First Day of School!

Today was the first day of school for my kids. Strange to think that I will have 4 kids in school this year. Jimmy is starting the 6th grade, Emma the 3rd grade, Molly the 1st grade and Alyssa kindergarten. So technically Alyssa doesn't start until next Monday, but she did have Kindergarten Orientation today and will do her individual test tomorrow.

When I went to take the traditional first day of school pictures, I discovered my camera isn't working. Not quite sure what is wrong with it. Acts like it just doesn't want to open right. I'll have to play around with it and see if I can figure it out later. At least I have a camera on my cell phone so was able to take a few with that. I couldn't get Jimmy to smile for the picture of just him. So he gets to have this one posted.

Here's Molly.

And Alyssa.

And Emma.

Kind of funny that in both of the pictures with all four Molly has her eyes closed. At least Jimmy smiled for those ones though.

Kindergarten Orientation went well. Alyssa got her homework book to start working on and has since done 6 pages out of it. Well, 6 1/2. She would have done more but I told her that was probably enough for now. Her teacher has always had the kids draw a picture of themselves at the orientation while she goes over some information for the parents. For some reason Alyssa doesn't think she draws well and didn't really want to do it but eventually did. She seemed a bit nervous going there.

I helped Emma find her classroom before going to orientation for Alyssa and helped Molly line up with her class. Jimmy basically took off and didn't want any help from me.

Being an early out day, the kids just got home from school. Molly came in and gave me a big hug and exclaimed that the first day was fun. Emma smiled and said she liked it and likes her teacher. I asked Jimmy how he liked it and his response was a shrug and, "It was okay. My teacher seems nice." Funny how they aren't quite so excited as they get older.

Dylan's 2 Year Checkup

Dylan had his 2 year well-baby check this afternoon. I think he's getting really tired of going to the doctor. Usually he's pretty good at his well-checks. Not today. He cried the entire time. Did not want them to touch him or even look at him. I guess crying the whole time is an exaggeration. He had a rather good time playing with the toys in the waiting room.

Anyway, Dylan now weighs 27.6 pounds and is 34 1/2 inches tall. That puts him right on the average for height and just under the average for weight. Luckily he didn't need any shots today because he is all caught up on his immunizations. And it's nice that he won't need to go back to the doctor for a while (except for any illnesses over the winter that I'm sure he'll get).

His doctor asked if he's putting a couple of words together in talking. I chuckled and told him he will say things like, "Alyssa downstairs watching tv." So yeah, I would say he's putting words together. The doctor's response to that was that he's ahead of the curve then. All of my kids have been good talkers though so he seems about right on for me.

Happy Birthday Dylan!

Today is Dylan's 2nd birthday. Which I had actually finished posting about and then had a problem and it lost my entire post. This time it will probably be shorter. Should count yourself lucky. I probably rambled about more things than I should have.

It's hard to believe that two years have gone by since Dylan was born. At times the days were full of stress and worry for Dylan with his heart defect, but it has been a good two years. I wouldn't trade them for anything. Dylan is a joy in our lives and we are all glad he's part of our family. Jimmy often says that Dylan (whom he calls "Gus" most of the time) is the "most awesome ever."

We celebrated Dylan's birthday with cake immediately after eating dinner tonight. Even before taking our dishes off the table from dinner, actually. I actually remembered to take a few pictures too.

Dylan is blowing out his candles in this first picture. For the third or fourth time. He loved blowing out the candles so Russ kept relighting them for him.
Here's Dylan with his cake just after I finished frosting it. I hadn't planned what I was going to do for his cake before it was made. (He was eating a soda cracker with frosting on it at the time.) Dylan's sisters and brother kept saying he needed a Yo Gabba Gabba! cake since he loves the show and since I really didn't have any other ideas went ahead and decorated it as such.
Here's his cake. Not the best cake I've ever done, but not as terrible as it could have been considering how quickly I did it and the fact that it was freehand. Didn't get some of the colors quite the right shade I wanted, but that's okay. The kids were impressed. That's all that really matters, right?
I have tried to upload a video of when we sang to Dylan and his blowing out the candles the first time. Dylan grinned and sang along. Unfortunately, it keeps having problems. Which is probably why it lost my first post about his birthday. I don't think I'll try again. Really don't want to have to write the post a third time.

Dylan's Dental Appointment

If you remember a while back when I took the kids to the dentist that I mentioned that Dylan had one cavity and would need to get it filled but the dentist wanted me to wait to schedule that appointment until after I his echo so I could talk to his cardiologist and make sure he was fine with them doing the sedation in office. I did ask and after a quick roll of the eyes said he had no problem with it and also said (after I asked) that he doesn't need to take any antibiotics before dental work. Which is actually a nice thing considering it wasn't very long ago that they wanted people to take antibiotics before dental work even when they hadn't needed surgery to repair a chd.

Anyway, I have been putting off scheduling Dylan's dental work because of his needing to be sedated for both the echo and then a couple of weeks later the MRI. Just didn't think he needed to be sedated a third time so quickly. I finally broke down and called the dentist to schedule it when Dylan started putting his hands in his mouth like his teeth were bothering him. I looked closely at his teeth and noticed that he had a couple of other cavities on his front teeth and the one cavity was looking worse.

With kids like Dylan who do have health "issues" they use an anesthesiologist to administer the sedation instead of their usual quick sedation with a pulse/ox monitor. That meant that the times they had available were fewer so I was surprised when I called and they could schedule him within about a week. Unfortunately, the appointment was a later appointment. Which meant that Dylan was going to need to go half of the day without eating and a good portion without drinking anything either.

I worried about what I would do when I needed to get the other kids lunch and try to keep him from wanting food and drinks. Luckily I have a very nice mother who offered to let me take the kids there and leave with Dylan before lunch so that he wouldn't be bothered with it. She was tending four of my sister's children so I thought it was very nice of her to offer to watch four more.

Fixing the cavities took a little longer than they expected even after they knew all they would need to do. He ended up with caps on his front two teeth and they had to grind them down to make them look okay. Said the size that fit looked too big and would have just looked bad. Because of the grinding his mouth would be sore. And from how cranky he was the rest of the day, I would say they hurt. Even after getting some Tylenol in him.

I am very glad to have it done. He was very cranky again all morning and I thought it would be a very long day. When he gets cranky like that he thinks I'm the only one who can do anything for him or with him. And gets upset when his siblings even touch me. He did get happy (about the time I took the kids back down to my parent's to let them play with their cousins and so Jimmy could mow their lawn) and has stayed pretty happy the rest of the day. The one exception being when Lys decided it would be a good idea to grab his sore front teeth. No idea why she thought that was a good idea.

Independence Day Stuff

I seem to keep forgetting that I actually know where my camera is. At least that's what it seems like with how few pictures I've been taking lately. I keep thinking I should be taking more but rarely pull out the camera to do so. So in a way I'm amazed I got what pictures I did from the Independence Day celebrations. Well, at least from the local parade. Didn't get a single picture taken when we did fireworks with the kids. Or from the barbecue we had. Or even from eating lunch after the parade with some wonderful neighbors. Didn't even get any pictures of the water fights that went on with the parade this year. And since that's mostly what Jimmy did, I somehow managed to miss getting a single picture of him from those days. I keep telling myself that was a case of self-preservation and to save the camera from the water. Not quite sure I believe it though.

We did have a lot of fun for the holiday weekend. The only downfall being the motor going out on our air conditioner the afternoon we had the barbecue at our house. Luckily it was a cooler day than it had been. Another good neighbor and friend came over and helped Russ get it working the next day after work. Which was another time I thought I should pull out my camera and didn't. He brought along his three daughters and they had a good time playing with my kids. His youngest is about 6 months older than Dylan and they played really cute together. Dylan would kind of give her a hug and look at me and say, "Gracie nice."

The parade seems to get longer every year. For our town not being all that big, the parade is large. It was scheduled to start at 11:00. Always at the end of the parade is a giant water fight along the parade route. That part was actually shorter than it has been in the past. And even then the parade didn't end until quarter after 1. Of course, that meant more candy that the kids were able to get at the parade. Knowing full well that the parade ended with a big water fight didn't stop Russ and Jimmy from being drenched before the parade even started. I think they almost wished it had been a hotter day than it was after that.

One nice thing about being the main photo taker in the family is that means I am in very few pictures. Russ did get the camera at one point and made sure he took a couple of me. I'll get one of those here first to get it quickly out of the way.
Here are the girls at the parade with their sacks ready to grab more candy thrown their way. Jimmy didn't watch a whole lot of the parade but still managed to get a bit of candy.
You can kind of tell how wet Russ got in this picture. I was actually surprised Dylan didn't mind being held with how wet he was.

Going back to being the main photo taker, sometimes Jimmy gets a hold of the camera. Sadly on my part, some of the best pictures we have are ones he has taken. This is one Jimmy took in the car as we were headed to my parent's house recently. Totally unedited, I should note. Decided to throw it in this post because I think it's cute. Not sure how he got Dylan to stick his tongue out at him for it.

Catching Up Post

I've slacked on posting about a few things. Mostly because I hadn't uploaded any pictures onto the computer for a while. Actually haven't taken many pictures at all lately. Not really sure why. Just haven't. Probably just utter laziness kicking in.

Anyway, I can't remember if I mentioned before (and again with the lazy trend, I don't feel like looking) that we got the kids one of the butterfly kits where caterpillars arrive in the mail and you get to watch them grow and make cocoons and hatch into butterflies. The kids really loved it. They would often check on the caterpillars to see how much they had grown and were excited when they finally made their cocoons. They were even more excited when they hatched. Lys, Dylan and I got to watch one of them emerge from its cocoon. That was kind of fun. Although I will say that butterflies are kind of gross when they first come out with their drippings of red meconium. And kind of stinky. A few days after they hatched, the kids decided to try to release them. I got a video of it, but will spare you from listening to Dylan cry and Jimmy boss his sisters. The butterflies didn't seem ready to be released then. They didn't try to fly at all and basically fluttered to the ground when Russ gently tossed any into the air to see if they would fly. So back into the netting thing they went for a few more days. They flew away nicely when they tried again. Well, one seemed happy to sick around and let the kids hold it for a bit. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera with me that time.

Here are a couple of pictures just before the first attempt to release them. One with the kids getting ready. The other just of Dylan to show that he was actually there and part of it.

This next picture is of Lys with her preschool teacher at preschool graduation. Again I have a few videos of songs and things from her graduation but will spare you having to listen to them. My camera was very low on batteries so I didn't actually record all I wanted. Wished I had recorded them singing Tony Chestnuts. They sang a lot more to it than I know and it was cute. Lys loved preschool and was excited about her graduation program. Didn't seem all that sad about not having preschool anymore. She just knows she gets to start kindergarten in the fall and is excited about that.
Yesterday I cut Dylan's and Emma's hair. Dylan's because, well, it needed it. It was getting a bit long and even though it was cute on him we decided to try giving him a really short cut. Not the easiest thing in the world to do to a kid who wiggles because he's not happy about getting a hair cut. I just think his hair is kind of funny. Has a couple of spots where his hair is more blond than other parts so it makes it look like he has bald spots. Granted, Russ did decide he needed it a little shorter on the sides and around the ears and did make a couple of little bald spots in his attempt to trim it.

Emma asked me to cut her hair for her. Ended up being slightly shorter than I intended because she moved as I was cutting some and had to fix it after that. She likes it though. Likes having it shorter for the heat of the summer.

This is a picture of Emma and Dylan together shortly after their hair cuts. Not the best picture but it gives you a general idea. Jimmy says Dylan says he has "Jimmy hair." The girls say he has "Daddy hair." Emma says she and Molly have the same hair now.

If you notice, I don't have any pictures from Lyssa's birthday party. When I finally got the pictures onto the computer I discovered that the only picture we have is a short video of the blowing out of the candle. She had a good time with her party though. Even if Dylan thinks the presents she got are all his.

MRI Results

Dylan's doctor called me a few minutes ago to go over the results of yesterday's MRI. He said that everything looks good and there wasn't the narrowing in his pulmonary arteries. Which means that he won't need the cath. Which is very good news.

He also talked about when he needs to come in next. The last few visits have been every 6 months. He decided to go 9 months this time. I didn't think we'd see going every 9 months for a while yet. So all in all it was a good phone call.