A new Favorite day.

I have a new day to add to my list of FAVORITE DAYS EVER. This past saturday ranks up there with my wedding day, and the births of my three babies. On Thursday Holley turned 8, Friday was her birthday party with her friends, and Saturday was her Baptism. The day was very special and very full of the spirit. I'm so proud of her decision to be baptized, and of the amazing girl she is becoming. Holley, I love you SO MUCH. I've always known that when this day came it would be a special one, but I never would have guessed that it would have been as amazingly wonderful as it was, and how much it would fill me with the spirit, and with Joy.









After the baptism we had a family lunch at our house, and then gave Holley a few "baptism" gifts, and Derek did a little presentation where he read the poem "Three white Dresses" And showed on a powerpoint, (hooked up to our projector, so everyone could see well.) Pictures of Holley in her blessing dress and then in her baptism dress. (as he read the poem, so they fit in at the right times.) He then showed pictures of me in my "three white dresses" and talked to her about following in her mother's footsteps, and preparing to go to the temple. He had everyone crying. Especially me, and even himself.

When he showed my baptism picture we were all amazed how much it looked like Holley. It surprised me especially I think because I always considered myself such an awkward child, and my Holley such a pretty one. Here are the pictures.





Holley in her blessing dress.

Apparently, when the surgeons removed 10 inches of internal organs, and a pill sized camera from my body, they also removed my desire to blog. I think now that I'm feeling a little better, I'm so overwhelmed with trying to play "catch up" from all the things that have been ignored the last year or so. While the desire is gone, the guilt is not, and I feel there may still be one or two of you out there that care, so I thought an update was in order. If nothing else I need to get a pic or two of my cute kids out there.

Daelyn

Daelyn probably keeps me the busiest. She is full of mischief and loves climbing on stuff and getting into things. She's still chubbier than my other girls were, and gets to wear all new shoes (despite all the available hand me downs) because her cute chubby feet don't fit into any of the shoes her older sisters wore. She Loves to dance, and is always full of giggles.She also loves to SCREAM, and is really loud when she wants something. I'm sure she learned this from her sisters. Here's a picture from yesterday, when she found a marker her big sister forgot to put away. I do believe she thought it was blush.


Brinley Just turned 4 on Sept 26th. She loves being a "big girl" now, unless it comes to doing chores. She loves playing "mommy" and so that makes me "grandma" She's so sweet with her little dolls though. She is a good little mommy. She loves her new Jammies that match Daelyns, and always tries to make sure they can wear them on the same nights.



Holley started 2nd grade, and has an AMAZING teacher. She seems SO GROWN UP to me now. It just blows me away. She'll turn 8 and be baptized this December. And I just can't believe it. She loves being with her friends, and is already wanting a cell phone. (keep wishing honey.) She is also a good helper when I'm really needing an extra pair of "mommy hands". For months she begged for me to paint her room. Derek took her and Brinley camping for labor day, and I stayed here with Daelyn, and surprised them by painting an accent wall in their room while they were gone. She also entered her rock collection in the county fair, and won a blue ribbon! Yeah Holley! Here are pics from the first day of school, and in their "newly painted room".



I love it when all three of them play together and get along. It seems sadly that more often its screaming and fighting, but I caught a couple pictures of them getting along. They love to play dress-ups together, and there are some from a day that Daelyn was climbing all over Holley and Brinley while they were laying on the floor, and they all just thought it was the funniest thing.










Derek
Derek, is busy as always. Still loving teaching in Pima, and being with his girls when he gets a chance. A couple months ago, he was called as 2nd counselor in the bishopric, and has been enjoying this new calling, and working closly with our wonderful bishop. He also spends a lot of his time taking our girls to games at the school to give me a much needed break, and get some daddy time in. Between all that, and the occasional "honey-do" he rarely gets any time to do something for himself, but never complains. He is so good to us, and I really don't know how I lucked out and nabbed such a great husband.

Me
As for myself, like I said, I feel like I'm on overdrive with all the things I want to get done. Christmas projects, going through closets to pull out all the stuff that is WAY to small, (it's been a while, I emptied off like 100 hangers, and our closets feel much more roomy now.) Purging the house for stuff to donate to the DI, (not to mention repeatedly putting some items back in the DI boxes, after the girls try to "save" them. I want to redecorate every room, I think I'm just aching for a little change of scenery. I cut my hair boy short again, to eliminate the stress of dealing with my hair, and free myself up to spend time on the things I want to do. I don't have any decent pictures yet though, maybe later.

Anyway, that's enough for now, don't know when I'll update again, but at least you all know we're still here.

So good to be home!

All right, I guess it's about time I post another update. Hopefully this will be the last post for a while about my health issues. My surgery was on Tuesday May 4th. The day after my last post. The surgery went well, The main complication being the prednisone. I guess when your injured your body creates a "natural" steroid to help heal your body, but if you are taking steroids your body shuts down that natural response to fight the injury and the pain. So they had to give me really high doses of steroids the day of the surgery, and also high doses of morphine to help with the pain. The first few days post-surgery were much more rough than I had anticipated. Probably a lot because of the steroids. I had a lot of pain, and anxiety, couldn't breathe well, see well, walk well. As I started to feel better I was very tired of being stuck in the hospital. Mother's Day, and Derek and Daelyn's birthday were especially hard for me. I'm sure all you other moms could imagine how hard it would be to be away from your kids on mother's day, or your baby's 1st birthday. They kept me in the hospital a total of 2 1/2 weeks. (a few days longer than expected because of an infection I ended up with in my central line site.) Luckily for my kids, their AMAZING grandparents were able to be with them. Things usually seem to work out the way they are supposed to. When we found out I would need to have this surgery, my parents were in town for the temple open house. It was so nice to have them there as we got things ready to go to the hospital. They headed home sunday, and my mom turned around and came back tuesday, so the first week I was in the hospital my mom was able to be in town to help with the girls, and trade off with Derek to spend a little time with me in the hospital. Derek was able to use sick leave to be with me in the hospital for most of my bad days. My mom had to leave friday, but Derek's parents who had planned to come for the temple open house the next weekend changed their plans to be able to come a few days early, and stay longer. So they arrived sunday, and were able to stay til sunday. They did so much to help Derek and the girls, and it was so nice knowing my girls were being well taken care of, and having some quality "grandma-grandpa" time. I was SO APPRECIATIVE of all they did. I was hoping to be out of the hospital before they left town, and felt bad that I didn't get to see them more and to express my gratitude more to them. The same day they left, my sweet mom traveled back again, and stayed for another week and a half. I was so grateful to have her there when I was finally released, as the first few days home were a little rougher than I had anticipated as well. I finally got to come home on Wednesday the 19th, and it was SOOO GOOD to be home. It was so good to see my girls. Even though I got to see them in the hospital a couple times it wasn't the same. I was worried about my IV lines, and they were unsure of all the macines etc as well. I sat on the floor and Daelyn smiled and came to me and hugged me so tight for the longest time without letting go. It was so WONDERFUL!!!! Holley, and Brinley were so cute and excited to have me home as well. It felt SO GOOD.

Anyway, I'm doing much better, and still just so glad to be home. I'm still taking things pretty easy, as I still have pain from the surgery, but I'm able to do most of my regular household stuff. (Just not as much of it, or as fast maybe.) I'm not supposed to lift more than 20 lbs for a couple more weeks still. It's been so hard not being able to lift up Daelyn. What a blessing that the week I got out of the hospital was also Holley's last week of school. Since my mom left, Holley's been my super helper. She lifts Daelyn in and out of the crib, high chair, car seat, for me. And since Daelyn's walking exclusively now, I'm able to hold her hand and walk her to where I need her,(provided she's willing, and If not I call for Holley, who comes to my rescue and carries her for me.) Holley has accepted this responsibility well, and I've been very proud of her for being so willing and helpful. Brinley has also tried to be helpful, and lately loves to make her bed all by herself.

On a final note, the biopsy of the bowel that was removed in the surgery, was able to finally confirm Crohns disease. Although this is a big diagnosis, that I'm not sure we've completely wrapped our minds around, we are so grateful to finally have an answer and know what was causing all my problems. We found a Gastroenterologist in Mesa that we will be working with that we feel really good about. He's got me now tapering off the prednisone to take me off it in a few weeks. He's also put me on a prescription thats supposed to help protect my bowel from future damage. We have still to figure out how much this disease will change and affect my day to day life. But that's something we'll just have to learn with time. We're told it's a 50% chance that I'll have to have future bowel surgeries, like the one I just had. I hope I'm in the 50% that doesn't ever have to have another one, but we realize still that it's a possibility that we need to prepare for. As for now, I am free from the Horrible, miserable, cramping pain that I was suffering from for so long. Which is a very WONDERFUL thing. So grateful to finally find out what was wrong. Ironically almost a year exactly it took. I started having symptoms during my pregnancy but thought it was pregnancy symptoms, started looking into it after Daelyn was born and the symptoms didn't go away. Then to have the surgery so close to her birthday, and be in the hospital again, exactly a year after I was in the hospital to have her was a little ironic I thought. I'm also very grateful for good medical insurance, My itemized statement from the hospital was over 20 pgs long. I don't know what we would do if we weren't insured, what a blessing. So glad to be home and to be feeling better. Thank you all so much for your love, concern, and prayers!

ps Hoping soon to get around to posting happier stuff, pictures, 1st birthday, temple dedication etc, but thought some might be wondering about the surgery.

overdue update!

So I know another update is overdue, but truth be told, I actually typed up a post a little over a week ago, while working on it My little Daelyn toddled over to me and tried to climb up in my lap. I picked her up, and with one slap of that pudgy little baby hand I love so much, she deleted the whole thing!!! It was probably for the best, the prednisone was making me pretty emotional that day. Then today I spent a few hours on and off typing up a nice long post, thinking all along it was continuosly being saved by blogger, but I must have lost my connection without realizing it, and something happened again that made me lose the whole thing. So if you are wanting all the details, you are just out of luck for now, but I can give you the basics.

I'm posting this from the hospital. The "capsule" from the capsule endoscopy I had done 3 weeks ago, was supposed to pass out of my body on its own, and it didn't. I've got an obstruction in my small bowel and the capsule is stuck there. The situation makes it urgent to do surgery, but my weight loss and, the prednisone I've been taking complicates it a bit. The Prednisone affects my blood sugar they checked me in last night and have me on intravenous 'Nutrition" to balance my fats and sugar, and everything so I'll be more stable going into surgery. So that will be a day or two before the surgery depending on how well my levels end up where they should. The Prednisone also causes problems with how well and how quickly my body will be able to heal after the surgery, so the surgeon told me to plan on being in the hospital about 2 weeks. They are hoping to do the surgery tomorrow. They will actually remove about 10 inches of my small bowel.

Despite this situation being less than ideal I feel SO BLESSED. I have AMAZING Doctors that I really trust. The surgeon is actually in our ward and made a house call to discuss the situation with us when we found out we needed to have surgery. He has done so much to help calm our fears, and help us feel good about the surgery. I have amazing family and friends, so many people offering up help and prayers. I've never felt more loved. Since I'm in the hospital anyway, the surgeon and the Doctors from my primary care are running a bunch of tests and consulting with other Drs to try and figure out what has been causing me all my problems. Even looking into my infertility/repeat miscarriage situation. (One of these Dr's is our stake president, the other is the Dr who has been working so hard to help us through this already. They are both men dear to our family. Really Good men!) Interestingly enough, a couple of the Drs that I'm working with, will be the Dr's attending to President Monson when he is here later this month for the Temple Dedication. I truly feel so blessed, my parents, and parents-in-law both being willing to come down to help. My AMAZING husband, so patient, and loving, and ever picking up all my slack and telling me to take things easy. My Sweet Holley, so Tender-hearted. This has been hardest on her, and she has been so worried about me. She's always there to hug me, or do anything she can to help me feel better. I'm so proud of how brave she's being through all this. Doing all she can to help with her sisters, and trying to stay strong. My Brinley, ever my comedic one. I love how her little 3 year old mind takes the little pieces of what she hears or understands about what's happening around her, and spins it in such a funny way. About a week ago for example she asked me quite matter-of-factly, "Mom, are you still chewing on that camera?" And my sweet baby girl. Daelyn really has been the perfect baby for such a time as this. She is such a content, easy-going, happy, good baby. Since about a couple months old, I could lay her down in her crib and she'd just put herself to sleep. And SHE HUGS!!!! I know many of you won't believe me, because baby's don't hug, but I have witnesses! Others who have experienced those sweet little chubby baby arms wrapping around a shoulder or neck and squeezing. They've said. . . "She hugs!!!! Baby's don't hug but she hugs!!!!" Oh how those sweet baby hugs make everything else worth it all. Can you tell I'm missing my girls. It's been one day but I miss their cuddles. A nice cuddle from anyone of them, is just about the best thing in the world, Oh how I love them.

Well there I go rambling again. and after I promised a short post. I'd better get this posted before I lose it again. Thanks again for all you love and concern. I'll try to keep posting updates on the surgery etc.

11 months and . . . .

WALKING!!!!

I've really been trying to keep all the updates on the kids in chronological order, but I felt that this update was urgent. Daelyn has been taking a few steps here and there for weeks now, and then today she was like. . . "I'm gonna get this thing down." And she did! It's so cute and she's so proud of herself. You can't really tell with the binky in her mouth, but she's laughing and grinning from ear to ear. Just had to show ya! Enjoy!

December

The week of Holley's birthday, she got to be student of the week, and take a "spotlight" poster to school!

Holley's 7th birthday!

Daelyn LOVED the Christmas tree and other decorations, we just could not keep her away!



Christmas!

Christmas eve Jammies! I almost didn't get them done this year, but finished them up Christmas eve day!

I LOVE this one of the girls!

July?

I was just about to post some pictures from December, when I stumbled across some from JULY & august that I just couldn't pass up sharing. These pictures made my heart happy!

These pictures were from our camping trip to Alpine. I put socks on Daelyn's hands to keep them warm during the night, and in the morning, Holley and Brinley wanted their socks on their hands too.




Helpful Big sisters!




Sun Splash!





These two aren't the best quality as far as pictures go, but they are both the kind that make me just ache to be able to rewind time & make my little ones teeny again. The most frustrating thing for me about my health giving me problems when it did, is I feel I didn't get to "soak in" and just enjoy and cherish Daelyn's little baby days as much as I would have liked, or even as much as I was able to with Holley and Brin. There were times that I just wanted to hold her and rock her to sleep, but at times it just hurt too much to have her weight/wiggles and squirms against my stomach if it wasn't necessary. Don't get me wrong though, I was so blessed to have such a GOOD baby at a time like this, because I didn't NEED to rock her to sleep, I could just lay her in the crib and she'd go to sleep on her own, what a blessing, but I would have loved a little more cuddle time.

a few more.

Wow, two posts tonight. Derek took the girls out to jump on the tramp for a while before bed so I thought I'd post a few more outdated pictures. I think most if not all of these are from November.


Family Scripture Study. Holley didn't quite make it til the end this night.

Pictures from this past fall, and medical tests update.

Here are some cute pictures from October. I should be posting Easter, but we'll keep this all chronological and try to catch up on some of the old stuff first.

The girls at Apple Annie's!


Daelyn's 10 minute homemade costume.

Fairy & Southern Belle! (Wasn't gonna attempt homemade for these two this year!) They looked cute and loved their costumes!

My cute little Flower!


As for the update on the colonoscopy and all that . . . I feel kindof strange blogging all about all my medical stuff(who really wants to read about colonoscopys and intestinal problems?) but so many of you have been so kind to ask and be concerned that I want to keep you up to date. If you don't want to read all this junk, than by all means just skip it, but here is the latest low down for those of you who may have been wondering.

While waiting for results my weight dropped real low. Down to 100 lbs, which for 5'9" tall is much too low (approximately 30-40 lbs lower than recommended BMI.) I had to quit nursing Daelyn. The Gastroentereologist was not getting back to us on the results of the blood work and colonoscopy and our Family practioner was getting really concerned about my weight/malnutrition, so he called and said he wanted to put me in the hospital for a few days to get me on an IV for nutrition, and also an IV administered steroid. My Sweet hubby, got frustrated, and called the Gastroenterologists office. Derek finally got the Doc on the phone. Apparently my blood work came up positive for Crohn's but the colonoscopy didn't show much, so he wanted to do some MORE tests. He finally prescribed me something to try to help in the meantime though. So I started a steroid, and was able to avoid the hospital stay. My pain still is pretty bad, but it seems that since I've started the medicine, it's not quite as often, (I get a couple good or ok days a week.) It also seems to be helping me put some weight back on. I'm up about 5 lbs. I'm sure Gluten being back in my life is helping with that too. I feel like I'm eating well, but my body just does not seem to absorb any of the nutrition. I'm sure to see me people just think I'm not eating at all. (which brings up all sorts of bad memories from my youth of being called "anorexic" because I was so skinny, people don't usually feel sorry for the skinny girl, but that's a whole different post I'll maybe get to later.) I'm VERY HAPPY that I'm enjoying gluten again, and it does not seem to be linked to my problems. "Welcome back, bread, Pizza, Cake, etc, Oh how I missed you!"

Dr ordered an upper GI, that showed problems in my small intestines that had the radiologist perplexed. She said she'd never seen a case like it before and showed it to some colleagues in tucson who also found it "intriguing." Gastroenterologist found the findings "interesting" as well, and has shown them to other Dr's seeking opinions. Quotations on the words intriguing and interesting are because those are the word choices the Dr's used, make of it what you will. Basically my small intestines are dialated, (approximately twice the diameter of an average small bowel) and not properly functioning. Next step now is a capsular endoscopy. I basically swallow a pill size camera that will retrieve images of my intestinal tract. That will happen monday, I have to prep for it the same as the colonoscopy, which is the part I'm really dreading. It's interesting to me though how they can do something like that. I swallow the camera and then wear some device on a belt that picks up all the images/information from the capsule.

Dr still believes it to be Crohn's and has begun treating it as such, but still no "Confirmed diagnosis." I hope though to see improvement from the prednisone. In all my online "research" about Crohn's disease, symptoms, treatments, etc. My mind keeps going back to this funny post I read on one of my favorite blogs, and I thought I'd share the link to give you a crash course on crohn's as well as perhaps a chuckle or two. If you haven't ever read The Meanest Mom's blog before, you should, she is hilarious.Ms Crohn's disease Autoimmune pageant entry