VACATION!!!

This past week our family had the FABULOUS opportunity to go to a Tilton Family reunion in Dallas, TX. We all had SO MUCH FUN, and were a bit sad to leave the family as well as the beautiful area. I was having so much fun, in fact, that I neglected to take pictures for most of the trip. Pretty much the only pictures are at the temple or while the kids are sleeping...sigh...oh well. At least the pics I did actually take turned out!

Here are Cory, Bryson, and Dallin at the temple in front of the nativity. Dallin was so cute, he didn't want to get up from that little spot. He sat there for quite some time just starring at the display.

A bunch of the siblings had planned to do a trip to the temple, so I decided I would take the kids. Kim (sister-in-law) decided to come too and take two of her kids. I think we are all glad we did it.

Cory is getting so old, it amazes me, even bewilders me at how fast it's going by. Here he is trying to smile, but actually just making a dorky face in front of the temple. Hey, at least he let me take his picture. :) I love my boy, he was so good on the trip. I mean, TRULY EXCEPTIONAL. I was a proud mom. He enjoyed taking care of his smaller cousins and trying to keep up with the older ones.

Below is little Bryson, although, he's not so little anymore either. The sweet thing got so homesick after only a couple days in TX (we were gone from home a total of ten days). Other than that, he had a LOT of fun playing with the cousins, especially on the trampoline. I felt like some days on the trip I barely even saw him because he was outside playing with his cousins all day.

...And little Dallin. Oh boy, he was a character on the trip. He has so much affection, especially for the little babies, that it would come out in big bursts of hugs and kisses, and he'd end up knocking the poor little things over! He is definately going to have to be taught how to interact with children smaller than him before our next little guy (or maybe gal) is born. He was even a bit of a bully at times...ughh...but he's only two, I guess what can you expect? He was at an akward stage where he wasn't a baby, but he wasn't just one of the kids either. He REALLY enjoyed wrestling each night with whoever would wrestle with him...uncles, cousins, or whoever. And before he went to bed, he went around and gave everyone he could find a hug. (There were about 40 people at the reunion, half kids, and all of us under two roofs).

Here's Bryson with Jayson, his three year old cousin. They were good buds.

Bryson and Jayson with Aunt Maria, Jim's wife. She did a much better job than I did at taking pictures...maybe I should snag some of the ones she took!

There were a bunch of acorns on the ground, and the boys had SO much fun finding them. We got home and Bryson's pockets were full to the brim with little acorns...and his pockets were NOT small. ha ha What a nut! (A little play on words there for the cheesy folk)

Unfortunately while we were there, the kids (and I mean ALL the kids, not just mine) got sick. It was something like the croup, which in general is not fun, but for asthmatics like Cory, it's just plain scary. At one point I was quite concerned because Cory's nebulizer treatment was having virtually no effect on his asthma. I wasn't sure if the insurance would cover something like a hospital trip out of network (I've heard they're a pain about that sort of thing), so I was doubly concerned. John called Jeb and Evan in (two of his brothers), and they gave him a blessing that his body would be able to heal on its own. Within an hour we realized that the nebulzer wasn't hooked up quite right, so he wasn't getting the much-needed meds, and within about three hours he was showing a significant amount of improvement. Ahhhh, blessings!!!

So, back to the pictures...we found a lady bug while on the temple grounds. I posted this picture more because of Cory's cute little hand than because of the lady bug, though. He's getting old, but he still has the pudgy little-boy hands. Ahhh, I know they're not going to last much longer, so I've got to cherish them while they're around.

Below is uncle Jim carrying Bryson and Jayson. What a sport. Maria and Kim are also sort of in the pic....I wish I had better shots of me and the sister-in-laws. We all had SO MUCH FUN together. We'd leave the kids with our husbands and take off and have fun. We went shopping several of the times, and did the New Moon movie. The sisters all went to get mani/pedi's, but I just wasn't up to it (darn fatigue kicked my tooshy), so when they came back, they all sat me down in a "princess chair" and gave me my own mani/pedi. I know, how totally sweet, right? They even cut my toe-nails!!! Yeah, after that they deserve better pictures, but alas...

Dallin was hilarious while he slept. He never woke up in the same spot twice. We'd hear him during the night bumping into different pieces of funriture. He never woke up. Anyway, this was one of the mornings. He cracks me up!

Here's Cory and Bryson asleep in the hotel room. We were able to break up our 16 hour drive at the hotel each way, thanks to a VERY generous family member (THANK YOU!!). They are just so cute, I had to snap a shot.

I have been accused of not taking enough pictures by my brother and sister, so here's another one of them falling asleep together. They're the best of friends, I love watching their bond form stronger and stronger, especially now that they're both in school. They even sit next to eachother on the bus. I love my boys!

And here's another random picture for my siblings who've been asking for more. The kids were cute at breakfast this morning. They're all crazy, I swear!!!

Catching up on last month...

First of all....MY POOR CAR!!!! We had a wind storm the other week (you know how bad they get in Sierra Vista, ughh!) Well, this one blew our swamp cooler off our roof and onto our car!

We heard a lot of noise during the night, but never did it cross our minds that it was our swamp cooler coming off our roof!! Luckily our car insurance pays for it (it falls under "wind damage") so we will be getting a check in the mail pretty soon, and because it wasn't "our fault" our premium won't even be going up! Meanwhile, it's totally embarassing riding around town with our little beaten up car.

We've also had a bunch of sickness in the home. It seems like every week is something new...this week it's the stomach flu. Here are the brothers cuddling with eachother watching a movie. They're so sweet. Whoever is well is always taking care of the sick brother.

My thyroid was out of whack again last month, so they've upped my medication, and so I've begun to keep up with the kids and house again. THANK GOODNESS! I still have to take a nap (and by have to take a nap, I mean HAVE TO take a nap, I swear, I'm like a two-year old, scheduling my day around nap time, but hey, whatever works!)

Ok, so these aren't the most flattering pictures of Dallin, but I had to get a picture posted. A few weeks ago we got home from church, and before we had a chance to get them out of their church clothes, the kids were playing in the backyard.

For whatever reason, Dallin decided it would be a good idea to go stand in an ant hill and stomp on ants. Well, the ants bit him several times under his chin. These pictures were taken a couple days later, and you can still see how swollen it was. John came home from work the next day and said, "Wow, Dallin is really getting chunky". No, the double chin is from the ant bites, poor thing!

What happened just after the ants got on Dallin was pretty remarkable. Cory, who is generally VERY scared of ants, saw that Dallin was screaming and had ants crawling all over him. He went up to Dallin and started flicking the ants off of him, one by one. After he got several off, he ran and got me, and then ran back to him and continued to get the ants off his little brother until I got there. I was so proud of him forgetting a HUGE fear of his, and just stepping up and taking care of Dallin. I told Cory that shows me he'll make a good daddy someday.

Halloween

So, I was a bad mother this Halloween, and only took a couple of pictures, and most of them didn't even turn out that well. But, we'll work with what we've got, right?

Here is Bryson (Spiderman) after the sugar hit his bloodstream.

Little Dallin (our little Monkey) digging into his brother's candy.

Cory was Bumble Bee (the transformer), you can see him running away from getting his picture taken.

We ended up having a LOT of fun. Bryson was invited to a party in the afternoon before trick-or-treating. His BFF from Kindergarten (his name is Cooper, they're inseperable) was allowed to invite a friend to his parent's Halloween party, so we ended up all going. Afterwards, we rushed home to get dinner ready (roast, mmmm) and we left trunk-or-treating with the Declett family.

The day before Halloween, my good friend Sarah Avalos invited us to a party her school throws for the kids of teachers. My darling grandma sent the kids some costumes, and it worked perfectly, so they didn't get their other costumes dirty or anything. Here is the picture they took there:

Grandma also sent a few hats for the kids. Here is a random picture of Dallin in the jester's hat.

Pat on the back, Brycie!

Last week I got a notice that Bryson would be given an award at an upcomming awards assembly for K-2nd grade. You can imagine how proud I was of my sweet little boy.

There were two types of award given: citizenship and student recognition awards. Bryson was awarded the student recognition award, and here is what was read about him in the assembly:

If the type is too small, here is what it says about him:

Bryson is an excited participant in all of our classroom activities. He shows a good attitude toward school and is very respectful of others. Bryson shares, listens, and works well with his classmates.

Ahh, I'm so proud of my boy! He genuinely is all those things, very thoughtful and optimistic. He's such a joy to be around, and I'm so glad that his teacher/classmates think so too. But who wouldn't, right. :)

Goodbye, Nella

Our sweet little boxer puppy, Nella, had to be put down a coule of days ago. Above is the note Cory wrote to God about Nella. He kept sticking out the back door so God could see it. He's so cute.

Here she is inside a kid's size shoe-box.

The kids all adore(d) her, she was very sweet/patient with them.

Dallin and her used to meet under the table to find bits of food to eat. (Totally gross, I know.)

When the kids were sick, we'd let Nella cuddle with them. She was like a little babysitter.

A few months ago we took her to the vet because of a bad limp, and found that she had a severe case of hip dysplasia. It's a problem that only gets worse with time, and she was in a lot of pain from it.

Despite the pain, she still managed to be completely crazy and have some fun.

But after a good day of playing, she'd always have a few days in a lot of pain recovering. :(

So, a few days ago, John put her down. She was a sweet dog, it was sad to see her go like she did.

What was once our bathroom...

Over a week ago we got started on this project. We knew there was mold growing in the wall (sooo gross, I know!!) So, last Thursday, John and his dad tore everything out and bleached the crap out of the bathroom.

Unfortunately, the day after this project started our little sick streak, and so our bathroom still sits completely torn apart, but at least without mold growing in it anymore. We've put black plastic over the room and there it sits, until we can get everyone well and back to having the time and energy to finish the project.

I seriously look forward to posting some "finished project" pictures!!

Meanwhile, life at home has calmed down a bit. The kids and I are still coughing a bit, but no one feels horrible anymore, so I consider that a huge step in the right direction.

Ever since Dallin went to the hospital, the older boys have paid extra attention to their little brother. They are so sweet, including him in everything, and Dallin just eats up the "big boy" attention.

Cory lost not one, but two teeth last month. Here he is with his bottom teeth missing. He's SO BIG!!!

You can kind of see the teeth growing in behind...I foresee braces in this kids future. :(

He's holding the little box containing his tooth that the tooth fairy took later that night.

My little Brycie just isn't looking so little these days! He's completely enjoying kindergarten and writing and comes home singing the most adorable songs. He has been very clingy to me the past few days, every chance he gets he'll come and sit on my lap. I guess it's from being gone for a few days. I love the cuddles, I know my days are numbered.

As for Dallin, he's back to full-energy, but he has definately been more clingy as well. If Bryson is cuddling with me, he'll come up and say, "NO! MY moma!" I love being a mom, but sometimes I get the feeling there's just not enough of me to go around.

And here is our adorable little boxer, Nella. She's 10 months old, and still so iddy biddy. She's got a bad case of hip dysplasia, so sadly, she will not be with us much longer. Her quality of life is quite poor with her bad limp, and severe pain. Our poor little crazy girl!!!

I appreciate all of the concern that was expressed over our family getting better. I'm very happy to report that we're slowly getting back to normal. Thank you for the prayers that went for Dallin especially. I believe we had a miracle happen this past week, for him to recover so quickly, and for the condition to not be as bad as they originally thought. We are seriously very blessed.

Is the flu season over yet????

What a week!!!

Here's the story (yep, story, not pictures, sorry!)

We've had some mold growing in our bathroom wall, so on Thursday night (one week ago), we decided to go in and tear it out. John and his dad did a wonderful job, and it went smoothly, and we found that we didn't have that much mold afterall, so we were happy.

Thursday night Cory was up with asthma all night. Nebulizer treatments are to be done as frequently as every four hours, but he was pushing two or three hours, so I called the doc Friday morning, and set an appt for that afternoon. Meanwhile we had santitized and blocked off the bathroom and had air purifiers going. I figured a shot of prednisone and we'd call it good. So, at the appointment, to my suprise the doc suspected pnemonia, and the x-rays confirmed. Whoa, poor kid, with asthma and pnemonia! We got him on antibiotics and lots of albuterol, and although he was definately feeling lousy and having some difficulty breathing, he was doing ok.

We spent conference weekend with him on treatments every four hours, but in fairly good spirits. On Monday I decided to keep him home from school to let him rest and recover instead of throwing him back into a germ-infested environment. Monday morning Dallin started a very strong cough. I went to my doc appointment and ran some errands while John kept the two sickies. When I got home Dallin was asleep, and was grunting to be able to breathe. uh oh He was retracting when he breathed, and his resp rate was upwards of 60. So, call the doc, but he's booked for the day. They recomend going to the ER. Ugh, I just want antibioitics! I went back and forth if I wanted to go to the ER or just the Urgent Care. So, I go ended up going to the ER (funny thing - I was walking in, and one of my friends was walking in with her one year old for similar problems, tis the season, I guess).

So, after waiting in the waiting room for about an hour, they call me back to triage and immediately get us set up in a room. About an hour later they check his oxygen saturation, which is hovering between 85-92 (not very good), they give him his first treatment, and it only goes up to 88-92 (still not good) They monitor him for a while, and he's still having a lot of difficulty breathing. They come back and say they need to admit him. That came as a bit of a suprise, I just wanted antibiotics. They didn't have room at the SV hospital, so they told us we would be transported to TMC, but then they came back again and told us because his vitals were so poor, they needed to helicopter him to the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit). They gave him an IV (which was poorly done, even after three pokes, ughh. Poor little guy!!) He was so sad. Then the transport team came, and Dallin liked all the attention, and the car seat he got to ride in. We went on the elevator and it kept bumping, and he would LAUGH (and then COUGH). Then, the elevator stopped, and there, in front of him, was a HELICOPTER! WHOOH! He was so excited!!! He got some ear phones to put on, and he was on oxygen, plus hooked to an IV, and he fell asleep fast. On the way there, his IV started shooting out of a wire connection. They got it uder control after a few very confused glances.

His x-rays in SV confirmed it was pnemonia. I was so concerned it had something to do with the mold we had torn out, but they kept telling me it was just bad timing. When we got to TMC we were rushed into our room, and started another nebulizer treatment with oxygen. Still not much reaction in his vitals, so they determined to put him on a continuous albuterol/oxygen treatment.

Now, as you may know, Cory and I both have decent cases of asthma, and we've each been hospitalized a time or two for it, but I have NEVER even heard of the continuous treatment! Those drugs are strong, and they make you feel all shakey from the inside out, even when you're doing them about ten minutes out of every four hours. So, my little baby had to be put on the continuous treatment for EIGHT hours straight! By the end I thought he was having a seizure because he was shaking so bad, I frantically called the nurse in, but no, it was "just" a reaction to the meds. His temp started climbing around this time, so they had to give him tylonol, but he refused to take it orally, so they had to do a supository on him (just heartbreaking!) After about four hours of being on the meds, his stats started to get better, his ox saturation was around 95. Around five in the morning, they moved him to treatments every one hour, took him off oxygen, and they gave him some food. He threw up almost imediately, the nurses said the albuterol sometimes has that affect. He was, however, able to eat his new favorite dish: jello!

About 10am they moved him from every one hour to every two hours, which also meant he could go to the regular pediatric ward, instead of the PICU. I was happy to move because the new room had it's own bathroom and shower (hip hip hooray!) The first thing I did was to take a shower. Ahhh Sadly, no change of clothes, but at least I could wash myself.

Once they moved him to Q2 (doing treatments every two hours), he was able to hold food down. He REALLY didn't like getting his nebulizer treatments, and we would have to hold him down to do them. Whenever someone would come in the door, he would bury his face in the pillows or my lap, in an attempt to hide. It was very sad. Around this time they got the lab work done from SV, and found that he had an infection in his blood. This ended up being total crap. It turns out somehow SV had contaminated the sample, so there wasn't actually bacteria in his blood (thank goodness!) Around 5am Wed morning we were able to move to Q3.

At this point, Dallin was practically going crazy. Everyone knows two year olds have tons of energy, but take a two year old boy, pump him FULL of albuterol, hook him to a bunch of wires, and tell him to sit on the bed for three days and not pull any wires...you'd think they'd be kidding! The IV ended up getting loose, so we had to take it out, luckily he had just gotten a good dose of antibiotics, so he didn't really need it for another 12 hours, and by the time the 12 hours had passed, they had figured out there wasn't actually an infection in his blood, so they never put it back in.

During this time, I was also getting sick. I'd been sick from the get-go, but it hit hard while I was there, in addition to being off my thyroid meds, and dealing with morning sickness. Ughh, but on the other hand, it was wonderful to be able to devote all my time and energy to my little sickie. It was a bonding experience. We slept on the same twin size bed, which was nice because I could tell when his breathing became labored. And I got to take a lot of time to just play with him and enjoy his very funny little personality.

My brother ended up ordering us some Dominos pizza for us to enjoy that afternoon (the other stuff was truly barely edible, and most of Dallin's just got thrown around the room). He didn't just do pizza, he gave us the DELUXE treatment, complete with cinnastix and chocolate something-or-other. We were quite spoiled. Dallin's expression when he saw the food was just priceless.

Around noon they moved us to Q4, which meant we could go home soon, as long as he stayed doing good. Well, my little trooper pulled through. His oxygen saturation was still a little low, around 92-95% without meds, but they could see he NEEDED to go home, so we were released around 4pm.

Since we were transported up to Tucson, our insurance paid for transport back, so we got a taxi and rode home. On the ride home, Dallin threw up in the taxi. Luckily the guy was pretty sweet about it. He said he's seen a lot worse. (Ew, don't even want to think about it)

So, we finally got home around 8 last night. Ahhh, so good to be home!! Dallin thinks so even more than I do! We brought the older kids a presant (an edible gummy snake) and it was a wonderful reunion.

I was thinking we were done with this, and we could get back onto our routine...

but...

this morning Bryson spiked a fever and had a cough, and I've gotten worse, I think the darn cold is settling in my chest too. NOOOOOO!

I took Bryson in, and he's on antibiotics now, but my doc insists that I go to the ER because they think it's the flu (yes, even after I told them we've had two cases of pnemonia in the past week, and the hospital confirmed it was NOT the dreaded swine flu). So, I refuse to go to the ER for a chest cold, so hopefully it won't get to the point where I HAVE to go to the ER.

Grrrr...