Custom Walleye Jigs

New link added: Custom Walley Jigs, where you can find the walleye jigs that you can't find in stores! Tell all of your fishing buddies!
This is run by my brother-in-law-in-law (David knows what I mean).

Update on our girls

We can't believe that Addison has been with us for 5 weeks already! Time sure does fly with two little sweeties in the house! Addison has been doing so well. Her nights have been going pretty well still and she is consistent about the times she needs to eat which is nice. I have gotten into the habit of rocking her for about 5 minutes after she eats and she goes right back down. The frustrating thing right now is that she is a spitter. EVERY time she burps during/after she eats she spits. And I mean projectile! It isn't a lot of volume, it just goes a long way! Last night I had just finished feeding her and had her up on my shoulder to burp her and I had to yell for Brian to come and help. It was not only on both of us, but on the couch cushion and it actually had pooled under the cushion as well. I am not sure what to do to help her out with this. We aren't worried about it, it is just frustrating... a couple of nights ago I had to change her swaddle blanket 4 times. She isn't too concerned thankfully. She is a pretty happy baby. She will just look around and kick for a long time during the day, and if she is in your lap looking up at you it is just too sweet!

Payton is just hilarious lately! Some of the things that she says are just too funny! Brian's mom was here last week (I have to share this story Betty:)) and every time we went anywhere one of us had to squeeze into the backseat inbetween Addison and Payton's car seats. There is plenty of room once you are in there, it is the climbing over the seats that is tricky. We were all getting into the car, Betty in the back this time, and Payton says "Grammy fits Momma!" We all had a really good laugh over that one! Bedtime is getting a little easier, but not as easy as before we had Addison. When it is time for bed she will say "But I'm awake!" And as you can see from the photo, Payton has taken to wanting to wear her bib again at dinner time. Funny girl!

Our Mayo appointments

Well, Addison was negative for CF. What we were expecting, but still a HUGE relief to us! We met with a genetics counselor and pedi pulmonologist to get the skinny on her being a carrier. She will just have to be aware of this when she has kids of her own someday, her partner will have to be tested. So she is all good, although I think that she has got pink eye from her sister.... not sure what we are going to do about that! Payton is on drops...

Payton saw the hematologist and we are going to stay on the iron supplements and try to keep her on a good diet. She does pretty well. And we are going to have her blood drawn every 3 months to see what her trends are. That is all for now unless she starts to display any symptoms of her anemia. I am not sure if MA did a CF screen for Payton when she was born. I believe it is optional in MA and we don't remember being asked if we wanted it. So we will have to find that out or Payton will probably want to be tested to see if she is a CF carrier before she decides to have kids. So much to think about... hopefully we will remember all the juicy details for her when she starts to ask us questions!

So all in all it was a lot of good news for us this week. We are so thankful!

Links reorganization

I've updated the links to the right to be in order of those who update their blogs the most! Where do you rate?
Note: Amy's and Sonja's websites put to the bottom simply to keep the blog sites together.

Friends...

Since we had Addison we have had so many nice things given/done for us. Thanks everyone! Several friends have stopped by and offered to make us dinner, babysit.... On Saturday some friends came by and brought us a huge spaghetti dinner, salad, bread, and cheesecake! YUM. They also brought a gift for Addison and a 'big sister gift' for Payton. They have 2 boys, and Payton just had a ball with them. It was so sweet of them to do that for us!

Every time I go to daycare to pick up Payton everyone wants me to leave Addison there! All the toddlers just swarm us. It is too cute. Who doesn't love a baby!?

First day...

Alone with the two girls went fairly well. Today Payton is back at "school" so it is just Addison and I. Yesterday I was feeling a bit anxious about having them both all to myself, but Payton is such a little helper it really did help me out. She has to be the one to put Addison's dirty diapers in the diaper champ or she gets very upset. She did have a little meltdown when I wouldn't let her put her own dirty diapers in there though! Brian bought her some pull-ups with disney princesses on them. She really does seem to like her "pink diapers". We are really trying to get her going more on the potty. She always tells us she needs to go about 10 seconds too late! We'll get there. Bedtime is going a little better. Brian went to play tennis in town on Wednesday night and Payton and I gave Addison her first bath in her infant tub (her cord finally came off), and then I got Payton down to sleep without much difficulty. Last night it took a bit longer though. She is constantly trying to entertain Addison and she loves to give her her pacifier if she is crying. She is such a little mother hen;)

Addison is doing SO good. I am pumping in the evening and Brian is giving her a bottle between 9-10 pm and she goes right down to sleep in her bassinet. She sleeps until 1-2am then she gets a diaper change and I feed her then right back to sleep. She sleeps then until 5-6am and we do the same thing again. She then is down for a couple of more hours. Payton REFUSED to sleep anywhere except with Brian and I so this is a great thing for us! Addison is nursing so well too. We are so lucky that our colicky baby came first! I am keeping my fingers crossed that Addison keeps on the same track:)

I got a call from the pediatrician yesterday and all of our appointments are made. Because of the whole cystic fibrosis thing we have to meet with a pediatric pulmonologist after Addison's sweat test. Then we have to meet with genetics. They were able to get Payton's hematology appointment for the same day so we will have a jam packed day, but the nice thing is that Brian's mom with be here then so she can occupy Payton while we are in Addison's appointments. The unfortunate thing is that we have to wait until Addison is 4 weeks old. Newborns don't produce enough sweat until around then. So we will head out on March 23. Our genetics appointment will be the next week. So we wait... 2 weeks...

"I wish I had better news for you today..."

were the first words our Pediatrician said to us when we took the girls in on Tuesday. Immediately my heart just sank. I knew we needed to make some decisions about Payton and her iron defiency, and I had a bad feeling about Addison's newborn screen when the doctor wanted to see us to go over the results. Why would they need us to come in if the results were normal?

Lets start with Payton... She has been on iron supplements since the beginning of November and her hemoglobin and iron levels really haven't gotten any better. Granted, she is not great at taking it, but she does take the full dose once a day just great (she should be taking it twice, but you try and tell her that!). So it shouldn't be getting worse. In January her hemoglobin was 10.1 (they want it to be over 11.5) and her iron was 18 (it should be between 35 and 100). Last week she had her blood drawn again and her hemoglobin was 10.0 and her iron was 12. So she is losing iron somewhere. Our pediatrian doesn't know why or where... she has checked everything that is obvious. So now we are going to go to the Mayo clinic to a pediatric hematologist. Hopefully we can figure out what is going on with her.

Addison's scenario is much more worrisome to me. Thank goodness for Brian being so level headed or I would have had a nervous breakdown in the office! So her newborn screen (which screens for multiple genetic disorders) done at the hospital was positive for TWO things. First of all she was positive of Bartts Hemoglobin. This is not too big of a deal... it means that she is a carrier for Thalessemia (this is a type of anemia in which your red blood cells are smaller and paler than normal, the type Addison carries is not the severe form). My sister Nicole had Thalessemia so this is not a big shocker. Addison does not have this, but she will need the think about it if she marries someone who is also a carrier. Her kids then may get Thalessemia. The other thing she was positive for is Cystic Fibrosis. She screened for only one gene mutation, and you need 2 mutations to have the disease. The newborn screen tests for the more common mutations, so there is still a chance that Addison may have a unusual mutation that wasn't screened for. For those of you who don't know much about Cystic Fibrosis it cause thick and sticky mucous production that causes lung and digestive problems. The median age for someone with CF is mid 30s. Our pedi did tell us that the majority of kids who screen positive for one mutation just end up being carriers, NOT having the disease. So Addison at the very least will be a carrier (1 in 30 people in the US are carriers and don't even know it). Obviously either Brian or I are a carrier... So now we go to Mayo to have the diagnostic test done. They will test Addison's sweat for high chloride content. So it is not invasive. Our pedi also told us that the majority of kids with CF will have shown some symptoms by now (breathing or stooling difficulties) which Addison has not shown at all.

So that is the details for now. That was a just horrible morning. I am SO happy that Brian was with me. It is too early to really worry, but I am a hormonal post-partum woman! Although I would be worrying even if I wasn't... We will keep you posted.