Updates

Kallie was dying to eat up one of the turkey legs Jim had left after carving!

I am so bummed. I had videos of each of the kids and I can't seem to get them to load on here. AUGH! They were pretty precious too. So sorry. I will maybe keep trying. Let me know if anyone has any advice. I made them the same way I have done the other ones on here. I'm thinking it might be an issue of length. For some reason, if I take one that's over a minute, it doesn't cooperate for me. But if it's under that, I can usually get it to load. Oh well. I guess my pics will have to do.

The Mitchell news......

Let me fill you in on Jim, since his story seems to be the longest! First of all, he didn't get the position that he interviewed for. The other top contender was offered it. What they have done, though, is offered Jim the store that the guy who took the position currently runs. It is located in the Twin Cities. It is Bauer Built's top store. It isn't quite the promotion Jim was looking for, but it is definitely a move we're considering. Originally I was pretty excited to possibly be moving to WI, but now I might even be in the Cities! Pretty crazy. The next step is for Jim to go visit the store in a couple weeks and take a look at it and see if he feels this is the best move for him. I am basically just trusting that he'll know what's best for us and leave it at that. If I understood him correctly, this would put us back in MN by next June. WOW! So please keep that in your prayers. We have been looking at the area and trying to ask around about what suburbs might be nice for us.

As far as his health goes, we unfortunately didn't quite get the news we would have ultimately hoped for. His spinal tap did show some abnormalities, so the neurological opthomologist has offically diagnosed him with Benign Intermittent MS. Basically, what this means is that he has a mild case of MS that only flares up every once and a while. So, what we have said is that if there is an MS to have, this is the one! We are hoping that it will stay in the intermittent stage and not turn into progressive. We will also be praying that when the reoccurences do come, they will not increase in severity. Jim had an appointment last week to discuss treatment with the dr. and she has decided that she doesn't want him to do injections. Instead, she is going to try some steroid treatments with him. Mon., Tues., and Wed. he will head over to the hospital for an hour or so and receive steroid IVs. Then he follows that up with 2 weeks of steroid pills! They have forwarned him of the possibility of gaining weight during this time! He's not too excited about that! So anyway, we'll continue to let you know how it all goes.

The kids and I are doing pretty well. We have battled some different sicknesses around the house so I am ready for a healthy break! Liam is pulling himself up and is becoming quite active. He continues to think Kallie is the funniest person ever! So fun! My job continues to go well. I just wish I had more time to get things done while I'm there! I don't like having to bring my grading home. It doesn't help that when I have to give an assignment I'm giving it to 88 kids, so that means that I have 88 papers to grade....if they all turn it in! Not too fun when you're the language teacher, especially if it's time for us to write essays! But I enjoy it nonetheless.

Well, that's all from us. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. We spent the time alone, just the four if us, which was kind of nice since we're usually rushing to travel somewhere on holidays.

Love to all!

The Happenings

Time, man how it slips away! Sorry, I think I say something close to that in every entry. My bad! I feel like I actually have things to write about this time around, thankfully....and maybe unfortunately.

The kids...Liam has four teeth and is now working on 5 and 6 on top. I'm sure 7 and 8 aren't far behind at the rate he's going! He is an active boy that LOVES to crawl and laugh. He's so funny when he crawls with something in his hand. He always wants to. He is such a joyous baby, and for that we're very thankful. My favorite thing has to be going into his room in the mornings and seeing his first smile. I know that won't last so I'm taking it all in now! He had some GI testing done on the 23rd to see how things were digesting and see if there is anything that might be causing his reflux. They didn't find anything other than severe reflux. He made a comment that he seemed to digest pretty slowly. We will be taking him to see an actual GI doctor on the 17th.

Kallie just turned 4 on the 29th, and I like to say she's 4 going on 14! I love her to pieces, but she is sometimes a little more dramatic than I can handle! She has started being receptive of mommy playing "school" with her and is really starting to catch on. Hopefully she'll stick with it. We went up to WI to see Jim's side last weekend and did some birthday celebrations up there for her. It was a good time. She has really been into her Polly Pockets and Barbies lately. We'll see what happens when the boy toys start rolling into town! She has been pretty healthy. I took her to her 4 yr. well check and it was pretty comical. The nurse measured her height and then actually came and got her out of the room one more time to do it again because she thought she had it too high! Nope! Kallie is above the 97th percentile for her height. I think she was somewhere in the 42 in. range. I can't totally remember. She did pretty well at the appt. and I think she was excited that we were there for her and not Liam for once! Unbeknownst to me, though, she did have a sinus infection! Whoops! She didn't complain so I didn't think much of it I guess! Kallie enjoyed Halloween and, as you can see, wanted to be Tinkerbell. Pretty fun. Liam was our little Tigger, but I couldn't get the best part, the hood, to fit over his head! Oh well.

Jim...He went to see the neuro opthomologist a couple weeks back and had an interesting time. Supposedly this dr. was able to notice what she thought was a lesion on the MRI pics of his brain. She thought it was strange that the last dr. didn't see them because she normally has him read all of her other x-rays. So she was going to send it back to him for another read of the area. Meanwhile, they are going to put Jim through another spinal tap. He has to go for that on the 14th. Time will tell. We'll just keep our prayers going! He is currently in WI right now and will be in his promotion interview tomorrow , Tuesday. I'll keep you all posted as to how it all turns out.

Me..Well, I just basically keep busy with all of the above! School is going well and I seem to have a pretty good group this year. I did have an interesting adventure this morning, though, when I arrived to work and discovered that my modular classroom had been broken into, along with the three others. I'm pretty sure whoever did it was on a money mission. They didn't take any of the big stuff. My desk was basically a mess and my closet door was open. A couple of my students also had their desks searched through and stuff. I'm just thankful none of us were around when it happened. I'm sure whoever did this will probably get away with it. Don't people have consciences anymore?

Anyway, love to you all and thanks for checking in on us.