Veterans day and Jonah

Every year the elementary school honors the veterans. Kiegan's grade got to be the choir this year. I love to see the boys sing and perform. Kiegan did a great job. At the end they announce the names of the veterans and where and when they served and then they all go up and stand in the front. A teacher and playground helper both served. It was so neat when they announced their names because all the kids went wild. I have to admit I got a bit teary. I am so thankful for all the many men and woman who served and currently serve our country so that we can be THE LAND OF THE FREE. Not only them but also their families who sacrifice and share them with us so that they can serve. I am also grateful that our kids are learning to respect the past and the many sacrifices others have made for us.

Jonah had his birthday last week!!!! YEAH!!! He was spoiled by many loved ones and friends. He said it was his best birthday yet. Thank you to all of you who sent your love to him. He decided this year he wanted cheesecake and cookies and cream pie. I thought it was a brilliant idea since I don't like cake much.

HALLELUJAH!!!! I am finally caught up..... I can breathe again now!

Halloween

The kids always love Halloween. This year I was to exhausted but they made the most of it and had fun anyway. Tate was the cutest Harry Potter I've ever seen. Jonah was one very smart doctor and Kiegan was a clever hobo. They carved pumpkins and went trick-or-treating with their friends.

October

October was a crazy month. It started off with my sister Wendi coming for a visit. It was so nice. We didn't really do much but I think that was the best part. It was great just to hang out and be together. It was also so great because all the boys were in school and it was just us. No one to have to share her with. We can't get together without doing some sort of project. So we made an adorable little book for our beautiful niece Jessie. It turned out so so cute. She made chocolate eyeballs with the boys, which the boys thought was fabulous. And of course we ate really good food.

Her visit was way to short. I always wish for more time with her. It was so nice to just relax and be together. I felt so much better after she left.
The following week my mom also made a quick visit. Belle had her adenoids out, ear tubes in, and tear duct work. Mom was such a help. It was so nice not to have to worry about the boys when we had to be at the hospital at 6:00 in the morning. She took care of everything including me. It felt so nice to have my momma take care of me too. I didn't want her to go home and neither did the kids. We all really enjoyed her.

Belle's surgery went great for the most part. Her eye surgery part was only suppose to take 15 min. but ended up taking an hour. Dr H. was able to probe her left lower duct but not the upper which meant she couldn't put a stint in that eye. But her right eye went great stint and all. Her ENT surgeon initially thought that they would keep her overnight just to be safe. We were pleasantly surprised when they said she was doing so great afterwards and sent us home. Tony and I have a joke that whenever something bad is going to happen with the kids he isn't ever around. Well, when they were releasing Belle Tony left the room to go to the pharmacy. The nurse had just taken her IV out of her foot and told me to get her dressed and then we could go. I started to get her situated and all of the sudden I felt warm wet all over. I looked down and blood was POURING (seriously) out of her foot. I ran out in the hall to get the nurse and the chaos began. The nurse and I were hustling so much trying to get it to stop bleeding and to clean the mess up all over the floor, B, & I that it scared B. She started crying which made her nose start to bleed. So now we had a bleeding foot and a bleeding nose. It was scary for a minute. Of course the second we got everything under control and cleaned up Tony waltzed in with no idea of all the drama that he missed. The boys were so excited to see her when they got home. It was so sweet and tender to see how worried they were about her and just how much they love her. It bothered them a bit how banged up she looked. That night at about 7:00 I noticed something sticking up out of her tear duct and over the next two hours it got bigger. I called her eye Dr. and at 9:00 we had to drag her in to get her stint out. It was creepy. Dr. H just took some tweezers and pulled it out a little bit which made a big loop sticking out of her eye, snipped it and then just pulled it out. It didn't bother Belle at all but I was sure glad my mom was with me. We were disappointed that the stint didn't take but so glad that she was able to probe both her eyes. The next couple of days Belle looked like someone had beat her up with a constant bloody drip from her nose and two black eyes. It was so sad. It is very interesting to me that people stare and say the things they do. I'm sure they wondered what kind of mom I was to let my sweet little baby with downs get so banged up. People are weird. Belle is doing great and is a new woman now. (a different post on that)
This is Belle when we first got home. If you look closely at her right eye you can see the little red end of her stint starting to poke out.
And here she is a couple days later. Pretty banged up.
It was so nice to have Wendi here the week before to keep my mind off of the surgery and then to have my mom here to take care of all of us during the surgery. I am so lucky to have so many wonderful woman in my life.

September

All the boys were so excited for the first day of school......all except Kiegan. He got the stomach flu and missed the whole first week of school. It went through all of us even baby Belle. It was so horrible. We have never ALL been that sick before. I can't even begin to describe how miserable it was for everyone. (nor do you want me to) I have never cleaned up that much "sick" in my life and I hope to never have to do it again. Just when I thought we were all done someone I won't name woke me up in the middle of the night to inform me he had thrown-up again but this time he just leaned over the edge of the top bunk and let loose. I cried a little bit as a dragged myself out of bed and cleaned up the vomit that had splattered everywhere including on the blanket of the other brother on the bottom bunk. This same person has issues making it in the toilet and the night he came down with it he proceeded to vomit all over the closed toilet letting it splatter all over the floor, toilet, and up the wall a good 3 ft. So when the bunk bed incident happened I wanted to sell this child to the highest bidder. I hate cleaning up sick. UGGH!!! School is going good and the boys are all loving it. Their teachers are so great. It's going to be a great year!

I can't leave this picture out since it's so stinking cute. Belle loves to watch the boys play their games.