We had a long week!

 
 
 
 
 

 

Last week at this time Addisen and I were in the emergency room because she couldn't stop coughing.  She had been coughing nonstop for 3 hours when Jim and I just couldn't take it anymore.  We got to the ER and her respiration rate was 40 and she had a slight temperature.  They gave her some more albuterol and watched her for awhile when they told me they thought it was just a strange presentation for an asthma attack (although she didn't respond to albuterol).  The nurse came to give her a dose of steroids and discharge us when her oxygen level went down to 89.  Because of this we had to stay a few hours longer for monitoring and a chest xray.  A few hours later we were on our way home with the diagnosis of pneumonia although her chest xray had not confirmed it, and instructions to see her doctor on Monday.  She seemed to be getting better by Monday morning and the doctor's visit confirmed it.  Although she thought Addisen may have had influenza vs. pneumonia.  But since we had already started the antibiotics we were just going to be safe and finish them out.  Then Monday night hit and Addisen and I were up fro 2am until 7am with very little sleep and a lot of coughing.  Back to the doctor we went, but this time her oxygen was hovering around 94, so there really was no need to do anything...we just had to wait it out.  Luckily things continued to improve and she was able to go back to daycare on Thursday to finally get to celebrate Valentine's Day.

Starting the blog back up has motivated me to take some more pictures of the kids.  This is one of my favorites from the week.

 

Ryder learned to do fish lips over the past couple of weeks.  Addisen was so upset because she couldn't figure out how to do them.  She has now mastered the skill too :)

Brody has become pretty obsessed about all things hockey (and Jim is happy to follow his lead).  He does lessons once a week, "stick and puck" time on Wednesdays after school and open skate about every other weekend.  I often come home to find they are playing "hockey" in the garage like the picture above.

Ryder was our silly one this week.  He has become a big sweetheart recently.  When we get home at night he will run up to Jim and say "I missed you Daddy!".  And he will often tell us that he loves us.  His newest thing is to go up to Brody in the morning or after Brody has been gone and say "I missed you Brody, all night long".  So sweet!  It is making up for all the times Addisen comes running because he just hit her in the head with some toy :)

This week on the way to swimming Brody told me that he would like to learn to sew so he could make all of his clothes instead of buying them.  I told him that it was pretty difficult to sew clothes that fit.  On Saturday I wanted to run to JoAnn's to get some yarn, so I asked if he wanted to come along to get some fabric to sew a blanket.  He bought fabric for himself, Ryder and Addisen.  We spent the day yesterday putting the blankets together.  I think Brody's favorite part of sewing is pushing the peddle down as fast and far as he can - good thing we are just sewing straight lines!

Happy Valentine's Day - A bit of a let down...

 

This year I got creative with Brody's Valentine's when I couldn't find any hockey themed valentine's cards at the store.  Luckily he liked my idea of a superhero theme :)

 

Our poor Addisen has missed out on most of the Valentine's Day celebration because of being sick.  We were called on Thursday afternoon to pick her up from daycare at 3pm because she woke up from nap and had gotten sick.  Jim picked her up and she had a temp of 103 and was coughing nonstop.  Our poor girl has been pretty miserable ever since.  Today her fever seems to have broke but the coughing is unbelievable.  The poor girl has coughed her self to the point of throwing up multiple times today. 

 

The funniest story this week comes from Thursday morning.  We were on our way to daycare in the morning and this is the conversation we had.  Addisen: "Mom, remember when you fed me acorns when I was little and then I got sick and you had to give me a bath?"  Me: "Addisen we don't eat acorns"  Addisen: "I know mom, after you made me sick we haven't eaten them again"   Oh my...I hope she didn't share these thoughts at daycare :)

Today was a let down for Brody and Jim.  They have planned for months to go to East Lansing tonight to watch Penn State play MSU in hockey.  Everything had been arranged to meet up with Bobo and Uncle Neal and have a great boy's night - even topped off with a sleep over at Uncle Neal's and Aunt Jenny's.  Unfortunately the Michigan weather did not cooperate...wind chills close to 15 below zero, snow and wind gusts up to 35 miles an hour resulted in canceling the trip. 

To make up for it Jim and Brody headed to open skate this afternoon and now are watching the game in the basement.  It seems to have helped with some of the disappointment.  I feel bad for the two of them (I had even bought Jim a new PSU hockey jersey for the event).

 

The changes in plan did allow us to have a Valentine's dinner as a family.  I had to laugh because it has been 13 years today since Jim and I had our first date (not too much of a first date, watching the Olympics curling, Temptation Island and a night out at the bar with my friends) and I told him I would have never imagined that we would be sitting around a table snowed in with 3 kids 13 years later.

 

I hope you all have had a better Valentine's then us this year!  We are lucky to have each other and love in our family!

We are back!  After a long break - some because life was just crazy and some because the computer I was using would never stay connected to the internet!  Life has slowed down a little and as a father would do, my dad got me a new computer to make life a little easier. 

 

Now that everyone has had at least 2 birthdays, I thought the focus of the blog would turn into weekly updates on pictures and stories of our life as 5!

Ryder:  To get everyone caught up - this is the wild child!  I was talking to a woman while waiting to check in for Ryder's ENT appointment and she had some interesting insight.  She was talking to Ryder and I told her he was the third child and by far the most daring.  She had 5 kids (including a set of twins) and said she thought that sending a 'wild' one was god's way of letting you know that you had fulfilled his plan.  It definitely worked for us - Ryder completed our family :)

He is exhausting some days, but always entertaining.  He is starting to talk in sentences more and it is so fun to have insight in to his little mind.  He recently moved up rooms at daycare and he was talking to me as I rocked him this week "I push Rowan.  Not nice."  I said "you are right, that isn't nice to our friends.  Are you going to push Rowan tomorrow?"  Ryder's response:  "Yes" He is also our honest one :)  One of my favorite things right now is when we are riding in the car and hit a bump and I hear "Whoa Momma!" 

Addisen:  She is our princess.  Aunt Jenny's sister, Julie made her a beautiful Cinderella dress and she LOVES to wear it.  Most nights she is dressed in it and asking Daddy or Ryder to dance with her.  Her preschool teacher has said she reminds her of Punky Brewster - and it is so true!  She loves to wear sparkles, skirts, tights, really anything girly with color.  She keeps us on our toes and has a great imagination.  Some of my favorites things recently have been:  watching a show one night she came to me and said "mom, if you know a giant you can crawl in their hand and they will walk you around."  I said, "Didn't you say that you would grow to be a giant before?  When you do, will you walk me around in your hand?"  She said "I will, I will watch where I am walking so I don't break any houses or roads.  Actually, I better crawl so I don't break the roads".  She also said to Ryder one night at dinner: "When you grow up to be a superhero will you rescue me?".  And our favorite right now is her time in the bathroom.  She has decided that she has to make an angry face to go #2.  She has made sure that all of us and her teachers and daycare are aware that she can not go while making a happy face, it has to be an angry one.  No modesty :)

Brody:  He is our big boy, the one that is teaching us all the lessons on being a parent.  We have recently been going through tougher times.  I thought dealing with all the breathing issues as he grew up was difficult, it is nothing compared to emotions and self awareness!  I just can't fix all his problems anymore, and that is tough to accept.  I have spoken to many moms and it seems that what he is going through is pretty normal, but as they all say, it is so hard.

Brody is our sports guy (and daddy is enjoying every minute of it) - he loves all sports but recently started learn to skate.  It took a lot of hard work (hard for mom to watch practice) but he has excelled and recently started in the learn to play lessons.  He has some tough decisions to make as he grows up :  NFL or NHL.  It is so fun to listen to him reason through what team he should play for, the innocence of not knowing how thankful he would be just to make the high school team :)  It is good to dream big.

 

My plan is to update weekly with a few pictures and stories of the week - so plan to check back in on us again.

Ryder Turns ONE!

He is ONE!  Where did the year go?

Our sweet baby boy celebrated his first birthday with an awful cold!  The poor guy looked miserable, but was still happy!  It even lead to his left eardrum rupturing in the middle of the night!  The boy can tolerate pain, he didn't even do more than wimper!

I celebrated Ryder's the birthday the same way I did the year before - teaching.  I had to teach until 5:30 on his birthday, I was pretty bummed to not get to spend too much time with him.

Not too interested in his presents.  We got him the traditional chair with his name on it!  That was probably the biggest hit, he loves to climb!

We celebrated Jim's birthday the next night!  The kids were so excited to have so much cake and ice cream!

Our big boy on his new ride!  He loves the zebra that his aunts and uncles sent him.  He still isn't walking, but that does not stop him from being very mobile!  He doesn't crawl too much unless he wants to get somewhere quickly.  If he is crawling he has his head down and is going full speed!

Ms. Terri made him the sweetest birthday sign!  It is so fun to look back at the pictures and remember what he looked like.  I forgot how big his cheeks use to be!

We celebrated on Ryder's birthday with cupcakes.  At first he wasn't too sure, he took the frosting and wiped it on his chair.  Once Jim put a little taste in his mouth he started to dive in!

On Saturday we celebrated three birthdays - Ryder, Jim and Jenny.  Crazy that they are all in a row!  We have had an awful winter full of snow and I was so happy that my parents, brother and Jenny could make it on Saturday in the midst of another storm.

 I was able to get a lot of good pictures with Grandma!

Such a big boy!  He wasn't too interested in opening the presents, but he loved to climb on them!

Brody LOVED opening Ryder's presents for him!

Sisterly love!

He was spoiled with new toys and clothes!

I made him a birthday cake for Saturday's party.  By that point he was a pro at eating cake!

We have been trying to get him to take to the sippy cup.  So far he likes to throw it on the floor a lot more than drink out of it.

My handsome ONE year old!

I cannot believe how fast this year has gone.  I can vividly remember walking over to the hospital knowing that this little baby would be born soon.  I can still picture the doctor telling me it was a boy (I really had convinced myself we would have another little girl) and I am still experiencing the joy of having a healthy family of five!  Wow....what we experienced in the last year.  The colic...at the time that we were living that I never thought it would end.  I wondered if I was loving him enough...at times wondering how to love a baby that just screamed at me...and now looking back I see that it made me love him even more.  It almost seems like it was this test of time...meant to make me realize the good and the bad and rejoice in the good!  I never thought we would be where we are today - we have a good routine in our family....everyone is sleeping through the night consistantly!  Ryder is the sweetest little boy - he lights up a room with his shy little smile.  He melts your heart with his big eyes.  He went through a phase of lowering his head and peeking up to see you - so cute!  He is going to have the same sense of humor as the rest of us...he already thinks we are funny!  He is my EATER!  He has eaten a whole cheeseburger in one sitting!  I wasn't paying attention and just kept feeding him and then realized it was gone...since them I have tried to monitor his intake!  Although at his well child appointment she said he isn't overweight so we should let him eat what he wants (~23lbs).  He is in the 75th percentile for height and weight - he is solid!  I just couldn't imagine our family without him...and I'm so excited to see who he becomes!

Grandma and her birthday boy!

The birthday clan!

 

Give me that cake Dad!

Everyone agreed that the cake was good!

Winter Fun on the Lake

Our neighbors at the cottage invited us to come out for a bonfire on the lake.  Sounded like something that wasn't very safe to me but Jim said they use to do it all the time growing up!  When we got there they had a sled hooked up to a fourwheeler and were pulling the kids around on the lake.  At first Brody was scared (and I was apprehensive to let him go without a helmet!) but Elliot convinced him it would be okay.  Rob was so nice to go very slow with him.  He had a great time!

My cute little guy!  Ryder stayed warm with all of his layers and a blanket!  I still worry about the kids being too cold!

Addisen was very scared to go out on the ice.  I had to walk with her everywhere when we first got out there.  She did enjoy playing and eating some of the snow for a little while before we headed in.

Brody on his ride!

Enjoying her snowcicle!

Love that little face and big eyes!

Bath Time!  Ryder loves the water!  He loves to splash and watch the water come out of the faucet.  He typically has Addisen or Brody join him for part of his bath.  Unfortunately he really likes to stand up in the tub, for whatever reason he seems like he can stand easier in there than out of the water!