Stomach Flu

The bug has hit our house and it's been a weird one.  Jane and I were sick basically the same day (Randall's birthday-huge bummer) then nobody for a week, then it was Anna, and now 4 days later it's poor Kate's turn.  I had just come home from the gym this morning, when Kate came down fussing.  I said to Randall "Does she look green?"  I've always heard that but never really seen that for myself, sure enough she laid on our bed and suddenly started vomiting.  Awesome. I put her in the tub and threw our bedding in the washing machine- I love my washing machine.

Poor little thing has nothing in her tummy but just keeps heaving and heaving.  Thankfully I had some help today with a friend taking Ethan to school and another friend running to the store for me to pick up the "sick necessities", like ginger-ale, crackers, and soup.

Hopefully this illness will be short lived like it has been for the rest of us.  I'm just worried because Rand's company party is Friday and I really don't want to miss it, but Ethan and Rand have yet to get it.

I've washed all the towels and bedding, wiped doorknobs and light switches, cleaned bathroom numerous times, but it just seem with the stomach bug it just usually makes the rounds.  Bummer.

Time Flies

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted.  On Sunday a teacher remarked how important it is for us to keep a journal.  I suddenly remember that this place is my journal and it's important to keep a record of my family.

Life has been busy lately.  It seems like it just gets more so each day somehow.  I am staying afloat but some days I feel like just barely, and that things like this blog just aren't/can't be a priority.  But, when I remember the purpose here is to document what's going on in our home with or without pictures and that it's not a place to impress or entertain anyone I suddenly feel a renewed excitement and desire to visit here more often.  So, if anyone actually still reads this and suddenly realizes it's changed it's "tone" and there are a lot more spelling and editing errors, so be it.

That being said, here's life in a nutshell.

Rand- Rand hit his 5 year mark with Adobe mid November.  I can't tell you what a blessing his job has been for us.  He is constantly being challenged and his responsibilities changing and he loves that.  He can not be bored intellectually and I love that about him.  It's important for him to continue to grow and be challenged.  He is someone who will work until he figures it out, I wish I could same the same for me.

Me-  I am staying busy with just the day to day stuff.  At times I don't understand why I'm so busy and that nothings really changed but I guess just planing, shopping for and making meals, staying on top of laundry and house work, and running from piano, ballet, scouts, activity days and many, many doctor appointments recently then it's fairly easy to see where my time is taken up.  I'm so incredibly grateful that we can afford to live on one income and that I get to be home with the kids full time.  I know what a rare thing that is these days.  I loved being a dental hygienist and was even asked to sub in my office in November but I told them I just couldn't make that work.  I felt bad about it initially and was a bit sad because I truly love that part of my life... I like feeling like I am more than "just Mom", and I love interacting with patients and staff, but right now I'm glad I'm available to run my kids here and there and everywhere.  I have to say that for whatever reason this year especially I have had moments where I feel immensely blessed and overwhelmed with gratitude for all our blessings.  My kids make me nuts at times and about 4 o'clock when I've just come home from picking Ethan up, which is at least a 30 minute round trip and the girls walk in the door, with someone often crying about something like getting a 15 and  half out of 16 on a spelling test I want to cry myself.  I am trying to keep Jane happy, make dinner, help Ethan with his math,  "handle" Anna all the while trying to make sure I'm happy and pleasant when Randall walks in the door so that he's happy he's home once he gets there.  And those are the days we don't have activities right after school that we are running off to.  It's busy but it's all good things.

Ethan-  Poor kid has had a rough few months.  His cast FINALLY came off after 8 weeks and boy was his poor little arm weak.  His muscles were not only weak but there was a lot of scar tissue built up from his surgery so it took some time to work with that to have him have normal mobility.  After all of that I realized that his coughing all night that was keeping him and me up all night needed to be looked into.  Ethan is the sweetest boy ever, but had just started getting up set at the drop of a hat and just ornery in general.  I took him to the Dr. and they tested his lung capacity because of all of his coughing.   He was supposed to be at a 347 and his capacity due to inflammation etc was down to 140.  Admittedly a shed a few tears feeling so guilty that I hadn't brought him in sooner.  They did some other testing and a few nebulizer treatments and gave us a weeks worth of steroids to get him better.  Thankfully within a week he was improving tremendously and started sleeping through the  night which made him a much nicer kid to get around.  They have diagnosed him with Asthma and sent us to an allergist to see what was triggering all of this.  We saw the allergist and after doing skin tests determined he is very allergic to grass, and cats and quite allergic to many trees and dogs.  Nice!  Truthfully I'm just grateful he doesn't have any food allergies.  His exzema was doing great but recently flared up so back to the allergist we will go.  I tell ya I don't know how parents with severely sick children keep on top of it all. We have spent so much time and money on Dr.'s and surgeries this year it's unbelievable.  Yet again, I'm grateful it's something treatable and that he's doing and feeling so much better.  There were times he would get so frustrated with his homework and say things like "I just can't think!"  I told the Dr. that and she said he wasn't getting enough oxygen.  I felt terrible but what do you do?

One awesome thing is that Ethan finished reading The Book of Mormon on his own this past Sunday.  His primary teacher in Jersey challenged the whole class to do it in January this year and he read like a champ while we were there.  In the last few months he had tapered off quite a bit and I was sure he wouldn't be able to do it.  In fact Saturday I told him I was disappointed he had come so far and wasn't going to finish.  Sunday when he got up he announced to us that today was the day and he was going to finish.  He read for 3 hours straight finishing off the last 26 chapters!  I don't think he realizing what a big thing that it and how there are many who go on their missions without having done that.  We are really proud of him and grateful for a good teacher who issued such a huge challenge.  I spoke to her Sunday and she said all but 1 in the class (who is autistic) finished.  That tells me our kids are capable and that we can expect great things from them, and can probably ask them to do more than we do.

Anna-   Anna is such a girl and is so into her hair these days.  Thankfully she doesn't change her clothes a hundred times but she does and re does her hair a hundred times a day.  We have instituted a family economy recently and she often doesn't get her pay for morning things because she is late to breakfast because she is still doing her hair, over and over, and then crying about how it isn't perfectly even etc.  She is quite the perfectionist.  Not sure where she gets that ;)  Her temperament is better but she still has tantrums once in a while like a two year old would but I guess as long as there is progress we are happy.  Anna is taking ballet with her cousin and she loves it.  She is so long and lean and precise so she does a good job.  I love to go and watch them dance.  Even at her age, I think the movements and the music are so beautiful that it makes me happy to go and watch her.  I think it's good for her to feel like she has something that is hers that she is good at.  She has started into the "I'm stupid" phase which I don't like and can't decide half the time to just ignore it, or tell her she isn't or try to distract her to something else.  I love Anna but she is one that keeps me awake at night worrying from time to time.

Kate-  Wow, is that girl ever an artist and creative.  She is making or doing art constantly.  She is good at drawing, painting and even making sculptures out of random objects or playdough.  She even made a monster out of a pencil box the other day with opposing teeth an eye and eyebrow and then fish to throw into it's mouth to "chomp".  it amazes me what she comes up with.  This morning she made a penguin out of clay, a island for it to sit on and little eggs all around it, with little cracks in the eggs because they were "hatching".  He eye for details is crazy and she can honestly draw better than I can (which isn't hard but she's good).  She doesn't love school and that worries me a bit, but I think it's her teacher :( She is a recently single mom with 4 kids and this is her first year teaching.  She just comes across and panicked and frazzled and not fun and stuff.  Academics doesn't seem to be her thing just yet.  Kate is extremely affectionate almost too much at times.  She will come up and kiss me on the hip over and over and over until I'm like ok, thank you!  She is still alittle sunshiny bright spot and easy going and just entertains herself.

Jane-  Jane was our bright spot until about 2 weeks ago. She got the stomache flu and hasn't been the same since.  I'd like to think she was bitten by the terrible two's bug.  I also think because she is generally so sweet that we tend to give her her way and spoil her a bit, so we are working on that.  I think now she wasn't her way all the time everytime.  She also wants to watch tv all the time and I don't let her and she's not too happy about that.  She is as smart a whip, seriously freaky smart.  Must get that from Rand.  She potty trained herself in September and is dry now for all naps and night.  She's pretty amazing and we call her our family mascot because we all just love and she usually so much fun it's like having a little pet with me all the time as my buddy.

We have decided to build a house and have a great lot less than two miles from the new Adobe building.  We are so excited about that.  We break ground Feb 1st so we will see how all that goes.

Never a dull moment!

Poor Kid

 September 4th was "the worst day of my life", said Ethan, and Friday September 21st after being in a cast for 3 weeks, we went back for our weekly visit to the orthopedist, and it quickly became "the 2nd worst day of my life", said Ethan, as it was then that we found out that Ethan would need surgery to pin the bone into the proper place so it would heal correctly.

 Friday when we received the news Ethan wasn't thrilled, but he handled it pretty well.  We figured we may as well make it festive so we took the family to Red Robin Friday to um... celebrate? We also bought him yet another book, one of his favorite things to help him in his recovery.

 He had be to the hospital by 6am so Randall took him while I stayed home with the girls thinking it wouldn't be an overly big deal and he would be home in a matter of a few hours.  Sadly the bone had healed quite a bit but not in the right way, so they had to do a deep incision through the muscle down to the bone, then re-break the bone and pin it in two places to hold it together correctly.

 You can see from the x-ray what they did.  If you look at the bone toward the top it doesn't look all that great and straight either but they feel like it's healing completely fine so you can imagine how bad the other bone looked before it was pinned.

 Because the surgery was more extensive and involved than they were planning, there was a lot more pain involved.  AND Ethan was only heavily sedated to have his arm set the first time so this was his first time with general anesthesia, and he did NOT do well.  When he came to recovery he was in a lot of pain and was horribly nauseated.  Of course he had not eaten in preparation for the surgery but he just kept throwing up.  He was one sick little amigo.  Because of this he had to be taken up to the pediatric floor to be monitored for several hours.

 Thankfully at this point my Mom offered to come sit with the girls so I could go up and be with him also.  He didn't seem to care to much when I got there but he was still not a very happy camper.  Thankfully they got his pain under control and after another dose or 2 of Zofran they were also able to get the nausea under control... well so we thought.

Finally a few hours after I arrived he was able to settle in and sleep hard for about an hour.  It was after that he finally turned a corner and was able to eat a few crackers and a bit of a roll, hold down some liquid and go to the bathroom.  All things he had to do in order to be discharged.  He was still looking green and was weak but we were anxious to get him home.

He seemed to be doing ok at home and was able to eat a few more crackers and some soda so we were feeling encouraged when bed time came.  To bad as we sat him up to get him to bed her threw up everything he had finally ingested including his pain meds we had given him just minutes earlier.

Thankfully a good friend of ours came to help Randall give Ethan a blessing of comfort and healing.  It was a really sweet experience watching both men kneel by his bedside and bless him with comfort.  The little girls knelt down too and listened quietly.  After our friend left Ethan asked if I would just stay in his room with him for awhile.  It was really sweet to talk with him quietly and rub his legs and feet to try to get him to relax.  Sadly Ethan being the oldest and such a sweet and easy kid I think he often doesn't get the time and attention he deserves, so it was nice to just be with him quietly alone for a little while.  It was then that he thanked me for coming to the hospital to be with him.  It was a strange thing to watch him lying in the bed rubbing his long legs wondering how the time has passed so quickly and here he is this big boy.  Thankfully it wasn't long after that he was able to settle in and fall asleep.

 When I was leaving Ethan's room last night I saw this note Anna wrote to Ethan taped to his door.  It reads : To:  Ethan Wilson, I am sorry you had to have "srgry" love, Anna.  I thought that was so sweet of her.

Today he is no longer throwing up, is eating a little and can move a round just a bit.  He will definitely be missing school tomorrow and after that we will just have to see.  Despite all of this he has yet again been as sweet as ever.  He did ask me the other day "why God had given him this trial", and so we had a good conversation about that.  I told him that God thinks he's strong and so he knows he can handle this.  We are just grateful the worst is over (I hope) and he is on the road to recovery.  He will be in his soft splint until Friday when he is put in a hard cast and then we will check everything including the pins a month later to see how we are doing.

I wish I could say this is the last of our hospital time, but Randall gets to have a little hernia surgery on Thursday, so wish us luck!

Broken Bone(s)

 Tuesday night Ethan had a late football game, so I decided to stay home and get the girls to bed.  At one point in the night I called Rand at the game to tell him that Kate had fallen off our bed and wouldn't stop crying and her arm was limp from the shoulder down, and I was worried it was broken.  Thankfully just a bit later I called him back to say it had been a false alarm and she was fine.

You can imagine my surprise when about 15 minutes later Rand called to tell me Ethan had broken his arm.  I asked how he knew for sure and he said you could tell by looking at it.  I knew that couldn't be good.

 Rand rushed home to grab the insurance card and Ethan looked like he was going into shock and I was a bit worried.  I initially thought I would stay home with the girls now asleep in bed, knowing there was really nothing I could do.  After a few minutes I was going crazy, and knew I couldn't just stay at home and wait, especially if he ended up needing surgery, so I asked one friend to sit with the kids and another to take me up to the ER.

 (These pictures don't really do it justice on how "wonky" it really looked)  Thankfully they got him right in and my Father in law came in just before me to help Randall give Ethan a priesthood blessing.

 I couldn't believe what a champ Ethan was.  By the time I arrived he was no longer crying and was talking and still.  He was hurting pretty badly and it wasn't long before they gave him an IV and administered him some morphine.  The nurse had a hard time getting the vein to accept the needle because apparently veins clamp down when you go into shock as Ethan had.  Ethan didn't cry on the initial poke, nor as she fished around waiting for the needle to go into the vein.  Randall had to step out of the room at this point since he does not do well with needles and blood so I was glad that I was there.

I guess a boy on the opposite team kept playing really rough and threw Ethan down and Ethan tried to brace himself and it broke the radius and ulna a few inches above the wrist, thankfully missing the wrist and growth plates.  The break was really bad on the x-rays but at least we were able to avoid surgery.  They did have to heavily sedate him and have an orthopedist set it.  Ethan did well during the sedation, but was still fighting the staff quite a bit.  They asked us to stand outside the room while they set it and it was funny to hear them saying things like "settle down cowboy".  Apprently he was kicking pretty hard and the staff said next time they would think to remove his  football cleats  before the procedure :)

When he came out of the sedation, that was the worst part.  He was shaking so badly but wasn't cold and was thrashing around a lot.  He kept wanting to sit up and they kept asking him to lie down.  Finally he yelled out that his nose itched, and once they let him itch his nose he calmed right down.  That became quite the joke that if his nose itched, by golly, let him itch it!

This was about 1:30 am leaving the ER- he was in amazingly good spirits

 While we waited in the ER for radiology and the various things Randall took Ethan's mind off his arm by telling him all about The Hobbit, a family favorite on the Wilson side.  Ethan was so excited about it and kept asking for Rand to tell him more.  Grandpa and Grandma Wilson brought him the hobbit to read and he's really excited about it.

 After the game his coaches and some of the players came to see him.  Ethan is sad that he is missing the rest of the season, especially since they haven't lost yet, and will probably go to the championship.

Family and friends have been so sweet to bring by books, and treats and things to make him feel thought of.  His coach (ex-NFL Scott Mitchell) came by again the other night to check on him and bring him a basket of goodies.  Coaches wife has felt terrible and has been sweet to call almost daily to check up on him.

Ethan missed two days of school needing to keep it elevated and iced but he went back Friday and is doing great.  All in all we are really proud of him and how tough he has been through all of this.  Sadly the thing that has bothered him most about all this is the fact that the boy who threw him down "never even apologized"!  We go back to the orthopedist on Wednesday to re-xray and cast if all is looking good.  Hopefully in 6 weeks he'll be as good as new.

Sweet 16

 On Saturday of last weekend we had the chance to celebrate the 16th birthday or Randall's cousin "E" (for privacy I will leave out names)  This was not a typical celebration because "E" was not here to celebrate with us.  Last October we got a sad call late in the night  telling us there had been a horrific accident and that "E" had returned to her Heavenly Father.  It was extremely upsetting as you can imagine.  We felt terrible being so far away at such a difficult time.  Because of the circumstances surrounding her death, we felt that without question Randall should fly home to show his love and support to his family.  Well, "E" would have turned 16 on Tuesday, so her parents wanted to celebrate.

Early Saturday morning we awakened to one of the worst thunder and lightning storms I've ever experience in Utah.  Apparently many prayers were said by family that there would be at least a small window of calm so we could go ahead as planned.   Family and friends gathered together with balloon bouquets of various crazy patterns and colors.  "E" did not like pink but loved all things crazy and fun.  We picked out a cow pattern, polka dots and happy birthday balloons, making sure that none of them matched, because that's what she would have wanted.

 You can imagine it was a difficult and emotional day.  D&D, her parents are the sweetest people you have ever met.  They have always shown me love and kindness as if I was a part of the family, even years before Randall and I were married.  Aunt D, spoke about" E" for a little while, telling us what a sweetheart she was and how "D" would often get a call from school with requests for doughnuts or pizza or whatever it was because someone at school needed some cheering up or it was their birthday etc.  Some of E's favorite things were crazy mismatched socks and eating skittles.  Aunt D brought everyone a party favor that was a crazy sock with a bag of skittles tied up inside. We all sang Happy Birthday and then released the balloons into heaven.

 I'm so grateful that we were there to remember and celebrate the amazing girl that she was.  I think it was neat that her parents wanted to try to celebrate the occasion rather than just mourn her not being with us anymore.  You could tell it was a very difficult day for them.

 After we released the balloons we all ate doughnuts and enjoyed the peaceful morning that came after the storm.

Labor and Play Weekend

 Friday of Labor day weekend, we decided we wanted to install a backsplash in our kitchen.  We had been thinking about it since we moved in but just haven't had a good chunk of time to do it.

 Some friends of ours Jessica and Justin came over to help us since Jessica said Justin had done tile and would be a big help.  Turns out Justin had never done a back splash, only floor tiling, but it was still nice to have the extra help and encouragement as I think the first few hours were the worst and hardest part of the project. Not to mention Justin getting stuck with the cutting and piecing around the outlets-the worst part.

 Saturday morning we were up early and went to family function that I will write about later.  Then seeing that it was the last day for swimming we went over to the pool with my parents and my brother and his family.

 We all had a great time.  Even Jane gets really brave after a little while and jumped in over and over again.  She even went under the water many times and loved it.  (click play to see her in action)

 In Jersey Kate went to a preschool that had "specials" each day that she attended.  One of which was swimming every Tuesday.  She spent a lot of time in the pool over the year so she is quite confident in the water and even jumps off the diving board.  She can jump in without a life jacket but I prefer it to be on.

 After watching all the kids jumping off the diving boards I decided that I wanted to too!  I decided that I'm not going to let my weight inhibit me from doing the things I want to do.  So I first jumped off the low dive, then the high dive.  Apparently Jane was so excited and yelled over and over "Mom did it"!  I was glad I had done it, and as I was leaving the pool a man told me that I was my children's heroine.  That made me feel really good about not letting dumb things like me in a bathing suit keep me from doing what I want to do.

 Monday we also finished up the back splash.  Grouting was much easier and faster than tiling, but boy was it exhausting.  The grout was heavy and thick and hard to squish around.  After a short space of me doing the grouting I passed that task over to Randall.

 Since Randall knows me so well and knows what a perfectionist I am he basically told me before we even started, that I would be doing all the tiling.  Justin did some piecing work on Friday but other than that I literally laid all the tile.  We have had too many projects in the past where I could find little details that weren't just right and it would make me crazy and I may have even been a bit upset at Randall, so this time he was wise enough to leave the detail work to me.  I guess I need to chill out a bit, BUT the end result really looks nice so maybe being a perfectionist isn't always bad :)

I'm amazed at how much the tile changes the look of the whole kitchen.  The cabinets look nicer, the appliances look nicer the counter tops etc.  It was worth all the effort it took and really looking back, not a bad project at all.   I would do it over again in a heart beat.  Now that I know what to expect I could see some more tiling in our future....  A great weekend for a little labor and some play time.

Ethan turned 10!

 August 29th Ethan turned 10!  I can hardly believe it.  He has informed me that he is now a pre-teen.  Heaven help us.  Thankfully Ethan is one of the best kids around, so I'm to worried about this pre-teen business :) His first gift was a swiss army knife.  Rand decided he just wanted to leave the knife tucked in his shoe so he would find it when he was getting ready for school that morning.  When he found it he was so excited and shouted "Sweet Mama"!  I've never heard him say that before but it was really funny and we were glad he was so excited.  He has been offering to cut or open anything and everything ever since.

 We started the day off with... you guessed it German pancakes, a family favorite.

 Then he opened up some lego's, one of his favorite things.

 He had asked for roller blades and was really exciting about getting some,but when I went to get them they were sold out.  I thought he would just have to go without.  I was worried that when he opened his gifts and there were no blades he would say something and be really disappointed.  He didn't say one word about it.  I was so proud of him for being gracious and happy with what he was given.

 That being said, my parents found some and gave them to him, so the day was saved anyway.

 After yet another football game with thankfully a win on the big day, we came back home for cake and ice cream.  G&G Wilson came through with his favorite... Legos!  I think Lego's is one of the best gifts ever and can never have too many.

 Ethan requested this chocolate mousse crunch cake, otherwise known as death by chocolate.  He sure has good taste in desserts.

Ready...

set...

blow...

Phew.  Only he forgot to make a wish :)

 While I'm obviously biased, Ethan is really one of the very best kids around.   He is smart and kind and helpful and conscientious.  He is a deep thinker and is often asking out there questions about things he's been thinking about.  He can recall crazy facts and knows a lot about all different sorts of subjects.  I sometimes wonder if he has a photographic memory.  He loves to read and has read all but one of the Percy Jackson series this Summer and the Fable haven books.  We actually have to tell him to put  his book down and go to bed.

4 years old on Easter Sunday.  

 Ethan works hard in all that he does and truthfully we have pretty high expectations for him in all that he does because we know he is capable.   I tease Ethan relentlessly, out of love of course, and we joke that with me around, nobody could ever bother him because he can put up with anything.

 Ethan just finished his Bear in scouting and is advancing to Webelow and was worried that he "had just made it".

 We decided this week that we needed to make a change with his school and asked him how he felt about it.  We explained why we thought it would be a good choice but left the decision up to him.  He said "Sure,  I think I would like to do that".  Ethan really loved his friends and school in Jersey and was even going to start to play the trombone this year.   He has always been a good sport about our many moves and never fights us on the decisions we make.  Ethan is mature beyond his years and is one special boy.  I'm grateful I get to be his Mom and see all that he's capable of.  We love you buddy!