sorry i don't keep this blog current.  things have been crazy this summer.

in june my dad had a heart attack and we just got back from an 8 week stay with him while he recovered from quadruple by-pass surgery.

in the 8 weeks that we were gone nora put on like 6lbs and grew several inches.  within two weeks she grew out of her 0-3 month clothes.  it was crazy.  she started sleeping through the night in july (at 3 months) and started rolling from back to tummy a couple weeks after that.  she is now rolling all over, getting into stuff, grabbing for anything in front of her, putting the binky in her mouth and just being silly.  she is so cute.

meagan lost her first tooth last week.  she swallowed it while having lunch (ick).  her second tooth is loose now.  she starts school on wed and is not looking forward to 1st grade.  she doesn't want to go to school all day.  it just isn't fair.

brenna made a friend today.  the little girl that lives behind us is a month younger then her (and only 4 inches taller, lol).  they played all afternoon while i did laundry.  i hope they get to play together more.

on monday we went to erie, Pa to go to the beach.  it was a little cool for swimming but the kids had fun playing in the sand

I think I may have discovered part of the reason for Brenna's poor speech.  I just noticed last night that she can't stick her tongue out very far because she has a short frenulum (the skin that attatches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth.  I can't believe I never noticed it before.  It could be the reason she is so hard to understand.  I'll have to make an appt. for her to see if the doctor thinks the same thing.

I just can't believe I never noticed.  She is 3 1/2 years old for crying out loud.  I only noticed because she was showing me how she can roll her tongue.  I noticed her tongue looked forked when she stuck it out and I remembered reading about that somewhere.

Oh, and she has a chipped tooth.  I have no idea how that happened either.  I don't remember her hurting her mouth lately.

I have been taking the kids for walks every day this week.  It is really tough pushing the double stroller up the hills here but I like to look at all the houses and dream of owning one some day.

On Thursday we went for a walk on a trail near by.  It is built over an old rail line so the grade is level and it is nice and wide (no shade for hot summer walking though).  It was nice.  Meagan ran the whole time.  We told her to start running and get some exercise and she did.  She ran at least a 1/2 mile in one direction and ran the entire 1 1/2 miles back.  She was almost a half mile ahead of us at one point.  She used to whine if we even suggested she run, now she is asking to go back.  Maybe she will be a distance runner.

Then yesterday we went to another park that has a stream through it and let the kids play in the water.  It was hiliarious and one of the most relaxing days I have had as a family.  Me and dh sat on the bank and skipped rocks and the kids got totally soaked and road home in their underwear.  We don't have nearly enough of those days.  We let Meagan play hooky so she could be part of it.  I wish I had the camera because it was priceless.

Today Meagan took one of her Junie B. Jones books to school to show her teacher.  Then she read her teacher a whole chapter.  She got a sticker and a new bookmark in return.  I'm so proud of her.  These books are very advanced.  They are about a Kindergartener but are meant more for a parent to read to a child.  I would think a second grader would be able to read them easily.  Just last week Meagan told me they were too hard and she couldn't read them alone.  Now she comes home every day and reads a few pages by herself.

She is also reading books to Brenna and Nora all the time.  She just loves to read.  And write.  She wrote a short letter to Hailey without any help.  Well, all it said was "For Hailey from Meagan" with a picture under it but it's a start.

Meagan took her first spelling test on Thursday and got an A+.  She got them all right.  Her teacher says she is ready for 1st grade now.  I am so proud.  :)

Nothing much going on here.  The kids are doing good--driving me nuts as usual.  The weather has finally gotten nice.  We even went for a walk after Meagan got on the bus the other day.  It was nice.

Nora is doing great.  Her pediatrician decided the hospital was crazy for switching her formulas so she is back on regular stuff.  Shows how much those doctors at the hospital know.  She has no milk allergy and is fine and growing like crazy.  She is pretty much on a schedule and eats at certain times.  Like during the night she usually gets up at 2am and at 5 and takes 3oz.  And I just found at her 11am and 2pm feeding she likes to take 4oz or she fusses until her next feeding.  She's a little piggy.

She got her first real bath tonight--just for the heck of it.  Her cord fell off last night so we now have a belly button.  The kids are facinated, lol.

I'm feeling tons better, too.  I'm just a little sore still and have to take it easy or the pain gets worse.  But it is nothing compared to how I felt during the last month of pregnancy.  So I'm good.

That's what's up with us.

Here's some Easter pictures.

Nora Glenn was born on April 5, 2006 at 11:20am.  She weighed 7lbs, 13oz. and was 20in. long.

The kids absolutely adore her and she is destined to be the most spoiled little girl ever. 

She is doing good but having some feeding issues.  They changed her formula 3 times in the 3 days we were in the hospital.  She is now on a hypo-allergenic formula but she is very unhappy and constipated and miserable.  She is going to see the doctor on Monday so hopefully we can get it all worked out.

My recovery was going good until we came home.  I have a slight infection in my uterus that is causing me a lot of pain and worry.  Plus PPD has set in.  I was feeling so good until we got home and I started worrying.  Luckily I have a better support system this time and I think I will make it out okay.  I'm hoping to get into the doctor tomorrow, too, to see how the infection is doing.  I'm already on antibiotics.

Otherwise things are going good.  Just trying to adjust to four kids.  It would be easier if I wasn't in so much pain.  This recovery is much harder then the others, but I'll make it.

It has been a long time--sorry.  I have been posting mostly on my LiveJournal and My Space sites.  And lately I just don't feel like being on the computer at all.

A quick update on all of us.
Meagan--is doing great in school.  As her report card showed she is excelling in everything.  She is reading now.  She will pick a book from the shelf and just read it.  Even though she doesn't understand all the rules of English she is able to sound stuff out and just figure out the words on her own.  Occasionally she asks me what a word is but mostly just does it herself.  She is adding and subtracting, too, but I don't think she knows it.  She is doing great in math, her teacher says.  They are learning higher numbers (20 and up) and the teacher said most kids have trouble with it but Meagan has none.  She can read the times off the clock for me now, which is a help when I'm in a hurry and not near the clock.  They are learning money now and she is doing good with telling the coins apart.  Mostly I'm proud of her reading.  She really seems to like to read.  She will ask Brenna if Brenna wants a book read to her.

Owen is the same as always--getting into everything and throwing tantrums over nothing.  He tires me out.  He has been fighting a lot with the girls lately.  I hope this baby is a boy so he can have a brother to play with because I think the girls are tired of his rough housing.  Otherwise he is good.  I'm going to get some preschool workbooks and start working with him on his ABCs.  He misses the Kindergarten cut off date by just 1 day here, but he isn't ready at all, anyway.  And we can't afford preschool so I will have to teach him at home.  This is going to be a major challenge with his fits.  We'll see how it goes.

Brenna--her speech is about the same.  Sometimes I can understand her, other times I have no clue what she is saying.  A lot of the time I have to have one of the other kids tell me what she is trying to say because I just can't figure it out.  It sounds like gibberish to me.  She'll be 3 1/2 soon and I keep hoping she will just catch up.  I'll probably work with her on preschool stuff this next school year, too.
She is starting to try and use the potty again.  We still can't figure out her aversion to the potty.  She was doing good right after we moved her.  She was peeing all the time and pooping sometimes.  Then she stopped pooping, but was still peeing all the time, then that stopped too.  Now she is in pull-ups pretty much all the time because she was refusing to use the bathroom at all.  But last night she pooped in the potty-the second time this week.  I'm hoping she is ready again to use the potty.

Me and baby--
well, I got my c-section date--April 5th, like I thought.  I don't have a time yet, though.  That is just 2 weeks away now.  I am so excited and so ready to have this pregnancy over.  It has been the worst yet.  And I thought being pregnant with Owen and having my abdominal muscles seperate and the awful swelling and dealing with a toddler was hard.  This has been like 10 times worse.  Besides swelling I have had such awful hip pain I can barely walk anymore.  I can't life my legs so I can't get my pants on by myself, I can barely get my shoes on and if they need to be tied--forget it, and I can't life my legs up onto my foot stool.  It is insane.  The house has gone to hell because  I can't be on my feet for very long so I get no cleaning done.  I have gotten a bunch of crocheting done, though.  I find it very relaxing.  This week I have been working on a cute sweater and hat set.  I've also been making quilts for the baby.  I have one in boy colors and one in girl colors.  No matter what we have the baby will use both, though, because you can never have enough blankets.

I still haven't settled on a name.  I was thinking Collin for a boy the whole time but a new friend suggested Kyler and I fell in love.  I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before.  I have always liked the name.  For the other kids I always wanted Tyler Glen for a boy but Tyler is so popular.  Kyler Glen sounds just as good and Kyler isn't as popular around her.  Now I just have to convince dh.  He will probably just give in as he always does.  The middle name might cause a fight though.  He wants James after his dad (it was his dad's middle name and is my dad's middle name and his nephew's first name).  I understand him wanting it.  My fil passed away 3 years ago on April 11 (the day before my actual due date).  But we named Owen after dh and his dad.  Owen's middle name is Patrick which is both dh's and his dad's first name.  I promised my mom a long time ago that I would name one of my children after her.  Her name was Glenna and she was named after her grandfather--Glen.  I was thinking Nora Glenn for a girl after my mom and my aunt Nora.

I've got 2 weeks to decide, unless the baby decides to come early.  I've been having all sorts of contractions the last few weeks so who knows.  Only problem is we have no one to watch the kids.  I mean no one.  Not even for my planned surgery.  We are completely on our own so that means I will be going into the OR alone while dh watches the kids.  It freaks me out but there is nothing we can do.  No one wants to come stay with us and we don't know anyone in town well enough to leave the kids with them for the day, especially since the surgery will probably be really early in the morning.  My one friend did say she would come for a couple of days but I feel bad asking her because we have no where for her to sleeep.  We still have no couch and no beds.  Oh well.  It will be an experience, to say the least.