Best Buddies

Is there anything better than a sleepover with your best buddies?!?

Emma's Love

There is nothing Emma loves more than her family...she frequently begs for me to take down different family pictures off the walls so she can get a better look and point at everyone. It's pretty cute!

Scholar Reader

Camilla was so proud to be the Scholar Reader...she pays such attention to detail and had to set up an appropriate backdrop with her awards!

Preschool Hike

I was in charge of preschool today, so we went on a scavenger hunt in search of things that start with "T". Even though it was too early for tadpoles, we found trees, twigs, trails, tracks, thorns, and even tendrils. They are such fun boys!

Emma's buddy

Emma and my friend's daughter, Ingrid, were born a couple of days apart and they love hanging out together (most of the time)!

Our chef

Zach LOVES poppy seed muffins! He really wanted some and since I was busy, he decided to make them himself! You can imagine that they didn't last long around here!!!!

Something about yardwork.

I don't know if it's the sunshine, fresh air, the dirt, or what, but I could spend all day just working in the backyard...and I have a pretty small backyard! I just kind of tinker around pretending I know what I'm doing: planting seeds, sweeping up leaves, "tending" my compost pile, watering, digging, etc. This is the first time I planted seeds in trays and spouted them indoors until it warmed up a little bit. Since they were sitting on the kitchen counter for weeks, they've become our "babies". The kids check their seeds and count them every day. They are outside during the day now, but Zach makes sure I bring his in at night now to keep them warm. It's been fun to attempt developing a green thumb and share that w/my kids.

This is what you'll see if...

you start making bread, get distracted, pick up your kids from school, chat with some friends, and drop off carpool before you remember. Luckily it still tasted great!

The big sister

Alex and Emma are really lucky to have such a great big sister! She loves helping out whenever she can with Emma (that includes requesting their picture taken together).

Camilla decided to teach Alex how to read tonight...it was too sweet! (sound familiar, Rachel???)

She's HERE!!!

Little Eliza is here...congrats Rachel and Skyler! We love her already!!!

Our pianists

I've been teaching Zach and Camilla piano for a few months now.  It's been fun and they seem to be enjoying it.  Here they are:  

What we're up to...

Camilla tried out curlers...and LOVED the results!  (I forgot to take a picture)

My kids LOVE the library - there is something for everyone!  Zach goes exploring in search of the perfect books and is (not surprisingly) currently fascinated with the section on war.  Camilla loves to pull up a comfy chair and sit and read anything that looks good.  Alex does the puzzles in the Children's Section and Emma plays with stuffed animals and reads any book with babies in it.

And, of course, our tired little boy passed out on the couch...he's been so good to try and stay down over the weekend.  Tomorrow's our follow-up appointment - we're hoping to return to "normal" life soon!

World War II

All the boys in our family are mildly obsessed with World War II history, movies, books, etc.  So, it was a pretty exciting Saturday activity to be able to watch World War II planes have a flight demonstration at the beach!

Can you see them way up there?

Alex's adventures at home...

Getting his IV out and being able to eat some of his treats he had been anticipating helped make today a better day than yesterday!  He still needs plenty of pain relief, but he seems to be managing everything a little better.  Although he spent most of the day watching movies, he's starting to think that bike rides are a good idea. I'm not sure how I'm going to keep him resting!!!  He can only watch so many movies...

Alex's dinner request was macaroni and cheese with chorizo (Spanish sausage).  It got a little toasty under the broiler, but he didn't seem to care!  Whenever anyone talked about his "surgery dinner" we had to say chorizo just the right way w/a Spanish accent or he would get really upset.  "No, Mommy, it's cho-ri-zo!"  He's corrected me several times today.  Noall's love of Spanish foods and Spanish language is apparently pretty contagious!

 All ready for bed...I realized a little bit late that we needed to find pajamas that would button up the front so he didn't have to pull them on over his head.  Luckily, we found some of Zach's old pjs that would work.  Alex was pretty excited about them!  Look at that face...isn't he looking better already?!?  Ice cream has been known to do a lot of things...including making little boys happy (especially when Daddy buys "Pfish Food"...can't beat Ben & Jerry's!).

Alex felt very loved today!!!  The hospital, his preschool buddies, and his grandmas and grandpas all sent him surprises for his recovery.  We've had so many prayers and phone calls, too!
THANK YOU TO EVERYONE FOR EVERYTHING!

Alex's adventures in the hospital...

Where to start?  I guess I'll let the pictures tell the story.  We've been prepping Alex for quite a while about his surgery (cleaning out diseased tissue in his eardrum w/reconstruction of the eardrum in a year or so).  So he was actually kind of excited because he knew his ear was going to get better, friends and family were going to bring him cards and he even had some packages.  So, this would be the, "Look at me...I'm big and brave!  This won't be so bad!" picture.

The day before Alex's surgery we got a call from the doctor's office informing us that the anesthesiologist had requested that the surgery take place at the hospital instead of the surgery center.  The only time they had available was 7:00 AM (with a 5:30 AM check-in time).  We decided that Noall would take him to the hospital while I got the kids off to school, dropped off Emma, and headed over to the hospital later on.  But at 5:30 in the morning, Alex wasn't excited about that plan, so I promised him I would hurry and come see him at the hospital before his surgery.  So I threw together breakfast and the kid's lunches and called a friend on the way to her house to see if I could drop them off before 6:30 AM.  She kindly obliged...don't you love friends like that?!?

 He got all ready for his surgery with Daddy.  He's showing off some of his new "toys".  I literally got there just in time to give him a big squeeze, tell him I loved him, and watch them wheel him away.  He was still pretty optimistic about everything and cheerfully waved as he left.  During our last minute chat with the doctor he explained that instead of this being an outpatient procedure, that Alex would need to stay overnight and be discharged in the morning (looking back I am really glad we stayed, bur it required a bit of scrambling again to figure out babysitting for the other kids).


The good news: the procedure took just over four hours and seems to be a success.  Next year, the doctor will go back in and make sure there hasn't been any regrowth, but he's very optimistic.

More good news: his thumb was able to poke through all the bandages so he could soothe himself back to sleep after some more narcotics!

The bad news: Alex wasn't quite as excited after the procedure as he was before...but he still tried REALLY 

 HARD to be happy!

 

I mean...seriously...look at that face!!!  Poor little guy!  He spent most of yesterday fairly miserable...I'll spare you the details!  But there were moments that were better than others.  Like:

 

Polishing off some strawberry jello with Daddy.

Riding around in the playroom...it's only so much fun with an IV...

 

Taking pictures of mommy.

Watching "Little Einsteins", "Chicken Little", "Wall-E", "Brother Bear", etc. etc.

Can you tell he couldn't keep anything down yesterday?  He had quite the appetite this morning!  After breakfast this morning, we got to go home!!!!!