Out of the Blue

on my heart

2012-01-06T16:59:00.001-06:00

I have had a difficult time lately trying to update the blog. I think what happens is that so much is going on, I can't keep up. Then I promise myself I will keep up and when I get a chance to catch up, I feel that I need to continue on with something that I am finding extremely difficult to put down on "paper." So I have decided that I will get back to posts about the mission trip when I am able to, and in the meantime, keep posting about what is going on. It will be less stressful that way.

I have struggled with what to say in this post; I'd love to update about family life, but I also would love to just share what is on my heart. Which is something I never really, completely do here, but just feel a desire to put it out there.

As I am approaching my 36th birthday, I have been thinking more and more about what is important. I am at a place that I always wanted to be at growing up. I always wanted to be married and have six children - and when I would think about that growing up, it always included five boys and one girl. I had never admitted that, but now, I often think that it is awesome how God prepared my heart and my desires for the ways in which he would later bless me. I know that He has a plan for me (Jeremiah 29:11) and it is amazing to see how His plan is perfect, even when I may question things and even when I have veered off of His plan for me. I am sometimes amazed at what I had "planned" (rather, desired) for myself - marriage; being a stay at home mom; having a lot of children - and what I didn't - not living in my hometown or close to family; living in a rural area; homeschooling. I also see how I used to think that I had a deep faith in God, but I really had only a faith of convenience. Now, I am continually seeking to grow deeper in relationship with Christ. Again, not at all what I expected out of my life looking back.

When life gets crazy or bad things happen, it can lead to feelings of helplessness or hopelessness and I forget about God's plan over my life. Looking back, though, I can always see how during each challenge, God has still been there and in actuality, each thing has made me stronger and more sure of who I am in Christ, because it causes me to lean on Him more. Do I think He purposely gives us difficult challenges? No. That would be the same as do we purposely make things difficult for our children. But I do believe God uses difficult situations and our own mis-steps to bring us closer to Him. In the same way that, as a parent, I am heartbroken when one child does something or has something awful happen to them but I will be there for them to lean on and I will help them through it and I will try to teach them through it.

This year has been a year of many stressful challenges in our family. Life with a teen is difficult enough, but add in Asperger's with that teen and it complicates things even further. I have really learned to lean on God during times this year when I completely came to the end of what I could possibly do. When you have a child, you never imagine the hard times that may happen later. And when they happen, it can lead to feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy as a parent ("if only I was a better parent, this never would have happened"). We all have these perfect little visions of how our life is going to be and when that doesn't happen, we tend to - or at least I want to have a little pity party.

Having a larger family with many children, and having some of those children have special needs, can at times be very isolating. I think that is the single most difficult thing that I have learned to cope with, especially in the last year. Not many people understand the demands of a larger family and then compounding that with special needs children. It can be very lonely at times. I also adore spending time with my husband, so sometimes I don't even want to go out with friends when I could be spending that precious time with him. I'm finally at a place now where I am perfectly OK with a lack of a "social life." I will have time for that later and for now, I am cherishing this small window of time when all of our children are here in our home. But I could not have honestly said that until very recently.

I am also learning where my gifts lie in serving God. I have been blessed with being a part of a ministry to help in our community and I am finding that I am extremely passionate about things I never imagined I would be. It has been such a blessing to be able to do what I do and to be able to serve God in this way. I have met some amazing people and am learning more and more what God's desire is and where His heart is. God moved in amazing ways during the mission trip and completely changed what I thought was important...or what I wanted to do for God instead of how He might have me serve Him.

So I never really share my heart, and especially not to the degree I have here today. I am praying that it is well received, but even if it is not, it is what it is. It is my heart and it is what has been on my mind lately. I am finally coming to a place where I am comfortable to just be me and not be concerned (as much) with what others may think about that. I am still working on that and will continue to, but at least I can finally start to feel OK with who I am....and who I am not.

Chicago Mission Trip: Prologue

2011-10-10T14:00:00.000-05:00

It has been well over a year since Austin and I joined youth from our community on a mission trip to inner city Chicago. I originally had very good intentions to blog about it right away. I, obviously, have not. I have not written about it anywhere; except in my devotional journals while I was actually in Chicago. I have tried and tried to write about it, but for some reason, the timing was never right. What I actually believe is that I was not ready to write about it until now and Satan has really been oppressing me and discouraging me from putting my thoughts and words down.

It is really hard to explain, but even now, thinking about the trip and actually writing it all out -for everyone to see (whoever might want to read) is causing me a lot of anxiety. I want to share about our trip. I want to share about the absolutely amazing ways God ripped me out of my comfort zone and changed the entire course of my life in a few short days in a city not so far away. I desire others to know how God can work through us and in us and the amazing ways God will use your life if only you will let him. I believed that long before Chicago, but it wasn't until I was actually there that I could see crystal clear what He would do in me and through me, if only I was completely open to Him. I believe the anxiety comes from Satan, because he very much wants me to continue my silence in the ways God used that trip for His good and His purpose. I also know that many of the things I experienced are not easy to write out and talk about; not at all. I have not shared much with everyone in general because it would mean completely processing everything, and in a very real sense, reliving it all.

There are some things that came about as a direct result of that trip that I have prayed would be taken away from Austin. And it is hard to admit that I would pray against something that God chose to bless Austin with; but as a mom, I also see the spiritual battle it has thrown Austin into. I can pinpoint the exact moment God gifted Austin, and I can also pinpoint ways it changed him. I prayed that God would take it away; that Austin was far too young to have the gift he has; that Austin would not be able to "handle" it. Satan really attacked Austin from that trip and still is. In some ways, Austin recognizes it. In many ways, he does not. It's a daily, sometimes minute-by-minute spiritual battle for him, and also for us....as a mom, as his parents, as his family. It makes it harder that many people do not believe the power Satan has. Many people underestimate him. I may or may not share the specific spiritual gift that Austin was blessed with. And yes, today I do view it as a gift and a blessing. I always have, it's just been hard to see my child have to go through what he has had to go through in the last year. But it is a blessing. Austin now knows exactly how real God is. I always thought he did prior to the trip, but that trip changed him and also brought him into a much deeper relationship with God. And I can only imagine the things that God must have planned for him, if Austin continues to seek Him and His will over his life, witnessing how very threatened Satan is by Austin.

I was changed. Life changing things happened on that trip. There were a lot of amazing things that happened. I can't wait to share about them all.....yet, I also hesitate, only because I know it is going to be hard.

This was a very powerful experience for me. You may think that things like this really can't happen; but they do. I plan on sharing exactly what happened during the trip and the ways in which we were all changed. And I will never, ever apologize for sharing God's power and God's love with everyone.

2011-10-08T10:03:00.000-05:00

don't worry. i'll always take care of you.

Dancing Fool

2011-10-07T17:18:00.006-05:00

(it may look like he is playing hopscotch, but he was actually dancing a little jig down the hopscotch drawing)

Busy, busy, busy

2011-07-18T13:14:00.000-05:00

Wow.....have I been neglectful! I didn't realize how far behind I have become, but we are still here and I do plan to keep updating when I get a few minutes! I just realized the other day I still have never blogged about our mission trip - LAST summer! Oops! I do plan on doing that soon. As I prayed about it, I believe that it was so overwhelming that I actually needed a year to give some distance and make it more comprehensible. It is a trip I pray I never forgot - God moved in so many ways and has changed my life so much since that trip!

It's been busy for us this summer and isn't going to slow down any time soon. We've gone to Adventureland with the youth group; had VBS - we did GoFish Guys "Backstage with the Bible" (so fun!!); lots of swimming, fishing, and baseball; Aidan's 8th birthday; 2 surgeries - tubes for Hannah/tubes, adenoids, and tonsillectomy for Aidan; Fourth of July in Dubuque; Hannah was a flower girl in a wedding (more on that later!); and my grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary. Praise God for such a tangible, concrete example of what marriage should look like - we are incredibly blessed! We've also survived the longest part of year end (huge accomplishment for me this year!!). I'll update soon on all that - each hopefully with their own post!

Now Austin is at church camp (I so wish we could all go, but due to year end for Steve, it never works for us in July). Then we start the rush to hurry up and finish up 4H projects before Austin and Aidan go to Grandpa Rick's for a few days in the end of July. When they come home, they have one day to finish up their projects and then starts our fair. After that, Steve and I are going on a "second honeymoon" of sorts. I am so excited!!! I have wanted to go away for our anniversary, but we both really need it now! We have not gone anywhere alone for even one night (other than to have a baby) since long before the triplets were born - and I really think the last time we did was when I was pregnant with Aidan. EIGHT years ago! In fact, I know that's the last time we went away alone. I am so looking forward to the time reconnecting without our children - every marriage needs it! We had thought about going back to where we went for our honeymoon, but decided instead that we have never been to the state fair alone, sans children, so that is what we are doing. And there is so much more to do; we already have quite the list! I honestly could care less where we go or what we do - I get five days alone with my husband! It doesn't get much better than that!!

Immediately after we get home, school begins for the triplets and Aidan. I am going to start Hannah in some very simple, unstructured preschool stuff this fall and Austin will begin his 2nd year homeschooling as a sophomore after Labor Day. I can't wait for the day when I am able to homeschool all of them, but for now, Austin still needs one-on-one and the Lord is guiding us to continue this way.

We're still here - I'm still planning on updating here - I'm just so far behind right now. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back in a regular rhythm in the fall!

Happy July, everyone!!

A Guest Post by Aidan: planets

2011-04-18T20:18:00.000-05:00

i will tell you eight planets.
and an asteroid,
and a big star.
they are mercury, venus, earth, mars, jupiter, saturn, uranus,
and dont forget two planets,
neptune, and pluto.
so i told you eight planets
and an asteroid
and the biggest star.

~aidan

General Ramblings

2011-02-22T10:01:00.001-06:00

So much has been going on in our home lately! I started a class called "Perspectives on the World Christian Movement" that has been amazing, but also very time consuming. A few people in our church took the class last year and then this year, worked very hard to organize it for the class to come to our town. It is an international college class. I always wondered if I could go back to college and now I can say with almost certain confidence that I don't really think I could right now for sure! I am learning a lot and really enjoying it, but it is a lot of work! There were three levels to take: audit, certificate, and credit. I figured I'd take it for certificate - I had no idea what I was signing up for! The timing is definitely not the best with starting homeschooling, having lots of little people at home, etc. - but I am enjoying it. I'm trying not to stress to much and I am learning I am far more of a perfectionist than I ever realized. It is absolutely heartbreaking when I turn in an assignment and "only" get 18 or 19 correct out of 20. I need to get over that - and quick! It brings about a huge amount of stress - both while I am doing the work and again when I get it back.

The triplets turned four!! (I still haven't done their birthday post - I'm getting to it!) They have their family birthday party this weekend and are very excited to see everyone.

We began homeschooling earlier than we had anticipated. We had planned on beginning at the end of the second trimester so that Austin could get two trimesters at school finished. Originally, I wanted to pull him after Christmas break, but we decided not to. If I was ever unsure of God's plan in all of this - and I think in any huge life decision we always question whether God really told us to do this or not - I no longer do. Through a terrible situation at school, God made it perfectly clear when his perfect time was to pull Austin. We began a few weeks ago. The first week went awesome - albeit a little frustrating for me to see where he really was at. The last two weeks have been rougher. I think the change has been difficult (as all changes are for Austin) and it is, no matter how much we all wanted it, a major life change. We are adjusting and making our way and I have finally come to the point where if it takes him a little longer to graduate, then that is OK.

I have been upset with the lack of knowledge of Austin and the massive amounts of indoctrination he has gotten in his time in public schools. Austin has always been a "strong" student, intelligent, honor roll, high IQ, etc. I am now questioning the standards by which a school grades and passes students. I would understand a subject with "gray areas" being different in my grading criteria vs theirs, but not a solid, fact-based class. Austin has always struggled with Algebra and I knew he would at home. What is so extremely frustrating to me is that he passed algebra - with a C average. As a parent, that tells me that he had an average understanding of algebra and it would be reasonable to expect him to move on to Algebra 2. Thankfully, they have placement tests, so I had him do that over Christmas break. He got 3/20. WOW. I still thought maybe it mostly focused on things he hadn't quite gotten to yet. When he began at home, we started in chapter one and I was going to test him out until we got to a chapter he couldn't understand. Turns out that was chapter one. In his pre-test he got 4/20. After going over it with him, watching the DVD, doing the practice questions and finally the assignment, he took the same test again and got 78%. Seems like a huge improvement. I still don't understand why he passed in the first place. All of his classes have been the same - this was the most concrete example.

Physical science has been a struggle because he's been so indoctrinated by evolutionism and has never spent any time on creationism. As Christian parents, we always said our children would be "different" and it was OK they were in public schools because they had a strong foundation at home and knew the beliefs and were taught those beliefs. We discussed the things they talk about in school - evolution, among other things - and why that conflicted with our beliefs. I really thought he understood it. And he does, to a point. But one glaringly obvious example was the question "It is not biased for a scientist to not study a theory they do not agree with." He said true!

I could go on with example after example of ways I feel he was failed by them in the last nine years in just the few weeks we have done this, but ultimately it isn't even about that. It is more clearly about God using this entire situation to bring clarity to our decision to homeschool everyone - not just Austin. I had read a book lately and thought that maybe it was radical (I loved it) but after just a few weeks, I now realize just exactly how true it is and that it wasn't radical at all. And even if it is, am I not called to a life of radical obedience to God?? Are not all Christians called to such radical obedience?? We are!! Part of that radical obedience is my responsibility to raise and educate my children - and not leave it up to government run schools to do so. If it seems radical to homeschool - it may be because it is! If I am honest with myself, of course my children are getting a secular worldview in the public school system. They are there 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, year after year. How could they not? I even used the excuse that we are in a "Christian" district with "Christian" teachers but none of that matters. What matters is that I have, for far too long, abdicated my responsibility to raise my children the way the Lord has called me to.

Now I know. And, like in Perspectives, once you know something, you must do something about it. The sin is to do nothing.

A New Creation

2011-02-09T17:03:00.000-06:00

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new!" ~2 Corinthians 5:17

As we embark on our homeschooling journey, which began a little sooner than I had planned, I am reminded of the awesome transforming power of God. I had planned on beginning in the end of February, but God took a terrible event and made it His and perfect and within His plan for our lives. I love when He does that!

As I look back over my life, I can see where God has transformed me and I stand in awe of His greatness. When I get anxious about the decision to homeschool or start to doubt whether I can truly take on something so huge, I need to stop and praise the One whom it is all for; who knew long before I was knitted in my mother's womb, exactly what He wanted for me and my family; reminding myself to be anxious for no thing. Because without Him, I will fail. And it is a huge undertaking, but I have been called....chosen....by God to do this for my children. Awesome.

Twelve years ago, I tearily sent Austin off to preschool, completely oblivious to what would happen in his life and, frankly, wouldn't have even cared at that time what he would be taught. I knew that everyone sends their children to school and had never even heard of "homeschooling." He went off to preschool, I cried, but I considered it a right of passage. Kindergarten came and it was a little harder to send him, but I still didn't even begin to question anything about what he would be taught or that it may conflict with our beliefs. At the time, I was a Christian, firmly rooted in my faith. I believed that a part of my responsibilities were gone. I was no longer the one with the greatest influence over him - his teachers and his peers were. I was no longer the one who spent the most time with him - they had seven and a half hours a day, 5 days a week with him. Even when difficulties started to surface, I never questioned taking him out and certainly never thought of homeschooling.

God had begun to nudge me about homeschooling by the time Austin was in sixth grade. Austin was begging to be, I knew all the reasons we should and could argue in favor of homeschool with the best of them, but I was still buying into the lie that I couldn't do it. By eighth grade, I knew I needed to be homeschooling not just Austin, but all of our children, but Steve was still not convinced. My prayer began that God would soften Steve's heart towards being a homeschooling family ourselves - he already agreed with all the reasons we should do it. I needed God to show me through Steve that this is what we, as a family, are called to do.

God transformed Steve's heart far quicker than He did mine. By December, Steve agreed that we needed to homeschool Austin and began looking into curriculum. We met with the school and AEA to discuss whether dual-enrolling Austin was an option or if we would have no involvement. Steve went into that meeting waivering still whether it was a good idea to revoke our consent to Austin's IEP that we had fought long and hard for. I prayed over the meeting and throughout the meeting, and halfway through, Steve told me to hand over the papers to completely revoke our consent to special education services. I watched my husband fight for his children - all of them - in that meeting in amazing ways. God can truly move people and it brings tears to my eyes to watch the power He gives each of us and the words only He can give us, at exactly the time when we need them.

I stand in awe of watching God's perfect timing in homeschooling for our family and the ways he has continued to work through and in our lives - in all areas of our life. I am amazed at what can happen when we step aside and relinquish all control of our lives over to God and stand in complete submission to His will. God will work in mighty ways if you let him. He will direct your path, if you allow it. And He will make His every plan for your life totally and completely clear - in His timing.

If you had asked me twelve years ago if I thought I would ever be homeschooling, have six children, live in a small town, I would have thought you were insane. Today, I am so excited to look over the last twelve years and the amazing ways in which God has transformed me for His purpose, and how he has prepared me for the journey ahead.

How has God worked in your life? Are you willing to give it all to him?

"Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." ~Philipians 1:6

2011-01-31T16:47:00.000-06:00

{As a side note: I have been informed by some that they are having a lot of difficulties viewing our blog in Internet Explorer. I have followed all suggestions by Blogger and tried to make it better; but when I check it in IE, it is still looking weird. I use Firefox and I find that that has no issues. If you are having issues and wish to continue using explorer, you can view just the current post and won't have issues then. Sorry for the difficulties - I'll keep working on it!}

Well, I'm a little frustrated with myself. It appears that I am having difficulties keeping up with the blog, but I need and desire to continue because this is our "life" journal. I'm not any good at keeping a journal, so this has to be it. I have thought of printing out posts for our children as they get older. Just for me, it is also fun and insightful to sometimes read back to something and remember the feelings that post may invoke. After six children, my memory just isn't the greatest anymore! So I will keep plugging away and I will keep posting, they just may seem far in between. Please understand that I do not intend for that....my intentions are, and always have been, to keep this up to date and current. Sometimes it doesn't happen that way!

Later this week, look for a post on the triplets fourth birthday! Eek! How in the world are they four already?!? We have been blessed in so many ways with them and I am so thankful!

In the meantime, here is a picture of all six at Christmas....it happens to be one of my favorite pictures of them of all time! Such little personalities and they really shine through here!

Homeschool

2010-12-31T10:14:00.000-06:00

So we've finally decided to homeschool Austin, the triplets, and Hannah. We're still praying about what to do with Aidan. I feel strongly that we are called to homeschool him also but have some lingering mixed feelings, so we're praying over it.

Austin has had a lot of difficulties in school (if you wish to read any of my rants - and they are rants - you can view his blog at www.allforaustin.blogspot.com) and we have vehemently disagreed with much of the curriculum for a LONG time, plus this year has been almost torture for him. So we are pulling him for the rest of this year on February 17. This will give me time to get our curriculum figured out, let him finish the trimester at school (this is his super easy trimester), and get all paperwork in order.

According to Iowa law, we only have to notify the school within 14 days of pulling him, but I was unsure what to really do because of his IEP. When I called his school social worker, she told me how to do it but wanted to make sure about other issues with her supervisor. When she called back, she made it very complicated (but thankfully had already spelled out how to do it easily) and now they want an IEP meeting to convince us to dual enroll him for special ed services. Ummm, no. We'll go to their little meeting, to personally deliver all our paperwork, but that's it. His IEP has never been followed and they don't do anything for him in his class, so why bother stressing him out and leaving him there an hour a day. Kinda defeats the purpose.

The triplets will finish preschool to get in as many therapy hours as possible, then they probably will dual enroll for services because theirs are speech-related. So they have one year left in school then will come home. By then, Hannah will be ready for preschool and will not step foot in a school.

For now, we are taking it one trimester at a time. For Austin especially we will see if he'll be respectful and do what I ask of him before committing to next year. For the triplets, Hannah, and Aidan, we will homeschool hopefully at least through middle school and possibly high school but we will follow God's leading through all of it. He has made it very clear that this is what is His will right now for us, and I have tried for three years to ignore that - I no longer will.

This is going to be the hardest thing I have ever done and I know there will be times when I just want to give up, but I did not have children to leave them to others to raise 8+ hours a day and to teach them a cultural worldview. I strive to raise them for the Lord and I know the older they get in the public school system, the harder that is. And when you try to buck the system (as in pulling them from things you don't agree with), they have made it almost impossible, have made snide comments in front of my children, have gotten very upset with me (I've been called many names), and generally highly dislike me. I have also never been one of the parents that dreads breaks....I dread my children going back to school and look as forward to breaks as they do! That has to be a sign. Sending them to school has never been easy for me, I have always questioned it, and I believe that has been God urging me to do differently for their lives.

Please pray for us as we begin this journey and continue throughout our journey of homeschooling. I'm anxious in myself, but completely at peace with this decision. And am extremely realistic knowing full well that this is not going to be a cakewalk, but with God's guidance and the support of others, we can and will succeed!

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

~Proverbs 22:6

Autism Testing

2010-12-02T08:50:00.000-06:00

So once again life is crazy and I am not keeping up. So much is happening I almost don't know how far I should go back, so for now, I'm not.

We finally were able to have Nathanial and Ethan tested at the Mercy Autism Center a month ago. The good news is that niether one of them was found to have autism. Ethan was iffy anyway and we weren't sure on him, so that was understandable. Nathanial was surprising - and still is. He met criteria for the diagnosis in all areas, except social. When the examiner was speaking with him, he supposedly asked what her children were for Halloween. That showed an interest in her and her family AND him trying to continue the conversation. Otherwise, even socially he met it. Since then we still worry about Nathanial and just have no idea what is going on with him, really. Because although much of it is explained through the other "issues," much of it is not. I suppose time will tell. The three watching the evaluation said they never saw any hand flapping (which is what I reported) and when the examiner came in, they said that to her. She said, oh, no, he did it....he was probably out of range for the window, but it would be on the video. And, sure enough, it was. He also has the very odd speech, high, high pitched voice, echolalia, etc, but he asked that one question.

That, however, does not mean that they do not have a whole host of other issues to work through. They both have a sensory integration disorder. Ethan is incredibly sensory defensive (meaning he seeks sensory input) while Nathanial is more sensory sensitive (he avoids it) most of the time, while others being sensory defensive. I had no idea you could be both, so that was good to know. They also have an auditory processing disorder which is affecting a lot. They both have a "severe and significant" language delay. Finally, they also both have motor delays.

We were told that their issues are being caused by a combination of being preemies (even if they were near term), multiplicity, pregnancy complications and high risk pregnancy, labor/delivery complications, low birth weight (more for Nathanial), severe preeclampsia - and well, you get the idea. All of those things are known factors for many of the things we are dealing with and when you combine them, you rather get an almost perfect storm. But that is also very positive - because it means that much of this, with intensive therapy, they may outgrow.

An auditory processing disorder is that when they are hearing things spoken to them, it gets jumbled and they can't decifer it quickly enough to respond. By the time they do get it, it's too late, the conversation has moved along. They then also have difficulty even expressing what they need or want so all of that adds to the frustration.

Most of Ethan's aggression and anger and extreme OCD tendency's are coming from not understanding and not being understood. He's trying to control whatever part of his world that he can. Ethan's language skills are at a 2 year, 4 month old level and he is only understood by unfamiliar listeners 50% of the time which puts him in the 2nd percentile. No wonder he's frustrated!

Nathanial is understood by an unfamiliar listener 75% of the time, but his overall language skills are much more severe than Ethan. He is only at a 1 year, 5 month level and is lower than the 2nd percentile of his same age peers. They did immediately see and recognize the giggly, out of control behavior as being a stress response and not just something "cute." This has been hard for us because noone else really has and it breaks our hearts when he gets all giggly and squirrely. And he is a very happy little boy, so it can be hard for others to recognize the difference between stressed out giddy and happy. The examiner said she was glad I had warned her, because then she knew to watch for it. When he was trying to do things he couldn't do, he would get a split second panicked look and then just go into his giddy, hyper, running all around response. If you aren't looking at his face for the panic look, you are going to completely miss it.

Now we move forward. We've been making and putting up story boards all over the house to help them see their schedules and understand the familiar. They need lots of visuals to get through their day. Their teacher is working hard on also doing many visuals at school - more than she already has. We will work hard on them understanding their schedules through visuals until after the holidays and then we will start to change it up a bit (by putting in a "change" card also so they see that). This way, eventually, they will learn to tolerate change a little better. Then we also change the direction of their speech therapy - which is what I have been trying desperately to do for a while. They also have access to the occupational therapist at school and she will be working with their teacher to make things even easier in the classroom.

The best news was that I can homeschool them and this may actually be an excellent option for them. We've prayed about it and are still praying about it. I have been very convicted that I should be homeschooling my children (and am going to be starting Austin in January), so this is positive for me. We are still praying over it and will continue to pray diligently so that we are within the Lord's will and not our own.

Completely Random

2010-10-22T14:24:00.000-05:00

So much has been happening and my thoughts are so scattered that I feel I cannot do justice to whatever it is I might want to say. So much has already happened that I feel I have neglected my blog for so long and I'll never catch up; which leads to me putting off posting and then getting further behind. It's an endless cycle. It's gonna stop soon and I'll just post whatever I feel like, but I feel like I should say something in case you've been wondering "where in the world did she go?" I'm still here and I'm determined to just start in and then post about our summer/fall randomly. Just thought I'd warn you....it's probably gonna be scattered! Which is OK, because it'll match my brain!

I do still plan to continue posting about our infertility struggles - I think I just need a tiny break for right now (will probably get back to it next week). I also want to start posting about our mission trip, which will definitely be a multi-part series with all I have to say! And, of course, I want to post about everything that's been happening in our lives at home.

I think that I am feeling so overwhelmed lately due to some major decisions we have made recently. The biggest one is that Nathanial and Ethan are both going to be evaluated for autism in Dubuque at their Autism Center on November 2. I will post soon on all that I've been feeling.

I'm still here, still thinking about this daily, still realizing I need to post more often (this is my only "journal" for these times in our life, so it's important to me to keep up for myself!), still trying!!

Infertility and Blessings - Mood Swings, Mixed Emotions, and Baby

2010-09-27T09:02:00.004-05:00

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11

I was so excited to get pregnant with Aidan and so very thankful for the blessing that God had given us - this second chance at parenting - that while I was pregnant with him, I promised Steve I would not pursue any more children through infertility treatments. Going through infertility treatments is draining emotionally and can be very hard on a marriage. You would think trying to create or enlarge your family would only bring you closer as a couple - which it does do - but it is extremely rough, also. There are so many things that go on emotionally that you are definitely not yourself. You have all of the emotions of not being able to get pregnant, the negative test results every month, the ups and downs just within a 28 day period...it definitely takes it toll on an individual and a marriage.

To give you an idea of just a touch of the emotions of a cycle, here is what can happen emotionally during those days. The first few days you're not fun to live with, as is anyone, but you do have hope for this cycle. Then begins the medications - which do not make you a pleasant person because of all the "artificial" hormones that are raging through your body. The medications make you almost psychotic. They cause you to go up and down, but mostly down, and as for me, I was a real witch during that time. Conversely, there is hope. Excitement about the possibilities. Then the every other day ultrasounds to see if you might, just maybe, be producing follicles. And the excitement when you see that you are, indeed producing follicles. And the frustration when the follicles aren't growing fast enough or are slowly forming or disappear or burst. And then the excitement again when everything is ready to go and you get another shot to cause the follicles to "ovulate." Then the wait until you can do inseminations, which are pretty "uncomfortable" at best. Followed by taking it easy and the waiting game. Fourteen days of waiting, to be precise. All during that time, you are imagining that you are definitely pregnant, you just know it. And almost immediately on it's heals, you know that you are not and this month is one more month that did not work. Fourteen days of wondering "did it work?" "Will we have another baby in several months?" Finally, you get to go in to take the blood test....and then wait some more. This wait seems to take longer than the fourteen days because now you are waiting to see if it worked or not. The call that comes, you know, holds either ecstatic enthusiasm and possibilities or absolute devastation. And just statistically speaking, 99% of the time, it's devastation. And so begins the entire cycle again.

So you can imagine why I promised not to pursue it again and you can imagine my devastation when, within two hours of Aidan's birth, the realization that I promised something I knew I wouldn't be able to live up to. I knew I wanted another baby - and I knew I was willing to go through anything to get there. But I also knew that Steve was definitely not ready to hear that and definitely did not want to relive all of that again. So I didn't tell him right away, but I also knew that he knew what I was thinking and feeling.

We were told by my OB that the best possibility to get pregnant again was to try immediately, so we did do that. There was never a real "break" in trying to get pregnant; but I also was aware that while nursing the chances were low that I actually would get pregnant anyway.

I was determined to enjoy every bit of Aidan that I could and not wish away his babyhood. It is easy to complain and not enjoy everything about babyhood when you know you are going to have more children. When you are able to take for granted that there will be more children and it is just a matter of time, you can "waste" those early days/months/years. I know I did with Austin, because I knew there would be more some day. With Aidan, I did not have the luxury and it did help me to enjoy most aspects of a newborn. There are still bad days and there are still things you aren't thrilled about, but all in all, I enjoyed my finite time with Aidan much more.

Obviously, as time went on, I realized I was not going to be in that percentage of women who are blessed with another baby right away. I knew that it was going to take more and I was very ready to try again by the time Aidan was a year old. The question was....was Steve??

Infertility Blessings and Ponderings - REs, Injections, and Aidan

2010-09-07T14:07:00.005-05:00

When Steve and I got married, we knew that we immediately wanted to start a family and figured it would be realitively quick. I mean, I got pregnant very easily the first time so this time would be a cinch, right? Surely God would bless our union quickly. As we discovered, that was not the case at all.

At first, it was baffling and I didn't understand it. I was having other problems, so was already seeing our family doctor who referred me to an OB/GYN. It was then that I was diagnosed with PCOS - Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. I won't go into the details of PCOS (it's very complicated) but it was the reason I was struggling to get pregnant, along with a lot of other problems. Then I recalled a conversation a doctor had had with me when Austin was about six months old. I was having some issues and he had off-handedly made a comment about maybe finding it difficult to get pregnant the next time I tried and so not to wait too long to seek help if I didn't get pregnant easily. I believe he knew at that time that I had PCOS, but for whatever reasons, he didn't tell me. It was devastating to hear that I had PCOS, but on the other hand, I was blessed enough to know what was causing our infertility. Many people never know. And, we also were blessed that it wasn't both of us causing it, so we only had one obsticle to overcome.

The road to getting pregnant with Aidan was very difficult and heartbreaking. I had one miscarriage that I am positive about during that time - prior to starting any treatment. I now know that I probably lost that baby because of low progesterone and had I known I had PCOS it might have been preventable. The months upon months of negative pregnancy tests was almost unbearable. Add to that, medications that make you literally about go insane with the mood swings they cause and it was not a pleasant time in our lives at all. The OB/GYN that I had at the time also was fairly new to the practice and didn't have a lot of experience. Since I had no idea what to expect, it wasn't a great situation. I was on Clomid for 7 cycles - which is unheard of. We had IUIs without any ultrasounds, only bloodwork follow up to find out that, once again, I had not even ovulated so the IUIs were worthless. For a few of the IUIs, they let us sit in the waiting room for over an hour - an hour after we left home, so two hours after the sample was attained. When I complained about this after the third time that it happened, I was told that "it was a busy practice." After several months, I grew frustrated with the lack of care, and moved on to an RE (Reproductive Endocronologist - infertility doctor).

We began that with a HSG - hysterosalpingogram - which is a fancy way to say torture. They wanted to be sure that both my tubes were open prior to even attempting an IUI which may be useless if a) they were both blocked or b) the side was blocked that I was ovulating on. They determined the right tube looked a little blocked, but the left was open.
At our first appointment with the RE, they did counseling on "selective reduction" and when we refused to even consider the option, they said they would limit how many follicles they would trigger with. Due to my height and previous pregnancy history, they would not trigger if there were more than three follicles because they believed to carry more than triplets would be extremely difficult on my body. They also made it very clear that any more than one baby, in their eyes, was not a success. After all that, they began a regimen of a cancer drug, injectables, an hCG trigger shot, IUIs, and progesterone supplements. After four months of negatives, we finally got a positive! With the help of the progesterone supplements for the first three months, I was also able to maintain that pregnancy. We were able to go in to see if the pregnancy was viable at seven weeks, when we saw one little baby and a very healthy heartbeat. At that time, I was released to the care of my OB.

I knew I was not going back to the practice we had used prior to the RE, so we began searching for a new OB as soon as I discovered I was pregnant. We were so blessed to discover one of the very best OB/GYNs definitely in our area, and I believe in the state of Iowa and beyond. He was in a practice alone - which was our original primary reason we picked him. The second was that he had a lot of experience in high risk pregnancies, which we knew could be an issue if my pregnancy with Austin was any indication.I had a fairly uneventful and healthy pregnancy. I did develop pre-eclampsia again, but we were able to keep it under control until he was delivered. Aidan Charles was born on June 6, 2003 at 8 pounds, 11 ounces and was very healthy. I was so excited and so thrilled to have him join our family!

Infertility Blessings and Ponderings - Childhood Desires and Adoption

2010-09-02T15:02:00.007-05:00

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD. "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
~Jeremiah 29:11

I have been thinking a lot today about our struggles with infertility and the amazing ways in which the Lord worked through all of it. Looking at our family today, many people would believe that it was easy for us to create a family and we take it for granted -when truly it was and is anything but. I know people believe this who do not know us and have not met us....I know this because I know it was how I felt when I even saw a family with two children just eight short years ago. I feel the Lord is wanting me to share a bit of our struggle today to encourage someone. I'm not sure who, and I'm not sure why exactly, but I pray He uses this post to give hope to someone reading who may be struggling and I just don't know it. I'm also not real sure of my thought process as I even begin this post....I just have a driving force to share whatever it is that I am about to share, so please forgive me if it doesn't flow nicely or even make complete sense.

Growing up, I always wanted six children - believe it or not I even wanted five boys and a little girl at the end. Do I believe now that God gave me that very specific desire? Absolutely! As a child, anyone who knew me will tell you, I was I always 'pregnant.' When I was little, I wanted to be first a mommy and then president of the United States (for a long time, I really believed I would be, too). As I got older and realized I needed more concrete goals by societies standards, I really still wanted to do something in politics, so figured I would become a lawyer and then eventually be a senator. To me, this did not seem unattainable. But still, I wanted to be a mom first and foremost. I think the whole lawyer thing only really was because all I really wanted was to be a stay at home mom, but by that time, I knew that wasn't an acceptable answer. In truth, deep down, I just really wanted to get married and start a family as quickly as possible.

I didn't necessarily go about this the "correct" way. Fresh out of high school, I met someone. Did I think that he was "the one?" I'm not sure I ever really believed he was. Did I think that he was the right person to begin a family with? I'm fairly positive I knew he wouldn't be around - no matter how much I tried to fool myself at first. Turns out, I got pregnant relatively easily that time. There was a lot of turmoil in the relationship and in my pregnancy and by the time Austin was born, his biological father was no longer involved. I did desire him to have a strong relationship with Austin at that time, but it was not to be. Looking back, I am so very thankful he was willing to relinquish parental rights to Steve so that we were able to begin our family as a "real" family. No, it wasn't easy going through that transition (for reasons which we now totally understand), but God has worked through all of that, also. Steve's adoption of Austin was complete on November 21....just three months after we got married.

(OK, I had meant for this to be a one-post deal, but as I'm writing this, I'm realizing it will be much longer than that. So, I'll post the next part tomorrow and in the days to come!)

Triplets Turn!

2010-08-26T08:28:00.007-05:00

Lots has been going on and I still intend to go back and update on our lives over the summer, but I decided that if I wait until I have time to do that, I will never start blogging again! Which is not a good thing, because I pretty much use this as my journal to remember these crazy days of our children growing up. And that seems to be happening way too fast lately!

School started today for the triplets...I cannot believe that they are old enough and it is really, really odd and super quiet to have just Hannah and I at home for several hours. I have a lot of mixed emotions right now about them going. I want to homeschool so you can imagine how difficult it is to send all five, and especially the little three. I didn't want them to go to school until they were four if they were going at all. I only wanted them to have one year of preschool if they were going to go. I wanted them in Sumner for preschool - same as Austin and Aidan. I most certainly didn't want them going five days a week at three years old. I sure didn't want them riding a bus so young. And I most definitely didn't want them being gone from 7:25 until 1:00 every single day. Things change and don't go as we plan. The Lord has plans - plans for good and not to harm - plans to give a hope and a future. And when I step back and realize that I am not in ultimate control that it is up to God what happens in our lives then I also recognize the wonderful things that have come out of them going to school. They are very ready to go themselves. This gives them an opportunity to be with other children during the day. They are immensely enjoying preschool and can't stop talking about it. Their teacher is amazing and really does have their best interests at heart. Tripoli may not have been where I wanted them to go originally, but it sure is now! Tripoli has an excellent program that includes special education. Mrs. E is a special education instructor. Taking the bus makes them feel like big boys. They love Miss Becky, their driver. They get speech therapy twice a week, instead of once a week. Their other IEP goals and needs are met on Fridays, when the class size is much smaller. We are getting at least two more minds observing all three of them, but especially Nathanial and already things are sparking a "hmmm...." reaction. This means maybe, just maybe, we are closer to a referral to figure out what exactly is going on in that little brain. I am getting a lot of one-on-one time that Hannah is just soaking up and loving. Hannah and I are able to go to story hour and enjoy ourselves. I don't have to grow additional limbs to go to story hour! Hannah and I get errands done quickly and easily. Even though I was not prepared for everything our therapists had suggested way back in January of last year, I know that after much prayer the best decisions for them have been made. I know that God's love and desires for Nathanial, Ethan, and Noah are far greater than mine.

So, as they headed off for school on their very first day....I took lots of pictures!

Nathanial is ready!

Ethan is ready!

Noah is excited!

So excited....and a little unsure.

Of course I had to take another picture - with all five of my boys heading off!

Daddy 'herding' everyone to the waiting bus.

Now we're all a little nervous; but we never did cry!

Away they go!!!

Austin and Aidan's first day walking to school together...

Summer's Really Over

2010-08-17T09:13:00.000-05:00

Austin and Aidan started school today (the triplets start tomorrow!). Both are back in Sumner this year - Austin starting high school (eek!!) and Aidan starting first grade. Aidan got the teacher he really wanted and was excited to see most of his friends are in his class. Austin has been through the high school a few times, so I think he is really ready for it. The high school went to a trimester schedule, so Austin only has six classes all day at 60 minutes a piece. I think this is going to be a great thing for all the students. They are doing it so kids have more opportunities during high school. I really like it so far!

Aidan's all ready for his first day of first grade!

Austin's ready for his first day of his Freshman year
of High School!!

I guess I'm embarrassing them and they really
wish I'd hurry it up.

Aidan in front of the school

At his desk - getting a touch nervous!

This proved to be the hardest part - the little blue bike
on the bike rack means only one thing.
Aidan is ready to get himself back and forth to school!

Summer's Almost Over

2010-08-16T22:11:00.000-05:00

Tonight we had our preschool open house. Summer's almost over and it's almost time for school to start. :( Because Nathanial, Ethan, and Noah will be taking the "bus" to school, I took this opportunity to snap lots of pictures that would otherwise be taken on the first day. I am not going to take them nor follow the bus on the first day of school for a multitude of reasons.

Lined up on the little stars!

Having some tool fun and discovering a new addition
to the preschool since last spring - a hamster!

Nathanial playing in the kitchen.

Ethan playing with the tool bench.

Noah chatting with a new "friend."
(Somehow I think he'll be just fine making new friends!)

Nathanial can barely be torn away from the
fascinating gerbil!

All three checking him out.

Nathanial showing Hannah.

Noah playing with puzzles.

Ethan dressing a baby.

Nathanial playing with a puzzle.

Between their social story books, their teacher taking the time out to visit with the boys at their home, the open house happening just two days before school starts, and lots of conversations about the bus, Miss Becky, Mrs. E and Mrs S, and school, I believe the boys are as ready as they'll ever be to start school!!

State Fair!

2010-08-14T00:28:00.000-05:00

Austin was chosen to go to the Iowa State Fair for his communications day speech in July. He did a speech on Autism and received an award of excellence and advanced on. His homemade laundry soap that he made also advanced on to the State Fair. We headed there today sans triplets and Hannah thanks to Nicole!

First, of course, we had to have a little fun and try to enjoy some of the fair!

Iowa in the fun little grape thing at the
Iowa Grape Growers Association
(or something like that!).

Austin's turn - and as you can see,
not real thrilled about it!

Of course, Dad is always up for some fun!

Aidan in another one...

Austin getting really nervous - he couldn't
even eat his lunch!

Austin's name on the board outside
Presentation Room 1!!

Austin giving his speech - he did an awesome job!!!

Sitting down with the judge after the speech.
They immediately do a peer review and then also a
judge's interview. It was great to get instant feedback.

Austin and Aidan relaxing and having fun
while waiting for
the award's presentation.

Austin receives an award of merit - which is silver!!!

Austin received a blue ribbon on his homemade soap
at the State Fair!

Austin's first turkey leg!

No trip to the Iowa State Fair is ever complete without
a visit to the Butter Cow!

Aidan taking a bite of the giant turkey leg.

How tall is Austin in 2010?
Getting a lot taller!

As is Aidan!

And, once again, Dad has to join in the fun....
he's cheating, though.

Austin and Aidan riding the FFA rollercoaster.
(or are they???)

End of the day - time to run off a little steam
on the playground before heading home.

It was an exhausting day for Aidan!

Mission Trip!

2010-07-10T11:18:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow morning, at 6 am, Austin and I are embarking on a mission trip with 10 other youth and 2 other adults (our pastor and youth pastor) from our community. We are going to Chicago and staying at the Dream Center. We will be doing neighbor restoration projects (painting, removing graffiti, mowing lawns, etc.), street drama, street evangelism in downtown Chicago, and other activities. We would greatly appreciate all prayers for travel mercies, safety while there, and that people we meet would see Christ through us and long to seek a relationship with Him. We will be gone through next Saturday (July 17).

WOW!

2010-06-28T16:05:00.018-05:00

Well, I have been seriously neglecting my blog lately....but only because we have been cra-zy busy around here!! Since I know that without stressing over it and spending hours updating, I'm not going to...I'll flip in a few (ok, lots!) pictures here and there, but mostly this is going to be a list-update on what's been happening in the lives of the Calonder Crew!
Where to start???Hannah got her tube pulled!!!! On Good Friday (what an awesome day to have it happen?!?), we went in and Hannah was doing so well, we were allowed to pull the ng tube that day!! We were so excited and it has been going really well!Well, obviously you know from this post that the triplets have started preschool!! They went Fridays for three weeks towards the end of the year to get used to their new school that they will be attending in the "fall" (school begins for them August 18). During the summer they are attending a transitional preschool two days a week in Cedar Falls. It's been great for them! They also are attending VBS this week at our church with Aidan. They love it!! It's neat to see them as they get older, but hard also!

Ethan got glasses! Poor little dude couldn't see at all! I think he looks adorable, don't you agree???
Nathanial got another set of tubes and Hannah got her first set. We had no idea Hannah was having issues with fluid, but she had three ear infections in three months, so we did the referral and she had a ton of fluid. They both did awesome!Austin had his 8th grade field trip to the capital and Living History Farms. He loved it and got an awesome shot for fair of the dome!
Austin and Aidan found the tent in the back of the garage that hasn't been used in years and dug it out and had a little background camping! They had so much fun...I was positive they would be inside at some point (it got COLD), but they made it the whole night!There has been a lot of outdoor fun at our house lately...baseball playing in the backyard...
...slipping and sliding and spraying...
...bounce, bounce, bouncing good times in the bounce house....
After all those good times outside, sometimes we just like to relax inside....
...and sometimes we get hurt and have to get our first set of stitches. :-(

But don't relax too long, because if you do, Mom might redo a room on you!

Whew....that wore us out!
{and we're not done yet....watch for lots more updates soon!!!}

Wordless Wednesday

2010-05-19T11:17:00.002-05:00

Guess what we've been up to lately...

{I am also fully aware that it has been a l-o-n-g time since I have posted anything...life's been crazy busy, but I'm planning on working on something this week!}

Wordless Wednesday - What's Different in These Two Pictures???

2010-04-07T15:22:00.003-05:00

BIG changes at our house in the last several days....can you guess what they were? Here's two (fairly obvious) hints....stories to follow!!

Ethan's Messy Leaf Pile

2010-03-29T10:24:00.003-05:00

To know Ethan is to know that he is a neat freak. Apparently, that extends to the great outdoors. We have been having so much fun outside lately, but parts of it are stressful to Ethan. Take, for example, the leaves. He was talking about the "buwn piyew" (aka - burn pile) and I thought I'd video him talking about it. It turned into this (and, apparently, I am irritating to him, as you'll see at the end):

Nathanial and the Garden

2010-03-29T09:58:00.000-05:00

Nathanial was enjoying trying to figure out what the garden was (never mind that we didn't do anything with it at the end of the year - it's a disaster) and discovered what we do with all that rabbit "waste."

Noah and his "Draper"

2010-03-29T09:31:00.000-05:00

Noah was enjoying his time in the sandpit area of our yard when I thought for sure he was asking for a diaper. I could not figure out why! Until the very end...

Triplet's 3rd Birthday Party!

2010-03-08T10:16:00.000-06:00

We had the triplets third birthday party at {surprise, surprise!} Happy Joe's in Dubuque. It is where we have had all of their parties so far and it has been so much fun! The boys were really into it this year and were so much fun. Because there are three of them, they were confused about the whole "who's birthday is it" and believed it was everyone's birthday. We introduced the word "triplets" to them, but they are still really too little to understand it.

They each always get their own cake because Grandpa Kenny is awesome and feels that since it is each thier birthday, they each deserve one. We also always sing "Happy Birthday" to each of them individually. Steve's cousins make the cakes and they seriously are the best cakes I have ever tasted!!

Nathanial with his cake

Ethan with his cake

Noah is far too busy checking out the cake and candle to worry about a silly picture

There he is!

Wow....all these crazy people taking pictures of us!

Hannah wants in on the action - already "testing" the cake prior to it even being cut!

Who is this crazy lady with the horn???
And why does she know our names???

Dudes....I think she's seriously talking about us!!!!

Oh, wow!! All this sugar is simply heaven!!!!

Present time!
Ethan still is happy with the 25 cent toy from the machine.

Noah loves his new bookbag and is ready for preschool!

Ethan loves the motorcycle!

Thano loves his shirt from his Godmother!

Austin let me take one picture!

The sugar high is gone and Hannah is enjoying snuggling with Grandma.

I am so tired, Mommy!

All waiting for Daddy at Target and ready to head home!

Hannah's First Haircut {Bangs Only}

2010-02-27T15:54:00.001-06:00

{Hannah's first haircut}
Done by Kayla of A New You at Cuts for a Cause to raise money for a camp for abused and neglected children in foster care - a great reason to try a haircut!!

This and That

2010-02-25T17:01:00.008-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted anything, we've been pretty busy around here. I'll do a separate birthday party post soon, I hope! This is just my general update for the last while so if it seems completely random, that's because it is!

It's not too late to comment on my Delurk for Haiti post here! I am wrapping it up, however, and am going to do the donation this Sunday. Our chur ch is raising monies through our mission group for Samaritan's Purse so that is where I will direct all funds I raise.

I just love having the boys share a room and I think it encourages a bond that sometimes wouldn't be there if everyone had their own separate spaces. I know that someday they will complain about "having" to share a room, but hopefully they will also have fond memories that maybe they won't want to be separated.One of the things that I love about this is what I am able to witness - every night - is this:

One of the things that I do not so much enjoy is the destruction that three little boys left to go to sleep unsupervised can do:
{This was all done in a matter of 20 minutes}

This photo is also our "before" of our "major renovation project" that will begin - someday. Already talked with the carpenter and when his next project is finished he will begin on their room. They are getting all walls completely ripped out (finished ripping them, as it were); new wiring; new lighting; lath removed; insulation put in; new drywall; and finally new windows. That is what we would love to do in every room and, out of necessity, we are beginning in their room. I am very excited about my paint design and cannot wait for the project to be finished so I can paint!!!

Hannah is just growing, growing, growing! She has held steady at 19 lbs, 10 oz the last few weeks and last week dropped to 19 lbs, 8 oz, so I believe we are finding her new "curve." Dr. V wanted to see if we could recover any more weight, length, or head circumference and I am feeling very comfortable now about pulling the tube in April. I believe she is where her body should be finally and it is so exciting to see the amazing ways God has worked through this! Her home health visits have been extended out to twice monthly now (instead of weekly - per insurance) and we have a scale with which to weigh her weekly to keep track of how she is doing to be sure she doesn't fall behind.
{Hannah truly is her Grandpa Kenny's girl - she just adores him!!}

Daddy brought in some rabbits from the "new" litter - all already full grown - to clip nails, weigh, and tattoo. The boys just loved them and were so excited to see them in the house, on the dining room table that we never did get to tattooing them. The shrieks of sheer joy were well worth it, though!

{Nathanial, Noah, and Aidan were really excited, but Ethan decided to hang back a bit}

{Ethan gets a little closer and Thano is just giddy with excitement!}

{Ethan finally touches the rabbit!}

We have had so much snow this winter, which has led to a lot of fun with snow forts and castles, snow ball fights, and sledding....along with shoveling, icky drives, and cold temperatures! Austin has been an excellent help to Dad this year by actually helping to dig out so many times! Aidan has loved being outside when the weather isn't too cold (which this winter qualifies as above 15!).
{Aidan and his snow castle}

Austin is maturing all of the sudden very quickly. We still struggle with the Asperger side of things, but he also is more helpful lately. He likes his brothers and sister most of the time and does enjoy playing with them. You can read more about him on my blog for him, All About Austin.
{Austin and Ethan at my birthday dinner}

And, finally, a little birthday party preview. The boys had a ton of fun and we enjoyed having time to be with everyone who was able to make it out - even though it was pretty crazy!

Look how far we've come!!!

2010-02-03T05:04:00.000-06:00

We 3
Are 3
on 2/3

It is absolutely unbelievable to me that three years have passed since the triplets were welcomed into our world! They have changed everything and been such an amazing blessing to us. I still remember the years of praying for children and the heartbreak when, month after month, there was still another negative. It felt selfish in some ways and I questioned often whether God felt that we should just give up (as many people told us), but the desire to add to our family was so strong. Looking back on that time of questioning and growth, I am blown away by the way God chose to add to our family! (At one time, I would have said complete it, but we know that wasn't to be, either!! :-D)

In the early sleepless days, I used to think in some ways it couldn't get much better and it couldn't get much harder. I am now learning that each phase is a phase of "much better and much harder." The triplets stretch our physical capacity everyday, but they also stretch our spiritual and loving abilities right along with it! This has been the most amazing gift that I have been given and am so thankful that they are a part of our lives!

I remember vividly keeping their hospital bracelets on until they couldn't possibly stay on one day longer, in order to identify who was who between Nathanial and Ethan. I remember vividly painting Nathanial's one big toe bright red and making sure it never even faded, for fear that we wouldn't know who was who and would get them confused! I remember believing that I was a horrible mom because I honestly could not have told you without looking for my "clues" who was who until they were at least eight months old. Everyone said "oh, you'll know - you're their mom!" I truly wish they had never said that and had been honest and said "you know, often you will have no clue who is who!" I remember thinking that I would never be able to tell them apart and thinking that they would be able to easily fool me. I do not remember at what age it became clear to me who was who. I do not remember at what age I quit painting Nathanial's toenail and made sure he was always in some form of yellow. I do not remember when, without a shadow of a doubt and with no clues whatsoever, I knew who was who. Now, they are so incredibly different that I cannot believe that I could ever not tell them apart! Now, I can look back at pictures of them as babies and, in most cases, can tell who was who better than I could at the time the photo was taken. Now, they are each their own individual little selves and I often forget that they are identical little men.

Oh, they have grown so much and it is so exciting to be a witness to God's perfect plan over their lives! I cannot wait to see what the next 3, 6, 9, 12, 28 years bring!!

{Look how far! Left - five days old; Right - 3 years old!!}
{Both pictures - Nathanial, Ethan, Noah}

{Nathanial Steven - a few hours old and 3 years old!!}

Nathanial was the first to make his debut into this world. He came wailing into the world at 4 lbs, 9 oz and quickly became a very content little man. He did go to the NICU because he had some grunting issues, but only stayed for a short 36 hours. He required no intervention and only needed to be kept warm. He had some issues with keeping his temp up when he came to the room with me (and that almost cost him going home with the rest of us!). He was the most content to get fed and then move along if need be. He would sit patiently waiting for his turn to be held or nursed.

Nathanial is still pretty content to do his own thing. He is the most independent from the other two, but also the most attached to me. Nathanial is often attached to me and following me around. He is a very quiet little boy. He can get into his fair share of trouble, but isn't usually the instigator of such trouble...he usually just follows along. He already can count to 10 when he feels like it. He doesn't say a whole lot and prefers to just stay quiet most of the time. He has the hardest time adjusting to new people and places, but he eventually does. He loves to sleep RIGHT next to Aidan every night. Thano still sucks his thumb and rubs his hair when he is sleepy and when he is anxious, he will still suck his thumb in other situations, also. He loves to see how things work and take things apart. He loves his baby sister and he loves to sit by her and play with her. He loves to giggle and has a beautiful smile! Nathanial is a lover on his terms and still wants to be held or sit right by me often. He has the cutest little voice and I absolutely adore his lisp!

{Ethan Jacob - a few hours old and 3 years old!!}

Ethan Jacob was the second one to make his debut at 5 lbs, 3 oz. There was no mistaking who looked like who when we were able to see both Nathanial and Ethan! Ethan never had many issues at all and he only went to a transitional NICU bed for two hours before joining mommy in recovery. Ethan was a pretty content baby and went with the flow most of the time. He also was OK with waiting his turn to nurse. He stayed with me during my entire 24 hour ordeal with mag and was able to nurse as he wanted. It was really nice to be able to have one baby with me the entire time. I was upset that the other two were not, but so thankful that Ethan was because I knew the odds of that happening were very slim with triplets.

Ethan is now our fiery one. He can be a little trouble maker, but he can also be a total love. He is very stubborn and very meticulous. Ethan likes everything to be in it's place and put away. He is the best helper at picking up and making sure things go where they belong. He loves being with Noah and they love to figure out things together. Ethan has an amazing laugh and an amazing smile. He loves to play games and tickle people. He is very rough and tumble and is definitely "all boy." I always say Ethan is very "sturdy" (whereas Nathanial seems fragile) which seems like an odd way to explain someone, but if you know him, you know what I am talking about. Ethan is also the clearest in his speech. He tries very hard to use complete sentences. He is also very quiet, like Nathanial, and not usually very loud unless he is getting in trouble! Ethan still sucks his two middle fingers and rubs his hair when he is tired and getting ready for sleep. He is also a cuddler in bed and has to be near Aidan and Nathanial at night and Nathanial during the day.

{Noah at a few hours old and 3 years old!!}

Noah was the last to make his arrival and the first to make it known that he would never be last again...or forgotten! Noah was the maddest upon delivery and made the most noise. Whereas the other two had little cries, Noah had a very robust cry for how tiny he was! Noah came into this world weighing 5 lbs, 12 oz. He spent the longest in NICU (2 1/2 days) and had the hardest time transitioning from the womb. He first had trouble with grunting, then had issues with reflux (which remained with him for a long time). I got my first hint of Noah's personality (other than right at delivery) when he was under the bili lights. All three had to do it and the other two slept contentedly through, getting out to nurse and change diapers. Noah screamed through his time and made it very clear he was not at all happy being left in their. He would cry pitiful cries (to the point of becoming hoarse) until I picked him up, thinking he wanted to nurse, only to find out he just wanted to be held. I said then, and I was right, that he was going to be high maintenance. Noone believed me...

Noah-Noah is very much our highest maintenance man. He is the most needy and the most cuddly and has been since the beginning. Noah is perfectly content being held all day long - still! He is fiercely attached to his Daddy and when Daddy is home, I do not matter. So much so that when he does come to me when Steve is home, we usually know he is sick! Noah has the biggest imagination of the three and Noah is definitely the comedian! He is hilarious and he daily cracks us up. If I ever had any concerns about him being "forgotten" or "left out" because he was not identical, those have long since gone by the way side. He loves to pretend to be a puppy and has since taught his sister how to join in the fun. He loves to talk to himself and sing to himself and is perfectly content playing. He plays with anything he can - trucks, dolls - it does not matter. He will make them whatever fits his current mood. He adores Hannah and looks up to Aidan. He had the roughest start, as far as lingering issues from being a preemie, but has definitely grown into an amazing little boy. He loves playing with his brothers and being with our family - and he loves being at home. He is the biggest home body of the three. He loves Elmo and will watch the same little segment over and over! Noah is still very attached to his two middle fingers and still sucks them for no reason whatsoever!

We have been so incredibly blessed and I am so thankful for each day I have with these three boys. I am also thankful for the opportunity birthdays are - they give us the ability to reflect on past events, see how much things can change in a short amount of time, and allow me to take the time to focus on the gifts of each on of my children individually.

Hearing Tests

2010-01-27T14:03:00.003-06:00

Nathanial, Ethan, and Noah went in for another follow up hearing test this morning. Last time, Noah really didn't do well, Ethan did not pass and Nathanial heard enough tones to receive a "pass" but missed a few tones. Since then, Noah and Ethan have had a new set of tubes put in and adenoids taken out (which Nathanial had done two months prior to the last hearing test); so we wanted to see if that would improve things a bit.

Noah did fabulous! He got to take the "big boy" hearing test, which involved wearing headphones, listening for tones, and placing a block in the basket when he heard the tone. He heard all tones today and both tubes were in place and open. He passed, but the audiologist also wants to be cautious, so he is to go in again in three months for another follow up - to be sure his hearing stays good and make sure if the tubes fall out, we catch it quickly enough that we are not messing with his speech too much. I haven't noticed a huge improvement in his speech since the new tubes were placed. He did then and still does, talk A LOT, but he is very hard to understand and that hasn't changed much. At least we know he is hearing, so we can still work harder on speech therapy. It appears that he learned to say things incorrectly and is now having a hard time breaking the habit.

Ethan was next and we tried the "big boy" hearing test, but that didn't work with him. We couldn't tell if he was overly anxious about when to put the block in or not, so we went back to the other way. He also didn't do well with that. So, we have a few options here. Either he has a permanent hearing loss in his high frequency range (which is what we thought last time about all three) or he has "mixed hearing loss" which is permanent hearing loss due to many ear infections/fluid being present constantly (entirely a possibility) or he was tired/stubborn/anxious and just didn't want to cooperate any longer by the time we got to those tones. His tubes were in place and clear, so fluid is not contributing to the problem at this time. When we return for his three month check, we are going to start with the tones he missed today (and last time) to see if that makes a difference. Then maybe we will have more answer....but as I am learning, this is on a constant curve, so we may not know for a long time! The good news is, he did hear in a speech range, so whatever kind of loss he's experiencing today is not affecting his speech ability or learning.

Nathanial went last because he didn't get new tubes in and his tubes were still in place and clear. He did very well with the "big boy" test, but still missed a couple of tones. His was also in the high frequency range. The plan is to continue to watch that and monitor it along with Noah and Ethan.

All three boys were very cooperative and well behaved. They waited well with Daddy and were excellent back in the booth with me. They are getting to be such big boys and I am so happy that they are getting a smidge easier to take out. It also helps when we do things in the morning...by afternoon, they tend to fall apart a little easier!

Part of the hearing evaluation was being done today in preparation for their IEP's, which are being written on Friday. We learned yesterday that the gentleman we had a LOT of issues with with Austin and trying to get him an IEP will be at the meeting on Friday. I need a lot of prayer to hold it together and know that this is a whole different situation and trust that he is not just on a rampage to destroy our family's education (which, OK, so it sounds a little far-fetched, but trust me, this man did NOT like Steve or I at all by the time we were done with Austin's meeting and the feeling was pretty mutual). He was not very educated in IDEA laws at that time and not at all compassionate. I'm hoping he trusts this time what our therapists have to say and that this is a smoother process since all three boys already have an IFSP. Again, prayer would be greatly appreciated!!!

The LORD gives his people strength. The LORD blesses them with peace.
~Psalm 29:11

Praise the Lord!!!

2010-01-22T20:35:00.001-06:00

{l-r Hannah at the beginning of the journey in September and Hannah now}

Hannah went back to Iowa City today for another follow up with Dr. A and Dr. V. It was awesome!!! She is just doing amazing.

When she started this journey in September, she was 26.4" long (had not grown in length since June); her head circumference was 16.9" (had not increased since at least April); and her weight was 14 lbs, 2.5 oz (very slow gain, if at all) and her BMI was 14.3. She was well below any percentiles on the chart and, if you are familiar with BMI, that is well below a "healthy" number (normal is at least 18.5 and anything below 19 is underweight). She grew and grew and grew and NOW her numbers are so much better - it is sooo exciting! Her height today was 29.2" (that is almost THREE WHOLE INCHES in four months of the feeding tube!!!!!!!!!) and she is at the 8th percentile for her length compared to SAME AGE toddlers!! Her weight today was 19 lbs, 9.6 oz (that is FIVE and a half POUNDS!!!) and she is almost 3rd percentile....definitely within spitting distance! Her head circumference was 18" - almost TWO INCHES and puts her at the 30th percentile for her AGE!!!!!!!! That was a HUGE jump, especially since her head had not grown - at all - since at least April!! Soooo exciting!! Her BMI today is 16.15, which is still technically 'underweight' but definitely not as alarming. The most exciting part for me is seeing how she is doing on the overall chart...where she lands for her height and weight, irregardless of age (in other words, with peers who are the same length/weight combo as her, but not necessarily the same age) and that was slightly OVER the 25th percentile!!! And she did ALL THIS in only FOUR MONTHS on the feeding tube....God is soooo good. With phenomenal numbers like this, it is impossible to ignore the miracle of the Great Physician's Hands and to Him goes ALL the glory!!!

When we first put the tube in, both Steve and I were under the impression (prior to hospitalization) that it was a very short-term solution and would be completed within 6-8 weeks. We were told something quite differently when we actually were in the hospital and spoke with the doctor and dietitian. They both told us at that point that 6 months was way too optimistic or even realistic of a goal, but we could shoot for it as long as we were not disappointed if it didn't come out then. They both felt that, realistically speaking, she would need the tube for at least twelve months and probably more. We went with that because they are the experts and the ones who deal with these babes all day, every day. So that has been our goal this entire time - get it out in twelve months, but if she wasn't ready for it to come out then, then we would be OK with that. When we got home and I researched it, we found out it was a very real possibility that she would never outgrow the need for supplemental feeding and may eventually need a g-tube (one that goes directly into the tummy). It is super common for babes with reflux and other issues that cause growth problems. I was not willing to accept that for Hannah, but it has always been in the back of my mind. Now, though, we were told that if we wanted to do a trial run without the tube, with the knowledge that if she didn't do well it would go back in, we could try it. Dr. V feels that Hannah has probably recovered all lost weight, length, circumference, but there is a small possibility that Hannah has more growth in her. Because of that and because Hannah is just now starting to really do well feeding orally and on her own, we decided to hold off. So the new plan is to see if we can recover any more growth between now and April 2nd and at that time, wean off the feeding tube completely. That is just astounding to me....that in less than six months, she may be done with it! Again, all glory to God who has healed her!!!

Hannah has done so well through all of this that Dr. V actually uses Hannah in her lectures! She said a lot of the medical community still believes that lack of normal physiological growth (aka failure to thrive) is always due to neglect on the parent's part. She said that she uses Hannah constantly now to prove that when parents are willing to do whatever is necessary medically, are intelligent and on board with doctors, instead of bucking them the entire way, that great things can happen. That is still not to say that all children with LNPG are all products of parents that aren't on board, either. She just said it is much easier to prove that this can happen to normal children in a healthy family and parenting situation and when everyone works together for the good of the child, amazing growth can happen. She said often parents are so angry when it is suggested and refuse to do it, so then DHS ends up getting involved and then parents won't do what is necessary for the child, either, so then they don't end up growing either. She said that she can tell with 100% accuracy that Hannah's issues are completely related to reflux and not at all related to "social issues." It was very vindicating to hear that from a doctor and she kept telling me what a great job I was doing and that I deserved congratulations, also, but I am only doing whatever is in my power to do for Hannah as her mother and praying over the rest of it so that God can restore her health in ways that only He can. It breaks my heart that there are parents so angry at "the system" that they fail to see what is necessary for their child. This was not an easy decision for us to make. This was not easy for me (or Steve) to hear that it was needed. It definitely seemed radical at the time. However, God gave me a great peace about it all when it became obvious that it was needed and He has since showed me over and over that we made the right decision for Hannah. And that's all I wanted...was a little reassurance that we didn't go outside His will through all this and we were doing what was medically needed through the doctors.

I am so excited to see the amazing strides Hannah has made. It just leaves me in awe of what is possible!!

Delurk for Haiti

2010-01-15T21:16:00.002-06:00

I have been struggling with what to say about Haiti and I came up with something earlier, but that will have to wait. I have been praying for all of the people who have died or been injured or were in Haiti at the time of the earthquake. Praying for all of the rescue workers. Praying for understanding, peace, and God's love to shine through this disaster. Then I came across Brittany's post this evening (at 4 Little Men and Girly Twins) and I thought this idea was brilliant.

Here's the plan:

For every single comment I recieve on this post, our family will personally donate $0.25 to a rescue effort (most likely World Vision, but if our church starts a fund we may choose that one...I'll let you know what where we are giving after Sunday services) to help the people of Haiti. If you visit 4 Little Men and Girly Twins, you can comment there and follow other links to comment. Imagine the impact we can make!!

So, if you've never commented here - or if you do all the time - NOW is the time to comment!

Chuck E Cheese Fun!

2010-01-15T09:34:00.000-06:00

I always try to take the kids to Chuck E Cheese once a year during Christmas break and this year, I knew it was going to be a challenge. Thankfully, Nicole was more than willing to go along and was an awesome help to keep track of everyone, plus be someone for me to talk to! We had a ton of fun and I am so glad we went. The boys are getting better about staying near by and staying together and Austin and Aidan are old enough to play games together away from me.

{This horse was a huge attraction for the triplets. I really didn't think they'd stay on, but they loved it!}

{Everyone had lots of fun doing lots of different things!}

{They also enjoyed the small carousel - to a point, then Noah wanted off!}

{The highlight of their entire time was dancing with Chuck E Cheese}

{Nathanial and Noah loved riding in the car with Chuck...and Hannah wasn't about to miss out!}

Family Christmases

2010-01-04T09:14:00.000-06:00

Christmas has been a lot less stressed since we started staying home on Christmas Day for our own family and doing our extended family on weekends surrounding Christmas. This year, we had Steve's side first and enjoyed ourselves. It was fun to see how much better Hannah is starting to get to interacting with Kendra...they are gonna need to stick by each other as the only girls in a sea of boys!

{Hannah looks like she's telling Aidan something, which I loved;
Aidan and Kendra help Hannah open a gift.}

{Aidan's - and everyone else's! - favorite gift of Christmas by far was this guitar!}

{Everyone diving in to different things...it's hard to keep track of it all anymore!}

We then returned to Dubuque for a weekend to have Christmas with my mom and grandparents and my dad. It was a busy, but very fun, weekend!

{Granny and my mom with Hannah - I love these pictures!}

{Chris, solidifying his place as favorite son in law with the Lukken-making!}

{There are always plenty of presents!}
{It has become a new tradition that Austin helps Michael pass out gifts.}

{Plenty of time for lots of fun after gift opening and eating is done!}

The next day, we had Christmas with my dad at my sister's house. It was a fun and relaxing day that went by all too quickly. Unfortunately, my camera battery died and I did not bring the charger with me! I didn't get very many pictures, but love the ones I did get!

Christmas!

2009-12-25T22:29:00.000-06:00

Christmas Eve brought a winter storm (blizzard actually), so Daddy spent the day home with us. We were very blessed this year with not only Christmas Eve, but the entire weekend. It was awesome to have Steve home for four and a half days - very much like an unplanned vacation! I could certainly do with it more often!

On Christmas Eve, we made sugar cookies for Santa. Aidan, Nathanial, Ethan, Noah, and Hannah all helped decorate the cookies. Noah didn't last very long at all - just long enough to load one full of frosting and eat it! Hannah thoroughly enjoyed her cookie that she "made" (with a lot of help) and so did Nathanial and Ethan. Aidan really worked hard at making cookies and not just eating them so that Santa would have some to enjoy, also!

After all our cookies were made, we all showered and got dressed for Christmas Eve service. The service was wonderful and afterwards, we were talking about a certain country song. Everyone was shocked that I had no idea what it was, so as soon as I got in the car, I asked Steve about it and he was amazed I didn't know it either. In my defense, I grew up with a dad that was very into rock and roll and not so much country, so we never (and I do mean never) listened to country. As it turns out {surprise, surprise} Steve just happened to have the cd at home. As soon as we all got inside and got coats off, Daddy found the cd and we had a little impromptu dance. It was a lot of fun and we all really enjoyed it! I was actually very thankful for the discussion after service about the song! I also tried to get a picture of all six kids in their Christmas finery, but it didn't turn out the greatest...it is not easy to get six little people to sit still for a picture! After a while of dancing, everyone got their jammies on and headed to bed.

Christmas morning brought children up far too early for their mother's taste. Austin and Aidan were up at 4:30 am!! Dad thought that was just fine, I told them I would not get up until at least 6:30 and noone was going downstairs until then. By 5:30, everyone except Hannah was awake, so Daddy gave them all a bath (which is why they are wet) to waste a little more time. I finally got up, but was not real pleased to have been bugged every five minutes from 4:30 on. I probably should have gotten up, let them open presents, and went back to bed, but I knew there was no way I would be going back to bed, so I stalled. Probably makes me a bad mommy, but that's just how it is! When I finally woke up a very testy Hannah (who is used to sleeping until at least 8), we all went down and enjoyed the morning.

I had rolls rising on the counter that Noah just could not leave alone. I was a little perturbed at first that my perfect, pretty rolls were destroyed by a two year old in a very short period of time, but it did not last long. He was enjoying himself so much it was hard to stay upset with him! He then shoved more rolls into the small loaf pan I had made. I did pull some of the rolls off the top and had him "help" me reshape them. He did a great job - and I have to admit his bread was phenomenal!

We had a great Christmas as a family and really cherish the memories we are making with each of them. In some ways, we are just getting started and in others, we are almost done. It seems these years are going by so very fast and I thank God for each of my children. On Christmas especially, I cannot imagine having a child with the precise knowledge that he would one day (just a short 33 years later) be sacrificed for everyone else. Thank you, God, for the amazing gift of salvation you give to each one of us!!

Sick Mommy Awards

2009-12-21T12:35:00.007-06:00

Today's SMA's* go to the following:
*Sick Mommy Awards

Thank you to PBSKids
Thank you, PBSKids, for providing quality, educational television so I can feel less guilty about allowing my children to watch all morning long. Thank you for being such a great babysitter!

Thank you, also, to my very own big, comfy, couch.

Thank you, Mr. Couch, for being so very cuddly and comforting me, while allowing me to keep one eye on my many small children.

Thank you, Peanut Butter.
Thank you, Peanut Butter, for being a fairly healthy option that is quick, easy, and takes no thought to feed my many small children lunch. Thank you for providing lots of necessary protein!

Thank you, Naptime!!

Ahhh, naptime. How I love thee!! You deserve so very many thank you's and I barely know where to start. Thank you, Naptime, for giving me a chance to catch my breath, every day. Thank you, Naptime, for giving me this special little two hours of Mommy time, especially when Mommy doesn't feel so great! Thank you, Naptime, for recharging my little people and taking away the crankiness.

And now, I am off to lie on said couch and veg while my many small children enjoy their naptime!!

Christmas Programs, Christmas Programs, Christmas Programs!

2009-12-20T22:02:00.000-06:00

December brought with it three different Christmas programs - Aidan's school program, Austin's vocal program, and the church program. Aidan was very excited for his very first school Christmas program at the big school (high school) and he did a great job! My camera takes horrible far away pictures, so some are just not real fabulous, but you get the gist of it. Aidan is in the way back row, all the way to the right, with the red sweater and shirt sticking out the bottom.

This is both Kindergarten classes together.

Little better picture of Aidan...looking all serious.

And his head got a touch cut off, but they look so cute singing away.

Austin's vocal program.
The only decent picture I got of him that was close enough to identify him.

Austin is on the right corner of the piano...red sweater.

Aidan's all ready for the church program - I do not know what is up with the odd faces lately.
The black eye is compliments of some child in PE who rammed into Aidan while playing some little game. I tried to fix it, but I can't because of where it is. Ahhh....memories!

The girls at church all ready...and all looking beautiful!

The boys turn. All looking mighty handsome!
(Don't ask about the newspaper Noah had to carry with him.)

Ali and Hannah Hannah and Noah waiting for it to start
(again with the paper...)

Ethan is waiting and lounging

Hannah is waiting patiently

Aidan - facing away from the camera. Again, horrible shots from distance, but I was only 3 rows back. Still, I kept getting people's heads!

This shot is really, really bad, BUT Aidan was so cute doing all the actions, that I didn't even care that it was fuzzy!

The triplets and Hannah were forced to wait until Aidan's part was over, but then really wanted to just go to the "toys" (as Noah calls it) to play. This is how I spent the remainder of the play. Thankfully, I was able to see it in rehearsal, so I had seen some version of it prior to the actual night!

Hannah loves the little rocky-thingy.

Ethan loves the elephant slide.
{They all do, actually!}

Nathanial playing nicely.Noah and Hannah putting the train together.
{Never mind the two different colored socks....}

Nathanial serving Ethan something to eat.

Ethan serves HannahAll four enjoying a little "snack"

The programs were a lot of fun and really reminded us of what Christmas is all about. Without Jesus, it would all be nothing and I am thankful to have the opportunity to take time out to reflect upon that during the busy season that Christmas can become if you let it!

November/December Fun

2009-12-09T17:32:00.000-06:00

The end of November and the entire month of December brought bitter cold temps, huge dumps of snow, and nasty windchills - which means we had to come up with lots of creative ideas to spend a lot of time indoors. The triplets were quite fascinated by the first blizzard of the year as they did not remember snow from last year. It was so fun to watch their excitement at the snow coming down and piling up.

{Ethan loves to write}

{Aidan loves to draw and Hannah really wanted to try}

{Hannah "drawing" with her syringe}

{Ethan and Aidan - writing and drawing}

{Noah loves to scribble}

Nathanial put on a little impromptu concert for us all one day and everyone loved it!

{Noah and Hannah enjoyed the performance}

We were so amazed by the snow falling outside we sat and watched it in the dining room for hours, it seemed!

The next morning, we woke up to a winter wonderland in our backyard!

Somebody had to go outside and clear all that snow from the driveway and sidewalk!
{Hint: It really wasn't Aidan}

{Austin was truly freezing, but a HUGE help to Dad}
{Aidan enjoyed playing in the snow!}

Oh, Christmas Tree!

2009-12-08T17:12:00.000-06:00

Once again this year, we found ourselves with just Steve, Aidan, and I going out to cut down the tree (I'm hoping this rectifies itself next year and we all go!). We went to the tree farm and Aidan picked out a tree he liked - with our approval - and worked on cutting it down. Why Dad trusted him with a saw is beyond me, but he gave up pretty quickly!

When we got home, we got it set up and then left it alone for a couple of days until we all had time to decorate it together. Even Hannah helped and we all enjoyed the afternoon together. It's fun to watch the changes in each of them year to year with what they are able to help with and do with decorating!

Thanksgiving

2009-11-30T15:02:00.000-06:00

We had two wonderful Thanksgivings this year. It was our year to have Thanksgiving with my family on Thanksgiving day and we spent the day visiting and very relaxed. I didn't get any pictures at my Dad's of Thanksgiving (thanks to a dead camera battery) and only one at my Grandparent's. At least I got one. Everyone enjoyed themselves and had a ton of fun as always!

{Hannah and Grandma Janet}

On the weekend, we went to Steve's side for Thanksgiving/Austin B's birthday. The triplets are getting to the point where they really enjoy themselves and Hannah is getting more and more independent, so she also enjoyed some time playing with all the little people. My sister in law always does a fun ornament craft and we did that also. This year she had two - one for the little people and one for the grown ups. It worked out perfect and the older cousins were great sports about helping the little cousins!

{Kendra and Noah}

{Hannah is still tiny enough to stand up under a pool table.}

{Aidan}

{Hannah, Nathanial, and Kendra are fascinated with Aunt Sue's pictures}

{Aaron "helping" Hannah make her craft}

{Troy helped Nathanial, but Nathanial wanted to do it himself}

{Aidan working hard on his craft}

{Shane helping Noah}

{Austin helping Ethan - they make a great team!}

As always, we take a grandkids photo for Grandma Lee and Grandpa Kenny's Christmas card.
{Noah, Troy with Kendra, Austin B with Thano, Austin C with Ethan, Shane with Hannah, Aidan}

Wordless Wednesday - Silly Thano

2009-11-18T14:28:00.003-06:00

Surgeries....Again.

2009-11-17T14:13:00.004-06:00

Nathanial, Ethan, and Noah have been in speech and development therapy for almost a year now (wow!) and so it was time for their bi-annual hearing screens to go with their evaluations for their IFSP's. Nathanial passed his, but was right on the line of a need for a medical referral. The general consensus was, though, that he is hearing well enough to be at a learning level. So he was ultimately not referred on, which was good because he just got a new set of tubes a few months ago. Noah failed his hearing test massively - completely missing entire tones. He did not hear things no matter how loud they got. Ethan failed massively, also, but heard all the tones, just at very loud levels. So they were referred back to Dr. B for an evaluation.

When we went in, it was discovered that Noah's one tube fell completely out, the other was just barely in, and there was a lot of fluid behind both eardrums. Ethan's tubes were both in place, however they were plugged completely, so no longer working. He also had a lot of fluid behind both eardrums. We decided to go ahead with surgery for both of them.

They went in today and Noah knew when we got to the floor just exactly what was going to happen and started sobbing. I was able to distract him with a new blankey and teddy eventually. (I love the hospital that we go to for this - it is very progressive and very comforting for little people, especially considering it's in a town with a population of about 9,000 people.)

Ethan went first, which was a huge help because he doesn't have the propensity for drama that Noah does and he feeds off Noah. He got right in the little wagon and said "bye-bye" to me and was off. He was done in about an hour and Dr. B came in to chat with me. He had a ton of thick mucus behind both eardrums, which was drained and his adenoids were "huge." She feels his speech and hearing should be drastically improved now. His one tube was also fairly buried in his ear, so she had to do a little more "work" to get it out. She said we will probably see more bleeding from that ear than the other three ears and just to know that was why. As soon as they took Noah back, they came and got me for Ethan in the recovery room. He was saying miserably "mommy, mommy, mommy" over and over. Once I started to hold him, he did much better. We got in a lot of cuddle time while Noah was in surgery. Ethan also had/has some breathing congestion now, but they said that should clear up in a few days. He wasn't so bad that he needed a breathing treatment (like Nathanial) which was reassuring; they just heard a lot of "gunk" in his lungs afterward.

Noah went next and because Ethan went without much fanfare, Noah got in the wagon and said "bye-bye" to me, also. Noah had a ton of pus behind both eardrums, so was given iv antibiotics while also being given fluids (Ethan also received iv fluids). Dr B is not sure if he will ever get back some of the tones he totally missed (there was indication of damaged nerves from birth on for those tones), but they are "not tones he really needs." Interesting....

Noah had some dramatics coming out of anesthesia (as always) so one nurse came to cuddle with Ethan while I went back to recovery with Noah. He did better after I got back there and was able to hold him, but still had the little sobbing-breathing problem and would just break into more sobs on occasion.

Ethan drank right away and ate an entire popsicle, but Noah refused. He was not allowed to have the IV pulled until he drank 6 oz of juice and half a popsicle so they could see that he would indeed drink and not vomit when he got home. It took him a good 45 minutes to decide he wanted to go home bad enough to drink anything. As soon as he did, we were GONE.

This afternoon, both are rather hyper and not wanting to rest or nap at all. I believe they may be ramped up on pain killers, but they need to rest. They are recovering well, though, and really don't seem to be in any pain...by now we should be almost out of the effects of the pain meds they had at the hospital!

Hannah's Gaining!!

2009-11-13T16:09:00.006-06:00

Hannah had her follow up today in Iowa City with Dr. V and Dr. A. It went AWESOME!!! I have been feeling very defeated and frustrated because it appeared her weight gain was very slow. She has been gaining three ounces a week every week since she was discharged and then she gained eight last week. She gained four ounces this week, according to their scale (it's difficult to say if this is accurate because it is best that she is weighed on the same scale every time at the same time of day in the same place, etc., etc.). So I told the nurse my frustrations. I felt that it should be more, as she is still eating table food, drinking calorie enhanced milk, nursing, and being tube fed. Dr. V came in and was thrilled with her gain. She charted it out for me (below) and said it was an awesome gain overall! Yay!! Five grams per day is maintenance and ten grams per day is weight gain. She was hoping/expecting Hannah G to gain ten grams per day....Hannah is really gaining eighteen grams per day on average!!! WooHoo!!! It made me feel so much better to see it all plotted out. Plus, not only is she gaining, but I'll explain the charts below which were all very encouraging.

Because she has gained weight, we are also going to increase her Pediasure feedings overnight. Now she will be getting 12 ounces over a ten hour period, which will continue to push her weight up, which in turn pushes her length up. Ultimately, she needs her length to be between 30-50th percentile and then her weight to match that somewhere on the chart. Baby steps - and we are getting there quicker than I prayed for!!

Miss Hannah G today - at almost fourteen months {in a few days!}.

The chart above is what Hannah had been doing. As you can see, she dropped drastically, then leveled out. And you are seeing correctly, at 12 months, she was below the number "12." Then, today, at almost 14 months, there was a huge uptake again!!

Above is Hannah's head circumference...from hospitalization on October 9 to today, November 13 (see the increase???).

This is Hannah's length - again, hospitalization to today...another increase!

One of the more exciting ones....Hannah's weight. See how much closer she's getting to the bottom of the chart?!?!?!!! We're almost at 3rd percentile!!! The first "X" is her birth weight percentile for comparison...that's the percentile mark we're shooting for to get her off the tube.

The best one by far....her weight to length comparison. She is now on the chart!! Which means that, proportionately, she is doing super!!! Finally they are matching up somewhere on a chart!!!!

Wordless Wednesday - October Fun!

2009-10-21T05:44:00.000-05:00

So far this month, we've had some attitude....
And we've had some mechanical fun...

And we've decided we don't like our picture taken; but will smile once...

When our sister gets to wear Baby Legs, so do we!!

(even if that means sometimes they are {very} pink)

We like to be matchy-matchy...

We love the fall and playing together!

Hannah and Austin and H1N1

2009-10-19T10:25:00.002-05:00

Sometimes it seems life gets going and I forget to update...or I can't find two minutes in which to do an update. Last week was a crazy busy week.

Hannah has had her NG tube for over a week now and she is starting to adjust to it. She pulls it regularly at night, but she leaves it be during the day. She no longer has to use her arm restraints during the day and that is a huge relief. We got a lot of looks over that one, but it was the only way to keep the tube in! She started getting smart at night and she will wait until I am out of the room for a while and then remove her arm restraints. She does still wear them at night because otherwise she will pull the tube out. Most of the time she leaves the tube be, even without restraints on, during the night, but if she wakes up in the morning and is left alone, she will pull it. And she's getting very quiet in the morning, so you are never quite sure when she's awake and when she's asleep. My solution to that has been to get her up and out of her room as soon as I wake up. A few nights ago, she got very smart and we still can't figure out how she did it. She pulled her tube out - with both arm restraints on. I have no idea how she managed, but she did. The next night, she pulled it out, with restraints on, at the beginning of her feed. I went in like I usually do and checked her three times. I just checked to be sure it was still attached to her cheek, because she was kind of laying on it. She pulled it and I had no idea. I even went in and checked it again, plus then checked it when I disconnected everything and flushed her line. Steve woke up and went in to get her and her hair was matted to her head and her jammies and sheets were full of Pediasure. I now turn her over when I go in to check on her to be sure it is still in place.

Other than the fights over leaving her tube in place at night, she's doing pretty well. The triplets have not once attempted to pull it out. I am so pleased with that! Noah was checking her out the very first day and I told him "No, that makes owies for Hannah" and he has since left her completely alone. He even told Nathanial "no...owies!" one day just for looking at Hannah! It is so nice to not have that worry!

Austin was home all last week with influenza A. He said he was sick on Monday, but he's been having a lot of anxiety again lately so I assumed it was that sort of sick. I left him be, but he didn't really perk right back up around 9 like he usually does. Monday night, he started sounding awful and went to bed by 6:30! Tuesday he woke up and was just miserable and I knew he couldn't go to school again. So I took him in to the doctor, figuring it was just a cold but I knew we needed an excuse slip if he was going to miss two days. And it wasn't...he tested positive for Influenza A. We've been told that they do not run the H1N1 test because it is so very expensive but that it is too early for the seasonal flu, so we can be relatively positive he had H1N1. He was immediately put on Tamaflu, as was the rest of the family so that we could avoid anyone else getting it.

On Wednesday, I took him back in because he was having a lot of trouble breathing and said it felt like someone was sitting on his chest. The doctor he saw then said to just increase his inhaler use and add Mucinex. I was a little frustrated because he didn't believe me at first when I told him he had tested positive for the flu; then he suddenly thought maybe he should be tested for the flu; then after about 10 minutes he finally understood and looked in his chart. He didn't understand my concerns about his breathing, either, but Austin has asthma, a heart condition, and a neaurological disorder...all of which put him at a much greater risk for complications from the flu. Very frustrating. He did seem a bit perkier for about an hour that afternoon. Thursday he had a few hours of perky-ness and he was back to fighting with me by Friday afternoon. He probably could have gone back on Friday, but I wasn't sure and just figured better to be safe than sorry. Today is his first full day back and he had a ton of homework over the weekend to catch up on. Thankfully, he's a strong student and in some very un-challenging classes so he won't take much to keep up.

Noah, Aidan, Hannah, and I all got colds out of the deal, but none of us came near what Austin had and I think Tamaflu helped keep it not so bad for us! Prayerfully, we will now have healthy winter season!

Hannah's Update - We're Home!

2009-10-11T14:48:00.004-05:00

Hannah is home! I thought I would recap our events of the last few days.

On Wednesday morning, Hannah and I got up bright and early and headed for Iowa City. Daddy followed a few hours later after he got Austin and Aidan off to school and the triplets to a wonderful friend of ours who volunteered to take them (on top of her own TWO two year olds!!).
We arrived and they were waiting for us. She got into her room and we met with her doctor shortly after admission. Hannah was not happy for the first little while as we waited for all the admission stuff to get done because she was feeling very cooped up. I didn't want her crawling around on the floor, so she was trapped between being held and staying in the crib - which did not make her happy. After everything was done, about two hours later, we got a tour of the unit and then Hannah was able to go to the playroom. She stayed in there a bit (she loved having free reign over the toys and not having to fight anyone off!) and then we took a few toys back to her room to play with. Then she was happier!

Wednesday was a very l-o-n-g day of a whole lot of nothing. Hannah's social worker (who was the person who was setting up home health care and equipment) came in for a few minutes to tell us she did not have time to meet with us that day, but would come on Thursday to chat. I was a little frustrated because I wanted to be sure that she would get it all set up. The dietitian came in and spoke with us for a long time in the afternoon. She was awesome and very helpful. She did finally give us an estimate of how long the feeding tube will have to be in place - at a minimum of 3-6 months and quite possibly longer. At least I have that in my head now and I know what is going on. Then we discussed how we wanted to do the feedings. We could either do three bolus feedings per night, which would involve getting up three times during the night or we could do a continuous feed all night long, which would involve continuous monitoring while in the hospital. After discussing it with the dietitian, we felt that the continuous feed would work better for our family as Hannah is finally sleeping through the night. That meant a room transfer for Hannah to a room equipped with monitoring. So after the dietitian left, our nurse came in and we moved to a different pod in the unit. Hannah enjoyed the ride in her crib through the halls!

Wednesday evening, we finally had some "action." They had decided to wait on all testing until Thursday (but did not tell us that) and decided not to place the NG tube until Wednesday night right before her feeding was to start (and, again, did not tell us that either!). I was terrified and they told me that I didn't have to stay in the room while they did it,but I knew that I was going to be learning how to do it the next day, so I insisted on staying in. Hannah did not have a nap all day Wednesday, got up terribly early for her, and then finally fell asleep about 8:45. They were supposed to place the tube at 7, but that did not happen. Instead, they woke her up at 9:15 to do it. I was frustrated at that point, but there was very little I could do. It took her a couple of hours to settle down after that, but then she was happy again and she finally went down for the night at 11:45.

Every hour and a half after that, a nurse came in to check her blood pressure. Also happening about every 15 minutes, the alarms on her would start going off because the rhythm of her breathing or pulse would change. Between the shrieking alarms and blood pressure checks, Hannah and I did not get hardly any sleep on Wednesday night.

Hannah was a happy camper in the morning, though! Dr. V said that she would rewrite orders so that her blood pressure would NOT be taken except once in the morning, so that she could get more sleep. Then, around 11:30 am, Hannah's resident came in and told us he had good news for us...Hannah had tolerated her feed well and we were being discharged! What?!?!! I had not been taught anything, we had not seen the social worker, no testing was done, and I had only seen the NG tube placed once, for the very first time, in a high stress situation. I was very angry and spoke with our nurse and it turned out that the resident went over Dr. V's head and was discharging without her approval. Hannah had a full day of tests scheduled, plus teaching for me was scheduled and we were to meet with the social worker. We were not going anywhere.

She had her blood drawn for a myriad of tests right before lunch time. They blew the vein the first time and got it on the second time, so she had minimal screaming.

Daddy arrived and helped her enjoy her lunch and then Grandpa Kenny and Aunt Sue arrived for a visit. Unfortunately, that was cut short due to more testing, but she did love seeing them while she was able to!

We finally went to do the sweat test for Cystic Fibrosis about 1:30 Thursday afternoon. Hannah had not slept in many, many hours and was very cranky and irritable. She did not want to be messed with, all she really wanted to do was to go to sleep and cuddle; so you can imagine how the testing went. It was not pleasant at all. It didn't work the first time on the legs, but it did on her arm. Because it didn't work, it took longer than expected and we ended up not being done for a few hours. But we did get fantastic news - she does NOT have Cystic Fibrosis!!!!!

I was taught how to place the tube on Thursday evening. The nurse talked me through it early on and that part wasn't too bad. Then we decided to do it about an hour after she ate, so her food had time to settle and she didn't vomit the tube back up (which can apparently happen or so we've been told). I was terrified, so sent out an SOS for my prayer warriors to pray and I prayed hard for a bit. Then it was time and it went so smoothly I was absolutely amazed. I could feel the presence of God and I know I wasn't the one to place that tube, but God used my hands to do it. I also felt totally at peace and it went amazingly well! I got it on the second try and altogether with both tries, it still only took about 3-4 minutes.

On Wednesday night, my cousins Madeline and Gina came to visit us and break up our evening a bit...that was awesome. On Thursday night, Gina was kind enough to bring me dinner. It was fabulous to not have to eat hospital food or even leave Hannah's room for the few minutes to go get it! (I had been making mad dashes for all of my meals because I really didn't want to leave my baby!)

Hannah was so over-tired by Thursday evening (even though she did end up getting about a 30 minute nap) that she was just hyper by the time I tried to get her down. She fell asleep about 8:30 or so, but then we had to hook up all her monitors and the feeding tube, which woke her back up around 9:15. She was then UP. She did not settle back down until 12:30 am, when she finally just collapsed in exhaustion. However, she did sleep all night long and did not wake up again until the resident loudly entered the room and woke her at 8 am.

Friday morning, we were VERY ready to get out of the hospital and go home. Hannah and I both missed our boys dearly and just wanted to get back into a "normal" routine. We had some bumps in the road trying to get out the door (the social worker never did come to talk to me the entire time I was there and never even connected with our home health people until the very last minute), but we finally left about 11:30 am.
{Hannah is so happy to go home, she's even telling her baby about it!}
We arrived home in time to see the tail end of the homecoming parade and I was able to pick up Austin and Aidan. They were both thrilled to see Hannah and I! Nathanial and Ethan were also thrilled when they got up from their naps, but I got a {very} chilly reception from Noah. I asked him for a kiss and a hug and he ignored me for a long time. Then finally he said "NO!" when I asked and I knew at least he was speaking to me again! He finally did forgive me for being gone and we are now back to normal!

Hannah has pulled her tube three times - twice on purpose and once by accident. The first time I waited for the home health nurse to come to re-place it since she was on her way anyway. That way, Steve could see what I needed him to do and I didn't have to walk him through it all, either. It went very well and I placed it quickly then also. Since then, Steve and I have become quite the little team and we're near-experts in placing it. Not that I ever wanted to be, but I am so thankful for God steadying my nerves and helping me to do something that could have been a very difficult thing to do! Hannah has been sleeping a bit better since returning home. The first night was a bit rougher and last night she was closer to her more routine bedtime. Things are settling and going well!

Hannah has already gained another pound and a half - just since the tube was placed!! They told us that kind of gain will probably not continue, but it is awesome to see an immediate pick-up in weight! She is very happy and looks better than she has in a while. She will go in for weekly weight checks at her doctor here and then go in monthly to Dr. V in Iowa City.

Thank you for all of the prayers...it helped immensely and we really appreciated it!!!

Prayers for Hannah

2009-10-06T09:05:00.005-05:00

Hannah goes in tomorrow for her NG (feeding) tube to be placed and for testing. She will be in Iowa City. We would appreciate the following prayers:

I quickly learn how to reinsert the tube
the testing will reveal something as a reason for being so small
Peace for me while learning everything
safe travels for both Steve and I
the triplets do well while staying with a very dear friend
Austin and Aidan do well while staying with another very dear friend
the home health nurse will be paid for by our insurance
Pediasure will be paid for by our insurance
Everyone adjusts quickly to Hannah's NG tube (and leaves it be!!!!)
Hannah grows quickly and can have it removed quickly

I am trusting God to get us through this - and I know He will. It's been a very difficult and stressful few weeks leading up to this. Our entire family greatly appreciates all prayers said on our behalf. Thank you so much for praying for us.

I will be unable to update the blog while we are there, but I will be updating my facebook and tweets (tweets are under the pictures in the right sidebar under "glimpses into life" or you can follow at twitter.com/calondercrew).

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.

~Proverbs 3:5-6

Austin and Hannah's Party

2009-10-05T09:58:00.009-05:00

For Austin's birthday, Steve and I took him on a "date" with just Mom and Dad - no little people allowed. He has been wanting to go to HuHot for a very long time, so that was what we decided to do on our time out. I forgot my camera (how?? I do not know!), so I don't have any pictures of that besides what is on my phone and those are just bad. You'll have to take my word for it that we had a great time and really enjoyed our time together with just the three of us!

Hannah's birthday fell on a Wednesday, so she got a little celebration with just the family. She loved her cake that I made her and had fun listening to us sing to her!

Hannah before her cake

Hannah's cake
Hannah enjoying her cake

We had Austin and Hannah's party at home and everyone had a lot of fun!

Hannah is all smiles!

OK...I'm done with the pictures now, Mom! My birthday "babies" (not so much) together

(Austin didn't want a picture alone - how typical!)

Hannah with her boys

(Noah on couch; Nathanial in red; Ethan in green)

Aidan is all honked off because he didn't get his picture taken with Austin and Hannah - the first time!

One of my favorite pictures of the whole day -

Hannah is exhausted and fell asleep on Alex!

Hannah's own cake

(yes, those are fingers already in it - thanks to Thano)

Austin's cake

Hannah's cake

Everybody pile on Emma!!!

{Poor Emma!!!!}

Hannah LOVES her new hat compliments of Uncle Kevin

She also loves her new pink tractor!

{Thanks, Grandpa Kenny and Grandma Lee!!}

Kendra and Hannah

{difficult to get two to look in the same direction!}

"I'm trying {very} hard to be a good boy, Mama!"

Austin's turn!

Everyone watching Austin

Hannah's turn

I don't know if I want to eat this cake - even for you, Grandpa Kenny!

NG Tube for Hannah

2009-09-24T09:06:00.005-05:00

Well, Hannah didn't grow as much as we wanted her to. I took her in on Monday and she was supposed to gain a pound by that point and another one two weeks later. Before the appointment, I was looking at her and thinking her new "diet" seemed to really be working...she looked bigger to me and more filled out. I was sure she had already gained the two pounds. Then I also ran through in my head 'what happens if she's close?' No need to worry - she wasn't. She gained eight ounces, which for her is fantastic, but it is nowhere near where she needs to be to be gaining weight. She can't even maintain at that amount of gain. Upon looking through her appointments in my own notes, I was able to look at exactly what she weighed when and looking at the actual number, instead of just paying attention to the percentiles (because I already know how bad that is), was rather alarming. Way back in March, when she would have been six months old, she weighed 12 pounds exactly and that was alarming way back then. That was when they started talking to us about getting a second opinion about her weight - they started worrying around four months old. Anyway, so she was 12 pounds in March and as of Monday, she was only 14 lbs, 13 oz. That is a gain of less than three pounds. In six months...on a baby! I got it when they went through everything with me in Iowa City and I totally understood why she needed the feeding tube. But since Monday there has been a part of me that has questioned whether she really needed the tube or if maybe we were rushing things too fast. I knew it was going to happen, but I still felt like maybe I was rushing it too prematurely. Now I feel like I haven't done enough sooner and she is greatly paying the price. Now I have the reassurance that we are doing the right thing, which I needed for total peace in this situation. Numbers do not lie.

After Hannah was weighed on Monday, I "discussed" it with the nurse, who royally honked me off insisting that Hannah was "just little," (um, no - it's really a lot more than that) and she "was proportionate," (which is the EXACT problem - she quit growing!!!) and every other manner of denial. Now I am OK with this coming from people who do not understand the entire situation and I am even somewhat OK with me having been in denial for so long because I am not a medical professional who has the entire chart with letters from specialists in it. Why am I explaining this to her??? I am having a hard enough time and I felt like just breaking down right there, but I couldn't, and there I was trying to defend the medical need for an NG Tube being put in my daughter. Like I want this! Like I asked for any of this!

Finally, Dr. B came in (who is awesome, I might add) and we talked about everything and since I did know what was expected, I knew what he was going to tell me. He then made the call to Dr. V (specialist) who then called me back the next morning with her admission plan.

Hannah will be admitted to Iowa City on October 7 at 8 am. She will be on the pediatric pulmonary/cardiac floor (not real sure as to why that is). She will get the NG tube and lots and lots of testing. Testing for CF, Celiacs, and anything else that might be helpful. Then I will need to learn how to reinsert the tube. I have no idea what this process entails, but I am positive it will not be pleasant...but I will do it because I just want my baby girl to gain weight and start to grow. At this time, she will be discharged on October 9.

We have already (per Dr. V's instruction) set up a home health nurse to come in when we get home and developed a preliminary plan of treatment with them. They will come often at first, then depending on possible diagnoses, they will develop a new treatment plan. If it's as simple as this is caused by reflux, then it will be often at first until we are very comfortable and then slow down as we get more confident. She will always have a nurse available on call 24 hours a day throughout this process.

We have no idea how long the tube will stay in and any other plans at this time. Please just keep us in prayers. I am terrified of inserting the NG tube and a little nervous about how the boys (triplets) will handle things. Steve will be staying home with the boys while Hannah and I go down, so prayers for that would also be appreciated. And we'll keep updated on here as often as we are able.

Happy 14th Birthday Austin!!!

2009-09-19T00:50:00.000-05:00

Dear Austin,

I would LOVE to write something about how much you've grown and matured this year or how very proud I am of you...because I am. But I don't want to embarrass you too much. I know that life is rough for you sometimes, but you always persevere. You are becoming an amazing young man and I am so excited that I'm your mom and I get to witness that first hand - every single day. To watch your excitement about getting your permit soon; how much you love science and gathering facts about stuff; how much you love to read; the way you care for, help out, and play with your siblings...it all makes me very proud of you. I am so very blessed to be able to call you my son and I thank God every day for giving me the opportunity to watch you grow and change. And maybe I am embarrassing you now, so I will quit, but I did want to say how very much I love you and how very proud I am of you.

Happy FOURTEENTH Birthday, Austin!!!!!

We all love you very much and you are such a joy to all of us!!

Happy First Birthday Hannah!!!!

2009-09-16T10:21:00.006-05:00

Happy First Birthday, Hannah! We love you sooo much and you are such a blessing to us! What an amazing year this has been. You are so very special to each of us and we cannot imagine our lives without you in it!! Aidan meets Hannah for the first time - 9/16/09
Austin gets his turn to hold Hannah

Two very happy big brothers with thier baby sister

The "little boys" adore Hannah and are in love right from the start

Hannah Grace is ready to go home

Aidan and Noah are thrilled to greet their baby sister at home

Our SIX!!

Hannah Grace

One Month Old

Hannah Grace - Dedication at Two Months Old

Hannah Grace - 2 months

Hannah Grace - 3 months and quite the smiler!

Hannah - 4 months

Very curious about everything!

Hannah Grace - 5 months

Loves her baby

Hannah Grace - 6 months

Hannah Grace

7 months

Hannah Grace

8 months

Hannah Grace

9 months

Silly Girl

Hannah Grace

10 months

Growing up so fast!

Hannah Grace

11 months

You ADORE your Grandpa Kenny!!

(he's about the only person that actually gets to hold you!)

Hannah Grace

One Year Old!!!!

I am in awe that you are already a year old and in awe of the gifts that God bestows upon us in packages dressed up as "children." We are so very, very blessed and so very, very thankful to God for giving us you!! We love you, Hannah G!!!!

Hannah's Update

2009-09-09T10:10:00.003-05:00

I know that I am way behind on blogs and I will continue to update them and let you know when I do, but I also thought that in the meantime, I'll move forward with what's going on now.

Hannah went to Iowa City yesterday for her appointment with a doctor who "specializes" in failure to thrive. Mind you, until last week, I had no idea she had actually been diagnosed as FTT. It was a term that had been used, but I was never actually verbally told that she was definitely FTT. I was a little taken aback, but it also was not a surprise by any means. So we met with a resident first, Dr. A, whom I really liked. She was with us for a while trying to rule out all the common little things that cause weight gain issues. We pretty much did rule them out. Then in came Dr. V (whom I also really liked) and she talked about other things, also, and we went through them and she ruled out a lot of things just by looking at Hannah and her past labs and chart.

First, it is not syndromic. If she had a syndrome - any syndrome - there would be some physical evidence of that and there simply is not. By physical, I mean outward appearance. She is very proportionate (which is why I wasn't concerned, but is the exact reason they are so concerned), petite-looking, normal in appearance. So it isn't syndromic.

It's not hormonal. All of her hormone levels came back well within normal ranges when Dr. B did them a while ago - when she first started showing signs of not growing/slowed growth. Turns out that was an excellent decision also because if we did those same exact tests now it would look like she does have hormonal issues because her body is so lacking. So she is not repeating tests and is going by what was tested four months ago because horomonal things don't change.

It's not social. I "appeared to be intelligent" and "willing to move forward" which are both apparently good signs that this is not our fault. She said a lot of feeding issues are social, but does not feel that Hannah's are a result of that.

She also assured us that Hannah's relatively good growth in the first four months of her life were prenatally driven. In essence, I had really good prenatal nutrition and Hannah benefited from that for the first four months.

There are other things that we are currently trying to rule out as causes. One being that she has been so ingrained from the pain of reflux, that now she is "afraid" to eat. So she is back on the Prevacid so that we can try to rule that out as a possibility. And she has gotten wise to it. She hates it and repeatedly spit it out last night, then left it in her mouth for a while before spitting it out again after I gave her a bit of food. This morning, to avoid this battle, I crushed it up and mixed it with a spoonful of oatmeal - she was none the wiser!

We are to boost her calories even more for the next four weeks in hopes that she gains 1.5-2 pounds. I couldn't imagine trying to do more but we are and she is doing OK with it. She really doesn't eat as much as I thought she was or she's getting fuller quicker because of the calorie and fat laden foods. She is now also getting a glass of milk at the end of her meals which is 8 oz whole milk plus 1/3 c powdered milk. We are also not feeding her during the night if she gets up. Surprisingly, last night she did very well with not nursing. I thought I would get more of a fight out of her. Dr. V believes that she may be "topping off" all the time instead of being really hungry and really full, so now she is on six scheduled meals per day with nothing at all after her last meal.

If she doesn't gain 1.5-2 pounds in the next month, then we go to "phase two," which is already written down as her actual course of treatment because unless there is a HUGE miracle (which we know there can be) she will not gain weight. She will have an NG tube placed in the beginning of October. I say "if," but Dr. V kept saying "when." As in, "when she's admitted, we'll do a,b, and c." Everything was "when." And I know that is more than likely the outcome we will have, but I am praying and believing for a miracle yet. If/When the NG tube is placed, she will be hospitalized (at University of Iowa) until I can learn how to take care of it and then she will go home. We were not given any estimation of how long she would have it....just that it would be in place until she got back up to 30-50th percentile range because that is where they believe (based on early growth curve) she should be.

At first, I had a very hard time accepting it...I mean, seriously, hearing your child is that ill and needs that much of an intervention is very difficult. And I was honest with Dr. V and said that the emotional side of it is VERY hard to digest, but intellectually, I know Hannah needs this and we are willing to do whatever it takes to get her to gain weight.

Right now, Hannah has "Grade 2" malnutrition; which is "moderate" malnutrition. When I saw her length slowing down and her head circumference slowing down in the percentiles, my un-medically-educated self thought that was a good thing and meant that she was supposed to be small. And noone told me differently (not that I pointed that out, because I never did - this all went on in my head). I was informed yesterday that when you stop growing in length that is the first warning sign. And I knew that from Austin - but I didn't know it was the same for babies. I don't know why I wasn't able to generalize in this situation, but I wasn't. The second, and more serious, warning size is a lag in head circumference. It means that her body has totally stopped and said "wait just one minute - when are we going to get some food going on in here??" (or something like that....I may be paraphrasing a bit!) It also can lead to learning disabilities later in life if it isn't turned around NOW. So now is the time to be aggressive.

While she is hospitalized (if), she will be tested for Cystic Fibrosis. Again, I was not a very well informed patient's mama and I hate appearing ignorant (which is why I am always researching stuff). When Noah was little he had a lot of respiratory issues from being a multiple. One pediatrician said maybe he had CF, and another one later on said no because he was tested. Soooo, I assumed that could not be the case with Hannah and did not investigate further. Turns out they only test for the major genetic forms of CF and not the minor ones. So it warrants being tested with this many issues.

Steve and I have, once again, begun our research into causes of this and another thing that sticks out as a possibility (especially the more we research it) is Celiac Disease. One of the first signs of Celiacs is FTT and cranky/clingy-ness, of which she has both. Now I know just because she has some symptoms doesn't mean she has it, but we are going to mention this to Dr. V to get her opinion the next time she sees her. We are also going to continue looking at other things (one thing Steve mentioned - which to me seems out there, but whatever - is a parasite...INteresting...)

So we now have a plan and will have an even better idea if she will need the NG tube when she goes to get weighed in a couple of weeks. We still need to figure out the root cause of it, in my opinion, but for now this has to be good enough. We'll keep leaning on God through all of this praying and believing for a miracle and doing everything we humanly can for her, but ultimately, this is all up to Him and what His will is for Hannah.

Bunk Beds!!!

2009-08-22T21:30:00.000-05:00

We finally did it. The triplets and Aidan are now sharing one room - with bunk beds - while Austin gets his own room! It's been an interesting couple of weeks while they are adjusting to the new freedoms this involves. I'm not sure I'm ever going to sleep again, but at least they are {mostly} happy about it.

Aidan's bunk - top left (sports)

Noah - under Aidan (animals)

Ethan - top right (pirates)

Nathanial - under Ethan (musical ocean)

Ethan and Nathanial's bunk

Aidan and Noah's

Nathanial's bed

Ethan

Noah

Aidan

Aidan LOVES being on the top and being the "big boy" in the room!!

Therapy and Decisions

2009-08-20T14:29:00.007-05:00

{I know I am way behind on blogs and will update all of that soon, I promise!}

The triplets had therapy this morning. They are still getting development and speech therapy monthly. They are to get each one for ninety minutes per month, but we have found for scheduling purposes it works much better to do all three together and do both therapists on the same day.

I knew that some of the things Julie, our developmental therapist and lead person, was going to be bringing up but today it was very in depth and detailed, so I am just a little overwhelmed with it all.

Ethan is doing fabulous, when he's alone and comfortable. He chatters and even is starting to use some 2-3 word sentences (this week's big one for all three: where aidi??) and he speaks the most clearly. He's very up to trying to say anything you want him to and usually does a great job.

Noah still jabbers on and on the most, but speaks the least understandably. He talks non-stop, but he drops the ends off words, mumbles, stutters, and has a bit of a lisp. But he does love to tell a story. He also loves to sing! He is also putting some 2-3 word sentences together. Noah does the best on names and loves saying everyone's names and uses them the most often.

Nathanial is the slowest to do it, but is still doing incredibly well. He tells me whole sentences, but you can only understand, at best, half of what is said. He also repeats any word you tell him and does a great job with that. He also has a lisp.

All three are definitely, speech-wise, getting there. They are way behind their same-age peers, but I am very happy with the progress we are seeing.

We are having some major issues still with biting, and now pinching. And the pinching is not nice...it's vicious and they leave horrible marks when they do it. Ethan and Nathanial (especially Thano) tend to do the most pinching, but Noah does his fair share also. Noah tends to hit more often when he's upset.

Lately, we've been noticing a lot of autistic-tendencies in Nathanial. I don't even really know if they are autistic tendencies, but there is something very different about Nathanial than the other two. I am convinced at this point he is either autistic or has ADD. As he gets older, it is becoming more and more obvious whereas the other two seem to be mellowing a bit with age. I brought my concerns up to Dr. B at their well baby visit this week (I'll update about that in a different post later), but he seemed to think that we could hold off for a bit and just watch him. His logic is that he is already in therapy, uses a pretty strict schedule, and not a lot would be gained by trying to get him diagnosed with something right now. At first, I was OK with that, but the more Steve and I discussed it the more we thought as long as we have people in place and resources at our disposal, why not use it? So I brought up everything he's been doing to Julie and she agrees it warrants a closer look. She also observed several of the behaviors I was describing in the short amount of time she was here. She wants to bring in the school psychologist who has observed them before again, this time at home during a therapy session, to specifically focus on Nathanial. I am relieved to know we are taking this step now because if he is autistic, then we can start more intense therapy with him immediately. She will observe him at the next visit and then recommend to us if she thinks we should take it a step further or wait.

The other thing that was brought up, which I knew was coming, was preschool. They are "almost three" and will age out of this level of therapy at three. She says at this point, she can guarantee that they are not ready to be done and will all be on an IEP. Which means we need to be making some big decisions in the next little while about what our next step should be. Julie wants them in preschool as soon as they turn three for several reasons. I do not. I did not, ideally, want them to start preschool until they were 4 1/2, but I did know that would probably not really happen. I also wanted them to go to preschool where everyone else has gone. That is now looking more and more like it will not happen at all. We can, of course, object and say no to her recommendations, but honestly, they would be better off in the preschool she is suggesting. She wants them in 4 half days per week and then move to 4-5 whole days per week at 4 1/2. The preschool she wants them in has a special education classroom with a special education teacher. The more that I am praying on this, it seems this is where they really need to be and where they could most flourish. My one problem with it has been that it is not in the same district or town that we are in. And that would mean they would go to kindergarten not knowing a single classmate. Then I realized that Aidan only knows a few of his classmates this year because most of his class went to morning preschool and he went to afternoon. I do feel better once I thought it all through from that angle.

Steve and I will have big decisions to make in the next few months for all of the boys...will you pray with us that we follow God's direction and His will makes it clear which way to go?

Wordless Wednesday

2009-08-19T08:42:00.003-05:00

Wordless Wednesday - Best of Buds (even - especially? - in sleep)

2009-08-12T05:24:00.000-05:00

So much to do!!!

2009-07-27T13:58:00.003-05:00

I have been busy enjoying summer and in the last couple of weeks, my blog has been neglected. I have done several back-dated posts of our activities of late. Also please keep Nathanial in prayer. He was infection-free after the last set of new tubes for about two weeks, now is back to growing out several infections in his left ear. He also has another staph infection growing outside his ear again.

And, please also keep Stellan in your prayers. He has been in persistant SVT for days and is not doing well at all. They are currently planning to airlift him to Boston. Please remember his family in your prayers, also. This has been an amazingly difficult battle for them, as you can well imagine, and they need to be able to rest in the Great Physician's arms now.

And now, scroll down and "relive" our summer fun for a bit!

Wordless Wednesday

2009-07-22T13:19:00.000-05:00

Day at Fontana

2009-07-20T20:13:00.000-05:00

We have heard a lot about Fontana Park since moving to Sumner, so I decided we needed to get out of the house and that's where we headed. Because it was just me and everyone, I did not get a lot of pictures. We did have an excellent time, though! And we came home the {very} scenic way through all of the Amish and it was awesome to show Aidan all of that. Plus we saw the round barn, which was cool.

Aidan and Hannah

{she always slumps like this in her stroller, and gets honked off when I reposition her...so I don't anymore.}

Aidan enjoying the ducks

Hannah, Ethan, Austin, Nathanial, and Noah

Sumner Days - Fireworks!!

2009-07-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

Saturday night was just as cold as Friday night, if not colder. So we bundled up and headed downtown for the talent show and fireworks. We weren't sure if we really wanted to have the triplets and Hannah up that late for that, but they have never seen them before and it has been three years since we had gone downtown to see the fireworks. Even though waiting got a bit long and, well, nerve-racking, with six children, four of whom are two and under, it was well worth it and we knew it the second the first firework went off. They were absolutely mesmerized and loved every second of it!

Austin and Hannah

My favorite photo of Austin to date

Aidan, quite bored, waiting...

Ethan is getting very sleepy while waiting.

Hannah is still a happy camper

Noah Noah - oh, I'm not tired at all.

{Just please do not make me sit down.}

Nathanial waiting happily.

One of the fireworks...

The look of awe on Noah...

Nathanial loves it...

Ethan can't believe it!

Aidan enjoys the fireworks.

Hannah even likes it.

Austin and Aidan walking home...

Aidan is freezing, so still wearing his blanket.

Everyone is very sleepy...

Hannah doesn't last long at all.

I'm honestly not tired Mommy!!!!!!

Sumner Days - Parade

2009-07-18T15:29:00.000-05:00

Saturday morning brought many activities for our family. Aidan got to ride on the Little Mister/Little Miss Sumner float, while the rest of us headed over to the church float. The Sumner Days theme this year is "Go Green" so our float followed that theme...complete with recycled newspaper for our fringe and a cardboard dumpster! Our church's theme was "People Aren't Trash" and we had "Faith Evangelical Church - the Redemption Center" on the dumpster with Psalm 40:2 "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set me on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand." We did win "Best Organization Float" but more importantly, our church let people know that it doesn't matter what condition you come in, God will take care of the rest!!

Aidan's all ready for his float.

Our church float with all of us on it.

Austin "coming out of the mud and mire" in the dumpster...

Thank you for doing that Austin!!!

Daddy and Hannah passing out candy

Ethan - eating more candy than tossing

Ummmm...yeah.

Nathanial eating candy

Sumner Days - Part One

2009-07-17T22:16:00.000-05:00

Every year, our town has a Little Miss/Little Mister contest for 5-7 year olds. Austin was never interested in doing it, which was fine, but Aidan was approached by a lady at church (who owns a massage place in town) who wanted to sponser him. We discussed it and he decided he would love to be in the parade, so he wanted to run. On Friday night, there were four boys and ten girls who ran. They each are individually interviewed and then they decide a winner. While Aidan didn't win, he had a fantastic time and loved every second of it! And, he gets to ride on the huge boat in the parade Saturday!!

Aidan waiting with the other boys to be interviewed.

{It was 62 degrees outside this evening, which is why everyone else is dressed warmly...Aidan would NOT change what we had bought to wear and decided to freeze instead!}

Aidan during his interview.

He did an awesome job answering questions!

Aidan with Lisa, his sponser.

Nathanial pitching a fit afterwards...right outside our front door.

It was later than bedtime and he was exhausted.

Noah came back outside to pretend he was throwing a fit.

It kind of ruins the illusion when you giggle through your pretend fit, though!

Wordless Wednesday - Nosey Hannah

2009-07-15T15:14:00.000-05:00

Fourth of July

2009-07-04T19:58:00.000-05:00

For the Fourth, we enjoyed some time with Steve's family. The boys love going and looking at the animals...and getting filthy dirty.

Coming back to the house

Aidan and Noah
Troy with Ethan...Thano in the background checking out his filth.

I don't actually think they'll notice...it's not too dirty.

But, Daddy, I'm not that messy.

And I had fun!

Checking the pond.

While the boys had fun getting dirty, the {only} girls had fun inside.

{Hannah and Kendra}

Memories

2009-07-01T15:23:00.003-05:00

Last night, the boys lined up at the front door and watched everthing going on outside. It reminded me so much of the hours they would spend doing exactly that when they were just little bitty guys. I couldn't find a photo of all three of them at the window at once from when they were little - but I remember it so clearly!

Last night's photo:
{Nathanial, Ethan, and Noah}

When they were not even ten months old:
{Ethan and Nathanial}

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

2009-07-01T11:30:00.002-05:00

I was going through the put away boxes of Hannah's clothes (clothes that were too big) and deciding what to keep out/what to still store. Hannah was sitting in her crib happily playing with her little elephants until she realized what I was doing.

Ohhh....what is this, Mama??

I just have never seen so many wonderful things!

What is a girl to do???

Hmmmm....what should I pick??

What do you think, Mama??

Ohhh, I just love them all!!!

My Brother's Wedding

2009-06-29T16:03:00.000-05:00

I cannot believe it...my baby brother is married! We had a fabulous extended weekend for his wedding and everyone had a great time! For how cold and icky our entire summer has been, I think this had to be the very hottest day yet!

{Michael and Tiffany}{Michael and Tiffany}
{Granny and Grandpa}

I just love the look on Michael's face in this picture
Noah Noah is sooo hot!

{Ethan...observe "The Look" he is giving me!}

{Nathanial}

{Ethan}

Aidan is so hot and just wants to go somewhere cooler...

{Mommy and Hannah}

Noah enjoying the view

Brotherly Conversations

Time to get your groove on!!

Grandma helping Ethan catch the garter

Getting ready for the garter to be tossed

Aidan caught the garter!!

Noah gettin' his groove on

Noah and Lily...during the first dance.

Look at them....so cute!

My children turned out to be quite the little dancers.

Grandma and Nathanial (I believe)

Ali and Ethan

Hannah enjoying a little time with Jessica's phone

Could hardly find Austin all day....

Michael finally getting down.

{Doesn't he look good all snazzed up and in a tux???}

Aidan, Emma, and Cael

Daddy practicing for Hannah's Daddy/Daughter dance.

Aidan and Emma

They make great partners...

{Check out the form on that twirl!!}

And finally, our family picture...

it turned out pretty good considering the wind and the sheer number of us!

I'm Featured!

2009-06-23T18:05:00.003-05:00

Multiples....and More featured our family and blog! How exciting! Head on over to check out the interview! Click here to read it: Calonder Crew.