Epic Bad Judgement

My husband likes to think he is funny, more often than not I do NOT share his humor. The Puyallup Fair has started here and with that brings Fair parking for the school. It is a HUGE fundraiser and they make quite a bit of money on it with zero cost to operate it. Rick is a co-chair for fair parking which means he spends every minute there when he is not working. There are small perks to it, sometimes a nice person will bring him a scone or two on their way out. Yesterday was not a day for GOOD perks however. Rick showed up at home last night with THIS



Yes it is a GINORMOUS stuffed Tiger, someone couldn't fit it in their car but he MADE IT fit in his! The boys think it is the coolest thing ever, I do NOT share that opinion. So now mom will be mean as usual and get rid of the tiger, I would make Rick but he is conveniently gone for the next 6 weeks. Anyone need a giant toy for a dog? Feel free to come pick it up!

From The Connor File

Connor was telling me how he wouldn't watch the Peter Pan dvd ever because LOOK there is Tinkerbell. So he goes on to tell me he doesn't like Fairies or Princesses. His aunt said he should like princesses because he will marry one someday. He said I don't want to be married!!!! I said not ever? He said no I just want to be normal.

Yesterday he and Ian came walking in and he said "This is Baby J.J. and we are Air Force guys and I have to protect this baby!" Then they went off on their way.

At dinner last week he proclaimed loudly "bad guys rule!" Then without missing a beat, "peace Aidan"

I figured I should write this all down somewhere other than Facebook. He is always saying something silly!

My laptop is out of comission for a bit so I won't get to update as much as I like.

where does the time go

trying to keep up

So I missed yesterday, I knew what I was going to write about and just didn't get to it. It will have to wait until next Monday. Now I think going to bed wins over blogging, goodnight!

what I wake up to

quick one

Rick came home the other day and said he will be going to Australia in August for training...... yes I said AUSTRALIA!!!!! I don't exactly know what kind of training the Army does in Australia but I'm jealous. Also a little bummed because he is going to be gone a ton this year and then deploy again. Trying to just enjoy the time we DO have.

something simple

I love the Pioneer Woman's website I have yet to make one of her recipes I didn't like and I also have her cookbook. I while back she had a post about cinnamon toast. All my life I have been making cinnamon toast "the wrong way" The other night I decided I would go ahead and try to make it her way. All I can say is WOW, it is SO much better and I don't think I'll ever make it the wrong way again! I think in a hurry you could get away with just making the spread and putting it on toast vs putting it on the bread and baking/broiling it. If you like cinnamon toast I definitely encourage you to try making it "the right way", Enjoy!

Cinnamon Toast – The RIGHT Way by The Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond

Prep Time: 10 Minutes | Cook Time: 15 Minutes | Difficulty: Easy | Servings: 8

Ingredients

* 16 slices Bread (whole Wheat Is Great!)
* 2 sticks Salted Butter, Softened
* 1 cup Sugar (more To Taste)
* 3 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
* 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract (more To Taste)
* ⅛ teaspoons Ground Nutmeg (optional)

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Smush softened butter with a fork. Dump in sugar, cinnamon, vanilla and nutmeg, if using. Stir to completely combine.

Spread on slices of bread, completely covering the surface all the way to the edges.

Place toast on a cookie sheet. Place cookies sheet into the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Turn on the broiler and broil until golden brown and bubbling. Watch so it won’t burn!

Remove from oven and cut slices into halves diagonally.

Friday Rave

So I am not wasting any time with this new blogging I plan on doing. So here it is, my rave for today is the fun of having a toddler. Rick is off work today so he offered to "let me sleep in" and take Aidan to school. This plan never really works in our house since we have 2 other little boys who don't always get the memo that mommy wants to sleep. Rick and Aidan headed out the door so I drug myself out of bed to hang out with the little boys. Luckily for me I have the sweetest happiest little one year old who quickly made me forget I would rather be sleeping. How can you not smile when you have a little boy dancing around the kitchen in a diaper wearing an oven mitt and eating cinnamon toast?!?!?! I am thankful for the reminder that children really are a joy and I am lucky to have them!!!!

ch ch ch ch ch changes.........

So I am a blogging failure but I think it is because I have tried to hard to make my blog a big recap of what we do every day. I was thinking about the blogs I enjoy reading yesterday and trying to figure out how I can enjoy blogging more. I decided I was going to apply a theme to each day of the week and see how that goes. Just writing about things I like, funny kid stuff or whatever else I feel like. So we will see how long this lasts haha For now I think Monday will be a food post, a new recipe, something my family loves, maybe a restaurant review. Tuesday will be whatever comes to mind, Wednesday I am stealing the "wordless Wednesday" from several other blogs, Thursday I will talk about things in the cyberworld that help me survive, things like coupons, helpful websites, cool phone apps, etc. Finally Friday will be a rants and raves day. Hopefully I will have more raves than rants but sometimes you just need to vent and a blog is good for that! Now to stick to it!!!

need to brush off the dust

Maybe I should just make this a "updated every 3-6 months blog" and I won't feel like it is super neglected. I guess I have written since Rick came home so it isn't quite as outdated as I thought.

Big events since August have been Aidan starting 2nd grade, Connor back in preschool, and Ian turning 1. The deployment time seemed to drag on forever yet Ian's first year flew by. Doesn't make sense really but that is just how it was.

We did a quick 5 day trip up to Anchorage to visit family and take care of a few things like new drivers licenses. Hopefully next time we will have a few more days to see more family and friends we missed this trip.

I guess I will do a quick family run down and call it good.

Rick - Just went back to work after a month long block leave post-deployment. He unfortunately has to go to a school on the 29th of this month which will last a little over 2 weeks. This equals him missing yet another one of Aidan's birthdays. We broke the news to him yesterday and he is ok, we will just be celebrating his birthday a little early. Not many kids object to that! It will suck having him gone again so soon after a deployment but at least it is only a couple weeks.

Ariana- Nothing new here, just trying to keep up with kids!

Aidan - Doing extremely well in school as usual. He decided to give soccer another go after taking a year or so off from it. His team is coached by a dad of one of his school friends. They are undefeated with only 1 game left for the regular season. He is the goalie and has done awesome. They are a talented little team so it is fun to watch. We have also ventured into the world of cub scouts this year. He seems to enjoy it and it is a good activity to do with dad. Just a couple more weeks and he turns 8!!!! Where did the time go???

Connor - Our busy middle man is now 4 years old! He is enjoying his second year of preschool with Ms. Karen. After spending his whole life watching his brother play sports he finally was old enough to play soccer. Four year old soccer is about what you expect, a lot of running around and not paying attention and hey once in a while someone scores a goal. He still is interested primarily in all things Aidan has/does. It is rough being the little brother trying to keep up with the big boys but he holds his own!

Ian - Our "baby" is almost 14 months old now! His feet are doing awesome and he is now starting to walk. He is probably the most easy going little guy you have ever met, we really are blessed! It amazes me the things he picks up on watching his brothers or us. He definitely can brighten your day just hearing him laugh which is a pretty common occurrence.

I'm sure there are other things going on that I am forgetting but maybe I will remember something else and actually have another blog post before the year is over!

Oh we did new family pictures, this is one of my favorites of the boys :o)

Wow

So time has flown by and this blog was definitely neglected. Rick made it home from Iraq a week ago. It was a VERY long deployment even though it was our shortest of the 3 in actual days. Our orders to Fairbanks were officially deleted so hopefully we will stay here for the next couple of years and might actually have daddy here that whole time!

Hopefully I will be a bit better at keeping this blog updated. Having another adult around should be a big help!

oops I missed a month

Well February sure came and went fast! Once again the blog took a backseat to life. We had the opportunity to get pictures done of the boys by Dani of Cleotography. She got amazing shots of all 3 boys, if you are looking for a photographer in the Puyallup area I highly recommend her!


So the most exciting news in February came at Ian's 3 month follow up appointment since being in his shoes and bar. I wasn't sure going in how they would start cutting back on his time wearing them. Dr. Mosca came in and looked at his feet and immediately said "ok we can go to 12 hours a day" I was thrilled since it means now he pretty much only has to wear them to bed. Bring on the cute shoes! I actually had brought a pair with us that he wore out of the hospital. He said his right foot looks like what you would expect a normal corrected club foot to look like but his left foot looks awesome so even better than expected! He is loving his "free feet" time as I like to call it. The guy from orthodics that checked his shoes out this time was not happy with the fit of his original pair and moved him into a smaller size. So we don't have any more problems with his right foot, which is slightly smaller, slipping out of the shoe. He will go back in May to check on his progress. It is SO nice having him free from the bar during the day, he can actually sit in a shopping cart now at the store. There are so many little things that are just easier now it has been wonderful. He is trying so hard to figure out how to crawl, my days are numbered! Even without knowing how to crawl he can scoot and roll around and get to wherever he wants to be already. I can't believe he will be 6 months old on Wednesday!

February was also a bit of a rough month or maybe just a continuation of a rough time for Aidan. I think 3 deployments plus all the time Rick has been gone for training etc. is finally taking its toll on him. If you add it all up he pretty much has been gone for half of Aidan's life. The battles, screaming fits and just general anger is getting worse as time goes on. He tells me he hates me almost daily now. I decided it was time to get him some help because I don't know what else I can do for him. Military One Source has a great program where you can call and get 12 counseling sessions so I called them last week. I really hope talking to someone can help resolve some of the issues we are having at home. Thankfully he is still doing great at school so the problems have not spilled over there but it is probably only a matter of time before they do if we don't do something about it. Unfortunately I am having a hard time getting anyone to call me back to set up his appointments so we may have to get a referral for a different place to try. It is incredibly hard to see your child so angry and hurt and not know what to do to make it better. Another thing I have noticed this deployment is that he really doesn't talk about Rick much at all. In the past he would talk about missing him and want to see him and talk to him. This time when Rick calls or gets on the computer he has very little interest in even talking to him. I wish we could say this will be the last deployment but that just isn't reality.

Another bit of bad news is that Rick may not get his R&R at all. Things are just in the rumor stage but it is a possibility. Of course this is the Army we are talking about so we won't know one way or another until the last minute so as usual it is hurry up and wait.

So this doesn't end completely depressing I would just like to say that I am SO thankful for family. My younger brother and his wife did something totally nice for us just because and I hope they know how much I truly appreciate it. They also want to have Aidan spend some time on the weekends with them which he will be thrilled about. Definitely lightening my load :o)

boys for sale

Anyone want to buy them? I suppose I would miss them if they were to go, it might take a while though. Connor dumped a brand new box of Coco Puffs all over the floor and these are the times I really question why I had children! So tomorrow I will be vacuuming up smashed cereal. They are just one disaster after another, I don't think it is possible for my house to ever be clean. They destroy things twice as fast as I can clean. It will probably only get worse once Ian gets older.

Everything seems to take longer/more effort when it comes to trying to get anything done around here. I suppose this blog post is a good example. Just when I try to take a minute to type Ian gets fussy or the boys get out of bed. I am trying to make myself go to bed a lot earlier now, I just don't have the energy to stay up later and by later I mean after 9 pm. Everyone gets along much better around here if we have had enough sleep. I don't want to get through my day relying on caffeine and energy drinks. The secretary at Aidan's school took a look at Connor the other day and said "you must just be exhausted by the end of the day" I laughed and said "try by four o'clock!" Getting up at 5:45 every day and staying up to late took its toll on me this month.

I don't know if this entry is making much sense but that may be fitting. I am tired and surrounded by chaos. Hopefully February will be a better month. I am starting it off with a massage appointment on Tuesday. I definitely carry my stress in my shoulders and have been hurting the last couple of weeks. I started going to bed earlier this week and it definitely helped things. Now if the boys would just start listening things would be great. Oh and Ian is teething but thankfully he has only been slightly cranky so maintains his title of "worlds easiest baby".

One great thing this week was I finally bought a new laptop and Rick is temporarily at a different location that actually has webcams on their computers. We have been able to do a couple of video chats which has been good for all of us. It is sad when you go 3 months without seeing your husband/kids/dads face.

Even though I don't have to be up at 5:45 tomorrow (just by 8!) I do need to get some sleep. We were supposed to do pictures of the boys today and were rained out so hopefully there is a break in the weather for that. I should have some new pictures to share for the next post.

Pirate Fun

We spent the weekend partying with the Beech family. They are another Army family we met at church. They have SIX kids and he is currently deployed to Afghanistan, well not at the moment though because he is home on R&R. They had a pirate birthday party on Saturday for their son and then a baptism/first communion party on Sunday for 2 of the girls. My boys would stay and play with their kids all day long if I let them. Never a dull moment there.



Ian had to be a pirate too!

Not much else new to report. Basketball starts tomorrow for Aidan and then swim lessons start in a week. Back to our busy schedule.

I swear I'm trying!

I could say life is just to busy to keep up with a blog but for those of you on my facebook friends you probably see on my profile "Ariana is playing Bejewled Blitz" so I'm totally ratted out. Yes I like to play Bejeweled when I have a little time to myself hahaha Our lives just are not very exciting these days and I don't have that knack for turning everyday life with these boys into something hilarious to read about.

Really less excitement is better when I look back on our last few months. I appreciate that we don't have a lot going on because the alternative usually involves hospital visits! I guess I can just give a rundown on how the boys are doing these days.

Ian - I thought Aidan and Connor were very good easy babies but Ian is outdoing them both. I am so thankful to have such a happy, good natured baby. Despite being in his braces full time he still just spends his days smiling, talking and generally being cute. He will be 4 months old on the 17th, time sure is flying! It will be interesting to see where he falls on the growth charts. He is SO long and outgrowing clothes like crazy. We don't have to go back to Seattle for his feet until February 22nd so we have had a nice little break.

Connor- What to say about my middle child........ he definitely keeps me on my toes. We have a lot of battles every day, currently he HATES going to bed and it is usually quite a fight. Of course what works to get him to sleep one night won't the next day. At least he is coming back around on the potty thing, it was very frustrating when he regressed to having accidents all the time after Rick left. I am happy to say he isn't changing his pants 3 times a day anymore. He is still loving preschool and will be starting back up with swimming lessons in a week or so.

Aidan - Luckily Aidan seems to be handling this deployment better than the last. He does have issues at times but overall he is doing well. He is doing great at school and really loves it there. I am so happy we made the decision to switch him to private school. He is anxiously waiting for basketball to start next week. He will be playing on the same team/coach as last year which is great because we really liked his coach. He's losing teeth like crazy and growing fast, he has to watch out or his brothers will be catching up with him!

I am tired but hanging in there. Life isn't always perfect for us but really we have a lot to be thankful for. A longtime friend was diagnosed with cancer this week, she is the same age as me and has 2 little girls. Definitely makes you appreciate being healthy. Looking at the disaster in Haiti is another good reality check.

Well like usual I will try to keep updating here and get more pictures posted here and there but for now I better go get in one last game of Bejeweled before I go to bed :o)

Surviving Christmas

Well it has definitely been an interesting week. Monday morning we were enjoying the fact that we didn't have to get up and out the door for school like we normally do when I got a phone call from Rick's roommate. He has called me before when he knew Rick hadn't called home in a day or two just to say "hey I told you if you don't call your wife I WILL" so I thought that was what was going on again. Turns out he was calling because Rick got hurt. He didn't have a lot of info other than he hit his head and they had to send him somewhere else, he being a friend to Rick wanted to give me a heads up first. So I sat and waited for a call from the Army. Of course that call never came so I went to bed that night praying that no news was good news. The next day I had a message on Yahoo from Rick saying he was in the hospital. A chaplain there had given him a laptop to use to watch movies on and stuff so he was able to get online and talk to me. He had absolutely NO memory of what happened to him. He only knows what other people told him, apparently they were playing football at work. They discharged him from the hospital on Wednesday and he moved into a tent behind the hospital. He had an appointment today and they think he is alright now. For now he is stuck in Balad waiting on someone to send his gear to him so he is allowed to fly back to Taji. Just what we needed around here for the holidays...... EXTRA STRESS! If after 3 deployments this is the worst injury he has I will be thankful.

We had to squeeze in a trip to Children's on Tuesday to have Aidan's elbow checked out, just a routine follow up. Of course I was thinking this would be the final one but no, they want to see him again this summer. Everything is fine but they are extra cautious with growing kids. They did say we could just schedule it for whenever we have to bring Ian back for his appointments which should be every 3 months. Saves me an extra trip to Seattle.

I managed to get all the presents wrapped and Santa was very good to the boys. If only he could have brought me a few extra hours of sleep! We are going to spend the rest of the break just hanging out at home.



I am looking forward to 2010 and hoping for a much less "exciting" year for us. Connor is the only one who has not been hospitalized this year! I hope I didn't just jinx us by saying that but boy have we had our share of doctor visits, surgeries and castings!

trying to keep up

Well I am attempting to not neglect this blog. I'm sure there is enough going on that I could update daily but taking the time to think about what to write doesn't always happen. I really thought today was Tuesday, made it a very slow start to my week when I realized it was Monday.

We had a fairly uneventful weekend. Connor managed to stay in the nursery at church almost the whole mass and Aidan was very good. Ian is always good and always has plenty of volunteers wanting to hold him. Our Christmas tree is up but has yet to be decorated, maybe we will get that done by the weekend.

Sunday night involved Connor having some kind of accident in my bathroom involving a whole lot of poop. Pretty much par for the course in my life for a way to end the week! Now he has come down with some kind of crud that has him coughing a lot and a fever.

I think I'll keep this short for now because I really need to get addresses done for my Christmas cards. If you would like to make a personalized video to your child from Santa check out this link PNP You input your child's info and can even upload a picture to appear in Santa's book. Aidan totally bought into it.

catching up

Well I keep meaning to come update here but there are only so many hours in the day and blogging hasn't been high on the priority list. I want to go back and talk about Ian and his club foot treatment. Maybe someone else out there who is looking for some info that doesn't come from a medical site will be able to gain something from our experiences.

We found out Ian would be born with bilateral club feet when I had my 20 week ultrasound. It was pretty overwhelming news because the doctors were quick to tell us that club foot can be associated with over 200 different syndromes. From what they could see at that ultrasound nothing else was wrong but we would have to have further ultrasounds to keep checking for other defects. For the next month I spent way too much time on Google searching for as much information as possible about club foot and the treatment. After a while I decided to just quit reading until the echocardiogram ultrasound. That was done at about 24 weeks and thankfully his heart looked perfectly normal. I only had to have one more growth scan after that and they decided that it was a pretty good chance that his club foot was isolated and not associated with anything else. From that point on all we could do was wait for him to be born. We unexpectedly became very familiar with Seattle Children's hospital orthopedics when Aidan broke his elbow. We were able to talk to his doctor who also treats club foot about where we would be starting when Ian was born. Children's uses the Ponseti method for treatment of club foot and has doctors that have trained with Dr. Ponseti so that was great news.

Ian was born on September 17th and was totally healthy. His feet were his only issue. Luckily Madigan and Tricare had no problem with referring him immediately to Children's. He had his first visit with Dr. Mosca at 8 days old and was casted for the first time. At the time Dr. Mosca thought that Ian would need 8 weeks of casting before they would see if he would need a tenotomy or not.
He did great with his casts and hardly fussed when they put them on. Everything I had read said to be prepared for a fussy baby at least the first day but he really could care less about them. The first week went quickly, luckily another doctor who works with Dr. Mosca, Dr. Jinguji works out of the Federal Way clinic twice a week. It was great to not have to drive to Seattle once a week. Dr. J was great for his weekly castings he made us feel at ease and Ian hardly made a peep during any of his appointments. We removed his casts ourselves before his appointments and even after a week it was amazing to see how his feet were changing position.






I wish I had taken more pictures through the process. You can kind of see in this picture how his feet were turned out instead of down like the first casts. This was I think the 5th week of casting.

We went back to Dr. Mosca after 5 weeks of casts and he decided Ian was ready for his tenotomy. This was great news since we expected 8 weeks of casts. He went into his 6th set of casts for the week and we got ready for the surgery. They started by putting numbing cream on his heels and let that sit about 30 minutes. The procedure went very well, Dr. Mosca is definitely good at what he does. He was very quick and Ian did cry but mostly because another doctor had to hold his foot still while the incision was made. He was pretty much over it by the time they put his final casts on. He was fussy the first evening but after that it was just like any other casting. We got a little bit of a break from doctor appointments since the casts that go on after surgery have to be on for 3 weeks.

The day before Thanksgiving Ian was finally done with casts. We went to Children's so he could be fitted for his shoes and bar. He was pretty fussy about his feet being touched but after being in casts so long I'm sure he was a little extra sensitive. We had a rough night the first night in the shoes but after that he got used to them.


It is amazing to see what his feet look like now compared to when he was born. For now he wears his braces full time but as time goes on the wear time will reduce down to night time and nap time.




Enjoying a little time out of the braces. This is what his feet look like today, amazing! He gets to take his shoes off 3 times a day to do stretches and he gets very excited that he can freely move. Much different from the casts.

Here it is..........

So I gave up on keeping up on my livejournal and decided to convert to blogspot. My intention was to be blogging through the process of Ian's club foot treatment but that hasn't happened either. I still will go back and write about the whole process. I know when I was doing all my research once we found out he would be born with club feet I really appreciated any information I could find. So now to see if I can keep up with this!