Busy Day Ends in Party

Today started off bright an early at 7am and is just now winding down.

Kenzie, Tyler and I headed to Laurel this morning to watch her softball team play in a tournament.  Even though she can't play, she wanted to be there to support her team.  I was a little worried that she'd be depressed sitting on the bench watching the other girls play but she seemed to handle it well and everyone seemed genuinely happy to see her.   We had to leave right before the end of 2nd game but her team had won the 1st game, was losing the 2nd and haven't heard how they did in the 3rd.

We ran home (okay, drove quickly) so we could meet family that was arriving at our house at 2 to celebrate Connor's 15th birthday.  My parents, sister, and my nephews were coming.  As a bonus we got my BIL.  I thought he had to work today but he was able to get off early enough that he made it over with the others.  What a nice surprise.  I think Connor was really surprised with the present from my parents....shown in the picture.  He was pretty speechless as he was opening the items associated with it.  I just hope he remembers that we celebrated his b'day today and doesn't expect something on Tuesday, which is his real b'day.  Hopefully he'll be too busy between baseball practice and piano practice that night that he won't remember.  Is that a bad mommy thought?  ;)

My youngest nephew decided he didn't like the cake and ice cream we served and decided to munch on an ink refill instead.  I should have snapped a pic of the nice ink blob on the floor.  It certainly didn't hurt it any...thankfully we have a hardwood laminate and things wipe up pretty easily on it.  But I have learned the trick of making a paste of baking soda and water and rubbing it on ink marks on good wood furniture.  I about had a heartattack when I saw the ink that covered our wooden chess table but that's a story for another time.  And speaking of ink being on things...my oldest son seems to have a fascination with leaving ink pens in his pants pockets and they are forever being run thru the washer/dryer.  Which is not good for them...or the clothes they come into contact with.  I found another instance of this yesterday.  The silver lining in this cloud was that I've learned to wash/dry his clothes all by themselves so if things get ruined it's only his clothes in that state...not the rest of the households.  As and added bonus, summer uniform starts at school tomorrow so that means that his last pair of pants that just came out of the dryer with ink marks on them are no longer needed.  Yeah, I'm looking for anything to make this better.  ;)

Good news...bad news

Good news is that it looks like we finally have an answer to what's been causing Kenzie to be in pain since her soccer injury in October.  She was seen by a University of Maryland dr today and he said that the pain she is having is almost always is associated with a knee cap injury.  He did a bunch of different tests on her and they all pointed back to the same diagnosis.  So yay, we finally know what's wrong with her.  Thank you God!  Bad news is, no sports til this issue is healed, she has 6 wks of physical therapy.  If she's not feeling any pain at that point, she should be good to go otherwise she needs to go back and see and he did mention that surgery could be needed if PT didn't help.  She has her first PT next Friday and we'll see how things go from there.  Dr said that this type of injury does not show up on MRI's (of which she's had 3) and can only be diagnosed in the office by doing physical tests...which none of the other drs she saw did the tests that this one did today.

We'll definitely know better for future sports injuries not to mess around with the drs/PT offices over here.  I'm very upset because if she had gotten diagnosed correctly at the beginning she'd probably be ok at this point, even if we ended up going the surgery route.  Hard to believe this has been going on for over 6 months now and we've gotten everything from stress fracture to there's nothing wrong, do you're normal sporting activites.   I wonder how much additional damage was done by her continuing to try to do softball and ref soccer games?

A Worthy Cause

Our church does a lot of services for Our Haven Shelter, a temporary winter shelter for the homeless in our county.  On the first Tuesday of every month, the Hardee's in our area donates 20% of the cost of all meals purchased to the shelter.  Tonight, our youth group helped out at Hardee's serving dinners to people that made purchases.  Kenzie is part of the youth group so she volunteered her time this evening to help out.  Connor is also part of the group but because he is still sick Kenzie had to carry the torch for both of them.  I'm very proud of the time that the kids donate to the needy through out the year.

Bronchitis and Two Fevers...

After I've been buried alive for weeks on end due to work, I surface to find that my oldest daughter has bronchitis. The same day she gets seen by the dr for that, her younger sister and youngest brother both start running fevers that same night. Bekah was actually a good sick person...she basically just rolled over and went back to sleep after I checked her. Adam, on the other hand, was a different story. He started babbling about midnight and didn't stop until about 4am. At one point his temp was 102.5 so I think he was babbling out of delirium, poor boy. ;) Both are doing fine today although Adam's temp is starting to climb again so not sure what the night will bring. Not sure I can handle another sleepless night, especially with having to go to work in the morning.

The first one

The first birthday of the year belongs to Kenzie. With it brings us another teenager...the third one in our house. Yikes! I think she had a pretty good day although her main birthday gift, a horseback riding trip, had to be deferred until her knee is feeling better. Happy Birthday, sweetie...hope the year brings you many wonderful things.

MRI results

The good news on the MRI is that it showed that Kenzie's stress fracture has healed. The bad news is that she is still having a significant amount of pain. The dr is somewhat perplexed and is sending us to get another opinion as his thinking now is lyme disease or growing pains. Hmm, not sure I'm going with either one of those. Based on symptoms and location, my sister thinks it's a meniscus tear which the dr did mention but he doesn't believe because of her age. Not exactly sure what age has to do with it. She's heavy into sports so I think it would be just as possible for her to get that type of injury as anyone else. She an appt tomorrow afternoon, assuming we can get there thru the snow, so hopefully this dr will have a better idea as to what might be wrong.

Crazy Week

Whew, finally time to take a breath. This has definitely been a crazy week. After getting back from the beach last week, I spent Monday and Tuesday in full day training at work, then Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday driving back and forth to Virginia to watch Kenzie play in a softball tournament and Friday I did a full day of work and then watched Tyler test for his orange belt. The drive to the games in Virginia ordinarily wouldn't have been that bad except we were having to do it in rush hour traffic...both ways. Ugh! Andy did the drive on Friday and the 1 1/2hr trip took him 3 hrs. No fun. During the first game of the tournament, we ended up in a rain delay for a couple of hours. It started raining during the first inning and by the second inning it was pouring. People were scurrying everywhere to get the equipment bags and such off the ground and under cover. I would have loved to have gotten a picture of what our canopy looked like...all the bags, chairs, people that were underneath it but my bag was buried underneath the pile. The rain finally slacked off some so we made a break for the car. Kenzie and I jumped in only to have me jump back out again. The reason for me vacating the car so quickly was because I'd looked down to see a yellow jacket walking down my shorts onto my leg. Thankfully it didn't sting me. We went back to the hotel, grabbed a quick bite to eat and an hour or so later were back at the field to resume the game. Amazing enough, the fields weren't in bad shape...which was totally surprising given that there were rivers running down them during the downpour. The girls ended up losing that game and Kenzie got hurt on the last out of the game. The first baseman really whacked her as Kenzie ran by trying to get on first. She was hit so hard she ended up flying over first base without ever touching it. Thankfully she wasn't seriously hurt but she did end up with a hurt wrist which kept her out of their second game until one of her teammates popped her shoulder out while batting. Kenzie ended up going in to replace her. Nothing like a hurt player replacing a hurt player. LOL She did great...ended up getting on base and then did a great job on first base which is a tough spot to be playing with a hurt wrist, which happened to be her glove hand. They ended the day Thursday with 1 win and 1 loss.

Andy went to the game Friday, which they won. Yay! He left after that game so he could make it home in time to watch Tyler test for his next belt. You'd think leaving at 2:30 for an hour and a half drive would give you plenty of time to make it home for a 6:30 exam. Ha! It took him over 3 hrs to get home but thankfully he did make it home in time to see the exam. It was our first time watching a belt exam...it was very cool! Ty ended up getting his new belt. Way to go!!

I went back to Virginia on Saturday...the girls needed to win 4 games in a row to make it to Sunday to have a chance to play in the championship game. They ended up winning their first game but lost their second. The girls had a good season, won 41 games overall which is a huge improvement over last year. They now get the month of August off and then it will be back to practicing starting in Septemer.

Fall at the Mall

Connor, Kenzie and Taylor had a piano recital at the Annapolis Mall on Saturday. When that was finished, we then had to run to the soccer field for Connor & Kenzie's soccer games. At least the schedules allowed them to do both events...I hate when they have to chose between the two.

If you are interested in hearing them play, click here...Andy has clips posted on his blog although I took the video as he so kindly pointed out. ;)

Busy Day

Whew, nothing like running around all day. I know Andy is going to say that he had the roughest day because he had to be out of the house by 7am to get Kenzie to her softball tournament...she had 4 games today...but at least once he got to the field, he was there to stay for the day. I, on the other hand, spent the day running back and forth to the fields to get Taylor and Alex to their soccer games, running to the shopping plaza to meet Connor's coach so he could get a ride to his soccer game, then running the boys back and forth to church to serve tonight. Talk about totally disrupting Adam's eating/sleeping schedule, not to mention Keari's naptime. And I still need to get the girls to bed without disrupting Adam too much since Andy won't be home til late.

So far, Tay and Alex's teams lost their games today, Connor's team won and Kenzie's team tied their first game and won their next two. Haven't heard about the last one yet.

Well, they won their last game so the got their first 1st place trophy of the new season. Way to go Riviera Beach girls!

Piano Recital

Today was the last piano recital for this school year. It always ends with a recital that their teacher hosts where all his students play a song and then he does a summary of all the activities done over the past year. Students either get recognition or awards for performances done throughout the year. Kenzie was unable to attend this years recital but Taylor and Connor participated. It was a good thing too, since Connor received a number of awards this year. I didn't realize how many things he had participated in until his teacher kept calling his name.

Below is a picture of the awards he received. He received one for getting 3rd place (Honorable Mention) in the Solo Festival & Competition, one for have the highest score on the National Guild Auditions, one for highest average amongst his teachers students, one for playing in the Young Musician's Solo Festival, one for participating in the Chamber Music Festival and I can't remember what the others are for.
And here is a picture of Taylor's awards...he was nervous about performing this year so didn't participate in too many performances. His award was for particpating in the Young Musician's Solo Festival.
And these are Kenzie's awards. She also didn't participate in too many this year due to conflicts with softball games. I can't remember what her two awards were for.

and 6

Kenzie. Ugh!

Tournament

Kenzie has her first softball tournament of the year today. Will be interesting to see how well the girls play together. They did great at the Halloween tournament last year and they've been practicing a ton since then so hopefully everything still clicks together. They play 3 games this morning...should be done around 2. Andy took her, Tay, Ty and Connor so I'm left with a fairly easy day here at home. ;-) Have nothing planned...don't feel like cleaning so I might actually pull out my stitching once I get the baby down for a nap. We'll see how that goes.

Update: They won their first game 2 - 1 and were winning their second game 1 - 0. I haven't heard how it end yet and I'm going to have to have a talk with Andy about that...he's been terrible with updates today!

Update2: Just got a call from Kenzie saying that they won all 3 of their games today. Way to go Lakeshore Lightning U10 Girls!!

Party Time

We had a birthday party today with family to celebrate both Alex's and Kenzie's birthday. It's really tough nowadays to find a day and time that is good for everyone to get together...especially with our crazy schedule. We had to fit the party in between Kenzie's softball practice, Connor's indoor soccer game and youth group. All in all, it was a nice day...kids got some nice gifts, Alex got a speaker for his ipod, a book, Hyperdash, some playstation games and a really nice sweat jacket (he better keep an eye on this one cause I really like it. LOL) Kenzie got a playstation game, a dance game, pj's, Eye Clops (which she really, really wanted), a watch and some hair stuff.

The party did mess up Alex's skating plans for the day, though. We didn't realize when he made them that Sunday skate hours were during the afternoon, not the evening, so he would have been skating at the time of the party. He had to tell poor Sara that he couldn't make it today but they did make plans to go either next Friday or Sunday...let's hope things work out better next weekend for them.

Two More Losses

Taylor had his last soccer game of the season this morning. I offered to take him and boy what a mistake that was as it was freezing out on the field @ 8:30. Brr! They didn't play too badly but ended up losing the game in the last 20 secs. Bummer!

We left the field, ran home to pick up everyone else and then headed to Westminster to watch Kenzie play a select soccer game...everyone except Connor & Alex, Connor was going with friends to watch the high school soccer game and Alex stayed home to do some schoolwork. It was another chilly game and the girls ended up losing 3 - 0. Kenzie ended up letting 1 ball go by her to score...but it did take a funny bounce so it was hard to save. And she didn't have any opportunity to get near the goal to make any scores. Next week is their last select game and then the season is over til spring. Yay!

New Altar Server

Kenzie is sooo excited. Altar server training class was scheduled for tonight and she's been anxiously awaiting this day for months now. Needless to say, she came home from the class beaming. =)

Alex came home from youth group tonight talking about a white water rafting trip that is scheduled for the middle of next month. That got Connor thinking because his youth group is also able to go on the same trip so it looks like we will be losing both boys for a couple days next month. ;)

Off to the Races

Okay, not literally but Kenzie does get to visit a horse farm today and to say that she is excited is a huge understatement. Andy met a gentleman almost a month at Southern States...he was there to buy chicken food and the gentleman was there to buy horse food. They struck up a conversation and it turns out the gentleman owns race horses and has a grand daughter named Mackenzie. He invited our McKenzie to come play with his Mackenzie anytime. Not sure that he really thought we would call though. LOL I'll be back later to tell how things went today. =)

What a fun day! We were at the farm for about an hour and both Kenzie and I got to ride on a horse...although I'm not sure if having a horse walk in circles truly qualifies as riding. LOL Kenzie got to start and stop the pony by herself and tell it to turn in whatever direction she wanted. It's the first time either of us had ever been on a horse. When they offered me the chance, I couldn't turn them down...couldn't have my 9 yr old daughter show me up. LOL Kenzie is on a pony named Autumn Falls and I'm on a quarter horse named Marshall. Here's a few pics of our morning

Good news

Just a quick update on Kenzie...I took her to her drs appt this morning and the test results show no fracture, no infection and no tumor. Whew! He's thinking that's it's either a deep bruise or possibly a damaged nerve. If it's a bruise, it will go away and if it's a nerve, it won't so he wants to reevaluate her pain in another month.

Lots of Pictures

Too bad I haven't a clue what any of them mean. Taking a wild guess at the bone scan one not showing any "hot spots" on the collar bone where she is having the pain, I'd say that is hopefully good news for not having an infection and definitely not being broken. The MRI is just a bunch of jibberish to me. LOL

Kenzie was a real trooper today and did great with both tests even though she was very nervous. She got the dye injected around 8 this morning, they took a few pictures to make sure the dye was traveling through her system correctly and then we told we could go and to be back at 11. With 3 hours to kill, I decided to take her to get her hair cut since she's wanted be to do that for a few weeks now. She was very happy to get that done. =) I also got mine cut, then we ate something real quick before heading back for the after pictures. With those done, we headed up the street to get the MRI done. Wow, what an interesting machine! I had no idea it made as many strange sounds and was as loud as it was. Kenzie, again, did great and stayed still thought all the picture taking.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring us good news although if it's not broken and it's not an infection, I'm not sure what that means is causing her pain. Maybe the blood work she had done will something.

What a Day

Sometimes I think insurance is more trouble than it's worth. I made Kenzie's appts in the morning...was able to get them both scheduled for Weds...but found out during the process that I needed to get one of the tests preauthorized. Well you would have thought I was asking someone to cut off their right arm to get that authorization #. After numerous phone calls to the hospital (where the test is going to be done), to the preauthorization unit at the insurance company and to the specialist office which resulted in being forwarded to referral persons voice mail multiple times...I hate that!...being told that we wouldn't have enough time to get the pre auth because there is a 48 hr turn around time...that we are supposed to be having the test done at the hospital, that it's supposed to be done somewhere else. Ugh! by this point I'm totally freaking out because all I know is that I was told Saturday to get all these tests done and to be back in the drs office Thursday morning. I ended up with a supervisor in the pre auth area who said that she would work with me in the morning to make sure that everything got straightened out. I also talked to the specialists assistant who also assured me that she would get with her referral person to make sure that the info got done asap so the auth could be obtained. I received a phone call around 6:30pm from the specialist giving me the auth number that I needed. What a hassle! Now we're just in a waiting mode until Weds when all the test get done. The bone scan gets done in the morning and the MRI in the afternoon. Kenzie had the blood work done today.

Not a Break

We didn't have a good feeling about Kenzie's diagnosis after hearing the specialist's comment about it when she saw him on Weds...he just seemed really blase about it and then when I picked up the xray report Weds evening (which we didn't have at the time of the specialist visit that morning) that basically said that he didn't feel that it was a break but that the spot was a normal variation in the bone. Because of the conflicting info and just our gut feelings we decided to get another opinion. I took her in this morning to see another specialist who was awesome! I really liked how much he talked to us and how he took the time to explain things. He is very confident that her collarbone isn't broken...so confident, in fact, that he took her out of the brace and sling she'd been wearing and said that she could return to softball. That's the good news. The bad news is that he's worried about the localized pain she's having which is associated with a dark spot on her xray. He's concerned that it could be a bone infection, osteomyelitis, and he wants us to have a whole series of tests done including blood work ups, an mri and a bone scan. And he wants all of this done so that we can go back to see him Thursday morning. It will be interesting to see if I can get all that scheduled in time...blood work is no problem but the other two I'm not sure about and I have to wait til Monday morning to call about them. The drs assistant told me that if I had any problems getting the appts to give her a call and she would make some phone calls for me. Sounds pretty serious to me and after reading up a little about osteomyelitis, I'm now wishing it was just a simple collar bone break. Hopefully all these tests will rule out the bone infection...although, if they do, I'm not sure where that leads us since something is causing her pain.