Meanie Melana and Monster Carson

These pictures were taken about a month or so ago. I met Rachel and Melana at our favorite Mexican restaurant and had a nice dinner. Carson did want to show off for the girls so he ended up eating his whole hot dog. Melana, well she ate about 10 packets of sweet and low. LOL

After dinner, Rachel bought the kiddos some suckers. Then it was picture time. If you look closely, they are holding hands. Aren't they cute! This is my favorite.....I don't know who is flirting more.

It didn't matter, Melana wasn't letting go of Carson's hand anytime soon.

Not much else to report. Cody came home from school and since they were all beat up at the tournament last weekend, they got last night and tonight off. So Cody and I spent the evening cleaning his room......I cannot believe how much stuff Carson sneaks in there! So we changed sheets, dusted and vacuumed and it is good to go til next week.

Coltan's team ended up winning their game last night to Blue Springs. The high schools are all in a tournament this week and he doesn't play again until Saturday. He only had practice and then came home at 4:30 and has been doing homework every since. He had homework for Social Studies, Science, and Math. I feel really bad for him because it is a lot in each subject. I guess I don't remember being piled with homework like that and I have only been out of school for 15 years. Does anyone remember having a lot?

Carson and I stayed home for most of the day. I had a ton of errands to run and ended up on the phone with CVS, the GI clinic, Occupational Therapy, and our secondary insurance. Wow, I got done with all of those calls and it was almost 2. So I only got half of my things done. Guess my day is planned for tomorrow.

Has it really been a month??

My goodness, where does the time go? I got on my blog today and couldn't believe it has been over a month!

So where do I begin???

Coltan. He had been in some high school soccer camps and conditioning camps over the summer. It all paid off! He made the JV soccer team! So his first game was last week and they played and won 1-0. The next game Coltan played was the next day and they won again, 3-1! Since Coltan has been with this particular coach, I have seen a HUGE improvement in his playing. Coltan is really looking great! Then.......Coltan ended up with the H1N1 and pneumonia! So he missed last Wed and Thursday's game and didn't returned back to school until this last Tuesday. He had another game yesterday but didn't get to play because he missed all last week. So today is his first game playing since last week and I have chosen not to go because it is pouring down and I just didn't feel like keeping up with Carson in the rain. At last, I talked to my niece and she said he was playing forward and doing an awesome job. She also said that our school is winning 2-0! Go Bronco's!

Cody, well he has been very busy with soccer as well. We went to St Louis last weekend for a tournament and drove down Friday night in the pouring down rain. It finally stopped but started back up around 5 AM. So our 10 AM game was cancelled and we waited until 1:00 to find out if they were cancelling the whole tournament. At 12:45, they decided that the tourney was still on......but would start at 9:00PM. So we got to the fields Saturday night and waited and finally played at 9:30 and played a team that we tied to when we were in South Dakota and ended up beating that team 3-0! Cody scored one and assisted in the other. We were supposed to play 4 games this tourney but they only gave us 2 games.

So Sunday we played another team out of Illinois that we have never played before but were warned that they play very dirty. After taking out 4 of our players, we decided the rumors were true. We already had 4 boys not at this tournament (two had H1N1, 1 out due to a concussion requiring a hospital stay, and 1 because of another conflict), so losing 4 more good players wasn't helping matters. The other team ended up beating us 0-2. The worse part of it, they were so rude they walked away from our boys at the end of the game and wouldn't shake our hands. That's okay cause we will be back in Illinois in a couple of weeks and will have most of our boys back and will beat them using our skills!

So the interesting thing in all of this is one boy named Jordan rode up to St Louis with another team member. His mom stayed back in Kansas City because Jordan's sister Katie had a tournament back home. Jordan was one of the 4 players that was injured during the game. He went down and never came back up. Jordan is one of those players that if he does stay down, you know it is serious. No one wanted to call his mom and tell her but when they finally did, Lisa said great, I'm at the ER now with Katie, she was fouled at her game, fell and broke her wrist. So it was decided that because of the swelling (we have 3 doctors and 1 dentist on our team), to go ahead and get Jordan back to KC and take him to an ER there so his mom could also be with him. After getting to the ER, we were informed that Jordan broke his ankle in TWO places. I feel really bad for Lisa. She is a single mother of three kids and two of her children broke bones in two different cities on the same day. Please say a quick prayer for her and the kiddos.

As for Carson, well he is still his full of energy, ham it up self. He doesn't like that the boys are back in school. He sits in Cody's bed and watches TV waiting for him to get home. It is really cute.

He had a doctors appt with the GI and we are going to draw some more labs and if they are in good numbers, we are keeping him on the NG tube for another 6 months and go from there. If the numbers on the gases are low, it will be the fundo placation. So we should know in a few weeks.

He had a pulmonology appt and was rescheduled for Sept 23 because I was home with Coltan with his H1N1 and the clinic didn't really want Carson and I in there since we had been exposed.

GI said that Carson needs to be back in occupational therapy after seeing the results of his swallow study. We had that done the end of July and Carson failed big time. He aspirated on things like peaches, applesauce, room temp liquids, and fruit snacks. Carson has been getting worse in my opinion but at least the swallow study confirms that. (meaning it's not all in my head). We stopped with OT because my insurance only covers 42 visits a year and I took off the summer. The doctor seems to think that I need to not take such a huge break. He wants us to maybe go for 3-4 weeks and then take a week off. He felt because we took off the whole summer, it has caused Carson to go backwards. So we have the orders in, just waiting to get our schedule.

Carson also has follow up appts coming up with his ENT and the Asthma/Allergy clinic. I don't expect any big changes in medicines or procedures with them so not a big deal.

Carson is so funny. I wish I knew how to put videos up on this site. Anyone want to share, let me know. He always has something to say about everything. I cannot get over how smart he is. He is constantly asking questions with his favorite question....."why". We have been potty training and have a small ways to go. He has been pretty good at my house and at the sitters but when we are out, he doesn't always tell me until after he finishes. His overnights have been about 75% dry and 25% of the days wet. As far as #2....he would just rather go in his diaper. Baby steps.

For me? Well I had been super busy getting ready to have my first ever garage sale. That is a lot of work! I literally cleaned out every ones closets, every drawer, ever toy box, and anywhere else to look. I set it up and had it about two weeks ago. I did really well so it all paid off. I didn't even sleep Wed night while I was setting it up. My sitter kept Carson for a couple of overnights so I could constantly work on my sale. I ended up with enough money for a house payment and a couple of utilities! I told my mom if I could make that kind of money in three days every week, I would do it.

Other than that, not much exciting going on. I have just been enjoying the boys growing up right before my eyes! Cody has practice 3 nights a week and when Coltan doesn't have a game (or is very sick)he has practice as well. They even have practices on Saturdays and Sundays. So all I do during the week is drive around dropping off and picking them up. It's okay though, I really enjoy watching my boys play soccer.

Well that is about it for now, I think there is a lot of info to absorb, and I will try to be better about posting more often.

I do miss checking in on everyone and hope to get that caught up as well!

Back to Reality

Well once again, I just wanted to say thanks for going down memory lane with us on our vacation. Now that I have posted all the pictures that I wanted, it's back to reality.

We were all lucky enough to head down to the Lake of the Ozarks a couple of weekends ago. My mom owns a place down there so we decided to head down and take advantage of a little fun. Coltan and Cody went tubing for a while and we went up to the strip and they rode go-carts. My mom actually went a couple of times as well. She took Carson once and then she got into a single cart and raced Coltan and Cody. Poor Coltan picked the slowest two carts on the track.

This past weekend Carson and I went to the Platte County Fair and man was that fun. They had a Truck and Tractor pull which I have never been to and I'm hooked! We sat there from 6:30-9:30 and Carson watched the whole time. He did get up and dance for the crowd and meet everyone. He became the fairs favorite little guy. Everyone was giving him lots of attention and my little ham ate it up! After the tractor pull, we went and rode the motorcycles, jeeps, merry go round, an elephant, and a big slide. We ended up leaving close to midnight and boy did he sleep good.

Some of the things I have been working on over the last few weeks are switching rooms, getting ready for a garage sale, and getting ready for a bunch of doctor appointments.

Cody's room was done in Green Bay Packers when we first moved in here. We did the top walls yellow and the bottom green with a Green Bay border down the middle. I will look through some pictures and see if I have one of it to post later. Carson's room was already painted in blue and I put up some sports bears for his theme. Well Cody hasn't really cared for the Packers since Brett Farve left and now he wants his room done in AC Milan Soccer team which is red and black. I have been buying things here and there for Carson for a John Deere Tractor theme. So what did I do? I switched Cody and Carson's rooms. This way the green and yellow are already up. Cody also had bunk beds in his room and we took those down and I swiped a bed from my niece that is actually really nice. It is the kind that has the drawers underneath. I also bought carpet for my whole house a year ago and we installed it downstairs, but never got the upstairs done. So while all of the furniture was out of the rooms, we installed carpet in Carson's new room, and in Cody's new room.

I have also been going through EVERYTHING in my house and taking a lot of stuff downstairs into the garage sale pile. I will be trying to sell some things on craigslist and some at the local consignment shops and then a lot in a garage sale. That is a huge project all in itself. It has been kind of fun though cause before buying the house I live in now, the boys and I rented a duplex for a year and when we moved, I lost a $400.00 Ipod and when I was going through some boxes, I found it! Never been used. Now the boys and I are fighting over who gets it since we all already own one. LOL

Coltan has been in soccer camp for the last 2 weeks. He goes from 7:00AM-9:00AM and then back again from 6:00PM-8:00PM. This is a conditioning camp that is put on by his high school. Then next week he will be trying out for the soccer teams. I still cannot get over the fact that I have a child starting high school. I'm only 34 and feel really old!

Coltan and I will be getting very busy in his room later this week so that we can unload all of the clothes that he has outgrown and put them in the garage sale pile.


Cody has been doing not much of anything. He is on a break until the second week of Aug and then it will be very busy for us again in the soccer world. Coltan will not be traveling like that this year until Spring. He will be playing high school in the fall and then back on his regular team in the spring. Anyways, back to Cody, he has been helping me a lot with getting his room done and going through all of his clothes and things to get rid of for the garage sale. It is hard to believe how much he has grown in just a year. I thought when they get older they slow down?

As for Carson, well we have earned two new trains this week. He gets a new engine from Thomas the train if he goes potty 10 times. So the first one he earned was Spencer and just last night he earned Molly. Toys R Us had a sale where if you buy 2 you get one free. So my mom was kind enough to buy him 4 and got 2 free. Carson has is next 60 potties covered! He is working on Fearless Freddy now. So hopefully he will get the hang of this. So far, he isn't telling me when he has to go. I have to just keep taking him to the bathroom. So we still have lots of wet pull ups. Any suggestions? I wanted him completely potty trained by the time the boys go back to school which is in a few weeks.

Well that is about all that has been going on. Carson has his swallow study on Thursday and we will see how well he has progressed since last year. Keep your fingers crossed because insurance doesn't cover Simply Thick which is about an extra $100.00 out of pocket expense for me every month. I would sure love to have that money and put it towards credit cards!

Well that about sums up our last couple of weeks. I have a few pictures from the lake, gun range, fair, and some others that I will try to post this week. Hope everyone is having a great week.

The Badlands, Part 4

These are the last pictures of our vacation. Thanks for bearing with me but when I start to scrapbook, I will have all of this for a reminder to help me keep it all in chronological order. I just love the formation of the rocks. Some of these pictures really reminded me of Grand Canyon.

This picture was looking down a clift. See the green grass on top of the buttes? In the early 1900's, farmers would take apart their lawn equipment and have help putting it on a pully. They would lift it up and put the mower back together. They would bale it into hay and sell it. Man, we thought the economy was bad now??? Could you imagine having to go through all of that work just to make some money?

It started getting cloudy. There was supposed to be a storm moving in.

I thought this was a cool shot of the storm heading our way.

This was the last picture I took and it then started raining. So, it was time to head home. Luckily the storm was moving the other direction so we never really had any problems.

Well this concludes our South Dakota Vacation. Thanks for looking and I hope you enjoyed our memories as much as us. Tomorrow will be back to reality pictures. LOL

Badlands Part 3

This rock here is the backside of the next few pictures. We stopped and Coltan and Cody climbed this rock. It was one of the smaller ones but still pretty high. Coltan made it to the top.

Cody keeping up.

They each had there own better way of getting up to the top.

Stopped for a picture.

He was asking what because he started climbing down the other side and I couldn't see him. You know, I was acting like a concerned mom!

Now they were heading back down the rock.

One last picture of them together.

Uh, are we heading back up again???

After we were done, we started driving again. This area was absolutely gorgeous.

Badlands Part 2

I took over 400 pictures in the Badlands. So here are a few more for you to enjoy. I had so many favorites and it was hard to only choose a few.

The Badlands

We decided to hit the Badlands on our way home. It was 45 minutes east of Rapid City (which is the direction we would travel to head home). The trip from Rapid City to Kansas City is about 10 hours. So when we got to the Badlands, I never thought we would stay til 7PM. It made it for a very long and exhausting drive home but I'm sure glad we got to stop and see this surreal place.

This was a picture I took from the highway. This was right inside of The Badlands.

There was a Prairie Dog Town area and there were tons of them. They are actually cute but there were signs posted everywhere about a plague that they carried. We sat and listened to them talk to each other. I wish I would have brought my camcorder for that.

There was another area where we saw lots of bison.

Carson thought he was very funny. He was rolling around to scratch his back.

Here was a cute little ground hog and her baby. It looked like she was scolding her.

Of course, there were antelope all over as well. This one was fairly close. You can tell they are very used to cars and people because we didn't even scare him.