Xander's Ear Infection # 3 & 4

How did I know that they would just keep coming back... Oh yeah, we went through the exact same thing with Savannah. She was almost always sick until she got her tubes. When Xander gets his next infection they will send him to Savannah's Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor for tubes. He has an ear infection in both ears and is still congested in his lungs, with a cough. They gave him a shot of antibiotics and put him on some oral ones, then tomorrow he's going to start some kind of steroid thing. They want to get his lungs to open up, and get cleaned out. I always know when Xander is in serious pain. That's when the pacifier doesn't even work. I hate seeing my kids get shots. I've been trying for a month to get Xander's flu shot and his six month shots, but he just keeps getting sick. It really worries me. Maybe next week. He's been sleeping on and off all day and not very much at night. He just looks so sad. He loves to cuddle with me though!

Divinity

Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 jar (7 ounces) marshmallow creme
• 1 teaspoon Spice Island® Pure Vanilla Extract
• 1-1/2 cups chopped pecans
• Drizzle with milk choclate
  

Directions

• In a large heavy saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Cook over medium heat, without stirring, until a candy thermometer reads 250° (hard-ball stage).
• Remove from the heat; stir in marshmallow cream, vanilla and pecans. Continue stirring until candy cools and begins to hold its shape when dropped from a spoon.
• Quickly drop by heaping teaspoonfuls onto waxed paper-lined baking sheet. Store in an airtight container at room temperature. Yield: 4 dozen.

White chocolate Peppermint-
. drop mint extract
.Drizzle melted white chocolate

Plain-
. Add drop almond extract!

Egg Nog Thumb Print Cookies

Eggnog Cookies

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 drop rum extract
  
• 1 pinch ground nutmeg

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, cream together 3/4 cup butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine flour and salt; stir into the creamed mixture by hand to form a soft dough. Roll dough into 1 inch balls, and place balls 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Make an indention in the center of each cookie using your finger or thumb.
3. Bake for 12 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.
4. In a small bowl, mix together 1/4 cup butter, confectioners' sugar, and rum. Spoon rounded teaspoonfuls of filling onto cookies. Sprinkle with nutmeg. Let stand until set before storing in an airtight container.

Cookies and Cream Fudge

Ingredients

• 16 chocolate cream-filled sandwich cookies, broken into chunks, divided
• 1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2-2/3 cups white baking chips
• 1 teaspoon Spice Island® Pure Vanilla Extract

Directions

• Line an 8-in. square dish with aluminum foil; coat with cooking spray. Place half of the broken cookies in pan.
• In a heavy saucepan, combine the milk, butter and chips; cook and stir over low heat until chips are melted. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla.
• Pour over cookies in pan. Sprinkle with remaining cookies. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Cut into squares. Yield: 3 dozen.

Christensen Family Christmas Party 2010

These are our homemade family Christmas ordiments. They are all so cute! I love the dear Santa picture frame! I can't wait to get a picture of Savannah and Xander to put in it! My sister-in-law Ashley made them.
Grandma Christensen made this one. I love the saying! It says, " When you see this ordainment on your tree, May you remember the man Who walked the shores of Galilee.
My sister-in-law Erin made these little blocks, with pictures of Grandma and Grandpa Christensen. They are so cute! I think they are a beautiful family keepsake! I love this picture of them! They look so in-love!


We went to the bowling ally up in Blackfoot Idaho to go bowling.
Savannah had so much fun! She always had to have the yellow ball, but she didn't like waiting for her turn.
This is me trying to get Savannah to look at the camera. We would set the bowling ball on the ground and help her push it, then we would clap and shout "ha-ray!" She's a better bowler than me.
Savannah loved playing with the toys downstairs at the party.




Xander was so good, but he did have a blow out up to his neck. That wasn't fun.

03/21/2011

This morning I waited for an hour and a half in the waitiing room to take Xander to see the plastic surgon. Court even met me there, but after an hour he had to leave for a meeting for one of his classes. He really wanted to be there. When the doctor came in he said the same thing that all doctors say when they first meet Savannah or Xander. I've never heard of Bardet-Bieldl syndrome. Then he tries to pernounce it. No one can just by reading it. It took me a while before I got it right. He looked at Xander's hand and foot. I found out something new about Xander today. His pinkey on his right hand is curved. I never noticed. We scudled his Surgery to remove his polydactyly on March 21st. I was hoping it would be sooner, so we can just get his first surgery over with, but he's booked until then. Now, I have to figure out what if I'm going to be brave enough to handle to take Savannah with me when I get his x-rays done today.

Welcome to Holland

Today, the lady from kids on the move came because I am not able to make it to make it to the support groups during the day. She asked me what is one of the hardest things for you with children with special needs. I told her When I'm with my friends and around other mothers, and their children, sometimes even younger than Savannah are doing things like having a small conversation with their mom, telling them how their day at school was, or not having melt down after melt down.It's all of the little things. It brakes my heart. She told me about how parents with children with special needs have to go through the grieving proses, and even though I think I have, then something small like that happens, and I start to cry and fall apart. I wonder if Savannah will ever get there or do those things, or understand. Sometimes I can't help but compare, and then I hate myself for it, because I feel so bad. I love my sweet children so much, no matter what. She left me with this story of another mother with a child with special needs. As I read it I started to cry, because I feel the same way. She put my feelings onto that page.

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.