Well, Merry Christmas...Blayne!

Yesterday, John and I spent a good part of our day at the doctor with our BOYS.(still weird to write BOYS). It was an appointment for Blayne, but Bryan went along for the ride since we were leaving Savannah in charge and we felt that a newborn might be a lot for her to handle. Blayne has been having trouble hearing for a while now. He has lots of drainage, and his ears have been "plugged in" as he calls it. It has been a concern that I have brought up with the pediatrician, the school nurse and Blayne's teacher. The pediatrician had me treating it with antihistamine and prescription cough and congestion medicine. I had not really seen much success with these. Our next step was to visit the ENT to check his ears out and see what was going on. I scheduled the appointment and a week later got a call from the school nurse that Blayne had failed his hear screening at school! Good thing we had the appointment! I have also had concerns about Blayne's snoring...or whatever you want to call it when he sleeps...he makes these awful noises when he is trying to sleep, so I wanted his tonsils looked at as well. We had to wait a long time in the waiting room before being called back. He was first seen by an Audiologist. She tested his hearing, to which he failed miserably!!! He was in a sound proof little room and had headphones one. There was a microphone, so we could hear what he was saying. She would ask him to repeat words, it was obvious when she got the level of sound into his hard of hearing range, because he would either say a wrong word, say it really weird, or not respond at all! so sad! When she did the traditional test with the "beeps" in his ears, he only heard about half of them. She said that he had moderate to severe hearing loss....poor guy. She felt like the fluid attributed to most of it, and that the ENT would know what to do to fix that. We then went in to see the ENT, Dr. Bryan. He is the same doctor that removed Savannah's tonsils 7 years ago. He is a very nice doctor and we appreciate his wisdom and bedside manner. As soon as he heard Blayne speak, he said something like "he has a recognizable baked potato voice"...meaning that it sounds like he is talking around something when he speaks. Upon examining Blayne, he found that he has chronic fluid behind his ears. His ears do not drain. This fluid, is not like the fluid from ear infections, as there is no infection and no pain. He looked at Blayne's tonsils and said that they are tucked away, but that they are HUGE! Because Blayne was being so cooperative, he decided to do a move invasive look into his nose to see his adenoids. He sprayed something way up into his nose (probably Lidocaine or something similar) He then took a long skinny light and put that sucker in his nose and went adenoid hunting...Blayne laid there some calmly with the doctor looking in his nose. It made me feel weak in the stomach to watch. He found that the adenoids are HUGE and are blocking most of the back of Blayne's nose; therefore, he is always walking around with an open mouth, sleeps with his mouth open, etc. The boy can't hear and he can't breathe well from his nose!!! So, it was decided that Blayne's adenoids need to be removed and that tubes need to be placed in his ears to relieve that drainage. He said that the tonsils were debatable. They are the culprit of the snoring more than likely and might have to be removed at a later date, but we might want to going ahead and have them taken out now instead of waiting to see if they are a major cause to the problem. Although, the tonsillectomy recovery will make this a much more difficult surgery, John and I feel that it is best to go ahead and remove them now, as opposed to facing another surgery at a later date. So, our little guy gets tonsils removed, adenoids removed and tubes in on January 15th. Ironically, his friend Liam is having the same surgery on the same day!
LIAM

Well, it wasn't what he asked for, for his Christmas, but Merry Christmas Blayne, we are going to get you better!!!! On a funny note, he told the girls last night that he had Swine Flu when they asked about his appointment. He heard some of what we said and heard the word "fluid" mentioned several times, so he assumed that he had Swine Flu! Poor guy...how has he been functioning???

White Christmas!!!

We were thrilled to get to experience a WHITE CHRISTMAS this year. We were supposed to attend our church's Christmas Eve Service last night and then join some friends for dinner at their house. Because of icy roads, it was decided that we would skip the service and just do dinner at our friends' house. We then came home and read the Christmas story and let the kids open one gift. John and I stayed up late and got some "things" done. At 3:30, I got up to feed Bryan, and I found our back door standing wide open!!! I guess when I offered to let Rudy out (he was sleeping in the house because of the weather) I had not latched the door! It was freezing in our house! I made John get up and check on the kids....all was well, so he went back to bed. At 4AM, I went back to bed only to hear the pitter-patter of little feet. Savannah had awakened and chose to wake up the other two older kids to see what Santa had brought!!!!! I was shocked that she did this, but it was also sweet that she was this excited about Christmas. I sent them all back to bed after they had peered and played with their Santa gifts. Whitney went back to bed, and read. The other two went back to sleep and so did I!!!! We had a leisurely morning, and then Bee and Grandpa and Jerral and Dilia joined us for lunch when the streets had cleared. Oh, and on a BIG side note, John decided to take Reagan's pacifier away. He felt that this was a good time as he is home to help with any late night crying. I know that she is over three and we are way beyond time in getting rid of it, but it is still sad. She is doing great with it, but has had a couple of melt down sad cries about it! Poor Girl! Merry Christmas, Reagan, huh? We had a great day, got the kids to bed early tonight and then John and I watched a Christmas Story together.

Lots of Visitors....

I have failed in putting pictures on here of all of the special people that have come to see Baby Bryan. We had over two weeks of meals delivered to us and we enjoyed those extra helping hands....I have said it before, but how do people do this without friends??? We didn't get a picture of everyone, but I did want to post the ones who have come by to see him. He is growing and changing every day and he has his own look, as my mother-in-law would say! He continues to be a sweet, sweet, baby and we are enjoying every day we have with him!!!!

Bryan's 4 Week Check Up

Bryan had his 2nd appointment with Dr. Nichols today. He weighed 10 pounds and is 23 3/4 inches long!!! (that is a growing boy!) He got one shot, and was again recognized for being so laid back! I, too, had a doctor's appointment with my OB....won't tell you how much I weighed, but was glad to see that I had lost a lot of weight since my last appointment! Dr. Robbins was very happy to see Bryan again. He was perfect at the appointment and got lots of ooohs and ahhhs in the waiting room and some envious looks from swollen 9months-pregnant women!!!

We have come a LONG way!!!!

LAST YEAR'S PHOTO SHOOT

From the 1st Cousin Picture

To the Current Cousin Picture



There are now 11 Stonecipher Grandchildren....WOW that's a lot of kids!!! And to think that Becky and I thought it was hard to get the photo of the 3 kids(Savannah, Whitney and Will) 8 years ago!!!

Grandpa and Bee's Musical Performance

We did a whirlwind trip to see Bee and Grandpa in Longview. They were in a musical at their church "A Baby Changes Everything". We enjoyed getting to see the performance and visiting with them. We saw some friends at the program that I used to babysit...took their picture with Bryan. The kids enjoyed fishing. Blayne caught a bunch! On our way home, we stopped at my friend, Michelle's parents' home. They have built a new beautiful home. We enjoyed visiting with them and catching up on old times!!! It was a short trip, but a great one!

Santa Claus came TODAY!!!!

Reagan 2007

Reagan 2008

Our Santa Claus that we see every year came today to our house bearing gifts of candy for the good boys and girls!!! If you remember LAST year, well, Reagan was not thrilled to have Santa come to our house. This year she SCREAMED and ran away when he came through the front door. She would not sit with him and was scared to death of him. With some coaxing from John, Reagan did eventually warm up to Santa and talked to him. After he left, she even told me that she wanted him to come back because she had more to tell him!!!!
Reagan 2009

Getting Back Into the Swing of Things

Well, after three weeks, I am finally feeling like a normal person again. I got to enjoy a night out with sweet "old" friends from my teacher days last night. We had a wonderful dinner, followed by our annual gift exchange and then they surprised me with gifts and a cake for Baby Bryan...so sweet. I took Bryan with me and he was perfect...just perfect!
Today, I ventured out to finish up my Christmas shopping. Christmas is sneaking up on me! I also took Bryan to get his picture made....gotta keep up with my picture history just like I did with the other four! Well, I could tell that I am not up to 100%. I RAN OUT of diapers while at the mall and actually had to bum a diaper off of a complete stranger that I totally stalked because I noticed that she had a very young baby in her stroller...was a size 2, but hey it works! My outing that started around 10 am....lasted until 3 PM. Reagan fell asleep in the car on the way home....I have so much to catch up on with my BLOG, but it will come. We have been crazy busy around here.
John's cousins were in town and had hoped to come by and see us today and meet Bryan. I didn't know that they had those plans today, and I was out of pocket. So sorry to not get to see them and meet their youngest child! They are stationed at Ft. Hood and just returned from a trip to Disney World! Hopefully, we will be able to connect with them soon! (sorry Amy and Chris!)
I plan to power blog really soon...
Well, I must head to bed so that I can get up in a few hours to feed my precious boy!
It feels to good to feel good again. I didn't realize how badly I felt until I experienced feeling good again!!!!