Back in Business!

Okay, so Aaron broke the power cord to my laptop so I haven't been able to get on the computer foreverrrrr so I feel so out of the loop! I had like 50 emails to catch up on and I feel like I have missed out on so much with reading everyones blogs! I swear I'm having withdrawals. I'm trying to think of what you guys have missed, too.....hmmmmm.

Aaron and Whitney bonked heads and Aaron got a nice black eye...I forgot to take pictures...but he looked pretty cute. Little tough boy.

Whitney started swimming lessons and they're almost over. The poor kid can't even blow bubbles in the water yet...but it's not really her fault because there are like 20 kids in her class so she basically just hangs on to the wall for an hour until the teacher gets to her to help her learn to kick her legs while her teacher floats her around for a minute. Oh well...it's been fun to get out every afternoon, though. Plus, there are some of my friends in the ward who's kids are in swimming lessons too, so I get to sit and chat with them while Whitney's hanging on to the side of the pool (which she seems to do pretty happily). It's been pretty good and I think I've done a pretty good job about not being hysterical with Aaron running around this gigantic pool. Well, I don't think I've lead anyone on that secretly I'm a nervous wreck who seriously thought about bringing Aaron in a life vest every day....

I got strep throat last weekend...that was interesting....and (knock on wood....or particle board) nobody else has gotten it!

We got our van fixed....and now when we turn on the air conditioning there isn't this horrible grinding and vibrating from somewhere inside the van! Yaaaaay!

Mike let us do a little bit of landscaping in our front yard...I'll have to get some pictures! Basically we just put the edging bricks around our tree and little bushy area in front and put down some mulch. It looks sooooooo much better!!! I've been wanting to do this forever!

Ummmm....our dishwasher stopped working...our washing machine keeps leaving puddles after I do loads of laundry and our water heater started spraying out water all over our attic which started dripping through our kitchen ceiling...and one of our showers and toilets won't drain....

I went to the midnight showing of the new Indiana Jones movie last night with some of the youth from church and my friend Tere (we were technically the chaperons but I had soooo much fun and felt like an individual again!) By the way....the movie was pretty disappointing. Who knew the ancient ruins of South America were made by Aliens!?! And there are fire ants the size of wolf spiders who eat people alive? And monkeys that teach boys to swing on vines to catch up with a nice amphibious vehicle chase through the jungle? (I'm sure they'll be sued by Tarzan some day)

And I have recently become addicted to Gilmore Girls. My friend Heather started me on the first season and I am absolutely loving it!!! I'm excited for Season 2!

Well, that's about all I can think of at the moment....three hours of sleep are finally catching up to me! And...sadly....I know that when Mike leaves for Kenpo tonight, instead of going to bed early and getting a good nights sleep (or catching up on the 3 loads of dishes that are piled up in our sink and counter from the broken dishwasher that is now fixed that I just dread getting around to...) I will be popping popcorn and cuddling up with a blanket and finishing my last disc of Gilmore Girls from season one. I can't wait!

28.5 Things About Me

Aunt Carolyn tagged me...and I want to tag Rachel, Chris, Diana, Melissa Ainsworth , Stephanie, Mindi, Rebecca, and Jessica.

1. I am addicted to chapstick and lipgloss. I have sooooo many it's probably such a waste of money...but I just can't help it. My favorite is the Bonnie Bell Lipsmackers...they are the best ever! They have a great shine and they moisturize really well. Plus they taste yummmmmmy.

2. I am terrified of Bigfoot. Camping is really difficult for me...I hardly sleep a wink and I get so stressed out. I think it comes from watching Harry and the Hendersons when I was little.

3. My favorite food is Honey Seared Chicken from Pei Wei. I could eat it every day and never get tired of it!!!

4. I really wish I had a motorcycle. I would love to have a street bike!!! I used to ride dirt bikes with my best friend Jessica and I just thought it was the funnest and coolest thing ever. I felt so free! However, Mike refuses to let me get one...something about him wanting me to stay alive? Sheeesh.

5. Let's just say I'm not a clean freak. I can keep up with the kid's messes allll day long. But when it comes to my stuff (like my side of the sink with all my make-up and hair junk, and my side of the closet, and my craft table...) I just can't seem to get it organized. I wish I had obsessive compulsive cleaning disorder.

6. I am fascinated with the Ancient ruins in Mexico and South America. My dream is to someday go there and tour them, especially the Book of Mormon Ruins. I'd love to go see Teotihuacan, Uxmal, Chichen Itza...to be where the Savior visited the Nephites in Bountiful.....aaaaaaaah. It would be the most incredible experience. I want to cry just thinking about it!

7. I love scrapbook supplies but I have never made a scrapbook page in my life. I make cards instead.

8. I'm afraid of the dark. Terrified actually.....

9. I love to play the guitar and write my own songs. It's my therapy. I played at an open mic night once and it was so much fun! I wish I could do it more....but, alas.

10. One of the most memorable times in my life was getting to sing to my Grandpa in the hospital before he passed away. The spirit was so strong, and he had tears in his eyes. I kissed him on the forehead and that was the last time I got to see him. I couldn't have asked for a better way to get to say good-bye to my dear Pa Pa. I miss him so much.

11. I used to want to be a storm chaser when I was in High School. I would get up on the roof during thunderstorms (dumb, I know). Now that I live in tornado alley I dread the storms and if I ever saw a tornado I would totally freak out. Whereas, if I was still in High School I would have hijacked the parents van and followed it taking pictures all along the way.

12. I can't swallow pills. I try, I really do....but they literally get stuck in my throat. If I drink water, the water gets stuck on top of the pill and then I'm really in trouble. It's miserable. The last pill I took was the size of an advil and I choked on that dumb thing for almost 3 hours.

13. I love flip flops! I rarely ever wear anything (I mean shoes...I get dressed of course) other than flip flops...unless it's Sunday. Ooh, I just love flip flops!

14. My birthday is on July 4th! I have such wonderful memories of my birthdays. They are usually during our Chatwin family reunions and it is always so much fun! Plus, my cousin Tyler and I would sometimes have joint birthday parties because his birthday is just a few days after mine. I thought that was awesome!!!

15. Geez. I'm only on 15. I'm running out of things here. Um......let's see. I refuse to eat the crust on my peanut butter sandwiches. I swear it tastes gross. I'm fine if it's a lunch meat sandwich...or grilled cheese...but not peanut butter.

16. I would love to be an interior decorator! If someone were to just hand over a credit card and say "Please decorate my house!" I would be in heaven. I can't wait to get our own house so I can paint.....won't be happening for a long time....but I LOVE home makeover shows and magazines. I have a binder with pictures of what I want to do someday.

17. I hate spiders. I can hold a snake, catch a lizard, squish a cockroach- no problem. But if it's a spider I freak out! Especially those great big ones at Grandma's house....eeeeeeek!

18. I've had lots of random jobs. I was a nurse in a nursing home for a while until I had to help clean up a woman who died and clean out her colostomy bag and I had a little bit of a melt down, I worked in a bakery until it got shut down for sexual harassment (I turned the boss in to the police because he kept slapping my rear and he tried to kiss one of my co-workers...and the guy was MARRIED to the sweetest lady who had no idea he was a creep), I worked in a wood shop making cedar jewelry boxes for Mike's Uncle, I was a pre-school teacher for a while (One day, the lady who owned the place left town and her husband and never came back so the place shut down!) I worked in a newspaper place inserting the fliers and coupon adds into the papers (that didn't last long either because the cigarette smoke from the other workers was so bad and I would come home so nauseated and smelling like smoke. Who would figure they let employees smoke in a newspaper place with stacks and stacks of paper everywhere???) I worked in this little convenience store called ALCO until I finished my nursing degree and decided to work in the nursing home instead, and I was a nanny/housekeeper for my sister-in-law until their house burned down in a forrest fire and they moved to Maine.

19. How about if 18 counts as 7? So that puts us at.....

26. My kids are my pride and joy...sometimes they are the only thing that keep me going and the only happiness I have all day. I don't know what I would ever do without them!

27. I love musicals. Love, love, love them. I've always dreamed of being on Broadway in Les Miserables or Phantom of the Opera. But that's never gonna happen...so maybe I can be a singing angel when I die and get to stand next to the cool trumpet guys!

28. I've always wanted a pug. Those little dogs with the smashed in faces and silly round googly eyes. But last time I saw one, it reminded me of a tarantula (I think it was the dark round eyes and the color of the short haired fur?) so now I don't really want one anymore. How's that for random?

28.5 I just realized it's 28.5......how do I do a half of a random thing about me? Ooh! Ooh! I know! This ones a good one! I realllllllly like...........


hah. There you go! 28.5 Things about me!

My Epiphany

I hope this picture doesn't offend any of you. You will understand why this is here by the time you finish this post. To start off with, first a quick update on the kidneys. I still haven't gotten the results from any of the tests, but I got my antibiotics, they're in my system, and right now that's about all I care about! What I want to do in this post is to share the neatest experience I had last night. I was determined that since I had neglected my body for the past seven days and just took pain killers and ignored what my poor body was trying to tell me, that from now on I would just feel the pain and deal with it. Sort of to make it up to myself, I guess you could say. And suddenly I felt so disconnected from my body...it was the strangest thing. I was so lost in and aware of the feeling of my heartbeat, and my breathing and the feelings of my skin touching the sheets. I felt as if somehow I was separated from my physical body, but could feel what it feels through my spirit. I'm not sure how to really explain it. Suddenly I felt such overwhelming gratitude for this miraculous body and how hard it works just to keep me alive every moment of the day. When I shouted for joy to come to earth I promised our Father that I would take care of this body and protect it, and keep it holy and virtuous. And I felt such sorrow for not taking care of it, not just through this whole kidney infection, but through my whole life. This little body has gone through so much, since the first time it's tiny little delicate heart beat in my mother's womb, it's first gasp of life when it was born, it's first skinned knee, the miracle of building and bringing two healthy and whole babies into the world, the means to sustain these babies with nutrients to keep them alive, car crashes, operations, and all of the life experiences it has carried me through. It really has taken good care of me. What a miraculous gift for us to be trusted with! Then I exploded into tears. I cried tears of awe at the miracle of human life and how it truly is a miracle that all of the little intricate parts work together so perfectly, tears of sorrow for ever wanting or trying to take my life when it was never mine to take and not realizing my utter stupidity and selfishness, and ended with tears of utmost gratitude to Heavenly Father and to my beautiful body...and I don't mean that as in "I'm soooo hot", I mean, my beautiful body. With a heart that works every moment of every day and every night and never complains, a brain that registers all of this worldly chaos and somehow turns it into useful information and feelings and emotions and communication, for lungs that breath air and work so hard to supply oxygen to all of my systems, eyes to witness all of God's creations and the simple grins of my chocolate mustached children, skin to protect and let me feel the soft skin of my newborn babes, feel the sand between my toes and a loving caress of a husband. Then I promised to take better care of this body, and to never forget all it has done. And I promised not to get frustrated with it when it fails. It's doing the best job it can, and it has so much more work to do. And I am so eternally grateful that because of our Savior's resurrection and a Heavenly Father who loves us, I can be with this beautiful body that carried me through this life forever.

Update #2: Disappointment

Okay, time to complain again. The antibiotics that I was prescribed were going to be $150! (that's even with insurance). So, we said that just wouldn't work for us. The pharmacy faxed the doctor and asked him to please prescribe something that would be cheaper, and it took the doctor allllll day to get back to them with something else. The pharmacy didn't carry what he prescribed and had to order it and it has taken 2 days to get here. Now it's there, but I can't pick it up yet because they still have to do some more computer stuff with it.....and now my pee is dark orange because there is so much blood in it! I called the doctor to tell them this and wanted to know the results from my labs on Tuesday and they stilllll haven't gotten them yet. So, who knows how bad it really is now that this kidney infection has been growing for 7 days! Even after I told the nurse that I have gotten much worse and needed to know what to do, all she said was that when they got the labs back they would call me. It's definitely time to get a new doctor, this is absolutely ridiculous. I'm starting to think that maybe it's been a bad idea to have been taking all the pain medication, because if I hadn't then I would have listened to my body's pain and gone to the hospital and gotten the help I really needed, instead of thinking I'd be okay just as long as I could take pain meds until I could get to the doctor (I've been taking the hydrocodone from my knee surgery...so basically vicodin with acetaminophen). The vicodin took care of the pain, the acetaminophen brought down my fever....but the infection hasn't been taken car of which is the real danger. Now I'm just worried it's too late.

WARNING! My first real complaining post!!!

Here's my situation. I have a kidney infection, a fever of 103 degrees, I feel like I'm going to pass out, I can't eat anything because I feel sooooo nauseated, I can't keep my eyes open because I'm absolutely exhausted and I'm sooooo shaky! Seriously!!! When will the health problems stop!?! What on earth am I doing wrong here!?! Give me a little break!!! There is something completely different every month! I woke up around 4 a.m. on Thursday with the worst back pain and nausea and yucky...um...pee. So I called the doctor but they had no openings so I had to wait it out this weekend. And now today I'm miserable! They didn't have any openings at the doctors office for today either, so I have to go allll night like this until almost noon tomorrow!!! I have chugged down an entire bottle of cranberry juice for the past 4 days and if I take another sip I swear I'll throw up. Seriously, if they have to hospitalize me I'll freak out. It's not my fault that they didn't have any openings every time I called...or they plain just forgot that they put me on hold. I can't handle another health crisis...emotionally or financially! Every stinking day we get a new doctor bill, or a statement saying that our insurance won't pay for something because the surgeon used an assistant instead of doing it himself without telling us. So, since the assistant is out of network we have to fork the bill! Sooooo unfair! And the insurance won't pay for the anesthesiologist because their computer says it was unnecessary. How on earth is being put under for a surgery unnecessary? Mike doesn't have any more time off either. I know there are soooo many people out there with worse problems than me and I should be counting my blessings that I have all my limbs...and I can taste...and see....and hear....and I don't have to have blood transfusions every week...and I don't have a colostomy bag....and that I'm even alive. But sometimes, it just feels good to complain once in a while. Okay, I'm done now.

*UPDATE: I got in to see the doctor today and he was pretty upset that they didn't try harder to squeeze me in. That was good to hear. They did a bunch of blood tests and some other "samples". And I now have antibiotics and PAIN KILLERS!!! Yaaaaaaay! I have to have an MRI tomorrow to see the damage done to my kidneys and see how they are functioning and make sure the infection hasn't spread to anywhere else. I'll find out the results from the labs tomorrow to see if I need to be hospitalized. Eeek! Thanks for all of your prayers!

Fun in the sun, and a little bit of drama!

We got a fun new water toy this week since it's been so hot. It's this giant beach ball that you hook up to a hose and it sprays out water. The kids have had so much fun with it! It has been so nice to just let them play while I relax on a lawn chair and put my feet up and enjoy being outside. As you can see, Aaron thinks it's a giant drinking fountain. I am so happy that they play together now and can entertain eachother for a while. I've been longing for this day!

As for other news, not too much going on. My cell phone was on the fritz for about two weeks and I felt so disconnected from the world! Well, my family anyway. So, I took it back into a Verizon store and they replaced it for free, but I wasn't able to get all my information or pictures off of it, so that was kind of a bummer. Hopefully Rachel still has her pictures of McKayla on hers to send me again so I can put her up as my screensaver! (got that Rach? *wink* )

Youth Conference was this week and my oh my...there was sooooo much drama! I couldn't believe it. Unfortunately it seems most of the drama was from our ward. One of our girls was caught making out with a boy in one of the classrooms during the dance...one of our girls wore an immodest shirt that didn't cover her belly and had to wear a big heavy lettermans jacket to cover up which really stunk for her when the air conditioning broke down in the building and the gym turned into a furnace....one of our girls wore sweats and a T-shirt with a swear word on it to the formal dance...a Beehive (yes, one of mine) showed up at the dance because she has a crush on one of the boys there and she was promptly taken home by our Y.W. President who needless to say was NOT very happy about it...the big bowls of candy (about $20 worth) were stolen from the refreshment table (I saw two ghetto boys dump them down their shirts and then they ran off...thankfully they were not from our ward)... one of our girls broke her foot at the service project....it poured through half of the service project which of course was outside (at Brazos Bend state park! Alligators, poisonous snakes and youth with shovels!).... lots of fire ant attacks... and as expected LOTS of boy drama (Blah). Then, last night was the testimony meeting and it made it alllll worth it! The spirit was so strong and I felt so much better afterwards. Then, all the youth got up and sang the EFY theme song...the one where the Young Men sing "The Army of Helaman" and the Young Women sing "As Sisters in Zion" together. About half way through when the Young Men started singing, they all stood up and sang, and then everyone else stood up and joined them in song and I just lost it! I was bawling my eyes out because it was so wonderful and spiritual and beautiful to hear our youth sing that song together. It was a neat experience and I was so glad to be there for it! We really do have amazing youth, and I'm learning quickly that I can't own their problems. I can be there to help them through them...but I can't own them. I'm learning that the more I see them struggle the more I love them because I've been there, too. I'm learning that you can't trust gossip from the girls....and I'm learning that more than anything, they need a leader who will love them no matter what, and will always be there with open arms and a kleenex for them to remind them that they are a daughter of a Heavenly Father who loves them, and that they CAN make it through it...drama and all!

Aaron's first trip to the ER

What a day! This morning around 10:30 Whitney and Aaron were playing in our bedroom. All of the sudden Aaron started screaming and crying. We have this little metal side table thing next to our bed. It's about a foot wide, and three feet tall and it had somehow tipped over on top of Aaron. It doesn't weigh very much, but he was sort of pinned under it face down and there was blood on the floor. My first reaction was of course freak out and somehow try to stay calm at the same time. I was so scared to pick him up and see where the blood was coming from. It was too much blood to be from a bumped lip, and I was worried it would be his eye or something. I picked him up and turned him over and he had a pretty good gash in his forehead. There was blood running down his face and on his shirt and on the floor....it was a mess. So I put pressure on it and we ran to the kitchen to grab a towel and a bag of frozen peas and I franticly called Mike to tell him to come home so we could take Aaron to the ER. (This is exactly why I wish we had two cars!!!) I got the bleeding to slow down and Mike got home (and ate lunch...yeah.). I changed my shirt (it had blood all over it) and took Mike back to work trying to hold back tears. He used up his lunch break eating lunch so he couldn't come to the ER to help me out. I was thinking, "How on earth am I going to do this!?! How am I going to hold him still while they sew up his head and try to take care of Whitney so she isn't traumatized through this!?! What if I can't handle it? What if I pass out?" I was absolutely terrified! This is my first experience with anything like this so of course I was in the Land of Worst Case Scenarios, picturing this long hooked needle aimed at my screaming son's beautiful little forehead, with Whitney standing in a corner crying while I'm trying to hold Aaron still so the doctor doesn't miss and get him in the eye or something. So when we got to the ER clinic I asked Whitney if it was okay if we said a prayer. I prayed that everything would be okay and the doctor would be able to do a good job and that Aaron would be calm and not be scared and that Whitney and I would be brave. So, we went in and waited forrrrrrever and Aaron was a little monster in the waiting room. He was running laps around a great big coffee table with 4 nice sharp corners (yeah, go figure) and the nurses probably thought I was a horrible mom when I freaked out and had to try to hold him on my lap so he didn't do any more damage. Anyway, we went in and they were able to get it closed up with glue and a steri-strip instead of stitches!!! I swear the Hallelujah chorus was playing in that little emergency room! Aaron just laid there on the little bed so still and calm like he was ready for his nap. I was sooooo relieved! And Whitney was in the corner...but she was playing with her dolls that she brought. Before we knew it, it was done and it looks great! It won't scar as badly since they used glue to close the wound and of course I am ecstatic about that. I love his little forehead!!! I'm so glad he's okay and that everything went well and that Heavenly Father answered my prayer today! It'll make it easier for me to not be so cranky at Mike when he gets home from work. Here's a picture from his nap...it was the only time I could get him to hold still to take a picture! He was so tuckered out!