ELI TURNS 8!

My boy turns 8 - how is he old enough to be baptized?! Yikes! For his birthday I got to take him out to breakfast and then we went shopping together for his Halloween costume - I loved being able to spend some alone time with him. After that we had his birthday party with his friends. We made it a sports birthday party which is very fitting for him. We played soccer and flag football. Jared and I were the refs! Then after we played sports we headed back to our house were we had a concession stand for lunch - nachos, pretzels, popcorn, sodas and snow cones. Then we opened presents and the party was over. Eli had a blast and that's what mattered. The Saturday before we got ice cream sandwiches for his soccer team and they sang Happy Birthday to him after their tournament that weekend. Eli got ASU apparel and some tickets to the ASU vs Washington State football game. During the game while we were losing Eli was getting phyiscally ill over it - he is so funny how much he gets into it. That night for his birthday dinner we took the family to RYU - they kids loved the fire and watching the food be thrown.

Eli is such a sweet spirit - he really cares for others and rises to the occasion to be a leader when needed. He truly is loved by everyone, kids at school, coaches, teachers, etc. We hope he remains this tender soul throughout his whole life.

HAPPY LITTLE SIMPLE THINGS!

Today as I was having a quiet moment to myself I was just thinking how happy my life is. These 5 fart faces bring me so much joy! Love my life! That is all.

 

 

GO BIG OR GO HOME ($4K LATER)

Emma doesn't get sick very much - her warts have pretty much stopped, we did little toe surgery so she will no longer have in-grown toe nails, so its pretty much a head cold here and there, but nothing to keep her home from school. When Emma does decide to get sick or at least get something to keep her out of school - she likes to go big - 5th grade was a trip to the hospital in an ambulance because she kept passing out - and this year - well....

Monday morning August 11th - Emma woke up in tears - or rather when I woke up to wake her up for school I found her in tears saying she had been awake all night because her right boob hurt. I told her "sorry honey, but you still need to go to school." I chalked it up to growing pains and blew her off - you know - like any good mom would! ha ha.

After school as we were driving to dance she said, "mom, one boob is bigger than the other"

me: "ya that happens"

Emma: "why? why does one boob have to be bigger than the other?"

me: "Because life would be way to easy if they grew the same. Everyone's boobs get a little uneven - no biggie - no one ever even notices."

Emma: "that's dumb - but it still hurts!"

me: "ya that is pretty lame. Sorry it hurts, you just have to suck it up and get over it - it will stop eventually."

That pretty much ended it from there. Tuesday morning she woke up and I asked her how she was and she told me it still hurt, but she got some sleep. Tuesday night after she got dropped off from dance she wanted to tell me a story, but I told her she had to hurry and get ready for mutual because she was already late and that she could just change in my room and tell me her story while she got ready. So she brought her clothes in and started to tell me her story and I took a little sneak peek at her while she was telling her story and I happen to catch a glimpse of her boob - Holy swollen and red boob batman! I asked her to come over right then and I touched it - it was very warm to the touch - now I knew it wasn't growing pains she had been having. I asked her how long it had been like that she said it started Sunday night. So I told her that was weird and sent her off to mutual. Then I went back home and called Jared who was at his own mutual and I told him it was not right and something was wrong. After discussing this is Jared and Stephanie and then calling her on-call pediatrician - we decided she needed to go to urgent care right away and the doctor suggested Phoenix Children's Urgent care since they specialized in children.

So we grabbed Emma from mutual and I took her over there - I was still in workout clothes because I had just finished running before Jared left for mutual and I was only planning on us being at urgent care for a bit, getting our antibiotics and then going home -maybe 2 hours later - tops!

We get to urgent care, the nice doctor came in and asked Emma to show her and Emma was quite embarrassed and then the doctor assured her there was nothing to be embarrassed about and that she had her own boobs too - so we were in good company. As soon as she looked at it she knew something was wrong and told us we needed to go to the ER right then.She wasn't sure what it was but because of the location and the fact that Emma hasn't been through puberty yet - there was no reason she should look like that.

So we got in the car and headed off to Phoenix Children's Hospital. We called Jared on the way and he got my mom to come over to the house to watch the boys because we didn't know how long it was going to be and then while my mom was on her way - Cara Germaine - came over and sat with the boys who were now in bed.

Jared met us at PCH and brought me clean clothes and a few things and then hung out with us for a very long time. The ER doctor looked at her and wasn't sure what was causing it either and didn't like the location so he admitted us for the night. We decided the best option was for Jared to go home and relieve my mom so he could handle the school thing in the morning.
 
Waiting to for the ER doctor to make a decision...
 
 You know you have been there for a while when you aren't even in your room yet and you have now seen, "Monsters University" "Lion King" and we are on our 3rd Disney movie "Little Mermaid"

We finally got our room at 2am - and not just any room - no we were in an isolation room - because they didn't know what bacterial infection Emma had and they didn't want to spread it to anyone and they didn't want her to get anything else. You know you are going to be there a while when they put your name on the door next to the gowns and gloves everyone is going to be using...
 
We didn't sleep much that night - everyone kept coming in and checking on Emma.

The next day Emma met with a doctor, who then decided she needed to see a doctor in charge - he came in with 8 students, then we met with a surgeon, then he sent in the surgeon in charge. They all decided that they wanted to wait a day and see what happened on the high does of antibiotics they were sending through her IV - they were really hoping that would do the trick and if not - then they would have to do surgery and go in and remove it - but they wanted to avoid that because they didn't want to mess with her milk ducts, leave an ugly scar on her boob and then it was getting into the chest cavity area, lungs, etc. She was in great spirits the whole time - I was bored. She was really uncomfortable for the first 2 days having to show everyone her boob - when the 9 doctors were in the room at the same time - the one doctor asked 7 of them to leave - leaving just me, Emma and 3 doctors in there to make her more comfortable. Let's just say by the last day, Emma didn't care who wanted to see - she was over the awkwardness of it and flashed who ever asked!

 Waiting for her ultrasound

We had to entertain ourselves some how - they had a sweet teen game room there, but she wasn't allowed out of her room, so we watched movie, after movie, after movie, made fun of everyone who had to gown up and glove up to come in our room - even the poor food servers couldn't even come in - she ordered food all day long after she was cleared for no surgery and then we took some hospital bed selfies.

Denise brought the boys a great home made dinner and then after they ate dinner that night they came up and visited us. The boys made Emma some of the sweetest cards ever. Emma was even lucky to have her dad bring her homework - thanks dad!

"I hope you you feel better. Come home safe. We love you. I like you dancing and you never give up on your dreams. Love, Eli"


"I hope you feel better and come home soon! Love Tyler"

"Love Tyson double heart to you Emma"
"I hoap you kum home to tomarrow. Love Tyson."

The next day all the doctors came in one by one again and they decided she would not need surgery after all. The medicine was working. They released us and we got to go home. She had to see her pediatrician the next day so he could feel and look at her boob so that a week later he could look again and make sure all was better and if not, then surgery it would be. She was on meds at home round the clock every 8 hours exactly.

In the end, it was a great time - $4,000 and she is better. We sure do love this girl and are grateful it ended up being nothing seriously bad - but next time she gets sick we are hoping a trip to the doctor will do the trick and no more hospital visits!! Sheesh.

TWO RANDOM PICTURES!

These pictures have nothing to do with anything, but they make me happy! Here is a cute picture of all my boys gathered around Grandpa Rodgers...

Here is a picture of Eli - he was all ready for church so he grabbed his Book of Mormon and just sat on the couch and started reading it while he waited for the rest of us to finish getting ready!

100 YEAR FLOOD!

Arizona doesn't have snow days, tornado evacuations, earthquake drills, etc - but when it rains 5 inches over night - our city comes to stand still and life just got a little bit more fun that day! Chandler Schools decided not to take attendance today and said only come to school if you can come safely - otherwise - stay home! We could have gone to school safely no problem - but since I have been going to school for 30 years in Arizona and we never got a day like this - we had to take advantage of it and stay home and play! The news called this "the 100 year flood"! Hope the kiddos enjoyed this day in history!

Here is the greenbelt next to our house while it is still raining - look how high it comes up to Tyson.

Yes, Tyler is being held in every picture - he thought the grass felt to weird to walk in so he refused to do it and made Emma carry him :) 

HARRY POTTER MARATHON & SHARK WEEK!

Every once and a while on cable they will show some episode of Harry Potter - we never watch them start to finish, but when ever its playing - it will always grab the boys attention. So we decided it would be fun to watch all the Harry Potter movies in order from start to finish. We did it over the space of 3 Sundays. The kids loved it and asked great questions and we had a lot of fun doing it together as a family. On the last Sunday we had part 1 and part 2 left of #7 so I thought it would be more fun to turn it into a family party. We all went to church and then when church ended, Jared stalled the kids at church for a bit and I ran home and set it up as a surprise. The kids thought it was awesome and might have used one of my favorite lines they say quite often, "this is the BEST DAY EVER!"

I don't have a pic of it, but we did have yellow and red streamers hanging before they entered the room to represent "The house of Gryffindor"

the spread....
 

Nagini - the snake

 Butter Beer and Ollivanders Wands

 Hedwig Droppings

 Butter Beer drinkers

 I did this to our bathroom too - but I forgot to take a pic

 
 Our favorite part of the whole marathon was when Harry and Professor Dumbledore had to go and gather all the hurcruxes and Tyson was totally into it, sucking his thumb and holding his lovey and we knew a hand was about to come up out of the water so Jared and I silently watched Tyson and when the hand came up - his whole body jumped and he threw the lovey out of his hand - we about peed our pants laughing so hard - we only regret not filming it! ha ha!

The kids chowing down...

A week later was the start of "Shark Week" and Saturday night at 10pm we decided with Stacia, Liz and Taya that we should get together on Sunday and watch the first episode of shark week together. I only sometimes like to toot my own horn - but this is one of them - I ran to the grocery store and this is what we got the next day before everyone came over. We had a lot of fun watching it and boys watched it all week long.

the spread...

 Jared helped me carve this masterpiece!