the crazy busy-ness of this past week!

Tom and I got to go the kids' classrooms and play some guitar and sing some christmas songs last week.

Kylie's class
Josiah's class

cookies from the mom's morning out cookie exchange (yummy)

sweet sisters (aj had just woken up...she looks so old to me)

more sweet sisters (leighton in her 2 pigtails)

the kids sang 'little drummer boy' in church this morning...so cute!

matthias fell asleep while watching tv today...i have a great video that tom took of it, but it wouldn't upload. bummer.

Recent pictures...

Life's been crazy, as usual....this time of year is always crazy busy...anyways, some pictures of our lives....Leighton getting her first hair-trim...we cut the mullet off. It's shorter than I would've gone, but I'm told it'll grow faster now.

Kylie and Josiah were in an after school music club and had a performance at the school's family night this past week.
Our little babies are growing up!! We took the cribs down and put the toddler beds up after church today. The 2 of them spent their entire naptime laughing and playing with each other....sitting together in one of their beds and reading books. Needless to say, they were exhausted tonight and fell asleep in minutes.

It was a little sad to take down the cribs. Lord-willing (can i hear an echo from grandmother's?) we are done with having babies...it's hard to believe that every stage the twins go through is it. Bitter-sweet.

Owl pellets and Leighton update...

My friend, Niki, gave us 3 owl pellets last week....the kids LOVED it! Now, what I first thought owl pellets were...they weren't. It's actually undigested bones and fur that the owl vomits (like a big furball!)...we picked at it with tweezers and pins and came up with this:
Amazing, isn't it???


Tom gave the girls a shoulder ride a few days ago...

...and then the boys got a turn!

Little Leighton was the last of the Mirabellas to get the "bad cold" that started with grandma (we love you, grandma!!)...she fell asleep on the sofa several times monday. AJ had it on Thanksgiving day and fell asleep on the floor while the rest of us ate our Thanksgiving dinner. :(

We finally pulled out our sad-looking 6-foot Christmas tree from storage. We decided to put it on top of the train table so that the twins wouldn't be too tempted to push at it and such. Matthias didn't want to be in the picture, but here they are! I, personally, miss cutting down our christmas tree after tromping around in the freezing cold trying to decide on the perfect one...but the kids had a blast with this one and really don't know any different.

Leighton:

Tom came with me to All Children's today b/c they were planning on sedating Leighton for her contrast CT. Poor baby wasn't supposed to eat or drink anything 4 hours before the procedure, so we woke her up at 5:00 (4 1/2 hours before the procedure) and sat her at the table with a bowl of cheerios. She just sat there looking at us like we were crazy! After about 2 minutes we realized she wasn't going to eat or drink so we put her back to bed....and of course she woke up an hour and a half later and ran to her booster seat saying "cheeros, cheeros!". That was hard... to not give her anything to eat and know that she didn't understand at all why we were torturing her. Anyways, I could go on forever...but long story short she did great for the scan...they didn't have to put her under! Tom was at her feet, I held her hands and leaned in by her head and we sang songs for the 10 minutes that they did the scan. We got the the dr's office afterwards and he said that everything looked great!...the mass pushing her trachea is still there, but has definitely improved. She had several nodes in her lungs....some have gotten smaller, some have not changed, but overall they are encouraged that we are on the right track. We will continue to go in every 3 or 4 weeks...probably until she is totally back to normal. Thank you for your continued prayers...we are so glad about how things are going and will keep updating you as we have check-ups!

Cookies and other thoughts....

We had some friends come over today and make/decorate cookies with us! It was a lot of work, but a ton of fun. I'm realizing that as much as I have relaxed in the area of planning ahead that with as many kids as we have in our family there are still things that I would never be able to do spontaneously and enjoy (it's the "SJ" in my myers-briggs personality)...such as have more kids in my house and make cookies. I had the plan in my head from last week (since the kids have the entire week off) that we would have our friends over and make and decorate cookies. I got the recipes from my good friend, Kelly (cookies, and icing)...made the dough the night before and went from there! The cookies were delicious...the kids had a blast. It took us almost a total of 3 hours to get it all done, but we weren't in any hurry and the kids were able to get out and ride their bikes or play together while they were waiting for cookies to bake.

The finished product!

Matthias is sick today and happened to nap all morning while we were working, which worked out really well because when he's been awake today he has only been happy with me holding him. Needless to say, I'm exhausted...and a little sugared out on eating too many cookies...but it was a very enjoyable day. We had a lot of fun with our friends.

Other than a week off of school not much is going on with us. I've been a little depressed about Thanksgiving coming up because we haven't been able to find anyone in town who doesn't have family to be with...I'm so used to Thanksgiving being a time where there are just a lot of people around and you eat and talk and eat some more and watch football and eat some more....it will definitely be a different Thanksgiving for us.

Leighton is doing really well. She is pretty much back to normal. She's had her 14 days of tb meds and so has gotten to where she only needs the antibiotics 2 times a week...they'll come by on mondays and thursdays with her medication for the next six months. We continue to wait for her doctor's appt. next thursday...she'll have to have had no food or drink from midnight the night before (which is going to be a challenge for her in the morning since she runs to the table climbs up to her seat and says "cereal" first thing in the morning) for her ct scan that morning. Our hope is that everything will be totally back to normal...that the lymph node will not be enlarged anymore. Please continue to pray with us. And while you're praying, would you please pray for our friend, Angie? She is a friend from Virginia who is the mother of 3 and has found out recently that she has cancer. Again. When everything with Leighton was happening and there were so many unknowns I realized that I was actually experiencing what so many people experience in terms of my world stopping. Everyone's lives were moving on, but mine was at a stand-still because my little girl was really sick and might have the c-word. By God's grace, we are only dealing with tb and have been able to move on...but in the midst of that whenever I hear of someone being sick or having cancer a little bit of my world stops....it's terrifying and another testimony to the fact that we are fallen people in a fallen world....and yet, this is not our home...and our hope is not in this world...so please, pray for Angie that she would have an eternal perspective in this earthly trial...and that the things that she knows are true in her mind would be known in her heart...that she would be able to struggle through her circumstances well.

Leighton update 11/18/08

We just got back from St. Pete and another follow-up dr's appt for Leighton. They did a chest x-ray and could see some improvement! She's been on the TB antibiotics for two weeks now and is cleared to be in public...her symptoms are definitely improving - no cough, the only time she is wheezing is when she is upset or crying. They still have not officially diagnosed her with TB and I'm not sure that they'll be able to (either get a sample from her lungs or a positive blood test)...but the dr. said this morning (and I quote) "if it quacks like a duck we'll call it a duck". :) We go back in two weeks for a CT scan and hopefully they will see everything going back to normal, but until then we continue to wait and pray that the medicines keep working. We'll be giving her one dose of steroids a day instead of two....which will be nice b/c she's been a little cranky with the steroids...and super major hungry all the time. My little girl is catching up with her brother. :) So, that's the latest...thanks for praying...we're very excited that there is some obvious improvement.

L update and twin pics...

open mouth to mouth kiss? that doesn't seem right.

indiana thias and firefighter lei

We had a follow-up appointment for Leighton in St. Pete yesterday. They did a chest x-ray and listened to her lungs...she is sounding clear, but the x-ray didn't show any change in the mass that is pushing on her trachea. It could take a while for the steroids to make the mass shrink, but our prayer is that it happens fast. Also, her tb blood test came back negative...which either means...she doesn't have tb or the test was wrong. (they tell me that in children the test can be a false negative) So...the dr's are trying to think through ways that they can confirm that she truly has tb...if the mass doesn't shrink in the next couple of weeks they might end up needing to go in and biopsy it to see what it is and how to get rid of it. In the meantime, we have a health dept. nurse coming out every day (except on the weekends) to watch us give leighton her tb meds (it's a federal mandate or something). We're waiting to hear back from my parents tb tests (if one of them has it, then it would make sense that she got it from them)...and Leighton and I got another skin test today that will be read on friday. Soo...please keep praying! We're not in the clear, yet. They have not officially diagnosed her with tb....just trying to prove that she has it for sure. I'm also in the midst of a nasty cold...so pray for me as I try to be patient with my family and our home, while trying to rest and feel better, too. thanks, friends! (and friends of friends) :)

Leighton update Saturday!

Here's a picture of my sweet contagious girl. :) She had to wear a mask in the hospital on the way to the exit. She actually didn't mind it and kept it on the whole way down! She couldn't stop smiling when she got home and has been so glad to be back.

Did I mention that Grandma is here?? She arrived on Wednesday and it has been wonderful and such a great help to have her around! Today we finally carved our pumpkin....listening to Christmas music. :)

Tom and the kids had their TB tests read yesterday and they all came back negative...so, that's a good thing! We head back on tuesday for a chest x-ray and a check-up to see how things are going for Leighton...hopefully the steroids will start working on the enlarged lymph node in her neck....she is doing fine breathing, but still has a harder time when she gets worked up and/or fussy. Thanks for loving our family by checking in and praying for us!