Dawson Turned 11 and Grace needs to go

In my previous post, I missed mentioning that on July 16 Dawson turned 11. We did various things for his birthday. We ate out (alot). We went shopping for Legos and KNex. We had a friend sleep over. We had family over for cake. The celebrating basically started on Thursday and ended on Sunday. Here is a picture of Hairboy . . . er Dawson with his cake and one of his gifts . . .

And then for the Grace news . . . Friday night, Jeff, Grace, and I made a visit to the ER at Vanderbilt. Grace had taken a fall on Wednesday, and started talking about belly pain on Friday. She was screaming like a crazed person. We took her to the urgent care here in town. Due to the possibility that the fall could have injured her organs, they suggested we take her to the ER to be looked at. After a little (interpret how you like . . . we were in an ER) wait, we got to go back to our hallway bed to be observed by Dr Doogie Howser of Vandy. The Boy Wonder did some blood work, and read the results to say that Grace was having an issue with her pancreas. At about midnight, Grace had a CT scan and an xray to see what was going on. The results came back and they could see nothing wrong with any of her organs so they kept us overnight IN THE E.R. for observation. The three of us had a lovely time sleeping in a cozy E.R. room . . . oh let's be real no one gets sleep in the hospital. We slept off and on when they weren't taking vitals, or resetting her IV, or taking blood, or playing really loud music . . . oh sigh! The next morning the Dr (a professor with the university) and one of the med students came to talk to us about Grace. It appears that Dr Doogie had read Gracie's results from the computer . . . . the computer had flagged Grace's levels when comparing them to an ADULT . . . when looked at against a standard 2 year old Grace was good. Looking back at the CT scan - they found that Grace was . . . are you ready for this . . . just full of poop! Oh yes, we slept in the ER for constipation. So now we have to monitor Grace's BM patterns and be sure she goes every day. Doesn't that sound like fun? But I suppose this is worth it . . .

Glimpses of our life

Yes it has been FOREVER since I have blogged. Much has been going on since I last wrote.
We went on vacation to North Carolina/Tennessee. We spent a few days at a family reunion, we stayed in a cabin, we went fishing, we went to Dollywood, and we saw the Witt's in Johnson City. We had a blast.
Brandon had surgery upon our return. When he was five he had a cyst in his jaw that required the removal of some permanent teeth as well as took half of his jawbone. Now that he is all grown up - it is time to look at implants back there. Before we can do implants, we have to grow some jawbone. Surgery one involved putting in a device that over about 10 days we will grow 1 cm of jawbone. He will have another surgery to remove the device. And then a final one to do the implants. Craziness! But once everything is said and done - he will have a perfect set of teeth in his mouth with no braces!
Sophia had a tooth pulled (again)! That is always a good time!
Gracie is starting to enjoy sitting on the big girl pottie! We only get results about 1 every 10 times but this morning was one of those times! YAY!
Dawson attended Hornets Camp to learn all about middle school. Yikes - this year I will have a senior in high school, a 6th grader in middle school, and a kindergartner in elementary. Crazy!
Enjoy some photos of vacation . . .