Christmas 2011

We had a great holiday break.

It was nice to be able to "hit the reset button" and cast all
the worry and drama from the past few months aside.

Huzbend was off of work from my birthday all the way
through New Years Day.

And because he was off for two weeks, do you know
what else I was able to cast aside - COOKING!!!!

Totally awesome.  That was a gift in itself.

Christmas eve brought with it homemade pizza and
apple dippers.

Yum.

Just looking at this picture makes me drool.

Mikey kept spitting out the apple.  

 I guess there had to be a faster

way to ingest the ooey-gooey caramel......

Whoa.

We had a few presents for the kids to open xmas eve.

New PJ's and a battery powered round-the-tree Thomas set.

Katie hung up the stockings and then it was time for bed.

To say the kids were excited would be an understatement.

The grown-ups were a little excited too.

Ooooooo.  Pretty.
I did A LOT of wrapping.
Jeez louise.

"JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED!!!!!"

Mikey got something like five costumes.  Each time he would

open a new one up, a wardrobe change would occur.

Here is Superhero Mike assessing some Buzz Lightyear socks.

Wardrobe change!!!

I am butterfly.  See me flutter.

Can you say that you have ever had a fire chief,

a monarch butterfly and Woody from Toy Story in your living room?

Ha.  Thought not.

Wardrobe change!

"I have you now!"

Wardr.....need I say it again?

Katie got some slug buddies in her stocking.  They are fake

slugs that stick to anything without leaving slimy slug gunk.

She can even kiss these ones if she wants.

After the present bonanza, it was nap time.

Mikey fell asleep on his brand new

Buzz Lightyear guy.

Katie busied herself coloring her new castle.

And then it was lasagna time.

As you see in the picture below, we tried to make ourselves feel better about  

eating 2,000 calories for dinner by accompanying

it with a salad.

We are so health conscious.

Everyone slept late the next day.

Mikey woke up and wanted to eat breakfast with some of his 

xmas toys.

The next week went by fast and soon it was

New Year's Eve!

Mikey hit the sack at normal time.  Katie stayed up to watch
the ball drop.

She even watched TWO movies - Cats & Dogs and G-Force.
(Unfortunately, not the anime G-Force. It was the guinea pig one)

On New Years Day, the rain quit and it was actually semi-decent out.

Huzbend took the afternoon to build the trampoline
GmaC and GpaC sent for xmas.

Now if there are any fans of America's Funniest 

Videos out there, you will know that a trampoline is

almost a sure-fire way to end up either winning $10,000

or visiting the emergency room.

While the kids were busy jumping and Huzbend was dwelling on

the potential $10,000 windfall from AFV, I couldn't help being

a little nervous about the trampoline thing.

Thank you so much to everyone that sent us gifts.

We love you all!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Story Time

I know, I know.  It's not a big, cute Christmas post.  

Just a place holder until I get on the ball.

Huzbend, Katie and Mikey had story time the other night.  They each took turns coming up with a sentence to complete the story.

This is all verbatim, as recorded by Huzbend.

Enjoy.

Story 1

Daddy: Once upon a time there were two little kids.

Katie: And they wanted to go for a walk.

Mikey: And they jumped in a poo!

Daddy: And the poo was so huge it filled a whole swimming pool. The End.

Story  2

Daddy: There were two little kids that wanted to go swimming.

Mikey: And the pool was filled with a huge poo!

Katie: And the little girl got her foot stuck before so she didn’t want to go in. The End.

Story 3

Katie: There was a little girl that lived in a flower.

Daddy: And a flower fairy that was responsible for the flower decided to take a look.

Mikey: The fireman lived in a big giant poo!

Katie: And the flower fairy left the flower and got stuck in the poo.

Daddy: The little girl went home. The end.

Story 4

Mikey: Fireman Small lived in a giant poo!

Daddy: Which came out of the butt of his dog Chester. It smelled.

Katie: And there was a fairy that flew to the firehouse to help the humans.

Mikey: Fireman Big lived in a humongous poo!

Daddy: And fire alarm went off and the firemen drove out of the poo to put the fire out.

Katie: And the fairy followed them in her leaf car. The End.

Catching Up Before Xmas

Since we were all a little down because of Katie's trip to the hospital,

we thought that we would jump start our holiday mood.

As I'm sure is recommended recovery for all pneumonia patients, we 

decided to stop by the tree farm on the way home from the hospital.  

Do not pass GO.  Do not collect 100 dollars.

After poo-pooing about six trees, Katie decided on the "perfect" tree.

Mikey agreed.

Welcome to the family, little tree.

I have a feeling, although not quite confirmed, that Katie enjoys the

free candy cane offered by the tree farm more than the actual

selecting of the tree itself.

Mike was not as impressed.

He traded in his sticky candy cane for a nice juicy

apple.

The next day, Mikey and Huzbend went off to swim lessons while

Katie and I stayed home and decorated the tree.

When we were done decorating, Katie gave it a hug to welcome it to the house.

Next up, gingerbread city.

Katie had been bugging me for at least two months about

making a gingerbread house.  I promised her that we would do just that.

I mean, how hard could it be?  Plus we had A LOT of extra halloween candy to get rid of.

We whipped up a big batch of gingerbread that actually yielded enough 

dough to make two houses and a bunch of ginger people.

I can't use traditional royal icing because it's made with uncooked eggs.

Katie is allergic to them.

So, I searched the internets and with its help

made an icing with confectioners sugar, lemon juice 

and glycerine.

Here was the first attempt at assembly.

Icing was just a bit too runny, but held

together with the help of some support cans.

What a frustrating process.

Not satisfied with attempt number one, I put together another house.

Icing just right.  Not so bad this time.

A few days later it was decorating time.

I tried making the icing again and again it was too runny.

So, I gave up and used some can frosting to get the job done.

The kids must have ate at least a cup of frosting each.

Katie did a good job decorating and ate her fair share of the candy.

Mikey put one piece of candy on one house and then proceeded to eat 

marshmallows the rest of the time.

They were quite silly by the time decorating was over.

Here are the best two of my many attempts at a posed picture.....

In between the gingerbread chaos was the preschool holiday party.

Here are the kids visiting with Santa and Mrs. Claus.

As if they did not have enough sugar in their little systems, they were

able to decorate their own cookies.

Yes.  There is a cookie buried under those sprinkles.

Katie decided to eat her cookie right then and there.

Mikey decided to pack his away in a ziploc and suck

the frosting off the knife instead.

Mikey also decided that he loved Santa Claus.

He hung out with him most of the evening.

If Mikey wasn't eating, he was with Santa.

They even played party games together!

Next up, it was my birthday.

Yay me.  I'm 38 now.

And as such, I deserve delicious and totally NOT nutritious food.

First up, for breakfast, Huzbend cooked up some Stuffed French Toast.

OMG.  Have you ever heard of the term

"Foodgasm"?

The kids enjoyed opening my presents for me.

They were nice and let me help a bit.

The sun was a-shining and so we

did lunch at Panera and hit a local playground.

More yummies to come for dinner.

Eggplant parm, of course.

And then the piece de resistance.....

APPLE CRISP.

OHHHHH BAYBEE!

A few days later we received a package in the mail from Granma.

To our surprise, there was another gingerbread house inside!!!

This one was soft and gooey and really yummy (unlike my rock hard gingerbread).

Katie and Mikey ate all the trees and extra people that populated the box, leaving just enough

for the house.

It was try number three for gingerbread house assembly.

Icing was perfect this time!

I was able to put together the house with no

help from support cans at all.

Whooopeeeee!

And then it was time for decorating.  UGH.

The whole house smelled like frosting and marshmallows.

Katie and Mikey were literally bouncing off the walls.

I swear, if either of them had gotten a paper cut at the time, they would have 

bled marshmallow fluff.

Shazam!

We now had FOUR gingerbread houses.

Two we made, one that Katie decorated at school and one from across the country.

Welcome to Sugar Heights!

And now, a little video distraction.  Enjoy!

Nobody Knows......

Seems as if the "troubles" of the last entry did not want to leave.

Mikey DID get over his early stage pneumonia with a round of antibiotics.  Huzbend DID recover.

But, alas Katie did not fair so well.

Last Tuesday she came down with a horrible hacky cough and began to breath quickly and shallow-y.  And so, on Wednesday, she stayed home from school and off to the Doctors office we went.

Our appt. was at 9:20am.  We did not leave the office until 3:00pm.  Yep.  WITH Mikey.  He was just about going insane.  They could not figure out what was wrong.  Her oxygen levels were bouncing all over into dangerous territory.  Then she developed a 102 fever while in the office.  Finally they decided on an chest xray.  The diagnosis - gunky lung (a.k.a. pneumonia) exacerbating her asthma.  It was off to the Children's Hospital ER once again.

OHHHHHH, this time I was prepared people!  I packed a bag with four days worth of clothes and toiletries, some snacks and some sanity for Katie (Nintendo DS, crayons, coloring books, a stuffed panda and her blankies).  We picked Huzbend up at work and he drove us to the hospital so that he would not be truck-less.

Sure enough, we had to stay overnight as Katie's oxygen levels were not recovering quickly enough after medication.  We ended up in the same wing of the hospital as last time and stayed pretty much the same amount of time.  Went in on Wednesday evening and were released on Saturday afternoon.

The reason for the hospital stay was to monitor Katie's oxygen levels.  When her lungs are restricted her "flow rate" can dip down to 93-95 when awake and then down below 90 when she is asleep.  Not very good when you know that a regular person can be anywhere from 95-100 when healthy.

So, that's two hospital visits in just two months.  Hooray for us.

Huzbend thinks that our medical insurance company is going to drop us siting that we have hit our quota of doctor AND hospital visits for the year.  Our pediatrician agrees and has stated that if he sees us in his office one more time this year - he will kick us out.

Katie is recovering and LOVED all the attention that she got at the hospital.  She now expects that every time she goes to a doctor that they will shower her with stuffed animals and toys.  That's just how she rolls.

As for me, I'm recovering too.  My cold is finally subsiding but my brain is not quite back up to speed.

In a reactionary and emotional move, I called a company to come clean our heating air ducts thinking that it might help Katie (and Mikey) breath easier not having so much gunk in the lines.  I wasn't thinking as the technician/salesman upsold me on some things that I totally didn't need but at the time thought that we did.  The cost of the service bloomed out of control and he began to upsell me again.  By that time it was too late to stop the services I had stupidly agreed too, so I declined anything else that he offered.

It was ridiculous of me and I'm ashamed and depressed that I lost our family this big amount of money.  There's nothing I can do about it.  I agreed to all of it and it was only about an hour after they left that I realized what I had done.  I didn't research the service they provided OR the company.  Stupid.  I'm usually SO skeptical.  A quick search online brought up all sorts of questions about need for air duct cleaning as well as many complaints against this particular company.

Sometimes, I wish there was a do-over button.  Don't you?

All this led to a nice little midnight breakdown where I cursed myself for being such a moron.  It was easy to fall into despair - too much sickness, too little fun family time, not enough sleep, not enough feeling of accomplishment, Mikey showing signs of ANOTHER cold......

But, today is another day.  Time to move on.  Try to take my focus off all the money that I've spent on Christmas, the wad of cash that we just spent on our garage doors, this months mortgage, groceries, upcoming vacations, haircuts.....Okay.  So, it's really hard for me to move on.

As my awesome and beyond forgiving Huzbend said, I really just have to let it go.  No sense obsessing about something that I really can't change.

The problem is, obsessing is what I do.

Turkeys & Troubles

Nothing to do with turkey.

Just really cute pictures.

Okay.  Here comes the Turkey part!

Did I mention that Katie LOVES crafts.....

Please take a look at our Katie-made

Thanksgiving decorations.

For a small fee, I would be happy to rent her out to take care of all

your decorating needs.

We were invited to our next door neighbors house again this year

for Thanksgiving dinner.

The dinner was delicious and a good time was had by all.

Here are the kids sitting at their tables.

After dinner, while the adults talked, talked, talked

the kids had some t.v. time, and then some craft time.....

.....and then it was Garage Dance Party Time!!!!

Here is the food tally.

Mikey ate: rolls and red velvet cake.

Katie ate: turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls and red velvet cake.

Huzbend and I ate:  way too much.

Soon the kids got tired and we made our exit.

I suspect that Katie wasn't really as tired as she had said,

because when we got home she begged and begged me to whip

up some candied yams.

I was happy to oblige.

The girl loves her candied yams.

But really, mostly the marshmallows.

On to the Troubles part now.

We all got sick the week of Thanksgiving.

Katie got a cough and had to go on double "steamies" to keep

her oxygen levels up.

Huzbend got the nasty cold and spent all last week driving to work.

Ye gods!!!

I admit, I was the one that started it all.  

I got sick the day before Thanksgiving..... and still have it.

My right ear is clogged up and I can't hear out of it - no infection yet.

I also have a bum left wrist requiring me to wear a brace.

Doc's have no idea what I did to it.  Xray was negative for a fracture.

So, it might be a strain or sprain.

Mikey got the cold right along with everyone else and he

was lucky enough to have it turn into early stage pneumonia.

YAY US!!!

1.21 Gigowatts

Ready for more?

Good.  Hold on to your lunch!

WHOOSH!  ZAP!

The first weekend of November we attended what was appropriately called, "The First Annual Smashing Pumpkins Playdate".

If I could use one word to describe this event it would be......RAD.

The kids and their friends put on their costumes one last time, pigged out on all sorts of pumpkiny goodness including but not limited to: pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pie, pumpkin rice krispie treats, and pumpkin ice cream, and then threw their jack o' lanterns off a second story deck.

KER-SPLAT!

Please, observe.





See?  RAD.

WHOOSH!  ZAP!

Fast forward one week.

Granma came for a visit.

There was lots of hangin' out.

There was lots of crafting.

 Paper dolls.  In effect.

There was homework, too.


















And there was an impromtu trip to Gabbaland.  Yep.

Can you say the magic words with me?

YOOOOOOO GAAAABBAAAAA GAAAAABBAAAAAA!




To quote the ever-jovial DJ Lance Rock, "Listening and dancing to music issssssssssss AWESOME!!!"

WHOOSH!  ZAP!

Phew.  We're back.  I'm exhausted.  I think I'll try to stay up to date from now on.
Ha. Ha.  Yeah.  Right.

Well, I've got one last treat for you, weary traveler.

Sit yourself back and enjoy a little comedy courtesy of Mirth Master Mike.

Aw, Crap.

It just occurred to me that I haven't posted a video up on this 'ole blog of mine for quite some time.  Since August, I think.  And when I say video, I mean actual video.  Not just a photo slideshow.

Now I gotta play catch up.

Oh, now.  Don't think I am going to let you off so easy.

Come with me, won't you?  On a journey through space and time......

WHOOSH!  ZAP!

You will now engage in the rituals of a northwest summer.





Enlightening, wasn't it?

WHOOSH!  ZAP!

You will now witness the eating of the iced cream.





Delectable, no?

WHOOSH!  ZAP!

You will join in the revelry of a cold and dreary October day.






You could practically feel the frigid rain water soaking into your socks, couldn't you?

WHOOSH!  ZAP!

Phew!  Time travel really takes it out of ya.

I think we'll have to postpone the rest of our trip for a later date.

We shall reconvene in a day or two, my friends.

And so, I have fallen off the wagon once again.

My blog posts have dwindled with the onslaught that is Halloween.

Thusly, I must resort to the photo slide show to illustrate the month of October.

Please enjoy........(drum roll, please)

THE OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL HALLOWEEN 2011 SLIDE SHOW

Featuring:

Granma C. as herself
Katie as The Panda Princess
Mikey as Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman
Myself as Aunt May
and a breakthrough performance by Huzbend as Megamind

Lights, please!

ROLL!

This Week.....Not Much Better

So, everyone is on the mend from the respiratory distress of last week.

Katie and Mikey (and Huzbend) seem to be recovering well.  For some strange reason.....I did not get it.  No sickies for me this time around.  It's amazing.

REALLY amazing considering that I took care of Katie when she was sick, then came home to Mikey and Huzbend being sick AND I spent three days in the hospital with a whole bunch of sick people.

So, I escaped boogies and coughs but oh, I didn't get away scott free.  Oh, no.

On Monday, I had a lipoma removed from my right arm pit.  Yippee.  The doc gave me a local anesthetic and well, he was working right by my head you know.  I didn't actually see him do his dirty work, but I did see the instruments he used and I did feel all the pulling and pushing and cutting.  I also felt every damn tug of the suture line.  Dude was a maniac sewer.  Guess I should be happy that he was such a perfectionist.

The nurse was assuring me, pre-op, that they would try to find a way to cut that wouldn't leave such a noticeable scar.  I told her that it really didn't matter.  That I had scars all over my body and that one more wouldn't really matter.  I mean, it can't really compare to the huge gash that I have on my lower abdomen.  I'm already damaged goods.  She thought that was pretty funny.  I don't think I was trying to be funny.  I was serious.

I'm healing up nicely.  The bandage is off and now I'm just dealing with the sutures and the steri-strips that are still there.  They itch like crazy.

Next.

Tuesday.  Mikey fell on the sidewalk and scraped up both his knees pretty bad.  Blood was dripping down his legs.  This happened at about noon and he refused to walk for the rest of the day.  No, really.  He did not walk the rest of the day.  He either slid his butt along the ground or squat-walked around.

I finally got him to let me put bandaids on his knees, but soon had to take them off because he cried even MORE when I put them on.  You see, he absolutely refuses to let me put bandaids on any of his injuries, prefering instead to carry a bandaid around.  Yeah.  I don't know.

Wednesday.  Mikey and I got home from walking Katie to the bus stop.  I walked into our garage with Mikey and then decided to go back down our driveway to retrieve our garbage cans.  As I am at the bottom getting ready to pull one can up, I hear Mikey coming toward me.  He must want to help.

Um.  No.

Mikey is halfway down our driveway hill.  He is riding his balance bike at at least 100 MPH.  His feet are up and back and he has an Evil Knievel look in his eye.  And he has no helmet on.

Before I can react, his bike hits the flat of the sidewalk.  It goes one way and he flies spread eagle onto the pavement.

"JESUS CHRIST!!!!  MIIIIIIKEY!"  Is the first thing that springs from my mouth.  I'm pretty sure the whole city heard me.  I pick him up and blood is pouring out of his mouth and some shredded lip is just hanging.  Yikes.

I get the bleeding stopped with some pressure and a wet towel and I call the doctor.  They advised me to make an appt. to make sure that he was okay.  And he was.  Only a scraped up lip and a little scratch on his forehead.  No sign of concussion or anything worse.

I, on the other hand, was NOT okay.  Not only did I watch in horror as my 2 year old son face planted into the sidewalk after traveling ludicrous speed down our driveway with no helmet, I also had to endure the "shame on you" looks from the nursing staff at my doctors office.  Yes.  He is 2.  Yes.  I left him alone in the garage.  Yes.  I never in a million years thought he would take a joy ride down the driveway.

Sigh.

Yesterday was good.  Granma C.  flew in.  YAY for Granma's!

Today was calm - preschool, Jump Planet, normality.

Tomorrow.....I will kick your ass if you bring any more drama.  Seriously.  I will KICK YOUR ASS.

Consider yourself warned, Saturday.  

WEEZY!

Does anyone remember this?  And this?

Well, guess what?  We have ANOTHER hospital story to add to the growing list.

On Thursday, the 29th, Katie came down with a cold after school.  It was just an innocent little cold.  Friday came and went and it didn't change.  On Saturday, Katie seemed okay.  She didn't have any boogies a-leaking, so we decided to go to a birthday party at a local park.

I began to notice that Katie was not herself.

Like Inspector Clouseau, I deciphered the clues as best I could:  not running on the playground, not socializing with her friends, not eating whole bags of Pirate's Booty in a sitting, not finishing the coveted juice box.  Ahhhhhh, now veee are gitting somewhere!  My hypotheesis:  It meust mean she iz just tired freum not getting good sleep, yew see!

And just like Inspector Clouseau, I was wrong.  Yew fewl!  Swine, asthma!

The party was over and we hopped into the car to head home.  Katie fell asleep in her car seat.  It was then that I noticed that all the color had dropped from her face and with every breath came a deep and hissing wheeze.  Merde.

When we got home, I carried her upstairs and laid her in my bed.  I gave her a "steamie" treatment and decided to let her nap a bit.  We continued to check on her for about an hour and her breathing was not improving.  So, we decided to take her to an Urgent Care Center (kinda like an ER).

They immediately saw us in due to Katie's "shortness of breath".  Her oxygen levels were hovering at about 87 (normal is 98+).  If your body does not get enough oxygen, it begins to shut down the non-essential things - which basically means everything except your heart and brain.  So, we were quickly ushered back, given a room and she was immediately put on a continuous albuterol mist to open up her airways, an oxygen flow to supplement and a dose of steroids to relieve the inflammation in her lungs.

She quickly recovered her pallor and began to smile and interact - and drink chocolate milk.  Always a good sign.  But after about 2 hours of continuous albuterol mist & oxygen, she was still hovering at about 89 oxygen level.  After a quick chest x-ray (which showed just a bit of gunk in her lungs) and a quick puke on the xray techs floor (bye-bye chocolate milk), the ambulance was called to truck Katie over to the Emergency Room at Children's Hospital.

As most of you know, we only have one vehicle and I had it with us at the Urgent Care Center.  In order for us to get home from Children's, I needed to drive the truck to it.  That meant that Katie had to ride in the ambulance all by herself.  She was quite nervous about it, but after she met her driver and her nurse she decided that she was good to go.  I followed right behind all the way to the hospital - I could see her through the back windows, she even waved to me.

We spent another two hours in the Emergency room at Children's.  Again, on a continuous albuterol mist and supplemental oxygen.  And again, she did not recover her oxygen levels.  We were told that she would be admitted.

So, upstairs we went.  We got our own room.  Yay.

All in all we spent Saturday night, Sunday, Monday and all day Tuesday in the hospital.  Her lungs eventually opened up, but her body just wasn't sucking in enough oxygen for the docs to feel comfortable sending her home.

It was a LONG three days.  I was not prepared to spend that much time in the hospital.  I had no toys, no snacks, no extra clothes.  Katie went through waves of boredom, depression, stubbornness, and extreme happiness bordering on hyper (albuterol has that side effect).  Her mobility was limited because she was hooked up to a pulse oximeter as well as having oxygen tubes up her nose.  She wasn't allowed to leave the room because the docs thought that her lung infection was viral and she wasn't allowed to walk around the room because she couldn't be off the oxygen.

She also didn't like the food.  When you have food allergies, hospital food is even more plain and gross looking than normal.  She wouldn't eat any meal they sent down.  Instead she lived off of saltine crackers, chocolate pudding, red jello, milk and popcorn.  I also spent a fortune buying Legos at the hospital gift shop.

That's not to say that her experience was all bad.  She got two stuffed animals from the Urgent Care Center, she had a home-made blanket waiting on her hospital bed (made by Project Linus), and hospital volunteers brought down a bucket full of toys/DVD's/Games for her to play with.  And all the doctors and nurses and respiratory techs were so patient and understanding with her....even in the middle of the night when she was, uh, not her best.

In the middle of all this, Mikey came down with the cold too.  Early Tuesday morning Huzbend noticed that he too was wheezing.  They hoofed it (literally) to our pediatrician's office where Mikey was diagnosed with the exact same thing as Katie was at age 2 - restrictive airway disease.  R.A.D. is really just another way of saying asthma.  He was sent home with steroids for lung inflammation as well as albuterol.

Both Katie and Mikey are doing fine now.  I think we're past the worst of it.  They both still have this nasty sounding cough, but at least there is no wheezing.

There's really nothing that we can do different to stop these flare-ups from happening since they come with the cold season.  We just have to continue the daily maintenance medications for Katie and hope that Mikey doesn't start down the same asthma path.  Forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

You said it, Yoda.

Wheezing, coughing, asthma.....the dark side they are.