The Osero's Christmas

Our Christmas tree in the morning....PHEW, Santa cameLooks like we were Good this year

Where's Danny?

Avrianna's stash

My two favorite Dan's!Ah ~ so sweet

She looks sweet and innocent in these pictures.......Boy does she have you fooled! LOL My mom got her this formal dress for her dress-up box. She and her friends wear it all the time.

Here are the socks I cross stitched for each of us

Avrianna helping Danny by reading him the Title of the movie he got

Avrianna got the Digial Piano and the Wii Disney Sing It so she has been singing and playing her lil heart out. Dan got the Wii hunting game and he's been shooting things left n right. I got a coffee/cappicinno (all in one) machine so I've been drinking alot of caffine, heehee. I also got a digital picture frame so I'm really excited to get all my favorite pics together and showcase them off in there.

We had a very low key Christmas once again this year. It was just us four and we hung around in our jammies, played with our toys, cooked together and ate like royality. IT WAS AWESOME! We had no where we had to be and I just loved not running around like crazy people for the holidays. This will DEFINITELY be our tradition for many years to come.

Avrianna has off of school this whole week and she is counting down the days she has "left to play". She is having a great time playing with the neighbors :)

Danny managed to stay well over Christmas and I can only hope this continues into the New Year. He will be going back into see Dr Kasper later this week for labs plus I want him to take a look at Danny's right hand/wrist. It looks to me like he has a contractor there, UGH! Never a dull moment with this BOY, that's ok it keeps me out of trouble. LOL

I am going to participate in a MS walk April 2010 as many of you know I was diagnosed with MS in June of 2009. If you'd like to pledge a donation in my honor please click on the link in the left column or click HERE. You can help walk the journey with me and join my team, My New DreaMS also by clicking HERE. Thanks for your support!

Catching UP

Ohhhhhh what a slacker I have been on the blog, Sorry! Let's see what we've been up too. It's been a very busy week for us.

Avrianna, in addition to her swim meet practices 3x a week, has started private piano lessons on Tuesdays. She really enjoys it and she is really taking to the piano fast :)

On Thursday Avrianna had her school Christmas program. She did wonderful!! She LOVED dressing up in her formal attire.Yeah the social butterfly chit chatting on stage, lolOn Friday she had her Brownie Christmas get together at the troop leaders house. Here is most of the troops .... standing proud with their hats n mittens that they collected for the mitten drive.Then Saturday I took Avrianna to The building for Kids for 3 hours to participate in a Sibshop with the Sibling Support group. She had a blast playing with everyone!

I just got back from running her to the doctors office as she woke up this morning with a soar throat....I was thinking it was due to her breathing through her mouth last night, but when I picked her up from school, after I volunteered in the school holiday shop, I could tell she wasn't running on all cylinders. Well leave it to my kids to get sick over winter break....boy am I glad we're not in Florida, HAHAHAHAHAHAHA (can you sense the sarcasm). The rapid strep test came back negative, but that doesn't mean I won't be getting a phone call in a day or two to run to the pharmacy as it grew out in the culture. She is running a fever, pale, chills and is tired so something it brewing. I'm hoping she'll be better in the morning, but she hasn't been ill in awhile. UGH!! Lets hope she doesn't share this! AS..........

Danny is starting to feel better, whoohoooooo! We sat at Dr Kasper's clinic for 2 hours this on Thursday to do a trial on Tobi (a breathing treatment) which went well. We had thought Danny had a reaction to this particular med when in the hospital this summer, but so far no reactions. This is GREAT! The doctors feel this is the best neb for Danny to be on to help fight off the bug he has had forever. So I'm glad we did the trial and that Dr Kasper took time, on his day off, to spend in the clinic to watch over Lil Man....have I told you how lucky we are to have the best ped. around? If the Tobi and new oral antibiotic doesn't work then Danny will have to go in for a PICC line and we'll have to treat him with heavy IV meds.

Wednesday the 23rd at 5:56pm Danny will be 6 yrs old ~ where does the time go? I can't believe he will be 6. What a hard road this year has been for him, I look back at this year and I can't believe what he had went through. I hope n pray that 6 is a good number and he'll be able to enjoy this year instead of fighting for his life n the hospitals. He is starting to vocalize more and his smile is starting to show up more and more. Just brings tears to my eyes knowing how close we were to losing him this summer, I'm so blessed to have more time with him :) Tomorrow will be and has been a rough day for me as I usually dwell on things the day before his birthday and try to get it out of my system before his SPECIAL DAY.

Christmas is going to be very low key here at The Osero's. We are going to make dinner for Christmas Eve and play games hanging out together as a family. Then Christmas morning we'll wake up open our gifts and hang out in our jammies for most of or all of the day playing with our toys, munchin on munchies and making a nice dinner in the evening. Ahhhhhhh ~ I LOVE IT! We did this last year and enjoyed it so much that this is going to be our tradition every year. Spending it with the kids and NO Hustle n Bustle! There is enough time off of school where we can get together with our families and celebrate. The whole idea of cramming everyone & thing in two days is just insane.

Thanks for following our story. Please sign our guestbook or post a comment to let us know you stopped by....we LOVE hearing from you too :) Take care, Be Safe, and Have a Wonderful Holiday

Danny's Birthday Party

It's ALL fun n games till Santa finds out, LOL!Saturday the 12th we had Danny's 6th Birthday Party....his birthday isn't till the 23rd, but we were suppose to be leaving for Florida this week so I wanted to have a party for him with all his buddies before we left (now we are NOT going to Florida)Danny's birthday cake made by : MOM, I love you buddy!Our VERY special Guest! Amazing how busy this man is this time of year and yet he still takes time out to visit Danny and his friends :)Look at Danny look at Santa......I know he "saw" Santa that night. I saw this picture and just cried. I get emotional this time of year anyway, but when a complete "stranger" comes and connects with Danny .......well it just makes me one happy Momma. Thanks Santa you've already given me the best present EVER! If Danny can't get to Santa.........Santa will come to Danny :) I think this picture ranks as an all time fav!We ended up with 32 adults and 18 kiddos (5 of them in chairs). Santa spent time with each kid and then stayed for everyone to get family pictures if they wanted. It was wonderful! Now I think the builder understands why we built the house the way we did, it's all about the kids :)Here's my Mom (aka Nanny) with her elves! Unfortunately Danny wasn't able to stay out for his whole party. I'm not sure if it was all the excitement or a mucus plug that got stuck but he needed to go back to his room so we could do back to back breathing treatments and put him on oxygen :( I was pretty bummed, but he recovered well enough to come back out so we could sing Happy Birthday to him before we cut the cake. Reality slap in the face.....how sick he has been and still is, it's hard not to dwell in those dark places we don't want to mention. How many more parties will he have? Which makes EACH n EVERY moment and memory more special. Thanks to ALL that came to help celebrate Danny's Birthday!! He's definitely growing into my "Lil Man" :)
Danny will be going back into see Dr Kasper tomorrow for more labs. I was going to bring him in today but his temp is controlled with Ibuprofen still and the weather isn't the best to driving or taking Danny out in. We've talked every day with Dr Kasper on the phone ...... what a wonderful man! Danny is SO LUCKY to have THE BEST pediatrician EVER! I've said it before and will say it ALWAYS.....we are indebted to Dr Kasper as I KNOW Danny would not have made it this far without this man. His compassion and commitment to my son is irreplaceable. Unfortunately Danny's liver function have doubled in the last week so we are going to tweek his meds and if that doesn't work we going to have to bang around heads together once again, UGH!

Snow Storm Allison

We'll hanging around the fireplace today ~ Sipping some hot toddies :)Holy Blizzard.....this one is ranking just about the strongest winter storm in December EVER! I'm so glad I'm here to enjoy it, NOT!! Already 12" in 20 hours and we still haven't gotten to the middle of this storm yet. Winds are about 35mph with guts of 51mph. UGH. Then tonight the temps are suppose to drop to negative numbers, YUCK! I do have to say it is pretty though.... this is what we woke up too this morning :)Dan using the new tractor with the snow blower....boy I bet he's glad he got that attachment :)Here is Avrianna playing the snow after school yesterday...attempting to build a snowman. Well today she won't have a problem, other then finding an area of snow that won't consume HER, lol. (I have no idea how I did this picture, but I LOVE it)Danny's Christmas present came so we decided to give it to him early as that is ALOT to wrap. He seems to enjoy it already, but of course it isn't approved until Avrianna tests it out.
Here are some pictures of Avrianna at her swim meet this weekend in Shawano. She got ribbons for 11 and 12 place in her 3 heats. Her third one she would have gotten 9th but got DQ'd for not properly pushing of the wall
Cheering her other team mates on
So serious....getting ready for her 25 FLYCoach Curt discussing the last heat with Avrianna

I LOVE this picture of her

Here Avrianna is doing the backstroke....she is in the 4th lane...look for the lime green goggles. She is doing so well. I'm SO PROUD of her...and as you'll hear, I'm her biggest fan :) (she came in 2nd in this heat)

Still Sick!

Love this T-shirt....so appropriate! Everyone always wants to kiss him!! Thanks Griffy for the shirt! Too bad he was so sick when I took this. You can see how glassy his eyes are and how pale he is. Danny is going on 2 weeks with this last bought of Pneumonia ;( with no real improvement as of yet. Yesterday we went in for labs and more xrays. We started up steroids yesterday and MORE breathing treatments. Poor guy! I feel awful he been so sick lately. Guess I had this false impression that the trache would help him, well I guess it does with the cares of the pneumonia, but I was hoping he wouldn't GET it so much. This makes #2 in the last 2 months. As I know all TOO WELL every pneumonia it gets makes his poor lil boy more tired and can cause more damage to his lungs. I worry about that amount of pneumonia's he has had this year and I'm FREAKING out! I was always told that what Danny has won't take him, it will be a respiratory problem that will............... I'm worried :(
Here's is Danny's other nurse Meghan! I'm slowly getting pictures of Danny with his AWESOME caregivers. Danny and I are SO LUCKY to have wonderful people with us :)

Last night was our REAL first snow. Check out the BIG flakes! It was very pretty.......I've seen the snow and now it can GO, heehee. Um yeah I'm NOT a winter person AT ALL! It's pretty n all but the cold SUCKS! With that being said I don't think we are going to go to Florida for winter/Christmas break like we had planned. I don't want to risk being in another state with Danny being so unstable....I don't think anyone would have fun, it'd be to hard on everyone, and it's not worth making him sicker for just a trip. Danny is more comfortable here in his own bed and we have more support for him here, so I think we'll have to plan a trip down south another time. Danny's health is more important right now plus Avrianna will be pretty happy about it as she wasn't too impressed with being in Florida for Christmas anyway.

Last week Dan and I broke out the Norwegian side of us. We made Kringla and I attempted my first time with Lefse. Avrianna busted out her apron and helped me out with the Kringla this year. Dan has assumed the baking responsibilities, heehee. So we are making it a family tradition :) Here are some pictures of the lefse....I even liked eating this year.

Avrianna being silly last night! :)

Must be Sunday

Seems like every Sunday Danny likes to throw a few curve balls at us. Poor Aleana :( ...well at least she won't' get bored with us. Danny has been up since 2:30am and is breathing crappy. When will this pnuemonia stop!
Yesterday and today have been spa days around here. I gave everyone a hair cut including a cut n color to myself, heehee. Then when Avrianna was over at friends house I gave myself a pedi n manicure. AHhhhhhhhh! Looking and feeling good. Then we watched some movie's yesterday so it was pretty low key. Today we are going to attempt to make Kringla and Lesfe. YUM!
Thanksgiving was a blast here at The Osero household. We had 26 people here for dinner. I LOVED it, except that Danny was so off he couldn't come out of his room :( That made me very sad, but I spent alot of time in there with him. We had GREAT company and the food was amazing!
Our sleep over company :) Can't wait to have you guys over again!
Avrianna working very hard in her Fruit GobblerAll done! Well I just got off the phone with Dr K and we are going to start another antibiotic today as he just isn't improving and his cultures from Friday still weren't impressive. UGH! Bring on the diarrhea!

Tis the Season!

My lil Man aka the great hunter caught himself pneumonia, AGAIN! Poor thing breathes as if he just got done running a race in the water. His trache acts like a coffee pot perculater or a sling shot (depending if hocks a loogey at you, lol). So we started up breathing treatments, increased Mr Jiggles, and he's on an antibiotic (plus he got two shots of rocephin in ER). He wasn't tolerating his bolus feeds yesterday afternoon so I put him on a continuous feed for awhile as I'm sure his gut is going to feel the rath of this illness also. I know the antibiotics are already working there magic, YUCK! I am just AMAZED at how fast this respiratory bug flew in and the strength of it. It can leave any time now, heehee
Dan has been deer hunting up north since last Tuesday so I get to tackle the kids solo. He was able to shoot a spike last Thursday with his bow, but since then the deer have been hiding, heehee. I guess no one (I believe there are 18 at the shack) were able to shoot a deer this year so far. How very disappointing! Where are the DEER!
While I was decorating our new tree upstairs, Avrianna decorated our old tree downstairs. I think she did a FANTASTIC job.

Here's our new tree....12' tall. Guess I wasn't thinking about how many times I was going to need to go UP and DOWN a ladder with a tree this size. But I think it looks wonderful. That will teach Dan to leave us alone for a week, heehee. I think he is going to really like it!

My lil bath Elf's!

We are having Thanksgiving here at the house this year and we are anticipating around 25 people (4 of them that are going to stay over nite). I actually can't wait....the more the merrier. I LOVE to entertain! Just wish Danny would corporate alil more, heehee. It should get alil easier once Dan gets home tomorrow. But if you know me, I'm always on my game when there is alil chaos going on :)

Hope everyone has a filling and thankful Thanksgiving this year. Be safe!

Catching UP

Well the remodel project is slowly wrapping up, thank GOD! Just when I think it's safe to start cleaning something else needs to be redone. For the most part I have the house picked up but I am having someone come in on Tuesday to get all the dust out of the house. I'm sick of doing it! Today the tile guy came out to replace two tiles, one that had a chip and the other was flawed. I think after today I can say that my floor is complete :). The walls are up but they need another coat of paint. Then the trim and the doors can go back up.
I ended up having to take Danny into the ER last Sunday as he was still having his pain/seizure episodes. After xrays, labs, cathing, an IV placed and 4.5 hours later they couldn't find anything "abnormal" so we went home. The next morning I went to get him cleaned up for the day and there was blood in his ear. Um ~ I guess no one looked into his ears when he was in the ER or they would have found a nasty ear infection. Could this be the drive to his seizures, ya, but time will tell. We've been flushing his ears and doing drops which seem to have helped as the drainage has slowed down alot. We did increase his seizure meds some to take the edge off, but he still has about one episode a day, which just breaks my heart to see.
Avrianna had her conferences this week. She is doing GREAT! I'm so glad she transitioned really well into school and that she was able to stay in the second grade. I knew she would do amazing! She continues to stay busy doing swim on Mon, Tues, Thurs and some Fri's and then Wed she still has piano. I try to give her a day off and we usually don't go to swim on Friday's.
Dan is very busy getting ready for the hunting season. So I'll be a single mom for the next few days. I hope to get some more of my Christmas shopping done :) and even some wrapping. I'm so behind!

LOONEY !!!!

This morning the tile guy came to start the tile in the front entry. The sub floor had too much deflection in it when he came out yesterday. He was afraid the grout lines would crack if we had him put the tile on the sub floor with the way it was. So Dan and Mike worked at anchoring it better, in the afternoon so it was ready for when Scott came this morning. I couldn't take the dust anymore so I started cleaning last night I washed the wood floor, vacuumed, and dust in the living area....... For it to be a complete washout, as when the sub floor was getting prepared they needed to clean it off, obviously, so he swept without having plastic up.....needless to say I have to do it ALL again. In addition to the rest of the house, boy does this fine dust travel ~ EVERYWHERE! I sat and cried as there is only so much a person can take. I want to rip my eyes out as they itch so bad, my mouth is dry and I have a taste of dust all the time. YUM :( I can only hope that all this doesn't effect Danny's respiratory system. I was definitely overwhelmed this afternoon as I took a look at my white powdered home, cried alil, and now I'm in GO MODE to get rid of the problem! Dan took Avrianna up North with him as she and I need a much needed break from each other, just 7 year old DRAMA, so I decided to take out all my frustrations and free time to clean this weekend. YA ME............NOT :( But it's a necessary evil that must be done, as I must be allergic to it and I'm afraid if Danny breathes this in too much longer we are going to have BIGGER problems then my house being dirty. I tried calling around for a maid to come over, but over course none of them could come over today, so......... I locked Danny and myself in his room, started at the ceiling, and worked my way down. One room done and many more to go! I'm starting with the bedrooms and then I'm going to leave ALL the doors closed so this MAJOR dust problem hopefully doesn't get so OUT OF CONTROL. Just call me MERRY MAID!
This was posted on Facebook and the story is so touching. Please help Noah have the best Christmas EVER : (friend of a friend) has a 5 yr old son Noah. He is in the last stages of a 2 1/2 yr battle with Neuroblastoma Cancer. The family is celebrating Christmas next week and Noahs request is to get lots of Christmas cards. Lets get him some, please send cards to: Noah Biorkman 1141 Fountian Viewcircle South Lyon,Mi 48178 Lets see how many cards we can get to this little guy. To read more click HERE

We are flying our flag at half mast. So very sad about the Fort Hood shooting. My thoughts n prayers go out the the wounded and the family of our fallen heros. My step brother and his wife are stationed there but were not injured, phew! I truely believe that we NEED to stop being so concerned about fixing other countries when we have ALOT to fix right here in our own.

Progress

The walls are back up! Woohoo we are finally in an upward spin with the house, BUT I do have to say today it one of my most frustrating days. This morning bright an early the guys were here to cut out the old drywall that is a direct assess into the attic so it can be put right back up. So can you SAY VERY VERY VERY dusty. As the day went on and the dust settled I can go through and spell my name on the tables, UGH! So the OCD kicked in and I couldn't take it any more and I started to vacuum and wash some of the flooring. I know tomorrow it will get trashed once again, but it's killing me. I so can wait till this is ALL over with. I can't believe how much damage water can do in such a short time. Tomorrow the tile will be going in the front entry and then next week they are coming to paint and put the hardwood floor back in. Then to have the house and all in it get a DEEP clean. This is too much for me to tackle in the time frame I want it done so I started interviewing cleaning ladies to help me. I just want my house put back in order!
Avrianna is doing so well in swim and piano. She just amazes me in how well she picks up on things and rolls with them. Not sure where she gets that from? On Sunday for her swim meet she got a seventh place ribbon for the 50 freestyle, the relay she was in got DQ's and she flipped over too soon on her 25 backstroke so that race was also DQ'd. Oh well, for her first ever meet to get 4 ribbons out of 6 races placing 3rd,7th,9th and 10th I think she did AWESOME. She is still doing GREAT in school too :)
Danny is doing well. His health has been stable. Phew! Danny's biggest issue is pain lately. I'm not totally sure from where but I have a very strong hunch it's from his hip. At times he doesn't like being in his wheelchair, not even for a couple minutes. When I put him in a sitting position and go to lay him down he FREAKS out and starts to cry, hyperventilate, turn red, and has this awful look of fear in his eyes. It's so heart wrenching to see your child in pain and there's nothing I can do about it.
I have Danny's BIG BIRTHDAY BASH this year in the works. I'm so excited about it! With him not having a party last year because of his hip surgery (yeah what a joke, right?) and with ALL the life threatening turn of events this summer I think he (we) need a real good party in Danny's favor. I know it's early to be talking about his birthday but you all know me by now......yeap OCD is kicking in HIGH gear.
Yesterday I officially started Christmas shopping.....UGH! I'm so behind. I'm usually finished shopping and I have most of the wrapping already done by now. Never fear I'm always good under pressure, heehee.