Sick Kids, Sick Kids. We took the kids to the doctor on Friday and learned that we have 4 ear infections in our house: 2 kids x 2 ear infections each = 4 ear infections. So we have to give them and antibiotic for that. Also, since they have so much congestion, we are giving them albuterol (sp) breathing treatments. In addition, they are getting prednazone (sp) for their lungs. So, just when we though we were about done with all the drugs and medicine, we get a bunch more. This, of course, makes Shawna's days that much more tiring and long. To the left is a picture of the kids taking a little nap on the living room floor. Alina was a little too squirmy and crabby to stay there, so she eventually got moved to her bed, but Conlin enjoyed the warm spot we made for him there.

The next one is on of Conlin last night after finishing eating and completing one of his breathing treatments. That treatment was an easy one, because he just sat like that, asleep, and didn't move. Most of them are not that easy. Neither of the kids enjoys them.

On a lighter note, both of the kids are really enjoying standing up these days. Here is a picture of Conlin at a toy that our Neighbor Suzy is letting us borrow. It has all kinds of moving parts that are activated by a fan inside. Both kids like standing up at it and knocking everything off of it.

Alina is just kneeling at our foot rest with a couple of toys on it. Alina is also likeing walking around the house while holding onto someone's fingers. The reciprocation of her feet is improving. I think she will skip right over crawling and go from rolling to walking.

Conlin is crawling more and more now. And he is using his head less. (He used to, as a part of his crawling technique, throw his head down and use it as a fifth limb to help progress across the floor.) He is also pulling himself up on his knees on things and is trying to stand up on his own now. For now, he just gets one foot up.

In other news, Shawna's car had some problems last week. She broke down in Morgantown, WV while on her way home from helping her Grandparents out. The car was overheating. We are sure glad that we didn't sell it to either one of the people from Grace Chapel that showed interest in it and then have it break down on them. What it turned out to be was a broken impeller on the water pump. This repair job was rather difficult. It took me half of the day Saturday just to find the location of the water pump under the hood. When I found it I was shocked to find that it ran off of the timing belt and not a V or serpentine belt. This meant there was a lot of disassembly involved to get to it. Upon finding it was discovered that the old water pump had a plastic impeller and it was fractured in half and disconnected from the shaft. The new one that I put in has a cast brass impeller and will likely last the remaining long life of the car. I came to the conclusion a number of times during this repair that there are a set of German engineers that should be drug out into the street and beat with the parts that they designed to be impossible to remove from a car.