Christmas Time

Christmas time usually, technically, begins Decemeber 6th with St. Nick arriving and putting treats in our shoes.  We do put our tree and decorations up the weekend before Thanksgiving buuuuttttt...it's really kicked off with St. Nick.  This year he brought an ornament for everyone and an advent game.  The game is to get you into the Christmas spirit by doing different games and acts of kindness and crafts.  We have really enjoyed the game and will totally be able to do it next year.  I really recommend it as the girls have really liked it and liked doing their secret missions.

 

This is the first year I tried ginger bread houses.  This just seems like a headache to me.  I got these ginger bread kits from Aldi on clearance last year for $1.25 I think.  I know you don't eat ginger bread houses so I figured it was ok.  It was ok, everything was wrapped up individually and fine, but ELI of course still ate it.  He hasn't gotten sick yet so I guess clearance is the way to go (?) lol.  These kits were pretty neat and had everything you needed and the girls are the perfect age for them as they needed little help.  Eli's train kept falling and the houses are now in the trash.  They enjoyed it. They were cheap and that's what I have to say about that.

What's Christmas time with out Christmas programs at school.  Here are the girls singing and Eli serenading us in the car!!! 

The girls ready in their Christmas dresses

 

Eli wanted in on the picture action

Ice cream after the show with friends!

We had our annual John Deere Christmas party and they had a photo booth, so of course we did the photo booth!  We had a lot of fun but quickly realize how old we are when we stay up to midnight. :)

And what is Christmas with out cookie decorating.  I wasn't going to do this with kids as the ginger bread houses were to take the place of that.  But the girls were invited to decorate cookies at the local college with their pastry chef by a friend.  There were 10 girls total and their moms.  The baker had the dough ready and we made sugar cookies, pinwheels and whatever those ones with the Hershey kiss in the middle.  We came home with 6 boxes of cookies!!!!  The girls had a great time and quite frankly I did too.  No prep, no clean up and everything ready to go! My kind of baking! 

Josie intently decorating her name.  We made J O S I E sugar cookies.

Ella caught tasting her work

We have also drove thru the holiday nights and lights they have here which is a drive thru Christmas light spectacular and Eli's Christmas program is to come.  We have been enjoying the Christmas season and are good on our shopping/ wrapping.  There is just always so much in December!

Update on Ella

This girl is AWESOME and I love her fiercely!  

She just recently had an appointment in Iowa City for her bilateral clubfeet and her doctor (who is the best in the world for club feet) said she needs to have surgery.  The surgery is a Tibial Tendon Transfer (TTT) and lengthening of the achilles tendon.

For 7 YEARS this is what we have been trying to avoid.  The castings she went thru when she was 6 months old and the bracing ever since were to try and prevent her from having surgery.  

Here are her current feet.  I have noticed that they were turning inward, mostly the left, even while still in the braces at night.  I felt like as soon as we stop the bracing her feet would fall inward reequiring surgery and the doctor confirmed my fear and agreed with me.

Her doctor and I discussed a lot.  He recommended spring or fall for the surgery and as of right now we are looking at doing this over spring break, but nothing is scheduled except her next appointment in January.  Heres the low down...

She will need to spend the night in the hospital post operatively for pain control.  She will casted in bilaterally with her foot flexed upward for the stretch of the achillies tendon and her knee slightly bent with the casts going thigh high (see below picture as 6 months of castings).  She will NOT be able to bear weight on her feet for 6 weeks post-op.  So wheelchair bound...

I immediatley came home and watched a video of the surgery (as the surgical nurse in me) and just cannot believe I have to put my child thru this.  My heart breaks thinking about this for her.

Concerns:  

My first concern has been with her school.  Her class room is on the second floor of the school and has no elevator accesss. She will need help going to the bathroom as well.   I am hoping that we can come up with solutions that doesn't leave Ella feeling left out or behind.  This is going to be hard enough being wheel chair bound for 6 weeks and I want her day to be as normal as possible. She will not be able to ride the bus home so I will also need to pick her up everyday.  I will need to figure out logistics with my work to make that happen.

Our house is not wheelchair accessible and her bedroom is on the second floor.  I know that she is a peanut but lifting her and carrying her as much as I am anticipating seems hard.  Our bathrooms are not really wheelchair accessible on the main floor let alone our entry ways.

And, Joey has a bad back.  I will be concerned with him lifting her, as I don't want him to hurt himself doing this.  So I feel most lifting with done by me.  With casts she will be about 50lbs

There are so many other concerns going thru my head but these are the biggest ones, by far. 

Her doctor did say she may need casts prior to surgery if her feet fall too far inward.  They need to be stretched into the correct position before surgery can be done.  We, obviously, don't know how fast or far her feet will fall inward prior to surgery so she may need zero casts or 1, 2, or 3 prior to surgery.  So 6 weeks is the minimal time, probably more, she will be in casts.  

Here is where we started with her feet (above).  We've come along way, but 7 years and we end up with needing surgery.  Although I am full of concerns and worries for Ella there are many things be positive about.  Out of all the places we could be, we are 1.5 hours away from the worlds best treatment for clubfoot.  The national standards were devoloped from the Univeristy of Iowa.  I have no doubt in her doctors opinions and skill.  We could not ask to be in better place for her treatment and surgery.  

I know that sooner is better than later and I also know that kids are resilliant.  She will get thru this and I assume she will be scooting and crawling so much by the end it will suprising!  And I also know she NEEDS this surgery to be able to walk.  

Although Ella was in her apointment and heard her doctor and I talking, I am trying to not talk about this in front of Ella.  She knows she needs surgery and she has told me she is scared about that.  She does not realize what her recovery is really going to include.  I will answer any questions she has honestly, but with as much sugar as I can put on it.  This is pretty far away and I don't want her to think about it so the less I talk about it in front of her the better.  So please do not talk to me or Joey about this in front of the kids.  That is why I am writing this blog and also as a way to not repeat myself 1000x's. 

Kitchen update

I have been wanting to re-paint my YELLOW kitchen that we originally painted 11 years ago when we moved in.  So when Eli started all day preschool that was the project I would tackle then.  So I started painting and turns out I hated my paint I picked. After some online research of paint for kitchens I noticed everyone had really nice countertops.  Joey and I have talked about upgrading our countertops before but never pulled the trigger...until now.  

Here is the old kitchen

Please notice the yellow range hood and yellow paint

Here are the countertops out!  I am mostly putting this in here cause I did that myself on my day off! :)

And the new

The paint color is Sherwin Williams grecian ivory and I chose that cause the internet told me too.  I like it, so thats good.  I really like my 'hi' window though!

I love our countertops and the undermount sink!  

I have decided that painting the kitchen will be done in another 11 years cause that was NOT fun.  But I guess it was worth it because I really like the end product a lot.  

October

Well here we are at the end of October and we are well into the routine of school.  The girls are trying something new...the violin.  I have been wanting to get the girls into piano but not having a piano really made that a challenge, but when they offered violin lessons thru school we jumped on it.  Ella needed some convincing and Josie was a go from the minute I told her about it.  I hope they stick with it and really excel at it. 

School pictures came back and we have another GOOD year of pictures.  I can't get over how old Eli looks. 

And speaking of pictures, we had our picture in the newspaper again.  October is breast cancer awareness month so they did an extra insert about it and there is our picture from the Ottumwa race for the cure that was back in May.  We sure have had our pictures in the paper a lot!

Bishop Zinkula came to the girls school to visit and he lead the mass for the school.  The whole school is at the alter listening to him talk about our guardian angels.  Ella was on that took the gifts up during mass too. 



We also had our annual Octoberfest parade and Eli and Joey drove gators in the parade for John Deere.  Eli had a blast throwing candy out for everyone and the girls loved getting the candy and of course eating it too.

The girls had a field trip to an apple orchard and I was actually able to chaperone.  The girls were excited to have me come along.  We had a good time together and I got to know their teachers better too.  

We had 1 last camping trip and it was COLD and windy so not the most enjoyable.  The kids had fun and Eli is always ready to camp no matter what.  One of the kids at the campground had a unicycle so I asked if I could borrow it to try and ride it.  I taught myself to ride about 30 years ago and was curious if I could still ride.  I was rusty, but I could still do it!  

Eli has really taken a liking to his baby, baby Ellie.  He really likes to play with her and here they are napping together.  :)

And now the project I got us into....our kitchen.  I wanted to paint over the yellow which you can see I started but I did not like that color so I stopped and tried to pick out a new paint color.  I looked online to try and get ideas with our cabinets and long story short..we are getting new granite counter tops.  I will have before and after pics when the mini-kitchen makeover is done.  Meanwhile, I have stopped painting so we are currently still like this.  

Summer end

It's the end of summer and that means the end of boating season.  The last time we were out we caught the sunset and the calm of the water.  It was AWESOME!

Before the season end, Josie caught her first fish with her barbie fishing pole.  She was very proud but she would not take it off the hook.  I think she officially caught more fish than grandpa this year.  She says she will let grandpa borrow her fishing pole :)

The girls both lost a canine tooth on the same day!  Each have lost 8 teeth now.

The girls have been doing swim team and here they are "racing."  They have just improved so much since doing swim team and they really enjoy it.  They are considering doing a swim meet in ottumwa, but will need some encouragement.  

School has been going well for everyone and Eli transitioned fine into pre-k and now he going to start riding the bus home.  This was his first time riding it home and he was all smiles about it.  He can't wait to ride it again.  Of course his sisters were BIG helpers for him.

This kid

We were supposed to go camping this weekend but mother nature didn't cooperate so we had to cancel.  While being stuck indoors during the rainy, wetness we decided to do our pumpkins.  Ella free hand painted her rainbow pumpkin, Josie had very minimal help with her minion and Eli's thomas the train was pretty much all done by me except the blue.

And at church today, the girls had their rite of acceptance for first communion. We have begun the process for first communion next year.

We are hoping we will be able to get another camping trip in this year but our boating season is done.  Hopefully we can enjoy some fall weather before the snow comes. 

1st grade and Pre-K

The 2019-2020 school year is off to a start.  I have 2 1st graders and one in 3yo Pre-K.  The girls were ready, excited and just a bit nervous to start 1st grade.  Eli, I was nervous would be a crying a mess and he was but only for a few days.  Now, so far, he loves going to school.  He gives me 2 hugs and 2 kisses before I head off to work.  Grandma and Grandpa E were out visiting when school started so that was fun to have Grandma here to send them off. 

 

 



I love the way the back packs on the littles look so HUGE on them.  Super Mario Bros. back pack and lunch bag from Grandma S this year.  He was very excited about his "pack-pack" this year.

 

 

The picture out side of school. 

 

Technically, Eli's first day of preschool wasn't until the next week after the girls.  Grandma was still here so she was able to see him off on his real first day.  These pictures are in his classroom and we apparently hung out to much because he did cry when we left.  But, he is over that now.  So the school year is off and by week 3 I have had Eli home on Monday, sick.  Then received a call from school that Josie had a fever and needs to be picked up and now Ella has been home sick all in 3 days.  Apparently,  the school germs are now in session too.

Here's to great school year for lots of learning, lots of fun, lots of KINDNESS and lots friends.