Tea Party

Today the girl cousins, Rebekah, Abigail, Liliana, Claudia and Natalia had a tea party at Lili, Claudia and Tali's grandma's house (Grammy). This was an especially important party since these 3 girls leave on Thursday to go back to Peru. The 5 of them are quite close and won't be together again until August when we get back to Peru. Looks like they had fun.

Cousin watching time

Watching "Looney Tunes" together.

Natalia and Uncle David watch Looney Tunes

The Girl Cousins

The six of us are spending the evening with the cousins Lili, Claudia, Tali and Caleb while their mom and dad, Steve and Molly went to a Purdue Basketball game and out to supper. It has been a nice afternoon and evening with the cousins. It has been very good for our girls to be with the girl cousins since they leave on Thursday to go back to Peru. They are going to miss each other very much.

A New Look

Abigail took the big plunge today, she got a haircut. She had the goal of growing her hair to waist length. She reached that goal and decided to get it cut. It was difficult for her to brush, put up and maintain. She looks so good in her new cut. She brought the ponytail home. Rebekah also got her hair trimmed. They both look very nice, and a lot more alike.

Pictures in front of the tree

As you can see there are no pictures of the boys, they had already changed by the time I thought of taking pictures. They weren't too excited about pictures anyway :) Merry Christmas!

Living Nativity

Benjamin plays the role of Jesus at the resurrection of Lazarus

Abigail and Rebekah, Kiersten Boyer and Michelle Toth wait their turn to go outside.

David plays the role of a soldier.

Abigail, Jacob, Rebekah and Alison Grass are shepherds.

This weekend our family it taking part in our church's yearly living nativity. It is a great time to serve our Saviour and be with friends. It wasn't too cold last night but it will be tonight. Benjamin was supposed to be a disciple in the boat on the water, then they moved him to play the role of one of Noah's sons, then they changed him to be Jesus at the resurrection of Lazarus. Good thing he is flexible. We are thankful that Abigail and Jacob are healthy enough to participate. For now we are all Stilwell!

Just keep walking...

Decorating the tree!

Our pediatrician things that Abigail and Jacob may have walking pneumonia. Yuk! They will start their antibiotics soon. I can't get Abigail fever free. It hovers between 101-102. Neither child will get to go to school this week. Abigail will miss taking all her finals at school. It seems that her teachers will let her take them at home, what a blessing! There are times when she feels up to studying and testing. Jacob is bummed he will miss his Prairie Christmas party tomorrow. They have been studying Indiana history this semester and that is how they will wrap it all up. I was supposed to go help but that won't happen either.

We have enjoyed playing some games together and just snuggling (we have done a lot of that).

They (and me) aren't getting a lot of sleep with all the coughing.

We should be on the road to recovery soon! We would like to be "Stilwell" before Christmas. :) We would like for the walking pneumonia to just walk right on out of here!

Household of sickies

Well...here we go. Jacob has his croup variant asthma and is on inhalers and steroids. He should go back to school tomorrow. Abigail has a fever between 101-102, I am having trouble getting it and keeping it down. Ibuprofen isn't working, we'll see what Tylenol does. She is droopy and has an itchy/coughy throat. Her lungs are clear and so are her ears. It is a wait and see if anything else develops game. She and Jacob did see the pediatrician today. She is concerned about her finals, but she isn't well enough to study or take them at this point. We'll work out all those details later. My dad is still having headaches but each day he seems a little better. My foot is still aching me, it is a long process getting this tendon healed. I see the doctor tomorrow but I don't feel ready to get rid of this big boot I am wearing. Oh brother. Our bathroom looks like a pharmacy! Unfortunately we didn't get to celebrate my nephews 1st birthday today because of the sickies at our house and theirs. Thankfully we aren't traveling these days!!

He's Home

Dad arrived home and looks great! His gait was steady and he had a big smile. First thing he did was to rip off all those heart monitor patches. It is good to have him home. His head still hurts pretty bad but he is happy to be home.

Update on dad

This morning both doctors have seen dad. No surgery is required for the broken shoulder blade. He just needs to wear a sling when he is up and about. When he is sitting he is to take the sling off to exercise the arm a bit. He isn't vomiting anymore and is now on oral pain medication. He is still in a lot of pain. The top of his head is very tender, that is where he hit the ground first. His elbow is also quite painful so they are going to xray that today also. His jaw is sore but not broken. I am sure he will be black and blue today. He should come home today where he will rest better. He still doesn't want to eat but needs to in order to begin the healing process. I don't know how mom slept last night but I know I had a difficult time getting to sleep, I just kept seeing my dad lying unresponsive on the garage floor. At the time the nurse in me just took over and handled it but it was more difficult when I got to bed last night. God answered prayers in taking those thoughts away and allowing me to go to sleep. Thanks for praying. He doesn't remember anything, that is also a wonderful blessing.

Pray for my dad

That is my dad, Kenny, in the red shirt

This morning Dad and David put up the big Christmas tree and the lights and got various boxes out of the attic of the garage. Mom wanted one more box brought down, a light box filled with bows for wrapping gifts. Dad, not thinking mom could reach the box, stretched down to give it to her and slipped right out of the attic and hit the cement floor in the garage. Mom ran in to call me out to help. Dad was unconscious for about 30 seconds, when he came to he was groggy but was eventually able to answer my questions and grip my fingers. He could also move his legs without difficulty. In the meantime I had mom call 911 and within 5 minutes the volunteer team from the Battle Ground area was here evaluating dad. Dad insisted on sitting up and then insisted on walking to the living room before the medics arrived. His walk was very unsteady therefore David aided him to a seat. He complained of his shoulder hurting. When the medics arrived Dad began trying to vomit. They checked his blood pressure and checked him over. The put a cervical collar on him and strapped him to the back board and off he went in the ambulance to the emergency room. Mom rode with him and I followed in mom's car. David stayed home to take care of things left there. At the emergency room he had an IV put in and had a cat scan. The cat scan showed a broken scapula (shoulder blade), a skull fracture and damage to the shoulder. At first we were told broken collar bone but that isn't correct. His jaw is also very sore so they are keeping an eye on that. They didn't want to do any more xrays since he had already received enough radiation for one day. He is still having trouble keeping anything down and they may start an IV if he isn't able to keep liquids down. They said the nausea could be related to the pain medication he was receiving or the head injury or both. We called at 9:30 PM and he was sleeping. Mom is home but plans to be back at the hospital by 6:30 to talk to the doctor (who is a great friend of ours from church). The orthopedic doc should also see him tomorrow to talk about his shoulder injury. Dad is bummed that he won't be able to shoot his bows for quite a while (he is an archer on the professional level and does some coaching as well). We would appreciate your prayers over the next days and weeks. One for dad's healing and also for his patience in this lengthy healing process. He has never been down for a long time so he will get restless. For those of you who know him you know he likes to stay busy, he won't want to be sitting around letting others do things for him.

Here We Go Again

For those of you who follow us, you know that Rebekah is to have more surgery this year while we are stateside. In January she will have a skin expander inserted into her left forearm so that in March they can cut out the large scar on her forearm and close it up with the skin they have stretched. During that surgery they will also thin out the graft on her hand. We are so thankful for our surgeon and he is THRILLED with Rebekah's progress. The bones in her index finger are more knit together than they were in July. We have much to be thankful for!

Iowa Thanksgiving

Make a Smilebox scrapbook