Discovery Gateway

On December 26, 2011, we took the boys to the Discovery Gateway Museum.  We went with my sisters and their kids and then Grandma and Grandpa came a little late.  We went to celebrate John's birthday.  Happy Birthday Uncle John.

Fisher and Justin at the Bee Hive.

Justin, Hunter and Fisher driving the car.

Fisher LOVED the water spot.

Hunter enjoyed playing in the water with mom.

Fisher kept coming back to the slide at the tree house.

Hunter practicing his walking around the tree house.

Justin riding the horse!

Soren, Fisher, Justin and Keegan playing with the pipes on the magnetic wall.  They especially loved this when Grandpa played with them.

Fisher at the water pond...his favorite spot.

Emmie (my sister's daughter) made the cutest little post-lady.

Hunter loves kisses from his mommy.

 

The Gateway Discovery Museum is so much fun.  The kids love it!!

Christmas 2011

Christmas was so fun!  Justin really enjoyed all of Christmas this year. Fisher could tell there was something going on but isn't quite old enough to understand who Santa is.  We had a lot of fun on Christmas morning.

Justin got a bat cave.

The twins got a kitchen.

Hunter was happy with all the new toys. He didn't care what was his or someone elses.

Hunter got so hungry we had to take a time-out from toys and feed him.

Justin was so excited to un-wrap everything.  He was so good to help Fisher and Hunter when they got a little slow.

Fisher loved all the cars from CARS 2 that the boys got to share.  They did all get their own Francesco Bernoulli.

Merry Christmas Boys! Thanks for making it so memorable!

December 2011

December 2011 was full of parties and fun activities.  We saw Santa a couple of times this season.  Each visit was the same...

Hunter just couldn't get enough,

Fisher screamed and couldn't get away fast enough,

Justin was just in awe and waited ever so paitently.  Each and every time Justin sat on Santa's lap his request was the same: "A Francesco Bernoulli" (CARS 2).

We did some fun activities with just our little family. 

Grandma Clark gave the boys a gingerbread house kit. 

Justin and Fisher stayed up late one night and put together all 5 little houses. 

They had a blast.

We dipped pretzels and made chocolate nut clusters.

Justin and Fisher loved to look under the tree at the presents. 

They were so good not to touch any of them until Christmas morning.

Chocolate Fountain

On Decmeber 16, 2011, my sisters and I got all the kids together for some Christmas activities.  We thought the kids would enjoy dipping pretzels in the chocolate fountain.  I'm not sure where the 3 girls were but I do know that the 6 little boys (all 4 years and younger) and Will loved the chocolate.

 It was a lot of fun.

Here is Keegan, Jason, Justin and Will

Keegan just licked the chocolate off the pretzel.

Just look at the look on Fisher's face....

Justin was by far the messiest.

Hunter played so good.  I didn't have much of a chance to get him up close to the chocolate.

We love activities with the cousins!

Kidney Testing Again

On December 13, 2011, Hunter went in for his usual rounds of tests on his kidney. He was such a trooper. He is old enough now that he recognizes the room and knows that he doesn't want to be there. He did well as long as he could see CARS on the TV.

They strap him to a board so that he doesn't move during the test.  They had a very difficult time getting his IV started.  They tried his left ankle, then right ankle, then right wrist and finally in the left wrist they were able to get a successful IV going.  I was getting a little upset about the number of times it was taking them to get one in. 

The tests that they do shows whether the kidney has proper function and the time it takes for the kidney to drain completely.  We do the tests and then talk to the doctor about them an hour later.  I am so glad that the doctor actually can see the results that fast.  Luckily, this time Hunter fell asleep during the test.  All the crying he did while they messed around with his IV tuckered him right out.

We found out that Hunter's kidney has not made any improvement so he will have to have surgery.  His kidney still has proper function but is incredibly slow!  The surgery that he needs is Pyeloplasty and Nephrectomy.  The pyeloplasty means that they will remove the ureter tube and insert it back into the kidney in a new location. The nephrectomy means that they will cut a portion of his kidney off (the portion that doesn't function properly) and remove it.  Hunter will come home with a tube that drains the kidney right into his diaper. This will allow the kidney to heal properly.  He will have the tube for 10 -14 days. 

Hunter is a trooper. Hopefully the surgery will correct the problem and we can check it off the list.  Wish Hunter luck!

5th Set of Ear Tubes

December 1, 2011, the twins got their 5th set of ear tubes - making 3 tubes for Fisher and 2 tubes for Hunter.  On the second set it is common to have the adenoids removed so now both boys are without adenoids. 

As soon as we walked into the room to change them into their cute little gowns, Fisher started crying. He didn't stop crying until the nurse took him to the OR Room. He probably stopped crying once they were down the hall a little ways because he thought that he was escaping. Haha.  Hunter was content watching cartoons.  The little slippers they got were enormous!

They both handled the surgery well. Hunter had a little bit of a difficult time waking up because he was so tired going into the surgery. 

Once Fisher was out of surgery all he wanted to do was play with the toy in the waiting room. Tyler took him out there to play while we waited for Hunter to recover.

Hunter had a great nap that day and when he woke up his ear looked like this:

Can you say.....ALLERGIC REACTION.  He was allergic to the antibiotic drop they put in his ear right after surgery.  We had to flush his ear with saline solution and get a different antibiotic drop.  Once we got his ear flushed and the new drop in the redness went away after a few hours.  Poor little guy just kept rubbing his ear because it bothered him so much.

During the surgery we had the doctors do a hearing test (AOE).  Hunter has failed this type of hearing test since he was very young.  He passed his initial newborn hearing screening but has not passed since.  The nurses/ENT doctors have been saying that he was failing this type of test because he wiggled and cried so much that they weren't able to get an accurate reading.  This test was done during the surgery so he was not wiggling nor was he crying and he still failed.  Still the doctor said that Hunter may have failed because his ear drum had been under so much pressure so we would check it at the 2 week follow up.  At that appointment, he failed, no surprise to me.  They finally referred us to get an ABR (Auditory Brain Response).  This test has to be done while asleep so we will be doing this test soon.

Hopefully, this will be the last set of ear tubes we have at the Clark house.

Snowman 2011

Tyler and Justin built their first snowman of the season the end of November 2011.  Justin loves to play in the snow especially with his Dad.