~JOSIAH~

I just wanted to let everyone know that my plan is to keep most of the blog posts that are mainly about Josiah over at his blog at www.josiah-roberts.blogspot.com until he's about a year old. Around that time I plan to posting about him on this site, as I do the rest of our family members. That said, if you are interested in some updates and photos about our little man, please visit his site!

~Tracey

Back to work

I went back to work one day a week in February, when Josiah was 3.5mos old. My work schedule (I'm a dental hygienist) has recently changed. The practice I was working for merged with another practice next door to ours and I've started working two, almost 10hr days a week. We've had a major remodel and combination of our office spaces and staffs. It's a beautiful office and we have so much of the newest technology and equipment that I feel it's an honor to a be able to take part in the changes! Our family is all adjusting to me more than doubling my work schedule, but I'm SO thankful for Steve's help. Without his willingness to pick up where I leave off, working and having four children at home wouldn't be nearly as successful, to be honest.

~Tracey

Miranda in the hospital

We had yet another hospital stay in our family this spring. I'm beginning to think we should be eligible for our own room....with our name on the door at the hospital! =)

On a late Friday afternoon, Miranda (7.5yrs old) was trying to climb a tree on the lower part of our property (near where an old cattle barn used to be) and stepped on a huge rusty nail that went deep enough she had to use a lot of force to remove it from her foot. We called the doctor and did all that he suggested (warm soaks, irrigating it, etc) all that evening. By that evening she was very sore, but was doing well we thought. The next day, she was tired and sore, but still okay from what we could tell. Because her foot was bandaged, we didn’t look closely at it that Saturday morning because Mariah had double-header high school softball games, Miranda said it was okay and our morning was chaotic. At the game, she was sleepy, so we let her snuggle on a blanket behind the bleachers and take a nap. At one point during the second ballgame, she asked me to show someone her puncture wound, so I took off the dressing.....much to my surprise, we discovered a HUGE red, hot, raised area on the TOP of her foot, a red streak starting up her leg, as well as discovering that she was running a pretty high fever. I called the doctor who was on-call for our medical practice and that doctor insisted I take her to the ER right away (less than 1mo before we were there due to McKenna’s motorcycle/dirtbike accident!!). The ER doc evaluated her and found that she had a very nasty infection, requiring IV antibiotics. My poor baby girl was in the hospital for over 24hrs on IV antibiotics. She was such a trooper and I was so proud of how brave she was during her stay. It took three attempts before her IV was placed (due to her small veins), but she sat still and allowed the nurses to do what they needed to do.

~Tracey

Mariah's 2007 Formal

Here are some photos from Mariah’s 2007 high school formal (please excuse the photo that is side-ways....I forgot to change the rotation on it before uploading it).... The formal was held at Multnomah Falls Lodge. She’s growing into such a young woman so quickly that I can’t believe she will be 16 in a few months. Wasn’t it just a few years ago that she was my baby???

I had the honor and privilege (and Mariah's permission, of course!!) of being a chaperone. It was a fun time to get all dressed up together. After the formal, many of her fellow high school classmates went to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3.....all decked out in their formal-wear!
~Tracey

Late updating my blog....

I'm so far behind in updating my blogs that I've decided to just start from the present and add updates as I think of them. Because of this, some of my posts over time may be out of sequence. I kept procrastinating posting updates because I was behind and waiting for a time to be able to catch up. With four children, and working, that time might not ever come. =)

~Tracey

McKenna's Spring break mishap!

My sweet McKenna had an eventful start to her Spring vacation! On the first day of break, the girls, along with a friend were riding our 4-wheelers (quads) around the property. After a while, we invited the friend's dad to bring over their motorcycles/dirtbikes. My girls had never been on a dirtbike, but they are all very capable quad riders, so this was a great opportunity for them to learn something new. They all did great, but as the afternoon/evening was winding down and it was getting wet due to the rain, McKenna had an accident.

Ms McKenna wound up hitting a barbed wire fence across the field. At the time, I was in the house with the baby and McKenna walked into the house and calmly declared, "mom I've got a little cut and need a band-aid, will you get one for me?" It was dark in the laundry room where she was at so I moved to get a better look and found her jeans all tore up! Asking her to lift up her pant leg, I saw it was so much more than "a little cut" and told her to get straight to the bathroom so I could evaluate it further. Much to my surprise, it was deeper than any of us imagined, and straight to the ER we went. The cut went to the muscle, requiring two layers of sutures, but what a brave girl she was! The only tears she shed was during the local anesthetic injections! I would have been crying like a baby with a cut that deep, I think! The goofy girl was more concerned about any damage she might have caused to the bike than she was to the damage to her leg!

She did, of course, have her helmet on. Our girls know the rules....if it has wheels, you wear a helmet. Period. Her cut came, not from the barbed wire, but rather from the foot peg. However, she did have a few surface scratches on her neck from the barbed wire. We are so thankful and lucky it wasn't much worse! McKenna, however, has not lost her love of riding and continues to ride the quads and can't wait for our friends to bring over their dirtbikes again so she can get back on them.

With four children, she was our first one to need stitches (other than from surgery), so that's not too bad!