Its All Craziness

My DEEPEST apologizes for my lack of posting.

I'm always bad about posting when I go to Utah to visit

...but now I LIVE here...so I can't make that excuse.

But I have been extremely busy.  Family fun makes for a busy summer!

I haven't been very good at taking pictures but I've tried to repent...and to PROVE that its been a busy summer, here are pictures of what we've been up to the past two weeks.

Backyard camp outs.

 Swimming lessons and playing at the pool.

 Thanksgiving Point Gardens

 Shopping.

 The Farm

...and ice cream parties

But that's not including general fun with cousins, Parade of Homes, dinosaur museum, bounce house parties, and garage sales.

(Pssst....if it looks like I'm rich being able to do all these activities...think again.  The only thing that cost money were the swim lessons.  We had free two-day Thanksgiving Point passes for the gardens, farm, and museum.  I only go window shopping while my sister is ACTUALLY shopping.  We were asked to help with some advertising from a lady in our ward who owns Sub Zero ice cream and in return gave us free arcade games and ice cream.  I was given the Parade of Homes ticket.  And my sister was hosting the bounce house party at her house which equipment was from her in-laws.)

Its been busy.

Perhaps TOO busy.

I'm working on getting life back together...back to normal.  You know...where my kids go to bed before 10:00, I eat my own food instead of stealing food from either my sister upstairs or my in-laws, and we actually have time to sit at home and relaxing.

At least that's MY dream, the kids probably think this lifestyle is a blast.

But I'm not the only busy one around here.

Poor Tyson.

He's now in Kansas City again doing work, work, work.  He's been just as busy as I have, so it seems.  Its been sad to not have him around, but I must say that both my family and Tyson's family make it a lot less lonely without him around.  But he's been doing good and seems to have already made a good impression on the people of KU.  So, that's positive.

Well, life has been crazy and fun.  I owe a lot of thanks to all my family that have been awesome about housing, feeding, and loving our little family.

And last thing...baby is doing well.  Baby #3 is also Girl #3.  We are excited but are far from picking out a name.  I'm 34 weeks along and the baby is about a foot long.  She loves to kick.  And I can tell that she's definitely grown in size by how how much harder she's kicking and the size of my belly.  Symptoms are low, cravings are high.  We are all doing great!

4th of July

We had a good old time here out in Grand Junction on the fourth of July (granted we didn't have any friends or family around, weren't able to have a BBQ, and fireworks weren't allowed due to fires...)

Hey, we still enjoyed ourselves.

I told Eden all about Independence Day and what the holiday was all about.  We even did a little craft where we made a little George Washington from a toilet paper roll.  I wish I took a picture of the actual one Eden made...but it was basically the same, just colored in lots of blue and red stripes and I believe his hair was orange.

For breakfast we had waffles with whipped cream and then I decorated them with blueberries and raspberries to look like a flag.

We went to Wally World and bought ourselves some red and blue ribbons to put in the girl's hair as well as little flags for them to carry around.

Eden went around telling EVERYONE "Happy Independence Day!"

And later on we went to the downtown parade.  I'm pretty amazed how many people showed up for such a small parade.  And by small, I mean REALLY small.  "Downtown" is such a small street that there were a few LITTLE floats to pass by but there weren't any marching bands or motorcycle cops.  Didn't quite seem like a parade without those.

The most excitement and cheering came when a mini trailer-looking float with rugged guys holding guns came riding down with a sign for the 2nd Amendment, the right to bear arms.

The quietest the parade got was when the democrats (all 3 of them) came marching down the road.

But the girls were cute as ever.  Eden was so excited to wear red, white and blue.

 And I tried to do something fun with Eden's hair.  I turned out good in the end.

And I had to give Leila a few little ribbons in her hair as well.

Overall, it was fun.  Nothing super exciting, but fun.

Camping at Oowah Lake

Friends invited us to go camping with them overnight outside of Moab.  Oh...a little camping trip was EXACTLY what we needed.

Although, we have a serious lack of pictures.

You know the camping trip was awesome when the kids are dead asleep on the trip home.

 Here's Leila playing under our picnic table.  She LOVED being in the dirt all day long. It never took long for her clothes to become completely covered with dirt.

And here's a little video showing the campground.  You have to look closely at Leila's belly, the main reason we took the video.  Her white shirt is completely BLACK in front because of the dirt.

Its not the best video...but I was so excited that a video actually worked on my blog that I can't help but post it.

We had lots of fun on our short little trip.  We went boating and swimming (as much as we could handle the cold), ate tin foil dinners and s'mores, went on a small hike around the "lake" that looked more like a large pond, and just had fun with friends.  Oh, not to mention that we stopped at a place after in Moab that has the most delicious snow cones known to man....Tropical Ice?  I think that was the name....maybe.

It was so good to get Eden out in the dirt.  Before she came on the trip she doubted my sanity when I told her that we would swim in the lake....she thought it was too dirty and probably disease ridden.  When we got there, she was MORTIFIED at the idea of the outhouse and decided peeing in the trees was a MUCH better option (which I probably would agree).  She also didn't like the idea of getting dirty or eating food with a little bit of fire burned edges.  It took a bit, but by the end she loved it and keeps telling us that we need to go back.


Leila caught on to life in the wild really quickly.  Minutes after getting there Tyson was so proud to see that Leila had already searched out two big rocks and was happily banging them together.  Although she did FALL quite a few times and got lots of little scratches all over her face...and she probably ate more dirt than food in the end.

Hillary and Shad were the friends who invited us on the camp out.  Their little 3 year old is good friends with Eden and Leila loves little baby Claire.  We'll miss them dearly when we leave Grand Junction.

My Two Year Old

Leila's birthday was on Saturday and the only specification that she gave me was that she wanted it blue, including the cake.  It was very simple, cause that's just how I am.  And she had a great time.

We got her some blue balloons.

 Blue cereal because she asks for cereal EVERY morning.  And we hardly ever get a "sugary" cereal.

 A blue Elmo shirt with a yellow skirt.  I love the face she is making in this picture.  While opening her presents she would occasionally say "OH!", even if all she did was rip a small piece of wrapping paper off and still couldn't see what the present was.

 Eden was having a REALLY hard time not being in the spot light and not being the "birthday girl".  So, while taking pictures of Leila's Hello Kitty band aids she got, Eden scooted into the picture and struck a pose.

Here's Leila's blue birthday cake I made.  It was HUGE.  I used a cupcake recipe for red velvet cake.  I used blue coloring instead of red.  Since it only made a few cupcakes, I doubled the recipe...which ended up making FOUR LAYERS worth of cake.  So, I decided to use three of them.  But the "blue" cake ended up more of a "green" cake....so I decided to use the rest of the blue food coloring and turn the frosting blue to cover the cake.

 Blowing out the candles...which she's been practicing for.

The ugly inside of the cake.  And not to mention that the recipe...I don't know if I did it wrong or what, but it didn't taste good either.  That's as much of the cake we ate and the rest is going to the trash.  The next day, Father's Day, we decided to make cake box cupcakes and use the rest of the blue icing and eat those instead.  Pity.  At least I thought it looked pretty good on the outside...

Updates on Life

Just wanted to let everyone know what's going on over here...

Eden is doing GREAT.  If you saw her, you would never have guessed that a week ago she was in the hospital with a fever of 104, getting an MRI, x-ray, blood tests, and having an IV put in her arm.  She's pretty much back to her normal self with the exception of a small residual cough and a slight stuffy nose.

Leila's birthday is coming up on Saturday.  Her only request is that she wants a blue cake.  I've been online searching "blue birthday cakes" for days.  I'm struggling.  Cakes make me nervous.  Can I admit that I've NEVER made a cake except in a 9x13 pan with a box cake and canned frosting?  Its true.  Here goes nothing.  But I am planning on having waffles with whipping cream and BLUE berries for breakfast and chicken cordon BLEU for dinner.  That's about as far as my creativity is going to expand.

Tyson's been studying like a mad man for an upcoming major test he needs to take.  He has four weeks off "work" to study.  Basically he spends about 10-12 hours a day inside our bedroom listening to lectures, taking notes, doing practice tests, and reading medical books.  Busy bee.  But on the positive side, he's OFFICIALLY DONE with his 3rd year of medical school and is now on to his 4th and FINAL year!  WAHOO!

As for me, I've basically been sick for 3 weeks straight.  I'm finally starting to improve.  My hacking cough is a little less hacking...so I consider that a positive thing.  I've developed a pregnancy symptom that I didn't know existed until I started to get it and looked it up online....a HORRIBLE metallic after taste in my mouth that only partially goes away if I gargle baking soda and water.  And the after taste is worse if I eat foods that are sweet tasting.

But really, I'm doing pretty well.  I have an ultrasound tomorrow to find out a more accurate due date for the baby. And since I'm about 17 weeks along, I technically may be able to find out the gender of the baby!  I am extremely nervous, which is funny because I wasn't nervous at all the first two times around.  This pregnancy has been so weird that I honestly feel like we're going to go and find out the baby is missing a limb, has a major deformity, or has some kind of problem.  I'm also nervous to see if its a boy or girl.  Currently, I admit I want another girl.  Why?  I'm not really sure.  And in all seriousness, I don't care if its a boy or girl in the end.  I'll gladly accept either.

Osteomyelitis

(I told Eden to show me a face of how she felt about the hospital gown....she wasn't a big fan...she told me it was "boring".  Once she realized the functionality of it, she was fine.)

The last few days were crazy...

Wednesday

3:30 am - Eden complained of really bad leg pains...but after dad poked around a bit she decided it was better and less painful to just go back to sleep than to have daddy feeling around.

7:00 am - Eden woke up, came in our bedroom, laid on our floor, then decided to go back to bed.  (First sign that she was sick)

7:30 am - Eden had a fever of 104.  Still complained that her knee hurt.

8:00 am - We called our primary care doctor to set up an appointment because Tyson knew from his med school education that only having symptoms of a high fever and hurt knee could potentially mean really bad things.

10:30 am - I had my first OB appointment.

12:00 noon - I met up with Tyson and the girls at the primary care doctor's office.  The doctor checked her out and decided to run lots of tests immediately.

1:00 pm - Went to Community Hospital.  Saw the radiologists to take x-rays of Eden's knee.  The radiologist told us to go to an orthopedic surgeon and set up an appointment at 3:00.

1:30 pm - Went to the lab at the hospital to get her blood drawn.

2:00 pm - Eden doesn't do good with needles...so she had to lay back and was given oxygen. She basically passed out, the blood drained from her face, and we waited until she got some color back and was able to walk again.

3:00 pm - Went to the orthopedic surgeon's office to get check ups on the knee.  Even after Tylenol, her fever was still 104.

3:30 pm - The orthopedic surgeon sent us straight to the ER at St. Mary's Hospital where we were 

admitted to the pediatric care unit and told we'd need to stay overnight, have an MRI and drain the fluids on her knee.  Eden was THRILLED that she gets to "sleep over with the doctors" and gets "breakfast in bed with a movie" the next morning.

6:00 pm - Eden made a request...she wants to the be the person to CALL the cafeteria and order her own breakfast of muffin, jello, and hot chocolate.  I told her that was a great idea.

6:30 pm - Eden was put under and sent to surgery and to get the MRI.

9:30 pm - MRI was finished and Eden was awake.  She kept telling the nurses how brave she was because she got an IV.

10:30 pm - Our home teacher came over to give Eden a blessing.

11:00 pm - Leila and I got home to sleep while Tyson stayed with Eden at the hospital.

Thursday was lot of waiting around, ordering food from a menu, watching movies, and trying to keep Leila from pulling out IVs, pushing buttons, playing with the bed remotes, etc.  Until finally I was able to get a babysitter to help take her....

After all was said and done, they diagnosed her with Osteomyelitis.  It's not 100% positive that is what it is...but its pretty certain.  Osteomyelitis is, in short, an infection that grows on your bone or bone marrow.  The only reason it isn't 100% positive that its osteomyelitis is because it was caught so early that all they could catch from the MRI was lots of white blood cells fighting at something but the bacteria hadn't grown large enough to get a sample.

We lucked out.  Thank goodness Tyson's in med school and knew that fever + hurting knee = go to doctor quickly.  I would have never done that.  Apparently it may only take a few days before the infection on the knee can get so large that it can break through the bone, cause major deformities, require a major surgery, and Eden would have needed to stay at the hospital for 3-4 weeks with a constant IV stream of antibiotics to kill the bacteria.  There are even several cases where the leg needs to be amputated.  So, we definitely were lucky to get out the next day with only oral antibiotics and a bunch a few more doctor's appointments for blood tests.

Although, Eden isn't going to be happy about the blood tests.  She told me that at the hospital she had a bad dream that they had to give her another blood test and she wanted me to tell the doctors to not give her any more blood tests.  I can request all I want....but in the end, she's gotta get a few more done.  Poor girl.

She also was a little sad to leave the hospital because she really enjoyed the moving bed, lots of movies, and of course all her meals served right in her bedroom (that include ice cream, cake, jello, juice, cookies, etc.).  She was a little sad to leave, but in the end she was more happy to get the IV taking out of her arm (it was in her right arm so she couldn't draw, open things, fed herself very well...etc) and being able to sleep in her own bed again.  I admit, I liked not having to cook and clean up the meals as well.

I'm so grateful for all the people who helped me out last minute.  La Shana for babysitting Leila so she could get a much needed nap and I could go to the doctor's appointments, Shad for coming and giving Eden a priesthood blessing late at night, Michelle for babysitting Leila when I was about to have a mental breakdown if from 2 year old pulling and pushing things in the hospital room she wasn't supposed to and having many tantrums, and Alicia for making us a wonderful dinner the night we came home when we were all ridiculously exhausted.

Seriously, I love my friends.

Now things are starting to get back to normal.  I've been doing lots of cleaning around the house because even when it seemed we were never home, our house STILL managed to get ridiculously messy.  The kids are back to sleeping on a regular schedule.  And we can relax.

And my OB appointment was good.  I was so happy to just get an appointment (I'm 16 weeks along now) and hear the baby's heartbeat.  That was the good part of my day.  We also have an ultrasound appointment in a week to see if we can get a more exact due date....and maybe we'll be able to take a peek at the gender early!  Actually, when we took Eden to the radiologists Tyson was able to talk to all the people he worked with and they said that they wanted to test out some new equipment and actually would LOVE to have me in sometime next week to just have an ultrasound for fun.  Then I also have a 20 week ultrasound scheduled the beginning of July.

I admit that I'm a little nervous for the ultrasound....its just been such a weird pregnancy that I keep being afraid something is wrong.  I'm also a little nervous to find out the gender.  For some reason I'm more nervous about this baby than any other....I kind of really want another girl.  But honestly, I'm totally happy with a boy as well.  I don't care all that much...but mostly I just want to know if its a boy or girl and that the baby is doing alright.

Temple Trip

Before leaving, the grand kids on the Finlinson's side went on a temple trip with their Nana.

I admit, I was SO SAD to miss this event because I LOVE visiting temples.  Plus, to miss seeing the girls' reactions to visiting each temple, touching them, visiting the grounds....sigh.  Not to mention Leila's love for temples....I missed her first time going out to see the temple close up.

But I was really sick that day.  And as sad as I was to stay home, I was really glad to have a day to recover from this sickness.

But these are the pictures that were taken.

This picture is adorable.  Looking at the temple.

 I love this picture below because Eden and Eva both struck this same pose when told a picture was going to be taken.

Now we're back in Colorado.  Its been a lot of fun being back home.  Eden's been able to spend time with friends, go to all of our favorite placed around town, and just spend time as a family.