Still Sick

Rachel is still home sick from school! On Tuesday I was thinking she would get to go back on Wednesday, because she had been fever free all day and seemed to be feeling better, but on Wednesday morning she woke up very congested, and she obviously was not feeling well. When we got home from dropping off the big girls at school, Rachel crawled onto the couch and went to sleep. She slept for about two hours. I got her in to see the doctor about lunch time. The doctor tested for the flu, but it was negative, thank goodness. She also did a throat culture, but the results are not back on that yet. She did find that Rachel had the beginnings of an ear infection, so she was started on antibiotics. The doctor told me to keep Rachel home from school for the rest of the week. I am sure the teacher is glad I have not sent her back yet, because she has become a snot factory. She sneezes at least once an hour, and I have to run with a tissue each time she does! She has also developed a horrible cough. Despite the snot and cough she seems to be feeling better, so I decided to let Rachel go to her horse back riding today. I was glad that she made it through the class without sneezing! I mean you can only ask so much from a volunteer! Below is a video of Rachel riding Flip.

Finally, A Break From The Heat

Another week and weekend have come and gone. We finally got a break from the heat. The high temp yesterday was about 65! We were freezing but loving it. Too soon we will be back in the 80s, though. I am hoping that we won't have to deal with the 90s again until spring! One can always hope!

The girls were out of school on Friday for a teacher inservice, but we just stayed around the house. Because the girls were out of school on Friday, I kept thinking that Thursday was Friday, and I totally forgot to take Rachel to horseback riding Thursday afternoon. Fortunately, she does not know! I have felt just terrible about that.

Saturday I did remember to take Rachel to gymnastics, thank goodness. We were the first ones there and that never happens. I started thinking I must have forgotten the time and the class was at 11:00am and not 10:00am. I was suddenly worried I was losing my mind! Fortunately, everybody else was just late, and I had arrived at the right time. There are just a few little girls in the class. Four of them have Down syndrome, one has a different disability, and one is a sibling that does not have a disability. Since the sibling gets to take part, I asked if Leah and Allison could be a part of the class on Saturday. The instructor let them, but I will have to contact the gym to be sure I can sign them up. They said that they enjoyed the class. I am not sure if they will be up for going to the class each Saturday morning though.

When we picked the girls up from Sunday school yesterday, the teacher said that Rachel was sleepy toward the end of class. When we got her home she felt a little warm. I checked her temp and it was around 101. She feel asleep on the couch for a couple of hours. When she woke up, she was croupy and her temp was 103.6! I tried to give her Motrin, only to have her throw up all over the couch-ugh! I got Mike to go to the store and get acetaminophen suppositories and we started dosing her with that and her nebulizer. I gave her the acetaminophen and a neb again at midnight and she was fine overnight.

Rachel still had a temp today and stayed home home from school, but not high enough to have to give her anything today. She is still croupy too and has laid around on the couch most of the day. Allison is complaining of feeling tired and having a sore throat too, so she also stayed home today . Leah sounds stuffy, but has no complaints, thank goodness.

My week is now suddenly less hectic. I was supposed to take Rachel to Orlando tomorrow to see an ENT for an audiology test. Since she is all congested, it would not make sense to test her hearing right now, so I changed that appointment. Since she was also still running a temp this afternoon, I canceled her speech therapy in Orlando tomorrow too. I also had to cancel my six month check up at the dentist this morning. It will all catch up with me when I have to get it all rescheduled!

Did I Say It Was Hot?!

Okay, so the calendar says it is October.......almost the middle of October, but someone forgot to tell the weather! It has been so hot here the last week and a half. Highs have been in the 90s and the humidity has been terrible. I am not sure if it is worse than some of the summer days, but if because it is October, it is just harder to take.

We had our annual Buddy walk on Saturday. Other than being really hot, it was nice. We have had rain the last couple of years, so I guess this was better. At times I would have enjoyed a little rain falling, I think. Rachel walked the whole way this year. It is the first time we have not taken a stroller. She loves to walk, and we often walk through the neighborhood, but with the heat, she was ready for somebody to carry her at the end. Because it was so hot, though Mike didn't want to put her on his shoulders and she is really getting too heavy (and tall) for me to carry for too long, so she made it on her own. Below are some pictures from the walk. We walk along the shore of the Indian River Lagoon, so it is a very pretty walk.

Saturday was also Rachel's birthday. I cannot believe she is six!!! After the Buddy Walk, we drove up to Palm Coast to visit with Grandpa. We had a little party with Grandpa and spent the night. Rachel got a new CD player. She has been playing with one Leah got a while back and it is not really meant for little ones, so it is taking a beating. This one has Dora on it, so I hope it means that it is made a little more kid friendly. She is loving it!! We also got her a Dora CD (Dora's Favorite Party Songs-I thought that was funny!). It has some of Rachel's favorite songs on it, so she has enjoyed playing that too.

School Pictures

Rachel had her picture made a few weeks ago, and we got hers back last week. Doesn't she look happy?
Allison and Leah had their pictures taken last week. Allison now cares about how she looks, so we straight ironed her hair for her picture. Below is a picture when we were half way done. Notice a difference? That child has a lot of hair!

October Already!

I would swear the girls just started school last week, but the calendar says otherwise. I cannot believe we are already in October! Even the weather has cooled down just a tad-highs of 83 instead of 90, but we will take it. Some days this past week were actually comfortable-in the shade anyway. It will be a while before we will see any noticeably cool weather though. Fall in Florida is the hardest time for me. I long for some cool crisp weather and changing leaves, but it just does not happen down here.

We have just been busy with the little things in life. The girls got me to put up the Halloween decorations last Sunday. They had waited as long as they could wait and had been begging for a week to put the decorations up. "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, when can WE decorate?!?!?" After five minutes of "helping" they were running around the yard playing with friends, and I was decorating alone! Thank goodness I don't have much, so it does not take too long.

Sadly, Leah's fish, Swimmy, died this week. It was hard on her, because it was her second one and Allison still has her first one. We got the first fish about two years ago. Leah's first one died sometime around February of this year. We got a new immediately, per Leah's request, and now he is gone. Allison is still on her first fish-and he is a cool fish! When you go into the room he comes out to see you. I told Leah that this time we are not going to replace the fish. She is complaining that Allison has two pets and she only has one, but I use the argument that her tortoise will outlive us all and therefore, her pet trumps Allison's two pets. She hasn't asked for a new fish for the last couple of days, so I might win this argument. Having pets is can be fun, but the loss of a pet, no matter how small, is always sad.

Poor Leah had a tough week. After getting out the Halloween decorations, I realized I needed to redo the door wreath. Florida's sun is tough on outdoor decorations. The berries, leaves, and bow were badly faded, so I went to the craft store and bought new ones. After the girls got home from school, I was working on it and of course they wanted to help. Well, feeling sorry for Leah, because I had just had to tell her that her fish died that morning, I let her help........with the hot glue gun. She wasn't paying attention and let a large drop of glue drip on her ankle. She now has a terrible burn! I feel just terrible about letting that happen to her!! She is now adamant about not using that again! And she is going to have a lovely scar too!

We got a very lucky break this week!! After Rachel got home from school on Thursday, I realized she was missing a lens from her glasses. She had been home about 20 minutes when I noticed, so I was not sure if she got home with it or not. I looked around, but didn't find it. On Friday I mentioned it to the teacher, and she said she would look around too. When Rachel got off of the bus Friday afternoon, the aide handed me the lens!!!! They had found it on the playground! I went to put the lens back in and had to get a screwdriver to loosen the frames to get it back in. I have no idea how the lens actually came out on it own, because it appears it was in the frames securely! Rachel will never tell! I was so glad that we did not have to go get new glasses just yet. There is really no need to just get a new lens, because the frames are getting too little for Rachel. She will need new ones soon, but thank goodness not right now.

Rachel is once again enjoying her horseback riding. She is riding a new horse this year. His name is Flip. She calls him "Lip." She is also starting to enjoy her gymnastics class and is asking to go to "knicks" (my best estimate of what she calls it!) during the week. When she is there she does not want to even step out of the gym to get a drink of water. The teacher carries her out to me, with Rachel saying, "Noooooooo, juuummmppp!" I make her take two sips of water and she heads back into the gym.

Allison and Leah and some of the neighbors set up a lemonade stand in the drive way yesterday and made $9!! Today, they have a snow cone stand out there. Business was slow to start with, but I think it may have pick up a little, because Leah came in saying she had four orders. I think most of the snow cones were consumed by the entrepreneurs, though.

Fall in Florida......snow cones for sale 50 cents! After the hard work was done, they went for a dip in the pool.

When the kids are not making the big bucks with the lemonade and snow cones, they are harassing the lizards around the house. Get a load of this TINY guy sitting on Allison's finger.

The cobwebs are the girls' doing. They want scary decorations, but I won't do it. There are three sets of blinking eyes in the shrub to the left, but this is as scary as I would let them go.