Testing, 1 - 2 - 3

Just trying out the new Flip to see how easy it is to actually post video to the blog. . . .

When we're outside running around, Emily and Louie like to be "friends" and walk around holding hands. It's pretty cute.




I guess this explains why our bathroom floor is always flooded after tubby time . . .

It must have been a pretty good show at the Grandstand tonight. I'm sitting upstairs at the computer and can hear the fireworks going off over at the fair grounds. I can't wait to go to the fair tomorrow. I showed the kids the pictures from last year, they were getting pretty excited. We're taking my nephew Patrick with us. It should be a good time! Must go to bed now.

So close!

I just got an e-mail from my friend Sara:

Just thought I’d update you all this way first as I’ll post on the blog later tonight but YES, the DNA has left the lab and enroute to the US Embassy in Guatemala City!!!! It could get there as soon as tomorrow (Good Lord willing) which would be WONDERFUL!!! Otherwise it won’t get there until Tuesday. (Monday’s a holiday L) But I am SOOOO close now. I am guesstimating that my appointment at the Embassy will be sometime 9/9 – 9/11. The sooner the better.

Hopefully, FedEx understands the need for this to absolutely, positively be there overnight!
She's so close! Keep your fingers crossed that it will get there quickly.

Mad Hawaiian

We went to the Ramos' annual Mad Hawaiian Invitational on Saturday. It's a big party and Polish Golf (??) tournament. There were babysitters for the little kids, of course we got there after naps and they were just leaving . . .big bummer.

Emily and Louie had a ball playing in the backyard. They must have gone up and down the slide on the play gym about 50 times. When the big kids took a break from the bouncing thing, the little kids got in to play.

It was so much fun. The little boy in the bottom right corner is Nathan. He let me have it when I was done talking to Bella. He told me to leave her alone, he was her boyfriend! I didn't know that Bella was his girlfriend. It was pretty funny, he's three.

The Flip

Cool gadget alert!

It's called "The Flip." It's a little video camera that is about the size of a cellphone. It has internal memory, records up to an hour of video and it just plugs into the computer via the little USB port that "flips" out of side. Pretty cool.

We ordered a laptop from Dell and got this cool little camera free with purchase.

It arrived yesterday. Can't wait to try it out on Friday when we go to the State Fair and expose our kids to everything on a stick.

Haven't tried it out yet, but will fill you in this weekend. . . of course where will I find the time. There is a "Closer" marathon on TNT on Monday. We've got to catch up on all the new episodes from the new season!

Relay for Life

I forgot to post the pictures from the WBL Relay for Life back at the end of July. We had a really nice time there.

Singing in the Rain

On Saturday, there was a big rain storm around 6pm. Emily and Louie thought it was so much fun to go out and play in the rain. (since there was no lightening.)

They had a blast!

S'mores or Some Mores?

On Wednesday night, Emily asked if we could have a fire. She's been asking for a while now, but has been too tired at night. Both kids took good naps on Wednesday, so we had a fire after dinner.

I got Keebler Fudge Stripe Cookies, to make the cheater s'mores (we don't have to have candy bars around that won't make it to s'mores if Dan has anything to say about it). So, we toasted some marshmellows and they ate their s'mores.

Louie couldn't figure out the different between s'more and some more. It was so funny, he first called them "snores" and when we got him corrected to s'mores, he kept saying "I want some more."

They had fun, made a big mess, took a tubby and went to bed.

Our little string bean

Louie went to see Dr. Tuohy for his 2 year check up yesterday. I was amazed at his growth chart for the last year.
The stats are in for 2 years old:

Weight: 26 lbs (24th percentile)
Height: 34.25 inches (42nd percentile)

He's grown 3.25 inches in the last three months, but has only gained a pound in the last six months. I wonder if his activity level has something to do with it? He doesn't sit down, he is running from the time he gets up in the morning until he falls into bed at night.

Dan said that it was a very traumatic appointment for Emily. She is a very empathetic little girl and cries for everyone else, she cries hard. Yesterday, Louie got a little bit of blood drawn to test for lead paint, etc. It was a little finger stick that didn't even phase him, he was watching the nurse squeeze it out of his finger into the little tube. The whole time Emily was carrying on crying. Then out came the needle for his 2 year shots. Dan said that Louie cried for about 5 seconds and Emily cried for 5 minutes.

I had to laugh when I was reading the handout for a typical 2 year old. It says that they normally have a vocabulary of 20-50 words. Louie's got a vocabulary of 200-500 maybe. Dr. Tuohy said he is doing great and couldn't believe that he can count to 20, knows all his ABC's (he has since he was 15 months old) and he knows all his colors. I guess watching Signing Time has paid off for him!

All is well with the patient.

Just to update everyone, my mom is home from the hospital and feeling ok. She wasn't able to make it to my Auntie Jeanne's funeral today, but is home resting and on the mend.

the number three

Remember when I said bad things happen in three's?
Well, they really do. After my dad passing away on June 30, my auntie Jeanne passing away last Tuesday, I was a little worried about what would happen next.
Adding to that, when the phone rings before 8am, nothing good (except babies being born) happens. Yesterday morning, after I had been up half the night unable to sleep, our phone rang at 6am. My mom was panicing on the phone that something was wrong with her and to come get her and take her to the ER. I was thinking, SERIOUSLY???? I got a grip, threw some clothes on and drove 80 mph to her house.
Turns out after 6 hours in the ER at Regions, the admitted her and did some testing to find out that she has "ischemic colitis." She's also suddenly has high blood pressure (187/100) so, they admitted her and she's staying until Monday. Of course, she's very upset now that she won't be able to go to my Auntie Jeanne's funeral on Monday morning.
She's going to be ok and there's no worries of colon cancer, but it was a scary 18 hours yesterday.
Today, we're going to hopefully stay event free and enjoy our anniversary.

Happy Anniversary

Dan and I are celebrating out 6th Anniversary on Saturday. It is hard to remember that day, thankfully we have a ton of pictures. So many people have regrets from their wedding day, mainly photos. We are so happy with the pictures that our photographers took. I love paging through our albums of proofs (we've got about 800). It was before photographers were using digital for weddings, so they are 35mm prints. I recently had all our negatives scanned into digital images. Now we can do fun things with them like these collages.
I'm diligently working on a photo book of wedding pictures, but it's taking a lot longer than I thought. I'm dreaming of a laptop to work on stuff like that downstairs, rather than upstairs in the office. Someday . . .

Happy Birthday Louie

Some photos from Louie's birthday party on Sunday. (click on the collage and it will open in a bigger window)

It's 4am, I can't sleep. So, I'm spending the time figuring out how to better use blogger. This is about all I can come up with.

Louie's party: what a beautiful day! that was why we live in Minnesota. The weather was fabulous. We had the party at Wabun Park in Minneapolis. Everyone got there at 11:30, we had yummy pulled pork sandwiches and hot dogs for the kids, homemade potato salad and for dessert, DQ sandwiches. Louie isn't a big fan of cake and generally doesn't eat it. But he sure loves ice cream sandwiches when the ice cream truck comes by. So, what better than what the boy loves! After lunch, Louie opened presents and then all the kids went over to the wading pool to swim. I'm pretty sure they had a good time.

Lou got so many nice gifts. He pretty much loves everything, his faves are: the firefighter rain coat, the (giant) recycycling truck, the giant dump truck, Doc Hudson and the King, and some Thomas the Tank Engine bath toys, books and a magnifying glass and some bugs. His absolute favorite of the day was the scooter that Dan and I gave him. I took the kids to Creative Kidstuff so Emily could pick out a gift for Louie. He jumped on this scooter when we walked in the door and screamed when I took him off of it to go home. Little did he know, there was one wrapped up in the back of the van. It's a great little scotter. It's got four wheel drive!

It was a fabulous day. Thanks everyone for coming, Louie had a really fun day and thanks for all the great gifts. (he hasn't seen a few since the party, we're saving for a rainy day!)

these boots were made for walking. . . .

The other night, I came outside and saw this!

Dan and the kids had gone over to the Ramos' house and came home with a big box of shoes for Emily. Louie was digging around in the box and found these Dora boots. He immediately put them on and went out the front door.

Dan Kelly was mowing the lawn across the street and had to come over and see for himself what Louie was wearing.

I think he might need a pair of boy cowboy boots. He's fascinated with these boots and loves to wear them.

Of course, we're planning ahead for his highschool graduation, won't this picture be cute in his scrapbook?

The third thing. . .

After hearing the news about my Auntie Jeanne last night, I laid awake for a long time last night worrying about what the third thing would be. It seems that bad things always happen in 3's. I had all these different scenarios running through my head . . . . it is amazing, the stuff that you can dream up in your head.
Yesterday afternoon, I got an e-mail from Sara, asking that everyone say a quick prayer as her attorney got a phone call to go and pick up Sara's file. . . . she was told not to get her hopes up.
Needless to say, I was worried that bad news for Sara would surely be the third thing . .
Well, she found out last night that the birth certificate has been issued and her file has been sent to the US Embassey for the 2nd DNA test! It looks like she'll be travelling to Guatemala the week of August 25th to pick up Charlotte!
It has been such a LONG journey for her and I'm so excited that it will be ending. Little does she know, the bigger journey will begin when she brings her home and is a mother!

More sad news . . .

I just go off the phone and got some unbelievable news. My Auntie Jeanne died tonight at 7pm.
This picture is from my Dad's 70th birthday party four years ago. Auntie Jeanne is in the middle, her daughter Kris is on the left and Barb Evans, a cousin of my Dad's is on the right.

She is my Dad's brother, Don's wife. Don and Jeanne have been married since sometime in the 1950's. Since my mom is an only child and Don was the only sibling of my dad's that lived here, we spent all our holidays as kids with the Jansen cousins. There are five kids in their family: Laurie, Paul, Pat, Kris and Dave (I think that's the right order???)

Funny story, when I was a little girl, I never called her Auntie Jeanne, I always referred to her as Mrs. Jansen??? She would tease me for years for that and it always made me smile.

I am so sad at the loss of her. My mom talked to Tracey, Jeanne's niece from the Finch side of their family. Unbelievable, but I guess Jeanne found out on Friday that she had very advanced colon cancer. They did surgery first thing yesterday morning and realized during the surgery that it had mastesized to all of her abdominal organs.

Of course, I worry about my Uncle Don. He's gone through the exact same health issues as my dad in the last three years and isn't well himself. He was diagnosed with bladder cancer a couple years ago, had chemo, had his bladder removed. While he was going through his bladder recovery, he needed to have quadruple by pass surgery. It was then that my dad decided "maybe I should have my heart checked out??" and he had quadruple by-pass surger 3 days later.

So, I had good intentions of posting some fun pictures of Louie's birthday. Not tonight.

Bad Blogger . . .

Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . our blog is in need of an update. However, I've got priorities and right now, number 1 is finishing Season 3 of "The Closer." chuckle.
Tonight I need to upload the pictures from Louie's birthday party and get some posted.
I will give it my best effort, but I've been swamped at work and the last thing I want to do is sit in front of the computer when I get home. All I want to do is sit in front of the TV. . . .
My 'to-do' list is getting longer. Organize scrapbook stuff. Finish editing wedding pictures. Edit Hawaii pictures. Create photo book of both wedding and Hawaii (needs to be done, STAT!) Start thinking about fall clothes for the kids, UGH fall clothes?? Potty train both kids, STAT! (I'm so sick of buying diapers!) Of course, there's a eleventy nine other things to do, but I can't remember $hit these days . . .
Anyhow, the list is getting longer and I'm not checking thing off as fast as they get on the list.
Tomorrow, I have a pre-closing. I love the ones with New York investment bankers, we're going to my favorite, The Capital Grille, for cocktails and dinner. Yum! Nothing will get checked off the list until this weekend. Unfortunately . . .

Emily's Test Results . . .

We went to see Dr. Tervo over at Gillette Children's Hospital last Wednesday. It was a follow up to all the tests that Emily had done back in May and June. Dan was out of town, so I brought my mom with. I admit, I'm not the best at remembering all the details when I'm at the doctor and knew that I wouldn't ask the right questions.
So, where to begin. First we talked to Dr. Tervo's nurse. We updated him that we're in the process of potty training Emily and it's been a very SLOW process. She goes when we sit her on the potty chair, but he saidt that all we're doing is training ourselves to remember when to sit her down. We're not "potty training" Emily. So, they suggested a different method that has proven to deliver fast and sure results. Dr. Tervo followed up that it would be a perfect method for Emily. It requires 8 hours of 1:1 training between child and trainer. NO distractions.
It's from the book called "Toilet Training in Less than a Day," and has been around since 1974. We stopped at the library and picked up a copy of the book and I got the doll that pees at Babies R'Us on Friday afternoon. We just have get Louie out of the house for a whole day . . . He's going to Isak's house to play some day soon!
Now for the test results. All of her blood work came back normal; the genetic testing and the chromosome testing appears to be normal, but they don't have all the results back yet. All the testing was done through Children's Hospital and they send testing to the U of M. Gillette doesn't use the U as they are known to be extremely slow and sometimes "misplace" results.
Regardless, we're waiting for the U to send the results.
Now for the more in depth results. Emily's MRI came back with some abnormal brain development, or lack of. . . . It has been determined that she has an abnormality in her brain called periventricular leukomalacia. I read as much as I could about it and also confirmed with Dr. Tervo that this is probably due to the complications that I had during the last week of my pregnancy that forced her to be born 6 weeks premature. Regardless, this is very common among premature babies.
Thankfully, she's got just a slight case of this. It is not progressive, which means that she won't get any worse. It is something that she can overcome with the right stimulation and learning process. Dr. Tervo assured me that we're doing 100% the right thing with early intervention. The best thing for her is to be going to school that will work with her gross motor and speech development. I was also so thankful that she's a normal child. Many babies with this abnormal brain have cerebral palsay.
Emily is anxious to go back to school and asks almost everyday when the school bus is going to come and get her. She really wants to go back to school with her friends and Laurie, her teacher.