Wednesday, November 30, 2011

From the Mouths of Babes

Setting- we just walked into Lowes as a family.

Matthew: Wow, look! Its Noah!

Perhaps Dave and I should get into the Christmas spirit a little more???

Monday, November 28, 2011

A Day with Twins


This is from a while ago. Almost two weeks. Can you tell I just haven't had a moment?

Anyways, after a miserable night for both Amanda and myself, I decided to take Brayden for the morning with me to my bible study to give her a bit of a rest. Brayden normally sleeps perfectly so when he doesn't its a big shock to the system. Unlike my boys who never sleep through the night until they are around 9 months old...Needless to say I live in a very different reality than some. You just trudge through the days and some are easier than others.

So off I went to bible study with 4 precious boys. It was actually a lot of fun. My sister was there so she took Brayden when he got cranky and I had Ewan. Matty and Levi went to their nursery and we had a successful morning.

Once study was done I was off to my moms place for the day and that is where we met Amanda after her nap. We decided to have a bit of Christmas fun with our little ones (They will hate us for these pictures when they are older).

Saturday, November 26, 2011

My Latest Project

I knit to felt a hat!!!

I love it. I am so proud of myself... Is that ok?

A class a week for three weeks and this is the end result. Most of it was done at home and just a bit of help in the class with any new stitches. The felting was done yesterday and we got to decorate the hats however we wanted to. I debated buttons ( I love buttons) or a beautiful flower that I could have made (very tempting) but then I saw these beautiful hand dyed, hand felted circles and loved them. When I lay them on my hat, however, they seemed too flat. I played with them and then sewed them on this way and I love how they look.

I have a picture of me wearing the hat but I am so incredibly overweight and the picture looked so terrible that I am too proud to show it. I know that pride is bad!

Saturday, November 12, 2011

B...B...B...Baking

Matty and I are working on the letter B right now.

Tuesday I decided he would help me bake cookies and he could use his new alphabet cookie cutters.

May I just say it was a very silly idea to choose something so time consuming when you have a three month old who isn't always terribly happy.

Once we had done one of every letter, I got out the bigger cookie cutters so we weren't working on it all day.


I love the elephant and lion.

Any other 'b' activities you can think of?

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Tivafies?

I ordered a little alphabet curriculum for preschool and kindergarten for Matthew a while ago and we are VERY SLOWLY going through it. When I say slowly, I mean we spend up to three weeks (sometimes more) on one letter because we are in and out all the time.

We are only on letter B right now but here is a picture of Matty working on an A activity:

He loves doing the activities. After the first day of doing it he kept asking:"Mom, can I do a tivafy? I want more tivafies."

This bodes well for us. I just have to figure out how we can do it more regularly since the only time we can do it is when Levi isn't awake because he wants in on the action but isn't a very delicate child. He throws and tears and crumples.

I hope to put together a basket for Levi full of fun activities for him to do while Matty and I sit together to do some things but until I have room to be organized its kind of on hold.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Answer To My Prayer

We arrived at CHEO (our children's hospital) and signed in. Our appointment was at 2:15 and we waiting until 2:45 to be seen... oh well, thats our system at the moment.

They unwrapped Mattys finger and took a look at his x-rays. At first I was a little worried because the Dr. looked at the nurse and said, "hmmm, next week?" and her face looked grim. She then told me the nurse would re-wrap Matthews finger and to make an appointment next week to have the stitches removed.

Seeing as how I received very little information I said, "So what's next? What has to happen next?" She then turned to me like I was not understanding her and repeated, "Just make an appointment for next week and we'll remove the stitches." So I was a little clearer after that and asked her if we were going to have to have a surgery or anything and then they were able to inform me that his little bone should heal itself but that it will take a very long time to heal. I don't know if I can even express how happy that made me. I also rejoiced that I only have to change Matthews dressing once between now and his next appointment. I go weak at the knees seeing his little finger.

The future will hold many more appointments until his bone is healed but I am happy that there are suppose to be no other procedures to work on his tiny finger. God is the sole healer from now on for his thumb.

Please continue to pray for quick healing for his thumb. He loves doing activities and drawing and colouring but he can't do it very easily with his left hand.

Friday, November 4, 2011

Emergency

Thursday was a day that I wish to never ever repeat. I am assured, however that this is just the beginning of days like this.

Around 9:30 in morning I heard a loud cry coming from my mothers kitchen. In my regular annoyance these days, I figured Matthew and Levi had just done yet another silly thing and hurt themselves in a minor way. I was quite mistaken. I arrived to find Matty's right thumb stuck in between the window of the screen door (you know those glass doors with two moving windows held in by a metal frame?). I quickly lifted the window to find a very terrifying looking thumb.

Blood, tears, shaking... I am so thankful I wasn't alone. My mom grabbed me a wet towel that I wrapped his finger in and we just set to trying to figure out what on earth to do. I knew stitches were needed but how does one do that with a nursing baby and an almost two year old...

We finally decided to call Tara who could come and watch the other boys while my mom drove Matty and I up to the hospital. Then if Ewan lost it out of hunger my mom could run back and get him from Tara, who would have to load Levi and Ewan up in my car and drive to the entrance of emergency.

They processed out entrance really quickly which gave me the false hope that we were going to be seen quickly. We went to the closest hospital instead of the childrens hospital because we figured it would be faster and we might just get stitches quickly since he was only 3.

My mom and I waited until we were finally given a room. Once we had a room we waited and waited some more. Finally the dr. came and then got pages so had to leave within minutes. He didnt come back for at least 30 mins. Then he came, took a look at the finger and told us we needed to go for x-rays. He put some freezing gel on Matty`s thumb and off we went to get the pictures. I was assured they would save our room so that once we got back we could set right back up in the room and not upset Matthew too much more.

I was the fourth person in line for e-rays and while we were waiting we got the dreaded call from Tara saying Ewan was losing it and that she would be by soon to drop him off. Off my mom went to meet Tara and grab the baby.

Now there are 4 of us waiting for pictures. I nursed Ewan and he was as happy as a clam. cooing and giggling and everyone walking by wanted to take a peek. Matthew and I went to go for the x-rays and he was a champion. I sang to him in between and he had eyes only for his mom. It was precious.

Once thos pictures were done we headed back into the ER waiting room and low and behold they had given our room away. My almost three month old, my mother, Matthew and I were now stuck waiting in the presence of all sorts of illnesses. Can any one day `terrified`

I found the nurse and asked why we didnt have a room and they sorted it out and got us back in (he didnt normally work there and also had a son around Mattys age and hated seeing us there so he was so helpful to us). Then the waiting began again.

It turns out Mattys little thumb bone was broken so they needed to wait on the childrens hospital plastic specialist to call and tell the dr what the best move was. They didnt know if they should stitch him up or not.

Once the call came it was decided to stitch up his finger and wait to get an appointment at the childrens hospital for a specialized eye to decide what next. Here began the sad part. I lay down beside Matthew while the Dr. set to work. I sang Psalms to him, told him stories and tried to distract him while the Dr. put the needle in his little finger to freeze it. He cried and wanted to kick his legs so I snuggles him close and sang louder. I stroked his hair to calm him and as I did he cried but was so much calmer. He understood that it was going to help him even if it hurt.

I told him my version of Goldilocks and the three bears. He was so captivated. He had never heard the story before. I cried on and off while his finger was being touched but mostly out of fear. Then we were done. His finger was wrapped up and he was ready to sit up and get going... only we were made to wait more.

Yup, they needed to get us a copy of the x-rays to bring to the hospital once we got an appointment and we needed a prescription for infection but didnt know Matthews weight. A wonderful nurse who was on her very first day at the hospital helped us by finding a scale and getting Matty weighed. Then another nurse came by to give us the prescription but told us we needed to wait for the x-ray disc. We were done waiting.

I went to the front, waited for someones attention and then asked if i could come back the next day to get the x-rays. Matty so desperately wanted to leave. They gave a call to the x-ray people and foind out that the disc was ready and I could go up and pick it up. Can you believe that I would have be waiting for another hour or so just to get them to bring that disc downstairs...

Anyways, we paid for parking and headed home. Matty got some special cars from Grammie for being so brave. And may I just brag a bit... I think he deserves it. Matthew was the best kid on the earth. He obeyed everyones instructions even though it hurt, he calmed down when i asked him to even though he was scared and he put everyone else to shame. The Dr. even said he wished Matthew could show every other patient how to behave ( I guess it was a pretty busy day with many difficult people).

We got a call yesterday from the childrens hospital. We go for our appointment Monday afternoon. I will admit that I am still for terrified. What are we going to have to go through yet... my poor, brave baby.

I changed the dressing this morning too. I am still shaking. I dont handle blood well. He was a trooper.

Pray for us please.