Ice fishing

The kids and I joined our neighbor Robbie ice fishing this afternoon on our lake. The kids had never been ice fishing and it was a perfect day. The total number of fish that we kept was 4 but as you can see by the size of Kyra's fish, some had to be thrown back so they could grow up. Mark had to stay at home to work on his homework. The kids had fun, until the fish quite biting and they got cold.

Yesterday we went to Bloomington to visit the Bane's. We went swimming at a local hotel and ordered pizza. It was a great visit and the kids had fun. I forgot the camera, it seems to be at the bottom of my list these days.

Valynn had her first basketball game yesterday with me as her coach. She did good and had fun. We had to loan two of our players out to the opposing team because they only had three players show up.

We bottled our first batch of beer on Friday. In two weeks it'll be ready to drink, what we tried was very good flat beer. Brad and Chantel left on Friday. The kids spent most of the day over here playing. Valynn and Mason had a half day so they got to spend time with the Bowdoin's before the left. I watched all 8 kids for about 1 1/2 hours. The new neighbors aren't moving in until April or May.

Son, that'll be coming out of your college fund. We got the bill for Mason's endoscopy yesterday. Any guesses on the amount that a minor 20 minute surgery (yes, it's considered minor) costs? $8500 (that would be the cost without insurance). That's not including the doctor's bill for the surgery, the anesthesiologist, or pathology. Those are separate. After the insurance discount the amount drops down to $3500 of which we have the deductible and the 20% to pay. The gastric emptying test, $1200 (without insurance). The amount drops to $550 with the insurance discount. It's a good thing we got our taxes down, we're going to need the refund to pay for our medical bills.

I hope everyone has a great week. Stay warm!

17 months

Kyleigh turned 17 months a couple of days ago (yes I forgot). She's doing good, loves to climb and still not talking. As must as I want her to talk in true Kyleigh style when she starts talking it'll be in sentences and I'll wish for the days when she was quieter. I think she's entering her 2's with her tantrums and I do think a lot of the frustration comes from not talking but she does get her point across when she needs to. She also hasn't been sleeping very well and is up 2-3 times a night.

Things were pretty quiet around here this week. Which is always a nice reprieve. Valynn has basketball tomorrow and I am her coach. We are then going to visit our friends in Bloomington. It should be a quiet weekend as well, enough for Mark to get a couple of paper written.

Progress

Here is where the closet stand right now. It's been a busy week but will definitely add much needed space when it's done. Mark's parents left this morning, I think we wore them out. I have some painting that I need to do before Mark can get anymore done on the closet. That will have to wait until the kids are napping or in bed because I had help painting from a 1 year old yesterday, the proof was the white paint on my back. The kids got a snow day yesterday due to power outages around the district. Our driveway has been very slick and even the roads around our house were icy because they weren't salted. Tomorrow Valynn has her first reconciliation (first confession for the non-Catholics). We have the Bowdoin's going away party tomorrow and next Friday there will no longer be two Chantels living on the street. I have a new tutoring job. I'll be working one hour a week with a student prepping her for her ACT.

Mark finished one of his classes this week and started another one. He'll be home one more night a week now but that time will be spent studying so we still won't see as much of him as we would like, but we understand it's only temporary.

My favorite quote of the week.
Grandpa: Kyra do you talk a lot?
Kyra: I surely do.

How many three year olds say surely? I talked with her teacher this week, Kyra is doing wonderful in class. The teacher loves how much she talks (you don't hear a teacher say that very often). She said Kyra is just as smart as the other two only more talkative.

Kyleigh is a busy as ever. She must be going through a growth spurt, she's back to taking two naps. This morning she fell asleep on the living room floor.

Mason is still feeling good and he can't seem to get enough to eat. He is getting a second snack at school now which seems to help.

I hope everyone has a good weekend. Go VIKINGS!!

A hole in the wall...

I hope everyone is having a good weekend. Valynn started basketball yesterday. She says it's her favorite sports. I did sign up to be a coach. Today was a hectic morning. We attended the Catholic church and then I headed to the Lutheran church for the annual meeting. I walked into St. Timothy 40 minutes after the service had started. The assistant pastor whispered to the Pastor that mass must be over (they knew it was a Catholic Sunday). At the meeting I was voted in as the Church Council secretary for a three year term. As soon as the meeting was over I headed home to watch the Vikings. What a great game! A couple of us neighbors got together to go over the final details for the going away party next weekend for Brad and Chantel. We will have new neighbors in a few weeks. Mark and his dad are tackling a remodeling project, they are going to expand a bathroom and add a linen closet to it. Have a good week.

Follow up

Finally, the pictures I promised of the kids sledding. We went sledding on Wednesday after school before all the snow melted.

Mason has been diagnosed with gastroparesis. His stomach doesn't propel the food into the small intestine with the force that it needs to empty. He will be going on a low fiber diet to see if it will help and then undergo the gastric emptying test in 2-3 months. If at any time he has more stomach pains he will need to under go another endoscopy. The doctor has never seen this in someone this young and is hoping Mason will outgrow it.

The food that was found in his stomach is called a bezoar. It was about 7 cm long and bigger than a golf ball. His appetite has really improved and hopefully he will now put on some weight. I can tell he is feeling so much better.

I am done with tutoring now. I was let go because of a state law that states a special ed student needs a special ed tutor. Because of some changes the hours were going to drop drastically anyway so it's for the best especially with Mark gone four nights a week with class.

Valynn and Mason started swim lessons again last night. They both enjoy swimming and had fun. Basketball starts tomorrow, I'm debating on signing up to coach, we'll see if they need more coaches tomorrow. Mark's parents are coming for the weekend so we'll be busy with them and we have the annual church meeting at the Lutheran Church on Sunday. And who can forget the Vikings game! Mark and the kids have Monday off so we're going to enjoy a long weekend.

Gastric emptying test

Mason had his gastric emptying test today. It didn't go as well as we would have liked. After two hours his stomach was only 49% empty. The radiologist didn't know how much it should be empty but said if it was 50% empty at 1 hour we could go home. At one hour she didn't even bother calculating it because she knew it wasn't 50%. He was fed radioactive eggs and then a picture was taken every 15 minutes for the first hour and then at the 2 hour mark. I have a piece of paper stating he is radioactive in case he sets off any alarms in the next three days. Right before the picture at the 2 hour mark he told me he was hungry even though half his lunch was still in his stomach. We have the follow up appointment on Thursday and will know what our next step is.

We had a nice weekend around here. The kids went sledding down the big hill by the dam Saturday and Sunday. I'll post pictures tomorrow. The kids had a blast and on one run Valynn went a little too far and ended up in the creek at the bottom. Mark said there was water running over the sled and Valynn was standing on the bank laughing.

On Saturday we had a couple over for supper, the wife grew up about 20 miles from me. We had a great visit. Kyra was happy to be back in school today, she loves school. Kyleigh has been a busy body. Tonight I went to put her plate in the dishwasher and she started throwing a tantrum, I handed her the plate and she put it in the dishwasher. She is really starting to grow up. She has really become a jabberbox. Valynn is happy to be back in school. Swimming starts this week for Valynn and Mason. On Sunday there was a house fire in Princeville, everyone got out safely. One little boy was in Mason's class, it was two years ago that we had this with Valynn's class.

Have a good week, I'll update on Thursday.

Exhausting...

That how we are describing the phase that Kyleigh is in right now. The only time we get to relax is when she's sleeping. She likes to stand on the chairs in the dining room and while up there will climb on the table. The other day she figured out how to pull the stool out from under the buffet, where we stored to keep her from playing with things on the counter, set it upright and push it to the counter to play with the computer. The stool is now stored in the sunroom. This morning she figured out how to open the sunroom door and was able to pull the stool into the kitchen, pushed it next to the stove and was going to help me make breakfast. After breakfast my goal was to clean out the freezer because water dispenser for the ice maker had become frozen. Kyleigh was a big help emptying the freezer and then she has spent the last 30 minutes putting things back in the freezer, taking them out and putting them back in the cooler. As you can see, she found my chocolate candy stash and proceeded to help herself to some chocolate but she was also nice enough to share with her siblings. Her favorite chore is to help unload the dishwasher, she hands me the silverware. The problem is she likes to do that whether the dishes are clean or dirty.

The last couple of days Kyleigh has really started jabbering. She seems like she is picking up a few new words but we'll see if she keeps using them or choses to forget them like in the past.

Valynn and Mason had a snow day on Thursday, close to 8 inches on new stuff, they did a little sledding and played around most of the day. Mason has his gastric emptying test on Monday. He had a fever on Thursday so he got to miss school on Friday. He seems to have lost his appetite again which worries us but he says his stomach still feels great. Valynn had a sleep over last night at the neighbors, she was invited to two so she had to turn one down.

We hope everyone stays warm and have a great weekend. You will be able to find me chasing after Kyleigh with a weary look on my face while I try to clean house and get ready for company coming for supper tonight.

Mason update

Mason did a great job today at his endoscopy. The doctor found some undigested food decomposing in his stomach. This is the likely culprit for his stomach pains. The doctor said the food has been in there for months and he removed the rotting food from the stomach. He doesn't know why the food didn't exit the stomach and he will undergo a gastric emptying test in the next few weeks. We go back next week for a follow up on the biopsies. We are thankful it is something minor and that they were able to find what was causing his stomach problems.

Kyra's Knock Knock Joke

K: Knock knock

C: Who's there?

K: Kyra

C: Kyra who?

K: Kyra who loves her family!

Here's hoping to a wonderful 2010

We rang in the New Year in Indiana with Rick and Cindy. Here is a picture of Ethan and Kyleigh. Ethan is my cousin Derrick's boy, he is about 4 months older than Kyleigh. We had a wonderful visit as always. Sunday Mark took the kids out on the ice. It's been a whirlwind since we have gotten back. Mark started school last night, I consider myself a single mom during the week now. I only worked Monday and Tuesday this week so that was nice. Tomorrow afternoon Mason has his endoscopy and we hope to find out the reason for his stomach problems.