The month of May

For us, May has always been a good month. Mike and I had our 1st date in May (May 11, 2001, Sonic, mini golf, the park, and Joe Dirt! lol), we got engaged in May (May 11, 2002, Carlos O'Kellys and Manhattan Hill), we moved to Germany in May (May 5, 2005), and of course moved to Montana in May (May 21, 2009). But May of 2012 has been not so nice to us!

 On May 3rd, I had a laparoscopic nissen fundoplication, which basically means, they cut 5 small incisions around my stomach and wrapped the top portion of my stomach around my esophagus. I recovered in no time, and have not had a Tums since May 2nd (or a Pepsi, or gum among other things!) It has been such a relief with no more acid attacks!

 5 days later on May 8th, Mike had surgery on his elbow to relocate a nerve that was being pinched every time he moved his arm, or flexed his triceps. He was experiencing a lot of pain in his shoulder, and is now in a cast until June 6th. Still having lots of pain, but hopefully it will go away once he's healed!

The incision after the wrap was taken off, before the cast!

That same night Kinz fell out of her bed, and the next day was still complaining that her arm hurt, so off to the dr she went. Turns out little miss had broken her collarbone. Just like her mom had done about 25 years earlier!

The broken collarbone!

Luckily the boys are all doing fantastic! Makes it easier when half of us are still healthy! lol


It's been a trip that's for sure, but we are still going strong, and counting down to our vacation in KS!!

Twinkle Toes

Kinzie's fish died. Again. For her 5th birthday Kinz decided she wanted fish. We go all out, buy the tank, the supplies, the decorations, etc and let her pick out 5 fish. All but 4 of them died in the 1st week.
  So we go back to the store and got 4 more fish. Several had babies (they died) and then the 4 new fish died as well. So we were down to 1. Her name was Sandy Cheeks. We joked around about Sandy Cheeks being a killer fish, but sadly a few days later, she too died. :(

 Fast forward to April 13th, school carnival, Kinzie wins a goldfish and names her Twinkle Toes. We stuck TT in a vase for the weekend and decided that if she was still alive by Monday, we'd buy a better set up.
 Amazingly enough, it seemed like TT was thriving, so we bought the tank (much smaller-i.e. CHEAPER) and 4 days later Twinkle Toes went belly up! So now I have to decide if I should let Kinz get another fish to kill. She says she misses her Twinkle Toes and wants TWO fish!

I swear I think we are going to get banned from Petco! lol

Contemplating...

So I have seriously slacked off the blogging, mostly in part because now that almost ALL of my family is on facebook, I have no real need for a blog. However I think I will change my format a little, and start using this blog as a diary/scrapbook for my children. So that someday when I am old, and can no longer remember all the stories of their childhood, I can send them here!

Hopefully I will be more dedicated to this blog now. I will also backdate stories so that I can have them in writing, since I missed it the 1st time around!

For starters, on this day last year, I was driving back to Great Falls, from Billings, after dropping my dear friend Kellie off at the airport, rushing to get home as my friend was going into the hospital to be induced! The weather was crummy (snow/rain/sleet the WHOLE way home, going about 40 mph most of the way) The kids slept the whole way, since we had to get up at 4:30 to get Kellie to the airport. That was the day Nick developed an obsession with the song 'The Cave' by Mumford and Sons, 'Choke' as he calls it. A year later he still loves it!

IF anyone is still reading this, please forgive me as this blog will no longer be for you, you are still welcome to read and comment.

New baby update :)

I had my first doctor appointment, and had SLIGHTLY disappointing news. They pushed my due date back a week :( Nothing worse than finding out you actually have LONGER to go!

My dad is of course ecstatic because that puts me due on Dec. 11, instead of Dec 6. Closer to his birthday on the 13th!

Fortunately that was only 'bad' news we got. Baby is looking healthy, well as healthy as they can look at 7 wks! Little heart was beating away at 144 bpm. And yes there is only 1. :)

hmm...any readers??

SOOO I just thought I'd check to see if I still have readers on here...


I'm going to post some AWESOME news, that I am not sharing on facebook yet, so if someone IS reading this, please keep it off facebook.




I'M PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Baby #4 is not due until Dec. 6th (Papa Gary wants Dec 13th, I wonder why! :D) So I am really early into the pregnancy, hence why I'm keeping it off FB and such. Charlie is excited and just wants to know if it's a boy or girl. Kinzie is really looking forward to having a little sister, and Nick refuses to accept the news! Mike and I are both pleased to be rounding out our family, as this will be it for us!

Anyway, if anyone's out there, be happy you were one of the 1st to know!

Life...it's been awhile :)

Hello faithful readers, if there are any left out there! I realize it has literally been MONTHS since the last post about the crazy Munson children, and unfortunately this one will be all written and no visual. :(
Just wanted to do some updating on things going on in our world.

Mike: health-wise Mike has been doing great, still on blood pressure meds for his low blood pressure, but things seem to be going well. He's still being monitored, but it's kept up with the medicine. He has finished his auto cad class, he started taking Aug. 2009. It was really just a refresher course of the one he took at MATC but it was with the updated AutoCad system. He is now on to studying for the Tech Sergeant test. He will test for Tech next Thursday, rarely does anyone actually make TSgt on their 1st attempt, so expectations are low, but I think he has it in him!

Charlie: Charlie is LOVING school, he is excelling in Math, just like his Momma! He received the highest score in Math on the state testing tests, for all 3 Kindergarten classes at his school! I was so proud of him! It's so fun to hear him reading and to see him writing.
It was decided this year, that he would go ahead and have surgery on his 'bad' eye, to help correct the turning. We started patching in October, and playing around with his lenses in his glasses, and unfortunately none of it helped completely. So April 12 he will be in Billings having surgery. He is pretty terrified at the thought, and I'm having problems reassuring him, as I am just as scared.

Kinzie: The princess might FINALLY be potty trained!!!!!! She still has the occasional accident, but I *think* it's looking pretty good! She is doing EXCELLENT health-wise!! (at least 1 of us is!) and is really looking forward to starting school this fall! She recently got her ears pierced a SECOND time, so 2 holes per ear. She was thrilled to get to pick out her own earrings! She's taking after her older brother, and is really getting into her video games. It's fun to see that she is able to actually play them now, and to see how lippy she gets at the tv when it doesn't go her way!

Nick: Nick is struggling a bit in the health department, and we aren't quite sure why. He's had a lingering cough/runny nose for about a month now, we're trying out some things and hopefully something will work. He's become quite the helper for me, always wanting to do laundry and putting things away for me! I really love it!

Me: I have been having my own health issues, I had an upper gi endoscopy and discovered that the little flap that is supposed to keep the food and acid in my stomach, is standing wide open, so I have to have surgery to repair that. The same dr also wants me to have an ultrasound on my liver and gall bladder. I guess just to check and make sure it's all ok :)

Family news: WE GOT A NEW (to us) HOUSE ON BASE!!! It's a 3 bdrm, 2.5 bath, 2 stories WITH a partially finished basement!!! It's so exciting, but unfortunately we have less than a week to move out of this house!

I think that about sums it all up for us for now, check back in another couple months, maybe I'll have posted again! :D

Fall Fun :)

Charlie officially loves school. I am so happy that he is thriving, (at least for now) I can only hope it lasts! He excels in math like his Mama, and LOVES science. Mike and I both have a chance to volunteer in his class, and it's so nice to be able to talk to his teacher on a weekly basis! We've been through a parent teacher conference, a book fair, and a trip to the fire station already! I offered to help chaperone, and had to take Kinzie and Nick with me. Kinzie LOVED it as much as Charlie did, but Nick was terrified the whole time we were there!This was Nick's expression the whole, when he wasn't crying :(

On a medical front, his 'lazy eye' is getting worse, and we've had to start patching the good eye for 8 hours a day in order to make the bad eye start working again. We also have a consultation in December with a surgeon in Missoula to decide if surgery will be a better/final option. He's doing pretty well with the patch, much better than I thought he would!

The eye patch :)

We let the kids choose their own costumes for Halloween again this year. Kinzie was stoked to be a dragon, and Charlie chose a cheeseburger, which in turn made Nick choose a cheeseburger as well. The morning of the 31st Charlie had a change of heart, and was worried kids would laugh at him for being a sandwich, but it seemed like in general, kids (and parents) were pretty excited about the cheeseburgers!

We also had a chance (and a nice enough day) to take the kids to a Corn MAiZE about 30 minutes from Great Falls, we spent the afternoon there and we all had a blast. Went through the maze, and played in corn, and hay, and had a little train ride. Will definitely be a tradition for us!Jumping in the hay.

Covering Amber with corn in the corn box, instead of sand box.

Mike taking Nick through the corn tunnel.

I can't believe it's November already! This year is flying by! Hopefully I will update more this month than the last 2!