Long time!

Wow a week can seem like a long time! I feel like the last time I posted it was forever ago, but it really was only a week ago! Last Tuesday we took Sadie to the vet for further testing, and it came back that she has to have surgery. The ultrasound said that she does not have a shunt inside of her liver, but they could not find one outside, which does not mean that there is not one there. Her blood work came back really high in levels of something (vet talk) that means that she probably has a external liver shunt that they cannot see yet. All this means is that they are ordering a special part, bringing in a specialist, and going in to do an exploratory surgery, hopefully fixing the problem and spaying her at the same time! This is all going to happen the third week of May. She is gaining wait with the special food that she is on, so I hope that continues! We will let you know how it all turns out!

Turner is pretty much potty trained now. He has only had about 2-3 accidents in the past 2 weeks, which is amazing!!!! We are so proud of him! He is really doing a great job!! :)

Reese is beginning to talk a little bit more. I absolutely love getting to know her more and more everyday. She is so cute and has a really sweet sense of humor. The most amazing thing that I have been able to experience as a parent is seeing my two children play together and really love one another. They absolutely love one another, and even though they fight like siblings usually do, there love for one another shines right through. I am getting emotional because as a Mom, I could not ask for anything more!

Well, I am going to finish watching Dancing with the Stars and wait for Ry to get home from school! I will update again later this week with some pics, hopefully!

Emotional week

We have had what I would call an extremely emotional week. First off, Turner has continued to do an amazing job at potty training, including telling us when he has to go even when we are in public. It has really been much easier to potty train him than I thought it was going to be. When he is in his big boy underwear, we have had no accidents. He wears a pull up to nap and bed, but other than that he is exclusively using the potty! For those of you non-parents that read my blog I am sorry if this is less than exciting for you, but for those of you parents you know what I am talking about! I cannot believe how amazing he has been this week! I am soooo proud of him! (This is what I would consider the exciting and emotional highs of the week!)

We took our 5 month old puppy, Sadie, and our chihuahua, Kaden, to the vet on Wed. for routine shots and such. Well Sadie is not gaining weight well at all, so the vet did some blood work on her. It turns out that they are pretty sure she has a liver shunt. That is that there is a shunt that forces blood to not enter the liver. All dogs have this before birth, but it goes away before they are born. Well it appears that Sadie's has not. If it an external shunt (one outside the liver), there is a surgery that they can do to remedy the problem. If it is inside the liver there is little that they can do and she probably will not make it. We have her on a low protein food right now that she is devouring. The liver is responsible for breaking down the protein in body, so since hers is not functioning it means that there are toxins poisoning her. Since she is getting a lot less protein, she is much more energetic, eating a lot more and being more like a puppy! We are hoping that this continues! She is going in for more blood tests and an ultrasound to try to figure out where the shunt is on Tuesday. We are really praying that this is all stuff that the vet is going to be able to fix! If anyone knows us, they know that our pets are our children and we love them unbelievably much! (this is the emotional low of the week)

Yesterday was such a beautiful day! We went to Home Depot and then to see Ryan's brother play baseball at Towson University (Jeff plays club ball for the university of MD). Then we had a nice dinner as a family. Today Ryan's mom was going to come over and we were going to have a girls movie afternoon, but she called last night to blow me off to go see another of Jeff's games today. So instead I hung out with Ryan. He got me Juno (one of my new fav movies!!) for being super mom and potty training the Turner! Linda had wanted to see it, and since I had such a crummy week I was really looking forward to seeing it again with her. Oh well, Marge is coming back from FL tonight! I bet she is going to be up for some girls movie night! (sorry if I seem in a crummy mood... I am kind of because of the long week!)

Great Day!!

So after a not so successful weekend of trying to potty train, I decided we were going to try again today. The catch is that Haley and I decided to train all three of the kids together. I was a little concerned about how it was going to go, but it was GREAT!! Laney started out by going pee in the potty and Turner saw that she got a little treat and a sticker for her shirt and one for the chart. He looked right at me and says "Mommy Turner needs to go pee, then he gets a treat too". He walked over, sat down, went pee and was sooo excited! He got a treat and stickers too! YAY! The two of them did awesome all morning! They both went both in the potty, wore diapers to nap and both woke up dry and used the potty again! Alie had a few accidents this morning, but after naps she went poo in the potty! I could not have asked for a more successful start to this new adventure! Ryan keeps saying he thinks I am amazing, but I keep telling him its not me, all of our (both ambrose and klein)kids are the amazing ones! They have a little competition going now, who can go the most! I think they really like the treats!! (m-n-m's and stickers!!) Anyway, that is my great news for the day! I am soooo very proud of all of them! They are such great kiddos! :)

Not so well

So its not going well... we are reevaluating our plan! We know he is ready, it is just hard to listen to him beg to not have to go... :(

Day 1

So it is Day 1 of potty training. Turner has been showing a lot of the signs that he is ready, so we are diving in! Wish us luck!

Long last week!

After we got home from the beach last week we started off to a good start to the week. Then on Wednesday when I got Reese up from her nap it all disappeared. She had thrown up all over the room! Then it continued every 20 minutes until 11pm. An hour after Reese got up, Turner was up throwing up too! We got through the night with both kids getting sick until 11, and then up every hour wanting something to drink. They were recovering on Thursday and then I got it! So by the time Friday came we were all three recovering. Saturday we had a good day. The Klein family came over and we had a cook out. It was a lot of fun! Then at 11:30 that night Ryan started with the stomach bug (don't worry... the Klein's gave it to us!!). So today I have been taking care of the kids and Ryan is relaxing! It is not fun to all get the bug in 4 days! AHHH... We are hoping tomorrow starts a good week for us!

This weekend and the party

Last Friday we had a spring/ Easter party at my house for Mom's group. Even though we were completely overrun by kids, it was still a lot of fun! Most of the big kids have been together since they were only a few weeks old! Now look at how we have grown in size and numbers!

The older kids!

All the kiddos!

After the party, Ky and Maddie stayed for a few minutes and Turner and Maddie played! They are really funny together and always have sooo much fun!

Turner and Maddie!

We left for the beach after the party, and spent a really fun weekend with my grandparents! We really need to go more often to see them because my kids adore their Mom Mom and Pop Pop! Here are some pics of them together! We did a lot of playing around the house and snuggling with the great grandparents! (it is sooo fun the kids love them sooo much!)

Mom Mom reading!
Take 2!
They are sooo cute together!

To make the beach even more fun, my grandparents got kittens about a month ago because one of their 20 year old cats died. The kids loved the kittens!

Laurie (tortie) and Hardy (b & w)

The kids tuckered Hardy out!

Thanking God for his Cat nap! hehe!