Well....

Christmas has come and gone and now the house is overflowing with toys,crafts,legos,games and more toys and I have no idea where to put it all! Don't get me wrong the kids love every single thing they got from everyone but I am out of room to store it all! We all enjoyed spending time with both sides of the family. The kids had a GREAT time with their cousins, we ate some yummy food and had some good laughs! Unfortunately we have yet another illness going through the house. It has brought a yucky cough, green nasal drainage, a fever for some and all around fussy kids. I am so sick and tired of sick kids. I don't think we have ever had a winter this bad with back to back illness. My mom says "what did you expect with 7 kids" but honestly I didn't expect 2 months straight of illness. Maccoy has had the worst of it. He had the puking flu last Monday and Tuesday it was so bad that I was crying at 5a.m. because he was crying and shaking from what I have to assume was horrible stomach cramps then he slept from 6:30a.m. until 3p.m. no joke never made a peep then woke up and ate and went back to bed at 7:30 and slept all night. He was miserable. Then on Sunday he started to be really fussy again and vomited then started running a temp. so Monday morning i took him into see our Dr. who said he thought he had a horrible sinus infection and put him on antibiotics but later Monday he spiked a 103 temp and vomited all his medicine and feeding up. He just kept whining it was so sad I felt so helpless, he ran the fever all day yesterday but no more puke and he kept his meds down then today NO fever! Hope he is all better for awhile! I can't believe the babies will be 6months old on Monday! And Clint will be the big 30 on Sunday! What a big week!
The kids and I have been lucky enough to get to have Clint home all week! He is working hard on finishing our basement! He does all the work himself so it takes a lot of time, but it will be so nice when he finishes it(if we are lucky next year) It is so nice to have another adult in the house to talk to whenever I want! It is going to spoil me! I will be sad when he goes back to work on Monday! The kids have enjoyed all the snow we have gotten and even got out and made some snowmen today! We have done a lot of lego building,game playing,house playing and reading this last week which has been a lot of fun! Making some great memories and enjoying our kids while they are little!Now if I can just get the house clean before we have company tom. we will be doing good!!
Hope everyone had a Wonderful Holiday! Have a Safe and Happy New Year!!

Pictures are worth a Thousand Words!!

Enjoy the new pictures they are long overdue!!
The first slide show is from this weekend we had our first of 3 xmas celebrations! It was with my parents and brother and his family! We almost didn't make it because we have the stomach flu going around our house and Maxton had woke up at 2a.m. and puked in his bed, but he was fine by 9a.m. and after talking with mom and dad and Jay everyone was okay with us coming.
We had a great time the kids got some GREAT gifts (which they are enjoying Thanks Grandma and PaPa and Uncle Jay and Aunt Emily)! It was so nice to spend some time with my family! I don't get a chance to see my brother very often. We played some games and laughed and had a great time! Made it through the night with no more puke although Cayne and Carter were both running a fever by 8p.m. and Cayne was very fussy! But by the next morning Mason was complaining of a stomachache :( and we ended up driving home with Mason vomiting in a bucket.. Not good times... Mason and Cayne were sick all day Sunday, I woke up Monday to Clint sick and also myself sick along with Cayne and Maccoy both really fussy, low grade fevers and a little more spit up than usual and lots of dirty diapers :( We all spent the day on the couch making frequent trips to the bathroom drinking some Sprite and watching xmas movies. Nothing says family like a day like that :)

The second slide show is pictures from our Zoo adventure on Dec.13th with Clint's brother Justin his wife Jessica and our niece and nephew Cutter and Jade. It was free to go to the zoo that day even though it was only 40 degrees with a coat, hat and gloves it was nice! Santa and Rudolph were there! We got to see several of the animals being feed. It was a fun day! The kids had a great time!

The other pics are just some random ones of the babies and one of Mason and Cavin on the couch!!

Part 2 of the Love Story

So a few years go by and when I am in 8th grade and Clint 7th we begin to date again. Again this was in the summer time. There is not much to do in a small town during the summers most kids would hang out at the swimming pool during the day and at night could be found walking the streets or playing flash light tag or truth or dare! I don't really recall much about this short romance although I know there was a lot of hand holding and our first real kiss under fireworks at the Vermillion Rodeo in September. I will never forget that night... We weren't even dating then because I had found out that he liked someone else but as that night wore on he realized that he didn't really like her that he liked me so he kissed me! It was magical. I will never forget that kiss! I didn't know I would marry him but I did know that I loved him. How many couples can say they "dated"(what do they call that? "going out") their husband/wife in 4th grade or even 8th grade? We have been together along time,but I consider myself pretty lucky on most days ;)

Something New! Part 1 Love Story

I have a few blogs I visit regularly that I love to read and one of the ladies has written her and her husbands "Love Story" and after much thought and talking to Clint we decided that since this is a sort of journal for our kids and ourselves I would share our "love Story".

So Clint and I have known each other since we were little and I am talking 5 or younger. I don't have much memory of our years on the Tball team together (even though there are pictures to prove it) or of Clints mom Judy babysitting my brother and I but from stories we are told we did play together some as small children.
For those of you that don't know I am a cradle robber! Clint is 6 months younger than I am and was a year behind me in school. I know I am terrible! Anyway the summer before I went into 6th grade I became boy crazy or rather peer pressure got the better of me! I remember it like it was yesterday! It was a Friday night in July (baseball night in a small town ya know the place to be) and my good friends one of whom was a few years older than I had boyfriends and I didn't so I was determined to get one! And that poor boy would happen to be Clint! So a friend of mine went to ask him if he would "go out" with me and he said yes! I was thrilled to have a boyfriend! We did have our first kiss that summer a nice little peck on the lips thanks to a game of truth or dare. And then as summer ended my interest in Clint ended. I broke up with Clint to chase another boy and Clint says I broke his heart! Don't worry he comes back to punish me!!To be continued........

Cardiology Visit

Today was Maccoy's regular Cardiology check up (minus the echo). We have recently decided to switch dr.s within the practice not because we didn't like Dr.R but we just felt he wasn't the right fit for Maccoy and for us. You see the Dr. we see will see Maccoy from now until Maccoy becomes an adult (as long as he is still practicing at Children's Mercy) so we would like to have someone we can trust and grow to Love as part of our family (good grief he is taking care of a very important issue in our child's life so we have to be able to Trust him and talk to him ask him questions and know he will do right by Maccoy). So we got to meet Dr.Kaine today and ask questions and he got to visit with Maccoy and with Cayne! I think he is going to be a Great Fit for us! He took his time answered all our questions even went over somethings with us that nobody else has mentioned! It was a GREAT visit! He says since Maccoy is doing so wonderful, he is still "Pink TET", he growing GREAT (thanks to his mommy's milk..sorry patting myself on the back right now) and just looks wonderful we are probably looking at surgery end of spring beginning of Summer!!! Dr.R had said Maccoy wouldn't need a cardiac cath (they do this as sort of a road map of the coronary arteries for the surgeon's)because his echo showed what they needed,but Dr.Kaine said we will do another Echo in Feb.at Maccoys next visit and then he will take the results of that to their Cardiology meeting of the minds (LOL not sure of the exact term used)and let the team decide if the echo was good enough or if a cardiac cath is needed. Of course I don't want Maccoy to have the cardiac cath,but if that is what needs to happen to prevent my son from going into cardiac arrest during his open heart surgery then by all means lets do it, Dr.Kaine would be the one performing the cath and from what I gather from our wonderful Nurse Ashley(I love love love her and our outstanding Nurse Practitioner Pam he does caths 3 to 4 days/week and spends most of his time in the cath lab so I think we can be confident that he would do a good job! But my fingers are still crossed that he won't need one! Maccoy's weight today was 15lb9oz and he was 27"long! Growing Great!
So a recap of Today's visit
New Dr. his name is Dr.Kaine
Maccoy is growing great and developing right on track!
No surgery for at least 3 more months and probably more like 5 months!
He is still Pink TeT which is great.. Meaning his O2 SATS are still high running from about 93 to 100% depending on the time of day/his position etc.!
His BP was 72/51 which was low but still okay
He is receiving the RSV shot every 28 to 35days and doing fine with them.He gets these Nov. thru April the peek season for RSV and with his already compromised lungs from the pulmonary stenosis RSV or any lung illness is Bad. In fact we were told today that he couldn't have surgery for 6 weeks after a lung infection like the one he has now so Thank goodness he looks so good!
I guess that is all I can think of for now! Just a little update for everyone and a note for myself!!Off to bed to snuggle with 2 CUTE LITTLE BABIES, I love these little guys!!

Its Been To Long!

WOW!!! It has been along time since my last update!! So much has happened!! We celebrated Thanksgiving at our house with my parents! We had a great day playing games and eating food the only thing missing was my brother and his family! My mom and I seriously thought of heading to Toys R Us at midnight to begin the day after Thanksgiving shopping but decided against it. Clint and I got up at 3:30 to meet my good friends to brave the day starting at Target at 5a.m. thanks to one of my CRAZY friends who made it to Toys r Us at 12 (she got in line at Target at 4a.m.)we were able to get in the store and snag a few Big items and check them off our list!! We shopped until about 8:30 and then came home to relieve my parents from babysitting so they could head home (Thanks Mom and Dad for helping us out)!! By Friday afternoon the "cold" that had hit our house had fully hit Maccoy and he was only getting worse so by Saturday morning it was to the Dr. we went where they put him on breathing treatments and antibiotics due to an ear infection and a chest full of junk. The breathing treatments helped some with the coughing. Poor Baby. With his lungs already affected by the pulmonary stenosis lung infections are bad for him. As the week went on he didn't get better and it was back to urgent care we went about a week later now with Cayne in tow because he sounded worse and also had a fever. They both got chest xray's, labs to check for RSV, and deep suction. Oh what a good time that was. Luckily the chest xrays showed No pneumonia and they were negative for RSV. So continue on the breathing treatments blah blah blah. So today again a week later they are both still coughing,runny nose and now yucky eyes.. Oh will this end? Clint,Mallory,Cavin,Carter, Maxton and I have all had it and it is some nasty stuff. We have been sick here for 3 weeks. Kleenex,Ibuprofen and cold med companies are getting rich off us :(
Maccoy finally rolled over on Tuesday Dec.9th!! I was starting to wonder if he would ever do it!! They are both such happy little guys! It melts my heart that every time I look at them and talk they just smile from ear to ear! I know they LOVE me soooo much! They love to play in the jumperoo but we only have 1 so that makes life a little rough sometimes (we are looking at getting another one but good grief they are expensive). Our living room looks like babies r us threw up in it with swings,jumperoos,baby gyms, bumbo seats,excersaucers, and misc. toys it is a maze to get through! But so worth it! Having Twins is an amazing blessing and I am so glad that I get to be a Twin mommy!!
Cavin has adapted well to Preschool. He doesn't really like to get out of bed to go but once he is up and moving he is happy to get on the bus and go! He loves his teacher and can't stop talking about Miss Liz and all that he has done at school! What a big boy he is getting to be.
Mason is doing so wonderful in school! His teacher called me on Thurs. to tell me how much his reading is improving, his handwriting is out of this world!, his math is great and just overall what a GREAT kid he is!! Its so nice to hear that someone else sees what I see every day!! He is a great kid and I am proud to be his Mom!!
Mallory continues to amaze us with her straight A's. Although she did get a B on her last math test which really bummed her out,but she redeemed herself this week with yet another A on her Math test! She is such a smart girl! We are so proud of her!
Carter is having a Great kindergarten year! Learning a lot and making plenty of friends (that isn't a shock for our social butterfly). He loves school although he isn't really liking his bus ride to school without bubba and sissy its kinda boring he says! He continues to amaze us with his counting by 10's to 200, doing addition in his head and starting to read! Mr.Smartypants!!
Maxton continues to keep me on my toes always into something he shouldn't be! That's no surprise! But besides amazing us with his naughtiness is his vocabulary! It is CRAZY the way this kid talks! I can't believe the conversation I can carry on with my 2 year old! Back in November he was fitted for a pressure garment for his right arm to help with blood clots in his right arm that appear due to a vascular malformation. He is suppose to wear it for 23 hours/day and it is going pretty well only we only have 2 and maxton is constantly getting wet and dirty so keeping one on him 23hrs/day is kinda of a challenge! He doesn't seem to mind them! Five mins after he put it on I started telling him it was his "powers" and he had to leave it on! this worked and he began telling everyone about his powers!!
As for Clint he did his annual deer hunting trip with Cavin and Maxton in tow this time! A break for mommy but more work for Grandma Judy (Thanks Judy). He did shoot a buck but guess it wasn't picture worthy! I am told it will make some good summer sausage! I enjoyed just having the babies and the older kids here! And of course Maxton and Cavin enjoyed their time with Grandma!!
This past Sunday we enjoyed the free day at the KC Zoo with Clints brother Justin his wife and our niece and nephew! It was about 40 so with a coat and some gloves it wasn't bad! There wasn't many people there and we got to see a lot of the animals being fed which was fun! The kids had a great time! Now we are preparing to go to "C" town for xmas with my parents,brother,niece and nephew this weekend! Looking forward to seeing them all! Then it's time for xmas here at home and then xmas with Clints family the following weekend! Oh the Holidays what fun!!
Well there is a brief update on what is happening here!