SOS

Nathan's recent battle with Gout has made us rethink some of the things we are eating. While we have tried to eliminate lots of bad stuff out of our diet, we still have work to do. After reading up on different gout friendly food lists we are thinking we need to eat more vegetarian type meals and even less meat (or no meat). If you have any good vegetarian recipes please pass them on to us! Thank you!

Delaney Dancing while we were on vacation....

A long week.....

Another week has come to an end and we are still not back to normal here in Michigan. Nathan is still suffering from a gout attack. He has been to urgent care as well as the doctors, he seems to have good days and bad. Hopefully he will get in for some more blood work this week and he can see what else he can do.

I had my lithotripsy on Thursday. Thankfully I did not get sick after as I did last time. It did, however, take 4 attempts to get my IV in, I was not too thrilled about that! The poor nurse felt awful, so I tried to make her feel better and tell her it wasn't uncommon for me. We were not able to speak to the doctor before I was discharged, I called him yesterday to get an update on how the procedure went. He said he went after the top stone (as it would block the other ones anyways), and that is was very tough to break apart. I have not passed anything as of today, so chances are this procedure was a failure (as it was last year as well). I will go back on Thursday and see what the next plan is.

My back where they shot the shock waves at me:

Poor D has a cold.....it was bound to happen with everything that has been going on. Hopefully with a weekend of rest she will be fine to go to school on Monday.

We went to our first Kindergarten information night on Tuesday. This was at our "neighborhood" school. We were very impressed with the principal and the teachers. This coming week we will visit two of the "focus" schools and see if we want to be in the lottery to have D go there. We will keep you all posted!

I also had a nice conference with D's teachers. She is doing well and prepared for kindergarten. Their only areas of concern was that she tends to take her time on projects (she does love her art projects! and tends to be a perfectionist) when the other kids have moved on, and she is sometimes too shy to participate in singing and dancing. This was a surprise to me, as she is always putting on "shows" for us. Although every once in awhile she does get embarrassed when we catch her singing a song. We will have to work on her confidence before the fall.

I had a burst of energy today and decided to organize D's play room, over time we tend to shove the art supplies up in the cabinets and it is no longer neat and tidy. I also tackled her room. Let's see how long they both stay clean and organized!

This and That

It has been a long week..... I had a kidney stent (or ureteric stent) put in on Tuesday. I thankfully was not awake during the procedure! When I came out of the dark I was overwhelmed by pain. It was an awful feeling. They tried several different pain medicines as well as some numbing gel, nothing was working. The nurse said I had all they could give me and if I was still in pain I would have to go to the hospital for pain management. I was not happy to hear this and it only made the pain worse as I laid there crying. The doctor came back in and said that my bladder was inflamed and that was probably why the pain was so intense. He suggested I go get my prescriptions and see if being home helped. It was not a fun ride home and I continued to have bladder spasms. The pain did finally get tolerable, although I have not been comfortable in days. On Thursday I will go to the hospital to undergo lithotripsy: Lithotripsy is a medical procedure that uses shock waves to break up stones in the kidney, bladder, or ureter. I have three kidney stones in my right kidney, they are .8, .9 and 1cm. I will have to have a second lithotripsy procedure in a month. I look forward to feeling better and be kidney stone free!

Big Daddy has been suffering from a gout attack for over two weeks, it got worse this week and he ended up at urgent care. He has been hobbling along for days. He got some medicine and will hopefully be back to normal soon.

And what has our sweet LaneyBug been up to? Being a good nurse of course. We are so thankful that she is such a good girl and can go with the flow of things. She has kept her self busy with crafts, movies, and her dolls.

On a normal note we have created (and adjusted) a "jobs" or "daily tasks" chart for D over the last few months. She seems to really like it. We have tried to balance some fun tasks with the less fun ones. She enjoys writing and learning to "read", so we added those to her chart as guaranteed successes for her. She also needs to pick up her toys, brush her teeth, stay in her bed (she had a habit a few months ago of ending up on our floor, thankfully this has passed), set the table, etc.

Field Trip to Independence Oaks

On Thursday we travelled to Independence Oaks Park for a preschool field trip. The kids had fun watching a raccoon eating outside the window, a presentation on animal tracks, decorating a T-shirt with animal tracks, and going on a nature walk to find animal tracks. The weather was crisp, but the kids didn't seem to mind.

Such a good Mommy....

My baby with her babies.....

Happy New Year!

A belated Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

We traveled to Orlando on Christmas Eve for a 10 day vacation. It was one of the best Christmas' we have had. It was so much fun to watch Delaney swim and play outside on Christmas day. We had the pleasure of spending time with our good friends who were also in Orlando for Christmas, as well as my parents and brother. (We missed the rest of the family!)

Christmas day we spent hanging around the resort we were staying at (we moved to a different condo on the 26th). Nathan and the big kids played miniature golf while D and Grandpa swam in the pool. We enjoyed some crafts in the activity room as well. We had Christmas brunch at the Golden Corral (not as bad as it sounds) and spent time in Downtown Disney.

The rest of the week we spent visiting Celebration (such a cute town), Vero Beach (we met my Aunt and her boyfriend), Blue Springs (love the manatee!), Silver Springs (what a great park to wander around), as well as Disney. Of course Magic Kingdom was D's favorite place. We got a great deal on tickets with my dad's military discount, 4 day park hopper for $138. We only used 2 days this trip and have already booked a return trip in May! We love having something to look forward to!