Andrew Turns 9

The long awaited day finally has come!  Andrew finally turns 9.  The whole week before that is all he could talk about.  Thankfully the kids had Friday and Monday off, so that meant Andrew didn’t have to go to school on his birthday.  We had the whole, entire day to make his one birthday wish come true….To have the best day every.  Talk about no pressure….

 

We kicked off the day with a trip to Cabelas.  Andrew loves this store and all its guns, camping stuff, and just a boy heaven.

I wish I would have taken a picture of Andrew and Ben working with the employee to decide which gun to get.  It was adorable how seriously they took this job of picking out the best airsoft gun possible.  Finally, the one was decided!

Then we met Dad for a quick lunch at Andrew’s choice, Chili’s.  Nothing like nasty mac & Cheese!  Good thing their dessert makes up for it!

After lunch we went home for a few minutes of rest.  Then off to our next adventure!  BOWLING!  Andrew did after school bowling club this year and he has really taken to it. 

Z always makes himself comfortable…..

We had the WHOLE place to ourselves!  It was awesome!

Of course we needed a DQ stop….

Then we rushed home to get ready for the first soccer games of the season!  That will get its own post next….After a fantastic run of soccer games, we realized it was 8pm and I had nothing for dinner planned.  What do we do?  Marco’s Pizza to the rescue!  Since we didn’t have a cake either….Kroger to the rescue!  Check out this amazing sunset while we ran around picking up dinner…

Finally around 9pm we got home to eat pizza, open presents, and have desserts.  Gift wrapping was a towel.  Not my finest moment…

Andrew’s dream cake was a chocolate cake covered with swiss rolls.  Dad to save the day!

All in all I think Andrew had a great day.  Whatever he wanted to do, the answer was yes.  In fact Ben got in major trouble before we left and I told him he couldn’t come as a punishment.  Andrew used his trump card and let him come anyway.  This nine year old is such a tender, sweet, crazy, inventive, smart, deep thinker who I couldn’t imagine our family without!  We love you Andrew!

Mediocre

Last Sunday as the three big kids ran to hop in the van there was calling of the front seat mania!  Kallie won, followed by Ben calling the captain chair, and poor Andrew in the back.  The following conversation took place.

A:  UGH!  When I have my children I’m going to give the front seat only to the oldest and youngest child!

K:  What about the middle child?

A:  I’m only mediocre about them.

K:  You know your a middle child, right?

A:  Ohhhhhh……….

Mediocre about the Middle Child

 Last Sunday as the three big kids ran to hop in the van there was calling of the front seat mania! Kallie won, followed by Ben calling the captain chair, and poor Andrew in the back. The following conversation took place.

A: UGH! When I have my children I’m going to give the front seat only to the oldest and youngest child!

K: What about the middle child?

A: I’m only mediocre about them.

K: You know your a middle child, right?

A: Ohhhhhh……….

Easter Treasure Hunt

Grandma’s treasure hunts are the highlights of every holiday.  I love that my kids are getting older and they want to help set the hunts up for the younger kids.  Ben was a big help and did pretty much the whole set up.  It was adorable.

This tricky bunny drew a bunny nose on Zack.  He even sported it during church…which was adorable.

Feet prints to the front door with jelly beans!

Hopping contest

The absolute best bunny ears this year!

Bunnies always forget to flush and clean up after themselves!

My favorite picture from the day…

This is a close second…

Ready to find their baskets!

Kal was first this year!

Zack was second (with lots of help from his older sister)

Finally Andrew found his

Ben had to get a little help…but finally found his basket!

Zack’s favorite part of his Easter basket?  His very own BOX of trail mix!  He might be a little obsessed

Just exploring their baskets.  I love these kids of mine!

Benjamin’s Health Scare…Part 1

After our miserable Spring Break with everyone getting sick, Benjamin told us he was having a hard time breathing.  Since this only came up when it was time to do chores, (and he was fine enough to go to soccer) I was not inclined to make him a doctors appointment and have him seen.  Christopher really pushed the issue, so I called and got him in.  Of course it was a crazy day with piano lessons, soccer, picking kids up at school, etc….so I had Christopher meet me at the doctors (which was running over an hour late).  I had to leave to run the other kids around and Christopher stayed.  I was positive they would say he had a virus and he’d be fine.

Then Christopher calls.  The doctor wants him to go in for another x-ray and an EKG.  Chris takes him in and I figured that would be it.  It wasn’t.

Later that night Ben’s doctor calls and asks me if Benjamin had ever aspirated anything.  I couldn’t think of anything and that’s when she told me there was a dark area of his lower right lung.  The spot was there in November when Ben had pnueuioma and they chalked it up to being sick…but if that was the case it shouldn’t be there five months later.  She wanted us to see a lung specialist.  They got us in the next day.  An hour later they call back and let us know his EKG came back abnormal as well.  It showed that Ben had a right ventricle conductor delay and needed to be seen by a cardiologist.  I’m feeling like mom of the year right about now.

Dr. Wolfe, the lung specialist, had Ben do tons of tests before we met with him.  Ben did each test three times, then had a dose of albuterol, then redid all the tests.  After the tests (that took over an hour) we met with Dr. Wolfe who let us know that for some reason the bottom of his right lung is not able to release all the air in it completely.  He wasn’t sure if there was a blockage preventing it from deflating,  infection, or something else.  We decide to go the easy way first, meds.  They put Ben on a steroid with an inhaler.  We will go back in two weeks, redo all the tests, and see if the spot is gone and his breathing is improved.  That happens on the 26th.

 

 

The day after seeing the lung doctor, we had an appointment with the cardiologist.  He was a great guy, chatted with us for a few moments, got a history then examined Ben.  He found that Ben had a deformity on his chest, a very mild one.  His chest is concaved and that could have been the reason for the unusual heartbeat.  He also explained the real reason why we were able to get into these two very busy doctors so quickly.  The right side of the heart is what pumps blood into the lungs and so they were making sure these two abnormal tests were not related.  Ben gets an ultrasound of his heart and everything looks good, except his aorta. His aorta is within the normal range, however it is at the very top of the range.  He wants us to return in three years to make sure his heart is still in the correct rhythm and his aorta is not growing too fast.

So for now Ben takes his inhaler before he does anything active or plays trumpet.  He has good moments and moments that scare me a little bit.  Like tonight when he was playing soccer he got very winded.  I’m excited to go back to the lung doctor and see if the black part of his lung has cleared. 

Chores…

Zack’s room is always a mess.  I asked him to go to his room and clean it and not to come out until it was done.  I was so proud of him because an hour went by and he was still “working”.  I went to check on his progress and saw this….

Since I was still feeling sick and tired I took a picture, turned around, and went to bed.  I got an hour nap in.  So all in all….a win.