The Good Life

Apparently I grew up in a pretty good place:

Progressive Farmer tabs Hamilton county ‘best place to live’

Nebraska -- The Good Life resonates loudly in Hamilton County where the environment, economy, sense of community, sense of family and more combine to attract and keep families in the predominately rural area. It’s about to resonate nationwide with the most recent edition of the magazine The Progressive Farmer -- a national publication that has selected Hamilton County as the No. 1 place to raise a family. Hamilton County took the top honor in the 2009 “Best Counties to Raise a Family” piece. The magazine, based out of Birmingham, Ala. and owned by the Data Transmission Network (DTN) out of Omaha, provides rural and agriculture coverage to over 600,000 subscribers nationwide. Many of those subscribers are in the Midwest and Southern regions of the country. Each year, Progressive Farmer hires an independent group that looks at individual census data for counties across the nation. They look at many different areas including crime numbers, access to health care, educational statistics, environmental factors that attribute to the quality of life, household incomes and land prices. Their focus is narrowed to primarily rural counties that are selected based on their population. A list of 100 counties is first selected and then reduced to the top 10 counties. From there, Progressive Farmers sends it’s editors out to visit the counties to get a more personal feel for what those counties are like by doing interviews and taking several photographs. Jim Patrico, a senior editor at Progressive Farmer who works out of the Kansas City office, was assigned to visit Hamilton County, as well as Chippewa County in Minnesota and McPherson County in Kansas. “We are really interested in things that were important to farming families who are raising children,” he said. “Hamilton County displayed many great things during my visit.” Patrico said there was definitely a large interest in the 4-H and FFA programs in Hamiton County. He also noted Aurora is home to the Leadership Camp on the edge of town, which impressed him as well. The Best Places to Raise a Family in America piece is currently available for reading in the February issue of Progressive Farmer, which came out on Feb. 1. Interestingly enough, this will be the second month that Hamilton County is featured in Progressive Farmer. Anyone interested in reading the article can do so by visiting http://www.progressivefarmer.com/farmer/bestplaces/articles/1hamilton.html.

thanks, mom and dad, for raising me in Hamilton County, Nebraska! how ironic that you moved away just a month before it was given the honor. :)

9 Month Letter

Our little sweet pea,

You are nine months old today. It’s hard to believe that you’ve been out of mommy as long as you were in her. The nine months you’ve been out has gone much faster than the first nine, that’s for sure! We can hardly believe how much you’ve grown and changed and how active you are now! You’re crawling all over the place and quickly showing us what we need to move to make sure our house is baby proof! You’re pulling yourself up on furniture and standing like a big girl. Whenever you’re done napping, you’re almost always sitting up or standing in your crib waiting for someone to get you. You’re so active these days, mommy has really come to appreciate cuddling with you in the middle of the night while you’ve been sick. We’ll take it when we can get it!
You discovered your toy basket in the living room a few weeks ago and you love taking all your toys out one at a time, carefully inspecting each one and setting it on the floor next to you. Your favorite toys right now are not even toys: an empty water bottle and a toothbrush…you’re so funny. You love looking at pictures and videos of yourself. We wonder what you’re thinking and if you know it’s you you’re smiling at. You love crawling over to your bookshelf in the living room and pulling your books off. You look at them and chew on them with such love. You also like it when we read the books to you, too. Speaking of chewing, you’re eating a wide variety of foods! You like to feed yourself, which can get pretty messy, but you’re getting pretty good at it! You’ve kind of lost your appetite while you’ve been sick but we’re sure it will come back though. You still haven’t mastered drinking from a sippy cup, but you’re getting close! Your sleeping has also changed a lot lately. You’re usually in bed by 7:00pm now and get up between 6 and 6:30am. (Last night was a new record: almost 12 hours!!!) We didn’t set an alarm clock for a while and we learned that we still need to: there was one day that you decided to sleep in until 7 and daddy was almost late for work! :) You’re also down to just 2 naps a day! Mommy loves the extra time in the afternoon that you’re spending awake entertaining her! One of your favorite times of the day is when daddy gets home from work. You and mommy like to listen for the garage door to go up and once you see daddy get out of the car, your face lights up and you start making noises and flailing your arms and legs in excitement! Daddy loves the greeting you give him! You’re definitely making a lot of new sounds these days. You’re growling a lot still (especially when you’re happy) and you’re beginning to really “talk” to us. We can’t wait until you say “mama” and “dada” and really know what you’re saying. You LOVE Walter. You always smile when you see him come running toward you and you would crawl all over him if he let you. He’s still being very cautious around you; he‘s not so sure of all the crazy noises you make. He did get really excited a few weeks ago and accidentally scratched your forehead. You healed very quickly though.

Bath time is still one of your favorite things to do! You’re now in the big tub, and of course, you are crawling all over in the water trying to get your rubber ducky and other toys. You’ve faceplanted a few times in the water but haven’t seemed to mind too much. You’re already a little water baby!
Audrey, your smile brightens our days and your laugh is the sweetest sound we‘ve ever heard. You have already brought us so much joy in the short time we’ve had you. What a sweet blessing you are. We continually pray for guidance as we raise you and thank God that we get to be your parents.
We love you so so much!
love, Mommy and Daddy

p.s. it is getting very difficult to get a picture of you with your giraffe...can't you sit still for just a few seconds?!? :)

our sick little girl

well, it's been 48+ hours and Audrey has not gotten worse!!! praise the Lord!

She has started to get her normal voice back, but now she has a very runny nose, which means I'm having to use the snot sucker (aka nasal aspirator) so she's not too happy about that. She's taking more naps now, they're not always longer, but at least she's getting some more sleep. Her coughing is still waking her up a few times each night, which means I am also up at all hours of the night, too. It makes me think back to when she was just a few weeks old and she would still need to eat every few hours...I'm glad that's over. all we can really do is give her tylenol and cuddle and hold her. but I wouldn't complain about that!

here's a few pictures from this morning...our sad, tired, sick, little girl.

hang on, girl...it's almost over. we hope.

RSV

Audrey has RSV.

"what is RSV?" you ask. let me tell you. it's not fun.

The following is taken directly from kidshealth.org, the first website that popped up when I typed in RSV...I don't know how to explain it myself, so this will have to work:

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a major cause of respiratory illness in young children. RSV causes infection of the lungs and breathing passages. In adults, it may only produce symptoms of a common cold, such as a stuffy or runny nose, sore throat, mild headache, cough, fever, and a general feeling of being ill. But RSV infections can lead to other more serious illnesses in premature babies and kids with diseases that affect the lungs, heart, or immune system.
RSV is highly contagious, and can be spread through droplets containing the virus when a person coughs or sneezes. The virus can also live on surfaces such as countertops or doorknobs, and on hands and clothing. RSV can be easily spread when a person touches an object or surface contaminated with the virus. The infection can spread rapidly through schools and child-care centers. Infants often get it when older kids carry the virus home from school and pass it to them. Almost all kids are infected with RSV at least once by the time they are 2 years old.
RSV infections often occur in epidemics that last from late fall through early spring. Respiratory illness caused by RSV — such as bronchiolitis or pneumonia — usually lasts about a week, but some cases may last several weeks. Doctors typically diagnose RSV by taking a medical history and doing a physical exam. Generally, in healthy kids, it's not necessary to distinguish RSV from a common cold. But in cases where a child has other health conditions, a doctor might want to make a specific diagnosis. RSV is typically identified in nasal secretions, which can be collected either with a cotton swab or by suction through a bulb syringe.

Because of all this, we'll be hanging out in our house for a while. The Dr. said that if it doesn't get worse in 48 hours (it's been 24 hours already) then she'll probably not need breathing treatments...I'm praying we'll make it through the next 24 hours with nothing worsening...

The poor thing is miserable. She's lost her voice, which makes all of her noises, that used to be oh-so-cute, sound sooooo sad! She has a bad cough and lots of crud in her throat and when she coughs it really hurts her and she tries to cry but she can't because she can't make any noise, so all that comes out is a pathetic little whine and a really sad face. all the coughing makes her wake up from any kind of sleeping, naps and nighttime, so no one is getting very good sleep around here lately. Tyson is still fighting being sick (which is where Audrey got it) and he feels horrible that he gave it to her. he says that he just couldn't help but love on her when he gets home from work. I don't blame him.

so, that's what we're up to right now! wish us luck for the next 24 hours!

crawling pictures

I added pictures of Audrey crawling to my last post.

that's all. :)

and now she has a nasty cough, lots of flem in her throat and it sounds like she's lost her voice...poor thing.

little crawler

she's finally crawling!!!

it was well over a month ago that we were expecting Audrey to be crawling "any day now." she's been so close for so long! she decided to take her time and that's completely ok with us...she's growing up fast enough anyway! we can't wait to chase her around the house!

this is the day before she started crawling, she still wasn't sure what to do!

and she's already getting into everything!

Audrey's 1st Snow!

OK…it’s not technically the first snow she’s seen but this is the first snow she’s been able to experience. Yesterday around 4:30ish it started snowing so I bundled Audrey up and got her ready for a little snow photo shoot! She didn’t know what to think at first, then she loved it and by the end of the shoot, I took her mittens off and once she touched the snow, she was done with the snow. it was so fun to see her first reactions to snow!