Happy Mother's Day

We FINALLY had nice weather for the March for Babies March of Dimes walk this year, probably because it was held two weeks later than normal. Tim, myself and the girls drove down there but Tim wasn’t feeling well and Reagan fell asleep in the car so he and Reagan slept in the car while Avery and I walked around. (Hence the reason there are only pics of Avery and I at the walk).  I was happy (and proud) to have her there. She has come such a long way and I give credit to March of Dimes and Hillcrest. Hillcrest and the doctors, nurses, RT’s, etc are the reason they are both here today. Also, we knew Reagan was going to be born early so I was able to get surfactant injections before she was born. Surfactant injections help the baby’s lung development which keeps air sacs in lungs from collapsing. The surfactant therapy was developed by March of Dimes J When she was born and in the nicu for 41 days, she never needed oxygen, due to the injections. Had we known Avery was going to be so early, I would have had the injections for her as well. Instead Avery had respiratory distress syndrome, chronic pulmonary disease and was on every breathing apparatus available in the nicu (Intubated/ventilator, Oscillator, Bipap, cpap, canula, etc.) She had many breathing problems when she was younger and was seeing a pulmonoligst, but she has since “graduated” and no longer sees him. She only needs albuterol/breathing treatments as needed when she is really sick.

Thank you to everyone who donated!
Mrs K
Grandma B
Terri
 Lauren
and thank you to Laura for fundraising! (I have your shirt for you!)

Since our chicks have hatched, we have had some new excitement at our house. One of our older chickens started sitting on eggs. I peaked under her one day and there are at least 13 eggs she is sitting on. Not saying those are all fertilized and will hatch but she has been doing a great job sitting on them. Every time I go to the coop, she is in her spot in the nesting box. I read that once chickens start going broody(sitting on eggs) they no longer produce eggs during the time they are on the nest. They sometimes pluck out some of their feathers to cushion the nest and also to help regulate the heat and humidity. (We had to regulate the heat and humidity manually when incubating the eggs, its actually quite amazing that the hens know what to do). They stay on the nest at all times except getting up once a day to eat, drink and poop. The chicken does a lot of work in the 21 days, including turning the eggs (again, something our incubator had to do with the 4 we hatched). We aren’t exactly sure of the date she started sitting but its been at least 2-2.5 weeks so possibly next weekend we will have some chicks! If you or anyone you know wants some chicks, please let us know. I am worried we are going to become the chicken hoarders. Hey, maybe we could get our own tv show.Our 4 new chicks are getting so big. They are now 5 weeks old. I am still crossing my fingers that they aren’t all roosters.

I mentioned in my last post that our dogs somehow got loose the one day. I was literally almost in tears because we couldn’t find them and were searching all over. We live on a pretty busy road so my biggest fear is them getting hit by a car. They are idiots and will walk right in front of Avery or Reagan swinging on the swing and get hit so I can only imagine how they would act when cars are coming at them.  We then received a call from the North Royalton Animal Warden saying he had our dogs. Someone found them a few houses down and called him and he came and picked them up. Luckily Joe had his name tag and license on his collar. Buddy’s had fallen off prior. (I have since ordered him a new one and he now has the tag on his collar). Thank you to the warden for calling us and not having us pay an impound fee because they were only there 20 minutes. We ended up sending him a thank you card. I appreciated him picking up our dogs and keeping them safe. The thank you card was probably a good idea since the dogs have gotten loose two other times now in the past week. One time, Buddy got out somehow and Tim drove down the street and he was at the same house that found him last time. Another time  Avery left the door open and the dogs ran out…I called for them and luckily Joe came back but Buddy went running. Tim got in the car and I told him to drive to the random house that Buddy is always found at…Sure enough, a few minutes later, he came running by and we caught him. He must really like those people to keep wanting to visit them! On a good note, he does run back by the houses instead of by the street.

Also, Avery only has 1 more week of kindergarten left. Where has my baby gone?! She is going to be in first grade. Mentally she is all there but she needs help when it comes to everything academically like math, the alphabet, writing, reading, etc.

She is pretty self-sufficient though. I was in the chicken coop with the baby chicks and Reagan one day and Tim was working in the yard. Avery made us all lunch. She brought 4 plates outside and each had an ice cream cone, blackberries and a piece of cheese. My kind of food groups!

Hoping you all had a great Mother's Day. Avery continued the tradition of not looking when taking pics with the grandmas/cousins. Reagan painted me a cute little heart picture holder and Avery made me all sorts of things. She decorated a bag, made me some flowers and gave me a pot holder with her handprint :)
Tim helped the girls make me a card. I love homemade gifts from them.

Hoping my next update we will have some new chicks!!
***Right before I posted this we went out to the coop and there was a baby chick laying on the ground. It also looked dead and trampled. Tim went to pick it up and it moved so we took it inside and put it in the incubator to warm up. It started to perk up and started peeping and moving around. (I don't have a new pic of it yet, just the pic from when we brought it inside and I didn't think it was going to make it). I asked Avery what she wanted to name it and she said Eddie, after her cousin :)

I joined Momma at the March of Dimes walk this year! Here are some pics from it. I actually stood and smiled for some pics! I was supposed to do the hero run for preemies but I was too scared. Reagan and I got capes anyways!

Our annual mother's day pic with Grandma B and the cousins..notice I am not looking

Annual Mother's Day pic with Grandma S. Of course i was not looking

 

Mother's day pic with Momma

Reagan made this picture holder at daycare

This is the card that me, Reagan and Daddy made

Here is the bag I made for Momma

Here is the potholder I made

This is Cheeseburger, look at her/his fluffy feet. This is the one that Momma thinks is going to be a rooster

This is Grey (AKA chicken). This one is Reagan's favorite

This is Tater

Here are the 4 chicks, Bacon is on the left

Playing on the swingset

Reagan playing with snapchat

Here is the lunch I made for everyone

Here is the chicken that is laying on a whole bunch of eggs

Here are my new ears!

Eddie, our newest chick. Hope he/she pulls through. He is up and walking around now. (This pic is when we first found him) It was like 40 degrees the day he hatched and he was laying on the ground all alone. I think the heat in the incubator really helped him.

Hens, Hearing aids and a Hair cut

The baby chicks are now 4 weeks old and getting big fast! I have a feeling Cheeseburger is going to be a boy because it looks like he/she is getting red wattles already and none of the others are yet. Not sure what is going to happen if we end up with a bunch of roosters. Reagan loves to play with the baby chicks, though now they are at the stage where they startle easily.

Avery kept telling us she wanted to get her hair cut so one day we decided to cut it ourselves. She wanted it around shoulder length. We cut about 7.5 inches off after her bath one day. She wanted to bring the pony tail we cut off to school to show people so she went to put it in a Ziploc bag. I told her that she couldn’t put it in a bag if it was wet. It needed to dry first so I made her put it on a paper towel on the counter and I told her that we would put it in a bag in the morning. I woke up the next morning and the ponytail was gone! I thought for sure one of the dogs ate it because one of Buddy’s favorite things to chew is Barbie heads/hair. I searched frantically before I went to work and I couldn’t find it. I texted Tim and said Avery is going to be so upset when she wakes up and the ponytail cant be found. He texted me an hour later and told me she put it under her pillow. LOL. She is nuts.  She still wears her hair in a pony tail everyday. I keep trying to talk her into wearing it down one day and letting me straighten it. We did it once in the past and it was beautiful but she always wants it up. She is the complete opposite of Reagan. Reagan’s hair is ALWAYS in her face and it drives me nuts. She only lets the teachers at daycare put her hair up. Her curls are crazy. I need to go to a hair salon and ask what I can put on them so they aren’t so wild.

The other day Tim was working in the yard with Avery and I was doing things in the house (cleaning litter boxes, dishes, etc). Reagan was playing on her iPad in her room. An hour or so later Tim came inside and asked where the dogs were. I said I thought they were outside. He thought they were inside. We went outside and called and shouted for Joe and Buddy for a half hour. Tim went back inside to get his phone and he had a missed call. The Animal Warden from North Royalton called and told us he had our dogs. Someone from down the street found our dogs and called the warden and he came and picked them up. They were at the corner of our street, about 7 houses down. I get so nervous when they escape because we live on a really busy road. I am always worried they are going to get hit by a car. We do our best to keep them in the backyard when they are outside but Joe is too smart for us. He learned how to unlatch the gate on the back fence. We have to put a lock on it that he can’t open. He also learned how to go into the garage from the door in our kitchen. We changed door knobs from a push handle to a handle you have to turn and I still think he can somehow get out that door. He also pushes the door handle on the door that’s in the garage that leads to the backyard. If he is outside in the back, we have to keep that door locked with the deadbolt and keep the garage closed in case he gets it open. He is insane.  Also in the past he figured out how to open our automatic garbage can. You wave your hand over it and the top opens. He is tall enough that he would just put his head over the sensor and open it. We had to take the batteries out so now it won’t automatically open. We have this fancy garbage can and can’t even use it to its full potential. Lol.  Anyways, thank you to the neighbor for spotting our dogs and thank you to the warden for picking them up and calling us.

We are still waiting to hear about the appeal for Avery’s new hearing aid. Avery’s school told us they could have the audiologist fit Avery for new molds for her old hearing aids. Hers no longer fit well and create a lot of feedback because they are loose.

We had to pay $84 but they saved us from having to

1. Pull Avery out of school

 2. drive downtown to Main Campus

3. Have Tim or I take off a work

so it was definitely worth the $84. They prepared Avery ahead of time by showing her videos of people getting their molds made. . She got fitted for the new molds yesterday and they said she did great. Her teacher sent me a few pics and said Avery picked out pink molds with glitter. Hopefully she will wear them! She did tell the teacher at daycare that she would. We go see the ENT next month. It was supposed to be this month but I wanted to wait until she got her new hearing aid. Since that isn’t happening anytime soon, I wanted her to get her new molds for her old hearing aids. Her ENT will determine if she is going to have surgery to have another set (this would be her 4^th) of tubes placed. 

Tomorrow is the March of Dimes walk. I will post pics when I can. Thanks for the donations!

Joe and Buddy, probably coming up with a plan of how they are going to escape again.

For her birthday, Mommy wanted a Paint by Numbers of Scarlett and Chewie. She will post the finished product when she is done in about 3 years.

Ray Ray is so cute.

We love each other most of the time

Hi

The stairs Daddy built for the dogs. Soon the kitchen will be torn apart and they won't be able to get outside using the door in the kitchen/garage. 

I got my haircut! A lot!

Buddy and his huge wrinkly neck

I want to be a doctor when i grow up

I told my teacher to send this pic to Momma

Here are our new chicks. 

Getting fitted for my new molds

Cheese

Ray and Grey

Daddy decided to fill the pool up in our basement. It was so fun but it made Momma nervous :)

Momma started the paint by number. Its slowly coming along. She wanted them both to be in black and white but now she is thinking she probably should have done it in color.

We had to move the chickens to their new cage outside in the garage. Daddy and I went downstairs one day and all of the chickens had jumped out of the plastic tote and were pooping all over the bathroom. It was time to move them.

Make a Wish!