Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Post surgery

We are back home and Brendan is out of surgery.  He is doing well, much better now as a matter of fact.



We got up there pretty early.  Traffic was no problem and the weather was fine.  We left at 6am to avoid it all and we got there with 40 minutes to spare.  To bad we could not grab breakfast he was on strict no eating orders.  Dinner was his last meal for a while.  He still can not eat.  He has been on a jello, juice, milkshake, ice cream, liquid cold and creamy diet today.  He is so hungry.  I should have got him protein shakes or something like that.  I caved in and let him eat some soft scrambled eggs.  He did well with them.

As you can see he was all smiles before.  He  did not like the gas mask we had to hold him down till he fell asleep but luckily that did not take to long.  Waking him up from it that was another story.  It was not easy he flopped around like a fish on a deck.  He was crying and disorientated and completely confused about what had just happened.  It was a while before I could calm him, even then he was still quite out of it.  But within a few hours and some tylenol he started feeling better.



His brothers rushed in when they got home to see if he knew what happened yet.  They were ready to tell him but he was ready to show them the stitches and holes, he grossed them out.  You can't see any of that in the above picture but he already has a lot more movement of his tongue.

Since we got home he has had a relaxed day and some pain.  But he is doing well a bit off but nearly himself.  Thanks for all the prayers and concerns.

Monday, February 24, 2014

frenectomy

Today is pre-surgery day for Brendan.  Early tomorrow we are driving over an for his frenectomy.

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This was at his consult nearly a month ago.  We had to wait a while because of snow and insurance.  They are putting him under with general anesthesia because he is so little, 4.5.  That is the only part that worries me.  Anesthesia has side effects and risks.  But I hope he will be okay, I know he will, they do this all the time and I have a lot of people praying for him.

If you don't know what a frenectomy is well there are two types upper and lower.  He is having the lower one.  They will be cutting the thing/tissue that holds your tongue down to the bottom of your mouth.  His is to abundant and needs to be cut back for speech purposes.  I have not noticed any speech problems yet but you certainly can see his is much further than your own.  Whatever you do though do not google frenectomy like I did to find out the spelling or you will see many gross pictures. It is funny because I can slice and dice, remove and stitch all sorts of problems on people and animals but show me a picture of gross teeth and I cringe.  Smiley's teeth are in no way gross.  They are all clean shiny, never a cavity, baby teeth.

Brendan does not know what is going on.  I told him we will go to the dentist tomorrow, just he and I.  But he has no idea.  He will go in fall asleep and wake up probably hurting pretty bad.  But I will be ready with ice cream and milkshakes.  But if you have a moment please pray for my little guy and the use of anesthesia, a quick low pain recovery, and safe travels.  Thanks.  I will post an update tomorrow and let you all know how well it went.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Pretty Princess Faith

What is so much fun about little girls?  Dressing them I love it!!  And so does Faith.  She is an all around girly girl.  She can stand up a little with the big boys but when she gets a boo boo she cries comes running and you better believe it is a pink bandage that she needs.  It is hard to keep pants on this princess and so help you if you try to dress her in blue.  Good luck getting it on.  Here have been a few of her/my recent favorites.

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We both fell in LOVE with this dress!  It is a Tammis Keefe.  I can not even believe our luck on this find.  I won it on an auction.  I saw it and it screamed Faith to me.  Pink puppies.  Well I got it for an unbelievable price.  When we got it and tried it on it blew away my expectations.  The cap sleeves and Peter Pan collar made it a hundred times better in person.  We love it and she lays it out all the time to wear to see her baby friends ins.

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This colorful sweetheart number is to cheery and bright.  I actually have one for each of the girls.  I thought it was the perfect Valentines day dress for such a monotone winter.  It is supper pretty.  And they are too cute together.  I was hoping to get valentines day pictures of all 5 but because of the snow we could not make the drive.  I will take them out soon in the sunshine and snap a few pics myself.  Love sister dresses!

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Oh here she is sitting so pretty getting ready to go to church.  She had to wear her sparkly shoes and purple pearl necklace.  She always looks so nice there and it is truly the highlight of her week.  I took all of them there that morning and as soon as we stepped out of the truck she started throwing up, continually.  How much did this princess eat for breakfast?  We piled back in and turned around for home.  I don't think we have made it to Sunday school or church there in a month.  Someone has always been sick every Sunday.  We go other times of the week for event and obligations but I sure do miss Sunday school and so do the kids.

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And well I can't forget our junior princess.  She is so much fun and the cutest little thing.  Awe  I love my little blond haired baby.

Friday, February 21, 2014

Snow and sickness

Those have been the themes of our lives lately, its that time of year.  With the sickness once one person gets it we all get it.  Luckily that is now behind us and maybe the snow too!

We have been hit with blizzards one after another.  Snow and ice and it has been months since the weather has been above freezing.  The kids are always home, and always hungry.  Last Thursday Pax brought us the biggest snow this year at nearly 2 feet and Last night Sam left us with a couple more inches but the good news... the 10 forecast is in the 40's!!!  Yes this stuff can finally melt.  We have 2 cars stuck in snow immobile at the moment.

(Two days since I started writing this)

And in that time we had a terrible ice storm.  I left for school one morning extra early (7am test day, with errands to run before hand) and congratulated the kids as I was leaving hurrah, for today!  The first time you will have a full day in weeks!  The day before we got more snow, light snow, at least compared to the week before.  Which ended up in the kids having a two hour delay.  As I was leaving Jay said becareful we are supposed to get an ice storm.  I had checked and it was not expect till later so I cheerful drove off.  Less than 5 miles it started freezing rain and my car was sliding all over the road.  It was scary.  Buses full of the older public school students were already being transported.  I was having a terrible time driving so I slowed it down and waited to text only during red lights.  But I made it to my school and when I went to put up the wipers they were all ready frozen.  I figured the buses taking the kids or in the case of mine their van were and big heavy vehicles.  That they would all be okay.  But as the buses and vans started sliding and accidents were all over the roads the canceled and delayed school after it had opened and kids were on their way.  It made for a logistical mess of everything.  But eventually mine went to school, by the time I left school it was fine.  And that was the last snow/ice day we have had lately.  Thank God!

And the best part it has been in the 50's the past 2 days and is supposed to be even warmer tomorrow!  Just in time to melt all the feet of snow for Mondays new storm  :(

I thought last week was the end but I guess not.  Howevere here are some pictures to enjoy in your nice warm place.

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Faithy in her house as it started snowing.  They love to play in it.  And I spend an hour dressing them for it each time.

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Her house a little later and it still came down

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The backyard became grounds to many large forts.  Although you can not see it as they are white against white.  The whole world we know is now and has been white against white for so long.  It is times like this I wish I could have beautiful colorful flowers delivered to cheer us up.  But you know with all the snow I had so many friends complain how they did not get their valentines day flowers till the 18th!  I am still waiting on mine....I might be waiting a long long time too. ( I got nothing for valentines day!  zero, zilch, nada, nothing, except from my mom, lets wait and see how my birthday goes  Not even a text or a coffee, no wine, no nothing.) carrying on...

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The girls playing in a break of sunlight.  Baby cakes really does not like the snow.  And I cant even tell you how many feet or inches they are on top of.

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14 Fir Street

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lots of snowmen have been built

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And some of my favorites have been on instagram if you don't follow me go ahead my name there is karen_huse but I believe you can find it through a link to the left.  I love instagram and have turned more towards that but sadly I have been lacking in pictures there too.



the girls were so sad about their cozy coupes



The ice falling from the trees looked like sugar crystals


Just because of all this snow does not mean life still has to go on.  And here Faith and I had to take a very early drive up to the state capitol.  We never made it because of incredible traffic accidents and conditions but we caught a beautiful sunrise.


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Me on my way to school, yes cross country skiing it

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no snow days for me, well at least not a long time ago.  Haha these 3 are OLD pictures of me from Norway.  Yeah a snow day there?  Didn't happen we had school. We skied to it the had fun on then slopes afterwards.  Good times!!

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Yes I am sick of all this snow but I have also got quite used to it.  We feel warm in days above the single digits.  Thankful on days we get no more.  We now laugh at when they forecast under 6 inches.  But the end is in sight.  And we welcome spring.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Ice fest 2014

Icefest is truly one of my favorite "holidays".  It is local, gives our family roots in a community tradition as well as a family one, it is not at my house so I do not have to clean, my family comes, my parents brother and niece, it is really cool, amazing artist show off their talents, and their is a chili cook off, but sadly because of all the kids pallets we have not been to that part in a few years.  There is also an Ice Ball which I so very much want to go to, maybe one year when I can find a sitter, and they have special theater events, ballets, cake contest, bands, it really just keeps getting bigger and better.  The only down side is it is SO COLD!!  Yes it is right during our coldest times of the year.  It has to be to keep all the ice still ice but some years are worse than others.  With the surrounding weeks dropping down to the negatives and highs sometimes in the single digits we were over joyed when this years Icefest was in the sizzling 40's!!  It was a single day heat wave, the next next two days it dropped and snowed us in again.  But with warm weather we, the whole town headed out, some in t shirts and shorts, it was not that warm but at least I saw no flip flops.

This year the older boys each had art work in Ice fest.

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Evan had an owl and chickadees

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Gregory had a haiku and many snowflakes

Besides the kids awesome art the ice artist did fantastic jobs once again.

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We all loved this guy from Monsters Inc.  Just to darn cute.  And Smiley scaring just to perfect.

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This giraffe was my favorite.  The picture does it far from justice but it was...cool. haha

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And my boys in front of a truck well that just fits doesn't it.

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There is getting to be to many of them to fit on the biggest ice chair.  Awe I remember bring only 2, once upon a time.

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Me and the kids by a dog and a golfer.  The ice sculptures line the both side of streets and some allies for  over 4 blocks.

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My parents and the kids.  Yes that is Smiley licking the sculptures, smh.

However to the bigger kids nothing tops the ice slide.
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The boys all love this.  The girls loved the s'mores station better.

It was fun and not so cold.  A nice chance to be outside in the middle of crippling temperatures that keep us in most days.

other years:
2008
2009
2011

And there is more but ... recently we lost an entire hard drive of pictures.  I need to print more out immediately.  Such a flaw of mine.

Monday, February 3, 2014

Our successful Superbowl party

We had our party and it was great.  The kids were so excited and ready for it, they were busting at the seems.  From 2 o'clock on and the game was not until 6:30 they were watching the clock and asking can we play the games now?!  They had spent all morning decorating.  The place really looked festive with the mix and match mostly homemade decorations we went with.  We Hung stuff from the ceilings and the boys made posters and decorated the walls.

They made a scoreboard and loved keeping track through the game.  None of us could actually believe the Seahawks were winning.

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Gregory was pretty glued to the tv.  He excitedly watched the whole game!  One of the game we had was a bingo game and of course skittles to be our place holders.

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That was a fun one and I think looking for the stuff is another thing that helped keep his interest.

His dad made it 10 minutes before he and the girls turned on Dora.

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The other game we had was a pin the tail on the donkey type of game.

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We blindfolded the kids spun them and the had little footballs to stick up.  Each goal was worth a different amount of points but we never kept track.

And of course the was food, lots of food.  I never even made a few of items because there was plenty and because it was so late here no one was that hungry.

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I got new baking sheets a week ago and had not used them yet and yesterday was the prefect time.  They are fantastic heavy duty huge restaurant size sheets and they worked perfect and I was able to make tons of these homemade chocolate chip cookies that did not last long at all.  I also made chocolate covered strawberries and they too got gobbled up.

You can find all my recipes and games on my Superbowl pinterest page.  They were all quick, simple, easy and most importantly delish!

http://www.pinterest.com/karen_huse/superbowl-party/

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And they were a few other little touches we did to make the night special.  Seahawks cupcakes (however the blue "frozen" frosting from a can... yuck)  But I loved the wrappers.  The boys made cups for all of us like footballs and monogramed each of them too.  That made me smile such sweet boys.  Gregory even drew a special heart of Faithy's cup.  And party poopers made them happy.  My kids love party poppers.  They were just as exited for the game to end as begin, so they could pop their poppers.

It was a great fun night that we all enjoyed.  Maybe just maybe we will do this every year.  Or maybe it was just the once in a lifetime event with Seattle.



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Yeah they painters taped Seahawks on their belly.  Too cute!  I love these little guys!