Trick or Treat

Doctors

Dr. Sammy operating on little Katie... They play this for hours... Dr. Katie...

PS Thanks to the Swine Flu, lots of free masks all over the hospital... ;)

Brave Boy

Sammy did so well at the hospital this morning with his surgery. The staff was amazed that they didn't have to use the happy shot just to calm him down. He was matter of fact about it all. I asked him if he was scared and he said no mom they are doctors they KNOW what they are doing. He was whisked off to the operating room asking questions along the way. He woke up and they released him quickly as he seemed to recover pretty fast. He has probably eaten 12 popsicles today, soup and mac and cheese. I believe the real pain is starting to sit in and we may have a bit of a restless night, but we'll see. I've been taking it easy on the pain meds as they said as needed and he hasn't been complaining but he's not a complainer either so it's tough to judge.

Tomorrow our plan is to make a book all about his visit, he said he saw lots of neat things in the operating room he wants to write about. He's bummed about not going to school...

Medical Updates

The stomach flu is making it's way through our family. It hits hard and fast, Ug!

Sammy has surgery on Tuesday for tonsils, adnoids and tubes in his ears. Coming off a weekend of the stomach flu it's going to be tough going on him. I think he's also going to have a hard time with the medicine post surgery as well. 16 days of no activity after surgery. What a month this is going to be...

Frosty in Alaska

Still no snow in Alaska, not even a flurry so far! A very abnormally long fall, but that's okay with me... We've had a few heavy frosts lately and the wind is bringing in the colder air, so it is probably just around the corner. Chance of rain the next few days so don't be surprised if I post that we got snow from some of it.

Movie Night

The boys and I headed to the theater this afternoon to catch the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. They've only been to the theater one other time so it was a treat.

Of course, Alex was worried the whole time as we had the entire theater to ourselves. He just didn't think we should be there because no one else was and what if we got locked in...

Sammy took offense to the artistic license of the movie as they changed the script from the book and my bookworm was quick to point out every difference...

It was an interesting date night with my 2 very different boys!

Picture time at Nana and Pappy's house

Or what I do when Mommy is working...

We take walks in our wagon... Pepe always get the best seat... I wash my dishes...

I cook...

I love to paint!
And curl up when I'm tired...

7 going on 13

Alex... "It sucks mom, our gym teacher was out today"

Mom... "hmmm"

Alex.. "I said, it sucks Mom our gym teacher was out today"

Mom... "Okay"

Alex... "Mom, I said it sucks..."

Mom... "Yes Alex but we don't use that word in this house"

Geez, what they learn in school!

Night time

We are putting more effort lately into getting Katie to sleep in her own bed. She's doing a pretty good job at going to sleep in it. However she still gets up in the middle of the night and wanders downstairs to find us. She's clearly awake when she does this as she usually comes with a pile of goodies. Last night it was her bear, baby and her socks that she puts on the floor by her bed. It was all carried in her little hands downstairs and to our bed and I never heard a peep in the baby monitor!

Sammy Update

We had a visit with a specialist this week to evaluate Sammy's hearing loss and large tonsils. I ws not very impressed with the doctor. He couldn't find the x-ray we had done at the hospital. Didn't even look at the tonsils until I begged him too. Just looked in his ears, said wow he has a lot of water in them and needs tubes in them. Then I said what about the breathing problems and swollen lymph nodes.. Pretty much ignored me. Said if I could prove that Sammy had sleeping problems he could remove the adnoids too? I'm not feeling confident in the doctor.

Long story short, we are getting a hearing test done soon to make sure it is nothing else. Then we will proceed with surgery. I'm hoping to talk the doctor into removing the tonsils and adnoids at the same time to solve all problems.

We'll see it amazes me how doctor's make diagnosis without fully evaluating the patient...

Referral

Oct. 7, 2008 at 8:12 am, we got the e-mail from our agency with this picture of Viktoria, a little girl in Khabarovsk Baby Home #2. At for the record she is still way smaller than any picture makes her look!

fall in Alaska

Rainy and damp today in Alaska. If it were just a little colder all this rain would amount to a substantial snowfall. So we've got the bouncy house going, halloween costumes out for play and have been doing our share of drawing today to pass the time. I've been cooking soup all day from our garden harvest and it should be a nice warm dinner with our baked bread.

We've had 3 moose sightings today just at our house with different moose each time....

Here's a shot of Mama Moose. And the baby moose hovering around the liliac bush...

Pumpkins, Pumpkins

Not having pumpkin patches in Alaska, we picked our pumpkins last week. Yep right from the big selection at the grocery store of 6 pumpkins, we picked the 3 that didn't look rotted yet! The boys love Halloween, every aspect of it and have been wishing for October to appear. Katie just loves her pumpkin, she has patted it and hugged it each and every day. She says good bye to it, hello and love you. Note in this pic, Katie couldn't stop talking about her pumpkin long enough to get a picture taking, she was just too excited.

Now this morning we carved the pumpkins. Katie thought we were killing it. She didn't quite get the concept right away. She just kept saying no, hurt pumpkin.
Our finished Jack-o-lanterns, let's see how long they last. In 4 years, we have 3 years of moose eating them and 1 year of bad pumpkins that molded. Maybe this year they will make it.