Baby Girl!

We are having a Baby....
GIRL!!
My scanner is giving me fits and since most of you already know I thought it was about time I posted this. After our ultrasound we would say that we are 99% sure that this baby is a girl. We were all quite surprised. I guess to even out the numbers we all thought it would be a boy, but we are very happy to be having another sister. The day of the ultrasound was quite funny. Here are the responses when the doctor announced the gender:
Emma: "Madelyn you were right, the baby is a girl."
Madelyn(in an upset tone): "I changed my mind, I don't want another sister I want a brother!"
Taylor(in a shocked tone): "WHY??"

We all kind of laughed and the doctor continued the ultrasound, but every couple minutes we would hear:
Taylor(exasperated): "Why does it have to be a girl? I really need a brother!"

Poor boy, since then he is adjusting to the idea of having another sister. We have told him that this just means that he will have to be extra tough to be his sisters' protectors. We also assured him that he isn't the only boy and he and his Dad can always be best buds!

So, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of
Olivia Lynae Katschke

Keeping Time Moving!

As February ended, I looked back over the past two weeks and couldn't believe all that had happened. No wonder the month had gone so fast. There were good and bad things that occurred, but to this mother's great joy it made the month fly by and now as I am posting this there is only 2 and a half months left of this pregnancy!! YEAH! We are all anxiously awaiting the arrival of this baby and so whatever needs to come our way to help the time move more quickly we welcome! Here is a recap of the two weeks:
*Everyone got nasty virus and was home sick for 5 days of school (for Tay and Emma)
*Daddy's Birthday
*Taylor and My Birthday
*Madelyn's virus turns into Pneumonia and she has a chest x-ray and is put on Meds
*Valentine's Day (and the school parties and such that go with it)
*President's Day (no school, as if they hadn't missed enough last week being sick)
*Grandpa, Grandma, and Ashley come to visit
*Emma comes home sick from school, ends up having a double ear infection
*Taylor comes home sick from school, ends up with preseptal cellulitis
*Ultrasound reassuring us of healthy baby and identifying the gender (stay tuned)
*Daily visits to the doctor for Taylor
*Kids head back to school finally healthy!
*Life calms back down!!!
*YEAH March is already here, now if only the next 3 months will go by as fast.

Eye Problems!

Can you say Preseptal Cellulitis?
I had never heard of such a thing, but after complaining for a couple of days of a bad headache I decided to take Taylor to the doctor for what I thought would probably end up being a sinus infection. The morning of our appointment when he woke up he looked like he had a black eye. It took a shot to his bottom, (which he hated) daily visits to the doctor, and a very strong antibiotic 4 times a day for 10 days to finally get his eye to heal. This picture doesn't quite do it justice, but we are very grateful the medicine worked and we avoided the hospital. So, if like me you have not heard of preseptal cellulitis it is an infection in the front part of the eye. Taylor's had started out as a sinus infection and then it spread up to the eye. It would only have become serious if it had moved to the back part of the eye becoming orbital cellulitis. ( I am not sure I explained that completely right, but if you want a better explanation ask Joseph:)

Surprise Visit from Home!!

Visit from Grandpa, Grandma, and AshleyWe were so thrilled to have a surprise visit from Ashley and Grandpa and Grandma. They arrived late Thursday night the last weekend in February. They had let Joseph know, but the kids and I awoke to them here at the house! It was such a great treat! I had been feeling down with the pregnancy and such and this visit was just what I needed!! Thanks Dad and Ashley for all the cleaning and help and thanks to all three for playing with the kids and lifting my spirits. (mom was hurt and wasn't able to clean, but she helped tons by entertaining me and the kids, we later found out she has three blood clots in her leg and we feel very blessed that she made the drive home okay and is doing much better!)

Celebtrating "Our" Birthday!

Taylor with his cake!

Joseph gave me these beautiful flowers for my birthday!!
He always makes my day very special.

Sharing a birthday is something that both Taylor and I really enjoy. I took Wendy's up to school and had lunch with Tay. That evening Joseph made dinner for us and we opened gifts. A couple of days later Tay had a couple of friends go ice skating with him to celebrate! We both had a great birthday!

Baking for Birthday!

Taylor is still very interested in lions so we tried to recreate one with cupcakes for school and a cake for the night of his birthday! Although cake decorating really isn't my thing, I was pleased with how they turned out!

Night of Daddy's Birthday!

As Taylor and Emma helped me decorate for Joseph's birthday some not so planned or fun things happened. First Madelyn...

Threw up all over the carpet.

She started coughing and threw up a little bit. Then said "MOM!" I said run to the bathroom, instead of following that sane advice she proceeded to finish her business on the carpet instead. Here she is helping me clean it up.

(The kids had all had a nasty virus this week that gave them a horrible cough. Madi wasn't sick to her stomach, but had taken to making herself cough so hard that she would gag and throw up. By the end of the week, we finally trained her to use a bowl or the toilet!)

While we were cleaning up after Madelyn I heard a loud crash and found...

Emma had knocked over the lamp.

To top the evening off Joseph's co-worker had offered to make the cake for his birthday and come and celebrate with us. But when they ended up getting stuck at work and sent home the cake from the office that day to have for our party that night, I was really wishing I had just done it myself and made him a cake. Birthdays are a big deal to me and I was sad that his wasn't turning out very well.
(that is how the cake came home, we hadn't eaten any yet:( )

But even though the evening started off rough, we ended up having a nice night celebrating our dad!!

Aprons!!

Thanks Aunt Carly!
We love helping Mom cook while wearing our new aprons!(if anyone knows how to rotate a picture on a blog I would love to know! I am still an amateur when it comes to blogging!)

Little Helpers!

Madelyn has adjusted really well to Mommy having to be down a lot. Everyone asks about her and if she is bored, but really she is doing great. Of course she has her days when she gets a little tired of it, but most days I find her like this. She has become very good at entertaining herself. Besides playing well alone, she loves to have mom one on one. Every morning she tells me of her plans and they usually sound something like,
"first we can play Memory, then Uno Attack, then the Wii together and then I will do your hair, okay Mom!!"
At first I think my being down affected Emma the most, she was definitely bummed that the regular visitors and play dates had dramatically slowed down. She was sure this was ruining her social life. But now that she is adjusting to it, she has become quite the helper! Madi anxiously awaits Emma's return from school and then Emma is great to help entertain her for the afternoon. They have taken to walking down to get the mail together! Thanks Emma for being a good sport and for all your help!!