FFF-“Little Fish”

Every one of my children has been afraid of the water and it has taken forever for them to learn to swim!  UNTIL NOW!!  Peter is the first one to love the water from the first time he was ever in it.  While Ricky has been learning to swim with a Special Olympics coach this summer, this kind man has also let me put Peter in the pool and he has been teaching him to swim as well!

The summer swim program has ended and on the last day, they had a little ceremony.  Ricky is so proud of his “gold medal”!  He shows it to everyone! I am really pleased with the progress he made this summer in the water…way to go Ricky!!!

To see more FFF, go HERE.  Blessings, my friends.

Some surgeries in our future!

We had an appointment for Taylor and Peter at the ENT Dr. yesterday.  First of all, Taylor… she has always been a mouth-breather which has caused many problems with her teeth in a round-about way.  Needless to say, after 2 1/2 years of braces and thousands of dollars, she got them off and soon her teeth were pushed out of position again!  She apparently has a tongue thrust that was never noticed until after braces came off and because of it, her tongue pushes outward each time she swallows(which is 1000+ times per day!).  At any rate, the mouth breathing is related to all this in some way.  We ruled out allergies a few weeks ago with testing and were referred to this ENT.  What he found is that she has a deviated nasal septum and will need surgery to straighten it.  Has anyone else had an experience with this procedure and what we can expect?  It  doesn’t sound like fun and I wish we would have known about this at the BEGINNING of the summer!

Moving along to Peter…since the first time we met him in Guatemala at age 2 months, he has been a very noisy sleeper.  Since he’s been home with us, he began to snore during sleep and now he even snores while he’s awake if he’s really tired!!!  He’s not a huge overweight child so I knew something was wrong.  Well, one look in his throat and the doctor knew what the problem was.  His tonsil are HUGE!  On a scale of 1-4, his are a 5!!!  Not only do they touch in the middle of his throat but almost cross over each other!!  The dr. is sure a tonsillectomy will solve his snoring and loud breathing problems.

I think back to Ricky’s tonsillectomy at age two and I cringe.  It was a horrible procedure for that little guy and 2 weeks later we rushed him to the E.R. with bleeding down his throat!  I am praying Peter’s surgery won’t be so traumatic! We will be getting these 2 surgeries scheduled in the next few weeks…never a dull moment at the Lund household!!!

Here’s a random picture with no significance to today’s subject matter-just posted for your viewing pleasure!  Starting to experiment a little more with my camera!!!

Back to back Birthdays!

This week we also celebrated Taylor’s 15th birthday!!  She will be starting High School in 2 weeks!  Once again, I think back to when she was little and can’t believe so many years have passed already.  When Taylor was a baby, we couldn’t go anywhere without strangers stopping us to comment on what a precious baby she was.  I got so many comments from people that she should be a baby model!!  Well, I eventually took her to an agency for the chance to be chosen for a photo shoot(what can I say…I was a first-time mom and thought my kid was the cutest one out there..plus I had lots more free time than I do now!!).  Anyway, she was chosen for a session to pose for Huggies Diapers.  She had to smile and cooperate for over 1 hour(keep in mind she was 12 months at the time!) and she actually did it!  She got her first paycheck at age 12 months and that was the end of her career.  I realized it was way too much work and I needed to just enjoy her at home!

Taylor has had many struggles as she entered school and has had so much to overcome in her life.  Despite that, she is a strong, kind, compassionate child.  We couldn’t be prouder of the beautiful young lady she is becoming!!  Happy Birthday pretty girl!!

FFF-“Teenager”

This week we celebrated Hannah’s 13th birthday…now I have TWO teenagers in the house! It is hard to believe how fast the time goes.  Wasn’t it just yesterday that she was my chubby-cheeked little ballerina.  In a few weeks she will be starting 8th grade and busy with volleyball and hockey.  Hannah is such a sweet girl and a wonderful helper for me.  Some days I don’t know how I would get by without my big girls helping out!  She’s also a wonderful babysitter and her younger siblings adore her.  Happy birthday, sweet girl!

To see more FFF, go to Sarah’s blog. Have a great weekend! This is our 3rd day of cool(70’s) and rainy weather so I am hoping the weekend weather improves!!

Another Vacation and 50th Anniversary!!!

We just returned from a fun vacation in Wisconsin Dells.  We rented a 4 bedroom condo at the Wilderness Resort along with my parents and my brother and his family.  It was a beautiful log home with lots of space for all of us and a full kitchen to cook meals for the entire crew!

My parents didn’t want to have a big party to celebrate their 50th anniversary and preferred to spend it with their 5 children and 22 grandchildren.  We decided that we would all meet in Wisconsin Dells.  The weather was perfect and we enjoyed the EIGHT waterparks that this resort has to offer! We also went to the Tommy Bartlett Water Show.  They announced my parents 50th anniversary during the show and one performer dedicated a song to them.  Our entire family had dinner at a nice restaurant and then enjoyed a cake to celebrate their anniversary.  Years ago my mom gave me the cake topper from their wedding cake so we added that to the top of this cake to make it extra special.

The weekend was so much fun and it was such a blessing to have most of the family together all in one place.  We are so blessed to have such a wonderful healthy family and parents/grandparents that are so awesome.  My parents are good Christian role models for their family and anyone else who knows them.  Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad!!!  We love you!!!

This is the condo that we stayed in.

Wisconsin Dells is known for their candy shops and homemade fudge…doesn’t this vat of chocolate look yummy!!!

We rented a private room at the restaurant to accommodate our big group!

Don’t my parents look great…50 years together and going strong!!!!

The gang!  One brother and his family were unable to be there to celebrate this special event. This is the place we stayed at.

Tommy Bartlett Water Show.

We had front row seats at the Water Show in town and they asked some of our kids to come up on stage for a hula hoop contest.  Hannah is in the pink.  She won the contest and a free pizza!!!

After all the traveling we have done in the past month, I am ready for a vacation from vacations!!  It’s lots of work to pack before we leave and to deal with mountains of dirty clothes once we return home. I need to start thinking of back-to-school time so we can get back into a routine!!

Stop by my friend, Nora’s blog, for a great give away!

Wordful Wednesday-“Alfalfa”

We have been back from Paris for several days and I have not had the energy to blog until now.  It’s difficult going through so many time zones and it always takes me a while to get my system back to MN time once we return from overseas.  Plus the dirty laundry alone is enough to set me back for a week!!

I spend most days taking Ricky to the pool to work on swimming with a Special Olympics coach.  He is an amazing teacher!  Ricky would NEVER even get into the water and now he’s become very comfortable in it.  He still has a ways to go before he’s actually swimming but his coach is confident that if we keep up the lessons, he will be competing in Special Olympics next year!  Yesterday Ricky was in swimming classes twice…morning and evening…so it really cuts into my “free” time!

Today’s Wordful Wednesday photo is one of Peter and Hannah.  Peter had just got out of the bathtub and Hannah made his wet hair stick up like Alfalfa!!  Peter is a good sport about letting his siblings experiment with him!!!

 

To see more Wordful Wednesday photos, go to Angie’s blog.  Have a wonderful Wednesday!!

We’re in Paris!!!

Bonjour!!!  Okay, a few of you guessed it right on my last post.  I thought I would have more people guessing New York City!  I believe that when France gave the United States our Statue of Liberty, they made a smaller version to keep in Paris.  She is located on the River Seine and when we looked out our hotel window the first night, we saw her there all lit up and beautiful! 

Here are some photos we have taken of Paris.  The weather is HOT and the food is wonderful!!

Hotel des Invalides-The tomb of Napoleon the First

The Louvre Museum

The original Mona Lisa…that was cool to see it up close!  It’s a really small piece of art…not what you picture it to look like!

Venus de Milo-At the Louvre Museum

Notre-Dame Cathedral

The French make amazing crepes…Hannah had this one filled with Nutella Chocolate!!

The Arc de Triomphe taken from Champs-Elysees

Double Decker open bus tour through Paris

Lil’ Sister to Lady Liberty!

We took a boat tour of the Seine River

Flower Markets and Street Cafes are everywhere!

I think this is the neatest thing we saw in Paris…the Eiffel Tower is so impressive and absolutely beautiful when it’s all lit up at night.  Words and pictures don’t do it justice! Rich and Hannah went to the top of it…they walked up the first 700+ steps and then took the elevator from the second level up to the top!  Taylor didn’t want to go up because of her poor vision so I stayed on the ground with her.

With all the wonderful(and extremely expensive) French food, this is where my girls wanted to eat each day…we only ate there once however!

Some more “ART” at the Louvre Museum…Taylor was NOT happy about posing in front of a naked man statue and said she never wanted to see another one in her life!!!

Once again, we left our three youngest home with Grandma and Grandpa!  We miss them alot but they wouldn’t enjoy Paris and the fast pace we keep.

Finally, Holly(of Holly’s Kick Ass Bows) is the winner of the prize.  Email me, Holly and I will get it out in the mail to you!!

Guess Where I am and Win a Prize!

Remember I said we were going on a fun vacation? Well, we're here! Take a look at the photo and tell me where I am. Everyone that leaves a comment will be entered in a drawing to win a prize that I will bring home from this vacation!

Sorry the photo isn't very clear...it was taken from my hotel room window.