The Krysl 4

The results are in...

Mia had an appointment at Children's Hospital today for allergy testing. She has shown no signs of any allergies, but as a precaution due to Jack's allergies, we knew we would have her tested at one year.

After a two hour wait to see the doctor, they did the skin test and ... no allergies, other than possibly mold. (Who isn't allergic to mold!?!?)

So, Mia has no food restrictions other than no peanuts until age 3, just as safety measure.

I have to say that she was such a wonderful little girl today. No fussing and no crying. She had fun playing in the waiting room with mom and PaPa Wally, who went with us to the appointment.

Grandma Ruth picked Jack up from school and took him back to her house to play, so that mom and Mia could get a little rest. Jack, of course, had a blast and was spoiled terribly!

Jack will go back to Children's in July for his annual allergy test and then a few weeks later for his peanut challenge test, which was scheduled last year. Hopefully, his tests will go as well as Mia's did today!

Relieved,
The Krysl 4

Catching up...

I'm trying to play catch up and update my poor neglected blog! I have added the pictures of Mia's first birthday... yes, she is one now!

Her birthday party was a blast! We had a ton of family at the house, ate a great meal and watched Ms. Mia open a ton of present. She is so spoiled!

She is getting so big. Her favorite word is "Hi!". She loves to wave and tell everyone hi. We have also found out this week that she likes to talk on the phone. Ms. Pam has play phones at her house and Mia will pick up the phone and say "Hi, ok, ok!" and then throw the phone down.

Sill is not walking on her own yet. She will practically run around the house with her stroller, but once she lets go, it is straight to the ground.

Her appetite for new foods is getting better. She started refusing baby food about a month ago, but has been hesitant to try new foods. Although she will eat bread any time of the day. She is now loving raisins, chicken, sweet potatoes, toast, grilled cheese and, of course, hamburgers and fries!

Jack is still doing great. He is doing "number work" at school and can identify most letters on sight. He has learned the Pledge of Allegiance and the Hail Mary and the Guardian Angel prayers at school. His big love right now is dinosaurs. He loves to identify them and reads as many books on dinosaurs as we can find for him. He is also really digging Spider-man still. I've been Tivo'ing episodes for him and his favorite right now is "Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends", which originally aired in 1982! (One of the characters is voiced by the same guy that does Fred on Scooby-Doo.)

Work wise things are busy around here. Bob is swamped as usual and I am in the midst of the season of Lent and preparing for Easter. We have partially finished our basement and I love it! It is like having a whole other house to go to! The kids enjoy being down there and we do too!

We've also had a vehicle shift. After ten reliable years, my Stratus has died. I hated to see it go, but then again, I wasn't driving it every day to work! The Stratus was the first new car that I had ever bought, hell it was the first car that I had ever owned that was younger than I was! So after the Stratus died, we went looking for a reliable car for Bob to commute with. We ended up getting him a silver 2008 Dodge Avenger. While we were looking, we also saw a very nice gold 2006 Chrysler Town and Country and went ahead and traded in my van on it. So we are both driving new vehicles! I have to say that I sooooo in love with my van, not a phrase that I ever thought I would say! It has power doors and Stow N Go and I love it!!!

Things are slowing down here now that Christmas and Mia's birthday are over, so hopefully, I'll get some more pictures posted in the next few days.

Take Care!
The Krysl 4

7 years ago today...

Where were you 7 years ago today?

Me? I can remember exactly where I was.

For the first plane, I was on my way to work, driving down Culp Lane and listening to Bob and Tom. They broke into the jokes and announced that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center.

Idiots! How could you be so stupid as to fly into the World Trade Center? I had no idea of the horror and destruction that would ensue in the span of an hour.

I remember arriving at work and discussing the plane that "accidentally" flew into the WTC. But not long after I got there, we realized that this wasn't an accident. Little by little, news began to trickle into the Doctor's office. The more news we heard, the more we wanted someone to tell us that this was wrong. There had been a mistake. This was just a big misunderstanding...

Then everything started to collapse, literally. About the time that the towers started to tumble, the offices were allowing employees, a few at a time, to go downstairs to the break room and crowd around the one small TV in the building.

All you could see, was a line of people. The people coming down the stairs had no idea what they were in for. The amount of information that would be thrown at them in the few minutes they could spare. People going back up the stairs, back to work, with this dazed, incredulous look on their faces.

I remember going home and seeing Bob come in the door and just feeling relieved to see him.

The next weeks and months were different. Living near a small airport, I was suddenly aware of the amount of planes they flew directly over our house. I would freeze in fear everytime one would fly overhead. My morning routine was also forever changed. I couldn't even bear to watch my usual hour of the Today show anymore. It was too heartbreaking, too depressing. Every minute of the coverage was death, destruction, loss, grief. I didn't want to see anyone else's feelings, when I wasn't capable of processing my own. I was numb from the inside out.

I can also remember who I was at the time.

I was engaged to be married. (This was one year, one month and one day before our wedding.)
I had no children.
Bob and I lived in Bethalto.
I was working as a medical receptionist at AMS in the specialty suite with Robin and Tina.

Looking back, I don't even know how I would have reacted to a tragedy like this had I been a mother.
The simplest of things worry me, so having a terrorist attack in my own country would have been sheer torture in my mind.

I suppose that all the mothers of the world got through it, but I wonder if it changed them. Did it change the way that you looked at the world or even your country? Were you afraid to put your kids to bed or let them play outside?  Thinking about all of the women and men who had to raise their children without their spouses, how would they explain?

I'm just wondering what this day means to everyone else and how you were (and still are) affected. How has 9/11 changed you?

Praying for peace of heart,
The Krysl 4

My Wordle

So, I found a website called wordle, which takes the text of your blog and creates a word cloud from it. The more you use a word, the bigger it is. Can you guess the two biggest words on my wordle??

Leslie and I went to the Mills yesterday to get Jack's 3 year pictures taken and they turned out awesome. We were there when they opened and Jack knew that if he got his pictures taken, he could ride the train. So, he performed for the camera and Leslie took him to ride the train while I ordered the pictures.

Can I just say how glad I am that the ferry is back open! We were able to do all of the returns that I needed to do and get a trip to Costco in!

I am taking both kids back to Missouri today for Jack's appointment with the ENT. This is a consultation to see if his adenoids need to be removed. Hopefully, it will help him sleep better.

Mia was a doll yesterday. She ate and slept and played right on cue. She really made the day pretty easy on me!

She is trying to roll over all the way, but just can't quite get her arms out of the way. She is also sitting up on her own for a minute or two.  And her  newest discovery is her feet. I don't remember Jack being this interested, but it is the first thing she does. She grabs both feet and hold them in her hands, trying to decide if she wants to chew on them or not.

Still no teeth yet, the poor kid is trying to chew on anything that lands in front of her mouth!

I'll update tomorrow with the outcome of Jack's appointment today.

Take Care,
The Krysl 4

New Pictures

Just a note that I added Jack's 3 year pictures that we had taken today to the July Album.

Best Day Ever!

Jack declared yesterday the "best day ever." Why?

What about this doesn't scream summer?! Jack played in the sprinkler for over an hour last night, while Bob watered a couple of dry patches in the lawn.

Bob came in to tell me that Jack was having a blast, so Mia and I went outside to watch. Well, Jack wanted someone to play with him in the water, so I joined him in the sprinkler. We chased each other and ran through the water. I felt like I was a kid again. It was a lot of fun, but the day was complete when Jack said, to himself, "This is the best day ever!"

That kid melts my heart on a daily basis. He also told me last night that "daddy and mommy are my best friends!"

Miss Mia continues to grow at a rapid pace! She turned 5 months old yesterday and is such a little doll!

I've added new pictures to the photo albums. The pictures of Jack with the jelly mustache are hilarious because he looked at himself in the mirror and declared that he looked like Grandpa. (He had a jelly mustache!)

Everything came back normal on my nuclear stress test! So that is a sigh of relief. I go back to the doctor on Friday to see where we go from here. (Most likely check out the gall bladder.)

Thanks for all of the calls and emails, we really appreciate all the help and concern. Especially to my sister and my mom, who took over my household while I was in the hospital and since I've been released. They watched my kids, did my laundry and cleaned my house! Thanks guys!

Take care,
The Krysl 4

Happy Birthday Jack Jack!

Three years ago today, I was sitting in the hospital waiting for my baby to be born. My water had broken on its own around noon, but every method of inducing they tried was not working. Finally at 8:00 pm, Dr. Talsky decided to take my firmly entrenched infant and forcibly evict him. At 8:14 pm Jack Lambert Krysl was born in all his glory. He would be followed, one hour and 22 minutes later, by his cousin Jake. How fondly I remember those 2 days I spent in the hospital... waiting. Anyone who knows me, knows that I don't like for things to not be done on my schedule!

So, happy birthday Jack and Jake!

We had Jack's party on Saturday. I planned a Cars themed party for him, only to be told on Tuesday that he really wanted a Backyardigans party.

Jack went to Children's hospital on Tuesday for his yearly allergy test and we are still waiting to hear back on the results. We are hoping that his egg and peanut levels are low enough that we can do a "challenge test" at Children's to see how he tolerates both foods. We are praying that he has outgrown both food allergies.

Jack's 3 year check up was Friday and he had an excellent checkup, but Dr. Elving wants me to take him to an ENT to see if his adenoids need removed. The poor kid always so congested, he has trouble sleeping at night. So we see Dr. Park next Monday to see if he is a candidate.

Jack's birthday party went well even though I had been in the hospital for most of Thursday.

I woke up at1:00 am Thursday with massive chest pains. I tried to go back to sleep, but it would not go away. So around 2:00 am I woke Bob up and he called my dad. So mom, dad and Leslie came over so Bob could take me to the ER at Jerseyville. After some blood work and an EKG, I was admitted.

I was taken to my room around 4:00 am and since the hospital was full, I got put in a room with another patient. She snored so loudly that I got absolutely no sleep. At least I got a bed, poor Bob was trying to make do in a chair. He took the day off and stayed with me all day. They did several rounds of blood work on me to see if I had a "cardiac event." I also got to have an Echo, which really sucked! After everything came back negative, they decided to send me home. I got home at 9:45 pm Thursday night.

They wanted me to have a stress test done as an outpatient. Which I had done today. Apparently, I needed a "Nuclear" stress test, as opposed to a regular stress test.The office told me that due to the radiation that they would be injecting me with, I would not be able to nurse Mia for 3 days. Bummer. What they didn't tell me, until they were ready to get started was that, due to the radiation, I am not able to hold either of my kids for 24 hours.

So, my mom is here now and I am holed up in my bedroom, so that Jack doesn't know that I am here.

What a raw deal, not only can I not feed my baby, but I can't hold her when she cries and I cannot hold my other baby on his birthday!

I am trying to catch up on some work that I missed at the office and trying to get this site updated with a new post and new pictures.

Assuming that everything comes back normal tomorrow, they will move on to my gallbladder to see if it is the culprit.

I'll try to post again the results of this whole health circus and I'll be putting the birthday pictures up soon!

Take care,
The Krysl 4

Back to work!

Well, today was my first day back to work after having Mia. I did okay dropping her off at the babysitters, but I was sure ready to pick her up when 2:00 hit!

Jack wasn't real sure what to think about picking up baby sister from someone's house. He seemed a little confused!

We had Mia was baptized Friday night. Uncle Terry and Aunt Dawn are her Godparents, as well as Jack's. Everything went well and we all had a great time visiting afterwards. We were so happy that all of our families could be there to witness this exciting event for Mia. I have the pictures posted in the April photo album. She wore the same christening gown that I wore when I was baptized. My mom still had it in the original box and everything, the dress looked brand new!

Mia has started sleeping through the night. I decided to put her in her own bed to sleep every night and she has been sleeping all night long ever since! She is having some difficulty transitioning to bottles during the day, but I think that will just take some time.

Jack is sill loving baby sister. He was the receiver of her first smile! She was asleep in her swing and Jack gave her a kiss goodnight and she smiled in her sleep at him!

Things continue to go well. Hopefully my transition back to work goes smoothly!

Take care,
The Krysl 4

6 weeks old!

Well, Miss Mia is 6 weeks old already! I weighed her last Thursday and she weighs 9 lbs 10 oz.  I can't believe that she is that big already! She just seems so small still. I am finally getting to put her in some of the adorable clothes that she has been given. I know that she has more clothes in her closet than I do! I had her one month pictures taken right before Easter and they look almost identical to Jack at that age. I've started putting their pictures next to each other in the photo album that I carry, just to show how much they look alike (and like their dad). I actually had someone ask me if I have any DNA in either kid! Sometimes I really wonder! We are trying to get settled into a routine before I have to go back to work in a few weeks. Not sure how well that is going to go, but we are trying.

Jack is still loving his baby sister! He is just crazy about her. He is always asking for me to bring her into his room so that he can "play" with her. He read to her and shows her his toys. And on Easter, when I had her in the new Easter dress that Aunt Michelle bought her, he told that, "Baby sister looks like a princess!"

Hopefully, his patience with her lasts for several more years!

I am still trying to get the house organized and ready for me to go back to work but sometimes I think that I'll get more done once I go back! Things have sort of accumulated around here since I've been off.

I'm adding new pictures to the March album. Jack played outside in the rain on Monday with his umbrella and had a blast! It has been a while since I've really taken a lot of pictures and I had a blast. I even played around with my different lenses and I really like some of the close ups that got.

I also took some new pics of Mia on Monday as well. I even managed to get one that resembles a smile! (And one where she is sticking out her tongue)

The Hardin baby boom is in full swing! When I was pregnant with Jack, I got to share the experience with 3 of my friends (Amy, Danielle and Jackie) and we all managed to be pregnant this time around as well! I had Mia in February, Jackie just had baby Alivia in March, Danielle is due any day now and Amy will have her baby in May! And although we don't get to see them as often as we would like, we managed to share pregnancies with some former co-workers of Bob's. Dan and Jen had Samantha a few months before Jack and then Baby Elizabeth a month before Mia! So the kids will never be without friends!

Hopefully things will go smoothly for all of us as I transition back to work.

Take Care!

The Krysl 4