Healthy Boy

Oliver woke up this morning with a temperature of 97.6! He has been feeling quite a bit better today- he still doesn't have much of an appetite, but is taking in plenty of liquids. We went back in for our follow-up appointment today and the doctor said he looked good. One of his ears still had a little fluid, but the blood cultures didn't show any bacteria. The did give him one more antibiotic injection to continue to fight off what he had. Oliver definitely knew what was going on when the nurse came in to administer the shot. He cried just a little, but was fine pretty much as soon as she was done. We came home and spent a little time outside which was nice for all of us- we even got a few weeds pulled. We plan to take it easy this weekend and let him get back up to 100%. I'll try to get a few pictures tomorrow, I haven't been very good at pulling the camera out lately. Eric and I are very glad that Oliver seems to be back to his normal, happy self. Now if he actually sleeps all night long, we'll both be ecstatic!

Happy Friday Everyone!

Oliver's Fever

Oliver has continued to run a fever. We went back to the doctor this morning and she said his ears looked better than they did on Monday. While we are glad his ears are fine, that means something else is causing the fever. So we headed over to the lab and Oliver had blood drawn. He did awesome - no crying, just watched and sat with Eric. Myself, on the other hand, was in the hallway with my head between my knees, trying not to pass out. I dread the day of having to take Oliver for a blood draw by myself. We are still waiting on more test results, but the nurse just called a little bit ago and said that he has an elevated white cell count and we are to head back to the doctor's office at 4:00 for Oliver to receive an injection of an antibiotic. After that, we will just wait for more results to come back in and hopefully his fever to break. The poor guy wasn't feeling like himself this morning, he was cuddling me and that doesn't happen often. So hopefully the antibiotic helps and we'll keep up with the Motrin to keep his fever down and maybe in the morning his fever will be gone. I'll update if we find anymore out from his blood tests.

Catching Up

One day last week, all of the kids painted. Above shows Sophie and Andrew painting. The kids had fun painting and didn't even make huge messes. Oliver and Henry only ate minimal amounts of paint.

The four New Yorkers, Andrew, and Oliver in age order on the couch. Alex (9 years, 1 month), Max (5 years, 11 months), Andrew (3 years, 9 months), Sophia (3 years, 5 months), Oliver (1 year, 5 months), and Henry (1 year, 1 month).

On Friday, Eric took Max and Alex to the bowling alley on campus. They took the city bus and were able to ride a slinky bus- they were pretty excited about that. They had fun bowling and also played foosball, air hockey, race car driving, and pinball.

Dale, Audrey, & Madison came to visit for the weekend and to take my mom back to Iowa. They stayed at a nearby hotel with a swimming pool. We took advantage of the pool. The older kids all loved the water. Oliver and Henry were a little unsure at first, but after getting sometime to adjust to the water, both of them loved it too.
Randy and Kara came to our house to get the kids Saturday afternoon. I think they were excited to see the kids and the kids were pretty excited to see them. We enjoyed hanging out with everyone and had a fun night.

Dale & Audrey also brought Madison's old swingset out for Oliver. He loves it. We put his baby swing on it and he has had lots of fun already swinging. He also loves going down the slide.
Oliver hasn't been feeling the greatest the past few days. He has had a fever since Sunday. We took him to the doctor and she put him on an antibiotic for a probable ear infection. We are hoping that it gets his fever under control pretty quickly. He is acting like himself as long as we stay on top of the fever reducers, but when they start to wear off, he gets pretty fussy. He's sleeping for the night now and I think that should help him feel better. Hopefully he'll be back to himself tomorrow!

Have a great night everyone!

Our Busy Week So Far

We have had Randy and Kara's four kids staying with us this week. My mom is also staying with us to help out (which has been wonderful). We have been having a lot of fun and staying busy. The kids have played with all sorts of toys, watched some movies, played video games, and played outside. I am learning to cook for 8 people which is quite different than the 3 I'm used to.
We have spent time at a nearby park and gone on walks. Tonight we went to a University of Illinois baseball game. We made it through 4 innings with 5 kids.

Popsicles

On Saturday, we gave Oliver his first popsicle- we were shocked that he loved it! :) He ate all of it and ended up with an orange shirt. Saturday was a warm day and we spent most of it outside. We worked in the backyard and got a lot of work done. I'll try to post some pictures of that later in the week. We had a relaxing weekend and did quite a few small projects at home. We have a busy week ahead- Eric leaves for Washington DC for a conference on Tuesday and Oliver and I head to Iowa on Tuesday.

Have a great week!

Crooked Wagon Picture

Wednesday

Today was a warm day- around 70 probably. We opened up the windows in the front porch and left the door between the porch and living room open and Oliver thought it was pretty cool that he could go into the porch. He would go out there and run back and forth. I'm guessing tomorrow, he'll be begging at the door to have me open it up. We are still working on figuring out a sturdy spot on the ceiling of the porch to hang his swing.

We played outside this morning before the rain and thunder came. Oliver runs to the sandbox and wants it opened as soon as we get outside. He is getting much better at maneuvering on the slide.

We also went out for a walk. Oliver loves walks- he runs to the stroller and has started trying to climb in. He enjoys the walks and looking at everything. He points to almost everything on our walks.

Have a good night!

Pajama Time

A few pictures of Oliver in his pajamas. It was a very nice day here. We spent some time outside and Oliver loved it. He went with me and we picked up groceries tonight. Eric did a run-through of his presentation for next week. He said it went well. He has another practice presentation on Friday for the geography department. He flies out to Washington DC 1 week from today and will present that Wednesday.

Have a good night!

Easter Pictures

Oliver checking out his Easter basket. The bunny was pretty good to him- a bucket and shovel, watering can, pinwheel, a book, a cup, a chick, and candy. The Easter Frog left him a can of evaporated milk. He was pretty excited about it and wanted us to open it for him, I think that was because of the picture of cake on the front of the can.

Oliver enjoyed his first peep on Easter morning (and his second...)

Oliver got a little chick that cheeps when you hold it in your hand. Even though he looks horrified in this picture, he really does like it.

My pictures got a little out of order- the two were from today. Eric had to go to work, but Oliver and I were able to hang out at home. We had a pajama day. Oliver liked relaxing on the couch with a pillow and blanket.

The next three pictures are from Easter Sunday at Eric's parents' house. The kids had an Easter egg hunt outside. Oliver played with his cousins. He wasn't very interested in hunting eggs, but was way more interested in the toys in the backyard. He loved playing in the sand and dumping sand on himself.

Tomorrow will be a normal day for us and help us get back into our routine. Oliver slept until 9:00 this morning which was awesome. We had a nice day here with a mid-day shower- luckily for Eric he came home from work about 20 minutes before that shower (he rides his bike). I'm going to relax for the rest of the night and watch the NCAA championship game. Have a good night!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone! A quick post tonight, we got back to Illinois at 11:30 this evening. We dodged storms the whole way back with a few phone calls letting us know we were within about 20 miles of ping-pong ball sized hail. We are thankful to be home and safe now. :)
We had a good Easter Sunday- the bunny came this morning, we went to church, and we went to Eric's parents' house for Easter. Pictures to come later, sleep to come now :)

Steffen Family Easter

We celebrated Easter today with my family at my Mom's house. We had a big group of people for a brunch style feast. We had an Easter egg hunt with just under 300 eggs. The kids had a lot of fun hunting eggs and we found almost all of them. Some people went golfing that afternoon to enjoy the weather. Oliver loved being outside and running around. Max, Alex, and Gage got kites and Max and Gage flew theirs this afternoon. It was a perfect day for kites and everyone enjoyed watching the boys fly their kites. We all had a great time celebrating Easter!

Happy Easter!!