Mohawk Man

Brody's hair is getting fairly long which makes for an amazing Mohawk while taking a bath. Tonight will be the last night of the amazingly long Mohawk since the boys will be getting their hair cut tomorrow.

Out with the old...In with the new.

A little over a week ago, Hunter's gun broke. It was a sad day in the Zappe Household. Hunter and his cousin, Ashton were playing in Hunter's room. They had closed the door so Brody couldn't get in...little brothers tend to interfere, you know.

Well, they were playing, having fun when all of a sudden we hear Hunter calling, "Brody! Come in here and play!" Brody ran to the door, went in and slam! Hunter shut the door. Not even kidding, two minutes later, Hunter, Ashton and Brody came out of the bedroom with a broken toy gun. They said that Brody had broke it. Hunter told me, "Brody broke it with his strong muscles. He drinks more milk than me and has really strong muscles." Hahaha!! Craig and I are still pretty suspicious about how the gun really broke. The timing seems a little funny, don't you think? Or maybe we should start calling Brody "muscle man".

Well, we have looked around and found Hunter a new gun. He is back to hunting for deer, pheasants, ducks, skunks, not raccoons because they're too cute he informed me, and whatever else he imagines that day.

Darn Technology.

Even though I love blogging and being able to share a bit of our life, sometimes I hate technology. The past two posts haven't let me put things into paragraph form and I have no idea why. I know I'm not perfect and probably have run on sentences and use the wrong grammar, but I do know how to seperate things into paragraphs. Darn technology. I have no idea why it isn't letting me.

I Can See Clearly Now...

It's hard to believe that is has been almost a year since Hunter received his glasses. I will never forget the day he got them. They looked so foreign on his little face. He looked like a different boy and I hardly recognized him. We drove away from the eye doctor and he exclaimed, "Wow! Everything is so much bigger!" We had no clue he needed glasses let alone that his vision was pretty much horrible. Especially in his right eye. Our eye doctor wanted to do a follow up with him in a month. The day he got his glasses, he was seeing 20/200 out of his right eye! It is amazing to me that he was able to function in the real world without his glasses. He literally had everyone fooled that he had perfect vision. A month had passed and there was little improvement. We tried patching, but that didn't work. We even bought a special patch that would go over his lens to help build the right eye stronger. He hated it. He cried while he wore it. It itched, it felt weird, it was hard to see, everything was blurry. So, we went to plan B and did eye drops that would make his left eye blurry. The problem was that it was blurry for 1-2 days. It wasn't ideal, but we did what we had to do. As the monthly appointments went by we saw major improvements. After two months he was seeing 20/80. Time passed and four months ago he had stalled out at 20/40. There had been no improvement in over 3 months. Our eye doctor was still hopeful that things could change because we caught it at the perfect age, but she also told me that it may not be correctable. My heart kind of sank, but yet was happy at how far he had come. She said we were doing the right things and it may just need time. The good news was that he would still be able to drive, hunt, etc. The bad news was that if the eye became weaker, he would no longer be able to do those things. We didn't tell him that part though. Could you imagine how much that would crush all of his dreams?? Well today we went to the eye doctor. Our first time in 4 months. There was a new optometrist there. I was kind of nervous because our previous one had so much patience with Hunter and would answer all of his questions about how this worked or what that button did or what if you moved this like this...you get the point. Then I saw the new optometrist. he looked like he was stressed and having a bad day and felt overwhelmed. In my head I thought, "Oh great. He will be so annoyed with Hunter and he just wants to move on to his next appointment." I guess the old saying holds true. You can't judge a book by a cover. He was great with Hunter! He hadn't had the time to look through his file that much, but I brought him up to date on what has gone on the past year. He did a thorough exam on Hunter and we found out that he is now seeing 20/30!!! He is determined to get Hunter to seeing perfectly and is amazed at how far Hunter has come in the past year. No more eye drops, or as Hunter likes to call it, the bee sting in his eye. And our next exam won't be until 6 months! But, if I know my son, we will be there in the next month or two with a popped out lens or crooked glasses that need to be adjusted. And the glasses don't look so foreign anymore. They are a part of his look. If anything, he looks weird without them. Funny how things change :)

Flying Solo

Ugh. I wish this wasn't true. Who knew that 2+ weeks would fly by so fast? I honestly don't know where time has gone. For the past 2+ weeks, Craig has been home on break. I'm sure you thought something was up since I haven't blogged in what feels like forever. It was wonderful- but tonight, the house seems so lonely. Once again, I have no one to talk to once the boys are down. No one to watch late night TV or a movie with. It stinks. I know he's just a phone call away, but it's not the same. But, at least this time around we have a 5 day stretch of being apart rather than the normal 17. Yes, we really do count down the days. Until then, I'm flying solo. No more sleeping in...which was amazing! Breakfast, lunch and supper are my roles again. I'll be honest, it will be tough to get back in the swing of things. I have slacked so much and Craig has been there to pick it up. Tomorrow I will put on the full stay-at-home-mom armor and be prepared for whatever struggles the day may hold. I will be the rock the boys need me to be. Not necessarily because I want to, but I need to. But I don't have to put it on until tomorrow. Tonight I'm still weak. Wishing he was here. I will not be surprised if I'll crawl into bed and let out a few tears and hug my pillow tight. I'm allowed to. But just tonight. After all, tomorrow the countdown will be four days! Yes, I am counting. :)

Our trip to South America

That's right...we went to South America for Hunter's spring break! And let me tell you-it was amazing!

Ok, just kidding. We didn't actually go there. In January, Hunter's cousin went to Walt Disney World. Hunter didn't understand why he couldn't go with. Devastated. Tears. Ok, more like sobs. But, we told him that we would make it up to him. If their spring breaks lined up, we would go to Mall of America and go on the rides and to Rainforest Cafe for lunch.

The next day at church, Hunter ran over to his great-aunt and was so excited to tell her the big news-"My mom is taking me to South America!" She looked shocked! I think she thought that I was taking Hunter on the next church mission trip to Ecuador. We then clarified that we were going to Mall of America...not South America. However, Hunter kept referring to it as South America and the name kind of stuck.

Last week, we ventured down the cities. We went down on Tuesday afternoon, spent time with Heidi, Jason, and Henry and on Wednesday we got ready to go to South America...I mean, Mall of America.

Hunter was so excited. He even told me he would wake up at 7 o'clock so we could make it there in time. This is coming from a little boy who usually likes to sleep in until 8:00-9:00.
We arrived at the mall around 9:30-9:45 AM and got front row parking. It pays to get there early! The mall and the rides didn't open til 10, but thankfully Lego land had the Legos out and the boys got busy building. 10 o'clock rolled around and we bought our wristbands and hit the rides! Hunter told us he wanted to go on all the scary rides-the scarier the better. I didn't believe him. I thought he was hyping himself up. But I was wrong.

Brody having fun at Lego Land!

We rode rides until a little after 11, heading over to the Rainforest Cafe, had a great lunch and then Hunter hit up the rides again.

Melissa and Hunter at Rainforest Cafe...it kind of looks like South America, right?

We tried a couple of rides with Brody, but he was not a fan. Poor kid. The things we try to make him do. At 5 o'clock...yes, we were there all day!...we decided it was best to hit the road and head home. After a day at MOA, Hunter's biggest accomplishments were riding one of the big roller coasters and the log chute not once...not twice....but three times! It was his favorite ride!

Brody's first ride-he was terrified!

Brody's last ride before we left....still terrified.

Hunter liked the carousel. He even tried to hold Brody's hand.

We had a great time there with great people and hope one day to make it back to South America. ;)

Good-bye Pacifier!

That's right...we are going on day 4 with no pacifier! And let me tell you, I am thrilled! I was a little nervous at first, but we are surviving better than I expected.
This past weekend Craig and I went on a date (it is amazing having him home) and my brother Alex watched the boys (he is pretty much amazing and is there when we need anything). We had the pacifier off of Brody most of the day with hopes of one day breaking him of the habit of "needing" it. Before heading out the door, I told Alex not to forget to hook the pacifier clip on Brody because he needs it when he goes to sleep. The next morning we woke up to the sound of Brody talking in his crib and to our surprise, the pacifier was no where to be found.
We were shocked that he made it through the night and didn't wake up crying for it. We later found it downstairs where they had been watching "Choo choos!" the night before. We quickly hid it and it was as easy as that. No more pacifier! Brody has gone down for naps and to bed with no troubles for three days in a row. I really thought that taking the beloved "paci" away would be a lot more painful for all of us, but it wasn't.
So thanks Alex-not only for being a great uncle to the boys, but for helping us take the step we needed to get rid of that funny looking thing that blocked Brody's smile!