Busy busy

This has been a busy couple of weeks for our family. The latest development is an RSV outbreak. It started the end of last week or the beginning of this week with Heather (we didn't know it was RSV at the time). She had a cough and a short-lived fever, but it wasn't that bad. Unfortunately, she passed it on to Joshua who had a very rough weekend and lots of difficulty breathing. It's amazing how differently a 3-year-old handles RSV than a 1-year-old (by the way, can you believe our kids are going to be 3 and 1 soon!). Anyway, Stephanie brought him to the ER on Thursday night, found out it was RSV, and was given a nebulizer to use at home. Then when she brought him in on Friday morning for a follow-up appointment, the doctors decided he needed to stay at the hospital so they could monitor his breathing and his oxygen levels. They hooked him up for supplemental oxygen, but luckily they never had to give him any. They did, however, treat him every few hours with albuterol via a nebulizer. He and Stephanie ended up spending Friday night at the hospital. Heather was a very good girl, despite being pent up for a while both at the Dr's office and in the hospital. I was able to come home from school early and spend the afternoon with her. We joined Stephanie and Joshua for dinner, and then after good night kisses we headed to the mall's indoor playground to burn some energy before bedtime. Joshua and Stephanie came home yesterday afternoon and are trying to catch up on sleep. Joshua's doing a bit better, although it will still take him about a week to fully recover.

We've also been busy the last couple of weeks with car shopping. We've been saving and planning for a new van for quite a while now, and this week we sealed the deal on a Toyota Sienna. We were tired of putting more and more money into a car that we were only going to be able to use for a short time anyway (due to family expansion...and no, we are not pregnant). Our car had lots of minor problems, that added together would cost us a lot to fix.  We weren't expecting things to go this quickly, but we're pleased with the deal we got. The dealer offered us an excellent trade-in value for our Stratus (almost as much as we paid for it 5 years ago!), and it being the end of the month (of the shortest month of the year), we were able to negotiate the price down to something we could manage. This is definitely a big step for us, but we're happy that things turned out the way they did. Hopefully this van will last our family for a long, long time!

And finally, for your viewing pleasure, we've got a few weeks' worth of pictures to catch up on!

We had an "Up" date a few weeks ago. Heather "helped" Stephanie blow up some balloons.

Joshua eating something delicious.

Our Valentine's Day family tradition...homemade heart-shaped pizza and orange julius.  This year we traded pepperoni for a taco pizza. Delicious!

The kids at the playground during one of February's unusually warm days.

Josh got his fill of dirt and wood chips. It...builds character.

Heather being glamorous.

Stephanie took the kids "swimming" the other day. 

The pancake fanatics that we are, we couldn't let International Pancake Day pass us by without a celebration. We had orange dark chocolate pancakes for breakfast, peanut butter and jelly pancakes for lunch, and bacon/corn/maple griddle cakes for dinner.