Welcome Home Jessica!!

Tonight we went over to welcome our niece Jessica home from the hospital. Most of you know the story, but if not here is what happened...Jess is 6 months pregnant. Last Thursday night she was driving back to Topeka on I70 from Bonner Springs, it was raining and she hydroplaned and wrecked on a bridge. She got out of her vehicle and was told by a man who stopped to help to climb over the barrier in the middle to get out of the way of traffic. She did exactly that but didn't realise that there was no middle to the highway, it was a 50 foot drop off. She fell and landed in the creek bed below. It is a miracle that Jessica and her baby are alive and doing well! She has a broken pelvis and broken rib, and got a pretty bad concussion, and has a lot of recovery time ahead of her. She will be having surgery after she has the baby and about 3 months recovery time after that. Her baby girl is doing great, what an amazing story Jessica is going to get to tell that little girls someday!!The kids were so excited to see their cousin Jessica tonight because they were not able to see her when we all went to the hospital because she was in ICU. They have been praying for her every day. Thank you to all of you that have prayed for her , please continue to keep her in your prayers as she has a long haul ahead of her.

A Little Facelift In The Kitchen

Johnny had a granite tabletop made from scrap at work. He put it on last night but then had to take it back off because he has to redo the base of the table to make the legs further apart to steady it better. It looks very nice and once we have it back on i will put a picture on. I have been wanting to do away with my wallpaper in the kitchen for awhile now and do something different. I found almost a full gallon of the paint that we used for the upper wall so for right now im just ripping down the wallpaper and painting the bottom of the wall. I will decide later if i want to go with a different color once we get the new table in. I put Julie's kids to work while i had them last night.:) Actually they were all begging to help, and had fun ripping the wallpaper down. Julie, I had a little talk with Meredith that Aunt Elisa's house was the only place we rip down wallpaper in case she got any ideas anywhere else.:) Avery helped me again this morning do another whole wall. I just have two sections to go... Oh yes, and the picture at the top of just the wall, Avery made me take a picture of it before i ripped anymore off because she said it was a litle girl with her hand up in the air. I didn't see it at the time but i do see what she was seeing now that i see the picture. :)

JOG-A-THON

Today was Trey and Avery's jogathon at school. Trey completed 25 laps and Avery 18 laps. I was a little worried about Avery with her asthma but apparently the nurse came and gave her a couple puffs of her inhaler before it started and she did great! Trey did lot's of racing with his friends so had to take some breaks walking. Avery hardly stopped the whole time. She had a nice little pace going and just kept plugging along. She asked me to run with her towards the end so i ran 3 laps with her. They had a fun day raising money for their school.

Trey's Witnessing

Trey's exciting news today when i picked him up was that he witnessed to one of his friends and the boy asked Jesus into his heart! Trey said "mabye i have a BIG star in my crown now mommy!" He said that he is going to tell all of his class so that they can all go to Heaven! I am SO proud of Trey!! I just pray we don't have any calls from the principal about upset parents!!

Loved Blankie!

When Trey and Avery were babies i bought a "backup" blankie for their much loved Gymboree blankets for when i had to wash blankets and in case we ever lost one. Avery's "backup" blankie is in perfect condition because it is rarely used. She always wants her "ripped blankie" Her blankie is very loved!! Remind you of anything??? :)

Some Random Pictures...

These are a just a few random pictures that iv'e taken the last couple of days. The picture of Ethan is with his new shoes that SO FAR he can not get off or even seem to care to try to pull them off! He doesn't have any problem walking in them either! After putting on socks at least 10 times today on our errands i decided we HAD to find some shoes for this boy!

11 Months Old

Ethan was 11 months on Monday. He is a busy little guy these days!

My Big 2nd Grader

Trey is really liking 2nd grade. He has gotten 100 on all of his spelling tests so far this year so we are proud of him! Today when he got in the van he was busting with excitement. The first thing out of his mouth was "I have a Christian in my class, mommy!" Apparently they were having a conversation about why they don't "use the bad finger". (scary that they know about it in 2nd grade but at least they know it's bad and not to use it) Anyway in talking about that, Trey said he doesn't use it because he's a Christian and it uses Jesus' name bad (so at least he doesn't know the word yet!) and the other boy said he was too, and they both started talking about how they are going to go to Heaven. Trey said he told the other boy "you know we are supposed to tell the other kids about Jesus". My little missionary is at work.:) Trey said that they both were going to go home and tell their daddy and mommy. It was so fun to see his excitement, you could just tell it made his day!!

Ethan Hates Shoes

"I'm not going to walk in these big things you put on my feet, mommy. They make me mad, real mad. I'm going to fuss and cry and pull at them till you give up and take them off of me!"

Happy Helper

It is Avery's turn in kindergarten to be the "happy helper" today. The happy helper brings the snack for the class, brings show and tell, and of course the general helper for the day. Avery has been SO excited for it to be her turn and has asked me just about everyday since the start of school when she gets to be the "happy helper". She is LOVING kindergarten! She now says she wants to be a teacher when she grows up.

Labor Day

We spent the day today at Johnny's parents grilling out, playing croquet, taking a drive in his dad's 56 chevy, and watching a movie this evening. It was a very relaxing day! The kids were worn out and all asleep when we got home tonight.

One Year Ago Today...

I was 32 and a half weeks pregnant. I woke up that morning with a bad side pain. I was at Target with Avery and these pains just kept getting worse. I kept having to go into the clothing racks to hide and bend over, it hurt so bad but i figured i had just overdone it a bit because i was still serving at Chilis 3 nights a week. Once i got home the pains just kept getting worse so i called Susan and she convinced me to call the dr. They told me to go up to labor and delivery, and with several phone calls of prodding me to go, i finally went ( i was just sure they would say "you are fine" and send me home and i would feel silly). I was in so much pain by the time we got to the hospital i could hardly walk, they got me checked into a room and put the monitors on to see what was happening. I was having pretty good contractions but not dilating much more. After awhile they came in and said "you have a fever so we are going to do some blood tests".

Suddenly my room became very chaotic with doctors coming in and out of my room pushing on my belly and asking if it hurt, "YES it hurt!" My white blood cell count came back high and after ruling out that i was not abrupting and from the symptoms i was having they decided i was going to have my appendix out.They decided that it was safer to go ahead and take it out than to wait and do ore tests to see if that was the problem.

From then on it seemed like a whirlwind of stuff happening, the surgeons were there talking to me, the neonatologist was doing a sono on me, the regular on call ob dr was there assuring me everything was going to be ok. They gave me a shot to help mature Ethan's lungs, because there was a strong possibility that he would be born that night. The sono showed that Ethan was already 5 lbs. so the neonatologist assured me that he would be just fine if he was born probably just a short stay in the nicu, but of course this all scared me to death and i was so worried that something was going to happen to our little miracle baby that we had prayed for for so long!

I opted for the epidural ( safest for baby) for the surgery so i was awake which totally freaked me out. I remember telling them that they were going to have to move those mirrored lights above me cause i could see them down by my stomach...i got very groggy after that so i'm sure they gave me a little something special in my iv after that. I got a nice big incision in my pregnant belly because they can't do laproscopic when you are pregnant. Everything went smoothly with the surgery, i don't even know what time i went to surgery but it was late in the evening and the rest of that night felt like an eternity! I was in soo much pain, the side pain was still there and i was having contractions all night (which they expected, they thought it might put me into full blown labor) plus i had a huge incision in my big belly! I was on an iv so of course i had to keep getting up to use the restroom and they were coming in what felt like every hour giving me shots in my patutie!

The next day i was still running a fever and Ethan's heart rate was still very high (it had been in the 200's since i arrived at the hospital), and i remember the neonatologist coming and doing a sono and talking about taking me for a c-section (that they just needed to get the baby out)....i have no idea how much time passed but i came to to hear my fever was down, Ethan's heart rate had calmed down to where it should be, and my side pain had subsided. Our little one was going to stay put and grow some more. Thank you Lord!

After 4 days in the hospital i was very happy to get out on Labor Day and spend time with family even if i was just sitting in a chair most of the day!Later that evening i started having a lot of pain every time i took a breath which just kept getting worse the longer the night went on so we headed back to the emergency room at the suggestion of the on call doctor. After hrs of being told they thought i had a blood clot in my lung and a zillion (ok not quite that many) tests,scans, pokes, prods, and scariest of all for me shot in my belly, my scan came back fine, i didn't have a blood clot after all, so was sent back up to the antipardem (sp?) floor where i had just gone home from, to monitor Ethan again. Finally at 4 am we were able to go home.

What i had was pluresy (sp??) where the lining of your lungs swell, whatever it was it was the most painful thing i have experienced in a long time. I could not hardly breathe without horrible pain let alone move around the house. After i think 2 days and one evening of forcing myself to keep walking and moving (was told that's what would help) i woke up to the pain being gone! What a relief!!

So that is my saga of a year ago today and the excitement i had towards the end of my pregnancy with Ethan. "Thank you Lord for keeping me and Ethan safe and for allowing Ethan to continue growing awhile longer"