Kaylin is a little fish and absolutely loves it, and I am so proud of our shy little Lucas. This is his first independent experience and I was a little worried about how it would go. He was hesitant and very shy but didn't cry and was a good listener. Today he was even more confident and involved! By the time swimming lessons are done next week, we will be all ready to hit the Wisconsin Dells and swim like crazy!
The kids started swimming lessons yesterday that is offered through the city. They were both excited, but Lucas was a little nervous. The 1st day was rather chilly since it was only like 65 degrees out! But today was much better and I brought my long lens to get better pictures :-) Kaylin is a little fish and absolutely loves it, and I am so proud of our shy little Lucas. This is his first independent experience and I was a little worried about how it would go. He was hesitant and very shy but didn't cry and was a good listener. Today he was even more confident and involved! By the time swimming lessons are done next week, we will be all ready to hit the Wisconsin Dells and swim like crazy!
0 Comments
Lucas had his follow-up ENT appointment to check his ears and hearing test. The steroid spray must be working because he is no longer snoring or breathing loudly. We still thinks he sounds "nasal-y" but all together we have noticed major improvements! He passed the hearing test in both ears (yippee!!) and the fluid was all gone. We shouldn't have to return to the ENT unless we have any more issues. The Dr. would like to see him continue the steroid spray until at least the 1st frost. He said it is something that may come back and continue to cause him issues and he may have to use the spray for awhile. But time will tell and we are just happy to see improvements!
One of my favorite things about Kaylin being in school is BOOK ORDERS!!! :-) It is no secret that I love children's books, we only have a few laying around the house ;-).
I had been wanting to find some easy chapter books to start reading to Kaylin, since she loves books too and I had heard about a chapter book series called "Magic Tree House". Everyone I had talked to raved about them. In one of Kaylin's last book orders of the school year they had a pack of 49 of this series so we splurged and decided to get them. I wasn't sure how Kaylin would respond to them or if she would be ready to sit and listen to them for awhile, so we gave the first book a test run a began reading it as a family. We went into it not expecting much from the kids, but they surprised us! Kaylin and Lucas both LOVE listening to these books. They are easy to follow and understand, and yet they are still funny and educational. It was a great investment that we will get lots of use out of! Presley and Cooper even enjoy them ;-) (he's a very advanced baby, you know!) It usually takes a few days to finish one book and we have fun guessing where the Magic Tree House will take us in the next book! We just started book #8 last night and the kids always look forward to seeing what happens! My favorite part of the day is when we all curl up together as a family (whether it be in a bed, the hallway floor, the deck outside, on the steps or couch) and read a few chapters out of the book and reflect on what is happening in the story. (Plus when we are done, it means the kids go to bed and I get to relax ;-) ) This outfit is from when Kaylin was a baby and I swore I had a picture of her in it too but I can't find it fro the life of me! But here are the 2 boys in the ISU outfit :-)
(Lucas-7 months, Cooper-5 months) Here are some more pictures from June... Cooper took his first big boy bath in the bath chair with Kaylin and Lucas (which will probably be the one and only time all 3 will be in there together! Tight fit!) He loves bath time and water! We also had fun playing in the water table outside the other day. This weekend was my parents' 34th wedding anniversary. They came over to Dubuque, along with my sister and her family. Friday night we all went to the Grand Harbor Resort where they have a water park and we all went swimming. The kids had a blast! We also went back Saturday morning after Kaylin's t-ball game since our passes were still good. We were all wiped out! The kids loved going down the slides the most. Saturday night we had a little bon fire out back and made some S'mores (or "s'nores" as Lucas called them ;-) ). While we were back earlier this month, my mom helped me take some pictures of the kids. I'm not totally happy with how they turned out, but there are some cute ones. I may take some more sometime over here at our botanical gardens. I had planned to take the kids to Reiman Gardens in Ames because there are so many great places to take pictures, but rain spoiled those plans, so we just took some around Jefferson. We also got out my wedding dress and took a few of Kaylin in it ;-) Here are the edited versions: Kaylin- 5 Years, Lucas- 3 Years, Cooper- 4 Months The kids and I spent a week in Jefferson working on garage sale stuff for later this summer and stayed the following weekend for Bell Tower Festival. We hadn't been to Bell Tower since we moved to CA so it was fun to be back and take the kids to enjoy it too! Cory, Adam (my brother-in-law) and my Aunt Kathryn ran the 5K Ding Dong Dash. Considering Cory hasn't ran in like 10 years, and only "trained" by running like 3 times a week before, he did pretty darn good! He finished 5th in his age group with a time of 29:22! I don't think he plans to run again any time in his near future ;-). After the race we went up to the fireman's breakfast and then scoped out up town. The kids loved watching the parade and getting lots of candy (of course!) and later they ran in a kids 50 yard dash. They were so cute "warming up" and they showed them how to get into a starting position. Lucas took this very seriously, as you can see in the pictures, he was so far down that he was last off the line because he had to stand back up to take off! Ha! It was too cute! They both got medals and had a great time. After the race was over Kaylin looks at me and says "That was it??" Later in the evening, Cory and I took the kids back uptown to do some of the rides/jump houses. It was a great weekend! Our 2 nephews turned 1 this month! It's been so fun watching them grow this past year! I am loving being an Auntie! Parker turned 1 on the 1st and had a fishing birthday party and Nico turned 1 on the 20th and had a farm birthday! The kids loved celebrating with them! ParkerNicoAnother month has flown past, our sweet, happy baby is 5 months old now! He can officially roll both ways now, even though he still prefers to be lazy ;-). He has been working on sitting up but not quite there yet, he tends to get excited and throws his body back. He has kind of been a pickle about eating lately, he has stretched his feedings out to 3-4 hours, but will still wrestle me when it comes time to eat. Maybe he's taking those "thunder thigh" comments to heart ;-). We also just started doing cereal 2 times a day, which he isn't always a fan of and tends to gag and try to throw up, all while laughing at me of course! He is still our happy baby and loves any and all attention! We took Lucas for his ENT appointment last week to check his tonsils and adenoids. After talking to the Dr. about what we have been noticing with Lucas over the past few months (snoring, restless sleeping, "nasally" sounding, change in sleep patterns, etc.), he looked at his tonsils and said they weren't big, which was good news. Then he looked into his right ear and instantly said "Yeah, he can't hear out of that ear." My heart sunk, then he explained that he has fluid surrounding his ear drum which causes hearing loss, but he did say that it is likely not permanent hearing loss. He checked his left ear and it was fine, thankfully. His guess is that when Lucas had his first ear infection at the end of March, it set of a chain of events. The ears became infected which then caused the adenoids to grow, and since the adenoids didn't shrink back down on their own the right ear can't drain the fluid. The left ear is fine because it is the ear drum that burst, releasing the fluid, when he had the ear infection to begin with.
He wanted to do a hearing test on Lucas, just to see what it said, and as expected, his right ear failed and his left ear passed. He said that the test doesn't can't give a really accurate read but it is at least a 25 decibel hearing loss. As for treatment, luckily this is something that can likely be "cured" by medicine instead of jumping straight to surgery. Lucas has a steroid nasal spray that will hopefully shrink the adenoids, which will hopefully allow the ear to drain. He said we probably won't see any changes for 2 weeks, but I think I can already tell that he is snoring less and not struggling to breath while he sleeps, like before. I hope this works, because I don't want my baby to have to have surgery! We go back at the end of June to recheck and run another hearing test. Fingers crossed for good results! After the appointment we surprised the kids with a trip to the circus that came to town. (I had won 4 tickets :-) ) The kids were so excited and loved seeing the elephants, tigers, horses, dirt bikes (Lucas's favorite ;-) ), and lots of different performances! I took some pictures, but they are on my phone. It was a great way to start our summer break! |
CategoriesArchives
November 2019
|