Nolan's Football Birthday Party

This year Nolan decided he wanted a football themed birthday . I kept throwing out other ideas but he was certain that is what he wanted. We got to work and found some cute ideas for his party . On the big day he was so excited! We had it at Great Play and all of our sweet friends were able to make it. The kids played lots of games including a few football relays that he loved. For the food we kept with the theme and of course had stadium hot dogs and chips. We had Linebacker Lemonade and little football water to quench their thirst. After we headed over to the Sideline Sweets bar where they kids got to fill their bags full of different sweets. Next it was time to sing happy birthday! Nathan blew out his 5 football candles and made a huge wish. When the party was over we sent our friends on their way with personalized football water bottles for the boys and cheerleaders for the girls. I love watching the boys have so much fun on their birthday with all of our sweet friends. We are so lucky to have the friends and family we do that make their days so special .

Valentines at School

It is hard to find Valentines that the boys think are cool. I came across an idea with whoopee cushions and loved it . For some reason I didn't realize it was inappropriate until after they left for school. OOPS. I didn't get any calls from teachers so I guess that was good. Nathan did tell me that his teacher said do not take Nathan's valentines out of the package until you are home :) We also sent her one of our favorite books out right now with a cute note about her being a rainbow.

Nolan Plays Football

So Nolan decided he needs to play football. I thought how can we tell him no after he is always having to tag along for Nathan . We talked his buddy Josh into signing up with him, sat back and watched the show. He had a great time but really doesn't get the whole idea yet. The team had a pretty big age group ranging from 4  to six. Nolan and Josh were definitely the younger two but tried to keep up with the big guys. Their coach was so sweet and patient with them which was perfect for his first time playing. He told us he wants to be defense like JJ Watt so that works .

Christmas LIghts

We had kind of been slacking on Christmas activites this year with our Disney trip falling right in the middle of December. It was right around the corner and we hadn't even seen Santa yet. Someone had told Kyle about a neighborhood in the Heights that decorates and even has a Santa at one house. We decided to go and check it out. It was pretty darn neat. We saw Santa sitting out front so we headed on over to say hi . The boys were so cute with him and he was very sweet. They put in their wish list and got a candy cane just like they had done it a million times before. We then drove and looked at all the beautiful houses and lights. It is so fun to listen to the boys in the back of the car saying which ones they like the best and why.

Christmas parties at school

It's Christmas time! We LOVE Christmas time around this house. The boys both had some super fun Christmas parties at school. Nathans was first . It started off in the classroom with a fun game of candy bingo. After they were good and sugared up they headed into the cafeteria for some more holiday fun. They made necklaces, reindeer food and got to hang out with Santa and Mrs. Claus.
Nathan had such a good time .and I love being able to see him in his school setting with friends. They are so cute and I love how sweet they are to each other.
Nolans party was next. This one was not short on holiday sugar either. They started out with a little program to sing happy birthday to Jesus and ended with cutting his birthday cake. The little ones then went back into the classrooms where cupcakes were waiting for them. After they made a cool Jesus necklace and had a photo booth set up with super cute Christmas props. He of course had a great time also. I know they are both going to miss all of their friends and teachers over the long Christmas break.

I love being able to see them in their school settings with friends. They are so cute and I love how sweet they are to each other.

Nolan Update

 To try and make what seems like a very long story short here is the run down of Nolan and his last year of stuff that has come up . Last year Nolan started having some sleeping issues and would come down in our room most nights. We of course just thought this was normal 4 year old behavior . It was getting pretty regular so we would do the whole pick him up take him back . It would happen again within an hour or so . You could set your clock by what time he would come down every night so we of course thought it was just turning into habit. At school his wonderful teacher had noticed that he would just loose attention very easily. Nolan is   our funny fun guy and this is just normal for him to be a little pre occupied with something more fun than learning. She seemed concerned because she said he is such a smart boy and she is worried other teachers will just dismiss him since he had problems focusing. I wondered if it was his lack of sleep that was making him a little spacey. Luckily we had an appointment with his doctor for his well check coming up . At the doctors appt. I brought up the teachers concerns and his sleep issues. He wanted us to see a child psychologist for and evaluation to rule out ADD or a mild form of Autism and get a sleep study. At first both Kyle and I thought what the heck is this guy talking about !!! I searched all over and could not find anyone who would evaluate him at such a young age or if they would it was over a 6 month wait. I finally found a counselor who would and she was amazing. She just observed and talked to him for a few sessions and let us know there were no red flags for either. That was very good news to us.
Next up was the sleep study. We headed over to an overnight place where they hooked him all up to what seemed like a million wires. He didn't even seem to mind at all. We did our normal night time routine of sleep , wake, sleep , wake. We had our appointment to go over the results and the doctor said we needed to see a neurologist??????????? WHAT? He said that there was a lower oxygen like he had suspected but was more concerned about some brain waves he saw. I was so confused and had no clue what that meant. The original plan was to give him melatonin to help him sleep. He told us to hold of on anything until we figured out what was going on.
Next stop was the Neurologist. We meet her and she reviewed his study and told us what she thought was seizures happening at night. We needed to do a more detailed sleep study where she would hook him up in the afternoon and let it go all night into the morning. A week later we headed over and they hooked him up to another million wires and his backpack. This time we got to do the study at home with all the equipment packed away in a backpack that would record everything. It was much easier being at home. Nolan of course called it his Ninja backpack so he didn’t mind .
Next step the appointment to go over the study. She said he wasn't just having the seizure activity at night but she also saw it while he was hooked up during the say. She told us she didn’t like what she saw and wanted us to get an MRI on him to make sure it wasn’t a TUMOR!!! ? What? She then proceeded to tell us it would be the best case if it was? Who tells a parent something like that? We asked what happens if it isn’t a tumor causing this . She gave us some names of different medications she would like to put him on for seizures.
Kyle did a little research on the medications and there was no way ! Lets just say the list of side effects was a hundred times worse than what was happening to Nolan.
Next step MRI. This was the scariest part of all of it for me. My sweet man was having to be put to sleep to do this. I did not like that at all. We had to go to the Children's hospital and they were so sweet to him. The nurse who did his IV told him he could pick out his Ninja color for the tape . I feel like she was so fast he didn't even realize what she was doing. He hung around a bit and then they started to drug him up . We walked back to where he would be doing the MRI and they put a medication in his IV and he was out within 3 seconds. It was crazy . They took him back :( He was done pretty quickly . When went back to the recovery area and all of the nurses were cracking up . They told us he was the funniest drunk they have ever had. I guess your true personality comes out under anesthesia. He was drinking his apple juice trying to chat it up and had no clue what he was saying.
Next step , follow up for MRI. This was the longest wait ever. It seemed like I kept calling and no one had anything. I was about to loose it and finally they called and said it was clear! Best news ever.
Not to long after we got a letter saying our neurologist had left the group and we would need to find a new one. Just great! In the middle of this . Looking back that was probably the best thing that happened to us. I had gotten some names and tried to find a new doctor who would take us. This is not easy. I lucked out and got a spot from where someone cancelled with a Neurologist that had great reviews.
We went to meet Dr. Gay who was very straight forward which we liked. He said he wanted to see the actual data from the study before he told us for sure but he was very against putting him on any medication. He agreed that the side effects right now are not worth it. I got the data to him and within a day he called and said he is sticking with him first decision of no medication. He said we will keep an eye on it and see what happens. It could fix itself , it could get worse, you never know.
During this time we had started him in speech since he was quite a bit behind on that . We were told to start him out early when it is easy to fix . He has an amazing speech therapist who about a month in asked us to get him checked out by an ENT. She was concerned that he just wasn’t improving . He always has his mouth open and all of the work they had been doing wasn’t helping in that area at all. 
We went to the ENT who stuck a camera up his nose. Nolan did not like this! He quickly said oh he can’t breath. His adenoids are so big there is no air flow. He also wanted to test his hearing. Oh guess what? He can’t hear. His adenoids had been blocking the fluid from draining from his ears . He said that his ears had probably been clogged for a very long time and he couldn’t hear. This was crazy to us because Nolan never gets sick or has ear infections. The doctor said he just has a good immune system that didn’t allow it to become infected. I guess that is good news? .
So next step , get those adenoids out and put some tubes in my mans ears so he can hear. This surgery required him to be put out once again. :( He was my little ninja as usual and did great. He came out of anesthesia this time ready to go! It was crazy , he was even  asking to get Chick Fil A on the way home? He recovered in no time .
We are still doing speech and he is getting much better. We had talked about holding him back from kindergarten and putting him in bridge so he had a chance to catch up . We just had a conference with his teacher and she said no way. She said he is a very smart little guy who needs to be in kindergarten. We have decided to listen to her and put him in . He seems to be learning like crazy and has even learned most of his site words already.  He still has a few sleep issues but looking back we are very lucky that is it. We will do another sleep study soon to see if he has outgrown the seizures. As for now he is just perfect and we are so happy it wasn’t anything more serious. I know some people are not as lucky as us and I have to remind myself of that.