Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Party like a Rock Star

or something like that, LOL.

Abigail likes to take a sip (1 sip) of my Chardonnay when i have some so my lush daughter thought i gave her a glass of wine. I know, don't call cps.


We celebrated New Years Eve early because Ben is really really tired and isnt going to make it to midnight :)

Happy 2009 everyone!!!!
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Wordless Wednesday


Yep, these are Kailtens glasses she got a month ago?? I put them on the computer and Abbie took them down and put them on the floor or maybe handed them straight to Swayze. Either way, he ate them!!!!!!!!!! GRRRRRRRRRRRR. So i ordered her a new pair from Zennioptical i pink of course. they are soooo cheap and im thankfull for that.

Go check out MOMDOTs WW. its gorgeous.



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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Coleman update from Peggy

Wow, here I sit at my laptop- right where I left it Christmas Eve night when I last updated…

When I typed that last update, I didn’t know what would happen, but I fully intended that I would be updating the next day after the boys woke up- Scott and I were so excited for Christmas morning and watching them open everything…OR I at least thought I’d be able to update after our ER visit. In true Team Larson fashion though, a NEW plan unfolded, and this is the first I have been back to type it out. Our house still sits as it did Christmas morning.

So I guess I’ll jump right in here and start from Christmas morning-
Caden came down the stairs and was overwhelmed with the generosity of Santa! (Thanks to so many of you, and to so many secret Santa’s they had- GOD BLESS YOU!) He stood there in a daze, not knowing which way to turn…(kind of like his parents) He started ripping into things, and Scott and I did our best to put our happy faces on, knowing that we were going to give him an hour or so and then be heading back to the ER with Coleman.
Cade didn’t get through opening everything, but we had him choose two favorites and got him dressed to go to Aunt Sherri’s who met us at the ER. (THANK YOU SHERRI!) Coleman was pretty unresponsive as he didn’t have the best night and was still not talking or swallowing much. He was unable to talk and mostly slept. We were very worried.

While we were in the ER, the doctors called DesMoines, and we were given the choice to either come home with him, or come there to have him looked at. We knew we couldn’t take him home again on our own without doing something, so Coleman and I got a helicopter ride to DesMoines while Scott drove to meet us. Oh how I wish Coleman would have known he was riding in a helicopter. He would have LOVED telling Caden all about that. He slept the whole way.

Once we landed in Des Moines, they got us a big room and kept Coleman comfortable. We can’t say enough about the kindness and compassion shown to us by the staff at Blank Children’s Hospital. They were so wonderful to us.

They gave Coleman a drug called Manatol (?) and after a day of sleeping, he did come to a little and we got a few more words out of him…even a dirty look or two, which I considered a gift- it was nice to see him responding. He picked up his hunger right where he left off after not eating anything by mouth for three days.

Unfortunately it was short lived and he is back to the mostly sleeping and maybe a word here or there, and just a little food…but with all the of the pain meds, he’s pretty out of it. Even doped up on morphine though, bunny’s ribbon gets the twirling, same as always.

We came home today and met with a couple of awesome ladies from hospice, and we went over many options. For now, we are home. That may change, but we want to try it at least. Also Coleman is on a new oral chemo, because…. Well… “Team War-sin NEV-VA divs up.” We aren’t finished yet…
we know in our hearts we need to keep praying and trusting in God’s love for Coleman and for us all.

We have a new set of meds to keep Cman comfortable. That's our main goal, we DO NOT want him to be in pain, and so far he doesn’t seem to be. We pray that continues. We’ll take one day at a time and see how everything goes. The one thing, the only thing, that’s for certain right now- God is with us and giving us strength to keep going.

Caden was able to come to the hospital and spend the past few nights with us in the room. It was a wonderful gift to all four be able to spend time together, even if it was in a hospital room.

We’ve been having talks with Caden…I can’t begin to explain how difficult it is to answer his questions, hold him as he sobs, and says he needs to “help Coe-man fight harder.” It brings to mind the quote we have on Coleman’s home page here- "“There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child.” -Frank A. Clark
How true it is.

The bond between Caden and Coleman is something we’ve seen all along, and that in itself is hard for us to comprehend at times, yet it’s there. I think we’ve given Caden as much as he can handle each time we talk, and we take his cue of when he needs to quit talking about it & go back to being the bouncy little boy he is.

Small steps.
I’m going to end there as I think I need to take this in small steps as well.

I can't end with out saying...
WOW- how blessed we are! The messages of support- what can I even begin to say? it’s overwhelming, and I find it hard to explain how touched we are. We thank you for the amazing support of our family, and for your prayers. There are so many people I’d like to personally thank, but I would be sitting here all night- please know how much it means to us.
We’re hanging in there, and doing what we’ve always done…taking one day at a time, (sometimes one moment) and thanking GOD for all He’s continues to provide us in helping us make it through.

Blessings to you all,
Team Larson



A brothers love, a twins connection.

if i kiss you hard enough, you'll get better. Right.
Look at Cadens brows.





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Earth Hour 2009

Here is our Earth hour from 2008

Monday, December 29, 2008

Coleman update from Mimi

"As of last night Team Larson was spending time together. All 4 in a hospital room still, enjoying every second of it as again time is not a luxury they have ."


Keep praying for Coleman



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Sunday, December 28, 2008

The DS Quest


With the other kids getting an expensive gift we went ahead and got Matthew his dinosaur D-Rex. It was out of stock everywhere for a bit and when walmarts came back in stock online i snagged one for almost 150$. Then about a week later we went Christmas shopping inside walmart and they had 3 for 124$ and i grabbed one and said we'll return the other dino when it comes in (site to store) by the time we went to site to store and back to the toys to make sure we could do that the other two were gone!! fast forward......... Matthew thinks its creepy. The eyes freak him out!! lol. So we offer to go take it back and get him a DS like Kaitlen.

sooooooo, Walmarts out of DS's so we head to Best Buy. They are out too and tell us the other walmart is out also. Try Gamestop or Hasting. Neither of them had a DS not even used ones at gamestop. Then we think where is my DS??? (yes, i have one. Got it to play Brain Age) The kids took it not long after last Christmas and i hadnt seen it since. So after stern questioning Thomas thinks he saw in the garage all dusty. hmmm. k. We go home and he retrieved it fromt he garage and i dusted it off and Matthew had himself a almost new pink DS!! He was happy. Kaitlens DS is red and yes eventually Matthew and Kaitlen traded DS.
Matthews dino money just goes back into the bank, lol. Oh, when we went to walmart today with the dino it was down to 99$ thankfully we had our reciept.

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Saturday, December 27, 2008

Coleman update

Mimi did a small update earlier today on Coleman on Julians Carepage. Just keep praying for this little guy.
we love you Coleman

As far as I know , Coleman was airlifted on Christmas day to the hospital and things didnt look good , he was not able to swallow nor talk .
Caden joined them yesterday .



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Friday, December 26, 2008

Coleman

This was Coleman's moms post on Christmas Eve. Please pray for Coleman. Here are some recent pics of Coleman and Caden.


I debated on updating tonight, as I didn't want to bring anyone down on Christmas Eve...
But I figured you've been such prayer warriors for us, and we could really, REALLY use them right now.

Our big family Christmas was not to be. We didn't get to go to my family's. This morning Coleman woke up fine. By 9:00 he was having slurred speech and droopy right hand.

I called Scott who hurried home right away and we rushed to the ER.

They did a catscan which showed two new spots on his brain and very enlarged ventricles. He was given a boost of decadron through his port and we came home around 2:00.

He's slept pretty much all day and has not eaten or drank much. We'll be going back to the hospital tomorrow I'm sure. He's having trouble swallowing and is drooling a lot. I'm don't know exactly what they can do. He's unable to talk much and when he does it's really hard to understand him. He gets frustrated and goes back to sleep. This is so tough...

Since he's not able to swallow very well, I only managed to get the steroid down him tonight, but we weren't able to do any other meds-the others are just too big.

Caden has the cookies out, reindeer food on the porch, and is ready for Santa. We've read the Christmas story about the birth of Jesus and have been praying...A LOT.

Scott and I are exhausted, but the three guys are all asleep on the couch and I suppose I'll wake Scott up soon so Santa can make his delivery- for Caden's sake at least.

Not the Christmas we hoped for...but we're still giving thanks for what we do have, we feel God right here with us.

Thank you for praying for Coleman and our family.
Pastor Kent and Rebecca, God bless you for coming out between services tonight. It meant a lot to us.

Okay, I'm going to end here, mostly because I'm just too tired to type more.

I'll update again when I can-
Blessings to you all and Merry CHRISTmas,
Team Larson





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Christmas Eve

Here are some Christmas Eve pics. I had wanted the kids to get each sibling a Christmas gift but that would be expensive with so many kids. Then i thought we'd draw names and the could pick the gift for the person they drew. That would be time consuming taking each one in and then theyd have to keep quiet :) yeah right! Then Ben said why dont we have them do the Dirty Santa game. We had just played it at the Marshall's and it was fun. So we got 5 gifts and wrapped them and they each drew a number and the 1st person got to pick a gift and then the second person got to pic and if the second person wanted the first persons gift they could switch with them. We'll the kids were so excited no one switched anything.




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A penny for a Pee-Pee


I told Abbie she could have a penny for every pee pee she did in the potty and at that time (30 min ago) she could care less. I saw her start to tinkle a bit while sitting on the couch and i got her up and told her to go on her potty. AND SHE DID!!! and she asked for her penny and then went back on the potty backwards. She now has her potty, pennies and purse, lol. This was kaitlens old potty. Kaitlen was way to tall for it and Matthews old potty is way to tall for Abigail so i pulled out this one and it works good for Abbie. Can we really be a diaperless family soon??? IF she actually potty trains she'll be my youngest. Thomas and Cody were both 2.5. Kaitlen was 3 yrs 2 months for day time trained and she was almost 5 for night time. Matthew was 3 1/2 for peepee trained, longer for #2s. I dont remeber when that happened but i know i text Ash and Tina!! He's still in night time diapers, but thats fine.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

My BIL's house

I Don't think I've ever showed you all his house. I believe its was a year ago Thanksgiving that it was finished. It's a very cool house.

This is the top level. It has the kitchen, family room, office area, master room, 1 kid bedroom and then kinda like a studio apt( like a MIL house, but inside there house) with two beds, fridge, stove, table area, sink.

This is the back and it has a walk in basement. There is the family room, 2 bedrooms, game/toy room and they there is a whole area not used for anything yet and i swear its the size of our house, lol. They also have a safe room for tornado season and its come in handy im sure!!

Im standing at the duck pond then i took this pic.


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Christmas is not whats under your tree

From Mimi, Julian's Mama-

So did everyone get what they wanted for Christmas? Big screen TV, new camera, Ipod,new puppy,blankets, cell. phone?
Today ,I will tell you how ,today, december 25th 2007 , I got the most unexpected gift of all.
I woke up this morning to my child, my terminally ill 4 year old baby boy, talking ,smiling , wanting kisses, and best of all wanting coffee and donut holes... I swear he was meant to be a cop(no offense!)
This has to be the best Christmas ever... Who needs gifts when you have the smile of a child? A child ,whom,I truly believed just less than 24hours ago, wouldn't see Christmas...
He was a chatter box off and on all day , wanting love from his Papy and Mamie, wanting hugs from William( ok ,William, that's enough now) ...Just a wonderful day ...
And I owe it all to our Lord,to our Lord and to you all...Amazing friends who prayed for a Christmas miracle...THANK YOU !!!I will forever be gratefull...
So here is for you ...My beautiful child smiling peacefully ,feeling on his face how soft his new blankie is...Thank you Papy and Mamie...


I wanted to share a poem I wrote a year ago, before our world was completely changed...Has an even greater meaning this year...
Hope you had a wonderful day....
About Christmas...
What is it about Christmas that reminds us how much we miss someone?
what is it about Christmas that reminds us how lonely we are ?
What is it about Christmas that reminds us how selfish we can be?
What is it about Christmas that reminds us how unfriendly we can be?
Christmas should be about giving
Christmas should be about helping
Christmas should be about loving
Christmas should be about remembering
Remembering on Christmas Day that it is all about Him,
Remembering on Christmas day that it was all about us,
Remembering on Christmas day how little He was
Remembering on Christmas day how great He is
Never forget on Christmas day that someone is in our heart,
Never forget on Christmas day that we are not alone
Never forget on Christmas day to be giving
Never forget on Christmas day to open your home and your heart.
Because It was on Christmas day that God sent us His son
Because it is on Christmas day that we forget most about God
Because it is on Christmas day that we should always remember
that love , hope ,peace and trust dont only exist on Christmas day...
Mimi(12-19-2006)





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Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Southern Comfort Holiday Cookies....

Southern Comfort Holiday Cookies
(To be enjoyed in the comfort of your own home)
1 cup water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups dried fruit
1 bottle Southern Comfort


Sample the Southern Comfort (SoCo) to check the quality.



Take out a large bowl, check the SoCo again; to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink.



Turn on the electric mixer; beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl.



Add one peastoon of sugar. Beat again.



(At this point it is best to make sure the SoCo is still okay, so try another cup just in case)
Turn off the mixer thingy.



Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuck in the cup of dried fruit.



Pick the frigging fruit up off the floor.



Mix on the turner. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaters, just pry it loose with a drewscriver.



Sample the SoCo for tonsisticity.



Next, sift two cups of salt, or something, who gives a sheet.



Check the SoCO.



Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.



Add one table.



Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink; whatever you can find.



Greash the oven.



Turn t he cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over.



NOTE: Don’t forget to beat off the turner.



Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the CoSO, and make sure to put the stove in the wishdasher.



Cherry Mistmas!!!!
ha ha




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Went to the Marshall's house

For a yummy Christmas Eve dinner and lots of family fun. They are the best family!!
I had no makeup on, ack. lol


Papa and Brooks, AWWWWWWWWW. Brooks is so sweet to! and big.

Dante, Dante, Dante! thats my dog. Well, If the Marshalls would let me take him, LOL.

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Emily's Dress


I made Emily's dress today. I didn't have enough fabric to do the circle skirt attached to the shirt but i had enough to make her a separate skirt and shirt. I hope she likes it :)




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Tuesday, December 23, 2008

500$ Sears Bundle!!!

All of these blogs are giving away three separate Sears gift bundles worth $500 each. Their contests end at 11:59 p.m. EST on December 23, 2008. That is TONIGHT!!

Chris Pirillo

Jim Kukral

How to Split an Atom

Techipedia

TechnoSailor


successful-blog

Jaffe Juice

Chris Heuer

Ted.Me





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Monday, December 22, 2008

Happy Birthday Betty

Sunday we did a turn around trip to Mt View to give Nana some flowers for her birthday. As a true Dec baby she loved Poinsettias.

I bought some mini ornaments for the kids to put on it to make it look cute.

After almost 3 years it's still flipping hard

We love you Betty and we would have been making you your prime rib dinner tonight. Hope you and Pop are celebrating in Heaven.




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Saturday, December 20, 2008

Renee at My Special K's

Is adding another K to the bunch. I am so excited for them that I have to share with you all!!! but you already know because you already read over there RIGHT! So go on over and congratulate the Garcia family and follow the story of their daughter.
Bringing Kellsey Home



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It's official, i've lost my mind

Tonight i unclog our vacuum and then i go to vacuum and I'm looking and it's just not picking up. I'm thinking darn! The carpet really needs to be vacuumed what else can i do to the vacuum to make it work?!?! grrr. So i think, well i can just crawl on the floor with the hose and get most of it up. So i reach for the hose and I NEVER PUT IT BACK ON!!! duh. so i put it on and went back to my vacuuming, lol.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Party Central

Codys class party was first from 1:30 to 2pm. Not much time to get it going and finish it up. We left at 2 to get to Kaitlens class. Her party was from 2:00 to 2:30. we got there 10 minutes late. It kinda sucked, but she was fine about it.


Abbie doing REALLY well in the class.


Codys gift from his teacher.

Finally at K's party.


I had got Cody 3 chocolate bars to give out to his teachers he's had before and Kaitlens kindergarten teacher was also Codys. So she handed out a cutely wrapped Hershey bar to her. Then we headed over to C's first grade teacher and she just loves to see cody. She also love that he buys her chocolate. Then the last room we went to was 2nd grade and she was just a great teacher! She enjoyed seeing Cody again and of course his siblings. I wont be surprised if Kaitlen ends up with all the same teachers as Cody. That would be wonderful. Since we had the chance to see his old teachers we finally got to tell them about Cody being accepted into GT. They were so proud and knew he could do it.