Alillia Annabelle

So baby number 3 came last Thursday at 8:01 am via c-section.  Not my first choice but for whatever reason my body really doesn't give me much of one anyhow.  The night before I didn't really sleep at all because I had a really bad sinus head ache from all the air stagnation going on and I couldn't take any pain meds because of surgery in the morning.  Also my blood sugar dropped but I couldn't eat anything because of surgery so I had to just unplug my pump to bring my sugar back up.  So by the time I went in to prep for surgery at 5 in the morning I had a raging head ache, my eyes were bloodshot, and I was more than just a little exhausted!    On top of all of that, they tried to give me an antibiotic that made me want to vomit.  Fortunately the doctor decided it wasn't necessary so they stopped it after only a small dose.


When I went into surgery the guy handling all my meds dosed me up with something to kill my head ache so that by the time they pulled baby out I was feeling much better.  In fact, the surgery was the most relaxing part of the 24 hours before and after!


Alillia (Ah-lilly-ah) Annabelle Terry was born December 8th, 7lbs 9oz, and 19 3/4 inches long.

They let me hold her until my arms got tired then took her down to the nursery.

If you were to zoom in on this picture you'd be able to see how bloodshot my eyes are...


When the kids arrived later it was fun to see their reactions.  Aviendha went into "mommy" mode and proceeded to demand on holding her new sister while telling Gage what to do, and what not to do.  Gage could have cared less.  He looked at his new sister out of curiosity but didn't really understand what was going on.

She looks a lot like Gage, but more feminine of course!  She also has a much smaller head!

Veteran's Day Tribute

If you've never read it before, this is the amazing prayer offered on behalf of our soldiers by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Even if you're not religious, you should at least wish that we had a president in the last 20 years (or more) who cared as much about our military, what we are sending them into when they are shipped out, and if it's worth the price!





Franklin Roosevelt's D-Day Prayer 


June 6, 1944


My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.


And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:


Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.


Lead them straight and true; give strength to their arms, stoutness to their hearts, steadfastness in their faith.


They will need Thy blessings. Their road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph.


They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest-until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war.


For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and good will among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home.


Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.


And for us at home -- fathers, mothers, children, wives, sisters, and brothers of brave men overseas -- whose thoughts and prayers are ever with them--help us, Almighty God, to rededicate ourselves in renewed faith in Thee in this hour of great sacrifice.


Many people have urged that I call the Nation into a single day of special prayer. But because the road is long and the desire is great, I ask that our people devote themselves in a continuance of prayer. As we rise to each new day, and again when each day is spent, let words of prayer be on our lips, invoking Thy help to our efforts.


Give us strength, too -- strength in our daily tasks, to redouble the contributions we make in the physical and the material support of our armed forces.


And let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.


And, O Lord, give us Faith. Give us Faith in Thee; Faith in our sons; Faith in each other; Faith in our united crusade. Let not the keenness of our spirit ever be dulled. Let not the impacts of temporary events, of temporal matters of but fleeting moment let not these deter us in our unconquerable purpose.


With Thy blessing, we shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy. Help us to conquer the apostles of greed and racial arrogancies. Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.


Thy will be done, Almighty God.


Amen. 

Less than 3 months to go!

So I'm finally in the home stretch in the pregnancy department!  I shouldn't really say "finally" because it's been flying by faster than I can blink.  The last two weeks have been the usual pain-in-the-tail-bone as baby is starting to pack it on.  Fortunately for me, I haven't actually gained hardly anything except for a belly so that's been nice!  


Having a continuous glucose monitor has made this pregnancy a breeze for keeping my numbers in check and actually knowing what they're doing!!!  I don't find myself thinking about blood sugars 24/7 (literally) and now feel like I can concentrate on other things (like sewing!) without worrying that I'm going to forget to check my blood sugar.  Now I just need to remember to drink more water!  HA!


Aviendha is so excited for Christmas now because we told her the baby would come just before then.  Now all she wants to watch are Christmas movies.  She watched "The Santa Clause 2" twice the other day and was singing Jingle Bells when we went to the fabric store.  She wants to know if it's almost Christmas on a daily basis.  Oh. Boy.  While the last several months have flown by, every minute I spend telling her "not yet" is making it drag more and more.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad she's excited and she has lots of fun and interesting ideas about having a little sister; however, it's like listening to a kid ask "Are we there yet?" every 2 minutes while driving.


Gage is who I'm a little worried about.  No, nothing is wrong with him.  I just don't think he's going to handle sharing his parents and Tekara with another one.  He's absolutely sweet until he sees Aviendha sitting on someone's lap and then he's pulling/pushing her out, grabbing her hair, ect.  Yeah, he's still young enough to not understand the sharing aspect but I'm hoping he starts understanding he doesn't own all the bigger people in this house.


Let's just say that when December rolls around it's going to be insanity as usual.  Times 3.  My plan?  To sew and buy all Christmas/birthday presents before December 1st so that we don't have to worry about that while I recover.  Also because Nick hates shopping for that kind of stuff more than I do...and he gets distracted....


Anyhow, I'll be posting every Christmas present I finish on my sewing blog (sewsomuch.blogspot.com) so you can see how insane I am doing all of these with a big pregnant belly.  I also have some crafts planned just for Christmas decorating.  Let's see how well I can keep up!

Sullivan Lake

We finally got to go camping after 4 years!  Getting a newer bigger car helped quite a bit so I was super pumped!  We went to Sullivan Lake as a family during our 7th anniversary (YAY!)

It is a gorgeous lake and beautiful area.  My only complaint is that our campsite was far from the water and it was a little rocky with a VERY hard ground.  Outside of that, we had loads of fun!

Gage got his fill of dirt and sticks for at least a year.  He would just sit on the ground and throw dirt in the air and let it fall back down on his head.  He just loved being a little rough and tumble boy!

Aviendha also enjoyed herself immensely!  So much so, that every day she was telling us how tired she was so that she could sleep in a tent in a sleeping bag.  As soon as we were done with lunch, she'd ask to take a nap.  As soon as we were done with dinner, she wanted to go to bed.  We never thought we'd be fighting to keep her UP!  Ha ha!  She loved camping :)


We also found this ginormous caterpillar!!!  This is how big it is on Nick's hand!

Our last day up in the area we went to Crystal Falls:

And Gardner Cave, the third longest limestone cave in Washington State:

This is a huge stalagmite!!!!

On our way up to the caves we stopped to check out a pretty cool little beaver dam!

The amount of water it's stopping up goes back quite a ways.  The drop off in the bottom left corner is also pretty significant with no water down below.  You can click on the picture to make it bigger.


After this camping trip we did another one on Labor Day weekend.  Unfortunately everyone took turns puking the week before so we were all a little tired during that next trip.  Despite that it was still loads of fun being in the outdoors (except that Gage was teething so he was a little cranky.  My Dad, Eleasha's family, and Maranda's brood all came up as well.  We apparently were still carrying the puke bug and gave it to Keeley and Jarrin so it ended poorly for them.  Sorry!!!


Hopefully next year we get to do a lot more!

Weird Al Yankovic!!!!

We went to the Spokane Fair yesterday just to see Weird Al in concert.  I have seen him at the fair before but last time it was free with fair admission.  This time it was a paid event but worth every penny!!!  He upped the awesomeness of his show by A LOT!  He dressed up for every song, including Fat with the whole fat costume and every thing!!!


Some of the songs he did were Whatever You Like, Canadian Idiot (where he inserted the Strange Brew opening show thing that Dave Thomas does: Coo Coo coo coo coo coo coo coooo, ect.), TMZ, Polka Face, Party in the CIA, EBAY, and You Make Me.  


He also did Perform This Way which is a parody of Lady GaGa's Born This Way.   He dressed up as a peacock and his band mates dressed up in variations of other things that she has done in the past.  If you haven't seen the video (which I find hilarious!) here it is with the same peacock costume he performs in:




He also did Amish Paradise, Eat It, and Smells Like Nirvana with cheerleaders and everything.


The best part of the show was when he did Wanna B Ur Lovr.  It's not an impressive song, but is an extremely great performing song.  If you haven't heard it, it's basically pick up lines thrown into a song and it sounds totally sleezy!  He gets off stage and hits on girls in the crowd, climbing over people to get to them.  He sat on one woman's lap and her face was priceless!  She was totally laughing and grossed out at the same time!


Here's a picture of his awesome outfit, he wasn't very far from us so I was able to stand on my chair and snap a few pictures:

Here's a video of someone who saw his concert elsewhere and got a little snippet of what he does:




Let's just say I was glad I wasn't sitting in an isle seat!  Ewww!  But funny!!!!


For the encore they came back out and did The Saga Begins (American Pie Parody) and Yoda dressed up in these digs:

The guy who did Vader was awesome, just standing there all stoic while the storm troopers danced.  Then he pulled out his saber toward the end of the song and waved it back and forth like everyone with phones.


It was seriously AWESOME!  Sooooo much fun!  If you ever get a chance to go see it I highly recommend it!!!!!!

4th of July Vacation

So it's been a while since I've posted!  We've been busy and I haven't been motivated to update anything.  I'll skip all the in between stuff and just jump right to our most recent fun!

For 4th of July weekend we drove down to Ely, Nevada for Nick's family reunion.  On our way down we stayed with our good friends Jake and Val in Twin Falls for a couple of nights.

We only really had a day to explore so we went to all the touristy places.  We did a drive-by of the LDS Temple there, went to a museum, and finally to their famous bridge.  

If you don't know, their bridge is famous for base jumping.  People come from all over the world to jump off.  There are also, as you can imagine, lots of deaths.  We actually got to watch 3 people jump off while we were there!  You can always click on the picture for a better view!

This is the second guy who jumped.  They were all jumping down to a spot below where a fellow base jumper died when his shute never came out.  There is actually a grave marker below.

There were also lots of golf courses down in the bottom of the canyon:

We also found a very secluded neighborhood of about 10 houses on the side where the falls are located where they had their own private golf course.  Nick and I were thinking that Tim might aim to live there someday...Forgot to take pictures :(  

Here are the kids:

And here are the Twin Falls:

Later we went up to an ice cave about 45 minutes north of Twin Falls.  I know, we did this last year!  Maybe we'll just find a new ice cave to visit every summer and make it a tradition!

Anyway, this one was bigger than the last one, but there was no exploring involved.  It was guided and it felt a little like "A Goofy Movie" where it felt EXTRA touristy!

First of all it's out in the middle of the desert where this is your only view:

The first thing you see when you drive in is this:

And then this:

Anyway, it was an amusing experience :)  The cave was fun (and cold, duh!) but not as awesome as it could have been because Gage was losing it from lack of a nap.  

This one was much more of an ice cave than the last one we went in.  The depth of ice ranged from 8ft to 30ft.  It was all solid with about 2 inches of water sitting on top so unless you had boots on they didn't want you walking on it.

Coming out we were told about how the Natives believed that a spirit guards each cave and that the people who currently run it believe this is the spirit:

....Kind of creepy if you ask me. Otherwise, it was a fun excursion!

Once we were done in Twin Falls we headed down to Ely in the afternoon.  By early Sunday morning, Gage was so exhausted and upset from lack of naps that he puked several times on Nick and I early that morning.   When we thought he was ok we were going to try to make it to church.  Just as Nick was putting him in the car he puked again all over Nick, his car seat, and himself.  And again back in the hotel room a little later.  

Needless to day I spent most of my time in the hotel room the rest of our time there so that Gage could get in his 2 naps per day, and also so that Nick could spend time with his family.  So, no pictures for that half of the trip :(

Fortunately we made it home without any issues in the puking department and all with a straight shot back!  Yay!

Wish I had some Hibernol!

The last 3 months have been h-e-double hockey sticks in the pain and suffering department!

A few months ago my right tonsil became swollen.  It didn't hurt, it just ballooned up for no particular reason it seemed.  I went to an ears, nose, throat doctor and he said it didn't look abscessed, gave me some antibiotics just in case, and told me the swelling happens when people get sick and it would go down on it's own.

Fast forward a few weeks of really bad sleep from having a larger than normal tonsil to the day before Christmas Eve when it REALLY started hurting!  I could barely swallow, nothing helped the pain, and lets just say Christmas was absolute misery.  A few days later it stopped hurting and the swelling went down a little bit.

One week after that, it happened AGAIN.  This time it was so big it was taking up about 3/4 of my throat so we went into the Dr.  He gave me some steroids to help bring the swelling down and some pain meds and referred me back to the ears, nose, throat Doctor.  They didn't call me for a few days so finally I called them and made an appointment.

Meanwhile the steroids barely brought the swelling down and the whole time this is going on I'm having such severe sleep apnea that my husband is getting really scared.  I'm also extremely exhausted every day because I'm not really sleeping at all.

When I finally get in to see the Dr.  he literally takes 3 seconds to look in my mouth and tell me I'm going to have to have a tonsillectomy.

Awesome.

They tell me they're going to call me with a surgery time and work out details.  I go home.  I don't hear from them for a week and a half.

Oh. My. Word.

At this point I'm an emotional wreck because of no sleep and pain for 3 weeks now.  Only this time my pain has moved into my jaw and isn't on my tonsil.  My regular Dr. was concerned so she orders a CT scan and gives me some decent pain control so I can actually eat.

Rad.

I'm so fed up after my appointment I walk over to the ears, nose, throat Dr. and beg them to get me into surgery soon because I'm tired of being in pain.  Oh, but that pain would soon become nothing next to what I was actually going to go through.

I get an appointment for surgery scheduled for a week later.

I don't know how many people actually know what happens in a tonsillectomy so I'm going to describe it for you.  They actually had us watch a movie from 1986 that was made for children about to go in for the surgery.  Lets just say we were laughing the whole time!  They seriously need to remake it!  Or not...because it was funny...ANYWAY, here's what happens:

Your tonsils are connected in your throat by a thin membrane.  They (now days) use a laser and cut that membrane so there's minimal trauma to the tissue surrounding it.  The laser, in turn, also cauterizes to reduce the amount of bleeding from the surgery which is usually around 25 ml.  Children recover much faster and easier than adults generally, don't know why.  Adults just have a "little" harder time.  Sounds simple right?  HAHAHAHAHAHA!  That's if your not me.

If you're me, you go in, they find that your abscess has gone down into your jaw, and now they can't use the regular laser because you have puss, and it's all weird and connected to tissue and junk so they have to take a scalpel and physically go in and cut it out so you can lose 100 ml of blood and suffer some hardcore trauma to the right side of your jaw.  AND the thing that holds your tongue away is too big so that have to get a small one that pinches it really bad and makes huge sores on the sides of your tongue to further inhibit your eating ability.  OH, AND THEN they go and check out your adnoids just for kicks (seriously) and find that they are the biggest ones your Dr. has ever seen and really weird looking so they decide to vaporise (they literally just burned them out, didn't cut or anything, they don't physically exist anymore, or as my Dr. said "poof, they're smoke")those while they're at it so now you have an added bonus of more swelling and trauma to the entire region.

Super.

When I woke up, the swelling was so bad, I couldn't relax my tongue or I wouldn't be able to breathe.  When they were going to have me take my first dose of pain killers I almost puked (which would have been very bad!) but they gave me some anti-nausea stuff that pretty much made me the living dead until the next morning.  I was asleep sitting up.  No joke.  Only I'm not really sleeping well because of the whole tongue relaxing thing.  In fact, they were so worried while I was still in recovery trying to sleep they brought in a sleep specialist to see if there was  some position I could sleep in that might make it better.  There wasn't of course.

So fast forward two and a half weeks and yes, I'm still in pain, though not as much as initially.  I looked around online to see if there was anyone who was going through what I was going through with recovery and every woman said she'd rather give birth than do this again.  This was the hardest thing I've ever had to go through so far.  The worst of the pain was day 3 to day 10 or so.  The kind of pain where it hurts all over and when you swallow the referred pain (the pain that makes your brain think the pain is somewhere else than it actually is) made it feel like my ear drums were going to explode. 

It's not something I'd wish on anyone!

The thing that cheezes me off the most is that I went to the Dr. a year and a half ago because I suspected my adnoids were abnormally large but he decided it was just from allergies.  Pft.  Anyway.  Let me tell you how big they were.  I didn't even know where the air was supposed to go into my nose.  Now I can feel where it's at with my tongue.  I also have to re-learn how to swallow and even talk a little.  The Dr. that took them out said he didn't even know how I was getting any air past them, he didn't think I could breathe through my nose at all because they were completely blocking my air way.

The down side is, I still have a couple of weeks before full recovery where I have no more pain or swelling.  Normally the Dr. only has to see you once after surgery and then you're done.  I went to my 3rd appointment a couple of days ago and he turns around to his assistant and says "What was the date of her surgery?"  and she says "The 27th..."  And, I'm not kidding, he replies "Lets try and avoid doing these on that date in the future or something because everyone I did that day is just having the worst time recovering."   For real???  He said maybe it was a full moon or something.  Oh boy.  Apparently I'm having the easiest time of the 3 done on that day.  If that's true, I REALLY do not envy those other 2!

The best part is getting a cold to top it all off.

Such is life right?

The good news?

Yes, there is a silver lining!  There are two less surgery's I would potentially need in the future.  I've also lost about 12 lbs.  But lets be serious here and say that I'd much rather be losing weight from exercise than from not being able to eat properly.

Well, that's my rant on my non-existence for the last few months.

Peace out.

Lots of updates!

Lots of things over the last month so I'm going to play catch-up!  There are a lot of pictures so I split them up into quite a few posts (16 or so, so what you see initially isn't all! Everything in the August archive section is new!) Forgive me for forgetting details and things.  I've got some pretty bad Mommy brains right now.  I can't seem to remember anything...

Snake River

We went to this park a few weeks ago.  It's about 20 minutes from our house, I didn't know something like this was that close!  Anyway, it kind of stank in a few places as we walked down from the parking lot, like something had died...

On the bright side it's a nice park but the swimming area (unfortunately) is kind of gross...

Main pavilion as you walk down from the parking lot.

The water comes in from the Snake River under this train track.

Nick was trying to teach Aviendha how to do a thumbs-up sign. This is her concentrating face.

The guy sitting at the front of the boat was fishing with a bow and arrow!

Aviendha actually drank a tiny bit of the water.  EWWWWW!  But hey, are we really surprised?  Nope.

I love her little tush in this swim suit!  Super cute!

For some reason, every time I try to take a picture of her on a spur of the moment thing, she's got food around her mouth.  Doesn't matter how many times I clean it!  Oh well..

This adorable little man slept the whole time we were there :D  Don't you love his double chin?!

I like the bark on this tree!  Isn't this exciting?!  LOL

I thought this was kind of neat.  It doesn't look like much but it's pretty huge!  There's a boat driving on the right of the picture.  It looks like an old pyramid or something.  The close up makes it look like 3 pyramids...I know, I'm a dork :D  You can click on any of the pictures for a bigger view.

Here's the close up!   So neat!  Anyway, it was a fun little day trip!

Settlers Day

We went to the Settlers Day parade for Deer Park.  I didn't take any pictures of the parade...If you want to know how redneck it is I can tell you that a truck broke down in the middle of it and they actually had to pop the hood to fix it real fast!  HA!  Hows that for irony?  Redneck aside, the get together in the park after was a lot of fun!

This is the most genius idea for little kids!  It's called the Penny Pick-up.  They pick up pennies (though there were also some dimes, nickles, and quarters) and what do they win?  A lot of change!

Here are the boys getting ready to race.  I won't disgrace them with the outcome...But doesn't that look like Maranda's Lance in the middle???  Or am I crazy? Click on the picture for a closer look if you're not sure...

This was a race for 3 yr olds.  Let's just say running is not Aviendha's Forte'.  Lane on the other hand smoked her!

Here are some pigmy goats they had at the petting zoo, so cute!

Here's Aviendha very cautiously trying to pet a pig.

She's saying "Pee-Ewww! They're stinky!"

We had a lot of fun and went home around 2 or so.  She fell asleep almost the instant she hit her seat!