It's been a while

So I was looking at the blog today to see if I could find something about Ben that maybe we had kind of forgotten or whatever and wouldn't really remember if we hadn't recorded it (for his church lesson tomorrow) and saw that it has been over a year since I last posted. Most of what I record about the family is now on facebook where it's more instantaneous and easier to find for family and friends, so I forget about the blog.

I did love going back and reading some old posts though. A few things I had forgotten about or remembered a little differently from what really happened.

I'd say though that the last year and half have been pretty eventful. I'm sure I can't remember all of it. Here's a quick summary of some of the biggest changes:

Ben started middle school in August 2013 and almost ended the year with a 4.0. He had one B in the 4th quarter, so it was close. He liked middle school better than elementary.

We moved from the house we lived in for 8 years to one much, much closer to Bryce's work. It's also bigger and has a big yard (almost 1/2 an acre). We've enjoyed the new house a lot, especially being closer to Bryce's work and being able to see him more often. He went from a 35 minute commute to a 3 minute commute. We still own the other house and have some friends renting it from us, and they are interested in buying it probably next spring or summer.

With the move, Ben went from a middle school to a junior high, so he's once again in the youngest grade in the school. We live a lot closer to the school though, so we are in the walk area and he doesn't have to ride the bus anymore, which I think is probably his favorite part of it. And he really likes that we moved into the same school district as his friend Kyle who used to live across the street from us at the old house, but moved a little more than a year before we did.

Abby started kindergarten this year, so all 5 kids are in school now. The 4 are at the elementary school together, which is also much closer, so I typically walk them to school in the mornings and walk to pick up Abby when kindergarten gets out before noon. But now that it's getting a bit colder and the kids are having a harder time getting ready on time, I've been driving them a bit more.

Some big news is that we are expecting our 6th baby. Yes, we had told everyone that we were done, and we really wanted to be. We felt for a long time that maybe there was another baby waiting to come, but we were in denial and didn't want to accept it. But when we moved to a bigger house with more room, we started to rethink it a little bit. It didn't help that people in our new ward kept thinking we had 6 kids and even our kids were starting to tell us that someone was missing. So we finally decided to just give in and see what happened. Our newest baby boy is due on the 26th of December. Abby was so mad when she found out it was a boy. We actually all thought for sure that this one would be a girl and had a girl name picked out, but we were bound to be wrong at least once. Abby has gotten over being mad and is getting quite excited to meet her little brother.

So far the titer levels with this baby have been pretty good. It started at a 2 and then went down to a 1 and has just gone back up to a 2, so I get to go in to the lab an extra time to get the titer level rechecked to make sure it's not deciding to jump up significantly. And even though I'm on the old side to be having a baby, this pregnancy has been relatively easy. The heartburn has been crazy lately, but I've been taking Zantac at my doctor's suggestion and have been amazed at how much it helps.

So there's all our big events over the last year and a half, at least the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

The Last 6 Months, apparently

Okay, so wow, I hadn't realized I hadn't posted anything in quite so long.  Not that I have an anticipating audience or anything.

So let's see...we had a nice Christmas.  It was quiet, but nice.  Here's the loot the kids found Christmas morning:

Shortly before Christmas, Chris' class at school put on a school play.  Chris was the computer that would tell the workers to get back to work.  Here he is in his lovely costume that I made:

After Christmas, Bryce and I had the distinct pleasure of going to Playa del Carmen, Mexico for a week.  It was quite nice to leave our below zero temperatures and head to 80 degree temperatures, room service, and beaches for the first vacation we've had without the kids since we've had kids.  We were extremely grateful to Bryce's parents for coming up and spending the week with the kids to make it possible.

Then we had Easter and Abby's birthday.  That girl was so excited for her birthday and already talks about what she wants to do for her next one.

Right after Abby's birthday was of course, my birthday, but we don't need to talk about that.

Let's see..then we had the end of the school year, with Ben graduating from the 5th grade and elementary school and Daniel graduating from kindergarten.  They both enjoyed the school year and are excited to continue with the next.

Then we had Daniel's birthday.  He got to have his first ever friend party and seemed to have a lot of fun.  He was especially excited when we happened to find one of his friends from his kindergarten class a few days before the party and were able to invite him.

And as probably everyone reading this knows, we decided it was time to put Ozzy down on Saturday.  It wasn't an easy decision, especially because he often seemed okay.  But he was hurting almost all the time and was starting to growl at the kids and their friends more often as he was afraid they'd hurt him.  And he was having more and more bad days where he would whine and yelp as he walked.  We took him to the vet the week before and the vet gave us a morphine-type drug to try with him to see if it helped him with his pain.  It did help some, so he wasn't growling nearly as often, but he still had bad days even on the drug, and if we were even a half hour late in giving it to him, he would act like he was really hurting again.  So we decided that it would just be better for him and for us to euthanize him.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), I was with Ben at Cub Scout Day Camp, so I didn't get to go along and help Bryce.  I feel a little bad that I wasn't able to be there and pet him and help calm him through his last moments on this earth, especially since he really did love me the most and followed me around constantly.

This is a picture I took of Alex and Ozzy a few weeks ago.  Alex really loved that dog and probably had the hardest time out of all our kids.

I just found this one on my phone today.  Abby likes to play with my phone and take pictures, so apparently this is one she took.  That spot by my bed is one place he would lie and wait for me to leave my room and go somewhere else.

\One funny story was when Bryce was talking to the kids about how Ozzy had gone to Heaven.  He asked them which part of Ozzy made him move and made him be Ozzy, and said that that part of him was with Jesus in Heaven.  Abby said, "Yeah, Ozzy's feet are with Jesus." 

Bryce said he couldn't stop himself and did laugh, but then explained that no, it was his spirit.  Abby will tell you now that Ozzy's spirit is with Jesus.  

I've been surprised at how sad I was about having to put Ozzy down.  The dog annoyed the heck out of me and was one of the stupidest dogs ever.  But he was sweet and dopey (we actually called him Dopey half the time, so he would come to that when we called) and loved to be around people.  I kind of miss having him lie at my feet all the time.

Right now though, I'm concentrating on really enjoying not having a pet.  We have plans to not have another pet for a very long time.  I guess we'll see how long before the kids talk us into another one.

New Family Pictures

Our nephew Dennis had a fundraiser at his preschool where they did family pictures and you'd get a 10 X 13 for only $5, then would have the option to buy more later, and since it's been 3 years since we have had a family picture taken, we decided to take advantage of this opportunity.  So the last Saturday in November, we went to the elementary school where he has his preschool and got our pictures taken.

Those who have kids know how it can be to get pictures taken.  Ben, who is 10, either doesn't want to smile for the pictures or does the fake smile that kids his age do.  Alex thinks he's really funny and tries to be a smart-alec (maybe his name was well-chosen).  Chris does some funny faces.  Daniel is off kind of doing his own thing sometimes.  Abby actually likes getting her picture taken and was pretty cooperative, but it's hard to tell a 3 year-old to keep her chin down as she's reacting to the photographer.

Some of the pictures turned out exactly as I thought.  Some surprised me and were actually mostly okay.

Here's a sampling of some of the results.  Some of them speak for themselves.  I think Chris is probably the most entertaining in the pictures.

This is the one that the photographer picked as the best.  In this case, I think he was right.

This one has multiple gems.  Chris' "Who, me?," Daniel's pucker, Alex's eyes.  It's a winner.

I think this one is my favorite.  Look at Chris' face.  Need I say more?

So maybe the next time we get our family pictures taken, we'll go to a less formal studio-type setting and see if we get any different results.  But if the past is any indicator, the top picture is probably the one that is going to be sitting on our wall for the next 3 years.

The Color Run

As many of you who read this know, I participated in the Color Run at the end of last month. What is the Color Run exactly, you ask? Well, go here and check out their webpage. Basically it's a 5k run where they throw color dust on you at various points throughout the course, followed by a color festival where everyone can throw their packet of color dust in the air and on those around them.

I signed up on my friend's team, which was named Colorful Girlies. Her brother, the only boy on the team, got teased a bit by the volunteers wish he picked up the packets for everyone. He was pretty good-natured about being on the team though.

Here is a picture of our team before the race.

I was the only one not related to the others.

I was a bit nervous about how cold it was going to be for the run, since it was really cold when I took the kids to the bus stop the day before. Luckily it was a bit warmer that day.

We left before sunrise and got to the race area when we were treated to free chicken breakfast sandwiches and hot chocolate. Then we went to the starting area where they threw out a few freebies I got a bracelet. I wanted the socks. By the time the race began, my toes were starting to go numb, so I was ready to start running so I could warm up a bit.

I really thought I would go at a slower pace than I did for my last 5k in May since I hadn't been running quite as fast on the treadmill as I did before the last one, but when I finally got my phone out to check the time after the race that had started at 9:00, it was 9:25. So I don't know my exact time, but it was in the 25 minute range and was faster than my last 5k time of 26:08. I was pretty pleased with my time.

I found out after the race that it was a good thing I had gotten ahead of the pack because there ended up being some back-ups at the color stations as everyone wanted the color. I usually went through them alone, so I had plenty of color dust thrown on me.

You can't really tell from the pictures, but I had lots of color on me. My other team members didn't want to stay for the color festival after the race, so we left before, but it looked like fun.

Here are a couple of pictures from after the race.

Ben's Surgery

On Thursday Ben had surgery to remove the plates and screws from his arm. The doctor recommended doing this because there is a chance, espcially in kids, that the hardware could eventually cause problems.  It's a lot easier and less traumatic to remove them in a controlled environment than to remove them after they've caused a problem.

My parents came up Wednesday night so they could help out and watch our other four kids while I took Ben to the hospital and Bryce went to work.  We really appreciated them coming up and the kids loved having them here.  That night Bryce and Dad gave Ben a blessing that really helped him be less nervous about the surgery.

Ben and I left our house at 5:00 a.m. Thursday morning.  The most eventful thing that happened on the drive was when we saw a raccoon cross the road in front of us just after we pulled out of our subdivision.

We got to the hospital and checked in at our check-in time of 5:30.  When you show up at the hospital at 5:30, there aren't a whole lot of people there yet, so the waiting times were really short.  We verified all our information, they gave us each an arm band, then a guy came to walk us down to the surgery pre-op where Ben was weighed and measured and then got to change into a blue hospital gown and sit on the hospital bed for a bit. 

Here's a picture of him in the hospital bed, watching the TV they had in the corner:

Ben kept making all the nurses laugh with the way he would answer their questions.  They thought he was a pretty funny kid.  He really didn't like the IV too much, and when they put the medicine into it to make him a bit drowsy before they took him back to the OR, he would tell me each area of his body that was starting to feel tingly from it.  He was a bit nervous for the surgery, but not too bad.  I think he was really mostly nervous about feeling sick after, but we told the anesthesiologist that he had felt nauseated after his last surgery, so he said they would try to fix that.

It didn't seem like very long after they wheeled Ben back to the OR that they called me in the waiting room to let me know that he had fallen asleep well and that the surgery was under way.  About a half hour or so after that, they took me to the doctor consultation area to wait for a few minutes for the doctor to finish closing him up and then let me know how it went.  The doctor told me everything had gone smoothly and gave me some post-op instructions, then took me back to the waiting room to wait for them to come get me to take me to see Ben in recovery. 

Ben was a lot more alert in recovery this time and just kept asking when he could get the IV out and go home.  He wasn't in any pain because of the block they did in his arm and he wasn't feeling nauseated at all.  They gave him some juice and a popsicle, then got the IV out and he was able to change and go home.  They did give him instructions to take it easy and start with mild foods, so it was funny when he was asking if we could get lunch from Taco Bell on our drive home.

He really did very well this time.  He never had any pain after the surgery and was very happy that he never felt nauseated.  If it weren't for the big bandage around his arm, you'd probably never guess he had just had surgery.  And he did get Taco Bell for lunch.

We were able to take the big wrapped bandages of on Sunday and he was able to take a shower.  Here are a couple of pictures of his arm with the tape still on, since we were told to leave that on, and the bandages off.

This first one is the inside of his arm.  This scar was worse than the other one, so they also cut out the scar to reform it.  It may still end up being big, but they're hoping it won't be quite as big.

 

 

This second one is the outside of his arm.  This scar wasn't as big and obviously didn't bleed quite as much after the surgery.

 

 And just to show you that Ben wasn't the only one having fun, here is a picture of Abby finding a new use for the barf bags the hospital sent home "just in case."  We'd better watch out, she could start a whole new trend with these things. 

Year in Review

Yes, it has been over a year since I've last posted in the blog. I was actually waiting to download the pictures from my camera to the computer and just never did it. I have no excuse. It's been a crazy year though.

First off, from a year ago, Chris had his 6th birthday. Here's a picture or two:

Then Daniel started preschool. Here he is on his first day:

Then we had the usual Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

 Alex turned 8 and then was baptized the next day on New Year's Eve. It was fun seeing all those who came up for it.

 Here's a few pictures from that and from the cake we had to celebrate his birthday with the family who came up:

 

After the first of the year, we had a good month and a half before things really got crazy. I did start running again after the New Year and ended up losing a total of about 25 pounds and have managed to keep it off so far and actually have kept up with the running, which I'm pretty pleased with.

But then the fun began on Tuesday, February 22nd.

That morning I got a text message from my mom saying that they had taken my nephew to the hospital by ambulance and were trying to figure out what was causing him to really not be well. She and my dad decided to fly to my sister's house to help out where they could.

Just after my kids got home from school that day, I got a call from a woman at Bryce's work saying that they had called an ambulance and were taking him to the hospital because he was having trouble breathing. They were calling Katie to see if she could come watch my kids so I could go meet him at the hospital, which she did. She told me she would call back and let me know which hospital. She called back, and I left, and the proceeded to wait because they didn't have him there. Then I called another hospital, who also said he wasn't there and kept waiting. Jarom showed up a while later and they still hadn't found him and the people in the ER called the paramedic dispatch to see if they could tell us where they had taken him, and it ended up being the hospital I had called. So we went over there where they still didn't know much, but Bryce was in a lot of pain. Jarom eventually left, while I stayed. We found out that Bryce had pancreatitis. Since he doesn't drink, so alcohol couldn't have caused it, it was determined to be caused by gallstones. They admitted him to the hospital and kept him pretty drugged up and kept him off any food or water until his pancreas seemed to calm down.

I really had a lot of help from people in my ward and neighborhood during that time, and it really was a blessing. It was really hard to go see Bryce in the hospital and see him in that condition, so the support I got from those around me really helped.
 
The following Sunday they did surgery to remove Bryce's gallbladder and again I had help from other people watching my kids and taking them to church while I went to the hospital. They sent Bryce home from the hospital on Monday evening, although he had a fever, so they really shouldn't have.


The next day, Ben was jumping off the trampoline to come inside when he slipped and fell and broke his arm.
I should say here that I was really impressed with him through that. He broke the one bone in two places and broke the other bone in one, so it must have really hurt, but he hardly cried or anything. Yes, we could tell he was in a lot of pain and could see him visibly feel better once they got the IV in him with some pain medication, but he was really quite brave.

Here is a picture of his x-ray:

I've got to say, I was not a fan of Tuesdays at this point.

The very next Tuesday, we had to take Bryce back to the ER because his fever had spiked to 104 late the night before and he wasn't getting any help from the surgeon's office who just kept telling him to watch his fevers, that they seemed reasonable. They did say after the 104 fever that if it spiked up again like that, he should go to the ER. The surgeon did a good job with the actual surgery, not so good afterward.

And Tuesdays really stink by now.

We also decided to go to another hospital, the one I had originally been told they were taking him when they took him by ambulance. There, it was determined that he still had pancreatitis, but also had some necrosis of the pancreas and they were very concerned about him. So again he was admitted to the hospital and not allowed to eat or drink anything. Because he had already been two weeks without really eating or drinking much, his body needed nutrients, so they eventually put a pic line into his heart to give him the nutrients he needed. This hospital stay was much better, although it was still hard to see him there. He was able to come home a week later on the following Tuesday.

That Tuesday was much better than the previous 3.


So after Ben finally got his cast off from his broken arm, there was still a problem. His arm looked like this:

The orthopaedic doctor kept saying that the arm should eventually straighten out because kids' arms do that, but then he would feel it and say how he really didn't like the look of it, so he ended up referring us to a pediatric orthopaedist. We liked this guy much better.

We had told Ben that the chances were that he would have to have surgery on the arm, but he was still really hoping that he wouldn't. When we got to the doctor's office, they took Ben back for more x-rays. When the doctor came in the examination room after looking at the x-rays, his first words were, "Oh, boy." Yeah, that's never a good sign. So yes, he said that Ben needed surgery, and it was scheduled for 2 or 3 weeks after that appointment. Ben really wasn't happy.

In the surgery, they ended up putting in 2 plates and 12 screws. The doctor said he really had to chisel away at bone to even get to the area to fix it, so apparently Ben grows good bone. Here's an x-ray of after the surgery:

And here's Ben in his cast after that surgery. His favorite colors are blue and orange, so that's what he picked for his cast.

Then Abby turned 3, so here's her with her cake. She wanted it pink.

I ran my first ever 5K in May, running in the Race for the Cure. Here's a picture of my friend Wendy and me before the race. Don't I look all skinny?

Then Chris graduated from kindergarten and Daniel graduated from preschool, but I'm not going to post the pictures from those.


Then Daniel had a birthday and turned 5:

Then Ben turned 10 and he and Alex shared a birthday party:

After that, the boys all started school. Ben started the 5th grade, Alex 3rd, Chris 1st, and Daniel Kindergarten. They were pretty excited.

Then Chris had his 7th birthday and wanted an octopus cake:

This last weekend, the boys and I all ran in the Harvest Classic Fun Run. Alex had been begging me for a couple of weeks to sign him up, so I eventually gave in and did it. The boys all ran the one mile fun run, which wasn't timed. I was really impressed with them as they all decided to help encourage Daniel to keep running, so they all stayed behind him and let him go in front and cross the finish line first. I have some great boys.

I ran in the 2 mile timed race and was actually really pleased with my results. I got 16th place overall, 4th overall women's, and took first place in my age division.

Ben has surgery again this Thursday to take out the plates and screws in his arm so they won't cause problems in the future.

So now we're up to date for the year. Here's hoping this next year will be more uneventful than this last year.

First Days of School 2011

So my kids started school on Monday. Ben started the 4th grade, Alex started the 2nd grade, and Chris started Kindergarten. Since he was in Kindergarten though, he just had orientation on Monday and started his first full day today. I'm still not sure I like the way they are doing Kindergarten, alternating between A and B days for full days(Chris is on A, so he goes Mondays, Wednesdays and every other Friday, kind of). They do it that way to save money so they don't have to do a mid-day Kindergarten bus.

Anyway, I did the usual first day of school pictures. Daniel and Abby both decided they needed to join the fun, so they had me take their pictures too.




Ben, Alex, and Chris all ready for school.



All 5 kids lined up together.

Ben and Alex getting on the bus the first day. There were only 5 kids including them who got on the bus that day.

This is Chris at the school just as we were going in for his orientation.

And these last two are of Chris waiting in line for the bus and then getting on the bus with his brothers today. He was so excited.