Lily and the kids

Lily is such a sweet sweet puppy when she's not chewing your shoes or jumping on you ....

Just ask Emily and Elliot :)

This was right before Elliot said he was tired and went to bed

She said she was faking sleep, but I am not so sure ... HA

Elliot Updates (I'l just add to this one)

Saturday (Day 3)
After Elliot took a long nap yesterday he woke up in better spirits.
Wayne bribed him with some new hot wheels and that made him happy!

He slept great! It seems like he's even breathing through his nose some (instead of his mouth only)

This morning we upped his pain meds to see if that will help him eat/drink more. We started at the lowest dose and have room to move up if we need to. I don't know if it was all pain yesterday or just getting rid of all the drugs in his system.

He's still peeing enough ... and according to one of the nurses that's what matters. One nurse freaked me out and said he should be drinking at least 3oz an hour and there was NO WAY he did that yesterday. BUT, he was on an IV before we left, so he wasn't going to dehydrate yesterday. He is even taking drinks on his own today ... a big improvement!

The surgery follow up nurse was wonderful ... she gave me lots of tips and calmed me down. LOL. Instead of saying "he has to drink something or else" ... she said to get some lollipops to trick him into swallowing and working his throat muscles and to just keep trying and not get discouraged. She also said to give him gummies to work his jaw muscles and we all know how he loves fruit snacks. He didn't eat all of them, but he ate some of them.

Wayne made some Mickey Mouse pancakes this morning and he's eating some and drinking some milk.

*UPDATE .... he wanted a breakfast bar and I told him no at first ... then he was so upset I decided to call the doctor and ask him. He said he could have one ... so he ate part of one. I guess he's feeling halfway decent today.

*another UPDATE .... he got super tired at 4pm and said "I am ready for bed" and wanted me to lay down with him .... he didn't get up until 7am this morning. Tired boy. He is taking his medicine better, so that's good!

*Emily - Wayne took Emily to watch her friends Abi and Emma play softball. Then she hung out with Abi at her brother's football practice and ended up spending the night over there last night. It was good to have her busy because she was feeling a little left out!

Sunday (Day 4)

He woke up wanting water this morning - so maybe he'll drink more today!
He wanted milk too ... that's a plus!

Nothing exciting to report today ... just lots of TV and lots of me saying "Elliot have a big drink for Mommy"

Like last night he was ready for bed at 4pm - poor sleepy boy! He didn't sleep as well, he was more restless tonight.

Emily was tired from her sleep-over with Abi, but she won't admit it!

Monday (Day 5)

This morning at 2:30am he woke up with a fever and didn't go back to sleep until about 4:30am ... he was super restless. So far he's been crying more and doesn't want any breakfast. Hopefully when the meds kick in he'll feel better. We waited a little longer to give his meds since he was sleeping so soundly after having such a restless night.
Right now he's smiling at Sid the Science Kid, so maybe the meds are finally kicking in!

Had another fever Monday night, but it broke pretty quickly - I am sure it's because he's not drinking enough ... he's drinking enough to keep him out of the doctors (he's having 3 wet diapers), but prolly needs to drink more!

Tuesday (Day 6)

Decent day today. He was super whiny at times, but Wayne said he did OK. They even went up to Emily's school for chili cook-off day (I was at Zero Gravity). He probably ran around too much, because they got home he was more whiny. But, all in all he's doing good. Still super tired, but I think he's doing pretty good.

Went to bed early and we had to wake him up for his medicine at 10pm ... that's always hard to do! We decided to let him sleep through the early morning dose if he wanted to, but he woke up at 2:30 in pain ... so we gave it to him then. I think tonight that's what we'll do ... only give it to him if he wakes up needing it, instead of waking him up!

Wednesday (Day 7) ... wait, how is Wednesday Day 7 when it hasn't been a week yet??

Woke up wanting to watch I SPY. This morning we gave him Tylenol first instead of the Vicodin ... we'll see if it's strong enough. Hopefully we can cut back on the nasty tasty stuff today. The nurses said we could alternate or we could go straight to Tylenol. We'll see!
His diaper isn't wet this morning, so we'll be bribing him to drink again today!

He went to bed early and woke up twice for medicine ... we aren't waking him up anymore, now we are letting him wake us up.

Thursday (Day 8 ... or one week)

Wayne had an interview at Randalls this morning, so Elliot had to come with me to Zero Gravity for a few hours. It took a lot out of him poor buddy. He came home and took a nap. I hope he'll be ready for school next week because Wayne is starting his job with Kellogg's on Monday! I told his teacher he'll have to skip the gym and outside play next week ... then school is out for Spring Break, so he'll have any longer to heal. I really didn't expect him to be so woozy this long ... even though they say the recovery is the full two weeks. I've heard people say their kids were ready to get back to normal after a few days ... I don't know how it's possible, but I guess it is! Poor buggers - he's just slow healing!

Friday (Day 9)

Well, he only woke up for meds once last night .... and hasn't had meds since 11pm (and it's 7:20) ... I think he needs it, but he doesn't want to take it!

UPDATE 3/16

We went to Elliot's 2 week check up and everything looks good! He was released to do all his "normal" things ... whatever "normal" is ... LOL ... the only big concern is his left ear. Durn it! It got a horrible infection that caused his ear drum to burst. He wants to check it in a month to see if the water behind his ear is gone ... otherwise we might have to talk about putting that tube back in ... ARGH! We should have had him put it in while he was doing the other surgery, but he hadn't had any problems recently ... siiiiigh!

All in all he's doing GREAT!

Bye Bye tonsils and adenoids!

Well, tonsils and adenoids are gone .... I can already tell he's breathing better even though he's super phlemy right now!

Dr. Leary told us his adenoids were as big as his tonsils, so his breathing really should improve when he's healed.

We had the surgery at Strictly Pediatrics (next to Dell Children's Hospital) and they were super! I highly recommend their facility if you have a little one who needs surgery! The only complaint was the tiny little rooms they kept us in overnight, but hey, it really wasn't bad!

The surgery was FAST. I sent Wayne to get me a soda thinking we had about 30 minutes before the doctor would come back and of course he came back while he was gone! Thankfully Eddie was there so I didn't freak out too bad ... since my first thought was "oh crap, something is wrong" ... but nope, it was just fast!

He did GREAT on the day of the surgery. Went back with no problems. Woke up from surgery with no problem and was acting like his "normal" self in no time! I have some pictures I need to get off my Blackberry along with a video of him being super silly. He had pancakes, mac and cheese and popsicles while at the surgery center.

At 10pm everything changed .... they came in to give him his medicine and he fought the nurse like crazy. Wouldn't take the medicine - she had to call in the other nurse. Siiiigh. He stopped drinking at that point too ... I guess he's pretty sore. Then he spiked a fever about 2am (102.6) no fun! They don't like to see anything over 101. Thank God it came down quickly and I finally felt OK enough to get some sleep and as soon as I dosed off the stinkin' monitor started going off because his blood oxygen levels were lower than they like to see ..... I think it was low because he was in such a deeeeep sleep and I am certain it was higher than it's been for a loooong time .... so I wasn't worried about that so much ... I just hated the alarm that would sound every time it slipped below 85%

Needless to say, mommy is tired!

Today he's not interested in eating OR drinking. We've been able to force some liquid down, but not as much as we'd like. Hopefully later this evening he'll do better so I can relax a little bit! Wayne picked up a few bribes and I hope they'll work! The nurse said "just allow him to have whatever he wants .... don't worry about what it is, as long as it liquid" ... well, if I could get him to put anything in his mouth right now, I totally would! Wayne even went to get him an icee and that didn't work ....

I'll keep you posted! They say the first 5 days are pretty tough ... so keep the prayers coming!

Emily lost her second tooth!

Emily lost her 2nd tooth today ... and she lost it at school. She was super excited because when you lose them at school you get a cool little tooth necklace to bring the tooth home in. I am super excited because that's the 2nd tooth I haven't had to watch come out .... HA HA HA!

Video Skype is cool ...

We had to get a new laptop since I ruined ours..

One fun new feature is a built in webcam and Wayne said "you know with Skype you can use the webcam for video calls - for FREE" ... so we signed up.
Mom and Dad have a webcam so they signed up too and the kids were able to see them while we talked tonight ... VERY cool!

Now we need to hook up with everyone else :)

Fun fun fun!

SNOW!!!

Crazy Snow here in Cedar Park ... nothing like the 12 inches Dallas saw, but fun all the same!
Click here to view photos

It started raining and sleeting early this morning and right when Emily went to school (around 7:30) the snow started coming down. It snowed all day ... it's actually still snowing a little bit right now! The snowflakes were HUGE!!! The biggest ones I've ever seen!

I used a yard stick in the back yard and it showed about 2 inches. Who knows how accurate that is ...

The kids enjoyed it! Wayne picked Emily up early from school. Elliot and I got home from Zero Gravity around 2:30pm. Then we built a snow man ... it's full of twigs and leaves, but it sure is cute!

Rain, Sleet AND SNOW!

Well it started snowing right when Emily left for school (BUMMER)
We had some big beautiful snowflakes for awhile .... fun fun!
I wasn't able to get great pictures with my camera ... must have it on the wrong setting
Here are a few...

Cruise February 2010 (258 photos), by Rachel Ogden

Yes, I've posted them all ... every one of them ... HA!
There are some from my camera and from Christy's camera .... and they are not in any special order. I tried to caption them!
Click here to view photos - beware! some are horrible, some are hilarious, but some are pretty good!

We had a super time. I would totally do it again.
Although we were talking that next time we'll just go to Cozumel by plane and skip the boat.
The food was yummy (and available at all times) ... the room was bigger than I thought it would be. You could tell you were on a boat ... it was rocking and rolling at times. But it was tons of fun!! There was always something going on ...It might not be what you wanted to do, but there was tons going on at all times. There were a LOT of older people on the boat (yes, I am talking older than us for all you smartie pants people reading!)

Wayne and I were lazy and took naps and went to bed early most nights.

Let's see, what else?

OOOH if you ever cruise Carnival I suggest you buy liquor from the bon voyage package (if you don't want to sneak it on) ... you have to call, they don't advertise it online and bring sodas on with you. Don't forget you can bring a bottle of wine per person! This saved us a ton of money as drinks were $4-8 a pop!

Emily 7th Birthday (44 photos), by Rachel Ogden

Here are pictures from Emily's 7th Birthday!
From making cupcakes for her class to her skate party. I still can't believe she's 7!!
Click here to view photos

Christmas and MORE Christmas!! (188 photos), by Rachel Ogden

Here are ALL Christmas pictures! I haven't captioned them, but there are some from church, from school and from family! It was a super duper year!

Click here to view photos

Kites!

Here are some pictures I forgot about .... !
The kiddos decided to get the kites out on a windy day, and now Elliot wants a bigger kite for his Birthday :)

430 pictures! geeeeeez

there is no way I am going to blog about everything HA HA!
I think I'll just put the pictures on snapfish and put a link up :)

Going forward I'll be better ... I think!

Here's a picture while you wait :)

WOW!

What a blog slacker I've been!

Looks like I owe pictures from Christmas, Emily's Birthday, the Cruise, etc ...

Here's a quick run down while you are waiting for the pictures ... Christmas was GREAT, Emily's skate party was tons of fun and we had a BLAST on the Cruise!

Got some good news this week - Wayne was offered a part-time job with Kellogg's. Hopefully there will be some full time jobs opened, but in the meantime he's going to learn what he can and see where it takes him! He's on the look out for another part-time job to supplement .... so if you hear of any, let us know!

Other than that we've been busy busy. I am hoping I can start blogging more regularly again soon!

Happy Golden Birthday Emily!

Emily's turning 7 on the 7th ... how exciting is that???

I still can't believe she's 7 .... wow, where did the time go?

We do have a fun day planned after we stop crying over the fact that she's SEVEN!!!

Emily is taking cupcakes to share (yummy!) and since she's student of the week, Wayne is going to read a book to her class before lunch (Fox in Sox, isn't he lucky??). After school we are going to see Alvin and the Chipmunks:The Squeakquel and eating dinner at Moonies.

It's going to be a GREAT day .... !

Eventually I'll come and do a REAL blog update (I promise!)

Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry CHRISTmas!

We didn’t get Christmas cards ordered this year and figured the next best thing would be an email/blog greeting!

We hope everyone is having a SUPER holiday season!

Here is a run down on what’s been happening in the Ogden household:

Emily is waiting patiently to lose a tooth. She’s convinced she’s going to be the last kid in 1st grade with all her baby teeth! She’s doing GREAT in school and is going to start gymnastics after the first of the year. She’s been swimming since she was 18 months old and has been asking for gymnastics lessons for the last couple of years. Since we will not enroll the kids at Emler again, it’s a perfect time to transition to another activity. If she wants to swim again, we’ll find another place.

Elliot is such a little comedian. He keeps us laughing constantly. I have a feeling Wayne and I will have different conversations with HIS teachers when he starts school. He is going to start a Mother’s Day Out program in January and we might look for an activity for him after his 3rd birthday in March. Probably swimming again, but not at Emler - HA. We aren’t going to rush him into anything because it’s been nice not to have to run the kids to different activities these last few weeks!

I will start teaching at Zero Gravity in January. I will have the 3-year old class on Tuesday / Thursday and will need to learn how to create lesson plans - HA. At least they give us a monthly calendar! It’s going to be fun!

Wayne is still on the hunt for a new job. He’s found some great local networking groups. He’s learning a bunch and I am certain the right job will present itself very very soon!

We would love to hear from you and hope you are all doing well!

Rachel, Wayne, Emily, Elliot

Max, TC, Bridget and Lily

What a mess .....

Normally I would not blog about a job loss but I am going to this time to help me work through my anger/frustration! I am sure I'll ramble on and on, so be warned!

Before I start my rant I will say I know God has a plan and we'll be fine ... it's just going to be a stressful for awhile!

Emily started swimming at Emler about 5 years ago and Wayne started working there part time 2.5 years ago. Glenna asked him to be a manager almost as soon as he started part time and he declined. She continued asking him and he finally accepted her offer when I told him I needed a break from the corporate world.

Some red flags we should have paid more attention to from the beginning:

1) Glenna made him a verbal offer and when the written offer came to him it was $5,000 less than she promised. When he asked, she said that was what everyone gets paid while training. BUT, she never told him how long training would be .... we assumed 90 days (like most places!). We wrote our budget expecting him to get paid more in 90 days. When 90 days passed and he didn't get the full pay, he asked the question once more and was told MIT training was for a full year (WHAT?!?) ... remember I said they have known each other for years right? She knew what he needed to be paid and she chose to "hide" the truth from him until I had already quit my job of 8.5 years.

2) Glenna fired 4 managers in the two years Wayne worked part time. We didn't think much of it because they were young and this was their first management gig. Wayne has tons of management experience, so he would be fine :)

3) 2 managers quit about 6 months into their training. They are still teachers at Emler, but told Wayne after the fact that they left because they could not deal with Glenna's management style.

Hmmmm, wish we would have had a crystal ball!

So, moving on ... I'll talk about what happened while he was in training ....

He started the job during Emler's busy time (summer) ... he's never been a swim instructor. While working part time he was always in the office. He did teacher training when he started, but was NEVER in the water to work on the skills he learned.

There was no official training for him. He shadowed a deck manager, but basically all he learned the first 3 months was how to clean up the deck, stock candy, toys and how to work the pool. They were too busy to officially train him.

After his first three months of non-training, she decided he was ready to work the deck alone. When he was alone, he realized he didn't know enough about the classes to be an effective deck manager and asked Glenna for help. She blew him off and told him "just get in the water when there's a problem" ... OK, thanks ... that is exactly what he needed to know (blah). Finally she realized he needed extra training and had him start teaching classes .... (something she should have had him do in the summer) .... then he asked if he could re-take teacher training in Dallas (where their corporate office is located!) ... she told him no ... he asked if he could take a trip to Dallas and shadow some of the teachers/deck managers there (most of their teachers/managers have been around for a long time!) ... she told him that wouldn't help ... he asked her multiple times for extra help and she blew him off saying "you'll get it, don't worry" ....

I still don't quite understand why she let him go .... and part of me wants to go up to the pool and ask her .... but I know if I see her I'll want to kick her in the shins.

He said some of the things she said to him when she let him go were ...

"Thursday I told you to work on sign ups and you were on the phone in the office" ... well, before she reprimanded him for not answering the phone when it was ringing ... and Wayne said everyone on Thursday was signed up!

"I wanted you to walk through the observation deck talking to parents and you didn't" ... well, they had recently talked about him being on deck more often with the kids ....

So who knows what she really wanted from him ... he never could figure it out.
He could do all the management stuff with his eyes closed, he just needed a little more training in the water to feel 100% confident in the job. She didn't want to give him that ...

My thought is they fired him to fix payroll since their numbers are so low this year. Or they realized there is no way their South location will make now that Ian Crocker has opened a swim school ... or maybe April is right and Glenna likes to hire managers at the low MIT pay, keep them around for 6 months and fire them so she can get some cheap labor. Not a good way to run a business, but who knows what she's thinking ... Or maybe she's not used to working with an adult who will offer suggestions and ideas that make sense ... HA HA!

The crazy thing is ... her husband was let go from his job unexpectedly last year and she KNOWS how horrible it feels ... and she did it to Wayne.

Wayne was NEVER written up ... NEVER officially reprimanded .... when he'd ask her how he was doing and what he needed to work on she NEVER gave him any feedback ... only said he was doing GREAT and she was so happy to have him on the team ... blah blah blah.

The funny thing is, if you know her casually, you think she's the nicest person in the world ... she seems so caring and family focused ... don't be fooled, it's all an act ... or maybe she's going through the "change"?

Thanks for letting me vent it all out ... I feel better (and didn't even cuss once!)

Like I said in the beginning, we'll be fine - even though we've already run though most of our savings .... we'll be fine. Something better will come along and God will provide!

The kids are working on their Wish Lists ...

I've had a few people ask about Christmas/Birthday ideas for the kiddos, so they are working on their lists right now - HA!

You can find the Wish List on the right hand side of the blog

I'll add things as they kids mention them.

I have updates to make and will be back to do that later!

Colin's Hope Triathlon

Emily participated in the Colin's Hope Kids Triathlon today.

She had a GREAT time and wants to do another one!

It was an early start - Wayne was there at 6am to help set up and the kids and I were there at 7am ... but it was super fun!!!

Makes me wish I wasn't a wimp and could do one myself :)

Maybe I could if I could do the 5-6 year old part!

She swam 25 meters, biked 0.5 miles and ran 500 meters.

She said her favorite part was biking ... she said she went FAST and passed two kiddos on training wheels ... she said she had to walk during the running part because she was tired ... it's probably because when she left the transition area she was booking it big time! I told her to slow down and pace herself, but she wanted to catch this little boy in front of her :)

During the swim part lifeguards had to jump in and help a couple of kiddos ... one lifeguard was in Emily's lane and I worried she was going to run into her. I asked her about it later and she said - "I was keeping an eye on her " ... smart girl!

Ian Crocker and Garrett Weber-Gale (Olympians) were taking pictures, showing off their gold medals and talking with the kids. Emily didn't want to get her picture taken with them and I didn't think it would be appropriate for me to run over the kids to get MY picture taken with them :)

A funny comment from her was on packet pick up day. One of the ladies at the pool asked her if she was going to be first and Emily looked at her like she was kooky and said "I don't know, but I am going to do my best and that's what matters" ... good girl!

Here are some pictures ... there are more in the Snapfish album (below)

UPDATE* She was the 2nd fastest girl in her age group and 12th overall in her age group (those boys were fast!)

Snapfish Album (with all pictures!)

Pumpkin Patch

We went to buy a few pumpkins on Sunday. Wish we would have done the pumpkin patch, but we waited too long! Maybe next year!!!!


There are more pictures in the October Snapfish folder

Dad and Elliot (no we didn't get a family shot)

inspecting the pumpkin for defects

Emily helping Elliot pick out the right pumpkin

oh this is how she's holding it ...

what in the world is she doing?