Three

I am finally sitting down to do the birthday post. Willow turned three last Sunday. We had a really fun birthday weekend. Saturday morning, we had a "brunch party". Six of Willow's friends came over for some brunch food and cupcakes. I didn't have any organized games or anything. I decided they are still too young for that. So it was just eating and playing. Good times.

I decorated with a lot of balloons. Here's one idea I saw online:
















The kids had fun with all those balloons. Here's Willow, Cat and Lewis doing a balloon dance:
















All the kids sat around this table for brunch. Willow got shy when we sang and wouldn't blow out the candles on her cupcake, so I had to do it for her.
















She had a good time opening her gifts, but for some reason she wouldn't say thank you. I think she got shy because so many people were watching. Here she is with Lewis playing with her new Magna-Doodle.

















After the party was over, just the three of us went sledding at the Nara sled hill. (Did I mention Willow has given up napping??) Josh and I had never been there before. Wow, it was really fun! It was really fast. The first time I went down with Willow, I thought, "Oh, no. She's going to be crying when we get to the bottom". But she was laughing and said "Do it again!". So we did, again and again. Then we went for a walk on the Nara trails with Scout. We didn't have the camera.

Sunday, on Willow's actual birthday, we went out to McLain's park with Seth and Beth and Amanda. It was a beautiful sunny day. We took a hike along the shore and played on the iceburgs. Good times. Again I didn't have the camera. Sorry.

Then for dinner that night we went over to my parents'. Grandma had another cake for Willow. This video is pretty hilarious. One of my favorite parts is the furiously wagging tail near the end of the video. Seems like Scout or some part of her is very often in the background of Willow pictures.










Here are some other photos from that weekend.

Willow got both a Magna-Doodle and an Aqua-Doodle for gifts. She's moved beyond scribbles when she draws and is now into making "happy faces". Usually they actually look sad or mad, but I love them - I want to get a shirt with a Willow happy face on it.
















After we took down all the decorations, Josh put all the balloons in Willow's room. Here she is playing in them:
















This was taken on her birthday.



















It's great to be 3!!

















I'm so behind on this blog...there are other events I have skipped. Josh and Willow went to Minnesota the week before her birthday. The kitchen remodel is finished. And I have updates on Willow's tummy issues. But I guess that will have to wait for next weekend!

No news is good news?

Hello,

We got the results back from Willow's procedure. The doctor said he didn't see anything real unusual. I guess they were looking for evidence of Hirschsprung's Disease, but it seems she doesn't have that. Whew. I had to google it, and it doesn't look fun. The doctor did say he was only looking at the "still shots" from the procedure, and he was going to request they send him the whole 50-minute long movie of Willow's colon, just to be sure. We don't have those results back yet, but I am really not expecting anything to come from that. So...I guess that is good news. Willow's tummyaches, etc., have been on an upswing lately, so maybe it is just going away on its own. I don't know what to think. If they recommend anything more invasive, I will definitely think long and hard before I put Willow through any more procedures.

Josh and Willow are going to Hastings on Sunday for a few days to visit his fam (he's unemployed again - more on that later). So, I did decide to have Willow see one more doctor. See, my coworker has been saying all along that I need to bring Willow to this chiropractor/nutritionist guy that her daughter and husband both saw for different ailments. Per her, he is some sort of miracle worker and will know basically by looking at Willow why she has her tummy issues and how to fix them. The doctor is in the twin cities. YES, I am taking this with a huge grain of salt,and NO, I won't be putting Willow through any crazy new-age rituals or diets just because he says to. But, I figured since they were going there anyway, what could it hurt. We'll just see what he says.

So yeah, Josh was back to work for three days, and then off again. This past week he worked on the kitchen, and Linda watched Willow at her place again. But now he is basically done with the kitchen (it is almost done, and then I'll post photos). And his boss just told him he'll be off for another 4-6 weeks. So we feel pretty awful about Linda. We will have to see how it plays out. She is like a part of our family; Willow just loves her. I could go on and on about this, but I guess I will stop now.

Here are some photos I took at McLain's Park last weekend with Ruth and Margot. I put them on Facebook too (which I never do), but wanted to put them on here as well for the grandmas and other relatives who are not on facebook. I love these photos. It was such a nice day!

Brave girl

Hi everyone,

I just had to do a quick weekday-morning post to brag about how great Willow did with her procedure yesterday - her barium enema. After talking to the radiology people about it, I was prepared for the worst - they said they would probably have to strap her down to a board, and that I may not want to be in the room to watch. Yikes - you can see why I was scared. But Willow did so great they didn't even have to strap her down, and she didn't even fuss or cry. This is despite the fact that it took way longer than it was supposed to - she laid there for about 50 minutes with a tube up her bum and let them do their thing. She may have a future career in health care - she just kept looking around the room going, "what's that? what's that? what's he doing? where'd she go?" Very curious.

Anyway, we won't find out the results for a few days, so I will keep you posted.

Here's a random video I got blogger to upload. Josh and Willow have been playing this game with his guitar picks lately. She cracks up every time.