Happy Birthday to my Boys and Hospital Visits

I am in denial that this boy of mine has just turned 8 years old. It's not possible! We celebrated last Wednesday.

Happy Birthday to our Brandon Boy!

He is just full of life and laughter. He is the best big brother, loves school, friends, sports, reading and just being silly.

trying out his new soccer goals

And I think I am also in denial about this little guy being one year old now! It's been a crazy year, but we wouldn't change any of it. We absolutely love our little Mr. Dylan! We celebrated on Thursday, his birthday.

Happy Birthday to our little Dylan!

He is so happy and easy going. He brings so much joy to our family!

Here is tired Dylan, ready to celebrate his birthday.

He loved tearing the wrapping paper

Even though Dylan isn't eating too much in the way of solids, we decided that he still needed to have a piece of birthday cake. He touched it,

and squished it,

and made a pretty good mess, but never tasted it. Oh well! It was yummy!

 And on Friday of that week, we did Brandon's one and only friend birthday party. (Can you believe we did a birthday party 3 days in a row?)

He loved it! It lasted for exactly 60 minutes, which was just right with 6 other boys in the house!

We played lots of fun silly games,

and did relay races, (please notice our beautiful new couch and lamps in the living room....more to come on that when we find some pillows....)

and had yummy cupcakes with ice cream.

The friend birthday party was a success!

To end this post about January happenings, I must mention the amount of time we have spent in various hospitals lately. The week before birthday week, we had two visits to the emergency room. 

Visit #1: Dylan

On Monday, Dylan had been sick for 5 days and his doctor was concerned about dehydration and his breathing. So off to Seattle Children's ER we went. Thankfully Justin was able to meet us at the train station and take the other kids home so that they didn't have to hang out there with Dylan and I until 11:00 pm. We made it home just before midnight. I don't have a picture of that visit. We weren't planning on the ER that night!

Visit #2: Lindsey

On Thursday of that week Lindsey was trying to be helpful and super glue a broken magnet back together. Well, somehow the glue ended up on her finger and then on her eye. It was completely glued shut! Poor girl! After making a few phone calls, we ended up going to the ER at Mary Bridge Children's hospital in Tacoma. Luckily they were able to get her eye back open and her eye had not been scratched from the glue. Still, a pretty scary experience for little miss Lindsey. Here's a picture of her right after they got her eye open again.

Visit #3: Dylan

The next day (Friday) we got up first thing in the morning to take Dylan to the third hospital of the week - Swedish Medial Center in Seattle. Thankfully this was a planned appointment with his cardiologist and urologist. But I still couldn't believe that I was in a third hospital for the week! His heart looks good, and we set up a time for his surgery with the urologist.

Then we had birthday week, the one with three birthday parties three days in a row.

Then we are on this week. 

Visit #4 - Dylan

And we're back at the hospital again. This time for Dylan's surgery. For more pics and details, please visit his blog: A New Perspective

So for the start of a new year, it's been a busy and a little crazy few weeks. I hope that this doesn't reflect how the rest of our year is going to be! But as starts go, this is a whole lot better than our start last year! :)