Mortensen Minute: Our Summer

Most of this summer was spent at home. Two of the weeks the kids and I (Kristin) were able to spend with my parents whether in Tennessee or at their house in the Poconos.

Drew and I have discovered many new places that we love to take the kids; Presque Isle, The local park, the Erie Zoo and other parks in the area. We have been more active here than we ever have anywhere else and I love it.

Praises- Drew was promoted to a supervisor position and the great part is that he doesn't supervise anyone except for himself. He is now responsible for Teaching Teachers how to use online resources for educating children. Got that? Right now he is starting up a class to teach a resource called Moodle.

We are meeting new people and getting to know people in our local church. One way that the kids and I will be meeting new people is through MOPS. I recently went out to a Mom's night out event that the MOPS group held. It was lots of fun and I was able to get connected to more women. Soon the meetings will begin and I hope to meet more moms and the kids will make new friends.

We really like our housing situation. The landlord is kind and almost feels like he's part of the family. New neighbors moved in today so the kids and I walked down and met them. They have a little boy who is a little older than Benjamin so I'm hoping that we can break him out of his shell so they can be playmates. They seem like a nice family. Our other neighbors are nice also but we just haven't been able to connect with most of them yet.

I'm sure I have more praises but I don't think that you want to be reading all day or night long.

Prayer Requests- Hannah! Since she was about 5 1/2 months old she hasn't gained any weight and at some appointments weighs in less than she did at that age. She is now almost 10 months old and only about 5 pounds more than when she was born. Today I took her to the Gastroenterologist. (TMI alert) She had blood in her stool. That's one sign that there is something wrong. They need to do a few tests: Biopsy of the intestines, blood work and a sweat test. Those tests will be checking for Celiacs disease and Cystic Fibrosis. The doctor doesn't think it would be cystic fibrosis but he does want to rule it out since she does have some of those symptoms. She also gets very sick from Rice and Oatmeal baby cereals. The actions that we are taking now per the doctor are the tests and to give her pediasure instead of formula and breast milk. it has more calories than formula and it also has the nutritional values that formula has. the main thing is to get more calories in her. Hopefully the next time she goes back she'll have gained weight.

Homeschooling- Today officially began homeschooling for Emma. She is studying African animals while learning reading, writing, math, geography, science and many other areas. We have gotten a bunch of books with african animal characters and then we also have non-fiction books to teach her about the real life animals. we had fun today.