HI Everyone!  Quick update, Jak Jak has his 1st cold since moving to AZ.  He just coughing real bad on Friday, so I took him to the dr (mommy panicked, because I was having pneumonia flashbacks!)… but I am glad I did because we got him on nubulizer treatments and also got him on a oral steroid 2x day for 4 days.  So he is doing pretty well, all things considered!  Just a common cold, but it hits him harder because of his asthma.  Other than that he is doing wonderful!  A handful, but great! Read the rest of this entry »

Dave is 3 days quit and I think he really needs props from everyone!!  So everyone give him a Hoo-rah Dave!!   I am SO SO very proud of him!  I KNOW he is going to do it this time!!  He did SO great the last time he was on Chantix, and he would have kept with it if it was not for his weak wife going to buy him smokes after dealing with a SCREAMING post-op baby for 2 weeks! (I would do it again..no one can explain the torture of your baby crying like that!)<Br>

<Br? Also, wish him a Happy Be-lated B-day, we had a really nice quiet b-day!  Someone from his work offered to sit for us as a b-day gift!  Dave and I went to Outback for dinner then walked around Wal-mart and bought a froggy shower curtain for the kids’ bathroom.  It was so nice just to have some time together!  Considering 2 years ago for his b-day we had just found out about Jak’s cleft and got my amnio results back on his b-day, and one year ago Jakob was admitted to the hospital with Pneumonia on his b-day!!  So this year was extremely nice!<Br>

Anyways, I am very proud of you, keep it up hunny!! 

Hi Everyone!I hope everyone is having a Merry Christmas!  Everything is going well here since my last post, we been busy.  
I ran another 5k, the Tempe Iron Girl. I did pretty good, my mile pace was not the best but my place was 203 out of 1010!  I am really enjoying my running, it has really become my “me time” that I really need. 
Elli has been having an absolute blast for Christmas this year!  She was adorable during her Christmas Recital with pre-school.  I will have Dave upload a video I took during the recital to You Tube.

    
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Hi Everyone,Elli had a great B-Day.  Like any princess would do, she made it last all weekend long!  We went to Organ Stop on Thursday, party at her school on Friday, went to the zoo on Saturday, and I took them to the park to ride the train on Sunday.  She told me got everything she wished for!!
 
And her fav. part was Organ Stop (she loved the dancing cats!) and getting Thomas the Train.  It is amazing how that place totally captivated both of them!  We realized Organ Stop is celebrating their 30th anniversary and Dave actually went to Organ Stop 30 years ago when he was 5!
  
The zoo was fun too!  Though Elli was tired and Daddy’s leg was hurting, tt was great to be with Grandma Nese and Aunt Sarah!  She wore her B-day crown the whole time at the zoo, very cute!
We are all LOVING the weather here.. I ran a 5K race on Friday night and it was a beautiful 70(s) degrees outside.  It feels so great to be able to get back into shape and run..even though it hard to find time to run (I usually run at 5am, if I can motivate myself to get up), it has REALLY become my “me time”.  I am trying  to (I WILL) run a 5k every month and then slowly increase my mileage and run the PF Chang’s Half Marathon in January of 2010.  
That is about it here.. Everyone is doing well.. Jak man is doing great!  Eating and talking a ton!  And he is healthy!!  Such a change from last year!  It is SO incredibly nice to beliving a “normal” life with our kids.Everyone have a Happy T-Day.
It is going to be very nice to celebrate Thanksgiving out here in WARM AZ with Grandma Nese and Aunt Sarah… though we will also REALLLLLY miss being with Barbie’s family!
Love to all! Check out the new pics!
Amy

Miss Elli turns 5 today!!!  She is very excited about her birthday and has been singing happy birthday to herself since 6:30am!  I went out and got Elli, Jak, and daddy doughnuts before I went to work this morning.  She also made a special b-day crown last night with me that she then wore to church “cubbie bears”, is wearing now, will probably wear for a week!   Elli Bean knows how to make her B-Day last!! 

Tonight we are going to my all-time “geeky” fav. place; Organ Stop Pizza!!  (I know Ali, Michelle, Julie, and Marni just lol for my love for Organ Stop!)  (http://www.organstoppizza.com/)

Saturday we are going to the zoo.  Elliana is having a great b-day.  So hard to grasp the concept that she is 5 years old!!  I love watching her grow up, she has really blossomed into a extrodinary little girl! Though her personality can be challanging at times, I would not trade it for the world!  I love that she can make friends with ANYONE, whether it be a tough biker dude at Blockbuster, a truck full of Mexicans when we are driving, or bunch of pretty teenager girls at the park, she wants to be friends with everyone!

Love you Miss Elli and I hope you have a great day!!

Hi Everyone! We had a great Halloween.  Elli was a Kitty and Jak was a doggy.  Jak-Jak didn’t quite understand what was going on, but he was having a blast following Elli around!
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Hi Everyone,I am going to attempt to better with the blog page and actually use it!  We have all been extremely busy and it has been eventful past 2 weeks! Most of you know the details so I won’t go into them here, but in the end we are very happy, everything happens for a reason, and everything is going well with us in SUNNY and WARM AZ.!!  It is  SLOWLY starting to cool off.  I am enjoying my cold runs in the morning (yes I am getting back into running and I am loving it!)  I ran the Race for the Cure a couple weeks ago.  Over 43,000 people ran the race.. it was SUCH a memorable way to ran my 1st 5K in a VERY long time!Two weeks ago we took Elli and Jak to a farm.  Schnepf’s Farm.. it was a HUGE farm.  We probably could have stayed another hour or so, but the kiddos were exhausted!  Read the rest of this entry »

Elli had her 1st day of preschool!  She is such a little girl now! She had a great time and met lots of new friends.  She was very excited to wear her new shoes (she picked out all by herself) and her new dress… It was so sweet and a little sad to see her off to school today!  We really like her new preschool too!   

Ok, so during the day today I took the kids to checkout area preschools/daycares so I could actually get some work done. We’re only looking at 2-3 days a week, so it’s not gonna cost us a fortune.

Anyway, Amy came along to visit the last one for the day (which, by the way, we never entered… something about a daycare being in a stripmall between a tattoo parlor and a dive bar). We ended up going back to the one I liked the most, so Amy could meet the director and checkout the facility.

Shortly after Jak had his bottle before his evening nap, he was playing with one of Elli’s toys grunting because no matter how hard he pushed the button, the toy wouldn’t come on (lack of batteries). He gave up on it pretty quick and walked over to the drawer where we keep his diapers. He opened the drawer and walked over to Amy and I, laughed, fell on his butt and then rolled over…

The grunting was not his frustration with the toy, he was baking brownies

The funny part was not only did he know he had left us a package, but he knew to grab a diaper and get in the position!

I have a feeling potty training Jak, like everything else, is going to be a million times easier than it was with Elli 

Ok, so Amy and I bought a new toy when we moved from Grand Rapids back out to Phoenix… a Mac. With the Mac, we’ve got the whole iLife package, and as I’ve been playing around with it, I wanted to checkout the .mac web package that they offer. 

It’s pretty cool with everything you get, which you can see at the Apple .Mac site.

Anyway, our gallery is located at: http://gallery.mac.com/holdcraft. We’re setup right now with the trial account, so we don’t get a lot of space until we purchase the full year package, but we do have a small picture gallery setup of Jak’s Palate surgery.

Talk to everyone again soon!