Finally went swimming

We were going to go swimming yesterday, the weather was perfect! However, Cooper's best friend was coming to pick him up for a visit. He moved away two years ago and they definitely miss each other! So we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. We finally went on to dinner and sure enough, as we were finishing up, they called wanting to know where we were and when we'd be home lol. Oh well, it was a nice lazy day at home!

So today after Little Man's nap, we headed to an aquatic center about 30 minutes away. Our pool in town closed down, such a bummer. There is NOTHING in this town to do. Not sure why we live here sometimes!It was actually pretty chilly today for June, but off we went anyway! Addy isn't a huge fan of anything so it took her awhile to warm up to the idea of the water. She preferred to spend her time hanging out by the fence :)

Little Man on the other hand, had a blast!!! He LOVED the water! Can't you see that amazing smile on his face??? Oh yeah, you can't but I PROMISE his expressions are priceless!!!

Jake's Baptism :)

Jake was baptized down at the river today :) So proud of him and excited for his future!

Gotcha Day!

Today is Gotcha Day for our Little Man! I'm not sure why I still refer to him as that because we have called him MONKEY for months! It was Father's Day weekend last year that I headed up north to pick up this precious boy from the NICU :) I was so overcome with emotion, it was surreal thinking that I was going to care for this amazing little boy!

I never thought that we would be become foster parents. The thought of caring for a child then having to give them back is heart wrenching to even imagine. I still feel that way. You just never know what is going to happen. What I do know is that God is control of this baby boy and what his future holds. He has a plan for him. We definitely want to have him join our family, that would be amazing, we love him dearly :) When we were called about him we really didn't have to think at all about whether or not we would take this baby, it was a definite yes :) He needed someone to love and care for him and our entire family was more than willing :) He has been a fabulous addition to our family, he is loved and accepted and given as many opportunities to grow and thrive that we can give him!

He is now 13 months old  and is such an opposite child from what Addy was at this age! It's amazing how being born without several birth defects and medical conditions can help you! He sits up, crawls, pulls to stand, kneels (even on one knee at times lol), claps his hands, plays ball like a champ, loves music and his bath, babbles with several consonants, says and waves Bye Bye, eats like there's no tomorrow and thinks bananas are the best thing ever! He is very healthy and has only struggled with some lung stuff through the winter. 

We are still unsure of our future with him but as I stated, God is control and has a plan for our Little Monkey and hope and pray that what His will is will be done.

Happy Gotcha Day Monkey! We love you to the moon and back!

I thought it was summertime!

Ugh, I was sooo hoping that this summer was going to be illness free for all of us around! Addy is fighting her sinus stuff (appears to be improving :) and I came down with a sore throat. It started on Tuesday, nothing major at all. I even talked about having my tonsils out last year because I was so tired of constantly getting strep. Wednesday throat really wasn't hurting except once in a while, I just blamed it on drainage. Thursday night however, a different story. It was storming outside, the littles were in bed so the boys and I were playing Monopoly and I was fading fast, my throat was really beginning to hurt. I was secretly hoping that our power would go out (like our neighbors) so I could just call it a night and go to bed lol. Fortunately or unfortunately, not sure, the power did go out so I headed to bed!!! I was up most of the night with awful pain. I'm pretty darn tough but I just knew I had to have strep, I know that feeling well obviously ! I had to get up early on Friday to get Cooper to the church to head to St. Louis for a choir trip and Little Man was already up so I went ahead and dropped him off at daycare early, I didn't want to expo ( se him anymore than I had to! I couldn't call the doc until 8:30 but I called right then and no available appointments :( ugh. I even called another doc in my network in a close town, no appointments available. Well crap, I guess Urgent Care it is. Jake had baseball camp until noon so when I picked up him we ran through Sonic and got him some lunch and headed into Springfield. We arrived around 12:45 pm and the waiting room was packed :( NOT a good sign. When I was finally called back for triage I was told that they were really backed up but they were running a fast track and pushing through the minor issues quickly. Yeah! I had my vitals taken and my throat cultured. I was pretty hopeful that they would read the quick test, call me back, give me meds and send me on my way. Yeah right. We waited forever! Addy was good for a couple of hours but after that, she was D O N E! She's no longer my sweet little "I'm going to sit here and entertain myself nicely" angel. She's my I want to GO GO GO girl now! Thank goodness Jake was with me to take her on some walks around. I should have brought the Ipad but it needed charging ( I know I totally could have charged it in the van) and I didn't think we'd be more than a couple of hours. Little Man has to be picked up by 5 so I had to call in Scott for reinforcement! He came by and picked up Addy and Little Man's car seat and headed home with them. Jake stayed with me to keep me company :) It was after five before I was called back to see the doctor. The doc checks me all out and asks if they cultured my throat. Um, yes why would you not know this? He said "They tell me before I come in if it's positive." I"m thinking some not nice words because if I sat here all day to find out that I have a virus I'm sooo not going to be happy!! The doc finally decides to investigate a little  more and he says "Jackpot! You have strep!"  No kidding. I'm pretty sure I dx myself. I do that often with my kids. Maybe I should go back to school and become a nurse practitioner, I have a LOT of experience lol.

So, my prescription gets sent to the pharmacy (that closes at 6:30) and off we go. We made it by 6:20 and got my meds, got Jake to pole vaulting practice at 7 :) Storms starting coming in and Cooper is in St. Louis (where storms sirens were going off) and Jarika calls from Joplin because the sirens were going off and she was by herself. No stress for this mama at all. The day was officially a complete failure lol. So today I'm hoping for a much better day, meds have been started and I don't think I have to run anyone anywhere at this point :) We shall see, that has a tendency to change moment by moment! I'm looking forward to more of the pic above without any more illnesses!

So Big :)

Addy has finally outgrown her baby bathtub :) She's six and a half but ya know when you finally grow you finally grow! It cracks me up that she continually says "Addy swimming" while in the tub :) Her poor face is so broken out due to a sinus infection that she keeps rubbing the snot up her face and into her eye, nice right? Gross lol.

We went to St. Louis yesterday with Addy and Little Man. Our DS nurse practioner (who we adore!) was sooo excited to see how amazing Addy looks! Last year she was below the 1% on the Down syndrome growth chart, now she is 5% for weight and 25% for height!!! I'm wondering if that's switched but anyway, she's on the DS chart finally!  We went over her history for the past year and was so bummed to hear how sick she had been but was thankful that we have a great doctor that is very on top of Addy's care. She completely agreed with putting Addy on Homebound this year. It was truly best for her, she just could not stay well. Fortunately her bloodwork showed that her pneumococcal tiders are now within the normal range so that should help with preventing pneumonia. We can hope right? She was also pleased to hear about her academic achievements considering she was home for three months. She reads about fifty sight words, counts to 100 (with help at the tens),knows her colors and five basic shapes (she knows more but on her terms of course) understands rhyming words and is doing well with positional words. Her weakest area is definitely fine motor skills and compliance. Addy is famous for showing she can do something a couple of times and then that's it, she showed you, no need to do it again in her mind lol. She was writing her first name before she got so sick but now it's just the A so that's on our daily practice agenda right now. Our NP asked about her services for first grade and encouraged inclusion. We are happy with Addy's services and feel that it will be a good fit for her. She will be in regular ed 68% of the time. She will be getting 60 minutes of PT (decrease from 90), 60 minutes of OT, 30 minutes of Adaptive PE, 90 minutes of speech/language (decrease from 120) plus resource for reading, math and writing. We asked for her PT and ST be decreased so that time can be spent on academics. She's going to have another fantastic teacher so we are very excited :)

We saw her opthomologist and he changed her script just slightly to help with her astigmatism. He also suggested we try Miraflex frames to see if that will help with her continual removal of her glasses! She wears Specs4Us right now and we've been very pleased with them but she does NOT like wearing her glasses at all :( He assured us that the frames look a little big and bulky but the have no pressure points so the kids wear them better. I don't really care how they look, I just want her to tolerate them!

Little Man also got a Rockstar report. He is truly amazing! He is 12 months old and eats like a champ and prefers to feed himself. He babbles all of the time and will hopefully start signing soon. His gross motor skills are very on target. He crawls, pulls to stand and is thinking about cruising. He crawls everywhere and can get into a sitting position with no problem! He is finally using a pincher to pick up food but prefers to rake. He will only eat with his left hand, he acts as if his right isn't even there. He uses it all of the time to play but eating, no way, he'll cross midline to reach food on his right side lol. Stinker We skipped his ENT appointment because we just saw ENT in Springfield last week. He passed his hearing eval but had flatline tympanograms in both ears so tubes are being placed on the 4th :) Really hope that helps him! These sleepless nights are making for one tired mama! His eye appt. went well, his prescription actually has improved but his eye drift on the left is worse. Soo the plan is to go back in six months and at that time we will determine if he needs glasses or surgery for strabismus. I sooo wish I could show his face, he is such a cute little thing, I swear, absolutely darling!

I took Addy into her ped today since I was pretty sure she had a sinus infection and sure enough it appears to be. So she's on Zithromax, hopefully that will help her feel a little better too :) She starts summer school on Monday, I think she misses the structure :) I will work two days a week in June then I will officially be done. I'm excited about my new job and can't wait to see how our family is blessed from this opportunity. It makes me have some peace knowing that I should have a day or two off during the week that I can make appointments for the kiddos when needed :) We're having a hard time finding private insurance though, both of our jobs don't have medical benefits. That stinks! So I will be doing so more research on that tomorrow. Wish me luck! No medical insurance is not an option!

The River

We took off to a river close by today for a little fun. We've had no other big plans for Memorial Day weekend so the river it was! My dad was cremated so I can go and decorate his grave, there's times that I really wish I had that opportunity.

It was a gorgeous day and the river was a perfect place to go today, not crowded and close to home. I had no intentions of getting wet :) I did want to just wade in the water a bit and before I knew it the sand/rocks/slush underneath me gave way and down Little Man and I went! I did keep him above water though! He didn't even cry! I was stuck on my knees keeping him out of the water and they took a beating lol. They don't look too bad but man they hurt!

Daddy saved Little Man from the icy water :)

 The boys had a blast swimming all over the icy water, Addy was happy as a clam on the sidelines throwing rocks into the water. If she has something to throw, she's a happy girl. After a couple of hours Daddy finally convinced her to at least sit in the water with him. She was filthy, it was so cute :) HOWEVER!!! When I got her up and out of the water a LEECH fell off of her! Freaked me out a bit but she seemed fine. I changed her when we got to the car and her swim diaper was full of blood! I was sure she was goingng to have a huge bite but she doesn't. There's definitely a hole where it attached to her but fortunately it's no longer bleeding and the doctor on call assures us that's there's no need to be concerned if the bleeding doesn't come back. This girl is such a trooper!

It was a nice day with the majority of my fam (Jarika is working today in Joplin), now we are all bathed and relaxing, I'm soo happy it's summer!

Pudgie :)

Addy saw her nutritionist yesterday and our girl is now officially a CHUNK!!! She weighed 36 pounds!!! She's gained 9 pounds since Christmas, six of those since the beginning of March!!! Sooo she's actually gained weight too quickly so we are backing her feeds up a little bit and checking her again in two weeks. Addy is cleared to go back to school on Monday (woo hoo!) and she will be much more mobile again :) Not that we want her to lose any of the weight she's gained, just not move forward this fast :)

We are also still looking into what is causing the infection in her gut. We do know that it is not C-Diff, still not sure what it is.

I also had to take Little Man back to the ped for the ten millionth time I think and sure enough he continues to have double ear infecions and was referred to the ENT for tubes.