Good times!

I had an amazing weekend!! I was able to go to Salt Lake all by myself this weekend for a songwriting workshop. Yes, that would be with NO kids!! How lucky am I?
The workshop was a three day event put on by Jenny Phillips and Tyler Castleton. It went over everything from songwriting, to sound systems, vocal production, copyrights, pretty much anything LDS music industry related. I left there just filled with so much information, totally overwhelmed, but incredibly excited to put it all to use.
The best part was meeting all the amazing artists. There were atleast 200 participants there, if not more. And then there were the well known artists, Hilary Weeks, Peter Breinholt, the new group Mercy River. As well as an independent artist, Deborah Fatherham. All were so helpful and very talented! (You can check out any of these people here.)
The hard part was offering our songs to be critiqued. I was able to have 3 of them critiqued and the responses were not as bad as I thought they might be. Still, I am going to need to work on them. But I know now that I am not that far off on the path I have been following.
Anyway, I hope I haven't bored anyone. Poor Jess, he must be so sick of hearing all of this. I must say, I truly do have the BEST husband! He is always so supportive of whatever I do, whether good or bad. He is AWESOME!!

Okay, okay!

Alright, all is forgiven! My pole was not working so I can't get mad! But seriously, am I just not getting this blog commenting thing? I mean, you wouldn't listen to someone tell a story and not respond, would you?? If I read your blog, I will comment. Even if it is just a really lame comment. I'm just thinking, "oh, I bet it will make them feel good to know that someone is reading their blog." But hey, what do I know? I am new at this blogging thing. And No, I am not fishing for compliments. Just simply sign your name. "Hey, so and so was here!" : ) Alright, thanks for listening to my lecture and venting. I know I am just simply stating what everyone else is thinking!

<--- <--- <--- <--- Do it!

HELLO PEOPLE!?! Are you too good for a pole?? Just do it! Takes two seconds. Put the little mouse on the dot you prefer and hit vote! So easy! THANK YOU!!

My Girls!

I have always been blessed with such amazing friends. Some are old friends, some are new, but I am very lucky to have such wonderful people in my life. These are SOME of my girls. We are missing about 5 or 6 that couldn't be here tonight. Anyway, these are my lifetime friends. We have grown up together and we will always be friends. We have stayed in touch with numerous bridal and baby showers, and we always go to lunch when one of them comes in town. Pretty soon the bridal and baby showers will come to a hault so now we do a weekend together once a year where we eat, stay up late, and laugh at old memories. Of course, they are always the same ones, but they seem to get funnier every year.

Tonight was Katie's bridal shower. So I HAD to bring my camera. I think we have a group picture taken at every event we show up at. Jacque is our great historian. Yes, we all have our roles. Sometime I will go into it. It has been a while since we have ALL been in a picture together, but it doesn't keep us from trying. Like the group one up top, I get home and realize Jenny was missing. Not quite sure how that happened.

(Jenny on the right on the stairs. The Amazing YW Pres. Wendy on the couch, second from left.)
Oh yeah, and see that HOT woman between Jacque and Rebecca. That is totally our Young Womens President. When we were in Young Womens she was the BEST! She used to let us come do sleep overs almost every week. We still love her so much that even she comes to our yearly weekend trips. How lucky am I to have such a great group of friends?!

Group Picture- L to R. Emily, Rebecca, Katie, Liz, Jacue, Alexis

MISSING you girls that weren't here! See you soon!

The Climbing Has Started!

Today is a day for the journals! Claire has gradually been getting better at her climbing. You know, the couch, the stairs. Today she climbed onto the toilet, then from the toilet on to the counter, and then figured out how to turn on the sink and filled it almost to the top before I caught her. Very nice! Still, I knew she was getting better at climbing. Then naptime came. First I tried the bottle but she would not go to sleep. I needed her to take her nap at the right time because yesterday she fought it, fell asleep too close to bed time, and then kept me up until midnight. So anyway, I put her in her crib to let her cry it out and then went in to do the dishes. A couple minutes later it sounded quiet so I went back to see if she was crying. She was, but just a little. Then the crying started sounding closer and I thought, "what the heck?" So I headed back to her door and the handle started to wiggle. YES, you guessed it!! Somehow my tiny little 16 month old baby made it out of her crib! Don't ask me how. I thought,"oh crap, maybe she fell." But, no bruises and when I picked her up she immediately stopped crying and just went, "humm" in her sweet little voice. UGH! Gotta love their personalities.

When it rains....

I don't want to complain or anything, but I figure it is just our time!
So Maddox is still on the IV antibiotics and won't be done with those until Monday. His eye is looking a lot better, and he is being a real trooper.
Jess, on the other hand has been our latest blog worthy info.

On Saturday Jess' tooth started killing him. He didn't understand because he had a root canal on that tooth like two years ago. Anyhow, by Saturday night he was dying! I knew he must be in serious pain when at 9:30 pm he is trying to find a # for our dentist. (Who by the way, is a really great guy! He played baseball with Jess growing up and is just really down to earth.) So, finally we decided to just call his office. The answering machine had an emergency cell for him which he picked up right away. He ended up calling Jess in a pain killer and an antibiotic. Then told him he would call him after church the next day.

Father's Day comes and I am at church alone because Jess' pain is much much worse and Maddox still can't go because of the dose he has to have right during church. When I get home Jess is completely non functioning and complaining that the pain pills don't work. (Let me just say that Jess has had his share of surgery, broken bones, and injuries. Very rarely does he even take pain killers. He has always had a really high pain tolerance.) Anyway, incredible pain!! So, I take the kids to my parents for a couple of hours. While I am gone our great dentist meets him down at his office and takes an x-ray. Well, now Jess has an "abcessed" tooth. I know, I know, Maddox had an abcess on his eye. It makes a person wonder, but NO, they are not related. Okay, so he refers him to a specialist, gives him a higher dose of pain killers and sends him home. He barely eats on Sunday, doesn't really talk to anyone, and just looks miserable all day. Oh yes, fevers start on this night!

Monday- by morning he has finally realized that he will not be able to go to work. The right side of his face has swelled up like a chip monk, and the pain is getting worse. He made a call to the specialist and his staff asked Jess, "On a scale of 1 to 10, where does your pain lie?" Of course, his only response was "11." So they were able to get him in at 1:30. He wasn't able to drive himself so I dropped him off and then came back. They prescribed him an even higher pain killer and a higher antibiotic, but told him that it would be two weeks before he could have a new root canal done. We convinced them to move it up at least half a week, but they wouldn't go any further because they said the infection needed time to clean out. Okay, Okay. Fine..... He is in bed for the rest of the day. Really high fevers that aren't breaking and pain that still isn't going away. Thankfully, a couple of guys in the ward came over and gave him a blessing. (Thank you, thank you again!)

Tuesday- he forces himself to go to work, because obviously he can't miss for two more weeks, but by 10am he was calling and asking me to call the specialist back to see if he could get in that day. They were able to take him at 12:30pm. By 1:45 he was home, the abcess had been drained, and he appeared to be doing much better. Thankfully, I headed to the gym because I so needed the break from all of it. Two straight days with my fighting kids was totally getting to me... Okay, I am at the gym for an hour and then start heading home. Jess calls and says, "when are you coming home?" in a pretty frustrated voice, I might add. I said, "I am on my way. Why?" Well, after I left he started getting REALLY bad shakes. The kind that can not be controlled. So he decided to take a bath, which is about the 7th in two days. It was the only thing that seemed to ease his discomfort. We are thinking he passed out in the bath, but when he came to he tried to stand up really fast and puked everywhere. But NO, this is not the worst of it. I was thinking "great, it all went in the tub!" When I got home, it was all over our room... Bed, floor, bathroom. The comforter and pillows were in the tub!?! Still, he does not know exactly what happened. What he thought happened, might not really have happened. He doesn't remember ever being in the bed.... The rest of the night he had really really high fevers again and slept away most of it.

Wednesday- all new Jess. Happy as can be, great nights sleep, and telling me how great I am. (Made it all worth it!) The pain is still there and he has to keep the pain killers going, but nothing like it was.

They say everything comes in threes. What's next?

Too Funny!

Okay, I have been meaning to blog this because I thought it was so funny but I just now unloaded my camera. That would be Claire going down to take a drink out of our dog's water dish just like they do. Face plant and all. DON'T WORRY, I had Jess grab her before she made it all the way in. This is one of the few times I have had my camera within arms reach!!

Jess vs. Kids

Let it be said that my children take after Jess. I can not believe the resemblance. HE clearly is the reason they are so adorable!!!

JESS - CLAIRE

JESS - MADDOX

JESS - MASON (Truly amazing!!)

Mason has always been big!! From The day he was born he has been in the 95% for head, height, and weight. I never worried about his size because he has always been proportioned. Now, I realize that I really have to start worrying. My 6 year old is stronger than me!! I know, I know, I am not a very strong person to begin with, but come on, he is 6!! He has been doing this thing lately where he grabs your wrist and tries to pin it down and then wants to see if you can get away. Of course, I tell him there is no way I can get out of it, 'cause he is just too strong. He laughs and says, "your not even trying." Well, truth be told, it would take a lot of effort to get out of it. He is unbelievably strong!!
Okay, so his friend Trenton that is in the picture with him was born 10 days after him. This should show you his size in comparison to other kids his age. I also put in pictures of him standing next to Jess and I to show how tall he is. I am in high heals in this picture so he actually comes up a little higher on me.
One more funny thing he does... Each year in the fall he starts eating like crazy. We can't feed him enough. He can easily out eat me or Jess. He starts really bulking up and looking chunky around the face and mid section. Then after about 2-3 months of this, he shoots up about 2-3 inches and thins out. It's crazy!! It's been this way for the last 4 years. He's like a bear. Gotta love my sweet child! I'm just grateful my tender hearted one received the size. He couldn't hurt a fly.

WARNING!! - THIS IS A LONG ONE!

Well, let me first apologize because I am not very good at keeping up with the blog. I thought it would be so much easier to sit down and write something but I can't seem to find the time. Also, I am not as skilled as some of you who keep your camera handy at all times. Unfortunately, the pictures on this blog were taken with my cell phone.
Okay, so the last 3 1/2 days have been spent at the hospital. About 4 wks ago Maddox's eye started to droop or sag. At first it wasn't really noticeable, it just looked like a lazy eye from not enough sleep. It progressively got worse. Then about 2 weeks ago it started to swell up so that by last Saturday it was completely shut and looked like someone had shoved a marble in it. When it first started to sag he saw the pediatrician and she wasn't sure about it so she referred him to the optomologist. He was not able to get into them until this last thursday. When we went to see her, she was completely confused. (Oh yeah, when it started getting big and red we had taken him back to the doctor and they said, "hmm, let me know what the optomologist says. I would like to know what that is.") VERY NICE! So anyway, thursday we were sent from the optomologist to the ER to have CAT SCANS done. We found out that he had an unusual abcess that had to be drained right away before it affected his vision or brain. They were going to send us over to Sunrise Hospital right then to have the procedure but the eye doctor wanted this other optomologist to do it the next day. So they released us under the impression that it would be taken care of. This took up about 8 hours on Thursday.
Friday, I wake up and start calling all the doctors again. His pediatrician is not in. The optomologist is in surgery all day and the office she saw him at is closed on fridays. So I call the optomologist that is suppose to be doing the surgery and he is in California. LUCKILY, they all have great staff that worked on getting a hold of them all day.
Okay, so Dr. L, (the one who will do the surgery), his office called at about 11am and told me that I needed to fast Maddox so they could do the surgery that night. So I started fasting not only him, but Mason and I as well because I didn't think it was fair to Maddox. Finally at 3pm Dr. L's office calls, tells me to pick up his cat scans from Southern Hills Hospital and then check in to the ER at Summerlin Hospital and they will send me up to the OR and call in Dr. L. The impression I kept receiving was that this was an out patient PROCEDURE.... I grabbed a back pack of toys, gave my kids to Jess' mom and checked into Summerlin at 4 pm. Finally, at 7 pm I was admitted to a room in the ER. Then the ER doctor comes in and says he can eat anything he wants until 9 am and then he will have to fast until 5 pm. I thought "WHAT?" (This is when we found out that it was not a PROCEDURE, which sounds so much easier, but an actual SURGERY.) And this is how much of the weekend went. We were checked into the pediatric ward by 9pm, he was put on IV and antibiotics and we pretty much hung out until 4:30 the next day. Then they take us down to surgery and nothing is ready. No consent forms, no order for surgery, and no Doctor. Surgery was done at 5:40, he was out by 6:30. At this point I am thinking we might not be able to go home tonight. After I realized they had to knock him out and he would be on a machine that would be breathing for him. Oh yeah, then before we see him, Dr. L tells us that we will have to put him on a pick line IV for atleast the next week to administer antibiotics which a home health nurse would have to come to the house twice a day. (SO VERY OVERWHELMED & FREAKED OUT!) He said the abcess he extracted was very hard to penetrate and very large. The word he used when he told the pediatrician was IMPRESSIVE. (hmm)
They bring us back to see Maddox and I about lost it. Maybe I am just incredibly unaware of things, but I thought it would consist of lifting the eye lid and removing the fluid with a syringe. No. He had an inch long cut which the doctor had to scrape the built up puss out of. It was totally swollen and huge. The pictures I have are from the second day and his eye already looked so much better. OKAY, so he is completely out of it kicking an crying for at least an hour. He can't open his eyes or talk. He isn't aware that it is us. He was having what looked to be a really bad night terror. We had to hold him tight so he would not touch his face because he kept trying to itch it. After a while of that they finally gave him something that put him back to sleep for another hour and half. Then he finally woke up to his sweet self. Of course, we are staying at this point. I also forgot to mention that the doctor sent the fluid over to infectious disease to be cultered and tested so we would have to wait for those results.
Sunday morning they tell us it will be a while for the results and that no one is there to do the pick line & we will be there until Monday. Frustrated, we settle in for a day of entertaining Maddox.
Monday morning- again, nothing is ready when they have had plenty of time to have stuff done. They wake me Monday morning and tell me that he can't eat again because he has to be put out to have the pick line in. Again, information I would have liked sooner. Then they tell me that he has to have blood drawn so they can do labs before he has the pick line. Stuff that could have been done on Sunday. Thankfully, our nurse on Monday was a good one and did her best to push everything along as fast as possible. She also wondered what the heck they were doing over the weekend. Well, the pickline was a very fast procedure, the hard part was getting him under again and out of it again. It was so sad when they put him under because he just kept staring at me with tears running down his cheeks saying, " I tan't yift my head." The pictures below are from when he was trying to come out of it. This time instead of unbelievable strength, he had very little. He cried and cried. All he wanted was daddy. He kept crying and saying,"I miss my daddy, and Mason, and Taire Bear." I felt so helpless. At the same time I was cracking up. I know, I am so insensitive, but I have only seen this in the movies. He would stop crying and look at the hand that use to have the IV in it. (They took it out when he was under.) He would look very confused, then he would slowly bring the hand to his face and back. His eye (the good one) would get very BIG. Then he would start to wiggle his fingers. This immediately would make him start crying again. This happened about four times. I was laughing so hard because the nurse kept telling me that he would be seeing two's. It obviously freaked him out!!
Well, we made it home by 7pm Monday night. Maddox was being his usual crazy self. Trying to do tricks on the skateboard & jumping off the couch. I really don't know how I am going to contain him for the next several weeks. The nurse came for about two hours last night and showed us how to administer all the medicine. Now we find out it has to be done 4 times a day, about 40 minutes each time, and it is going to last at least 2 weeks. But, on the up side, we can do it ourselves. And, no copay. I was so excited about that one!!
I apologize for the length, but I also need this blog for my records. Thanks for listening!!
Oh yeah, HAPPY 8TH ANNIVERSARY TO JESS & I!!!