Aw... my Marah

I just have been wanting to put together some pictures of the kids as they have aged and post them here. Kinda makes me realize how much my picture taking has tapered off over the last few years. That concerns me, cause Alex is coming soon and I don't want to forget to take pictures of him! I hope that doesn't happen.

Anyway, I'll do Jenna's around her birthday, which is in a month. I don't have time to do it right now cause all the photos of her from birth to age 4 are prints that I would have to first find and then scan. So here's a little Marah cuteness.

September 29, 2004- Her first photo, just minutes old:



Just before leaving the hospital, she looked like a little doll:



First picture of me with my girls:


First Halloween, a month old:


First Christmas, 3 months old (taking pictures for Christmas card, did not realize that Jenna had smudges on her face, typical of me *lol*):


About 3 or 4 months old here and so cute:



Same age, just love this picture of Jenna and Marah:



About 9 or 10 months old here, learning to stand, trying to walk:



One year old:



21 months, cutest baby in a bikini ever:



Second birthday:



Third birthday:


3 1/2:



And it makes me sad to think that the last time my family saw Marah she looked like this (1 1/2 years old):




I could have posted many more, but I got tired. :) I went to bed at 12 last night and finally got comfortable enough to fall asleep sometime around 1. I remember looking at the clock at 12:50 and thinking "Great, now I'm only gonna get 6 hours of sleep" Little did I know that I would be up at 5:30 completely unable to fall back asleep. I would have just laid there, but Eric had to get up an hour early this morning to go to the clinic for some test and I didn't want to keep him awake. I get to take naps, he doesn't. So I got up and went through these pictures for the blog.

Eric is going on some new meds for his Crohn's disease. He went through a bad flare-up a couple of months ago that put us in a real financial bind as he was unable to work. Now that he has this new job, he's started to get sick again. His condition is very sensitive to stress and as this new job has been very stressful for him (and he doesn't deal with stress well at all), he has started to have another flare-up. He missed a day and a half of work last week which will really hurt us. It is times like this that it is hard to understand what God has in mind... why does it always feel like the moment we might get caught up we are hit with something that puts us back at the beginning, in fact, further from where we were before. Bills continue to pile up and we just don't know what to do. It's hard to trust... I'm trying. Again, prayer is very appreciated :)

So this new medication is called Humira. It's insanely expensive. We are covered by Medicaid for this month but after that I believe Eric will be on his own. It's a stupid system our country has. In our state he is unable to qualify for Medicaid if he works more than 120 hours a month, regardless of how much he makes or whether his employer offers health insurance. He has submitted an application with the Humira manufacturer for no cost prescription which we are hoping will be approved. If it isn't... I don't know what we'll do. This is a last resort medication before surgery. Apparently this medication is supposed to reverse some of the effects that Crohn's has on the gastro system. Once he has been on the med for a year, his practitioner will re-evaluate him and probably do surgery. She doesn't want to operate until some of the effects have been reversed, this way the surgery will have a better chance at being sucessful. I am not even sure what would be done with surgery. I believe part of his intestinal tract would be removed. That's really all I know. It's hard to have a clear idea when Eric is the one telling you the details :)

I have a miserable cold. It started on Friday with a sore throat that I had hoped was just a morning reaction to cool air since we had our bedroom window open, however it got progressively worse throughout the day and by Saturday morning was a full on cold with congestion, sneezing, coughing and sore throat. Plus headache... so I'm not feeling the greatest. Story of my life lately though, right?!

Alright, my wrists are starting to hurt so I'm gonna end this here. Have a lovely day :)