July catch up! Our 5th anniversary adventure

I went wayyy too long without posting in July! Here's why:

We celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on the 7th. We didn't have anything big planned, just a relaxing day with the kids and eating at home. But early in the morning on the 5th, we had a big storm, and this happened:

Yep, a tree branch in our yard took out the power lines, and killed the power on our whole street! We were surprised by this branch too, this tree has a few dead branches, but it was a live one that came down. Besides the tree and the power, we also had all the windows open to get fresh, cool air during the night (we don't have a/c) and we had a huge puddle in the dining room that we had to mop up from the 3 big windows there. The front room window had a small puddle, and another puddle in the girls' room. We called the power company as soon as we noticed the downed wires, about 5am, and sort of figured that it was some kind of priority and that they would come pretty quickly. Eric stayed home from work to wait for them, in case they needed us to move our cars or something, but by lunch time we still hadn't heard anything, so we went to the mall for lunch, and Eric used the free wifi to work while the kids and I shopped and played in the play place. A neighbor had come over to say that he worked with power lines and advised us to stay far away from them because of the high voltage wires. 

At nap time we dropped Eric off at church to work the rest of the day and went home. It was a really hot day, too hot to have played in the yard anyway, so we just sat inside and played. After 2 days of no power and lots of eating out and frequenting air conditioned play places, someone from the power company came out and taped off our yard with warning tape. At that point the estimated date we would get power back was the 8th. My dad just bought a new generator and still had the old one, so we were able to run it occasionally to keep the fridge cold. We called it an adventure and made the best of it, trying to fit take out into the budget and taking short cuts when possible, and the cold showers weren't terrible, they actually felt kind of nice on those 100 degree days! Someone from church had given us some tall candles just a few weeks before, so I melted some wax into the bottom of some tea cups and made candle holders so we could keep the house lit at night. Very Laura Ingalls, I know! 

On our anniversary, it was already hot out when we woke up. Eric surprised me with pearl earrings and a pearl necklace, and I got him a new backpack for his laptop, something he has desperately needed-he's been toting his laptop to work and back in a purple Babies R Us reusable bag! After we went to church (our church has a Saturday service and Eric teaches the jr. church class, while the girls and I help in the nursery sometimes) and then went to the reception hall to take our yearly pictures: 

I told Eric that the best way to spend our anniversary would be in air conditioning. So, we took the kids to McDonalds for lunch, then let them play in the play place while we took turns watching them and checking our email and facebook for the first time in a few days. At naptime we put the kids in the car, but still didn't want to go home so we drove out to the Hands On museum. The kids napped in the car, we had some nice conversation, and then we had a nice afternoon exploring the Hands On Museum. 

When it closed around dinner time, we drove over to Eric's new office for a tour, then walked over to a little shopping district. They had a small supermarket, so we walked around and everyone picked a fruit, then we got sweet potato chips for the kids and some bread and brie for ourselves (a snack we ate on our first official date :) After eating we headed upstairs to the shops. There was a very cool spice shop that even sells berbere (The Ethiopian spice blend that we have grown to love). It was much more expensive, about the same for an ounce as we paid for 1-2 lbs in Ethiopia, but it tasted just as good, and as my dad pointed out, it's cheaper than a plane ticket back!

We got to a time where driving home would mean that the kids would fall asleep, and it was too early for that, so we drove to the local mall and walked around for awhile. We hit a Whole Foods on the way out and picked out some fruit, crackers, and yogurt, and then enjoyed a quiet ride home as the kids slept. Not at all what we expected for our 5th anniversary, but I wouldn't trade it!

Homeschool update

We are still homeschooling through the summer, but we're being relaxed about it-if we have a playdate or something else going on, we'll skip a day here and there. The kids look forward to the stories, and we just finished a science section where we learn about months of the year, seasons, and holidays, and have started a unit on nature, and one on the 5 senses. We've been incorporating both of those topics in a lot of our daily learning. We went on a nature walk and made a book of things we see in nature, then we went on another nature walk to listen to nature. Next we'll do smelling and feeling, and hopefully by the time we get to tasting we'll have some food growing in our garden!

For our seeing nature walk, I cut a bunch of papers up and Jeb made a nature book. We walked down the sidewalk and whenever he saw nature, he would call it out and we would stop and get out his papers and pen and he would draw it. I brought papers for the girls too but they weren't really interested. Journey just waved her paper around, and Vivi ignored the nature and scribbled on her paper the whole time. Maybe next year :) Jeb really enjoyed it and carried the book everywhere with him, showing anyone who would stop and look.

 Jeb's handwriting is coming along, driven by his desire to write everyone's names, especially his and his friend Tariku's. 

Vivi enjoys the stories, but we don't do any kind of book work with her yet. She already recognizes and identifies all of the letters, but isn't ready to learn to write them. We have 2 of everything for the times that she wants to sit down and try, but we're not pushing anything with her yet. She always knows when I take out my teacher's binder that it's time for homeschool. When we stayed at the hotel in Columbus, there was a binder on the table with local restaurants, and Vivi picked it up and said "Hey! Whose homeschool is this?"

Religious education has been going well too, some of the bible stories are a little bit above his understanding, even though it's a preschooler's bible, but he does understand how God made everything. Or as he'll tell you, "God made everything, and God made people, and people make cars." We were watching a VeggieTales movie (Snoodlerella) and the girl who doesn't feel very good about herself talks to the king, and the king says:

"You're kind and you're honest,

Funny and smart.

You're really quite charming, you have a good heart."

"Your majesty," she asked, as a tear came in view,

"I'd like to believe you. Is that really true?"

"Of course it is true, every word that I say.

Daughter, I am the King. And I made you that way.

Jeb turned to me and said "Mommy, is that God?" I was surprised that he picked up on that. I said "Yes, that is God, you're right!" And then he pointed at the cartoon vegetable king and said "He made Jebby?" Ummm, not exactly buddy :)

Another big part of our weekly routine is our weekly (or twice weekly) library trip. They have a summer reading program that has us there most Tuesdays and Thursdays anyway, but the kids have truly grasped the concept that we can borrow any book we want from the library, and when we take them back, we can get new ones! We have a TON of storybooks in the house, and when we were in the Children's Fiction section of the library, they were only a little bit excited to pick books out, and then would usually pick their own story books to read at bedtime or on their own. So when Jeb started asking questions about animals and cars, we would head over to nonfiction to check out books related to his questions. He LOVES nonfiction! Every week we fill a bag with nonfiction books and they will spend hours every week just looking at all of the pictures and coming up with more questions. When we have a short homeschool schedule and the kids want more, I'll add a nonfiction book into our studies. For the 4th of July we read a book about fireworks and how they are made, and when we had a science lesson about fuel (how we fuel our bodies and how we get fuel for cars, etc), we read a library book about fueling the body, which led into a conversation about healthy choices.

Our choice to homeschool isn't always popular with other people-when Jeb is at his immunology check ups, we are seen by several different doctors and specialists, and there are a couple of them who clearly aren't in support of homeschooling. At the most recent appointment, they all wanted to question exactly what we are doing, you know, to make sure my 4 year old new-to-English son is learning all the right things, like algebra and cursive, right?? But it was almost as if Jeb knew what was going on, and kept chiming it at the perfect time with something that made me look good! One of the doctors said "so what exactly are you doing to homeschool him?" And before I could answer, Jeb proudly said "J is for Jebby!" and kept adding things that he had learned to my explanation. So between that and his remarkable grasp of the English language, they don't have any concerns that they're able to voice yet.

But despite the concerns of others, we're all really enjoying homeschooling! We're learning together as a family, and I can customize it to make it the best possible experience for everyone. I'm able to reinforce lessons that they learn outside of the home to make them stick, for instance, when Jeb went to Vacation Bible School, the week's theme was Daniel in the lion's den. So instead of the regularly scheduled bible stories that week, we read about Daniel. When Jeb's Sunday School class did a project that involved scissors and he was frustrated because he wasn't very good at it, I pulled out a practice cutting book I had bought and safety scissors so he could practice. The stuff we're doing right now is pretty basic, but I'm really excited to watch them learn and progress and love learning!

Vivi's Donut Birthday Party

We finally had Vivi's birthday party last weekend, only a few weeks belated! The theme she picked months ago and has stuck with the whole time is a donut party. Easy enough I thought, but it was really hard to find donut party ideas on the internet, I had to come up with everything myself. We decorated the house with colorful crepe paper and some hanging decorations, and that morning we went to the donut shop and bought a LOT of donuts, both regular and holes. Vivi was so excited about that! She wore her 'sparkle dress', which is her current favorite.

We invited a few of Vivi's friends, but after a couple of last minute cancellations, we only had 2 guests. With our 3 kids, it was a 5 person party, which worked out really well.

We played a ring toss game with a cardboard cutout as the ring that I decorated to look like a donut (but forgot to take a picture of!) and then we did donut hole bowling. We have a bowling set that I was going to use and just call the ball a donut hole, but then I thought it would be funny if we used an actual donut hole. We used empty ice cream cones as the pins and let the kids roll donut holes across the floor at them.





We had lunch, Annie's bunny shaped macaroni and cheese, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, a veggie tray, popcorn, and juice boxes to drink. Vivi's favorite things!

Then we did a craft-I bought spice jars with shaker tops and lids for $.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond, and put colored sugar in bowls. Eric made paper funnels, and the kids did sand art with sugar! Everyone got to take home their jars to decorate cookies, cupcakes, etc. They turned out really cute!




Vivi's cake, made of donuts, with candles that spell her name.

The guests each got one of these as their favor, it says 'DONUT you know you're a great friend? I hope you had a HOLE lot of fun at my party! Love, Vivi' and inside are donut holes. A little cheesy but cute :)

Vivi LOVED her party and is still talking about it :)

Journey's Ocular Shell

Did I ever get around to mentioning that Journey had an eye procedure under anesthesia in May? Her ophthalmologist (and yes, I can spell that now without looking it up!) wanted to get a more in depth look at her eyes, which isn't possible to do with a toddler who is awake. He also had an ocular prosthetic specialist come in and fit her for an ocular shell. This one is clear, and does a few different things:

-It acts as a place holder in her eye socket for the painted ocular shell she'll have when she's older. Eventually she'll have an ocular shell that is painted to look exactly like her other eye, so they will be symmetrical.

-It lets the maximum amount of light into her eye, which may help strengthen it, if it is able to be strengthened. . If they decide her eye is able to see enough, the only painted part will be the iris, and the pupil part will be clear so she can see through it. If she doesn't end up having enough vision, the pupil will be painted.

-It also magnifies her eye a little bit, making her eyelids more open. Her eyelid sort of droops over her eye because the eye itself is so small, it's called a micro eye. With the shell, her eye is more open. The domed shape of the shell makes her iris look a little bit bigger, which is just a cosmetic benefit.

The appointment was a little bit traumatic for both of us, he showed us the shell, and how to put it in and take it out, then he took it into another room and we heard some machine noises as he made some adjustments, then he came back in and put it in again, then took it out again, and made some more adjustments. He gave us some advice, and some suction cups, and we were on our way! Surprisingly, Journey wasn't at all bothered by having a chunk of plastic in her eye, I thought I'd be fighting her the rest of the day to leave it alone, but she never even touched it. The traumatic part is pinning her down, holding her eye lid open, and sticking a suction cup in it!


Here it is with the suction cup attached.


Without the suction cup attached. There's a small hole at the bottom of the shell for drainage.


Here you can see the shape and thickness of it


And here's the suction cup we use! To use it, you squeeze the stick with one hand and attempt to hold the eyelids open with the other hand, put it on the ocular shell, let go, then pull the lower eyelid down and slide it out. I got it on my 2nd try, I was pretty surprised and excited about that! I was dreading this day, imagining a screaming baby with a suction cup in her eye, making phone calls to the doctor because we couldn't get it out!


We have to wash it with soap and water and put it back in in the morning, wish me luck!

Summertime

We've hit official summertime, with the actual date of summer, and with our school year activities ending. Vivi finished her dance class and can't wait to go back in the fall, and Journey can't wait until fall either because she'll be old enough to take dance too. Jeb had his last day of soccer and a pizza party where they handed out medals, and the spring semester at the homeschool enrichment hub ended. He really enjoyed all 3 of his classes, especially his tap class. Know that he knows you can take classes for all kinds of things, he wants to take tap, soccer, gymnastics, and swimming. I haven't been able to find a swimming class this summer, everyone is doing week long camps, which I don't really want to do. He says he wants to play soccer again in the fall, and he'll be old enough that it won't just be learning soccer, he'll have a weeknight practice and a Saturday game. Hopefully the fall semester at school will have a tap or gymnastics class he can take, and I think he'll have to wait on the others, I don't want to overschedule all the activities :)

Jeb also went to vacation bible school (VBS) at a local church. Our church is doing one later this summer but I always loved VBS and it's something to do, so when I saw that a friend's church was doing a Babylon themed program, I thought it sounded really cool. He had a blast, he loved the singing and dancing, the crafts, and the snack, and even memorized a couple of bible verses. Our church is doing one in July, and then another friend's church is doing one in August that one of his buddies will be attending, so he'll do that one too.

Vivi got sick and missed her last day of dance, so I don't have a picture of that, but here are Jeb's last day activities:

It's kind of funny, just over a year ago we had one toddler, and all we did was play dates and library story times, and now we have 3 kids who are all old enough to take classes and explore their interests. What a big change!



We also celebrated Journey's 1 year anniversary of being in our family, and of being an American citizen! Here a picture of the week she came home, still very much a baby at 15 months.

And a year later, such a big difference!

Even though our spring activities have ended, we are keeping just as busy with play dates, the library summer reading program has a craft or a show every Tuesday, and story time every Thursday, multiple trips to the zoo already, and lots of time playing outside. The kids (mostly Jeb) discovered that you can get a book about ANYTHING at the library, and this week we ended up with about 15 books, almost all non-fiction, about ambulances, aircraft, different kinds of animals, and a book about different jobs of people who work at a zoo, which Jeb loves because he wants to work at the zoo when he grows up. He can't decide if he wants to be the person who feeds the animals or the animal doctor who gives them medicine when they are sick. He also said he is going to bring a baby crocodile and a baby tiger home with him and take care of them :)

I just realized I didn't get any pictures of Vivi in this post, so I'll share a silly one. My mom dropped a plate of cupcakes off after the kids were in bed, and I put them on the table. Eric and I were in the back room talking when we heard a noise, and discovered this:

My little opportunist! She must have come out to find me but saw the cupcakes on her way. The one in her hand is the 3rd one, she left a pile of wrappers, crumbs, and frosting as evidence. And now we have to be careful, the last few nights she has been sneaking out of her room after bedtime to look for more goodies!

Another Journey update

I haven't posted in almost 3 weeks! A lot happened in those 3 weeks, but I'll start with Journey's health stuff.

We went to the pediatrician who agreed that she is most likely having seizures, and got referred to a neurologist. The pediatrician wanted us to postpone Journey's tonsil/adenoid surgery, but the neurologist said that she would be ok, as long as the ENT and the anesthesiologist were on board. He wanted her to get an EEG, but their technician wasn't in that day. He told us to call and schedule an appointment, but then when we called, they said that we don't call them, they call us after preapproval from the insurance. Then they never called. So we called Children's hospital to see if we could get an EEG during her hospital stay, but they didn't have any openings.

The geneticist had wanted her to get a brain MRI, but wanted to wait until we did all of the other tests first in case they could pinpoint her syndrome without having to put her under to do the MRI. When we found out that she was having surgery anyway at the same hospital, we emailed genetics right away to see if they could order the brain MRI to happen at the same time. They said they would try, but we couldn't get it scheduled because the MRI anesthesiologist wasn't in that day...even though she already had an anesthesiologist and would already be asleep...it was a little frustrating that we weren't able to get any extras in. We ended up scheduling the EEG and brain MRI for different dates.

The surgery went really well, she was a trooper as usual. She had her tonsils and adenoids removed, and she also had a more in-depth hearing test than they were able to do while she was awake. At least they could double those up in one day!

The results of her hearing test weren't great-she has moderate hearing loss in the higher frequencies (I was surprised, I thought it would only be mild) and the audiologist said hearing aids would really help her, and put in a referral for speech therapy. BUT even though her hearing loss is moderate, it is just above the line for insurance to consider hearing aids a need, so we have to pay for them out of pocket. Kind of a bummer, but we want to give her every opportunity to succeed. I found a website that lets you do monthly payments, and there may be a program she qualifies for that can help pay for them too. We'll find a way :)

Both procedures took a total of 3 hours, and then she was in recovery for about a half hour before she started waking up and they came to get me. She was crying and sounded hoarse, but when the nurse offered her juice, she said "yes please!" and drank the whole thing and asked for more. The nurse was surprised that she was so willing to swallow, she said usually it's a struggle to get kids to drink right after surgery. She had some fluid in her lungs and needed a breathing treatment before leaving the recovery room, but eventually we made it up to our room.

Our nurse was awesome and super nice, making sure we had everything we needed to be comfortable, and running around checking snacks and calling the kitchen to make sure Journey would have enough dye-free snacks. Turns out Children's hospital doesn't have any ice cream, pudding, or popsicles without artificial colors-lame! Luckily my parents were coming up to visit anyway so they stopped and picked some up. The nurse also grabbed a bunch of apple juices for us to hide in our room because it was the only dye-free juice they had. We ordered soft foods for dinner, applesauce and a berry smoothie, and when the nurse came in and saw her finishing an applesauce, she also commented on how great it was that she was so eager to get back to eating so soon without any encouragement.

The night was pretty rough-the night nurses were horrible and she cried a lot of the night, mostly because I had to keep calling when it was time for more morphine, even though it was in her chart that she should be getting it every 2 hours. And then they would never come when I called. And the pulse ox alarm kept going off every time she kicked her foot, and would beep for 5 minutes before someone would turn it off without even coming in to check...I think I got an hour and a half of sleep total, but not  all at once.

The next morning we had a slightly nicer nurse (but not nearly as awesome as our first nurse!) and we made friends with our roommates and spent the day chatting. Because she was so eager to eat soft foods, the nurse said I could order her some regular foods for breakfast to see if she would eat them. She had scrambled eggs with cheese, cottage cheese, and something else that I'm forgetting-but she ate them all and they said she'd get to go home that day. A cart came around with coffee and bagels for the parents, then a guy came around with bingo cards and markers and said to turn to an in-hospital tv channel for a bingo game. Our roommate was also a baby, so his mom and I played bingo for them while they napped and we drank coffee and chatted, it was more fun than we thought it would be. When you get a bingo, you call a number from your room phone and they send someone in with a basket of prizes. Our roommate won, and then after the game someone came in to collect the cards and gave prizes to the kids who didn't win. Journey picked a little stuffed cat.

We got discharged at lunchtime and our roommate had just fallen asleep, so his mom came down to the cafeteria for lunch. They don't deliver food for the parents, just for the kids, so we were both starving. Journey scarfed down a big bowl of macaroni and cheese and ate some cookies.

We had another dye allergy related disappointment before discharge-the ENT wanted her on tylenol with codeine, but they don't make it without the dye, so she had to just get regular tylenol.

She recovered quickly and sounds great! No more loud breathing or gasping while she sleeps. The first few days I kept checking to make sure she was breathing because she is so quiet now!

Pure Joy :)

I know I'm way behind in posting and updating but I just HAVE to share this picture! Eric's brother got married today, which was SO much fun, but one of the highlights of the evening for Jeb (and for me!) was that the wedding site was right next to some working train tracks, so Jeb was able to see 2 trains go by!

I heard a train coming and rushed him over to where he could see it, and then snapped a picture of his reaction. As you can see, he couldn't belive he was seeing a 'real big train' and was thrilled!