Doctors' Appointments

I think we've been to more doctors appointments in the past few months than we have in the past few years :-).  They are mainly all for Gibs' arm--at the arm place and physical therapy.  This week he had a check up with the ENT and one of his tubes was in his canal (which does no good) so the doctor took it out  We go back in a few months to have his ears checked again and hopefully that ear is still okay and won't require tubes again.  Although, with his arm surgery, we met our detectable, so another surgery this year would be better than next :-).  All three kids were sick about a month ago and Greta seemed to be the worst.  What started as croup symptoms ended in an eye infection and although my kids often get eye infections after being sick and normally just get drops and they're instantly better, the doctor wanted me to take Greta in to have her ears checked too.  They were fine of course.  She looked pretty rough though :-(.

So much fun waiting in a small doctor's office!  Not really :-).

Working on his PT in the car.  I'm really hoping he can get his arm back to normal soon.  The reason we had the surgery was so that he could reach his shoulder with his hand and now that is what he still can't do.  Slowly though, he is making progress.

Anything we can do to get him to work his muscles around his elbow is supposed to help.  I normally like play-doh as an outdoor summer activity, but for the sake of his arm, they can now play it in the house :-).

 

 Layla was excited that during her spring break she was able to go to Gibs' PT appointment.  She loved when she could go to his arm appointents too.  She finds medical stuff interesting and loves to take what she saw at an appointment and play a similar situation at home.  She thought it was really nice that the PT even let her play with the dough with Gibs.

 

Library Field Trip

Gibs had a Threeschool field trip to the library a few weeks ago and so I just stayed with him.

Such a cute age seeing them interact.

They all got to bring a buddy from  home so he of course chose one of his pandas.  He has acquired quite the collection of pandas and panda things.  He says he just needs one more panda--from Disney World.  We saw it there when we visited (briefly) in January.  It's part of a Small World stuffed animals collection, so hopefully they still have it the next time we go!  I've warned him that it may not be there anymore, but he's quite certain it will be :-).  He says that then he'll have enough pandas :-).

Ready for Spring

The kids helped plant some flowers, green onion and cilantro a bit ago and have been loving watching them grow.  We all can't wait until it's warm enough to plant them outdoors!  The kids all helped color all the sea creatures (and Ariel) in the window behind Layla.  Their little aquarium helps add a little life to our dining room :-).  They were pretty proud of it :-).

A few weeks ago, Layla made a butterfly out of a an egg carton in school so they all wanted to make more at home and then try to "catch" them in their new nets :-).

Such a hard life for Greta not getting to go outside as much as her big bro and sis.  I don't quite trust her outside by herself yet.  At least she normally doesn't mind being inside with me (after she gets over the initial time of seeing them go out and not letting her go out with them).

Who knows what they are doing here.  Probably pretending to dig or something.  They love to be outside riding their gator around on "adventures", driving bikes and scooters on their side walk chalk roads or walking in our wetlands (which now looks like a small pond) in their boots.

Princess Tea Party

A few weeks ago Layla and I went to a princess tea party.  Layla loves dressing up so I knew it'd right up her alley.  We went with our friends Lindsey and Maddy and Sara and Mackenzie. 

It was cold outside, but Layla really wanted to wear her princess shoes :-).

Aurora, Cinderella and Sophia (Layla, Maddy and Mackenzie)

"Cinderella" read them a story.  This Cinderella was quite different than Disney's, but Layla didn't seem to mind :-).

Looking cute (and cold!) in their fur coats...

April 15

I fully realize that I live in Michigan and sometimes it does snow in April.  However, after having such a snowy winter and then now finally having some nice temps, it was sad to see snow again today.  Our snow had been so close to being all gone finally!  At least in April, you know it's short lived! 

I put my porch chairs and cushions out thinking/hoping the snow was done!  Hopefully now this is it for snow for this winter season!

Friends and Owl's Arm

The girls wore their matching fleeces from Kristina a few weeks ago so I asked them to sit nice for a pic to send to Auntie Kristina...

That's a little better!

After just over 5 weeks since breaking his arm, Gibs got his pins out and his fifth and final cast put on!  And as I put in the post title, "Owl" is Greta's name for Gibs--we have no idea why. But she's still calling him that.  Sometimes she says "Gibs" or "Gibson", but often, it's "Owl".  And Elvis is "Ay-ah" (eye-yah).

His final cast was on for one week.

Layla is just starting to learn to read some English site words and loves trying to read.  Every weekend she brings home two Mandarin books to read and every Monday brings home an English book from the school library.

The kids were so excited about meeting baby Graham.  They all left wanting a new baby brother. 

Gibs now has been going to physical therapy since getting his cast off.  He's getting better with some of the motion in his arm, but still can't reach his shoulder.  Hopefully soon he can so that we can be done with PT. 

Only 5 days later, they got to hold another newbie--Knox Henry.

We enjoyed a night out without kids wine tasting with friends...

April Fools

I wish it was an April Fools joke that our yard still looks like this on April 1!  FINALLY, the snow piles are melting, but only recently has it finally been nice out.  And by nice, I mean not snowing.  Today is 50 and yesterday was 60 degrees.  But tomorrow night there's supposed to be freezing rain. I hope that in future years, on April 1, our snow is all gone!

And a cute pic of the girlies being silly today...