Karter’s 3rd Birthday

On Saturday, January 9th, Karter turned 3 years old. I could hardly believe that our little Karter Henry was turning 3. I mean, really? It had been three years already? That could hardly be. I mean, he’s just my little baby, right? He still needs me for everything he does, right? Hardly! Here are some fun facts about Karter:

1 – He is quite a Daddy’s boy, except when he’s sick. (Hey, I’ll take what I can get.)

2 – He refers to Grandpa and Grandma Hooyer as “Grandpa with the Sheep and Grandma with the Sheep”.

3 – He refers to Grandpa and Grandma Langstraat as “Grandpa with the Barn and Grandma with the barn”

4 – He asks lots of questions about where Grandpa with the Barn is and why he is with God.

5 – His new favorite phrase is, “I do that all myself, mommy.”

6 – He weighs 43 lbs, and I think he’s right at 40” tall.

7 – He loves days that he gets to start by watching cartoons with Daddy.

8 – He adores his little brother and even lets him play with his tractors occasionally.

9 – He loves puzzles and singing the ABC’s

10 – He can count to about 16, but he always forgets number ten. (I didn’t even plan that this one would be #10 in the list.)

Here are some pictures from his birthday party:

I have to tell you… he was SO excited about his birthday cake. He had to show everyone that came to his party. It turned out so perfect. Not only was it absolutely adorable, it was also so very delicious (even though I didn’t really want to cut into it). Holly Dibbet made the cake. You can see more of her wonderful work at: http://hollyscreativecreations.blogspot.com/

Thanks, Holly for making this for Karter. It made the day even more special!

Brent and I picked out a new bike for Karter. I couldn’t believe I was buying a big boy bike for my little boy. He just seems too little. Doesn’t look like his is, huh?

Here is Karter with his Handy Manny Tools (that sing really loudly, thanks Sheryl :-) and his new friend, Logan. Logan is so adorable, and I hope they get to be good buds! (Plus, he’s a Bears fan.)

Here’s what he got from Grandma with the Barn.

Don’t you love the look with no pants on?

It was a great day! We are so blessed with such wonderful family and friends. Karter got so many nice gifts, and he had such a great time! I just love that little boy (yes, he’s still my little boy) so very much! (Even if he is starting to say that he’s a Vikings fan. It’s not too late for me and my Bears.)

Christmas Memories

Christmas of 2009 was certainly one to be remembered. With what seemed like millions of inches of snow, bad roads and postponed Christmas parties, this was in no way a normal Christmas. To be honest with you, I really enjoyed it.

There was no rushing from one party to another while trying to make sure the kids have time for a nap. I didn’t have to spend a ton of time making food ahead of time for a few days’ worth of parties. Nope. We stayed home, opened presents, played with the kids and their new toys/games, and just really enjoyed our time together.

Karter got a new scoop, so he was so excited to help Brent scoop snow.

I was a bit of a scrooge up until a few days before Christmas. I kept thinking that we weren’t going to put up a Christmas tree. Who puts up a Christmas tree when you have a one and a two year old? Then I started to regret that I didn’t do it, because where were we supposed to put our gifts? Well, luckily Brent had more of the Christmas spirit than I did. He went and picked up a pre-lit Christmas tree. PERFECT! Karter was so excited, and Brody really could have cared less. We got it all put together and turned the lights on. I couldn’t decide if we should put ornaments on it or not, so Karter decorated the tree for us.

What’s that? You don’t see many decorations? That’s because there’s only one… look closely…

Look closer yet…

That’s right… a chip clip was our only decoration, and Karter was so proud that he put it on there. Now I don’t have to dread taking all the decorations off the tree.

Here’s just a few pictures for you all to enjoy…

I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year.

Love,

The Hooyers

Focusing on the Good News

Hey everyone. I just wanted to update everyone on what’s going on with Brent. November 5th marked the one year anniversary of the day that Brent was diagnosed with Leukemia. I will never forget that day. I will never forget how calm we were as Dr Van Es spoke those words, “I think it could be Leukemia. I’m waiting for a call back from Dr Wender”. There we sat. Feeling slightly… numb.

I am happy to say that after one year and many blood tests, dr’s appts, bone marrow tests, tears and smiles… Brent is CANCER FREE! Amazing, right? God has always been and continues to be SO GOOD! Who ever thought we would be saying these words after only one year? I must admit… I didn’t think it.

We got this great news at Brent’s appt with Dr Wender, which was Wednesday, November 4th. We got there, they did the normal blood work, nurse consult, etc. Then it was time to meet with Dr Wender. He came in, sat on the chair all weird like he always does and told us that Brent’s counts from the bone marrow test he had on 10/30 all looked great. There was still no evidence of the Philadelphia chromosome (in other words, there was no Leukemia). At this point, I was feeling good. So, I started asking questions. I asked what the game plan was from here on out. What was he watching for? What would tell him when it was OK to take Brent off the pills? That is when we got some shocking news, and I suddenly remembered all to well the way you can go from good to numb in the matter of a few words.

“Brent will be on these pills for life.”

What? Excuse me? From this point on, I’m pretty sure I mumbled like an idiot. This was all of a sudden becoming very real to me. So the questions continued. Listed below are the questions we asked and the answers we received.

 

THE STUDY BRENT IS ON IS AN 8 YEAR STUDY… DO WE PAY FOR EVERYTHING AFTER THAT 8 YEARS.

Yes. (This may seem like an unimportant question, but the pills alone are about $1500/month (before insurance – Sorry Interstates).

 

WHAT HAPPENS IF BRENT GOES OFF THE PILLS?

The odds are not good. 1 in 4 people will relapse.

 

WE WERE TOLD THAT WE SHOULDN’T HAVE CHILDREN WHILE BRENT IS ON THESE PILLS. IS THAT CORRECT?

Yes, that is correct. There is no research to say that the pills wouldn’t affect the fetus (or baby, as I like to call it). If you really wanted to have another child, Brent could go off the pills for a while and then go back on.

(That would be a nice option, but once Brent stops taking the pills he would be off the study. We would then have to pay for the pills when he went back on them. Even more than that, I’m not willing to compromise Brent’s health! I would then end up with a sick husband and 3 children. Nope, I’ll keep the healthy husband and two kids.)

 

This was a lot of information to take in. To be very honest, I’m still struggling with it. I know what many of you are thinking. “At least you have two healthy children.” And that is so very true! But you are talking to someone that LOVES being pregnant. I love everything about it (OK, maybe not EVERYTHING, but you know what I mean). I love the bond that is built between a mother and child. I love that Brent is the best husband ever and would take such good care of me. I loved feeling the boys kick and hiccup. I loved hearing the heartbeat.

Who knows what God has in plan for us. There are obviously other options. Maybe God will lead us to adopt. Or maybe He wants us to be content with the two children we have. I thank God every day for my 3 boys (Brent, Karter and Brody), and I’m not about to stop. This was just news that takes some time to process and accept. I’m still a little numb.

I want to leave you all with a verse that I found today. It is on my my daily calendar, and it showed up on a blog that I follow, too. Enjoy…

 

I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you, as you trust in Him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep and how high His love really is… And so at last you will be filled up with God Himself.

Ephesians 3:17-19

I LOVE FALL!

 

Why do I love fall?

Why do you think?

I love fall…

Because…

It’s a great time

for someone else

to take pictures of

my boys.

I love fall!

Brody’s Birthday (Continued)

The day before Brody’s birthday Brent called me at work. He had just picked up the boys from Gretchen’s house, and he called to ask me what Chicken Pox look like. He also asked if I had noticed a rash on Brody when I was getting him ready to go that morning. Nope, I didn’t notice anything. He had been at daycare all day long, and Gretchen noticed a few funny spots on him after he got up from his afternoon nap. That night the spots got increasingly worse. I, of course, called the expert. Mom described what chicken pox looked like, and I just didn’t think that was what Brody had. We just decided we’d take him in to the Dr in the morning and go from there. The spots at that time were just on his legs and stomach.

Here is how Brody looked the next morning, you know… on his birthday…

The spots had spread to his face. In fact, the only place that the spots didn’t appear was on the palms of his hands and the bottom of his feet. Crazy! As you can see by his silly lil smile, the spots weren’t really affecting him.

We wracked our brains to think of anything that had been done differently, or if he had eaten anything new. The only things we could come up with was:

1 – He was on amoxicillin for his ear infections. I had heard horror stories of people reacting to that before.

2 – He had eaten strawberries at Gretchen’s house on Monday.

3 – I put a new outfit on him on Monday, and because I was in a hurry I didn’t wash it before putting it on him.

 

We headed to the dr and told them everything we had thought of. They were shocked to see how bad his spots were. They said this wasn’t typical of anything they had seen before. They put in his chart that he’s allergic to both amoxicillin and strawberries. Better safe than sorry!

Here’s what he looked like that morning:

 

And here’s what he looked like by that night:

They gave us a new medicine for his ears and told us to give him Claritin for his rash. We thought we were good. And then… Wednesday night happened. We went up to Brent’s parent’s for supper that night. As the night went on Brody started to feel warmer and warmer. But that wasn’t it. He also started to get more and more swollen. His little legs were so swollen that his thighs didn’t even have fat rolls. His feet looked like if I touched them they would explode. It was awful. In addition to the swelling, he also started to turn really purple. His skin, his lips, everything. I ended up taking him into the ER. They checked him over and did some blood work. Everything appeared normal (unless you looked at him instead of his chart). They gave him a dose of oral steroids, a prescription for more, and sent us packing.

I was certainly relieved that it was nothing more serious. I was a little nervous in the ER. The Dr kept saying she was very worried about him. She threw out words like platelets, and that’s just not a good word in my vocabulary. God was right there with us, though, and Brody now looks like this:

We’re still fighting some sleepless nights. They tell us that’s because of the steroids, and tomorrow is his last dose of that. YEAH! We’re ready to have our happy little 1-year old back again!

Happy Birthday, Brody

Tuesday, October 20th, Brody celebrated his first birthday. It’s so hard to believe that it has been an entire year already. It just doesn’t seem like that is even possible!

 

We had his birthday party the Saturday before his birthday. It was a ton of fun! Well, mostly. Unfortunately Brody had double ear infection. He did really well most of the time, but there was about 45 minutes during the party that he wanted nothing to do with anyone or anything. After the Tylenol kicked in, he was back to his happy self. He was especially happy once we gave him his own cake to destroy.

 

Karter was a little annoyed that all the gifts were for Brody. Here he is begging Brent to let this be his present.

We had the party at Hanno Family Fun Farm (between Le Mars and Oyens). It’s such a fun place. They have two barns that are all decked out. One barn is two levels. The main floor has all picnic tables, and a place for babies to play. The second level has karoake, basketball and other games. The second building has basketball, pool, foos ball and more games. They also have a lil train that the kids can ride, sand volleyball, lawn games and even a softball diamond (unfortunately it was too cold for those activities when we were there). You should check out their website if you get a chance. It’s http://hannofamilyfunfarm.com/.

 

Thanks to everyone who came out to help us celebrate Brody’s birthday!

More updates to come, but one quick thing before I forget. Last night I was laying in Karter’s bed with him before he went to sleep. We had just said his prayers, and Brent had already left the room. We were just laying there chatting. As I got up and left his room, it was so obvious to me that I am a mother of boys. In that short 5 minutes, we talked about boogers, God and Grandpa. I love being the mother of 2 of the most wonderful boys ever!

Two Years... Where has the time gone?

Two years ago at this time, the entire Langstraat family took turns sitting next to Dad. We would just simply sit there. It was enough. And although no one wants to watch their Dad lay in a hospital bed day after day after day, I miss those days so much. Up until the very end (or his beginning, as I like to think of it), every time you would take any of the grandkids into that room, Dad would light up. He always knew who the grandkids were, and he was always thrilled to see them. It didn't matter if they were whiney or cranky, or even if they were getting in trouble for spilling the blue slushies from the cafeteria... Dad was happy to see them, and they were happy to see Grandpa.

It's so amazing to sit and listen to the grandkids talk about Grandpa. Sometimes they don't even know they are doing it. It's what's on their hearts, and so it comes spilling out. This is where I seem to be struggling lately. I just am so sad that my boys won't be able to tell stories like that.

I try really hard to tell my boys stories about their Grandpa, and to make sure they know what kind of man he was, but that's not always the easiest thing to do. So, I'm looking for your help here...

If any of you out there in blog land have any stories about Dad, could you post a comment on my blog and tell me the stories? This would mean so very much to me. Here's a funny one to get you going...

Just to prove that Dad still had his sense of humor up until his very last days on earth...

Mom was sitting next to Dad's hospital bed, and we all knew that he could go at any minute. The rest of us kids were all sleeping. Some in the room, some in the waiting room, some in their beds at home. Mom was kind of going in and out of sleep, when she heard Dad whisper, "Oh look at the pretty clouds." Mom thought for sure that we had lost him. She could barely breathe. Then she looked at him only to realize that he was looking at the clouds on the TV. I honestly can not look at a cloud without thinking of him.

Thanks, everyone!

Kelli