Nana and Papa Steve Here!

Nana and Papa Steve finally returned home after almost 3 weeks in Australia and New Zealand!!!  We are so glad that they can take such fun trips but it's sure nice having them back in the States safe and sound.  We enjoyed hearing all about their trip and seeing all the beautiful pictures.  The kids enjoyed their goodies from Nana and Papa too but not as much as just having them at our house for a week!  One of Trevor's favorite things is having his Grandparents read his bedtime stories!

We stayed pretty busy while they were here with projects (like purging Sara's closet!!  Lots of bags of clothes and shoes donated.  Feels great!!) but also made time for fun like going to the park and going to a fun donut shop where you get to pick your icing and toppings!  Trevor was on Spring Break this week so that was fun!

 Yum!

 We also went down to Uncle Don's house and then over to Verrado for one last lunch on the gorgeous patio at the golf course.  Ahhhh grass!  Real grass!

 The lunch clan!

 En route home both boys took little siestas :)

Papa Steve and Trevor were buddies!  They both like to play cards so they played Crazy 8s often!

 And every night Trevor had no problem falling asleep.  He was a tired camper from so much fun during the day!

 We also celebrated Sara's birthday early.  Trevor LOVES to decorate!

 He also likes to make the birthday person feel extra special by making a special place for them at the table!

 He thinks of everything!

We got a dairy, wheat and yeast free cake from the same baker that makes the kids cakes.  Surprisingly it tasted pretty darn good!!

Make a wish!

Mommy really enjoyed her special day with her family!  Spoiling her with gifts was great, but having a special meal and playing cards made for some special memories!

It was a sad day when Nana and Papa Steve drove off to head back to Minnesota the next morning but luckily we'll see them again soon.  And as we know life goes by so fast that before we know it, it will be winter again and they will be down here for us to see often!  XOXO

Flaherty and Laura Visit!

Our friends Andrew and Laura came to stay with us for the week while Laura was taking some certification classes (like last year).  It was fun having them here and boy did we pack in some fun activities while they were here...sushi dinner, hiking Pinnacle Peak trail (twice!), Mexican dinner and pro-kart racing.  Well, the boys did the racing...meet Ricky Bobby and Turd Ferguson!

Brian was in the lead most of the race...

 ...until he got passed after this corner.

Fun times!  Can't wait for their wedding weekend back in Minnesota!

More Baseball!

It is so much fun watching Trevor be so excited about baseball!  He loves practice as much as the games.  At this practice he got to lead the team in jumping jacks because his technique is so good!

 Ashley is pretty good at watching brother but when this practice was held next to a dog park, forget it.  All she cared about was the 'woof woofs' :)

 There is brother running and Ashley is just looking all cute, eating and watching the doggies!

 His form has really improved from the beginning of the season!

 Ashley, well she has a ways to go.  She doesn't even know how to put the helmet on right.  Yet :)

Adam and Cole Visit!

We were so so so happy to hear that Mike, Nicci, Adam and Cole were coming back to town!!  We cleared the calendar to spend as much time as possible with them!  So on Friday for lunch Sara and the kids met everyone at Desert Ridge Marketplace to eat and hang out and then at night Brian's parents babysat so that the adults could go out for dinner.  We had a great time at Z'Tejas which was a new spot for Brian and Sara!  On Saturday we had another baseball game for Trevor.  Ashley was so cute wanting to make sure everyone knew that Trevor was HER brother!

After naps we had our neighbor Annastyn's birthday party and then we could have met up with the Jansen's for dinner but Ashley had a bad diaper rash after Mommy tried giving her some milk and wouldn't sit down so we opted out and instead gave her some nice naked time in the sun in our backyard.  But we met up with Nicci and the boys for bagels and swimming Sunday morning.  It's so nice having these three goofballs back together.

Because of carpool we have a lot of car seats in the car so the twins got to ride to our clubhouse with us.

Silly  boys!

Uncle B had a great time in the pool with the kiddos, well Sara joined in for a bit too but it was just like it used to be.  Can they just move back??  We all thought about Kendall and how she was smiling down from us in Heaven wishing she was Ashley's little playmate! :)

After naps Sara took the kids up to Mike's parents house because she was hosting a bbq for everyone.  Brian stayed behind because our friends Andrew and Laura are in town for the week and just arrived.  Sara was glad she has the week with them so didn't have to miss out on the bbq.  The Jansen/Dambowy crew is like Sara's 3rd family and it was so nice to see and chat with everyone.  As well as meet the newest baby of the crew Kennedy!  Adam and Ashley were buddy buddies.  All night!  And when it was time to go, they gave each other an extra long hug.  Heck, we all did.  But it's never goodbye, it's see you again.  Hopefully soon :-)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

From our little busy body to yours, Happy St. Patrick's Day!  May the luck of the Irish be with you today and always :-)

More Doctor Visits

We mentioned in prior posts about Trevor's 'broken waist' ... well a few weeks ago on a Friday before Trevor's first baseball practice he stood up and announced he had a broken waist and pointed and rubbed along his waistline.  He is such a smart kid.  A few minutes later he headed to the bathroom and needless-to-say we weren't going to baseball practice.  Poor guy had diarrhea.  Sorry if that's TMI!  But it was off an on all weekend.  Nothing really on Monday or Tuesday but on Wednesday Mommy got a call from school that he had 'broken waist' at school and wanted to come home.  Sara got the call just as she was walking into her scheduled massage which she would have left but Papa John said he would go get him (thank you!!!).  Mommy brought him into the doctor that afternoon and said that there is a stomach bug going around but if the diarrhea continued for 2 weeks to follow back up.  Well his broken waist continued off and on for the 2 weeks along with some interesting worm-like creatures in his stools so his pediatrician ordered labs.  Mommy had the privilege of collecting that to fill 4 containers but luckily Trevor did a great job.  She was so proud!  It took a few days for the labs to come back but amazingly everything came back clear!  His guess is that it is Giardia which is common in daycare and school settings and that it left T's body on his own which happens.  We were worried about not being able to go to Mexico in a few weeks with the Hillins after talking to our sister-in-law's brother who is a GI doctor but looks like we got best case and not worst case with this.  YAY!  

Let's see, Ashley's lump though is not going away on its own like we hoped so her pediatrician ordered an ultrasound of it.  Mommy thought no problem.  She's had blood taken on a few occasions without issue so an ultrasound should be just as easy.  Forget that!!!  Diva had her own plan.  She was all smiles until the radiologist said she had to lay down on the table next to me.  No way...kicking, screaming, hitting, you name it Ashley did it.  For 20 long minutes.  It was awful.  Eventually Mommy held her a certain way and a nurse came in and held her legs and somehow through screaming and tears the radiologist got what she needed.  Ugh.  Mommy planned to take her to school after the appt but Ashley said 'home, ni-ni' and she wasn't kidding.  She fell asleep in the car.  Clearly wore herself out from screaming because it was only 11am!  She transferred to her crib and slept another 2 hours.  Mommy needed a drink after that.  Jeepers!

Luckily those results came back same day and the pediatrician called to say that it was what he suspected...dried blood.  However, Daddy wanted to be super sure that it wasn't something else and wanted bloodwork done.  The doctor said that really wasn't necessary given that she has no other symptoms and that we'd be putting her through unnecessary pain but Mommy told him she is a champ at getting blood drawn.  Well what a mistake that was!!  So last Friday we (as in Mommy, Trevor and Ashley) headed back to the lab and once again Diva had a complete fit.  And Trevor was trying to help but definitely not helping.  Thankfully the lab is awesome and we were done in 5 minutes.  Not sure anyone in the waiting area wanted to have blood drawn after hearing her but oh well.  The funny part is that after it was done, she was so out of it that she just laid down in the middle of the room and kicked and screamed.  Did she not realize we could leave and go home?  Ugh.  Still crying in the car!  Double ugh.

But she had been through a lot so Mommy gave her extra cuddles before nap and all was well again.  

And now we got the results back of her CBC and yep all was perfect.  The pediatrician was right that we went through all that for nothing.  Back to listening to doctors ;-)

Mommy/Son Lunch Date

Trevor and Mommy finally carved out a Thursday lunch date.  He requested sushi after school so off we went.  With his 'broken waist' Mommy only let him have one bite of cooked shrimp before she ate the rest but he was perfectly content with his OJ, fruit and tempura chicken :)

Plus he knew we were going for fro-yo after that!  Yum!  Wiggly worms!

He ate one but saved the rest for his sister.  The fro-yo though?  That was all him down to the last scrape of the bowl! 

Sara's Allergies

Almost 9 months ago Sara went to the doctor with some digestive complaints.  She's had digestive issues as far back as she can remember but it got to a point that it was no longer something that she could just live with.  Couple that with she started getting a lot of cankersores on her tongue and after eating certain foods her tongue and throat would start to swell up, she was overdue for a doctor visit.  She was referred to a specialist from her normal doctor and after an almost 2 hour long consultation the doctor knew exactly what tests needed to be run.  

A lot of different things showed up but for the purposes of this post we'll stick with just the food allergies or the whole blog book could be about Sara's health.  Boring!  So anyway as it turns out Sara is allergic and intolerant to a lot of foods that she eats on a consistent basis.  Which makes a lot of sense...her body can't process the food she's eating which is causing a lot of issues internally which is causing her digestive issues. What foods?  Well sit down, it's quite the list.....all dairy (casein, cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, milk, goats milk, whey, yogurt), wheat (whole, gluten, gliadin), almonds, kidney beans, cranberries, crab, sesame seed, brewer's yeast and baker's yeast.  Gulp.

So as you can imagine it's taken a while for her to get used to.  It's been about 6 months since we uncovered all of this and Sara has had to have a new lifestyle but she's doing the best she can.  And thank goodness that CostCo sells a huge bag of chocolate chips that just happen to be dairy free and large jars of peanut butter.  But all in all there are hard days for sure but does she feel 80% better? Yes!  That's a win!  

It's funny because Sara had some allergy testing done back in 2003/2004 and besides some seasonal allergies like bermuda and timothy grass that she's highly allergic to, dairy was identified as a low allergy.  Probably because Sara had milk starting at 8 months old (just kidding Nana and Papa Steve) but she didn't really do anything about it.  Now dairy is off the charts!  

We know it's hard for people to understand that this is what she has to do but she'll be okay.  She plans ahead, brings food with wherever she goes (including her own wasabi and soy sauce to sushi restaurants) and it works just fine.  It's interesting though because eating out is just a guessing game.  Even if Sara orders food that should be okay she'll know around 1am if the restaurant wasn't honest.  Ugh.  

But the point here is that yes, she has all these things.  She's had them for a long time and doesn't want to go back to living miserably.  So yes it may be an inconvenience for her and yes she misses certain foods like crazy but it will be ok.  She is fine with it and she hopes everyone else can be too!  The body apparently changes every seven years so there is hope she can outgrow these allergies but that's not anything we are worrying about right now.  Life is good.  :-)

For more thoughts on the subject, read http://www.sarahkayhoffman.com/2015/03/10/medical-records/ (Sarah is a friend of Sara's and totally gets it :-))

Fun with Friends

Trevor and Mommy have Thursday afternoons for special time where we get to do fun things together.  Although unfortunately a lot of our Thursdays are spent running errands and a little time for the park Mommy is trying to change that because before we know it we won't have this special time together anymore because of summer break and then kindergarten.  Tear.  So this particular Thursday we met our photographer who is becoming a friend and her sons at the train park. 

All aboard!  We had a wonderful time together and the boys got along great so bet there will be more Thursday afternoon get togethers in our future!

On Saturday it was back to the ballpark for Trevor's t-ball game.  They don't record outs or hits but our team is rocking both batting and fielding.  They would have actually recorded two outs to first!  Ashley's cheerleading is probably helping them do such a good job ;-)

On Saturday night we had our good friends Bobby, Julie and Remy over for dinner.  Well technically they brought the Korean BBQ so they brought dinner to us :) But while they were here Nana Jeanne and Papa Steve called from Australia!  It was SO SO SO good to see them.  We all miss them!!

After dinner while the adults played cards the kiddos took advantage of the media room.

Well kiddos plus Toby :)  Aren't they so cute?  Friends for life this group!

Then on Sunday we went to a Diamondbacks Spring training group with the Feather's!  Another group of kiddos that are good buddies!  Gracie is 6 months younger than Ashley and Trevor is right in between Jack and Claire's ages.

 

It was so hot that an Icee was most definitely necessary!

After the game the bigger kiddos lined up to run the bases!

 

They did a great job!  Claire is running to second, Trevor to third and Jack to home!

Silhouette Pics!

Ashley's school offered silhouette renderings of the kids so we asked if Trevor could get one as well.  Well of course the day they were scheduled was the day after Trevor had a bad 'broken waist' (more to come on that) and Ashley woke up with the lump under her armpit but we still went and got them done.  And boy are we sure glad we did!  It was such a neat process to see.  This older lady has the kids sit or stand to their side in front of her and she uses a small scissors and just cuts away by looking at them.  Sara couldn't believe it.  That is talent!  Each kids silhouette took maybe 2 minutes.  And look at them!  They look just like each kid!!!  Amazing!  Now to find the right frames and a place to hang them!

Park Time

The weather here is gorgeous so we are taking full advantage and even running over to the park for short bursts of time.  Before we know it, it will be too hot to be on the playground equipment.  On this particular outing big girl wanted to walk her own dog.

Daddy and Trevor playing criminals...

Racing down the slide...

Daddy too!  Although Daddy won each time just because his legs covered the whole slide to begin with!