Monday, August 24, 2009

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)

Saturday, August 22, 2009

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.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

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.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

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(

Saturday, August 15, 2009

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.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

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.