Max's Turned Fourteen

As you know Max turned 14 this summer. Since I knew Max would be getting up very early in the morning to play his favorite video game uninterrupted, I decorated the TV for a little early morning surprise.

We started with a few presents and breakfast.

Max sure loves his Tommy

  

Trying out some new toys.

After all that, Max spent the day doing just what he wanted, earning money and playing soccer. He had a job power washing and staining a fence for a few days this summer and his first day of work ended up being on his birthday. He came home for an hour or so and then left to go to soccer practice,

We had a late dinner of pizza followed by a few more presents, 

We videoed the opening of Mer's gift. 

The evening was finished off with an Oreo Pie, his choice.

Love you Max!!

Right now Max....
*Loves his baby Thomas but doesn't love Tommy's mullet
*Gets up super early to play Destiny uninterrupted. He did this most days of the week in the summer. He once got up at 4:30 so he could play before his Cross Country practice. We told him he couldn't do that during the school year.
*Prefers to wear no shirt any chance that he gets.
*Likes to dance.
*Hates to eat fruit, as usual.
*loves to play soccer as usual.

Thomas update-18 months

Thomas is turned 18 months old last month and is still just as cute as ever. He is saying lots of words now and tries to do everything this siblings do.

He fits into Lukes Superman halloween costume so we use it for PJ's and fly him through the house saying "Supermaaaaan"!

 He has rosy cheeks and has kept his long eyelashes that clump together just right when wet.

The comment we get most about him is "Thomas has a mullet" Yep he still has a good old fashioned southern mullet. Someone makes a comment about his hair on a daily basis. Everyone wants to cut it except Doug who says there's no going back once it's done.  He just doesn't want his baby to grow up.

So the kids are having a ton of fun spiking it up and giving him ponytails.

I think he's starting to look like Mozart in the movie "Amadeus"
 He is learning to do all the important things like playing video games...

reading...

and working on the computer just like his dad.

He loves the beach and playing in the sand.

 He also LOVES to swim. He was getting so adventurous throwing himself off the stairs and into the deep water, that we had to get him a floaty. He would swim all day if he could.

Happy Summer. 

Sweet Sixteen

Today I'm catching up and remembering our Summer birthdays. Mer turned sixteen in May.  A serious momentous occasion. Her birthday was on a Saturday but we were too busy camping the week before to throw a party that day so we planned it for the next week. We celebrated that day with a fun trip to Orlando to see the Wax museum and the little aquarium.

Here's max with David Beckham

Doug with his twin, Pit Bull.

Elvis, of course.

Tom had fun looking at all the fishies. This is a Florida lobster he's looking at here.  We have about 27 of these in our freezer right now from the annual Lobster mini season fishing trip, but more on that later.

This fire you could touch was pretty cool.

I sure do love this girl.

The next week We through a fun party for her and pulled out all our crafty and decorating skills. Sadly my SD card ate most of our photos from this day but we had fun getting everything ready for the party.

The girls just ate tasty bbq and roasted marshmallows over the fire pit. It was a lovely night.

The following week we took her to get her official license. Driving is probably her favorite thing about being 16.

Right now Mer loves to...
Sing loudly along with her music all. the. time.
Snuggle with her brothers, especially Thomas, who calls her "Bleh-La"
Drive, She asks to drive and for her own car as much as possible
Play the piano. She's currently working her way through the songs in the Les Miserables and Adele books.
Redecorate her room. it's alway in transition. She's painting the coolest mural on her wall right now.

Hospital life

Hi there. Jack and I are currently taking a break from Summer and spending a week in the hospital to recover from his emergency appendectomy.  I thought I'd share some pictures tonight and a little of the story. I'll try to keep it short though since I'm typing this on my phone. 

Doug will say that Jack got sick because he cut his hair that weekend. We just read about Samson and Doug uses that story to justify why he won't let us cut Thomas's hair yet. 

He started with a stomach ache last Sunday night that kept him from sleeping much. He threw up twice on Monday morning and had a little fever I gave him Motrin which caused crazy hallucinations the likes of which I've never seen before. A second dose later that evening brought on the same crazy reaction.  Tuesday I took him to the Drs office where she diagnosed him with a double ear infection. After he was on antibiotics he recovered a little but not very much. I pushed him to eat something for lunch on Thursday and he said he could eat because his stomach didn't hurt, it just hurt right in the lower right side of his belly. After pushing on his stomachs do finding out how painful it was, I took him to the ER. 

They did a CT scan that showed a Phlegmon appendicitis. Meaning the appendix had perforated and his body formed a wall around the infection forming an abscess. 

We rode in an ambulance to Orlando that night since there were no pediatric surgeons in town.  Doug joked that Jack was acting out a scene from the Burbs. Jack went into surgery at 1 am and came out at a little after 3. The dr said it wasn't the worst one he's seen but it was pretty bad (stage 4) and took them a while to get it out. The surgery was laparoscopic so it we have a photo to share. 

The top picture is the mass with the omentum over it. The bottom is his appendix and the surrounding abscess. Its a little gross to look at but interesting I think. Thankfully we didn't wait longer to take him in. 

Doug came up to stay with him on Friday night and I went home then we traded places again Saturday night. 

Sunday the family all came to see him and I think it really lifted his spirits. We got some laughs in while watching some clips from "Grownups" on tv and took a 2 lap walk around the halls.

We are super thankful to have YaYa here to help take care of the kids while I'm so far away. She flew in Saturday night. 

We will probably be here until Thursday if Jack continues to improve. 

It has been very slow going. But hopefully we will get to go home tomorrow or Friday. 

Thanks for all your prayers.