Rain-Gutter Fun!

Painting the balsam wood boats in the garage

Aidan and DJ preparing to race!

Caleb in mid-blow

A fun night at the race!

A scouting event.......a history......a memory......

Last year was Caleb's first year of scouts. He was a Tiger Cub and Guy was the den leader. Once a week, we would host the local Tiger den at our home. I am excited to say that this year we are not meeting here, but the big boys and Daddy go on Monday nights to a new troop that is not too far from here. It is a home school focused group which we enjoy since we home school both of the boys. It is also much more Christ focused than the last group we were in that was hosted through the public school. We are happy with the new arrangements!!

Boys night out, is what I call it and they LOVE it! I get to stay at home with the babies and enjoy a quiet evening without wrestling, body slams and tickle fights. Instead, I get baby toes and girly toes that constantly want painting.

We'll we just completed the first event in the troop the Rain-Gutter Regatta! The boys spent this past week in the garage painting their boats and trying to decide how to make their boats the coolest around. In the end, Caleb ended up with a Columbus Day sticker on his sail and two Lego medieval figures sword fighting on the rear deck. It was a fierce battle that knocked the ship sideways during the great sail down the gutter. Unfortunately, the race was a loss. He got a second chance, but this time Caleb's mom unknowingly sabotaged the main sail, ungluing it from the mast and so during the gusting winds the sail kept spinning in circles. Now of course, Caleb never knew the final loss was due to his meddling mother, but his attitude soared tonight. He was a beauty to behold in the face of defeat. He sucked it up and with a smile cheered on his fellow scouts still in the running.

Aidan also raced this year. He is a "Bobcat" an unofficial rank in the Cub Scouts, but since there were enough kindergarten brothers in the pack, they decided to include them in the moral, virtuous influence of the group. So yes, Aidan competed in the race as well. He had his sail covered in amphibious stickers, and I think a couple of bugs also.....snacks for the amphibians I assume. He too decided that Lego figures were the way to go and super glued a couple to his deck as well. Again, I think the additional weight caused the defeat, but who am I? A mom....I never really studied physics...I got to skip that class because I fulfilled all my science requirements......yeah...anyway.....Yes, Aidan also tasted defeat tonight, but he sucked it up and blew it out as he ran with fury chasing his fellow Bobcat around the courtyard where the races were taking place.

In the end, Aidan won "Best of Show" in his little Bobcat group consisting of two Bobcats. It was a fun family night filled with racing, running, and rambuncious little people.....how most nights are here in the Blaedow home.........this was not a typical week, as you may be wondering from a description earlier in this post. No, when there is an event the whole family goes. Mom's gotta get pictures and give hugs to little boys who will always take a mommy hug....for now anyway.

Genetic Testing

Well, today we had our genetic testing appointment at Emory for Emmett. We have wondered if there was some new discovery made in the field for hearing loss, but it turns out that there is not. We have also wondered if doing this again would be of any benefit since we did the testing with Joanna just under two years ago. After her appointment we got a call from Emory stating that she had no genentic reason, that they could test for, for her hearing loss. So.......

The whole family drove in today for the testing, we were told having everyone there may be of benefit if they wanted to physically exam for similarities between Dad, Mom, and kids. Well, ends up since they still had Joanna's report, they basically took all of the family info from her chart and transferred it to Emmett's. Wow! How 'bout that! They did add a couple of new things we have found out since, but it was all basically the same.

The Geneticist reviewed everything and told us that YES, since this is two out of four children with hearing loss, it is a genetic loss, however it not one that is able to be tested for-meaning it is more rare or not as common, that they know of, as the two that they are able to test for. Joanna had neither of the two that are testable. So.....

We left the office with no blood work taken, Emmett was happy about that, and we are off to get an EKG. She said that from this point on, she wants an EKG to detect anything wrong with the heart, because that would be another indication if it comes back with a finding. At that point, we would return for further testing.

The positive points to the day were: we finally got a copy of Joanna's test results and the formal letter from the Dr. that we didn't receive two years ago, we also got some questions answered that we had about something concerning their hearing loss and some syndromes related to it, Emmett didn't have to have blood drawn, and we got to spend the morning together as a family even though it was six of us in a small exam room for 30-45 min. And I have to applaud the kids, it was the six of us and when the geneticist came in she had a resident Pediatrician and two genetic interns with her.....it was a room full.......and the kids sat quietly and listened the whole consult. Now after they all left the room.....that's another story! :-)

So we keep telling ourselves that it wasn't a waste of time, that our morning was not wasted.....we did get answers and now I have another test to add to our repitore of medical exams for our babies with digital ears. And boy do those come in handy at times.....when visiting other specialist!

So the day is done, now we wait for the order for the EKG, and we hope they don't find anything from that.....and if not, then when they are adults, they can do testing again and see if genetic science has come up with any other reason for their loss.

We know another family with the same senerio as ours and they are in a genetic research program that studies families like ours to find out answers as to genetic reason for the loss.....a more intense, focused look. The though has crossed our minds in hopes that it could help another family to find out why in the future.....but that is just a consideration at this point.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOANNA!!!

Our First Day of School

School started in the Blaedow house today. Caleb started second grade and Aidan tested out of kindergarten and is doing first grade work now........(After some times has passed)

We are enjoying doing our Sonlight cirriculum with the boys, and even Joanna and Emmett. It has lots of good literature and this year is focused on World History. The boys are learning a lot about people groups all over the world and how to pray for them. We are also studying History and are currently learning about the Arab nations and how we get our numerical system from that region of the world, along with bunches of other interesting facts.

We also get some good fiction and non-fiction stories in. The first book we read was about the Island of Capri and the discovery of the Blue Grotto that is there. Then we got to research it online and actually got to see some pictures of the Blue Grotto and the boats going in and out while the tide was down. It is a beautiful place....a hidden, secret beauty that the Lord shared with us!

Joanna and Emmett aren't offically in school, but since they are in the classroom, they get to hear the stories, math lesson, and science lessons right along with Caleb and Aidan. So out of the experience of Aidan moving ahead one grade, we are sure they are picking up on all this good information as well.

Here are some pictures from our first day at the Blaedow Home school.....there is no place like it!

Aidan and Caleb

First Day of School brother hug

First Grader-Aidan

Joanna and Emmett
playing in the living room

Welcome to our family blog!

Hi, this is my test post. I am trying to put this together. I hope to send out an August update in the next couple of days.

We had a lot go on this month, hot and busy.....and relaxing are the words to describe it. We finished school, Emmett and Joanna had some more test run in relation to their hearing loss, we went on vacation with some good friends......to name some of what went on.

I will give a more detailed account of things with my next post. Thanks for keeping up with us. I thought this would be a good way to let family and close friends know what is going on in our daily lives down here. It is hard to keep everyone up to date so this is my attempt at a solution. I may try to back date our August events according to date, so we will see if it works...bye for now!

Love you all!

Hilary