Beautiful 3 Bedroom/2 Bath Home for Sale!

It's OFFICIAL - Our house is up for sale!

Check out the pictures we took of our house tonight. Later this evening, if I am still awake, I hope to have it on Craigslist. (I know - who would've thought? A house sold on Craigslist?) We will also be posting it on a for sale by owner website, once we get things in order. YAY! It's finally happening!

Bittersweet

Today's appointment was bittersweet. Bittersweet being good, but still leaving that possibility of something down the road. That's the realist in me. Chris would say that today went tremendous because that's the optimist in him.

Mason fell asleep pretty quick when they gave him the chlorohydrate. They were able to get all the pictures they were hoping to get, including a really good look at his mitral valve. The mitral valve is still functioning fairly well, considering it only has one muscle node operating it. His VSD and ASD have healed perfectly since his surgery, which basically means he has just about as normal a heart as anyone, except the mitral valve. They also had an EKG done to look at the electricity in his heart (because sometimes surgeries can leave scar tissue that mess with the heart's electricity/rhythm). Everything there was perfect.

So as far as cardio goes, he is moving into a longterm care plan. We go back in 6 months just for a clinic visit to give Dr. Dyke a chance to listen to his heart and look for any clinical symptoms that his valve is not functioning well. These symptoms would include respiratory/breathing issues and abnormal sweating, so obviously if we suspect anything sooner, we would contact him. After his 6 month visit next March, we will go to into a once/year visit plan. YAY!

Mason's weight today was 24 lbs, 10 oz. His weight has been pretty stagnant the last 3 months. His height is 32.5 inches, which is pretty tall considering VCFS kids can be known for their short stature. Not this Mrdutt boy!

It took Mason a good 2 hours to wake up after the echo. Dad missed the whole thing because he was down in the walk-in to be seen for an eye irritation. (He's afraid it's going to mess with his sight tomorrow duck hunting - it's duck opener). Gramma Mrdutt and I did our best to make Mason comfortable as he woke up but he has been quite irritable today, including some pretty stinky gas. He was down for the night at 5:30 pm so hopefully his "drunken state" caused by the sedation is worn off by morning.

We are going to have some chinese food and some sushi! Thanks for keeping up to date on our family!

Our Fun Filled Weekend

This weekend was fun-filled craziness.

I think the easiest way to explain it is with pictures:

Mason and his Grammas at the United Way Parade.
Mason wanted to sleep SO badly but he made it through!

Barb in the garage of the house we bought. Nice, huh?

The upstairs hallway of the house we bought.

The smell is absolutely horrendous. Gotta love this pic.

Bed frames galore - anyone need one?

One room full of old bottles - perhaps some antiques?


Home remodeling done this weekend:



Lots of progress made on our basement.

Basement, looking towards the stairs (obviously).

New basement window and start to closet. YAY!


Our new deck. BIG thanks to Ben for doing most of the "heavy lifting".
Let us know when you need a favor! (I'm a good painter)


Another view of the deck and patio from the garage (Thanks JIM!)
Again, let us know when we need to return the favor!



Of course, there was a little time for some play:


Addy and Chris got out duck hunting for the first time this season.
Jake Hartman went home with 4 ducks for his first time ever duck hunting!

One Step Closer

Our little Mrdutt family is one step closer to a new home. We've spent 3 great years in Mosinee. Living in the small town has been great for us as we started our family - to meet new people and develop our group of friends. We didn't move far after college, because we both had great jobs and loved the area. Mosinee has been great for Mason - to be close to so many activities and with so much to see and do.

All that said...we're ready for a quieter place. Mason needs family around. We didn't have to look far to find the perfect place for Mason to spend his childhood. We just hope that the house holds up okay for the 3 of us:

It doesn't look like much, but we see potential. The foundation is a bit weak, there are some friendly neighborhood bats upstairs, but we don't mind having pets.

JUST KIDDING!

This house is placed on 1.89 acres just north of my parents house. Grampa Randy and Gramma Duck always knew that they wanted that land someday, if not for them, perhaps for family. In the back is a pond that we plan to dig out so that the house doesn't get flooded in the spring. We will also be digging an additional pond on the south end of the property both for aesthetics and to use the fill to build the house up a little.

Chris and I have found a plan that we absolutely love, its affording it that's the problem. I like the look and most of the layout so I refuse to let it go based on cost. We will be looking into many different options on building it (or something very similar). We will have all ADA doorways and plan to have NO stairs into the house. If we plan it right, the lawn will lead right up to the front porch/door and the back patio. Also, the garage will be at the same height as the house. We'll see how that pans out.

So tonight we have our parents together to celebrate this good news. Fish fry, wine and lots of dessert (darn, right?)

Mason Update:

We went to St. Clare's Hospital last night. Nothing serious, but Mason developed a white coating on his mouth that we thought was thrush and we wanted to make sure it wasn't strep. Strep can be very bad for people with heart issues. Anyway, turns out he just has an upper respiratory infection.

As far as the seizure that popped up, they decided to up his seizure medicine. It will make him very sleepy these next few days as he adjusts to it. Our neurologist wants us to call if he has any more as soon as it happens. With his fever a few days ago and being very tired, a breakthrough seizure is definitely possible. We also found a new tooth (a molar) on his back left side. (YAY! He is up to FIVE!)


Cross your fingers for no more seizures.


Wow - what an INCREDIBLY busy week. Everyone in the house is starting to heal from our illnesses. We are continuing to work on house remodeling this weekend thanks to our great helpers visiting this weekend - Jim, Barb and Ben. (In addition to all the great help we have gotten so far from Grampa Randy and lots of family friends). We hope to have all our sheetrock in the basement hung and have a new stairs/patio in our backyard by Sunday. Whew. I'm exhausted even thinking about it.

It's a good time to sit back and reflect on how blessed we are for great family and friends. That being said, I'm taking sip of wine and spending tonight hanging with family.

Mace Meister Strikes Again!

This morning was quite interesting. Mason has been fighting off a cold for a few days and the cold won. He had a temperature of 101 when we put him to "bed". Mason slept with Daddy on the couch until 3:30 am because he was so congested that he could only breathe well if he was upright. Mommy took over at 3:30 and Mason was in and out of sleep. He was starting to fall asleep at 4:30 am and then it happened. Another seizure.

I screamed upstairs for Chris to come witness the episode. I wanted to make sure I was not the only witness to it. It was just like it used to be...he would stare off into space, his arms and legs tighten up, and his whole body twitches. It's freaky. As parents, we try to talk to him and calm him but its as if he is in a whole other world. He comes out of it about 30-45 seconds later and he's a little restless, as if he knows what just happened to him wasn't right.

Mason has not had a seizure since June 2008. We were super hopeful that he had "grown" out of them. Even our neurologist thought that we could "wean" him off his meds by not increasing his dose as he got bigger. I was bauling. The last thing I want is to go through another week of episodes and not be able to do anything about it because we don't know why they are happening.

I called our Pediatrician as soon as their office opened. We went in for a blood test today to see if his drug/blood ratio was where it was supposed to be. He should be within a certain percentage so we will know if it was his fever that sparked the episode or if it is because he is starting to outgrow the med, or both. Mason did awesome with the blood draw. Barely cried at all and while they "fished around" under his skin to find the vein, just looked up at them like "Are you done yet?" We hope to get a call from our doctor right away in the morning with the results and will make a decision from there. Any news is good news. Mason continues to fight the cold (his fever dropped during the day but was back up to 101 about 1 hour ago). Mommy is also fighting off some sort of cold and Daddy just finished it a few days ago. Do you think it could be swine flu? Eh - we'll all be fine.

Day 1 of the basement remodel was today. The entire basement is studded and ready for electrical to be run.



They continue tomorrow after going to Lowes and picking up more supplies (sheetrock, etc.) It's crazy that we waited so long to do this..it's going to be SAWEET down there! :)

So all in all a pretty normal day for the Mrdutts. Just kidding. This was sort of a day from hell. But time to move on...no time to dwell on it.

I better make dinner. Sloppy joes anyone?

T-Minus 18 days!

Our house will be listed in less than 18 days! That is so WEIRD!

Chris and I have had a busy week. I spent Monday & Tuesday evenings and yesterday afternoon (with the help of Mom & Dad - thank you) staining our fence. It still isn't finished. We all got pretty "high" with the fumes of the stain and all ended the day with headaches. Even Mason got a headache, because he woke up from a nap drenched in sweat with no fever. After a cooling off period and a little ibuprofen, he's fine. So our sweat and Mason's tears really went into this project. We will finish the last section (the outside of the tall fence) this week, if the weather cooperates.





















We are also starting our basement project this week. Our basement used to be covered with wood paneling, so all of that was torn off. Our basement looks a little freaky right now, but it's going to be amazing. We will replace the basement window and drywall the entire thing. We will also be hanging a suspended ceiling and doing some recessed lighting. We hope that these improvements help to sell the house. Currently, the only real downfall of our house is the fact that the only full shower is in the basement. The bathroom was redone and looks great, but it doesn't take away the fact that you have to walk through the scary basement to get to it. So we are hoping to change the scary into fabulous!



I think we are going to end up loving this house so much that we aren't going to want to leave. I honestly wouldn't mind another winter here. It's so cozy in the winter when we fire up the fireplace and hang out in the living room. It may be a small house, but it's a great one!

Mason has been his normal self. We have his echo coming up in about 2 weeks but that is the only medical update we'll have for awhile. His therapies continue to go well, but I will be talking with his physical medicine doctor to have his Baclofen prescription increased. It worked out great in the beginning, but his tightness and overly extended arms have come back. Not sure if it is even an option, but we're going to test it (if they will let us). He loves to get outside and go for walks, or to the grocery store, or wherever. We think that his curious nature of being almost 2 is starting to show, although his body won't allow him to explore the way he'd like. We have taken it upon ourselves to build in some more exciting family adventures for him just to get him out of the routine once in awhile. I'm hoping for a family trip to Door County in early October, if Chris can give up duck hunting for one weekend. It's a battle I'm willing to fight. :) I love Door County and I try to get there in the fall whenever I can. I think Mason would absolutely love it...as he's never been there and would be absolutely enamoured by the colors.

Here's a pic I shot just this morning of our little Macester:It's another busy week for both Chris and I. I have a long couple days as our company participates in our annual United Way campaign. I look forward to doing something different from the day-to-day there, but it can be a little stressful. Chris is going to supervise some of the basement remodeling on Wednesday and get our house ready for visitors this coming weekend. Three more Mrdutts (Ben, Jim & Barb) are coming this weekend to build some stairs from our patio door and to get our house ready for listing. We're excited to have visitors!!! It's been awhile since Mason has gotten to see his gramma & grampa! We may also find some time to go visit the "land". Exciting developments on that as well this week, but I'm not going to say what. :) Hoping to get out and enjoy the fantastic weather today as well as watch the Packers beat the Bears.

Deep breath, & relax...it's going to be a crazy but FUN week!

What a difference a few weeks make!

This Mrdutt family has had a crazy busy last 2 weeks. We have slowly made some progress on our house and finally finished painting the upstairs bathroom. It took 3 coats because apparently Valspar flat white ceiling paint purchased 6 months ago is not the same as Valspar flat white ceiling paint purchased 1 week ago. Regardless, it really helped clean it up and we're getting there...

The lawn is doing fantastic! What a difference a few weeks makes. When we came home from camping up north, it was really long and clogged up our mower a few times. After a thorough mowing job, this is what the lawn looks like:






Pretty nice looking if I do say so myself.




We spent this weekend camping, only the 2nd time we got the camper out this summer. It was a really good time, makes me wish we would have taken a few more weekends away from our remodeling to relax in the outdoors. The camper is our home away from home and even Mason was able to enjoy himself. We hope to use it one more time this year, in October, during our UWSP homecoming weekend.

Although we've been busy, we still take time out for our friends. Last week we went on a walk with some good friends of ours, the Benders, including their pooch Cash and their little boy Jackson. We went down to the Mead, a wildlife refuge area that Chris takes Addy to often, to practice her duck retrieving skills. Cash and Addy play well together, so when you only have one duck throw-toy, they learn to share:















Well I better get outside and start our next project: staining the fence. Anyone with a desire to get outside in this gorgeous weather, grab a brush and head on over! :)

We hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend.

What I'll do for a Duck

First off, Jen told me I should start adding a few posts on here so we can get more people interested in our site. I still don't know what that says about me.
So here I go, I'm going to try to be interesting.
Well anyone who knows me knows I love to duck hunt. I enjoy scouting and trying to figure out where the best blind spots are for the upcoming season. Over the years I have found some pretty good "holes"... One of them I call Heart Attack Pond. Why you may ask?... It's about a 1000 yard canoe paddle followed by 900 foot canoe drag. When I say drag I mean through some Cambodian saw grass hell. I figured someone will have a heart attack someday on the way out there.

So today I took 4 heavy oak pallets and decided to make some better blinds back in Heart Attack. The first blind was easy, it was constructed at the end of the dike. The pallets give you a safe and sturdy structure to sit and shoot from. It saves you from the embarrassment of standing up to shoot in waders and realizing your feet are stuck in awkward positions.

After the first blind was complete I set out to drag the two remaining pallets out there using my canoe as a sled. The temperature was still in the mid 70's so it did not take long to start sweating bullets. The water was up with the recent rain and that helped the paddle but the drag was rough. I think my groin is still out there being pecked apart by a group of cream shitters. I got about halfway and realized I had stopped sweating and was starting to feel cold. That is never a good sign. I decided I could go no further so I dumped the pallets and turned around. I remember looking at my phone to see if I could call for the flight for life chopper from Marshfield if I had to. It even got to the point where I tossed by lunch out there. MMMM Jen's Spaghetti. I knew I had water back in the truck and the paddle back would be the easy part.

Well as you can guess I made it home safely, looking back it was not the brightest thing I have done in awhile. Then again I still have to get the pallets the rest of the way.

Hope you found this interesting.

~Dutt