Kindergarten!

Kindergarten has begun! Jacob & Cole were beyond excited to go to school this morning. When the bus came they both climbed right up & only looked back when the bus driver asked them to so I could take a picture with my phone. They are both in the same class & have Owen's kindergarten teacher, who was wonderful. We are thrilled that Jacob & Cole will have her, too!

This morning after Zumba I got a text from Owen's first grade teacher. She'd seen the boys & sent me a picture of them - they looked like they were having fun! I can't wait to hear how their day was!!

Jacob:

Cole:

Owen & Jacob wanted a picture together in their matching uniforms:

3rd Grade

Today is Owen's first day of 3rd grade! He wasn't very happy when I woke him up, but by the time the bus pulled up he was excited to go. He's in a class with a lot of his friends from last year, and he's heard good things about his teachers. It should be a great year!

Cole asked to take a picture of me & Owen:

Jacob took this one: 

Kindergarten starts Monday, and we have 2 very excited boys who are ready to go!

Surgery Update

We are so appreciative of all the calls, texts, e-mails & Facebook messages sending prayers & checking on Cole this week. I'm happy to report that he is doing just fine. His incisions are a little tender & his throat is still sore from the tube, but otherwise he's doing great. He's been eating pretty well since about midday yesterday, and he spent a good bit of yesterday up playing Uno and action figures. This morning he has been smiling, laughing & talking a lot more, and it's nice to have our spunky Cole back!

The surgery itself went well, but 20 minutes into what should have been at least an hour long procedure we were called back to talk to the surgeon. We couldn't imagine what he would have found that he'd need to talk with us so soon, and our thoughts were running wild as we waited for him to come in. The surgeon walked in holding up the picture of Cole's belly I'd sent him, and then he told us that once they got the camera inside they couldn't find a hernia! We were all shocked! The bump that appears on Cole's belly when he bears down has every characteristic of a hernia, but there is no hole in the muscle. Since he hadn't yet made the incision in the "hernia" site and since Cole doesn't have any pain or symptoms from it, we all agreed it's best to just leave it alone for now rather than trying to fix his muscle when we aren't really sure what's wrong to begin with. So instead of a hernia repair Cole ended up having more of a diagnostic/exploratory laproscopic procedure, which should make for a much easier recovery for him. It's likely either some sort of spasm or weakness in the muscle, but I'm hoping to get more answers when we follow up next week. While it's a little hard not to feel like poor Cole had to endure surgery for nothing, it's relieving to know that whatever that big bulge is has been checked out thoroughly and isn't anything concerning. 

Here's a recap of surgery day:

The day of surgery we spent a lot more time at the hospital than we'd anticipated. His surgery started 3 hours later than we'd been told it would, which meant we were there for 5 hours just waiting for them to begin. Cole, of course, had not eaten or had anything to drink since 10:30 the night before.  He was a trooper, though, and only mentioned being hungry once.

In the pre-op room he refused to go near the hospital bed for the first hour or so, instead he sat in our laps & watched Spongebob on Netflix. Thank goodness for iPhones and Netflix streaming!

Finally he not-so-willingly agreed to put on the hospital gown. He was NOT happy about the gown being backless, and by the time they wheeled him back he'd put his clothes back on.

The Child Life Specialist came to help prep him for what to expect in the operating room. She left his blue raspberry scented mask with him, and every few minutes he would pick it up & smell it. It was adorable!

 

By the time they came to take him back he was pretty annoyed with being there. The nurse anesthetist was great & as soon as she showed him the games on her iPhone he was content to go along. Another nurse was handing him an iPad as they wheeled him away. We were once again very impressed with how great OLOL hospital is with kids.

Once the procedure was over we were called back to the recovery room. In true Cole style, he woke up screaming "I HATE THIS PLACE!!". Then he kept crying & saying "ouchie" that his tummy (incisions), throat & IV were hurting. Kids often have a hard time coming out of anesthesia, and we knew to expect that since this was his 4th time having it. He had some trouble keeping fluids down, but otherwise recovery has been very smooth.

We're very thankful it's all over with now!

Cole

Our family's streak of random-but-not-very-serious medical issues continues. We don't get colds or the flu. No, we have things like cyclic vomiting, mastoiditis, and childhood regurgitation. A couple of weeks ago Cole was jumping & diving in the pool when we noticed something bulging out of the side of his belly every time he jumped. After a quick call to the pediatrician we determined that it was a hernia & had an appointment with the pediatric surgeon scheduled for the following week (the same one who repaired Jacob & Cole's hernias as infants). Of course the hernia refused to show itself at the appointment, so we were on a mission to capture a picture so we could get the surgery scheduled before school starts.

He will be having it removed on July 31st, and he should be fully recovered just in time to start Kindergarten. The surgeon believes it is a very rare type of hernia (sorry, I can't remember the name and I refuse to Google it), but we're expecting the surgery to be pretty routine. It's an outpatient procedure, and I'm expecting the activity restrictions will be the toughest part of the whole experience for Cole. Thankfully he'll have the Summer Olympics to keep him entertained!

And because I know people will be curious, we do expect that Jacob will present with this at some point in the near future. They are identical, after all, and since Cole's isn't due to an injury we'll be keeping a close eye on Jacob, per doctor's orders.

Since this is a "Cole" post, I just have to share these adorable pictures he took. A week or so ago he & Jacob spent at least an hour making their bed & rearranging their pillows & stuffed animals. I later found Cole with his camera having a little photo shoot with his animals. He had posed & photographed them, and when I walked in he was working hard to get a picture of himself with them all.

 His little lion family.

I took the last one for him. 

Today, out of the blue, he asked me to order prints of these so he could put them in frames. We uploaded them to the 1-hour photo lab at Wal Mart, and he was thrilled until he pointed to a 20x30 portrait in our bedroom and told me he wanted them all to be that size. Not gonna happen, buddy. He agreed to choose a favorite after he sees the small prints & we'll order a poster print of that one next time I see a sale somewhere. 

Preschool graduation 2012

Jacob & Cole are officially done with preschool! They won't let us call them kindergarteners just yet, but August 9th will be here before we know it.

Here they are as we were leaving for their graduation program. Jacob obviously wasn't in the best of moods. 

 These were a cute surprise when we arrived.

Jacob & Cole were in the back row for the program so I didn't get any great shots of them on stage. They were both singing their little hearts out, though!

This is Cole getting his diploma. 

And Jacob getting his diploma. 

Owen & Juliet. 

2nd Grade Awards Program

This morning was the 2nd grade awards program. Wow how time flies! It's been a great year, but we are all looking forward to summer break!

The program began with the classes performing short musicals (hence the black clothing instead of the usual uniforms). Owen had the not-so-coveted part of playing the finger symbols. He wasn't excited in the days leading up to the performance, but he was all smiles this morning.

We were on the 3rd row but didn't have a great view of things. Here's a quick shot I grabbed while they were singing "Circle of Life".

After the performances, it was time for the awards. Here is Owen collecting all of his on stage. :-)

And here he is after school showing them off. This year he received the Citizenship Award, PE Coach's Award, All A Honor Roll, Reading Award, AR 50 Point Club, Champion of Conduct, Meritorious Attendance. We couldn't be any prouder!!

The Temple

Late last night I walked into the playroom to feed the guinea pigs, and I discovered this scene. Jacob & Cole had been in there playing before bed, and apparently they built an alphabet block version of the Jedi Temple. The star fighters were parked, and the Jedi, along with some clone troopers, were tucked in for the night.

100

Today was Owen's 100th day of school celebration. The kids were supposed to dress up like they were 100 years old for a Best Old Man & Best Old Woman costume contest. How exactly do you make a 7 year old look 100 years old without extensive makeup or a mask (and without spending a ton of money)? We did the best we could with accessories, and Owen perfected his old man impression by hunching over & saying things like "I've thrown out my back", "young-ins" and "whippersnapper". He was so excited when he got home this afternoon and had won a medal for 3rd place in the costume contest!

Another exciting part of his day was getting to lead the Pledge of Allegiance over the speaker for the entire school this morning. He reported that he did a very good job and "spoke loud and clear". Good thing he doesn't have his daddy's nerves when it comes to public speaking! :-)

Celebrating Christmas

Amazingly enough, Christmas 2011 has already come & gone. It's been a busy few weeks, and while I'm sad all the anticipation & excitement are over, we're looking forward to relaxing for the next 2 weeks before school starts back.

Here's a peek at what we've been up to.

Jacob & Cole's preschool class has a cookie decorating party.
Here are a few photos from their preschool Christmas program.
As usual, we spent Christmas Eve goofing off before bedtime. This year the boys decided to stay awake to listen for Santa. That made for a long night for all of us!
And a few shots from Christmas morning. As you can see, Star Wars is still all the rage with the Walters boys.

Birthday fun!

Last weekend was Jacob & Cole's 5th birthday party! This was their first "friend party" and they chose to have it at the martial arts school. It was so much fun!! They played taekwondo games, broke boards, and burned lots of energy with their friends. There were several kids there who do not take taekwondo, but it was really fun for everyone.


On Tuesday we celebrated their actual birthday. The day started with the kids waking up to find that our mischievous elf, Luke, had hung streamers from their bedroom door during the night. What a fun way to start the day! Per their request, they celebrated with cupcakes for a snack at school and red velvet cake at home in the evening.

Just for fun I dug out these photos from the day they were born. Goodness how things have changed in the last 5 years!


Moving on (before I need to break out the tissues)...

Owen walked in the door after school a couple of weeks ago with this mustache on. His teacher gave them to all the kids to go along with a book they're reading in class. I think the mustache really suits him! ;-)

And finally, a rare photo of Lucky 2. She is getting so big and has become much more social over the past couple of months. We're planning to get her a friend pretty soon, but in the meantime she & Diego have become quite fond of each other. At least twice a day I find them sniffing each other through the slats of her cage.

Halloween 2011

I won't lie. October almost did me in. Marshall, too, I think. Our work schedules were hectic (the busiest month all year for both of us), there were baseball games, taekwondo classes, teacher conferences, field trips, school parties, birthday parties for friends...you get the idea. It was chaos at times, but we survived and had lots of fun in the process.

State Police Troop A Day:




Jacob & Cole's school party:
Trick or Treat!!


Owen {Luke Skywalker as an x-wing fighter pilot}


Cole {Luke Skywalker from Episode IV}


Jacob {Snake Eyes from GI Joe}