He's come a long way baby...

So I thought Zane's last week of swim lessons was next week, but apparently it was yesterday!  Anyway, he did GREAT.  I am just amazed at how far he has come the last few weeks - he never would've even thought about doing the things he is doing now when he was in lessons last time at the old pool!  His coaches have worked with him so well.  I'm bummed that I didn't get him signed up in time for the next session before it filled up, but I'll make sure he's in the one following - I don't want these skills lost at all!

Practicing his front floats...

He has absolutely no problem going under water now!!!

His first "solo" backfloat - the coach let go of him for a few seconds; he was so proud!

Getting a pep talk from his coach...

pep talk worked, he "jumped" into the big pool.

Collecting the rings from the bottom of the pool.

Standing proudly with his certificate and sucker - he passed the first level!!!

I'll take that A1c

Zane had his regular follow up appointment with his Endocrinologist (Dr. Ness) this morning.  I always say that I'm a little nervous for these appointments, but this time there was no foolin' around, I was downright dreading this appointment!  Zane has had many illness' over the past couple of months and those illness' have wreaked havoc on his blood sugars.  We had our first ever "HI" reading on his meter this month - for those who don't know, HI isn't the meter telling you "hello", its telling you that your blood sugar is too high to register, so at least 600 (he wasn't even that high at diagnosis)!!  We haven't seen many lows which is good of course, but in my opinion we haven't seen many #'s under 200 the last couple of months - so needless to say I was dreading this A1c.  My brain knows that I have very little control over this number with Zane right now, I do everything I can to make sure his diabetes stays in the best control possible, but in the end its his body that makes the final call.  But my heart takes this number very personally, to me its my "grade" telling me if I have passed or failed my child or not.  I did something I have never done before; before this appointment I took his meter and averaged the last 30 days readings to give myself a little idea of what A1c we were looking at, I was trying to prepare myself for the worst.  I know that an A1c is a # reflecting the last 3 mos, but I also know that it weighs the most heavily on the last 30 days - the average I was getting from the meter wasn't a good one.  Josh and I were making a little bet while waiting to be seen today on what his # would be, my guess was 8.4, Josh's was 7.9, well...we were both wrong.  Zane's A1c at his last appointment (end of January) was 7.2, not bad at all (remember, his doctor loves anything under 8 for his age, but anything under 9 is somewhat acceptable for his age) - today, I am happy to report that Zane's A1c was a glorious 7.4!!  I'll take that!   When the nurse came in and told us his "score", I blurted out "shut up, it is not" and she assured me it was.  I was very shocked and so she offered to go double check it for me to make sure - sure enough, that is his #!  I won't lie, I'm very happy with that number, but I'm also very perplexed because we haven't had many lows at all to off-set the highs we've had, so I am a little nervous that he has had some lows that we have missed somehow - I hope that is not the case, so for now I won't dwell on that, I'll just be happy with the score "we" got!  No adjustments were made by Dr. Ness and we were left with these parting words from her "you guys have this stuff down, great job"!  I am a little less confident in us than she is, but I appreciate the compliment!

Killing time before our appointment...you know, with coloring and running wild!  I'm pretty sure they love having us there!

Zane getting his good ol' vitals done!  He is in the 90th percentile for height and 86th for weight - perfect!  I asked the MA if I was the only parent who took pictures of their kid getting their vitals taken and she said "that would have to be a no!!", haha!  Glad I'm not the only paparazzi parent out there!

My favorite man and 2 favorite boys hanging out in the exam room!

A Honda Family

We finally outgrew Josh's little Subaru!  Anytime we went anywhere as a family of 4 we had to take the CRV because we just couldn't fit into the Subaru comfortably at all - or at least the boys weren't comfortable.  The Subaru was a good car to Josh and he had a lot of fun driving it and was a little sad to see it go, but it was time to move on.

We are welcoming another Honda into our family...a 2005 Honda Element!  We were able to negotiate a pretty sweet deal and even went down on our monthly payments - can't beat that!  BUT the best part is...the boys have ample leg room in the back!!

Here the boys are cramped into the backseat on the way to the dealership:

Bye-bye Subi!

Hello Honda!

Don't mind Landon - he really does like the new car, he was just really hungry and hadn't had a nap all day!  The boys did so well while cooped up at the dealership.

Airplanes

After dinner tonight we headed to Dairy Queen for a little ice cream treat!  After getting our treats, Josh drove us over to a parking lot overlooking the little airport in Auburn to watch some plans land and take off.  The boys loved it!  I can see us having a picnic at this little park this summer!

Pamper Shower

My good friend Brenda is set to have her third baby on July 12 (wow, that's coming up fast) and one of her friends threw her a Pamper Shower!  Brenda is completely and utterly against the idea of finding out the gender of her kids which obviously makes buying baby gifts a little difficult - so instead of a "regular" baby shower she had a Pamper Shower!  Everyone received an invitation and was assigned a size of Pampers to bring!  I love the idea of a "Pamper Shower", but I don't love the idea of just bringing a package of diapers as the gift, so I decided to do it up a little more!  Here is the wreath I made!  Simple, yet fun and cute (at least in my opinion)!

Gotta love food pictures - why do people (i.e. me) feel the need to take pictures of the food?  I guess because I love to eat!

LOVE these two pictures I grabbed of Brenda's MIL in the bouncy house!!

And of course I had to grab a pic with one of my best friends - so excited to meet the newest Hall Bambino!

On two-feet (most of the time)

Zane is really starting to get the hang of staying vertical while learning how to ice skate!  He only fell a handful of times yesterday and when he did, he was able to get himself right back up very quickly!  His coach even made a comment on how fast he was getting back up!  He really enjoys it - so I think that helps him stay so positive about it!

Sorry about the butt-shot, but I wanted to show how he was able to bend down and pick things up without toppling over anymore!!

Landon can only handle so much of watching his big-bro ice skate, and I can only take so much of the freezing cold in the building!  Josh stayed in and kept watch over Zane's ice skating skills and I took Landon out to walk around the putt-putt course since no one was playing and I was able to warm back up in the beautiful sun!

Running with the big dogs!

Landon is finally able to sort of keep up with his brother and the other kids at the mall play area now!  After the impromptu Farmer's Market stop yesterday we walked over to the mall to try and find some sandals for Landon (struck out again).  While there Zane of course asked to play on the toy, since it wasn't crowded and not full of [in my opinion] too big of kids to be there, I said yes!  Landon had a blast!  Of course Zane did too, but Landon really let loose and it was so fun to watch him just run wild!

Shave Ice

The kids and I went to drop some junk treasures off at Goodwill yesterday and on our way there we saw that the Farmers Market was going on, we decided to stop after our drop off and check it out.  There was a big shave ice trailer there and I was really hoping they'd have at least one sugar-free option so I could let Zane have a try of the ice cold goodness without having to worry too much about a spike in his blood sugar.  We were in luck, they had one bottle of sugar-free syrup and it happened to be in a flavor Zane likes...Watermelon!  He was in heaven with this and asked if we could make them at home...I guess its time to scout out a Snoopy Snow Cone maker (remember those?!!)!  Landon and I enjoyed a few bites too - yum!  Oh and so what if it was only 9:30 a.m. :)

Not a Cowboy

I guess Landon isn't cut out to be a cowboy...or maybe just not a mostly naked cowboy!