His boys are fine!

This post is rated pg-13 so beware!
At Kyson's kindergarten exam the doctor was doing the physical part and couldn't find his testicles. She tried for quite a while (which was humiliating for Kyson) and couldn't feel them. So she sent us to a urologist to have her look at them. He saw Katie's urologist when we took her to Primary's a few weeks ago and she said the same thing and referred us to a surgeon. Yesterday we went to the surgeon fully expecting to be told he would need surgery. She was able to find them and put them back where they were suppose to be. She said he has very strong muscles down there so if he's cold or nervous, his bouncy balls (that's what my boys call them) can hide.
I'm sure that's why the pediatrician couldn't find them because he was so nervous that day. He's very shy and gets embarassed very easily. So we were extremely thrilled to find out that his boys are fine and no surgery is necessary! Yay! When he got home he went up to his cousin, Kamry and said "My bouncy balls are back where they belong now!" I don't know if she knew what he was talking about but she laughed anyway.

The good news and the bad news

We spent most of the day at Primary Children's Hospital today so Katie could have a renal scan done. When she was 4 months old, we found out that she has urinary reflux. For the last year, she has been on an antibiotic to prevent any infection and we were hoping the problem would correct itself. Two weeks ago she went in for a VCUG (a test to check the reflux) and we found out she still has it. We also found out there was a possible obstruction in her uratur (the tube from the kidney to the bladder). So today she had a test to find out if there was an obstruction. The bad news, there is an obstruction. The good news, they are going to try and fix both problems with one surgery. Originally they said they would probably have to do two surgeries. There is about a 75% chance they will be able to take care of both problems in one surgery. The picture is of Katie during the renal scan. We chose to have her sedated because it is a 45 minutes test and there is NO WAY she would have held still for it. The VCUG she had done 2 weeks ago was only ten minutes and she screamed and fought us the whole time. She was actually quite tramatized by that test. When we first got to the hospital today and they wanted to get her weight, she started crying right when I sat her on the scale. From that point on, whenever she saw a nurse with any kind of medical device or instrument (like a thermometer) she would cry and say "Owie, Owie" She even cried when the nurse washed her hands before taking her temperature. Once they sedated her, everything was great! We just watched her sleep for two hours while they did the test and then she was in recovery. She was very frustrated once she woke up and wanted to get up and walk around. She was way to loopy to walk and kept falling down. When we got home from the hospital, I couldn't let her down because she kept falling down and hurting herself. I needed to cook dinner, so I put her in the stroller and made her sit in it while I cooked. Her drunken state lasted all day. When we put her to bed tonight, she was doing better but still couldn't walk straight and was falling down. She was in and out of sleep all day. We asked if we could take some of whatever they gave her to sedate her. I think it would be great to be able to sleep all day! So, we are going to do the surgery once Jadon is out of school. While I am concerned about the surgery for many reasons, I am thankful that it is something that is actually pretty minor and fixable. As I watched kids at the hospital today who are obviously in and out of the hospital all the time, I was so grateful that Katie's condition is temperary. I am also thankful that we are going to be able to fix this while she is still young and I pray that she will forget all the torture we have put her through!

"batter up"

Jadon has his first paying job (not counting mowing lawns). Yesterday he was an umpire at a pee-wee baseball game. Now that he is 12, he is able to ump 7 and 8 year old baseball games. We were pretty nervous about him doing this because he has such a shy and quiet personality. He was very determined about doing it so we decided to let him. I went with him to the game and was very surprised. He did an awesome job! He called out everything loud and clear and everyone could hear him. It was fun to watch him control the game.

A night out with the family

Tonight we had a great night out as a family. First, we went to Applebee's for dinner. We don't go out to restaurants like that very often as a family for two reasons. It's too expensive and our kids don't seem to get along very well when they are in restaurants that don't have toys or play places. Tonight was awesome! Everyone was happy and ate all their food in peace. The only problem was when Dale decided to play some music for us from his phone. Kierra was embarassed by that and kept ducking under the table if someone looked at us. I thought it was great! Then we went to a movie. We went to see "How to train your dragon". What a great movie! I left Katie home with a babysitter. It was so great to actually be able to watch the whole movie! Everyone loved the movie. When we came out the kids were flying, like the dragons, through the theatre. I love it when we go out as a family and have fun together!

Happy 11th Birthday Kierra!

I feel bad about not doing a birthday post for Kierra until 4 days after her birthday but I left my camera at my mom's so I didn't have her birthday pictures.
It's hard to believe that Kierra is already 11 years old. Someone once told me how much she loved having an 11 year old and I can see now why she said that. Kierra is great to have around. She is starting to want to learn about being a homemaker. The other day she asked me to teach her how to do laundry. She also wants to help make desserts with me. She absolutely loves her baby sister. She will play all sorts of games with her and never gets tired of getting her up from her nap. She has started babysitting for me and is doing a great job. She's a wonderful big sister to Jake and Kyson and is always playing school with them. She comes up with all sorts of sticker charts to track their progress. She has a lot of friends and never needs my help figuring out what to do to entertain herself. She's also doing great in school. She had all A's on her last report card. She's growing up so fast but thankfully still loves to play with her dolls. I think that will keep her young for a while longer. We are lucky to have her in our family and I know she'll grow up to be a wonderful mother someday. For her birthday, we went to classic skating. She loves to roller blade and had a great time doing that. Her birthday was on Saturday this year and I didn't want to go to classic on a Saturday so I checked the kids out of school early on Friday and we went then. On Saturday, she had Kamry and Kayla come over all day and night. They played all sorts of things including jumping on the trampoline at night. I'm glad that she is so close to her cousins. On Sunday we went to my Mom's for dinner and cake and Ice Cream. She was embarassed when we sang to her. I guess that's a sign that she's growing up. I think she had a good birthday weekend. We love you Kierra!

Spring Break?

Today was the first day of spring break. I think spring is a little confused. It doesn't mean spring was suppose to take a break. I couldn't believe how much snow we woke up to. It's April 1st! Crazy! So my kids were all bored today and kept asking me what they could do. I was trying to make a quilt so I told them to go outside and build a snoman. Jadon asked if we could go sledding and all the kids liked that idea so I told them we could go. It's always so much work to get all the snow gear on but we always have so much fun. Katie loved being outside. She didn't like going down the hill so much. She preferred to sit in the snow and watch a dog running around. Kierra didn't feel good so she didn't come with us. All the boys had a blast going down the hill. They loved making trains and even piled themselves on top of each other and went down that way. I think my favorite part of the adventure was having a snowball fight at the end. It was so much fun running around in the snow with the sun shining on us and pushing each other down in the snow. We all laughed and laughed. What a great start to our spring break! Sledding! HaHaHa