Leah and Audrey happenings

Can I just start by telling you that packing around 40 lbs. worth of babies isn't as easy as you may imagine it. Another funny story is that my husband asked me the other day how I was going to grocery shop once the babies were in bigger car seats because I wouldn't be able to just put them in the grocery cart anymore. Ummm hello, the babies have been in bigger car seats now for almost two months. I take four kids to the store whenever I go. I put the babies in their stroller while Alyssa or I push the grocery cart. When I told him this, he seemed puzzled as to how that worked. Trust me, it just works. To me, going from 2-4 kids has been a lot easier than going from 1-2 kids. I find that I have a lot of shortcuts that I would die without, and things don't always work out as planned but I am finally learning that I have to let some things go. There is no other way that I would be able to function.

Leah and Audrey are such good babies, they are babbling non-stop, Leah is about a month behind Audrey on motor skills where Leah is about a month ahead of Audrey on developmental skills. Leah is now crawling, sitting-up, and can almost pull herself up to standing while holding on to things. Audrey doesn't need to know how to do any of these things because she is just capable of getting into EVERYTHING just by rolling around. Leah is still the more aggressive one and she loves tormenting Audrey by pulling her hair. At first we thought that she was just doing it without realizing what she was doing but boy were we wrong. She does it intentionally, and then will just smile when we tell her to stop. Both girls have two teeth on the bottom, and they look so cute with them. I can't believe that they are almost 9 months old now, they are seriously growing way too fast. Oh how I love my four girls!

Alyssa happenings

This little girl who is not so little anymore starts school in only 6 more days. Oh, how I am going to miss her while she is gone at school. She has been such a good helper to me and takes such great care of her sisters. The summer went by way too fast. I really enjoy having all of my kids home for the summer, call me weird but I love it. I get a little emotional when they go back to school.

Alyssa will be entering the second grade, and she says that she is not excited to go back to school. I know that she will do great once she actually gets settled in.

The majority of Alyssa's summer break was spent swimming. A couple of times I wondered if she was going to start growing some fins, talk about a fish.

Another thing we are going to miss is sleeping in. Oh, how I don't want to start waking up at 5:45 a.m. again but it's time I guess.

What a great summer that it has been, now let real life begin...

Kelsie happenings

I am worried sick about this little girl. She just hasn't been herself lately. It started about a week or so ago. I noticed that she seemed really tired. Too tired to play, too tired to eat, I am talking completely lethargic. At church last Sunday, she was almost asleep on my lap during sacrament meeting which never is the case. She even fell asleep the other day while playing the wii. The only other symptom I noticed with her was that she looked really pale, but still I wasn't really concerned. I just figured that maybe she was just trying to fight off a cold or something. Yesterday morning I had more of a concern when I kept going in to check on her and she still was not awake. She is an early riser and rarely sleeps past about 7:30 a.m during the summer. After checking on her three times, she seemed as though she did not want to wake up. She finally woke up at 9:00 a.m. I called over to our pediatricians office and spoke with the phone nurse who advised me that I needed to bring Kelsie in right away. I gathered up the girls and off we headed to see the doctor. The doctor came in to look at Kelsie, checked her over, and just had a very concerning look on her face. She informed me that Kelsie's spleen was very enlarged, she had white patchy spots on her tonsils, and she was also concerned that Kelsie had lost 6 pounds since last being seen 6 months prior. All of the symptoms that Kelsie presented with assured the doctor that Kelsie had Mononucleosis, which is the long word for mono. I was shocked, and had no idea that children could even get mono. Apparently they can. Mono does cause your spleen to be enlarged, it also causes you to be extremely lethargic, and the white patches on your throat are also a symptom, however weight loss is not usually a symptom which still is a worry. The doctor informed me that other serious illnesses could also be a factor in the reason Kelsie's spleen is enlarged. They did do some lab work on Kelsie to see about things like leukemia which is never what you want to hear as a Mother, especially when it hits so close to home. My uncle was diagnosed with Leukemia as a child, he was only 3 1/2 years old when he passed away. The good news though is that Kelsie's complete blood count looked really good which makes the doctor think at this point we can just go ahead and assume that she has mono and nothing more serious. We will get the rest of our lab work back hopefully by tomorrow. It is still a worry, but I am just trying not to get all worked up. I am going to wait for the results from her lab work, and we will go from there. In the meantime, I am hoping to avoid getting mono. That's the last thing that I need right now.

My Mom flew home two nights ago, and things just haven't been the same around here. She was here for for a little over half of the month, and it was so great having her. She did the majority of the cleaning, cooking, shopping, you name it and she did it. She also brought my niece Gabby with her, and the girls all had so much fun playing together. Alyssa cried all the way home from the airport after we had to drop off my Mom and Gabby. It's so hard being away from family especially for kids.

My Mom already has her next flight booked for November and will be here for Audrey and Leah's first birthday. How fun will that be? I can't wait!

The next time she comes hopefully will be a little more exciting. I felt like we weren't able to do a whole lot just with the surgery and all, but we still managed to do some fun things together.

We love you Mom, and miss you already. Captain D's, Ben & Jerry's, and the he-she are begging you to come back!

My heart is so full tonight as I am just thinking about all of the things that I would like to blog about. Where do I even begin? I guess that I will start by saying how grateful I feel to be living in Tennessee. You all know how I felt about moving to Tennessee. I pictured our family moving maybe a few states away from Utah, never in a million years did I imagine us moving clear across the country. When Kevin applied for residency programs, he considered my feelings greatly and wanted to move to only the places where I felt comfortable living. I felt great about the programs he had chosen all except for one residency program which was in Nashville, Tennessee. Now you have to realize how the residency program works. It's not like you just decide where you want to do your residency and then magically that's where you get to go. If only it were that easy. Here's how it works. As a student you submit your top picks for residency programs which are sent to a central computer. At the same time, residency programs throughout the country submit their own lists, ranking candidates based on grades, interviews and recommendations. This computer system then spits out the name of the residency program that you will be going to. Here's where it gets a little interesting. Since Kevin knew how much I didn't want to come to Tennessee, he lowered Vanderbilt on his list, meaning that there would be a much lower chance that we would move out here. Apparently, his ranking didn't mean much because we still ended up here. Coincidence? Maybe? If the ranking worked the way it should have, we would be doing our residency at a completely different program, it shouldn't have worked out that we matched at Vanderbilt. There's just no way around it.

I am getting used to living in the south, life seems to be moving along when BAM I am hit with some more big news. As if having twins, frozen pipes, and a house flood aren't enough to deal with all in a years time. My tumor is back, and in a year it has almost doubled in size. I head to Vanderbilt, consult with a Neurosurgeon who informs me that I am in the best hands possible. I think to myself, "sure, that's what they all say." After failing medication therapy, I decide that my only choice is to go through yet another brain surgery. Surgery is done, and I feel beyond amazing. How could this be? When I had the first surgery it took months for me to feel like I could do even the simplest task. I had to take pain pills for several weeks, and couldn't tell you who came to visit, or what went on. The pain that I felt afterwards was horrendous. Of course I expected that this time around, things wouldn't be any different but they were different. I am a survivor yet again, I made it through and all went well. To top it all off, I find out that at Vanderbilt this is the biggest pituitary clinic in the world. We are talking 80 of these exact surgeries happen per month. Patients fly in from all over the world for the chance to be operated at Vanderbilt. Let me ask you, " Do you think that this is a coincidence that we ended up here?" I think not.

I am not a believer that things happen merely just by chance. I believe that all things happen for a reason. There is no way that moving out here happened coincidentally. Even when we moved out here, my Mom would always tell me that maybe the reason why we were headed here was for my health. I strongly believe that my health is one of many reasons why we ended up here.

Many wonderful experiences have happened to me throughout this complicated medical journey, and I don't need to share with you every single detail but overall miracles were performed. There is no other explanation plain and simple.

I also received my hospital bill and can you believe that for one day in the hospital, my bill came to $37,000.00. This was only the bill for the inpatient hospital services, and this does not include any of the professional fees. Even with our insurance coverage we would still have to pay 10% of this bill, but like I mentioned before. Miracles keep happening over and over again. For this entire hospital stay, we will be paying NOTHING! Vanderbilt has been so good to us, and I can't express my thanks enough to such an incredible hospital who is so equipped to handle any situation at any given time. Again, I ask you. "Coincidence?" to which I reply, "not a chance"

Thank you again for your outpouring of love and support, I feel great, and know that I will continue to heal each day. With much love sent to all of you!

72 hours after surgery

So far I am still feeling great. I am actually feeling too great, and I have to keep reminding myself that I just had brain surgery and what I should be doing is relaxing and taking it EASY. Well, I haven't been too good at the whole relaxing part and I went shopping tonight with my Mom and sister. My sister April leaves tomorrow and I am so sad to see her go back to Utah. We have had so much fun together. It was nice to get out tonight for a little girls night out shopping. She bought me the cutest dress, how sweet is that? I should be buying her something. We have been spoiled like always, my Mom always does a great job of that. My Mom will be here for about 11 more days, and I am so excited that she gets to stay. I wish that April could stay here with her but I know that she needs to get back to work.