so last tuesday we had a little party for our kiddos.  an afternoon of yummy food, hot chocolate and spiced apple cider, fun presents, and dear friends.  it was a bit chaotic with 7 kids and babies, but these are the days for memory-making! we all managed to fit around our small table to share lunch together before doing the gift exchange.  then it was present time!  luke went first and it wasn’t long before the ‘vultures’ began circling…    then jenna opened her gift from luke.  he came over to help.   will opened his gift from jenna.   i think he and his mommy both liked it!   then…

tonight (well, last night, since it’s now past midnight) we had a little christmas party with three other couples from our church.  a great time was had by all as we shared a beautiful turkey dinner together and then dove into our white elephant gifts.  everyone was a good sport too as they all let me shoot away…   brooke had these cool little candles set up on the dining room table.   my little buddy luke.  isn’t he such a cutie?   mikey definitely lived it up, so happy was he to finally be out of our house and not at the doctor’s office.   we locked the kiddos upstairs so…

really?  i see phil’s nose on both kiddos.  hee hee.        

so we took allie in for her clinic visit this morning.  the good news– her fever is way down and her temp is finally normal.  we actually didn’t have to give her baby tylenol today when she woke up for the first time in a week!  other good news is that she nursed well and kept it down.  and she has finally learned to take a bottle!  they wanted to give her some pedialyte at the clinic since she still has signs of dehydration.  i tried the bottle with her and she actually drank 3 ounces!  yay! the bad news– the doctor checked her ears and said, and i quote,…

yup, you read that right.  we ended up being sent to the emergency room today for allie.  we went to the clinic this morning where her doctor checked her over and said her ears were still pretty red and didn’t seem to be responding to the antibiotics we were giving her.  another cause for concern was her drop in weight.  at the clinic last week in florida, they weighed her and she was around 19 pounds.  they weighed her again today and she was a little over 17 pounds.  her doctor said that a 10% drop in weight especially in such a short period of time could mean she was losing nutrients…