Nicholas was baptized last Sunday, January 10th on the feast of the Lord's baptism. We are so thankful that Father Drew offered to do a private baptism so that we could have him baptized before his isolation period was over. Praise God everyone in our family was healthy enough to attend! It was a beautiful way to welcome Nicholas into the Body of Christ! Father Drew was such an instrument of the Holy Spirit as during the intercessory prayers to the saints among the few listed were St. Catherine of Sienna and St. Gabriel the names we gave our miscarried babies. I can not count how many times Christ has reassured us of his awesome plan for our two little ones. His generosity will not be out done!
We had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed great time with both sides of the family. Mass was absolutely gorgeous and the boys were darling in their Christmas outfits that Mommy shopped for for months! Curtis got some pretty cool presents...here is one of his favorites from his poppop coacher and nana!
On December 26th Nicholas's little cough wasn't so little any more and we took him to our pediatricians office. Come to find out he had RSV and Bronchialitis. The doctor warned us that it had been a terrible year for the virus and there were a whole lot of cases of it going around. Less than 8 hours later we ended up in the emergency room at Texas Children's Hospital after watching Nicholas struggle to breathe and nurse. We were admitted into an emergency exam room where Nicholas was deep suctioned and given a breathing treatment. Unfortunately, the breathing treatment was unsuccessful and his oxygen levels were dropping by the minute. We were admitted at three in the morning and Nicholas was hooked up to all sorts of machines to monitor his oxygen levels and also placed on continuous oxygen via a nasal cannula. We all tried to get a little bit of sleep while keeping one eye on the machine at all times. He did okay through the night but every time the doctors tried to ween him off of his oxygen his levels dropped instantly. All throughout the next day he stayed on his oxygen and maintained relatively stable oxygen levels. During the night (Sunday) he had a really rough patch where he was really struggling to breathe and was unable to nurse or catch his breath. His oxygen levels dropped even though he was on continual oxygen. He pulled out of his distress on his own and we breathed a sigh of relief. At eight in the morning he went into distress again but this time much worse. He began to wheeze and his breaths became short and quick. He was unable to nurse and his cries turned into whimpers. The nurses ran around and tried to deep suction him to no avail. We called for a respiratory therapist who had a little more success suctioning him and then we tried a breathing treatment which thankfully worked this time. After an hour of watching our sweet little guy struggle he appeared to be doing a little better. Needless to say we got five star treatment after that and doctors and nurses flooded in continuously to monitor his breath sounds. Our doctor kept telling us it was "really good" that she could still hear breath sounds in his lungs! That didn't sound "really good" to us! His oxygen was cranked up even higher and he continued to have breathing treatments every four hours to make sure he didn't have another attack. By the next night he appeared to be turning a corner and was finally able to maintain his pulse oxygen on his own. We were discharged on Tuesday afternoon and sent home with breathing treatments every four hours for at least another week. Turns out that adults are susceptible to RSV also and Jacob and I most likely have it as well as we came home with head colds. Curtis ended up with a double ear infection which our pediatrician believes is from RSV as well. What a week we have had! Praise God that Nicholas is doing better and we are so thankful for all of our friends and family for all their help and prayers! Thank you a million times to my mom for taking rounds at the hospital to support me while Jacob came home to give Curtis some stability. Thank you to Dad, Jan and Daryl and Barrett and Jessica for helping out with Curtis while we were away! We are so blessed!
We ended the month with Curtis's 3rd birthday! No party this year seeing as we got out of the hospital only the day before but we did have some brownies and candles(thanks a million Tommy and Kelli!). So hard to believe that our big guy is three already! We absolutely do not deserve such a loving little boy but are so glad that God blessed us with him! Happy New Year everyone! We will spend it catching up on sleep...given the excitment of the past few days none of us will have our eyes open at midnight that's for sure!
Jacob goes back to work tomorrow. I am pretty sad to see an end to his stay at home! Its been a great week for all of us and I wish we could have daddy 24/7 every week! Guess someone has to pay the bills though! I'll end with some fun snow day pictures...it was so beautiful and fun! Oh and just a cute picture of Nicholas sleeping after mass today. Have a blessed week everyone!
Our local Chick Fil A threw us a celebration party on Wednesday so all of our families could get together and watch us receive all of our awesome prizes for being the Grand Prize Winner in the Cow Appreciation Photo Contest. It was a great night of free food and awesome fellowship. The kids were super cute all dressed up in their costumes again. 
