Duck Pictures-Take 2!

This is our second year of doing the duck mini-sessions with POSH.  Brecken and Joelle participated this year.  Joelle LOVED the ducks.  She loves any type of animal and couldn't have been happier sitting there playing with them.  Brecken must have been in a bad mood.  Maybe because I woke him up from his precious nap.  If I wake that boy up...watch out.  The world is ending.  Kasey is an excellent photographer.  She is so awesome with the kids and does such a great job.  My mom and I would be saying "Don't squish the ducks!!"  Kasey would be right behind us saying "It's ok. You won't hurt them.  It's ok." in the calmest voice ever.  Love her.

Adelyn is surprisingly good at handling animals.  She knows to use two hands and doesn't squish to much..

Jojo in her element.

Oh.my.word.  Adorable.

Love this little girl so, so much.

Handsome man.  Refusing to smile.  But still so handsome.

Ha! Stinker baby :)

Sullen.  But cute.

Bahahahahaha.  Cracks me up.  Could she get any further away?!

That's better ;)

Such a pretty little girl..

...aanndd she was the star of the shoot today :)

Happy boy!  Want to know why?  He was jumping on the trampoline.

The Dentist

My little lady had her first dentist appointment today.  We had a little snag with babysitting but got it figured out and managed to only be 3 minutes late.  She watched me get my teeth cleaned and chatted the hygienist's ear off.  She is soooo funny.  She thinks anytime we go somewhere it's someone's house.  She told her "I took a little nap and came to your house"  I laughed out loud and then choked because there were 4 instruments and 2 hands in my mouth.  They were letting her push the buttons for the chair and while the dentist was checking my teeth all of a sudden the chair started going up.  The dentist freaked out because she thought she stabbed me but then we all got a huge laugh out of it because Adelyn was pushing the buttons.  Adelyn let the hygienist clean all of her teeth and floss them.  The dentist wasn't at all concerned that she is *still* missing her two year molars and LOVED the spacing in her teeth.  She was told she is an excellent brusher and has zero cavities.

Pretty girl getting her teeth cleaned.

I took her to the City Delicatessen for frozen yogurt tonight because she was such a big girl.  She was soo excited and thoroughly enjoyed her "ice cream."

Disturbing.

That's all.  Just disturbing.  *I am going to jump on my hippie high horse for a minute*  I like to know where my meat comes from.  I don't buy everything organic.  We can not afford that.  But I like to know where my meat comes from and know that it's not being injected with all kinds of growth hormones.  Then there's the little fact of how long, exactly, has it been sitting on the shelf.  Well...I only had one of my chickens left in the freezer and didn't think it was going to be enough for 7 adults and 3 toddlers.  Turns out, it was, with leftovers.  But I thought it would be "fun" to do a side by side comparison.  I made chicken in a bag for Mother's Day (we celebrated a week early since we are going to be gone) and had my farm fresh chicken in one pan and a store bought chicken in another.  I was piecing my chickens and could not get over the color difference in them.  I was thoroughly grossed out.  Nasty.  So disturbing.

Fresh is on the left.  Store bought is on the right.  Breast meat next to breast meat.

As for taste, there was definitely a difference.  I served the fresh chicken in a bag and we are eating the store bought right now.  I had some fresh left over and compared them tonight.  Mind you they were cooked perfectly and not dry in the least.  The texture was very different.  Fresh was very meat like and actually had texture.  Store bought was almost mushy like and didn't have a whole lot of real texture.  There was an "old" taste to the store bought one and the fresh one tasted..fresh.  It's hard to explain and Eric tells me (all the time) that I have an over-sensitive palate for food but it is what it is.  I think the color of the chicken says it all.  We get pork and chickens from Coach Stop Farm on 72nd in Zeeland.  They are very reasonably priced (the same or cheaper) than store and it is all naturally raised.  They also have eggs and lamb.

*I shall get off my hippie high horse now.*

Little B

B was feeling sorry for himself because he's getting his molars and was super crabby.  I got his paci and gave it to him.  I turned around and 2 seconds later I found him in my chair, with a blanket, rubbing the corner of the blanket, reminiscing about the boob.

Poor little man.

V.U.R.

I figured on the almost year anniversary (June 5) of finding out about Joelle's kidney issues it was time to do a post summing it all up.  Last year she was running a low grade fever, her urine smelled really bad and she was having some discharge.  She was 5 months old.  I took her in to the doctor and she thought we should test her for a UTI.  Obviously an infant can't pee in a cup so they had to cath her.  Not the funnest thing a parent has ever had to do.  The initial dipstick check they do in the office was positive for a UTI.  The doc put her on meds and we discussed doing further testing to find out what the issue was.  She would need an ultrasound, non-invasive, and a VCUG, invasive.  Dr. Lund said we could talk about it again after her 24 hour results came back.  I went home and researched it a little bit and was very prepared to tell her I wasn't doing any further testing if her urine came back positive for e.coli (the most common type of UTI's).  It was negative.  Further testing was set up and we got in pretty quickly to DeVos.  She did great for the ultrasound which measures kidney size and checks for damage.  For a VCUG an infant is wrapped up and strapped to a board, exactly like an Indian baby, and a catheter is inserted.  She did great and didn't cry for all of that.  Dye is then inserted, pictures are taken and then you have to wait for them to pee.  They forget to mention that the board will also be turned back and forth to get pictures of the sides.  Once the tech turned the board Jojo flip.ped.out.  Nothing like having a falling sensation (every infants worse nightmare) and not falling.  For multiple minutes.  You could see right away on the fluoro machine that she had reflux.  The tech couldn't tell me how bad it was but said it was definitely there.  Thankfully it's only on the left side.  We made an appointment with a urologist and had to wait until the end of July to get in.  She was to remain on Bactrim until she saw him.  Bactrim gave her horrendous diarrhea.  Like 10x daily diarrhea.  We had to do some dosage adjustments but finally got it under control.  Our pediatrician warned us that Dr. Steinhart was the best but his bedside manner was to be desired.  Eric came with me to the first appointment and besides waiting for over an hour to see the man we LOVED him.  I had never had a man encourage me to breast feed until that day.  He hated the thought of prophylactic meds but thought it was necessary since she was so young.  He said we could re-evaluate that at her next visit.  He informed us that she had grade 3, out of 5,  reflux (actual name Vesicoureteral Reflux).  It is actually a "birth defect" that you can outgrow.  I hate the term birth defect.  I feel like its my fault.  I know it's not..but it's how those words make me feel.  He said most surgeons would be on the fence about doing surgery but he had a 95% success rate for NOT doing surgery with her grade.  We decided to do the prophylactic's and check back in 5 months.  He recommended she be on probiotics as well.  If she got a fever, for any reason, above 101.7 we had to get her seen within 24 hours.  She has had some fevers and cath's since then but hasn't had any UTI's.  At her visit when she was 11months he did an ultrasound on her in the office and discovered that her kidney's were the same size (5mm).  That was indicative of some kidney damage.  Not the news we wanted to hear but again, at least she has one good kidney.  He said since she hadn't had a UTI we could get her off the meds.  THANKFULLY.  We scheduled another appointment in April for a higher tech Ultrasound at DeVos and an appointment with him.  Her right kidney measured at 6.2 and 6.4 and her left measured at 6.4 and 6.9.  It's really hard to get an accurate read on a baby because they are constantly moving so they take a couple.  Her left is actually a little bigger, which is what it's supposed to be and that was GREAT news.  It measured bigger and that means NO kidney damage.  Every time we go to the urologist we have to have a kidney ultrasound to chart her growth but things are looking up.  We still have to be hyper aware of her fevers and take her in for a cath anytime she gets one.  It's not very nice because doctors don't like to cath for no reason but I have to advocate for my baby.  Advocate for her to be cathed.  This will be our norm until we can get her potty trained and able to pee in a cup.  She will have to see her urologist until the kidney issues are resolved but hopefully we can have her potty trained sooner rather than later.  I'm hoping by two..you heard it here first.  

Pretty baby trying to chew her bracelet off after her ultrasound. 

I am so thankful that her urologist actually listens to what I want and takes time to talk to us.  He is awesome.  Also super thankful for an incredibly awesome Children's Hospital.  They are the best.  Absolutely unbelievably the best.

Sophia and Charlie come for a visit

Tiff had a baby shower she was hosting on Saturday and she asked me to watch the kiddos on Friday so she could get ready in peace and quiet...and not have to unbuckle and buckle kids a million times while she was running errands.  Adelyn LOVES (LOVES) Sophia.  Sophia tells EVERYONE that Adelyn is her best friend.  "Adelyn is MY best friend."  I always have to ask Sophia if we can share Adelyn.  She doesn't really respond ;)  Brecken and Joelle always love getting in on the action.  They also love baby Charlie.  They would bring him his toys and try to put his paci in.  Until Joelle realized that she was being hosed.  She can only have her paci in her crib so once she realized Charlie got to keep his, she started taking it away.  She wouldn't suck on it.  Just take it.  She's a sassy girl, what can I say.

Brecken loving on Charlie.  He had just touched heads with him..which is his version of a hug.  

Adelyn and Sophia::both look thrilled that I stopped their play to take a picture

Charlie::wondering why he was still face-down in our nasty carpet

Brecken::stinker face.  Trying to escape

Joelle::crying.  Because she did escape and I brought her back..

Lunch time with five kids, three and under.  Not as chaotic as one might think.  I always tell Eric its kinda like a cafeteria.  Get out all of your components.  Slap everyone's food on their plate.  Stick them all in their chairs.  Throw their food in front of them.  Enjoy 15 minutes of blissful silence while everyone stuffs their face.

We had to give Sophia a gator ride.

Poor Sophia..right after she started driving it, it blew up.  Almost literally.  The battery started on fire.  No I am not joking.  The girls talked about it all night.  My dad is still trying to fix it.

We love us some Sophia and Charlie!

Playgroup::John Ball Zoo

We had playgroup at John Ball today.  It ended up being a beautiful day.  The temperature was decent, it wasn't windy and the sun was shining.  Can't ask for more than that.  Everything opens up mid-May so I'm pretty excited for that.

A zoo employee talking to Adelyn and Sophia about the chimps.

Little Loretta :)

 

All the kiddos by the bears.  Everyone is looking!!

Silly Sophia :)

Handsome Henry

Pretty little Jojo

Love this picture.  LOVE.

Such a pretty girl.

Kisses for Charlie!

All the kiddos watching the penguins

I think Brecken and Jojo were tired..

Everyone is cashed out.  What a great day at the zoo :)