Kian's 5 Year Check Up

Today I took Kian to get his physical for kindergarten.

He weighs 36.8 lbs and is 41" tall. I'm not sure where that falls on the growth curve but I am betting it all falls right where it always has for our skinny mini ;)

I wasn't sure if he needed any immunizations or not. Well, I was informed he was going to get 4! Yikes! so I told Kian about them. He did awesome until he got the MMR which apparently hurts like a son of a ..... Then he had to get a lead test at the lab - they prick the finger and squeeze out blood. When we got home i gave him some Motrin and tried to give him some Oreos - which he said he wouldn't eat. Needless to say, Kian is not at all in a good mood. I have tried everything to cheer him up, hugs, food, talking....nfinally I just had to leave him be.

Three hours later he has emerged from his room and asked to watch WallE. I feel so bad for him :( Hopefully he's in a much better mood tomorrow since Granna, Papaw, and Christopher Race are coming to visit!

Remembering our Toby

It's hard to believe that yesterday marked a full year of our lives without Toby. This morning I was thinking about him and realized that this anniversary had come. Even though it's been a year, I still think about him all the time.

Kian has also come to realize that he is no longer with us. Someone asked me a few weeks ago if he had any pets, he said yes a dog named Bailey. I know he remembers Toby though and Allie as well.

Today I choose to remember all the fun, wonderful things about Toby. How he would excitedly play and roll around with a pig's year for about a half hour before eating it. The times I would come out of the kitchen and see an 14 month old Kian poking Toby in the eye ball - Toby didn't even move - poor guy! How he would never, ever bark but the cows that would walk by up on the hill in our back yard, he would bark like there was no tomorrow! How I would wake up with his big, black nose in my face as his head rested on the matress as he stood right next to the side of the bed in the mornings.

Toby-bowbee, we miss you buddy. I hope that you are having the time of your life playing with Roxy and Sam.

Diving Board at Swim Lessons!

Kian's instructors put life jackets on all the kids. One instructor wore a life vest and caught the kids and the other stood on the board and helped them. I wasn't able to catch it on camera, but Kian eventually jumped from the diving board on his own!!! He was so proud of himself :)

Day 2 of Level 2 Swim Lessons

Kian did AWESOME at swim lessons today! He dunked his head under water several times, sometimes it was on accident but he recovered well :)

He practiced a back float, front float and started to use a kick board! He has really done well from being a kid that really just did baby pools and slip n slides. I think it also helps that Kian has the same instructor he had last session. Her name is Tori. When Kian found out that Tori was going to be his teacher he said to me, "Miss Tori is pretty." Maybe he's got a crush on her ;)

I took some photos of Kian with my iPhone. I didn't want to disturb the class by moving closer, so the photos are kinda grainy.

Kian doing a back float with the help of a green noodle and his instructor

Kian uses the kick board for the first time with his instructor Miss Tori

Kian with the other little boy in his class practicing front kicks.
Kian has the green noodle.
They went all the way from one side of the pool and back!

Kian graduated to Level 2 Swim Lessons!

I'm so proud of our little guy! Today was the first day that the class wore life jackets and went in the deep end! I wasn't sure how Kian would handle it, but he was the first one to get in and do his front kicks and back kicks almost unaided (well, except by the life jacket).

His instructor wrote out a "report" card. All the areas he worked on were checked off and she suggested he move on to Level 2! She also wrote the sweetest note to him on the back, she told him how very (underlined 3 times) proud she was of him.

Kian was SO excited and so proud of himself! He really enjoyed the lessons and he really is learning a lot.

The moment we got home I signed him up for the Level 2 lessons, they start next week :) Thankfully the pool we go to is the "older" one, but it is nice and there are a max of 4 kids per class because of the time it's at and because it's not the cool, new pool. I thought I might not like it there, but I do, so we are sticking with Spalding :)

Two woots for the K-Man!

Swimming, Tee Ball, Library...Swimming, Tee Ball, Library

This is what our life is like at the moment, well it is for me and Kian anyway. Kian is having a good summer though and enjoying the activities.

Kian goes to swim lessons for a half hour every day (except Fridays which is a make up day). Kian hasn't really been in the water much - only when he was a baby. He responded really well to the instructor and has actually put his face in the water, blowing bubbles, and has started to learn how to kick and back float.

Kian is the kiddo on the bright noodles. Practicing getting around on his own!

Monday and Wednesday nights is Tee Ball. The class is all real young kiddos so they are focusing on the basics. They have worked on catching and throwing, running the bases, and hitting the ball off the tee. The coaches are young (either high school or college) and they do awesome with the kids.

Kian hits the ball off the tee - yep it's going toward the fence, safety first!

Kian and I make a weekly run to the library. The first thing we when we arrive is turn in Kian's reading sheet. The library is keeping track of all the kids that have signed up and how many books have been read. I was shocked to see that in the last few weeks there have been over 1,000 books read! Impressive! I usually have a movie or a book waiting for me to pick up and Kian goes through the kid's area and chooses books we will read throughout the week. We are very lucky to have a very, very nice library with a lot of selection in all areas.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Yeah, I have been a big slacker in making regular posts. I have yet to go through our photos from Disney World too! :P

Here's the the news on our homefront:

Kian and I went up to Wisconsin last weekend for my sister's bridal shower. We had a good time visiting with family and friends :) Kian also got some good time in with his Grandpa and Great Grandpa at the lake - Kian even went fishing for the first time!

We came back into town on Monday afternoon because Kian started tee ball that night. It ended up being rained out. Instead Jamie had the idea of us going to see the new Pixar movie Up in 3D. It was the first Pixar movie in a few years that we have seen outside of Pixar itself :( We definitely missed going there and hanging out with our friends Scott and Keyong. The movie was great though - we all recommend it :)

Kian's first real tee ball class started on Wednesday night. He had a very good time :) I know he will enjoy the rest of the sessions that we have :)

Next week Kian will start swimming lessons for the first time. It is seeming like our summer is filling up a bit - but that is a good thing :)

Five for Finn - PLEASE READ

Please read this note from my friend Kerry. She is a member of a parenting board I am apart of - I have known her since we were both pregnant with our little guys. Finnegan has held a special place in my heart - especially since both Finn and Kian are Irish lads. Finnegan left us way too soon, but Kerry and her husband have a way to honor his memory and give back to those families battling against the evil of Cystic Fibrosis.

♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣

Hey everyone--

As some of you may know, Finn's fifth birthday would have been June 3rd of this year. As the date approaches, I find myself feeling more sad and missing my little guy more and more (as if that's possible, as I miss him every moment of every day). I could sit and cry--and believe me, I have--but what I really want to do is to celebrate the amazingness that was Finn and help other families too.

We are still in the process of getting tax-exempt status for "Finnz Fundz"--a foundation established in Finn's name to help other families of children with Cystic Fibrosis who are facing extended (longer than one month) hospital stays for treatment. In addition to our goal of achieving tax exempt status, we hope to eventually be able to help families of children with other illnesses as our funds grow and our ability to help increases.

As a way to honor Finn's fifth birthday, I have a special request for everyone who reads/receives this note--PLEASE donate a fin ($5) in honor of our Finn. If even 200 people donate $5 each, we will have $1,000 to distribute to families in need. Amazing!

Donations can be sent via paypal.com to:
finnzfundz@gmail.com

In addition to this special birthday fundraising drive, we are also looking to obtain "in-kind" donations to pass on to families--like gift cards from national retailers (dunkies, starbucks, target, walmart, etc). If any of you out there work for such companies or have connections, please let us know. We received many such cards and they were such a blessing!

Our email for the fund is: finnzfundz@gmail.com

A website will be soon to follow--a special thanks to Susanne and hubby for offering to design/host the website--I will be in touch soon!

Thanks to all for the amazing support you've given our family during our journey. It's been a long road, but I wouldn't have changed it--Finn was an amazing, special little person who truly brought joy to our lives.

Many thanks,
Kerry and Patrick

p.s. Please forward this to everyone on your friends list! Let's use the power of facebook/the internet for good!!!

Finnegan - a lil' Irish clover that left us too soon

Back to Reality and School of Choice!

After living at the Disney All Star Music Resort for the last week, we returned home at about 3AM on Mother's Day. We had an AMAZING trip to say the least. I will be blogging about it later on, right now there are many other things to attend to :P

Today we received our mail that was on hold for us during vacation. I quickly rummaged through it to find a letter that was from the Champaign school district. I opened it in a hurry and scanned the letter to see that Kian is attending the first school we chose!!!! We are super excited at this great news :)

I am hoping to have blog posts and photos of our WDW trip up sometime next week. As well as Kian's Preschool Graduation photos and info :)

See ya real soon!

Busy...Sick....and Busy....

I apologize for not updating much over the last few weeks. I have been struck with a virus that has knocked me into bed for several days at a time, so most of my time is spent doing what I can for our family and resting.

We are working hard prepping for our big journey to Disney World starting Thursday night. I have been busy getting laundry done and packing among other things. It has been quite difficult with this fatigue I have from the virus - I am exhausted after putting a load of laundry in the washer. Kian has been a great help and Jamie has too - I am so very thankful for both of them. Jamie has allowed me as much time as i can to rest. And Kian has been such a great helper in unloading the dryer for me and getting things for me that I need.

I am hoping to rest up a lot so that I am well to walk around all day at the park for 7 days straight. We are all looking forward to this trip to say the very least! The thing I look forward to most is enjoying the wonder of Disney through Kian's eyes.

I will be Tweeting throughout our trip. If you wish you can follow my blabbering via this link. I also have my Tweets streaming on my Blabber Blog.

I know we will come back with a lot of photos and stories :)

Preschool Trip to the Children's Museum

Friday Kian's class went to the Children's museum in Champaign. It is a far cry from the Appleton one and a far, far, far cry from the San Jose Children's Museum, but Kian and his classmates had fun nonetheless (which is what really counts). Since I was one of the drivers for the field trip, I was able to snap some photos of Kian throughout the time we were there.

Kian got to pet a bearded dragon! I was asked to if I wanted to pet him before it got to Kian...I reluctantly did only because I didn't want Kian to be afraid. He really liked petting it and was very gentle :)

Climbing up the ladder on a tug boat exibit

Digging for dinosaur bones in the outside area.

And I had to include a photo of the ghetto dinosaur that was in the back area. It looked both scary and gross...I think he needs a revamp.

Mario Kart....Wii!!!!

Well, it seems that Kian beat Mario Kart in some way (I don't know what brought it on lol). After he finished a race and won a trophy the credits started playing which usually means you beat the game. Then a picture of Mario, Kian's Mii, and the Princess popped up lol I told Kian I was going to take a picture of it - so there it is!

Hoppy Easter!

Happy Easter from our family to yours!

As you can see from the photo, the Easter Bunny was very good to Kian :) He made quite the haul! He got little game, a DS game, Mickey Mouse, 2 Pokemon figures, and a dancing game with Disney songs and characters. And yes he made a haul with the candy! He got an "egg" with Nerds inside and no Easter basket is complete unless is has a chocolate bunny in it (it took the EB quite some time to find one that was safe for Kian :)

When Kian woke up he found fillable eggs in his room and all around the house! He had a great time finding them and after finding some he would say, "that silly rabbit." LOL

For now, Kian's breakfast consists of chocolate and other sugary goodies. Bailey is trying to sniff everything and lingering around Kian's feet. Right now he's an annoying scavenger :P It should be a fun filled, sugary day for us all :)

My Blabber Blog

I have revived my Sarah's Random Thoughts blob but renamed it and gave it a new web address. If you are interested in my ramblings that are not really family related, press the title of this post and it will take you there ;)

Disney Marathon Part 2

The day began with Kian singing to himself in his bedroom....but now he's a bump on the couch again :( His temp was down today but it has slowly risen. Since he has had so many ear infections, I deicided to call and get him an appt to have that checked. His ears are fine, but he is having a strep culture done as well as a urine test...he keeps telling me his back hurts. The 5 min strep test came back negative but they are doing an overnight one.

For now we are watching more movies - thankfully we have collected all Disney movies available! We haven't even seen all of what we have (thankfully lol).

I guess we will see what tomorrow brings. Kian does have a short week at school so I feel bad keeping him home one more day :( He really enjoys going!

Snowy, Gloomy, Sick Kiddo Day :(

This morning Jamie and I awoke to cries coming from Kian's room - which is totally not normal for him. He said he was hungry so i got him food right away and milk. He continued to lay in bed and was kinda a bump there until the clock hit 7AM - he said it was time to get out of bed lol (We tell him he can't come in our bedroom until 7AM lol) I discovered he had a low grade fever which I monitored throughout the day. It rose to 101.5 before school so no school today.

Kian has been curlled up on the couch with a pillow and blanket the whole day. So today was declared a movie day. And since we are going to Disney World in about 25 days, we have watched all Disney movies. Most of them Kian has never seen before. So far we have watched Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Little Mermaid, Tarzan, Lion King, and Aladdin. There is time for one more yet today lol

Kian is not a kid that sits still for very long so for him to sit through all those movies is really rare. Hopefully after a good night sleep he will feel much better.

A Visit with Granna and Papaw

Jamie's Mom and Step-dad arrived on Friday and left this morning. Kian had a blast playing tee ball with Papaw and Daddy in the back yard (Bailey enjoyed it too ;). Granna and Papaw bought him a few bats and a tee for practicing at home. Kian will be starting Tee Ball in June, so we wanted him to get used to how things in the game. Kian took to it really well! I think he will really enjoy the class :)

Saturday was a beautiful day, a little chilly but sunny. It was nice enough to spend quite a bit of time outside. Sunday it was rainy so we were mainly inside. We took a trip to the mall, which included a few rides on the carosel. When we got back to the house Granna and Kian had a blast playing hide and seek and playing all the board games Kian has - which is a lot! lol Then Granna spent some time watching Kian play some video games that he wanted to show her lol

It really is nice to be able to live close enough for a weekend visit to all sets of grandparents :) Kian definately had his fill over the last few weeks :)

Is it April Already?

I seriously cannot believe how fast time flies these days. It is now April and in almost a month my little man will be 5! It feels so odd to even think of him being 5! I guess I just have to get over it lol

Our countdown until Disney World is on. We are now on the last month on the chart until we head there (we leave May 1). Kian is so excited. I'm pretty stoked. Jamie is stoked, excited, and well anything else you can think of LOL Luckily he is doing a lot of research to make sure our trip is great.

Things continue to be busy here. In fact this week has so many little things going on that I lost track of days...I have been a day behind since the week started. In fact, right now I would swear it was Thursday. lol

busy...busy...busy.....

Last week was super busy for me! Not only did I have St. Pat's day prep and such but I also had to start working on getting Kian and I ready to spend Spring Break in Wisconsin with my parents!

Jamie and Bailey stayed back - Jamie had to work. But since Kian has off all this week we thought it might be nice to spend it in Wisconsin and visit with some family and friends. So I was trying to get every piece of laundry washed, all the dishes caught up, and anything else I could think of done so that Jamie wouldn't have to worry about much while I was gone.

We have had a good time visiting quite a few different people :) Eating at Tom's Drive In and going to some special stores that aren't in our area. It has been nice to just visit and be low-key :)

Finnegan

I chat lead a board for people that had babies in May of 2004. I have been there since I found out that Kian was due to be born in May and a lot of other ladies have been there that long a well. Finnegan's mom was also one of them.

After Finnegan was born, his parents were told he had cystic fibrosis. Basically there is an issue with mucus glands in the lungs as well of digestive areas. It is incurable but manageable sometimes. Finn didn't really exhibit really having any issues that kids with CF normally have, not until last year. Finn was hospitalized in Feb. 2007 and remained there until he passed away on early on March 20th, 2008. He endured many surgeries and was quite the little fighter.

Our entire board was shocked when we heard of his death. We all had been praying and sending mojo to Finn since we heard he was so sick. We all clung to hope - even if it was little - that he would recover. A month or so ago his parents were told that his only hope was to have a multiple organ transplant. He was at the top of the list in receiving it, but his little body couldn't hold on any longer :(

I have felt a connection to Finn and his mom. When Kian was an infant we had him tested for CF - there was thoughts that he had it. Thankfully he does not. Plus his family is very Irish, Finnegan is an Irish just like Kian is an Irish name. It has espcially hit home for me...and I know all the ladies on our board are very greived. Never did I think in a million years that we would lose one of our May Miracles so early.

Finn was such a special little guy. He has touched so many in the four years he has been on this earth.

Now our thoughts, prayers, and mojo are all sent to Kerry and Patrick as they deal with Finn's passing. If you think of it, send a little bit their way.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

"May he rest in peace" in Gaelic