Jeremy's Second Back Surgery

Jeremy had his second back surgery today. The doctor said that it went well. He explained to me that he had to go in and shave down the same disk that had been injured before. There was a fragment that was compressing a nerve bundle and that's what had been causing Jeremy so much pain. We are hopeful that this will be his last back surgery for several years. (At some point in time, he will probably have to have this portion of his back fused.)

Rachel's First K5 Field Trip

Today, we went with Rachel on her class field trip to Cedar Hill Farm. Everyone had a great time. Rachel enjoyed most of the day with her friend, Morgan. Abigail really liked petting the animals (until the donkey nibbled her fingers...LOL!) Both of the girls got to pick out their own pumpkin to bring home.



Here are some pics from the day.

Learning to Ride A Bike

Rachel finally had her daddy remove her training wheels and she learned to ride her bike today. She's really outgrown this bike, but we told her that she would have to learn to ride it before she could get a new one. I guess that we will have to put in a request with Santa now.

Our First Trip to the Fair

Last night, we took the girls to the fair for the first time. Overall, we had a good time.

Since Jeremy doesn't like to ride stuff, Rachel and I rode a lot of rides together. Her favorite ride was the Gravitron. She is getting tall enough to ride many of the rides so she had a great time.

Abigail, on the other hand, didn't enjoy the fair very much. She wanted to run around and really didn't want to be in her stroller and there really wasn't much for her to do. Jeremy was so sweet for chasing her around and dealing with her tantrums all night. He's such a good dad.

My Sick Baby

Ever since we went to AR, Abigail's allergies/sinuses have been bad. On Friday, I took her to her ENT to have her eartube checkup. Her eartubes were fine (still in place and open). When we were there, I talked to him about Abigail's congestion. He sent us home with some prescription drug samples of an antihistimine/decongestant/cough suppresant and told me to give him a call if she developed a fever. The medicine that he gave us worked really well. She was all cleared up in a couple of days.
On Monday, she ended up with a lowgrade fever. And Tuesday morning, she woke up with a high fever so I called his office. They were able to call Abigail in a prescription for antibiotics. She began on that medicine and continued to have the same high fever thru Friday afternoon, but really had no other syptoms besides an upset tummy (which I thought was a side effect of the antibiotics.)
I was beginning to think that she might have the flu so I decided to take her to her pediatrician to have her checked out. Luckily, her flu test came back negative. It turns out that she most likely had a "stomach bug" in addition to her respiratory infection. He instructed us to continue giving her the antibiotics. I am happy to say that her fever broke on Friday evening and she didn't have fever all day today. Her tummy seems to be getting back to normal, too. I hope that she is on the road to recovery.

Crazy Love

I just wanted to take a minute to recommend this book if you haven't already read it. Our small group at church has begun a study/discussion of this book. We have covered the first two chapters so far and I am trying not to read ahead so that I can stay with our group discussions of each chapter. This book is very convicting. Here is the website that you can check out for more information:

http://www.crazylovebook.com

Rachel's First Day of Kindergarten

Rachel started school today. She is attending a 1/2 day kindergarten at a church here in Southaven. She was super excited to go to school. Jeremy went with me to drop her off since it was her first day. When we got there, she didn't even want us to go in with her. (I think that it hurt Jeremy's feelings a little.) I explained to her that her Daddy and I wanted to take her in since it was her first day and she finally said that it would be okay. After all, I had to get pics of the big day! She had a great day and is ready to go back tomorrow. Here are some pics from today.

Our New Fence

Abigail is supervising her Daddy's work.

I am happy to say that we now have a fenced in area in the back yard. Jeremy finished it today. I was so tired of having to take the dogs out on leashes in the back yard and more tired of chasing them down when they would run away. We put up a short picket fence around the area directly behind our house. The swingset is also fenced in so that should help keep me from having to chase Abigail down, too. Sometimes, she wants to run away from me like the dogs do and she is just about as fast as they are...LOL!

A 100th Birthday Party

This weekend, we went to Monticello, AR to celebrate Jeremy's great-grandmother's 100th birthday. She turned 100 on September 2. She is such a sweet lady. We are so blessed that our girls have gotten the chance to know her.

On Saturday, we went to Jeremy's aunt's house to visit with some of his cousins and their families. The girls got to swim there so they really enjoyed the visit. It was nice to get to visit with some family that we hadn't seen in years.

The actual birthday party was at Jeremy's great-grandmother's church on Sunday afternoon. There were so many people there. Mama (that's what we all call Jeremy's great-grandmother) was so exhausted after taking so many pictures and talking with so many guests. After the party, some of the family headed to her house to visit a bit more before heading home.

Here are some pictures from our weekend.

A Zoo Day with the Girls

It was such a beautiful day today so I decided to take the girls to the zoo. It was really a nice day. We left the house and picked up lunch on the way. When we got there is was early afternoon and several of the animals were being fed as we walked thru the zoo. It seems like we saw more zookeepers chatting and feeding animals today than any other time that we visited the zoo. We saw the gorillas, the panda, the giraffes, the polar bears and the goats eating. A lot of the animals were out and moving about, but just about all of the cats were napping. The zoo had a "Birds and Bees" exhibit for the summer. Rachel thought that it was really cool because she got to hold a stick that had some birdseed on it and the birds all came to her stick to eat. We stayed until Abigail was ready for a nap. The girls and I had a great day!