king of the mountain

Thank you everyone for your love and concern regarding Corbin's kidney. It took Corbin a good day and a half, but he is now back to his normal happy self. That first night the poor kid woke up four times, and all he wanted to do was snuggle with me or Clark.

I did a bunch of laundry yesterday, and Corbin always loves laundry day. He takes the clothes in and out of the hamper and pushes it back and forth across the room. I was cleaning up the kitchen and I looked over to see that Corbin had figured out something else he could do with the hamper. He climbed up on top and he was so proud of his accomplishment!

Kidney update

Today I took Corbin in for more follow up kidney tests. The poor kid had to get another catheter. It took me and 2 other nurses to hold him down and try to keep him still. Corbin was a very, very sad boy. This has definatley been the worst test up to this point, simply because he is getting older and stronger, but he isn't old enought to understand what is going on. It was a very long 20 or so minutes that we had to hold him down while he was screaming, crying, and trying to squirm away. They injected Corbin with dye and then took xrays to see if the fluid was still refluxing back up from the bladder to the kidney. Corbin has two tubes coming out of his kidney instead of just one. The top tube showed no reflux, but the bottom one shows approximately the same amount of reflux that he had when the test was done a year ago.

The doctor told me that he is almost positive that surgery will be necessary. He said that if the kidney was going to repair itself, it would have been during Corbin's first year since that is when the body grows the most. The doctor likes to wait and do this surgery when the child is between the ages of two and three, so it will probably be late next year.

So. That is the latest kidney update. It is nice that we don't have to do anything for the next year (besides medicine). In some ways, I am actually kind of looking forward to the surgery. I hate that Corbin will have to go through it, but it is nice to know that his kidney will be fixed. And that he won't have to deal with more tests, medicine, and appointments for his kidney (hopefully).

tagged

I have been tagged by a couple of people. So, here is the first tag. I will do the second one later in the week (that way you all will have something to look forward to).



Name 6 little quirks about myself:

1. When I wear my hair down, I need to have at least a bobby pin or clip in my hair, to keep it out of my face. I never just let my hair hang down without anything in it.

2. I am terrible at answering emails or phone calls.

3. I like to sit indian style (Is that what they still call it? It doesn't quite seem politically correct.) That is how I sit 80% of the time at the dinner table. And if we are going to be in the car driving for a while, I always take my shoes off and sit indian style.

4. I don't like to drink milk. When I eat cereal in the morning I tilt the spoon to drain off most of the milk before I take a bite.

5. I always keep my toenails painted, but I almost never paint my fingernails.

6. Unless it is raining or there is 3 feet of snow outside, than Corbin and I go and get the mail everyday.

So. There you have it. Now you know even more about yours truely.

Halloween fun

I got the idea for these pumpkins from Family Fun magazine.

Corbin's new favorite thing to do...

...is to sit in his chair and look at books. I think it's so cute.

jammin'

I am pretty proud of myself. I made raspberry peach freezer jam on Monday. It is really good. Next time I make it I'm going to reduce the amount of sugar, it turned out slightly too sweet for my taste. Clark doesn't like it (I'm not too surprised, he hates anything raspberry), but Corbin and I love it.

I gave Corbin a pickle to keep him happy while I was busy working on the jam. He loves pickles!

After he finished the pickle, I let him out of his highchair, and gave him a cracker. He decided it would be fun to throw it on the ground and stomp it to pieces.

It's a good thing we have Izzy around to clean up this place :)

visitors

My parents came to visit us last week. We had lots of fun while they were here. We played wii, canned spaghetti sauce, went to the park, watched conference, and went to the zoo. Corbin loved all the attention, and he misses playing with Grandpa and Grandma (Mama gets a little boring sometimes). chopping up the onions outside
The finished product

playing with a roll of paper towels I accidentally let out

Corbin's first carousel ride. At first I sat him down by himself and he started getting really nervous, so I climbed up with him. Even then he was kind of scared.
Do you think he liked the elephants?

poop

We are going to the Denver Zoo tomorrow with my parents. I was checking out the website and came across the coolest poop game ever! Click on this link to go the zoo website, then go to the "kids" drop down menu and from there pick "who's poo?" It's great. I scored 67%. What did you get?

Denver Botanic Gardens

Saturday we decided to go on a drive to see the changing leafs. Unfortunately we picked a really bad time to go. We got caught in this HUGE traffic jam of motorcycles. I have never seen so many in my life. I'm not sure what exactly was going on, but there were people on the side of the roads waving and some were holding up signs or American flags. Totally weird. Clark and I were happy to wave back to everyone. I'm sure the real reason they were waving was because they were thinking, "Wow! What an awesome Jeep Compass!" They probably didn't even notice all the motorcycles.

So, since the highway was so congested we turned around and went to the free admission day at the Denver Botanic Garden instead (good thing our phones have GPS to tell us where to go). It was lots of fun. Neither of us had been there before, and we were impressed, especially with the indoor tropical garden. I think that was our favorite area. Corbin's favorite thing was playing in a big grassy field.

best buds

A couple of weeks ago we took Izzy to the park and played with the frisbee.

Notice Corbin's right arm? That's how he walks 90% of the time.

I took this picture last night (oddly enough Corbin is wearing the same shirt). It was a beautiful evening, so we all went outside. Corbin loved throwing the tennis ball for Izzy, and Izzy was excited to have a new playmate. I am continually amazed at how well Izzy acts around Corbin. Usually when Clark and I play fetch with her she tries to keep us from taking the ball from her, but last night with Corbin she let Corbin steal the ball right from under her nose. I'm sad that Corbin is a little blurry in this pic. Someone (I'm not naming names...) dropped my camera and now the auto focus doesn't work, so I have been taking pictures the old school way and manually focusing all my pictures. It's kind of fun, but it is a lot harder to create a focused picture when the subject is an energetic toddler.