2012 - Keeping Us On Our Toes!

2012 is proving to be an interesting year. Mason got over the worst of his pertussis the second week of January but then came down with something again just before his birthday. He has missed lots of school and lost about 4 lbs. We are happy to say that he is finally eating near his normal and slowly putting on weight.  January was quite stressful with being in the hospital for 4 days and then home trying to get Mason back to normal.  Mason's white blood count was really high and was coming down slowly. For a little bit, there was a scare with some abnormal looking white cells that could have been leukemia.  An oncologist took a look and ruled that out. Thank God.  His white blood count is now around 9,000, much better.  Then, just last week, Mason had his 4 year immunizations. Once he got home (after crying for the entire 20 min drive) he turned red like a lobster.  We got on the phone with our pediatrician's nurse line trying to decide whether or not we should take him in. When the swelling started in his hands and face, we took him to the ER. He had an allergic reaction to one of his immunizations. Luckily, the redness and swelling decreased on our way there and while we sat as they checked him over.  Scary stuff.

It's hard to believe that our little guy is 4 years old. He is turning into such a little man, and an opinionated one at that. We bought him an Ipad for his birthday and we can easily say that it is his most loved item.  If he sees the green cover out of the corner of his eye he'll fuss and stretch towards it until we give it to him.  We're still trying to work on his fine motor hand skills to get him to use the apps more efficiently, so for now, its us showing him things like colors, shapes, animals, etc.  

While we haven't been caring for the little kiddo, we've been busily planning our house. We finally decided on a house plan and have met with a builder and draftsman to get the actual blueprints going. On Saturday, an excavator dug 3 test holes and a soil tester looked to see if we could get away with a conventional sewer system. It's looking really good so far!  We just need to get the approval from the Marathon County soil inspector. This is great news, and will save us a couple thousand dollars.  The basement on the property needs to be dug out and filled, and we're hoping that can be accomplished in the next week or so.  If things keep moving along...maybe some walls can go up in April!  I'll attach a link of our house plan, but this was the original plan and lots of small adjustments have been made (larger garage, larger hallways, a few walls removed, etc.)  But for the most part, the layout will be the same:
Our House

The stress between Chris and I has been mounting to get this house built, and soon. We found out in January one more thing that has motivated us to keep things moving...

 

Surprise!!