Girls

Last night we were trying to stress the real reason for Christmas in our Family Home Evening. I started out by asking, "Is there anyone that never makes mistakes in their life?" 

Blurbles replies, "Oh! I know! Girls."

Hmmm....not the answer I was looking for...but, humorous nontheless. 

Thanksgiving



This past week we went up to Utah.  It's a very long drive with a lot of kids in a little space.  On our way home, one of our DVD players went out and it made it an even longer drive with seemingly even more kids with even less space.  So....it's a good thing it's worth the drive. 

We were able to visit with so many cousins and everyone's at such a fun age.  Cousins are usually the greatest part of traveling.  It's amazing how many of our boys love the time they have with their cousins.  We went to the "Dinosaur Museum" and the "Animal" Museum.  The "Animal Museum was on BYU campus, so TPM and I took the opportunity to do some "brainwashing".  We took them on campus to show them "where all their classes would be".  Then, we took them to the cafeteria and let them pick out anything they wanted, because "college students gets to eat what they want" (including a big ol' ice cream cone at the end).  In the middle of the lunch, Blurbles asked, "So, college students get to eat whatever they want every day with all their friends?"  I repied, "Yep!"  Blurbles was sold.  We hope he's a BYU Cougar in 12 short years.  :)

We enjoyed some yummy food and enjoyed some more visiting on the way home.

My sweet sister-in-law took some family pics.  They are great.  They are on her blog:

http://captureathousandwords.blogspot.com/

We loved our visiting, but always enjoy coming home.    

Commitment

Lil' N is a commited little guy.  Whenever he decides he wants to be good at something...he will work at it till he's stellar.  2 years ago, he found a hoola hoop at Grandma's house.  He didn't know how to use it, so he had someone show him how to use.  Then he spent the next 8 hours practicing until he could do a hoola hoop...and do it well.  He's started to be that way about basketball.  He spend hours outside trying to make a shot.  He's drastically improving.  He has done it with his dance games...he can beat anyone he knows. 

His new obsession is tetherball (doesn't that take you back?  I loved tetherball).  Anyway, he's unfortunately the shortest kid in his grade, and so he's at a significant disadvantage in the game due to his height.  We were in the car on the way to church, and he said to me, "This kid at school says I'm easy to beat in tetherball.  It makes me feel bad." 

You can imagine how sad that made me feel. 

Then he said, "So, I'm going to ask Santa for a tetherball so I can practice a lot and a lot.  Then, they won't say I'm easy...they'll have to say I'm reall hard to beat!"

That's my boy. 

Guess Santa'll be bringing a tetherball...he has to practice, right?

Cystic Fibrosis



For any of my regular readers, you will remember that Frew as a "breathing issue"...we lovingly call him Vader.  He has his own pulmonologist that we unfortunately have to see often (at $40 a pop), and we have run ever test imaginable on him - including an exploratory surgery (bronchoscopy) that resulted in an adnoidectomy and ear tubes.  A few weeks back my pulmonologist said the dreaded sentence, "I think it's time to rule out Cystic Fibrosis".  For those of you unfamiliar with such a condition, just think lung transplant, chronic breathing issues, and the liklihood that I would bury my child before I pass to the other side. 

Not good. 

So, on Tuesday, I took him down to the hospital for the test.  It's a sweat test, and I'm not really sure why modern medicine hasn't made the diagnosis of Cystic Fribrosis a little more concise.  Basically, they put gauze on his arm (to catch the sweat) and covered it with lots of saran wrap and tape (to make him sweat).  They were looking for an abnormal amount of chloride (salt) in his sweat.  Apparently, individuals with Cystic Fibrosis have an extraordinarily high amount of chloride in their sweat.  Who knew?

So, little saran wrap boy ran all over the hospital to work up a sweat.  He was covered up with two winter coats and snowboarding pants (which looked very odd in Tucson, AZ).  All the while that he ran and played, I mulled over how my life would change if he tested positive for CF.  I can say it was a sobering half hour.

She unwrapped "saran man" and promised the results by the end of the day.

When she called to report that his test came out "normal", it took me a minute to process it.  She was telling me that my worst fear (for the last few months) were not realized and I could relax.

He just has really bad asthma.

Thank goodness for asthma.