Allergy Testing, round 2

Last Thursday I took Kristjan in for his second round of allergy testing. This time he had an oral challenge to Ibuprofen. After sitting in the patient room for over 2 hours with both boys (and wanting to pull my hair out!!), it was confirmed that the drug is safe for Kristjan to take. Woo-hoo! So now it's ok for him to have Tylenol and Ibuprofen. The Doctor decided he won't test Kristjan on Oxycodone 1) because it's a narcotic and he doesn't feel comfortable giving it as an oral challenge, and 2) he truly believes that Kristjan's reaction was just a fluke. He said the drug on it's own gives off histamines in the body when taken. When Kristjan was given it, his body was already under extreme stress from his surgery, which then caused the reaction. Make sense??? I would prefer to have him tested just so we could rule it out 100%. I mean, come on, this kid is always the one who has numerous doctor/hospital trips (we really had Clifford pegged to be "that" kid, but he fooled us). I would hate to have him have another reaction if he's truly allergic to it, but I guess if that situation arises, we'll already be at the hospital for whatever reason for him to be given Oxycodone. Let's just hope the reaction last June really was just a freak accident.

Derby Time!

Boys busted out their Pinewood Derby car kits and started working on them. So far their car designs have been cut out, sanded and painted. After the New Year, we'll start working on detail designs. So far so good!

Merry Christmas!!!

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year, making many more memories to look back on! One of the highlights of the holiday was when putting boys to bed. We told them they needed to go to sleep or else Santa wouldn't come. Pete set an alarm for them, telling them they couldn't come wake us up until it went off at 5am (ugh-too early!). Peter and I, of course, stayed up a bit longer, watching a movie while we waited for them to fall asleep. After a little bit, I could hear Kristjan yelling from his room. Pete went to check on him to see what was wrong. Turns out he had been crying hysterically and was yelling for us to turn down the tv. He was upset because we weren't in bed yet and Santa wouldn't come if we weren't!! Pete and I couldn't keep a straight face. If he only knew!! After numerous times of reassuring him that Santa would come, he finally went to sleep. We played Santa, carefully setting out the loot and stuffing the stockings before going to bed ourselves. Christmas morning came wwwaaaayyy too early. We think the boys got up around 3am to get their stockings. Right at 5am they came jumping on our bed to tell us excitedly that Santa came! Seriously, you should've heard the hyperness in their voices lol. Once we crawled out of bed, the rest of the day consisted of gifts, food, naps, legos, phone calls and more naps :)

Usual Xmas Eve lunch buffet

Boys getting Santa's cookies frosted and decorated!

We usually eat out for Xmas Even dinner. Like last year, we decided to grab take-out and eat at home. Here are the boys eating pizza while we watch a movie as a family.

Xmas Eve gift opening: Christmas PJ's!! Clifford threw a tantrum over this. He wanted to open a toy. Silly boy...when will he learn that the xmas eve gift always consists of new pajamas??

Santa came!!

Few pics of Christmas gifts opening!

Basketball Games #2 & #3

The Saturday before Christmas Clifford had two basketball games to play. Clifford did good during the first one, but by the second one he wasn't feeling too good with his breathing, so he sat out for most of that game. Both games were a blast to watch, and the team won both of them!! There was an hour break in between the two games, so Coach Vinny treated the boys to a pizza lunch. Basketball is on hiatus until after school starts back up from the holiday break. His next game will also be picture day. Can't wait to see how those turn out!

Gingerbread Build

The Friday before Christmas was Kristjan's class Gingerbread Build. Peter and I attended this last year when Clifford was in Mrs Webster's class, so of course we didn't want to miss out on it for Kristjan. Pete told his work that morning that he would be leaving early to "help with some onsite gingerbread house building. They needed an engineer onsite for design approval." He also made up a batch of homemade caramel popcorn the night before to bring in as a special treat for the class :)

We had a lot of fun helping the class with their project. As it was last year, the class didn't make typical gingerbread houses out of candy. They constructed their houses using boxes and recycled materials. Pete focused his help at Kristjan's table, mainly assisting Kristjan, but would stop to help the other kids around him. I bounced around the room taking pics as well as helping the kids out when they asked. Halfway thru the project, I ended up having another one of my coughing fits, so I had to leave to go wait in the car until school was over. Luckily the class project was scheduled for the end of the day, so I didn't have to wait too long for Pete and boys. Later that evening Mrs Webster emailed me to thank both Pete and I for coming in to help, and she said the class had a wonderful time and especially loved the popcorn treat :)

Pete helping Kristjan with his gingerbread house

Kristjan with his creation. He ended up adding more bling to it after he got home with it.

This is Kristjan's friend Ashlyn. She's the CUTEST little thing!! Her mom and I are on the PTA Board together and our boys are in the same Cub Scout Pack.

Kristjan was so excited when he saw Ashlyn had brought a container full of beads AND was wiling to share with him :)

Scout Holiday Party

The Wednesday before Christmas was the boys' Cub Scout pack meeting/holiday party. I ended up volunteering to coordinate this event, recruiting Peter as my helper. I searched for ideas on Pinterest and came up with some fun activities for the scouts to do. I had an ornament craft (thumbprint snowmen), a treat craft (decorate "xmas trees" using ice cream cones, frosting and candy), and 4 various games. Everything towards planning went great until the week of the event. I ended up getting sick with a horrendous cough, which I would go into occasional coughing fits where I couldn't do anything. Then on the day of the party, I had planned to spend the morning finishing up on the final details, such as decorations and prepping the frosting/candies for the treat. But of course that's when EVERYONE needed something from me at the school. I had to meet a parent at school who last-minute ordered a bunch of PTA clothing for xmas gifts (but she forgot and never showed), help another parent with collecting Box Top labels from teachers who never turned them in a week prior, and then Kristjan's teacher asked me to run an errand to pick up the endangered species notepads for the entire 1st grade class. I had to drive over to the school district building, load up 4 heavy boxes into my car, unload those boxes into the school, deliver the right set of boxes to each of the three 1st grade classes, AND sorted/organized notepad orders for Kristjan's teacher. Did I mention I was feeling sick AND had last minute party planning stuff to take care of at home??? Ugh...

So from what I can tell the party went great. I ended up having a coughing fit and had to leave for 45 minutes (this cough was that bad!!!). I completely forgot to take pics of the party when I was able to return. I'm just grateful Pete was there to help out and make sure everything went smoothly. Parents thanked us and said the party was a lot of fun. I, however, couldn't wait for the night to be over so I could go home and go to bed.

As I said, I forgot to take pics of the party. But I did take a pic of the example I made of the snowman thumbprint ornament and the "Frosty Toss" game I made. The third pic of the "xmas tree" treat is one I snagged from another blog to give you an idea of it.

It Snowed!.....kinda

About a week before Christmas, it snowed!!!...well....kinda...

I think it was a Tuesday morning when the snow started falling. Boys didn't know it was snowing until we were getting ready to leave the house to go to school. I was in the back of the house when I heard Kristjan yell "It's snowing!!!" Clifford then chimed in as well in excitement. I let them walk around outside in it before I shuffled them into the car for school. Sadly, the snow lasted all of about an hour before it turned back into rain, and everything turned into a slushy, wet mess.