Thanks for Praying

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for Callie. She is doing much better. On Friday we were extremely close to taking Callie to the hospital to be admitted, but after a long nap she seemed to be perking up a little. She has continued to improve and seems to be doing quite well now. So far she is tolerating her feedings really well. We have stepped back a little in regards to her feedings. We were blending her formula from "real food" but for the past month she had really been struggling with keeping her food down. We have gone back to store bought formula but it seems to be working for her. She is wearing her feeding pump in a backpack and is getting small feedings all throughout the day. Our goal is to keep the food down and see if we can get her weight back up. In the few days she was sick, she lost one pound. That's not much for the average person but it is a lot if you only weigh 23 pounds to begin with.

So thanks for praying. The little girl is on the mend.

Almost Finished!

We are (finally) almost finished with our wood floor refinishing project. It hasn't been particularly difficult, but we have had a hard time finding time to work on it. Once I was ready for the last step of sealing the wood, the weather turned ridiculously southern. We have had 90 degree weather with unusually high humidity levels and heat indexes in the 110's. I figured the drying time might be a little too long with that kind of work conditions. So last night it finally started cooling down and drying off, so Jason and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to seal the floor. I am thrilled with how it looks. I still have to wait to replace furniture and replace the baseboards, but I thought I could give you a look at some before and after pictures.

This is the surprise I found under the carpet. I had already sanded off the stenciled red rocking horses. Jason just knew I needed to sand it as best as I could and seal it with the rest of the floor. I was stubborn, and with the help of my dad, pulled up the boards while Jason was at work.

I found another surprise when the white board came up, there was no subflooring in that one area. I got to create my own. Yippee!
And because I had plenty of flooring leftover, I thought I should tackled this eyesore as well. Who doesn't like a cracked piece of plywood patched with plaster for a floor? Jason was equally irritated that I removed this board.
Here is my patchwork. I really had fun doing it and was quite pleased with how it turned out.

This it the other hole I tackled. I think it is more aesthetically pleasing.

And here are pictures mid-sealing the floor. I am still happy with my choice to replace the boards.

I think the flooring looks better here.

And finally... the (almost) finished product.

A floor I am completely thrilled with. And would you believe, the husband now understands why I wanted the carpet gone and now sees what I saw all along!

And now for my two other random thoughts for the night.

1. I really thought I had blogged about Miss Sadie on my last post. I had an entire write up about her but, unfortunately, as a few people pointed about, the words must have just stayed in my head. Oops. I am trying to get a few more pictures together of my little Norwegian beauty and then I will write about her.

2. It is a good thing we finished the floor early this morning because my day was consumed with Callie.

She came down with a GI bug and is one sick little girl. We were able to see her GI doctor today (I called yesterday. If we didn't take this appointment, he could see her the end of August. I do believe God was involved in that). Jason and I believe she was very close to needing to be hospitalized for dehydration but this afternoon she finally started keeping fluids in. Between the fluids and sleeping all day, she was a totally different little girl this evening, which was a huge relief. Thanks to my mom for keeping the kids for a while, Jason and I were even able to go on a date tonight just to have a bit of a break. Callie's GI issues have become very time-consuming and frustrating. Add a virus to "normal" vomiting, and a mommy can very easily be worn out. So please pray for Callie to quickly rebound so we can move ahead with plans to figure out how to help her keep food down and grow.

I might win the award most inconsistent blogger ever.

Summer is in full swing. Wyatt is handling his time at home relatively well. He would much rather be at school than home with his mom. We are trying to work on some schoolwork this summer, so he will be ready when school is back in session. We can both only handle it in small amounts, though. The poor boy has a mental block when it comes to numbers and it is driving this mother crazy. I didn't know the "teens" could be so hard. Wyatt is playing t-ball this summer and loves it. It is my first experience with any kind of organized sport, so it is new for me as well. Wyatt most enjoys batting and is working on being more proficient with catching the ball.

Callie is still...Callie. We have started running into more issues with feeding and sleeping so we had an appointment to talk it over with the doctor. Callie is getting taller - she is now in the 5th percentile for her age! Her weight is still lagging behind. She is stuck at 23 pounds. Rather than using formula, we are blending "real" food to put in her tube. She gets over 335 calories per cup (that's a lot) but we are having a difficult time keeping all of her food down. She is back to only tolerating small feedings which is very frustrating.

She had an upper GI last week just to make sure that everything is functioning as it should. I don't know the results from that yet. In addition to not keeping all of her food down, Callie is not sleeping well. This is a problem because when she doesn't sleep well, she is highly emotional. When she is highly emotional, she doesn't keep her food down. For her, crying usually involves vomiting. So it is a cyclical pattern we get into that stinks. Right now we don't have any answers so we keep working on sleep and cleaning up puke.

Speaking of cleaning up puke, I was tired of having carpet in our preschool room/office. Between three kids, a dog, lots of puke and french doors that lead to a backyard filled with jet black dirt, it was next to impossible to keep white carpet clean. So while Jason was at work, I pulled it up. I had done a little research to know that there was hardwood underneath so I just helped expose the old floor. I should have figured there would be a surprise underneath.

It wasn't too terrible, but a section 5" x 92" that had plywood (part of it stenciled with rocking horses) rather than oak slats like the rest of the room, was not exactly what I had in mind for my hardwood floor. So in all my free time (when I am not blogging, ha!) I have been sanding the floor (with the help of my dad and father-in-law) and now I am working on replacing the offending boards. I'm having fun doing it but I am getting to the point where I am ready for it to be over so I can put my house back together. Since my husband thinks I am crazy for tackling this project (and a few more I have not mentioned), I am just playing the "nesting" card. I figure since all we can do in regards to the adoption is wait and pray, I might as well start nesting. And since in my previous nesting experiences, I was quite large, I could not accomplish such large tasks.

So that's about all I have time for tonight. I need to go sand a floor!