
If you are reading this and have never commented on "Everyday Life with the Spence Ohana" (this blog!), this blog post is for you! I wanted to pay homage to my blog lurkers. Every so often I will glance at my Live Traffic Feed and wonder who has come to visit and read my blog. I got the idea to add this to my post today from De-lurking Day, "celebrating lurkers and exhorting you to muster the strength and bravery to click on that comment button and end the deafening silence.” I will admit that I read tons of blogs, sometimes on a daily basis. I will visit blogs whose authors have totally different beliefs than I, blogs of families I've never met, blogs of inspiration, and blogs that spark my curiosity. When it comes to leaving comments, I wouldn't say I'm shy but sometimes I won't leave a comment. So please don't be shy and leave a comment on this post!

Onto update news. James had yet another severe allergic reaction to a 2nd type of antibiotic this weekend. Poor lil man. Above you can see the hives that broke out all over his body - luckily Benadryl does the trick and they're gone within an hour. So his pediatrician now would like him to be seen by an Allergist to be tested so we can find out what medications he's allergic to. So far we know Penicillin, Omnicef and Azythromycin drug medication families. But because we are on a low monthly (out of Stephen's paychecks) medical insurance with a high deductible, we would have to pay for the test ourselves which is $450! Yikes. The pediatrician said we can wait on the test until we change our insurance plan at the next open enrollment so we only have to pay a co-pay. James is probably 90% better, no more antibiotics so hopefully he'll clear up and be back to 100% soon.
*Side note: Ya know Obama's health care plan sounds really nice when an issue like this arises for our family -
Caps out-of-pocket expenses so people don’t go broke when they get sick, Provides new tax credits to help people buy insurance, etc. But I just could not agree to ever help fund abortions.

After a nice long Christmas break, Madeline is back into the swing of her school schedule. Although it's been a bit tough waking up so early in the mornings to be ready for the school bus pick up at 7:05am, especially on those below freezing temp days we had last week. But all in all Madeline is happy to be back at school, she loves going and she missed Mrs. Moore and all of her school friends. It's so cute, the past 2 days Madeline has been coming home from school with her pockets full of rocks! Madeline and some of her friends have been collecting rocks at school during recess. And she's been stacking them on our front porch window sill. Besides bringing rocks home today, Madeline also came home with her 2nd report card. It improved from last time with eight areas where she previously received "S" for Satisfactory, she now received an "E" for Excellent! Mrs. Moore left in the comments that Madeline continues to learn all she can. She also said Madeline is a little unsure of herself when writing sentences and wants to write the words correctly (maybe a perfectionist? :) but Mrs. Moore is encouraging her to just write what she hears. So overall I think Madeline received another great report card.