Colin's Bedtime

For about two months Colin hated going to bed. He would do everything in his power to fight sleep including taking off his pj's. For awhile we put them on backwards, but it just seemed really uncomfortable so we stopped and after about an hour or more of playing he would usually fall asleep in just his diaper.
The last two weeks or so he has been going down without a fight. However, there were still many nights when I went to check on him and he was just in a diaper.
  I then noticed a pattern. On nights he wore jammies with feet he would take them off and on nights when they were feetless he would leave them on. I told Chris about it, he laughed and said the way to test the theory is to take a part that has feet and cut them off.
  Well I did that last night. Guess what? He kept the jammies on!
  I think he doesn't like his feet covered at night!

Easter 2013

Happy Easter!
The day started off with Alyssa waking up at 6:30. She came in and cuddled with us for a bit. Chris and I both got showers in before Colin woke up a little after 7.
   We came downstairs and the kids got to look through their Easter Baskets. This year they got two, one from the Easter Bunny and one from Grandpa and Nana. They thought that was awesome.
  We then let Alyssa search for her eggs while Colin was playing with a toy from his basket. All of Alyssa's eggs were hidden in the TV room. After she had found all her eggs, she then started to open and look at them while Colin got to go search for all his eggs in the front room. After every egg he found he would state, "No more eggs" and we would have to encourage him to look for more.
   After all eggs had been found and opened I started breakfast of pancakes and sausage, Chris also cooked some eggs and we had some doughnuts as well.
   After breakfast we got dressed for church and took pictures.
  We then grabbed our now empty Easter baskets and headed to church for another egg hunt. They had to do it inside, since the outside was too wet and muddy. The kids had a blast, and while shy at first they both got into looking for the eggs.
   After church we came home and ate lunch, and then headed over to Chris' parents house where the kids got to play outside for a little bit. Then it was time for another egg hunt. This time Alyssa had her older cousin on her side helping her find eggs and she walked away with over $15 in cash from the eggs with money.
   We then had dinner, and headed home.
  The kids were exhausted and didn't put up a fight about watching a little TV and then going to bed just a little on the early side.
  I think they enjoyed their Easter and they have plenty of candy to last a long while.

Zoo 2013

Our first trip to the zoo this season happened today. Looking through old posts it was later in the season last year, but it was also the Saturday before Easter that we went for the first time.

We got to the zoo about 9:30 and went straight to the children's zoo. Colin was very unimpressed and Alyssa just wanted to run.
So we left the children's zoo and started towards the Elephants (what Colin wanted to see) on the way to the Elephants we passed the bug house. We said we were going to stop. This made Colin mad and after almost every bug he would say "Elephants now". Alyssa loved searching for each bug in their habitats.
We tried to get a picture of Colin and he refused, so we asked if he would let me take his picture after he saw an Elephant and he said yes.
  So off to the elephants we went. As soon as we saw the first elephant he turned around faced me and said "cheese".
When at the monkey exhibit there was an orangutan that was sitting against the glass with a blanket over its head. There were a fair amount of people when we first walked up, but after a few minutes the crowd thinned out to just our family and a zoo keeper. At that time the orangutan took the blanket off its head. Alyssa walked up to it. I told her to stay back, but the zoo keeper said that it was okay and that "Robby liked kids" so Alyssa walked right up to it until she was almost nose to nose with her.
  She started to talk to the orangutan, well this brought more of a crowd, so Robby put the blanket back over her head. Alyssa started to talk to her again and she would peek out from the blanket. Alyssa stood there playing peek a boo with this monkey while everyone else just stood around and watched. It was cool to see the interactions.  
 Almost every animal was out and was easy to spot. So the kids enjoyed seeing all the animals.
We ate lunch at the zoo and then headed home. Colin caught a quick nap and so once we were almost home we decided to head over to the church so we could rake some mulch and do some outside things.
   The kids had fun running around and playing while Chris and I worked. It was then decided that I would stay and work a little longer and Chris would take the kids home. Well as they were leaving, Colin was climbing into the car and somehow fell and smacked his face on the cement ground. He has two nice scrapes and goose eggs.
   The kids had a great day and were excited to go to bed so that they could wake up for the Easter bunny tomorrow.

Blood Work for Colin

About 3 weeks ago Colin went in for another bronchoscopy. Once again the bronchoscopy showed fluid and bacteria in his lungs. This is concerning because his lungs should not be harboring so much bacteria. So the doctors have ordered more blood work to test for Cystic fibrosis.
  I have spent all week researching about CF. There are some very depressing facts about it. There are also some promising facts out there.
   He had 7 vials of blood taken today. We should have the preliminary results back next Thursday when we see his pulmonologist. He was so brave. He didn't cry or fight or even flinch. Even when she dug in his arm because the blood had stopped flowing.
  It will be a long week, but hopefully we have answers next week.  

Disney on Ice

I found out Disney was doing another show in St. Louis about 4 months ago and bought tickets. We didn't tell Alyssa till about a week ago. She was THRILLED to see another Disney on Ice show.

This morning we woke up to snow, with lots more expected through out the day. Chris and I started talking about how to get to the show, while trying to stay safe. We were trying to find the closest metrolink to our house. While doing this search I came across the idea of taking Amtrak from Alton to St. Louis. The Amtrak location is less than 10 miles from our house and the station in St. Louis was less than 2 blocks from where the show was. So I bought us tickets for the train.

We then went to church where the snow started to pick up and we had to break the news to Alyssa that they might cancel Disney on Ice. This made her very sad and she wanted to pray about it. So she asked Chris to say a prayer with her. He said one asking God to keep us safe and that we would be able to see the show.   A few minutes later she asked me to say one with her, and so I did.
After our prayers we explained to her that sometimes God answers our prayers and sometimes he doesn't.

Church was canceled and Alyssa and I headed to the Amtrak station with Chris on watch for cancellations of the show.

Luckily they did not cancel the show, and besides the super scary drive to the Amtrak station and some wet feet on the walk to the show it was great.

Once we got into the show and found our seats, Alyssa asked that I help her say a prayer to Thank God for letting the show go on. So we did. Then, Alyssa sat in my lap the whole show, she didn't move. She loved all the action and really got into it all.

After it was over we had almost a 2 hour wait before our return train home. She was perfect the whole wait and didn't complain once.

We got back on the train took off her shoes and socks (just like we did for the entire show. Her feet got soaked from the walk). She sat and enjoyed the ride back.

Once again it was a super scary drive home, but luckily it was only a short drive versus the longer one we had originally talked about.

We got home with enough time for her to play in the snow for a few minutes before bed. We have about 12 or more inches of snow with another 1-3 predicted over night.

As we tucked her into bed again, we offered another prayer of thanks.

I think she had a good day.

5k and Half Marathon

Today in the super cold 35 degree weather I ran a 5K. I hadn't run outside since November and I haven't worked out in over a month. I finished in 42 minutes, and walked the whole thing. It wasn't my best time and I'm not thrilled about it, but at least I finished before 45 minutes and I did it.

Chris ran his first half marathon and finished in 1 hour and 47 minutes. He did great and I'm so proud of him. He has another one that he is running in two weeks and he is hoping to shave a few minutes off his already great time.

Last Month in Review

This last month has been so crazy busy. I have spent every Saturday in March over at the new daycare getting it ready to open.  I have been over at the new daycare at least two days a week for inspections or other little things.

Jenni was out sick for all of February, and first part of March.

Colin had another bronchoscopy that showed fluid and bacteria in his lungs. So we are back to square one on figuring out what is wrong with him and how to fix it. We go for more blood work and testing next week.

Everyone has been sick at least once, some more than once in the last month.

Winter doesn't seem to want to end.

Things are moving forward, things are going good. Just busy.

Going to try harder to keep up.