84/16

Why is it that each day I prepare myself for after bedtime to get all kinds of things done and when the time actually comes I just collapse on the couch and veg? Today I got the kids to bed and proceeded to enjoy this little number:

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In true fashion of catching up. The next thing to share is about our sweet little boy. Every six months we get to go back down to Little Rock and Rigs gets to have check ups. There is always an ultrasound on the kidneys. At the beginning of December he had a new test done to check out his kidneys. In order for this test to be done he needed to be put under anesthesia. I always hate that part.  It's never fun to think about your child being put under. He was being injected with a dye and being scanned so the doctors needed him to be really still. Here are a couple of pictures before the procedure.

Playing around in his cute little scrubs.

He wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything that morning. He is trying to get his sippy cup with water out of my purse and he was a little frustrated.

After the procedure finally able to have something to drink. If you look at his ankle you can see the IV still in his leg. :(

The test that was done was to check his kidney function. When he was so super sick, his kidneys were what was affected* the most. They were so infected and so sick. Especially his left kidney.

The tests told us some news. Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news first? Well, since I can't hear you, I'll just choose. The bad news is that his left kidney is only functioning at 16%. The good news is that his right kidney is making up for it and functioning at 84%.

Long story short, nothing super serious. He is generally healthy. But because of the situation we will continue to monitor his kidney function. We aren't finished with Arkansas Children's Hospital and Little Rock just yet. The doctors and nurses said that this isn't anything that should keep Rigs from having a full and fun life. It's a good thing because this little guy sure loves fun!


*Did I use the word 'affected' right? Help me out friends. When are the proper times to use those words? (affected/effected)

Thanksgiving

 Thanksgiving this (last) year was great!

I only had a couple of pictures on my phone. I'm going to have to check my camera for some more. It was a fun filled week that we spent in Georgia. Our little family got there first so we were able to spend some quality time with Gigi and Papa Tom.

The biggest event of the week was my brother, Abe, getting home from his deployment in Iraq. Every day we heard something different about his arrival. We didn't know for sure until the night before. Tuesday night we were told that he would get home Wednesday night. So exciting! The kids made signs to bring. It was so neat to be able to be there. Abe was featured on two different news channels. (There is a link to one of the videos on my facebook page).

The great thing about this Thanksgiving is that we were all there. My parents and all of their five kids and 12(?) grandchildren. It was so much fun. There were so many of us that we had to set up tables in the garage for us to all be able to eat together.

It was such a fun week. One of the highlights for Harper is pictured below. Here in Arkansas, Harper is kind of surrounded by boys. Most of the kids her age in our ward are boys. She does have a couple of little girl pals, but it is definitely mostly boys. She was LOVING being around all of her girl cousins. They formed a Girls' Club. Below are photos of their little handshake/cheer. They would put their hands together in a circle and say "1-2-3...GIRLS' CLUB!!!" Precious!

Camel?

This post has nothing to do with a camel. It has to do with what Harper calls a camel.

One day Harper and Ryan made a fort while I was gone. I came home to this.

I guess Harper called it a camel because it looked like it had humps. Not really sure. She calls them forts now.

Boo!

I'm way behind. Here's the Halloween post.

Halloween is so much fun for us! Our kids got to dress us three times this year. The first time was for trick-or-treating at Ryan's office. (Yet another reason for us to love Walmart). The second time was for the church trunk-or-treating. And the third time was for actual trick-or-treating around the neighborhood.

**I have to put a disclaimer on here. Harper picked out her costume. She has a new fascination with Ariel/The Little Mermaid. She wanted to dress up as Ariel for Halloween. I looked at patterns to make her a costume and it was a little too advanced for me. When we took her out to get a costume. She picked this dress out. It doesn't resemble anything that Ariel ever wears. It just has a picture of her on the dress. It was good enough for Harper.

The first two pictures were taken before trick-or-treating at Ryan's office. So cute. Rigs was a lion. Same costume as last year. Don't judge.

The next two pictures were taken either before or after trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. We did trick-or-treating with some friends and then had them over and had yummy soup. The second pictures is of all of our kids. Finn is the tortoise and Myma is the hare. How cute is that?!

New Year

Oh, I just love the feeling of a new year. I am a big goal setter. (That doesn't mean that I'm a big goal achiever, but let's just go with it). I love what a new year brings with it. New calendars, new goals, new everything. I've heard people say that they don't like to set new year resolutions because they know they won't stick with them and they're just setting themselves up for failure.

I disagree.

I love the feeling of goals.

I think I'm that way because of my parents. I have a memory of waking up very, very early one New Year's Day (was it New Year's day, family?) and going with my parents, brothers and sister to our church building. We went to the high council room, which is just like a conference room with a big long table and white erase boards. My dad sat us all down and told us that we were going to write out our family mission plan. None of us except for my parents were very enthusiastic about it, but we did it. We also always had a special new year family home evening where we wrote out all of our new year resolutions. It's good stuff that goal setting business!

I have a few resolutions for myself this year. I'm not going to put all of them specifically on here. Maybe I will at the end of the year and I'll let you know which ones I accomplished. You can probably tell that blogging more often is one of them. I wrote down how frequently I want to blog and hopefully I'll be able to stick to it!

Wish me luck!

I have a few family happenings to catch up on so be looking for those. In the meantime, here's a cute picture of the little ones.

Thankful Catch Up

I'm totally behind on this thankfulness thing. Sorry!!! Here goes...

#5 - I'm thankful for modern medicine. I'm pretty sure that Rigley wouldn't be here if it weren't for the doctors, nurses, surgeries and medications that have helped him so much. There are definitely pros and cons to it. Today I put a check in the mail to pay off the medical bill from when Rigs had to stay overnight at the hospital when he was four days old. It's expensive and things don't always go right, but I am very thankful for it!

#6 - My bed. Ryan and I got a new king size bed back in April. Before this bed we were sleeping on a full size bed. It was a fairly comfortable bed, just so small. Now on our new bed I can hardly even reach Ryan sometimes. And it is oh so comfy! I just love it so much!

#7 - Walmart/Bentonville - Ryan has been blessed with a great job at Walmart. And thanks to Walmart (mostly) Bentonville is a pretty cool town. We really love it here! We have made some awesome friends and had some really great times.

#8 - Book Group - I have recently become in charge of our book group and it is such a great group. The books are always great and even if I haven't read the book I can still go and have a good time! Any good suggestions for us to read?

#9 - My Parents - They are seriously the best! They are such great examples to me of how I should live my life. They are very good at being self sufficient. They have a garden, exercise regularly,, compost have tons of food storage, and the list goes on. I really look up to them a lot!

#10 - Ryan's Parents - They sure did a good job at raising Ryan. They are amazing people. They are always thinking of and serving others. And they're coming to see us for Christmas! Yay!

#11 - I would have written this on Veteran's Day. I'm thankful for Veterans. Namely my Dad, Grandpa, brothers Zach and Abe, Uncles Dick, Jim and Russ, my cousin Tucker and Ryan's Grandpas Bob and Johnny. My brother, Abe, will be getting home from Iraq in the next week or so (hopefully). It really helps me appreciate it a little bit more when I have servicemen in my family. Thank you!

#12 - My job(s) - Being a stay-at-home mama is (in my humble opinion) one of the most difficult but most rewarding jobs a person can have. It is such a joy to be with my kids and teach them and learn from them. Also, I have been put on the schedule to teach at a gym. I can't wait to start teaching classes. It's going to be a great experience!

#13 - Good friends - I mentioned that we have made some great friends here. I really love my friends here! I'm also grateful for long time friends. I talked to an old roommate on gmail chat yesterday. I like the friendships that remain no matter how long you go without talking. They're nice to have.

#14 - Cars - We are lucky to have two cars. I am able to go to the gym or library or go grocery shopping during the day. I really admire people who can figure out how to make it work with just one car. I also like that cars can take us places far away. We'll be driving to Georgia in a couple of days for Thanksgiving and I'm thankful that we have a car that can get us there!

#15 - Hair - This may sound silly but I am really thankful for hair. Particularly mine (and Harper's). I know a lot of people who have hair that they don't love. Harper and I are complimented on our hair probably 95% of the time that we go out in public. And let me tell you, it never gets old! It always brightens my day when we get a hair compliment. I'm not the best at styling my hair or doing cute hair-dos but I have great color, it's thick and it grows fast. I really am luck to have good hair.

Toyland

Our Toyland First Friday this year was so much fun!

They had life size models of Lightning McQueen, Mater and Finn McMissile.

Harper got to ride a pony.

 

And Rigs got to watch.

We enjoyed the evening by getting all kinds of fun samples and seeing a bunch of fun characters!

Dr. Crentist

"Your dentist's name is Crentist? That sounds a lot like dentist."

"Maybe that's why he became a dentist."

Harper's dentist's name isn't Crentist. I just love that quote from 'The Office." Harper's dentist's name is Dr. Caple and he is great! Harper had her first dentist appointment and she did such a great job! It really helps that they have a waiting room full of fun stuff: TV, train table, video games, etc. Also, they have TVs above each chair. When Harper was called back the dentist came and said hi and showed her what he was going to do on a stuffed frog. It was so cute! They cleaned her teeth and gave her a fluoride treatment. She doesn't have any cavities. Yay! The dentist said that the spaces in her teeth are a good thing. It will help with cavity prevention and when her permanent teeth come in. Here are some pictures.