S1's Birthday

Here S1 is opening a birthday present. I can hardly believe that he is seven years old. As you can tell his brothers are just as eager, if not more so, to see what he got!

S1 is trying to make his rocket launcher work. He gets it, although it doesn't go very high as he doesn't stomp very hard.

Someone is ready to watch his DVD. He really loves the first 10 minutes or so of Cars, after that he usually wanders away. Sometimes he'll watch more but he likes to watch the cars race.

Now they get to pillage their brother's spoils. I actually bought two sets of these "weed wackers" because I knew there would be fighting.

S1 got this bubble blower and absolutely loved it. Here he is trying to back away so he can pop the bubbles instead of being attacked by them. If you look by his belly you can see the bubbles.

He's got his face down close because he wants to see how the thing works. It wouldn't surprise me if he was actually trying to eat the bubbles. The bubble is at his chin.

Christmas

Okay, so I have neglected to get pictures posted for quite some time. Now I will play catch up. Here we go.

First we have the jolly old elves themselves. S3 and S2 strike poses as Santa's little helpers.


S2 was way into Christmas this year. He loved buying and wrapping presents for others. The only problem was that he has a hard time keeping a secret- just like his dad! He gets sooo excited that he just can't hold it in.



We were decorating the tree when the next thing I hear is "Hey mom, look!" And I find S2 decorating himself instead of the tree. Immediately I said, "Take that out of your nose, gross. Wait, put it back, I want to get a picture!" Kids are so goofy.

One of my favorite childhood Christmas memories is the beautiful gingerbread houses that would be made every year. I just loved to look at them, and probably pick off candy too. So I try to make them with my kids, thank goodness for pre-made kits. S1 and S3 don't get to help until the very end or they'd eat all the candy and we'd have a bare house.

No, a polar bear dressed as a reindeer did not actually attack our gingerbread house. S2 was trying to dislodge a gumball and it wouldn't release until he had pulled it off over the edge of the counter and gravity helped out. This only a day after creating the masterpiece, oh well, I tried.

Dave and I with his mom after the Christmas Concert in which Dave performed.

Debbie with all her children. We all eventually made it to the concert, although at different times due to parking and weather related issues. But we had fun afterwards together too.

Grandma and her grandsons right before we went into the museum. The boys couldn't wait. It was nice to have her visit shortly before Christmas.

Aunt Jen and Uncle Reagan came over for Christmas Eve. The boys had lots of fun with them. We enjoyed our time with them also. We had quite the game of Phase 10.

S1 holding the boys' present from their aunt and uncle. It was literally a big hit as they all took turns hitting the moles and each other. Thank goodness it has an off button! You can see Aunt Terraza sitting in the background. She also spent part of the evening with us and the boys opened their presents from her as she was spending the rest of Christmas Eve and Christmas with her fiance and his family.

Mom's bargain find ($50 instead of $100) that was a huge hit with all the boys. They just played with that for quite a while before we had to open any other presents. Luckily it wasn't hard to assemble so I wasn't up half the night. They are all wearing the pj's their aunt gave them for Christmas. S3 is still a little swollen from his surgery about two months earlier. It's all gone now, although you can see where the hardware is in his head.

S2 enjoys looting his stocking before mom and dad are up and going.











S1 enjoying one of his favorite presents-a fake violin. Unfortunately, it only lasted a month or so before it broke.














Yeah, Dad may have gotten the PlayStation but I got Guitar Hero.












It's a bird, it's a plane, it's super S2! He had lots of fun pretending to fly like superman and "breaking" the chains that came with the outfit.














Now he is a pirate, argh! And he's off with Dora to go find some treasure. Two pirate costumes came with the boat.

Thanksgiving

This is Aunt K sitting at the table. Doesn't she look thrilled?


Here's our turkey. I stuffed it with herbs, carrots, onions and celery this year. Don't worry, we still had stuffing.


Here Dave, Uncle B, Aunt K's shoulder and S3 are sitting at the table ready to eat.


View the glory of stuffing, mashed potatoes and green beans.


S2 kept trying to hide from the camera, but I caught him!


Ugh! Too much to eat, must lie down.


S1 enjoying some Guitar Hero before the gluttony.

Frankenstein's Monster Part 3

Alright, here we go with the rest of the pictures. It turns out I had to turn off pop ups or it causes problems.


Here S3 is with his Aunt Jen in the room we would be in for the next four days. We just got transferred in there, so this is Saturday, so he's still not feeling so hot.


But as you can tell from this photo on Sunday morning he is feeling lots better. He did not want to stay in the crib and watch TV. Plus because of the time change he got up at like 5 am!


Sunday morning here after they took off his bandages so that his stitches could start to dry out. They usually take the drain out too at this point but he was still draining alot so they decided to leave it in until Tuesday. So, since he really isn't that swollen yet, you can still see where the drain goes across his forehead.


The new view from above. What a nice little round head he now has. I am going to add a picture of before next to this one so you can see the difference.


Here's the before and for those of you who had never noticed how pointy his head was before, you are probably wondering how you ever could have missed it! Part of the reason I let S3's hair grow out long was to cover the protruding forehead.

Frankenstein's Monster Part 1

This is what s3 looked like with his head shaved and before he got drugged up for surgery. Here he's already to go in his gown and getting a mini physical to make sure he's fit for surgery.


Here S3 is on his way into the OR. He spit some of his Veriset out onto me, but it worked well enough that he would let me put him down and let the doctor wheel him away. Here you see he has already collected one animal - a cute little circus lion from the nurses at the OR.


This is how he was when we saw him. They put this mesh type hat over his head to keep him from pulling off the bandages. The problem was that they don't ever take it off so by the time it came off Sunday morning, it smelt pretty bad from him throwing up a few times and getting stuff on it. At least it was only juice type stuff that he'd thrown up.


Here he is in the "cage", at least that's what his crib looked like to me!


This is the room where I slept the night S3 was in the PICU. They only have five of these closet type rooms for parents. There is a rocking chair in the corner by the door, you just don't see it.


Here we are the day after surgery, he still looks pretty good, just really tired out.


Later on Friday in the PICU. You can see a bunch of the stuff he's connected to. They had a central line (in his neck/collarbone area), arterial line, IV line in his foot, monitoring electrodes on his chest and a catheter you know where. During the surgery they also had a monitor on his heart to alert them to any aortic embolisms.


This is how S3 liked to sleep during his time at the hospital, clutching as many stuffed animals as he could and then covering his face with them. At one point he not only had the dog and the lion, but also a smaller puppy in there too. He wouldn't settle down until he had them all.

Frankenstein's Monster Part 2

Finally on Monday morning S3 woke up with his eyes swollen shut. He took it pretty well since I had PBS on so it was at least a familiar sound. The bottle of milk didn't hurt either!


He loved to nap and would often get turned around in the crib and slept on his stuffed animals. The only problem is that when he would wake up, because his head was so swollen, he'd have divets that were patterned like the animal he had been sleeping on. It was pretty funny.



His night nurse on Halloween Eve. She was a hoot.


Tuesday morning he awoke with swollen eyes, but they didn't last for as long, even though they were more discolored. It looks like I gave him a bad eyeshadow job!


Here's me with my doctor! Just pretend that I am thinner okay?


Here S3 is enjoying the party. That cookie was really the only solid thing he'd voluntarily eaten since the surgery and not thrown up.


Here S3 is at home with his big brother S2. You should have seen the two of them running around-and they still haven't stopped. So much for the surgery slowing him down any!