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What a Day!

We were getting ready for church this morning and Jack was getting dressed and we noticed big welts all over his body. He hadn't eaten anything new....he hadn't played in the woods..we didn't know what it was. It figures something like this would come up the day before our trip. So Chad and Jack went to the Urgent Care while I took the others to church. I didn't put Evan in the nursery because he woke up with the sniffles. Ryan went to Sunday School. Well, when I picked Ryan up after his class...I find out that he had been stung by something out on the playground. Nothing came of that...thank God. He apparantly is not allergic and he didn't even cry about it. I would have. I also lost my keys somewhere at church. They were found by someone and turned in. That just added a little bit more chaos to my day.

The doc at Urgent Care gave Jack a RX for prednisone and said that it was hives and he didn't know from what. He said it could be viral related, stress related, allergy related....who knows? We will have to follow up with our ped. to investigate. The hives got somewhat worse from the time they left Urgent Care and getting the RX filled but after he had his first dose and took a nap...alot of the hives were gone. He has had 3 doses and they are gone but he has to take the medicine for the next 5 days.

Of course...I had to give a visual.

Their Turn

This is our 2nd week trying to have one on one time with our children. It was Daddy and Jack's turn. Jack wanted to go to the Science Center. The two of them went to Panera Bread for breakfast and then spent the morning at the Science Center. Jack got a ladybug painted on his cheek. The next few weekends will be family time and then Ryan and Daddy will go on a date. I hope this helps with the extreme jealousy that seems to be happening between the boys.

Lunch

We had Ryan's teacher from last year over for lunch. We had a great time chatting and eating. She brought some delicious cake from Maxie B's. His other teacher couldn't make it...we hope to have her over for lunch soon too.

She brought us a pumpkin plant to add to our garden.

Weekly Winners

Weekly Winners

July 20-July 26th

Hula Hoop Anyone?





I thought it was soooo imaginative of the boys to pretend that this carseat was a rocketship. They both took turns sitting in it upside down and then counted down to blast off.

3-2-1...Blast OFF!!


3-2-1 BLAST OFF!!



THE BOYS


YOu don't have to turn your whole body...just the steering wheel.

Evan and his thumb....always have to throw one of those in the mix.

See more weekly winners hosted by LOTUS here.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a pool?

We went to a friend's house today and played in her pool. Before I even had my swimsuit on....Jack had already stepped off of the stairs and his head was underwater. I didn't think I could reach him to pull him out so I jumped in...fully clothed. Hmmm...Swim lessons in our future?

There are my clothes drying in the sun.




My boys.





Relaxing after a swim.


Looks like trouble...huh?




Having some time with their daddy after a day at the pool.

Our First Tomatoes

We started a garden this year and we have had fun watching everything grow. We already have picked squash, broccoli, and green beans and this past week we finally got our first tomatoes. WHOO HOO! Jack loves tomatoes so much he would like to take a bite of them right out of the garden.

Ryan's Self-Portrait

Ryan painted this self-portrait this past year in preschool and I thought it was the coolest picture. I am not biased or anything ;). I finally got it framed to hang in his room. What do ya think?

What do YOU do while you wait to see the doctor?

What do YOU do while you wait in the doc's office?

Of course....I played with my camera.

Jack colored a picture.

Evan layed on the bed not knowing he was getting ready to see a urologist.

"Mommy won't put her camera down will she?"

And Ryan was at his buddy's house having a goodtime. Thanks gooddog!


We went to a pediatric urologist for a consultation on Tuesday for Evan. He has very mild hypospadius so he has to have his circumcision done by a specialist. His hypospadius will also be taken care when the circumcision takes place at a day surgery clinic at Brenner's.

The nutritionist came out to see Evan on Wednesday and he is up to 11 lbs 6 ounces now.

Weekly Winners

Weekly Winners

July 13-July 19th

Brothers

Buddies

"To Infinity...and Beyond"

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Do you see the praying mantis?........

He is biting off the wing of a ladybug!

See more weekly winners here.

WALL-E

Our family is going to try and do dates with our kids individually on Saturday afternoons. This was our first Sat. I went with Ryan to a movie. Daddy and Jack will go somewhere next Saturday afternoon. The boys are always together. We thought maybe they would feel real special if they got some special one on one attention.


We went to see Wall-E. It was a cute movie. My buddy Gooddog was with us-I should have had her take a picture of both Ryan and I in front of the movie poster....I know she probably would've rolled her eyes...but that's O.K. she knows I'm quirky like that and have to take pictures of absolutely everything.

A Quick Trip

Just me and the boys travelled about an hour and half south to see my brother's new house. My brother and his family just moved here from Missouri. The boys loved the old tire swing in their new backyard. There was a treehouse fort but my brother said he wasn't thinking and had the other owners tear it down. The boys would've loved that when they visit. Oh well...at least there is a swing. We are glad that they live so close.....if I could only get my other brother and his family to move close.

*I am so bummed. My oldest niece is not pictured because she stayed back in Missouri to go to college. I miss her. Evan is not pictured because he was sleeping and I had already put him in the car.*

A Little Bit of Country

Here are some more pictures from our trip. They were taken with my other camera.

Evan's MRI

On Tuesday, July 8th-Evan had an MRI done to check on his enlarged ventricles to make sure we were not dealing with hydrocephalus again.

What a disaster of a day.

It is always a long day when we go to DUKE.

We were told to be there at 1130 for a noon MRI. We were not called back until 1230. Mind you....Evan must fast for this test. He had only a bottle of water at around 8am. His last bottle of formula was 8pm the night before. Needless to say he was a bit cranky.

They did not give him anesthesia until after 1. It was almost 2 when they took us into the MRI room...and guess what? Evan woke up and we had to leave the MRI room to try some different anesthesia. They said that they would have to give him an I.V. and that would be very difficult because of his size. They told us that he probably wasn't settling down because he was too hungry. (You think?) Anyways...they said we could reschedule, try the I.V. or feed him.

We opted to feed him and he did go to sleep...so we walked him back down the hall to the MRI room. Finally....the MRI was complete by 3pm.

Our doctor's appt was at 2pm. After the MRI..we headed upstairs to see the doc and surprisingly we got right in. He said that the ventricles are still mildly enlarged and that could still be because he was premature. He can see the floor of the aqueduct which he said is a good thing. He does not believe that we are dealing with hydrocephalus but would like to keep in eye on him for awhile. We will be following up with our pediatrician. We will just have to wait and see...watch for signs and symptoms.

Our next appt. will be at Wake for a urologist and plastic surgery in the next couple of weeks. We also have a genetics appt soon.

Vacation

We left at 730pm on Friday-27 June thinking that the kids would be up for a few hours and then sleep the rest of the way of the 9 to 10 hour drive to our destination.

Of course, we brought our own potty so we wouldn't have to deal with rest stop or gas station bathrooms-EWWWW!!!

By the way...I totally forgot to update a post on Jack's potty training. He went straight to big boy underwear on the 2nd of June and we haven't gone back. He has had only 2 or 3 accidents. Of course he wears pullups to bed. I thought he would sleep on our trip that is why I put him in a pullup.

They are holding up their "tickets." I gave them "tickets" at the start of our trip for each state that we passed thru. They were to keep track of their tickets and when we came to a state line they were to hand me the correct ticket to get a prize. When we passed a state line they got a prize. Hmmm...is that why they couldn't sleep? Too excited to sleep? Hmmmm.....

Evan slept almost all the way. Ryan and Jack on the other hand slept for only about 2 hours and it wasn't consecutively.

We arrived in Florida around 3am and at our final destination (a friend's house near Orlando) at 5 am on Saturday morning.


We slept a few hours and then went to the pool. I was afraid that Evan was going to get off his schedule while on vacation but he did just fine.

Sunday, my friend threw a party for the nursery workers at her church since she is the director. She tries to do that twice a year for them. She had one of those gigantic blow up water slides which was a blast.

Monday we went to the Science Center. That was fun. They had a new exhibit where you could pretend like you were fixing a car. You could change the tire, the filter, the fluids. The kids had a blast.

Tuesday -we went on an unplanned excersion to the Magic Kingdom. We were not going to go there for another year or so and planned to leave Evan with grandparents-maybe.


Well-we got an opportunity of a lifetime. We were in the right place, at the right time and were able to get into the park -FREE! Can you even believe it? Our friends in Florida know someone that works at one of the other Disney Parks and he apparantly has the priveleges of giving guest passes. WHO HOO! This was totally unexpected. I panicked a little about how we were going to manage having a baby in the park and still have a good time with the older boys. We had a blast! We stayed at the Magic Kingdom until Midnight. We saw 2 parades and we got to see the 4th of July fireworks because they were doing a practice run that night. Ryan and Jack said their favorite part was meeting Buzz Lightyear and riding the Buzz Lightyear ride. We got to ride all sorts of transportation-bus, monorail,boat, train.

The boat to the Magic Kingdom

You could choose the boat or monorail to get there...we decided to ride the boat there and the monorail back.

Family photo-minus Evan

Family photo-plus Evan

A highlight of our day

Their fav ride.

Another favorite-the 3D movie
We only let Jack have his paci at naptime and bedtime. He obviously missed both of those at Disney so when he got tired and a little cranky we broke our own rule.

Where shall we go next?

Of course, we had to drive the race cars.

This was at around 8 0r 9 after standing in line for almost an hour.

A fairy godmother peeked into Evan's stroller during the parade-(Obviously) I was way too close to get a good photo.

The Monorail that we rode back to the bus to get to our car. (It was midnight)

The end of a very long day!


I will update the rest of our trip with pictures in the next couple of days....so come back and see our day at the beach and Downtown Disney.

OK...I'm back and am updating the blog about the rest of our trip.

Wednesday we stayed low key and just went to a city park where there was a splash pad-sprinkers and a playground.







Thursday-we went to Ponce Inlet Beach and headed to Downtown Disney after that.



Their collection of shells







We had fun digging for crabs and then watching the crabs run around.







Look! The Goodyear Blimp!










The only time I took Evan out of the seat from under the umbrella was for him to eat. I was afraid of him being exposed to the sun. Maybe next year we will get a good family photo at the beach with all of the boys.












The following pics are from Downtown Disney. We headed there after the beach. Oh what fun! There was a place there called the Lego Imagination Center where you could build legos and there were lots of big things already built such as....


this BIG Dinosaur and




these dog walkers. Amazing..HUH?!

Of course, we made a purchase because these boys love to build legos.


If you notice behind them...there is a worker building a huge VW bug.




We went into another shop that had hats,





hats,





hats,





hats,





and more hats.




There was another store that you could build any kind of Mr. Potato head you wanted. Even a Buzz Lightyear one.


I thought this was such a cute pic esp. of Jack carrying Evan's little diaper bag. He was being my little helper.



Friday which was the 4th of July-we went to the mall and ate lunch and let all the kids play in the playarea. In the evening we headed to the science center and watched the movie Sea Creatures in the IMAX theater and then watched the downtown Orlando fireworks from the upper parking deck.






Saturday we said goodbye to our friends in Florida.


and left left for to see the INLAWS. We got there around 8pm and visited for a day and half.
Nice to visit the country. Chad's sister has 6 llamas and the boys absolutely love them.










Sunday we went to a country restaurant that we always go to when we go to TN called The Farmer's Daughter. It is really good.


Monday we headed back to NC at about noon and we reached our destination about 430pm.

WOW-What a week!

We went from the beach to the mountatins.

We had to get back because Evan had an MRI to get to on Tuesday the 8th.