We had another appointment with yet another doctor for Keaton.  His life has been pretty much going to and from doctor appointments.  His therapists had told me they thought a rhizotomy might be good for him.  So, they had us go see another doctor to see what this other doctor thought.  Well the doctor watched him as he played, and couldn’t believe how well he gets around.  Keaton picked up a big therapy ball and was throwing it around.  She couldn’t believe how well he could throw the ball and just how good he looked.  Anyways, after looking him over and observing him for quite awhile, she decided the rhizotomy WOULDN’T be the best thing for him at this time.  I think she was so impressed by how well he was doing that she just didn’t want to go try the surgery and have him have to start all over again.  Instead they are going to cast his left leg and put in a position to stretch his ankle.  He will be in the cast for 3 weeks….which I’m sure Keaton will hate, but if it helps him, it’s worth it.  His ankle is super tight, and it got even tighter as he has started to grow, and I guess that is common in kids like him.  So, hopefully the cast can stretch his little ankle out, and then we will go see that same doctor again in 6 months, and if she feels like it’s still not loose enough and if he isn’t improving with his hand, then they are going to look at other options.  Even if it’s not getting any better, I think she said something about doing a heel cord lengthening, and then if that doesn’t help then, maybe the rhizotomy.  But, for now the rhizotomy is a last resort kind of thing.  Which, I’m actually kind of happy about.  It’s awful for kids to have to have surgery.  So, for now, he’s doing extremely well (well that’s according to the doctor).  Sometimes I can’t tell if he’s doing good or not, because I really don’t know what kinds of standards to compare him against.  So, we just work with him at home, and hope for the best.  So, all in all, it was a good appointment.  It’s always nice when the doctor’s act all amazed because they can’t believe how good your kid is doing.  It’s just good to hear some good news once in a while.  Oh and the funny thing was when I was talking to the doctor she was telling me how strong he seemed, and how good he can get around, and I told her it was probably because of his older brothers, and how they are always trying to wrestle him.  She laughed and told me that was the best therapy he could get.  Then, she looked at Keaton’s occupational and physical therapist and told them he didn’t need them, because he has two older brothers giving him all the therapy he needs.  So, anyways, the whole gist of it is that Keaton is doing really good.  Yay!!

We celebrated Parker’s birthday the other day.  He’s 5 years old!!  I can’t believe it.  It seems like Jaxon just turned 5….oh wait it wasn’t very long ago that Jaxon was 5.    So, this is cute little Parker blowing out the candles on his cake.  I was going to make a dragon cake like he wanted, but I ran out of time, and just opted to let him pick one out at the store.  Which the two little cakes you see above are the cakes HE picked out.  However, when Jaxon saw that there were chocolate chips on the cake, he started talking about how much he hates chocolate chips and no way would eat any cake.  Well, since Parker says and does everything Jaxon does, he too started saying he hates chocolate chips (he doesn’t hate chocolate chips), but decided he wouldn’t eat any of his own birthday cake.  Crazy kid!!  Oh well.  It’s probably better that he got a little less sugar anyways.

Here are some things about Parker:

Loves peanut butter, jelly, mayonaisse, mustard, ham and cheese sandwiches (yes it’s all on the same sandwich)

Is best friends with Jaxon.  I think those two would be lost without each other.

Loves to have me read him books about dinosaurs, dragons, or animals.

Loves junk food (but he can’t have too much.  His little stomach can’t stand too much of the sweets).

Loves to “help” his dad with the car or whatever Scott is doing.

Loves to wrestle his brothers.

Is a little tease, and has the most mischievious grin to go along with it

Loves both sets of grandparents.

Is super cuddly.

A lot of people have asked me if Parker and Jaxon are twins.  Sometimes I just say yes.  Just kidding, I haven’t ever really told anyone they are twins.

Loves all kinds of sports.  Parker for the most part is right-handed, but he bats left-handed.

Loves having “class” (my version of preschool).

Absolutely loves Berkley, and loves to get Berkley to laugh.

Likes to help me with the laundry and cleaning the bathrooms.

And, he also says pessert (dessert), pisgusting (disgusting), and posquitoes (mosquitoes).  I guess everything sounds better with a “P” at the first. 

I’m not sure who liked the dragon more, Berkley or Parker….Berkley kept trying to get the dragon and play with it.  Berkley was so excited and would push the buttons and sit and laugh.  I guess I know what I’m getting him for his birthday. 

Of course it’s not a birthday without a pinata.  It was too cold and snowy outside to hit the pinata, so we had to try destroying it in our basement.

Here is Jaxon jumping for joy, because of the candy he got, and Keaton is pretending to be batman.

Well, Parker’s birthday turned out to be really fun.  I thought about having a friend party for him, but since I have never done a friend party for Jaxon, I decided to just do the family thing.  Maybe one day I’ll be more excited to invite their friends over, but for now I like the simplicity of just getting the family together.  Parker has been such a fun little kid.  He’s really shy around people he doesn’t know, but once he warms up to you, he’s a really funny little kid.  When Parker was little he grew very attached to his binky.  And, I let him use it longer than I should have, but I felt bad for him, because of the health problems he had.  He would get scared to go to the doctor’s office and would cry, but if he had his binky, he seemed to do better, so I couldn’t bear to take it away.  Well, it ended up being a big mistake, because even now Parker will sneak Berkley’s binky and suck on it.  I have found him hiding under his blankets sucking on the binky.  Hopefully he doesn’t sneak a binky to kindergarten.  I’m sure he’ll get teased. 

The kids have been begging me for a long time now to play in the sprinklers.  One day Parker came and asked me if he could run through the sprinklers and there was still some snow on our front lawn.  But, the snow has now all melted, which the kids came and told me since the snow was gone, it meant it was time to get the sprinklers out.  So, I finally gave in.  I couldn’t convince them that it was too cold.  They ran through a couple of times, but the winner by far was Parker.  He was shivering, but kept insisting on running through the sprinklers.  The others gave up long before he did.

Jaxon’s class and the other kindergarten classes at his school put on a St. Patrick’s Day program.  They set up a display and had all the leprechaun traps that the kids had made.  I guess the kindergarten classes at his school go all out for St. Patrick’s Day.  At the end of the program, they showed a DVD of all the kids explaining their traps.  It turned out to be a lot of fun.  I’m just glad I didn’t have to put the program all together.  The rainbow in the background was made from the kids little handprints.  Jaxon said he helped with the blue ones.  Jaxon was quite disappointed that he didn’t catch a leprechaun.  He kept talking about how he had really wanted to catch a leprechaun.

More pictures. 

The little green men

This is Jaxon’s leprechaun trap.  He had an assignment to make a leprechaun trap for his class.  Since Scott is the one that’s good at making that kind of stuff, I begged Scott to help him make it.  I went grocery shopping and when I came home this is what I found.  Jaxon seemed pretty excited about it.  So, below is a demonstration of how the trap works.

When Jaxon was old enough to go to preschool, I decided to do my own little preschool at home with him, since preschool can be expensive, and we really don’t have a ton of money.  It turned out to be really fun.  But, the last year or so, I have really slacked off on doing the preschool.  So, on Saturday the kids all came to me and asked if we could have “class.”  That’s what they call it.  I was in the middle of cleaning the house, and I have to admit, it was really hard to tear myself away from the messy house.  I just wanted to get it clean.  But, I have learned if you don’t stop what you are doing when they ask, they soon find something else to do, and then when you are finally ready to pay attention to them, they aren’t interested.  There have been a few times where I finally finished what I was doing and went to their bedroom to see if they were ready for “class” and they will say they don’t want to do class and could I please leave the room, because they are playing.  So, I’ve had a few missed opportunities of spending time with the kids.  So, this time I stopped and we sat down and had “class.”  As you can see, they said they wanted to learn the letter “H.”  It was really a lot of fun, and I’m so glad I sat down and did this with them.  Keaton insisted on cutting his own letters out and gluing them on himself.  He’s very independant.  And, cutting with scissors is actually good practice for him to use both hands.  I have to say that not having money for preschool has been a blessing in disguise.  Instead of sending my kids to preschool, I have been able to sit down and work with them.  And, when we do, they don’t just talk about the letters we are learning.  They like to tell me other stuff.  It’s interesting to hear the concerns of little kids.  Lots of their conversation has to do with cars and trucks and dragons.  It’s just fun to spend time with them.

Here is my lovely talented husband.  My parent’s gave us a wheat grinder for Christmas a year or two ago, and Scott thought it would be a good idea to hook it up to our exercise bike so we could exercise while grinding wheat.  Don’t ask me how he did it, because I have no idea, but it actually works really good.  It’s pretty cool, but I like to tease him about all his ideas that he has.  Maybe one day he will invent something that everybody wants and become famous….:)  But, for now he likes doing little things like this around the house.  It’s actually really nice having him around.  When something breaks, he will get right in there and fix it as soon as he can, and he really does a good job.  This exercise bike/wheat grinder describes Scott exactly.  I think throughout the day he is always thinking of some kind of little invention he would like to do.  Right now he wants to do a few things….convert our van to electric, make a side-by-side 2-person electric powered recumbent bike car, build a straw bale house, build a root cellar, and the list goes on.  But, for now the exercise bike/wheat grinder will have to do.

Here are some more pictures:

Some close ups of the bike….

Of course the kids wanted to try out the bike, too.

And here is the finished product….known in our house as “Daddy’s special cereal.”  Scott grinds up a lot of different grains, legumes, and seeds and then in the mornings we cook it like you cook oatmeal, and it makes a really good breakfast.  I know it probably sounds weird, but it really is quite tasty.

Of course I needed a picture to go along with this post….And, this picture explains little Parker.  He is so quiet around other people, but at home he is a little tease.  He reminds me a lot of Scott.

So for awhile now, I have been worried about Parker.  Not that he’s doing bad physically, but with all the stuff I have to do with all the other kids, I just feel like Parker doesn’t get enough one on one time with me.  With Jaxon in school, I spend a lot of time helping him with homework, and then Keaton is supposed to work his arm and leg each day, and then of course, Berkley is so little that he just demands attention all the time.  So, poor little Parker gets neglected sometimes.  But, today was really cool.  I took Jaxon to school and then came home and both Berkley and Keaton fell asleep…That NEVER happens.  I was excited and asked Parker what he wanted to do.  We built a sand castle out in the sand box, and then I pushed him on the swing.  Then, it was getting really windy, so we came in the house and built fun castles and stuff in the moon sand that we have.  Then, he wanted to play duck, duck, goose, which isn’t easy with 2 people.    Luckily Berkley woke up right then, and so we had another player.  Ha ha.  It was hilarious, and even Berkley caught on to the game (a little bit) and he would touch our heads and say “du, du, du.”  But, he doesn’t know how to say goose yet.  But, somehow Parker made the game work.  We played it different than how I remembered it, but it was all Parker’s rules.    So, it was a good morning.  I loved being with Parker and just having time for him.  It was seriously a miracle that it even happened.  I still can’t believe both Berkley and Keaton fell asleep at the same time….and not only that… they both fell asleep while Jaxon was at school.  So much fun!!!!