Happy Fathers Day

A year ago

I can't believe how fast his past year has gone by. Here are some pictures from last summer for comparison

Ears are doing well

We are now 2 weeks out from Rylands tube placement and he is doing really well. This is the first time since last October that he has been ear infection free for 2 weeks. We are very happy for him that he is no longer suffering.

We've been really busy around the house lately, Mark's helping his dad out at the store about 4 days a week, and I just finished my final in A & P last night. Finally found a class offered in Summer quarter that I can actually use, so I registered for that today.

Here are some pictures of playtime with daddy.

Ryland's surgery

Talk about the worlds shortert surgery! Mark got there at about 6:30 this morning to check in. I had to take the other 2 to daycare and turn over my duty from yesterday, so I met them up there, and walked in about 2 minutes after they took Ry back. Not even 10 minutes later they were already bringing them back into us.

Good thing I had a friend warn me about the "coming out of anesthesia" because it was AWFUL. He cried, screamed and thrashed himself about for a good 30 minutes. I held him for the first 20 or so and then Mark held him because my arms were getting tired from trying to contain him.

we got to leave after about 30 minutes and he fell asleep on the way home. He was all about eating a "nana" (banana) when we got home and then some oatmeal and a cracker and milk. Then we went and took a nap together about 9:30. He's still asleep but I'm going to go get him in a little bit so he doesn't get too much sleep and not sleep tonight.

Thanks to all our friends for the phone calls and posts on the blog and email to check up on him!!!!!


On a different note, HAPPY ANGELVERSARY JAXON THOMAS!!!!


For those of you who don't know about Jaxon, courtney and Colin but are curious, you can learn more about them here www.tripletbutterflywings.com

Going under the knife

Ryland goes in for his surgery for tubes tomorrow. I'm nervous for him, but feeling a bit relieved because this poor boy has had over 10 infections in the last 7 months. That's just too many, plus the ENT said he has some hearing loss in his right ear. Only time will tell if it is permanent or due to all the fluid that is just sitting there in his ear. So if you could keep ry-bug in your thoughts tomorrow (thursday 29th) we would all really appreciate it! Thank you,

I meant to post these pictures last week but never got around to it. It was SOOO hot a few saturdays back (right before the CF walk) and we all cooled down by getting sprayed with some water.

If you're happy and you know it

They absolutely love this song. I'm glad I finally caught it on video, it makes me laugh so much!!!

Here are some updates....
-Ry's regressed a little bit, he isn't telling us when he has poop anymore :(, we are trying to encourage it but he's not interested right now.
-Cassie asked me 3 times yesterday to go potty, and she WENT!!! I'm so proud of her. I asked them to please keep an eye on her at school and ask her and encourage her to go. I'll get an update tomorrow from the AM staff about how today went.
-Rylands facial wounds are finally healing. Tristan bit him on the face 3 times on friday morning and we were out of the room. I tell you those kids act fast.
-They have more and more words everyday! Cassie's back at it again with her favorite game "what's that", she'll as as much as she possibly can. Right now we are working on "thank you" and "I'm sorry" and they are doing really well. They are putting more and more words together, I'm so proud of them!

They are growing up so fast, it's crazy. I can't believe they will be 2 in just a few months.

Look Nana and granddaddy.....bunk beds

We were playing with the kiddos this afternoon and the kids decided to pull all the blankets off the lowest and middle shelf. Mark was laying on the floor of the playroom looking towards the window (and away from Tristan) and I turned around to get some diapers ready for changes. I turned back around to see Tristan LAYING on the second shelf. He got himself up onto that shelf all by himself. His action was soon followed by the other two. Thus began the up and down, on and off game that continued for the next 20 minutes or so. Here are a few pictures from the fun event, LOL. At the very least we figure that we're set for bunk beds for the kids...didn't you see the top shelf?

First Santa letter

I know what the kids want and what they are asking santa for this year, a TRAMPOLINE!!!!! They had such a blast over at Annie's house with Conor jumping inside the SAFE trampoline. I think we've added that to our list of things to put in the backyard after we get the deck built this summer. They spent hours jumping, hours. Even I had fun and got a workout from it!

Cystic Fibrosis walk 2008

This was our 3rd walk in Seattle and we had a BLAST!!! We had so many family and friends show up to support us and walk with us. It was an amazingly beautiful day, much different than the rain-drenched walk we had last year. Thank you to everyone for walking with us, you don't know how much it means to both of us!!! WE LOVE YOU! Here are some pictures from the event:

Woohoo They have rythm!!!

I had to take over someone's duty at work this afternoon so Mark came and got the kiddos. He was playing with them and they started dancing to the music of a toy. He grabbed the camera and got this video. I'm SO excited they have some rythm, because I have none!

Lots of catching up to do!

I've wanted to blog so many times this week, but it's been such a crazy week. This is the first time I've had a chance. So exciting things to share...

-Cassie has been using the potty before bathtime for 9 days straight now. And on Friday when we got home from daycare she said, "pee pee" so I took her upstairs and she WENT!!!!

-Ryland used the potty on Tuesday. He ended up peeing all over me (LOL) but he was sitting on the potty, so he got an M&M. Boy did that make him happy!

-Last week Ry started telling us when he had poo poo in his diaper and this week, he started telling us he needed to go poo poo. We have yet to have success with poo on the potty, but he has recognition so that's a step in the right direction. There are some funny pictures from this weekend in this next slide show, I hope you enjoy!!!

A Fun day with Nana and Granddaddy

We went over to Nana and Granddaddy's for some fun outside play today and then went to dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. Here are some pictures from today

FIRST Haircuts!!!

The boys FINALLY got their first haircuts this weekend. Here are a few pictures from the event.

Poor Ryland and a lengthy update

I am so frustrated for Ryland. He just got off antibiotics for his ear infection 48 hours ago, and saw the doctor because his wheeze is acting up. She said one ear looked great, the other looked like it was healing, but we won't know for a few weeks. He was given chewable Singular to see if that helps clear up the little bit of "gunk" he's got in his lungs. She says the majority of the wheezing sound is actually coming from his throat, which could be caused by an immature and therefore floppy airway. She isn't too concerned and thinks he will grow out of it, but wants us to give this a try since we are a tad concerned about it.

I was surprised when I showed up to get the kiddos from daycare and he was running a 101 temperature and not wanting to play, just wanting to be held. Our pediatrician had already left for the day, but seeing that she just set eyes on him that morning, I called her at home (thank God I work with her!!!!) and told her what was going on. She was so kind and understanding and immediately called in a prescription to Rite Aid. The base doesn't carry this med so we have to pay for it out in town. It's the only thing that's ever completely cleared up an ear infection for Ryland.

We go from Ammoxicillin, to Augmentin to Zithromax, then the Ceftin is the only thing that works and keeps him ear infection free for at least a few weeks. So she called in the Ceftin for him. This will be his second time on this antibiotic and I hope it gives him at least a few weeks of relief.

He has an appt. with the ENT on the 14th of this month to discuss the possibility of tubes. I'm very very insistant upon them. Mark needed them when he was a baby, and poor Ry has had about 9 infections (or 3 continuous lasting for 2-3 months) in the last 10 months. I'm fed up for him...so he and daddy are going to go see the ENT.

Other than that, things are wonderful. All 3 kids are starting to combine 1-3 words, like bye daddy, hi puppy, or no mommy (No= Cassie's favorite word) and Cassie is very much into disciplining the boys. They take it well though. She is definately the leader of the pack, whatever she is doing or playing, they start to copy her. She has a wild imagination already and is very into "make believe" play. I can't believe how fast they are growing up...we are already starting to talk about plans for their 2nd birthday-YIKES!!!!

Mark is working part time as a bouncer in the evenings, and actively looking for a job that would allow me to get out of the military. This is just a really bad time economically to be looking for a job. Our tentative plan is for me to extend for one year (both my enlistment, and my duty at this current command) while I work on completing more of my pre-requisites for nursing school, and while Mark looks for a job that will support all 5 of us. I'm taking 2 classes this quarter (Anatomy and physiology and nutrition) and hope to continue to take 2, maybe even 3 classes per quarter over the next 12 months. The business (http://www.ehpsupplements.com/) finally MADE some money in March, but then again in April we slipped into the red. Mark has two opportunities this summer to do some business promoting, so we are planning that right now.

Up and coming, I have been invited as a guest speaker August 1-3, 2008 at the CFRI 21st Annual Education Conference "Living a Medical Miracle: CF Today and Tomorrow" at the Sofitel San Francisco Bay, Redwood City, California. I am honored and have quite a bit of stuff to do to get ready!
We are planning on having our first family camping trip the weekend of August 29th, so we'll see how that goes. My command is doing a BBQ that day at Jim Creek Campground in Northern Washington, and we have reserved the group site for the command for the weekend.

Hope everyone is doing well!!

Fun filled weekends

I'm a little behind on my updates but we've had quite a few fun filled weekends. Last weekend we went to Craig's 5th birthday party and the weekend before that we were at Kaleb's 2nd birthday party.

Here are some pictures from Kaleb's birthday, we didn't get too many pictures or stay too long because we were all sick that weekend, and daddy was working at the Emerald Cup Bodybuilding show. But we did have fun while we were there!

Our trip to Hawaii

here is a video of our recent Hawaii vacation, all was wonderful with the exception of our 12 hour flight (yep, 12 hours!!) back to Seattle. Mark and I had a great time, got to see Aunt Sandi and Uncle John and Grandma and Grandpa on Maui (Thank you!!!!), got to watch my bestfriend of 22 years get married to the love of her life, got to visit the Arizona Memorial, went to a huge Luau and spent some time just lounging on the beach.

Some men are just AMAZING fathers...

I am SO lucky to have snagged this one :)

It is so much fun to just sit back and watch Mark play with the kids. He has so much fun, and they have so much fun with him. I just love watching them run around and hearing their little screams and squelches as he chases and tickles them.

Class picture

The kiddo's got class pictures at school a few weeks ago, just wanted to share here...

Dinner at Chelsey's

Thanks to Chelsey for a delicious dinner last Sunday night! Thanks to Tommy and Lauren and Breanna and Jacob for coming too!! We packed up the kids last weekend and went over to Chelsey's place for the 1st of what I hope is many more dinners/gatherins to come. We got to see beautiful Breanna for the first time, gosh is she a CUTE baby and so good too! It was a pleasure to see Jacob again, he is incredibly well behaved and so adorable. I just love talking to him about his transformers, and this time he brought a really cool one with him.

We watched (kind of) Nemo, Tommy played on the guitar (Tristan made a new bestfriend!) and we all just talked and got caught up on eachothers lives. It's been years since I've had time to talk with Lauren, it was really nice and both Mark and I hope to do it again soon.

Here are some pictures

Mullet anyone? (and a slight vent)

Lately we've noticed that the boys hair is a tad long, if their hair wasn't so curly they'd have minature mullets so we were going to take them to get it cut last weekend at this place down in Redmond that specializes in kids haircuts (I wanted some "scrapbookable" pictures). However, that got postponed until this weekend due to the dump of snow that showed up last weekend. So we were going to take them tomorrow to get this mullet thing fixed.

(here comes the vent part) I am on duty this weekend and also had Saturday clinic from 8-10 am, not bad at all it's just a few hours of work and passes quickly. The bad part is that Mark worked last night and got home aroudn 3:30-4:00am. So he was exhausted when he had to get up with the kids at 6:30. I had to be at work by 7:30 and on my way there I got a call from a reservist Cheif asking if I could have the doors open by 7:15, I told her no because I wouldn't be there until 7:30, she was mad.

I get to work and find that there are about 8 reservist doctors there needing to use our clinical space, and they are going to be using this space until 5-6pm tonight...and that means one of us on duty has to stay, oh and by the way they need to do this on Sunday as well.

The worst news is that our OIC ok'd this some time ago and failed to inform anyone in the chain of command or anyone who would be working this weekend. Thanks, great, I know I'm in the military and all but I have a FAMILY too, and it would be nice to get this information passed so that I can make sure my kids are taken care of. The other person on duty with me was kind enough to let me go today and he stayed until about 5:30. I got home as soon as I could so that poor Mark could get some sleep, as he works again tonight.

So I'm on tomorrow from 7:30- whenever they decide they are done. I know it's a silly thing to get pissed about, but I really hate rescheduling family events/activities for something to do with work-especially on the weekend. I know I'm in the military and I know I'm on duty so this shouldn't be a big deal, but I am so sick of the lack of planning and communication that goes on in this command. I mean when asked, I do more than my share of duties, working extra, staying late, taking on other jobs and responsibilities and occasionally there's more than just a "thank you" (i.e. you can leave early today, take an extra long lunch...). And I'd have absolutely no problem working the needed hours this weekend, had I been given the opportunity to make other arrangements for the kids.

And I hate having to ask others to step in and help us at the last minute. Thank God for my mom, she has been a lifesaver too many times to count and she is coming up tomorrow when the kids get up to take care of them, and pretty much stay until Mark's had enough time to get rest. I hope I'm not going to have another weekend duty for a llllllllllooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnng time!

I guess the haircuts will have to wait another week because we will be gone next weekend, getting ready for Rachael and T's wedding in Hawaii. Just a little more time to grow those mullets I suppose :)