Saturday, April 5, 2014

A little Cheese and a little Crazy!


Here is a great mix of photos of my kiddos from the last couple of months.  Some photos are a bit of the cheesy/silly side.  Some photos are a bit on the crazy/daring side!  Enjoy!

M: Keep reading mom!  T: CHEEEEEESE!

M: "Air Goggles" do help me shovel much better!

M: I mean, look how strong I am when I wear these!


M: Whew, I am tired out!

M: Hold on T!  T: I will M!

M: OK, you really want to hold on tight because when I start pedaling you will spin quickly!

M: Do you like the pink ride on better?  T: Um, it makes more noise, but my feet are getting stuck.

Whee!!!

M:  Wow this is going to be great!  T: HAHAHAHA!!!

Me: STOP M! M: Why?  T: pole!!!

M: Oh this is why you wanted me to stop!  T: More!

T: Helper!  M:  Thanks T.

T: Get ready!  M: I am.


T: Hold on M!  M:  Um T, we are not going very fast here.

T:  Thanks for switching M.  It was a little hard for me. M: No problem.


Our snowman went on a sun diet but with the one "snowman weather" day followed by over 6 weeks of cold he stayed up for a LONG time!


M: Thanks for making the shield for my face Daddy!

T: Hand, Cold!

T: Go team Kitchen!

T: I salute you mommy for a very tasty meal.

Awwww

Joy Captured!
M found these party hats and decided he needed to wear four of them!
How do I look?


M: Aww, look at me!

M: I can see them really well when I turn a little bit!

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Do you seriously have appendicitis?




 Our Sunday mornings are pretty scheduled.  They need to be.  Brandon gets up early.  He has his routine and we have ours.  Somehow, we usually manage to make it to church around on time.  One Sunday a few weeks ago we did not have a "typical" day.

Our church services are at 8:00 and 10:30.  You can imagine my startled feeling when I heard noises coming from our kitchen at 7:50 am.  M was in the office, who could it be?  Brandon quickly came up to the bathroom in search of Pepto Bismol.  Well, there are a couple of common reasons to take Pepto and my husband, who rarely takes anything for any reason was asking for some 10 minutes before church started.  Yikes!  I quickly found a bottle of them (the kind you swallow) and told him to take 2 now and make sure to take two more in 30 minutes and to keep taking them as needed.  My mind was spinning thinking about Brandon bolting out of the sanctuary mid-sermon for a bathroom run of some sort.  Poor guy.

When we arrived at church just in time for the second service I could see the bottle of Pepto on the floor and I asked how he was doing.  He said the same and I just thought oh dear!

He made it through the services and then told me shortly after that he wanted to go straight home.  We all left quickly.  He was headed to the bathroom then changing into comfy clothes while the kids played outside.  He then just laid on the couch.  I asked him a bit more about how he was feeling and he said it was mainly knots in his stomach.

We got the kids down for nap and I called my mom to chat. Brandon came into the room and informed he that he thought he had appendicitis.  He read the symptoms and he had pretty much all of them.  I told him to go to the walk in right away.  I was not interested in him messing around with that!  Truthfully, I thought the chance of him actually having appendicitis were pretty small, but after his blood clot scare a few years ago we do tend to take medical stuff a bit more seriously around here.

Brandon went to the walk in and I went about my normal Sunday afternoon relaxation during the kids naps.  Brandon called about 4:30 to say that he was going to be heading over to the ER for a CT scan to rule out appendicitis.  I still didn't think he had it at this point but was glad he was getting things checked.  Our church was having its first session of the new membership class that night.  It was to start with a dinner and he was on the phone with the elders many times that day trying to pass the baton to them.  He told me when I talked to him that if he did have to have surgery he was hoping they would let him first come home and teach the class and gather up what he needed and then go back for the surgery.

One of the elders called me to help him look for something at church.  I took the kids over and we found what was needed and then mingled with the people as they arrived for the class.  It was fun for the kids and a good distraction for me as well.  My favorite thing is meeting new people and the thought of both Brandon having surgery and putting the kids to bed alone made me a bit nervous.

Brandon called the elders while I was at church to arrange everything.  I was nosy and asked if he did need to have surgery.  They said he did.  Whoa. OK.  The kids and I headed home to eat some supper.  Brandon called and verified that he did need surgery and told me what things he would like me to bring him.  He called a little later to say, how soon can you get here I am going to surgery within 30 minutes.  The kids and I were fast and we got there within 20 minutes.  I went to the desk and they told me it was too late.  He was already in surgery, but they would show me a room to put his stuff if I waited a minute.  During that time Brandon called me and said they were waiting for us.  I told this to the receptionist and she let us all go right back.  The kids and I gave daddy hugs and kisses and said we would see him tomorrow.

We headed home and went back to church to play with one of the kids who has a mom in the class.  The class ended and the boy, B and his mom came over for a few minutes.  This was about 7:30.  I knew that having a 5 year old boy here would not help bedtime, but it was awesome to have them here as I was about to fill up humidifiers, get PJ's ready, update FB to ask people to pray, take a few bites of food myself etc.

There was a message on the phone from the hospital saying that Brandon's surgery went well.  I missed the call, but it was a very welcome message to receive.

I think they left about 8:30.  M was very tired and his melatonin was kicking in.  T who also took melatonin was not acting tired.  The next hour was spent trying to get them to bed on my own.  It was pretty horrible.  T will ONLY go to sleep for Daddy so she wanted nothing to do with me.  M didn't want me to leave him alone either.  Eventually I called a great friend Monica who came to save the day!  I knew that if I just handed her T I could get M to bed without too much trouble.  M was quite overwhelmed so it took a while, but I think under 30 minutes.

When I came downstairs T was sleeping in Monica's arms.  She quickly woke up so we said goodbye to Monica and round 2 began.  T kept repeating this brutal pattern of falling asleep in my arms and then crying when I put her in the crib.  When she would wake up she would ask for Brandon.  I todld her Daddy was in the hospital because he had an owie.  She then starting repeating.  "Daddy Hospital (it didn't sound like hospital) Daddy died" over and over again.  Yuck!  This was not what I wanted to hear.  Oh how my heart broke for her.  We watched them wheel daddy back to surgery and she thought he died.  She does actually know what death is, sort of... I just kept rocking her and telling her that Daddy is going to be fine and we will see him in the morning. Finally after her sleeping for many minutes in my arms I laid her in the bed and said good night and left the room.  She was crying (OK screaming) but she had been asleep a minute ago and I needed to go to the bathroom and to breathe and take a minute's break.  I went back on FB to a group I am in to ask for more prayers.  10 seconds after I posted the request she stopped crying, laid down, and went to sleep.  She fell asleep at 11:10 pm. 

Now, if you know my kids, you know they both love to wake up in the night for many hours multiple times.  I had no idea how I was going to handle the night.  I was scared.  I read for a little bit and then went to sleep in M's room as usual.  I knew I could not have T's monitor in the room with M and I or he would wake up when she did and they wouldn't go back to sleep again.  I am a pretty heavy sleeper so I kept telling myself as I went to sleep that I needed to sleep lightly so I could hear T.  Well, sleep lightly I did!  I barely slept.  I was so nervous I would miss T crying.  After her fear of Brandon being dead, the last thing I wanted was for her to cry for a long time without me hearing her and her to think something happened to me to.

Amazingly my kids rocked it.  Going to bed super late, taking calm kids and melatonin, and LOTS of prayers resulted in both of them sleeping for several hours in a row.  M got up super early, but that allowed me to shower and get things picked up and the laundry started before T woke up.  M was thrilled to watch a movie and I was thrilled to let him.

Brandon called later and said we could come and get him and take him home!  We were so excited to see him.  He was sore and the pain did come, but he said it wasn't too bad.  He really enjoyed his time in the hospital and the food he ate there.  He has told many people about it and how much more relaxing it was than our vacation to the Smoky Mountains.

After naps that day we actually took a walk around the block.  It happened to be that one warm day in March when it feels like winter really will end.  We had much to be thankful for.  We saw almost every neighbor as we walked.  It was very lovely.

Brandon was back at work the next day.  He was wearing warm up pants and an ice pack around his waist, but he didn't miss any work.  What a trooper.  After taking his Rx one morning and being in a deep fog he opted for OTC pain meds for a couple of days instead.

We feel so very blessed that his appendicitis happened when it did.  We were home and not hiking in the Mountains or on a plane to even in a different state visiting family.  The timing during the week was perfect too.  He got through Sunday and then had an entire week to heal before the next one.  We saw God's faithfulness over and over again in the process.  We are so thankful that nothing ruptured.  Aside for needing to be a little more gentle with the kids for a little longer, Brandon is back to normal and we are so thrilled.  We sure hope we don't have any more emergency surgeries coming up!

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Future Olympian in our home?!


February 2014 equals MUCH Olympics at our home.  I love the Olympics and as it turns out so done my son.  He attempted to stay up until the final minute each night, but many nights we looked like the photo below. 

Must have been some looong program figure skating on?!

Since the Olympics M has done a lot of routines in our family room.  If you ask him, he is usually snowboarding, but he sure looks like he is figure skating.  He does triple loops, jumps and all sorts of tricks.  He says, "Watch, I am going to do something that no athlete can do" before every trick!  We tried to capture a few of his routines in still shots so other athletes around the world could check out their future competition.  He is pretty convinced that he WILL be in the Olympics one day :)

Setting up for a jump/spin!

In motion!

Getting ready for a one foot kick spin.

In action!

Posing.

Hand Stand!!!

Almost a hand stand OR some sort of wild kick.

Hand Stand/Splits!

Setting up for something big!  You can see it in the hands!
Another day and another routine!

High Kick!


Flip in action.

Singles Ice Dancing?

So graceful

Another Spin.

One last tripod!