Sickness, Allergies, and a Last Minute Trip

Between passing around colds off and on the past couple months and then getting hit with spring allergies (yes, they come early here in the south) we just haven't been able to get over the congestion and coughs. Especially the little ones have had a hard time with it, which of course means so have I.
Going to the ocean has always helped my allergies clear up a lot so after a particularly rough weekend I had the brilliant idea to pack everyone up and head to the beach! (which all of you with small children know is easier said than done. ha!)
After lots of work and a few loooong hours of driving we made it down to Destin and was able to stay for about 3 days.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the instant cure-all I was hoping for but it was beautiful there and the kids had so much fun! It was already a little more crowded than we expected for early March so we avoided the beach during the mid-day hours since we prefer not to see that much skin. Getting out in the morning and evening was great though.
Darcey loved it and asks almost every day to go back. I'm seeing another trip to the beach in our future if she has anything to say about it! :-)
Here's a few pics of the trip for you to enjoy. If you haven't been to Destin, FL before, I highly recommend it for the white sands and clear waters. It is SO beautiful!

Celebration Fun!

My 31rst birthday was this past weekend so we celebrated with a party at my parent's house. Fun times! My mom cooked a delicious lunch and a yummy allergy-free dessert. The girls had so much fun decorating and yes, they put all 31 candles on the cookie cake! Took a lot of air to blow out that many. :-) As is typical here in the south it ended up being a warm day in February so we even got to enjoy going outside. Unfortunately, we currently have 2 pretty sick babies so my actual b'day was spent caring for them, but it was nice to celebrate while we could! Prayers for health are appreciated and here are a few pictures to see of our day. I'm so thankful to be blessed with another year to live and look forward to what God will do in the future! Until next time......

 

 

No News Is......

....not always good news! At least not around here the past few days. :-( I'm seriously trying to keep my spirits up and not be too discouraged but it's been a little hard. Let me back up and give a few details though. 

Thursday was a midwife checkup, which went pretty well overall and let us know I'm definitely making progress with some of these contractions. In fact, the midwife said she thinks it will go very quickly once things set it and even coached Blake on what to do if we ended up needing to deliver on the way! (I wasn't sure if I should be amused, excited, or scared to death! haha)

From the checkup, Blake and I had decided to drive to a car lot in Franklin, TN to look at vans for sale. We ended up choosing to sale our old one and get something new and really wanted to have that done before the baby came. Needless to say it was a loooong day but thankfully we were able to get a good deal on a vehicle!

My parents were planning to watch the kids for the day and do something fun while we were gone. The girls had both showed signs of what I thought was allergies for a couple days before that and with the weed pollen count high around here I figured that's all it was. Delancey had seemed a little worse that morning but still wanted to go and I assumed she would clear up as the day went on like she had been. By that night they were both worse though and she even had a fever! Ugh. The rest of us have slowly come down with sore throats, sneezing, congestion, headaches, fever, etc ever since so it's definitely not been fun around here.

I just woke up with it during the night on top of having some really strong contractions since yesterday evening. Let's just say that sleep isn't something I'm getting alot of these days. I had been thinking that maybe it was a good thing Daxton hasn't come yet since it would be nice not to have sick kiddos with a new baby in the house. But I have to admit that me getting sick too wasn't really something I wanted or needed right now!

My contractions are still irregular most of the time but getting much harder, so along with all the other signs I've had I know it can't be much longer. I still can't believe how long I've been having this prelabor stuff and to be honest it's getting more than a little old. Being so tired though and not knowing how long it's going to take for us all to get over this cold (or whatever it is), it's hard not to be stressed with it all. Prayers would definitely be appreciated for quick healing for all of us, strength for me as the baby gets ready to get here, and for me to trust that God has it all under control. Especially when I feel like everything is just falling apart!

Okay, so there's my not so great update for the week. :-/ Hopefully I will have much better news to report soon, but until then please keep us in your prayers! Being almost 40 weeks pregnant, sick, constantly dealing with irregular contractions that could turn into the real thing any time, and taking care of 3 sick kiddos is just a little overwhelming right now. I know God is able to give me grace though and all of this too shall pass eventually.

Linking up with Sarah again at My Joy-Filled Life. Be sure to click through to see how all the other pregnant momma's are doing!

                                 

Hanging in There! {I think}

It has definitely been some more week around here! Allergies galore and what must have turned into something viral maybe for at least a couple of the kiddos. Poor Darcey had a high fever for a couple days and has just felt rotten. Everyone else has the coughing, congestion, and runny nose as well. We all still sound horrible today but the kids at least seem to have more energy and are feeling better. I'm sure it will take awhile for all the yucky stuff to totally clear up. 

I can't believe how early it's gotten so warm here and caused all the spring allergies to kick in this year. They are already way worse than normal! But seriously, 80 degree weather at this point in March is just slightly unusual....even for the south. I'm definitely hoping they don't last the entire season since we've already been dealing with them for a few weeks now. Talk about a miserable few months! I may be tempted to escape to the ocean somewhere for awhile since I always clear up there. :)

Between sickness, pregnancy, and lack of sleep, things have been just a little helter-skelter. To say the least. Crazy days, long nights, and a messy house have kinda gotten on everyone's nerves. It's no wonder we named this blog what we did! :) But in the middle of all the craziness have been the good moments too. Sweet snuggling with our baby girl, drawing pictures with our awesome artist son, and a lovely back-rub from our middle girl after she heard me mention it was hurting. And best of all, answered prayers and the grace of God....that we are so undeserving of! 

So yeah I think the title of this post was right. Rough as it's been, we're definitely still hanging in there! :)

Sick, Tired....but Hanging in There!

I've had all kinds of thoughts about doing posts this week. But that's pretty much as far as it's gotten.....just thinking about them!

To be honest, I am just worn out. We had Thanksgiving, a week long vacation to Florida(which I will definitely have to blog about sometime!), and the whole family getting sick before we could make it home so it's been a looooong couple of weeks for us. It's hard when anyone in the family gets sick but when every. single. person. gets it......it's just rough!

I'm tired of nose congestion and sinus headaches. I'm tired of wiping runny noses (including my own!) that are just never-ending. (which by the way is one of the great mysteries of life to me that you can be so stopped up and yet running at the same time?? But I digress on that. For now.) I'm tired of a crying baby who can't tell me exactly what's wrong so I'm often at a loss for how to help her. And most of all I think I'm just tired of it all seeming so hopelessly endless! I go to bed every night hoping and praying that things will be better the next morning, but so far it's like something else just piles on top of what's already wrong.

Now that I've ranted a little and got all that off my chest (although I didn't even begin naming half of what's gone wrong around here.....I was trying to spare you all! lol), let me also add this. I am tired, I am sick, and I am frustrated that I can't just fix it all like I want to, but in the middle of all that I can still see that I am so very, very blessed. We have a warm house from the cold, good food to eat, family that takes care of us when we need it, money for the things we need, 3 wonderful children who make us laugh and fills our days with joy, and most of all a Saviour who loves us more than we could ever deserve.

So yes we may be sick for now. And some days we might be discouraged. But in spite of it all we're hanging in there because of God's amazing grace. And realizing that? Makes all these sick days we've had seem slightly alot less harder than they were before. Please pray that we'll all be doing better soon though. Especially the kids who have both strep and a viral infection. And in the meantime.....we'll just keep hanging in there! :-)