Thanksgiving Weekend

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!!  My week has been a little crazy, but we have had the best time celebrating with family.  I had two sick boys going into Thanksgiving week.  A mild cold in Kam, turned Croup in Logi and Owen took a turn for the worse on Sunday night with fevers.  The pediatrician found no source of the fevers on Monday and Logi was running around like his nasty cough wasn't bothering him one bit.  It took a few days of R&R and both boys were back to a mild congestion... just in time to enjoy a lot of family time later in the week!

This year we celebrated Thanksgiving with C's side of the family.  There was a full house at Larissa's.. the food was delish and the cousins had a great time together.  Owen took one look at the food and said "The food is all gross.. I don't like Thanksgiving food.. there's nothing to eat."  So we ended up at a drive through at 5:00 at night for chicken wings.  Sigh. 

My kids were totally exhausted and in bed by 6:30 Thanksgiving evening.  This little drool monster had a great first Turkey day!!

Friday after I finished my online shopping (mostly for the 50% off deals and free shipping), we headed over to Karlee's baby shower.  My oldest niece is having a baby girl and I am thrilled for her.  I will say that I feel super old because she was just six when she was a flower girl at our wedding.  Mom to be in the brunette one behind Kam. 

Logi was a little monkey at the shower and loved having all the girls shower him in tissue paper.  I think he was a little more intent on getting Karlee's Starbucks tea and guzzling it.  He had his eye on that drink the entire time.  Congrats Karlee.. can't wait to meet baby Emerson.

Saturday we celebrated Bridgit's 3rd birthday.  Owen was having headaches all morning so he chilled on the couch for most of the party with Gma.  He also insisted on wearing his pajamas.. all. day. long.

Happy Birthday Bridgi.. we love you!

After presents, Kam took Logi on the trampoline for the first time.  He was not a fan.  Bridgi was happy to swap places with him and jump with her "bo" (Kam). 

It has been a great holiday weekend. I say it all the time, but we are so grateful to be surrounded by family.  The kids love their Cousins and get to see them everyday.  My parent's and Carson's are very involved with their Grandkids.  My heart is full.  We have so much to be Thankful for.  I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful as well!

November Update

It has been way too long since I sat down and posted. November has been slipping away and we have been as busy as ever. I don't know what it is about this month, but I always go into nesting mode.  I like to clean out closets, scrub appliances, organize the garage... you get where I am going with this.  Carson took a few days off around Veteran's Day so that was helpful. 

Time for a quick mid November update and then I will be posting more regularly this week because I have a lot to catch up and we have a busy two weeks ahead of us full of blog worthy posts.

Owen had his monthly transplant clinic at PCH with Dr Z.  His echo looks about the same... the right vent has normal function and the left vent is still working a little harder (low-norm function with EF of 55).  His weekly labs have been less than exciting, but we finally got a decent med level so we get a two week break!  While Owen doesn't mind labs, he is happy to get a little break from the needle.  All other labs look pretty good.. his BNP is still sitting in the 3000 range.. but not increasing at the moment.  His HR is still around 135-150 range which we are calling his "new normal" and his BP is on the low side, but tolerable.  All is well and we will take it!

Enough of the medical stuff... Owen is loving school.  That is, not actually GOING to school, but having his teacher come to the house every afternoon school.  He is cruising along and is finally picking up on things that he missed.  He is a pretty great reader and is reading chapter books each day.  He is great at memorizing things and retaining information, so reading came easy as he would just memorize sight words. He just skipped over all phonics and couldn't spell a single word, but could read an entire book.  His teacher is going back through all the phonics that he skipped over and now he is spelling like a champ!! :)  He is also catching up on all the common core math that he missed.  Again, since he is so great at memorizing, we just worked on math facts over the past two years.  Now he is going back with his teacher and breaking it down into math "families" (don't get me started) and it will help him understand the curriculum moving forward.  This little guy has no desire to go to school and he has very valid reasons why he doesn't want to go.  I figure we will give it until the first of the year and we keep it a daily discussion.  On the positive side.. he is staying super healthy!!!

Kam has been doing fantastic at school as always.  She has dance concerts this week that she has been busy working on for a few months.. I'll be sure to post videos.  She is always doing projects, writing papers, spending time with her brothers, helping me in the kitchen, and is the best daughter ever. She came home sick on Friday with a head cold and spent an hour on the couch reading Spiderwick Chronicles with Owen.  She has been driving more and more and I'm still as terrified as ever.  It does get easier right?!  She is counting down the days that she will finally ditch the braces.. I think we only have a couple appointments left!! 

This little monkey is walking ALL over the place.  He is into everything and he always finds the naughtiest things to get into.  He is easily distracted and just so happy all the time!  I have his 10 month and 11 month posts coming the next two days so I'll save all the goodies for those.  I took video of him at the cardiologists office because he was all over the place.  Love that Owen is chilling and eating his pretzels while Logi does laps around the room.  This is my day...

I wouldn't have it any other way! :)

Halloween 2015

It was another super SPOOKY and fun Halloween around here!  Introducing.. Harley Quinn, Nightwing and Baby Batman! 

The entire crew ready to go Trick-Or-Treating...

Logan's First Halloween was a hit... until about 7pm when he was over it and wanted nothing more than a tubby, a bottle, and his bed.  It's hard work being Batman.

Kam was the best sister ever and ditched two parties so she could stay home and take her brother's Trick-or-Treating.  I'm pretty sure this will be the last year she makes that sacrifice. 

Owen started out as Nightwing for the first 15 minutes, or long enough for pictures.  Then he went all dizzy and lightheaded (low BP spell) and wanted everything stripped off while he rested inside for a sec.  Daddy ran home and grabbed his Capt America pajamas and a shield.  He ended up wearing that as we went around the block Trick-or-Treating.  He did make it to about 30 minutes, which is way longer than he did last year.  He rode home in the stroller and was thrilled to be handing out candy instead of working for it. :)

Lucy was Evie -- the descendent of the Evil Queen?  No idea.. but she looks cute.

Gigi was Malificent who ditched us to go hang with her Jr High friends.  Teenagers. ;)

Liv was Mal -- the descendent of Maleficent.

Little Bridgi was a rainbow witch.

After our treck around the neighborhood, we came back to Gpa, Gma, Nana and Rog handing out candy in the spooky driveway.  Logi was ALL about the Candy this year.  He couldn't get enough!

I showed the kids how fun it was to dump their buckets and trade candy.  Liv loves all things sticky and sugary.  Owen likes chocolate bars... it was an easy trade.  Logi was all about the stick sucker.. he was covered in sticky!

My sister went and picked up Nana at the nursing home and brought her to enjoy Halloween with us.  It is her 88th Birthday today so we celebrated!  We had cupcakes and ice cream (more sugar).  Alzheimers is such a horrible disease, but she was having a good day yesterday. She didn't know who we were, but she was happy to be there.  She loved on all her great grandbabies and she knew she belonged there.  Happy Birthday Nana!

I can't leave out the kids carved pumpkins this year.  We learned to ditch the stencils and go free hand!  Kam just started cutting and out popped a ghost.  Daddy did Owen's Red Hood Bat symbol for him and he loves it.  We had fun carving with cousins and Auntie Sussy roasted/seasonsed the seeds for Owie!

It has been a great Halloween month and we are happy it's over.  We are ready to move on to our favorite month to Give Thanks.   Happy Halloween!!