Christmas at Home

Christmas has gotten much more elaborate than I remember as a kid.  I remember leaving Santa milk and cookies and him leaving us presents.  This year we left milk, cookies, carrot and glittery oats! 

 

Daycare sent home a cute little saying with some glittered reindeer food.

 So we bundled up and trecked outside to leave the reindeer their food in the front lawn. 

 They made plates at daycare for their cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer too.  Those reindeer sure do get fed well!

 Toby was extremely happy Santa was on his way!

 Good thing Santa and crew were feed well, because Santa was very good to our family this year!

 The kids got a wagon, clip princess dolls, new coloring books, new outfits, some ornaments....

 Daddy got a new saw, saw blades, a few shirts, a knife and a few other things.

  Mommy got the stable and a tree for her nativity, as well as some kitchen stuff.

And the girls each got their own iPad minis along with a pink (Jenna) and purple (Shelby) protective case.

We had a wonderful day at home playing with our presents and spending time together.

Hofmann Christmas

We celebrated Christmas with the Hofmann Family on Christmas Eve.  I got to host the celebration this year.  I held the gifts hostage until pictures were taken. 

 

We got Grandma and Grandpa Hofmann with the 5 grandkids.

 The group photo was small this year as we had a couple at another party this year and Ivan out sick.

 For some reason, Toby was getting hairbows after gifts were open.  Those silly sisters!

Rentchler Christmas

Our first Christmas celebration for 2013 was with my immediate Rentchler family on Saturday.  We started with pictures, because we didn't do any last year and we despirately needed to get them updated.  I thought we got a good one of the 5 of us.

 And even a pretty good one of all 5 grand kids with Poppy and Mawmaw.

 Poppy wanted one with Toby and his new sock monkey (from Poppy and Mawmaw).

 The girls enjoyed opening their gifts.  Lance started working on teaching them to roller skate on their new skates from Mawmaw.

 And all the girls had to help Toby open his, too.

We had a nice time.  The kids were so excited for Christmas this year.  The kids were definately at a fun age this year to enjoy opening presents.  We are blessed to be close enough to get together.

Jenna was stoked, because we got to have a sleep over at Mawmaw's house.  We celebrated Gumbel Christmas on Sunday and then headed back home.

All I Want for Christmas

Each year at Christmas the daycare helps the kids make a wish list.  Here are the girls wish lists for 2013. 

 

I am not sure why she wants another bicycle, she got one for her birthday less than a year ago.... nonetheless, it is cute to see what they want.

 

Shelby's makes me giggle a little.  She got a Barbie cash register from Ivan, Angel, Kaity, and Kent for her birthday - my guess is she wants new batteries for it, because it has quit talking to her.  Her winter coat is pink and I got a new basement last year.  Needless to say, I still think it's precious.

Update from Riley Visit

Lance and I both took Monday 12/16/13 off to take Toby to visit with Dr. Jalou at Riley/IU North.  Our appointment was at 1pm, so we drove up a little early and had lunch before the appointment.  We met with the doctor and spent a good while talking about Toby's 5 month history. 

 

After the evaluation and discussion, his diagnosis was chronic congestion.  Based on evidence after the fact, the pneumonia that he had a month ago was viral based.  The viral based pneumonia is causing a viral type of asthma.  The chest xrays look worse than before because they believe that is his body working to rid him of the original pneumonia.  However, he has developed a new cough after being wease free/rasp free/cough free for a couple weeks.  So he is back on nebulizer treatments.

We developed a plan if he is not better from this cough in 10 days.  We developed a plan if he ends up with more respiratory congestion again this winter.  We have a lengthy plan of attack if they chest xrays still look bad in March.  At this point, they have ruled out major health concerns and genetic issues, so we are playing a waiting game...wait to see if Toby gets sick again and what his ailments are for next round.

Overall, we are relieved that several genetic ailments have been ruled out.  Time will tell how aggressive we will have to get with his medical treatment in the future. 

Riley

Well, we had follow up chest X-rays for Toby on Monday with a doctor visit on Wednesday. Unfortunately, the X-rays did not show him cleared up, as we had hoped. In fact, he has gotten worse. Today we are headed to Indy to see a pediatric pulmonary doctor from Riley Hospital.  We hear they are excellent physicians, let's hope they can figure out what is going on with Toby and help him get on the road to recovery. 

3 Sick Kids & a Hospital Stay

Our journey began when I got a call from Jenna's pre-k teacher saying she didn't feel well. I picked Jenna up from school and she was feverish. Come to find out, Jenna had an ear infection. We get her feeling better and Toby starts getting worse. 

Remember how we questioned rather he was heathy at his two month well-child visit?  Well the wheezing got worse and we decided it was time to get him into the doctor. We made him an appointment on Wednesday. The doc ordered chest x-rays. The X-rays showed pneumonia in Toby's right lung. This sent us to Union Hospital pediatric ward on Thursday. 

Just by looking you would never have known he was sick!

I stayed with him Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday until we got to go home. We have some quality mommy son time. We worked on his hand eye coordination with his ball and rattle. 

Toby got breathing treatments every four hours and at some points down the every two hours trying to get his lungs cleared out. He hated them to say the least. He still does!

Roscoe Roo has become our best friend/worst enemy. 

when I got home on Sunday I was told Shelby was starting to get sick. I called Monday morning and made her an appointment. Turns out the poor thing had pink eye. 

We went back for a follow-up appointment Wednesday with Toby. I took Shelby said she was still on eyedrops for the pink eye. She had also developed a green snotty nose. She got antibiotics at Toby's follow-up visit.

As for Toby, he's still wheezing. However, he does sound better. We go in two weeks for updated chest x-rays. At that time will decide what step comes next. 

Hopefully, he gets a clean bill of health. 

Say a Prayer for Toby

If you have a minute while reading this, please say a prayer for Toby.  If you remember, when he had his 2 month well child, we weren't sure he was classified as "well" due to congestion and weasing.  He hasn't gotten any better since his 2 month well child and is starting to get a little worse.

The nurse said his breathing sounded like a "percolating coffee machine".  The doctor came in to see him and wrote a diagnosis of cough and weasing.  Patient not in respiratory distress.  He ordered chest x-rays and wants to see what they reveal before making a diagnosis or deciding how to proceed. 

Overall, he is still a happy baby.  He was weighed on his 4 month birthday and weighed 15 pounds 14 ounces and was 25.5 inches long.  That is a 1 pound 7 ounce gain in 2 months and .25 inches taller!  He is smiling and talking as well as reaching for things with his hands.

I just hope that we can figure out why he is so raspy and help him breath easier.

Cereal

Toby stopped sleeping though the night. I decided to try rice cereal to see if it would help the midnight wake up.

Okay what are you doing to me Mom?

I don't think I like this....

Nope, sure don't ...

So we waited a bit and tried again when he quit crying. 

He started getting more interested. 

He was actually licking and sucking on the spoon by the end of it. 

Red Tractor, Green Combine

Anther first for Toby this weekend. He rode in the combine for the first time. He was very alert and interested in everything going on around him.  It was a very interesting experience as Lance was driving, I was holding Toby, Shelby was sitting between us and Jenna was on the floor.  That's right there were 5 of us in the cab.

Poppy Bob was very proud that all of my children had their first tractor ride on a red tractor. However, all my kids had their first combine ride in a green machine!  We helped Poppy Stanley finish up corn at Birch Creek.

Haircuts

I will have to go back and look, but I cannot remember when the girls last had haircuts. 

Shelby got cut first, she didn't need it cut too bad, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to even it up a little.

Jenna's hair had finally gotten some length, but had gotten so stringy it just looked gross.  

We will give it a few days to see how we like it. 

Managing electronics

To any of my blogger friends I have a question.  How do you manage your electronics?  

I prefer to use my camera when taking pictures. But that requires hooking the camera to the computer and sitting down to blog after having been on the computer all day at work. It seems harder and harder all the time to find time to do that. 

I have downloaded the apps for my iPhone and iPad but don't like the way the pictures upload.  I absolutely love the talk to text feature on both devices. However, I never seem to have my pictures on the device I want to use to make blog post. Hence my problem. 

Does anyone have the cord that goes from a camera to the iPad? If so how does it work?  The reviews I've seen online are poor. 

This issue is the reason I haven't been blogging. Tonight, I backdated several posts dating to mid October to try to catch things up. Please forgive me... but enjoy catching up with what's been going on around the Hofmann house!

Let me know what works for you. I could really use some advice at this point. 

Rentchler Family Time

Last weekend we went to my parents house to help with harvest. Mom and I decided to go to Boonville to the craft show. We were a little disappointed however that did not stop me from finding a new Christmas decoration. 

When we got done at the craft show we went to Newburgh McDonald's for lunch. Boonville has a McDonald's, but it does not have a play place. Mom and I enjoyed some adult conversation while the kids enjoyed burning off some energy. 

The next week my kids kept saying we had been to Chick-fil-A, because the only place that has a play place in Terre Haute is the Chick-fil-A. We had a good time playing while the guys got a lot of work done!

Color days

Busy Blocks Pre-School has a different theme each month.  The kids spend the month working on certain letters (3 or 4), shapes, sight workds and a color.  One day during the month they have color day.  The kids are supposed to wear a specific color.  In October the color was orange.  Now, Shelby and Toby do not go to Jenna's pre-school, but I dress them up (along with myself) in support of Jenna's education.  I have also started having Lance take a picture of the four of us on those particular color days.

November was brown.  That was a little harder, as you don't often find a lot of brown in a girl's closet. 



 

Happy Halloween

Sorry I have been neglecting the blog. Happy halloween

 

 

Hofmann Family Time

On Sunday, we celebrated Kaity's 10th birthday party.  It's hard to believe that Kaity is 10 already!  You see, on our first date, Lance was a proud new uncle.  He pulled out Kaity's birth picture.  Kaity and her picture were only a few months old.  I guess that means that Lance and I have now been together for close to 10 years!!!!!

 

Anyway, Kaity had a birthday party with all the family on Sunday after her birthday.  My girls had a very good time!  As always, it was nice to get together with family.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures of the birthday girl.

 

I did, however, force ask Lance to get a picture of his parents with at least Jenna for Jenna's "house" project for school.  One of the October homework projects was to put pictures of your family inside the house and take it to pre-school to tell your friends.  I printed off some of our family pictures from our trip to Portrait Innovations, a picture of my parents with the three kids, but I didn't have one of Stanley and Janet together (outside of the Hofmann Christmas picture).  So we resolved that problem at Kaity's party.

I know Toby is not in the picture, but at the moment, that was asking a bit much!  I will have to post a picture of the house completed when it comes home from pre-school.

Toby 3 months

I took Toby's three month photos with Boomer. 

 As you can see, he has really started smiling and has found his hands!

 We tried to tak a few outside, but the sun was really bright and no one wanted to cooperate.  These are the best ones I got.

 I love how he is checking out the tractor int the pose below.  I thought the corn and mostly green graass made a pretty backdrop. 

My favorite 3 month picture is this one, which was taken with the iPhone.