March madness

Of course to most people March madness means basketball. To me it means we are having snow in March and that's madness. LOL... I actually hate sports. I watched Nascar with Mark when we first started dating and I don't mind watching it every now and then but I cant remember who drives what now and who for and blah blah blah....It changes too much. Don't get me wrong I like change but I got used to my randomly picked favorite driver Ryan Newman driving the # 12 Alltel Dodge. Now, I don't know what he drives but he is still my favorite! Ha...that's right dedication. The kids are all doing well! Anna has recovered nicely from her first surgery and we are hoping and praying surgery number 2 does not have to happen. Of course I'm trying not to get my hopes up but its hard not to.

Carly and the kids took of recently and went to her Mom's for the week and attended a family baby shower. They had a good time, and as always a quick and busy visit! Mark has been working out of town again...back to the same old grind!

       Great Grandma June!                                Cousin bath time!

Not too much else is new. Anna is holding on to things and trying to walk. Wont be too long and she will be cruising around her like her brothers were at 10 months!

Hot pink fun!

I went clothes shopping a couple weeks ago and picked out 3 new tops and as I'm about to pay the gal says....Hey did you know that if you buy any 4 items today you get 20% off everything. Instead of being excited I instantly thought crap I have to pick out one more thing. She must have seen the excitement in my eyes because she says oh don't worry you can just get a nail polish. Fine okay, so I pick out this hot pink color thinking it would be cute on my toes! Second from left!

I go home and do indeed paint my toes, Jackson wanders in and asks me what I'm doing. I tell him I'm making my toes look pretty and then I paint one of his finger nails. He looks at it and smiles, then I wiped it off thinking about how much Mark would reject this idea. Jackson didn't really care that I wiped it off and I told him it was just for Mommies toes. He replies with a simple "Oh" and goes about his business.

So fast forward a few days and Jackson has disappeared off doing something a little too quiet for my liking. I find him in Anna's room painting his finger nails with my new hot pink nail polish. I let out a half panicked shriek of a NOOOO!!!! All I can envision is hot pink nail polish everywhere. I quickly snatch the brush out of his hands and he says to me "But, Mom, I need to paint my other and hand and my toes!" To which I quickly say, "NO, no you do not!" I couldn't help but laugh through the entire tirade as the little turkey painted his whole hand and didn't spill a drop!!! The nail polish was in my nightstand drawer, he had opened the bottle and left it standing upright in the drawer. And luckily it didn't spill when I walked by and thought hmmm, don't remember leaving that open and slammed it shut!

I thought about taking it off but decided maybe it was best to let him live with it and enjoy it for a while! And yes, I did put the nail polish up where one said little boy cannot access it anymore! But all in all, pretty good job for a 3 year old! HA!!! By the way, Mark has not wasted a single opportunity to remind him nail polish is just for girls!

Anna

We took our trip up to Spokane on the 11th of January. Carly and Anna headed up early in the morning and swung over to CDA to pick up Mark since he was working up there. Our friend Linda came to our house in the morning so the boys could sleep in. She then took them over to our friend Megan's house and was also joined by our friend Tamra. We are so appreciative for their help especially since combined there were a total of 8 kids!!!!

The whole day seemed like a hurry up and wait. We got into the pediatric surgery unit and it was a bit of madness. There was no official waiting room and kids and babies were being taken back for surgeries and surgeons were coming out telling people how surgeries went. People were crying, kids were crying. I couldn't help but feel we were in the wrong spot. Anna was a real trooper they numbed her with cream so she really didn't cry too much from the IV. The cath I'm sure couldn't have been pleasant but she didn't fuss too much. After the poking she had her bottle and slept through the entire scan! Such a good girl!!!

After the scan we were able to immediately go see the Nephrologist who said her kidneys looked great (other than the hydronephrosis). He did feel there were obstructions on both ureters and we were referred to a Urologist.

So back up to Spokane on the following Monday for a meeting with the Urologist and this is what we were told... (I'm copying from an e-mail so I don't have to re-type it all!)

 She has to have two surgeries. The first one is on January 31st and the second one is tentatively scheduled for April 17th. It depends upon how she does with the first surgery healing and all that whether the second one will be on time or pushed back. Both our Mom's are planning on coming over (alternatively) to stay with the boys so we can both be with Anna.

Whats happening is that the ureters (tubes that carry urine from kidney to bladder) have an obstruction (called a UPJ obstruction). Basically they have a section that looks like an hour glass and it should be completely cylindrical. So this narrowing is causing the urine to hang out in her kidneys way longer than it should be. On the positive side, all of her kidney tests came back showing two fully functioning healthy kidneys with no damage! Surgeon said its possible that there could be some minimal damage that isn't showing up but since she hasn't had any UTI's or infections that its very likely they are not damaged! She has been put on some precautionary antibiotics to ensure she does not get any infections. I was skeptical about putting her on them since she has has no issues but he said the risk of a UTI causing damage to her is high, so best to avoid it if at all possible! Nothing really caused this to happen seems it was probably a birth defect and they just didn't form correctly, he said its pretty unusual for them to be obstructed on both sides, but obviously it does happen!

It will be a 2-4 hour surgery with a 1 to 3 day hospital stay depending upon how she does. They will go in through an approximate 1 inch incision on her back, cut out the obstructing area on the ureter and then fuse it back together. The surgeon said in his experience babies of this age usually heal pretty fast! Surgery has a 95% success rate so hopefully this will do the job and she will be good to go! We will go in for testing afterwards to make certain!

So hopefully by her first birthday we have a clean bill of health!!!! We are grateful that its a fixable problem and that it was found early before any damage was done to her kidneys! It is fairly common as far as this type of defect goes and she will have two surgeons working on her in the OR.

I told Mark we need to stop having dates in doctors offices and hospitals!!

Where does the time go??

I walk into the living room last night and proudly announce to Mark that I have gotten all our Christmas stuff packed up and its ready for the attic! His reply, "It's almost been a month since Christmas"! Yes, you are right dear it has been and I still have decorations on the porch that I have not yet accounted for in my packing up mission. Maybe we could live a little of that country song by Gretchen Wilson. You know the one that talks about being a red neck woman and leaving our Christmas lights up on our front porch all year long?? Probably not, although it would make things a lot easier the day after Thanksgiving this year.

Now I really can't say that I have been so busy I haven't had time to put things away, simply not true. I hate this time of year. The weather stinks, the kids are CRAZY, and we are all just bored. We attempted to go outside and play in the snow the other day. Here's how it went down...

 It took me a good 20 minutes to find every ones snow gear and layer it on. Hats, gloves, boots, snow pants X's 3. I get Anna in the stroller outside and she does pretty well unless she can't see me, then she screams. We do pretty well for a while, the boys are playing nicely. Waylon's boot keeps falling off but that's minor, we just keep brushing off the snow and shoving it back on. I'm trying to shovel the freshly fallen 6 inches of snow off our sidewalks, after Mark had already shoveled a good 5 or 6 off before he left for work that morning. Waylon has now decided he can't walk in the good one foot plus of snow everywhere else and plops himself down crying saying "Help, Help, Help". So I pick him up and put him on the sidewalk. Jackson and him wander around to the front, I look up and see Waylon in the middle of the street. He is finally happy because he is in the compact snow from the cars. Then he looks at me as I'm yelling at him "GET OUT OF THE ROAD" and he tears off down the street giggling and smiling. I've never seen a kid run so fast and successfully on compact snow and ice. So of course I tear off after him. So does Jackson and as I'm both yelling at Jackson to go back with Anna and yelling at Waylon to stop, I hear Anna screaming her head off!!! I finally catch Way before he gets to the cross road, he gets a good scolding and we head back to the house. I just about finish my shoveling when I see Waylon walking towards me with his boot in his hand saying "Uh-oh Mom", Jackson is trying to release the brake on stroller which would send Anna tumbling down the stairs. So I say okay, time to go inside. Which prompts and enormous melt down from both boys because they don't want to go inside as Anna is crying because all she wants to do is go inside. We take another 20 minutes to put everything away de-robe of snow gear and stop crying. I prompt them with hot cocoa to make them happy, Jackson was happy. Waylon took one drink and cried more because it wasn't juice. I haven't taken them back outside since.

Now really its not that big of a deal, but that pretty much sums up anything we do these days. Fun, fun, fun, little less fun, little bit more less fun.....MELTDOWN!!! I love our boys to pieces but sometimes I wish we lived closer to Grandpa's and Grandma's!

Slacking on the updates....Sorry!

Here we go.....

Chapter I

Lets first start with Thanksgiving! We were fortunate to have family travel over again!!! Yipee! Carlys Mom and Step-Dad as well as her Brother Chris, his wife Becca, and their 6 month old son Colton all made the trek eastward!

We had a great time, ate too much, and played a ton of wii! Carly, her Mom, Anna, and Becca did a little black Friday shopping and everyone left on Saturday. The highlight for Jackson and Waylon of course was sleeping in Gramma and Poppas motorhome!

 Colton and Anna having some fun cousin time playing on the floor!

 Poppa and the babies!!

 Anna enjoying the refreshment packaging!

 Wii, and yes, not all games are "interactive". Infact, this is the logger sports game, all you do is push buttons and occasionaly make an inappropriate jerking motion. Seriously.

Anna enjoying black friday shopping. Thanks for the pic Auntie B!

We did get our first accumulating snow storm a few days before Thanksgiving. The boys LOVED it, so much infact they laid down face first and ate like cows. Daddy even made them real Sno-cones, who cares if it was for breakfast!!!

Chapter II

The other day a truck pulls up in front of our neighbors house and the boys of course run to the window to watch. It turns out to be a Sears delivery truck bringing our neighbor Olee a new chest freezer! So being the awesome Mom that I am, run out and ask the guys for the box!! They were more than happy to give oblige and since then its been a major pain in the butt. LOL, just kidding, but its really big and takes up a ton of room in my kitchen. I couldn't fit it through my door without crunching in the sides! Its days are numbered but until then, the boys do enjoy it!

Chapter III

The next little bit of news is kinda a bummer but figured everyone would appreciate the update. We got a call from a specialist in Spokane this week about needing to get Anna in. Results from her last US in late November show her kidney tube issue has worsened. So onward, we will go up to Spokane first part of January and have a Mag 3 renal scan done on her as well as some blood tests. Not too big of a deal, she's probably going to hate it since she has to be strapped down in order to get clear images! After the intial IV she shouldn't have any pain.This test will show us how well her kidneys are functioning and wether or not a blockage is present. I know this is a small hurdle compared to what some people deal with everyday and worst case scenario she will need to have a surgery to do some repair work (which has a 90-95% success rate). I will keep you all posted on how things go! She does not seem to be in any sort of pain or discomfort now, hard to believe something is actually wrong with her!

She is a determined little girl though! She has figured out how to roll across the floor and gets to where she thinks she needs to be! She has also started the process of learning to crawl, rocking back and forth on her hands and knees. She is 5 months old today!

I think I can, I think I can!

About done with the laying down and lounging bit!

 Our three blessings!

I LOVE CHOCOLATE PUDDING!!!!!

Happy Christmas to you all!!!



A few random pictures!

 Grandma Barb and her sleepy little girl

 Grandpa time

 Our little pumpkin with Grandma Judy

 Anna likes the Bumbo seat!

Cutie!

LOL!! This kid might be trouble!! Growing his own devil horns!

Halloween fun?

To start things off, Waylon had is big 2nd birthday on the 24th of October. He is such a ham and he definatly knows how to work it! We had a mini birthday party with my Mom and Step-Dad, Marks Mom and Dad, his Aunt Sue, Cousin Nicole and her family, and our good friends Linda and Randy. It was a nice little party, the first ever that we have had so much family attend, Waylon doesn't know how special he is! Now if we can just figure out a way to get the last remaining grandparents over here, I guess thats what happens when you are born during elk season! Priorities!! ( ;

 Fun microphone from Gramma and Poppa W.

 Presents!

 Hmmm....How does this thing work??

 Birthday treats!

 Nummers!

After the birthday fun everyone went home except for Grandma Judy. She stayed with us until November 1st! It was so nice to have her here for 12 days!! We were all spoiled with love (I didn't have to do dishes!!!) We had a few fun halloween activities including a Mom's night out which was fun for Carly! A Halloween playgroup and the a Halloween party put on by the Genesee Civic Association. Carly made the kids costumes this year, Waylons was semi homemade. Turned a plain dragon costume into an apparently too scary one, Waylon wanted nothing to do with it! Even the lure of candy could  not bring a smile to his face while wearing it...Next year its walmart costumes.

 Isnt she cute?

 The Knight and Dragon!

 Princess Anna

 Grandma Judy lets you do fun things!

This is what happens when you have playdough and a pumpkin!