Kennon's ear surgery, Maddox's tonsillectomy, Reid's Birthday and Dinos

 Oooo……eee….. I think this is the longest I have ever gone between posts! Yikes! I'm so sorry. Life has just gotten in the way…. The above picture was taken at Monkey Joe's on an early out day for Maddox back in March.  This happened to be the week before Maddox's tonsillectomy and the day before Kennon's ear surgery. March was a BIG medical month for the Kies family.  The kids love Monkey Joe's….it is a great place to burn off some extra winter energy. Several of Maddox's classmates and friends from church were there too which made it even more fun!

 Kennon underwent surgery on 3/4/16 to repair the hole in his eardrum that was left from the ear tube.  When Dr. Dvorak got Kennon sedated and all the wax cleared out of his ear canal he found the hole to be much smaller than he thought it was going to be and ended up being able to change to a less invasive procedure. He was able to just place a small gel patch over the hole rather than take a skin graft from above his ear to cover the hole.  We had our follow up appointment last week and the hole is CLOSED!! Which means no more ear plugs. Kennon  has been using ear plugs in either one or both of his ears around water since he was 6 months old!!  We are so happy to have him healed up.  And he is more than thrilled to 'go in the ocean Dr. Dvorak without my ear plug…but I"m still going to wear my goggles ok?'….he told Dr. Dvorak at his appointment.  

 The day after Kennon's ear surgery we traveled up to Madison to celebrate Reid's 3rd birthday. Reid wanted to celebrate at the Madison Children's museum.  What a fabulous facility. 3 floors of fun for kiddos.  Maddox and Kennon especially loved this water feature that sits right inside the  front door to the facility.  We met the Knowles family, Grandpa Jim and Grandma Jean there and then closed it down with tired but happy kiddos. 

 We have a similar 'ball track' type structure at our museum. Kennon loves to watch the balls click clack down the track and can often be found standing at the steering wheels at our similar structure. He was happy to see a different ball maze! 

This structure is like a mini version of the City Museum down in St. Louis.  It has all these metal tunnels and slides.  All the big kids made several trips up and down. You can just see Kennon in the middle of the picture. 

All the kids especially enjoyed this gigantic painting wall.  There were plenty of paint brushes, paint, spray bottles, and squeegee devices to push the paint and water down into the track along the bottom of the glass.  So fun!!

Reid, Carter, random assumably adorable curly haired museum guest, Kennon :)  All happy faces!

Maddox was SO excited to go to a party so she could wear a dress. I tried to convince her she'd be running around the museum and possibly climbing etc but no such luck. She surely takes advantage of any opportunity she can to wear a dress.   She knows on PE days she has to wear leggings or jeans but on Art and Music days at school she always has a dress on.  I love her happy pink cheeked smile in this picture.

Happy Birthday Reid!!  Maddox 6, Reid 3, Cashin 1, Carter 5, Kennon 4. Happy kiddos. 

Team UmiZoomi birthday cake time!!  I'm not exactly sure why Kennon is so excited…maybe Reid just blew out the candles in this shot. 

Madison has a great indoor mini golf facility that isn't too far from the Knowles house.  Maddox and Kennon had never been mini golfing and really had a fun time. The holes are sort of 'City of Madison' themed. The facility is actually like a mini amusement park with remote control boats you can drive on this little pond in the middle of the mini golf, arcade games, a nice concession stand or rather walk up restaurant, a driving range, and a HUGE outdoor mini golf course, climbing wall…the list goes on.  It fit the bill for a great morning of indoor activity. We did most all of the indoor activities together, enjoyed lunch and then hit the road. Thanks to the Knowles family for a fun weekend! 

Maddox and 'her boys'….minus Cashin! 

Friday March 11th Maddox had her tonsils and adenoids removed by none other than…Dr. Dvorak… :) I'm certain we have a large file at his office…and  have certainly contributed to his kids' college education fund.  Maddox was anxious about the surgery but ended up doing really well that morning as they wheeled her away from us down the hall…not one tear. It was certainly a rough week following the surgery in regards to pain but we are on the backside now and have already seen Dr. Dvorak for her follow up and everything looks good.  We closed the book on the Kies' file at Dr. Dvorak's office..no more visits for us :)  ( It was actually a kind of sad moment as I drove away from the office for the last time on Thursday afternoon after Maddox's post op check…we have been going to Dr. Dvorak since Kennon was 6 months old!  Another chapter of life behind us) 

In the recovery room she did manage to eat a couple of purple popsicles…and in fact the day of surgery she did pretty well in regards to eating and pain…then sort of went down hill for the next 4-5 days..! 

She requested to ride in the little kiddo wheelchair to get to the front door to exit the surgery center.  Who wouldn't right?? 

Since her surgery was in March we were able to get her a Shamrock shake from McDonalds on the way home.   She ate the entire thing Friday afternoon after her surgery! I then posted this picture on Facebook only to have several of my friends/family politely encourage me to NOT have her use straws as it can wreck havoc on the new surgical sites in the bad of her throat. What??   I am CERTAIN no one at the surgery center, including Dr. Dvorak, told us NOT to use straws! But, we certainly took all their advice and discontinued use of the straws.   Thankful for social media that day! 

Aunt Kelly keeps our kids aware of all the holidays by sending special packages near or a lot of times BEFORE the actual holiday :)  She is very organized. This package arrived at just the perfect time…the Friday night of Maddox's surgery.  She was excited ( and distracted from the pain for a bit) to open the package and see the goodies inside. 

As I mentioned above days 2- 5 after the surgery were rather terrible, pain, inability to talk, eat, drink etc….but Maddox  sort of rebounded day 6 and we made a run for the hills…or rather to our favorite bakery!! Kennon was SOOOO excited to get out of the house.  Both kids were on Spring break that week so poor Kennon was just holed up inside the house while Maddox recovered.  Thankfully Eric had a pretty light week that week and was able to take Kennon out to play and to get him out of the house every now and again and even worked from home some, while Maddox was basically lying in a pile.  We ALL enjoyed this outing and ate some of Miss Tiphanie's yummy homemade donuts and brought several treats home with us.  All sugar  intake monitoring sort of went out the window this week….we were all just trying to get Maddox to eat ANYTHING!  Kennon certainly benefitted too :)

After the bakery we stopped for a brief smell of spring at the Davenport Botanical Center.  The kids enjoyed seeing all the spring colors and dancing around the slightly tropical enclosure. Then it was off to the movie theatre for Zootopia… 

 

Watching Zootopia! 

Can you find Maddox and Kennon amongst the characters from Zootopia ? 

The Friday of Spring Break Eric took Kennon to the Family Museum for a special event that The Planning Center sponsors. IPTV brings some of their characters to the museum for a little meet and greet, dinner, crafts, and of course admission to the museum exhibits. We went to the event last year too but Kennon got to meet some different characters this go around. This guy is named Buddy and is from the show Dinosaur Train. Kennon is SOOO into dinosaurs right now. He is often found sitting with his 'World of Dinosaurs' book just flipping through the pages.  The kid can remember the hardest of names and rolls them out in sentences like he's been studying dinos all his life 'Mom you know that's an arizonasaurus!'…..

Kennon with Peg plus Cat…na na na na na nah…Peg plus Cat…na na na na na nah! Just typing 'Peg plus Cat'  the cartoon jingle starts a playin' in your mind! 

Christopher ( Matt's son from The Planning Center) and Kennon getting hugs from Sid the Science kid.

Christopher and Kennon hugging…or rather mauling George… I love the expression of the chaperone lady who is sort of in charge of making sure George doesn't run into any obstacles as he is walking, helping young afraid ones come up to George etc….   You can kind of envision she is thinking 'uh…where are your parents?'  After this encounter with George Kennon apparently came running back to Eric emphatically yelling 'Dad…..there's a person in there…Dad there's a person in there!'.   I think Kennon could see through George's mesh mouth.  Luckily he didn't ask too many questions and went on about his night meeting other characters!  

Hugs from Arthur.  Since Maddox wasn't quite up for the intensity of this event I took her out for a special dinner at one of her favorite Mexican restaurants.  By this day, day 10 post op, she was feeling a little more like regular food. We steered clear of the sharp chips and salsa but she pounded a big bowl of re-fried beans and polished off several triangles of cheese quesadillas. She was one happy girl :) 

This is Cami!  Cami is Kennon's lunch buddy. Her mom and I share carpooling from preschool to reading school on Mondays and Wednesday. We either go out to eat ( McDs or Happy Joes are common requests from both kids) or we take a picnic lunch to the park. This day it was sunny and warm so we took Wendy's to the park. Happy smiles! Cami will turn 5 in August and I believe is planning to go to Kindergarten.  She is not in the same grade school as Kennon however. 

A couple of weekends ago a cool traveling dinosaur exhibit called Discover the Dinosaurs came to the Davenport Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds. Since Maddox wasn't quite up for the event and Eric had to work and I also had a load of audits to get done we called in reinforcements…. Grandpa Jim and Grandma Jean!!  Thankfully they were more than willing to take Kennon to the special event.  He had a ball and the exhibit looked super cool!  Thank you to Dad and Jean for making my dino lover's day! 

All these dinos moved and roared I believe. Kennon even got to ride a real dinosaur…  Kennon's good friend Cami was there too :) Always nice to see a buddy at these events.

Kennon wrapped up his special time with Grandpa Jim and Grandma Jean with a trip to none other than McDonalds and then to the Harley store! 

Last weekend, Easter weekend, we signed up to participate in the Egg Hunt at the Niabi zoo.  We hadn't done this event for a couple of years. The last time we did the kids were, I believe, 3 and 2 and it was super crowded and kinda unorganized but not this year.  This year we got to ride the train and carousel for free ( as part of the event being a member of the zoo) and there were PLENTY of eggs to go around since we had to pre-register.  We enjoyed the sun shiny, but somewhat chilly, morning at the event seeing the animals and meeting the new meerkats that just came to the zoo.  

Riding the train. 

Kennon riding the lion on the caroseul….Easter basket in hand. 

Eric and Maddox taking a ride

The Saturday of Easter weekend we invited a running buddy friend and his wife, Joe and Sue, to join us for church and then an Easter meal Saturday night. My running friends are some of my most loyal, trustworthy,  friends so we try to include them in several of our special family events. The kids enjoyed the extra attention from Joe and Sue. Their daughter Melanie, who now lives in Arizona, used to be one of our favorite baby sitters. 

Easter Sunday was cold and rainy so we loaded up the bikes to hit the FINALLY COMPLETED basement at The Planning Center!! It looks amazing….clean, bright, no musty smell and a huge space for the kids to romp around in. 

Eric's sister, Lora, handed down this basketball game which is PERFECT in the TPC basement. Already endless amounts of basket shooting have been had! 

With 10,000 square feet of usable space, Matt, Eric and Andrew ( the actual owners of the building) decided to set up a little gym in one corner of the basement.  There is a treadmill, rowing machine, stationary bike, weight bench with weight sets, our old plasma TV compete with blue ray player, couches, stereo, ROKU, and carpet to stretch out on. It is really like a 'full sized' gym. Most, if not all, of the TPC staff are fitness buffs so the gym will be awesome for them to use on lunch hours and/or after/before work.  And with the shower upstairs in the staff bathrooms no one will have to go to a client meeting stinky :)  Aside from the gym area the kids love to play down there! 

I had Joe snap these family pictures for us. 

Friday was Donuts with Dads at Maddox's school.  She and Eric got to go to school early for a special Krispy Cream donut treat. Eric even picked up an extra dozen to take to TPC.  The PTA staff apparently drive all the way to Peoria, IL to get the donuts that morning!  It is a fundraiser for the 6th grade class, I believe, or maybe the PTA. I can't remember. Maddox enjoyed the special time with Dad. 

Ok….quick update and then back to audits :(  Since I last posted we met with Maddox's teacher, Mrs. Gaspelin. She had nothing but good things to say about Maddox. She was really proud of how her behavior has improved from the start of school in relationship to her ability to recognize other's feelings and her ability to be kind to everyone. She said she is very social, has lots of friends and her academics are great as well. She is reading at a level well beyond what is required of her and her writing has improved tremendously since the beginning of school.  Mrs. Gaspelin says she is really proud of her doing so well. We were thrilled to have the positive conference. Maddox's loves right now continue to be ballet and playing outside as the weather has started to turn a bit.  I quite often find Maddox reading to Kennon which is just precious. Maddox is able to read most any book in the house and often lets Kennon pick which one he'd like her to read to him.  She has given us a run for sleep this last week or so having some anxiety or maybe insecurities at bedtime but we are working through it with her and actually her counselor at school and are making progress. Oh and…I almost forgot (and you'll understand why) Maddox lost her second tooth yesterday while playing in the basement at TPC. However she didn't KNOW she had lost it until they were just ready to leave! Eric has no idea where the tooth actually went, although I have a good idea. Maddox was super distraught that she didn't have her tooth but we reassured her the Tooth Fairy was very smart and would 'know' that she had lost her tooth!!  Her new tooth is almost all the way in…it was really coming in almost before her old tooth was out…kinda like a 'shark tooth' right Jody :) Maddox continues to be stubborn and sassy yet a very sensitive girl. Eric and I work to find the right balance of 'attention' verses 'expectation' to keep her ticking. We have certainly done a lot of praying about this last couple of weeks.

Kennon has now finished basketball and will start soccer in a couple of weeks. His LOVE continues to be dinosaurs and we have commissioned Miss Tiphanie at Oh So Sweet to make his dino cake…I waved the white flag this year….just too time consuming. He is doing super well in school as well and loves to be outdoors during this sort of warm up to spring.  He is a maniac on his bike and loves to play anything with a ball. He is very in tune with my tulips as they are popping through the soil and quite often will pray to God to help my tulips grow. He is a mama's boy and actually has a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, associated with the tulips as he helped me plant all 100 bulbs last fall. They are all up and with blooms ready to pop open if it would ever get warm. Kennon continues to be our comical, considerate, lover boy. He is a funny kid. That's all there is to it. A sweet boy not without his occasional fit… we can still see the '3 year old' tantrums at times but thankfully he is starting to grow out of them.

Eric is busy at work…I guess that comes with being the President of a company:) Although all good, it is a stressful time of year with tax season as well as they are getting ready for yet another merger, this time with a company in Alaska. The Alaska office will make the 5th Planning Center! Wow…amazing!! Who would have thought!!??  Congrats to Eric and the TPC staff. Work for me is crazy busy. I'm trying to keep up with all my normal audits, which have admittedly gotten away from me, while training all my new employees. I started with another new physical therapist two weeks ago. She is quite bright though and is picking things up quickly which has helped tremendously. But the last couple of pay periods I have worked close to 40 hours!!! WAY TO MUCH!! Hoping once I can get Jessie out on her own I can get back to just plain ol' audits as the rehab department will be fully staffed and I don't anticipate any new employees coming down the pipe. ( Praying no one quits!!)  The new software continues to plague VNA and I'm working to find efficiencies, although this proves to be very time consuming too.  Eric and I went for our last long run together yesterday in prep for our 1/2 marathon in St. Louis. To say we are looking forward to our vacation in Florida and then Sonoma is an understatement!! Hope all is well.