Life

*Disclaimer. I'm typing this in my phone while at Abby's cheerleading practice so there's not going to be any pictures for this post. Sorry. I'll put more up soon.

First off a Joshua update. He is doing so well it is truly a testament to how good God is. As of right now ( Sunday night) he is drinking 95ml bottles every 3 hours. He is only hooked up to the iv feed for 8 hours a day, which we do during the night. So he is free during the entire day!!! It's so incredible!!! We are continuing to up the feeds to about 120ml which is our max. We are supposed to reach that by Thursday (by upping 5ml twice a day). If everything goes as well as it has he will be off the iv feeds for good after Thursday!!! Then we should be taking him in for an outpatient surgery next week to remove the central line. Then that would be it. After 5 months it will finally be over. It seems too good to be true!! The only area he's having trouble with right now is actually breastfeeding. We've tried a few times over the past few days and he is not only not interested, but he gets mad. It's really kind of heartbreaking for me. In still pumping after all these weeks (20) and have always hoped I'd be able to actually nurse him at the end of this. Of course there's still hope, but I'm kind of bumming about it right now. I just don't see how I could possibly keep this pumping up for 7 more months. It is so hard to work the 20 minutes it takes several times a day on top if actually feeding him by bottle. Plus our vacation in 4 weeks is going to be really tricky if he's not nursing. I don't pump at his max right now so I supplement with what's already stored and I won't be able to keep milk frozen for the 14 total days that we will be gone. Please, please pray for us in this matter. It is so important that I keep feeding him the breastmilk for his first year, not only for the benefits every nursed baby receives, but also because it's the best for healing his intestinal tract. Thank you!!

Noah and Abby are really getting used to having the baby around now. They are such big helpers and are always asking to hold him. They are so cute with him.

They are moving right along in their lessons. We are trying a new "block" schedule where we only do certain subjects each day. For instance we only do math on mon, wed and fri. But we do 5 days of work in that time. I find we waste so much time in changing subjects that the less subjects we do a day the leas time we waste. We do have 4 things we do daily which is Bible, calculadder ( math drill) , spelling and poetry memorization ( the kids love this!!). Then we divide up math, English, writing, geography, Ohio history, science and handwriting. So far I love it!!! The homeschool convention is in April. I CAN NOT WAIT!!! I love it so much.

Well I need to go now cheerleading is over. More to come soon.