Mia's 9 month checkup

Mia went in today for her well child visit. She is still growing like a weed! She is 29 in long (90%), 20.3 lbs (72%) and her head is 78% for kids her age. Her eye is still giving her fits. She continues to get conjunctivis often. She also has a lot of drainage in her nose, throat, and eye. The doctor wants to see if any of this is caused by allergies. She put Mia on her 3rd eye ointment (the first 2 were drops) and wants Mia to take Singulair everyday until her 1 year checkup. If her eye doesn't clear up by the next month or so, I am supposed to take her to see an eye doctor who will evaluate her eye. She may need a procedure done to open her tear duct. I really don't want my daughter to have a shunt put it or anything so I am praying that this new ointment takes care of it. The other drops worked too, but she keeps getting reoccurring discharge, redness and swelling. Because none of the rest of us have gotten pinkeye from her, the dr think that it could be viral or allergies that is causing it. Mia also has a nasty diaper rash that she has had to weeks. I have tried some many things. The dr took one look and said that Mia has a yeast infection. I am thankful that Mia doesn't seem very uncomfortable from it. All in all she is very healthy! She is eating more and more table food and LOVES everything she has had so far.

On a side note, I weighed in today and haven't lost anymore weight this week. I am ok with that with having 6 Festival of Light performances and only exercising once and eating out lots this week. I need to try harder this week though! Here's to a great week!

Kian's echo

At Mia's 9 mo checkup, I asked the doctor about the results to Kian's echocardiogram. She said that she would have someone call me today and that she was 99% sure the results were normal.

I came home and received a call from the nurse and it went something like this:
Nurse: "I don't know why no one has called you yet to tell you the results."
Me: "ok"
Nurse: "It says here that Kian has a patent foramen ovale vs a small secundum type atrial septal defect. It must not be bad because he would set up another appt with Kian if it was."
Me: "Can you spell that all out for me? What was it again?"

That was about it! I was very confused when I got off the phone. The nurse didn't know what everything meant and was just passing on the info, so I couldn't get any explanation from her. I went to the internet to try and figure it all out. Here's what I think it is: it's a small opening in the atrial septum of the heart which allows a small amount of blood to pass through from the left atrium to the right atrium. It may close spontaneously as Kian grows and should be monitored to see if it is. A few of the symptoms are: shortness of breath, fatigue, lack of growth, sweating. He doesn't have any of these except the sweating (which is this case he is half Hibbard, half Billman-enough said). The one site I said that usually these are repaired if it doesn't close on its own by the time he starts school to prevent lung problems that will develop from long time exposure to extra blood flow.
Kian's however, is small which is good, so I think it's all pretty normal. I will keep checking everytime we go to the doctor for anything and look for symptoms in Kian as well. I was just a little annoyed that they gave me all of these foreign words and gave no explanation except that the doctor didn't schedule another appointment with Kian! I am glad we know now what it is and we will continue to monitor him.

Update

This is a picture of my good friend Jami and I during Festival of Lights. We also had to wear Santa dresses, but I never got a picture of that one. FOL was a huge success! Thanks so much for praying. 10 people made decisions for Christ! We have had a lot of positive feedback. God also gave me a lot of grace to remember all of my words while I was singing!

Monday night we were putting the boys to bed and we asked them what we should thank God for today. Aiden replied, "We should thank God that everyone tried their best at FOL." Kian replied, "I thank God that after FOL, I got a cookie." Chad and I immediately started laughing.

Last night I was coming home with the kids from one of Chad's basketball games and the trunk flew open while we were on the highway. I pulled over and the trunk latch was completely out. Thankfully I made it home safely. The car is at the mechanics right now. Apparently, it is completely rusted, so he is trying to weld the latch on. It reminded me of how I need to keep praying that God will provide a minivan for us. God has reminded me multiple times this week how He is the God that provides. I am trying to be patient and thankful for the car that God has for us right now.

Aiden is having a rough time right now. He is struggling with multiple things. Yesterday he had a complete breakdown on the way home from the game and cried for probably 45 min. Please pray that God works in this little boy's heart. I think he is close to understanding what a relationship with Christ means. We had a great conversation before the trunk flew open. He is specifically struggling with friends. He is so competitive and wants to be first. That doesn't bode well for making lots of friends. We are working with him to see that and reminding him to reach out to others and be a friend first. It's a hard lesson to learn! It really breaks my heart to see him hurt. I love him SO much.

Mia has her 9 month check up tomorrow. I think she is sick. Her nose is a draining so badly and she vomitted today and isn't really napping. Her countenance is still great though! I will try and post again tomorrow with another update of her checkup and also of my weigh in!

weigh in

I haven't weighed in since a week before Thanksgiving, so I decided to bite the bullet and just do it. My weight watchers expired, so now I just have my trusty scale. I didn't think that I gained weight, but didn't necessarily think that I had lost either. I was SO nervous and was just hoping not to gain. Well, I lost 7 pounds since my last weigh in!!!! I was so excited! My weigh loss since starting is now 21 pounds! Now, realize that it was a different scale and I weighed myself in the morning (after breakfast) in comparison to in the evening like weight watchers. I also didn't have clothes on. Taking all of those into account, I probably lost around 4 pounds actually. Still...I was happy! Weighing myself once a week is so good for me, because even if I can't see the weight gain or loss in my clothes, it's a good motivator. I have 11 pounds to go to be where I was before I ever had kids. I would still like to lose another 15-20 though. Chad and I are having a contest to see who can lose the most weight before we leave for Christmas break. I think I am now winning! My goal for next week is 2 pounds.

siblings

This was taken this morning in the bathtub. I am so thankful that my kids love each other and enjoy being together! When we brought Mia home, I was a little nervous about how Kian would respond to her. I knew Aiden would be a fantastic brother. Kian has surprised me. He loves his sister so much and is quite gentle with her. Aiden and Kian love to play together and also love to tackle (what brothers don't!). It is such a joy for me to see my kids interact with each other!

Family pics

We had family pictures taken a few weeks ago. The kids didn't cooperate oh so much, but we still got a few that I really liked. Here are a couple of them. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving

I know I am one week overdue with a post. Sorry. I ended up getting strep too and was very sick. I decided that I really shouldn't run the 4 mile race (seeing that the previous 2 weeks were hit or miss with exercise due to everyone's sickness and I was sick myself). I also didn't go to the weigh in because of having to go to the doctor's for Kian and Mia. However, I am happy to say that we currently are sick free in our house! So, I really don't know if I've lost any weight. I don't think I've gained or lost really (which based on the holidays, I am ok with that). My goal is to lose another 7 by the time we leave for Chad's family on the 24th.
Thanksgiving break was great! Chad's mom came to visit for about 6 days and we all had a great time. I went shopping on Black Friday and got most of our Christmas shopping done. I put up the tree on Friday as well. We truly had a great break.
However, now on to "real" life again. I am in a Christmas concert called Festival of Lights. It's a huge production and has 6 performances. It's 1 week from today and rehearsals are CRAZY! Chad has tons of basketball this week, so we are quite busy right now!
I just took Kian to the doctor today to recheck his ears to see if his ear infection was cleared up. It was, but she still heard the heart murmor so she wants us to get an echocardiogram just to be safe. Tomorrow we go in to the hospital to have it done. Please pray for Kian. He has to be very still while he has it done. If you know Kian, he doesn't like to sit still all that often! Thanks!