Christmas Day

Christmas was a good time with our family.  Unfortunately Chad was feeling a bit under the weather (poor guy) and wasn't able to eat all the yummy food we had.  When the kids woke up we ate a little appetizer breakfast to hold them off until brunch.  Then we went down stairs to see this...

We opened gifts as a family and then got ready to head over to Brian and Erin's for brunch.  We had some yummy breakfast casseroles and sweets and fruit.  We then headed home for a few minutes to gather our stuff and head over to my parents house.  We laid Callan down for an early nap and set the kids up watching the polar express.  Some of the adults played games or took a nap and then it was time to open presents.  The kids enjoyed themselves once again and Carter asked on the way home when the next present opening was going to happen.  We had to break it to him the the orgy's of greed were done.  We then had a wonderful dinner of brisket and shrimp.  We took our dessert to go because the kids were tired and cranky and needed some much needed sleep.  So we ended the night with a warm bath and new jammies that grandma Ellen made.  It was a great Christmas weekend.

ready to open gifts

looking at their stockings at the niebuhrs

callan opening his gift

playing with the nativity

enjoying their new legos

loving the new shirts grandma made

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we went to 3:00pm church and then over to Al and Karen's for dinner and present opening. Karen had to go to Friedens church to sing in the choir at 6 so we just hung out and let the kids play until she got back.  The kids got a lot of fun toys and enjoyed the beginning of Christmas.  We got home late but the kids were able to say goodbye to the elf an get into bed so that Santa would come.

two of my handsome boys before church

the whole brood

wild and crazy with the cousins

chow time

my baby enjoying his box 

excited about his new kung fu panda toys

aunalie and camden playing with some of aunalie's new ponies

Christmas Program

Despite all the sickness that happened this week Carter was able to make it to his preschool Christmas program.  Unfortunately dad had to stay home with our two sick kids, but we taped it and he got to watch it on video when we got home.  He are some pictures of my preschool boy.

standing by the Christmas tree

hanging out before the program starts

Singing

Carter with the other two boys in his class

With his teacher Mrs. Brown

15 months

Can you believe our little man is 15 months? Either can I!  This boy has so much personality.  He is trucking along into toddlerhood and not looking back.  He walks everywhere and always wants to be down so he can be moving.  He wants nothing to do with toddler toys and wants everything to do with big boy toys.  He gets right in with his brothers and wrestles and if you make the mistake of sitting on the floor he will think you want to wrestle with him.  He now wants what he wants when he wants it.  He has lots of likes and dislikes.  He loves playing with cars, reading books but most of all his favorite thing is balls.  He also enjoys saying that word a lot.  He enjoys reading and laughs a lot when you read with lots of inflection. He is a great sleeper who goes to bed at 7 and wakes up at 7.  Takes a 2 to 2.5 hour nap in the afternoon and is in a pretty good mood when he is awake.  He does get a bit clingy around 4-5.  He has also started showing signs of stranger anxiety. :( I just hope this stage is short lived.  He is so ornery and into trouble ALL the time.  He still has 7 teeth but he might be working on an eighth one.  His unofficial weight is 24lbs which is only 4lbs shy of his 3 year old brother Camden! I will have his 15month appt on Monday and will update this with official height and weight.  UPDATE: his weight is 24lbs 4oz 45% height is 31inches 44% and head is 18 1/2 43%

Allergy testing.....again!

Well it is that time of year again where we get Carter's allergies tested.  Why?  I have no idea.  The numbers are meaningless and the whole profession seems to have no answers.  You ask one allergy doctor something you will get a different answer than another doctor.  But we have reason to believe that Carter's egg allergy is getting better and therefore we test him to see if the number is dropping and if it is low enough to do an egg challenge.

Well the good new is his egg number did drop. It dropped from 2.95 to 1.06.  Normal is less than 0.65.  The  funny thing is he is still at a moderately high range.  Even though when he was first tested he was 23!  The best thing about his egg allergy is that he can eat everything but an egg itself.  So it really doesn't effect our lives too much, thank God!  We know we are blessed that he can eat all baked goods which makes preschool and parties a lot easier to deal with.  However in saying that, the number really doesn't matter.  He could still have an anaphalctic reaction at his number, or he could just break out in a few hives.  Or he could even be able to eat eggs.  Some of the numbers are false positives.  So  in good news, we are hoping that by next year he will be able to eat eggs without any problem.  

Peanuts. Our nemesis. I don't even know how you can be allergic to something you have never had. (well when he was first tested he had never had them)  Carter's peanut number has done weird things.  If I remember correctly when he was first tested he was at a 9.  Then the next time he was tested he was a 6. Then he went up to 7.49.

For no reason what so ever, his number jumped to 18.9 this time.  He has never ingested any peanut product since the last test or had any sort of reaction.  We have no idea what this means except for the fact that he probably will not fall into the 20% that grow out of their peanut allergy now that he has had this high number.  (just for reference the numbers go from 0 to >100, but anything above a 1 is considered high in the allergy world.  Even though we won't do much changing based on these numbers we will be more diligent in keeping the epi pen around because this number (according to the really messed up research that has been done) gives him a 95% chance of having an anaphylactic reaction if he happens to eat peanuts.  We are thankful that he seems to not be so severe that he can eat plain M&M's and things that are made in a facility that also processes peanuts.  He also seems to do ok being in the same room as someone eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I just hope that it stays that way.  We pray that this is the case and we also put a lot of hope into the fact that research says they should have a cure in 3-5 years.  

I know that Carter's allergies could be A LOT worse and that we are very lucky.  It is just hard to deal with something that no one has any answers to.  We just have no idea what the future holds and no doctor can even predict what might happen.  The hardest part about being a parent of child with food allergies is worrying every time you leave them if the people watching over them know the seriousness of the allergy and will they protect him like you would protect him?  My biggest fear is that he will have an anaphylactic reaction without me around and he won't have his epipen or someone won't know how to use it.  I know that for my son to have a normal life I have to let go, and let him take responsibility, or let others take responsibility for him.  It is just scary.  Food allergies are scary.  

Carter's Thankful Turkey

Since I just got around to scanning and taking pictures of Carter's art work since October I came across one of his pieces I wanted to share.  For thanksgiving he made a turkey with all the things that he is thankful for.  I thought this was pretty sweet.

(I had to fold in the feathers to be able to scan it.)

cookie monsters

Here are some of the goings-on from last week.  We are wrapping up (literally) all of Christmas stuff around here.  We have our shopping done, cards sent, most presents wrapped, decorations done and are now just finishing up odds and ends.  I took Carter sledding on Saturday and we have played outside in the snow some.  The kids are loving the holiday season.  We read a Christmas book every night and Carter keeps asking if tomorrow is Christmas.  I still have some holiday baking to do, but that really is the fun part.  The kids did help me make some Christmas cookies last week and we had a pretty good time, until my clear directions of "please roll the ball of dough gently in the sprinkles" were not followed and we had some smooshed cookies.

The dough

Rolling the balls in sprinkles (notice how they are no longer round)

ready to bake!

The finished product...they were yummy!

Callan had a rough end to last week.  He came down with a fever on Thursday night and by Friday morning was 104.7.  Since he had just had a cold I thought it might be his ears.  So I took him in and it was his ears and apparently he tonsils didn't look so hot either.  So we got some antibiotics and thought we were on our way to recovery.  Unfortunately poor little Callan battled high fevers all weekend with the highest getting to 105!  I am not a fan of high temps, they scare me. I spent part of Saturday night holding a shaking, hot baby with cool compresses on him.  It was so sad.  So he has been heavily dosed on Motrin and Tylenol and  hopefully today is the last of any fevers.  

when his fever wasn't super high he acted fairly normal

I just had to tell a funny story about Camden.  At night after the kids read books we always pray.  We trade off between the Lord's prayer and "our own" prayer.  Our own prayer consists of a similar routine.  It starts with God, thank you for this day.  Please bless...(and the kids insert whoever they want here).  Sometime we add something special here and then move on to Please forgives for our sins, like when we say mean things or hit our brothers.  Then we end with, Please protect us from all danger, amen.  A while back Camden would ask Chad "what does danger mean?"  Chad would then say something like "if a stranger asks you to get into their car" or something like that.  I don't know how it came about but our kids love water towers.  They always point them out when we are driving.  Carter insists that one day he will climb on one.  Chad told him that would be dangerous.  So whenever Camden would ask (rhetorically) what danger meant Carter would say "like if you fall off a water tower".  Now, like clock work Camden will say "what does danger mean?"  Then he quickly answers his own question by yelling out "if you fall off a water tower"  Then he laughs at himself.  It happens every night, and I can't help but chuckle at the fact that he thinks he is so funny.

I have to share one story about Carter too.  This week during quiet time Carter asked to draw (which has become a regular thing).  I got out the things he wanted, paper, stickers, and markers.  I went into my room to fold laundry and he comes in to tell me to come look at what he did.  When I look at the table I see quite a few papers out and start to get a little irritated.  But I looked at them and said they were all very nice.  He drew a picture on each of them and then put a sticker on them.  When I asked him what they were he said he had made cards for Santa to hand out to all the boys and girls who wouldn't get cards on Christmas.  So I was no longer upset that he had used a lot of paper.  I told him to write his name on them so that Santa would know who sent them.  He put it on three and then told he made too many to write his name that many times and asked if I would help.  What a sweet boy. Here are a few of his cards.

Here are a few more pictures of our week

who knows what they are up to!

he loves to sit here and read

food trance

Santa Baby!

I am so happy to say that we did not have to go to the mall this year to see Santa!  The mall Santa is usually a weird looking man, with some weird pajama or Hawaiian attire on, smells like smoke and barely talks.  Not to mention you have to wait in line, and pay at least $20 to get a picture.  So while I was at the gym I saw that Santa was going to be their on the 6th.  So we thought we would try it out.  Best idea EVER!  He was a real Santa with a real beard, a normal red suit with a bag of candy he handed to the kids.  He was pleasant and nice and listened to the kids tell them what they wanted.  The best part....it was free!  He was even sitting by a tree with presents.  Anyway, as always the Scribners have a fabulous picture with Santa.  Both Carter and Camden sat on his lap and told he what they wanted.  Carter kept going until we cut him off and said Santa can't bring that much. :)  Callan was the fun hater this year and cried while being held by Santa. Thank you YMCA for bringing Santa for us!  Here are our pictures.

 

the first snowfall

Well December has come and  it is breezing by as fast as I thought it would.  We have been filling our days with fun, plus the normal day to day activities.  We went to another open swim as a family and this time Callan got to join.  He loved it and we all had a good time.  We have also been getting in the Christmas spirit by putting up the tree and the kids have been making lots of Christmas crafts.  They love the all the holiday music that is played 24/7 on the radio.  We also are experiencing the "Elf on the Shelf" this year, although our 4 year old is already a little skeptical.  If you don't know what this is, it is a book about an elf that comes to your house every morning and watches you all day to see if you have been naughty or nice.  At night he flies back to the north pole to report to Santa.  You can't touch him and he doesn't talk but he finds a new place to sit every day.  So we read the kids the book and then told them to go look for their elf.  They found him and were pretty fascinated. Mostly because they wanted to touch him (if you do he loses his magic power).  Carter, from the beginning, kept making comments about how he does't move and that he is just a puppet.  Smart little booger that kid.  You are also suppose to name your elf and after we threw out several bad names (monster, diaper, elf) we settled on Noah, after Carter looked in his bible book and thought we should name him after Noah.  Needless to say, the kids are excited in the morning to see where the elf chose to sit for the day.  I enjoy seeing a little bit of Christmas magic in my kids eyes.  But speaking of eyes, you know who's eyes I don't like looking at me?  That freaky elf.  He is a very homely looking thing, and it seems to always be looking at me.

our elf "Noah"

posing with the new book

We also got to enjoy or first snow of the winter.  This could not have made Carter happier.  He has been talking about snow forever.  So Sunday they got to go outside and play in the snow and then come in and have some hot chocolate.  I have to give a shout out to Camden here too because he was not a stick in the mud this year and actually enjoyed playing in the snow, which also made Carter happy because he has someone to play with.  

Now a little update on the kiddos.  Carter is still trucking along in preschool, and is even volunteering more information every now and then.  He has been big on "teasing" a lot lately.  He will tell us "I spilled my milk" followed by "just teasing".  Even though I know kids do this, I am not really fond of it.  I think mainly because he does it to Camden who doesn't understand, which then leads to tears.  So we have been working on saying and doing nice things to our brothers.  Carter has also been very inquisitive about Santa and all things Christmas.  He usually spends several minutes at breakfast questioning Chad about the validity of Santa.  It is really funny to hear how much he understands and comprehends.  When we were driving home one day we saw a blow up Santa in someones yard and it was holding a teddy bear.  Carter pointed it out and I told him that Santa would give that teddy bear to a boy or girl who wanted it.  He replied with "mom, that is just a puppet Santa, not a real one."  One other little tid bit of info is that Carter is having his tonsils out on December 30th.  He snores a lot at night and is so restless.  When we had them checked out the ENT said his tonsils were pretty darn big and that he would not hesitate to take them out.  So that does it.  He is excited about popsicles and ice cream.  He doesn't know that he will probably not feel the greatest to want to eat those things, but we will see.   

Camden is become "mr. independent".  He wants to open the doors, put on his seat belt (the best that he can), wipe off his face ect.  I have been waiting for this phase hoping it would bring some relief for me, but it hasn't quite yet.  Usually these things just take longer and try my patience even more but I know that in the end it will pay off if I just let him do it.  Camden continues to amaze me is how he plays.  He really copies a lot of what Carter does, but when he is by himself he usually has his imagination going like crazy.  I listen to the story he is telling his toys and it make me chuckle.  I also hear things I say to him like "go to time out, woody!"  The thing that has really made me step back and look at how grown up my kids are, is the time that just Carter and Camden are playing together. Those two are like two peas in a pod some times.  They will sneak off to their bed room and play so nice together and I love eaves dropping on their conversations.  I never thought I would see the day when they would play together and be so nice to each other.  Those times seem to be coming more and more often now.  

Callan is Callan.  Walking around everywhere, finding trouble at every corner.  This child has smashed his fingers, hit his head, and fallen more than anyone I know.  I have noticed though how much he really understands.  He can follow short directions and knows exactly what we want from him.  He has also been voicing his disapproval when he doesn't get what he wants.  His favorite word is ball, and he says it all day long.  He loves hangin with the big boys and doing what they are doing.  They are so good to him (most of the time) and try to include him in play.  

all of them helping me clean

what the bathroom looks like before bed

hey mom, look what i found!

we have had some long weeks, so occasionally carter will fall asleep on my bed at nap time while playing

wrestling match

the three boys playing nicely together.