In Honor of MeMe

Mary Craig (MeMe) pictured front center, with her sisters and brother

Towards the end of January we made the trip back to Indiana for a Craig holiday gathering on Saturday and for MeMe's 80th birthday celebration on Sunday. The day on Saturday was spent enjoying the company of Curt's dad's side of the family and of course eating. It was great to see all of Curt's cousins and aunts and uncle. It is amazing how many great grandchildren there are now. All of them were able to be there except one who lives in California. Amazingly, we were able to get a picture of them all. What a treat!

We figured we would all be there for a couple of hours, but everyone was enjoying it so much that we stayed into the evening. None of the kids got naps that day, but it was worth it.

Colby and his cousin Luke

Curt's beautiful sister Julie and our niece Grace

Chloe playing with second-cousin Kennedy

Luke getting his grub on

Chloe trying to play with the dogs

Chloe and cousin Lexi (on Sunday)

For MeMe's birthday all of the family got together at a local restaurant for lunch and filled an entire conference room. There were aunts, uncles, great aunts and uncles, cousins, second cousins, in-laws and everyone in-between. All of MeMe's remaining sisters and brother were also able to come and celebrate with us. It was such a great afternoon. When lunch was over family members took turns getting up and sharing stories and memories about their special times with MeMe and the influence she had had on their lives. It was very touching and really meant a lot to her. Even though we sometimes grumble about traveling, we are so glad that we were able to be there.

On a crafting sidenote:
Here is MeMe opening a gift from us. It is a pillow that I made using the same stitchery pattern that I created for the grandma's Christmas presents. She loved it. Below that is a close-up of another one of the pillows that shows the design more clearly.

Next time on Olivia's Observations... MonsterJam. That's right, monster trucks.

January Joys

This is kind of an overview of the most of the month of January. It was a goodEdit month spent enjoying our little family at home...before all of the sicknesses got their grip on us. (Chloe is sick again, by the way.)

I usually post mostly pictures of my babies, so I thought I would add a couple of Curt and myself. This is how we spent our New Year's Eve. Just the two of us hanging out and playing darts while the kids slept the night away.

On New Year's Day we hung out at home while the kids played with their new toys from Christmas.

The following weekend Mamaw and PawPaw (my parents) came for a visit. Here is Chloe making sure that PawPaw is wrapped around her little finger and Colby with PawPaw playing some sort of yelling game. Way too loud.

I somehow didn't get any good pictures with Mamaw, but we had a great time with her too!

One evening when Curt was working late, we decided to make some of his favorite cookies as a thank you for everything he does for our family. We made his favorite...chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips. As you can see Colby was huge help!

The month of January brought with it some crazy cold temperatures and more snow than I cared to see. Colby, on the other hand, had a blast helping Daddy shovel.

Coming soon...MeMe's 80th Birthday weekend.

Blogging Blitz

I'm back. We are all finally on the mend after nearly a full month of illness. Because of our unfortunate few weeks, I am so terribly behind on my blogging! So now I am back and ready to get busy. In order to catch up, I am going to be pulling a blogging blitz. Doing several posts right in a row to make up for the lost time. So without further ado I give you...

Christmas - Part 3

Our third and final (thank goodness) post about Christmas covers our holiday with Curt's family. As always, it was a wonderful few days spent with lots of family, food and fun. The holiday included us, of course, Curt's parents, both of Curt's sisters and their families, Curt's grandma Meme, Aunt Patty and Grandpa Dahnke. We had a great time exchanging gifts and followed that up with an amazing dinner. Curt's mom can cook like nobody's business.

Chloe and Meme

Waiting to open presents

The unwrapping craziness

Theresa (Curt's mom) made these super-cute reindeer hobby horse toys for all of the grandsons. Here is Colby taking his out for a test ride.

Theresa and Grandpa Dahnke prepping for dinner

The usual wrestling match


A heated game of cards

Colby's favorite part of the whole holiday season (other than presents) was all of the chocolate. That boy will do anything for even just a bite. When everyone else was busy with other things, Colby decided to help himself to several pieces of chocolate, including some from his cousins' stockings.

We ended up staying an extra day and traveling home on a Monday. Before we left town we decided to stop for lunch at our favorite Pizza King. It is the neatest place to take Colby and we love the pizza. There is a train that runs through the restaurant and stops off at the booths to deliver the drinks. The kids think it is the greatest thing! Doug and Julie went with us. We couldn't all sit together, but we got back-to-back booths and were still able to enjoy the company.

Apparently when my kids are excited about something they express it the same way. :)

When getting the pics together for the this post I was really disappointed. I had very few pictures and even fewer that were even decent. So family members reading this, if you're not included in the pictures it was not a snub towards you, it was my lousy photography.

Up next...there is so much that I'm not sure, but I have a lot more just waiting in the wings.

Poor Colby...

Well, we got one kid well just to have the other one get sick. The day after Chloe finally got the right medicine Colby started coughing. Within a couple of days he also had a runny nose and a fever. I finally took him to the doctor yesterday. Once again we were sent the hospital for bloodwork and x-rays. This time we found out that Colby has pneumonia. My poor kids! I don't know what has happened to my healthy little family. He is on medication and will hopefully be feeling better really soon.

(Of course now I am starting to cough and have an earache. Let's just hope it doesn't turn into anything more than that.)

I will be back to regular posting once we are all well again. Despite the sickness, I do have some fun things to report!

Footloose and Fever-Free

So after five days of high fevers, crying (both of us) and too many unanswered questions, Chloe is finally on the mend! She has been fever-free for almost 24 hours without the help of Tylenol or Motrin. I am so relieved.

Initially we thought that a UTI was cause of her fevers. And while that was probably the true at first, it ended up being a little more complicated. The doctor started her on antibiotics for the infection and after 3 days she was still running a temp near 105. Obviously that should not have been the case. So we went back to the Dr.'s office where her exam showed nothing. He then sent us to the hospital for bloodwork and chest x-rays. It all seemed a little drastic, but I really wanted some answers so that we could get her well.

Well, the bloodwork showed a couple of slight abnormalities, but they were all consistent with a viral infection. However the chest x-ray revealed the real problem. She had developed a spot in her lung that had gotten infected. There is a name for it, but I can't even begin to pronounce it. Basically, if not enough deep breaths are taken, over time some of the tiny hairs can start to clump together and can get infected. Apparently this is pretty common among people with more severe, long-lasting illnesses. Chloe has always been a fairly shallow breather and the high fevers from the UTI just exaggerated that. I was worried about this being a recurring condition, but the doctor assured me that the lung infection is just a result from her other illness. Luckily he was able to give her one prescription that will take care of the UTI and the lung infection. After only 12 hours on the new meds she was like a new baby! She is still not 100%, but she is well on her way.

Thank you for all of your concern. Betweeen a UTI, a viral infection, an infected area of her lung and a nasty case of teething, it has been a pretty rough 5 day for our sweet baby. This was quite a doosy for her first time being sick! It is scary when a little one is so sick and can't tell you what is wrong!