Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Here we go again

Tess has her turn at ear tube surgery tomorrow morning. Oh good, because now she won't feel left out! This makes three out of four kids, and actually the fifth set of tubes (not counting Trey's adenoidectomy and my tonsillectomy from the same guy... he likes us!!). We're happy to get to this point. Her hearing is delayed, levels were even lower at her last appointment, and her eardrums have never vibrated since she was born. We're so thankful for the screening in the hospital that clued us in on everything so early! All of that to say that we're ready!

**Update on The Girl: She's doing great! It was a short night of sleep for the Mom, though! I woke Tess up at 11:30pm last night to give her one last feeding before the no-food-after-midnight stipulation. She did wake up at her normal 4:00am, but with a little work I was able to get her back to sleep without feeding her. I, however, stayed up to shower, get ready, throw a load of laundry in, write notes to my school boys, and get Tess's things together to take to the hospital. We left at 5:30am and I was amazed at Tess's disposition with no breakfast and less-than-normal sleep. She was so happy and kept smiling at all of the nurses! She played well and stayed awake the whole time while we waited until her 7:30am surgery time, only getting slightly sleepy towards the end. Afterwards, it took a bit of time for her to come out of the anesthesia. She couldn't keep her eyes open and cried on and off for about an hour. Eventually the drugs kicked in and she settled into a deep sleep. We got home before lunch and she ate great and seemed like her old self again. She's been sleeping a lot today, and I'm actually off to wake her up before she gets her schedule confused. Thank you all for your prayers! The Lord certainly gave us His favor in many little details of the day, and we're happy that she finally has some relief!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Now I'm a Believer...

This baby boy turned 6 years old in December. Can you believe that?! Let me just say that those sweet blue eyes and pretty eyelashes light up even the hardest of days for me. Trey truly is my joy. I tell him that often, and he crashes into me with the biggest hug every time. Trey came just 16 months after Jack, and his babyhood was sort of a blur to me. But what I do remember is that out of all of my babies, he was the least needy. And he still has the ability to do his own thing in a happy sort of way... well, most of the time! He bounces around and has a hard time being quiet, mostly because he is just excited about life. He is creative and artistic, and I said out loud the other day that "I wish I could dance like Trey". The boy has some moves, and a gift for music that I can't wait to see blossom one day. Trey cares about people, and cried the other night when I told him to be firm with a girl at school who has been picking on him (don't worry, she's only secretly in love with him!). He's the first to share or give up a turn for someone else. He makes a new friend at the McDonald's Playplace exactly 30 seconds after we arrive. He begs to read the Bible every night. And he gets his baby sister to smile like no one else can. Now, we're still working on the whining and not interrupting others, but he's come a long way since he started Kindergarten, so there's hope!

He's been six for a month now, but I still wanted to share some pictures from his party since we took the big plunge. You guessed it. THE Chuck E. Cheese's plunge. Now if you're a close friend of mine, I know what you're thinking. That the day would never come. The truth is that I've never been a big fan of this place in the past. Too many kids acting like crazies, the noise volume, and the never-enough-tokens-to-satisfy-any-child dilemma. Oh, and then there's the whole ticket system. Which gets you nothing, except for maybe a microscopic plastic spider for something like 1000 tickets. Which makes your child want more tokens. Are you sensing the cycle (and the humor!) here? And all the while I'm trying to teach my kids to be frugal. But suddenly I'm a believer. And I'll tell you why...
First of all, look at this face. That is one happy boy. And sometimes it's OK
that it's all about the experience, and nothing about what you take home with you,
except for a very happy kid.
Secondly, we scored big. I shouldn't let you in on my little secret, but we're all friends here and you deserve to know. If you book a party at 10am or earlier, the place is empty. Literally empty in our case until we showed up. Nice. We had our own space to be crazy (space which incidentally had doubled in size the day before, when they opened up the newly remodeled part for the first time ever. Twice the games, twice the fun! What timing - a total accident.). And, the best part.... any party before 10am on a Saturday gets you DOUBLE TOKENS! That's right. Instead of each child getting 20 tokens, they got 40! Definitely enough tokens to get that plastic spider if you play your cards - uh, I mean tokens - right. I like this picture for two reasons: One, because Trey never put his tokens down when he was playing a game. Like someone (Chase) was going to steal them or something. And two, because the shot of Tyler in the background is totally hilarious. That's the Dad alright, feverishly feeding the ticket counting machine, after he had convinced all of the kids to pool their tickets together so they could get one big item to give to Trey for his birthday. Meanie.

The most entertaining part of the day might have been these two, who bought some tokens for themselves and then went back to buy some more. Not sure what Grandma Cain was saying here, but they were both a little competitive, to put it mildly. The party was over and we almost had to leave them there because we couldn't pull them away from the machines. And GrandDad. Oh yeah. He can dance with Chuck like nobody's business.

Now people, don't everyone show up at Chuck E. Cheese's before 10am on a Saturday morning. If you do, then I might be back at square one. :) Or, you might just get talked out of your hard-earned tickets. I wouldn't risk it if I were you.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Christmas in a blur...

...because that's how it felt! It was busy, fun, and tiring with four little people who definitely needed more sleep than they got!
We started off celebrating with Tyler's family in mid-December. Pa and Nana came for Jack and Trey's school Christmas program and stayed the weekend with us. I didn't even have all the stockings hung yet... I was waiting for Tyler to place another nail for Tess's stocking! Decorating went a lot slower for sure this year with a baby in the house.
Christmas morning at our house! Tyler had to work Christmas Day this year, but he was able to go in for the evening shift so we could spend the morning together. What a blessing!
Boys in their jammies! And, as of today... the living room still isn't cleaned up. Hmmm... Guitar Hero World Tour. Not sure if this was for the boys or for the Dad. Either way, these boys can rock. The Mom, on the other hand, has some work to do. I got kicked singing Michael Jackson's "Beat It." Can you believe that? I know, I was shocked too.
Tyler had some time off around New Year's, so we headed to Mom and Dave's in Fort Wayne for stop one of our trip. Trey got the circle sled that he asked for from Garrett and Natalie. Thanks guys... that's way better than a bunch of random weapons (scroll down to Jack and Trey's Christmas list post if you missed it!).
At Mom and Dave's. We're missing at least half a dozen kids in this picture...
Onto Dad and Kim's in Cincinnati for the remainder of our trip. This picture shows one of my favorite parts of Christmas at their house... the stockings (22 here in all - isn't that awesome?!)!
Thought this picture captured the chaos well! :)
Silly stocking stuffers!
Thanks so much to all of our families for housing, feeding and loving on us. We love being with you!! Your gifts were so generous, and now we need to get rid of some old toys to make everything fit!

We're still recovering from the trip... Tess got her first tooth the day after we got home (that explained a lot!), and Trey missed his first day back to school today due to a fever. Whew, we're pooped! Now, I'm off to try to find my living room floor again. Oh, and to buy some batteries.