My Girls: Twice The Fun: Our Nephew & the State of Cheese

Jamie & I went to Madison, WI, over the holiday weekend to visit my sister Terri and her husband Aaron who just had a baby boy on May 9. We knew we entered Wisconsin when every gas station we saw advertised huge displays of beer and the best cheese in the state. We had a wonderful visit! We were so happy to meet our nephew William, he is quite a cutie. He doesn't quite have control of his arms yet, so we were cracking up at how he was waving them all over the place. He was very good during our stay, we hardly heard a peep out of him unless he was hungry or had a dirty diaper. We mostly hung out at their place, but we did venture out a bit to some local stores and to the mall. This was my sister's first outing with William, and he did pretty well although we joked that he already is a typical man who doesn't like shopping because he fussed a bit at first. Terri & Aaron live on the very edge of Madison, where it felt like being in the country. We took their dog Brinkley for a walk and it was very relaxing to take in the nice weather and scenery. They are moving back to the cities at the end of June, so as much as we like visiting them in Madison we look forward to having them back in our area very soon!

The girls stayed at our home with Jamie's mom, sister, and brother who came down to watch them. I guess they had a blast! We are very appreciative of all the work Jamie's family went through. When we got home yesterday our carpets were shampooed, our laundry was done, our floors were scrubbed, and the whole house was clean. It was wonderful. Apparently the girls developed a love of dusting and helped out with cleaning the house. The bad news was that the girls had been battling fevers all weekend, so we decided to try to take them to urgent care to be checked out. My mom rode back with us from Madison (she had taken the bus there the week before), so she and I took the girls to two urgent cares in the area and both were closed despite the fact that their automated phone messages said they were open. Violet looked terrible in the car and ended up vomiting everywhere. She perked up a bit once we got home and gave her a bath. We all made it through the night in one piece, and were up early this morning to try to get to urgent care right when they opened at 7 am. My mom went with me and the girls to the doctor. They actually did extremely well with the doctor, it was the best they have ever done. Usually they cry as soon as the doctor comes in the room, but today they did great. Olivia did not cry at all when the doctor looked in her ears and listened to her lungs, and Violet cried very little. We found out they both have double ear infection so they were put on an oral antibiotic. They had ear infections two weeks ago, and the doctor thinks it never completely cleared up. Thankfully my mom stayed to help us out and watched the girls today since they couldn't go to daycare. We are so thankful that she was able to help us, it really bailed us out since both Jamie & I have had to use up a lot of vacation to stay home with sick children. We are very lucky to have such generous families!

Here are some recent pictures.

Violet: