My Favorite Thing (no S) Giveaway!

I have a new love.  It's my yogurt maker.  I seriously have to restrain myself from eating yogurt with every meal.  Yogurt is easy to make, tastes way better than store bought, is much cheaper, and has nothing artificial added to it!  I love it and want one of you to look forward to breakfast as much as I do!

Here's how you can win an awesome yogurt maker....

-notice the "ticker" on the bottom of the page that tracks the views on the blog
- The person that sends me a photo of the ticker at or closest to 70,000 wins the yogurt maker! (Just take a screen shot and e-mail it to me!)

This may take a while people so be patient!  It will be worth it though - the yogurt is amazing!!

If you can't wait, you can buy the yogurt-maker I use here....

Amazon has everything!

Have fun!

May the best "man" win!

Notable Quotes: Erik

Erik: "Mom, I just wish you would have given me the name Davy Crockett!"

On to Washington!

  Erik has long been fascinated with wars/soldiers.  Since George Washington was a soldier and a president I spent a bit of time teaching Erik about him this weekend.  To continue with the presidential theme I decided to take the trio to Mount Vernon today!

We had a great time!  Erik is old enough now that he is VERY interested in learning new things.  It is fun!!  He really had a good time exploring everything at Mount Vernon.  His favorites... the war movie detailing Washington's military career, exploring the mansion, and seeing the round barn where Washington created a new way to thresh wheat.

I guess they use to do this manually by throwing the wheat up in the air??  The barn he designed was round, with thin opening between the floor boards.  They (the slaves I am sure) laid out the freshly harvested wheat on the barn floor and then horses trotted over it forcing the wheat to separate from the straw.  I wonder what he would think if he saw a combine!

For more accurate info go here... Threshing

This trip was also very last minute and plagued with poor communication (I had the ringer on my phone off).  Despite that we managed to spend an hour or so with my friend Jenn and her kids James and Hannah!  It had been a long time since the kids had seen each other.  Erik and James got along great and spent time discussing their maps and exploring the land.  Very fun but definitely made me miss their family more!  (They are part of my DC playgroup that was a big part of my life while we lived in Alexandria.)

Erik and James - explaining what the hook over the campfire was  for

Lainey and Carson did great too!  Lainey does not enjoy walking, heat, being hungry or tired and I kind of pushed all of these issues today. Ha!  She still seemed to have fun - loved petting the sheep and playing with the baby dolls in the kids museum area.

Sweet Lainey coloring (her baby is coloring too)!

A cabin Erik built, with a little help

Carson is a little terror and was off and running as fast as he could until the very end! :)

It was a fun day!  There are so many neat things to see and do within 2 hours of our house!  I look forward to being able to take lots of day trips with the kids in the future!

Girls Night and Tourism Travels

The past few days have been fun! 

Victor is always generous about letting me spend a night away 1-2 times a year.  I had been super grumpy the past couple of weeks and asked if I could get away for a night this weekend and he was happy to oblige! (Maybe, because I had been so grumpy! It's NOT roses all the time people!) 

I know I have been to California twice this spring by myself which has been great.

I've loved spending time with Daron, no matter what the circumstance.

I'd have to say those trips weren't quite the same as a stress-free day away though.

So, while I felt a bit guilty asking to get away by myself so soon after being in California, I sure did

enjoy the weekend!

I met 3 good friends at a wonderful restaurant in DC (Founding Farmers). 

We had wonderful cocktails, dinner, dessert, and conversation.

It was so nice to see everyone!

Jeni and Karen
Bad lighting and only half of the group

I got a really good deal on a room at the Westin in DC.

I think that was the first time I had ever slept on one of their premier "Heavenly Beds!"

Oh.my.word!  It was awesome!

I slept for 10 hours and don't think I even rolled over!

I wish I had a need for a new bed as that is what I would get for sure!

On Sunday I toured DC as if I was in town on a vacation.

It was fun!

I walked from the hotel over to the Tidal Basin.

I walked around the entire thing. 

I had never seen the FDR or Martin Luther King Jr. monuments so that was neat.

After that I walked over to the Ford Theater and got tickets for a tour, something else I hadn't ever done before.  I learned quite a bit about Lincoln, FDR, and Thomas Jefferson during my explorations.

I have decided I don't think I would have been a fan of Thomas Jefferson.

Did you know that despite being the main writer of the Declaration of Independence ( "all men are created equal") he was a slave owner and unlike many of the other earlier presidents didn't even free his slaves when he died?  Well, the only slave family he freed was Sally Hemings and her children all of which happened to be his kids too (6 of them - not all surviving infancy)?! Wow!!  

He would have really needed a good press secretary if he were alive today!

Self Portraits by Lainey!

Lainey LOVES my phone and tries to steal it constantly.  She works it fairly well although has deleted an app or two unintentionally!  Oops!  Her favorite features are taking pictures, watching videos (especially the one of Erik's preschool spring "concert"), and drawing.  I also look forward to seeing her photos.  Here are some cute ones she took recently. Enjoy!

Summer Fun!

After picking Erik up from camp yesterday I took the kids out for ice cream cones and swimming!  It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon.  Victor picked the kids up at the pool around 6 PM and then I got to swim for 30-40 minutes by myself.  It was excellent.

Carson enjoyed his first ice cream cone a lot!

(I think I may have enjoyed watching him even more though!)

So cute!

My Camper!

Erik has been attending camp all week.

 I was nervous about it because it's everyday (8:45-12:00) and he, nor I, knew anybody else attending or staffing the camp.  The first day I dropped him off I had knots in my stomach and they stayed there until I picked my baby up!  There are probably 200 kids attending the camp this week ranging in age from 4-12 or so.  The first 15 minutes all the kids are in the gym singing worship songs together (it's at a Catholic school).  This is fairly organized but still quite loud and chaotic.

Thankfully, Erik has had no worries.  He LOVES camp!! He has always loved preschool but says this is much better! Ha!  He wants to go every week.  Yesterday, the camp pick up time conflicted with Lainey's gymnastics class.  I asked him if he wanted me to pick him up early or if he would prefer to go to after-care until Lainey and Carson got up from naps (3:30).  He enthusiastically chose after care.  He refused to even consider being picked up early.  He asked to be picked up late again today.  I told him no but suggested he could stay late one day for every week of camp (he is going to 2 more weeks later this summer).

This whole camp thing has been tougher on me than I expected.  He is SO excited about going and I am very, very thankful for that!  That being said, I feel like the mother bird who just watched her baby fly for the first time and it is bittersweet.  It has made me extra thankful that he has another year before kindergarten.  I also had been considering going back to work part time because I think I know the practice I would want to work at and the more time I spend away from the medical field the harder it will be to go back.  Watching Erik flourish at camp (and in other areas) this summer though has reminded me just how short the first few years of their lives really are.  It's the only chance I will get to really spend oodles of time with my kids so for now I will just volunteer once a week instead. (I don't have this arranged but am in the process of doing so.)

The theme for his class is "Intro to Sports."  They talked about the Olympics today.

Notable Moments: Bed Bugs?

Poor Lainey seems to have inherited my sleep habits.  She sleeps through the night well and has for a long time but she is a very picky sleeper (doesn't like to be touched/hugged/share a bed, and needs her blanket/light/music just right), is easily disturbed from sleep (when I close her door and turn off her light before I go to bed she almost always opens her eyes, she won't transfer from carseat to bed), requires a lot of sleep or becomes quite emotional, and most recently has started having vivid dreams.

Poor little thing slept on the floor last night.  When we asked her why she said there were 2 lines of giant black bugs on her bed that were coming to eat her.  She of course was quite scared of them.   The brave little girl just got out of bed and slept on the floor (the bugs couldn't get down there!) instead of coming to get us!

She was so convinced that these bugs were real that she wanted to show them to me first thing this morning.  Of course, they were gone! :)

Another birthday treat for Lainey!

Erik sleeps just like Victor.  If he is tired he can fall sleep anywhere.  Nothing disturbs his sleep. I can pick him up and twirl him around and he still doesn't wake up (I tried it once!).  He wakes up very, very, very slowly and is grumpy until fully awake.  While I thought the day would never arrive, I actually have to force him out of bed some mornings!

Lainey Is 3!

My sweet girl turned 3 this week!   Victor was able to take off of work for her birthday.  We didn't do anything too big but let her open her big presents - a doll house and new princess bike.  We went out to eat as a family and spent the evening at a local beach.

Today we had her long-awaited Olivia Birthday Party!!  She has been talking about it for a month!

I kept the party small and girl's only (with one big brother as the exception so Erik had a buddy present).  I read them the original Olivia book.  Then the kids played an Olivia version of musical chairs, painted a mural (outside on the deck), played in the bounce house, and of course ate cake!

The kids all played nicely together (although Erik was naughty off and on throughout the party, jealous of all the attention and some trouble with being bossy - very irritating and a bit embarrassing).  I really enjoy all the kids and moms that came so we had a nice time.

Victor said afterward, " Maybe this was the start of a playgroup?"  I might pursue that as it would be nice to have a group of friends that I meet with regularly like I had in DC.

Here are a few photos from her big day.....

Sweet Girl, she wouldn't smile for me though!

Olivia Cake - I did NOT make this!

Olivia shirt - I LOVE etsy!

Waiting for the next set of friends to arrive

Ainsley - likes the shop and talk on her phone!

Olivia Book

Reagan

Abby and Lainey

Cake Time

Still no smile! 

Lainey did have a great time at her party! 

I just love this sweet girl!

It seems impossible that she is 3 already, guess I need to stop calling her my "baby girl!"

Health Updates/12:21

Daron:
Well, 12:21 is officially over.  Thankfully Daron is doing well.  His ANC was 2.6 today which means he is no longer neutropenic.  This is a very good thing!  He is trying to wean himself off of the IV pain meds and expand his diet from shakes in preparation for going home (discharge date is not yet determined).  Since he is decreasing the pain meds he is still is a lot of pain but doing well given the circumstance.  We've grown accustomed to the noon prayers for Daron.  Erik watches the clock for it! So we will likely carry on - continue to join us if you so desire!

Me:
I am fine but have had this weird abdominal pain off and on for 3 years.  The first time it happened was during the end of Lainey's pregnancy.  I assumed it was related to the pregnancy and saw my OB doctor about it.  Everything was fine and it went away after 24 hours so I assumed it was a one time thing.

It wasn't.

For the past three years I have had intermittent RUQ and epigastric abdominal pain.  It seems to come out of the blue, usually once every 6-8 weeks, lasting about 24 hours during an "episode."   Some bloating and nausea during an episode in addition to fairly uncomfortable pain.  In between episodes I am essentially asymptomatic.

I saw an IM doctor 2 years ago assuming it was my gall bladder.  An ultrasound was normal though so I just ignored it.  The episodes persist though so I finally took myself to a GI doctor.

They don't really know how to explain it either so I've had a HIDA scan and EGD done this week.  The HIDA scan looks for Gall bladder dysfunction  - mine was essentially normal.

I had the EGD today.  It showed mild gastritis and a hiatal hernia.  I don't feel like either of those things really explain the episodes of pain but I am going to take Prevacid daily and see if the episodes go away while I am taking meds.  The doctor did take a biopsy to look for H. Pylori so we'll see what that shows.

(My stomach - hiatal hernia is in the first photo)

So, my pain is still kind of a mystery but at least we've ruled a few things out.  I'd have to say the EGD was a piece of cake (nudge nudge... to those of you in my family who need to have one done!!!).  I had no idea they did anything at all and besides feeling a little light headed post-procedure had no ill effects at all.

Videos of Carson

"Dance Baby Dance!"

"Please Mom?!"

I think he is so cute, even when complaining!

Carson - 15 Months (aka Rascal)

My sweet, little baby seems to have become a toddler this month.
He is so.....

-animated

-silly

-busy

-busy

-busy

-fun

-full of smiles

-independent

-affectionate

-messy

-trouble (my rascal!)

"Look Mom!  I found the paper towels!"

Notice the large messy trail behind him!

I am pretty sure he is busier than the other 2 combined.

A few stories from the past month...

- We were in Target last week, waiting in line at the Pharmacy.  Carson kicked Erik in the head which I assumed was an accident (I was holding Carson).  The pharmacist noticed and said to Carson, "Did you just kick your brother in the head!"  He flashed her a huge grin and kicked Erik in the head again and then laughed!!  Erik egged him on of course by laughing about it too!  Little stinker!

- Carson LOVES to be outside!  He just runs and runs and runs, picking up rocks and sticks along the way, tasting each of them.  He knows he is not supposed to go out in the road.  He, being my rascal, almost always runs out there anyway.  The little stinker always makes sure I see him first.  Once he catches my eye he takes off running for the street as fast as he can.  Ha!!  I have told him no 100 times and he doesn't care so now I have started putting him back in the house if he runs into the street.  He hates that and stands at the door screaming.  After 2-3 minutes I let him back outside.  So far that technique seems to be working.

- Carson loves his brother and sister.  He also loves to tease them, especially Lainey.  He likes to sit on Lainey's bench at the island.  If we eat outside on the deck he always tries to grab food off of Lainey's plate.  Of course Lainey gives him a huge reaction so it is fun to tease her!  

-Carson hugs everything - strangers, animals, pictures in his books, and all of us of course.  I love his big, bold, affectionate personality.  

Development:

-Started using a fork/spoon correctly (some of the time)

-Still only says a few words (mama, Erik, "dog", dada, there, hi) but his language comprehension has exploded!  It's really amazing.  I am fairly confident he understands about 90% of what I am saying. (The response to the Target pharmacist confirmed this.)

-Sleeps through the night (7:30 to 6:30) and takes one 3 hour nap most days (he is just transitioning from 2 naps to 1 nap)

-Runs everywhere

-Constantly making messes (dumping his plate of food on the floor, emptying cupboards, unrolling paper towels and toilet paper, emptying box after box in the toy room)

-Still nursing 2-3x a day.  I think I am going to wean him completely in the next 6 weeks or so, we'll see. Takes 3 bottles (going to wean him from those at the same time) of rice milk a day too (10-12 ounces a day)

- Fairly good eater -- he loves meat and beans the most I think; refuses to eat/drink all dairy products

-Carson had about 2 1/2 weeks of diarrhea this month that started shortly after trying to switch from rice milk to cow's milk.  We will stay off of Cow's milk for a while

Such a big kid!  

I really just love this little boy.  He is so sweet, affectionate, and full of joy!  It has become quite obvious that he has a twinkle in his eye though (both of them really) so I am quite certain he is going to be somewhat exhausting. Ha!  

-

Prayer Requests

After my thankful post I found out that my friend Lisa who has been waiting for her sweet hope-to-adopt baby girl to be born (was due June 4th) is no longer going to be bringing home a new baby.  Baby girl arrived safely but the birth mom decided at last minute to keep her.  My heart breaks for Lisa and family but almost more so for the baby girl as she would have been raised by such a wonderful loving, kind family.  I don't know tons of details about the birth mom but this wasn't the first baby she was giving up for adoption and she is going to be a single mom.  Please just pray for peace for Lisa and her family and for baby girls future.

Also, Victor is out of town.  We are doing well but Lainey has pink eye and now Erik has abdominal pain and a 102 degree fever.  Yuck!  It's our first bad bugs since October so I can't complain too bad but I do hope the kids keep their respective bugs to themselves!

Thankful

Yesterday, we got caught in a heavy down pour while riding our bikes home from the swimming pool.  A neighbor I barely know stopped to see if we wanted a ride.  I was thankful for the offer even though it was kind of comical - imagine piling 2 bikes, a bike trailer, and 4 people into an already occupied mini-van. I was tempted to say yes just to see how that situation worked out, but thought better!

Shortly after that Erik stopped his bike in front of me.  We crashed.  No one was hurt at all but the chain came off my bike.  Before I could even ask for help two men out for a run stopped and helped me put it back on.  In addition to that another guy driving by had stopped to see if we needed help too.  Either I really looked like a hot mess yesterday or our neighborhood is filled with kind, helpful people.  I chose to believe the latter. :)

Another thing to be thankful for is Daron's ANC, also known as his neutrophil count.  Yesterday, it went from less than 0.01(undetectable) to 0.13 and today was 0.16.  He still has a long ways to go but this is big step as it indicates that my stem cells have begun to engraft.  For that, we are so thankful!

Grins from my red tinted - blond streaked - light brown haired Chinese boy!

I hope you have a good weekend! 

Notable Moment: Lainey plus daily life with the trio

Lainey:  " Mommy, I really want a baby in my tummy!"

Me:  "You want a new baby doll??"

Lainey:  "No! I want a baby in MY tummy!"

Me: Stifling a laugh, "Someday honey when you are much older!"

Erik:  "Why does she have to be older mommy? When is God going to put a baby in Lainey's tummy?"

Me:  "Well, I don't know but she needs to be married first and much older."  

Haha!!

Lainey was totally serious.  She said the baby could sleep next to her and she would nurse it. 

Someday sweet girl (I hope)!  She LOVES babies!  I was quite shocked by her request though as I hardly know anyone who is pregnant right now.  (This makes me a little sad as it seems my friend group is moving out of the newborn stage, onto school age kids.) One of our neighbors did just bring home a newborn so I am guessing that is why she has babies on the brain.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The kids, especially Erik, have been quite defiant recently.  I do need to reread the Love and Logic book but for now Victor and I have devised a new check system.  Each time they are defiant throughout the day they get a check.  If they get 3 during a day they lose a toy for the next two days.  If they get zero they earn a smiley face on a chart.  After 5 smiley faces they earn a price.   So far this has been working okay although today the kids were quite obnoxious.  Both lost a toy, Erik lost two.  

A positive moment this afternoon!

12:21

Daron is still stable.  Still without an immune system though.  Please pray that his new neutrophils decide to show up soon!  It's okay that they haven't engrafted yet but he is miserable and likely won't feel better until his new immune system takes hold.  We need these cells to engraft before 18 days post transplant to avoid entering a bit of panic mode (today is day 13).


Daron's New Address...

1000 Foster City Blvd #7402
Foster City, CA 94404

Mom is staying there and will take any mail to Daron!

End of the School Year!

Erik's last day of preschool was Friday.  This is so bittersweet.  He has had the same teachers for the past 18 months and I love them both.  They've been wonderful for Erik.  A perfect fit for what him (and me)!
I will miss them dearly next year!

Erik has one more year of preschool since he has the fall birthday so he will be either in the public school pre-k (not everyone gets into that program) or a private preschool that offers a really nice program for 4/5 year old kids.  It's taught by 2 licensed early education/kindergarten teachers.  It will be five mornings a week.  All the kids in the class have to turn 5 by February 1st so it targets the kids that miss the kindergarten cut off.

Lainey would also be at that school two mornings a week.  This school is the same place she had gone for "preschool" 3 mornings a month the first half of this past school year.  She did well there but I pulled her out once we started taking trips to Cali/TX/Cali and needed to be germ free.

Anyway, Erik's end of the year program was on Friday.  I recorded a minute or two of them singing.

Erik actually sang through the entire program.  Not excitedly or with any animation but he sang! (Last year I believe he covered his face the entire time!).

This is not true of all his classmates - as you will see in the video there is an empty chair.  She was not absent she just refused to go up with the class and sing.  Another kid on the shy side just sat in her chair glumly the entire program.  They had to stand up during one of the songs and that knocked a third kid out of participation.  Haha!  4/5 year old kids are funny!

Enjoy the show!

The post In Which I Complain A Lot

How are you??  This question gets asked a lot.

Currently I have two distinctly different answers to this question.  I have rarely before been so aware of how blessed I am.  My day to day life is wonderful. I have 3 great, healthy, sweet kids.  I have a hard working, supportive husband.  A great house, too much food, nice vehicles, etc.  It is easy to take these things for granted and being reminded how sweet and precious each day is, in a way a wonderful blessing.

That being said there is a lot of big crap happening in our lives too.  As you know my dear brother (one of them - I have 3) is really sick.  Since December this has been a daily source of worry and stress.  It is never far from my mind or heart.  So, when people ask, "How are you?" if I say anything better than "fine" I feel like that's totally not true.  Daron is currently 11 days post-transplant.  My mom updated the caring bridge for those of you waiting for an update.  Daron is thankfully stable but still miserable.  Please be praying for him.  This is such a long awful battle.  I wish there was someway we could fast forward 6 months so Daron didn't have to suffer so much.

Another source of grumpiness has been selling our WI house.  In February, the military told us that we had qualified for the HAP program.  We moved from WI to the DC area 5 years ago because Victor got activated from reserve status to active duty.  This was not voluntary, if he turned down this activation they told him he would go to Iraq at some point instead.  So, despite having built a brand new house and expecting our first baby, we moved across country.  At first it was supposed to just be 4 months.  So, I stayed back and worked most of that time (my employer at the time was wonderfully flexible and let me take 7 weeks off so I didn't have to be away from Victor the entire 4 months).  Anyway, 4 months became 12 months, which got extended again.  Victor ended up spending 3.5 years on active duty.  During that 3.5 years the value of our brand new house in WI tanked.  We did have the choice to go back to WI but by then we were pretty established out here.  We had been renting our house for 3.5 of the total 5 years we've been gone and were okay with that although each month we lost some money.   We had tried to sell it 18 months ago but just couldn't stomach the 100K loss so rented it again.  So, you can imagine how excited we were when we got the email stating we'd been approved for the HAP program.  This likely wouldn't have reimbursed our loss completely but we would have probably been comped 60K by Uncle Sam.  Knowing this we put the house on the market again.  Our renter moved out, we got an okay offer, and the military informed us that OOPS! we no longer qualify for the HAP program.  So sorry.  We decided to sell it anyway and closed on it about a week ago.  It's nice to not be responsible for 2 homes but I am still trying to get over how crappy losing close to 100K feels.  Thankfully, we had put down a large down payment so we weren't under water. Still crappy.  In addition to that we've had lots of other unexpected expenses during the past 6 months.  My parents (thank you) have helped us out quite a bit on the ones related to California traveling but it still feels like we have been bleeding money the past 5 months. (We'll be fine and we really do love living on the east coast!)

So that's it.  I'm done complaining.  Just know if you ask me how I am doing and I say "fine!" there is a lot I am not saying.