I shall be kind and start with today’s adventure… The long awaited and much talked about GENETIC TEST appointment. Thankfully NOT at the crack of dawn so not nearly the rush Echo’s cardiology session was, as well as not as long of an appointment of itself. 

We got off in good time and headed to the city. The parking wasn’t too difficult but certainly NOT cheap and we did get a little lost walking to the correct building. After all this is all part and parcel of the university so there are lots of buildings and some construction going on. We even got a little misdirected by someone who was confused as to where we were trying to get to. BUT we made it right at 11:30. 

The office was TINY but the wait non existent. They basically took our info and in the time it took to change Echo we were shown into the examination room. There we talked with the nurse, and she took Echo and myself to weigh and measure. I don’t have the numbers but Echo did rather well with it all and didn’t try too hard to dive off of the scale.

Waiting for the doctor

We returned to our little room, gave permission for the intern to come in with the doctor and there they were! Talk about quick! There was lots of talking, sharing history of ourselves, family and kids… tracking how many siblings my mom has… where the cleft lip and palate came from… all old hat for us. The geneticist was an older gentleman who had 4 kids himself and the intern a lovely young lady who Echo allowed total access to! She lay quite still through it all and even gave her a little smile. They measured her feet to compare the two… her arm length… and it all came back – fine. As we have been told all along she is in perfect proportion… for a MUCH younger baby! 

They had nothing to add to the blood work the doctor gave us as a last set and have only added one procedure – a bone growth x-ray. What they do is x-ray the bones in the hand and check where they are growth wise. Apparently (and I need to do more research on this) your skeleton can be younger than your actual age. His answer to things if this is something that has occurred – puberty… so…. 

Basically she is a petite child. Apparently the geneticist is able to find out the why on petite children a whopping 5% of the time! Though he did figure that once Echo’s PDA is dealt with we should see some growth increasing but again the cardiologist said do not expect massive change. Basically we are back to what we said when we started – she is JUST PETITE!!!!! BAH!

The other kiddos

So, Sunday… Well we kept ourselves busy in the heat to be sure! It all started with a pancake breakfast. And then all 5 kids dressed in their Sunday best (as pictured YESTERDAY), the boys with matching shirts (thanks to Nana). This was our first service at what is to become our new home church.

Service was a lovely hour long, though we decided NOT to risk corralling the herd and going up for communion this time round. We did meet the minister before service started… a lovely older man. And after service we met the lady who was in charge of snacks for VBS who remember the boys fondly AND the secretary for the church office who is going to contact our old church (Trinity Lutheran… I know I know) for membership change. It is time to put down some permanent roots in our new community. After all, Sunday School starts on the 11th of September! Where has the time gone? Another lovely thing about our new church – well, apparently there are other homeschooling families AND the family we met in passing who had a boy/girl set of twins (older) were very receptive when they asked our boys where they went to school and were told by Zander that the boys DON’T, they HOMESCHOOL. How proud was mom that they knew the right answer to share! And so proudly he said it!

Sitting pretty

After some time at home and Karyn taking me out with her on her errands (we took advantage of the Michaels’ buy one get one for 1 cent sale on card stock) it was time to pack up and head out to the splash rock and fire pits that are a lovely park here in the city.

On the menu… hotdogs (no brainer), fruit, carrots, and SMORES! But first we had to head over to the splash… rock… and well… splash. For some reason though the weather was absolutely HOT the water was FREEZING. Echo did NOT approve, actually neither did Mommy. It was fun to watch the big kids make new friends and splash away. 

Splash Rock

Brrr

Aunty Karyn spent some time splashing it up with Trinity while Kristen and I found some shade.

Splashing with Aunty Karyn

And shade we found, on the hill. There WAS a bench free, but for GOOD reason – ANTS. Echo enjoyed the shade on the hill and Aunty Karyn’s keychain. 

KEYS

After getting our fill of splashing and rocks we moved back over to where Fydo had held down the fort and kept the fire burning.

Fire

The smores were quite impressive… Kristen had biscuits with chocolate already on them and then you add MORE chocolate… makes my mouth water even now.

Smores

After sitting around while the kids played until Echo was done in we all headed to our respective homes… what a great way to spend a VERY sunny Sunday afternoon. We hope to go again in September. 

Smiling in the shade

Oh I didn’t mention the kicker for today – we pulled out my stroller for Echo only to find out that the wheel had melted or warped enough to make it bounce funny. I think the heat shining through the back window of the van while it was pressed against it did it or something like that. BUT it did last over 5 years and through 3 kids… so back onto Kijiji to find another. I have message TWO ads today and have high hopes that something will come through. 40.00 is my limit as I don’t want to dip too far into funds set aside for other items. 

We stopped in at H&W to pick up some much needed (and amazingly priced) produce… the best deal? Bananas at 29 cents a lb. I bought over 11 lbs of bananas for 3.25! And a stop off at Bulk Barn for a few spices and snacks. We have to head back to the city for Alexander den Otter’s birthday beginning of September so I plan on making GOOD lists for those two stores so we are able to take advantage of being there. 

Bananas

Two days in a row that definitely wore out the kids. One with fun the other with travel and excessive amounts of having to sit and be quiet (which they didn’t do very well though other people were tricked into thinking they WERE – thus they ALL got stickers). A stop at the grocery store to get sandwich fixings and then fruit when we got home and at least their tummies were content. 

We have started having a small potty success – Trinity has been peeing before bedtime ON THE POTTY! Of course not OTHER times but with how busy we have been, all the go go go… I am pleased! One step closer to her Hello Kitty undies! 

A success!

Tonight is set to be quiet, and the last night before I begin the preparations to get to the wedding in one relatively busy and somewhat content piece. I have cleaning I want to have done, laundry ALL put away… the kids need to clean the backyard. Any volunteers to help out?

What a face!

2 days in one out of necessity. We spent a nice portion of our time yesterday out as a family in the now repaired van. We had a run to Bulk Barn for some things to take to the new place, and then to H&W for fruit and veg. Of course in between those two places we stopped for a late lunch – Subway! The kids are so out of sorts they really didn’t enjoy it but with the equivalent of 3 footlongs we were all pretty full!

In the Bulk Barn

Subway

Echo got her re-do on her needle. Just one small vial this time and the nurses were absolutely WONDERFUL. Still wore her out and she did cry. But they had her sit up in my lap which went MUCH better! Less stress and less holding her down.

Excitement is mounting here for all of us. The boys especially are more than ready to be done with their sharing of one room for all 3. It was fun to work together and get the room emptied out. We wiped the walls, bagged up the extra clothes and drug out the toys. Thankfully Gavin was even willing to wipe out cabinets in the kitchen which freed me up to pack the majority of the kitchen (a time consuming thing to accomplish).

I will be without internet in the new place until Monday morning – that is if there are no accessible wi-fi. So I am hoping to make a trip over to Karyn’s at least once this weekend to post and check email. We will be busy anyway with the unpacking and reorganizing but it is always an odd feeling to know you will be without phone or internet and we don’t have a hooked up cell!! We are so old school.

The boxes amassed way faster than I thought they would. Every time I filled one there was more bits to put away. When did we get so many dishes? Where did all the random clothes come from? Did we really collect this many toys? How in the world did some of this stuff disappear for so long that I forgot I had it and could have used it? I have to admit it – I really ENJOY organizing… the whole idea of moving into a new place and having things the way I want it is rather comforting. One of my biggest hopes and wishes is that after all of this we can get ALL of the kids in the position of feeling able to learn and challenge themselves whenever they want.

Sadly last night I ended up with a horribly painful amount of back pain on my lower right side. To the point where I called Health Links twice and was seriously debating going into emergency. That has caused my assistance with packing to stop cold today. I didn’t actually fall ASLEEP until around 7am when the kids came out and joined us in the livingroom… thankfully the tv still works so they watched cartoons while Ken napped a bit and I got in around 4 hours of sleep but every time I felt a jolt of pain I was running to the washroom until it had degraded to dry heaves. Not the best way to arrive at our last day of shopping. I really do appreciate how much Ken does when I am under the weather!

Position of choice today

This move is becoming quite the epic – or is it already? Thankfully Ken’s parent’s are right there helping us along (well from afar but we can feel their love right here). ACTUALLY we got some amazing news on Ken’s dad – he had to have emergency kidney surgery (this is after the blood clots and  finding out that he has something called Graves’ disease that Ken could also have inherited and WILL be testing for when we are settled) about 2 1/2 weeks ago. A week ahead of schedule he is back to work and feeling fine. It is scary to think of him going through all these things and it is rare that he is far from our thoughts right now.

So with Ted, Sean and Ken hard at work tonight and the house upside down and then some we are finally in the first stages of truly MOVING! Exciting, scary and tiring all at once but the time has come. So I will not be able to post another blog entry until Saturday or Sunday evening. Wish us luck!!

Bitty baby

So with spring comes spring showers and apparently, this year, still below zero (Celsius) weather??? Seriously, and a projected forecast of some snow in the near future. Gotta love Alberta… or move… or something.

So today we had an inside morning and definitely felt the lacking of our now pretty much scheduled outside playtime. Although Gavin took the kitchen easel as his own crafting centre for the morning and worked hard  to create a masterpiece. According to the artist it is a picture of “just a city”. I have to stop and marvel at the detail he puts into most everything he creates from scratch. He seems to have limitless patience with this sort of thing.

Gavin and his masterpiece

On the other hand, the other 3 big kids were bundles of energy and short on patience. I finally pinned them all down with a series of Spring themed worksheets. I got them from this site in their Printables for Spring section. What I especially liked is that they have a variety of the Counting by mazes. We did  the 1’s and 2’s today and I hope to get them to try out counting by 3’s tomorrow. They were able to get through the 1’s by themselves and past 100 with the 2’s.

Zander working on counting by 2's

The plan tomorrow is to start assembling our lapbook of spring and Easter related worksheets. I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do with all the sheets we have been working on the past month. It just doesn’t feel right to do all that work and leave them in a pile or throw them out. So we are going to take them all and put them in the lapbook to save to show they facilitator when he comes for the new school year.

Yesterday Echo started wiggling in a more “get somewhere” manner… no progress yet but we had a bit of a wiggle… BACKWARDS! That and she rolled over onto her front with her cookie and spent what looked like a very frustrating half hour trying to eat it while propped up on her hands. The other kids thought it was hilarious as the cookie would slip away from her and she would get all confused and search for it leaving them to hand it back to her and start the process all over again.

Attempting the cookie eating while on the tummy

I finally got Zander to sit down and start work on HIS story titled Fat Sheep and Mommy. It will be interesting to see what sort of an adventure we get to go on!

Zander's newest page

Echo got her first Arrowroot cookie… I forgot how MESSY these are for little ones with no teeth. She started out in my lap but with her copious cookie dropping I figured the standing toy was safer for my clothing and hands. I forgot how hilarious cookie face is!

Cookie face

Gavin has finished the writing and illustrating of his first story. Daddy and Echo is a bright and fun story, lots of detail and care was put into each and every page! Definitely worth laminating to save for later years.

The End

Ken called Echo’s doctor’s office to check on our referrals today. They have been sent to the various offices and are waiting on call backs with appointments. So at least we are SURE it is in the system and the ball is rolling. Once we hear from each office I am hoping we can ask a list of questions so we are best prepared to go in with info about family, her diet, habits, they may want something more than I have after all.

Tonight was one of our absolute favourite dinners again – beef and gravy on rice. This time we used the “dainty” rice I picked up at Bulk Barn. Even with our larger slow cooker we never have any leftovers, but wow is it lovely and filling and PERFECT for a chilly day.

Family dinner

So life continues here in the Reinsch-Johnson home. And some of the upset and frustration falls away. After all we are still living our life the way we always have just a few extra steps… tomorrow I am going to attempt to explain what a shoebox diorama is to Gavin, get Zander working on his next story page and attempt to spur everyone along to packing up MORE of the toys we have around the house… faces are being made whenever I suggest it lately… time to start the big push to our move…

Seriously Daddy... SERIOUSLY?????