Reese update

I have been overwhelmed by well wishes and concerns for Reese today. It is so amazing to have the kind of love and support that we have. Thank you so much to all of you for caring.

Today Reese stayed with Nana for a few hours while I went to work. When her fever is down, she perks up and will talk and eat, but when the medicine starts to wear off she looks very tired, eyes are blood shot and she just sleeps. She mumbles about things (like sand on the TV?) and moans. She woke up once this evening and pointed at her runny nose and said "now this calls for a tissue!" At least she still has her sense of humor.

So anyway, she is pretty sick and will have to miss Aunt Jodi's baby shower tomorrow :( But Nana said not to worry, she will save us some cake!

A Scary Day

Last night Reese started coughing, so this morning I let her sleep in rather than taking her to Mother's Day Out. She slept and slept and slept. She would wake up every couple of hours and ask for a drink of water and then go right back to sleep. I was busy around the house and was not too concerned until she woke up at 1:30 pm for a drink and had a fever. I went to the kitchen to get some water and the thermometer and when I came back I could not get her awake enough to take her temp orally, so I took it under her arm...103. I called the doctor, got an appointment for 4:30 and got in the shower (yea, I had not showered yet, so what!). Reese was sleeping on my bed which is right next to my bathroom door. I had been out of the shower for a few minutes and I heard some movement so I looked out to see if she was waking up and I saw that she was having a seizure. Her body was stiff and she was foaming at the mouth and her eyes were rolling back. I grabbed Reese and the phone at the same time; dialed 911, reached over and turned on the bath, stripped Reese, climbed in the tub with her and talked to the operator all while calling out for Jesus to help me. Her seizure was less than a minute long, but I could not get her to open her eyes (they were still rolled back) and her breathing was labored and I could feel her heart beating out of her chest. The operator instructed me on what to do until the paramedics arrived. They were so great; so calming and reassuring. It took Reese quite a while to come around and respond, but I could tell that she was breathing easily and that was enough to calm me down enough to be helpful. We decided on a ride downtown to have everything checked out and after about 5 hours, we are back home and Reese is resting well. She had a febrile seizure, but no major illnesses that they can tell. Just a viral cold that brought on a high fever.

She perked up for the first time all day on our way home from the hospital. She said "That was fun riding in the ambulance!" I did not know she even remembered it. She did not talk to the paramedics and slept most of the time. She knows that her aunt is a paramedic and works on an ambulance, so she asked me if that is where Aunt Sarah works. It was very reassuring to hear her talk and make sense after seeing her so lethargic.

We serve a great God who not only answers prayers, but answers them quickly. I am so grateful for all of my friends and family who were by our side. What started out as a very frightening situation ended up being a cold, and I know that is because of all of the prayers that went up for Reese. Thank you

Right of Passage

I guess if you are an Underwood child, ice skating is a right of passage when you turn 4. Pete took Soren for her first time on her 4th birthday and today (just a couple of days late) he took Reese for her maiden skate. She did amazingly well. We thought she would lose interest in just a few minutes, but we had to cut her off after two hours. She wants to go full speed all of the time. She has really good balance and did not fall much. Pete taught her to lean forward with her hands out like she is pushing something. It worked well! Maybe I will send him to work as a skate instructor as a part time job :) We had a great time. Don't tell Soren we went without her; Ice skating is one of her very favorite things to do. We just could not justify taking her out of school during benchmark testing...

A Much Celebrated 4th Birthday

Thursday was Reese's 4th birthday. She has been anticipating this one for quite some time and it was no disappointment. Her big day started with a party at her Mother's Day Out. She got to wear a special "It's my birthday" sticker all day and they sang to her and had a special birthday snack.

She chose a bounce castle party (so easy for me!) to celebrate with all of her friends and family. Lots of good friends, good times, and good cake!

Then on Friday we headed to Grandma's house to celebrate some more. We even took a quick trip up to Tulsa overnight to celebrate with cousin Jacob since he had a birthday, too. Grandma took us all to Incredible Pizza and we had MORE birthday cake. That made three for Reese.

Needless to say, Reese had a great 4th birthday celebration. She still has one more thing to do. Pete promised her that when she turned 4 he would take her ice skating. That is what he did for Soren and Reese wanted to do the same. Should be interesting.

Volunteers

Saturday, Soren got to do some more volunteer work with her CEO club at school. This time we got to go stuff the runners' packets for the Cowtown Marathon. It was pretty neat to see all of the work that goes on to do that. Reese and I went with her to help and we were all given official Cowtown Marathon Volunteer shirts. None of us are running in this race, but it is really fun to be a part of it in some small way.

The CEO Team

Soren and Ally make posters to cheer on the runners

Reese puts 4 safety pins together for each runner

Reese's birthday is this week so she has been receiving cards in the mail. She can read her name and gets VERY excited when she sees that a piece of mail is for her. This morning she got three more cards and one of them had money in it. She read the cards, folded the money in her little hand, stood up and said "So, let's go buy some stuff!" So completely opposite of her sister who would starve before she spent a dollar of her own money (however, Soren did try to give me $20 of her money for Valentine's Day to help pay for my race. That was huge for her. I did not take it.) Only one of what seems to be an ever growing list of differences in their personalities.

***disclaimer: I cannot get the spell check to work on blogger anymore, so if my posts are full of misspelled words, it is not my fault.

Happy Valentine's Day

What a wonderful Holiday. I love Valentine's Day; Pete and I are not even that into it, but I just think it is such a sweet day. We are so romantic, infact, that I got Pete a new chain for his bike and he entered me into my next race (no small gift!). So now we are ready to roll. I will be completing the Lone Star Half Iron triathlon in Galveston on March 30th. I get to use my wet suit that Pete got me for Christmas! Should be fun.

The girls each got a new Webkinz for Valentine's Day. They were so excited. Pete snuggled the new pet next to them as they slept this morning. They love to get online and play games with each other's pets.

At school, Soren's class exchanged valentines but were not allowed to pass out any candy with them (new Texas nutrition law). Soren got an extra surprise. She had a giant heart shaped card with a box of chocolates left unanimously on her desk...a secret admirer!


It has been a roller coaster couple of weeks around here. Sick, well, sick, well, hot, cold, hot, cold. In the good times, Pete and Soren have enjoyed some mountain biking on Soren's new mountain bike (a splurge that her dad could not resist!). She has a blast even though she comes home missing quite a bit of skin, which looks great when she has to go to swim team. She is VERY tough. She had a fall that Pete described as really bad and she looked up at him and said "I want to cry, but I am not going to!" She could barely walk after the fall, but she got right back on the bike and kept going.

Reese has been battling upper respiratory and ear junk, but has been able to enjoy some hiking on her good days. We like to go to Cleburne State Park and hike around the lake. It is so cute to watch her bounce along.

Bunny Farm

Reese and I had to drop off some paper work at a cardiologist's office for Pete and found the coolest thing! The office is part of a "professional building" next to the hospital and it is a large square, open in the middle. They have taken that large open space and made it a bunny farm. There are paths and benches and tons of little houses and structures for the bunnies. They were the biggest bunnies I have ever seen. We had so much fun watching them. They would let us get close, but when we tried to pet them they would hop away. Pretty cool.



Oh, and Reese popped one of the big questions today. "Mom, if you go to the hospital and you have a baby in your tummy, how does it get out?" Well, at least we got that one out of the way. I got to explain it both ways, because Aunt Jodi will be having a c-section next month.

Guests

The girls have had a blast hosting Wyatt, Ashton and Parker for the weekend while Mat and Kara sneak away for some skiing. We have played a lot and eaten a lot and played some more. This beautiful weather has been so awesome! Finally a break in the wind! Anyway, here are some of our adventures...

saturday morning video games

chowing on some nutter butters

great times at bouncin bonanza!

a bowl of cereal before bed