Ear Update

We were back at the doctors office this week and couldn't do the hearing test because her ears were so bad still. They did a culture on the fluid draining from her ear and we should get the results from that anytime. In the mean time, they have her on a different ear drop which is clearing up the drainage...but who knows if it's actually fixing the problem! The ENT said we'd talk about taking her adenoids out in a couple of months. We are still waiting for the results of her allergy testing and will update as soon as we hear anything. Until then, we are trying to come up with new meal ideas with no milk or soy, which is very hard. She is tired of what she's been eating and we are having a hard time getting her to grow! In fact...she's just getting skinnier and skinnier. She actually fits into the size 2 diapers that she grew out of last June! Hopefully the allergist will be able to help us out with that. The ENT said to just give her a flinstone vitamin, but my gut is telling me she needs more than that! I guess we'll get it all figured out soon enough!

Primary Talk

Kyle gave a talk in Primary today and he did Awesome!! It was completely adorable! I took a video of him practicing before church and posted it below. We had to take a break to fix an "ouchie" so there are two parts. It's kind of long so if your not a grandparent or far-away aunt you may find it boring, but you are welcome to watch it!

Primary Talk Practice

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Primary Talk Part 2

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

I want a bite!

This is what Brookie does when she wants a bite of what you have. She'll look at you and open her mouth as wide as she can. It's so funny! Here is a random little story: At the JV basketball game at Jordan High the kids love running around the bleachers. One day the entire Varsity basketball team was sitting on the other end of the bleachers and she walked clear over to them by herself and just sat down by them. She just stayed there...and then she eventually started to bully one of the starters chips out of him! It was pretty funny.

Thanks Grandma!

My Grandma gave me this plaque. It was my grandpa's which makes it really special to me, and I just love the saying. When I saw it I immediately fell in love with it so my grandma told me to keep it as a little token to remember my grandpa! I often feel like a nut and like what I do is insignificant, but this reminds me that my potential is huge!

We're Finishing our Basement!!!

We are in the process of finishing our basement and I couldn't be happier!! The mudder/taper guy has one more coat to put on tomorrow morning, then he'll sand it on Monday. Our trim and doors are being put in on Thursday, and then we'll paint and get our carpet put in after that. We are just a few weeks away and I'm so stoked to have a dungeon to lock my kids in! Christian and his dad did the framing and Christian, his brother, and myself did the insulation.

An Ambulance, A Firetruck, A police car, Oh My!

The craziest thing happened the other day. On my way home I had to stop and fill gas. Kyle is my little helper and likes to hold the nozzle while it fills up. I put the little lever-thing down so that the gas would pump itself and turned around to put my debit card away. All of a sudden Kyle starts screaming "My eyes, my eyes!" and I turned around and gas was spraying EVERYWHERE! Kyle pulled the nozzle out and because of the lever it continued spraying and he was drenched and some had gotten in his eyes. He was hysterical, but I had to stop the spraying hose, and then get Brookie out of her car seat (because I know I would have been arrested if I didn't) and then we bolted inside to flush his eyes out with water. The gas attendant asked if he was alright and I briefly explained what happened while we were washing his eyes out. He then said that it was going to call somebody and I told him he didn't need to because I could just take him to the instacare a couple of blocks away. In the mean time Christian was on his way home from work so I called him, quickly told him what happened and where to come. I was trying to calm Kyle down, wash his eyes out, and keep Brooklyn from opening all of the candy so I had to be super quick on the phone with Christian, but I didn't realize that he didn't hear what happened, he just knew where we were and that something was wrong. Well, finally I got Kyle calmed down and he said his eyes didn't hurt anymore and then all of a sudden a firetruck, ambulance and police car showed up. I could not believe it! I was mortified. About ten huge guys with all kind of equipment showed up and rushed into the gas station. And, of course, Kyle had to feel better right before they got there so I felt even dumber. The guys were so nice and helpful and asked if I wanted them to take Kyle to the emergency room and I told them that wouldn't be necessary. They suggested I take him home and put him in the shower to let the water continue flushing his eyes out and then to follow up with an eye doctor if his eyes seemed irritated later on. While this was going on Christian rushed in the doors and was completely white! There was no time to call him back and tell him everything was alright and then he showed up to the firetruck, ambulance and police car and thought someone was dying. I felt so bad for him! That must have been a terrifying minute from the time he saw all the vehicles down the street to the time he was inside! Anyway, I'm so glad everyone was okay. Oh, and the guys let Kyle get up in the drivers seat on the Firetruck after all the paper work and everything was settled. He got to turn the lights of the truck on and off and he thought he was pretty cool! How boring life would be without a little bit of drama every now and again!

What on earth is going on???

Well, we've got all kinds of new information...most of it unfortunate! Brooklyn ended up getting what Kyle had right after she got over her ear infection, which was miserable! Then, on Sunday while she was still sick from the other thing she got an ear infection again. Yip! I'm pretty much fed up with this. Poor Brookie is seriously miserable! And to top things off Christian stayed home from work today because he threw up all day and continues down stairs throwing up. We have had only 3 days in 2009 where none of us have been sick.

I found a different ENT to see Brooklyn today whom I absolutely love! Brooklyn hasn't been responding to antibiotics and every time I go to the ENT office I see someone different. Still, to this day I have seen the doctor that did her surgery for a total of 3 minutes on the day of her surgery. When I go in there they say, "Well, lets just try a different antibiotic" and then shew me out the door. They wouldn't answer my questions or even discuss my concerns with me and I started to get ticked off! The new doctor today was fabulous. I went in with lots of questions and I didn't even ask one of them because she addressed all of my concerns before even asking. We talked about her allergies and she's pretty sure that that could be a major factor in what is going on here. I asked the other office about that and they said there was no correlation at all, but this doctor has ordered all kinds of allergy tests to see what is really going on in her body. We have Brooklyn on soy milk (as suggested by our Pediatrician) but this doctor said that soy is a hidden allergy which means she won't have any obvious reactions to it, but it ends up causing other problems...like lot's and lot's and lot's of ear infections. She said the kids that get the tubes and still have problems are the ones with "hidden" allergies. She is also concerned about her hearing and is having us come back next week when her ear clears up to have some hearing tests done. I'm so encouraged after talking to the doctor today. I'm glad we found someone willing to try to get to the bottom of the problem rather than just try different antibiotics. I will let you know updates as we get them!

Who's the Fairest of them all?

Brookie thinks she's pretty darn beautiful...as does her mother! She had her 15 month well check last week and is standing tall in the 10th percentile! She is also in the 10th percentile for weight. Hasn't grown much, but the doctor said that if I weren't 4' 11'' she might be a little concerned. She's getting more and more hair and saying more and more words. Her favorites are daddy (#1 for sure), uh-oh, mommy, doggy, ducky, hi, and her own version of thank you (it's kind of a 'do deu'). She's getting over ear infections AGAIN! With this last one they were a little concerned that it was behind her ear drum which apparently causes permanent hearing loss, but fortunately it didn't get that far! The ENT just said that she's got extremely small Eustachian tubes which makes her very prone to infections. NO FUN!!

Little Boy to BIG Boy WAY Too Fast!

Kyle has had some big milestones in the past couple of weeks. He is now a Sunbeam in primary and he started preschool. I can't believe it!! He loves them both very, very much! Just an update: Kyle was super sick this past weekend and is starting to get over it. He had a high fever, bad cough, and threw up a couple of times. With Brookies ear infections and Kyles little bug nobody has been getting much sleep around here. One of my New Years Resolutions is to be more optimistic and look at the bright side of things. The bright side of all of this sickness is that we have great health insurance!

Kyle has said some really funny things lately. Here are a few:

At church Brookie always tries to escape the bench we are sitting in and after one particular escape Kyle looked at the man sitting behind us, smiled and shook his head and said, "Yeah, she's ours!"

While up at my grandma's snow blowing Kyle looked at me and said, "I don't like that power/speed shovel!"

After a snow storm Kyle and Christian seized the opportunity to go out and play in the snow. Once he got out there he looked at me with much concern and said, "It's very deep-y out here!"

Standing in front of a space heater he said, "Mommy, that thing is hotting me!"

While eating his lunch he said, "This is dewicious...and healthy!"

Get ready for tons of pictures!

We were lucky enough to have Nate (Christian's brother), his wife, Jessica, and their two kids Jansen and Natalie visit from Ohio again. The kids had a blast playing together. Just to remind you, our kids are both just weeks apart. It is so fun having the cousins close in age! We went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point and most of the pictures are from that day. We miss you guys. Come back soon!!!!