Dec 7-15: On the Mend Again (please let it be so)

Oops, so sorry - I've left all my faithful blog followers hanging for nearly 2 months wondering how Elin is doing!  In short, Elin was discharged from the hospital on Tuesday and was mostly back to normal by the end of the week.  We are so thankful that she is healthy and back home again.

Sunday started out just like the last few days with Elin being able to maintain her respiratory rate but lacking energy & just wanting to sleep.  She had to spend the day on oxygen to keep her O2 levels at an acceptable level.  However, thankfully, she did become more alert in the afternoon and started signing a few words.  It was so exciting and really exhilarating to see her practically come to life again.  It was so encouraging even though she didn't smile, chatter or giggle like she is prone to do.  Nana spent most of the day with us; she & Elin took a nice, long nap together in the middle of the day.  After Elin's movie date with Kent on Saturday night, she was very interested in watching TV.  By the time we left the hospital, we may have watched Polar Express about 10 times!  Elin also started to show some initial interest in food again on Sunday afternoon.  I had brought a few of her favorite snacks to the hospital with me and Elin took a few bites of them, but was mostly interested in just holding them in her hand!

Elin on Sunday afternoon

On Monday, Nana had to return to Ohio to go back to work, but Pops agreed to stay with us until next week Monday to help out with Erik.  By this point in our hospital journey, both Kent and I were miserably sick as well; my throat was so sore that it was hard to understand what I was saying (Elin's doctor couldn't understand me on the phone and always asked to speak to someone else when he called to check on Elin!!).  I finally broke down and went to Centra Care in the afternoon to see if I could get some antibiotics.  After an incredibly frustrating 2-hour wait, the doctor spent maybe 5 minutes with me but I left with a diagnoses of laryngitis and a script for a wonderfully strong antibiotic!

The doctors took Elin off oxygen first thing Monday morning to see if we could potentially go home that afternoon.  She made it 30 minutes before her levels dropped too low and they had to turn on the machine again.  That means we get another day in the hospital - yippee!!  Elin spent more time awake today, but she did manage to nap through an Orlando Magic visit; good thing she doesn't follow basketball yet or she would have been devastated!  When Elin was awake, I pulled out her baby doll and showed it to her.  She immediately reached out for the doll and then proceeded to sit & hug it for a very long time!  Poor baby just needed someone to hug.

Elin hugging her Dolly

On Tuesday, the doctors said we could go home - after 5 nights and 4 days, we are finally heading home!!  Elin had spent Monday off of oxygen and had maintained her respiratory rate until she was at a point where the doctors felt they weren't doing anything for her that we couldn't now do at home.  After getting that good news, we simply had to wait for Elin's nose cannula & IV to be removed, for the discharge paperwork to come through and for Kent to come get us!  During her hospital stay, Elin seemed to be bothered more by the nose cannula than her IV line which surprised me (probably because I hate having an IV line in).  Elin got really cranky when we removed the nose cannula and then proceeded to wail during the IV removal.  While she was crying, I saw that she had had 2 new teeth come in while we had been in the hospital (her 2 lower canine teeth).  Hmm, she normally gets a runny nose & a slight fever when she is teething - could they be the partial cause for her continued fever that started this whole journey?!  Hopefully not much!  It was a relief to have her well enough to go home, but also a little scary knowing that we were now solely responsible for her continued health improvement!  

Kent & Elin as we say Good-bye to Florida Hospital

Elin did something so sweet when we got home. Pops had not been able to come to the hospital to see her, but as soon as he heard the car in the garage he came out to say hello.  Kent got Elin out of her car seat and turned her around so she could see Pops; she pointed down to the floor which is her sign for down.  After Kent put her down, she made the most pitiful little face & held her arms up and walked up to Pops asking for him to pick her up and give her a hug! He had tears in his eyes.  He picked her up and she put her little head on his shoulder and just lay there for a while.  Such a sweet girl!!  This entire experience, now that it's over, has shown me the amazing power of prayer.  I'm so thankful for all the support and care that our friends and family have poured out on us. Elin is surely one well-loved little girl. 

Elin getting hugs from Pops

The rest of our week was spent recuperating and trying to get back to normal. We had visits to the pediatrician for Elin (Elin lost more than 2 pounds while she was sick so now she's tinier than tiny), Parent/Teacher meetings for Erik (he's a great little guy and does really well at daycare) and a mammogram for Kelli (results came back clear!).  I'm so thankful that Pops was able to spend the week with us to help take care of all the miscellaneous and sundry items which allowed me to rest when time permitted. I had planned to start weaning Elin this month, but that plan has been completely de-railed - Elin gets milk nearly every time she asks this week!  Elin is so weak from her illness that she struggled with walking the first few days she was back home; it was heart-breaking to see her stumble and fall when she had been easily walking & running before.  With her weight loss, she has the skinniest legs now!

By Sabbath afternoon Elin was feeling really good and was mostly back to normal so we decided to go ahead with some plans to take a Polar Express-type train ride with the Orange Blossom Cannonball train.  Both kids love that trainride; this is our second year doing the ride. The ride mimics the Polar Express movie and provides hot chocolate and cookies for the kids as well as a visit from Santa Claus. Erik and I have been having a running debate this month about whether Santa is real or not! After watching Polar Express, Erik is pretty certain that Santa is real because "Mama, he moves on TV"!  I never believed in Santa Claus as a child and have not wanted my kids to believe that he is real and then learn later that we lied to them about Santa Claus. I also would rather have them focus on the real reason for Christmas - Jesus!  So we have been focusing on that this holiday season. I got an Advent Nativity calendar with stickers that the kids really enjoyed (even though Elin was better at taking the stickers off which drove poor Erik crazy!). We also bought them some books with the Christmas Bible story as opposed to the fictional stories.

Somber little girl on Wednesday

Finally getting some smiles by Friday

Some laughter, too!!

Starting to move easier & faster again!

Elin & me on train

Kent & Erik on train

Best picture I could get of the kids - ugh!

The AHS Christmas brunch was held on Sunday at one of the Disney hotels; Pops was able to attend with us. The company has grown to massive numbers and it took great skill to navigate the crowds to find enough chairs & to find our friends.  I'm sure that we missed seeing lots of our friends and coworkers, but after we finally settled into one place we were able to see a good number of people as they moved around us instead of us trying to move around to find them!  Since we have all been sick recently we opted to skip the Disney parks for the rest of the day and instead came home to play with Pops and do some chores like putting up Christmas lights!  Pops left on Monday and we were very, very sad to see him go; our only consolation was that we would see him again super soon for Christmas!

Kelli & Amy at the Christmas Brunch

Nov 30-Dec 6: The Johnson's Visit Florida Hospital for Children

Oh boy, what a week this has been...and sadly, our experience isn't over yet.  I'm writing this week's blog entry from Elin's room at the Florida Hospital for Children where we've been since Thursday night (Dec 4).  

Our journey into the world of winter viruses and illnesses actually began last Sabbath, Nov 29, when Erik woke up with a fever.  Kent stayed home from church with him while Elin and I ventured out.  Erik's fever didn't improve over the next 36 hours and by 2PM on Sunday, we were getting very concerned about him since we couldn't get his fever down.  Erik had taken a short nap in the morning and was actually asking me to put him down for his nap before we decided to take him to the ER (this never happens).  We bundled him up and Kent took him to the ER at Florida Hospital for Children.  Erik had a chest x-ray done and was diagnosed with bronchitis.  He came home with nebulizer & antibiotic medication.  This was our 3rd visit to the FH Children's ER and we remain impressed with it.  There is usually no wait and treatments & test results come back pretty promptly.  His medication had to be given every 3-4 hours, night-time included, so Kent volunteered to sleep in Erik's room to monitor him and give him his treatments overnight.  At about 1AM, Kent just happened to check in on Elin and discovered that she had a fever as well!  So, we started her on regular infant ibuprofen & acetaminophen doses.  We also began nebulizer treatments on her, too, as a precautionary measure.

Erik at the ER on his way to get an x-ray

Erik getting an x-ray

On Monday, the kids & I took it pretty easy.    Neither one had much energy and I was getting sick myself, so we spent a good part of the day cuddling on the couch and getting nebulizer treatments and doling out medications.  We continued the regular medication & nebulizer treatments - even overnight, so Kent & I were feeling pretty tired & worn out.  He continued to sleep in Erik's room, so he & I would meet in the middle of the night as we passed the nebulizer to each other!

On Tuesday, we took both kids to the pediatrician where Erik was pronounced to be on the mend and that we could taper off on some of his medication.  Elin's chest & ears were clear and her temp was only slightly elevated, so the doctor just asked that we keep him updated on her condition if it changed.

On Wednesday, Elin's temp really jumped up and the medication wasn't keeping it down.  She also became very listless and was only happy when she was held.  Her respirations also began to be more labored; you could see the effort she was going through to breathe.  I talked to the pediatrician, but was told to just keep watching her and to keep giving her fever-reducing medicine.    Her condition continued to decline on Thursday, so after talking to the pediatrician again, we decided to take Elin to an after hours children's clinic.  Since I was sick myself, Kent came home from work only to immediately turn around and take Elin to Night Lite Pediatrics (he wasn't feeling great either, but wasn't as bad as me).  An hour after he left, I called to see what the diagnoses was.  He told me that he hadn't made it out of the waiting room yet!  What?!!  We regretted not taking Elin to the Children's ER then since we've had better luck there and then you are at the hospital if you need anything else.  Kent was on the verge of leaving and driving down the ER when he was called back.  Elin's respiratory rate was 70/min when she should be in the 20-40 range and her SpO2 rate was mid-80’s when it should be close to 100!  All indications that she was really struggling to breath.  Kent was told that she had RSV and she needed to be admitted to the hospital and an ambulance would be coming to get her.  Whoa.  Major panic mode for both Kent & I.  The driver in the ambulance received a call from their dispatch before they left and asked whether the ride would be emergency or non-emergency...When he said emergency it was hard for Kent not to be extra alarmed!!  I will admit to hanging up the phone after getting that news about having to go in the ambulance from Kent and crying.  I had no idea what RSV was and didn't know what to expect.  I called our friend, Bobbi Babiuk, to come & stay with Erik so I could go to the hospital and be with Kent & Elin.  I then called my parents to let them know; my Dad immediately got online and booked a flight to Orlando for the next morning, so he could help take care of Erik (and us by extension) while we took care of, and focused on, Elin.

Elin at Night Lite Pediatrics (this was pretty much how she looked for 2 days)

After Elin's ambulance ride, she & Kent stayed in the ER for Elin to get a chest x-ray and for a room to be prepared for her.  The x-ray confirmed that she had some lung congestion from RSV.  RSV is a virus, which to us would manifest itself a common cold, but for someone Elin's age is very dangerous because their airways aren't large enough to accommodate the significant mucus secretions.    It is very contagious and can lead to pneumonia or other problems, especially in babies.  Since it is like a cold, you never become immune to it.  Erik most likely had RSV, as well as Kent & I.  (Kent also had a minor case of pink-eye in both eyes but recovered quickly, which was an answer to his prayers!) After determining that she would be admitted to the hospital, they put in an IV and an oxygen cannula in preparation for the Pediatric ICU.  The ICU affords the ability to have more intense monitoring of her respiratory status.

Elin after getting to our room in the Peds ICU

We got to our room between 1:30 and 2 AM where we met our nurses who made sure that Elin was resting comfortably and hooked up to all the various & numerous lead lines to the monitors.  Kent and I got settled in - there is a couch that pulls out to a full-size bed in the room as well as a lounge chair.  We took turns sitting up and being there when Elin would wake up.  We might have slept about 2 hours total that night.  Friday morning, Kent had to get up early and head back home so that Erik's babysitter, Bobbi, could go home.  I stayed with Elin in the hospital and watched & worried over her.  The medical staff wouldn’t let me nurse Elin (she still nurses a few times/day) due to her elevated respiratory rate, so I borrowed a pump from the hospital and reacquainted myself with that lovely process.  I also spent some time reaching out to all our friends & family via Facebook & text.  Through this process, I found out that a friend of ours, Erika Reiner, was actually in the hospital with her 4-week-old twin baby girl, Juliet, with the same RSV virus.  Erika & I began texting to encourage & support each other.  I found out that her whole family had been sick this week as well, though her 3 year-old, Braden, and her twin baby boy, Nash, had mostly recovered.  Juliet, however, was struggling with her oxygen levels and her breathing.  I was having a hard time with my 17 month old, I cannot imagine the panic Erika was facing with her 4-week-old! This experience has shown me the wonderful power of prayer and that we have the most amazing group of family & friends that anyone could ask for!  

My parents both flew in on Friday afternoon.  It was originally only going to be my Dad, but Mom called me after she dropped Dad at the airport & was headed to work.  That was when she realized that Elin had been admitted to the Pediatric ICU, so she basically turned around and headed back to the airport (with a short stop to get a bag packed) and bought herself a ticket.  It was so nice to have Dad around to be with Erik, which freed up Kent to spend more time at the hospital.  It was also soo nice to have Mom at the hospital with us to help communicate through all the medical jargon.  I had to have the nurses & doctors explain the monitor to me several times on Friday morning before it started to make sense!

Elin spent most of Friday sleeping.  Her stats started to improve but she didn’t show much change physically.  Her respiratory rate was back into the 50's and O2 levels back to 100.  She is still so sleepy that she doesn’t really mind all the tubes & wires that she is attached to.  Since she is getting her fluids & nutrients through the IV, she hasn’t signed for milk or nursing.  It is heartbreaking to see my happy, lively baby girl lying in a hospital bed so still and silent.  I never want to see her like this again.

My sick little girl

Sabbath morning started out the same as Friday, but by mid-morning, Elin was alert and looking around.  She still didn’t fuss about the equipment, tubes, wires or medical personnel; it was very fortunate that her IV was disconnected this morning to get her to start eating & drinking on her own.  I was able to start nursing Elin again late on Friday, so that was lovely and I felt like I was finally contributing to her improvements.  Elin's vital signs had stabilized enough that she was downgraded to regular Peds from the ICU, but we wouldn't have to change rooms/floors since the regular pediatric wing was too full and didn't have any open beds.  Kent & Mom spent the day with Elin & I.  Kent was able to get Elin to "play" with him for a little bit.  However, being awake for a few hours mid-day completely wiped Elin out and she slept most of the afternoon & evening.  We had a few visitors in the afternoon - Heather Cochran came to see Elin and Rob Deininger stopped by as he completed his Executive-on-call duties.  Elin woke up briefly for both of those visits, but didn't really respond much.  Kent & Mom left around 6PM to take Erik to the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at Cranes Roost Park.  Erik loves all the Christmas lights, but he wasn't so sure about the fireworks and asked to go home when they started!!  As for Elin & I, we had a wonderful surprise show up at the hospital after Kent & Mom left - my Uncle Duane & Aunt Phillis Morauske came to visit us!!  They drove up from the Port Charlotte area to check on Elin (and I suppose to see Mom & Dad, too)!  Since the rest of the family was at the tree lighting, Phillis & Duane opted to spend the evening visiting with me.  While they were with me, Pastor Barb & Les McCoy also stopped by our room!  It was so nice & thoughtful of everyone to stop by.  It means so much to me.

As Elin becomes more alert, she is also becoming more fussy and clingy.  She wants to be held as much as possible and her sleep patterns are completely out of whack.  Kent was wonderful enough to come back to the hospital after his evening festivities.  Not too soon after he arrived and I thankfully crawled into bed, Elin woke up and was NOT tired.  Kent found the movie,  "Polar Express", on the selection list and he & Elin settled in to the first of many date-night movie nights!  Elin stayed awake and attentive for the entire film, which shocked me when I found out!  I couldn't believe she held still for the whole show and didn't cry.  I bet she wished that Kent had brought her popcorn, though!

Kent playing with Elin Sabbath morning

Hugs from Daddy

She does love to sleep on her belly!

Surprise Visitors, Kelli's Uncle Duane & Aunt Phillis

Getting cuddles from Nana

We ended this week with the expectation that we would still be in the hospital for several more days until the support that the hospital was providing through oxygen & nebulizer treatments was no longer necessary.  While we would have loved Elin to immediately bounce back and become healthy right away, we are so thankful that we can stay at the hospital where she can receive care from the experts.  We have a wonderful team of nurses, doctors and respiratory therapists.  We thank everyone for all the prayers, support and care that they've given to us this past week.

Nov 23-29: Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  I hope that you all had a wonderful and pleasant holiday with family and friends.  Since I'm writing this blog a bit late (today is Dec 7 - oops!) and since we've had a bit of a traumatic experience recently (see the blog entry for Nov 30-Dec 6), I am, once again, going to use pictures as the main part of this blog entry.

We had a lovely, quiet Thanksgiving holiday at the Johnson household.  We spent the first part of the day relaxing and playing at home and then went to a friends' house for the big meal in the evening.  It was wonderful of William & Heather Cochran to include us in their holiday celebration with their parents.  Sadly, we took no pictures of that event.

Erik's daycare had a Thanksgiving party for his class on Friday, November 21.  Elin & I were able to attend the party.  It was a beautiful day, so having the party as an outdoor picnic was genius.  The kids were able to play outside and run off some energy from all the treats!

The kids & I at the picnic.  I couldn't get Erik to close his mouth for any of the pictures!

Pilgrim Erik wearing a hat he made at daycare

Elin, testing out Erik's pilgrim hat

Some random photos:

Elin, testing out Kent's knit hat.  This picture makes her look like a smurf!

Erik's bed head hair after his nap!

Elin's sad face - sorry, baby girl, this one makes me laugh!

Elin's pouty face - yeah, I still have to laugh at this one, too!

We went to SeaWorld on Friday with the Cochran and Zbaraschuk families.  Yes, it was cold that day!

Family photo - Elin is blocked by Erik and we inadvertently put Erik's face in a sun spot.  Oops

All the kids

We had a burst of Christmas spirit on Wednesday, November 19, and decided to be crazy and put up our brand new, never used, prelit Christmas tree super early this year.  We got 2 sections connected and then discovered that a strand of lights wouldn't work.  After Kent went through all the trouble-shooting steps, we had to call the company and get a replacement light strand. Then poor tree sat all forlorn for a week until we got the replacement part on Wednesday, November 26.  I decorated the top part of the tree with all the fragile, breakable ornaments while the kids slept and then let the kids help me put the soft or more kid-friendly ornaments on the bottom part.

The completed tree

Erik hanging an ornament - he was very particular about the placement of his ornaments!

Elin inspecting some of the kid-friendly ornaments

The look I got when I told her to be gentle!

On Thursday of this week, we decided that it was time to finally move Erik to a toddler bed.  What?  You're surprised?!  Erik has only, in the past 2-3 weeks, tried to climb out of his crib!  Since he had never tried before, we decided to let "sleeping bears lie", if you will!!  We certainly didn't want to mess with his sleep routine!  We were very worried that Erik would play "jack-in-the-box" once we moved him to a toddler bed.  We could not have been more wrong - at least so far!  He stays in his bed once we put him in it until we come to get him up after naps or in the morning!  I'm still shocked when I think about it!  He'll sit up in bed and play with his blankets or stuffed animals, but he won't climb out.  We'll see how long that lasts!

Erik & his crib

Erik & his toddler bed

Erik showing us how he would sleep (I gave him a pillow to his great excitement!)

Some funny stories:

1. A very little known fact is that I love musicals and sometimes, I sing my conversations to the kids. (And NO, I do not dance in my real-life musicals!!) They generally get a kick out of it, but one day Erik stopped me mid-song and said "Stop singing, it hurts my ears"!!!

2. We have been germ conscious in our household since our long bout of colds in September.  One day, Kent was playing with Erik and pretending to sniff his neck.  Erik responded by telling Kent "Don't 'niff me!  You have boogers in there and I don't want to get sick"!!

3. Elin can't talk to us much yet, but she is certainly an expressive little girl.  When eating, she tends to stockpile your food in her cheeks while asking for more bites.  We finally caught on to her tricks after a few puking incidents and we now will prompt her several times to "Chew" during meals.  When we say "Chew" now, she will tilt her face up to you, open her lips and show you her teeth as she takes some giant, exaggerated bites of food!!  Too funny.  Of course, now we sometimes say "Chew" just to get her to perform her little trick!!

4. This last story is more a trick that I played on Nana (my mother) than a cute story about the kids.  Back in October, I had included the "Love you Forever" children's book in our library rentals and we had it when my parents came down for a quick weekend trip (the weekend of the stomach bug).  I had never read the book and since it had a picture of a little boy playing with toilet paper on the cover, I thought it would be a story about potty training - which I definitely wanted Erik to hear about!  Well, the first time I opened the book to read it, I had to quickly paraphrase the story and put it down.  It made me burst into tears with the "I love you forever, I like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be" chorus.  I showed it to Kent that evening and he told me that he had tried to read it to Erik a few days earlier and it made him cry!  A little devil got ahold of me and I carefully set the book aside for my parents' visit (my Mom cries really easily).  Then, once they arrived and had settled in, I waited until we were all in the living room and then, oh so casually, suggested that Nana might like to read Erik some stories.  Of course, Erik jumped at the opportunity.  I handed Mom a stack of books and she cheerfully read through a few books about race cars, trains, etc.  I then handed her the "I love you forever" story.  She opens it and reads through the first few pages.  We all laugh at how crazy the Mommy in the story was to drive across town to climb through the window into her grown son's house so she could rock him while he slept & while she sang him her little sweet song.  Well, then Mom got to the page where the Mommy in the books is old & sick and calls her son to come see her and the son, in turn, rocks his Mommy while singing the song.  Mom is almost sobbing but she kept on reading the story to Erik; even as I'm laughing to myself at this trick I've played on Mom, I'm crying and then I look over at Pops and HE is crying.  Mom gets through the end of the book and looks at me: "Why would you read this to your kids?"  Excellent question.  I've seen that book on lots of popular book lists or searches.  How did it get there?  It is a tearjerker story!  Anyone know?

Oct 26-Nov 22: Major Catch-up

Yikes, I guess I've gotten very behind in my blog posts!  November was very busy with various illnesses, potty training, appointments, etc & so on.  As I sit here trying to think back on the month, I really cannot remember everything that we did and why I got so far behind on this blog.  I hope that my faithful readers haven't suffered too severe a withdrawal this past month!!  I'm going to catch up by using lots of pictures!

At the beginning of the month, I told Erik that we had run out of day-time diapers (I gave him a few days advance notice) and that he would have to start using the potty like Mommy & Daddy now.  This approach worked pretty well and we only had a few accidents during the first 4-5 days.  After that, Erik has no problem with going pee.  We are still struggling with going poo-poo in the potty, but I hope that he will soon stop holding that until nap or bed time.  Potty training has also provided me the opportunity to talk to Erik about anatomy, much to my chagrin.  He saw me getting into the shower one day and looked at me with surprise and said "How do you go pee?!"  That was an interesting conversation, to say the least!

Erik has fully embraced the concept of being sick and getting medicine since his recent bouts of the flu and a head cold.  He insists on having a puke bucket in his room at all times and will often ask to have it in bed with him (he doesn't get it).  He also makes sure that I never forget to give him his vitamins/medicine every morning.  Erik has also started drinking Xango (mangosteen juice) and was so upset when one of Kent's shipments went missing and there wasn't any "juice medicine" in the house for him!!

Elin is getting more vocal in the past few weeks.  She is mimicking a lot of sounds and intonations.  She will say "dow" for "Down" when she wants out of her highchair.  She also tries to say "thank you", "Amen", and "Erik".  She can say "Noooo" really well and is learning "Yes" though it sounds more like "Yeth".  She is starting to display some temper - however, rather than throw herself on the floor, she will start to cry, walk over to a wall, throw her hands on it and bury her face in her hands.  This lasts only for about 10 seconds or less before she turns around to see what I think of her performance.  She loves all of our ride-on toys and is super good at steering, especially the plasma car.  Elin did get her first boo-boo while riding on the trike - a little road rash on her elbow, knee and tiny bit on her cheek.  She is a super tough little girl, though, and didn't even whimper about it.

Pictures from our month:

We finished up our session of fall swimming lessons (when you live in Florida, you can swim into November!):

A neighbor was getting their yard landscaped and Erik got to drive a tractor/front-loader!!

A local fire station visited Erik's daycare and he & Elin have been playing with his fire hats since:

Various photos of Elin from the past few weeks:

Elin on Erik's trike - she loves all our riding toys and is really good at steering:

Elin showing off her owie from riding the trike:

Elin at Sabbath School - she looks like she knows what she's doing!

Erik demonstrating the classic Johnson stance:

We have 1 tree in our yard that drops its leaves; Erik helped Kent rake them up one Sunday.  It was a bit nippy for Florida!

Elin lounging:

Kent was reading a book to Erik at bedtime about tools, so he decided to show him the real, live versions!

We took some family pictures at JCPenney (look for them on our annual Christmas letter!) and this is how Kent entertained the kids while I reviewed the photos and placed our order.

Erik & Elin had a dentist visit this month.  This was the first time that Erik was supposed to go back on his own.  That didn't work out at all.  Due to his uneasiness of the whole experience, I wasn't able to get any pictures of Elin's first visit.  Oops.  Doesn't he look so small & pitiful sitting in the x-ray chair?!