Last couple of weeks

Okay, the last couple of weeks have been a little stressful and exhausting for me. We are still without night nursing so I've been staying up a little later waiting for Autumn to go to sleep so can do her nebs and then I get up a couple of times during the night to empty her water trap to her vent and then up in the mornings to do her feeds and get the other kids ready for school. James gives me a break on Tues,Wed,Thurs night so I can go to bed earlier and not have to wake up in the middle of the night but my body still thinks it should be waking up so I'm still not sleeping well on those nights. Actually, I'm not sure if I've ever had a full night of uninterruppted sleep in the past 6 or so years. ;)

The nursing agency did send out one nurse but she was TERRIFIED of our dog and so I sent her home after 20 mins. I am not going to lock up Layla everytime she works and I could not get anything done since Layla kept wanting to go visit the new nurse and say hi. We have a new nurse coming out Sunday afternoon to orient so hopefully she will work out and love big dogs. Also, our fav nurse was available tonight so she's coming in to do a shift...so excited to see her again and to be able to sleep in until 8am. ;)

We had a good Halloween. We usually take the kids to some festival or something but this year everything was just happening so fast and we kept missing them all. I did take Madison, a friend, and Gage to the Harbor for a free event they have. It was crazy packed! They had games and jumpers but there was so many people that we could barely get through the crowds and the lines were so long. We played 3 games and then decided to get ice cream instead and go home. I am so glad we left Autumn at home with daddy. Halloween night we took the kids around the neighborhood to trick-or-treat. Madison though is at that age where she would rather go with friends but we saw her in passing. ;) It was fun to meet lots of our neighbors and see there were more kinders living in the area for Gage to play with. One of the boys he talks about all the time at school is actually the son of another police officer so now we've been able to have his new friend over to play. Here's a couple of pictures I took of the kids in their costumes...my camera has been taking blurry pics and we were in a rush to get going to they are not very good. Madison was a candy corn witch, Autumn was a candy corn princess, and Gage was a skeleton.

Autumn had her first dentist appt. the other day. It was POURING down rain (and she usually gets really junky when it rains) but we still managed to make it. She did pretty well. Her back teeth get yellow and so the dentist scraped them and made them all white again. It's a struggle to brush her teeth. Also, the med she is on makes her gums grow up higher than her teeth so the back teeth look like they are tiny. The dentist said they all look fine for now and we can bring her in every 3-6 months to scrape them as needed. They even sent her a postcard and wrote to her about how well she did. It was so sweet! I was going to take Madison and Gage the next day for their cleaning but there was no record that we had dental insurance so I had to cancel until the HR dept. can get us enrolled (someone forgot to do it).

That same day (when it rained for over 24 hours) Autumn had a sleep study that evening. It ended up being a really stressful day for me...Madison had some issues at school and then was trying to finish up a science project about 15 mins before we were walking out of the door. My SIL came over to watch the kids and get them to bed while we were gone. We got to the study at 7:30pm and was getting Autumn all set up and situated while the entire time Madison kept texting me about her project. I was so frustrated with her that we were dealing with this at the last minute (I hate procrastination). So, the entire time I'm trying to take care of Autumn, I'm stressing about what to do with Madison and her project. Around 9:oopm I left Autumn and daddy to head back home and release my SIL. Got home, took a shower, and got into bed. Woke up at 4:30am to head back to the hospital to pick up Autumn and James. (still pouring down rain). Autumn was a rockstar for her study. They put her on a CPAP machine and turned her pressure support and pressure control down (not sure the exact numbers) and put her on a breathrate of 10 (she's normally at 20). She NEVER desatted and slept through the entire study. Whoo Hoo!!! I'm still waiting for the drs. to call and tell us what they want us to do and what settings to change her to. Anyways, we got back home around 6:00am and then it was time to get ready for the day and figure out about Madison's dang science project! It all worked out in the end but I hate doing last minute preparations and warned her we would never do it again!

A lot has been going on and I feel like I've just been running in all sorts of directions just trying to keep up. I hate feeling out of control and having no organization in my life. I feel Satan has really been working on putting doubts, fears, and lies into my head so that I will not follow the calling God has placed on my heart. How can I do what God is asking if I can not keep up with all the responsibilities I have now? That is what Satan wants me to think and believe. I have to admit, he's been doing a good job lately of me ignoring God's voice because of all the other "stuff" filling my life right now. I know it's going to be a difficult few weeks for me until I decide on what to do about this spiritual battle going on in my heart. Just please be in prayer for our family.