Easter 2011

Checking out whats in her eggs

Asher's favorite toy

Alex on his hunt

Asher

He figured out there were puffs in there

Found one!

Swinging on Grandpa's swing

Whew, what a day Easter was. It was a very very busy day but had several great moments. We got up early and went to the 9:00am service at church (we sat in the chapel for the first time, its so beautiful in there). Then we headed to Dad’s for lunch. Aly, Asher and Alex got to have an easter egg hunt and play on the swing in Grandpa’s front yard. This was the first time Aly wanted to swing by her self.

We hid Alex and Aly’s eggs separate so they both got a chance to get there own eggs. Since there isn’t much candy Aly would or could eat we filled her eggs with goldfish, marshmallows, yogurts melts and Uncle Tim donated a few dollars. They all really enjoyed it. Asher was the first to figurer out that there was food in the eggs and he was sold after that. Then his basket was the most fun trying to put it on his head!!! Alex had a few melt downs, he was upset that there wasn’t candy in all the eggs then when he realized there was money in there he was upset that they weren’t all money!! To funny!!!

After that we headed to the Manderscheid’s house for yet another great meal. Aly was pretty tired and slept for a bit on the way and then we laid her back down when we got there so she missed out on that egg hunt. (shhhh don’t tell her though). We left there and got home to rescue Marley around 8:30pm. It was a super busy day but we were glad we got to spend it with all our family.

On another note, the butt rash is gone!!! I got a call from the dermatologist office saying that they found some sort of bacteria but since she was on a antibiotic for her ear that it would fix that too so it wasn’t a big deal, but we are so thankful that its gone and over. So just FYI if you kid gets a rash the magic cream recipe is: Neosporin, Vaseline and triple paste (its kind of expensive but believe me is cheaper then going through everything we did) so try that first!!!

We did find out that Aly’s new pediatrician, Dr. Magil goes to our church and works in the nursery. Then I received an email the other day stating that they are moving Aly up to Dr. Magil’s room this week, so either she’s going to hate nursery b/c her doctor is in there or she’s going to be very excited the next time she is at the Dr.s office. Hehe! But JV said he knew he liked her for a reason!!

We are all doing good and looking forward to our up coming beach trip May 20-27. We are going to Hilton Head this year. We are all looking forward to spending some quality beach time with Aly. She was still so young last year and the water was pretty rough so she didn’t get a lot of beach time, so we are hoping she enjoys it more this year!!!

We took a lot of other family pictures so I’ll post those when I get them! We hope you all are doing well!!!

Love, JV, Amy and Aly

At the Dr. Again Thursday (4-21-2011)

Yep you read that right, we were at the Dr. again yesterday morning. Why? well because of this ridiculous rash on her butt that no one seems to know what it is, including my self, JV and the doctors. I know I tend to jump to the worse case possible and freak out a little, but I can't stand for her to be sick or in pain and not do something about it. I know you all know what I'm talking about and I'm not the only one, but thank you for putting up with my craziness.

When we were at the dermatologist on Monday they were going to submit a culture to test for the Strep B bacteria and the results were not going to be back for about 10 days (I did some research on this and it was pretty scary).

When I picked Aly up from Shannon's on Wednesday she was running a fever of 102. Well the 2nd symptom of strep b, is the fever (1 being the rash) so I was thinking that she did have it. She had seemed to break out in a secondary rash on Tuesday after we started using the cream that the dermatologist prescribed. It did work on the large red spots but seemed to breed another problem.

So I spent the drive home on the phone with the on call Dr. at snellville peds who just so happened to be the Dr. that saw her 3 weeks ago. My biggest question was what I needed to be looking for if this was Serious. I knew that going untreated, Strep B could be very dangerous and that is mostly because it goes undiagnosed because it looks so much like a regular diaper rash. The dr. said that as long as the fever was coming down with medication and she wasn't acting lethargic then we would be fine till in the morning. She was acting absolutely fine so we waited till the morning.

I called the dermatologist on Thursday morning and they didn't really want to see her again b/c they didn't deal with fevers and those kinds of symptoms so we called the Pediatrician. JV took her to see the new Dr. at Lawrenceville Peds. ( Loganville office), Dr. Magil. He really liked her. He only waiting 5 mins in the waiting room (I know right, your asking if Dr.s really do that, well in my past experiences NO, but apparently at this place they do know how to schedule appointments) and then Dr. Magil came in around 10:15 and spent about 30 mins in there answering all my crazy questions that I sent with JV.

She seems to disagree with the dermatologist about it being a yeast infection or eczema, and really disagreed with the Dr. at snellville about it being ringworm or bacterial (yes thats right we have had 4 diagnosis's on this rash) but she thinks its just a bad skin rash that has been left basically untreated b/c we have been given the wrong information. She gave JV and concoction of Neosporin, triple paste ointment and vasoline to mix together and use so we did that last night and it looked a little better this morning ( but that seems to be what this little bugger does, it gets better and then worse). I think this might work better b/c it seems to stick to her better and not come off with the first diaper change of the day.

She also saw that her right ear was red and inflamed. Her tubes are completely out and the holes have closed up so we knew this could happen. There wasn't any fluid but it was red so that could have been what the fever was. She also gave us an antibiotic to help with that.

So we are PRAYING this is the end of this crazy rash. It has been expensive to try to figure out (so if you kid has a rash on there butt, let me see it before you spend $300 on dr. visits and crazy creams).

We are looking forward to this weekend and we hope every has a wonderful day celebrating the Lords day, Easter, on Sunday!!!

March/April Update

Eating Chocolate pudding!

Playing in the car waiting on Grandpa 4/19/2011

Sh'es getting so big! she looks so grown up here!

Chillin with her shades on!

Aly getting her oatmeal bath and Shannon's

Hello All, Picking up from where I last left off, as you know JV and his Dominican crew all made it back safely. They had a great and productive trip. JV has said that he defiantly wants to go back and being there was a life changing experience. As hard as it was for him to be gone for that long, I’m so glad he got to go to experience it for both of us.

On the Aly front, we have been battling a nasty rash on her butt area for about 3 weeks now. It started with a small spot, which I didn’t think much of, then it was like over night it exploded. We went to the Pediatrician (which was our last trip to Snellville peds I waited and hour and 40 minutes for them to tell me they didn’t know what was wrong) and they didn’t know what it was. She gave me and antibiotic in case it was bacterial and said to use some fungal cream in case it was something of that nature. Well after a week of that, nothing was changing, so I called back and they told me the same thing, just give it another week, so I did and still no better. I took her to the dermatologist yesterday and they said it was a bad case of a yeast infection and eczema. They gave me a prescription for some prescription cream. I got it last night and this morning I could already tell a difference so hopefully we are on the way back to normal.

On Sunday night when I got home with Aly, she felt a little warm like a low grade fever so I gave her some medicine before bed and no problems. Then Monday morning she was still a little warm, around 99.7 degrees so I took her to Shannon’s any way. I was thinking that it could be the rash that was giving her the fever so that was the main reason for the dermatologist appointment. Turns out the rash had nothing to do with the fever. Last night it got to 103.4! I was pretty worried but knew there wasn’t much we could do. We put her to bed around 8:00pm and at 9:00 she woke up crying and had pooped. We changed her and let her lay in the living room with us for a bit, then about 5 mins after that the fever seemed to be just gone. It was the weirdest thing. JV said she just needed to poop the fever out and it seems that is what she did!! She has been good today so far but is staying with Mimi and papa just to be sure!!!!

She is still in love with her Mickey Mouse and Elmo. I feel like all I get to watch anymore is Mickey Mouse clubhouse. She is talking so much and so independent. “no, mommy, I do it!” I hear that all the time. And Mimi’s favorite “up you” means she wants up. Pretty funny. She cracks me up all the time.

As for us, nothing much has changed, JV went to the race at Talladega this past weekend with some people from work and we are leaving for the beach in a month from tomorrow! Whoo Hooo!!!

We are looking forward to a busy but great Easter this weekend. Church at 9, then Dad’s for lunch and the Manderscheid’s for dinner!!!!

We hope this finds everyone well!! We love you and hope to see you soon!!!

JV, Amy and Aly