Update on Timo

Timo's surgery went extremely well, thank you all for your lovely notes, comments and prayers. We're so thankful for the Lord's healing hand on Timo so far. Here is a brief wrap-up of our day...

We arrived at the hospital bright and early (6:45am) Tuesday morning to get checked in and ready for the day. The night before we explained to Timo a little of what was to happen but as soon as he started saying he didn't want to go, we stopped talking about it. Thank goodness Young brought his ipad!! I can't imagine getting through this whole thing without it. We had about two hours to kill before the actual medical work, so it was great to distract him with motorcycle races and snowboard games.
All and all the surgery went really well. I was able to go all the way into the operating room with him, which was good and bad. Good for him but it was really hard seeing him fight the anesthesia mask, I think I was crying as much as he was. But he was only in there for about 30 min and we were able to be right back at his side when he came too. It was so sad to see him uncomfortable afterwards, but we knew it was the best thing for him...and the sweet, sweet nurses were trying to make him as comfortable as possible. I think the IV was bothering him as much as his throat. Eventually, after I was able to hold him and a little more pain medication, he was resting peacefully.
One helpful hint I read about was to maybe have a special gift for them when they come to, just to help distract from all that is going on. We had a little transformer firetruck...perfect. He was so excited to show all the nurses how his firetruck turned into a superhero!
He finally wore the nurse down to take out his IV! I had to walk away, very weak stomach, but Timo was totally into watching. Young even tried to distract him with the ipad but he wanted to see every detail...along with asking a million questions about all the monitors he was hooked up with. Once the 20 questions started, we knew he was getting back to his old self.
And that was it...we were all done by noon. Tonsils and adenoids out, home in 5 hours! As difficult as the going in and coming out was, I'm really glad we had it done and it's behind us. The doctor told us his tonsils and adenoids were much larger than he thought, so that made us feel better about what we just put our little boy through! I think the sweetest part of the day was hearing Young whispering Timo's bible verse (Isaiah 41:10) to him as he was going into surgery and coming home to Cameron waiting for us at the door with a gentle hug and kiss for her brother. Ahhh, God is good.

Timo's Surgery

Tomorrow Timo is having a fairly simple surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids. This is something we've been debating the past two years, ever since his pediatrician recommended we see a specialist about his loud breathing and snoring. After observing him having somewhat restless sleep with periods of night wakings, we decided to take the next steps. His doctor diagnosed him with sleep apnea and suggested we have this tonsils and adenoids taken out. We were still hesitant (it's scary knowing your child will have surgery) but once his teacher mentioned his loud snoring at naptime, we decided it was time to fix the problem. Knowing his sleep apnea would lead to much bigger problems later on, and with much prayer, we've decided to have the surgery done over his spring break. So please pray with us that the surgery will go well and that he will have a quick recovery. I've heard it's really painful for the little ones but I hope all the Popsicle and jello will make up for it!

Daddy Love

I don't think I really need to say too much about how Daddy Love...

Gym Class

Since Timo gets to play on a baseball team, we told Cameron she could pick an activity that would be just for her...so she asked to do a tumble class. We've been to a few birthday parties that have been at gyms so I think she thought it would be a "free-for-all" like the parties. But this was an actual class where the teacher was teaching technique...well, kinda. It's kinda hard to "teach" a bunch of 4 year olds technique. But she sure did have fun!

The teacher sets up a few different obstacle courses for them to go through. Cameron's favorite was walking on the balance beam. See the video below...it's a long one but she did a good job.


Cameron had so much fun at her trial class, we decided to take the plunge and sign her up for monthly classes. We showed up the following week...Cameron was too shy to participate....go figure. We'll give it one more week and then maybe move on to karate classes, her second choice.

T-Ball!

We officially have a baseball player in the family...or rather, a t-ball player! Timo has been begging to play on a baseball team for well over a year now, ever since he saw his 7 year old friend, Jonathan, in a baseball uniform playing little league. He then realized baseball wasn't just for grown ups....his whole world opened up!

Technically t-ball is for children in kindergarten, or 5 years old, but when I heard his school was gathering a team, I wrote the parent/coach and did a little begging myself. I told him I had a baseball obsessed little 4 year old who would love to play on the team. I even told him Timo didn't technically have to be on the team, but asked if he could just come to the practices. The response I got back was if they had an open spot then he could be on the team. I wanted it so badly for him and was estatic when I got the word that he could play!!

Here he is at his first practice...look at his face, you can see his pure joy. Coach Rudi talking to them about being a team!
And they actually teach them how to play baseball! For some reason I thought it would just be a free for all for the kids. But nope...Here the coach is teaching them how to hold the ball (using bunny ears) and practicing throwing it.
And learning how to hold the bat...and run the bases in order (a challenge for some of the kids)

We've had a few practices...and all three of their games have been rained out! No rain all winter and now, that baseball has started, it rains three Saturdays in a row. He doesn't really know he hasn't had an official game yet, he's just loving playing baseball!!

Rewards

Shortly after the children's birthday, Timo started having some major separation anxiety at school. We think it was a combination of being really sick and missing school, family visiting, birthday celebrations, and having a week off of school for winter break. All that inconsistency must have taken a toll on him and he was just craving some sense of schedule and normalcy...which translated into separation anxiety and a full display of emotions each morning at drop-off. Poor guy. So after talking to his teachers, to make sure nothing stressful was happening at school, she suggested some sort of reward system for "happy, happy goodbyes".

I talked up our new sticker reward program all weekend long so by Monday morning they both couldn't wait to get to school so they could give a "happy, happy goodbye!" We went over the levels of rewards...which are the following...
5 stickers=mommy make a special supper of your favorite foods (I rarely take requests for supper)
10 stickers= movie night...watching a big, long movie (vs just a short cartoon)
15 stickers= Dollar Store visit to pick out one toy
20 stickers=lunch out at your fav restaurant

We started our sticker charts on paper plates because they wanted to write their favorite foods on a plate for their first 5 stickers. Here is our movie night...Alvin and the Chipmunks! They loved the movie so much that they by traded their Dollar Store reward for another movie night of Alvin! We popped pop corn and they rounded up all their friends to watch with them.

We are almost at 20 stickers and so far so good...each morning has been big kisses and hugs with a big ol' "happy, happy goodbye!"

April Showers...

Love. These. Kids.

Kids Workshop--Race Cars

The day of the twins birthday party, Young took them down to Home Depot for the Kids Workshop to build race cars! (And it helped having them gone for a few hours so we could get everything set up.) Race cars are right up Timo and Cameron's alley so I'm glad this was one workshop they didn't miss!


They came straight from Home Depot to the party so the cars were still in their car seats on the drive home from the party...Cameron sacked out with her car after all that partying!

Mud Fun

We recently had some really nice weather so we got to play in the backyard for the first time in a long time. Timo was all excited to use his new bat and bases and Cameron wanted to cheer. See, here they are when our day started...all nice and clean...

Then it quickly turned to "lets dump all the rain water out that has collected in our sand buckets!" Unknown to me, there was dirt in the bottoms of some of the buckets which lead to "fun with mud" for the rest of the afternoon.

Then, somehow, it turned into building a brick wall! I was out in the yard pulling weeds, turned around and they had collected random bricks, thickened the mud and had their "mud spreader tools". Apparently watching the construction workers build my parents house last summer had a lasting impression!



The wall!

Harmony & Harabagi Visit Round Up

We had such a great visit with Young's parents. The kids had so many things to share with them... (and we were so thankful to have a babysitter!) I think these pictures sum up how much we enjoyed having Harmony and Harabagi with us! We started out with a trip to the Academy of Sciences.


I don't know about your 4 year olds, but mine are totally into board games right now. I was so thankful for someone here to play the same games with them over and over and over....

We went out for crab one night...one of my father-in-law's favorite meals. The kids got to help crack the crab...

And the most fun, as far as Timo was concerned, was playing Gator Golf with Harmony. The children received this game for their birthday and were doing pretty good getting the ball in the gator's mouth but then Harmony decided to "make it a little more interesting..." Money if they got the ball in! Needless to say, Timo was all over that!


What these pictures don't includes is all amazing ways Mom helped me when the kids were really sick and just around the house with chores, all the yummy Korean food she made, and all the hug, kisses and tickles! We miss them so much...can't wait to see you this summer!