Brittanie's award

Brittanie was given the Superior Cadet Award for the Let 2 class last night at the ball. That is a HUGE honor. She was shocked! Here are some pictures of her award.

Brittanie's military ball!!

Tonight was Brittanie's military ball and she looked like a princess. She has been tanning for over a month, had her highlights redone, braces off, and today was facial, manicure, pedicure, and hair styling at the salon. She wanted everything to be perfect. Here are some pictures I took tonight. (Remember you can click them to make them bigger and easier to see.)

Here is Brittanie outside of the Springdale National Guard Armory, where the ball was held, with First Sgt. Cannon. He is her mentor and an incredible man. Brittanie says he is one of her heroes. He is GREAT in motivating his cadets to live up to their potential. We just love him!
Here is Brittanie with Josh Titus. Check out how decorated his uniform is! He is one of Brittanie's best friends. He joined the Army Reserves recently and will be going through basic training this summer. After he graduates in 2007, he is going to college and becoming a career Army officer. He's a fine young man who has a very bright future ahead of him.

Here is Brittanie with her friend, Joey Wiley.

The rest are pictures of Brittanie and Justin. Justin is in color guard and will be carrying the American flag at the ball tonight....thus the big white harness on his uniform.

I didn't do that!!

We have been working on Katie's lying problem. But I have to admit that tonight's lie was just plain funny. Tom opened up the freezer and found the half gallon of vanilla ice cream open with a spoon in it. Obviously Tom, Brittanie, and I didn't do that. Before we could say anything, Katie yelled "I didn't do that! But I was hungry!" She is just too much. I know we should have punished her but it was too funny. We did sit down with her later and explain to her that she can't do that anymore. She is so sneaky!!!
I tried to crop these pictures as best I could to hide the fact that I REALLY need to defrost my freezer. So if you see the frost....don't look! hehehe

Dixie

Today Dixie decided she had to be near me while I was typing. She started off nipping my toes. Then she grabbed the cord for my foot pedal with her teeth and yanked it out from under my foot. After a bit of scuffling, I finally won control over the foot pedal. I backed up to see what she was doing under there since she quit fighting for the pedal and this is what I found. Isn't she precious??? We love her already!

New baby girl around the house!

When I was leaving the house today to pick up Brittanie from school, our friend, Melissa, stopped in front of the house and told me there were puppies in our culvert in our ditch. There were two little brown/black puppies that looked like little labs down there. I asked Melissa to grab the smallest one for me and she did. I took the little one with me to pick up Brittanie and Katie held her the whole way. When we got home, we looked for the other puppy but he/she was gone. So we took the little one inside, Brittanie gave her a bath, and some food and water. She is a real sweetheart. Brittanie named her Dixie. How funny to have a black dog named Dixie! hehehe

Here are some pictures we took when Brittanie took her out for a walk after her bath. It is going to be hard to convince Tom to let us keep her but we will pull out the big guns....Katie. She is a daddy's girl and if anyone can get him to let us keep Dixie, it will be Katie.

Thank goodness this week is over!!

Well Brittanie is back to normal and heading back to school tomorrow. She is worried because her three hardest classes are taught in such a way that if you miss a day, you get really behind. Well she has missed 6 days now. But I told her to do her best and we will help her. I'm just thrilled that her throat doesn't hurt anymore!!

Today, Brittanie was fussing at Katie for stamping her hands with her blue stamp pad. Katie got mad and did the typical Katie thing which is to make the mean face and point and say "You better watch it!" Brittanie stepped toward her and told her that SHE better watch it. Katie held up her fists at Brittanie and said "here's your bread" (holding up right fist) "and here's your butter" (holding up her left fist). Brittanie gave her a couple of playful taps on the butt and laughed at her. Well that just made Katie even more mad and she crossed her arms real tight across her body and made the really mean face. That's when I grabbed the camera.Grandpa (Tom's dad) called Saturday and asked if Katie could come spend the week with them next week. Of course we said yes. She loves going up there because they spoil her rotten and take her to fun places like Chuck E. Cheese's. They are going to come pick her up next weekend. That works out great for us because our 17th wedding anniversary is Friday but because the military ball is that night, we are celebrating it Saturday afternoon. This way we don't have to worry about a babysitter!

Thursday update on Brittanie

Brittanie has been to her family doctor Tuesday, Wednesday, and today and received a shot each day. She is scheduled to go back tomorrow again for her last shot then she will start taking the same antibiotic but in oral form starting Saturday. She is SOOOOOO much better. I would say she is 90% back to normal. She is still waking up with a sore throat in the morning but once she takes her Prednisone, it gets better. The doctor gave her an excuse to be out of school all of this week. So she will have ALOT to catch up on when she goes back Monday. But she can do it.

The military ball is on our anniversary this year....February 17th. I took her to Irmo today to have her dress altered and she looks stunning in it. I can't wait to post pictures next Friday night!!! She has not been able to take in anything but hot chocolate and apple sauce since last Thursday so she lost 5 pounds this week. She has lost a total of 40 pounds since last May. Since she is feeling better, I let her drive everywhere today and we did ALOT of driving. The last stop was Food Lion and she was not happy that I got her to go in there because she had no make-up on and she ran into tons of people from her school. She said "Mom! You don't understand! I'm a recovering ugly duckling. I don't want them to see me like this." I think she looked great. She is beautiful even without make-up but to me I found it even more impressive that she looked that good after being so sick and in so much pain for a week. I guess I never really cared how I looked so, she's right...I don't understand. But it is a lesson learned. I will never ask her to go in the grocery store when she doesn't have make-up on.

So that's our update. Everybody keep praying. She has had quite a week and has to take the ACT test Saturday!

Update on Brittanie

I took Brittanie to see my ENT yesterday. He gave her Augmentin liquid to take in place of the Keflex and I had just got in bed last night when Tom came in and told me she was throwing it up.

So this morning, I called the ENT and he was in surgery so I talked to his nurse. She was stupid and told me to "make" Brittanie take those antibiotics because she "has" to. I asked her "What do you want me to do? Pour it down her and cork her throat closed to keep it down? That's stupid!" She said he was in surgery till 1 and then clinicals till 5. He never did call me back. I took her back to Dr. Konduros (her family doctor) at 3:40 and he gave her a shot of Rocephin (which Dr. Hook ....my boss/doctor....told me was like 24 hours of IV antibiotics) and told me to bring her back tomorrow and if she isn't tremendously better, he would give her another shot of Rocephin and put her on a KetekPak. He gets it that she can't swallow. I think my ENT didn't realize how bad this was. He saw plain old tonsilitis but in reality, her tonsils are always huge and when they are inflamed, her throat just about closes. So the ENT wants to see her again in 2 weeks and then we will talk about getting her tonsils out.

As of tonight, her tonsils are still swollen and she is still in pain but it is a little bit improved. Hopefully by the time she goes to the doctor tomorrow she will be almost back to normal and the second shot will just seal the deal. This has been so stressful!! I hate seeing her in pain knowing there is nothing I can do to help.

In the middle of all of this is Katie. Tom was able to get off work early Monday to stay with her while we went to the ENT and he took her to preschool for me this morning but I still had to take her to the family doctor with us today. We were there for an hour and a half and it was torture. She is wide open at home but she is worse in public because we don't have the paddle with us. But tomorrow when I take Brittanie back, I'm bringing the paddle with me. She just will not behave without a paddling. I love her with all of my heart but when we have stressful times like we did this week, it is so hard being away from my family. If they lived closer, I could drop her off to them while we go to the doctor or even just have some time to ourselves without her. Because of all of the disciplining we have to do with her, I know she is as tired of us as we are of her sometimes and it would be good to just have some time apart. But my family lives 800 miles away so little breaks are out of the question. She was gone for 2 weeks last year and I just about went nuts without her. I can't handle being away from her for that long. But when we go down there for spring break, I'm going to take advantage of being down there for a week and letting my mom spend all the time she wants with Katie while we get away and do stuff. I'm sooooo looking forward to it!!

PLEASE pray for Brittanie

Brittanie started having a sore throat Tuesday. It got pretty bad on Thursday and I dug up some Keflex and started her on that and took her to the doctor on Friday. I was pretty sure she probably had either strep or mono. Dr. Konduros took one look in her throat and was pretty sure of the same thing. But both the rapid strep and the monospot came back negative. Her white blood cell count was normal but she did have some other count elevated. He said that sometimes mono takes a week to show up on a monospot so we have to go back if she isn't better by Monday. He gave her a full prescription of Keflex and some Magic Mouthwash. He wanted to give her a steriod injection but she didn't want. Yesterday she went to get her highlights done (and tanning) and while she was gone I filled a prescription for Prednisone, which her asthma doctor had given her back in the summer. I figured if he was going to give her that in the form of a shot, why couldn't she take it in tablet form? She was eating Advil like crazy because it was the only thing that helped. So that's when I thought about my Celebrex. It is an anti-inflammatory that is stronger than Advil. My ENT wants me off of Celebrex for two weeks before my surgery so his nurse called in Lortab for me to take in its place. I'm not going to take that because if he is worried about Celebrex thinning my blood then the aspirin in Lortab would be even worse. DUH! So I gave Brittanie two Lortab (which is like one Vicodin tablet). With all of that, she finally got some relief last night. It didn't completely relieve the pain but it was bearable to the point where she could wear her retainer. She didn't want to wear her retainer because it makes her swallow her spit more and that is painful. But today she is in pain again. So I'm going to try to get her in with my ENT tomorrow.

When I was 15, I developed an abscess behind my tonsils. My mom took me to the doctor and the to the Emergency Room what seemed like 100 times and they couldn't figure out what was wrong because my throat was swollen almost shut (when I would drink something it would go up my nose instead of down) and my ears were killing me. Finally, my aunt suggested my mom take me to her daughter's ENT. He diagnosed me immediately with the abscess. I had to be put in the hospital and given intravenous antibiotics. When I turned 18, I had the tonsils removed. I just don't want Brittanie to go through this as long as I went through it. Since the abscess though, I became a mono carrier. I have never actually had mono myself but every guy I ever kissed after that has developed mono....including Tom. I sure hope this isn't mono. She would have to be home schooled for at least 4 weeks. The military ball is on the 17th. She has the dress, has been tanning for weeks for it, and just had her hair highlighted for it. She is really looking forward to this and I would hate for her to miss it. But I honestly don't think it is mono. She isn't running fever. She isn't tired, which goes along with mono. Her abdomen isn't tender...another symptom of mono. I'm afraid she has an abscess just like I did.

Dr. Bogan (her sleep doctor) suggested she get her tonsils out last summer but she didn't want to because she was scared. She is regretting that decision now. Please everyone pray that my ENT can see her soon and he does outpatient surgeries on Wednesdays. Let's pray he can take her tonsils out and fix this whole problem on Wednesday without a hospital stay and without much pain.

Dr. Garrison is the best!!!

Brittanie went to Dr. Garrison (her orthodontist) Thursday to pick up her retainers. She was surprised with a decorated cookie for having a perfect chart throughout the entire time she had her braces. To have a perfect chart, you have to brush daily and never have broken brackets or wires or do anything to harm the progress that the braces were accomplishing. Brittanie was VERY diligent with her braces. She said if she has to suffer through a year of those things, she is going to make sure her teeth are perfect and that she gets the braces off as soon as possible...which she did. Here is a picture of the decorated cookie she was given.

When I had my braces off when I was ten, I was given pink (palate colored) retainers....just boring. Retainers have come a LONG way. Check out Brittanie's sparkled rainbow retainers.