What’s been going on during that time? Hmm, well, here’s a short synopsis:

• Ellie got out of the hospital the Friday after she was admitted. She spent three days there, none of which she or Helene enjoyed.
• The following Wednesday Steve was “no longer needed” by his company, whose name he will not speak here. Unfortunately he wasn’t there long enough for FMLA to apply and as Washington is an at-will state the company could let him go when and how they wanted. Needless to say he won’t be recommending them or their products to anyone in the future.
• All in all July was a pretty bad month.
• Ellie went in for an ultrasound after her infection had cleared up and the doctor determined that her left kidney was slightly underdeveloped. This was allowing reflux from the bladder up into the kidney. They will check again when she is a year old as they are expecting she will grow out of it.
• Helene had her XX birthday in October. There was cake, ice cream and much rejoicing!
• Steve got a contract job with Integra Telecom, located in Portland, Oregon one day shy of his three month anniversary of being unemployed. He’s enjoying the work and the people and has received good feedback from them on the work he is doing. It does mean traveling across the Columbia River into Oregon on a daily basis again, but that is minor compared to the benefits of working.
• Josie and Robbie are growing like, well, saplings we guess. Getting taller but not as much around the middle. They are both in the < 20% weight range (Josie being in the 5% weight range for most of the year), although Robbie is turning into a pretty solid little linebacker. They eat how much they want and walk away when they are done. I’d never seen a 4 year old and 2 year old walk away from sweets like these two do. Obviously didn’t get their parents sweet tooth.
• We were fortunate enough to go to Disneyland in December. It’s a tradition that the December, or Christmas season, after we have a child we go to Disneyland. We did it with Josie and with Robbie and we had scheduled the trip back in May, before Ellie was born and before Steve’s old employer did what they did. Fortunately with Steve getting a new job and by economizing during the trip (having a time share at Disney helps cut the costs) we were able to enjoy 4 nights there as well as a pretty nice drive there and back.

Those are the highlights, at least what can be recalled right now. We’re sure there’s more to write and we’ll try to be better about it this year. And we’ll also post more pictures than we have been. We promise!

Ellie - Borg Princess

Ellie had a 102.3 fever this past Tuesday night, July 12th, so we took her to the hospital. They ran a series of tests (urine culture, blood culture, lumbar puncture for a spinal culture) and she was automatically admitted until the results of all those tests were back. This won’t be until Friday morning. The reason for this is in newborns, especially those less than a month old, the barriers between the different systems (urinary, spinal, blood) are very thin, which can allow infections to spread between the systems much more easily than in an older child or adult. So the hospital has a standard set of steps that they follow, which includes a stay of at least 24 hours, typically 48 hours, to make sure that things don’t get worse.

As of Thursday the culprit appeared to be a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) by some of those dreaded E. coli that you are always hearing about. Fortunately the strain that she picked up are easily dealt with using regular antibiotics. After 24 hours she no longer had a fever and was doing much better.

Helene has been with her the entire time at this hospital while Steve has been there during the days (there’s only one bed, sort of, so both of us staying just isn’t possible). Both Helene and Ellie are looking forward to coming home today, so please wish them the best and keep Ellie in your prayers that this is a one time occurrence.

Welcome to our family Ellie!

Let the fun begin!

Well, Josie had so much fun opening her presents while the ice cream cake thawed that we never got around to having the cake. But I’m sure that’s something Helene and Josie will remedy before long.

Here is some video of Josie opening her gifts. She’s definitely four because no matter how much she liked what she opened, there was always a, “More!” right after that, for as long as there were gifts to unwrap.

Josie opens her presents

Josie’s New Bedroom

This will be a short post, just so we can share some videos that we took while we were there. They are hosted on YouTube and linked below.

Josie, Robbie and Dale on Main Street, Disneyland

Jungle Cruise Ride

]]> http://www.the-abbotts.net/2011/03/11/disneyland-we-went-to-disneyland/feed/ 0 http://www.the-abbotts.net/2010/12/31/happy-new-year-2/ http://www.the-abbotts.net/2010/12/31/happy-new-year-2/#comments Fri, 31 Dec 2010 18:54:26 +0000 Steve http://www.the-abbotts.net/?p=498 Continue reading →]]> Boy, our holidays at the end of 2010 haven’t turned out for the best. Robbie visited the ER on Christmas day and here on New Year’s Eve we’ve got a stomach virus that’s hit everyone but Steve. Robbie had it earlier this week and both Helene and Josie were up for most of the night just being plain out sick.

Fortunately Steve has managed to avoid it (knock on wood) and has been able to keep things together and take care of his sick girls. So tonight we’re going to spend it together as a family and get everyone to bed early.

We hope that everyone has a fantastic new year and a wonderful 2011!

Robbie and his bulldozer

Don't you just hate those hospital gowns?

Showing his "Superman" patch of normal skin

Trying to have fun

We thought we’d put up some pictures of our poor boy while we were in the ER. The pediatric ER at our local hospital is fantastic. Robbie even got a new bulldozer that he totally fell in love with. We took him to his doctor’s office today to check in with them and he was sent for allergy testing. We should know in the next day or two if he has a problem with cashews or peanuts (the two suspects). We haven’t given him any peanut products yet but the cashew he had was fried in peanut oil and I didn’t notice that when I gave it to him. We’re crossing our fingers it’s a problem with cashews. That will be a lot easier to deal with than peanuts.