OK, OK, OK

Well I actually had several posts in the "drafts" section and never published them because as my husband will attest I'm somewhat of a perfectionist. I re-read them over and over again to make sure every post is perfect...well I'm too busy now!!

So from where I left off here's a quick catch you up:

I luckily didn't have to be admitted to the hospital because my Midwife was wonderful and gave me a number of suggestions to get my amniotic fluid up and my blood pressure down (although I truly believe it was only up because they mentioned c-section!) anyway we were very lucky I wasn't admitted although it was an eye opener and many of our family were on high alert and ready to help out. In situations like that it's nice to know we have family that is so supportive.

Our little angel was born on Halloween! I had an appointment on the 30th and my amnio fluid had all but disappeared and the Dr's said I would need to be induced that day. I was allowed to go home and get my hospital bags, and I made use of my drive home to call my Midwife. She agreed that I would indeed have to labor and deliver in the hospital, it was some sad news for me but I was glad I had called the Midwife so I didn't have any "what if" questions later, I know that it was my only choice and where I needed to be for my health and the babies health.

Zackery Scott Gillette made his entrance October 31st at 9:21am, he was 6.8 lbs and was 19.25"

I'm convinced he waited for my mom to get to the hospital at 9am because his middle name is partly in honor of her (she was born in Scotland and has ancestry there through her mother). I was glad my mom made it to the hospital and thought she would be able to see him born, but the Dr. asked her and Lee to step out so they could get the room ready, we didn't realize he was basically crowning and before we all knew it he was born.

It was a great labor and delivery, Dr. Wickstrom was amazing. She was gentle and offered me lots of help to keep me calm and relaxed. She understood I was in a delicate position and scared considering Dani's labor and delivery. I cannot explain how amazing she was, it was beyond words, but I am truly grateful my Doula Sarah Wallbaum led me to her.

Zackery has been a great baby, he is sweet and loving and started smiling a couple of days ago. Josh and I are "seasoned" parents and are doing better with the lack of sleep than we did with the other kids. I doubt we're getting more sleep, we just seem to be able to deal with it better.

Lukas is a GREAT big brother and loves Zackery so much. He often comes up when he's fussy and tries to calm him down by telling him, "Hey baby Zackery, it's your brother" then plays with him.

Dani is 2. That sentence alone should explain the trouble we're having with her :o) But I guess I could expand that and say that she's in total love with Zack and loves having her own real live baby doll in the house. It's been almost 2 months now and she still beams when she sees him. She wants to hold him all the time and yesterday I physically had to pry her arms from around his stomach to get him back. She's having some trouble with her speech so she has a Dr's appt. in a couple of weeks to test her hearing. I guess she's been having some ear infections but we've never known because she doesn't show any signs of pain :o(

Josh's mom had to be admitted to the hospital and they did surgery, it was successful and they didn't find anymore cancer, which was a huge blessing. We're hoping she gets to come home soon to enjoy Christmas.

Zackery was blessed along with his cousin Leah on Sunday, Dec. 20th (also my Grandma Powell's birthday). We were lucky enough to have my sister Melissa her husband Tommy and their Son, Nathaniel (Nate) come up from Oklahoma Nate got to pass sacrament and that was really awesome to see. We were also blessed to have my brother Steven, his wife Danielle and their baby girl Addison come up as well. Addison was born in April and this is only the 2nd time I've seen her in person. I'm glad Danielle has a blog so I get to see pictures pretty frequently. Josh's Uncle Bill, Aunt Cheryl & Aunt Diana also made it up for the blessing.

Another special person in attendance was Scott Young. He was a high school counselor of mine and in fact played a pretty big part in my life when times were tough. I won't go into all of that but I was set on using the name in honor of this man. Without him in my life at that time I may never had made it though.

So you're all caught up. With the new year I'll try to keep this updated as often as possible with pictures of the kids and of course (and the driving factor in making this blog) when Josh has more surgery information.

So Tomorrow is D-Day

D-Day as in decision day.

The Dr came in on Wednesday after my NST and said that the baby looks good, but that I had high blood pressure. It was 150/90 even after I had been laying in bed for the 1/2 hour test. I ususally have very normal blood pressure. Then he said that it would be a good possibility that I would be admitted to the hospital on Friday and watched closely to determine when the best time would be to delver Zackery. He said it's a delicate balance of where the best place for Zackery to develop is, right now he's still better off inside but conditions could change and then it would be better to let him finish developing on the outside.

So everything is now in WTHeck mode and Josh and I are scared, worried, hopeful and everything in between and sideways. I'm on bed rest but with Luke, Dani and Josh on crutches bed rest is more like a dream

We"re going to take it day by day at this point and see what happens

Little crazy around here

SO I'm sorry for not updating until now :o(

There has been quite a lot going on and I don't even know where I left off so I'll just give you a quick scoop of the latest.

Josh is doing ok. His leg still hurts all the time, and some days are pretty unbearable for him. He's working a full 8 hours a day now and gets rides to and from work from his co-workers, mostly Brad. Everyone at his work has been amazing and it's nice for him to finally be in a job where everyone actually cares about each other and it's not just a "job" but they seem more like family.

Workman's comp is still giving us grief, they finally paid for Josh's prescriptions we had to buy out of pocket, and some shoe lifts (we've been trying for that one for over a year) but they have refused to reimburse us for any of the expense of having someone else drive Josh to work or for babysitting when I have to drive him to the hospital. It's so stupid - if I actually worked outside of the home they would have to pay for my time off work (that's what I get from our lawyer anyway). So being a stay-at-home mom doesn't count in the eyes of WC.

Luke is funnier than ever. He cracks us up on a daily basis. He came in early one morning and after Josh helped him change his pants (had an accident :o( Josh asked for a kiss.

Luke exclaimed, "Oh, I ran out of those. I'll need to save up my money and get more at the Kiss store."
Josh, "Oh, ok where is the Kiss store."
Luke, "Well it's really far away, you wouldn't be able to see the sign."

His prayers are also very cute and need to be taped to enjoy them over and over again. He's started demanding to say his own prayers with no help. He's managed to "bless our brains," "bless McDonalds, Sonic, and Burger King and all their toys," (slightly disturbing to me) "bless all the people in our town," "Thank you Jesus for all that you did for me and all that I do for you"

Dani is also blooming into quite the little lady. She isn't talking yet but she's picking up sign language quite well. She does say Mama and Dada but it isn't real regular. She pants like a dog when she sees Sophie and when you ask her what a dog says...I find it super cute.

She is a girl and prone to drama though, she has started pointing her finger at Luke when she starts crying. I may or may not have seen what actually happened but it's usually his fault. She still follows him everywhere and wants to play with whatever he has. Luke can be a mean brother and shoves and pushes her out of the way...she in turn gets very angry and has started biting him!! (oh great...I got one of "those" kids!!) I've started putting her in "time out," and she cries and walks over to the time out corner (she's seen Luke in it plenty of times)...but usually just turns around and comes right back.

She LOVES to read books and gets super excited when Josh gets home. He can usually get her to sit on his lap for a while and read to her, it's a cute tradition I hope continues.

Me - well I guess this will be mostly a baby Zackery post. Last Friday I had my sonogram and they found that he is continuing to lay sideways! :o( I've been doing everything I can to get him to turn, and he had gone down once, but I guess he is just liking laying sideways...it's always a different position when I go in! Also my amnio fluid is low, and they are concerned about that. Now I have to go in on Wednesday and do a Non-Stress Test then on Friday I go in for another Non-Stress Test and sonogram. If they find on the sonogram on Friday that my amnio fluid level has gone down or that Zackery hasn't grown they are talking c-section (because he's sideways).

So this leaves me very nervous and worried (the last c-section didn't go so well...despite what some people like to believe and gossip about I really did feel everything, every cut and tear). I don't want him born at 35 weeks. I'm not ready for a newborn. Josh is still on crutches (we had originally thought he would be off them by now). Dani is still such a baby to me. I don't know how 5 weeks will make that much difference but it seems to be huge right now.

I am going to the YMCA all this week and getting in the water for 2 hours a day like the Dr. wanted. She said that the water will help the blood flow to Zackery and help him grow. I'm also drinking water like it is going out of style. I hope all the efforts will show some improvement on Friday...cross your fingers.

Ok...so that should have gotten you all caught up.

Exhausted

I got a call at 7am this morning, our neighbor Suzi needed to borrow a car because apparently one of her friends accidently kept Suzi's car keys. Ok...fine come on over...then I realize that Josh's truck isn't being used she could take that...except Josh reminds me it's out of gas. So she takes my van, it's really not a big deal, but it means (because I didn't want to transfer car seats...especially that early in the morning) that the kids and I are staying home all day. We usually try to go to the YMCA Monday, Wednesday, and Friday...so it makes for a long day when we're cooped up.

We're planning on going down to Oklahoma City this weekend to see my family. This will be the first time we get to see baby Addison, my brother, Steven's little girl. It's been hard not being able to go down sooner, it was Josh's leg or money problems but one thing after another kept happening. Hopefully the drive down doesn't take that long...it's taken us like 10 hours before because of having to stop every couple of minutes for the kids (it should only take 6 hrs). I'm hoping Josh will be able to get off at noon on Friday so we can head down and be there by 6-8pm...enough time to get them in bed when we get there.

While we're gone Gina Wheeler will be painting the boy's room...I'm SOOOO EXCITED it will be super cute when it's done. It will be a transportation theme bedroom, we even have a ceiling fan that looks like a plane. I'll post lots of pictures when it's completed. We did get the new crib up for Dani and move the older one in for the baby. The new crib doesn't have a drop down side so we thought it would be better for Dani because we don't really need that at this point, it also matches her dresser a little better. We'll be doing Dani's room too, I'm thinking light pink with a ribbon border then dark pink blocks or strips from there down. We'll hire Gina to do the mural in her room too, in Little Suzi's Zoo of course.

I'll post pictures soon of OK, and then the rooms :o)

Today...and a slight detour at the end...

Well today was a very long and very sad day.

Great Uncle Howard's funeral was today. We wanted to be there for the visitation part as well, but didn't set the alarm counting on Luke to get us up as usual somewhere between 6-8am. Well I guess he decided to be "nice" today and apparently shut our door when he got up this morning and turned down the TV so we wouldn't hear him up (I think it has more to do with the fact that he got into brownies than he was being nice).

So we didn't get to Uncle Howard's funeral until about 11:30 when the visitation was over and it was time for the funeral to start. Dani of course couldn't sit still and I ended up having to take her out and since I was going Luke had to come too. Luke and I had a good conversation about being reverent and he did go back and sit down with Josh again for a little while. We'd really wanted to get a babysitter, but my mom was already babysitting Lee's grand kids, down at their house. Plus all my "favors" have all be used up with having to get a babysitter every Thursday for Josh's Dr's appointments.

Josh said it has been a long time since he broke down and cried at a funeral, but when they were playing the song, "That's my Job" he couldn't help himself. He said he was just remembering all the times he'd spent with G-Uncle Howard and it made him sad he was gone. He's also teared up when Ali was talking about all the things G-Uncle Howard was to his kids and told me later he hopes he can be half the Dad he was, I think that's such an awesome comment to make about a person.

We drove out to the cemetery and I stayed in the car with the kids so Josh could go out and listen to the graveside service. Then we went the family lunch, I remembered it from Great Aunt Edna's funeral. The kids ran a little wild and Dani got her pretty dress covered in tomato seeds. Uncle Gene scared Luke by telling him he was going to cut his fingers off. Luke flirted with Breea (not sure if I'm spelling that correctly - Josh's cousin, Jon's, girlfriend) and said "I see them all the time" because he has seen them about 3 times in the last couple of weeks. We saw Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Bill and Dani flirted with them...and pretty much everyone else at the lunch. While we were in line she went up and hugged a pregnant lady, and had someone else pick her up. She flirts all the time and waves at people, I love this age. Both the kids gave me a run for my money trying to climb the stairs, & running around.

We got home about 2:30 and I tried to put Luke down for a nap...wasn't happening! He had fallen asleep in the car but the minute I picked him up to take him inside he woke up...darn it. Dani went down without a fight...so did Josh :o) I should have taken a picture of our van on the way home everyone was asleep.

We went to a BBQ for a friend's b-day around 5:30 and I had to keep the kids at bay again. I'm not one of those parents who let my kids just run and play, without me close by. I'm just not. Luke kept trying to go in the house, well then I have to be in there with him or Josh has to go and Josh is pretty much out of the picture when it comes to chasing kids right now. So Luke had a bit of a fit. There wasn't even an adult that stayed inside so I could ask them to watch Luke, so he had to play outside. He ended up riding a trike down the backyard (it was pretty steep) and I just thought..."he's all boy!" He would just pull it back up to the top of the hill, get on and spread his legs out and FLY down the hill.

So now that I'm physically worn out, I'm also emotionally worn out. Some things have come to light about my in-laws that is troubling me. No worries, nothing to do with any of you, just some apparent thoughts about me that have now been revealed. A Blog is an online journal...but you can't really say what's on your mind can you? You can't really say what you want to say because then "everyone" can see it...but what if it's the truth? What if you want to say it to everyone? You can't even then because it's not socially acceptable. So I guess online blogs are not real journals after all. You can't say your boss is a total jerk, or you might get fired. You can't really blog about your latest fight with your husband...because eventually you'll make up. So blogs are really about the "nice" things (or sad I guess with regards to this post) that happen in your life. So by doing this blog am I painting a picture that things are all roses...well roses have thorns.

Testing out a new scrapbook software

So I bought this new software for "easy" digital scrapbook pages thinking it would help when the new baby gets here to add some "spice" to just putting pictures on the blog. So this was my first page. Dani is now 19 months old and I need to get her pictures done, so when I saw these pictures it just made me think of Luke at that age. He had some cute curls too :o)

It's late so I'm not skipping Dani, I'll just do one for her in the morning :o) Night all.

GOOD NEWS - Dr's Appt today

So the Dr. got back from Finland yesterday and saw a handful of patients today. The waiting room wasn't "standing room only" as it usually is. We dropped the kids off a little late though at Lisa's house (THANKS LISA!!!) at around 8:30am and rushed over to KU Med and got there about 9:10am, technically 10 minutes passed our appointment time. Usually if this had been a 'regular' day for Dr. Horton we'd be SCREWED and probably not be seen until noon, and not have anywhere to sit in the waiting room. Luckily for us it was a 'light day' (still plenty of patients...hummm...probably about the number he should regularly see!) we got in quickly, Josh was taken back to X-ray. (Don't tell him I told you but he has a crush on the x-ray lady...I think it's because she makes him take his pants off every week...at least he's getting some action right)

Dr. Horton gave us GOOD NEWS FINALLY! Apparently all this laziness on Josh's part (yeah right you need a wheel chair at work...lol...jk) has paid off and his bone has started to GROW...AND there is enough that it's keeping the rod from lengthening any more!!! WOOHOO since he's been at a length he's comfortable with it's a huge blessing. The Dr. said because of this he won't need to do the stabilizing bar surgery (the bar outside his leg with pins going inside his leg and attaching to the rod to keep it from lengthening more). Awesome news...not sure how a 3 1/2 year old and 19 month old would have done with medical equipment resembling playground equipment!

I asked Dr. Horton were we can reasonably see Josh in 11 weeks (since that's when I'm due...give or take a few days) and the Dr. said we'll just have to wait and see but hopefully the bone will continue to grow and he might even been somewhat weight bearing by that time! What a sigh of relief on my part to know Josh will be able to help more with the kids by the time baby Zackarie (yes still working on how I like it spelled) gets here.

Also because we're just working on bone growth (well ok Josh's body) Dr. Horton told us we don't have to come in every week, so our next appointment isn't for a month!!!! Another huge WOOHOO.

So that's all our fun good news for today.

Great Uncle Howard Passed Away :o(

Great Uncle Howard passed away yesterday morning. It was probably for the best as sad as it makes us feel he was ready to go. His services are going to be this coming Saturday.

Brother Carl Belknap also passed away and his services are this Saturday as well.

A lot of funerals in the last couple of weeks :o(

2 visitations in 1 week

Monday night we went to Britney Barzee's visitation. There were a ton of people there and it took us 2 1/2 hours to get through the line to pay our respects. I wasn't sure if I was going to go or not because I didn't actually know Britney very well (she was 8 years younger than me) but her sister Jessica and I were pretty good friends and we all grew up together in the Blue Springs II ward. Britney was diagnosed in December with stage IVb cervical cancer, a rare and aggressive type. It just made me sad because I'm not for sure, but I think it's the same thing Josh's mom, Jeannie, has. Luckily Jeannie has been doing pretty well on treatments and her cancer was caught earlier in stage IIIb. Plus I don't think Britney did a full hysterectomy which might have helped the spread...but I don't know if it's already IVb it might have just been too late.

Friday night we went to Josh's uncles visitation, Uncle Walt. He'd been sick for a little while now. I've been in the family long enough to know him, but the last year or so we hadn't seen him. Josh thinks the last time he saw him was at Jack's funeral. He didn't look the same in the open casket as I remembered him and that was sad. Britney didn't look like herself either, I guess both had had medical problems and things that made them weaker and more fail before they passed.

I'm always grateful for the knowledge the church has given me that we will be able to see these people and all of our family and friends again. They truly are in a better place and won't have to hurt or go through anymore medical problems.

Josh's Great Uncle Howard is currently at home with hospice. They found a brain tumor but when they went to remove it a week ago they couldn't get it all and found it was malignant :o(
Howard & Barney were the Uncle's that got a condo in Florida every February and played golf all month. We went and stayed with them when Tamela got married at Disney World in Feb. 2007. Luke was 14 months old at the time. Barney passed away last year. Howard is Grandpa Gillette's only living brother left. :o( So pray for him please. He's had some improvements from what we've heard, he's come around and been able to say a few things (he hadn't been speaking at all). We haven't gone to see him because we'd heard he didn't want visitors, but he's in our thoughts and prayers.

It's just been a sad couple of weeks for us.

Aug. 13th Appt.

So the Dr. is in FINLAND...must be nice. Josh just had a "quick" appointment and they took an x-ray. He's had a lot more pain at the break site this week so he was worried it was lengthening a lot, but we won't know until next Thursday when the Dr. is back. We were told it was a special thing the Dr. was taking appointments next Thursday because he would have just gotten back into the country the night before...what that tells me is that we're going to be waiting on the Dr. to get his butt into the office. He never gets in at a certain time and we've overheard (not hard in his office) that most days they have no idea where he is, but he's never "usually" in until about 9am. Funny that his first appointment is 8:30 then...hummm. The mismanagement in his office is so horrible it could be a funny play or movie if you weren't in the middle of it and waiting hour after hour for a Dr. to show up. We were pretty lucky that last Thursday we were actually able to see him on-time and pick up the kids by 10:30am (usually 12:30pm)!! Woohoo...small victory.

After his quick appointment I had a baby appointment...I'm just not as exciting as Josh. My Dr's office is quick and there usually isn't much to report. I have a sonogram to check growth in 2 weeks so my appointment might be REALLY long...as in maybe an hour.

August 6th Dr's Appt.

Well looks like Josh's leg grew another 3mm, putting him right about where he needs to be...so surgery right...WRONG the Dr. is going on vacation for 10 days out of the country...AUGH

The Dr. said that it would be good if Josh's leg did a little bit more lengthening like to 4cm so that when they replace the rod if there is some spring back that it won't be too short. Plus most people have a slight discrepancy in length and never really notice. Josh got to buy his first pair of shoes at Costco a couple of weeks ago (not sure if I've blogged this before) and this past Friday I bought him another 3 pair of shoes from Sears during the "tax-free weekend." It's nice to be able to pick out a pair of shoes and not have to inspect every little inch of the soles to make sure they will be able to be lifted, then take them to the shoe cobbler and have a lift put on them for $90 dollars...more than the shoes cost in the first place.

I had to fill one of Josh's prescriptions on Thursday after his appointment and it looks like the workman's comp has finally gotten on the ball about his medicine so we didn't have to pay up front...woohoo. That's great news, it was costing us about $70 on average for one prescription. Now we just have to wait for the reimbursement on those...and we're still waiting on the reimbursement for the previous 4 shoe lifts...workman's comp is a blessing and a curse.

The Dr. did officially release Josh to do 4 hours of work a day. He wants him to start off slowly so that he doesn't overextend himself or his leg. We're thinking it would be best for him to do like noon - 4pm because when he wakes up in the morning that's when he takes 2 pills and sometimes he's nodding off quite a bit. (but if you know Josh he nods off easily anyway :o) So now we're waiting on workman's comp to get him a ride to work, Lord knows I can't take him every single day.

The Dr. also said he could try driving very short "controlled" distances. What is a controlled distance anyway? He said that his reaction time could still be way off and that just because he CAN doesn't mean it's SAFE. So Josh has driven to church which is right around the corner only about 2 miles. I had him drive to his parent's house the other day so that I could be in the car and see how he did, and to my surprise I didn't freak out......too much :o) I did get a little irritated when he was trying to point something out to me on the side of the road and I told him to keep both hands on the wheel and concentrate on driving because he was limited...but that's the only time I really ever thought about it. Luckily his parent's house is pretty close too.

Well next week is just an x-ray, so there won't be much to post. The Dr's assistant should call us and give us a quick update about length so that's all I'll post next week on the progress. I think once the Dr. comes back they will want to put the external rod in place to keep the rod from stretching any further...we'll see.

Dr's appointments

We had 2 Doctor's appointments today, Josh's was scheduled for 8:30am and then I had a 'baby' appointment for 11am.

Josh's appointment = no changes. This is super weird, one week it was 2mm, then next 4mm, then 8mm and now nothing. It's so unpredictable, we thought he'd be ready for a surgery in the next week or 2 but now we're not so sure. Josh was a little bummed because he was already getting his mind ready for another surgery to happen quickly but it doesn't look that way. The Doctor said that he might put external pins into Josh's leg to keep the rod from extending anymore and give his bone a chance to heal, that won't be pretty (two screws coming out of his leg). I think the Dr. is just really concerned to see some bone growth in that break. Josh was told to start taking some prenatal vitamins...he looked concerned and asked the Dr. if there was any weird "women hormones" in that "stuff" everyone laughed and I offered to share my prenatal vitamins with him :o) Oh the things we do for love.

Baby appointment = lots of changes. The baby looks good, grew a lot, moved a bunch and the amniotic fluid levels are great and normal. He's decided for now he's going to be head up. My blood pressure is good at 134/68 (cause I know you all want to know that) and I've gained like 10 pounds!!!! Now that I'm into the 3rd trimester I will have to start going to appointments every 2 weeks. Honestly I don't see how women do this with more than one kid...well I guess if you have daycare that would help...but being a stay at home mom how am I supposed to go to the Dr. every 2 (then eventually every week) with 2 small children? I know I can't take them with me, they would run wild. Oh well I guess we'll get it figured out.

Josh = no work

Well turns out the Workman's Comp wouldn't let Josh go back to work because he is on some narcotics still. Crazy, we thought they would jump at the chance to have him back at work. Josh is trying to step down the types and amount of pills he's taking, but I figure his bone is still stretching so he'll still be in quite a bit of pain and need something for a while. I think once they do the next surgery and stop the bone from stretching (and after the time it takes to recover from the surgery itself) that would be the time it would be easiest to get off the medicine.

Workman's comp is still a little bit of a crappy situation, they still need to reimburse us for a couple hundred dollars worth of shoe lifts, get us a prescription card, and get Josh's TTD checks sent to our house rather than the lawyers office. They sure don't do anything quickly. But I guess on the other side of that, I'd rather have this all be under workman's comp rather than regular insurance!

Luke on spankings

So Lukas wasn't going to bed and I was at the end of my rope so I yelled, "Lukas Joshua Frank Gillette if you don't go to bed right now I'm going to spank your butt!!" (yes I also use Josh's middle name when Luke is in "really big trouble" - I've even told Josh we might as well change his name cause he actually thinks that is his full name!)

To which he replied calmly, "Well.....how hard to you spank?"

I said, "I will spank you really hard"

He replied, "as hard as Daddy?"

I said, "yes."

He said, "OK then I'll go to bed" and climbed up into bed.

I left the room and laughed. I couldn't believe he was contemplating letting me spank him if I didn't spank as hard as daddy! He says the funniest things. On a side note - no I don't spank him often and we've actually discovered he doesn't respond as well to spankings than to being in time out. I guess for Luke his punishment is time out rather than spankings.

Dr's appointment 7/23/2009

This is a picture of Josh's leg! Cool huh :o) He has extracted about 33.3 mm and has about 10 mm to go. This past week he did 8mm so we might be looking at a surgery in about 2 weeks! Not really much else to say. Josh is still in a ton of pain but he's taking medicine. He's going to try to go to work on Monday and I hope that goes well for him. He's worried about being gone too long because the next surgery will put him out for another 6-8 weeks. So hopefully he can get in a couple of weeks at work before that happens.

Thursday from HELL

So this past Thursday was apparently the day everything would go wrong for me. Besides Josh's appointment taking a little longer than expected (I mean really just take an Xray and let us be on our way), we ended up having to drive over to Delve to get my supplies for a diaper study with both kids....not what we planned so it made me run late to pick up a bedroom set I had bought off Craig's list. I got the family back home and then hooked up the trailer and headed over to get Doug and a friend to help me load and unload the bedroom set. Well I'm not all that great at driving on the freeway with the truck and trailer I do ok but it took me everything I had to keep it at 65, it just was so heavy. Anyway I got off on Nall and headed to Doug's - there was a huge hill and the truck just wasn't slowing down any and I got pulled over doing 53 in a 35! I was crying (first time ever for me to cry to a cop) and I gave her all the stuff that was going on and told her I simply couldn't slow down. She didn't care at all and wrote the ticket. I was so upset. Then I drove over to pick up Doug and he wasn't even home!!!! I told him he owed me $145 because I wouldn't have had to go down Nall if I wasn't even going to pick him up. I also had forgotten my cell phone back at the house and now I was 2 hours late picking up the bedroom set and now I don't have any help either! I ended up just driving over there and there were 2 guys that helped me get it loaded. It sprinkled a little on the way home but nothing major thank goodness. Then when I got home it looked like it was going to burst so I hurried and got what I could unloaded, all the while Josh yelling at me because I'm 5 months pregnant and "shouldn't" be lifting. Well what was I supposed to do? Josh finally got a hold of a Brother from church and he helped me get the big dresser and 2 bookshelves (I'm glad because those were HEAVY). Then about 6:30pm I was sitting down trying to finally watch a program I was watching for a study and they were going to call me that evening when I realized, "IT'S THURSDAY! HOLY CRAP I HAVE A FINAL TONIGHT THAT STARTED AT 5:30!!!!!" So I jump up and rush out the door with my rough draft in hand and pray that I can still take the final. I end up showing up right as the teacher is getting her stuff packed into her trunk to leave! I turn in my draft and tell her I'm sorry.

It was just a hectic stupid crazy day.

Thursday's Dr's Appointment 7/16/2009

OK...so I'm sorry it has taken until Sunday to update you all on Josh's Dr's appointment on Thursday a lot has been going on since then.

So Thursday the Dr. was actually out of town so we didn't get to see him and the appointment consisted of just seeing the Dr's assistant and having an X-Ray done. The Dr's assistant called the next day to tell us that it looks like his leg has grown by another 4mm. So I think if I'm adding correctly that makes it just another 16mm to go. So roughly 4-6 weeks for his next surgery. It's looking more and more like Josh won't be able to walk by the time this next baby comes and that is a scary prospect :o(

Luke in Primary

Today we were told this story by one of the primary teachers:

Lukas got up in front of the primary and was just standing there, so they decided they would let him help, he said, "NO, I got a bigger problem. My hair is spiky and I want it flat." I guess everyone cracked up and before he would sit back down again he was reassured that he looked handsome when his hair is flat or spiky.

OH MY...made Josh and I laugh then just shake our heads. He's such a character.

IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!!

We saw a penis...LOL

We weren't planning on finding out the gender of the baby, I REALLY wanted it to be a surprise, but we have to do sonograms about every 4-6 weeks and on the last sonogram I saw "boy parts" although the lady doing the sonogram didn't confirm it then I just knew I was right. Couple that with the fact that Lukas was SURE it was a boy and you couldn't convince him otherwise, and a dream I had early on of the delivery and holding a baby boy I already knew. I told Josh we might as well just go ahead and get it confirmed. I told the lady before she started I was 95% sure it was a boy anyway and sure enough she quickly told us we could now be 99.999% sure :o)

We're very happy and are busy now trying to figure out bedroom configurations. Now if we could only agree on a name! I'm going to name this baby Zackery Scott, but Josh still wants (and thinks he might have a shot) to name him Jonas Zackery.

Thursday = Dr. Appointment

Today we dropped the kids off with Ashley Beard-Fosnow and her two kiddos at 7:30 and headed over to KUMC for our 8:30am appointment. We got there around 8am and checked in. I saw a 'little person' in the waiting room and thought to myself (and now all of you) if he was getting the same thing Josh was lol :o)

Like I said our appointment was 8:30am but we overheard the staff saying that Dr. Horton was on call last night so they didn't know his ETA...geez folks you would think that if you were on call all night you wouldn't start your appointments until like 10am...duh. Anyway Dr. Horton ended up getting there around 9:30am!!! no joke...and these are the Dr.'s training the new generation of Dr.'s!

Josh's leg only lengthened 2.5mm which was pretty slow (it's average is supposed to be 1mm a day) but since it had been doing about double what it was supposed to in the last 2 weeks the Dr. (and us) were very happy with the amount this week. Josh thought he was pretty sedentary this week so we're thinking that's why his leg didn't lengthen. The Dr. wants him to keep it up...oh great just when I was hoping for MORE help.

The other thing that was great is that the Dr. thought he saw the start of some bone growth in the space between, it was really, really hard to see (you could kind of make what you were looking at seem like bone growth) so I'm hoping he's right.

We'd both felt uncomfortable with the Workman's Comp nurse last week so we asked the staff to please tell her to wait in the waiting room until the appointment was over then she could come in and be briefed and ask her questions. Well she kind of huffed and puffed and made a big deal to me (Josh was already in x-ray) that we were making her wait in the waiting room. Then I think one of the Dr.'s assistants got her too early and she was there in the room during the exam anyway! We were hoping to be able to see the Dr. alone and ask our questions without having to worry about what we said being used against us later. She's so pushy when it comes to Josh being able to get back to work...hello he just had major surgery and he's not driving...he can't handle walking or getting from the front door to his office right now. Even when we go to church he decides to use the wheelchair because it's too much walking (it's not that bad).

I did take pictures of the Dr.'s assistant taking out a stitch that was working it's way out, but our computer is being 'updated' and Josh said it's going to take all night so I'm using his laptop to post this...so pictures later. I'm hoping to take a picture of the x-ray next week to post...it's pretty creepy seeing the break in his leg.

Tomorrow I have a sonogram :o) I'll tell you more about that tomorrow night :o)

Doctor Appointment Update

Today was the day. My mom came over at 7am to watch the kids so we could get to the Dr's by 8:15, but because of my great driving skills (I used to work at KUMC so I know shortcuts through rush hour) we made it there and checked in at 8am. There were 2 other people already in the lobby! I was a little surprised because we were told the first appointment was 8:30am.

Everyone in the office was in a much better mood, no one yelled or looked pissy. Even the Dr. was nicer today...maybe they all had a horrible day last Thursday (let's hope). We got into the room rather quickly, then X-Ray came and took him out to do their job. The nurse came back and told me they were going to go ahead and take out the staples on the X-ray table, so to come back and get pictures (Josh told them I'm a picture crazy lady) but I forgot the camera!!! I put it right next to the door last night so I wouldn't forget it and there it sat! I ended up taking pictures with Josh's cell phone but they are kind of crappy. I could kick myself for forgetting it, the staples coming out is a pretty freaky sight. The nurse told him he had about 50 staples in the upper and then about 15 in the lower scar.

We got back into the room and the Dr. came in. They had measured the X-Ray but because of magnification it's a little off but the Dr. estimated it to be about 20mm lengthened so far...woohoo. There wasn't any bone growth yet where there needs to be and we did talk about maybe a bone graft when the Dr. pulls out the out the ISKD (the rod that is set too long). Then the Dr. had a nurse do a crude test where Josh stood on a phone book until he felt it was ok and they measured that it said there was another 28mm to go. The Dr. said that could honestly be like anywhere from 25-35, it's just a rough estimate.

Overall just a quick check up to make sure it was still ok. So far so good, not a whole lot to report today.

Workman's Comp is pissing me off (yes that's the nicest way I could say it) - they won't pay for the prescriptions up front they want us to buy them and then send in our receipts but that takes forever and you have to pay full price, so it's like $90 for one of his prescriptions!! We can't afford that. Plus they don't want to pay for a babysitter so I can take Josh to his appointments. I told the WC Nurse they can hire a medical van then, cause I'm not taking him anymore. Our lawyer said he would call their lawyer and get it worked out...cross your fingers!!!!

Josh's B-Day Celebration

Well not so much of a celebration as a crappy way to spend your actual 30th b-day...

Josh and I had a combined 30th b-day / Graduation party on the 13th of June (my actual b-day btw) so on his actual birthday (6/26) we didn't really have anything planned. We knew he would be home from the hospital but I didn't have a cake or ice cream and we weren't really prepared to have anyone over to the house. Josh's mom brought over a Brownie with cream cheese frosting and we cut him a slice and added candles. I know it's lame but we didn't even have enough money (still don't) to buy him a small cake or anything. So here's his b-day pictures...

(I don't know why it underlined all that...and I don't know how to fix it...)

Daddy tried to help

Josh tried to help by clipping Dani's nails...he accidentally got a big chunk of Dani's thumb :o( We tried to just put a bandaid on it but she kept biting it off, so we had to do a huge bandage she wouldn't be able to pull off. Yes that's blood on her shirt, we couldn't get it to stop bleeding my poor, poor baby!!!!

****Viewer Discretion is Advised!****

Ok - so I've been told people are actually following this blog for Josh's information...and I need to update.

It's been a while because well there is a lot going on, with Josh home there is so much to do to keep kids under control and of course the bathroom is still being worked on. Here's the update...We got home on Sunday. He's been in a lot of pain, but if he keeps on the schedule of pain medication it's not so bad. He is on 20mg of Oxycontin 2 times a day and 10mg of Percocet every 4-6 hours as needed...and it is NEEDED.

Monday and Wednesday I took the kids to the YMCA for a couple of hours to give Josh a break, and myself. I didn't think Josh being home would throw off our schedule so badly but it did, we're trying to figure out what will work while he's home.

On Thursday Josh had his first post operative surgery with Dr. Horton (the devil himself). His appointment was at 8:45am, we were the second people in the waiting room. We dropped the kids off with Andrea around 8am. The waiting room slowly started filling up, until there were no seats left and people on crutches and in braces were standing in the halls, it was ridiculous. We met the Workman's Comp. Nurse that will be following Josh's case, her name is Vicki and she was pretty nice.

We finally got into a room (after I complained) at 10am. A nurse came in and started putting on gloves and getting out the staple remover kit...Josh and I looked at each other and I asked her if she was planning on taking the staples out and she said Yes...then we informed her that it had only been 6 days since his surgery...she looked at us funny then said, oh yea we don't want to take them out just yet. COME ON people don't you read the charts?? We would come to find out, they don't.

Josh had heard from Carlos the representative from the company that makes the rod that the Dr. had set it for 6cm, Josh leg only needs to be lengthened 3.6cm!! While we were waiting Josh asked to see a copy of the Operative report, sure enough it says, "the patients length discrepancy is believed to be 6am..." Josh was furious. He's studied this surgery for over 3 years (that's how long we've fought Workman's Comp. to get the surgery for Josh, first they wouldn't approve it saying it was cosmetic and then we told them we didn't want Horton because he was an ankle specialist and had never done one of these surgeries before) so he knows what is supposed to happen when and what "proper procedure" is. He asked Dr. Horton, why was this set for 6cm? Dr. Horton got defensive and said we'd just take a look at the X-Rays and see what was going on. He left the room and Josh went back for X-Rays.

The X-Rays indeed showed that Josh had already lengthened about 12mm. That is a little much considering the ideal situation is 1mm a day and we were 6 days out. The Dr. said he wanted Josh to not exercise at all and now since the monitor wasn't working he has to go back every week to check the length. Josh knew that if the leg wasn't exercised at all for more than 3 days there is a possibility that the bone could grow back and that it won't lengthen anymore. When he tried to ask the Dr. about this the Dr. just basically said I'm the Dr. listen to me.

Then Vicki tried to ask why the rod was set for 6cm and the Dr. basically snapped that this is more of an art than a science and that we would just have to watch the x-rays and when Josh felt like his leg was long enough he would do ANOTHER SURGERY and pull the rod out and replace it with what he called a 'walking rod.' From Josh's research he found that the rod should stop lengthening at the amount set and then you wait for the bone to heal completely before the patient has the OPTION of having the rod removed.

I know you're thinking medical malpractice...we are too! We had our lawyer over that day to talk to him about all of this. He said it depends on the actual outcome, if the Dr. can fix his mistake (although he won't admit he made one) then we don't have a case. Both Josh and I are upset because it means another surgery in 3-4 weeks we were not planning and a longer recovery time. I just hope he's able to walk by the time the baby gets here in late Oct. or early Nov.

The whole office was mismanaged, it was horrible. I ended up cursing at the scheduling person because she snapped at me and I was so upset by everything (we won't get into that story...let's just say it wasn't pretty). I was actually shaking when we left the office because I was so mad.

Needless to say Josh is pretty upset, but at this point we have to take it day by day. Give him a call, send a card, just let him know he's in your prayers.

I'll update next Thursday with what ends up happening that day, unless something major happens between now and then.

Waiting for the Dr. to come in on Thursday 6/25/09 - our appt. time was 8:45am we didn't get put in a room until 10am!!

Apparently the Morphine Josh was given in the hospital made him itch - he did this in his sleep...yuckyThis is a picture of his whole leg - This is the first time I saw it on Wednesday when he was able to finally get down to take a shower. The bathroom remodel upstairs was supposed to be done before he got home from the hospital, they're still working on it...hopefully only a couple more days. ******NO Josh is not using the toliet in this picture, the lid was down...geez people...he can't stand very long and he was getting tired of me taking pictures while I should have been helping him get dressed and back upstairs, he just had to sit on something and the easiest thing was the toliet*******

Lower Scar - a little blurry I apologize

Upper Scar

Another angle of the upper scar

Overwhelmed - in short supply of patience!

Well it's only been 2 days since Josh has gotten home and I'd have to say that it's a little bit overwhelming. We cleaned the house really good expecting to not be able to do it as often and it's a mess in only 2 days...I guess we didn't realize how much the kids destroy!

I'm also tired, and in short supply of patience, so that's a daily prayer of mine. Luke is jumping off the walls most of the time and last night he woke up at 1:30am and wouldn't go back to bed. Josh I think has way less patience than I've acquired over the last couple of years staying home and he had about enough today with Luke climbing his walker and Dani just complaining every time her brother looked at her wrong. He asked me what the heck was wrong with the kids and I told him this is pretty normal. He then asked why I wasn't begging to go back to work! LOL

Today was a little rough, I had morning sickness hit me I think because I had to get up with Luke and I was pretty tried. So I did have to lock myself in the bedroom for about half an hour and get over being sick so I could function....meanwhile praying the kids could take care of themselves because I knew Josh would fall asleep on the couch! I know he's on medicine and I know it makes him sleepy (combined with lack of sleep with Luke) but it's a little frustrating when I'm trying to talk to him (in a conversation he initiated btw) and his eyes are rolling in the back of his head.

Thankfully the church has set up meals for a week and tonight Lisa Creek is bringing us dinner. She's also offered to watch the kids all day for 5 days over the next month, which will be quite helpful with Dr's appointments. I also hope my mom will take the kids either on Fridays or Saturdays for the next month...but we'll see if she agrees to that or not. I hope she sees that it's an emergency kind of thing, and not as though we're taking advantage of her.

OK...well that's it for now. Lisa just dropped off dinner yeah...smells good and it's warm so I'm going to have a bowl :o)

Dinner!

Thanks to the Slayton's for bringing Dinner to us Monday night :o)

Josh is HOME!

Josh was released from the hospital around 1:45pm today! WOO HOO...sort of.

Danny & Jeannie came over and watched the kids, who miraculous decided to both take a nap at the same time today! It's pretty rare that Luke takes a nap at all. I got to the hospital and shortly afterwards they came down with Josh, we put him in the back seat pushed all the way back and the front passenger seat moved all the way forward...it's times like these that having a minivan with a huge sliding door is a really, really great thing. He was able to get in without any problems. Josh was pretty much dozing off the entire ride home, he's on a lot of medication. He would fall asleep then wake up yelling, "What, where are we, what's going on..." It was rather disturbing actually.

We dropped off his prescription at Walgreen's at Sterling & 23rd. I drove the van up to the door and helped Josh get up the stairs and inside...it will take some upper arm strength to do that better in the future (can't wait for 'handicap arms'!) I got Josh all set up and then had to go back to Walgreen's to give them the workman's compensation prescription card that we were sent a couple of years ago. We figured it would be great, it's supposed to take care of all our medications...well turns out they don't have Josh in the system! I couldn't believe it because they were the ones that set up this surgery, didn't they KNOW he would need pain killers??!! So stupid. Anyway it was a fight with Walgreen's and a nasty mean pharmacist that didn't know what she was doing. I even asked if we could just get one day's worth of pills until we could call workman's comp in the morning and she said no. I said my husband just had major surgery and if I didn't get him something for the pain then I might as well take him to the ER, the BEEP had the nerve to say, "well maybe that's the best choice." NO BEEP it's not the best choice, the best choice is for you to let me pay for ONE day's worth of pills, that's like 5 pills lady, give me a break. Then after we got everything figure out (not great for us, but it would work - we had to pay out of pocket then be reimbursed tomorrow) she said, "Well let me check to see if we have these in stock." I was shocked, what an idiot to be fighting with me about how to pay for these prescriptions if you don't even have them in stock! I was so mad. I asked her to call another Walgreen's and took my prescriptions and left. I got them filled at another Walgreen's but now that I think of it I should have just gone to CVS.

Josh is now resting on the couch with ice cream, his throat is still sore from the breathing tube. He talks funny and they even took off a chunk of his lip when they pulled off the tape so that's bothering him. I haven't seen the scars yet, I don't know if/when I'm supposed to change his bandage or anything. We have a doctor's appointment on Thursday so maybe they will do it then...and give us lots of bandages.

Ok, just wanted to update you all. I have to go fix the bed, Josh is tired, so am I. If I can convince Luke to go to bed I think we'll all crash at 8pm!

Food Storage Giveaway

Can't Beat FREE Stuff!
I recieved my LDS Living email today and what was in it...a GIVEAWAY!

Entry #4 means i have to blog about this website:http://www.shelfreliance.com/blog/?p=104&cpage=28#comment-1473

Hospital Visit

We went to the hospital to see Josh today. He looks good, but is still falling asleep at the drop of a hat. The kids liked climbing all over his bed...but what can you say it does look like a jungle gym! We could only stay for an hour, that's pretty much the limit with small children, they got bored.

Josh should be home tomorrow, yea! The bed is super comfortable without him (we have a crappy bed that when he's in it, it makes me roll toward him and I hate that) but I miss him just the same.

I still don't have pictures, I can't seem to find my camera's battery charger!! That sucks so bad.

Hospital Update

Josh has moved to room 4309.2 (with a roommate).

Phone number is (913) 588 4337

As it is a shared room there is a cut off on visiting hours. Please plan to leave around 8 pm but you can come in as early as 7am. You can also call Josh on his cell phone (816) 616 6342.

QUICK Play by Play :o)

While I waited I wrote out a nice long detailed description of what was happening...but the hospitals Internet connection sucked and I wasn't able to upload it...I also forgot to put it on a thumb drive to bring back home, so I thought I would do a quick play by play and you'll get all the little details later :o) I also forgot the camera so I'll take pictures tomorrow as well.

Hospital - 5am
Check In - 5:15am
Took Josh back 5:20am
Brought Trish Back to be with Josh 6:30am
Had to do 5 tries to get an IV in :o(
Surgery started 7:30am
Told surgery would only take 1 1/2 - 2 hours
Surgery ended at 11:15am - complications getting old hardware out of his leg
Room 1503 by 1:30pm
Lots of pain medication...falling asleep in the middle of talking to me
I had to go home to kiddos by 4pm

If you want to call him just dial 913-588 (I don't want to put a whole # up because of "spy ware or whatever) then his room number. He's still really groggy so don't feel bad if he falls asleep on the phone with you.

If you want to visit him here are the directions: find your own way to the hospital 3900 Rainbow Blvd, KCKS, use whatever map software you like http://www.mapquest.com/. Then go to the main entrance and up the escalator on the right. Turn right and go down that hallway, look for the blue sign that says something like "patient visitor rooms 1501-15..." then turn Left down that hallway. Josh's room 1503 is all the way down at the very end of that hallway.

His room is TINY and doesn't have a bathroom (weird toilet comes out from below his sink...kind of gross if you ask me) and they only have 1 chair in there. I guess he got the "crap room" that they give people that are only staying a couple of days. We expect him to get out of the hospital by Sunday evening, or sooner if his pain is under control...but he's not wanting to jump the gun this time he's done it in the past and regretted it.

I'll post more tomorrow.

Touching Story

Do you know the legend of the Cherokee Indian youth's rite of Passage?

His father takes him into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone. Once he survives the night, he is a MAN.

He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own. The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. Maybe even some human might do him harm. The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man!

Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold. It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him. He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm. We, too, are never alone. Even when we don't know it, God is watching over us, sitting on the stump beside us. When trouble comes, all we have to do is reach out to Him.

Josh's Surgery

Josh is scheduled for surgery on Friday at KUMC. He's getting the hardware in his leg taken out and they are putting in an ISKD that will lengthen out his leg so that he doesn't have to wear the leg lifts anymore.

Both Josh and I are excited, but it will be a long road and very painful for Josh. I'll have to step up and do everything around the house and I'm hoping the stress and the pure work of it all won't be too much for me being 20 weeks pregnant...hopefully he'll be able to start helping with the kids and house again before too long.

We thought about waiting until after the baby for this surgery, but there's never a good time and it will be nice when he can finally walk without shoes and not kill his back.

Call us on Friday night or Saturday or stay tuned to this blog I'll post pictures (I have pictures from every single surgery...that's the dork photographer I am :o)

Remodel started

We've traded some stuff with a couple of professionals to remodel the bathroom upstairs to put in a shower!!! FINALLY! I'm excited, but it's hard to keep the kids at bay when there is so much excitement happening.

We're in the backroom right now watching TV and playing until bedtime...hopefully soon!

I'll post pictures when it's all done...we've estimated the cost of the bathroom (both remodels) is going to be around 5k...but it should be totally worth it when it's done. I was able to talk Josh into getting a whirlpool tub with the heat option so it will always stay warm when you take a bath at our house! I'm really excited about the tub and think during labor it will be the place I'll want to hang out the most :o)

THANKS!

Thank you to everyone who attended or donated for my Mother-In-Law's benefit dinner. We were able to raise $5,211.00 WOOHOO! I am so grateful for wonderful friends and family. I know that Jeannie will make it though this and we will be a closer family because of it.

I bid on a few things and wanted to tell you about them.

The first thing was a mural from a friend of mine Gina Wheeler. I was so excited when she decided to donate it and I was bound and determined to win it! LOL...I had a bit of a bidding war, but I ended up winning it...yea! I am excited to finally get Luke & Dani's room professional done...I'll post pictures when it's finished.

Josh bid on a meat and cheese tray! LOL...what he needs a $45 meat and cheese tray for I don't know...we're still trying to figure out what to do with it because we need to call the grocery store a day in advance and then pick it up in RICH HILL! It's a hour and a half away from where we live...so we really really want to have meat and cheese when we order that.

Another thing I was super excited to bid on and win were 2 dolls made by Veda Hess, that's Jeannie's mom. She passed away when Josh was on his mission. I have seen and heard stories about these dolls so when I saw them there I was super excited. I will always treasure them and be able to pass them along to Dani and any other girls I have. I am very sentimental when it comes to things that family members have made, it's our heritage and needs to be passed down.

I also bid on a $100 gift certificate for a make up application from a good friend of mine up here, Amanda Plattner. I wasn't going to because honestly I don't know when I will use it, but it wasn't being bid up as much as I would have liked...so I bid it up...and won it! LOL... now I guess I'll have to figure out when I'm going to do that.

I did win the lighthouse Scentsy warmer, which will go along with my nautical bathroom so that was pretty cool too. Shawn Harwood donated that.

Overall I'm so grateful for my wonderful friends that donated items, or their time and talents. It's tough times like these that make it all the more apparent. It's easy to give when you have plenty and harder when things are tough. I know our family has tightened our pocket strings and buckled down, it would have been easy to keep the money we brought and made our next couple of days waiting for Josh's check a bit easier, but we love Jeannie and want to help in any way we can. We can live on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a while, but the blessing of last night's event will warm our hearts for a long time.

Baby Names

Well I think I'm pretty much in love with the name Zackery Scott. Josh is convinced it's going to be Jonas, but I want to get Scott in there and I don't really think Jonas Scott sounds that great together. From what I've been told Zackery Scott was an actor in the 40's that my Grandma said was, "pretty good looking from what I remember." I'll let you be the judge:

For a girl we've always talked about Julianna, but now Josh threw out Alexandria and that's growing on me too...but I don't want to keep having kids to get my name in ... lol ...

Luke Lost

Why oh why must my boy give me a heart attack??

Luke was being really quite so I decided to figure out what he was getting into. I went into the living room...not there...His bedroom...not there...My bedroom...not there...and it was about this time that I notice the front door is open...not uncommon I like to leave it open to let in light. But the problem is that Luke can get out of that door and I'm always on alert if I hear it close, but with the window AC going in the back room I can't hear much of anything in the summer. Well I start to freak out that Luke has decided to adventure outside...FREAK OUT TIME...I'm outside looking for him and then I remember another time he's done this to Josh and I and was asleep under the kitchen table. So I decided before I call Josh and the Police I will do an inch by inch search of the house one more time. I check his bedroom, closet and all...no Luke. I check the living room, under the dresser, behind the couch...no Luke. I almost decide he's not in my room because the TV isn't on and that's usually the case...but I go in there and check the closet, the bathroom, the floors...then I decided to take the pillows off the bed...THERE HE IS! He's curled up under all our pillows asleep on our bed...LUKE I COULD BEAT YOU...if I wasn't so thankful you didn't wonder outside (guess once in a while he listens). I called Josh...we really, really need some sort of lock on the doors so I don't have to go through this again.

Jeannie's Benefit Dinner (my mother-in-law)

Jeannie Gillette is my mother-in-law (and the most wonderful one in the world - seriously she's amazing)She has been diagnosed with stage IIIB Cancer and is currently undergoing Chemotherapy (she's already finished 6 weeks of radiation).

When she got sick she had to quit work, luckily she did have insurance through her husband's work but it's only covering 80% of the bills. As some of you know medical bills can be HUGE and they are starting to feel the pinch.

There will be a benefit dinner June 6th and I am currently looking for any donations for a raffle and slient auction. Anything you can think of please email me.

Thanks for any and all help or IDEAS too!

Checks can be made out to Jeannie or Danny Gillette, and mailed to our house or they also have a paypal account for medical bills set up, go to the blog http://gillette.myblogsite.com then there is a link on there for the paypal account.

RAFFLE TICKETS: $1 for 1 or $5 for 6!

There is more in the raffle than is on this list...more items added almost every day.


1. Embroidered Rose Quilt


2. Pieced Quilt with camouflaged backing


3. Baby Quilt for a girl


4. Crocheted Baby Blanket


5. Deer Hunt for Fall 2009 in MO: 1 Adult or 1 Adult with 1 Youth


6. Abu 4600 Bait Cast Reels w/ Rods


7. Abu 4600 Bait Cast Reels w/ Rods


8. Abu 4600 Bait Cast Reels w/ Rods


9. $50 cash


10. Stone Massage


11. Gift Certificates X-Ray, Adjustment - Therapy


12. Gift Certificates X-Ray, Adjustment - Therapy


13. 4 Snowmen on a board


14. 5 pc. Garden Tool Set w/ gloves & flower seeds


15. 32" Pruning Lopper


16. Weather Radio


17. 20 pc. Screw Driver Set


18. 5 gal. Gas Can


19. 1 Pair of Sunglasses w/case


20. Pewter Courthouse Tray


21. Diffusers


22. $25 Gift Certificate to Bath & Body Works


23. Highlight w/ a Haircut - Total Image Salon


24. Hair Products


25. Body Products


26. Haircut & Style


27. Hair Products


28. Oil Change


29. Oil Change


30. $100 Sesson Fee - Bartz Photography


31. $25 Gift Certificate - Out Back Salon & Spa


32. $25 Gift Certificate - McBee's


33. $25 Gift Certificate - NAPA


34. $25 Gift Certificate - Grizzell's


35. (2) $10 Gift Certificate - Southside Cafe


36. $15 Gift Certificate - Flaming Lantern


37. $10 Gift Certificate - Hallmark


38. $10 Gift Certificate - Town Square Hardware

My little chocolate girl

Tonight for Memorial Day Josh did the all American thing and spent the evening in front of the BBQ. After making a delicious dinner Josh decided to use our "left over" smore stuff from Saturday night (we went over and visited Gabe, Heather, Nate, Chris, Gabby, Nick at their camp site) anyway he went down and did it over the hot coals. We brought up a plate of them and Luke got one and I decided what the heck and gave one to Dani...LOL There's where the fun started, she promptly took the smore apart and the side with the chocolate fell down on her tray (chocolate side down) and she started eating the marshmallow on the other side. After a while I wondered if she had already eaten the chocolate (because she LOVES chocolate) and turned over the other gram cracker, and sure enough as soon as she saw it she threw down the cracker she was eating picked up the other cracker separated it from the chocolate and started eating the chocolate! LOL...Josh and I just cracked up. She loves her chocolate. Josh will say "she is her mother's daughter" but I say she's just a girl! What girl doesn't love chocolate!

LOL Funny

So last night Josh was putting Luke to bed. Luke proceeded to tell Josh that there was a scary monster in his room that would poke out his eyes if he closed them! (talk about disturbing!!) Anyway Josh grabbed a billy goat stuffed animal that Luke has in his room and told Luke that he would put the billy goat next to him to sleep and he would protect him.

Luke's comment, "DAD, the goat's NOT real!" (think 3 year old exaggeration)

Then I guess he told Josh that he would just have to sleep with his eyes open. This monster thing lately is starting to be pretty disturbing, what should I do for the poor guy?

Baby Names

Ok...so here you go. Here's what Josh and I are thinking for Baby names:

Boy:
Jonas Zackery (nicknames: Joey, Joe, JZ (that's Josh's choice btw)
Zackery Scott (nickname: Zack)
Jonas Zackery Scott (hey I figured we'd all be happy this way :o)

Girl:
Julianna Jeannette (nicknames: Julie, Anna)
Alexandrea Jeannette (nicknames: Alex, Ali, heck she can even use Andrea)
Elouise Jeannette (nicknames: Eli, Louie, Lou, Lou Lou)

We're not budging on the middle name for the girl, that's Josh's mom's middle name.

So what's your vote?

Nightmares, Fevers & The Boy in the Mirror

Last night Luke looked a little pink in the cheeks and sure enough he felt warm...did he have a fever?? I don't know the thermometer we found wasn't working...augh...I know I have several of those around here somewhere, I need to get more organized.

Also last night Luke climbed into bed with us around 2:30am because he said that when he closed his eyes a monster with dots and red wings was after him, but the monster went away when he opened his eyes. I told him we would write a letter to Monsters, Inc. stating we didn't want anymore monsters to come into his room...hope that helps :o)

This happened a few days ago:
Josh told me when he was watching the kids that Luke came out of his room and said that he told the little boy in his mirror that his room was messy, then the little boy in the mirror told him that his room was messy too! I asked Josh if either little boy told the other one to clean his room but Josh said he doesn't think it got that far! LOL...made me laugh

My poor baby girl.

So Dani got sick right before we went to church. She was acting fine and has been just fine over the last couple of days so I was a little shocked. So here's the funny part:

Me: "Josh, Dani's throwing up...is that dog food?"
Josh: "I didn't think she ate that much."

Anyone else see the problem here? He didn't say...I didn't know she got into the dog food, he didn't say I tried to stop her I guess she did get some dog food... awe the funny things in life, now with my blog I'll be able to tell her she got sick eating dog food. Honestly I don't know if it was the dog food or not that made her sick, I'm feeling a little sick myself...but I don't ever know if it's just pregnancy or if it's actual sick.

What I really want to say

So isn't a blog like an online journal? So what good is a blog when you can't say what you really want to??

GRADUATION!!!

Ok...so I know no one really reads my blogs so this is mostly for "records" sake.

I will graduate with a 4.0 on Saturday from Park University. I'm pretty excited, but I just found out about in last Friday so I haven't had the chance to tell everyone or send out any invitations. So I'm a little bummed about that. I guess I can always send out after the fact announcements with me in my cap and gown or whatever.

So if you're reading this and I actually know you, please come to my graduation Saturday May 9th at 11am at the Community of Christ Auditorium in Independence. If you don't know where that is please call me and I can give you directions.

K-Mart Doubling Coupons

For all of those people that think I'm crazy for couponing, I just got a ton of stuff for free or near free. I saved 80% off retail value!!

Retail = $236.29

Coupons = $190.18

SPENT = $46.11

Sonogram

The sonogram went well! The heartbeat is good and strong at 160 bpm. The baby is measuring a little bigger than my previous due date of Nov. 4th, (now Oct. 31st) and they said it is always good at this stage when the babies are measuring bigger, it means they are growing strong and healthy.

On a funny side note: The lady doing the sonogram started laughing a little and she said I just thought this was funny and pointed out that the baby was all stretched out chilling and had it's legs crossed at the ankles. I laughed too because I seem to have babies that do that. In fact Lukas even did it after he was born he would naturally sit with his ankles crossed. I even took a picture about 5 months old because it was so cute he continued to do it. I have a sonogram picture of Dani doing the same thing! LOL...I don't know why but all three of my kids seem to cross their legs at the ankles, guess this little baby belongs in our family for sure.