Cameron Sleeps

Cameron has always been a crazy sleeper. Each night we go in and check, cover up and give kisses to the kids before we go to bed...and typically find Cameron in the funniest positions that leave us wondering what she was doing before she fell asleep? This one was when she had bronchitus and the doctor really wanted her to sleep sitting up and drink lots of fluids..as well as warm liquids helped sooth her throat and cough. I would make warm milk for her to sip in bed and this night she fell asleep holding the cup...she just couldn't put it down...
One night I came in and found her on the floor sleeping...what on earth?? Did she just not like her bed? Did she sleep walk and get out of bed? Was she playing with toys before sleep overcame her??
I love when I find her sleeping backwards, almost like she was sitting up, getting sleepy and just fell over into slumber.
And this one?? Did she fall asleep, then wake up, sit on the edge of her bed and fall backwards? Or was she having deep conversations with froggy and wowsie and fell asleep mid conversations?? Crazy girl...

One thing that is constant in all these pictures is Cameron's blankie...wherever or however she sleeps, blankie is right there with her!

Pirate Imagination

Here is an older video I came across when I was backing up files before the new hard drive installation. This was one day during "nap time"...instead of sleeping they were sailing the high seas raising pirate flags and dropping anchors! I snuck in the room hoping not to get seen but those sneaky pirates spotted me right away...

Clancy Pumpkin Patch

The kids had a school holiday along with their buddies Caleb and Evan, so we decided to do trip to another pumpkin patch...you can never visit too many pumpkin patches! And we don't get to hang out with Caleb much these days because everyone is in school so this play date was a really long one!

You got a free tractor/hay ride if you purchased a pumpkin so we picked out a $3 pumpkin (cost of the hay ride) for each child and then then loaded them in the car.
After the pumpkin pickin' we took the kids to the park. No more playing in the playground..it's all about the balance bikes now. Caleb, Timo and Cameron did races all afternoon. Ana and I heard "on your mark, get set, go!" at least a million times that day!

Ardenwood Farms

We hit our first pumpkin patch a few weeks ago down at Ardenwood Farm's annual harvest festival. We didn't actually make it into the "farm" because the line was sooo unbelievably long to get in. We hung out in the pumpkin patch waiting for the line to die down, but after an hour it was still over a 30min wait to get in, so we decided we didn't really need to see the cows and pet the sheep. The kids didn't really know the difference either, they had a blast in "the patch".
Some highlights...the hay mountain and hay maze...




Each of the kids found a "pumpkin seat" that they wanted their picture taken sitting on.
I found this picture from last year...and compared it to the kids growth this year. Look how they have grown!

We had a very educational hay ride through the veggie fields. Our driver stopped a few time to show different veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, carrots, etc. He even passed some around the trailer for all the kids to touch and see. Well worth the $3 ride.

"The driver on the bus goes beep, beep, beep..."
We finished off our morning with the yummy picnic lunch I packed. Since my plan of a picnic "on the farm" was out, we had to regroup and spread our blanket under the shade of a tree in the parking lot. But hey, at least Timo found a lady bug in the grass! A successful morning to kick off the 2011 pumpkin patch season!

Magic Trick

So our has been acting up the past few months, freezing up and then shutting down. Young dug a little deeper and figured out it was our hard drive...which was great because that meant it was covered under the warranty. The bad news is we had to replace the hard drive, basically giving us a brand new computer with nothing on it...like pictures. We had to back everything up and now reload it back on the computer. But I'm so thankful to have an amazing husband that spent 4 hours working on it to make it good as new.

Long story short, I haven't had a chance to reload photos yet so you're getting a recent video from online...Timo the Magician! Young has been doing simple magic tricks with the kids like penny behind the ear and the dissappearing quarter. Here is is Timo's version of that trick...

(fyi, the "monkey munch" is actually Gorilla Munch cereal)

Bye Double Stroller

This was the last trip in the double stroller...it has moved on to a new family that will love it just as much. And as you can see, not a minute too soon either. The kids were getting too crowded riding, fighting over arm and foot space and we were getting TIRED of pushing upwards of 60 pounds of toddlers uphill! So bye-bye stroller, you were a good and trusted friend...you will be missed. Just another sign that our babies are no longer babies...

Balance Bikes!

I can't think of any other toy that the kids have asked for over and over and over than a balance bike. We have a few friends that have one and it's all they want to do when we see them, ride the balance bike. We were thinking of maybe getting them for Christmas but when I saw them come up on Zulily.com for 50% off, I had to jump at the chance. And holding on to them for 4 months was just way too long to keep it a secret. And now life is all about their balance bikes. Everyday they ask if they can ride their bikes after school, when we head to a park/playground they ask if we can take their bikes and even are asking if they can ride them to go Trick or Treating!

We put them together and headed out to the park. I was so suprised to see how well they were already balancing on them...

We took a little break to check the map and see where we wanted to have our snack...and enjoy the view of the roses in the Rose Garden.

Big Brother

I just wanted to mention a little tidbit about Timo today...Cameron was having a hard time saying goodbye to Mommy this morning for school and Timo came up and said to her, "don't worry Cameron, I'm here with you. I'll protect you." Oh, melt my heart! What a great big brother he is...even if he is only one minute older...

Timo Writes His Name

One of the traits my son got from me is his sense of perfectionism...not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. In most cases it causes him extreme frustration because he can't do something perfect. This leads to a lot of melt downs and tears over not being able to replicate exactly what he sees in his mind. On the other hand, I have to give him credit for keeping at something over and over until he can do it...perfectly. (This also includes not singing a song out loud until he knows all the words.)

Each day at their school the parents have to sign out their children on a sign out sheet. The teacher made one for the kids to sign out too because they are always wanting to write on the parent's sheet. Once Timo saw some of the 4 year olds writing their name, he absolutely HAD to learn how to write his name. I'll admit, we've had our share of tears and crying "I can't, it doesn't look right..." but it was all worth it today when he sat down and wrote his name perfectly for the first time! I was so proud of him and you could tell he was proud of himself. He has been practicing and practicing for weeks now, most days at his art easel....here are his stages.


Almost as soon as he wrote "Timo" tonight he was asking how to spell "Timothy Ko" so I helped him write his big full name for a little extra credit...

New Update on Timo

So turns out Timo wasn't getting as better as we thought...he had a set back Monday and was back in the doctors office Tuesday morning with fever and difficult breathing again. Turns out the first antibiotic they prescribed wasn't working and the super duper liquid steroid they gave him in the ER had worn off...creating the perfect storm. So we switched antibiotics and were sent home with four days of the liquid steroid. Young also flew out to NYC Tues. morning before the kids woke up, but luckily was on a flight that had wi-fi so I could email him updates. He also was able to contact our pastor, family and friends for me to ask for prayer for our little boy...all from the plane!

I'm so happy to report that Timo seems to be on the mend now, finally. I think the new meds are working but we'll know for sure tomorrow when the steroids wear off. He is certainly back to his same energy level and no longer having coughing fits. He hasn't been to school this week and each day has wanted to sit in the car while I take Cameron in or pick her up, except for today. He wanted to go in to pick her up and was so excited to see his teachers and friends. I think he is ready to go back to school. And I must say, I'm ready for him to go back. I'm totally spoiled having twins...they always play with each other. With just one child, they expect 100% of your attention 100% of the time! So exhausting...
(Cameron had a really hard time going to school without Timo. She typically run right off when we get there with barely a kiss goodbye...but not while Timo has been gone. Lots "one last hug", "don't go", "I'm sick too Mommy". Seems someone is more attached to her brother than she lets on...)

And like they say, when it rains, it pours...Cameron woke up Monday night crying and crying that her skin burned. I lifted up her jammes to find hives all over her legs, arms, back and face. Apparently she had an allergic reaction to a new soap I used for them in the bath that night. Ugh. She missed one day of school and has been on Benedryl for the past 3 days. Happy to report, she is now is hive free...yay!!

I hope we're done for the year of sickness...

Runaway Pumpkin

The kids have a new book, The Runaway Pumpkin, that they love. I really like the author Kevin Lewis. We have a few other books by him, Chugga Chugga Choo Choo and My Truck is Stuck. He has a great way of writing with rhyming and rhythm. Young somehow always turns the book into these songs, which up front sound like so much fun, but in reality, it's a nightmare for me! Somehow I never "read" the books right according to the kids...I always hear "that's not how Daddy reads it!" So now I'm video taping and learning how to sing the books!

Timo Upate

Thank you all so much for your prayers for Timo. As some of you may not know, Timo was diagnosed with pneumonia this weekend that quickly got worse, ending us up in the ER on Saturday for over 6 hours. But we praise and rejoice our healing Father for His mighty work over our little boy.

It all started with this little girl....she had bronchitis about two weeks ago and we had to go in for her to have an albuterol treatment. She was never that sick, no fever, runny nose, crankiness, nothing...just a cough that lasted two weeks so we finally took her in and found out bronchitis.
We tried and tried out best to keep Timo from getting it. With his asthma history, a respiratory virus is bad news for him. But as lass, he caught the cough, which at first was slight and we though we could keep it under control with his inhaler. After a few days I could tell it was getting worse and took him in last Friday. Our doctor listened to his chest and immediately said he had pneumonia. She prescribed antibiotic and said if he got worse to bring him right in. Like Cameron, he wasn't even really running a fever or showing an other signs of being sick, just a cough. Saturday morning he woke up with a fever and the cough sounded a lot worse. Throughout the day he just got worse and worse. We couldn't break his fever, he was really inactive, fell asleep just sitting on the sofa and his breathing was sound rapid and shallow. Finally at 5pm we made the call to take him to the ER. They took one look at him and immediately whisked him away, hooking him up to oxygen, heart monitor, and ordered an xray to look at his chest. He was not a happy camper.
Everything was happening so fast, with such speed, nothing like ER experiences I've had in the past. (They later told me when you have a child in breathing distress you get bumped to the top of the list.) The ER doctor came in immediately, check him out and told us we would be admitted over night, he would be fine was wasn't doing very well at the moment. His heart rate was over 155, normal is around 90, and his blood oxygen was around 90, normal being 96-100. And his fever was hoovering around 102. Oh boy! Timo was crying and crying, he hated the oxygen tub in his nose and the heart rate pad on him. My heart was absolutely breaking. I was trying by best to distract him and remembered Young had let him play Angry Birds on his phone this summer while we were flying. I got my phone out and loaded up Angry Birds...perfect! It totally distracted him so the doctors could do the albuterol treatments on him.
The bad thing about giving Timo my phone to play with is I couldn't use it to call Young to keep him updated and the game drained my battery. I tried to get my phone back but Timo got so upset which made him start coughing which made his heart rate go up....so it was just best to use the room phone. I'm so thankful this was a weekend and Young wasn't traveling. He stayed at home with Cameron. And I'm so thankful we grabbed Timo's Papi on our way out the door...Timo would have been a wreck without his Papi. And the nurses even "hooked" Papi up to the heart monitor too...so sweet.
The pediatric doctor came in and told me they would do three albuterol treatments and one super powerful steroid liquid dose to help open his airways up and see how he was doing. After each albuterol they turned off his oxygen and his stats began to fall...didn't look good. They kept preparing me for him to stay the night, even though he was starting to perk up a little. So in a quiet moment in our room, Timo and I prayed together, thanking Jesus for the great doctors that were helping him, giving thanks for his improvements so far (his fever was breaking) and asking Jesus to continue healing him. Then after his third and final treatment of albuterol his oxygen level held steady. But the doctor still weren't convinced and wanted to see if he cold hold it steady for two hours...so we had to wait and wait and wait. Our nurse was awesome. She blew up gloves for us, brought stickers and printed out coloring pages for Timo to color. He was starting to look and act so much better...all praises!

She even made sure Papi was taken care of...
Timo was holding his own breathing, not as high as they like to see, but at least holding his own without the oxgyen. The ER doctor said he was "the bad side of good" holding around 94/95 blood oxygen. But since we are experienced with inhalers they let us go home...with the promise we would bring him back first thing in the morning to check his stats! Praise the Lord! They made him walk a few laps around the ER to make sure he was stable and then we were let go...6 hours later, around 10:30pm. I soooo did not want Timo to spend the night at the hospital. This was the barrage of medicine they sent us home with...two different inhalers, another dose of liquid super powerful steroid, Tylenol, Motrin and antibiotics. (the Advil in the back was for me...talk about a stress headach)
But it's was all worth it. 24 hours later Timo was doing better, eating (he hadn't eaten much at all the whole day before) and hanging with his sister watching his fav movie...Cars.
And here we are two days later and he continues to get better. He's been living like a king the past few days so I know he isn't complaining :)