The Power of Prayer

The power of prayer can work miracles.


My best friend Paula, who is the closest thing I have to a sister, is sick. She went to the hospital last Saturday, with what they believed was a kidney infection, but her symptoms rapidly got worse, and they ended up rushing her to the University of Iowa Hospitals on Tuesday.


After multiple tests, and alot of long days, they officially diagnosed her yesterday w/ what is called Transverse Myelitis. By definition, this is a neurological disorder caused by inflammation across the spinal cord. They are going to start her on a treatment called Plasmaphofesis.

Anyone that knows Paula, knows she is the definition of fun & love. The girl can't sit still for longer than 30 seconds on a good day, and would move heaven and earth for any of her friends and family. I am so blessed to have her in my life and can't imagine my world w/o her.

So, I figured I'm throw this post out there in hopes that whoever reads it can say a quick prayer for her full recovery. It's seems so unfair when this kind of thing happens to such unbelievable people, so all I can hope is that there is a reason for this that I can't possibly comprehend at this time, but someday will.

Paula, our friendship means the world to me and I hope you know that. Love ya bud.....

A Little Vacation

Every year, the girls and I take our annual 10 day trip to Arizona to visit my parents. It's always a wonderful way to break up the winter (and basketball season) for all of us. But unfortunately, w/ being 33 weeks pregnant this year, it just wasn't going to work out. So instead, we decided to have a little family get together in Peoria, which is a middle ground for meeting my brother and his family from St. Louis! Mom and dad flew in Friday and the girls and I went to meet them. It was a great weekend. The kids got to do everything they wanted....which was SWIM all weekend long!

Unfortunately, Troy wasn't able to join us due to ball, so Grandpa was in overdrive the whole weekend playing dad to multiple grandkids, making sure they enjoyed every minute in the pool. I'm pretty sure he'll sleep for 2 days straight when he gets back to Arizona!

I don't know what it is about little kids in goggles, but I can't help myself but take blackmail pics like this! What goofballs!!!

Grandpa of the year! (The poor guy doesn't even know how to swim!)

Ring around the rosey......we all fall down! (Except Grandma!)

We also celebrated Reese and Chloe's 4th birthday. Reese turned 4 January 18th, and Chloe turned 4 February 8th. The two of them play so good together. They are like 2 pees in a pod, buddy buddy the entire time.

Dianne, Chloe's mom, made an amazing Cinderella cake for the girls too. They loved it! (Much better than my store boughten Hy-Vee cake!)

All the Steger cousins: Kaitlyn (10), Reese (4), Lauren (6), Maddie (6), Chloe (4) & Ben (6). Missing is Ted's youngest, Megan.

Thanks Grandma & Grandpa for a great weekend! We were so excited to see you and spend some time w/ you. Can't wait until you come home in April.

So Sweet....

A couple random things to post about this week.....

Below is a snapshot of the Valentine Reese made for me and Troy. The teachers at her school ask them what they want to write down and no matter how silly their response is, they ensure us, what was written came straight from them. I had to share her Valentine. I love the innocence of kids.....Hy-Vee.....HA! Classic!

This weekend was actually nice enough to go outside for the first time in a long time. And thank goodness, cause these kids needed to burn off some energy. February always seems to put cabin fever into high gear in our house.

And finally, I had to take advantage of this moment. Lauren got a Tag reader for her birthday. It's a Leapster thing that allows kids to read the Leapster books on their own, w/ the help of the Tag reader, that white thing she's holding. She really enjoys it and so does Reese. I'm 100% convinced Lauren is bound to be a teacher. She loves acting like the older kid and "help" Reese w/ stuff like this.

The Ice Cream Bucket(s)

Blog Posting Disclaimer: I will try to keep specific details of the past week to a minimum, but in order to truly feel the pain that we've lived this past week, I might have to describe a few items in detail. No worries, I will not post any pictures!!!

It has been quite the week/weekend in our house. It all started last Wednesday night. We got home from dance and Lauren said she didn't feel well and wanted to go to bed. RED FLAG! In the 6 years that girl has been on this earth, she has never spoken those words. So she went to bed at 7:30 w/ no supper. At 8:30 I walked Reese into their room. (Remember, they share a bed now!) Anyway, she hops in and says, "Ewe Mom, it's all wet in here." Lauren had proceeded to get sick in bed and slept right through it. It was a wonderful discovery! (Note: First round of laundry).

This was the beginning of a very long night. She proceeded to get sick every half hour on the hour until about 4 am. And the look on her face every time broke my heart. All she wanted was for it to stop and there was nothing I could do to help her.

Fast forward to Friday night. Lauren is feeling 100% better and able to go school on Friday, so I feel pretty safe going to Troy's game at Beckman Friday night. We get to the game about 6:30. The girls are playing around having fun and 30 seconds after tip off, Reese looks up at me, face white as a ghost and says, "Mom, I don't feel so good." To which my only response was..........RUN! We managed to get to the van and started on our way home when she first got sick. (Note: Second & third round of laundry).

I get her home, in her PJ’s and lying down in our bed. I decide to go clean out the van a little bit. When I get back, I lay down next to her and start to feel sick to my stomach. Not sure if it was just the smell of everything that had gotten to me, I just roll over and try to ignore it. After about 12 seconds of ignoring it, I realized I too was coming down w/ this wonderful bug. (Note: Fourth & Fifth round of laundry).

So there I lay, a bucket to my right for Reese and a bucket to my left for me. I proceeded to get sick every half hour on the hour until about 9 am Saturday morning.

Needless to say, it was a pretty uneventful weekend in our house!

Busy Weekend.....for Troy!

Call it extremely early nesting, but I was able to convince Troy to get the girls room painted this weekend so we could start the moving process in preparation of the baby. I'm a bit nervous about how the two of them sharing a room is going to go, so I wanted to give myself a couple months to attempt getting a routine down before the baby.

The girls have slept in the same bed before, either at the farm or on vacation, but usually the first 30-45 minutes after they lay down, they are giggling and telling each other to be quite. So it'll be interesting to see how this goes. I'm sure in time it'll be fine so we'll just have to wait and see.

They are both very excited about their new room. They picked out the bedspread color and the pillows (with a very little influence from mom actually), and it ended up pretty cute. Still need to get pictures up and make an attempt at a headboard, but that's a whole different story. (As my Martha Stewart skills are not top notch to say the least!)

Well, that better be it for now. Troy is putting the crib together w/ the help of his youngest daughter, and from the sounds of it, she isn't going to win employee of the month. I better go supervise!

All Grown Up

Well, we had quite the memorable weekend! Hard to believe, but 4 years ago today, we were blessed w/ our second little girl, Reese Olivia! She entered the world 8 days late, proving she was indeed going to be out stubborn child! She was 8 lbs. 5 oz, born at 5:25 pm after a relatively easy labor (if there is such a thing!)

To say her and her sister are nothing alike would be an understatement! From day one you could tell they were complete opposite. Lauren loved to be held and cuddled. Reese wanted nothing to do with that. Lauren would have been held all night long. All Reese wanted was her crib. And they have continued on opposite paths since!

The biggest difference between them today, is Reese's obsession over CLOTHES! Every single morning is a WWIII battle over what outfit we are going to wear. If it's not the outfit, it's the socks or the hair or the coat! Needless to say, I'm not quite sure how she's my daughter! (Personally, I think she gets this trait from Grandma Steger!) But, we wouldn't trade her for the world. She keeps us on our toes.

To celebrate the big #4, we went to Cedar Rapids yesterday to celebrate with our cousins. Our nephew Alex, turned 10 on the 14th. We decided to battle the ciaos at Chucky Cheese, and boy was it ever ciaos! Below are just a few of the pictures I was able to capture.

Then today, to finish the celebration, I took the girls to a hotel swimming. The other girls in the picture are great friends of ours, Brooke & Erika. Erika's mom and I were actually in the hospital together w/ Erika & Reese, so we try to do something special w/ them on their birthdays.

We also had another memorable moment this weekend for Lauren......she lost her first tooth!!! After about 20 minutes of convincing her that it "wasn't going to hurt", she finally let me take one good pull at it. Low and behold, out it came! She was quite sure if she wanted to scream in pain or scream in excitement! But after she saw the tooth, she was very excited and proceeded to smile in a mirror for the next 25 minutes.

First Timer Test

Well, boredom at work, lack of husband companionship due to basketball and the idea of giving other bored people at work something to do, led me to start a blog for our family! I'm not quite sure how this whole blog thing works, so I doubt mine will be as fun or interesting as Laura or Zinn's, but I'm confident in time, I'll get the hang of it.

In the meantime, I wanted to share pictures of the girls new toy their grandfather gave them for christmas. This toy actually belonged to me back in 1984 and had since been sitting in the attic of the shop. For 26 years the thing hasn't worked.......until now! Needless to say, my dad won best gift of the year award!!!

Reese on the "Kitty Kat".....

That's all for now......hope you enjoyed my first attempt at a blog!