Bowling Fun

While Mike was in Alaska for work he had the chance to go bowling a couple of times; the boys love to bowl and so we thought it would be the perfect thing to do on a windy Saturday after he was home.  We headed to the base bowling alley, which was thankfully not busy at all, and spent part of our afternoon trying to knock down pins.  Even Addy got to try and bowl some today by helping me push the ball down the ramp (Josh decided after my second or third gutter ball that I should the ramp too!)  Mike won (no surprise there), then it was Josh, Noah and finally me in last place!  But we all had fun.

My Conversation with Noah

On the way to Cubbies and church this evening I thought for sure that everyone would fall asleep.  No one napped today; no one!  Josh did fall asleep but Noah was chatty.   He was talking about all kinds of things, then suddenly was talking about having ear plugs in so he couldn't hear.  I was asking him what he meant; he's never had ear plugs.  So then he goes on about how ear plugs go in your ears so you can't hear and you take them out so you can hear.  Yep.  Then the conversation went on to Addy's ears not needing ear  plugs because they didn't work right.  Maybe Addy's ears don't want to hear Noah said.  I assured him that Addy did want to hear, her ears just didn't work quite like everyone else.  Then our conversation went something like this.
Noah: "Why did Addy need pictures of her brain?" (the boys asked what we were doing this morning, I told them picking up film of pictures.; they wanted to know what was on them and seemed fine with the simple answer of pictures of Addy's brain though this morning it sent me into a bit of an emotional state).
Me: "So the doctors can see what is going on and hopefully understand."
Noah: "Understand what? Why her ears don't work?"
Me: "Yes and also her brain"
Noah: "What's going on with her brain?"
Me: "It's not growing like normal and the doctors want to see why."
Noah: "What's normal?"
Me: "It's not growing as quickly as it should" (I really don't even know if that is accurate - I know it's not growing like other kids but I'm not even sure it's still growing)
Noah: "So the doctors will see her pictures and fix it.  We have the pictures at home.  When I get home I'll look at them and fix it."
Me: "It doesn't work like that.  Mommy doesn't know what the pictures should look like so we won't know what is going on."
Noah: "Kincaid is a baby.  Kincaid doesn't have a hearing problem."
Me: "You're right Kincaid doesn't have a hearing problem."
Noah: "Kincaid's brain is growing right."
Me: "Yep it is."
Noah: "Kincaid is a boy.  Is Addy's brain not growing quickly because she's a girl?"
Me: "No.  Addy's brain isn't growing quickly because of something else, her ears work different because that's how God made her.  You and Josh have different color eyes, you're different that way, Addy's ears make her different."
Noah: "Okay..." and then he went on talking about sharks and clouds I think.

It was interesting; it was something Mike & I have wondered when would come up.  At some point needing to explain things a bit more to the boys.  We haven't kept things from them, but we haven't shared all the details; we don't really have a ton of details.  I wasn't sure how to take his comment about Addy being a girl...but I suppose he doesn't know a lot of babies and it would be logical.

And just in case you were curious there are lots and lots of  pictures of Addy's brain.  Hopefully we'll be able to schedule our trip to San Diego for doctors visits. 

Discovering a New Park

This morning after picking up hard copies of Addison's MRI/CT scans, we went to a new park that was on the way.  Noah said it reminded of him of the park in Bellevue where he played with the Carrots and his friends.  He still misses his buddies so much!  It was a very beautiful day and there was another little boy there who was kind enough to share his sand toys (there was lots of sand...guess I should keep some in the van so they're handy!) and the boys shared the ball we brought.  Noah was brave and decided he could do the fireman pole all on his own!  Addison won't be out done of course had had to prove her bravery by going up to the biggest slide to go down by herself!

Happy Easter 2011

We had a wonderful day today celebrating the Risen King!  We started the day off with a family Easter basket (I think we'll continue the 1 basket tradition...it was nice being able to get some "good" stuff for the kids and not worry with candy and didn't break the bank).  After the basket full of goodies we moved on to a favorite breakfast; no pancakes this morning since Daddy is usually the pancake maker in the house and he's in Alaska for the time being; instead bacon and "cheesy eggs."  After breakfast and clean up we dyed our eggs.   I skipped the prepackaged dyes this year, mostly because I really thought we had some tucked in our holiday box, but it must have been given away before the move and I didn't want to fight a crowd to get one.  I found easy instructions for simply using food coloring and it worked well for the dye and was super easy indeed. 
After eggs, we went to Kristin's to celebrate with them and their family who was visiting from out of town.  What a treat to be invited to special meals to celebrate with friends - though who am I kidding...they aren't just friends, definitely part of our family even if no one else knows it.  The boys had lots of fun playing and causing mischief (some of which I think Mike will have to fix when he gets home...oh boys...at least Josh apologized and I think realized he'd been a bit too rough!)
Kristin made a delicious lunch for us and I enjoyed visiting so much!  After lunch Kristin and I went to a little grassy patch in their neighborhood to hide eggs for the kids to find while Kristin's in-laws took the 4 big boys on a walk.  We probably weren't outside more than 30 minutes, but by the time everyone dug into their candy it was melted!  Guess next year we'll have to do our hunt first thing in the morning or stick with starbursts and skittles or such instead of chocolate!  It was a wonderful day though, we came home and had naps, I managed to edit all the pictures during naps and while the kids all 3 ran around the backyard playing.  Dinner was simple but good and then it was time for a little Wii action with the new game. 
My absolute favorite part of the day though was driving to Kristin's house.  We had talked about church last night and the story and lesson the boys learned, talked about why we celebrate Easter and what a wonderful gift that Jesus gave us on Easter.  We talked on and off all morning about that.  On the way to Kristin's I was asking the boys if they remembered and both of them could tell me; Josh was so excited when he said "On Easter Jesus was alive!" and Noah echoed his excitement and that Jesus had to die for our sins.  I tell you - nothing that could be in a basket was as good as that; knowing that they are learning the most important truths!
But of course, I took lots of pictures and had to share a few (I figured out how to do clipped masks in Elements though...which thrilled me as now I can do my own templates for sharing multiple pictures and it makes it so, so, so easy!)

Mount Zion National Park

The beginning of the week was full of appointments and just general sickness and feeling blah.  Wednesday we we had another appointment.  The week was long, just a long, tiring, pretty frustrating week.  I am not sure what it is, but sometimes the appointments and sinus junk just gets the best of me; which I know gets to the kids too.  So we had hopes to go to Mount Zion this week, then the weather was suppose to be windy on Thursday but Friday it was suppose to beautiful so we headed up.  It was actually National Park week this past week and entrance was free...but we went ahead and got Addison her Access Pass (it is a free lifetime entrance pass to National Parks that you are eligible for if you have a permanent disability; she'll have it for her life time and when we are all together we can all get in).
There were a few frustrating moments, Addison ripped her hearing aids out on the shuttle and then we fought for almost 30 minutes trying to get them in.  In the end she won...I hate that.  She doesn't always refuse but it seems that if we are outside and there's any breeze she takes them out after a bit or somewhere where there is lots of background noise she does.  We'll be speaking to her audiologist on Friday when we have them adjusted (they still needed adjusted from her updated ABR done at the end of March...but I want to know if there's something else going on).  We found a paved path though along a river and walked and explored there.  It took us about 2 hours or so to walk the path which led us all the way back to the visitor center and then we walked to the van (which was parked outside the park; we had taken a shuttle into the park).  I must say that Noah was a trooper!  Seriously, I was tired and he walked the entire time with me!  Addison rode almost exclusively (she asked for her shoes and to get down; I'd offer to put her hearing aids in, she refused and so she sat in the stroller; not fun but I want her to know they are important and there are consequences).  Josh was in and out of the stroller throughout our walk.
It was BEAUTIFUL!  Amazing scenery, we talked on and off about how amazing God was and how much He must love us to create such pretty things for us.  I love being able to have those conversations with the kids.  Noah said God was just awesome for doing such awesome making when he made the world - out of the mouth of babes!  We are definitely looking forward to going back, hopefully to camp when Mike can join us.  On the way home we stopped at Cracker Barrel for dinner and the kids were just awesome!  I love when we can enjoy dinner together like that and it's not frustrating.  The kids even got a compliment from an older couple (my grandparents' age I'd guess) for their good behavior - for some reason hearing compliments from people of that wonderful generation carries lots of meaning - I don't think they put up with much from kids =) and I'm glad to know my kids got noticed for good things.
Here are a few pictures from our adventures - the rest are in the albums on Facebook (both "still more of April" and "April 2011 Part 4"  I've been enjoying playing with Photoshop Elements, so there are some that are much more edited than others; some that are still just some basic edits, and for the blog I'm loving some of the free storyboard actions I've found.

Quick Update on Addy's Medical

We are still waiting for the results of the blood tests that Addison had done at the end of March.  I hadn't been able to get a solid answer on how long these tests took and/or when we should plan to go back to San Diego to see the geneticist.  Last phone call to our peds clinic here I was simply told they didn't know and I should contact the geneticist.  Thankfully she's been great about returning phone calls.  I left a message today and had a call back within an hour.  She tracked down the lab that the tests were sent to and was told it should be next week; hopefully not too much longer.  However, not all of the tests she wanted drawn were taken.  Seriously?  We went through so many hoops, I thought I had asked enough times to make sure everything was included.  So frustrating to know that Addison will now have to endure more blood draws. 
Her geneticists said, "I just need to see Addy back here.  They simply aren't doing a quality job of coordinating the tests that I need done.  I hate to ask you to travel to perform tests, but I want to ensure they are being done correctly the first time."  I love that she is no nonsense, just straight to the point.  I told her that was fine, we had hoped to save her some time and a trip but were happy to come out to San Diego to make sure things got done correctly.  I also told her that the EKG they did at the same time they did the ABR was abnormal and we were referred to the Children's Heart Specialists here upon my insistance that we see cardiology and not just wait to see what was going on with her heart.  We had asked the nurse in the peds clinic if it would be better/easier for us to see a cardiologist in San Diego and just coordinate the appointments as best we could - never really got an answer directly and assumed when we got the referral that they didn't think so.  Well, her geneticist feels that it would be better for us to see the cardiologist there, it would make coordinating easier for them and also she knew this cardiologist was accustom to dealing with special needs children. 
We will wait for cardiology in San Diego to call us to schedule an appointment with them and then try and get an appointment with genetics the same day or a day before or after.  It may not be completely possibly to get back to back but hopefully close to each other.  San Diego is a wonderful place to visit thankfully, I think we may have a few trips there this summer.  Now it's a matter of trying to coordinate these trips with Mike's work schedule.
I also informed the geneticist that Addison's hearing loss had progressed again, she was disappointed that Addison had more loss but said that hopefully we could use that clue to figure out exactly what is going on.  These are the conversations that are sometimes just a bit overwhelming...I always feel like when I get off the phone I need to pray and refocus.  Addison is in no way a burden to us, but constantly there are questions if we are doing the best things for her, if we are doing everything she needs to thrive and have a normal childhood.  She is thriving right now, she is happy and bubbly and opinionated (like today insisting on sitting with  the boys at the small picnic table at lunch at Kristin's instead of in a booster at the table...she tried to throw all her food on the floor (and succeeded) and then tried to throw her cup at me when I wasn't apparently understanding what she wanted)! We just want to ensure that we continue to help her achieve those things.

Josh's Sinus Issues

They just keep going and going...kind of like the energizer bunny or Josh (boy those two have lots in common!).  So we were at ENT on Monday, because Josh had a very thick, junky nose again.  He just finished 21 days of antibotics, it seemed ridiculous, but not surprising.  Poor kid has had an on and off again sinus infection since mid-December.  The ENT suggested we cut out all diary, thinking it was a food allergy.  Okay, we can do that - not looking forward to it but we can do it.  We have done tree nuts and soy - it is manageable...we can do it.  But then I kept thinking nothing else seems similar to the reactions he was having with those food allergies.  I made an appointment with his allergist, I wanted to discuss the possibility of food allergies again with him and get to the bottom hopefully of it.  So we went today, we saw the first doctor (an associate doctor in the practice who was very nice and listened to everything).  Thank goodness for Kristin, she kept the other two kids - it is hard to focus on a conversation with all 3 in the room! 
So the first doctor went and got the head allergist to come and talk to us.  We are looking at possibly a couple scenarios.  The one he feels is likely is a continued sinus infection that has not gotten better, that has been resistant to antibotics.  The couple days off antibotics after the duration was long enough to give the "weakened bugs" to "revive themselves."  The doctor feels like Josh may need 5 weeks of antibotic to get rid of the infection, but we'll check his sinuses with a CT scan to make sure they are working. 
Another possibility is the possibility of an immune disorder.  We've been down that thought road before, pretty sure we have done that testing.  They are going to get the records from our previous allergist and be sure that the tests have been done.  Otherwise, we'll do those test and may also have to do a "sweat test."
If there isn't an immune disorder (which thankfully seems unlikely) and antibotics just don't seem to help there is also the possibility that he may need surgery to clear his sinuses out.  Ugh, poor baby!  We have a CT scheduled for the 9th of May and will do 25 days of antibotics - I hope that is the end of the journey for the poor kid though. 

Going Manual

This morning we found our way to a park, the "cowboy" park Josh has dubbed it.  It is getting warm here, I am excited for the warmth but realized today that our days of spending mid afternoons in the park are short lived again - we'll be spending mornings and evenings at the park and staying out of the afternoon heat soon.  We had lots of fun though and it was good since our morning got rearranged a bit; we had hoped to make the MOPS egg hunt but Mike was longer than he planned taking care of registering the van - bummer we missed the egg hunt but yeah I don't have to do it alone with all 3 kids.  I challenged myself for the weekend to stick to fully manual on the camera (I've been doing apture or shutter speed control but leaving the autofocus on most of the time and sometimes the auto-ISO on, though sometimes not).  I was surprised I got as many good shots as we ended up with.
My heart has been pondering actually being more serious with photography, as in doing it for hire.  It's scary for me - the business aspects of it I have no idea on yet...of course I also question if I can hack it out there.  But I absolutely LOVE taking pictures though, I am loving the learning and trying to achieve better pictures each time.  I have had several people ask me about taking pictures, or suggesting I should try...Mike says it's not a coincidence anymore...we'll see how it goes.  But all that jibberish was to say, I'm challenging myself to be fully manual because if I do this for other people and get paid to do it - I want to make sure I'm constantly learning and getting better and improving.









 

Our Last Day with Mema & Pepa in Pictures

Thursday was the last day we had with Mema & Pepa before we had to take them to the airport on Friday morning.  Mike had to work, but the rest of us ventured out to a new park - which was really nice and lots of fun! Then it was lunch, home for naps and rest and then lots more playing for the evening!














 

And He Dips...

Noah doesn't eat ketchup - he doesn't really any sauce or dip at all.  He hasn't, like ever.  It took a while before he ate sauce on his pizza and spaghetti is still occasionally questionable with sauce (though we have gotten to being okay with it more often than not lately).  It's just something about him, it's fine we don't push it.  We ended up having lunch at Apple Bee's today though and one of the great things about eating there is the chips and dip before our food comes.  It always helps the waiting to have a little snack.  Well today Noah wanted to dip his chips in the salsa - and he kept doing it and eating it!  Yeah for trying new things - good job Noah!

Red Rock Canyon

Wed. morning we headed out for a windy morning at Red Rock Canyon - we have driven in the area but never have been in the park before today.  We explored the visitor's center for a bit, made special coins, and then took the scenic drive.  It really is a beautiful place to visit (though I think Valley of Fire had more chances to get out and climb rocks - which of course is always a big hit for the boys).

Fighting Bad Guys with Mema

We were so excited to see Mema & Pepa (Mike's parents for those that don't speak Lucas children language) on Tuesday afternoon!  We have the rest of the week with them too!  Yeah!  Tuesday we had lunch at playground McDonald's (the choice of children everywhere right?) and then came home for a relaxed evening.  The boys of course were excited that Mema and Pepa were finally here and didn't leave them alone much.  Josh and Noah enjoyed their Nerf guns and fighting bad guys with Mema for a lot of the early evening.  For awhile there were pretend bad guys, then it turned out that Josh was the bad guy (surprise there right?).  What a good time though!

Josh had been shot and was playing dead

Noah's Pet

So there was a fly in the house on Tuesday morning.  Mike was trying to kill the fly and Noah told him "no don't kill the fly he's nice"  Of course this was too late for the fly it had been killed.  Noah picked up the fly and said it was his pet, Killer is what he  named him.  He carried the fly around for quite a bit Tuesday morning until we found it a home in a glass jar.  He even showed Mema & Pepa Tuesday afternoon when they got here.  Oh the poor child - forced to have a dead fly for a pet!

Just a Few Pictures from this Morning

The kids and I spent the morning exploring the Spring Preserves again and I thought I'd share a few pictures from our adventures.  I took the new lens of course and had fun trying it on - Noah and Josh requested pictures be taken of flowers so we had lots of those pictures.

Valley of Fire with the Squadron

We spent another morning at the Valley of Fire...this time with Mike's squadron.  What a gorgeous day we had out there, so thankful after we had sleet/rain/snow yesterday (yes in Vegas in April!).  We grilled out, played football, talked, fed the chipmunks, and explored a bit.  It ended up I think being a great place for the various ages of families - and I'm pretty sure everyone had a really good time.  Our kids enjoyed trying to climb the rocks near the picnic location...there was also a little cover of sorts close that our boys and Kristin's boys went exploring.  It was great - they were fighting off the "bats & bears" (which of course there weren't really but shh...don't tell them that!) and climbing up; the location was great though because they couldn't climb up too high and there was a good slope that was much safer and it didn't go through to another side.  A great spot for 4 preschool boys to have adventures.  I think we got a few good shots of Noah for his 5 year pictures...we'll do them in parts I think and seriously how is he almost 5 already?
On the way home I told Mike I felt like we've won the lottery so far with squadrons.  We have been in such awesome squadrons that have had leaders who put family first and really look out for everyone.  What a blessing it has been!