Our 2017 Christmas Card

I was torn throughout the Christmas season on whether or not I would send a Christmas card this year.  I decided that I wasn't going to mess with sending it out before the holidays and would just send out Valentines like we did a few years ago.  But, I'm cheap, and lazy, and the vast majority of you can read this and see our pictures on Facebook!  So here is our year in review.

2017 started with a long weekend in Florida with my parents.  We got to visit the Clearwater Marine Aquarium and saw wild dolphins swimming just off the beach near our hotel.  We returned to a show heifer in the barn, youth basketball, swim lessons and making many trips to the hospital to visit my grandma.  She spent most of January-May between the hospital and the nursing home before finally passing in May. 

Summer brought lots of success in the show ring for Claire and her heifer Nancy.  She took home Grand Champion honors at the Fisher Community Fair and the Farmer City Fair and we also checked out some other local shows.  We spent many nights at the pool watching Claire (and occasionally Kelson) swim, and the kids and I enjoyed our first summer at home without a job to balance too.  We visited St. Louis with our Edward Jones friends and I got to get away with a couple very special ladies for a long weekend in Door County, WI.  Trever kept the trailer packed and the cattle pampered. 

Claire is 8 1/2 years old and in the 3rd grade.  She reads ALL THE TIME and is doing quite well in school.  She is officially old enough to be a 4-H member and has joined our local club signing up for cattle, hogs, legos and sewing!  Last fall she participated in a learn to dive workshop at ISU and has decided that she loves diving!  She has a new heifer, Lady, in the barn and enjoys spoiling our first calves, Emmy & Bravo.   
 

Kelson is 5 1/2 and in Kindergarten at Thomas Metcalf School in Normal.  He has an AMAZING team of teachers and therapists there that are helping him catch up to his normal hearing peers.  Kindergarten has been a huge adjustment for me but Kelson seems to be thriving.  His hearing is pretty stable and he doesn't let anything slow him down.  He has really taken a liking to Bravo (the bull calf) and we hope that he will get to participate in peewee showmanship with Bravo this summer.  Kelson joined cub scouts this year and enjoyed selling popcorn and participating in his den and pack activities.  He is a huge helper, has the biggest heart and is super laid back.     

Trever continues to be successful as a Financial Advisor with Edward Jones.  He had his BEST MONTH EVER in December and welcomed a new office administrator this past summer.  He is a deacon at our church, active on the Le Roy Chamber of Commerce and he's on the Illinois Angus Board of Directors.  He loves spending time with Claire in the barn and is looking forward to taking her to her first National Junior Angus Show this summer in Madison, WI. 

I, Krista, am in my second year with the LIFE class at LeRoy High School.  There is never a dull moment when working in the Special Education world, but the kids we work with will amaze you!  I spend most of my free time trying to stay organized, cleaning up after my kids, and trying to raise them to make smart choices.  When it comes to the cows my job is to clean up poop and keep our crew clothed and fed.  Trever agreed that we would be Advisors for the Illinois Junior Angus Association this year so I'm anxious to see what he's got planned for me there!     

The holidays brought lots of firsts as we celebrated for the first time without my grandma but allowed us to spread out the festivities.  We celebrated with the Builta clan a little earlier than usual but were excited to be able to host for the first time.  Christmas Eve brought our first "Friendsmas" with a few families from church who have been a huge blessing to us since moving to LeRoy, and Christmas day included a trip to visit Grandpa Kuipers to celebrate his 97th birthday.  We finished up our winter break with a trip to Florida to visit with both sides of the family.  Our first time driving was a little rough between motion sickness and recovering from colds, but we made it to The Villages and spent a few days taking golf cart rides, shopping and eating.  We headed a little farther down the road and spent a few days in Orlando taking in Sea World, the Crayola Experience and the hot tub in unusually cold weather for Florida. 

We hope that your 2018 is off to a great start.  We are looking forward to a very special family wedding this spring, the summer show season and spending as much time with friends and family as we can.  We hope you've enjoyed our quick and affordable Christmas update and we hope to catch up with many of you in the coming year. 

School

I know it's been nearly two years since we have posted, but changes are a comin' and we wanted to share them with you.  Next week, Kelson will turn 3.  I know, your first reaction is "3?  When did that happen?".  My answer?  We've met another goal.  Keeping our kids fed, safe, and alive in general is a challenge.  If he doesn't grow up, the problems are bigger than if he does.

Turning 3 is a huge landmark in a developmentally delayed child.  Some of you may have only heard of Early Intervention through a recent petition that has been floating around facebook.  Some of you may have never heard of it.  We can honestly say that Early Intervention has changed Kelson's life in huge ways.  For most of his 3 years of life he has seen a variety of therapists.  Speech and Language, Auditory Rehabilitation, Physical Therapy, Occupational and Developmental.  These people have been in and out of our house weekly and monthly since we brought Kelson home.  This is a service offered by the State of Illinois to help children with delays catch up.  The goal is to catch them up with their peers before they reach school age.  On the day before his 3rd birthday, that will be over.

I remember setting goals at Kelson's original EI meeting in September of 2012.  Our goal was that he could hear well enough to stay safe (respond if we yelled) and that he could move 3 feet in any direction to play with other children.  We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but he met those goals and we set more.  Our goals now are that he can balance on one foot, use a spoon and fork (without spilling every) and use 3-4 word sentences.  Things that most of his peers perfected months earlier.

On a child's 3rd birthday they are no longer eligible for Early Intervention and the local school district takes over his services.  We have been simultaneously anticipating and fearing this day coming for a long time.  Thankfully, Kelson's team has been amazing.  They've worked with us and for us for months now, helping us to make the decision easier.  Last Tuesday we had a meeting with Kelson's current therapists, future therapists, potential teachers, program directors, principals, psychologists, social workers and I'm not sure who else was there.  The room was full, and we made a decision.

Kelson will start school at Metcalf in their Listening and Spoken Language program on April 27.  He will be in a classroom with other children who are hearing impaired and will be able to receive more services than what was realistic for our local school district to offer.  Our current goal is to get him caught up and back to Le Roy as soon as possible.  We decided that Trever would take him to school but he will be riding the bus home in the afternoon.  We are tickled to death that his little buddy from play group will also be in his class!

This was a decision we had been working toward for several months and we are glad the process is over.  As much as we hate to change from the comfort of Early Intervention, we are excited to get him started in school where we know he will thrive!

Determination

April 25, 2012 was easily the most emotional day of Krista and I's life. If you have followed our blog for the past year, you already know that our son Kelson was born 9 weeks premature with a serious condition called Hydrops. He spent the first 70 days of his life in the NICU.

Three days after he was born was the Champaign-Urbana Marathon. My cousin, Sherrie Eimen had flown in from Colorado to participate in the event, along with Krista's doctor, Kate Austman, who diagnosed and delivered Kelson. Sherrie came to visit us at the hospital after her run. I also received a text message from Dr. Austman saying "I ran for Kelson today. Every time I wanted to walk, I thought about him, and how hard he is fighting." It was that day that I made up my mind to run in the Half-Marathon the following year.

I started small. The first steps included taking the stairs (9 flights) each day when visiting Kelson at the hospital, and parking in the employee lot and walking, as opposed to taking the shuttle. Next, I started running a few mornings a week around our property. Slowly I worked up to a mile, then 2. I wanted to push myself, so I signed up for my first 5K in September, and did another one in October. I had to take a short break to recover from an injury, but I didn't let that stop me. I ended 2012 running 4 miles.

Once 2013 came, it was time to push myself farther. Despite bad weather conditions, I committed myself to running at least once a week, adding about a half mile each time. Two weeks ago I hit 11.5 miles, and last weekend I ran 10.

Although I partially ran for myself, running today was really for my kids, Claire and Kelson. If Kelson could go through what he did and survive, I knew I could survive 13.1 miles. Today I have proven to myself, Claire and Kelson that anything is possible if you set your mind to it, and have the determination to see it through. The highlight of my day was Claire joining me for a short run at mile 12. I finished in 2 h 47 min, and resisted every temptation to walk.

Thank you to everyone who had supported me through Facebook and Runkeeper, and special thanks to Krista for making sure I had the time to commit to my goal!

Month 10+

The pictures are in a random order, but here are some updates on what we've been up to in month 10+. 

 

 Claire changes clothes ALL THE TIME!  Before we went to grandma and grandpa's for Chinese chicken she had to change clothes.  Polka dot pants, plaid coat, flower hat.  Wow. 

 Trever was gone last week for work and Monday morning these randomly showed up at work.  This is on the 2nd time in 7 years I've gotten flowers from him and the first time was on my first birthday after we started dating, almost 7 years ago. 

 Kelson has been trying a lot more foods.  Daddy made him some homemade chicken and carrots and he really got in to them.  If you look closely you can see his one tooth (It finally popped through February 22nd).

 Crazy hair after a bath!

 Last week was another trip to Carle and a visit with the developmental doctor and his team (Social Work, Physical Therapists, Speech Therapist).  Overall Kelson is healthy but he's still pretty small and is lacking muscle tone, especially in his upper body.  We also started up with our new physical therapist and we're really liking her.  We're working on sitting up (we hit 9 seconds today!), crawling and holding his own bottle. 

 We finally had some snow in March.  Claire was SO upset that they canceled dance, but when I told her she could put her snow pants on and go outside she was so excited she could barely stand still long enough to get dressed!

 Here's his 10 month picture with the bear.  It's getting harder to catch him in one spot.

 You probably can't tell by the picture, but this was one of the first times Kelson had really gotten to where he wanted to be.  And he wanted to be in his sister's Easter candy.

 We all went to Beef Expo the end of February.  Kelson had his first chance to pet a baby calf.  He even tried to eat her ear!

 

 Claire is learning about peace at JAM (Jesus and Me). 

 Kelson and Caisey finally got to meet in February.  She came to the hospital a couple of times, but you have to be 18 to come in unless you are a sibling. 

 Caisey joined us at Sheels where we checked out the moose. 

 And Claire encountered a bear.

 And we enjoyed some awesome wings at Quaker Steak & Lube!

 After a baby exploded on me, my phone accidentally took a swim in the washing machine.  The pictures were rough for a little while, but I really love this picture.  Especially how Kelson was grabbing Claire's face!

 There's a lot of this going on these days.  Claire thinks she can "hold" Kelson.

 Claire got some blingy jeans and a cow showin' shirt for valentine's day.  She had to send a picture to Gammy & Aunt Kyla.

 Claire's first french braid.

 Claire's dance studio has a daddy daughter dance.  These two were pumped to get dressed up for their date.  I however am not looking forward to junior high dances after the fight to do her hair.

 The end of January was a trip to Ohio for a birthday party.  The kids thought it would be fun to hide in the cabinet!

 Kelson really enjoyed playing on Kempton's tractor too.

Another picture of Claire trying to love on her brother.

 

We've been busy figuring out what normal is these days.  Kelson has speech therapy weekly, hearing therapy twice a month and physical therapy every couple of weeks.  The kid's sitter, Connie, has been awesome working with him on all of those things and has been pushing him to try some more foods. 

 

Claire is enjoying preschool and we've been talking about getting to go 3 days a week next year.  She's missed dance two weeks in a row because of weather, and there were tears because of it.  She loves going to JAM on Wednesdays with Miss Rachel.

 

Trever finished up his training and is now an official Financial Advisor for Edward Jones.  He's ready to help you start your investments so give him a jingle!

 

I'm hitting another busy season at work of meeting with growers and contracting acres.  There have been some changes at work that are taking some time to get use to.  I've joined a women's bible study while Claire is at JAM and this afternoon met up with some friends for our monthly cooking club.  I had an awesome shopping trip to Tuscola yesterday with Marla and got in some great deals and great girl time!

 

There are so many good things coming up.  We are looking forward to a very special 1st birthday party, welcoming some new babies in to our circle of friends, hosting lots of happy hours in our back yard and conquering the challenges that face us in between!

10 tigers

This morning when I picked claire up from wee worship I asked her what she learned about.  She told me she learned about 10 tigers that had ouchies and that jesus made them feel better.  But, only one of then said thank you.  Now, I'm no bible scholar, but I don't remember anything about jesus healing tigers.  So I asked claire about it and she said, not tigers mommy, leopards.  Then it hit me, she learned about 10 lepers that were healed by jesus!  The amazing thing is that she understood the message even if she was mistaken on the species with the ouchies.

Hearing aids

 Today was a big day for Kelson.  He got his hearing aids!  We've been working toward this for a few months now and we were all pretty excited to get them.  Claire and I talked about it this morning and she wondered if they will hurt him and what tool will we use on them.  She also asked at dinner tonight if she had hearing aids when she was a baby. 

We headed to ECHO for our 8:30 appointment.  We spent time working with Miss Jean, the audiologist, learning how to care for the aids, change the batteries and about how sophisticated the aids are.  In our goody box we even got a childrens book about an elephant who has hearing aids. It sounds like Daddy & Claire are reading it right now. 

Kelson's aids are set to hear everything but an adult aid can be changed depending on the sound situation you are in.  Well, his can to, but they aren't.  He needs to learn speach and you can't rule anything out that might help him learn his speach.  It's a pretty technological little tool.  We will work with the audiologist and therapists on a regular basis to get them set to just the right settings for him. 

Kelson is only wearing his aids for short amounts of time right now.  He had them on for around 20 minutes this morning and then we put them in for a couple of hours tonight.  The didn't seem to bother him at all tonight.  We noticed quite a bit of feedback in his left ear but we'll work on that.  In a few days we will teach the sitter all the tricks and he can wear them during the day too. 

We're not confident that he is hearing more but my first thought is that yes, he is hearing more clearly now.  He has been smiling when he has them in, doesn't mess with them, and turns toward us when we are talking to him.  Only time will tell, but this was a big step toward conquering this auditory nueropathy. 

First Day of Preschool - a bit outdated

I made this shortly after Claire started pre-school and I still can't figure out how to print it, but at least I figured out how to share it on here!