way, Allie was a witch and Drew was a darling Charlie Brown.) We put up with Sami's coughing for a week before I decided to take Sami in. When I did, the doctor in the morning clinic at the pediatrician's office said Sami's lungs sounded clear. Over that weekend the cough worsened, and I thought I heard wheezing, so I took her back to the pediatrician... and she was given a different doctor. This doctor checked her ears, said she had an ear infection and bagan to write down a prescription for an antibiotic. I mentioned the coughing at that point (since that's why I had brought her back in), and she replied, "Oh, she's coughing? I'll write her a prescription for some cough medicine." Say what?! The next day I put up with the coughing with no improvement, so the following day I skipped the pediatrician's office and went straight to the Urgent Care, since I needed to go there anyway for my own horribly sore throat. The doctor there looked at my throat and said, "Yep, that's strep," and then listened to Sami's lungs and heard wheezing. He took chest x-rays there and sent them to a radiologist, who diagnosed her with pneumonia. She had to go back to the Urgent Care the next morning to get a painful shot of Rocephin in the leg. About a week later, Kevin caught the cold (including the Pink Eye), which lingered with him for a couple weeks, and at about the same time Drew developed bronchitis and Allie developed some kind of nasty cough (for which she had to miss the PE Olympics at school). A couple weeks later, Sami came down with croup just before I caught another cold. At this point in time we're all healthy, and I just pray it stays that way so we can go caroling at the hospital on Christmas.

As for happenings of the past couple months... We went to Sea World's Halloween Spooktacular, and the girls got to triack-or-treat throughout the park. And we took Sami and Drew to the day of free admission for Brevard County residents at the Kennedy Space Center. We spent Thanksgiving at my Mom's cousin Peggy's house with her husband and daughter and my two great-aunts. Allie and Sami also had their Christmas dance recital. Sami is the youngest in the in the pre-ballet class with two other girls, and Allie is the youngest of six girls in the next level up. I would describe it more right now, but I am feeling so overwhelmed and exhausted and frustrated at all I have to do that I need to just give the basic facts at this point-- no clever descriptions, too time consuming. But a quick run-down of the program-- Sami danced as a "little swan" dressed in white to a selection from Swan Lake, and Allie danced as perhaps a little girl playing around before bedtime to some piece I hadn't heard before. Cute, very cute.

Steve brought four of his girls out here from Utah as their Christmas present last week, while a pregnant Erika stayed home with their two boys and nearly two year-old Emily. They stayed at the Church ranch with Mom and Dad Smith, and we got to spend a day at Sea World with them... in the cold rain. On Sunday they all came to one of my choir concerts (for which the church sanctuary was overflowing), and then joined us at our house for dinner afterward. Allie and Sami really enjoyed the time they had to be silly with Bri and Kayli. Caitlyn told us we needed to "move back to Utah." Although, with how much Steve was loving our Florida "winter" weather, I think we might have better luck to convince them to move here.

I can't forget about our little Drew turning one on the 7th. I made him a "BYU cake," as the girls called it. A little singing and a present and we called it good. Goodness, we love that little boy.



Oy.

Kevin came in not too long ago asking me if I'd cut his hair tonight. I sighed. So much to do, and yet my list keeps lengthening because someone in this house is always in need of something.

Well, my eyes are extremely heavy, so I had better... Oops. I just fell asleep.