She's a Trooper

If I'd have posted this last night, the report you're about to hear might have been a bit different than the one you're getting today. Today the sun is out and I am feeling happy, thankful for how well things have gone, and recognizing our many blessings. Last night I was exhausted, concerned and overwhelmed - and didn't have many pleasant things to say...

Anyway though, she did it! WE did it! Ashley was an absolute ANGEL and dealt with the proceedures and hospital stay like a pro. Phoenix Children's is the absolute greatest. In fact from here on out I am only interested in using doctors from there for my kids. It made all the difference!

Happy as can be in her new purple scrubs and with her new purple teddy they gave her!
Waiting to get started with daddy.
She traveled everywhere by wagon - so neat.

THANK YOU to all our dear family who sent cards and packages ahead of time for Ash to open there. Whenever things got long or hard, I had something special to pull out of my bag that made her feel like a million bucks. It was the best.


Tyler was my hero. Come bedtime Tuesday night I was so tired and we were in a shared room with a little one month old! Ashley konked right out, but we knew it was going to be a long night for one of us so Tyler volunteered to stay and cuddle her and sent me home to sleep. It was so nice!!

Wednesday I was back by 7am and did notice a little change in Ashley. The first day she didn't seem bothered a bit by the tube and was enthralled with everything cool that goes on at the children's hospital (art projects, movies, toys). But the second morning she was a little more touchy... and we still had yet to do some of the hardest stuff. We got through the teaching and practicing okay - poor girl. She just wanted to be left alone. But she is so sweet. I swear she is an angel dropped from Heaven.

Last night, like I said, both Ty and I were on a reserve energy tank and doing our best to rememeber everything they had taught us about safely administering the feedings through the pump. I must say, there is a lot more "fine print" associated with "feeding tube" than I ever expected. And when it's your precious child it's HARD!

She slept like a little lamb on the floor of our bedroom. The pump alarm went off four times for having a clog, which I found was only her lying on the cords. But of course, I slept lightly.


She woke up happy and headed right back to school this morning. I went with her just in case she changed her mind, but she didn't. Instead she got to be the "teacher for the morning" and led her class in the calendar, pledge, etc. for about 20 minutes without any concern for the tube taped to her cheek or what anyone else might be thinking about it. I love her so much!

Private

If you're reading this today, I know you. I'm sorry but getting a random comment from a well-intentioned annonymous person wigs me out (see comments from previous post) and makes me think about whom all is looking at my blog. For that reason, I'm going private again.

The Love of a Daddy

Tomorrow Ashley goes into Children's Hospital to get a feeding tube. We will be there over night so that the doctors can see how she responds to the formula they give her and can also teach one of us (tyler) how to put it in. Getting Ash to grow has been a challenge over the years and her doctors have come to the decision that increasing her calorie intake overnight while she sleeps is our best option. She will have this NG tube for a few months and we will feed her through it each night which will hopefully jumpstart her growth a bit and get her caught up.

Needless to say, Tyler and I have thought a lot about this decision. We don't like having to put her through anything like this but we do know how important it is for her to reach a healthy weight - and this is temporary.

For Family Night tonight Tyler had his friend who is a nurse come over and put a feeding tube in him so that he could better empathize with her. He wanted to know exactly how it will feel and what she will be going through. I couldn't believe it - he took parenting to a whole new level!

If you look into his eyes, these pictures say a thousand words. He did it and was able to show Ashley what it will be like and tell her that it isn't all that bad. I could have cried.

Relay for Life - year 2

Relay was great again this year! Our team is fabulous - a bunch of girls from the ward and lots of fun! Shelly belly flew into town to be a part of it this time around and it was nice to have her. Because of the pregnancy I couldn't stay all night but we lasted until about 11pm and I did go back at 5am if you can believe that!! I felt for those who had been out all night in the wind and cold - they are hard core.

It is wonderful to see Rashelle who was so sick last year on chemo doing so great now. Her cute family walked the survivor lap together and it brought all of us to tears knowing that she is in remission. Yay!

I totally recommend relay to anyone who has been touched by cancer. It is an event that is fun for the whole family!









Remembering grandpa during the luminaria walk.

First Pets

This morning we picked up three tiny caterpillars from Ashley's wonderful preschool teacher from two years ago. Right now they are each in a little container with white mush on the bottom - all the food they'll need for weeks to grow and get bigger, and ultimately turn themselves into butterflies. When we did this last time the kids were so young they didn't really appreciate it. But I did. I loved watching the transformation.

We've had our new pets for half a day now and Jake has checked to see if his has grown about once every hour. He is insistent that it is bigger already. But I worry that his is going to die from all of the movement it gets. Tonight Luke asked if it was okay to turn his bedroom light off with the caterpillar in there - and Jake quietly shut his bedroom door when he said good-night to his. Later, when asked to put his clothes away Jakey asked, "but dad, can I just put mine on the outside of my door because I will wake my caterpillar up?" It was adorable.

This will be a fun process for us to watch over the next three to four weeks.

Mr. Caterpillar even joined us for dinner. Lovely.

Daddy's Happy

We decided to do something about the side garage this weekend. Bought materials at home depot and had it installed yesterday. Daddy feels like a new man having his stuff better organized. And I like that I can get the bikes out without tripping over something.

Before -
(also, please notice the lovely Mongolian rug that Tyler brought all the way back from his mission. In an effort to display it somewhere in our home, it found a place on the wall in our garage).




After-

From the eyes of a seven year old nephew

Tonight in the car Luke started talking about what great uncles he has. I asked him what he likes about each of his uncles. I thought our families would get a kick out of what he said:

"I love Drew because he is cool, like very cool.
I love Blake because he is so smart (and Jake added that he is also good at Rock Band).
I love Zach because he is so strong.
I love Todd because he is, like, a boxer and so funny.
And I love uncle Brett because he is so kind."

I am so thankful that Luke and Jake have such wonderful men in their lives to look up to, in addition to their great dad!

Who turned up the heat?

Man this weeekend has been HOT. Pushing 90 degrees today and yesterday. Who turned up the heat all of a sudden?! I tell you, it's right about this time every year that I'd start thinking about packing my bags if I lived that "perfect weather life" of living here in the winter and Utah in the summer. I'd be just starting to say, "thanks Arizona for a fabulous winter, until next time..." and then I'd stick a note on the back window of our van that reads: "UTAH or BUST!".

Since that's not the case however and Utah is only an option to me about two weeks out of the summer, it is now that I brace myself - and we see just how long we can go before turning on the blessed air conditioning. Husbands everywhere are crying, "please honey, make it at least until MAY!"

Thankfully, weather.com indicates that this is only a passing heat wave - for now. But we are still preparing for summer; with swim lessons!







I have the kids in EVO swim school for the next two months. I love it because they have the three of them practicing at the same time but in their different levels. Luke is getting so good, he is almost ready for their competetive team. He is working on improving his strokes in the freestyle, breast stroke, back stroke and butterfly. He is a natural swimmer. Ashley is like a mermaid in the water, she loves to flip around and twirl and sing... she is going to start working on improving the basics of the four strokes this summer since she can already swim great. And Jake can swim too, but they want him to be able to flip from front to back and float - a safety thing. He was cracking me up working on this last week, he looked so funny. Good times.

Baby's First Picture!

We had an ultrasound this morning. I was anxious to make sure things were going well - and they are! - which I am so happy about! Baby looks like a jelly bean, measured right on for being 8 weeks and has a happy little heart beat - music to our ears! I just can't wrap my mind around the fact that all this development goes on inside me at such a rapid pace. If you think about it, the baby right now is the size of a kidney bean which means it's heart is probably about the size of a pebble of nerds candy - and to think that we could sit there and watch and listen to it - FASCINATING! Cutest little baby we ever saw! ;)

I took a picture of my Your Pregnancy Week by Week book. The actual size photos from seven, eight, nine and ten weeks. Look how much the baby changes in the next month! Wow. You can tell I'm in awe of myself and the process even now, with my fourth! It's such a miracle.

Easter Weekend

We started out the weekend by attending the Easter Pagent at the Temple Friday night. We left Jake at co-op and took Luke and Ash. They liked it - and it gave us a good focus on our Savior's life and ressurrection for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday we took it really easy. I geared up for the beginning of Easter festivities that night with cupcake decorating and egg dying. It was fun.







After dying eggs we went out front to wait for Tyler to get home from the Priesthood session (he was to be the judge of the egg decorating contest!) and found ourselves pulling out the slip and slide. The kids had a ball with the impromptu activity and I found myself relishing in the beauty of Arizona in the Spring.








Easter Morning was great. The Easter bunny hid Sees eggs, jelly beans and our decorated eggs - and their baskets. The kids were very happy to hunt around. After we found everything we went out front to use their new bubbles kits and sidewalk chalk, then took a bike ride. It was a beautiful Easter morning. We were home from that before nine and exhausted. Just in time to cozy up on the couch for pancakes (make by Ty, thankgoodness) and conference!