Endoscopy results

As I wrote a while back, i've been having difficulty swallowing dense foods.

Well, last week, I had a barium upper GI. They didn't see anything major on that, but it was done more as a roadmap for the doctor to look at when he did the Endoscopy, which was this morning.

They found lesions in my esophagus. They did a biopsy to make sure there's not an infection in them and to make sure they aren't cancerous. I won't have the results for a week.
I have Gastritis, (irritation of the stomach lining/esophagus that can lead to stomach ulcers and are the reason for the esophageal ones). Gastritis is usually caused by an increase in a good bacteria. With this increase in bacteria, your body senses it and starts attacking, creating more acid. This is what caused the lesions (ulcers) in my esophagus.

I have a significant amount of irritation in my stomach and lesions in the esophagus, so the best way to make sure there are not pre-cancerous cells in the esophagus and stomach. It's a precautionary measure, there's no reason to suspect there's anything major going on.

The biopsy will also help to determine if the lesions are infected with a of bad bacteria.

On top of all this, i have a Hernia. The stomach is pushing through an opening in the diaphragm. Most people who have this are born with it and have no problems. But many women have problems after they have been pregnant and everything gets shifted around. Basically, it allows food and acid to back up into your esophagus.

So that's what's going on w/ me. I'll update as I get more information.

Playdate with Fiona & Kylie

Today the kids had a playdate with Fiona and Kylie.

Their mom, Maura, is a friend of mine that I met on a message board before either of us had kids! We were both pregnant at the same time and talked via email for a few months and finally met in person shortly after she had Fiona. I was about 8 months pregnant with Ally. Maura is one of my really good friends. We get along great and the kids all get along great, too. We had a great time visiting!

Fiona is 2 months older than Ally and Kylie is about 2.5 months older than Tommy.

To the right is a picture of Kylie. She'll be 3 in the fall. She was a little shy, so she didn't want to be in pictures with the other 3 kids. I snapped this one while she was sitting on mom's lap.

Here is a picture of Tommy.

Here's a picture of Tuck and Louie playing. Louie is their new puppy. He's about 3 weeks older than Tuck.

New pictures of Tucker -

I was thinking that he was like 10 weeks old when Ashley's mom asked me today, but I just looked on the calendar and he will be 12 weeks on Friday!!! WOW! I can't believe how time flies. We got him at 8.5 weeks, so it makes sense, but that's just crazy how quickly that went by! He was born on 3/30/07, so that makes him almost 12 weeks for sure!

He's doing much better with the biting. He still does it, but not nearly as badly as he was doing it for a while. He wasn't doing it to be mean. I think he's just trying to play and not realizing how sharp those teeth are!

He's doing well with house training. He has had accidents in the house 3 times. Not too bad for a puppy. The first time was our fault...we weren't paying attention and with him being new and us not really knowing how often dogs poop, we just didn't think about it. Since then, we've gotten really good about having him go out and go before we let him out to play. He did have a #1 accident last night, but it was right at the front door, so i'm thinking that he must have some idea about where to go if he did it right at the door. And luckily the floor there is old crummy vinyl that we'll be replacing. Of course, we won't be replacing any flooring until he's completely house trained!!

I thought this was a funny picture to show how big chase is and how little Tuck is. lol

Bubbles!

Yesterday the kids got to play with their bubbles. They love bubbles.

There's a quote from a movie and the one guy says, "wow your kids love bubbles, don't they" and the father of the kids says something like, "yeah, i can't think of anything I get excited over that compares to how excited they get about bubbles." Isn't it funny how that happens as you get older.

I love getting out the bubbles for the kids. Yes, they are slippery and dirt sticks to them like glue when they play with bubbles, but what a great time they have! They were both very good and they were getting along so great while playing with the bubbles, too. It was a fun night.


















It's always so enjoyable to see their smiling faces when they make a really big bubble or when they fling the little bubble wand that makes a zillion bubbles just from waving it around.

I have fewer pictures of Tommy b/c my camera can't catch up with his fast little legs! Most of my shots of him are out of focus! lol

Here are pictures of Ally with Collin and Ally with Paige. They had so much fun together.

Rates drop again...

Well, rates are now back down to 6.18%. It's so weird how they fluctuate so much. So we're still planning on getting the house ready to sell. We picked out some paint swatches for the living room. The main color will be swiss coffee, which is a light beige color and the wall with the fireplace will be a shade darker with water chestnut -- it sounds dark, but it's very light tan - a little darker than the swiss coffee color for the rest of the room. They are in the same color family, so they will compliment each other. We picked out some pergo for the entry foyer last night. Our fireplace mantle is a walnut color, as is the half wall for our steps to the basement, so we'll do the walnut color pergo in the foyer. We also priced carpet for the livingroom, hallway, and steps at Lowe's. We'll look around and see what other deals there are. I think Matt's going to put in walnut-stained window sills in the living room. We did that in our old house and it made a huge difference in how the house looked. And it's not too expensive, so it'll be one small thing we can do to make the house look nice.


We'll see what the rates do as we get closer to putting our house up for sale. If they stay under 6.5%, we'll go for it. If not, we'll just wait until they go back down. And the house will be painted and with new carpet and new flooring and the bathroom being done, it will look great and at least we'll get something out of it! lol

I think we'll do a blue in Ally's room to coordinate with her border so that we don't have to remove it. I just bought her a new bedding set. It was regularly $79 at Penney's, but it was on sale for $59 and I had a few coupons and free shipping coupon code, so i ended up getting it for $27! Awesome deal.

Here's a picture of it. It's so cute. It's reversible, so it can look like the bed on the left or the bed on the right. It's very girlie, without being too young. I thought that she was ready for a more big-girl look.

My big boy

For those of you who don't like potty-training stories, now is the time to stop reading. lol
Tommy went #2 on the toilet today! This is only the 2nd time he's gone in the toilet. And the first time he went was on the little potty chair, not the big boy toilet! He was very proud of himself and definitely remembered that he's allowed one treat when he goes on the potty! lol He always tells me when he wants to go #1 on the toilet, but he usually either has already gone or just wants to sit there and not do anything. He's interested in it, but not interested enough to actually go. But somehow when I noticed that he seemed to need to go today, it was easier to talk him into sitting on the potty BEFORE he went rather than after he went. I'm very proud of him. I know this is only the beginning and doesn't mean that he's going to keep it up, but he's at least showing an interest, which means the world to me considering we battled a major fear when we were working on it w/ ally. Luckily she finally faced her fears and now has no issues at all. But it was a long road. So we're hoping that with Tommy being more interested, it won't be a problem.
Way to go, Tommy! :)

VBS

Today during our church service, ally got to get up front with all the other kids and sing her VBS songs. She loved it. She was very nervous and didn't do all the motions of the songs, and the ones she did do were done very close to her body. I could tell she wasn't 100% comfortable, but she didn't cry or anything. She kept her eyes on my a majority of the time (waving several times) to make sure I didn't go anywhere (i sat down in the front row after taking her up to the alter).
I meant to bring my camera, but I forgot. I'm just glad that she went up. She's such an anxious kid that these little things are HUGE for her. She's getting more and more confident every day. I'm so proud of her!