A Day In Z Life: Just a quick update

Alice will be 10 weeks old already tomorrow! Time seems to fly by faster and faster with each child. She's been such a blessing to our family! Such a mellow, laid back little baby, very different from all of her sisters! Probably a good thing to be mellow in a house this crazy hahaha She's already sleeping anywhere from 5-8 hours at night, something I was completely not expecting and keep waiting for her to stop! I'm extremely grateful for the sleep though, I have so many other people to take care of, I think I would have lost my mind if I had to be up and down all night like with the others. We've all been fighting sickness over the last month and unfortunately Alice caught some of it. So far, nothing serious, just a bought of tummy grumbles and currently sinus junk. We're all praying and disinfecting like crazy and hopefully we can finally be sick free soon!

We had a pretty rough 9 day span last week. It all started at the end of November when we had to put one of our dogs down because he became so ill. Shorty had been a very overweight dog for a long time, no matter what we tried. He started not eating and losing weight and then the end of November, he became so ill he couldn't keep down water. We took him to the urgent care vet and they found out he had diabetes, pancreatitis, and Cushings. He was extremely sick. We unfortunately don't have the kind of free income that long term care for all of that would cost. Jason is a diabetic and so we know how much insulin is without insurance. He was 10 years old and had lived a good life, it broke our hearts but we couldn't let him suffer so we had to put him down. The girls did pretty good with it, we really focused on how happy he is in doggy heaven. Naty took it the hardest and we spent some time snuggling and crying together. She's only 5 but she has enough compassion to think through her own sadness and said "I bet Uncle Dan is very sad" (Shorty was technically my brother's dog) and I just thought that was so sweet and wonderful that she could look outside herself and think of him that way. Shorty was a wonderful dog, he was always so protective of our girls. Any time they went out back to play, no matter how hot or cold it was, Shorty always had to be out there with them, watching. He got into food and trash all the time and frustrated us but at the end of the day, he always came and snuggled with you on the couch. We'll miss him.

So that was Thursday, on Sunday, my mom was out training for her marathon and she fell and broke her arm. Thank the Lord it was her left one. She really did a number on it though, she severely dislocated her wrist, broke a bone in her hand, and broke a bone in her forearm. Her dislocated wrist is so bad that she's having surgery tomorrow to put a plate in so it will stay. This was bad enough on it's own, but Monday Naty had her tonsils out and my mom was supposed to get the other 3 to school and keep Alice for us. My dad took off work to help out. He got the girls to school and we took Alice to the hospital with us. Naty's surgery went very smooth, no complications and we were home after about an hour. She's been doing amazing with her recovery! Only need pain meds for about 4 days and is actually going back to school tomorrow! She misses eating normal food is the only struggle we're having. She has to have soft food for another week. I've been doing my best to cook dinners that she can have to so she doesn't feel so left out every meal.

Through all of that, we got a tummy bug go through the house, only Naty and Lotty were spared. We've had some sinus/bronchial junk that we've been passing around and around. I've turned into a germaphob and got nuts with Lysol and Clorox wipes at the end of every day. I *think* we're coming to the end of all of it? It would be nice to not be sick for Christmas but I guess we'll see.

I've been taking pics of the kids like a mad woman so I'll share some of the highlights.