Christmas recap

Christmas was definitely not what we had planned, but we made the best of it.  As I mentioned, both boys had pneumonia and Joel and I were not feeling that good either.  We did manage to go to Joel's parents house on Christmas day.  It's always fun to catch up with his cousins and their kiddos.

Here's our annual pic of all of the "2nd" cousins.

Jake, Sam, Isaac and Caleb:

 

We had planned on making it to MN at some point during the break, but Caleb's cough wasn't getting better and we didn't want to risk having him so far from his doctors. So, my awesome parents came to us! It worked out so much better because we were then able to spend a lot of time with them and Tristan, Colleen and sweet baby Eddie. The boys (especially Isaac) LOVE Eddie.  We are trying to convince them that they need to move back because Eddie needs to grow up with his big cousins. :) So sad when everyone left!

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas!

I can't figure out how to put our Christmas card on here this year, but here are the pictures I used for it.  (Really wishing we were in Hawaii right now!!)  We are all still sick, but plan to celebrate Christmas with Joel's family later today. 

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a blessed 2013!!

 

 

 

 

 

Pneumonia: Take 2

Well, when it rains, it pours around here!  Isaac has had a cough for a couple weeks.  He ALWAYS gets a cough in the winter and it hangs around forever.  Last week, his cough sounded more junky to me and then on Wednesday he had a fever.  I took him to the clinic (our pediatrician was off that day) and he thought for sure IZ had strep AND pneumonia....his throat looked terrible and his lungs sounded bad as well.  His strep test was negative and his x-ray was clear!  So he was diagnosed with a stupid virus, and we were sent on our merry way.

Fast forward to Saturday night, he was up ALL night coughing/crying and had another fever.  I was all set to take him to Urgent Care in the morning, but after sleeping in he said he felt okay and was running around like a crazy man.  But last night was a repeat of the previous, so I took him to our pediatrician this AM.  Poor buddy has pneumonia too and probably did all along.  Definitely not what we had planned for Christmas Eve!  I never imagined that we would be "the ones" ordering take out dinner on Christmas Eve, but we had a nice evening, just the 4 of us!  Praying everyone feels better soon!  (Joel and I are also sick....)

Pneumonia

Caleb's doctors have always commented on the fact that despite how junky his lungs are, he has never had pneumonia. Until now. Just in time for Christmas, poor baby. He went to school and was acting okay when I picked him up, but suddenly around 4:00 yesterday, he told me he felt like he was suffocating. I gave him his inhaler and he said he felt better, but 10 minutes later he was crying that he couldn't breathe. I checked his temp and it was 103 degrees. Awesome. I wasn't completely thinking clearly because I should have called the Bone Marrow Transplant unit and informed them what was going on, and they would have likely told me to go to the ER.  Instead, I called the nearby Urgent Care (Which is affiliated with our pediatricians office and Children's hospital)  and asked them if they did chest x-rays. They told me that they could, so off we went.

We were the only ones there, but it still took over 30 minutes to get into a room. Then, another 30 minutes before anyone came to see us. By then, he was hysterical about his breathing and he still hadn't had any Tylenol for his fever. Finally a doctor came and ordered a breathing treatment, Tylenol, and a x-ray. After the nebulizer, he felt SO much better. In fact, the albuterol made him bounce off the walls. He was SO funny! After another couple hours, the doctor came back in and told me he had pneumonia and wanted to call the BMT doctor at Children's to make a plan. After 4 HOURS of being there, the doctor came back and told me that we needed to go to Children's Hospital to have Caleb's blood drawn, because they don't draw blood there. I was furious....they should have told me this right away!  So we drove to Children's and right when we got there, he started to panic again about suffocating.

To make a long story even longer, we ended up in the ER for about 6 more hours. At that time (3:30 AM!!) it was determined that, even though his labs were TERRIBLE, he didn't need to be admitted and we could go home. UGH! Glad he didn't have to stay, but mad and tired it took them so long to figure out the plan again. And also nervous because this is his first big illness since his transplant.  He is SO upset about it because we had planned on leaving today for Minnesota, which isn't going to happen. Hopefully we will make it there at some point during break.

First meal in our new house!

Christmas programs galore!

We just finished up our last Christmas program.  Their church program was first. It was a bit unorganized, but they only practiced for 1.5 hours the day before, so what did I expect?!  It was the first time the boys preformed in front of so many people and they did a great job! I didn't take too many pictures and the ones I did take were terrible.  None of the ones I took of Caleb turned out and this is the best of Isaac...

 

Next was Caleb's at Big Bend Elementary. It was called the Littlest Reindeer, and it was SO cute! It was more like a musical than a typical, singing Christmas songs, type of program. I went to the first show in the afternoon with Joel's mom and Isaac and then went with Joel to the evening program.   Here's a video I took during the afternoon program.  He's in the front, wearing a Packers shirt and blue pants.  No, I didn't get the memo that he needed to wear his dress clothes to school.  I blame it on being an Elementary school program rookie.

Here's a picture from the evening concert, with him in correct attire.  Once again, my pictures didn't turn out too good because there were SO MANY people!

 

And last, but not least, was Isaac's program. This was the typical, sit and sing Christmas songs. It was SUPER cute though.  I didn't get the whole song, but Isaac was cracking everyone up with this one:

 

He is such a character.  Here he is with his best friend Jack.

 

 

 

 

Progress!

There's been A LOT of progress on our house the past few weeks! It's so fun to see the changes. The boys and I drive past it every day on the way to school and then again after we pick up Caleb. They LOVE going there, especially when they get to run around in the yard mud. 

Here's the transformation from dirt to house!

Taken 10/31/12

 

 

From the road:

11/2/12

11/9/12

 

 

11/17/12

 

 

 

11/21/12

 

11/26/12

 

11/28/12

 

In Caleb's room 

 

12/1/12

 

 

12/5/12

 

12/8/12

(From our back yard)

 

(From the road)

 

Now the pressure is on to choose everything for the inside! Very fun, but also stressful! It's so hard to imagine what things will look like with a tiny swatch, or piece.  Hopefully it will look good all together at the end! :)

Happy 7th Birthday, Caleb!

I cannot believe our sweet Caleb is 7 years old!  How in the world to we have a 7 year old?!  Last night he was reminiscing about his past year.  He was very serious when he told me he didn't want to turn 7, and wanted to stay 6 years old.  "I have a lot of good memories being 6," he told me in complete seriousness.  He is such a character!

Unfortunately, he didn't have the best day.  He complained this morning about having a stomachache (he just finished his medication for C. diff.), but said he wanted to go to school.  At 12:00, the school nurse called to tell me Caleb was in her office crying because his stomach hurt.  Caleb's not one to cry, so I picked him up and took him straight to our peds office to have him checked out.  The doctor (not our normal) checked him out and said he would be very surprised if it was because his C. diff came back so soon.  He told me that there's a 24 hour bug going around, and he was pretty confident that's what it is.  Caleb did throw up this evening, but seemed to feel better after that, so I am hoping that doctor is right.  C didn't, however, want any of his Packer dirt cake (which was his request.)  I really thought this would be the year he ate his cake, but no such luck!

 

His spirits were lifted greatly after opening some pretty sweet football gifts. He also got his Drew Brees jersey. HA!

 

 

 

 

Still cannot believe he's 7!