What a month!

Jeremiah is about to hit his 2-month birthday already. Unbelievable! He's weighing in at just over 9 1/4 pounds now and really starting to figure out how to smile as an emotional response. He loves to stare at hair, be held a lot, snuggle and thinks Mommy should never be out of sight. If Mommy has to be out of sight, big brother Joshua is about his favorite person - Daddy says Joshua does a better job calming Jeremiah than he can.

Ruthi (3) is becoming quite the Daddy's girl, though sometimes just gets a bit fed up with all the time Jeremiah steals from Mommy and will demand, "Mommy, hold me now!" She's can count to 10, recognize pretty much any color, say several Bible verses and identify about a dozen letters of the alphabet by name (more of then by sound). She will be seeing the endocrinologist again next week for a growth check.

Joshua (6) has blossomed as a reader this year. We have enjoyed reading the entire Chronicles of Narnia series with him over the past few months, and now he is reading "Farmer Boy" (Little House on the Prairie series) to me! He's half way through his second Sparkies book (from AWANAs) and within a month of finishing his first grade curriculum (but testing out at end of 2nd grade in math skills).

But what's made this month so "exciting" has been illness. :( On top of the normal health struggles Rick and I both face daily, and sleep deprivation of a new baby, honestly our family has had a rough month! It started as a simple cold that came home with Rick from work 4 weeks ago, but it turned out to be the RSV virus (can be deadly to preemies like Jeremiah) and we've all been pretty sick. 4 weeks later we are still all congested with horrid coughs and scratchy to missing voices. Jeremiah is on an inhaler, but overall doing amazingly well and we are all thankful that he has remained out of the hospital so far.

All of us other than Joshua have also ended up with secondary bacterial (strep) infections. Ruth had a 106.3 fever a couple weeks ago from the strep. Both Joshua and Ruth have had repeated rounds of croup and needed steroid treatments as a result. I've lost track of how many doctor's appointments we've had through all this. I just had Jeremiah back to the doctor yesterday with a suspected allergic reaction to his antibiotics. Since he is now off the antibiotics, please pray that the strep doesn't relapse with a stronger strain now. We are weary and discouraged and pray that we are soon all fully on the mend. I would ask your prayers as I can't help but think it is somewhat of a spiritual attack to distract me as I try to prepare for my trip to Washington and Canada next month.