It's been 6 years....

6 wonderful years have passed since Bryce's big surgery in Dec. 2006.  He has turned out to be the boy I prayed he would be every day but especially during that hard time of him being sedated on a ventilator.  He is happy, smart, sweet, athletic, energetic, inquisitive and most importantly healthy!!

His last two teachers have both expressed concern over his very quiet voice.  It is normal to us but I know he is much more quiet than most other kids (his sister included!!).  Dr. Woolley warned us of this when he had to split Bryce's vocal chords to remove the hemangioma. He said it could cause his voice to be high pitched or raspy.  It's pretty raspy, but that's not the problem.  He just cannot project his voice enough to be heard in the classroom when reading out loud.  His teacher this year is wonderful and has worked with the speech teacher at his school and they think there are some exercises she can teach Bryce to strengthen his voice.  The only problem is we need a Drs. referral from his surgeon.  Dr. Woolley wants to see Bryce before writing that referral.  I was upset at first because it is 7 hours away!!  Of course we could have started over with an ENT here but that thought made my head spin.  We decided to make a trip to Birmingham to see Dr. Woolley on our way to my parent's house for Christmas.  Bryce is excited to 'meet' Dr. Woolley and we are excited to see what Dr. Woolley thinks about Bryce's voice.  We are also concerned about Bryce's tendency to get croup (and this seems to be getting worse).  I want to know if this is something he is going to deal with forever because of his airway?  Or should he grow out of it like most kids?   We see Dr. Woolley on Tuesday.  I'll update sometime after the appointment. 

Edited to Add:  I did this post yesterday (Sunday).  By Sunday night we had the nebulizer machine back out because Bryce was coughing so bad.  It's not really working so he's probably on his way to having croup AGAIN.  3rd time since Nov. 6th.  He's missing school again today and we are headed to the pediatrician.  I'm crossing my fingers and praying that Dr. Woolley will still see us tomorrow.  Something has to give!!

Early Christmas

We decided to have an early Christmas celebration this morning!  We travel for Christmas and it gets harder and harder to get all of our presents and you know who gifts to my parents house.  This year our elf Edward helped Santa deliver two of the big gifts last night.  It was a great surprise to wake up to this morning! 

 

We let the kids open all the gifts from us and each other. 

 

After a fun filled morning at home we drove downtown to the Westin to see the gingerbread houses in the lobby.  They were great!  CeCe had to wear her new Snow White dress downtown, luckily it was 75 degrees outside today! 

 

Afterward we had lunch at B and D Burgers.  Delicious!!

GCAT Winter Sprinter

 

Bryce swam in his first swim meet today!!!  He's been swimming with GCAT swim team since October and loves it.  Everytime I would ask if he wanted to do swim meets he would say no, but something his coach (who is AMAZING with him) said clicked and he decided to try this one.  He was very excited and a little nervous this morning.  Cappy flew in Thursday so she could see the meet, which was such a great surprise for the kids! We had no idea what to expect.  I honestly thought we would be there about 2 hours and home in plenty of time for lunch and CeCe's nap.  Huh, yeah right!!  We got there at 9 for warm up and didn't walk out of there to go home until 2!  It was fun watching the kids swim and Bryce loved it.  CeCe was amazingly well behaved, sweet girl.  She just hung out and watched and played a little on my phone.  Next time I'll be more prepared and take coloring books and more for her to do. 

 

His coach took him for warm up and then told him he had to wear a swim cap!  I've been trying to get him to wear one (the chlorine is horrible for his hair) but he was so against it.  I'm glad he had to wear one today because he realized it feels good in the water and with his goggles. 

 

Doesn't he look precious! 

 

Warming up

Sweet sister

 

Ready for his first race-- 25 yard backstroke.  That isn't his time, it is from the race before him.  He finished in 26.19!!  He came in second place among the 6 year olds!!!  

 

Looking good in the water!

 

Second and final race--25 yard freestyle.  He came in second again with a time of 24.71. 

 

We are so proud of him.  It was overwhelming at times with so many people and swimmers there.  His coach did a great job of making him comfortable and helping him know what to expect.  He's ready for the next meet!! 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

It's been fun decorating the house this year.  This time last year we were packing up to move so we didn't get many decorations out at all.  I remember thinking how fun it was going to be to decorate the new house, and it has been! 

 

CeCe LOVED decorating the tree.  We got the tree the Monday after Thanksgiving at a church near the house.  It smells awesome and is so pretty!

 

 

Bryce was more interested in his football books and cards but I did get him to put a few ornaments on the tree.

 

 

We put the tree in the dining room, which is our office.  It has a nice big window and looks so good from the outside!

 

Next year I want to do lighted garland on the posts with the bows.  I found these bows for $1 last year after Christmas and am so glad I bought them, they make our house look like a big present!  We have white and colored lights in the yard.  White around the front porch and rainbow in these bushes and the bushes by the kids windows. 

 

I love our double doors but it makes it more expensive to do wreaths!  I just used the one from our old house, which I still love and then covered a wooden D with shiny red tinsel garland.  They look good together!

That topiary tree is a tomato cage turned upside down and then wrapped with garland.  I couldn't believe how easy and cheap it was to do!  Never mind that my middle strand of lights burned out the 3rd night it was out there.  Not fixing it this year!  

Gingerbread houses

 We decorated gingerbread houses Saturday morning.  The kit came with four small houses but one broke before we even started.  It worked out ok because the boys took forever to do theirs and CeCe and I did the other two (and finished with those long before the boys finished their one!)

 

 

Everyone had fun decorating and snacking

 

 

Our finished houses.  We ended up hotgluing the houses together (long story!) so no eating these.  CeCe and I  made and decorated gingerbread cookies yesterday so we can decorate AND eat those!  

This will definitely be a new tradition for us each December! 

Jacksonville Jaguars

Yesterday Anthony and Bryce drove down to Jacksonville (only 2.5hrs away) to watch a Jaguars game.  Bryce is obsessed with football!! The Jaguars aren't having the best season so stubhub had some pretty cheap tickets and with it being a 1:00pm game it was perfect to do in a day trip.  They left Savannah around 8:30 and were back at home by 7:00.  They ran into a little rain right before the game started but other than that the weather was nice and warm and perfect. 

 

They had lunch on the river at "a pizza place with 1000 TVs!"

 

 

 

After lunch they took a water taxi to the stadium. 

 

 

The Jaguars lost the game but it was still a great day for my boys! Bryce wants us all to go next time, sweet boy!

A fun day!

CeCe is finally feeling better!  Her energy level still isn't back to normal and her cough still sounds yucky (she's not coughing often) but she's happy again!!  Yesterday we went to a birthday party for one of our good friends Michael.  He is turning 6 and had his birthday party at the YMCA's rock wall and zip line.  It was a fun party and a perfect day to be outside (other than the sand gnats, grr, they are loving this warm December weather). 

 

 

Bryce tried the rock wall and made it up about 3/4 of the way, but decided to come back down and skip the zipline.  

 

After the party we dressed in our holiday clothes and went to a walk through light display with our friends the Bradleys.  It was fun!  The weather was great and the lights were fun to look at.  The kids had fun running through this light tunnel, and all around really!  They have fun together!



CeCe update

She got worse last night and was feeling pretty bad this morning so I took her in to the Dr.  She has an ear infection and pneumonia.  She is on breathing treatments and Augmentin.  They drew blood and her numbers came back in the normal range thankfully, so we avoided a shot and chest xray.  If she's not significantly better by Thursday we have to take her back in. 

 

Sick

Both kids have been sick this past week.  Bryce started coughing Monday afternoon but nothing too bad.  I gave him a breathing treatment Tuesday before school and when I went to pick him up Tuesday afternoon I could tell by looking at him that he felt lousy.  He was coughing so bad (and so croupy) Tuesday afternoon I called the Dr. and begged for them to see us.  I knew he needed more than what we had here.  Thank goodness they agreed to stay late to see us.  He needed another breathing treatment there and we left with prescriptions for steroids, codeine cough medicine and new nebulizer meds.  Wednesday he was no better (well his cough wasn't croupy anymore but still coughing SO MUCH) but the Dr. said it would take a while for the steroids to work so we waited.  Thursday he was still so sick so I took him back and he was diagnosed with bronchitis and we were given another nebulizer med and antibiotics.  Thursday afternoon I started seeing him perk up a little and by Friday afternoon he was feeling so much better.  Still coughing but nothing like it was Tues-Thurs. 

 

Saturday after Anthony's race CeCe woke up with fever and felt terrible from it.  She is coughing some (pretty bad at times) but nothing like Bryce was.  He never had fever with his.  She's had fever for 3 days now.  Motrin has brought the fever down since Sunday.  Saturday she stayed with Anthony while Bryce and I went to the parade and I think she felt ok for some of the time but then her fever shot up to 103 and she felt really bad.  Yesterday we had a nice day playing outside but everytime the motrin would wear off her fever would come back.  Today I thought she was feeling better but then around lunchtime she started shivering again.  She's napping now and we decided if she still has fever tomorrow we will take her in to the Dr.  She tends to get ear infections a lot so we want to make sure her ears are ok.  And there is that one time she had pneumonia which makes her more likely to get it again......

Savannah Bridge Run

 

Anthony ran in another race this weekend.  This was a 10K that goes over the very tall/steep Talmadge Bridge over the Savannah river downtown to Hutchinson Island and then back over the bridge back to downtown.  He said it was steep!!  His technique was to keep his head down on the inclines so he couldn't see how much farther he had before reaching the top.  There was a container ship going under the bridge one of the times he was at the top and he said it was so cool to see!

 

This race was much less crowded than the Rock and Roll race was (5,100 runners vs. 17,000!) and his race started at 9 so we all rode downtown together.  Here we are at mile 1 waiting on him to run by. 

 

There he is!  We planned ahead so he knew where we would be and he gave Bryce a high five on his way by.  Bryce loved it!



 

The kids and I walked to the finish line after seeing him at mile 1.  This race was different because once they got on the bridge you couldn't follow and see the runners again until the finish line.  We got a good spot and waited and watched for him.  I like that he can predict his finishing times so we knew about when to start watching for him.  

 

Yes, he and the lady in just a pink bra were running neck and neck the whole time.  I love that she has on pants, armwarmers and just a bra.  Does her stomach get too hot to cover with a shirt while the rest of her is cold?  Don't get it at all!!

 

We ran into our friends the Bradleys (my friend Brandi ran in the 5K) and the kids had fun playing together.

 

We made plans with them to go to the downtown Christmas parade that night and were so excited.  Then CeCe woke up from nap with a fever.  She and Anthony stayed home while Bryce and I went to the parade.  It was fun and I'm glad we went, but I was worried about CeCe and couldn't enjoy myself all the way. 

 

That afternoon Bryce got to try on our neighbor's new Army Ranger helmet.  It was super cool!!