Monday, March 30, 2009

A work in progress!

We've been updating the house (windows, curtains, some painting, etc.) lately and I've already posted the pictures of the new windows!

This past weekend, Joe and my Dad worked together on hanging new shutters and I have to say, I finally LOVE the exterior of our house - it still needs a lot of paint - all the beige color trim needs repainting, the door and sidelights needs to be painted to match the new shutters, etc. But overall - what a difference! I'm so happy to be done with the drab beige on off white on white exterior with no real color!


Here are some pictures of the new shutters!





And for comparison - before and after next to each other:


Asthma? Small Airway?

Joshie has a chronic cough - for which he has repeatedly been given antibiotics for over the last year or so - which obviously aren't the answer. So we finally got him in to see the doctor that diagnosed Tommy with asthma -


She said that chronic cough is usually one of three things - GERD (we don't think this it but he did have reflux as a baby), small airway (for which there is no treatment other than time - he just has to get bigger and therefore his airway will broaden out), or asthma.


She said she didn't think it was GERD either, and there's no treatment for small airway (which can cause colds to be a problem - duh - seen that!) so the best thing to do is treat it as asthma, and hopefully we'll see improvement.


So Josh started on albuterol (for 7 days to help the inflamation calm down) and Flovent as a maintenance drug (which will take 2-3 weeks for us to see maximum effectiveness).


The first two nights it seemed to be working miraculously fast - unfortunately, that was a flook, because he's still coughing till he gags sometimes. We're hoping that the Flovent will kick in soon and that we've found an answer to his chronic cough.


Here's little Joshie doing his "puff puffs"

Monday, March 23, 2009

New Windows




We were blessed to be able to put in new windows today with a portion of Joe's severance check. And we were doubly blessed because my Dad works for a window company (the best in the business I think - Vytex Windows), anyway, so today was insane. But I think I almost got more work done because I wanted to stay out of their way. They arrived at 9:30am with a crew of three guys. They finished at 3:30pm. They left the house almost how they found it (a few pieces of dirt, but nothing compared to what it could have been!). And look at the difference:









Thursday, March 12, 2009

Trying to understand God's message


The last week or so we've been struck AGAIN with illness - first Tommy with strep throat. Then Joshua with a nasty cold and pink eye.

I'm trying to understand what lesson God is trying to teach me - I thought I learned what I was suppose to learn back in February with the stomach bug that hit us. I learned about praising God for all that came out of that - having cuddles with my Joshie Bear, about not letting weight rule my life, about working as a team with my "partner in crime" husband, about letting go and letting God handle it. I thought I did super well and I learned so much from that two weeks of puke.

But now, this week, I'm having a hard time. I talked to my Mom yesterday and told her we were hit again with illness and she said maybe God is trying to teach you something - I told her, yeah, and I learned what I needed to learn in February - she said, maybe what YOU learned, isn't what God wanted you to learn. DUH!

So now I ask, God, what is it that I'm supposed to be learning here?

My favorite song is "Bring the Rain" and it talks about praising God in the storms. I thought I was? But this week has really been challenging me. Big time.