Springtime fun

Finally, the rain broke a little and we're able to get some outdoor work and playtime in. During all that fun we did manage to sneak in a couple of pictures.



Jenni and I also made the decision earlier this spring that we'd like to get the kids a new outdoor activity for the summer. We settled on giving them a choice of building a play tower on their swingset or a trampoline. Well I guess you can see the decision for yourself.

Kayla's First Dance Recital

Kayla had her first dance recital not to long ago and it was one of the cutest things she's done. You'll see if you just watch this short video. Jenni had to shoot the video of the dress rehearsal because they hired a production company (not mine) for the exclusive video rights to the real show. Doesn't matter you can see the cuteness.

The return of the living dead

Okay, so let me catch you all up to date on this dog dilemma of mine. In the last post you heard that the dog was sick and had to go to the vet and had supposedly been put to sleep. Some mis-communication happened and the vet didn't give her the shot and she lived. So, since then he ran a series of test to find out what was wrong with her. In the x-rays he found to masses in her guts, one in the stomach and one in the large intestine. He scoped her stomach and found the mass in there was just the barium caught up in a big blob of gunk, so he sucked that out and still had the mass in the intestine. When I saw the x-ray I asked him if it was possible that it was a rock, because we have some rocks under our deck that I was afraid that she might have accidentally gotten one down. He said, "I've seen a lot of rocks swallowed and that doesn't look like one. It doesn't show the normal characteristics of a rock, it's blocking too much of the GI track, and it looks too big."

Well, he performed a few more tests for other dog diseases because he didn't want to do surgery unless it was a last resort, he felt as if the dog was too sick to get through such an invasive procedure. Remember, he's doing this on his own time for the sake of solving this puzzling sickness. Finally, we reach the breaking point again and he asks me if he can do the surgery and then if that doesn't work then we'll put her down because this has gone on for too long. Low and behold he opened her up and found a stone in her large intestine. It was fairly large, about the size of a half dollar, round and smooth. Nobody can believe that the stone actually got in her mouth let alone all the way through the system. She should have choked to death on the stupid thing. It was so extreme that he asked to keep it for his wall of weird crap exhibit, I obliged. Anyway, he kept her for a few more days for observation and I called him on Monday and he said, "She's fine come and get her."

Problem was this is a extremely busy week and I was already scheduled to do something after work. I had to have Jenni pick up the dog, keep in mind she has the kids in the car who think that this dog is dead. She explained it to them that we thought that she was going to die and she didn't, and we didn't tell them different until we knew for sure that she was okay. So more or less we told them the truth. Then when I got home from work I had to show the kids the incision on her shaved belly and explain how the doctor took out the rock. They took it well and now I'm stuck with an inside dog for awhile because she can't play with the other dog until the stitches are out. And I DON'T want to explain to the kids what happens if that incision opens up. Long story short, the dog will be fine, the kids will be fine, the daddy and mommy will be fine, and after a long stressful, and a little expensive ordeal we have a story to tell forever.

Parental Lessons

Children have been in my life forever, from my seven brothers and sisters to my three little kids of my own and I've discovered that I'm still very ignorant in the fine art of parenting. Here's two little stories to prove it.

BUCKWHEAT HONEY
Kayla had her 4-year-old check up and while we were there I had a quick question about Lily and a perpetual deep chest cough when she slept. He asked some questions and determined that it was probably just residual stuff from another illness. Then he suggested that we give her a teaspoon of buckwheat honey before bed. I gave him that look that said, "are you sure? I thought honey was bad for kids?" He must have read my mind because he followed up saying, "we're finding new, really cool uses for honey." He told me to get it at Target or in the health food sections of some big grocery stores. So, I picked some up, went home, and that very night gave Lily a spoonful of honey. Her little sweet tooth sucked down every last sticky drop of honey so fast that Winnie the Pooh would be jealous and that night she slept. We didn't hear anything out of her at all, whereas the past few nights she spent most of hit coughing herself awake so that she could cry back to sleep. I thought it had to be an odd coincidence that it worked, so we tried it again and we had two nights of peace, then three, and now without the honey the cough seems to be gone. So all of you parents afraid to keep pushing cough syrup down your babies throat...try Buckwheat Honey.

THE NOT SO DEAD DOG
This little tale is pretty sad, but an example of parenting at its finest. My husky Rorie started to get sick late last week and I originally thought that I had given her something from the table that didn't agree with her, but her health went downhill and I got up in the morning and found her in a seizure. I got her to the vet as soon as I could and he took some tests and determined that she was having severe renal failure and that her liver, kidneys, and pancreas were shutting down. He decided to give her some fluids and see how she was the next day. Well, that night he called and said that she wasn't doing any better and that he didn't expect her to make it through the night. I made the decision to go ahead and put her down first thing in the morning. Well, he didn't call me before church started and Jenni and I prepared the kids by telling them that Rorie had died. They reacted like children do when they loose their pet and we tried to move on. Then we got to church, my phone chirped that I had a voice mail, and it was the vet. He was calling to tell me that the dog was up and moving around and he wanted to give her a little bit longer to get better. I can't hardly believe my luck I have told my kids that the dog has died, the vet is telling me she isn't dead, and there is a very slim chance she might come home for me to explain to my kids that the doctor didn't lie about the death and that dogs don't get resurrected like Jesus. Now, Rorie is still very sick and will most likely not pull through this, she had one more test to undergo before I'll have to make another hard decision about her future. The moral of this story is to make absolutely certain that life cooperates when you are trying to teach your kids a difficult life lesson, because some things just shouldn't be retracted.

Tyler's visit

Some of you may know that my brother Tyler is getting ready to ship out to Afghanistan in April, so one night Tyler brought his dog up to the house to run around the yard with my dogs for a bit. He also hung out, ate dinner, and read a book to the kids. The funny thing was that he was reading a Star Wars book and the kids kept correcting him on the character's names. Now, for those of you that know Tyler he's always been our Star Wars guru (to be fair, Jo and I are also pretty savvy to the going ons of the far away galaxy) and he was forever correcting us on our mutual hobby. So to see a 4 and 5-year-old giving him garbage because he didn't know one of the names was more than a little humorous. And like usual we had to document this visit.

Birthday at the park

Kayla's birthday actually landed on a Saturday and it turned out to be a beautiful day so Jenni came up with the idea to take her and the other kids out to lunch and to Penguin Park. We had a blast. It is amazing what a hamburger and a little sunshine will do for the kids.

Snow Day

A couple of weeks ago we were suppose to get an inch or two of snow and the weather people were right, we got some snow...just a little more than a "dusting". Oh well, we did what any good family should do when an opportunity like this arises...WE WENT SLEDDING. So here are some photos of our fun day outside.



There was enough snow after I shoveled out my car that Jon and I made a snow fort, but as you can see it was a little too close to the fence and Jenni quickly realized that it made a good escape ramp for the dogs. I had to destroy it to keep the mutts in the yard. It was still fun.

Rory also likes to get into the snow action, you'd think she was a husky or something. All I know is that the guy in the picture looks like he isn't all there.