Big news!!!

Look at this beautiful baby!!!!

"Oh, almost, baby girl! Keep trying!!"

"There! You got it!!"

Doctors, doctors everywhere!

For the past 3 nights, we've been at doctor's offices but mostly for check-ups, not sickness, thank goodness! And actually the first 2 nights weren't doctor-doctor's at all but dentists. Nathan & Caleb were up first for their cleanings.... Mostly good reports of no cavities but they both definitely need a little work in brushing and flossing. Nathan still has 11 more baby teeth to loose and when most, if not all, of those are gone, we can talk about what we want to do -- if anything -- for the crookedness and gaps. Caleb has officially lost his 2nd baby tooth and other than needing more thorough brushing and flossing, is in good shape. Elizabeth and John were up on Tuesday night (FYI -- our dental clinic will only allow 3 at a time from the same family -- weird, I know -- so I chose to do 2 and 2 until we can do 3 and 3 but you have to be 3 years old to go to the regular clinic that has evening hours). Elizabeth, we found out, has loose teeth and the potential for 1 cavity but they think with more care while brushing and flossing, we might be able to fix that. John got the worst report of all....he has a pretty bad underbite. He's still quite young so they just said we'd watch it. I wonder what treatment for that involves?!?! And then there was this afternoon. It was only supposed to be Caleb's 5 and 6 year check-up (I was a little busy birthing Timothy when Caleb turned 5 and it just kept getting put off with all his health problems...then there came Lydia...). However, this morning when we got up, I noticed Lydia was wheezing so I called and added her to the mix. The on-call doctor on Saturday had said she thought Lydia just had a virus and while our actual pediatrician agreed, she was definitely wheezing. However, it was worse on the right side than the left so that seems to indicate that she's got a clump of mucous somewhere on that right side and when her air flows over that build-up, we hear the wheezing (gross!). The good news is that her cough is very "wet" meaning the junk is still moving while her lungs are not meaning no bronchitis or start of pneumonia. Her ears were also clear so we're stuck with "it's just a virus" again but we are giving her albuterol to help the wheezing. Caleb's check-up went very well! Caleb, Elizabeth, & John are all within 5 inches and 5 pounds of each other, LOL! Caleb's completely average while Elizabeth and John are above average for their ages, making them all basically the same size. Caleb did VERY well getting his (overdue) shots!!! Very proud of him!

Now, a kinda funny story if you know Caleb and his attitude well.... Since Caleb missed his 5 year check-up which would have done his vision screening, they did it today. I could hear them in the next room and I heard Caleb calling out letters...then I heard the nurse tell him to uncover that eye and cover the other one. Caleb said he didn't want to. The nurse encouraged him but then he said he didn't want to 'cause he couldn't see out of that other eye. The nurse was like "No, remember you just read these letters? Let's read them again with your other eye," to which Caleb responded "I TOLD YOU I CAN'T SEE OUT OF THAT EYE!". The nurse then gave up. Later when we were in the room alone, I asked Caleb if he had trouble with one of his eyes. He said yes, that he couldn't see out of one eye. I asked him how long that had been going on and he said "Oh, forever". (Insert giggle here) Then I asked him why he hadn't told me and his reply was "I just didn't want you to know"! (Yep, another giggle here) Caleb can really come up with some doozies sometimes! [And yes, we're getting that checked out....both he & Elizabeth have eye dr appts on 8/21.]

Quiet Thursday other than hounding people calling people to see if they're coming to a church function, Friday will be grocery day, and then a cHaOtIc weekend! Saturday, I have errands to run getting ready for a baby shower, then we have TWO birthday parties which means we'll miss potluck at church with our potential-new-associate pastor and his family. Then Sunday we have lunch after church for the 2nd week in a row so I'll have to make 2 pounds of pasta salad sometime on Saturday. Good thing I'm a SuperMom. I don't know how it'll all get done....

Surgery Day

Yesterday was Timothy's surgery day. The plan was to do a CT scan of his ears & his chest, then move him to the OR to remove his adenoid (yes, there's only 1 -- did you know that?) and do the bronchoscopy. Things went mostly according to plan.... Timothy did WONDERFULLY between 6 a.m. when we got there and 8, when we took him down to CT. Happy as a lark! The CT scan was something completely new to us and it was something I hope to never experience again. In the past, we've always handed an awake, mostly happy Timothy off to an OR nurse. With the CT yesterday, we walked him all the way down to CT and were "allowed" to stay while he was being put to sleep. That was something I never want to see again. Timothy's heart started racing, I could hear him crying even though they had the mask on his face, and once he fell asleep, you could see him almost gasping for breath. Scary stuff, I tell you! That was right at 8 so Jonathan and I went and had breakfast together and then parted ways. Jonathan headed off to work and I headed off to the surgery waiting room. I wasn't there long before a doctor from radiology stopped by to tell me that there was some mis-communication...something about you can't do a chest CT with him intubated but you couldn't do the ear CT without him being intubated. I don't think I quite understood it all but it basically boils down to the fact that they got a decent ear CT but not a decent chest CT. Haven't heard any results from the ear CT. That doctor told me I'd have to return for a new chest CT later on. Then, just minutes after 9, Timothy's ENT came in to tell me his part was all done! He said that Timothy's adenoid was huge, that we had definitely done the right thing removing it. Then he said that Timothy airway looked wonderful!! Still a small airway but growing in proportion to his body size. The good news just kept coming -- he told me that he wants to see Timothy in 6 months but that if he's still growing well, eating well, then we can just keep putting another bronchoscopy off into the future until we need to do it but that there's a good possibility he'll never have to have another one! And, as if that wasn't good enough, he said that since Timothy's bronchoscopy went so well, he doesn't see a need to repeat that chest CT after all! If, however, we were to need to do a bronchoscopy in the future, then we'll repeat that CT. He said that he thinks Timothy will eventually outgrow the noisy breathing he has when he's sick. Maybe around age 4 or 5, he said. They called me back to recovery to sit with Timothy (something else I had never done before) and that was nerve racking for a while. He was clearly uncomfortable and he kept trying to get in positions in my arms that I couldn't hold him in. After several minutes, they just decided to go ahead and give him some morphine but by the time they got back with that, he settled down so we didn't give it to him and we really didn't have any problems after that. They went ahead and moved him to a room and told me I could try to give him juice around 11:30 but only a little at a time. Yeah, right! Timothy was STARVED! He drank 8 ounces of juice very quickly so I ordered him some mashed potatoes and green beans for lunch (his fav foods). He didn't eat very much but he did eat and didn't seem to have any trouble. He took another 4 ounces of juice and then slept off and on between 12 and 3:30. He was very aggravated with the IV tubing and the Pulse Ox monitor tubing that kept getting entangled. But his breathing was perfect and he didn't even have any real "side effects" that we were told to expect like a snoring sound or nausea/vomitting. I tried to take him to the playroom at 4 but he was sooooo mad because he couldn't pick up any toys with that IV still in his hand. So we were there less than 10 minutes. Good thing, though, as we hadn't been back to the room but about 10 minutes when his doctor stopped by (we had been told to expect him between 5 and 6 and this was barely 4:30!). Then the best part, the dr cleared us to go HOME! After they got those 2 tubes off of him, he was his happy little self. Ate part of a rice crispy treat, drank some more juice, had a few bites of mac & cheese (that stuff was NASTY!), and polished off pudding. We left at 5 and were home around 5:30! It was so nice to bring him home and not have to be stuck in that tiny room all night! You'd never know he had anything done! He's as normal as it gets. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

WELCOME BABY BAUER!!!!

Candace had her baby! LILY RENEE was born around 9 a.m. after just about 6 hours of labor! Congratulations Candace, Matt, Austin & Justin! We love you and can't wait to meet this precious little girl.

Robbed

"Aw, man! You were robbed!" We yell that a lot around here, especially while playing Wii bowling when that one pin weaves from side to side but in the end remains standing, KWIM? Well, this isn't one of those type of posts. This is a we've-really-been-robbed kinda post. Not our home, thank goodness, but our van was broken into yesterday. We were eating out after church...the van was parked in a parking lot filled with tons of cars and was locked. Our valuables were not in plain view. We have a little basket in the floor between and passenger and driver seats and that's where we had left them. Doesn't matter, I guess.... Clearly *someone* was looking for something. It wasn't like you could just walk past our van and see anything valuable with a glance. And it happened in broad daylight! He/She/They smashed our passenger window and made off with my purse, a mini-laptop computer, and my iPod charger (but left the iPod and my cell phone which I had left on the dash!). I'm going to assume it's a "they" because they've filled up on a lot of gas with my cards! Before we were done eating, realized what happened, and could get my checkcard shut off, they had emptied our account ~ we have a balance of $1.38, no joke! They spent over $50 at 2 gas stations and it also appears they filled up their gas tanks in addition to the whatever they bought at the stations but we don't know the $ amounts. I had a BP credit card but they didn't get to it before we got it closed down....I also had a 2nd checkcard in there that was attached to a joint account I held with my Mom in S. C. Unfortunately, we were unable to get it closed down until this morning and that was too late. Balance of only $7.80 in there but they put that account in the negative for nearly $150. It is shut down now, too. They also made off with my drivers license, all of the kids social security numbers, a Cracker Barrel giftcard, my checkbook, and our WIC folder. WIC will replace my I. D. card but won't replace any of our coupons which were for milk, cheese, juice, eggs, cereal, peanut butter, or formula for Lydia. In September, we qualify for new coupons. I've called and we're in the process of getting our van window fixed (thankfully, deductible free!). The laptop (which we were buying from a friend so it technically isn't even ours yet) was worth about $300. The thieves have no way of charging it and it wasn't fully functioning anyway (Jonathan was working on it) so it won't do them much good. No idea yet if our homeowner's insurance will cover that our not....As for the money losses, we're in the process of filing disputes for these charges but it can take up to 90 days to get our money back and there's not even a guarantee we will get the money back. And there's still a possibility they can get more money off of us...there's only 1 way and I'm not going to give that information away on here. Wouldn't want to give anyone any ideas. *wink* We can choose to close our account altogether but we'd rather not right now because of our direct deposits/automatic withdraws attached to the account. We're just praying that the thieves aren't smart enough to figure out how to get to more money. But if they do figure it out, we'll have no choice but to close the account. But, for now, if they can find an employee stupid enough, they could even get in the zoo with my membership card. The zoo always asks for an ID with the card ~ and the thieves have my ID ~ but do they look at the picture??? And after that, I guess they can treat themselves to a nice dinner at the Barrel. *sigh* Must get on with making phone calls....please pray for us!

Lookie what's outside

Isn't this amazing??? New life right outside my bathroom window x3!! They're beautiful baby robins! We think they hatched 3 days ago or so and my research tells me they'll be there another 10 days or so. I'm pretty sure the Mommy and Daddy bird hate me (yes, I see 2 of them out there every now and then so I'm assuming it's both the mother and father). It was so weird today when one of the adult birds caught me staring at them today on my way to the bathroom once. And I was constantly shocked out of sleep while napping with the kids when I heard all 3 babies crying at once! Must have been feeding time. I snapped these pictures all within a matter of minutes and then showed the babies to John & Elizabeth and then shut the window so they could be fed. Otherwise, every time one of the adult birds tried to get close enough to feed them, they'd swoop right away and the poor babies would still be like the one in the last picture, necks all craned up with mouths wide open. Even if I tried to hide, it was like they could sense I was there 'cause they'd fly towards the nest but immediately fly away!
Just amazing!!!

Catching up

VBS family night, JohnVBS family night, ElizabethSnowcones after the program -- think John enjoyed his?!?!Can you believe how dirty my kids can get??Can you belive how beautiful my girl is? She did SO GREAT today with her 5-year check-up (3 shots!). She's the size of a 6 1/2 year old girl (hee hee!) and the dr's estimate is 5'8" when she's fully grown!!! She's probably going to have to have glasses though.