High Temp

Yesterday was a typical day. I picked up Emmy from day care and she was her usual bubbly self. The kids were enjoying the beautiful sunshine outside and as I walked through the backyard gate all I hear is mommy, daddy, mommy, daddy. Little miss Emmy's legs could barely keep up as she ran towards me. She was so excited to see me and had such a little happy face. Where's the video camera when you really need it!

We were barely home two minutes and she was asking to watch Elmo's World. Brad cuddled with her on the couch - both wrapped up tight under the blanket. I noticed that she was just laying there and not acting like her usual self. Brad layed with her for a little while and then he left the house to get some steaks to grill outside. He wasn't gone very long when Emmy started crying and came to snuggle with me. I gave her a kiss on her forehead and noticed that she seemed really warm. I took her temp right away, but it was a struggle to get it to stay under her arm. She wanted nothing to do with me poking her. I kept telling her it wouldn't hurt, etc. I managed to get a reading of 102.7 and gave her some Motrin right away. I grabbed a different thermometer which I thought would be easier. This slick little thermometer takes a really quick swipe across the forehead. One swipe and immediately her temp came back as 104. I thought there was some sort of mistake and tried it again. This time it read 106. I thought to myself...this has to be a joke and it must not be working properly. I swiped it across my own forehead and it came back normal.
How could this be possible, I wondered? So, I took her temp again and it came back 107.1 SERIOUSLY!! OMG. I called Brad and told him I was rushing Emmy to the doctor. He was just pulling into the driveway so he grabbed Erin and came with us.
By the time we got to the doctor, Emmy's cheeks were bright red. I asked her where it hurt and she pointed to her cheeks and to her forehead.
We were called back to the doctor's room right away and the nurse tried to weigh her, but Emmy wanted no part of that scary scale. The nurse then managed to get a thermometer under Emmy's arm, but we had to both hold her down. Talk about child abuse. The temp came back as 103.1.
The doctor came in and checked her over. Her chest sounded fine. No pneumonia.
She has had a cold for about 10 days now.
I was just thinking the other day about Emmy's tubes in her ears and thinking that she hasn't had an ear infection since the surgery. Sometimes they can still get infections even with the tubes. We managed to survive three months without an ear infection.
The doctor looked in her ears and wrinkled his nose and said she definitely had bad ear infections in both ears. He told us to expect drainage from both ears.
This poor little girl has been through enough with her ears.
We picked up her prescription right away and gave her a dose when we got home.
I gave her a half dose of Motrin around 10:00 last night and she fell asleep in our bed. Pretty soon we'll have to upgrade to a king size bed - we had eight little feet under the covers this morning. :)
Emmy's temp was normal this morning, but Brad is staying home with her until she wakes up. I talked to our day care about Emmy's situation and she said that she was fine having Emmy at day care as long as her temp was related to just her ear infection.
We will monitor her this morning and see if she is up to going back to day care to play with her friends. Hopefully she feels better so I can see that little bubbly face again soon!

Working Mom

I am officially back to the working world. My first day back (yesterday) was great and I got right back into the swing of things. However, I was extremely exhausted by 7:00 pm. I think I could have went right to bed, but having two kids to take care of doesn't allow for such luxury. Brad is also feeling exhausted. He is working a lot and seems to be running non stop. He gets to take Ambien at night to help stay asleep. I WISH I could take one...but I don't dare. I'm afraid I wouldn't hear my babies cry during the night.
I have allowed myself enough time in the morning to get our family ready and out the door to day care. Please sound the alarm...I arrived to work before 8:00 am for once. Yeah!!! I don't know how adding another kid to the family makes me earlier for work, but I'm going to try and keep it up!
My new schedule allows me to have more time with the girls. I am back to work three days per week. How can you beat that? Three days on...4 days off!!! Woo Hoo! Let's just hope we can afford it while having two kids in day care. Day care is not cheap in our area.

Summit Brewery Beer Tour

I arranged to take Brad on a tour of the Summit Brewing Company in St. Paul for his birthday. The tour was on a Thursday (his actual b-day) at 1:00 in the afternoon. I didn't tell Brad what the plans were for the day. He kept throwing out guesses, but was nowhere near what I had planned.

We were driving down this road into an industrial area and Brad asks, "Are you driving me to work?" Just then, we turned the corner and there was the brewery. He was really shocked and excited! He likes Summit beer. I am not a fan of beer, but thought their brewery was a cool idea since neither one of us have ever been on a beer tour.

I told Brad that we were probably going to be the only people on the tour. Remember, it was 1:00 on a work day. When we got inside, there were several benches for people to sit on. I was really shocked...after about ten minutes, the place was packed. I bet there were at least 75 or more people on the tour with us.

After her brief speech on the Summit history, the guide took us on a tour of the facility. Once inside the bottling factory I kind of felt like Luverne & Shirley.

Everything was clean & organized. It was neat to see the process of everything.

After the tour was finished, each person was given three FREE tokens to use at the bar. How can you pass up free beer? They had several Summit varieties to choose from...even root beer.

Keg Washer

Loves Her Books

I have been finding lots of gems at neighborhood garage sales lately. I bought this little play tent for $2. Emmy likes to bring everything into the tent with her. Here she is with ALL of her books inside the tent with her.

More Pictures of the Girls

Tyler's Confirmation

My nephew Tyler was confirmed on Sunday, April 25th at Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Monte. Yes, this was the next day after Cloey's wedding. I knew that we all had to behave the night before, but we still didn't get back to the hotel until 2:00 am. We were having so much fun chatting with the Gort cousins and we rarely get to see them so we had to make the best of it!! :)



Tyler chose Psalm 18:2 for me to read in front of the church ~ The Lord is my rock, and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I trust. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.



After church, we went to Daryl & Annette's (Rachel's parents) home for Tyler's celebration.

Sponsors: me & Joe Delzer (Rachel's brother).

Cloey's Wedding

My cousin Cloey got married to her beau Chris on April 24th in Willmar. It was such a beautiful wedding and Cloey was a gorgeous bride!


I arranged for my mom to meet us in between the dinner & dance so that she could watch the girls at the nearby hotel. This worked out well and I was looking forward to it for months.

When the dance started, I wanted to get Emmy out on the dance floor. She really loves to dance. However, she got really shy...I think because of the loud music. She would only dance if I held her. We were dancing our hearts out and all of a sudden the beads that were attached to my dress snapped off and went flying all over the floor. I had to go back to the hotel and change. Just as we were leaving, Emmy says, "Uh Oh," and we look down and her poor diaper exploded. Luckily it was just #1, but still. I felt really bad for the poor girl.


We had such a great time and lots of laughs with all the family. My cheeks were hurting from all of the laughter at our table that night!


The Gort family must get together more often! I say we take Scott's boat to Green Lake this summer and have a blast!!

Grandpa Brad & Emmy

Me (before my dress fell apart), Scott & ErinMy nephew Tyler & my cousin Justin (strong resemblance)

Grandpa Harley, Me & Erin

Heidi, Jennie, Cloey & Me (Gramma Gort's Girls)

DJ, me, Justin, Jennie

I Love You This Much

Emmy LOVES, LOVES, LOVES her little sister Erin. She always asks for her when she can't see her. She turns her hands upside down and says, "Where'd she go?"

She will randomly come over to Erin and give her kisses. It is the most precious thing I have ever seen.

Emmy is not jealous of Erin one bit. She is more protective than anything. She loves to show off Erin and will gladly tell everyone in the grocery store that she has a new baby.

Just to test Emmy - I sometimes ask Emmy where Erin is and she will point to her and say, "There she is!"

She loves to hold Erin any chance she can get. I can already tell that they are going to be the best of friends!! I'm so glad that they can say they have a sister - as I was always surrounded by boys growing up. I never knew what it was like to have a sister.

Erin's Room

We started Erin's room when I was put on bed rest back in February. We decided to use Emmy's crib bedding for Erin since it was gender neutral and Emmy will also be moving to a toddler bed soon.

We wanted the brown & green accent colors to match her bedding. Brad took the blanket to Home Depot...their paint department was able to get it pretty close.

We still have some touching up to do with the stripes. Let me tell you...It's not easy painting stripes on a wall.

I'm now thinking that I want to change the green stripe to a pink color. What are your thoughts?? This will probably be more work than it's worth.

I've been picking up little butterfly & hot pink daisy accents here and there. I just haven't put them all up yet. I would really like it if I could paint little dots on the wall as if a butterfly was flying, but I'm not that artistic and I would probably end up having to repaint the whole room.

Erin's Two Month Check Up

Erin had her Two Month check up on April 28th. She weighed 8 lbs .5 oz and was 19 1/4 inches in length. Her head measured 36 1/2 cm. What a little trooper...She has almost doubled her birth weight!

She is a peanut and is in the bottom 5 percentile. The pediatrician also explained Erin's growth on a preemie chart - on this chart she is in the 25 % category.

Erin is doing really well. She's such a great baby. She never cries. She sleeps too much to even think about crying. She sleeps through the night most nights but occasionally wakes up once a night for feedings.

She is so tiny and is just getting comfortable in her newborn clothes.

When she was born, the doctors told us that she would be behind about 6 weeks on all of her developments due to being a preemie. If we go by her actual due date, we will be able to figure out when she will be hitting certain milestones such as smiling, holding a rattle, cooing, etc...All skills that a typical two month old tends to do.

She definitely knows my voice. She received four vaccinations at her two month check up and wasn't very pleased about getting the shots. She cried for a few seconds but then when she heard my voice, she immediately stopped.

She has great head control...she's a little bobble head, but her neck is really strong. She has had a really strong neck since the day she was born.

She's such a little mover during tummy time. One of these days she is going to roll right over. She's like a little inchworm.

We were a little concerned about her eyes. She didn't seem to focus on us at this point. It's like she would see us but would look past us. I brought it up to her doctor, but her doctor seemed to think she was following objects...which she does at home, but she just doesn't look at us. Her doctor just said "We'll keep an eye on it." I think she is getting better now. She definitely sees us and a little hint of a smile is appearing. She really likes to smile in her sleep and during feeding time.

Here's a couple of photos at two months.

Cozy Coupe

Emmy loves her Cozy Coupe car. She rides around in it daily. She especially likes to stash things in the "trunk." I have found so many things that she has brought out to her car. One day she brought almost all of the contents from our coffee table drawer out to her trunk.

A Walk in the Park

A few weeks ago, the weather had been unusually warm so we packed up the girls and took them to the park and enjoyed a nice quiet evening stroll. Emmy enjoyed playing with daddy. Erin slept the whole time.

Some of the pretty spring flowers were in full bloom. I would love to have these flowers at our home.

Emmy's Woobie

I don't think I've ever wrote about Emmy's Woobie. She has been attached to this darn washcloth since she was about four months old. It all started at daycare. Dar would give Emmy this little blue "Norwex" washcloth when she layed down for a nap. It's a microfiber cloth so it has a weird texture to it, but she loves it. One day we accidentally left her woobie up at grandma's house and I had to go to Menard's to pick up a bunch of new ones. Now we have them all over the house. Emmy usually holds this while drinking out of her sippy cup. She places it under her chin while she drinks out of her cup. She never goes to bed without it.