C-19 Week 1

We made it through week one of staying home!

Schools decided to not reopen right away after spring break and work sent everyone home. Luckily we thought school would stay shut this week and brought all of our computer equipment home.

Normal weekend activities happened on Sunday though! Although I may have mentioned to Matt I saw this dad with a train of kids behind him a few weeks ago and he decided to try it out. Henry even made sure to pedal extra hard to help out. ;)

I’m so glad everyone seems to like biking! I have to admit I felt like it was too easy at kid speeds without the extra weight of the trailer. Matt tells me I am just never happy - lol, true?

We found a spot off the path where the kids could run around and stay away from others. The boys seemed pretty excited to have the chance to show their baby sister how to properly kick a soccer ball around.

But she was more interested in stealing the ball than in using proper soccer techniques. ;)

As a side note, we stayed longer than intended. Some guy decided to stop up on the boardwalk and proceed to sound like he was coughing up a lung, then just sit there for-e-ver. I’m not saying I am overly paranoid, but seriously dude?

Day 1 of working from home and I was determined to get all of my hours in just like I usually do. Natalie was happy to hang out and eat as long as she had her Baby Signing Times to watch!

I love the house has such a nice office downstairs. But the glass doors are a little bit of a downside when you are trying to get work done…

Improving her bubble blowing skills!

Since the kids don’t have recess and we are pretty much working all day, we decided to institute an afternoon/evening walk with the kids. Our new favorite destination is turtle rock! We like to sneak up and try to see how many turtles are sunning themselves on the rocks before they see us and bolt into the water.

So glad that a few plastic buckets and a water hose can provide such entertainment!

And yes, Natalie is still in her PJ’s - don’t judge! It’s a juggling act around here right now…

Grannie sent us a St. Patrick’s day package the other day and the boys were so excited to tear into it!

The sparkly green glasses and mustaches were clearly a huge hit!

And look - I even remembered to get corned beef and cabbage supplies! I tried to dye my drink green and that was a huge fail. Whatever - I’ll just stick to the food fun. ;)

She is two and sometimes will absolutely not be ignored! It’s probably pretty obvious that the nanny isn’t coming right now. Her son is also not back in school and we thought it would be lower risk if the two families are accidentally sharing germs (or viruses as the case may be…).

But oh is her presence sorely missed!

We did discover that Natalie really, really likes Jello! Too bad it does’t have much nutritional value or calories. Figures…

She is also super obsessed with filling buckets with water and pouring them into each other. Look at that concentration!

There are several patches of pretty blue bonnets along the trail and I convinced Thomas to lay down so I could get the classic Texas Spring photo of him in the flowers. It was right off the bike path and street, but doesn’t it look just like hill country?? ;)

Given the sudden mass panic buying and following shortage of toilet paper right now, I bet someone is regretting their decision to TP this poor tree. Ha!

“It’s called fashion, mom…”

The girl loves her accessories!

We were doing so good entertaining the kids and then the rain showed up.

Ugh…

Even I want to get out of the house!

Uh-oh… Someone has figured out how to use a tall cup to get water out of the fridge dispenser. Guess we’ll need to start using that child lock…

Though I have to admit, I am pretty proud of her ingenuity!

Since they managed to read all of their library books already, I was hunting for new books to give them and found this entire Roald Dahl set I bought them after Christmas and then forgot about. I managed to spy it on a shelf in my office while in a meeting. Henry was super into them and I kept finding him splayed out reading them.

Makes my book loving heart so happy!

The Calm Before the Pandemic…

It’s not really a secret that I tend to write these blog posts after the fact in batches. This particular one was written well into the lengthy stay at home phase we find ourselves in. It’s weird to see photos of how normal everything was before things went bonkers!

Ok, well not everything was normal. Henry’s always been a crazy kid… ;)

There was certainly some inkling that trouble might be coming, so I decided that adding a little extra to the grocery list to stock up on non-perishables wasn’t a terrible idea…!

Then Natalie decided to spike a crazy fever! She’d been a little fussy and warm all evening, but when I checked her before bed I got this scary number. Obviously, I called the after hours nurse to see how concerned I should be and they told us to come in the next day since she didn’t have any exposure risks for this new scary virus.

I slept greeeeeat that night (not!)

The fever had gone back down the next day, but we took her in anyways. They did test her for the flu, but that was it - and it was negative. Kids and their weird, unexplained fevers…

There was quite a few fun activities at school in the week before spring break. Thomas’ class has been working hard getting ready for a Disney themed talent show! That’s Thomas & his teacher before the show!

Since it’s Rodeo time of year, they had a Go Texan day. I was in a panic the night before because they gave us like zero warning… But look at all the fun dress up stuff I found squirreled away - all we were missing was the cowboy boots!

Matt and I took advantage of a Friday off to go for a bike ride with the youngest before picking up the boys. We did our usual bike down to George Bush park and Matt decided to veer off onto a trail to see where it would lead. He was very sure that the bike trailer could make it on the trail, but I was convinced of the opposite. I was totally right and this text message exchange still cracks me up…

You all see the width problem, right??

We made it to the point the trails came back together and got to chill out while waiting for dadda to make it back to us. She didn’t care, she loves hanging out in her trailer! :)

Pretty much whatever this girl wants to eat, I will give her. Even if it’s my breakfast… She really seemed to like my oatmeal, but when I made it for her the next day, she was uninterested. Only good if it’s mine, I guess! ;)

We had planned on doing something for Spring Break and I ended up failing on making any plans. So I had to find a last minute fun camp for them to attend. Luckily there were still spots at the golf camp that is super close to work! It was only a half day, but I just went and got them at lunch. They seemed to really be enjoying it!

Henry was trying to explain the large colored circles on the field, but I have to admit - I still don’'t get it. They had fun and can now hit a golf ball, so that’s all that I really cared about! ;)

I got an email with a countdown to the State Fair and I was clearly pretty excited! Also the last time I saw my office for a loooooooooong time.

My 3 cutie-patooties! Still can’t get everyone to smile, but at least they are all looking at the camera? ;)

Since it was the last day of Spring Break, Matt & I took the day off to have some fun with the boys before they had to go back to school (lol!). Neema was hanging out with Natalie, so we decided to scope out some of the trails into the park that the trailer can’t go on (see above!).

Thomas was super excited to go off the paved path! You have to duck under a metal bar to go into the park from this direction and he just thought that was the coolest.

The trail goes along the creek for awhile and then cuts into the park. The path was crazy fun and included random bridge paths and planks of wood. There was even a slight snake encounter, but thankfully he wasn’t interested in me…

This kid did awesome! He was pedaling like a champ and loving his new fancy bike! Henry did good too, of course, but all he has to do is hold on tight… Ha!

Ok, we might have worn out the oldest a little bit… He needed a snack so bad he couldn’t even leave the pantry before eating it. Silly boy!

The weather is just so nice this time of the year that we took another outing over the weekend to the park nearby. The boys and I showed Natalie how to blow the dandelions and she loved it! She just couldn’t quite figure it out on her own…

Don’t worry though - the rest of us blew a bunch of them for her! Her squeals of delight were totally worth the weeds that will be sprouting up soon. ;)

Also, I always forget to use the portrait mode on the iPhone, but it took some cute looking ones! Though if you look at Natalie’s - you can see it didn’t quite know what to do for blur around her ponytail…

February Random (20)

More February fun!

The printing of the 3D Catan set is going well. I am not quite done with the printing, but I really wanted to try and start painting some of the tiles. I am pretty proud of how well this mountain turned out.

Less proud of how much I seem to be failing on printing the number tokens. This is the 3rd or 4th fail… These numbers are kinda important and they are definitely not cooperating!

OMG - it’s soooooooo cold….

Houston office, are you even serious???

Well I guess Thomas agrees with the Houston office. Though this is equally as likely in non-cold weather because he thought my new scarf was so soft and this kid is all about feeling comfortable.

More family bike rides - this time to a nearby park to have a picnic and play. Everyone loves having so many fun trails near the house.

Henry is still doing longer rides on his green trailing bike, so we are trying to get him better at long distances on his own bike. And our neighbors told us she taught all of her kids at the running path at the school - seems like a great idea to me!

Cousin Noah came to town for a visit! He’s turning 18, which I think it 100% impossible, but is somehow true? Since we’ve been so biking obsessed, we talked him into going for a ride with us to the boardwalk in the park.

AND WE SAW AN ALLIGATOR!

We always look for one in the water and have never gotten lucky enough to see one until today. It’s pretty impossible to see in this photo, but it’s in the water to the right of Thomas’ helmet.

Coincidentally, it was Noah’s birthday this weekend! We decided to introduce/treat him to a sushi dinner from our old favorite restaurant in Houston. He wasn’t too sure, but he was game for trying it and liked it! Matt may have also bet him a large sum to eat a whole glob of wasabi. He did, immediately regretted it, but got his money.

Boys are weird…

Since we were introducing sushi to Noah, we figured we might as well introduce it to our boys as well. Thomas is always up for trying something new and was on board!

Henry is not known for being adventurous and took some convincing to try the sushi rolls. And struggled a little with keeping them “rolled”, but both boys apparently love sushi. Which will be a big hit to our pocketbook the next time we have sushi night… Whoops!

Caring for Katy

Today our church canceled services so everyone could go serve the community with volunteering projects. They offered childcare for 3 & under, but all the older kids were expected to help too! I have been trying to figure out a good way to introduce the kids to volunteering and have been so excited!

We fell in love with this church because they had a “Special buddies” program and I felt totally comfortable leaving her there when she had all the eating & drinking restrictions. Well they weren’t there today, but told me Natalie was totally ready to go to a normal class. It is a huge step, but she seemed a little concerned we weren’t going to her usual class!

The boys and I got put on weeding & mulch duty! Matt was helping hang panels in one of the offices, but I figured we wouldn’t contribute much there.

We finished that flower bed and moved on to the giant playground. Unfortunately, there were fire ants in the mulch and one got Henry, so neither one of them wanted to help spread it! (Thomas also met his first fire ant in the flower bed - rough day...)
I told them to pull weeds instead and they couldn’t handle the fact this weed was sticking to their hands.

Finally convinced them to help with the mulch - seemed safe as long as they weren’t standing on the pile... but the danger of 7 kids with rakes was still there!

Matt’s other job was done, so he came to help with the mulch. It was a giant playground - even with all this help it was taking awhile.
And if he won’t stop making ridiculous faces when I’m trying to take photos, I’m using them.

Look at these proud little workers!

Went and rescued our littlest one. She did great!!! They said they wouldn’t have known she never was in the normal preschool class. So I guess we have to decide if she switches for good? Truthfully, she’s probably ready, but her current teachers love her so much they don’t want to let her go.

Since it’s still birthday weekend, we let Henry pick the lunch location. He couldn’t be moved off of McDonald’s until I suggested Texas Roadhouse. It was one of their favorites in Alaska, but we haven’t been back since we moved!

Happy 6th Birthday Henry!

Happiest of happy birthday’s to Henry! It was technically on Wednesday, with a small celebration at Waffle House (his choice, I raised him well)! But we had a party in the front yard with the neighbors today. They are over most every weekend anyhow, so it made party planning pretty easy!

Chocolate chip waffle makes the best of birthday dinners!

Big progress with the little one - she was willing to try a few bites of my All Star Special!

I didn’t get any photographic proof my mom and dad stopped by except mom’s hands. She thought she was going to give Natalie just one donut. Lol

Ready for the party! The bounce house hasn’t seen any action since Alaska - it was ready to play!

They are getting a little big for it, but it still works!

At one point I only had one child obsessed with Minecraft, but now a solid 66% of my kids are Minecraft fiends…

Look at me getting smart and just ordering pizzas for parties!

lol - I do not have hours to spend making party foods anymore…

Also he requested a Minecraft cake and chose this crazy design when we were looking up ideas. The jello part stressed me out, but it worked out amazing. So proud of it.

All of the kids love playing with the most random of toys. Allie bought these stick toys for the boys when we first moved back and they have warped into weapons 90% of the time. But while they are clearly rambunctious boys, they still like bubbles - it’s only being employed here as a bubble destroyer. ;)

I miss many things about the house in Anchorage (those views!), but I do love that fact they have neighbors their age to play with. I can’t go outside to pick weeds without their being kids running around having fun. :)

Happy Birthday Henry! You are an awesome little guy who cares deeply about your family and friends. I can't believe I've had the joy of knowing you for six years and love to see you becoming more awesome every day.

Love you to Pluto and back, my crazy little man!

Feeding Tube Stresses

Since is the official last day of Feeding Tube Awareness Week, I’m going to be honest. As much as it’s been great for her, there have been a few stressors along the way with her feeding tube...

She had her tube for about two weeks in the NICU before we got to take her home. The day before she was discharged, the balloon on it popped and it fell out! I went to change her diaper and it was gone! Talk about terrifying...
Thankfully we were still there and learned how to deal with that emergency from the professionals.

Going out to eat can still be a challenge. I had to get creative with how to feed her with the pump at first (Velcro straps are your friend!). Now it’s less of a logistics issue, but I still find myself worried that someone is going to give us weird looks or say something rude.
It’s never happened and I don’t know why I stress about it, but I do.

The very first time I left Natalie for a trip, her g-tube fell out that night and the stoma (hole for the tube) closed up enough my mom couldn’t get it back in. Off to the ER mom, Natalie and our brand new nanny went.
The professionals got it back in after a few hours of working on it, but I can live without that stress from a far. Also, it didn’t scare her nanny off, so that’s a relief!!

Sometimes I get a little cocky about how great I am at tube feeding and try to do it one handed. That’s when I end up spraying food everywhere. Managed to hit a window on an airplane that way.
I would like to say I know better now, but it clearly still happens...

And as much as I love all of her gear that makes feeding possible, I don’t love all the washing. Those of you that ever had to deal with washing pump parts and bottles for a baby every night can relate. But two years later and still doing it had gotten old...
But at least I can share this pain with other members of the household!

What Goes in a Feeding Tube??

After my last post, I bet you're wondering what goes in the feeding tube. It’s just food!

Sadly, there's a whole bunch of drama some people have to deal with to put food in their feeding tube. We've been incredibly lucky to have a supportive group of doctors and it's not been an issue for us yet.

The doctors in the NICU tried to supplement her with formula a few times and it always led to lots of throwing up. And once I started reading ingredients for the traditional tubie formulas, I decided against that! I don't mind junk food on occasion, but feeding my baby corn syrup based food 24/7 was not going to happen.

Using real food in a tube is referred to as a blenderized diet and we have it down to a science! There's even a dietician to double check my math on nutrition

First up - the freezer team! We aim for one meat, 2 veggies, 1-2 fruits and 2 whole grains. Heat it up and it looks like the world's weirdest grain bowl.

Team 2 & 3 - fridge and pantry! There's orange juice, non-dairy milk (she's not allergic, it's just good variety and a little extra protein), yogurt and healthy fats in the form of flaxseed oil. Finally prunes, Cheerios, coconut milk powder, hemp hearts and a little salt (dietician’s orders!).

It all goes into the brawn of the process - the Vitamix! We'd be lost without this crazy awesome blender, it can pulverize this assortment into a blended mix smooth enough to go through her tube without clogging.

All mixed up a few minutes later and ready to be portioned into her Squeasy Gear bottles. The little ones are a complete meal, the big one holds 3 meals. You can see more to go in the blender, I usually make enough to last 2-3 days at a time.

And our Miracle Syringe up close! The numbers are finally starting to fade on this one, but I’ve been using it almost a year, so I’ll let it slide. I love these syringes!

But what about the days I’m too tired to do this and she’s out of blend? I turn to these two products made from real food. These are the “little guy” formulas that fight for DME space from the giant medical companies. Two brands started by parents of tubie kids - looking for a way to feed their kids real food. The one on the left is ready to feed as-is, the one on the right you just mix with water. I used these two instead of hauling my blender over thanksgiving and they were both perfect!

Oh and water - she also needs a little extra water through the tube. She’s now very insistent that she get to push the water in. I thought it would be too hard for her tiny hands, but I should know better than to doubt this girl!

Love you to Pluto and back infinity times, sweet girl of mine. You are worth all this trouble and so much more! I’ll keep blending until you don’t need it or I teach you to use the blender.

Learning to Love A Feeding Tube

In honor of Feeding Tube Awareness Week, I am posting a bunch of photos showing how we have adapted to feeding Natalie with it. It's been a learning process that sometimes involves repurposed equipment, but I feel like we mostly have this down!

We love her feeding tube and the amazing tubie community that has taught us so many tricks along the way!

First day and she had an NG tube. We didn't know why she couldn't eat, but she clearly couldn't. She needed such a tiny amount of milk for each meal that it could fit in that small syringe!

Oh the Joey. That's the feeding pump (Kangaroo Joey) we ended up with once she got her Mic-Key g-tube button. I swear I would hear it's alarm sounds in my dreams…

It went everywhere with us. I learned to get creative when we weren't near an IV pole to hang out.

I tried gravity feeding with this fancy clamp made for holding baby bottles. It didn't work well at all for syringes and ended up in a closet.

Months later we finally got the back-ordered backpack for the Joey. This little puppy went with us on many trips! He was invaluable on the plane rides to Seattle!

We finally get to add food to her diet! Sorta...
That first syringe had about 3mls of food and it still felt monumental!
You can also see where the tubing from the Joey connected to her feeding tube extension (on the right). There were a few exhausted nights I would forget to take the protective cap off the tubing and ended up feeding her bed instead of her.

Also you can see the cords in the background…. this kid had soooooo many cords.

One particular hospital visit she needed to be fed and we were stuck in the ER with no pump. After waiting way too long to get a pump, I crawled up in bed with her and fed her a 10ml syringe worth of milk at a time. One of the nurses felt so bad about the effort, but it's not like I had anything else I needed to do!

One of the last photos with the Joey! When we moved to Houston, the medical supply company couldn't get with it and get us her supplies. I had an extra months worth in the closet and made it my goal to stop using the pump by then. (DME suppliers - a constant thorn in my side!)
Also we didn't have our stuff, so I made a makeshift pump holder with the windowsill and a giant command hook. I was so proud of myself!

So what did we use instead of a pump? Giant syringes! We had been using them some for her added food, but I switched to mixing food and milk together and syringe pushing it all. Also, the syringes that the DME company provides are so bad, they are impossible to push after a few uses and we got 5 per month. When using them for 4 meals a day, that math doesn't work.
Turns out the feeding community has identified the most amazing syringes that last for months with no issues. And they are made for feeding squirrels... That's right - squirrel syringes are better than people ones.

This fun bottle is usually what we keep her food in before drawing it into the syringe. Smart me didn't pack the syringe one day. Turns out you can go straight from the bottle to the extension - though it's incredibly hard to squeeze it in when it's a thick meal!

Speaking of which, more calories needed meant a thicker blend of food. I ended up giving myself some pretty bad hand & wrist pain for my effort. And then I discovered this amazing syringe pump. The medical ones are thousands of dollars and not covered by insurance. This one was less than $300 and for liability reasons "Not for clinical use on humans". It is amazing and has been a game changer for feeding the little one while making dinner. My BFF for sure!

Just January!

I usually fail to get a lot of photos in January since I take approximately a zillion in December. But I did manage to snag a few worth sharing:

Like my birthday!!! Haha - this was the BEST of the options my mom took of me and my crazies.

Check out these awesome candles on my cake though! I love the fancy colors!

I am pretty religious about not working on my birthday and I couldn’t avoid it because of a mandatory software training class. An introductory class to a software I have been using for over 12 years. I was not thrilled.

But I did get a work trip to Denver that same week and couldn’t make it to the last day of class. So birthdays aren’t a valid excuse but work trips are. Got it.

Also look - there’s a tiny piece of snow in my hair! Haven’t had that since we left Alaska!

I’m not even ashamed to admit I spent a good bit of time in my training class daydreaming. And since the exercises took me no time to complete, I discovered that someone had designed a 3D printed Catan game board. Since the boys have been super into Catan playing, I decided to make it for the family once I got back from Denver.

I’ve gotten a handful of tiles printed and started on one of the road/buildings. I am so excited by this project!

Kindergarten had a dress up day for the 100th day of school. And while there was no official dress-up contest, we got an email from Henry’s teacher that he “won” the day. We may have given him an edge by supplying him with Wether’s Originals to hand out to the teachers. ;)

I personally love boba tea and smoothies. I had a goal to bike to a shop nearby that sells them and introduce the boys to them. They were super excited about picking out their drinks, the sealing stickers and giant straws. But they weren’t actually impressed with the drinks…

So much for my dream of taking them there all the time on bike rides. :(

Look who had her first dental visit! They were super little kid friendly and didn’t even object to her stealing a stack of magnets to wear as a bracelet during her check-up. Despite us being overdue for her first appt, they said her teeth look great!

p.s. Matt also had a birthday this month and I totally failed to get any photos of it. I’m not the best wife in January. I am sure I made him a cake, but I can’t even prove that… ;)

Happy 2nd Birthday, Natalie!

Houston, we have a 2 year old! It’s hard to believe that we’ve had this awesome girl for a whole other year and we are so excited to celebrate this birthday - with cake this time!!!

Just in case I forget what a big girl she is, she is happy to remind me how old she is!

Of course, I’m not the only one who spoils my baby girl rotten! We were celebrating her birthday a few days after while my parents were in town and her nanny didn’t want her to not have a cake on her actual day! Haha - we all love this fireball so much!

So back to her party day that was actually not the correct day… ;)

We are all singing her Happy Birthday and she has no idea what to do while everyone is singing at her. At the end she claps and then tried to sing it back. So adorable!

(But honestly, does anyone ever know what to do in this situation?? I don't!)

What is this unusual cake you ask? It’s her favorite food in cake form - a Cheeto Cake!

I should have saved a little more yellow frosting to be showing through the orange if I wanted it to be a perfect match. In my defense, I was fighting off two adults and one kid from eating all of my scraps and frosting!

She may not eat much food yet, but party size bags of Cheetos do not last long in this house...

Henry kept stealing her Cheetos, so she blocked the whole bag with her face. Good technique, Natalie!

I can not count the number of times she has snuck into the pantry and I find her sitting somewhere eating Cheetos. One of her silly nicknames is definitely Cheeto-Head.

But what if you take away her bag of Cheetos and give her a piece of cake?!?

"Mom... This is not a Cheeto..."

But honestly - that's a pretty close look to a Cheetos inside. Right??

"Yeah... I'm not gonna eat that, Mom. But I love you anyhow!"

The last part is heavily inferred. Love you too baby girl! Happy 2nd birthday!