So, here are the boys' Halloween pictures since 2004, including the new ones we just got back from this Halloween.
Kolby
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Eli
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Camden
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Isaac
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Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts
10 November 2008
09 November 2008
Halloween Costumes
So, we got the pictures back of the boys in their Halloween costumes, and I think they turned out great. (If any of you happen to live in West Valley and you’re looking for a good photographer, we’ve been really impressed with the manager, Christina, at the JC Penney at Valley Fair Mall). I am really looking forward to going this week to pick up our family photos that we had taken – I think they turned out really nice this year too.
05 November 2008
Halloween Night
So, we enjoyed trick-or-treating around the neighborhood with a group of friends from church on Halloween. Kolby mostly ran around with his friend, Kaitlyn, and Camden tried to keep up with Eli. The boys all had a lot of fun – I think Isaac even enjoyed it, as he ended up napping in his stroller for a good part of the walk. The boys tired of trick-or-treating about an hour later, and we headed over to the hospital so Daddy could show of his cute boys in their costumes. The boys enjoyed having Daddy do a little pretend check-up on them in one of the empty ER patient rooms.
Halloween Party
We went to a little Halloween party at the church. The boys got to get dressed up and trick-or-treated through the halls of the church before getting their faces painted. Kolby saw his little friend, Kaitlyn Mills, and they went around together for a little while, while we were there. Everyone thought their costumes were cute. I had to agree.
Actually, there is a story about the costumes we ended up using for Camden and Isaac. Since the boys are all so close in age we usually just have to get one new costume for Kolby each year and then there is always one that fits all the other boys. So, we got the Big Bird costume for Kolby several months ago on e-Bay, and the plan was for Eli to be Tigger, Camden to be Elmo, and Isaac to be the lion. So, about a week and a half before Halloween I had scheduled to take the boys in and have pictures taken in their costumes. We went to get out their costumes that morning, and we had all of the costumes, except the lion’s mane and the Elmo head were nowhere to be found. We searched through all of our things here – even checking in places that we knew we wouldn’t have put them, like inside the luggage and stuff. They just weren’t there. And the Elmo and Lion costumes just don’t look like Elmo or a lion very much without the parts that go on the kids’ heads. I am sure that they must be in our storage unit in New York – even though I know I set them aside to bring to Utah when we were moving from Milwaukee, but they had to have gotten put into the wrong pod. I was pretty frustrated, especially since those are the two costumes that my mom made for us, and they are absolutely adorable. And Camden is old enough that he recognizes Elmo and I think he would have really loved to wear the Elmo costume. Anyways, after searching and not finding them anywhere, I ran to the store a couple hours before the photos were scheduled. I stopped at Kid to Kid, and they had a cute frog costume, but they had a “no returns” policy on their costumes, and I didn’t want to get stuck with a costume that didn’t fit. So, I headed over to Toys’R’Us, even though I expected the prices of their costumes to be outrageous – but we were in luck, their costumes were marked down to 40% off. I came home with a triceratops costume for Camden and a puppy costume for Isaac for about $20 total. Unfortunately, the puppy costume was way too small for Isaac, so I headed back to the store, Isaac in tow, to try the frog costume on him and get it, and then head back to the other store to return the puppy costume. When we got home, Isaac was asleep in the carseat wearing his frog costume, and we loaded the other boys into the car and headed over to the mall for their pictures. We had an amazing photo shoot – the photographer only had to take 4 or 5 shots of each boy because they were all smiling and posing so well. (What a relief to have a nice, relaxing photo shoot after all that running around I had to do beforehand). So, we ended up with a couple extra costumes and some really cute pictures – we’ll get those back later on this week when we go back to have our family photos taken, so I’ll definitely post them when we do.
02 November 2008
Picking Out Pumpkins
Two weeks ago for our Family Home Evening activity we wanted to go pick out pumpkins – Kolby and Eli each needed to bring a small pumpkin in to paint at preschool the week of Halloween, and we wanted to pick out a big one to carve as a family. We looked online, but couldn’t find any real pumpkin patches nearby that were open after dinner time, so we drove down to Redwood Road where Michael had seen some pumpkins for sale earlier in the week. We got there, and it was just perfect for our little family outing. It was just a little set-up in a parking lot, but it was all fenced in, there were hay bales and hay was spread all over the ground. There were corn stalks all over and a large Indian tee-pee that the kids could go inside. There were little Halloween decorations all around and the woman at the checkout stand was dressed as a witch. After taking lots of fun pictures of the boys, they picked out their pumpkins and we headed home. That was a nice little activity – just the right amount of time that we all enjoyed it, but it wasn’t too long to keep the kids’ attention.
Our Week
Ok, so I’ve not kept up as well as I should have with our “weekly family journal” [blog updates] since we got back from San Diego, and Michael’s work schedule has prevented him from writing lately too. I have been rather busy with making that blog for our Relief Society, trying to get in a little genealogy work on the new.familysearch.org site, and with family birthdays and Halloween celebrations lately, (let alone all the busy-ness of daily life with four little boys). I have prepared several slideshows of photos from our trip, and have several more sets of photos since we got back to Utah that I need to post. But I decided that I would tell what’s been going on with us lately and share some thoughts before I get to that.
So, this last week we had something planned every day. On Monday I spent a good portion of the day mixing up a big batch of my favorite soup – a chicken and vegetable recipe that my mom used to make. Then that evening Michael’s Dad and Grandma Bradshaw came for dinner and family home evening because Michael’s dad was in town for work this week. After dinner and desert, Michael did a family home evening lesson with the boys about prayer, and then we carved pumpkins for our activity. The boys had fun pulling the gunk out of the pumpkins, and I think they turned out pretty cute (pictures to come).
On Tuesday evening, after Michael went to work – Michael has been on one of the less-desirable ER shifts this week from 5pm to 2am. We really liked the 2pm to 11pm shift of last week, because he got to be home to enjoy some time with the kids during the day when they were awake, and he only missed out on dinner and bedtime with the family, but then he got off early enough that he wasn’t exhausted the next day. This shift until 2am made him tired during the days, so there was less fun time with the kids. But I think the next 4 days will be his worst ER shift as he starts tonight going in at 11pm and working until 7am, which just means that he gets to be home all day, but that he will have to sleep for most of that time. Too bad that his next two rotations for the months of November and December aren’t going to be a nice elective to get a little break. One month of internal medicine in September got long, and I can only imagine how long two months in a row will seem. Oh well. I was thinking about it, and we have been here for 5 months now – that’s going by pretty quick. Only about 8 more months to go. We’ve been told that the intern year is the worst of a doctor’s career, and then it should gradually start getting better from there on out (and once he gets into dermatology next year I am hoping that that will be an even better schedule than some other residents have). But we’ll just have to wait and see how that goes.
Anyways, on Tuesday night Brother Adamson from the ward came over and had me show him some of the features on Photoshop. I was excited to do that, because I love to use that program. It was a little frustrating that my computer was having such problems that it ran extremely slow while he was here, but I think that he hopefully still got something out of it.
On Wednesday Kolby had his first piano lesson with Emily Harker, a girl in our ward. I was very impressed with how well she explained the ideas of piano playing to a new learner and how she listened to him. I think that he did pretty well – he learned how to hold his hand, and which fingers go where, and they went over two different short songs that we have been practicing since then. He was excited to go to the lesson, and he likes to practice too, so that’s good. On Wednesday night I took Kolby, Eli, and Camden to a Halloween party at our church, where the kids got to trick-or-treat through the church hallways and get their faces painted. And Wednesday was also Grandpa Dick’s birthday – Happy Birthday!
On Thursday morning Dorene Lynch came over and we set up the Relief Society blog, and then I spent quite a bit of time getting that all put together the last few days. Today I need to add some more announcements to it, but mostly I think that the set-up is done and I will just need to keep up with new announcements and anything that people send me to post to that blog. The other fun thing we did on Thursday was that I took Kolby out for his night out, and we went to see the Disney movie about the robot, Wall-E, at the dollar theater. He enjoyed it, and I enjoyed going with him. He likes to sit on my lap when we go to a movie together, and he is such a sweetheart – it’s nice to see how each of our kids are on a one on one basis (as my mom said – she liked us kids a lot more individually than when we were together).
Friday was Kolby’s 5th birthday and Halloween. That morning he and I went to the grocery store together to get him a special birthday breakfast (since we are having his party next week so we didn’t have a cake that day). He picked out chocolate milk, donut holes, and cinnamon rolls, and we came home and enjoyed them together. And we gave Kolby his present – 7 new Book of Mormon character figurines. They are little plastic figurines of characters, such as Nephi and Moroni, from the Deseret Book store that the boys like to take in their “Sunday bag” to play with at church. We didn’t really want to get the “bad guys,” so we picked out almost all of the “good ones” (there were two others that we didn’t get, because they didn’t have them in the store when we went). Thank you, Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Dick – we used the birthday money that you sent for Kolby to pay for part of this gift. In the afternoon Michael had to go to work, and he helped me get the boys into their costumes before he left. We met at the Bentley’s house, along with at least 6 or 7 other families from the ward, to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood together. It was fun to go as a group. I think that maybe going with just 2 or 3 families would probably be ideal, though, just because Kolby wanted to run ahead with the older kids and Camden was a lot more slow, so Kolby got 3 or 4 houses ahead of me at some times (there were plenty of adults in the group to supervise the kids in the front of the group and those in the back, but I would have rather had all my kids stick together with me – but I couldn’t really tell Kolby he had to stay with me instead of running with his friends). But either way, it was fun. I got some cute pictures of the boys, and Isaac ended up sleeping in his stroller most of the way. I was surprised when we had only gone a little over an hour and Kolby and Eli both decided they were done with the trick-or-treating. The rest of the group continued on, but we decided to stop when we passed our house. Then we got in the car and drove over to the hospital because Michael wanted to show off the kids in their cute costumes to the people at work. The boys each got a cup of water and ice from a water machine there, they said hello to lots of the doctors and nurses, Daddy took them into an empty patient room and showed them how he looks in patients’ mouths and ears and listens to their hearts, and a doctor gave them each a piece of candy. So that was fun for them. And then when we got home Kolby returned several birthday calls that we had missed while we were out trick-or-treating before going to bed.
And yesterday Michael had a day off. We decided to go on a date, and we ended up going downtown to the Joseph Smith Building to see the movie in the legacy theater about the life of Joseph Smith. We had seen it once before at the Mormon Battalion visitor center in San Diego, but at that time Eli was a baby and was being very noisy, so we kept taking turns with him outside the theater and missed most of the movie. We really enjoyed it this time. That will definitely be one worth getting when it becomes available. After that Michael surprised me and stopped at Leatherby’s for an ice cream. It was nice to go out without the kids.
And right now Michael and the boys are napping (Michael is trying to prepare for his upcoming night shift). So, we had a good (full) week. And looking at our calendar we have another full one coming up – with doctor’s appointments and flu shots for 3 of the boys, voting on Tuesday, piano lessons, family photos, Kolby and Isaac’s birthday party, and a primary program practice. Well, at least things don’t ever get too boring at our house. :)
So, this last week we had something planned every day. On Monday I spent a good portion of the day mixing up a big batch of my favorite soup – a chicken and vegetable recipe that my mom used to make. Then that evening Michael’s Dad and Grandma Bradshaw came for dinner and family home evening because Michael’s dad was in town for work this week. After dinner and desert, Michael did a family home evening lesson with the boys about prayer, and then we carved pumpkins for our activity. The boys had fun pulling the gunk out of the pumpkins, and I think they turned out pretty cute (pictures to come).
On Tuesday evening, after Michael went to work – Michael has been on one of the less-desirable ER shifts this week from 5pm to 2am. We really liked the 2pm to 11pm shift of last week, because he got to be home to enjoy some time with the kids during the day when they were awake, and he only missed out on dinner and bedtime with the family, but then he got off early enough that he wasn’t exhausted the next day. This shift until 2am made him tired during the days, so there was less fun time with the kids. But I think the next 4 days will be his worst ER shift as he starts tonight going in at 11pm and working until 7am, which just means that he gets to be home all day, but that he will have to sleep for most of that time. Too bad that his next two rotations for the months of November and December aren’t going to be a nice elective to get a little break. One month of internal medicine in September got long, and I can only imagine how long two months in a row will seem. Oh well. I was thinking about it, and we have been here for 5 months now – that’s going by pretty quick. Only about 8 more months to go. We’ve been told that the intern year is the worst of a doctor’s career, and then it should gradually start getting better from there on out (and once he gets into dermatology next year I am hoping that that will be an even better schedule than some other residents have). But we’ll just have to wait and see how that goes.
Anyways, on Tuesday night Brother Adamson from the ward came over and had me show him some of the features on Photoshop. I was excited to do that, because I love to use that program. It was a little frustrating that my computer was having such problems that it ran extremely slow while he was here, but I think that he hopefully still got something out of it.
On Wednesday Kolby had his first piano lesson with Emily Harker, a girl in our ward. I was very impressed with how well she explained the ideas of piano playing to a new learner and how she listened to him. I think that he did pretty well – he learned how to hold his hand, and which fingers go where, and they went over two different short songs that we have been practicing since then. He was excited to go to the lesson, and he likes to practice too, so that’s good. On Wednesday night I took Kolby, Eli, and Camden to a Halloween party at our church, where the kids got to trick-or-treat through the church hallways and get their faces painted. And Wednesday was also Grandpa Dick’s birthday – Happy Birthday!
On Thursday morning Dorene Lynch came over and we set up the Relief Society blog, and then I spent quite a bit of time getting that all put together the last few days. Today I need to add some more announcements to it, but mostly I think that the set-up is done and I will just need to keep up with new announcements and anything that people send me to post to that blog. The other fun thing we did on Thursday was that I took Kolby out for his night out, and we went to see the Disney movie about the robot, Wall-E, at the dollar theater. He enjoyed it, and I enjoyed going with him. He likes to sit on my lap when we go to a movie together, and he is such a sweetheart – it’s nice to see how each of our kids are on a one on one basis (as my mom said – she liked us kids a lot more individually than when we were together).
Friday was Kolby’s 5th birthday and Halloween. That morning he and I went to the grocery store together to get him a special birthday breakfast (since we are having his party next week so we didn’t have a cake that day). He picked out chocolate milk, donut holes, and cinnamon rolls, and we came home and enjoyed them together. And we gave Kolby his present – 7 new Book of Mormon character figurines. They are little plastic figurines of characters, such as Nephi and Moroni, from the Deseret Book store that the boys like to take in their “Sunday bag” to play with at church. We didn’t really want to get the “bad guys,” so we picked out almost all of the “good ones” (there were two others that we didn’t get, because they didn’t have them in the store when we went). Thank you, Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Dick – we used the birthday money that you sent for Kolby to pay for part of this gift. In the afternoon Michael had to go to work, and he helped me get the boys into their costumes before he left. We met at the Bentley’s house, along with at least 6 or 7 other families from the ward, to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood together. It was fun to go as a group. I think that maybe going with just 2 or 3 families would probably be ideal, though, just because Kolby wanted to run ahead with the older kids and Camden was a lot more slow, so Kolby got 3 or 4 houses ahead of me at some times (there were plenty of adults in the group to supervise the kids in the front of the group and those in the back, but I would have rather had all my kids stick together with me – but I couldn’t really tell Kolby he had to stay with me instead of running with his friends). But either way, it was fun. I got some cute pictures of the boys, and Isaac ended up sleeping in his stroller most of the way. I was surprised when we had only gone a little over an hour and Kolby and Eli both decided they were done with the trick-or-treating. The rest of the group continued on, but we decided to stop when we passed our house. Then we got in the car and drove over to the hospital because Michael wanted to show off the kids in their cute costumes to the people at work. The boys each got a cup of water and ice from a water machine there, they said hello to lots of the doctors and nurses, Daddy took them into an empty patient room and showed them how he looks in patients’ mouths and ears and listens to their hearts, and a doctor gave them each a piece of candy. So that was fun for them. And then when we got home Kolby returned several birthday calls that we had missed while we were out trick-or-treating before going to bed.
And yesterday Michael had a day off. We decided to go on a date, and we ended up going downtown to the Joseph Smith Building to see the movie in the legacy theater about the life of Joseph Smith. We had seen it once before at the Mormon Battalion visitor center in San Diego, but at that time Eli was a baby and was being very noisy, so we kept taking turns with him outside the theater and missed most of the movie. We really enjoyed it this time. That will definitely be one worth getting when it becomes available. After that Michael surprised me and stopped at Leatherby’s for an ice cream. It was nice to go out without the kids.
And right now Michael and the boys are napping (Michael is trying to prepare for his upcoming night shift). So, we had a good (full) week. And looking at our calendar we have another full one coming up – with doctor’s appointments and flu shots for 3 of the boys, voting on Tuesday, piano lessons, family photos, Kolby and Isaac’s birthday party, and a primary program practice. Well, at least things don’t ever get too boring at our house. :)
03 July 2008
"On Call"
It’s 11:30 at night, and there really isn’t any good reason to be up anymore. It’s not especially late yet, but I’m sitting at the computer, the blog updated with the latest photos of the kids, my e-mail checked (and re-checked, just in case someone wrote me while I’ve been sitting here tonight), my blog feed subscriptions updated (yes, I have all of my friends’ and families’ blogs e-mailed to me, so I don’t have to go look at them all the time to see if they’ve posted anything new or not), and I have even checked on eBay and think I may have found the perfect Halloween costume for Kolby – yes, for October. My problem: Michael is on call at the hospital. [For those of you who have not lived through medical school, internship, residency, etc., “on call” is a deceptive term. No, it does not mean, like it sounds, that the intern is at home, enjoying time with his family and waiting to be paged and rush into the hospital if needed. No, “on call” means that the intern is in the hospital, waiting to be paged for the next possible surgery case, at and time, day or night.] It’s really not been that bad of a month – surgery has been a nice enough schedule, although Michael is more tired from having to get up early in the morning, but most nights have not been late. Except he’s on call (overnight) every few days. Which isn’t all that terrible, either, really. I just can’t go to bed at a normal time when Michael’s not home at night. I mean, I can, but what for? With the kids all in bed hours ago (counting my blessings), there’s no one waiting for me to say prayers, no one wanting me to go lay down with them for the night (well, technically Kolby is waiting in my bed – this is the second time Michael has been on call and I have let Kolby sleep with me for the night). Kolby got really sad earlier when Michael wasn’t home to say goodnight, and after a long explanation of what “on call” means, how the doctors have to take turns staying overnight at the hospital to help the sick people, that the doctors don’t have to wait in line to take these turns, what surgery is {note to self: an explanation that doctors cut into people, fix them up, and then sew them back up is probably not the best idea for a 4-year-old, even if you try to make it sound less scary by saying that the doctors are helping, and this only happens to people who are really, really, really, really sick or hurt. Oops, I guess you learn as you go, as with everything in parenting}, and that doctors who perform surgeries use special tools from the hospital and not the tools that Grandma keeps in the garage for gardening; I was able to get Kolby to go to bed by telling him he could sleep in my bed tonight. Why not? Anyways, it’s now 11:48, and I am starting to get that faint sick feeling that I used to get when I would pull all-nighters to finish procrastinated homework assignments in high school (it’s really not all that late yet – what happened to those days when we were dating and it was an early night if we got in by midnight or 1am?) Anyways, good night.
04 November 2007
On Halloween
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03 November 2007
Halloween Party
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Here are some pictures from the church Halloween party last Friday. The boys had fun trick-or-treating through the hallways of the church, dancing to the music of the live band, and eating as much candy as they could.
Happy Halloween!
Here are photos of each of our boys in their Halloween costumes each year since Kolby's first Halloween. I was so pleased with how cute the pictures turned out this year. We even had a chance to take a picture of Isaac on Halloween -- we just got him dressed up in his costume and used a blanket to cover up all the wires and tubes of the NICU. I thought it turned out well for doing it ourselves. Enjoy!
01 November 2007
Another Week in the NICU
So, we’ve had a busy week. Michael and I have spent every day at the hospital with Isaac in the NICU. Since we last posted an update here, Isaac has been doing pretty well. On Monday he started eating from a bottle for the first time – I have been pumping, so we haven’t had to give him any formula. He took the bottle well. They have been keeping track of how much he is eating – he started on Monday taking 10 milliliters, and now he is up to 75 milliliters. He started nursing on Tuesday for the first time since the night he was born. They have a very sensitive scale that they weigh him on before and after he nurses so that they can continue to keep track of how much he is eating. They seem very pleased that he is eating so well, and the doctors are happy that he is able to nurse because that means that he can breath through his nose while his mouth is totally blocked, which shows that the stents in his nose are working to help him breath well.
On Tuesday (Isaac’s due date), they started him on a bili blanket to help with jaundice. He also got weaned off of the nasal cannula (the little tube that ran under his nose to provide a little oxygen flow) that day. It was nice to have that off – he is looking more and more like a normal, healthy baby as they gradually remove more and more of the tubes and wires that are all around his little crib in his NICU room.
Wednesday was Kolby’s 4th birthday and Halloween. My mom made cupcakes for Kolby to take to his preschool class at the YMCA, and he was so excited – he was bouncing off the walls all day. He got to wear his Halloween costume to his classes too, which was fun for him. After we dropped him off at the YMCA, Michael and I went to the hospital. I got a chance to nurse Isaac that morning, and then we dressed him up in the little teddy bear Halloween costume that Camden wore last year and took some fun photos. He was so cute! Then Michael and I attended an infant CPR class -- a requirement for parents before leaving the NICU. After that Michael had a quick meeting for a derm research project he is working on, and then he went home to pick up my mom and the boys. I nursed Isaac again and then walked over to the medical school to meet the rest of the family. The boys were excited to be all dressed up in their costumes and go trick-or-treating through the halls of the medical school at the annual MCW Halloween party. I have to say, I think we were in the company of the cutest Tigger, dinosaur, and lion in the whole building. After accumulating about 15 pounds of candy between the three boys, we went and got some dinner and put the boys down to bed.
Today Michael started his pediatric radiology rotation. His October rotation was an elective course and he had already finished most of the work for the rotation when Isaac went into the NICU, so they gave him the last few days off and just let him finish his last few projects in his own time. So it is weird now that he is starting a new rotation and can’t go with me to the NICU every day. Luckily his rotation this month is also in Children’s Hospital, just a few floors down from the NICU, so he could get there quickly if he needed to. Kolby had his 4-year-old check-up at the doctor’s office late this morning, so I waited to take him to that appointment before going into the hospital today. Kolby is healthy, and they did a hearing and vision test, which he did well on. He got several shots, and it was the first time that I ever felt kinda sad when one of my kids got shots, because Kolby is now old enough that he was saying things like, “No, Mommy, it hurts,” while the nurse was giving him the shots, instead of just crying. Luckily he calmed down a little when he got a sticker afterwards.
Shortly after I got to the hospital this afternoon, Michael arrived too. The doctor on his peds radiology rotation was nice and said that spending time with his baby was more important than anything he could teach him, so he let him leave around 2:00 today. Isaac had an IV in his foot that they weren’t using anymore, but they had left it in so that they wouldn’t have to put in a new one in case he ended up having a surgery this week to remove the stents from his nose. But last night I guess the IV fell out, so they have just left it out, and he didn’t end up needing it for surgery – so that’s one less tube hanging off of his body – one step closer to ‘normal.’ We were able to give Isaac a bath for the first time – the nurses had always done it up until now. And I brushed his hair all cute afterwards, which was fun. Isaac did ok with nursing today, and then Michael got to give him a bottle feeding too.
The ENT doctor came by to talk to us, and he gave us the option to have them do the surgery tomorrow to remove his stents or to try to wait another week. After discussing it with the doctor, we decided to try to wait another week and let his nose continue to heal before removing the stents. So, he has that surgery scheduled for next Thursday. The other big thing that the doctor told us was that we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that Isaac might have another breathing problem besides the nasal passageway. The only way to tell that is to remove the stents from his nose and give him time to recover from the surgery and then see if he is breathing normally. If not, then they will consider the possibility that he could have another problem, like possibly with his tongue falling back in his mouth all the time and blocking the airway or something else. Anyway, it sounds like he will not be coming home anytime soon. We know for sure now that they will be keeping him there through next Thursday for the surgery, and then he will probably need a few days to recover from that. Plus they told us originally that once he gets to the point where he is breathing and eating normally, he will still need to stay in the NICU for 48 to 72 hours for them to monitor him and make sure he is doing fine. So, as long as there are no further complications, it looks like it will still be at least a week and a half before he gets to come home.
On Tuesday (Isaac’s due date), they started him on a bili blanket to help with jaundice. He also got weaned off of the nasal cannula (the little tube that ran under his nose to provide a little oxygen flow) that day. It was nice to have that off – he is looking more and more like a normal, healthy baby as they gradually remove more and more of the tubes and wires that are all around his little crib in his NICU room.
Wednesday was Kolby’s 4th birthday and Halloween. My mom made cupcakes for Kolby to take to his preschool class at the YMCA, and he was so excited – he was bouncing off the walls all day. He got to wear his Halloween costume to his classes too, which was fun for him. After we dropped him off at the YMCA, Michael and I went to the hospital. I got a chance to nurse Isaac that morning, and then we dressed him up in the little teddy bear Halloween costume that Camden wore last year and took some fun photos. He was so cute! Then Michael and I attended an infant CPR class -- a requirement for parents before leaving the NICU. After that Michael had a quick meeting for a derm research project he is working on, and then he went home to pick up my mom and the boys. I nursed Isaac again and then walked over to the medical school to meet the rest of the family. The boys were excited to be all dressed up in their costumes and go trick-or-treating through the halls of the medical school at the annual MCW Halloween party. I have to say, I think we were in the company of the cutest Tigger, dinosaur, and lion in the whole building. After accumulating about 15 pounds of candy between the three boys, we went and got some dinner and put the boys down to bed.
Today Michael started his pediatric radiology rotation. His October rotation was an elective course and he had already finished most of the work for the rotation when Isaac went into the NICU, so they gave him the last few days off and just let him finish his last few projects in his own time. So it is weird now that he is starting a new rotation and can’t go with me to the NICU every day. Luckily his rotation this month is also in Children’s Hospital, just a few floors down from the NICU, so he could get there quickly if he needed to. Kolby had his 4-year-old check-up at the doctor’s office late this morning, so I waited to take him to that appointment before going into the hospital today. Kolby is healthy, and they did a hearing and vision test, which he did well on. He got several shots, and it was the first time that I ever felt kinda sad when one of my kids got shots, because Kolby is now old enough that he was saying things like, “No, Mommy, it hurts,” while the nurse was giving him the shots, instead of just crying. Luckily he calmed down a little when he got a sticker afterwards.
Shortly after I got to the hospital this afternoon, Michael arrived too. The doctor on his peds radiology rotation was nice and said that spending time with his baby was more important than anything he could teach him, so he let him leave around 2:00 today. Isaac had an IV in his foot that they weren’t using anymore, but they had left it in so that they wouldn’t have to put in a new one in case he ended up having a surgery this week to remove the stents from his nose. But last night I guess the IV fell out, so they have just left it out, and he didn’t end up needing it for surgery – so that’s one less tube hanging off of his body – one step closer to ‘normal.’ We were able to give Isaac a bath for the first time – the nurses had always done it up until now. And I brushed his hair all cute afterwards, which was fun. Isaac did ok with nursing today, and then Michael got to give him a bottle feeding too.
The ENT doctor came by to talk to us, and he gave us the option to have them do the surgery tomorrow to remove his stents or to try to wait another week. After discussing it with the doctor, we decided to try to wait another week and let his nose continue to heal before removing the stents. So, he has that surgery scheduled for next Thursday. The other big thing that the doctor told us was that we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that Isaac might have another breathing problem besides the nasal passageway. The only way to tell that is to remove the stents from his nose and give him time to recover from the surgery and then see if he is breathing normally. If not, then they will consider the possibility that he could have another problem, like possibly with his tongue falling back in his mouth all the time and blocking the airway or something else. Anyway, it sounds like he will not be coming home anytime soon. We know for sure now that they will be keeping him there through next Thursday for the surgery, and then he will probably need a few days to recover from that. Plus they told us originally that once he gets to the point where he is breathing and eating normally, he will still need to stay in the NICU for 48 to 72 hours for them to monitor him and make sure he is doing fine. So, as long as there are no further complications, it looks like it will still be at least a week and a half before he gets to come home.
23 October 2007
21 October 2007
A Long Week of Doctor's Visits
This was a pretty long week for our family. Kolby wasn’t feeling well last weekend and had fevers for a few days, so I took him in to the doctor on Monday and they called us back on Tuesday to tell us that Kolby had strep throat. I was glad that we found that out early on in the week, because with strep throat you need to take antibiotics for 24 hours before you are no longer contagious, and we had a little birthday party planned for Kolby for Friday night. I really didn’t want to have to cancel the party, because not only would Kolby be disappointed, but I really thought it would be easier to have a party before the baby comes. So, I was glad that we got the medicine for Kolby so that he was no longer contagious, and that his brothers were not showing signs of being sick, so maybe there was a chance that just Kolby would get it and no one else in the family. But I was wrong. Camden woke up in the night with a low fever and I took him in to the doctor on Wednesday. Because Kolby had strep, they didn’t wait to get the culture back before starting Camden on the antibiotics, so he got the medicine so that he wouldn’t be contagious (although they never called back about the culture, which means that it was negative and he didn’t actually have strep throat). When we were in the office on Wednesday, I had the doctor look at Eli just to check him, even though he hadn’t shown any signs of being sick, and Dr. Papp said that his throat wasn’t even red at all. So then on Thursday morning Michael had a really bad sore throat and went to his doctor. They said that he wouldn’t hear back until Monday to see if his strep test was positive or not, but they started him on the medicine anyway. So he stayed home from work Thursday and Friday – so it was nice to have him around, except it would have been nicer if he had been feeling well. On Thursday (the day after the doctor said that his throat looked fine) Eli started having fevers too, and I took him into the doctor’s office that evening. His rapid strep culture came back positive immediately, showing that he did have strep. Luckily he got the antibiotics early enough that he was no longer contagious by the time of the birthday party the next night, so we didn’t have to cancel it. So, we had 4 sick boys at our house this week, and four different doctor’s visits – maybe next time one of my kids gets a contagious sickness like this I’ll insist that they write me prescriptions for each of the children so that we don’t have to go back all week long when each one catches it. At least I am doing pretty well – I have had a cough for the last few weeks that I just can’t seem to get over, but luckily I have no signs of catching what the boys have had. Kolby has acted fine all week, and the other boys haven’t been acting like they felt too bad, so that’s nice. Michael is finally starting to feel better today, the last few days were pretty rough for him.
Since Kolby had roseola when Eli was born and Kolby and Eli had strep throat when Camden was born, I kept wondering if we would stick to our pattern of the older children have a contagious illness whenever I have a new baby, but Isaac seems to be holding out to arrive after everyone at the house is healthy. I have had a few times this week when I felt contractions, once when I wondered if it might lead to labor, but even though they were strong and pretty close together, it didn’t last for too long. Michael’s sister, Mel, had her baby boy, Kyler, on Friday (her due date was supposed to be 3 days before mine), and I thought maybe Isaac would come that day too, but was kind of disappointed when the contractions stopped. But it won’t be too much longer – from today, there are 9 more days until my due date (11 days until I will be induced, if it goes that long). I can handle that – I feel like I’ve been very patient with this pregnancy, unlike my pregnancies so far when I have gotten to the last month and just couldn’t wait to have the baby right away. But I am still crossing my fingers that it will somehow work out for me to have the baby early or late enough so that I can participate in the Halloween celebrations with the kids. I was telling Michael this morning that Halloween is a big holiday. As far as rating holidays on how important/fun they are for me to experience them with our children (and not taking into account how significant I think the reasons for the holidays are or how much I enjoy spending time with Michael or other family on those holidays), I think that Halloween would be tied with the 4th of July, right after Christmas. [I don’t know if that made much sense – Michael asked me about Thanksgiving when I told him that, and I said that Thanksgiving is important and the kids enjoy certain traditions we have like decorating cookies to look like turkeys, but it is a holiday that we have always spent our married life with friends, and Halloween is all about our kids and nothing else. So, not to make any other holidays seem less important, but I really love watching our kids dress up in their costumes, carve pumpkins, and trick-or-treat, so I hope I don’t have to miss that].
Well, let’s see, what else did we do this week? On Monday, after we did a family home evening lesson with the boys, we went to the Hymas’ house for Chelsey’s birthday party. We got her a wand, tiara, and feather boa so that she could be her favorite princess – I have fun buying girly gifts for our friends’ kids, since I don’t get to pick out cute pink things that often. On Wednesday night Kolby had his swimming lessons.
After Kolby’s lesson we dropped the boys off at the Hedgecock’s house and had a fun, inexpensive date night. We went over to the Hymas’ house, and they had already put their girls down to bed, and we played Nintendo Wii games. Michael’s parents told us that they would give us some money if there was anything specific we wanted for a Christmas gift for our family, and Michael has been talking about a Wii video game system, which I was not so sure about. I thought it sounded like more fun than normal video games, because you use the remotes like sports equipment to play the games – so you are standing and swinging your arms like you are playing tennis, bowling, golfing, etc. I think that games like that are better than ones that you just sit in front of, and I would prefer sports games to any kind of violent video games, but I am still not a big fan of most video games because of the time that can be spent on them, and the cost. So the Hymases invited us to come try it out, and it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the tennis game the most, although I wasn’t the greatest at any of the games (and my arm was quite sore from swinging that remote for 3 days afterwards – I guess that shows how out of shape I am). But after playing that night, Michael said that he thought maybe we should choose something else for Christmas, because he thought a Wii might take up too much time, especially once he has a busier schedule when he starts his residency next year, and he hasn’t mentioned it since then. It was a really fun date night, though. I really don’t mind video games (the ones that aren’t violent), but I do prefer them at someone else’s house, so we can go and enjoy them, and then come home and not have the temptation of spending too much time playing them.
On Thursday afternoon I left the kids with Michael, since he was home sick, and went to my doctor’s appointment. [Hey if any of our friends here in Milwaukee are pregnant and looking for a good doctor, I would highly recommend Luverda Martin – she is a midwife at Froedtert Hospital. She has been great – I have had a different doctor or midwife with each pregnancy, and I will stick with Luverda from now on as long as we live here. When I first considered seeing a midwife, I wondered if it would be weird, but I thought I’d try it out and then just switch doctor’s if I didn’t like it. But my midwife is not weird at all – she has given me “normal” care like any doctor I’ve had – I’m not into herbal stuff or home remedies or things like water births, which I thought a midwife might suggest, and I was definitely not interested in someone who didn’t fully support my decision to have an epidural – and she has never suggested anything to me that seemed different than a normal doctor. She is very personable and she has always made herself easy to contact if I have any questions, and she has a couple young children of her own, so it doesn’t faze her at all when I bring all of my kids into the appointment with me. Anyway, I just think she’s great, so if anyone is looking for a good doctor, you have my recommendation.] Back to the point – I went in for my appointment on Thursday and all is well with the baby. I was measuring normal and she said that the baby’s heart rate is starting to go down a little, just like they would expect since the baby is preparing to be born. And I had her strip the membranes – which is supposed to help the baby come, if your body is ready for labor – I don’t know if I really think it helps or not. With Kolby they did it, and then he was induced a week later, so it didn’t seem to do anything. I don’t remember them doing it with Eli. And with Camden they did it and then he was born 2 days later (2 days before his due date). So, I figured it couldn’t hurt, but I haven’t gone into labor yet, so I guess it didn’t do much this time around. Oh well.
On Thursday night my friends threw me a little baby shower at Sandra Simon’s house. We had desserts and everyone just had fun socializing. I told them that I felt like we didn’t really need anything for the baby this time, so I didn’t need any gifts, but they decided to throw a “pamper Stephanie” party, and most people brought things like nice lotions and body washes and stuff like that, which was fun. It was really nice to get together with friends and have a fun night out, just talking, sharing stories about being a mother and wife, and laughing together.
On Friday Kolby got to go to school again after missing it all week because of his strep throat – he was really excited to go again. And that night we had the little birthday party for Kolby. Michael and I spent the whole day cleaning the house and preparing for the party – and I was pretty worn out by the end of the day (even though I know he felt pretty lousy with being sick, I’m glad Michael still found the energy to help me clean up, because it was a lot of work to get everything done that I wanted to, and it felt really nice after we had finished). Kolby was excited about his Tigger Halloween costume, and so when I asked him what he wanted for his party theme, he said Tigger. We took orange ribbons and curled them and hung them from the ceiling like bouncy Tigger tails, blew up balloons for the kids to play with, and played pin-the-tail-on-Tigger. I used half a container of yellow food coloring and half a container of red to turn the frosting for the cake a bright orange color like Kolby asked. And I got a little set of plastic Winnie the Pooh characters that I used to decorate the cake, and then the boys got to have them as toys afterwards. Kolby was so excited about his friends coming over and the gifts that he got. The one thing we forgot was to hand out the little goodie bags that the boys helped me make at the end of the party – so we still have a big bowl of goodie bags sitting out in our living room, I guess we will have to give the candy from the bags out to any trick-or-treaters that visit.
On Saturday morning I went to the church for our Super Saturday enrichment activity, and among other things I did a project where we etched our name on the bottom of our glass dishes. I think they turned out well, although I signed up to do 4 dishes when most other people just did 1, so it took me a lot longer than I had planned.
Church went pretty well. The boys did a good job. Camden has trouble because he gets so tired while we are at church – if we were at home he would just lay down in his crib and cry to sleep for a few minutes, but there is no place for that at church, so he kind of has a rough time. But what we heard of our lessons was good and Kolby’s and Eli’s teachers said that they both did well in their classes. Camden spit up a couple times at the end of church after he had his cup of milk – I am wondering if he has some kind of lactose intolerance. I mentioned to the doctor on Monday that he had started spitting up again for about a week, (which is strange because Camden spit up a lot with the formula, and then stopped entirely when we switched him to whole milk about 3 months ago). The doctor thought it might have something to do with him having a little cold or being sick this week (because milk can cause you to have more mucous when you have a cold), and suggested not giving him any milk for a few days to see if it stopped. I got a bottle of soy milk and he didn’t spit up once with that. But I figured that now since he is over his cold, he should be fine on whole milk again. I don’t know – I guess we’ll have to talk to the doctor about it and see what we need to do to find out if it is any kind of allergy or if it might be something else.
Well, there is a roast cooking for dinner and Michael is off home teaching right now. I can hear the boys in their rooms waking up from their naps. Tonight we are having a new family in the ward, the Gittins, over for dinner. They have a little boy and a little girl, so it should be fun for the kids to get together and for us to get to know them better. Hope you are all having a nice Sunday!
Since Kolby had roseola when Eli was born and Kolby and Eli had strep throat when Camden was born, I kept wondering if we would stick to our pattern of the older children have a contagious illness whenever I have a new baby, but Isaac seems to be holding out to arrive after everyone at the house is healthy. I have had a few times this week when I felt contractions, once when I wondered if it might lead to labor, but even though they were strong and pretty close together, it didn’t last for too long. Michael’s sister, Mel, had her baby boy, Kyler, on Friday (her due date was supposed to be 3 days before mine), and I thought maybe Isaac would come that day too, but was kind of disappointed when the contractions stopped. But it won’t be too much longer – from today, there are 9 more days until my due date (11 days until I will be induced, if it goes that long). I can handle that – I feel like I’ve been very patient with this pregnancy, unlike my pregnancies so far when I have gotten to the last month and just couldn’t wait to have the baby right away. But I am still crossing my fingers that it will somehow work out for me to have the baby early or late enough so that I can participate in the Halloween celebrations with the kids. I was telling Michael this morning that Halloween is a big holiday. As far as rating holidays on how important/fun they are for me to experience them with our children (and not taking into account how significant I think the reasons for the holidays are or how much I enjoy spending time with Michael or other family on those holidays), I think that Halloween would be tied with the 4th of July, right after Christmas. [I don’t know if that made much sense – Michael asked me about Thanksgiving when I told him that, and I said that Thanksgiving is important and the kids enjoy certain traditions we have like decorating cookies to look like turkeys, but it is a holiday that we have always spent our married life with friends, and Halloween is all about our kids and nothing else. So, not to make any other holidays seem less important, but I really love watching our kids dress up in their costumes, carve pumpkins, and trick-or-treat, so I hope I don’t have to miss that].
Well, let’s see, what else did we do this week? On Monday, after we did a family home evening lesson with the boys, we went to the Hymas’ house for Chelsey’s birthday party. We got her a wand, tiara, and feather boa so that she could be her favorite princess – I have fun buying girly gifts for our friends’ kids, since I don’t get to pick out cute pink things that often. On Wednesday night Kolby had his swimming lessons.
After Kolby’s lesson we dropped the boys off at the Hedgecock’s house and had a fun, inexpensive date night. We went over to the Hymas’ house, and they had already put their girls down to bed, and we played Nintendo Wii games. Michael’s parents told us that they would give us some money if there was anything specific we wanted for a Christmas gift for our family, and Michael has been talking about a Wii video game system, which I was not so sure about. I thought it sounded like more fun than normal video games, because you use the remotes like sports equipment to play the games – so you are standing and swinging your arms like you are playing tennis, bowling, golfing, etc. I think that games like that are better than ones that you just sit in front of, and I would prefer sports games to any kind of violent video games, but I am still not a big fan of most video games because of the time that can be spent on them, and the cost. So the Hymases invited us to come try it out, and it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the tennis game the most, although I wasn’t the greatest at any of the games (and my arm was quite sore from swinging that remote for 3 days afterwards – I guess that shows how out of shape I am). But after playing that night, Michael said that he thought maybe we should choose something else for Christmas, because he thought a Wii might take up too much time, especially once he has a busier schedule when he starts his residency next year, and he hasn’t mentioned it since then. It was a really fun date night, though. I really don’t mind video games (the ones that aren’t violent), but I do prefer them at someone else’s house, so we can go and enjoy them, and then come home and not have the temptation of spending too much time playing them.
On Thursday afternoon I left the kids with Michael, since he was home sick, and went to my doctor’s appointment. [Hey if any of our friends here in Milwaukee are pregnant and looking for a good doctor, I would highly recommend Luverda Martin – she is a midwife at Froedtert Hospital. She has been great – I have had a different doctor or midwife with each pregnancy, and I will stick with Luverda from now on as long as we live here. When I first considered seeing a midwife, I wondered if it would be weird, but I thought I’d try it out and then just switch doctor’s if I didn’t like it. But my midwife is not weird at all – she has given me “normal” care like any doctor I’ve had – I’m not into herbal stuff or home remedies or things like water births, which I thought a midwife might suggest, and I was definitely not interested in someone who didn’t fully support my decision to have an epidural – and she has never suggested anything to me that seemed different than a normal doctor. She is very personable and she has always made herself easy to contact if I have any questions, and she has a couple young children of her own, so it doesn’t faze her at all when I bring all of my kids into the appointment with me. Anyway, I just think she’s great, so if anyone is looking for a good doctor, you have my recommendation.] Back to the point – I went in for my appointment on Thursday and all is well with the baby. I was measuring normal and she said that the baby’s heart rate is starting to go down a little, just like they would expect since the baby is preparing to be born. And I had her strip the membranes – which is supposed to help the baby come, if your body is ready for labor – I don’t know if I really think it helps or not. With Kolby they did it, and then he was induced a week later, so it didn’t seem to do anything. I don’t remember them doing it with Eli. And with Camden they did it and then he was born 2 days later (2 days before his due date). So, I figured it couldn’t hurt, but I haven’t gone into labor yet, so I guess it didn’t do much this time around. Oh well.
On Thursday night my friends threw me a little baby shower at Sandra Simon’s house. We had desserts and everyone just had fun socializing. I told them that I felt like we didn’t really need anything for the baby this time, so I didn’t need any gifts, but they decided to throw a “pamper Stephanie” party, and most people brought things like nice lotions and body washes and stuff like that, which was fun. It was really nice to get together with friends and have a fun night out, just talking, sharing stories about being a mother and wife, and laughing together.
On Friday Kolby got to go to school again after missing it all week because of his strep throat – he was really excited to go again. And that night we had the little birthday party for Kolby. Michael and I spent the whole day cleaning the house and preparing for the party – and I was pretty worn out by the end of the day (even though I know he felt pretty lousy with being sick, I’m glad Michael still found the energy to help me clean up, because it was a lot of work to get everything done that I wanted to, and it felt really nice after we had finished). Kolby was excited about his Tigger Halloween costume, and so when I asked him what he wanted for his party theme, he said Tigger. We took orange ribbons and curled them and hung them from the ceiling like bouncy Tigger tails, blew up balloons for the kids to play with, and played pin-the-tail-on-Tigger. I used half a container of yellow food coloring and half a container of red to turn the frosting for the cake a bright orange color like Kolby asked. And I got a little set of plastic Winnie the Pooh characters that I used to decorate the cake, and then the boys got to have them as toys afterwards. Kolby was so excited about his friends coming over and the gifts that he got. The one thing we forgot was to hand out the little goodie bags that the boys helped me make at the end of the party – so we still have a big bowl of goodie bags sitting out in our living room, I guess we will have to give the candy from the bags out to any trick-or-treaters that visit.
On Saturday morning I went to the church for our Super Saturday enrichment activity, and among other things I did a project where we etched our name on the bottom of our glass dishes. I think they turned out well, although I signed up to do 4 dishes when most other people just did 1, so it took me a lot longer than I had planned.
Church went pretty well. The boys did a good job. Camden has trouble because he gets so tired while we are at church – if we were at home he would just lay down in his crib and cry to sleep for a few minutes, but there is no place for that at church, so he kind of has a rough time. But what we heard of our lessons was good and Kolby’s and Eli’s teachers said that they both did well in their classes. Camden spit up a couple times at the end of church after he had his cup of milk – I am wondering if he has some kind of lactose intolerance. I mentioned to the doctor on Monday that he had started spitting up again for about a week, (which is strange because Camden spit up a lot with the formula, and then stopped entirely when we switched him to whole milk about 3 months ago). The doctor thought it might have something to do with him having a little cold or being sick this week (because milk can cause you to have more mucous when you have a cold), and suggested not giving him any milk for a few days to see if it stopped. I got a bottle of soy milk and he didn’t spit up once with that. But I figured that now since he is over his cold, he should be fine on whole milk again. I don’t know – I guess we’ll have to talk to the doctor about it and see what we need to do to find out if it is any kind of allergy or if it might be something else.
Well, there is a roast cooking for dinner and Michael is off home teaching right now. I can hear the boys in their rooms waking up from their naps. Tonight we are having a new family in the ward, the Gittins, over for dinner. They have a little boy and a little girl, so it should be fun for the kids to get together and for us to get to know them better. Hope you are all having a nice Sunday!
16 October 2007
Halloween Portraits
We went last week to have the boys' Halloween portraits taken, and we just got them today. I always enjoy taking the boys for Halloween photos, because it is one of the few occasions when we have individual photos taken of each boy -- usually we are trying to get a group shot of all the boys or of our entire family, which is often difficult in the end to choose the one shot that most everyone is smiling in and looking at the camera. But when we take the individual shots of the boys, there are often quite a few cute ones to choose from and they love to dress up in their Halloween costumes too. This year for Halloween Kolby is going to be Tigger, Eli is a dinosaur, and Camden is going to wear the adorable lion costume that my mom made when Kolby was 1 year old. And I am still crossing my fingers that this baby will either come a week or so early or wait until November 1st to arrive, so that I can enjoy celebrating Halloween with the boys too. But at least there are going to be a few Halloween parties for church and the medical school before October 31st, so hopefully I'll get to join them for at least part of the Halloween events, even if I happen to be in the hospital on that day. We'll see. Enjoy the photos.
14 October 2007
Rainy October Sunday
So today has been a wet Sunday. We got up early to get everyone ready for church and then hurried over to set up chairs and practice our choir song before performing today. I think the song turned out really well – it was “Guide Us O Thou Great Jehovah!” to a beautiful organ accompaniment that was arranged by our choir director. I ended up coming home early with Kolby and Camden because Kolby had a temp of 102 degrees F and he wasn’t too happy. With some Ibuprofen and rest hopefully he will be feeling better. He first got a fever Friday and had it Saturday morning, but then he was ok the rest of Saturday and today until we got to church. I hope he feels better soon.
Last Sunday night after watching General Conference, I drove down to Chicago to stay the night in a hotel for a test on Monday. I went down Sunday because I had to be at the place at 8am Monday morning. This was for my Step 2 clinical skills test, which is a required pass/fail test to graduate from medical school and is given at only 5 locations around the country – thank goodness for us that one of those places is Chicago. For the test you see 12 standardized patients. With each one, you read a sign outside the door with some general info of why that person is here, then you have 15 minutes to get a history and do a focused physical exam pertaining to their complaint, as well as explain to them what you think is going on and your next steps. Then you exit the room and sit down at a computer (or you can write on paper if you want), where you have 10 minutes to write a note of your encounter, with a section on what the patient told you, one on what you found on exam, one on your up to 5 top thoughts of what is going on, and one for up to 5 things that you would do next (x-ray, blood test, ultrasound, other exams, etc.). There were a couple breaks throughout the day, so the test ended up taking until 4pm and then I had the drive home. I feel really good about the test, so hopefully it turned out well.
When I got home we went out to dinner at Pedro’s to celebrate since we had a 2 for 1 coupon. Kolby told us that he could eat the chips and the tortillas, but not the salsa, because that would make his fishies sick. We asked where his fishies were, and he said in his tummy. When we asked him how they got there, he said they were there since before he was born. And since then he has been telling us that he needs water for his fishies every time he is thirsty. He is so silly – I don’t know where he came up with that idea, but it is pretty cute.
This month I am doing a rotation called Promoting Health in an Urban Underserved Community through the department of family medicine and the center for healthy communities. I work with another medical student, Lindsay Haus, and we are in charge of putting together several different health presentations for some underserved housing communities. This week we have been working on one for Pain Management and another on Arthritis since we are presenting these topics this next week. We also have to prepare one on Healthy Aging and another on Bipolar disease. Throughout the rotation we also attend some of the meetings with these communities to hear about the different projects that are going on to help improve the health of the community members.
Tuesday night we took the boys to JC Penney for Halloween pictures. Kolby dressed up as Tigger, Eli as a dinosaur, and Camden as a lion. We took photos of each of them separately and they turned out so cute – we can’t wait to show you all when we get them.
Friday night I went to an elders quorum activity – it was a Nintendo Wii golf tournament over at the school. I was so excited because I hadn’t yet played a Wii but had heard they are really fun. One of the guys who is a manager for Chipotle provided the food. About 30 people showed up. Three people brought their Wiis and 3 projectors as well to have different games going on at once. We played 4 at a time, and the top 2 in each group moved on in the tournament. Out of the 16 that played, I ended up in 3rd place – pretty good for never having played before. The Wii is so much fun and such an ingenious idea – you have to swing the controller to hit the golf ball. There are other games that we played that night as well – bowling, tennis, and boxing, and they were so much fun.
Saturday I volunteered at the Saturday Clinic for the Uninsured. I hadn’t been back since my 2nd year of school, so it was interesting to be the senior student there. Basically, a 1st year student gets the patient and finds out why they are at the clinic and get their vitals (temperature, blood pressure, height, weight). Then they meet up with a 2nd year who goes back in with them and gets a more detailed history of what is going on. Then they get a 3rd or 4th year (me) and we go back in to do the physical exam. And finally we get the doctor who listens to what we have done, adds any other insight, and then teaches. The ideas behind the clinic are to help the underserved and to teach and learn. It was so much fun to be the senior student and spend time teaching my first and second year students. It was also neat to see how much I’ve learned since I have started medical school.
While I was at the clinic Steph took the boys to a farmers market to get some pumpkins for us and for some ladies at the Meta House. The girls in the ward a doing an activity with the women of the Meta House, a place for women who are recovering from alcohol and drug addiction, where they will be carving pumpkins. Several of the women there have never carved a pumpkin before - how sad. Anyways, Steph got 3 pumpkins for us and 3 to donate to that activity. Kolby and Eli were so excited to show me the pumpkins they had picked when I got home.
Last night we had a dinner and choir practice over at the church to get ready for today’s performance. We did a potato bar that was really good and then had a fun time practicing together. Then we had the Kearls and Wells over for games last night. We played an old game that Steph got from her grandma called National Geographic. The point is to identify different pictures from around the world to fill your portfolio with the required items. Steph just thinks it is so funny that we are playing this game from her childhood, especially since it was made in 1990 so the map is totally different from how things look today. But we still had a lot of fun.
Well, I am going to try and take a break and relax now before we have to start getting things ready for dinner. We are going to have the Wells over so that should be fun.
Last Sunday night after watching General Conference, I drove down to Chicago to stay the night in a hotel for a test on Monday. I went down Sunday because I had to be at the place at 8am Monday morning. This was for my Step 2 clinical skills test, which is a required pass/fail test to graduate from medical school and is given at only 5 locations around the country – thank goodness for us that one of those places is Chicago. For the test you see 12 standardized patients. With each one, you read a sign outside the door with some general info of why that person is here, then you have 15 minutes to get a history and do a focused physical exam pertaining to their complaint, as well as explain to them what you think is going on and your next steps. Then you exit the room and sit down at a computer (or you can write on paper if you want), where you have 10 minutes to write a note of your encounter, with a section on what the patient told you, one on what you found on exam, one on your up to 5 top thoughts of what is going on, and one for up to 5 things that you would do next (x-ray, blood test, ultrasound, other exams, etc.). There were a couple breaks throughout the day, so the test ended up taking until 4pm and then I had the drive home. I feel really good about the test, so hopefully it turned out well.
When I got home we went out to dinner at Pedro’s to celebrate since we had a 2 for 1 coupon. Kolby told us that he could eat the chips and the tortillas, but not the salsa, because that would make his fishies sick. We asked where his fishies were, and he said in his tummy. When we asked him how they got there, he said they were there since before he was born. And since then he has been telling us that he needs water for his fishies every time he is thirsty. He is so silly – I don’t know where he came up with that idea, but it is pretty cute.
This month I am doing a rotation called Promoting Health in an Urban Underserved Community through the department of family medicine and the center for healthy communities. I work with another medical student, Lindsay Haus, and we are in charge of putting together several different health presentations for some underserved housing communities. This week we have been working on one for Pain Management and another on Arthritis since we are presenting these topics this next week. We also have to prepare one on Healthy Aging and another on Bipolar disease. Throughout the rotation we also attend some of the meetings with these communities to hear about the different projects that are going on to help improve the health of the community members.
Tuesday night we took the boys to JC Penney for Halloween pictures. Kolby dressed up as Tigger, Eli as a dinosaur, and Camden as a lion. We took photos of each of them separately and they turned out so cute – we can’t wait to show you all when we get them.
Friday night I went to an elders quorum activity – it was a Nintendo Wii golf tournament over at the school. I was so excited because I hadn’t yet played a Wii but had heard they are really fun. One of the guys who is a manager for Chipotle provided the food. About 30 people showed up. Three people brought their Wiis and 3 projectors as well to have different games going on at once. We played 4 at a time, and the top 2 in each group moved on in the tournament. Out of the 16 that played, I ended up in 3rd place – pretty good for never having played before. The Wii is so much fun and such an ingenious idea – you have to swing the controller to hit the golf ball. There are other games that we played that night as well – bowling, tennis, and boxing, and they were so much fun.
Saturday I volunteered at the Saturday Clinic for the Uninsured. I hadn’t been back since my 2nd year of school, so it was interesting to be the senior student there. Basically, a 1st year student gets the patient and finds out why they are at the clinic and get their vitals (temperature, blood pressure, height, weight). Then they meet up with a 2nd year who goes back in with them and gets a more detailed history of what is going on. Then they get a 3rd or 4th year (me) and we go back in to do the physical exam. And finally we get the doctor who listens to what we have done, adds any other insight, and then teaches. The ideas behind the clinic are to help the underserved and to teach and learn. It was so much fun to be the senior student and spend time teaching my first and second year students. It was also neat to see how much I’ve learned since I have started medical school.
While I was at the clinic Steph took the boys to a farmers market to get some pumpkins for us and for some ladies at the Meta House. The girls in the ward a doing an activity with the women of the Meta House, a place for women who are recovering from alcohol and drug addiction, where they will be carving pumpkins. Several of the women there have never carved a pumpkin before - how sad. Anyways, Steph got 3 pumpkins for us and 3 to donate to that activity. Kolby and Eli were so excited to show me the pumpkins they had picked when I got home.
Last night we had a dinner and choir practice over at the church to get ready for today’s performance. We did a potato bar that was really good and then had a fun time practicing together. Then we had the Kearls and Wells over for games last night. We played an old game that Steph got from her grandma called National Geographic. The point is to identify different pictures from around the world to fill your portfolio with the required items. Steph just thinks it is so funny that we are playing this game from her childhood, especially since it was made in 1990 so the map is totally different from how things look today. But we still had a lot of fun.
Well, I am going to try and take a break and relax now before we have to start getting things ready for dinner. We are going to have the Wells over so that should be fun.
12 July 2007
Two New Goals
So today my new toy arrived in the mail. I signed up for a promotion on a food storage website that I like called trackmyfoodstorage.com, and I actually won. (The last time I won a contest was when I got a free telephone at my high school grad night – and that’s the phone we are still using in our home today). Anyways, I got a brand new wheat grinder for free. It looks pretty cool – it can grind wheat, dried, beans, corn, etc. and has different settings to make the flour a normal texture or very fine pastry flour. Making our own fresh-ground wheat sounds like a good way to have healthier food for our family.
So, my first new goal is to use the wheat grinder. I have never actually purchased wheat before (actually, I rarely use flour), but I no longer have an excuse not to. And Kolby is very excited to "put food in that thing," so I am sure he won't let me forget to use the wheat grinder soon. I figure I will start with bread -- I can handle bread. I'll let you know how it works when I am done.
My second goal is to sew a Halloween costume. And not just any costume – I want to make this elephant costume for Kolby this year:
So, my first new goal is to use the wheat grinder. I have never actually purchased wheat before (actually, I rarely use flour), but I no longer have an excuse not to. And Kolby is very excited to "put food in that thing," so I am sure he won't let me forget to use the wheat grinder soon. I figure I will start with bread -- I can handle bread. I'll let you know how it works when I am done.My second goal is to sew a Halloween costume. And not just any costume – I want to make this elephant costume for Kolby this year:
I found this picture on the internet and thought it was adorable. I could buy the costume already made, but it is extremely expensive new and the only ones I found for sale on e-Bay were baby sizes. So, I thought maybe I could make it. I am still trying to decide if this is a realistic goal or not – it looks like a difficult thing to make, especially since I don’t have a sewing machine or much sewing experience at all. I don't really know how to read a sewing pattern either. I am not sure what kind of fabrics to use or how to make the elephant’s ears stand up like they should. The feet might be challenging, but the body of the costume looks pretty straight forward, I guess. I want to give it a try, but I know that I won’t be satisfied unless it turns out looking just right. I guess I’ll think about it some more.
But whatever I decide to do, I’ll have to start soon if I am sewing something, because this baby is due the day before Halloween, which may not allow for much procrastination time. At least we’re already set on costumes for the other boys: Camden will be a lion, Eli will be a dinosaur, (and if Isaac happens to come early enough to celebrate Halloween, he can be a teddy bear). That’s one good thing about having all boys and having them all so close together in age: if you get a costume for the oldest child each year, you are set for the rest of the kids every year following. Anyways, my hope right now is that this baby comes a couple days after his due date, because I really don’t want to miss out on Halloween with the boys.
Well, I guess I have some deciding to do on this whole elephant thing . . . What do you think?
23 May 2007
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