Jacob Ballas Children's Garden

On Saturday we took the girls to the Jacob Ballas Children's Garden. Elyse had been there a few times, but this was the first time Anastasia got to go.

 We began in the sand box area, but that didn't last long. Like her sister once was, Anastasia doesn't like the sand. We then headed to the water area. Elyse had fun...

... but it took Anastasia a little while to get into it.

"Sit Daddy"

"Follow Me"

"Snack"

Elyse found this dragon and had a great time playing with it.

The fountain turned off for a little while which allowed Anastasia a chance to get close to the water for a little while anyway.

After the water area we walked through a maze and then went to the tree house.

The girls had a great time going down the slides. Anastasia even walked across the sand to get to the slides

After the tree house we went to the pond area. Elyse and Anastasia liked looking at all of the different plants. I wanted them to stand by Toby for a picture, but they had other ideas...

When Elyse started across this log I had to hold myself back from helping her. She is not the most graceful girl at times and I was afraid she was going to fall in the water, freak out and not recover for the rest of the morning, but I held back and she did fine :) (go Elyse- and Mommy :))

We ended with the bridge. Anastasia made it this far and then the bridge began to shake and wanted off, but Elyse had fun running and jumping across the bridge.

We had a good time. I love mornings like this.

Nails

Elyse came home from school one day and said one of her friends was old enough to paint her nails ALL BY HERSELF! My response- You can paint your own nails if you want to. She did :)

She picked out her colors and went to town. She wanted some help getting the polish of of her skin, but she did everything else on her own.

While Elyse was painting her nails Anastasia kept grabbing an extra nail polish bottle so I decided to paint her nails too. I do have to say it looked a little too "grown up" on Anastasia, but it was fun and she actually sat still long enough to have it done and dry!

The finished products:

Disney on Ice

Today we were able to go to Disney on Ice with a couple of our friends. I thought it was a good show and the girls seemed to really enjoy it.

Anticipation in the taxi:

 Sofia and Elyse waiting for Violet to come:

 Entranced:

 The happy girls:

 Ending the day with ice cream- what could be better?

Anastasia's Hospitalization

On March 9th, the morning the family was scheduled to go on a trip to Cambodia, Anastasia and I went to see the doctor since she had running a high fever, had a cough, and was acting very lethargic. After the doctor listened to her, he got very quiet (strange for Dr. Ravin) and had her go on the nebuliser and began to monitor her oxygen intake.

After a bit of discuss with the other doctor in the clinic, it was decided that Anastasia needed to go to the hospital to get looked at.  Dr. Ravin thought an ambulance would be too much of a headache and he didn't trust a taxi so he (and his nurse) drove us the the emergency room. Needless to say we were not going to Cambodia that afternoon.

In the car, the nurse sat in the back so A could stay on oxygen as we drove. When we got the hospital Dr. Ravin registered us while the doctor at the hospital took a look at Anastasia.  After nebulisation treatments and some observation it was decided that Anastasia had acute bronchiolitus. Basically Anastasia had a lung infection that inhibited her from breathing well, plus there was mucus plugged up in her lungs.

We were emitted to NUH with the intention of staying there for a couple of nights. We were placed in a room with 3 other beds until a single room opened up.

Anastasia keeping busy. This is her smile face.

Every time her oxygen level dipped below a certain number, she had to be put on oxygen, plus she had to have nebulisation treatments every hour.

A dear friend took Elyse for all of Saturday so Toby could be a t the hospital with us.

This is how Anastasia and I slept for 2 nights being interrupted every hour and then every 2 hours as the nebulisation treatments got spaced farther apart.

We learned that fro us to be able to go home, Anastasia had to be off oxygen and the nebuliser. We would go home when we could give her inhaler treatments 4 hours apart.  We were at that mark, when things got worse and we were back on the nebuliser every hour.

The only good thing was that we were moved to a single room.

During this time Toby and Elyse traveled to and from the hospital and unfortunately Elyse got sick too with a throat infection :(

Overall Anastasia did well with the masks she had to endure. Taking medicines and the inhaler (puff) was another story.

As she got better, she didn't have to have oxygen and then eventually she could get her IV out (oh yeah, she had a drip put in when she wouldn't eat or drink)

Finally after 5 nights Anastasia filled all of the requirements to go home. It was not fun and very nerve wracking, but we made it especially with the help of friends who called, stopped, by and cooked meals.

As we stand now Anastasia takes her "Puffs" 6 hours apart and has a few other medicines. I am watching her breathing carefully and am afraid I might miss some sign she is getting worse, but I think she is doing just fine. She is sleeping well and acting like herself. We go to the doctor on Monday.

As for Elyse, her fever is gone and we were able to go to Disney on Ice with her friends today :)

It has been a long, tiring week, but we made it with help from God and our friends.