Life, Love, Laughter: {Laugh as much as you breathe and Love as long as you live}

That is the quote I have been holding onto all week long! It's been a little rough but we will get thru and we have. Our week started BUSY, that sounds so cliche and at times I feel like I sound like a broken record but this week that broken record continued to play.
Tuesday our sitter called me early afternoon with little peanut running a fever. Got her home, snuggled, gave a little Tylenol and she was doing good. Slept great and the next morning well we had a happy little girl! Perfect! Off we went with yet another crazy day and by 10am another phone call with a higher fever than the day before. This mama was puzzled. Not only does Danielle rarely run fevers but she had just been fine a few hours before! So I called the doc and got an apt. Picked her up, headed to the doc and then decided to run home for a bit. The docs verdict was, just a 'virus', after blood counts proved her to be otherwise 'ok'. I had a 3pm deadline to meet at work which my project hadn't been started, but I thought a warm bath at home and a bottle may rejuvenate my girl to head into work with Mom, plus no stroller or infant seat in my car, so we had to head home. Got home and sure enough I misplaced my house key, my door opener is dead, my husband was 2 hours from home and I was officially LOCKED out of the house! Just perfect! Thankfully I had a bottle that I fed peanut in the car and well trucked back into work. Little girl was a champ, not feeling good at all she clung on to my lap at work for the next 3 hours while I met my deadline. Headed to get Dylan and snuggled in at home because in the mean time thankfully my brother-in-law lives down the street and has our extra house key. Fever continued all day and broke that night, but sister was up all...night...long. Developed a cough and wouldn't sleep. So we stayed home. But not before we headed in to drop Dylan off and stopped by my work yet again for a few hours of 'must-do's.'
So Mommy life this week was a little challenging but we managed, thankfully! Thursday brought a lot of snuggles before we picked up Dylan from school. And one happy girl by that afternoon. TLC did her much good!
Friday morning Dylan and I headed to the Cedar Rapids Marriott for the March of Dimes, March for Babies kickoff breakfast! This was the first year we had attended and we were excited to be there! Ashley Hinson from KCRG was the emcee and there were a variety of speakers including Dr. Nau from St. Lukes and this years Ambassador Family, the Norris'.

It was a fantastic morning with my sweet sweet boy. We are very much gearing up for this years walk and starting to get things in order! It was also emotional watching videos and having Dylan ask questions, as those seem more frequent these days. But it felt oh so good to hold him close, kiss his head and give thanks that we have these precious babies to squeeze every day.
Saturday morning brought the first round of swim lessons for the kiddo's for this session! We were all SO excited. Dylan had his new Spiderman swim shirt and trunks on, Daddy & Danielle were ready to glide thru the water and I had my camera all ready to catch these precious moments on film! We arrived and each went to get the kids ready. I for a brief moment placed Danielle on the bench, with one hand on her I took my other hand, opened the locker to hang up our bag and I heard the most horrible, 'thud.' My girl had fallen head first and slammed her head into the hard ground, while her feet were still being held by my hand on the bench. I screamed, picked her up and finally about 2 seconds later she began to cry. I quickly grabbed our things, ran to the front desk and pleaded for someone to grab my husband and son from the other locker room. We needed to head to the ER and FAST. Head injury's for anyone are serious but especially with Danielle and her history of hemorrhages at birth. I couldn't even talk amongst the tears but mustered up, 'she feel we need to go to the hospital NOW.' I feel like the worst...mom...ever, and still do. I nearly wanted to vomit I was so upset and couldn't believe that happened in less than a split second. We know that the two hospitals in CR don't handle head injury's so we didn't mess around and headed straight to the University. I called the on-call doc in the Neurosurgery dept and told them what happened, they were going to notify the ER that we were on our way. Driving 85-90 trying to slow down for speed cameras it took what felt like an eternity to get there. I finally calmed down and so did my husband and very concerned Dylan, and thankfully Danielle had quit crying when I put her in the car and she smiled and talked all the way to IC. Her Daddy's eyes were on her non-stop. I'm so glad we were all together this day.
We arrived and were rushed in immediately. The immediate tests by the ER docs showed Danielle to be just fine, thank god. The suggested a CT but didn't really want to expose her to the radiation and we didn't either. So we suggested an MRI and they obliged, but stated that sedation is hard to get on the weekends. Totally fine by us because we prefer no sedation anyway and I can console her for the scans like I usually do. After the scans the Neurosurgeon came in and told us the scans were fine, he reprogrammed her shunt and we go the all clear to head home. Our little concerned brother waited so very patiently in the room and rubbed her leg and asked if she was ok, as you can see he didn't want to leave her side. He was such a good boy for us. Danielle was happy the entire time, we had x-rays which she didn't like too much but for the MRI she was calm and we held her and gave her all he snuggles she wanted and very much deserved. My heart was breaking and every time she smiled a little piece of my heart mended that is for sure. We had the most compassionate ER staff, they listened and trusted us and did exactly what we wanted, we could not have asked for anything more. And the best news of all was our little girl was a-ok, happy tears flowed and flowed.

We headed home and home never felt so good. We are so lucky and fortunate she is ok, not any minute can be taken for granted. A couple other things during the week were very difficult as well. Making us realize even more that each moment is never to be taken for granted nor is each day to be expected, each day is a gift and it is to be cherished.
We continued with our plans of a nice family dinner last night. We headed to Coralville to Iowa River Power Restaurant for a fantastic family outing. It felt so good to sit at a table with our loved ones which we are blessed to have around us. Our dinner, as usual, was delicious!

It was a nice quiet evening, much deserved after somewhat of a chaotic week. It was nice to chat on the way home with my hubby as we had two tuckered out kids sound asleep in the back seat.

And in other news..... we have something NEW that has been added to our family. No, its not a baby, and no, its not a pet either, its a new vehicle to add to our 'fleet'! We had been discussing since last fall on the thought of getting a car for Brad to drive to work. It is only a short time during the summer months that he drives a work vehicle and the rest of the time he drives his truck and carpools with a co-worker who lives in Alburnett. So we've had our eyes open and with the rising cost of gas, yet again, spending $200- a week in gas we were finally fed up! Brad's truck was surprisingly getting 18 mpg which is awesome but driving 188 miles per day you still need gas more than one-2 times per week. So this car came in and I snagged it up, called Brad and said, 'honey, I bought you a car!' So this weekend we brought it home and I have to say it is kinda cute. I would have NO problem at all toodling around in this to run errands if I am kidless for a few hours. It is a 4 door so if we need to put a child or two in the back seat it is very do-able.

It is a '99 Saturn and is in superb shape. A 60 yr old woman owned it and has kept up with all of the maintenance, which can be hard to find these days for a 13 yr old vehicle with 103,000 miles. And it looks nice, no damage, the interior is nice and it's not too much of a, you know, 'ghetto mobile'! HA! So the Saturn is Brad's new ride as much as he would like. If he wants to take it he will, if he wants to 'truck it' for the day he will leave it home. But kinda fun to have something different around that will put about $150- a week back into our savings account. And that.....feels SO good!
So today has been spent mostly relaxing and getting ready for the week. The morning started with some quiet reading time for all of us.