The Hannen Family

Hi guys!

Thanks for bearing with us while the site has been offline. Our previous domain registrar didn’t inform me when our domain was about to expire so… well… it expired. Our choice at that point was either to pay them $40 to bring it back to life before it was removed from all records (it costs me $3 per YEAR to have it), or wait 35 days for it to be removed. We chose to wait.

Today was the day when hannen.info was removed. As soon as I got a chance, I eagerly went to re-register it… only to find that it had been snapped up 15 minutes earlier by someone who is trying to auction it off. GAH!

So now we’re on hannenfamily.info, and you all know why.

I haven’t updated our blog in ages and those of you who keep up with us day to day wouldn’t be surprised to hear it. To everyone else, my apologies. The Fall was quite hectic for several reasons, but we’re all here and are looking forward to a new year and new beginning! Here are two quick pics from our family’s trip to Disney World in December. The girls always love meeting the characters and it looks like Gavin will be no different.

Celebrate with us as Gavin is now officially “Fat Baby!” as we affectionately refer to him. Lol! I don’t know if I ever posted about his recent weight troubles here, but he was called ‘failure to thrive’ in late August. We discovered at his 4 mth check-up that he had only gained 8 oz. in two months time. I knew he was small, but that was ridiculous! It should have been more like three lbs. for his growth curve. Ummm… yeah… not good! After a month of varied schedules and basically just feeding him anytime he opened his mouth, he gained a whopping four lbs. It’s an odd balance of formula and breastfeeding, but if it works, who am I to complain? He is now over 5 mths old and weighs 14 lbs.- apparently still on the low side of the charts, but at least he is ON the charts now.

He has recently started on rice cereal and tried sweet potatoes the other day. Let the fun begin!

Okay, so this Diabetes thing has totally infiltrated my way of thinking.  I went up to test Shealyn the other night.. as always.  When I put my hand on her hip to roll her over a bit so I could access her pump pouch, her PJ pants felt damp.  “Oh crap!  She must have had an accident.  Eek!  She’s probably high!”  I feel a bit more…. nope, false alarm! Wait, she feels sweaty instead.  “Oh crap!  She sweats a lot when dropping.  She must be low!”  I quickly tested her to find her BG at an ideal 162 (target is 140).  “Oh crap! I just took two weeks off my lifespan from worry in two opposite extremes in a thirty second timespan and she’s just warm from her blanket.”

Ugh…

We had a… mixed time on our trip. Internet access was spotty and we were with family so there weren’t any more updates during it. There were, um, other reasons as well (See the stats. Kaycee is okay now). Here are some stats for the trip. Pictures and more details will follow when we’re settled back in!

Wisconsin Trip 2007 Stats

Family Members Visited: 13
Miles Driven: 2,800 total
Time Zones Crossed: 1
Places Visited: 5 (In order - Whitewater WI, Onalaska/La Crosse WI, Blaine/Minneapolis MN, Prairie du Chien WI, Platteville WI)
Pounds Gained (Gavin): 2.9 lbs - from 11.5 to 14.4 in three weeks!
Body Parts Left in Platteville WI: 2 (Kaycee had an emergency appendectomy and partial omentectomy. She’s okay!)
Recovery Time Needed: We’re still working on this but it’s going well.
Goat Attacks: 1 (Kaitrinn was bitten on the finger by a baby goat. She’s okay!)
Apples Picked: 7 lbs at the Shihata’s Orchard
Playgrounds Visited: 5
Zoos Visited: 2
Gourmet Popcorn Purchased: Tons of Ranch Cheese and Caramel popcorn from Rural Route 1.
Pictures Taken: HUNDREDS!

We’ve taken a pit-stop in scenic Lafayette, Indiana on our way to Whitewater, Wisconsin… our first stop in a two week whirlwind tour that’ll take us to family and friends in the area.

Our trip started at 3:00 this morning. Yes… that’s three. We accepted this because the kids would sleep for a good long while at the beginning of the trip. This was our first big road trip with Gavin, and we weren’t sure how it would go.

I’m delighted to say that everyone was great!

Gavin was no trouble at all. Aside from talking a little bit and letting us know when he was hungry, he either sat quietly looking around or slept.

Shealyn was also great. She watched “Fonsters Inc.”, ate her breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and decided to forego fighting with her sister for a day. She did try to engage Kaycee in conversation while Kayc was driving through a horrendous rainstorm in Indiana, but hey… she’s three years old and very social.

Kaitrinn was amazing. I crushed her at checkers at a Cracker Barrel in West Virginia (she catches me when I try to sandbag, and doesn’t like it!) and she cheerily gave me a high five after the game. She picked Pete’s Dragon as her movie, and was silent and attentive for nearly the entire ride.

Kaycee drove the whole way. Yeah… the entire way. What can I say - she’s superwoman. She also likes driving, which helps. I don’t, which doesn’t.

I acted as pit crew, child wrangler, and general overall support in between bouts of sleeping and re-reading Harry Potter. All-in-all I have a cushy job and I know it.

Other Details
Where we ate today: Cracker Barrel in WV (great as ever), Fazoli’s in KY (decent Italian fast food),  Chili’s in IN (good, but gave me the wrong fish dish!)
How far we’ve gone: 730 miles
How far to go: ~250 miles to Whitewater, WI.
Times Gavin has spit up on us today:  2 (1 Kaycee, 1 Louie)

Robert kindly pointed out that Internet Explorer can really make a mess with the theme on our site. It only tends to do so in a smaller window, but once I saw it I had to do something!

So… I’m customizing a new theme. As always, if you see something that doesn’t work the way you’d expect or have questions, please tell me. I might not be aware, and you’ll be doing me a favor.

Last night, it was determined by the post-mortem investigatory team (me) that this Tuesday, as we sat through a horrible storm at the about-to-be-cancelled Def Leppard/Styx/Foreigner concert, a friend of mine was experiencing injury so grievous it would lead to their death two days later. That friend was my Linksys WRT54G version 2.

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The girls were at a swim lesson the other day.  It was the last of a session so their coach was handing them certificates documenting the goals they had met.  Kaitrinn’s was covered with a list about how she was starting to swim on her own, was now going into the deep end, and could put her face under water (FINALLY!!!).  Shealyn’s was a bit more ’simple’ to put it tactfully.  It was a list of things like kicking harder and faster, “swimming” at the steps, and having fun.  Well Shealyn was beaming ear to ear and she proudly ran off with her certificate in hand.  Kaitrinn watched her leave, turned to the coach, and stated, “My goals may be harder and there are more of them, but that doesn’t mean they are any better than hers.”  Damn right kid!  I just blinked and asked the coach for confirmation of what I thought I had heard.  Lol… Looks like we’ve taught her well.