Still Alive!

My huge apologies to everyone for falling off the face of the earth (or so it seems to those not close by). I am alive. Esther still hasn't come. I think I am just to busy for her to come or something. I am going non-stop everyday. I will do some updates soon. I need to add some more Disneyland pics - first day of school - Lucy's baptism - kids' birthdays - etc. Lucy has another MRI coming up Nov. 13th - so I will have to update that as it happens also. And of course, as soon as Esther graces us with her presence - I will update that as well!

I do appreciate all your thoughts and prayers for me and my family, and I am sooo sorry that I have been a ghost personally. I just drop into bed each night, physically and emotionally exhausted - unable to blog, email or chat on the phone.

I know they say that on a plane, you need to secure your own mask first, before helping others with theirs - I just haven't mastered finding the time. So, for now, I am running around putting masks on everyone else, and hopefully soon will have the time to put on mine (or in other words, have time for myself to meet friends for lunch, or chat on the phone). Until then, please be patient with me, and don't give up on me!!

Proud Mom Moment....

So, the other night I had gone to bed, and Lucy came into my room with a very sad look on her face. She walked over to me with her fist clutched, and opened it to show me that she had broken the arms off of this little frog statue that Emmie had made for me. She started crying and said "Mom, I'm sorry....I broke your frog. I was playing with it, and tried to move it's arms. I'm sorry." I explained that although I was very sad that it was broken, that I was very proud of her for coming and telling me, and not trying to hide it or lie about it. I also explained that she had someone else to apologize to, since Emmie had made it. She was mortified and didn't want to have to tell her.

I called Emmie in, and Lucy started crying again, and relating the story. Instantly...and I mean without ANY hesitation, Emmie took Lucy in her arms, and said "It's OK LuLu, we can fix it. It will just take a little glue." and she comforted her sister with complete love and compassion.

Things that make you swell with joy inside!!! :-)

Better Late Than Never! Disneyland Photos

Ok, so I am bad about uploading photos - because we store them on Ryan's computer, and I am always blogging from my computer. But yesterday the PhotoPass Disk arrived from Disneyland - so here are a few of those photos.....

Nathan is OBSESSED with Cars. He would watch it all day if I would let him. He plays with them constantly. So when he saw Lightning McQueen "in person" - he ran up, and just like a little man, started checking him out all over. It was so cute - that the Disney photographer just went nuts clicking away. This is just one of many.

Here we are on the last day - Lucy's birthday, for a family pose. Everyone was getting pretty worn out by now.

These photos are pretty large Jpegs - so I will add more later, from Ryan's computer. There are some really cute ones!! So check back again!

Will I ever escape homework???

Remember when we were in school, and we would think "I can't wait until I am out of school and an adult, so I don't have to do homework anymore!"?

Then we grew up, and realized that life had other things for us to take the place of homework. The sad thing is - once you have kids - you have homework again! My mother never had to sit and do homework with me, and now my kids have so much homework, I spend all afternoon doing homework once again!

The worst part is, that these teachers don't take into account, that the more kids you have, the more homework you have! I am exhausted by the end of the day! Poor Lucy, we were working on her homework immediately from when she came home from school, finishing just in time for dinner, pjs, brush teeth, scriptures, family prayer and bedtime! Just so she can wake up, and go to school, come home and start the vicious cycle again. There isn't any free time to just be a kid - or a parent for that matter!

Luckily, Emmie is pretty independent with her homework, and I rarely have to help her (except on those occasions where she procrastinates, and announces at bedtime "Oh, I forgot, I have a huge science project due tomorrow" - and we scramble to help her put something together. Mind you, I do NOT do their homework for them, I am a "Mean Mom" through and through. But I do sit with them, and ask questions or give explanations to help them do it themselves.

Abigail's homework will start next week - and she is only in Kindergarten.

This is not to mention the swim and dive that we do, to try to help Em towards getting a scholarship for college.

All said and done - I wouldn't trade my kids for anything in the world! I love them so dearly, and can't wait for Esther to join our herd!

How old am I????

I was trying to figure out the title for this entry, and it revolved around doctors - to update for Lucy and I. Then I thought...dang, how old am I that my blogs revolve around multiple doctors! That is for old people, who have nothing else going on! But, I guess at this time in my life - turning 38 a few days ago must be old enough!

My doctor is doing another ultrasound, to check on the baby and make sure everything is ok. Between contractions and lots of stomach pain, he just want to make sure. I didn't have this with my other kids. He is an awesome OB. He is very thorough, competent and worries enough, but not too much. I have had him since I moved to California in 1993 - through fertility that didn't work, and birth control recently that didn't work either! OK - I guess that doesn't sound too good - but neither were his fault! 8 pregnancies (2 ectopic, 1 blighted ovum, my four kids and now Esther), and I wouldn't trade him for anything. Maybe he will deliver my grandbabies some day - who knows! He always asks me how Lucy is doing, and even put a call in to her neurosurgeon (who he goes fishing with sometimes), and got him to call me back the very next day with her test results!!! Thank you Dr. Maher!

Having said that - Lucy's neurosurgeon said that everything looks like we can just hold off, and wait for the next scan. She will have another MRI in Oct/Nov of this year. I will definitely have to learn patience, and gratitude for each test that says we can wait for the next test. We are so grateful to have her in our lives. Her silly sense of humor and contagious smile keep us all laughing.

AARRRGGGG!!!

So all weekend I start having contractions - regularly. I try to get up and do something, and boom - they go nuts. I am still too early for this - only 27 weeks. I have never had to do this before - I just go along on my merry way, until my water breaks and the baby comes.

This morning, I get up, and after 45 min. they start up again - but don't go away. We go to church, and after an hour and a half, I have to come home and go to bed. I don't know what I will do if I have to stay in bed for months - I can't do that! Too much to do with a large family, and school starting in a week. I called the on-call doctor, and that was no help! She said I had to be the judge of whether to stay in bed or come to the hospital, neither option did I like.

I think I will wait until tomorrow, and call my doctor during office hours.

I despise waiting!

Ok, so yesterday Lucy and I got up at 0'dark hundred, and drove downtown for her PET scan. She was so nervous, and so we talked about it again in SpongeBob terms. (Yes, I am ashamed to admit that my kids are SpongeBob nuts! But I'll blame it on Ryan, since he is too!)

So, in short, we talk about her bad tumor being Plankton in the Chum Bucket, and how he is trying to take over Bikini Bottom (her brain), so we have to keep an eye on him, and see what he is doing. That always seems to help her feel better about it.

We get there, check in, and wait. When they call us back and put her in a chair to draw blood and inject the fluoride/sugar concoction - she starts crying and looking up at the poor tech, saying "Please, please don't do this to me.....please stop". He had only put the rubber around her arm at that point. It was so sad! That part only took about 5 minutes, then she had to sit quietly for 45 minutes. She feel asleep. They woke her up, and the scan only took 10 minutes.

We drove home, and then back downtown to meet with the neurosurgeon, Dr. Boggan. Last time he took almost 2 hours, to come in and see us for 90 seconds (literally). This time, we got right in, and he came right in. He was looking at the PET scan, and it hadn't fully uploaded from the hospital yet - so he couldn't see it all. He said we would do another MRI in October, and that he would have to call me with the results from this PET scan after he got the full report and file.

On a preliminary note - he said that he tumor he was looking at wasn't looking bad so far - so it was good news. However, the other side of her brain was lighting way up - so he didn't know what to think of that until he had the full report.

So bottom line, what was supposed to clear everything up - just made everything more confusing, and we are still playing the waiting game! Yuck! If I don't hear from him by next Wednesday, I am supposed to call him to get the update.

So sorry...but you are all stuck playing the waiting game with us!

Lucy update (kinda) !

Well, it isn't a load of information - but they have set a tentative date for her PET scan for August 6th. The problem is they are saying they won't sedate her. They do for the MRI's, and she doesn't know why they don't for this.

So, the procedure is 2 hours, and Lucy hasn't been awake for anything like this before. She might freak out when they inject her with the dye. And then she has to not move at all for 30 minutes - which I don't know if she can do. I sure hope so, because if she can't, and they don't get a clear picture, they will have to reschedule and do it again.

I'll let you know how it all goes!

Love and hate, addictive relationship!

Yes, I know - hate is a four letter word in our household, so don't tell my kids! So what am I talking about? Blogs!

I love that I feel so connected with my friends and family. I love to log on a read what is happening in "their neck of the woods", and feel like I am there. Melissa's blog especially feels like we are just sitting in her living room, and she is telling me what happened (as if she never moved so far away). I love reading all of your honesty and totally relating to what you are saying or feeling. I love that if I get busy for a while, I can log on and catch up - any time day or night. I love the connection - and re-connection to those I had lost contact with. I love it, I love it!

I hate, (or dislike immensely, as I tell my children to say), that when I am done reading current posts, or when I log on and there isn't any postings, that I feel sad and lonely and left wanting more. I dislike immensely that it makes me miss you all so much and wish we were sitting together, enjoying each other's company in person! I miss you! Darn those blogs!

OK - so really, I love them more than not! Keep blogging everyone - 'cuz I need my fix! :-)

We are still alive!

Sorry it has been a while since my last post! Ryan and I were out of town for a week, shooting the JIB Conference. Usually it is in Hawaii (with other locations being Canada and the Bahamas), but this year they decided to cut back and go to South Lake Tahoe. It was beautiful, and we had a great time as always. Mom watched the kids here, and I didn't think she was going to live past the first few days (either that, or the kids wouldn't live). But by the end, she had a tight ship running (although she did admit that I was right, Nathan can be a beast - never-ending trouble that boy is. Good thing he's cute!).

Emmie is doing well in her swim meets. She has improved her times with every swim. This Saturday is the last meet, and then we have Championships next weekend. As usual, she is getting quite the tan.

Insurance approved the PET scan for Lucy, so now we are just waiting scheduling. I will keep you updated.

Tornados in California??

Yes, I'm afraid it is true! Our internet was down, and I was on the phone with the technician trying to troubleshoot (checking connections, etc), when unbeknownst to me, there was a tornado brewing. I was only preoccupied for a few moments, but in that short time, the tornado made it over the child gate, into my bedroom. It proceeded to change the sleep number on our bed, pull out my floss, open and dump an entire bottle of aftershave into Ryan's bathroom drawer, change my alarm settings (so I woke up late the next morning), downed Ryan's drink and moved his mug to the floor on the other side of the room and proceeded to answer an important phone call, and hang up on them, causing me another several hours on the phone to fix that. Alhtough normally tornados are not named...this one was so severe, and was named Nathan! Where is FEMA when you need them?

PS - and to be extra helpful, later that day when his sisters were asked to put all their dirty clothes in the laundry hamper so I could wash them, Nathan proceeded to empty all his drawers of clean folded clothes into the hamper - to assure I would have enough laundry to do!

The Fly Whisperer

So, Lucy has this amazing talent with living creatures! She is the catcher of lizards, snakes, bugs, etc. She always lets them go after she is done. The weird thing, is that Lucy catches flies with her bare hands - and rather quickly. Then when she lets it go, it just is sort of in a daze, and sits there, or flies to the nearest spot, and just sits there. So we have deemed her "The Fly Whisperer".

A horse is a horse...or is it?

So, Abigail was my first child to go to preschool. The teachers there thought it might be quicker and easier to break the children into groups with an animal name, so they could release an entire group of kids at one time to go to lunch, or circle or wherever. Abigail was put in the horse group. The teachers were releasing the kids and called the horses to go to lunch. The other children in her group got up and left, but Abigail just sat there. The teacher called for horses a second and third time, then finally said "Abigail, it's your turn to go, you are a horse." At which Abigail replied sternly "I am NOT a horse, I am a PRINCESS!"

Esther's check up went great!

Saw Dr. Maher today and got the results from the Ultrasound and the bloodwork, and Esther is doing great. Everything is perfect. He had a little trouble getting her heartbeat, because she wouldn't stay still (a little reminiscent of when I was pregnant with Emmie).

Questions answered!!

OK - so here are some answers for some of the questions coming through from my last posts. I am due on 11/09/09 - so I am halfway done. I added a countdown at the bottom of my blog for those who are as forgetful as I am! I am doing ok. I don't enjoy being pregnant - LOVE the baby, cool concept, but miserable pregancies. Probably doesn't help that I work two jobs, volunteer at the kids' school, swim practice daily and meets every Saturday, I am Primary President at church (in charge of the children ages 18 months to 12 years old), chase four kids, a dog and a cat, errands, budgeting, dishes, laundry (which NEVER ends), picking up several times a day, and if I'm lucky, I get to squeeze in some actual cleaning. I need to get the sign that says "If you came to see me, come on in. If you came to see my house, make an appointment."

Sad news for Lucybug

So, some of you already know, and some do not - but Lucy was diagnosed with Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1). It is actually quite common (1 in 3,500 people have it), and most of the time it is very mild, with little complications. There are multiple websites that explain it - but one of the best is http://www.ctf.org/. In a nutshell - it can happen two ways: 1. Hereditary, so Lucy will have a 50% chance of passing it onto her kids. 2. Spontaneous Mutation - which is how Lucy got it.

In a nutshell, the neurologist started out not worried. Then after an MRI showed multiple brain tumors, he was very worried and started saying they would do all they could for her, and we should try to stay positive. He was putting her in the 3-5% of children with NF1 who don't live past 21. He referred us to a brain surgeon (who is supposed to be amazing) to track her and let us know what to do. While waiting for the appointment with the neurosurgeon, she had a second MRI (three months after the first), and the neurologist was excited and told us that the tumors were not really growing as he had worried, and we didn't have to have another MRI for 6 months.

We didn't want people to treat Lucy differently, and didn't want her to change from this - so we are staying very "matter of fact" and positive. She knows she has the tumors, and that we are watching them. She knows that it means it is harder for her brain to talk to itself, so school is more difficult, but that just means she has to work a little harder.

We finally had the appointment with the neurosurgeon, and he said that most of the tumors were consistent with NF1 and not a worry - except for one in particular that had him very worried. He is ordering a PET scan, to determine if we need to biopsy, do surgery, or if we can wait - how long. So now we are waiting for that test to happen (everything has to wait on approval from insurance).

It is a huge waiting game, and there isn't anything that we can do. There is no cure for NF1, they can only treat the symptoms as they occur. I will keep you all updated as soon as we have the PET scan and get the results.

It's another girl!

OK - so I decided to take this blog catch up thing one bite at a time. So here is another bite! We had our ultrasound last week - and it's another girl. Her name is Esther Jolee. We don't have any other results until I see my OB on Thursday. Ryan, Lucy and I were hoping for a boy - and Emmie and Abigial wanted a girl. It would have been nice for Nathan to have a brother, and to share rooms it would have been nicer for two boys and 3 girls. But we thought Lucy was a boy, and wouldn't trade her for anything! So Esther will be the same - loved abundantly!

Fertility doesn't get you pregnant - birth control does!

Ok - so I am trying to catch up this blog - which isn't an easy task, since this has been a crazy and unusual year. One of the surprises this year was that despite having decided we were done having children after Nathan - and having a 10 year IUD in for the last 2 years, I got pregnant! The real kicker to this, is that we had such trouble getting pregnant with each of our children. We even tried fertility before we had Emmie, and it didn't work! Then it took three years in between each kidling to have another. After spending the first week in shock - the next month or two crying and depressed, I have come to accept that we have another sweet little spirit joining our family. Don't get me wrong, I adore all of my children. However, I was counting the days 'till Nathan would be in school, and I could have a half a day to clean or fold laundry without someone undoing it faster than I could do it. Or maybe being able to go for a walk or go to the gym. Or maybe having time to pick back up scrapbooking. Or maybe being able to get my two jobs done without feeling guilty that I should be playing with the kids. I was so excited to be getting rid of everything (babies use a LOT of stuff - the smaller the person, the bigger their stuff, and more of it). And I was excited to be getting my body back. I had started working out the previous year, and lost 40 lbs. I was looking and feeling great! And pregnancy is hard on me physically - and even harder trying to have another baby at 38! I'll qualify for AARP before my kids are even out of the house! Anyhow, I am coming around and will love this baby as much as my other children! Guess sanity, a clean house, and 5 seconds of free time will have to wait a little longer.

Let them be girls!

So last night, Emmie and Lucy came into our room to snuggle (which means find an excuse to stay up later), and we were all chatting together. When I told Emmie that Ryan and I had been married for over 14 years, Ryan quickly said "Fart-teen years". The girls giggled and started copying him. Then they proceeded to change other words (which I can't recall at this time) - talking like a bunch of boys!

Copy Cat

Well, they say that copying is the most sincere form of flattery. I have thought about a blog a lot lately, but wasn't sure how to go about doing it. Leave it to Melissa to pave the way! Not sure how this will go, but hoping it will help keep everyone posted, and help me not to forget the cute things the kids say and do as long as I get them posted in time. Dinner is ready, and I need to go join the clan - but wanted to get it set up, and wish everyone a Happy and Prosperous New Year.