Recent Happenings

March marks a year since Susannah's DS. She's had several checkups lately, and everything checks out good! Her pacemaker is functioning properly, her mitral valve leaks moderately (down from severely), and she's down to only two medications, as of last week. We get 4 months off from seeing the cardiologist! This will be the longest we have ever gone without seeing one of her heart doctors. She's learning and growing and getting bigger and stronger every day!

Timothy got to experience Myositis a few weeks ago. He had run a fever for two days without any other symptoms, and then about 2 days after he couldn't walk. His calf muscles hurt too much. Apparently this can cause bad enzymes to be released in the blood and can cause kidney damage. We got to go to the emergency room twice, per Dr.'s orders, to have his blood drawn. Our pediatrician was very surprised they didn't admit him the first night. The treatment is just rest and IV fluids. So we pushed fluids for several days at home. His blood work came back all normal last week! Yay!

Grandpa Riffel came down a couple weeks ago to put together the kids playset. He worked on it for four solid days and finished all but the crow's nest!! The kids have been out every single day since playing and swinging on it! So thankful he was able to come and do that!

Leigh is repairing/replacing/updating the master bathroom shower. He has been hard at work at that. He has two-ish walls torn up, replaced the drain/pipe going to the drain, and laid cement. It's slow going.

The kids and I went to Dothan for the weekend. My sisters came over Sat. morning and stayed through to Sunday. We went to Spring Farm day at Landmark park. It's a small farm with several historical buildings they've moved there. They open the buildings and do several demonstrations and stuff in the spring and fall. It was so much fun and took me back to my childhood!! :) Josiah's souvenirs include, a corncob, a nail from the blacksmith, wool from the sheep shearing, and a circle of a tree that he and Luke sawed off.
Mom and Dad are on a trip, so we weren't able to see them.

The kids are working hard at school. Looking forward to being done for the summer!!

Caleb is 16 months old and says many more words than any of the other kids did at his age! He is a busy, busy little guy that makes many, many messes every single day! He is a lot of work! But he's so cute and happy!!

Catch up

Thought I would update my blog since I'm about 2 years behind. I keep thinking I'll do a blog post every month, and then before I know it, the month is gone!

The last post was from Feb. 2015 when they did a heart cath on Susannah to figure out what her exact pressures were. After that, she had surgery on April 7th to tighten her PA band. This surgery went extremely well and she recovered quickly. She was only in the hospital for 3 days!
The talk at this time was that she should be ready for her double switch 3-6 months after the tightening. Well, in June, we went to a surgical consult expecting a surgery date, and coming away with waiting a few more months. They were saying Sept./Oct. We were hoping these dates would work out, because we found out baby Caleb was coming and would be due in Nov.
They decided she wasn't quite ready in Sept. and we continued to wait. However, In September, we ended up going to Kansas for a quick trip to see Leigh's Grandpa Riffel before he passed away.
My Dad was in Texas having radiation treatment, so Melissa kept the kids when Caleb was born in November.  Deborah came down the week after to help out. She decorated the house for Christmas!
Rachel, Mark and Deborah came to help us celebrate Christmas. (That finishes up 2015 :) )


Susannah's DS surgery ended up being on March 23, 2016. Caleb was 4 months old at the time of Susannah's surgery, and I was bound and determined that he would not be bottlefed, so he went to the hospital with us, had to have special permission to hang out in the close waiting room  (because it was flu season and he was not allowed in the PICU, and because the floors play room was off of that waiting room where sick kids went to play), and I went back and forth between him and Susannah. Both my parents were there and my sisters came on different weeks. Our church provided food and  gift cards and visits, which was a tremendous blessing. Melissa (and Pastor) had our other kids at the house, trying to keep things as "normal" for them as possible. I say "normal" because Misselissa is SO MUCH FUN!!!! :) :) The hospital stay for the DS was 10 days. After this surgery, she ended up with a narrowed baffle and fluid backup, and we went back to the hospital overnight in May for a ballooning via cath, which didn't work, and allowed us to go back a week later due to the increase in fluid and get a chest tube and a stent. She was also diagnosed with chylothorax and we got to stay for two weeks in the hospital. She also had to be on a fat free diet for 6 weeks after she got out of the hospital. For this hospital stay, Grandpa and Grandma Cannavan were able to come and stay at home with the kids. Grandpa Riffel and Grandma Connie came for Memorial Day weekend and helped give my parents a break. I went back and forth at night with Caleb, so we could get better sleep at home. Thankfully, he was allowed in her room with us since we were in the intermediate PICU and it wasn't flu season.
Not doing details since it's behind, and most of it's on Facebook on her page.

She turned THREE in July, just a few weeks after she got home. We got to go to Sanibel with my sisters in August. We went to Pensacola for Christmas. That finishes 2016!

Happenings around the Riffel Household

Well, my last post was in August, and we've been quite busy since then!
Susannah has done well with the DuoCal, which is carbs and fats in a powder that we mix with her formula. She has been gaining on a curve since we started that. She went back to the GI dr. in October and he put her on a liquid fat called Liquigen. So we added that as well. She seems to be gaining better and maybe even a tad more than the curve. He released us for 4-6 months. Right now we have an appointment in March, but if she's gained well at our cardiologist visit in Feb, I'm going to move it. Since her weight gain has improved, the Cardiologist said, in November, that we didn't have to go back for THREE months! This will be the longest we have ever gone between cardiologist appointments. Even before she was born, we were at the cardiologist at least every month, if not twice a month! While we were on Christmas vacation, I received a phone call I was waiting on, to consult with Dr. Bove, the heart surgeon from Michigan. On Jan 7, we meet with Dr. Bove and Dr. Scholl, the Dr. who did Susannah's first surgery. Hopefully, we will be able to get a more likely timetable, of when her big surgery will happen.




September brought Emily's and Josiah's birthdays. Aunt Deborah and her friend Miss Amy were able to come down and help celebrate a few days early. October was busy with school and getting things lined up for November and December. The beginning of Nov. the kids and I went to Dothan for the Peanut Festival. We packed in a bit more in this trip than we usually do. We went to the Army Aviation Museum in Ft. Rucker and then we took the kids to the Marianna Caverns. It was fun and I think the kids enjoyed it. Of course, we also went to Luke's "Birthday Parade." The peanut parade always lands around Luke's birthday, and when he was little, he truly thought it was for his birthday! :) We also celebrated Luke's birthday while we were there. We celebrated Thanksgiving at the church with our church family. There were a little over 30 that showed up and a few came that wouldn't usually go to church. A week after Thanksgiving, Leigh and I drove to Dothan, dropped the kids off, and went up to Tennessee to the Marriage and Family Conference at the Bill Rice Ranch. Celebrated Timothy's birthday Saturday, before coming home on Sunday. We then went back to Dothan for Christmas two weeks later!! Our plan was to stay in Dothan a few days and then go to Atlanta and spend a couple days there. Well, all of the kids got sick that week at different times, so the plans changed to where Leigh, Luke, and Emily went up and spent the night and afternoon and came back to Dothan before we headed home. Overall we had a lovely time and made some entertaining memories!

Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday, Susannah!!! It's hard to believe a year has gone by since our sweet baby girl was born!! It's been one of the longest years of my life, to be sure. She is growing up way too fast, as they all do, but she has been an absolute joy!! She has been, by far, the happiest and easiest of all of our kids. It could be because she has so many entertainers. :) She has six teeth, four on the top and two on the bottom. She has been cruising around furniture for a few months now. The past few weeks she has been standing by herself, but just yesterday she took one step and held it. She's still a bit wobbly. She has gotten a bit more demanding with her food. She eats a fairly wide variety, but still prefers to not eat fruit or things that are too sweet. I try to buy the baby food that has the most calories in it, which the latest I've found has been the spaghetti. It's quite a mess. :) Of course, she eats quite a bit of table food as well, but it's harder to count the calories in that. I've been trying to figure out how to wean from bottles, she's the only one that's been primarily bottle fed. The cup is coming along slowly. Her "tricks" include clapping, waving bye-bye, clicking her tongue, and kissing. At 11 months she weighed 13lbs 9 oz and was 26 inches long. I don't know how to explain how thankful we are that she's with us. She's come a long ways, but she has quite a journey ahead of her as well. Trusting God to see us through!! Thank you to everyone who has prayed us through this year!!
Mommy and Daddy and your big brothers and sister love you so much Susannah!!!!!

 

 

 

 

Update: At our cardiologist appointment in June, Susannah had not gained any weight from the previous appointment in May (5 weeks between), so we are off to see a Gastroenterologist in a couple weeks.

Six weeks post-op

Just a quick update. Susannah was six weeks post-op on March 12th. She's done well at all of her follow-up appointments. Our last checkup last week at the cardiologist she had gained almost half a pound from three weeks before that. He increased her calories again and said to feed her more regular food, so we've been working on that. He's not thrilled with her weight gain, but she is following a new curve upward, so he was okay with not doing anything drastic (aka feeding tubes) at this point. He really wants her to "catch up" to where she should be, but I don't see that happening. My other kids were between 18months to 2 years before they ended up back on the curve that they started on, so I imagine it'll take her a little longer to "catch up" than it did them. He also said we didn't have to come for FOUR WEEKS!!! That's the longest we'll have had between cardiologist visits since November! And another thing off topic, we don't have any appointments of any kind this week or next!!!! Such a nice little break!! I should write another post about that someday. Back to Susannah, her little heart is doing ok. The tricuspid regurgitation is mild to moderate, before the PA banding it was moderate to severe. The PDA closure is leaking a tiny bit, he said it wasn't uncommon for that to happen. He didn't seem concerned about it. She was in heart block this visit. She seems to tolerate it fine. She's started crawling and pulling up on things. She is literally all over the entire house. She will go and find her big brothers and sister wherever they are and play with them. She doesn't show any symptoms of tiring out or anything. She still doesn't eat a whole lot, so that is still a concern. She doesn't tire out, she's just done and not interested. He increased her Enalapril the visit before this one, but the Lasix he's kept the same. We've discontinued the Motrin. She was on that for four weeks post-op for inflammation, and we're past that and there weren't any effusions on the ECHO so he was good with that! They're saying 6 months to a year until her ventricle is ready for the big surgery. It depends on how fast she grows and how well her ventricle responds to the band and strengthens.  She's a happy little girl! We're so thankful for her!

before surgery (6 1/2 mon. old)

 

6 weeks post-op (8 months old)

 Happily watching big brothers and sister playing outside!!

Our Interesting Day.....

Our day started quite normally with the kids getting up far too early, started school, got to a good pausing point, went to the store, came home, ate lunch, got the kids going strong in finishing their school day, and I decided to go outside and start taking the giant overgrown philodendron vines down out of the tree in the backyard. I got dressed, got my tennis shoes on, opened the garage door, and almost walked out of the garage and there was a SNAKE in my driveway!!! I don't DO snakes!!! So, like the responsible adult I am, I closed the garage door and went inside and got my camera!! He watched me very closely while I took his picture, and then I closed the garage door and went inside. I was DONE outside!! It was kind of neat because he was out in front of the house, so the kids could watch him from the windows. Then he went in front of the living room windows and there were THREE snakes all slithering around! ICKY, ICKY, ICKY!!! Luke declared he was going to have nightmares and not going to play outside any more, Emily thought maybe she might go outside after a few days, and Josiah decided all the snakes were eating each other!

Watching the snakes took a good portion of our afternoon, and then Leigh came home early from work!! That was a nice surprise. Since I was motivated and had my shoes on, and felt slightly braver with him helping me, we went out back to work on the vines. It was entertaining and we had a few Tarzan moments! :)

We didn't quite get all the vines down. They're pretty stuck up in the top where we can't reach. Kind of hoping maybe they'll die and fall out since we've cut them. As we were pulling some of the vines out to the curb, my tennis shoe fell apart!!

And that was our exciting day! I know, it's just sooooo thrilling, but compared to most of our days, it was quite entertaining!! :) :)

In other news, Susannah sat up two times today all by herself, and she doesn't scoot on her tummy any more, she does her best to crawl. It's kind of like an inchworm, by walking her feet/knees up and falling forward. Sometimes she puts her head down and scoots with her head down and hiny up! She's so funny! We keep waiting for her to turn a flip.

What was supposed to be a short update :)

Susannah had a cardiologist checkup this week and four weeks ago. The one four weeks ago was fine, no noticeable change on the ECHO. Her heart rate was 90's for the EKG and then 120's for her Echo. She slept through the echo which she had done so far. She has a tiny ASD and a tiny PDA which he's not concerned about right now. He said her weight gain wasn't as well as they'd like so come back in four weeks which brings us to last week.
The EKG was fine, there is some dropping in and out of the higher heart rate from the WPW syndrome, but her "escape" rhythm is usually in the 80-90's which is "good" for heart block, so he's fine with that. The Echo went all right. She cried through a lot of it this time, which was the first time for that. I knew it would come sooner or later, but was hoping for later! :) She has to be still and is a little restrained, which she doesn't like. He still said her weight gain wasn't as much as they would like, which to me is "Same song, FIFTH verse a little bit louder and a little bit worse!" Every doctor I've ever had for all the kids has been worried about their weight gain. In Susannah's case it could be due to her heart "exercising" too much and thus burning too many calories causing slow weight gain. The pediatrician has been pleased with her weight gain thus far. Their scales differ and I've only been keeping track of the pediatricians weights, so I need to get the Cardiologists weights and compare them. That's beside the point. Susannah has been struggling a little with taking her bottles where she will suck hard for a few sucks and then push it out and breathe, so we were a little concerned and mentioned it to him because he always asks about that. He asked if she was sweating while doing this and she isn't, so he didn't think it was because she was working too hard. I think based on our concern and her "poor" weight gain (I left a little confused), he wanted to start her on a diuretic. I've been carrying the weight charts of the other kids in my diaper bag in case I needed to plead my case, so I offered to show them to him, so he would believe me that they've all been in the low percentile. I'm very hesitant to start her on medication when it's not obvious in any way that her heart is struggling, and I'm not convinced the "poor" weight gain is not genetic. From what I see on the growth curve that he shows me she looks perfectly normal (for my children) and is gaining at a fairly consistent rate. He had mentioned increasing caloric intake before, so I asked him about that and he wrote me a prescription for Human  Milk fortifier and gave me a sheet on how to increase formula calories. We're supposed to go back in four weeks for a weight check. I looked into the Human milk fortifier, and it's rather expensive, so I don't think I'll be getting that since I'm not convinced she needs it. I might do the formula increase, but she only gets maybe 2-4 ounces a day of formula, so I'm not sure it'll matter all that much. Anyways, prayers would be greatly appreciated for wisdom on how much to push back with the weight thing. I don't want to do anything that would cause her heart harm, but at the same time I don't want to do something that's not necessary just because my kids have a lower weight gain than most. The rest of the visit was fine. The ASD and PDA are still there (he's hoping they'll eventually close on their own). The only new thing was that one of the valves has mild to moderate leaking. It's had a little bit of leaking before that he's mentioned, but he's never called it mild to moderate. I'm guessing it would be the valve that is with her right ventricle that is functioning as the left ventricle (because it's all mixed up) because of the higher pressure. He told us that at the very end and I was a little frustrated and confused by that point that I didn't ask questions.
Since that visit, Leigh has found that when she has a room temperature bottle (or warm) she doesn't do the breathing funny thing like she was when she eats. So now we're thinking maybe she doesn't take it as fast and easy because it's too cold! Will wait a few more days before we decide for sure! :)
She's growing fast and is a really good baby! She's such a sweetheart. She is rolling over now, smiling at all her siblings, "talking", almost giggling, sucks her thumb to sleep, sleeping through the night (which none of the others did until they were about a year old), and very interested in the world around her!

 Three months old

 

 

All the munchkins together

More school pictures

Busy, busy, busy!!!!

Well, a lot has happened since my last post. I have sat down several times just to write about our day and things going on, but haven't had enough time to even get started!!
Aunt Deborah got to come visit again the last partial week of July, first partial week of August. We had fun, and she played a lot with the kids. She brought them a sprinkler toy for the yard and played in it with them several times. They absolutely loved it!!

This is one of my favorite pictures from the week. It captures Emily's personality so well, it's hilarious!! She is by far our most wiggly child, and has never been able to sit still. She hardly ever walks anywhere in the house, she's always going too fast and crashing into things or falling down and getting hurt, but she never lets it slow her down. I feel like I'm always telling her to slow down, or be careful. At times it can be a little frustrating, but I have learned to accept that's the way she is and wouldn't have her any other way!

Mom and Dad and Deborah left the first of August, so we started school on Monday, Aug. 5th. So far I've been very pleased with our "classroom." We painted one wall a fun green color, hung cabinets on it, and put two banquet(?) tables along it with the idea that we could have 4 "schooling stations." It's working out very well. At the moment I have Luke and Emily at opposite ends just to help them focus, but as they get older and I add kids to that table, I'm planning to put an older next to a younger and the older should be able to focus fine, and not get distracted by the younger. (that's my theory anyways) I have each kids books(consumables and teacher stuff) in the cabinet right above the kid, so I can easily get what I need. I'm working on filling up the other cabinets, mostly with extras supplies, craft stuff where I can easily see it and get to what I need, stationary, and other school curriculum, etc. for the younger years. Josiah and Timothy's desks and my "teaching chair" are set up on the opposite wall in a corner. I'm not 100 percent pleased with how I have my stuff arranged that I need to access often. I'm still playing around with that and trying to figure it all out. I think we're getting close. :) The other wall I just have toys along. One day I would like to put our loveseat on that wall, when we get a new couch, etc. for the front living room. My idea is to have it be the family/school/play room. Right now it's mostly a play/school room. I want there to be a comfy spot for reading or visiting with company and such. I have the desire to be extremely organized, but I lack the time, space, creativity, and money too be too weird about it. :) I also save too much junk. :) So I'm trying to carefully fill up my cabinets, and closets as we unpack so I don't have to redo it in the near future. Yes, we're still unpacking. We have quite a few boxes in the garage to go through. Back to school....School is going very well. We have finished four weeks now and the kids are doing very well. Josiah is in K-5 this year and I'm teaching him. The first few weeks for him we've done extra because a lot of it is review that he learned last year. We didn't finish all of our K-4 stuff because I got behind because of the pregnancy and moving and such. We were well over half way so I didn't worry about it. He was struggling at the end to sound out short words. He did well with blends, but just couldn't seem to get the hang of putting it all together. After we did school for about a week I pulled out one of his books that we didn't get to last year and he was able to sound out the words just fine. Everything finally clicked in his little brain, so I was glad I didn't push him last year. He's been doing well so far and some days asks to do more school. We put Emily in video this year for 3rd grade and she absolutely loves it. She participates quite enthusiastically. Sometimes we have to have her use her headphones so that Josiah and I can hear each other! Luke is in 4th grade and is doing well. He's not so keen on the participating out loud part, but he seems to enjoy it other than that. He uses his headphones most of the time because I can't get his computer loud enough and he gets a little annoyed with Emily being too loud. He can't hear her with his headphones on, so it helps him to concentrate a little better, too. Timothy usually markers while Josiah and I do school. I must say that washable markers are worth the extra money!! They wash off his skin so nicely without any scrubbing!! He doesn't usually marker on himself on purpose, but it inevitably happens. Susannah usually sleeps in her swing while we school. Josiah and I are usually done by the time she wakes up, so it works out nicely.

 Josiah and Timothy's desks

 both sets of desk and the swing

 Emily and Luke's "desks"

The toy wall :)



....Continuation

We got to go home on Saturday. We went home with a bili-blanket, that we were supposed to put on her for 12 hours a day. We tried to put it on her at night while she slept and it worked out all right. The neonatologist wanted us to get a bili-check on Sunday and see the pediatrician on Monday. I called my pediatricians office to see if they did bili-checks and if they were open on Sunday. They were open on Sundays, and the person on the phone told me they did bili-checks. So we get there Sunday and went ahead with the checkup so we wouldn't have to go Monday, too, and the Dr told me that they don't do bili checks, but her color looked really good and just to tell the neonatologist that. And yes, the Neonatologist called in the afternoon to make sure I had taken my baby to the Dr, and she was fine with what the Dr. said about the bilirubin, which I was glad of, otherwise we would have had to go back to the hospital for a bili-check. We had a follow-up with the Pediatrician on that Thursday, July 11, and it went well. She's already mentioned that we'll follow Susannah's weight closely because sometimes babies with heart issues need a higher calorie intake because they burn more calories while they eat and such. We've kind of stuck with the schedule and such that the NICU had her on with giving her breastmilk and supplementing some with formula. She's mostly getting breastmilk, but she does get a little formula, too. I've been writing it down because all her doctors ask how much she's eating at a feeding, and I have no idea. We've nursed a little bit, but plan to work on it more once school starts and the doctors visits slow down. It makes me nervous that they're going to follow her weight closely because my other kids were all slow gainers and were always in the 5-10th percentile if not below. So far she's doing great and was 6pounds 15 ounces at her two week checkup.
After the Pediatricians visit on Thursday we had a Cardiologist appointment. It went really well, they did an EKG and a ultrasound of Susannah's heart. When they did the EKG I asked the lady if it mattered which side they put the leads on since Susannah has Dextrocardia (which is her heart facing the right instead of the left), so she did an EKG with the leads on the left and then one with them on the right. After they do the EKG, they do the ultrasound and Susannah slept through the whole thing, which is usually 30min. to an hour! They had been a little confused about her heart rate because the first day she ran in the 80's-90's and then after that she had a normal heart rate, but it was obvious on the EKG's and U/S they did in the hospital that she was still in heart block. Based on the EKG they did in the office where they put the leads on the right side, the Dr. was able to figure out what was going on. He came in while the U/S tech was doing the ultrasound and said she has WPW syndrome, it's usually bad, but for her it's really good, and then he left so they could finish the U/S. He was so excited that he figured it out and that it was really good for Susannah. It was kind of funny. So Susannah also has Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) Syndrome, which is basically the heart forms an accessory pathway. In a normal heart it can cause tachycardia, but for Susannah, it allows her to have a normal heart rate, which is good. It can drop in and out, so he sent us home with a Holter monitor for 24 hours to see how often it drops out and to see how her heart does under stress (ex. eating/crying). He called a couple days after we dropped it off and said out of the over 200,000 heart beats it only skipped a total of about 10 beats, which is SUPER! He's not concerned with it dropping out too much because her "backup" rhythm is high (80's) for heart block. He was also pleased with the Holter test because it showed that her heart rate at one point got up to 188 which shows that it was compensating for a "stressful" activity.
We have since had another pediatrician visit and another cardiologist visit and they both went well. We go back this week to the pediatrician for a 4 week checkup and we go back to the cardiologist in 2 1/2 weeks (three weeks from the last checkup). I really like her pediatrician. She's very thorough and seems on top of things
The last test we were waiting to hear back from was the chromosome test from the geneticist. I was supposed to follow-up with him this past Wed., so I called and had to leave a message. He called Thurs. afternoon to let us know that all of Susannah's chromosomes are NORMAL! That was good news.
So we're at home, loving on our sweet little blessing. The kids absolutely love her and so far she's been a really good baby. Hopefully that will continue. :) Mom and Dad have been down for about three weeks and have been a tremendous blessing and help to us all. Dad and Leigh finally got my cabinets hung for my classroom, so it's coming together. I'll have to get pictures up one day. Itching to get school started and into some sort of routine. We had a special time the weekend Susannah was born Rachel and Mark were in Orlando, so they came down and Deborah got a personal day with July 4th and she came down, so they all got to see her little bitty. She's Mark's first official niece. :) He was really cute holding her and even reserved a feeding time! Deborah gets to come down this week for her vacation and then she and Rachel are coming again in September, I think. FUN, fun, fun!!
Thank you so much to everyone who have been praying for us and Susannah!! We feel overwhelmed and undeserving of God's graciousness to us. Although the future is unknown, we know God's in control and are resting in Him.

 with the Holter monitor



 Josiah and Timothy playing with Susannah.

Yes, she did get whacked in the head once or twice while Timothy was cheesing.

She just cried for a second, and then watched them some more.

Funny sayings

The kids often have quite entertaining conversations and such. A lot of times I listen from another room and giggle to myself because they're so funny. The other day, Leigh and Josiah had an entertaining conversation:
Leigh (in the kids bathroom): "Who put all this water on the floor?"
Josiah walks in: "Not me"
Leigh: "Did Luke put all this water on the floor?"
Josiah: "No."
Leigh: " Did Emily put all this water on the floor?"
Josiah: "No."
Leigh: "Did YOU put all this water on the floor?"
Josiah: "No, Timothy did it."
(Note: Timothy has to climb onto the counter to get to the sink and turn it on and then he gets stuck and doesn't think he can get down, so he hollers until someone rescues him. He hadn't been on the counter that night.)
Leigh: "Did you SEE Timothy put water on the floor?"
Josiah: "No."
Leigh: "Then how do know that he did it?"
Josiah: " Because the GROWN UPS wouldn't do that!"
Leigh: " Who are the grown ups?"
Josiah: "You and Mommy, and Luke and Emily and me. That's the grown-ups."
Leigh went on to explain who the grown-ups were and had Josiah help him clean up the water. It was hilarious. It's funny to me how Josiah thinks he's so much bigger than Timothy. Kids are funny!!

A FUN DAY!

We had a very fun day on Monday. First off I went to the high-risk doctor and that went fine. The appointment was for 8:00am so I asked Leigh if he minded staying with the kids and going into work late, and he was fine with that. The high-risk doctor is 5-10min from our house and it was a quick appointment, so I was home by 8:30, which was nice. I had the kids pick up the living room and family room and then they got their swimsuits on and took them to a splash pad park thing not far from the house. There was one other day I was going to take them, but we drove by and it was packed with kids, so I thought if we went in the morning there wouldn't be too many other people. There were a couple other kids there when we got there, but by the time we left the parking lot was full and that little place was hopping! They seemed to have a great time! Timothy played on the little playground area while the others played in the water, and it wasn't until the end and I made him get in that he finally got wet and enjoyed the water part too.

After the water park we came home, they got baths, ate lunch, and then we watched a movie together. After that it was nap time and then supper time. After supper I took Luke and Emily to the library's summer reading program kick off. THAT was quite entertaining! They held it on the front lawn and had a DJ playing loud annoying music, a photo booth, a goody bag and then they had the kids hula hooping, doing the limbo and the chicken dance!! It was hysterical. Luke and Emily had  a great time because they got to learn how to hula hoop! Anyways, when it was almost over we went inside to check out some more books. I kept waiting for them to do something more organized, but it was basically just playing! Emily was really cute getting her books. It was only the second time we had been to this library, but she knew right where the books were that she wanted to check out and had them ready to go in under five minutes. Luke was still picking out his first one! :) This library is the Plantation library and isn't far from our house, so I'm hoping that we'll get to it more often since it's not out of the way.
Over all the kids seemed to really enjoy themselves!