What a Month!

Well, February started out great with a visit from my sister, Sharon, and her daughter, Savannah. Since my mom is away in India on a mission for the next year, she could not come down to help out after Colton was born. Sharon and Savannah graciously flew down from Michigan and stayed for 5 days. It was wonderful to see them! Trey and Jackson adored them as well.

On Valentine's Day, Erik's Mom flew in from Florida. Things started out great, but turned ugly quickly (as most of you know) with the beginning of Erik's scary infection.

If you didn't get the story, I will sum it up in as little detail as makes sense. Sunday evening, Erik had a bump the size of a golf ball on his elbow that was very painful. I told him to quit being a baby and go back to bed. When he was in such severe pain and had a fever of 103.5, he went to the ER. They diagnosed bursitis and sent him home on antibiotics. Within a few hours, the swelling was the circumference of a frisbee on his arm with streaking toward his heart. He went back to the ER and they admitted him to start IV antibiotics. The swelling increased so that eventually his arm was double the size it normally should be, hence VERY painful.

They tried to aspirate (stick a needle into the elbow and draw out fluid) to aleviate the infection to no avail. The next day they operated on it, removing the bursa and making sure the joint itself was not infected. All of these things combined with the high powered antibiotics should have killed this infection, but it was quite defiant, which caused us a lot of worry and stress. Finally after five days, things appeared to be headed the right direction with his arm when his kidneys started to go into acute failure because of the antibiotics. Because of this, he got fluid in his lungs which led to pneumonia.

After a week in the hospital, he was sent home on oral antibiotics, mostly because we were ready to get the heck out of there. Fortunately, Erik's mom was here for several days while he was in the hospital and then my friends, Patti and Linda, watched our kids so I could be at the hospital throughout. My brother, Steven, was here every day for at least part if not the whole day to help. It was very stressful, especially with Colton being so little and me trying to breastfeed.

We really think now that Erik is mostly better. Everything is healing but not yet healed, but we think it should in the near future. Thank you to everyone who helped out with the kids and those of you who were praying for and thinking of us. I know it helped.

Here is a more recent picture of Colton- he is growing so fast!
Also- the three cutest boys in the land!!!

Trey loving Colton. He has been very helpful with him so far!

Jackson loves to pat his head and needs to do so about every five minutes. He will stop whatever he is doing, giggle and putz his way over to pat him.

Colton is already getting some chubby cheeks! So cute and incredibly kissable. (Sorry- can't seem to fix the redeye on these.)

Colton Jon Enderle is here! He weighed in at 8 lbs 10 ounces and 21 inches long, our biggest boy yet! He was born at 3:07 am after a quick labor and fairly easy delivery (thankfully!)

This is the first meeting of the three brothers. Trey is very excited and wants to include Colton in everything. Jackson has been very gentle and comes up to stroke his head often.

Our first family photo with all of us together (Colton is about 6 hours old here.)

Jackson loves to play in the cabinets so much that we've had to clear some out unless we want a mess on the floor 10 times a day.

I found Jackson like this with Erik's shoes on, unable to go anywhere.

This is me at 38 weeks along. I feel quite mammoth, but may not be as big as I was with Jackson. Who knows. I will be induced Monday the 19th if I haven't had Colton by then!

Christmas Day

This was Trey's face as he came downstairs Christmas morning to see all the presents!

Jackson was not terribly into opening presents, but his favorite gift was this toy that he whacks a hammer on the balls. Should've known he would love to whack on something!

Trey's favorite toy was this Cars Racetrack. He played with it most of the day with his new cars.

Trey and Jackson got new pajamas from my friend, Tara, for Christmas and they looked adorable.

This is Jackson. He is just cute. Need I say more?

Pre-Christmas

It's hard to tell, but this is our beautiful newly tiled kitchen (laundry room and bathroom as well) with all new matching appliances! My brother, Steven, has been staying with us for about a month and he and Erik did a wonderful job on the kitchen! I love it so much.

We had a countdown to christmas with hershey's kisses that the kids got to have each morning. One was not enough for Jackson, so he pulled some tongs out of the kitchen drawer and tried to yank more down! Pretty smart, or as Steven said, "Jess! He's smarter than a monkey!"

Jackson and Trey by the tree.

Trey enjoying making and EATING Christmas cookies!

This was the pumpkin carving that turned out to be pretty good. Trey showed Erik on his face the scary look that the pumpkin should have and they were both pleased. Trey didn't like getting the seeds and slime out though.

We went to a halloween party at a park on friday morning put on by the community. It was fun but very packed with people so we didn't stay real long. Jackson had to be corraled in his stroller finally and he is holding the bribe of a cookie so he wouldn't scream about being confined. His costume has a very cute hood (the pumpkin's stem) but he would not leave it on!

At left: Jackson loves to climb and be outdoors so he was having tons of fun at the park the other day.

At right: Trey was a ghost and Jackson was a pumpkin this year. Trey picked out his costume (he wanted to be something scary) and Jackson was a pumpkin by default because his body is shaped like one and because we already had Trey's old costume! Trey's costume also has a hood and mask but he wouldn't leave those on either.

Devin, Trey, and Lexi (Patti & Jeff Kimmel's 5 year old twins) went trick or treating together (Jackson did for a little while as well.) They had so much fun and scored LOTS of candy! I love Devin checking out his "six-pack" and Lexi with such an angelic face in her witch costume!

Here is the latest pregnancy photo. I am now 28 weeks (3rd trimester! Woo-hoo!) and am feeling good and looking big. (or you can say feeling big and looking good- I won't stop you!)