Buckaroo

Being a stay at home mom, I have so many moments where a smile and a giggle come from my toes and I want to freeze time.  This is always one.  Michael playing cowboy. He has his cowboy get up and uses a jump rope as his rope as he rounds things up around my house.

Only In Florida

Can the kids rake leaves and play in them in shorts and t shirts the week before Christmas.

My Personal Program

The week before Christmas Michael had his Christmas program.  It was so cute!  I picked a seat on the edge since I had both little boys with me, quick exit if needed.  Michael saw me and faced me completely.  He sang his little heart out looking at my face the whole time.  He didn't do any actions (and told me after, "I just sing the words, I don't do the actions.").

Singing just to me.  So he might still be on the small side for his age.  Haha. That row of kids he's with is his class.



This little guy was absolutely perfect.  He stood on the chair and pointed to Michael and smiled and waved and then listened the entire time.  I didn't even need to pull out the car I had stashed.


After, their little party.  Luke was given a plate too, fruit and cookies.  Under no direction from me, both my boys downed their fruit first while all the other kids gobbled up the cookies.  No wonder I can't keep enough fruit in this house!  Even when offered a cookie they eat the fruit first.

Happiness

Ducky

This was Isabelle's potty training prize way back in the day.  It got played with a ton, 4 years ago and then got buried in the stuffed animal bin with the occasional trip around the playroom quacking.  Michael discovered him a few weeks ago and calls him Ducky.  Ducky is his constant companion to the point he wanted to eat with him the other day.  "Ducky needs to eat too."  I convinced him to feed him on the stool with some play food.  He gave Ducky a piece of "bread" and then "spit it out", "Ducky doesn't like this food."  He switched out playroom food a few times, and finally decided he wanted real food.  Michael fed him an entire sandwich.  I guess I shouldn't complain because Michael at the entire sandwich.  Kid imaginations are so cute to me.

Christmas Jammies

These were Isabelle's first Christmas jammies.  I have pictures of all 4 of my kids in them, somewhere.  I'd love to put them all together, but that would take a little digging, and I added other stress to my life, so we are going to pass on this one.  Haha.

Battles

Where's Waldo?  Who is sticking out like a sore thumb?  Who didn't get the red memo?  Yeah, that's my child. I'm very much a "choose your battles" kind of mom.  I will not fight with my child over clothes (I get Sundays, they get 6 days a week).  Absolutely not worth it to me.  I offer to fix hair and help pick out clothes, but in the end, I let my kids do their own thing, no stress.  Isabelle rarely matches, her hair looks crazy, it kills me a little bit inside and I just think, "remember the little girl that used to let me fix her hair and help pick out her outfits?  She'll figure it out, right?" Anyway, Isabelle had a Christmas ASL program.  The memo was "wear a Christmas shirt, preferably red or green."  She has a red Christmas shirt and a mint green Christmas shirt.  I suggested the red one would look better on stage.  She asked if blue was a Christmas color.  She left for school with the worst outfit!!!  She wore the green one with a blue and white striped skirt and a headband. As I watched the program. I looked at her and thought, she looks like "that" kid.  The smelly one that comes from a difficult home life. I was laughing so hard.  She knew all the words and did all the sign language and was so cute, but I came home telling Mike, I think it's time I intervene a little bit more. So here we go, time to add some stress into my life.

I had to take a close up of what she looked like.  Here's the whole thing. Her personality cracks me up.

Happy Happy Baby

This is dairy free Spencer.  Seriously the best baby!  He's an awesome sleeper with 3 good solid naps, sleeps 8-9 hours at night and is this the rest of the time......(Picture overload!) Now if I can just keep it together with the Holidays.  We've had a rough few days with my lapses in self control. These little smiles verses screaming fits are usually enough to keep me going, but sometimes....sometimes, I still cave and then feel awful when it's going through his system. This little face and the few tiny giggles I've gotten out of him make it all worth it!

Movie Theater

For Thanksgiving, Mike tried taking them to Frozen, but it was sold out.  Since then, Michael keeps saying he wants a movie theater (he's been once).  I told him we weren't going to a movie theater and he kept insisting.  I asked him what doing a movie theater meant, "It means turning out all the lights and watching a movie with popcorn."  So one night we had a "movie theater" with a Christmas movie.  He was absolutely thrilled! He keeps turning off the lights anytime the tv is on, insisting we need a movie theater again.

More Doctors...

A little background....Isabelle gets random fevers.  They can last half a day or a whole day, she just has a fever, she sleeps and it goes away.  Zero other symptoms, no one else ever gets sick.  Sometimes it happened a couple times a month, sometimes we would skip a month, but they were pretty often.  I never took her in over them because she was seemed fine and it never lasted.

Fast forward to her well child check for her birthday.  They took a urine sample, (which I felt was unnecessary at the time).  Turns out she had a really bad UTI.  ZERO symptoms.  Antibiotic and off we went.  The next morning she had one of her weird fevers.  My aha moment!  Those have probably been little UTI's! They wanted to do a check 2 weeks later (which I felt was even more unnecessary than the first one.)

This was also Michael's well child check and he had to do a urine sample.  While I was in the bathroom with my two kids, got their samples, set them on the little table thingy and was washing my hands.  Michael...good ole Michael found them interesting. "Don't touch those please."  Of course what does he do?  Oh he only picks up Isabelle's and drops it.  It splashed ALL OVER this little bathroom.  Walls, floors, cabinet.  So there I am whisper yelling at my child, "Why don't you listen?!" blah blah blah while I'm cleaning up, but in my head I was laughing so hard!  Of all things.

As the doctor asked me if her symptoms cleared up because her urine was clean.  I said she doesn't really have symptoms, but she did have one of her weird fevers, so maybe those are UTI's. Dr: "What do you mean little fevers?"  blah...  Dr: "How many are we talking here?"  blah...  "We need to do a renal ultrasound to see if there's any kidney damage if those have all been UTI's"  me: "What the what? OK"  In my head I'm still thinking this is over the top ridiculous.

So off we went for an ultrasound.  Here she was watching the ball machine at the Children's Hospital while we were waiting. She had so many questions about what was going to happen and she was so nervous for something new. She got a balloon and she cheered right up.


The ultrasound tech was really quiet and took a long time on one side.  She suggested Isabelle not holding it and going to the bathroom more often and it might help, but no other explanation.  Got a phone call the next day.  She needs to come in again.

Another dr appointment.  She was such a good sport about the whole thing.  She already had a really really bad bladder infection in a week from her previous clean urine.  Another antibiotic. Turns out she has a slow flow kidney. So far no kidney damage, but it definitely could have happened over time were it not for all this "unecessary stuff."  I'm so grateful that we found this!  She has an appointment next week with a urologist where we will see what the next steps are. She was the only one that hadn't had any medical "extras" this year, I guess she was feeling left out!  This has been quite the medical year for our family!!!!!