Doctors, Parades and Circus',... Oh My!

What a way to spend your day 2 Dr's visits an ER visit, an Elephant Parade and the Circus to top it all off!

Some days are more than an adventure around here. First, we had Grif's surgery follow-up to see how well the surgery went. The good news is he passed the hearing test this time. Hooray! We are so grateful that we could solve his hearing problem with a short surgery. The only problem is that he get s over stimulated by all the noise around him, but that is something I can easily remedy.

Just for fun Jar got to go to the Elephant Parade Downtown with friends so he wouldn't have to hang out at the Doctors office with us. We made it just in time to join them for all the fun but Grif did not like it much after the tall men came to see him. I love seeing happy laughing kids. It makes all the extra craziness worth it.

Next we had Jar's well kid check. Still small but doing okay other wise. Our Doctor just loves our boys and makes me fell like I am doing something right. She is a good doctor.

Then we surprised the boys and took them to the Circus. I hadn't been forever and so it was fun for all of us. The motorcycles in the ball were the best part of it all. We could join the circus and make a cute clown family.

Jaron's Birthday Party

Better late than never right?! After the week we were having I really thought about cancelling but I just couldn't do it. Jar was so sick on his Birthday I wanted him to have a good time. So I called in the reinforcements and had Aunt Nina come help me run the Carnival Party.

It was awesome! Good idea for a party if you want to use it (if I do say so myself). We played all kinds of Carnival games and the kids had tickets and prizes for each game. Then we had popcorn and snow cones for dessert (good no dairy treats) we even had dairy free cupcakes.

With 13 kids and being the games manager and party host I forgot to take pictures of the games but here is what we did. We started with fishing so the kids could get their prize bags and tickets. Then we did a Bean Bag toss, Basketball shop, Balloon pop, Coin toss, and Ring Toss. Then we had the bouncy house for extra fun. We had a blast and I was so grateful for my big sister's help. I couldn't have pulled it off without her help!

More ER Trips

While Grif was in his surgery Jax was being chased by the girls at school and knocked half of his permanent tooth out again. I had a message from him saying "Mom, there was and accident will you come up to the school." So Grif still in his surgery jammies and I went to check him out. Nothing that needed immediate attention so I left him at school and went home to get an emergency dentist apt scheduled. Jar lost a filling that week too so he had to get his tooth fixed also but his wasn't as big of an emergency so we bumped him to the next week.

Thursday brought more excitement!!! Aunt Nina picked up Grif from preschool so he could still go, he loves school, there is no sense in taking him to the dentist with us right?! Jax did great he is getting to be an old pro at having permanent teeth fixed. This is number 3 adult tooth now. By the time I got Jax back to school, Grif picked up and then Jar from school we had lots of catching up to do. We stopped for a quick trip at the grocery store to get a few basics and then mom had to make all of her soccer phone calls to let them know about the team meeting that night. Well, I thought briefly about nap time but the boys were playing so well I thought I would leave them playing for a bit. Bad idea #1.

On my first phone call to let the team know I would be late to the team meeting because of dance I heard Grif start crying but I wasn't alarmed until Jaron came in to get a couple tissues. I thought I would go check and it is a good thing I knew the mom I was talking to because I scared her to death. I found Grif laying on the floor with his whole eye full of blood. At first I thought he had injured his eye. Thank goodness he only split the corner of it open. WHile they were dancing he hit it on the rocking chair and popped it right open. I hang up quickly saying something like "his eye is full of blood, I am going to the ER." Poor friend was panicking. We jumped in the car and headed to the nearest urgent care. Bad idea #2 of the day! There were so many road closures I could have made it to the children's hospital faster. We finally made it and the triage nurse (same one as Jaxon's for stitches) came out and recognized us right away. One glance and she sent us packing to the children's hospital anyway. GRRRRR!

We finally got there after dropping Jar off at Grandpa's office on the way. The triage nurse there wanted to have him sedated right away but that is when my protective mamma bear released itself. After his bad experience the day before I wanted to attempt it without sedation first. They were not so sure and kept reminding me that that he was a little boy and there was no way he would hold still. Finally, we made an agreement that if he struggled they would use and IV and a different sedation than surgery day. He had fallen to sleep on the way up and was laying so quiet and clam in my arms I was so relieved they were willing to appease a stressed mom.

Let me just tell you he was AMAZING! They wrapped him up in a sheet like a little burrito and he did not move. He didn't even flinch when they did the shots right next to his eye. On the second to last stitch he said, "I'm done!" They just whispered to him and told him that he would only have one more. So he laid there patiently till he felt the tugging stop and he said, "Okay I done. I want a lurpee (slurpee) and puppy." They quickly obeyed his orders and brought his slurpee and puppy.

This was proof to me that miracles do happen. I don't know why we have so many adventures all at one time but I realized I could make it another hour having this miracle occur and not have to go through the waking out of sedation again.

We finished the day with dinner from grandma as we flew out the door to dance and soccer team meeting. We survived to start another day of three little boys again. I also am truly grateful with all of our challenges our boys are still healthy enough to enjoy life and be active enough to have these exciting adventures.

Surgery Day

Recently we found out that Grif could not hear very well. We knew that his speech was behind but we didn't exactly know why. We took in for some testing early in June at the Early Education Center and they tested him to see where he was at compared to other 3 year-olds. He had a great time and he did very well on the following directions and understanding portion. In fact he was 3-4 levels above average. Which wasn't surprising because he is probably our best listener. But his speaking and communication skills were 3-4 levels below average. So they did a tympanogram and he failed on both ears. So we tested him again at his 3 year-old well check. This time he failed one ear and marginally passed the other ear. We still didn't know what was causing this yet so we needed to get more testing before he started Preschool and and worked with the Speech Language Pathologist.

Finally I got him in to see an ENT specialist and low and behold he failed the test again so they performed the infant hearing test. He failed those miserable too. So the long story short is he couldn't hear everything like we do because there was so much fluid behind his eardrums he heard everything like he was under the water. That explains his closed mouth guttural speech. That is what we all sounded like to him. So luckily there was a cancellation that just came in and he was able to be scheduled for surgery to fix is problem quickly.

Easy enough fix he just had to have tubes placed in his ears to drain all of the annoying fluid. We still didn't know if this was going to fix everything but it was our first try. The day of the surgery daddy got to come with and it was such a blessing. We needed him. Once they gave Grif the sleepy meds he just got silly. He was laughing and hiccuping and playing with his funny blue hat. they took him away and before we even got to talk to the Dr. again we could hear him screaming on the other side. He didn't think this was so funny anymore. He continued to scream and bite and spit for a long time so we finally go permission to just take him outside. He wanted nothing to do with the hospital anymore. He recovered quite quickly through the rest of the day.


We had his follow-up apt the next week and he passed all of his tests with flying colors this time. We already knew that he was hearing better since he has stopped us to figure out what is making such strange noises all around him. He heard a bird out back and the ceiling fan in his room for the first time. I felt so bad but now I am just happy that he can hear and we didn't have make him suffer unknowingly any longer. Now he gets overstimulated and we have to quiet things down. Which is just fine with mom!

The First Days of School

Everyone at our house started school on a different day this year. All three boys couldn't wait to start and have been so happy with their teachers and their new classes.


No fear! Grif didn't even get to go to his preview day of school since he was so sick but he was ready for his new adventure.


Jar has waited and extra long time to get to ride the big yellow bus and he hates to miss the bus. That is a sure fire way for him to have a bad day. He is doing so well in school and is reading whole books to mom. I love it!

I will have to get daddy to send me the pics of Jax because they are MIA right now.

Playing Piano

Jaxon is taking piano lessons and he is doing so well. He does put up a rather large fuss the first day he practices his new songs but by the end of the week he has them practically memorized. He had his first song with hands together last week and I thought we were both going to struggle with it but he actually got it really quickly. He definitely did not get that talent from me. Playing with two hands for me is harder than speaking Japanese. That's not a good comparison let's just say. I am not an accomplished pianist like my sisters.
He has his first recital coming up and suprisingly he is excited for it. Last week he said "Mom I am soccer player, basketball player and a piano player." It makes me happy he added the piano in with his all time favorites.

Stitches for the first time.....

WARNING!!!




We almost made it through the entire summer without having to visit the ER once. We blew it on Friday night with a bike ride. Jaxon was tired and worn out but we were almost there so we encouraged him to go a little faster. SO he did......

He stood up to get a little extra power and his foot slipped off the peddle. The rest is history. We aren't sure what he got cut on but whether it was his bike or the asphalt it doesn't really matter. It just did a lot of damage.

Swimming in the Rain

What do you do on a Summer's Day? We go swimming in the rain when it is only 50 degrees outside. That wasn't exactly our idea of fun but that is how it turned out when we picked up cousins for a day at the pool. Grandma, Auntie and her friends were heading up to a condo to play cards so we thought we would use the pool. Who knew how bad the weather was going to be.

I would definitley not have taken 5 kids to the pool 30 miles away if I knew what our crazy weather would do. At first Jaxon and Elena decided it would be fun to swim in the rains since the water was really warm. But that fun ended when the lightning started and the rain started coming down sideways. Good thing there was a sauna we could hide in and stay warm and dry till we could make a dash for the condo.

We crashed the Hanna party for a while. I was determined that it would be done raining by 2 o'clock or we were going home. Right on schedule the rain stopped and we went back to the pool for more fun. The kids were thoroughly disappointed when I dragged them out of the pool so we could go home for football practice and we had tickets to see the Lion King.

Thanks Hanna gang for being so patient while we waited out the storm. Thanks Auntie Sego for letting us come us the fun pool!!

Bowling for Buzzards

We wanted to do something really fun for our last week of summer and we decided that bowling would be a great idea. The boys had a great time. They helped each other and cheered for each other and Jaxon was only slightly grumpy when his little brothers beat him. I had to remind him that he did it the hard way and they did it the easy way pushing it down the ramp. It was only mildly consoled but we still had lots of fun and lots of laughs. (Good thing it was before his bike accident or we wouldn't have been able to go bowling with all of his stitches)