Poor Sleepyhead

This is how the day started for our poor sleepyhead.  

(Notice that she is sitting on her basket of books)

Hopefully she will perk up before preschool.

Fall 2010 School Pictures

Ashley Lynn

3rd Grade

8 years old

Daniel Ryan

1st Grade

6 years old

Laurie Elizabeth

Preschool 4's

4 years old

Boys Weekend at SBR

Daniel and Brian went to the Ranch for a boys weekend after the soccer game last weekend.  They stopped at the grocery store on the way and bought steaks.  Brian had an idea to cook the steak and onions over the open fire.

That's a lot of steak for just the two of them. 

 Wasn't this an ingenious idea for cooking steak over the open fire?  That's the top of the broil pan from the kitchen.

Would you believe that Daniel ate this whole plate of food for dinner?

 Sunday they spent their time at the big tank fishing.

Daniel & his fish

Festival Italiano

I grew up going to the Houston Italian Festival with my parents every year.  This year, while Brian and Daniel were at the ranch for the weekend, I took the girls to their first Italian Festival with my parents.

We started out by eating delicious pasta and pizza.  Mom, Dad and I shared a bottle of Italian vino, while the girls loved drinking sparkling Italian lemonade.  

After we finished eating, the girls went up on stage to dance with the Italian Tarantella Dancers from Galveston.  It was very cute watching them spin to the music. (They are in the red)

We did a little of everything at the festival - shopping, candle making, eating dessert, enjoying music and even a little mechanical bull riding.  Both girls took a turn on the bull.  It was a hoot watching them try to stay on and then eventually slide off onto the mat.

It was nice to introduce my girls to their Italian heritage and share a slice of my childhood with them.

Wonderful Camera

I took this with my new camera.  

AWESOME!!!!

Toothless Wonder

We now have another Toothless Wonder in our house....

And just wait, he's got another tooth that's really loose.  I'm not sure how he is going to eat in another week or two.

Why...

This is why Brian coaches Laurie's soccer team....

Sandwich Night

After a Saturday afternoon of  craziness, I let Ashley and Daniel look at an app on my phone with recipes to decide what they wanted to make for dinner.  There wasn't a consensus (not a big shock), so they each chose to make their own sandwich.   

 

Ashley chose a meatball sub.  

Daniel made a ham and cheese calzone. 

And together we made a chocolate pudding dessert with oreos, strawberries and whip cream.  

I would love to say that everything tasted really great, but ....  Let's just say, it was a good night and we had a blast making it together.  I'm very proud of my developing chefs.

Update on Birdie's Health

It is time for a Birdie Health Update.  We received the results of the full panel of blood tests.  Birdie did test positive for Beta Thalessemia minor, joining Ashley and I in having this hereditary blood disorder.  For her, it means she will always be anemic (however, her Hemoglobin was not bad at 10.3) and cannot take iron. The one thing that was below normal limits for Laurie was her Immunoglobin A (IgA); however it was not low enough to be considered IgA deficient. They recommend having it checked every year or so to see if it improves on its on. Everything else was within normal range in her blood panel.  Good results, but it means we aren't any closer to getting any answers.  

During the months of August and September, Laurie was still having ear infections while on antibiotics.  It was pretty awful.  Since she has tubes, we knew she had ear infections because her ears smelled funny and they would drain the puss.  We saw Dr. T & Dr. D constantly.  At least one Dr. a week for a  while.

Birdie & Daddy at a soccer game

In September, her allergist/immunologist, Dr. T ordered an allergy skin test to look for the 30 most popular allergies.  Let me just say, skin tests have come a long way since the two times I've had them done.  Instead of getting each prick individually, they have a panel of 10 they prick at once.  Basically, before Laurie could register the pain and get the scream out of her mouth, all 30 pricks were done.  Then they injected the top few contenders into the back of her arm.  She HATED that!  Even though the nurse was awesome and fast, there was lots of screaming.  

After it was all over, the results showed her allergic to only 3 things - Ragweed, Cockroaches, and  Alternaria, which is a type of mold.  None of her reactions were bad enough to warrant allergy shots or thought to cause her respiratory issues of late.  While I was happy for Laurie not to have serious allergies, it was a little disappointing.   Even the doctor was convinced Laurie had serious allergies due to her symptoms.  Now we had another test completed and still no answers.   We were advised to keep her on Zyrtec, saline spray and Nasonex daily in an attempt to prevent her from developing further illness. 

Originally we were scheduled to have a CT scan of Birdie's sinuses on the same day as the allergy testing; however, we arrived to discover our insurance company wouldn't permit the test.  When the doctor was told of their decision, she got on the phone with the insurance company and convinced them to change their decision while we were still in the office.  

At the end of September, we came back for the CT scan.  It revealed latent sinus infections in specific sinus cavities.  Dr. T believes that this fluid stuck in her cavities could have made her prone to the pneumonia, ear infections and other illness.  Laurie was started on another round of serious antibiotics for a 3 week period.  Thankfully Laurie is a great medicine taker (probably all the experience.)  We are scheduled for a follow up with Dr. T in 6 weeks (3 weeks of meds and 3 weeks off them).  Hopefully, this sinus infection is the answer we were looking for and will help Birdie prepare for the cold and flu season coming very soon.