Ben's growing up

This last week up to this point has been pretty eventful for Ben. On Saturday, he lost his first tooth, with a little help from his dad. It had been loose for a few days and was getting to the point where it was almost coming out, so Bryce pushed on it and it came out. Ben was very excited to be able to put it under his pillow and have the Tooth Fairy leave him some money. He was telling everyone in his class in church about it the next day.
Yesterday Ben had his Kindergarten orientation. He got to meet his teacher and find out where his classroom was. They had him cut out a circle and glue it to a circle on another piece of paper. They had him write his name (3 different times) and draw some shapes, draw a picture of himself, and color a picture of a bus. Ben came home pretty excited from the orientation and was immediately telling Alex what they had him do.
Today was Ben's first real day of Kindergarten. The Kindergarten busses aren't running until tomorrow, so we got to drive him and take him in his classroom. Alex was pretty excited to see where Ben would be spending part of his days. Ben was pretty funny and put his backpack in his cubby and found his desk and sat down and then basically acted like, "Go home, Mom." Ben said they took a tour of the school and saw where the lunchroom and the gym and the library and things like that were, but he can't remember what else they did today. He did mention at one point that his teacher told him he needed to be quiet. We went over to meet Ben at the bus stop after school (the normal busses were running) and I got a call on my cellphone from the school saying to come pick Ben up. Apparently they wouldn't let any of the Kindergarteners on the busses today at all, even those who had older siblings on the busses. So Ben was acting kind of sad and sober when we picked him up. He was upset that they didn't let him on the bus. So the only real reason he's excited to go back to school tomorrow is that he finally gets to ride the bus. He didn't bring home the little tag things they were giving all the students, so hopefully they'll let him on the bus without it tomorrow morning.

Here are some pictures of Ben without his tooth and him on his first day of school:

Ben's first lost tooth

Ben at his desk in school

Ben in front of his school

Ben all ready to go to school

The whole gang is ready to take Ben in to his class

Food Allergy Test Results

Dr. Lee just called with the results of the food allergy tests. She said he (Chris, in case you don't know who I'm talking about) shows a slight reaction to egg whites and an even smaller reaction to cow's milk and to wheat. She said that none of the levels are high enough that she'd change his diet or anything, but that we should kind of get the radar going and watch his reactions as he eats those things. None of the reactions are high enough to be making him be so skinny either. So basically, there's a slight reaction to it, but not enough to bother him. It could explain why Chris doesn't like eggs though. :) So from here we'll just check his weight again at his next appointment (his 2 year check-up on the 4th) and keep watching him. She said that she may eventually send us to a G.I. doctor because he does have the reactions there and is so skinny, but first we'll watch and see how he's doing and if he'll need to go to one.

The doctor called today...

She got the results of most of the blood tests back and is just waiting on the food allergy ones. So for the ones she has, she told me what the results were. He does not have Celiac Disease, so that's good. People with Celiac disease have problems absorbing nutrients in their small intestine and can't tolerate gluten. (In case you didn't know what it was.) His thyroid is also completely normal. The bloodwork for kidney and liver and blood functions came back normal as well. But he is anemic, so we get to start giving him either straight iron or multivitamins with iron in them, both of which don't taste good. We're supposed to give it to him for 3 months, then we'll see how he's doing and decide if we need to re-test that. Now we just need to find out if he has any food allergies.

Chris

I took Chris to the doctor yesterday because he just hasn't seemed to be getting over this stomach bug and keeps throwing up and he really can't afford to. Of course, he didn't throw up yesterday or have diarrhea anymore. Probably just because I had finally made him an appointment. When we took Chris and Alex to the doctor 2 weeks ago, Chris weighed 22.8 pounds (yeah, he's a skinny kid). Yesterday Chris weighed 21 pounds, 14 ounces. Basically where he was when we had his weight checked back in March. So he lost about a pound in 2 weeks from throwing up.
Dr. Lee decided that maybe we should go ahead and test Chris for food allergies, partly because he'd been getting a hive-like rash with the throwing up and stuff. And while we were at it and he was getting poked anyway, she wanted to run a couple other tests (6 total), like testing his thyroid and such to see if there's a problem there that's making him not really gain weight. So later that day, I took him to St. Luke's to get the tests done. Chris did really, really well. They took about 12 cc's of blood for all the tests and he just sat still and watched them do it. He didn't cry or squirm or anything. The phlebotomists were especially impressed that he was so good because they had just had a boy in there who was screaming the whole time they were taking his blood. We could hear him from the waiting room, too. The results typically take about a week to get back, so we should hear by the end of next week or the beginning of the week after.

Psych!

Okay, so I was looking at Cindy's blog and clicked on one of the links of her favorite web pages (which didn't work, by the way...it sent me to a search page and I got to the real one from there) and I found this on it and thought I'd try it out. It's kind of fun.

And in case you're wondering, things haven't changed a lot here. Kids are still sick, we're still just hanging out. Ben starts Kindergarten in 2 weeks though, so that will be fun.

Do we look alike?

Okay, Cindy just had her hair cut and it looks a lot like mine now. So just for fun, I'm taking the picture from her post and one of mine and putting them together to see if we look alike. Your job is to post a comment to say if you think we look alike or not. So here goes:

When I'm bored enough...

I had a few extra minutes today while Chris and Daniel were both sleeping (everyone seems to be getting better, although Daniel had a hard night with his congestion) and really didn't feel like cleaning yet, even though I really should, so I got out the camera and decided to take a few self-portraits just for fun. Partly because most of the time I'm the one taking pictures, so there aren't a lot of pictures of me and when they're older, my kids may want to see what their mom looked like when she was a little bit younger. So I'm going to post those pictures here along with a few other I still had on my camera that I thought were cute.

Alex loves making faces


Again, Daniel had been smiling just before this was taken. He's still cute though.


Chris is just a happy kid.


Now this is where the self-portraits begin. You don't have to look if you don't want to. Really.

Update

Just thought I'd give an update on the kids. Alex has an ear infection in both ears. Chris has a nice rash on his arms and legs that goes along with his cold. It's moved down to his hands and feet and makes them look a bit swollen. They all had the runs this weekend and Alex and Chris have both thrown up. Luckily, Daniel han't gotten it too badly yet, but he's starting to get congested. Fun times.

A few more pictures, assuming they work.

I just wanted to post a few pictures I took today. I can't believe Daniel is 7 weeks old already. Wasn't he just born last week?

I was smiling a minute ago...


There's a smile! Kind of.


Chris loves hanging out with his baby brother




Ben wanted to join the fun.

One thing after another?

Okay, so it always seems like whenever we go down to Utah to visit family or whenever we have someone come up to visit,someone always ends up getting sick. This time was no exception. Bryce came home from work early on Monday and stayed home on Tuesday because he wasn't feeling well. On Tuesday, Ben was complaining that his stomach, head, and throat hurt. On Tuesday night about 11:00, Alex woke up and came in our room sounding rather croupy and feeling feverish. Chris woke up with a cough on Wednesday. I feel like I'm getting it a little bit, but not too bad. Luckily, Daniel doesn't seem to have it. -knock on wood-

I can't believe it's August already though. This summer has just flown by. I really do think the saying I've heard before fits; that life is like a record. When you're a child, you're on the outside, so time seems to go slower, but as you get older, you move towards the middle and time keeps getting faster and faster. Ben will start Kindergarten at the end of the month, assuming we ever find out anything from the school, like whether he goes in the morning or the afternoon. Chris will turn 2 this month, too. And it's crazy that 4 years ago at this time, we came up here to Boise for Bryce to have his job interview.

Anyway, duty calls and kids need me, so that's it for now.