Wow, what a February and March we have had! February is a very fun and busy month for our family, but March has been riddled with illness. Someone in our house has been ill with fever, headache, horrible chest congestion and non-stop coughing for the past 4 weeks. Kaylie faired the worst developing pneumonia with asthma complications, and needed to be admitted to the hospital for treatment. The fevers for all three kids lasted between 5 and 7 days, and were only brought down from the high 103s with Motrin or Tylenol. Crazy ugly illnesses!
February started off with a TON of fun as we celebrated Chinese New Year, Dan's birthday, Sam's birthday, and Kaylie's Forever Family Day!
As has become tradition for our family, we decorated the house and made our homemade Chinese food for Chinese New Year! Kaylie is very thrilled with this tradition, and smiles non-stop for days when the decorations go up! Here are a few shots of our celebration and homemade dumplings and egg rolls - just a few of our treats we are trying to master! The children also get Lai See (decorated red envelopes) with money in them - always a BIG hit! I also received a new recipe for a traditional steamed fish from our friend Cosine Wong, but we didn't have a chance to try it this year - definitely on the menu for next year!!
In the middle of the festivities, Kaylie decided to lose not one, not two, but THREE of her teeth! Both front teeth and the bottom left tooth. She was a trooper and didn't complain at all about getting the loose teeth out.
We had a terrific time celebrating Dan's birthday - he's catching up to me! :) The kids were thrilled to give Dad a new IPOD Nano to use when he is running those 5Ks this summer!
Sam was thrilled that he finally got his new skateboard and all the gear for his Birthday. Kendra made him his own Birthday hat, which he suprisingly wore for his birthday celebration! As usual, he was spoiled rotten by family and friends!
In between all the partying, we had fun helping Kaylie and Kendra design and make the traditional Robot Project for their Kindergarten class! The girls and I shopped for all the pieces at a local craft shop, then spent an afternoon with dad and I helping them put the creations together. They were very excited about the end product!
Shortly after all the fun of February, Kaylie was the first one in the family to start getting sick. Next was Sam, then Dan, and finally Kendra. Many sleepless nights and days filled with worries as they each suffered through the illness. Thankfully I managed somehow to remain unscathed, and was able to care for everyone as they each got sick. There were certainly some tough moments. The hardest for me was when Kaylie was in the hospital and I had to worry about Sam and Kendra at home. Dan had everything under control, but it was very difficult being away from them. Sam and Kendra were not too concerned about Kaylie until she was admitted to the hospital - even they realize that that is a big deal these days with so much treatment taking place in home and the era of outpatient surgeries and treatment. It made me realize that I will need to learn better coping skills when Kaylie's kidneys begin to fail and we are moving through the ordeal of the liver and kidney transplant. Hopefully the kids will be older and more self-sufficient by then, but I know it will be a tough time for all of us.
Today was our first time out as a family in over a month. We spent an absolutely glorious day at a local zoo. Even though it was a little chilly - it was a perfect day at the zoo with a lot of the animals in their indoor habitats. A day of fun for us that was much overdue!
~Ali
