Jacob is a year +

On March 1st Jacob turned 1 year old. We had a great party with family. Jacob hated the little cake that I baked him. He took a handful of icing and then couldn't get it off his hand. He didn't like that too well. Then I gave him a taste of icing, he really didn't like the taste and tried to take it out of his mouth with his icing caked hand. Then he ended up with more icing in his mouth, which he REALLY didn't like. So then I thought, hmmm...maybe he would like cake (which it looks like I shoved in his mouth on the video). Nope, he REALLY didn't like the cake either. Poor guy, he ended up crying and had to wait to get wiped off before I could pick him up. He got lots of cool toys and books for his birthday.

Jacob is still not walking. He cruises around everything that he can, but he's pretty safe and gets down on the floor to crawl if there's nothing to hold on to. Even when he's holding my hand and walking, if I let go, he's instantly on his knees crawling. I can't hardly get him to stand for even a second. I know he can, but he's learned that if he's not holding on, then he should crawl. I've seen him take some accidental steps a couple of times though. He loves anything that is a ball or a car. Funny, that he can play with anything, including babies, but he likes the balls and cars best. He also loves taking things in and out of a container and puting the lid on. He of course also likes anything new to play with. He's definately a boy. He loves to bang things and throw things and he has a temper! The cutest thing that he has lately been doing is clapping his hands together after doing something, like a yay! clap. He can say a few words: Da da, Ma ma, ba ba (bottle). I also think he's said Emma a few times, even though it sounds a bit like Ma ma. He also likes to call his pacifier Ma ma.

He started daycare the day after his birthday. He is adjusting well and has already formed an attachment to one of the teachers. He is suppose to go 3 days a week, so far he's been there 4.5 days total. He's been sick for the rest of the days! Daycare has given him some major germs and has made me second guess whether he should be going there or not. We see an ENT on Monday for his ears, this last cold gave him a huge ear infection that is having trouble even starting to go away.

Emma is doing super great after her adenoid surgery. She recovered very quickly. She's had a couple of colds since then. They seem like they are going to get bad, and then they just disappear. Way awesome! Emma is learning a lot at school still. She knows all of her letters now and can identify a lot of the times what a word starts with. She's still working on writing her letters. We are at a crossroads in her education, next year she could go anywhere for pre-school, so we are weighing our options right now. We are trying to figure out if she will learn more somewhere else or if she will learn just as much where she is at right now.

We are really enjoying the Church that we have been attending since December. It's called Waypoint, it is a church plant that meats at the Boys and Girls Club in Middlebury. We love the music, the teaching, the people, the children's ministry...it's what we have been searching for. We joined a small group, we are enjoying it a lot. Emma gets to come with us and play with the other kids, so that is a huge bonus. Jacob stays home with Grandma for the night. We are so very thankful to have Grandma around :)

So what are adenoids anyway?

Wikipedia has this definition: "a mass of lymphoid tissue situated at the very back of the nose, in the roof of the nasopharynx, where the nose blends into the mouth." We had no idea what Adenoids were 6 months ago. Today Emma had them removed. She has fought sinus infections for the last 6 months with a trip to the ER a couple of weeks ago. By taking the adenoids out, hopefully she will be infection free. The Dr. said they were enlarged, but not overly huge. Emma did great today. The closest pediatric ENT is in Indianapolis. So we found ourselves staying at the "Ducky Hotel" once again, but this time for Emma instead of Jerrod. We've been down to Indy twice before the surgery today for appointments. Emma loves staying at the hotel and going swimming! Today we arrived at St. Vincent's prepared as best we could. Emma freaks out pretty easily, so we were very careful to make everything fun for her today. Grandpa and Grandma met us in the Lobby. She got a cute, fluffy pink bunny from Grandma that she carried with her the whole time. It even took favor over Tigger! When we walked into the check-in area there was a fun place for Emma to play. When the nurse took us back to her room, there was a dog, Lily, for Emma to pet. Emma really liked this. There were fun toys to play with and she got to take home a coloring book, a book, and a bear pillow. There was a special nurse to play with Emma. She was still a little anxious the whole time, but for the most part she was relaxed as much as could be expected. We got dressed in our special hospital jammies. And off she went in a kids car that she drove into the operating room. She was asleep before I could even get back into our room and sit down from following her as far as I could go. The Dr. was done in about 15 minutes and she was back in the room in about 40 minutes. They wheeled her in on a bed. I picked her up and held her in my lap in the reclining chair. She was super thirsty. She ended up eating 2 popsickles and 1 glass of water before we left. She recovered for about 45 minutes and off we were out of the hospital. We had read a book beforehand to her. In the book it had the little girl leaving the hospital in a wagon with balloons attached to it, so we had to find something similar. She got an Ariel balloon from Daddy and Mommy, so the baloon was covered. Then the nurse brought by a push car. So off we went down the hall in a push car with a balloon attached to it. We met up with Grandma and Grandpa and Jacob in the Lobby. Before, during, and after Emma never freaked out. Praise Jesus! Thanks to all of the prayers that were said, everything went so smoothly. We headed home, she slept the whole way home. When we got home she wanted to play a little and she acted like she felt pretty well. A little clingy, but that is understandable. She ate a total of 5 popsickles today. She also wanted some cereal and rice tonight, so I let her have some. She didn't get sick, so I guess her stomach is ok. So that's our adventure, we're hoping it helps and her tonsils will not get attacked next. Thanks so much for all the prayers that were said!!!!

Breakfast with Santa

We had breakfast this morning with Santa Clause and Mrs. Clause. We were pleasantly surprised how nice it was. We got the information from Emma's daycare, so she got to see a few of her friends there too. Emma loved sitting on Santa's lap, such a complete turn around from last year when she wouldn't even go near him. Jacob was a completely different story. The minute I set him down he went into crazy cry. The picture is such an awesome representation of where he is in life now. He goes into crazy cry when anyone except Mommy, Daddy, or Grandma holds him. I'm sure he'll grow out of it!

Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas! We hope that everyone has a wonderful and Merry Christmas! For us, this year has been full of memories that we will never forget. Some of the memories are really great and some are really horrible. We started out the year with me (April) feeling like I was going to pop! Boy I was huge!

Two weeks before Jacob was born, Jerrod turned 30. And got a new HD TV.

Then I was in labor for 3 days before we finally convinced our Dr. to have me induced. Jacob Christopher was born on March 1st at 4:57 am. My big belly was warranted--he was 9lb, 10oz. He was a big boy--very sweet and laid back.

It took a while to get used to taking care of two kiddos. In May we took a family vacation to Disney and Marco Island. It was a super great time where Emma got to dress up like a princess and see all of her favorite cartoon characters like Little Einsteins and Mickey Mouse. We had a great and relaxing time at Marco Island as well.




When Jacob was 3 months old. On May 20th, Jerrod came home with a broken right elbow--shattered, crushed to powder. We never expected the tough road ahead of us. It took 6 months for a "full" recovery. God's healing hand was in every part of it. This tragic event brought about a bond in our extended family that hasn't been there before. Emma got to spend more time with her cousins and Aunts and Uncles and Grandpa and Grandma, which we usually don't get to see that much. We can see many blessings that have came out of this horrific accident. It was a horrible thing to go through, but God has made us stronger during the whole ordeal. Jerrod went back to work on the first of November and things have been slowly making their way back to normalcy.

In July, we celebrated Emma's 3rd birthday. We had a princess party with all of the family. Her cousin's birthday is the day before hers, so we had a double birthday party.

In October, we got to enjoy two pumpkin patches in one week! We went to one as a family and then one with Emma's school. Both were great fun!

December has been a wonderful month of celebrating Christmas. Emma is counting down the days to Christmas with a paper chain that she made at daycare. It is a wonderful tool for her to be able to count every night how many days are left until Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all of our family and friends. We pray that God will bless every one of you!!

Fall Pictures

Jacob is almost 9 months!

I have tons of photos that I want to share, but I will post them later. Here's an update on how the Furlong family is doing:

Jacob is growing up so quick. He went from army crawling to pulling himself up in 1.5 months! He still does the army crawl most of the time, he finds it quicker than trying to put one knee in front of the other knee. He’s pretty slow still with the traditional crawl. This last week he started sitting from a crawling position. He loves to pull himself up on boxes, he thinks he’s hot stuff that he’s standing up! His favorite things to play with are cords (which he doesn’t get to play with) and anything that he can press buttons to make noise. He also likes to spin the wheels on cars and Emma’s Little Einstein Rocket. He’ll find a car and army crawl all the way to the tile to make it roll on the tile. Pretty smart! He has two bottom teeth that are growing fast. They are broken all the way through, so the whining is over for now. Teething has been pretty rough for him. He mimics us when we are talking. He tries to say ma ma or da da, but it usually comes out Ba, ba, ba, ba…. And he’ll go back and forth with a short “aahh” between us. He’s eating 2nd foods now, I tried the 3rd foods, but they were too thick and he gagged on them. So we will stick to the 2nd foods for awhile. He still thinks his sister is funny stuff and laughs at her all the time. Jacob is such a Momma’s boy still, he wines and cries for me if he sees me and someone else has him and then is very happy when I come and get him. But he is becoming more of a Daddy’s boy lately. He starts crying immediately a panic cry if someone other than Mommy, Daddy, or Grandma holds him. I hope he grows out of that soon!

Emma is getting really good at recognizing her ABC’s. We bought her Dora letters that she can stick on the wall of the bathtub, she loves spelling simple words like CAT and DOG and EMMA. Last night she decided to spell her name EMMB because the A was already used in the word CAT. She didn’t want to mess it up. She loves coloring and she likes to trace any letters she sees in her coloring books. She’s even pointing to the words in her books and having me read them. I think she finally gets the concept that we read left to right. For the longest time she would point to pictures from right to left. She’s still very headstrong and when she has her mind set on something, it’s hard to convince her otherwise. In October she got to go to 2 pumpkin patches. We went to a very commercialized pumpkin patch as a family. It had all kinds of games to play and rides to ride. She rode on ponies, bounced in the bouncy blow up ride, rode on a cow train, and walked a straw maze. It was a great time. Then with her daycare we went to a more traditional pumpkin patch where she got to feed goats and turkeys, pet ponies, and pick out her own little pumpkin. That was fun too. We carved 2 pumpkins this year and Emma loved helping but hated pulling out the seeds. She said they were too slimy. But then she helped me sort the seeds to roast them. She really loved eating the roasted pumpkin seeds.

Jerrod is finally back to work, he started back the first of this month. He is doing really well. We haven’t been back to the Dr. for the final appointment, due to not being able to afford the trip, but the last time we went, the Dr. said that he thought Jerrod represented the best case scenario. Praise Jesus for a great range of motion! He is done with his therapy sessions and I am continuing to stretch his arm at home. He still can’t lift a lot with that arm, I am sure that will take some time still.

As for me, I am enjoying my family tremendously. It is nice to have a husband back in commission that can help around the house and with the kiddos. And he has been absolutely wonderful. He has been cooking every evening, I don’t even remember the last time I cooked a meal. And he cooks wonderful, tasty meals! He’s great with the kids and they love their daddy! This last weekend we put up our Christmas tree and decorations. I know it’s early, but we usually don’t have time the weekend after Thanksgiving. We thought it would be nice to enjoy it longer this year. It is beautiful and has gotten us all in the mood for Christmas!

update on Jerrod

Jerrod is doing great! He is reaching the back of his neck, which is something that he has not been able to do for 4 months now. He is staying on the CPM machine as much as possible, even though the dr. said he only has to stay on it 8 hours a day now since it is past 3 days after surgery. He is starting to go stir crazy, thankfully he gets to get out and go to therapy every day. His elbow has a HUGE bruise on it from the surgery, but it looks like it's starting to heal. His range of motion is absolutely amazing, hopefully after all of this he won't be able to tell the difference between his right and left arm ranges. That would be wonderful! He's able to help me some already with Emma and Jacob, which is much different from the last surgery and something I'm very thankful for. Thank you for all of your prayers! Praise Jesus for a wonderful recovery so far.

"A Robot is moving Daddy's Arm!" --Emma

We have lots of praise to give our Lord Jesus Christ tonight. The Dr. was able to get to 120 degrees flection and 20 degrees extension officially, however the physician assistant told Jerrod that he actually got further than that. We got home early this evening and got Jerrod set up in the bed with the CPM (Constant Passive Motion) machine. Right now he already has a range of motion with the machine of 120 degrees flection and 15 degrees extension. Wow! Already! He is planning on uping it more in the wee hours of the morning. Praise Jesus! Praise Jesus! His arm is numb from the nerve block (it's working so far--yay!) He can feel it stretch some and a little pain during the stretches, but it is minimal. Thank you all so much for your prayers! Please continue to pray that Jerrod will be able to keep this range of motion. Also pray for his therapy sessions that they are a huge success. Please also pray for the therapist, as it takes a lot out of her to stretch Jerrod's arm. Also please pray for our financial situation, as all these trips to Indy have taken our toll on our finances. And lastly, please pray for me and the kiddos, as this time is a bit stressful for all of us.

Jerrod's surgery

Jerrod will be having his arm manipulated tomorrow (Wed Sept 24) in Indianapolis. Please pray that the Dr. will be able to tear through lots of scar tissue and Jerrod will have a really good range of motion afterwards. Also please be in prayer for Jerrod's recovery, as it will be quite painful!

More pictures and a video

Here's some cute pictures of Jacob and a fun video. I love that he tries to stick his head in the box!

Some pictures

Emma, my baby girl isn't a baby anymore!

Jacob, he's still my baby boy


Emma and Jacob playing

Emma being a dinasaur at the Children's museum

Emma under a black light at the Children's museum

Emma driving an Indy car

Say cheese!

It was cold at the zoo and I wasn't prepared so Jacob had to wear Emma's sweatshirt!

Mmmm! Yummy!

Emma got a new car. She's a pretty good driver, but she did almost run me over!

Long overdue update

So I decided to opt out of putting away clothes and instead write this. I'll post some pictures later, but I thought it might be good to just write an update. The last month and half has seemed to fly by. Jacob had his six month appointment on 9-11. He has had a tough month. He came down with Hand, Foot, Mouth disease. Which caught us off guard when the Dr. told us what it was. Jerrod called it mad cow disease because it sounds like hoof and mouth disease. It causes very painful sores in the throat and sometimes on the feet and hands. In Jacob's case he had sores in his throat, a couple of sores on his big toes, and a very bad rash all over his body. It affects babies more than older children and adults. I think Emma might have brought it home from school, but all she had was a mystery fever with no symptoms. The Dr. declared him healed from that and he looked nice and healthy. He slimmed down a bit, the Dr. seems to think it was because he was sick. He's now in the 50th percentile in height and weight. He still needs some support while sitting up so he won't fall and hit his head. He's rolling over REALLY well and somehow rolls and pushes himself to get toys that are out of arms reach. He has super grabby hands and I have to make sure nothing is in front of him if he sits on my lap at the dinner table. He's sitting in a highchair now, so he can join us at the table while we eat. I have to make sure he has plenty of toys in front of him when we start. Somehow they all end up on the floor. Jacob has started eating rice cereal. He really likes it and lunges into the spoon, which makes it quite challenging to feed him.

Emma is getting to be such a big girl. Today I was thinking that maybe, just maybe the terrible two attitudes and fits were mostly over. She is so smart and witty and she keeps us laughing. She teases us all the time now, which tells me that she has quite the sense of humor. She's getting really good (3 yr old good) at coloring. She is getting closer at coloring inside the lines. She changed classrooms and teachers in August, which we were a bit worried about because of how shy she is. She didn't have nearly as hard of a time as we thought she would. She loves her new teacher and classroom. At school, she is doing some really cool projects. She did a book of her family, which was way cool. She is so loving toward Jacob and hardly ever shows any kind of jealousy. She loves sharing her toys with him and she also really likes playing with his toys. She has learned that she has to trade him toys if she wants to play with the one that he is playing with. This last weekend we went to Indianapolis for Jerrod's Dr. appointment. We got to stay at the "duckie hotel" (Homewood suites--a duck is their mascot). Their pool was pretty warm and Jacob got to go swimming too. We got to go to the zoo and the Children's Museum. The zoo was a bonus because the Children's Museum is closed on Mondays, which we didn't know until we got there. Major disapointment! She cried and cried. I cried too. So we went to the zoo instead. So on Tuesday morning we had to make a quick trip to the Children's Museum because she was sooo looking forward to it. Jerrod's appointment wasn't until early afternoon, so it worked out great. The zoo was a bit cold, but still fun. And the Children's museum was way cool, lots of hands on stuff for Emma to do. It was really fun!

Jerrod's Dr. appointment did not bring great news. He is not progressing as well as expected. Here's how Jerrod described what the Dr. has to do now:
We met with the Doctor yesterday in Indianapolis and he slated an outpatient surgery for the near future (still awaiting call for date). They will put me to sleep, place a 3 day paralyzing block on my right arm and wrench on it for 30 minutes, breaking up scar tissue to gain almost FULL movement. It has been described as "breaking chicken bones" This is a blessing in that I might get tremendous amounts of motion, but it's going to hurt, really bad, despite pain meds after that block wears off. Immediatly after surgery, I go on a 24/7 machine that keeps my arm in motion with therapy daily. The doc believes that my elbow shows sufficient qualifications for me to have lost less than 10% - 20% range (Thats incredible) when we're done, but nothing is final until after the surgery
So, please join us and pray for Jerrod's elbow that he will regain more range of motion after all of this is over.

As for me, I'm hanging in there. In the last month I've had two bacterial infections that act a bit like strep, but the strep test came back negative. I'm done with my antibiotic and I can still feel it in my lymphnodes. I'm praying that my body will fight it instead of having to take more antibiotics. But if it gets worse again, I will definately get a blood test this time to figure out what it is! I'm really enjoying my family right now and I had a great time with just our immediate family in Indianapolis. It's still weird sometimes to think that I have 2 children and Jerrod and I are responsible for these two little lives!

Happy Birthday, Emma! 3 years old!

Ok, like usual life got in the way and I'm a bit late with this!

Wow! I can't believe she's already 3! Jerrod and I have said several times over the past month that we can't believe we have 2 kids, let alone that one of them is 3! We had a birthday party for Emma and her cousin, Jackson on Saturday. Emma's birthday is on the 18th and Jackson's is on the 19th. Jerrod made the cakes and did a GREAT job! Our house was full of princess decorations and balloons. She was so excited when she saw the princesses on the wall! She got all kinds of cool presents from everyone. A new big girl princess bike, a doctor's kit, an outfit for her dolly, princess placemats, a tinker bell dress up dress, books, the Little Einstein's Rocket & characters, and I'm probably missing a few others! We had a great time at her birthday party and it went perfectly (except it rained and we were planning on having it outside).

She loves going to new places and doing "special" stuff. She gets so excited when we tell her that we are doing something special. She loves the zoo and she loves to go to hotels and swim. (We've been doing a lot of that lately because of all our trips to Indy). Her favorite characters are the Little Einsteins, princesses, and Mickey Mouse clubhouse and she still likes Calliou alot. She's starting to get a sense of humor and she loves to be funny and tease!

Emma is getting to be such a big girl. She has relinquished the stroller to Jacob and walks now. She's really good at staying close to us (which I thought would never happen). Her obedience issues are getting so much better. She sometimes has tough days when she's not feeling well, but other than that she's really good at doing what we ask. She's at such a fun age and she makes us laugh all of the time. She loves her friends at school and her teachers too. She has a posse at school that includes two other girls. They are best of friends and they act just alike! Who knew at three she could have such good friends! She is completely potty trained. I still keep a pull up on her at night because when we tried a couple weeks without one she had a few accidents. But for the most part she keeps it dry at night. She loves singing songs by herself. Her favorite songs are Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, Jesus Loves Me, The B-I-B-L-E, Old MacDonald, the ABC's, B-I-N-G-O, and she also loves to make up songs (she gets this from her Dad!) She also likes it when we make up songs, she asks us to sing the wall song or the door song, etc, where we have to make it up as we go.

In Jacob news, he's five months old now. He is rolling over! Not just onto his belly, but back onto his back as well. He does it really quick! I'm not sure that Jerrod has seen it yet because I say, "look, he rolled over!" and as soon as Jerrod looks he's back onto his back. This happened about 3 times the other day :) He sounds like an Ewok when he talks, it is very funny! Emma and Jacob really love eachother. Emma loves to talk to him and Jacob talks and smiles back. We're trying really hard to teach Emma to always treat her brother nicely because she loves him. Can you teach them not to be rivals and instead always be friends? We're certainly going to try! Tonight is Jacob's first night in his own room. We set up his crib yesterday and he is sleeping in it tonight. He loves the mobile above him and before he went to sleep tonight he was trying to grab the animals on the sheets.

Jacob is 4 months old!

Jacob had his 4 month checkup today and 3 yucky shots. He didn't get horribly upset though, he just cried for a bit. He is 26 inches (90th percentile), 16 lbs 10 oz (85th percentile), 16 inch head circumference (10th percentile). So it looks like he is growing consistently. He just recently started to show some interest in trying to turn over. No success yet though. He actually fell asleep tonight on his side while he was trying to turn over. He plays really well with toys now, he'll reach out and grab the toy from my hand. He loves his play mat with the toys above him. He can also switch the toy from one hand to the other. He loves to just sit and watch all the activity going on around him. He loves his sister very much and I'm pretty sure he finds her very entertaining. He'll be sitting up very soon unsupported. He can sit up now very well supported. He's finally starting to stand up on my lap, he's a little behind when Emma started standing. I think Emma was about a month old when she started standing. Jacob loves to talk and smiles a lot when someone talks to him. He loves when Daddy talks to him! He still loves to suck his thumb and now he can get his whole fist in his mouth. He also has a bad habit of sucking on his arm and has actually left a line like bruise where he sucks on his arm.

Jerrod is doing pretty well. We are traveling to Elkhart 3 times a week in the morning for therapy. There are only 4 hand and arm therapist specialists in this area. 2 in South Bend and 2 in Elkhart. So we opted for the closer of the two cities. I am soooo thankful that I have the most awesome bosses in the whole world! I am taking a laptop and working during his therapy sessions. I am so blessed to have such flexibility in my job! They ordered a dynamic splint for Jerrod and we picked it up today. It cranks his arm up or out and holds it there. The point of it is to help his range of motion. In his last therapy session he got to 12 degrees out and 92 degrees up. The therapist is very happy with the 12 degrees. Of course when he gets home he can't replicate it.

Last week Jerrod had a Dr.'s appointment in Indy. I took an extra day off and we went to the zoo. We had a great time. Emma got to pet an elephant! Then she looked for the elephants the rest of the day. We finally found them, they were taking a bath in the river :) Emma loved the zoo and keeps asking to go back. We also saw the dolphin show and she got to ride a pony twice. She picked out small mini animals to take home with her.

This last Sunday the Merrill's came to visit for the morning. It was short, but a great time. Jeremiah and Emma love playing together. Jeremiah really liked Emma's truck.