Laugh until you cry

I had to share this letter with all of you because this morning at church our pastor shared it as an example of a lament since we are studying Lamentations and the majority of our congregation was in tears. Not from sadness, but from laughing so hard that we were all crying! Even the pastor lost it while sharing this with us. This is a customer complaint letter about the food on Virgin Airlines written to the owner Sir Richard Branson. Be prepared to laugh before you click the link below!!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/4344890/Virgin-the-worlds-best-passenger-complaint-letter.html

Happy Birthday, Braylen!

These pictures are a little late, but it's been a very busy week! Last week Saturday, we celebrated Braylen's first birthday! I can't believe my nephew is already a year old. He's looking so grown up. His parents are training him well as a little Michigan fan.

Jackson dressed up in his Tigers gear for the party and after a little warming up, he gave Great Grandma Kidd some love.Great Great Grandma VerHulst had to get in on the action as well!! Our boys are so lucky to have so many grandmas and great grandmas!!

Braylen was not a big fan of his party hat - it never stayed on for very long!!

Brady found a new friend at the party. They have actually played before, but they enjoyed getting reacquainted and got into a little trouble together when they decided to open one of Braylen's presents!!
Of course, the highlight of the party was the cake! Brady was excited because it was a basketball cake!! Braylen wasn't too sure at first, but after awhile he dug in!! Brady loved the cake and described it as "marvelous, delicious, and wonderful!" He really said these without any prompting. It's so funny to hear these large words come out of such a small child! Jackson was sure he wanted some cake and kept grabbing for my piece as he was sitting on my lap! He did get a handful of it!!

Ball Popper Fun

I have to say that of all the toys we have, the ball popper is one of the best! If you have young kids and you do not own this toy - it is a great addition :) Here is a little video of Jackson enjoying the ball popper! I apologize for the shaky camera - I was multitasking and taking the video while "fetching" the balls for the ball popper so that the fun could continue!!

Surgery

Well, we are already home from Jackson's surgery this morning and everything went well. I want to thank everyone for your prayers, I know it helped me remain calm and helped everything to go smoothly this morning.

We arrived at the hospital at 5:30 am and surgery was at 7:00 am. Jackson was very sleepy, but he stayed awake even until they took him away for surgery. They gave him a little medicine to make him groggy at about 6:30 and he didn't get too loopy as I have heard others have done, but he just got kinda sleepy.

They took him for surgery at 7:00 am and he was back in my arms at about 7:20am so it was very fast. The ENT came back after surgery and said that he commented to the anesthesiologist that this was definitely the right surgery as BOTH of Jackson's ears were infected.

Jackson came back screaming and took just a little while to settle down. Once he could have his bottle he was a lot happier. He is now sleeping peacefully in his crib and hopefully the doctor said he should be himself this afternoon!! I can't wait for his ear pain to be gone and to hopefully have the end of ear infections for this little boy. He did great this morning!! Thanks again for your prayers and I'll try to keep you updated!

Happy St. Patricks Day!!

Brady celebrated with some green milk and applesauce along with his tacos for dinner! He thought it was pretty cool that we could turn these things green and he especially enjoyed the green tongue afterwards!

On another note, Jackson has another ear infection!! The ENT put him on an antibiotic and surgery is still on for Thursday. Please pray if you are up early - we need to be at the hospital at 5:30 in the morning!! That's usually the time I wake up....it will be a long and exhausting day! I will post an update as soon as we get home.

Prayers Please

I don't know that I will have a chance to post before Thursday, but I want to ask you all for your thoughts and prayers during Jackson's surgery. He will be having tubes put in very early Thursday morning. I know that it is a very routine outpatient surgery, but your prayers would still be appreciated. I am sure it will be harder on his parents than it is on him!! Thank you in advance and I will try to post an update when we get home from surgery on Thursday morning.

Fabulous Weekend

I am so excited that the weather is getting better! It's so nice to be able to get out of the house and I think we all feel better because of it. We had two fun "events" this weekend. On Saturday, we met up with our friends Matt and Lis and their two girls at a great park in Jenison.

Brady was so excited to get outside and play soccer! Miss Alicia, his daycare provider, let him borrow this soccer ball for the weekend! He had a hard time sharing with anyone else though!Jackson LOVED swinging and Sadie joined him on the swings.
Today, Brett and Brady went out and found Brady's first "real" set of golf clubs. He had some plastic ones, but there is a putting green here at the apartments and he loves golfing. The plastic clubs really weren't cutting it so Brett and Brady found a great used set! Here he is right after getting home with his new golf clubs!!
Putting on the "golf field" as Brady likes to call it! He had to change clubs and balls ever few minutes and no one was allowed to hit the ball into "his" hole :)
And here's the last shot before we had to go home! We had a little bit of a tantrum when golfing was over :)

Tubes

Well, we are officially getting tubes for Jackson. He had a low grade fever last weekend and the beginning of last week. It has been so difficult to know what is going on with him between ear infections, colds, and we believe he is also teething again!! When he woke up Tuesday morning he was VERY warm and he had a fever. I decided I was bringing him in to the doctor to see if there was anything going on with his ears and sure enough - he had an ear infection in the left ear and fluid in the right ear. The nurse practitioner suggested we go ahead with the tubes since this was probably only going to continue if we didn't do tubes.

So....Tuesday afternoon I scheduled his surgery for March 19. It is so hard for me to imagine the little guy having to go through surgery, but I know that it will be the best for him and he will be so much happier. I haven't talked to one mom who regrets going through the tubes. In fact, everyone I have talked to says it was amazing and they would do it again in a heartbeat. Please say some special prayers for us especially on March 19 when Jackson has his surgery!

On another note, Jackson is close to walking! He's taken a few steps and is getting a little braver every day! He has recently been VERY interested in the bathroom and Brady's potty. Here is a fun picture of him checking it out before bathtime. I would love to have this boy potty trained before the age of 1 :)

Brady really wanted a picture of him and Jackson together on their potties so here it is! This one will go in the file to show his girlfriends :)

Playworld

We decided to get out of the house yesterday morning and take the boys to Playworld for the first time. Brady has been wanting to go to Playworld for awhile because we see it every Sunday when we go to church! He has never been to Playworld or Chuck E. Cheese so this was his first experience with this type of fun :) He was VERY excited as you can see from this first video clip. This is him in the car singing about going to Playworld!

Brady was a little hesitant and unsure at first because of the bigger kids, but once he got into it he LOVED it. Jackson enjoyed himself as well, even though he couldn't go in or on a lot of the bigger things.

He LOVED going down the huge slide - at first he was unsure, but then he kept going over and over. I am so proud of him for doing this - he had to go all by himself!

This was a much needed outing!! We are so ready for Spring over here!!