Spring Break 2015

After missing the last three days of school before Spring Break, Kai finally starting feeling good on Saturday.  Go figure.  It was a beautiful day.

On Monday we spent the day cleaning the house.  I was happy to have helpers, and they are generally happy to help (as long as it's something they want to do--which does not include cleaning their room!).

After being stuck at home for what felt like weeks with sick kids, I was anxious to get out of the house.  On Tuesday we had no plans so we decided to go to the Outlets in Castle Rock for a few things we needed.  We had a good time walking around and picking up just a few things.  We ended up spending 4 hours there and eating a second lunch at the food court.  Kai ate nearly an entire 6 inch sub from Subway, which made me proud.

Bree has discovered Mickey Mouse and he has become an instant favorite.

The boys wanted their pictures taken on these rocks.  Why not?!

Bree was not about to sit still for a picture.

We were out most of the afternoon that day and so Bree only got some short naps in the car.  The next day Finn had a really early appointment on the south side of Denver to get his g-tube button replaced (it needs to be changed out every three months).  It started snowing that morning and so when we got out of the appointment, my plans for the day needed to be adjusted.  Since the appointment was near the temple I had wanted to take the kids over to the temple grounds for a walk and maybe a picnic.  Instead, we drove by and noticed that the distribution center was open, so we decided to go in to look at scriptures for Kai.  While standing in the tiny distribution center Bree looked through the glass doors and was able to see into the temple waiting room where there was a large statue of Christ.  Bree exclaimed, "Jesus!" and so we decided to walk in reverently and look at the statue.  As we left Bree said, "Bye bye Jesus."  It was adorable.

From there we decided to go to the Park Meadows Mall (this place has a tag line of "Colorado's only retail resort").  Normally that mall is packed, but with the freak snow storm, it was very quiet and so we had a good time walking around.  I browsed quickly through a couple of stores I wanted to see and then we stopped at the Lego store where the boys played for a bit.  From there we headed to the upper level and got some yummy cookies.  The kids had never had cookies from Mrs. Field's so I figured we would splurge since they were being so good.  They really enjoyed them, even Bree.  After our cookie stop we headed to the Disney Store where we had a good time browsing and Bree even found a matching Minnie Mouse to our Mickey.  She was love and ready to take it home.  After all of that we stopped at the Lego store one more time on the way out and by then Bree was ready for a nap and the mall was getting busy as the snow had cleared and the day was warming up.  Our timing had been perfect and it was a really fun morning.

There was no line at all for the Easter Bunny.  However, none of my kids wanted to see him so we just took a cute picture on the bench outside of the area.  Finn was crying and screaming several feet to the right of this picture!

The dress up castle at the Disney Store

Minnie Mouse.....she wants one for her birthday

As if being out of the house on Tuesday and Wednesday and cutting Bree's naps short wasn't enough, on Thursday we met up with friends at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature.  We left early that morning and got there not long after it opened.  I was worried about fighting for a parking spot but we were lucky there to get there before the lot filled up.  We spent some time on our own before meeting up with friends at the Children's Discovery Center.  Our friends were not as lucky with parking and so we played for a bit while we waited for them to arrive.  We had a good time playing with them in the Discovery Center and then decided to take a break and eat our lunch picnic style in one of the atriums.  It was perfect as the kids were able to visit and play with each other and the adults were able to visit together.  From there we all decided to go see the new Mythic Creatures exhibit.  It was fantastic and certainly wins as my favorite of their seasonal displays.  After that I was exhausted and so we made a quick stop at the gems and minerals display before heading back out to the car.  Traffic was awful getting home and so we ended up not getting home until after 4pm.  It was a long day but we were definitely making good use of our spring break.

Looking at an exhibit with their friend Sawyer

The kids were tasked with creating their own mythical creature.  There were color pencils and stencils and I was surprised by how seriously they took the task.  Especially Finn who doesn't like to draw or color at all.  But they sat here for quite a while making up their creatures.

By the time Friday arrived we were all pretty tired.  Finn had still be coughing quite a bit and Bree wasn't sleeping great.  But I had promised the kids a trip to House of Bounce, so we went for a couple of hours that morning.  From there I took the kids in for haircuts and then we were home to rest for the weekend.  Including a movie afternoon on Saturday.  We were all really wiped out!

The boys in matching outfits watching a movie.

By the time spring break was over, Kai started coughing again.  Yep, that's been the story of our winter!

More of March

The night Reid got home from his trip, Kai had started coughing.  He was coughing so hard he threw up and so he ended up staying home from school on Monday the 9th.  Finn went to school, though, and even talked his dad into making him some green eggs to go with his ham that we had for dinner.  (He had tried green eggs at school the previous week when they celebrated Dr. Suess and now he will only eat eggs if they are green.)

The next day (Tuesday the 10th) Kai was still coughing and sounding quite congested.  So, I had him get in the shower to clear some stuff out.  He ended up getting sick in the shower.  Ugghhh....that was not fun.  So, he stayed home again.  Bree was a quite a little cutie on the way to take Finn to school that day!

That night Kai started running a fever, so he was home from school again on the 11th.  Good grief, I was getting anxious to get him back to school and finally on the 12th (Thursday) I was able to send him.  He was still coughing and you could tell he was still weak, but I felt he needed to get back to school.

On Thursday when I finally got Kai back to school, Finn started in on it.  He was running a fever, coughing, throwing up, and run down.  He took a 3-4 hour nap in the middle of the day.  That never happens!  I was able to keep him hydrated by giving him small amounts of water through his G-tube, thankfully, but he wasn't really eating anything.

Staying hydrated, thanks to the g-tube, while taking a nap.

On Friday I called CF clinic as we were going into the weekend and I wanted to check in with them before I couldn't get anyone.  They said that if Finn started running a fever or throwing up again that i should take him in.  Friday morning he was feeling pretty good and much better (still coughing, but much improved).  By about 4:30 that afternoon he was back to running a fever and throwing up again.  I made the decision to take him into our pediatrician's after-hours clinic.  The doctor wasn't super helpful but did mention that Finn appeared to have an ear infection in his left ear.  Ummm....wow!  He's never had one of those before.

Anyway, we stayed in for the weekend and tried to get everyone back to feeling better.  On Sunday I started noticing that Bree was coughing.  By Monday she was coughing and sounding bad like everyone else.  It was a pretty day outside so we walked down to the bus stop to get Kai and we got these pictures.

Tuesday night (the 17th) Kai started complaining of being tired, not hungry, and cold.  Turned out he was running a fever.  Boo!  He ended up running a fever every afternoon for the next three days and so he missed the final three days of school before spring break.  He also missed his class field trip to the Denver Aquarium and the 2nd grade Beach Day.  I felt really bad for him, but he was worn out and needed to rest and stay home.  Bree also started running nightly fevers on Wednesday night.  I actually took both Kai and Bree to the pediatrician on Wednesday morning.  They gave Kai an antibiotic and said he might have a "sinus infection".  They said Bree had a cold, and no ear infection.  I have to say that I wasn't thrilled with the visit.  We could only get in with the RN that day and I ended up regretting it.  That same day I took Finn in for a visit with the CF RN (see the theme) at the South Children's location so that they could check him out.  It was our first sick CF visit ever.  Finn was down over 2 pounds in just 4 days, both of his ears did "not look normal", and they heard some slight wheezing in his chest.  We did a belly x-ray to make sure he was cleared out (he was) and they ran basic bloodwork to make sure he wasn't dehydrated (he wasn't).  We had seen the GI the day before and had decided to restart his reflux meds.  The GI was also worried about post-viral gastroparesis.  The CF RN decided that we should give the GI's plan a try (we hadn't been able to start the meds yet because of insurance delays) and wait to start a round of prednisone for the wheezing until after his tummy issues were resolved.  I agreed.  So that day I spent my ENTIRE day with doctors only to be told that there isn't that much wrong with the kids.  It was frustrating and I didn't agree because my kids were definitely sick.  Finn, however, didn't miss any school that week (and had only missed 2 days the week before).  Kai ended up missing 6 days of school.  And then we had spring break!  That's for my next post.  

Thursday afternoon Finn got really quite.  I found him totally asleep on my pillow.  He told me he wasn't sleeping.  :)

Our Weekend

Reid went to visit his family for several days this past weekend and the kids and I tried to keep busy and have fun.  On Thursday (he had left early that morning) we went to get Papa Murphy's pizza.  The kids each got a Mini-Murph kit and made their own cheese pizzas.  I got a large Hawaiian pizza to last me the whole weekend.  I also bought myself a salad and then we got a S'mores Dessert Pizza.  All of that food really did last me the whole weekend, and the boys were eating pizza for three out of the four days.  Yay!

On Friday we had planned to go to House of Bounce with friends, but the friends got sick and I wasn't feeling great and then Bree had a rough night Thursday night.  So, we skipped House of Bounce and stayed home and cleaned a bit.  In the afternoon I went out with the boys to play in the snow.  It was perfect play in the snow weather.....40ish degrees with so much snow piled up that it still hasn't finished melting.

The snow plow has pushed all of the snow up to the end of the cul-de-sac which also happens to be the edge of our front yard.  It hadn't even melted from the last snow, so this pile just keeps getting bigger.

My little helper!

On Saturday we went to feed the ducks in the morning, then we went to the Home Depot Kids'Workshop, and then we finished up with grocery shopping at Wal-Mart.  It was a busy, busy morning, but we needed out of the house.

Making bookends

Finally Sunday arrived and with it was daylight savings time.  Our normal 9am church was at what felt like 8am.  The kids woke up at 8:15/7:15 and we got dressed and ran out the door.  We arrived at church at 9:02am.  Not bad for being byself and having "8am" church.

Reid came home late on Sunday night and the kids were so excited.  When Finn woke up on Monday morning the first he asked was if his dad was home.  He ran right in to our room and hopped up for snuggles.  He was thrilled!  Kai on the other hand was sick and didn't want to get out of bed.  And Bree, well, she was happy, but she's still a mama's girl.

We had a great weekend, but we are happy to have Reid back!

At Least He Doesn't Have to Brush His Hair (Finn's Update)

Finn has a lot going on.....and at the same time, there's not that much going on.  I know that makes no sense so I will try to explain.

Finn's profile shot

Finn had his G-tube placed on New Year's Eve.  He seemed to recover fairly well from the surgery.  For the first two to three weeks there was a lot of sensitivity to the surgical site and he didn't like being touched or having his gauze changed or even taking a bath/shower.  I'm glad that the tenderness/sensitivity has seemed to die down.  He has developed what they call granulation tissue around his stoma (the tube site) and so he has to have the gauze changed twice daily and a steroid cream applied.  The prescription actually says to apply the cream three times a day, but good grief I can't imagine doing that.  Twice a day is all I can manage.  He does 10 to 11 hour tube feeds every night and gets 500 calories.  While the tube feeds have gone pretty painlessly most nights, we have had periods of trouble.  We had about a week straight where the feed would stop in the middle of the night and we would wake up to find all of his formula still in the bag.  This led to him getting constipated, which then leads to him vomiting.  It's a vicious cycle.  Some nights (depending on the day) I add 100mL (almost 4 ounces) of water mixed with cap full of Miralax and a dose of Benefiber to his feed bag.  There are other days where I give him the 4 ounces as a bolus feed while he is watching a show.  That takes us about 20 minutes.  Thankfully, all of our effort is paying off as he has been gaining weight.  His last visit he was at 37 pounds, which is at least a 2 pound gain since he had his surgery.  Considering he had only gained about 2 pounds in the entire year before his surgery, this is good progress!

Finn posed for a shot of his G-tube

Other than Finn's G-tube care, he still has his regular breathing treatments that take about an hour a day.  And then there is his sinus care.  Depending on how his sinuses are doing on a given day, he may need 2 sinus rinses a day and oral antibiotics.  Or he could be doing great--like today (knock on wood)--and not need any of that, just his Flonase.  That being said, he just finished a one month round of oral antibiotics yesterday and he also had a 5 day burst of Prednisone in the middle of that, too.  So, we will take the rest for the next few days until he catches whatever virus it is that Kai has right now.

Finally, as if Finn didn't have enough medically going on, Finn's feet have been a problem for him since his infancy.  He either has a CF-related dermatitis or eczema (hard to tell), but we have found that it responds well to a steroid cream--a different one than what we use on his stoma.  So, twice a day I have to apply his cream, some aquaphor, and then cover his feet up with socks.

As you can imagine, all of this certainly makes getting ready for the day a long process.  It kind of feels like a never-ending marathon.  And then we get to start it all over again to get him ready for bed.....breathing treatments, G-tube flushing/set-up for night feed, gauze change, feet fix, and then all of the other things that a normal little boy has to do  (eat (take enzymes with that), get dressed, brush his teeth, back his backpack) and of course, I'm still juggling the two other kids while helping him through all of this.  It honestly feels like we're never going to get out the door some days!  At least he has this awesome wiry-texture hair that has a slight curl to it ensuring that it is almost always in perfect place.  Yay for not having to brush his hair!!

Other than all of his medical stuff, Finn is doing great at school.  He loved celebrating his first Valentine's Day at school.  He decided to hand out toy skateboards with a tag that said, "I Wheely Like You!"  They turned out cute and he was excited.  There have been a lot of delayed starts the last few weeks due to snow and cold and that means that Finn hasn't had a lot of time at school.  I'm hoping we are through the worst of it, but you never know here.  I'm sure we will have at least a couple more big storms, I just hope they won't impact school as much.

Finn dutifully working on his Valentines

Kai's Update

There really hasn't been any exciting events to post about these days.  We are pretty much just going about normal life with our routine and enjoying the time we have together.  It's been quite snowy lately and so we spend our time indoors playing together, watching shows or movies, and for Kai--reading.  This kid just loves to read and learn.  He currently says that when he grows up he is going to be an astronaut geologist.  He loves to read non-fiction books....yep, the educational ones.  We just recently discovered that there are chapter books of The Magic School Bus and so that's been great for him.

For Valentine's Day this year he wanted to do the "rock" theme again, so this year we went with Pop Rocks.  I covered up the word "Pop" with "You" and the "s" in "rocks" with an "!".  The result was that it said "You rock!".  I printed everything out and then had Kai cut it out and tape it on.  And then I stayed up late the night before making sure they were all done.  Of course, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but at least I have some of him making them.

Kai's profile shot.  He had a hard time with this for whatever reason.

Making Valentine's

 We've had the sister missionaries a bit lately as they are not allowed out after dark unless they have an appointment.  So, when they don't have appointments they fill in with the members and talk to us about sharing the gospel, etc.  One night they brought an "Armor of God" lesson and the boys just loved it.  They love the missionaries and I think the love is mutual.

The missionaries brought one set of armor and so Kai put on his Halloween costume so we could have two sets.

Finally, today Kai had "Famous American Day".  Kai's teacher sent home a list of people to choose from and then he was to research that person and prepare a speech, poster, and costume.  Kai chose Neil Armstrong and did a great job researching and writing his report.  His dad and I helped him design a poster and we got him an astronaut costume.  He did a great job today.  It was fun to go into the 2nd grade pod and see the kids set up with their posters everywhere.  They had several different classes from around the school coming to visit the pod to learn about the famous Americans presented and all of the parents were invited, too.  It was fun chaos!  The event was scheduled to last 2 hours!  Bree and I stayed for a half an hour and heard from people such as Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, George Washington Carver, Sally Ride, George Washington, Susan B. Anthony, and Walt Disney.  Personally, I thought Neil Armstrong was the best!

22 Months of Bree

I can't believe she is almost 2 years old!  That being said, she is certainly starting to act like a 2 year old.  We are so blessed to have her in our family.  She is exactly what we need to brings smiles to all of our faces.  She is talking more and more and is finding her inner "silly" personality.  She is finally enjoying nursery and the last couple of times I have left her with someone else she actually hasn't cried.  One of our favorite things these days is listening to her little voice.  She says "Mo!" quite frequently with a shake of her head (for No!") and has become a good mimic.  She has "said" prayers for the family a couple of times (mostly just repeating a word or two that I say).  She loves to watch shows with her brothers and watching a movie with her is a fun adventure.  The other day when Kai was home because school was out on a snow day we watched Milo and Otis.  Bree spent a good 40 minutes saying "Cat?  Cat?  Where cat?".  And then when he came back on the screen it was "There he is!".....and over and over again.  Except for the parts when the cat was in trouble and then she'd say, "Oh oh cat!" and scream and cry and grab onto her blankie.

Speaking of the blankie, that is her comfort object of choice whenever she is upset.  I have laid her on the floor several times during one of her tantrums and handed her theblankie and waited for her to figure it out.  (It's the better option to getting hit, scratched, and bit.)

Bree can be a great eater or a horrible eater.  It kind of depends on the day and how she's feeling.  She went through a large growth spurt last month and gained nearly a pound in a month.  And now she's back to being more picky.  She is very close to 20 pounds but hasn't quite made it yet.  I have a goal for her for her 2 year check, so I'm hoping she decided she likes eating again soon.  She has about 13 teeth (she doesn't like me to look and since she's my 3rd I haven't been keeping close check), and teething is a big struggle for her.  Getting teeth in is hard and apparently very painful.  The other night I spent 2 hours holding her and then finally got smart and gave her some ibuprofen and once that kicked in she was able to go back to bed.  She was crying, saying "Owwww" and pointing to her teeth/mouth.  Poor thing.

Bree is also an outdoor fanatic and loves to do anything active.  She also loves to read books with us and she really loves going to Toddler Time at the library on Thursday mornings.  She has taken to being quite the comedian at dinner and will laugh loudly at herself and do all kinds of silly things until she gets our attention.  She also remains my little helper.  She loves to help with the dishes, and setting up Finn's feeding pump, and getting the things he needs for changing the dressing on his "magic" button. She is my little shadow and yet at the same time she is quite independent.  She has taken to rocking herself to sleep in the recliner.  At night I sit on the floor and sing her favorite song (she calls it "Jesus", but it's "I Know that My Savior Loves Me") while she rocks and "sleeps" by her "self" in the chair.

We are so grateful for this little bundle of joy (and drama....there is always a little drama!).  She is a blessing!

Throwing a fit with her trusty blankie

My sister-in-law asked for some profile pictures of the kids.  This is one of Bree.

She woke up from a nap to snow.  Here she is still cuddled up from her nap watching the snow fall outside.

Glued to her favorite TV show--Animal Mechanicals