Kindergarten Teacher

We went and met Marc's kindergarten teacher tonight. He was very excited! Him being our first child off to school, of course we took lots of pictures. This is him walking across the parking lot. Yes, he wore his backpack because we had to bring all of his "required" school suplies tonight.This is him standing in front of the main doors, ready to go in and meet his teacher.
His teacher's name is Amy Grimm. She was so super nice. She thought Marc was "so cute". She was very excited about how well he was reading already. By the end of the 15 minutes we were there she was pretty confodent that he wopuld be in the "higher level" of learners in the class. I was very excited to hear that they base the work somewhat on the leartning level of the children. The one main example she gave was the phonics program they use. There are 3 different level of reading books. They are all the same story, just different reading levels. That way when they talk about the book at group time, all the kids can know the answer to her questions, but Marc will be challenged to comtinue reading at a higher level. :)
After talking with her, and seeing her interact with Marc tonight and left there feeling almost giddy. I am so excited about this coming year and how much we will learn and grow over the year! :)

Birthday Party for Spencer

Marc was invited to Spencer's (a neighborhood friend) birthday party last night. We debated about letting him go....and then decided that it was the end of the 10th day of recovery so he should be completely recovered....so we let him go, under 1 condition....I went and stayed to keep an eye on him. He said that was fine, so we went across the street for some fun. :)
He was so excited to be outside, running around with other kids. I don't think he ever stopped smiling as he was playing. :) It made me smile to see him having so much fun.
He actually got to eat a hot dog with the rest of the kids.After dinner, Spencer opened his presents. Marc was very anxious to give him the one he picked out. It was a race track (with monster trucks). He said he picked that one out because "he liked, he thought Spencer would like it, and he hoped he would get to go over and play with it". Pretty smart thinking for a 5 year old! ;)
After presents, we sang Happy Birthday had ate ice cream and "cookie cake".Amy, Spencer's Mom, said that they never do cake in their family anymore. They tried one of the big chocolate chip cookies from the bakery once, and that what they all prefer over cake, so that is what they had for us. It was yummy!After dessert the kids got to have a water balloon, and sometimes buckets full of water, fight. Marc has never had a water balloon fight before, at least I don't think so, so he had a blast! At one time he was filling up a new balloon with the hose, I walked over to see if he needed help....and he turned the hose on me...the little traitor! ;) I don't think there a dry person there!
There were 10 boys and 1 girl there, all between the ages of 5-9. Talk about chaos. Amy kept saying she "had no control". Me and the other couple of Moms that stayed asked her if she expected to have it, because we didn't think that was possible with that many adolescent boys! ;)
Amy wanted a picture of all the kids together. We told them that if they let us get a good picture of them all, we would then take a picture of them being silly. Here the one "nice pose" picture.And here is the "silly pose" picture.
I think Marc got tired of me asking him how he was doing, telling him to "take it easy", telling him to drink, and making sure he was taking small enough bites of his food. Even though I "nagged" him all night, he had a great time!! It was good to see him out running around having fun with the kids after having to "take it easy" for 2 weeks. :)

Recovery!! :)

Well, today is the first day of non-recovering time! :) Marc made it through his 10 days of recovery from his tonsil/adnoid surgery....with no issues (except Mommy going nuts)!! ;)
He did amazingly awesome during his recovery! We are so proud of our little trooper! :)
The surgical center sent us home with Vicodin as his pain killer. He stopped taking that on day 3 of his recovery. The doctor's office told us that when he was ready to go off Vicodin, to put him on Tylenol. We didn't even have to do that! (So, needlessly to say, we have a TON of Vicodin leftover....any takers? ;) )
We have been having him rate his pain level on a scale of 0-10 throughout his recovery. The first morning he woke up he said it was a 4 or 5. From day 3 through day 7 is was a 1 or 2. And after that is was a 0 or 1. Now, today he has told me that is a 0 all the time, no matter what he is doing, eating, or drinking. :)
Since the doctor told us to have him do "light activity" for 7-10 days, we were prepared with lots of crafts for our craft-loving boy to do. He actually ended up watching more movies & tv that doing crafts. I normally don't let him just sit in front of the tv and veg but this was a special circumstance. Here are a few pictures of the crafts he did do.

Painting a box to put his bottle cap collection in.
These were cool plastic molds of cars from the CARS movie that he got to put sand in the make them look however he wanted...

and this is how they turned out. A great addition to his CARS bedroom. :)
Making a plastic canvas CARS Kleenex box cover...another great addition to his CARS bedroom. (I have a feeling that I will end up making most of this project)

Daddy Marc was a sweetheart and brought flowers home for both Marc and I on Thursday last week. He wrote very sweet notes on both cards about how we both (Marc & myself) have done well and that it was almost over. Throughout his recovery we have gotten lots of get well cards for him, which he LOVED getting in the mail over the last week. Thank you to all of you that sent them. :)
Throughout this recovery I have learned a very important lesson....I could NEVER be a nurse! ;) It was very stressful to see your child not feeling very well and not getting to eat much and not being able to play as much as he wants to. I have discovered that I eat when I am stressed. ;) I think I gained the 5 ponds that Marc lost while eating all of the soft foods. ;)
I am very thankful to all of the help, thoughts and prayers that were sent our way of the last 2 weeks. They were all very much appreciated! :) Now that it is over, we are going to take Marc out on Saturday to do something fun and let him pick where we go to eat. Wonder what he will choose???? I will post what we do at a later date. :)

Surgery Day!

Well, today was D-Day...Marc got his tonsils out this morning. When we took him in to the ENT he said that he had some very large tonsils. So we got them taken out to reduce his risk of sleep apnea.

We wondered if he would weigh less after his surgery since they were so big. ;) We weighed him this morning, after fasting since 9:00 the night before, and weighed in at 55.8 albs. When we got home he weighed 56.2 lbs.We left the house about 7:45 this morning. His surgery was scheduled for 9:30. We had all of the "prep" stuff done by about 9:00 so we sat in the room joking with Marc to try to make sure he was calm and ready. Daddy went back with Marc while he was put to sleep so he had to wear a sterile jump suit.We had fun playing with his stuffed Winnie the Pooh.....
Marc was allowed to have 1 of us go back with him while he went to sleep. He said he didn't know which one of us he wanted to go back. He said he wanted Daddy because "he was sort of his hero" and he wanted me because "he loves me". So, when it was time to go back, I gave him a hug and told him I loved him. As soon as I hugged him, he started balling, which made me, despite how hard I tried, ball too. Daddy said Marc flipped out while they were putting him to sleep.
The surgery lasted about an agonizing 1/2 an hour. While he was in surgery Marc and I sat in the waiting room. When Dr Winkle came out to tell us that Marc was out of surgery and everything went well, he confirmed that Marc did indeed have some "good sized" tonsils. I should have asked him if Marc's were the biggest he had ever removed. ;) After he left the surgical room, he was wheeled to a recovery room with just the nurses until he woke up. He was back there for about 15 minutes and then they came and got us. The nurse said he had just woken up and he still kind of had that deer in the headlights look. When we got back there he was very disoriented and confused and scared. He was scared because he "couldn't swallow" and "couldn't talk". the doctor had given his some numbing med in his throat, so between the numbing meds and the swollenness from the surgery he did have trouvle swallowing and talking. The nurse got him a grape "slushy", which was actually melted and crushed up popsicles. As he ate that and time went by, both of his "couldn'ts" got better. As soon as we got back to him, he wanted me to get in the bed with him, so of course, I did. I got to ride in the bed as we were wheeled into the recovery room we would be in for a couple of hours until discharge.During surgery, after he went to sleep with the mask, they put an IV in his hand so he cold have a saline drip. Since they do surgery on a lot of kids, they have learned to cover up the IV needle with an ace bandage to keep the child from scrathing and pulling at it. They put a bandage in Winnie the Pooh's arm too. :)By the time he finished his grape slushy, his whole mouth was purple.He spent his 2-hour recovery time chillin' out in his bed, eating another slushy, this time orange, and watching Scooby-Doo movies.After the nurses checked him over, they decided it was time for him to be discharged. Daddy went to get the van while I got Marc ready to go.Since they do surgery on a lot of kids, they gave Marc the option of being wheeled out to the car in a wheel chair or a wagon. Of course, Marc chose the wagon. :)We got home about 2:30 this afternoon. He has done fantastic!! He has not slept since he came out of surgery!! (We are waiting for it all to hit him like a ton of bricks). He has eaten a cup of pudding, a container of yogurt, and 1 srambled egg, along with a slush from Sonic, and a chocolate shake from McDonald's. Thank you for all of the prayers that were sent our way! Keep 'em coming for a speedy and good recovery. :)

A Day at Lake Michigan in Ludington

My Dad & Peg went over to Ludington for this past weekend. They decided to invite us up to spend the day on the beach with them. When we first got there it was lunch time, so we walked into town to get some lunch. Walking back to the hotel (which was right on the beach) we took the scenic walk along the marina and the channel. It was gorgeous!
After our walk, we hit the beach! Building sand castles was a big part of the day.
The water was cold, but we had fun in the water. :) We bought Samantha a floaty-thing to sit in in the water and play. It cost us $2 at the Meijer Outlet. It was a well spent $2. :)

My cool new lady bug floaty-thing

Having a water fight with Daddy.

Samantha had fun in the water but she only enjoyed it for a short time. So I took her back to the beach to play and explore some.

Cooling off with a juice pouch

Playing in the sand

Wearing the sand pail as a hat

Hanging out with Grandpa Keith

Wearing Grandpa's Tiger's hatWhen the kids began to tucker out we went back to my dad's hotel room. He hung out on their patio for awhile, until it got too toasty, then headed into the air-conditioned room.

A Day in the Sun

We had a nice, sunny day so we decided to spend it outside. Marc invited a neighbor friend, Spencer, over to play. I had filled up the pool for Samantha to play in and put out the sprinkler for the boys to play in.While Samantha slept the boys had fun taking the water out of the pool and pouring it all over the sidewalk.After awhile they played racing cars.After Samantha woke up from her nap, I changed her into her suit and took her out to enjoy the nice weather.While we were out playing Daddy came home from work. He became the hero to Marc and Spencer when he brought out a bottle of Diet Coke & Mentos. Marc pulled the string to drop the Mentos into the Coke.All 3 of the "kids" had so much fun they wanted to do it again but we didn't have any more Diet Coke so they decided to try it with Sprite. Spencer pulled the string this time.It was a gorgeous day and it was nice to "soak up the sun". :)

Marc's Day with Grandma 7/29/09

As promised, I got the pictures my Mom took of Marc on their Marc-Grandma Day. My Mom told him that he could choose with they did that day. She also told him that she had veto power, but didn't really plan on having to use it. They started at the Meijer Gardens.

Inside of the kid's enterance

Inside the waterfall "room"

Digging in the sandbox

Posing for a picture at one of the water "features"Playing the xylophone

Marc wanted to get wet, so he put his head into this wall of water....

and this was the result!Marc in front of the carousel made out of flowers

After they left the Meijer Gardens, they met my Grandma for lunch at Red Robin. Marc got to choose where they went, and he chose Red Robin because he likes their french fries. :)


For Marc's preschool graduation, my Mom gave him a gift card to Toys R Us so they went there after lunch, so Marc could spend his gift card. And, of course, Grandma spent some of her money as well. They took a picture of his "loot". He bought the sidewalk chalk and the airplane and Grandma bought the Pirate kit.
When my Mom brought him back to me I took a picture of the two of them to commerate their day together.
They both said that they had so much fun that they were going to have to do it again sometime. My Mom said that they wouldn't be going to Toys R Us again through. ;)