It's Been Awhile

I FOUND IT!

Time sure has flown by...  Okay maybe not 100% true.  It's been really crazy since the girls had surgery on the 26th of November.  Of course Kendra got another infection and wasn't doing very well.  And Maliyah bounced right back.  It has been a VERY stressful month.

 Courtney turned 13 on October 29th.  I'm sure she's going to be a very good teenager.  Other than the moodiness with everyone at our house.  She's getting really good grades. She is taller than I am now, no surprise there.  Courtney is really into SIMMS and plays it all the time, unless she is at the mall with her friends.  We had turned off her cellphone that we got her last year,  but just about a month ago realized it was better for her to have one.  She's with her friends a lot more.  The rule is no texting boys,  we forgot to add no facebooking boys.  LOL!!  I need to cover all the bases.

 We smashed cake on Courtney face!

 Courtney as the dead bride!  Her makeup was really fun to do.

 Courtney and her friend Grace!

  Kendra is doing well now.  She is taking a lot of steps without assistance on her prosthetic, that means without her walker, crutches or anyone holding on to her.  She's really into make-up, in this picture she is putting on eye shadow and eyeliner.  Her hair is getting so long.

Maliyah as a bee for Halloween.  She is doing really great.  Her kidney is working well, even with all the HUGE problems with it this month.

Justin loves the game Mind Crafts and putting videos on youtube.  He and Austin have the best teacher Ms. Lee.  Justin loves her and she's so good with him.  He's starting to like school and it's not to big of a deal to get him to do his homework anymore.  I just hope it continues.

Austin loves playing outside with his friends.  He is the opposite of Justin.



Have a great day!

Love The Herrin's

PS.  I found the post!!

Smoke Detector and Cold

I'm not sure where my other post went.  But I will keep looking for it.

It has been so very cold here lately, it's about 8 degrees when I drop the kids off at school.  Sometimes down to 2 degrees.  And with a thick inversion to add to it, making Austin's asthma act up.

Well onto our really funny lives.

Jake and I a couple of months ago were talking to the kids about fire and what to do if we ever had one.  We even joked about setting off the smoke detectors one night to test them.  Man, the jokes are always on us.
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So last week at about 2:30 am the smoke detector went off, Jake and I both shot out of bed.  It was so loud and Jake ran downstairs to get the boys and Courtney out, but to his surprise they were already on their way up the stairs.  Jake ran to Courtney's room and woke her up.  Jake was already assessing the problem.  Well I was upstairs.  Holy Cow!! Courtney was so asleep she thought Jake said she need to get ready for school, so he found her in the bathroom putting on her make-up.  The joke around our house now is, Courtney has to have her make-up on even in a dangerous situation.  LOL.  Took us along time to fall back asleep, so we let the kids sleep in.  What a night that was.  We found out later that the negative temperatures at night was causing people's smoke detectors to go off.  The next night they did the same thing.  We needed 3 new ones.  It was a great adventure.

I know I have written about Justin being a hard kiddo and a huge challenge.  It comes and goes, but we have been working really hard on him eating.  Normally we wouldn't make him, because he would just throw-up whatever I MADE him eat.  Well I was getting so sick of making a dinner and having him and then others not want to eat it.  So I made a rule you either eat dinner, or you can have a nice breakfast tomorrow. That was really hard for me because Kendra and Maliyah have a hard time gaining weight.  But I need my sanity!  So the rule is staying put.  The best part, Justin ate a piece of corn and is actually trying things, even if they are just little, it's huge progress.

Jake has lost 20 pounds and is working really hard at the gym.  We started going at night together.  It's been really nice.

Kendra is still fighting an infection from her last surgery in November.  This is her second one.  It's really tough on Kendra.  I wish she didn't have to worry about this stuff.

Thanks for reading and all the emails checking up on our family.  It's greatly appreciated.
Have a great day!

Love,
The Herrin's