Reincarnated As A Mother

Friday, December 30, 2016

Food Obsessed

You know how each anniversary has its designation:  gold, paper etc.
This birthday, clearly is the food birthday.
Don't believe me?
Let's see, I started the morning off with Reese surprising us all with
homemade Blueberry Pancakes.
She had forgotten that two of my girlfriends were taking me out for
breakfast.
 The afternoon was gobbled up (like that food reference?)
with taking the pups to the vet for follow-ups, a
shopping spree at the grocery store (more food)
and then dinner out with my 98-year-old grandmother...
 my sweet mother-in-law...
 and my wonderful parents.
Byron and the kids came too.
I don't know how we missed getting pictures of them.
But trust me, I need to be rolled up the stairs and into bed.
I'm stuffed.
Oh, and feeling well loved.
Thanks for all the birthday wishes.
I have the best group of friends.

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

The "Sorta" Test Results

I've had so many of you ask if we got the results from Kean's
testing on his seizures.
Well, kinda.
We don't meet with the Neurologist for a few more weeks
but Kean's pediatrician called on Friday to say while he hasn't
gotten the official report, he did not see anything scary.
However,  (and geez, doesn't there always have to be a however with 
this kid), the sleep study showed his heart stopped several times
during the night for short durations (over 2 seconds is all I know).
So guess what?!?!
We now get to add another new doctor to our stable.
Lucky us.
We are hoping it is no big deal.  But for a kid
with his health history, we don't get to skate.
Kean's new Cardiologist ordered a heart monitor harness
for 24 hours- Monday onto Tuesday.
That's Nicholle, Kean's therapist helping
me hold him down so the technician can
put the sensors in the right spots.
 Surprisingly, it wasn't too much of a battle.
And he didn't fight it quite as much as I expected
at home.
The night was a bit rough (he woke up several times
to tell me "off").
But we completed the test without having to re-attach
any of the sensors.  So that's definitely a win-win
in my book.
We turned it all back into the hospital yesterday.
And now we all wait.
We see his new Cardiologist on January 12th.
Stay tuned.
The fun sure never ends, does it!

Tuesday, December 27, 2016

As Good As It Gets

I have long since given up trying to get Christmas Cards out in the mail.
(Thank you to all of you who do send them to us, we LOVE them).
Our cute neighbor cornered us into taking a few "snaps" one Sunday afternoon in our yard.
So this will have to do for our holiday greetings.
Happy holidays.  How grateful we are for each of you,
for your examples of kindness, goodness and friendship.
And how thankful we are for a Savior who loves
us unconditionally.
May 2017 bring health and happiness to all of us.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Land of the Shining Mountains

Nothing like blogging about our family vacation nearly two months after the fact!
It may not be timely but we sure had a phenomenal trip.
We went with our close friends, the Borup's to Montana.
We visited the old farm where Byron grew up...
 We spent time with his mom, Grandma Kay
and some dear friends, the Morgan's.
 We strolled the quaint streets of Byron's hometown, Big Fork.
 And then headed up into Glacier Park for a couple of days.
 We all had fun taking family pics with the stunning scenery
behind us in every picture.
The Borup's were so much fun to be with 
and get this, they still are our friends after spending that 
many days with us in our camp trailer!!!
 We hiked up about half way to where Byron was chased
by a grizzly bear years ago.  If you haven't
heard his crazy story, you should.  That bear had him
and for some reason, let him go.
 We also oohed and awed over
some of the sites.  It was so pretty, it
almost looked fake.
 We walked the shores of the lake in the rain.
But that didn't stop us from spending a good half hour
seeing who could skip rocks the farthest.
 This boy.
He loved, loved being outside
and got a good work out nearly every day.
 We love visiting Glacier in the fall...
 Even though several of the hotels and lodges are closed,
it is as if we have the whole park nearly to ourselves.
 And there is a picture perfect picture to take
nearly everywhere you turn.
 Outside the park, we visited White Fish Lake...
gorgeous.
 Swan Lake...
gorgeous.
 And Holland Lake.
Yep, that's right.
Holland has her own personal lake.
Or at least she thinks so.
 And yes...
gorgeous.
We love Montana.
In fact, I think, Byron would move back in a minute.
Uh, not gonna happen.
I'd be the first white cross on the side of the road...
Too cold.
Gorgeous but too cold.

Monday, October 31, 2016

Repeat After Me: Trick or Treat!

What a fun night we had tonight.
You can't tell from this picture but we really did dress Kean up for Halloween.
Our first stop?  The Bodily's and before I could even get up to the house,
Kean had stripped off his monkey suit, walked into the "Gobily's" house
and started pounding down the candy.
Only problem is he forgot to take off the brown paper
around his Reese's Peanut Butter Cup-- and ate it too.
(Fiber, right?)
 It sure didn't take long for Kean to catch 
on to the fact he could get a treat at every house.
He quickly learned to say "Trick or Treat" and "thank you".
It did take him forever to catch on that he needed to keep
his costume on!
 In fact, at our neighbor, Gina Kwid's house the ol' costume came right off.
 And while he, yep, ate another piece of candy, I did
get a picture of these cute girls-- H, G, and R and their friends.
 We always spend the first hour or so of the night visiting
a handful of our dear neighbors and friends.
We love that tradition.
You'd think with the slower start it would cut down on the candy grab--
unfortunately (in my book but not the kids), that's not the case.
They get especially spoiled and come home with more candy
than should be legal for a child to have!

Monday, October 17, 2016

Our Hospital Reward

Today was one of those days where if I let myself, I'd mow my fingernails
down to nothing.
We had Kean's cancer screenings.
And even though we are now just over a year out, it still scares
the spit out of me to have to wait for his results.
Kean, of course, wasn't nervous one bit.
In fact, he fell asleep in the car and snoozed through
much of our wait to start the tests.
 It was kind of rude of us to wake him up just in time to 
stick a needle in his arm for blood samples.
But he was a trooper.
If anything, he had a harder time holding still for vitals.
That is, until we gave him a little dog to put the blood pressure
cuff onto.  He liked that.
 The clinic was getting used to a new computer system
so we had an extra amount of waiting.
Kean just decided to look cute while we waited.
 He kind of gets me with that toothless smile.
And all the waiting sure paid off. 
 Kean's counts are getting better and better
with each month.
In fact, drum roll please... we now only
have to go into the hospital for testing
every THREE months.
Christmas came a little early for this mama.

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Lucky Ducks

For those of you who don't live in Idaho-- I feel sorry for ya.
It takes us just over an hour to get up to some of our favorite spots in the mountains-
we love to go up and relax around Lake Cascade.
Not too far from there is this fabulous little hot springs
and on this crisp morning, we had it all to ourselves.
 On a few occasions, we've hiked in to find a few
naked folks.
No problem-- we just tell the kids to look the other
way when they get out.
 It is such a lovely setting, Holland and Reese
asked for a photo shoot.
 Of course, Byron and I had to do our own version.
 Sunday after church, we took a family hike.
 Bryon and I each took one of Kean's hands and he even hiked
up quite a ways until it got too steep.  Good therapy, eh?
Holland found these formations that looked like giant toes sticking out.
We sure love where we live.
Actually, we've loved everywhere we've lived.
We are pretty lucky that way.

Monday, September 19, 2016

The Huge Highs and the Little Lows

It is funny, I used to be so good about making near daily
posts on this blog.  Now that Kean is finished with treatment
(and hopefully cancer forever) I'm lucky if I check in once a week.
So here goes:  our week in review-- and what a week it has been.
We had a church/neighborhood Rodeo-- the real thing.
From 3 legged races...
 to jump houses that Kean didn't ever want to leave...
 to massive egg toss competitions (come now, doesn't every
rodeo have an egg toss)?
 The highlight had to be the pig chase--
yep, picture 100 kids madly chasing after a good sized
hefty, squealing pig with fifty bucks taped to its hind leg.  And they
did it twice with two different pigs!
Byron and I even ran into an old friend from our single days in Arizona-
Maurice Matsumori. 
 Kean had a ball.... riding horses...
and deciding after all that Cotton Candy is a good thing.
 I cursed him by telling everyone how well he's been doing.
The next night, we spent most of the night in the E.R.
 Poor boy got a double whammy-
Croup and Stridor-- both respiratory issues.
He's fine now, thankfully.
 Greer and I spent much of Saturday at the Music Theater of Idaho's offices
building a bathtub as part of the set for The Little Mermaid.
Then we raced home, scraped the paint off of our hands and arms
and did our best to clean up.
Our family was invited to the big Make A Wish gala event.
 It was in the Stueckle Sky Building-overlooking
BSU's football stadium.
The views were stunning of our fair city (and
Greer looked just as stunning-- so grown up)!
 My mom kept Kean and brought him up later
for the program.  I was the keynote.
But we had a blast leading up to the dinner.
The attendees all buy "wish bucks"-- think monopoly money
they pass out to BSU athletes who pull off the craziest antics
to earn money.
 They have players from all the big sports teams at BSU and
they compete to see which team can earn the most.
This guy was from the wrestling team.  He showed off
a talent only a mother could be proud of-- he drank down a
water bottle through his nose.
Ick.
 The football team sang and danced...
 Reese's favorite was the gymnastics team--
they did back flips, cartwheels and all kinds of
bendy things down the hallway.
 Holland was adopted by the Track and Field team
(she runs track for Eagle High)...
 And this tennis player serenaded the family in French.
 In fact, I think we had every team do something for our family
What a fun and crazy night.
All of a sudden, the BSU marching band came streaming out
of the elevators- playing their fight songs full blast.
They literally pushed everyone into the room for dinner to be served.
 Once inside, some of the coaches spoke, we had more
players do some pretty crazy things
and we had a lovely dinner.
 Well, the little bit I ate tasted fine.
I can't eat a ton and then get up and speak.
Suffice it to say, the speech went well, there were tears
in the audience and most importantly, people gave generously
to Make A Wish when all the talking was done.
 We treasured our trip to Disney World, Universal and Sea World.
Looking forward to it kept us going for those three plus dark
years of Chemo, surgical procedures, vomit and hair loss.
And now, we have those memories-- and what amazing memories they are--
to always fall back on.
Thank you Make A Wish for an incredible evening and
a trip of a life time.