Mercy

What a great feast. The Sunday after Easter is set aside to celebrate God's unfathomable mercy in that His Son Jesus, gave His life in such a manner that His blood and water "gushed forth for souls." Interested in learning more? May you know and truly experience God's ocean of mercy in your life today. Thanks for to God!

John Paul or Jacob?

Apart from the hat, and the blue eyes, Jacob is looking a lot like his older brother. A lot of people say, and rightly so, that Jacob doesn't really look like the other two. Jacob is looking like John Paul's baby pictures for sure.

Answer - these are both John Paul. Crazy, huh?

ALLELUIA~

In the Catholic church, the use of the word is not used in liturgy or prayers for the reason that Lent is a time of fasting, penitent prayer, and almsgiving... not rejoicing. So when Easter Morning comes I am shouting it in my house- don't know if that goes on in your house, but I get super excited... so here's a few shots of our Easter! Thanks be to God for the gift of His Son's Life, Death, and RESURRECTION!

By the way... Jacob is sitting up.

Jacob's story

So, Jacob. I'll recap how quickly it all came and went (in hindsight, of course). Sunday morning, 6am, Jacob woke up with a fever. Mama medicated and nursed him back to sleep. Nothing else all day long, except for the traffic jam on the way home from Baton Rouge that was so bad, Jacob was out of his carseat and hanging out with mama in the back seat for over an hour before going back into his seat. Sunday night before bed, 9ish, Jacob was so stopped up that he cannot breathe, so he was bulbed multiple times before settling down. All night long, position shifts= wake up's = nose bulbing = broken hearted crying = nursing = sleep. By 5 am the barking cough began. 7:48, 7:51, 7:56, 7:59, phone calls to the pediatrician to see if they would pick up before their office hours. 9am, saw Adrienne Breaux, our friend and pediatrician who observed heavy retraction (his sternum would dip down to his spine for difficulty breathing) and said, "Let's go ahead and admit him (Kate begins crying) to get ahead of this. I want to get him on oxygen (lots of crying by Kate) to help him breathe better and do a chest x-ray.) (Kate grabbing tissues) This was a first for me, so I asked dumb questions like "Do I bring toys?" and "Do I bring a pack-n-play?" and "what do I do when I get there?" We got all checked into Woman's by walking in and sitting down with some sweet lady who had faxed orders from Adrienne. I imagine it was at this point that 2 things happened 1) I noticed that Therese had put on John Paul's "James the train" underwear OVER her bloomers leaving them in plain view as she pranced around the waiting area between me and Jacob at one end to her daddy at desk on the other end of the room 2)I lost my favorite brown cardigan. Sigh. The next part I will fly through because it was awful. 5 sticks for an IV, but little Buddha had very...ahem... round arms, legs, and feet, and 3 different people were unable to get a "good stick" so I looked my sweet baby in the eye all 5 times so that he wouldn't feel alone and wiped the tears away when he wasn't looking. The rest was cake! The staff at Woman's treat us like hotel guests. Someone even drove to Wal-mart to get Jacob the baby food he liked. I had, in a twenty four hour period, 4 different cups of Starbucks, 2 muffins, 1 poundcake slice, chick-fil-a, 6 visitors, uncountable phone calls and texts. Jacob received many breathing treatments, and they never stuck him again because I promised to nurse him every hour to get him more fluids. They used their super sucker to get the snot out. And by Wednesday morning at 11, David was bringing us home. Jacob is fine. I counted 2 coughs all night long last night, and everybody's bout with this virus (all different, of course, based on age and weight, although David was more sick than Therese or me) is pretty much done. It has given us a ton of family time, and I feel like we're sliding into Holy week like home run with the bases loaded on a full count. Thank you Lord! I will confess here that my Lenten penance of no sugar in my coffee went on hiatus while I was there. In the end, the diagnosis was croup. I specifically remember 2 weeks ago saying to David, "Isn't it great that nobody's been sick this season?" How Jacob slept the entire stay (so you can guess how I slept)

Here's Jacob now

Another milestone... first hospitlization

Jacob is home from his little hospital stay. I'll post more later. All in all, the hospital stay wasn't bad at all (minus the lack of sleep). Jacob most likely had/has the croup. So a couple dozen breathing treatments (and Starbucks treatments for me) and he is recovering (i.e coughing it up... yummy). Therese is right behind him, but a 2-year old body can handle it much better than a 5 month old. And David is sick as a dog too... this is giving us a wonderful amount of family time- truly. God is so gracious and providential. What a great way to slid into home for Lent. Will post more later.

(p.s. I was tempted to leave all the typos (including the word "typoe" that I just typed), our schedule is a bit off so Jacob was watching mama do some pilates and moring prayer well before six).

(no really, the more I type the more I make mistake) Stop justifying it KAte)

Therese is 2!

Our baby girl is 2... going on 18. She is curious, opportunistic to the MAX, funny funny, loves to sing, loves to dance, and loves to have her turn! We had a VERY low key birthday party on a school night. Though I consider her a quasi-tom-boy, she seemed to feel very beautiful in her dress. When guests arrived, she approached them and presented her dress with its two candled-cupcake. My experience thus far has been to have had another baby before the youngest turns two. So the 2nd birthday is a very important milestone in the Dawson house... it means the newst baby is at least 4 months old. Will this pattern continue? Ask my when Jacob is 10 months old... it's been the trend thus far. I digress. Focus. Therese- what a BEAUTIFUL baby girl! Did I mention she's decided to potty train? Yes. John Paul is pretty much DONE and Therese is following at a close second. Can anyone say "Phew" or "Giddy-up?" or "ZZZ ZZZ"

Vacation redefined

Well, we were officially a family of five, in our van, headed down I-12 to Florida. David and I knew it wouldn't be sippin' mojitos on the beach all day, and it wasn't. We learned new, beautiful things about each child that we wouldn't have noticed in our usual day-to-day. We nursed a sick almost 2 year old back to health (interestingly enough, it was easier taking care of Therese while on vacation then in a regular week), and we spent wonderful time together. Thank you to Denis and Linda Husers for letting us invade their beautiful condo! We didn't break a thing... except that Therese tore a page in one of the books. Not bad. Thank you Lord for seeing our need to get away and be family.

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