baby girl

Little Macie turned 4 yesterday!

Macie is our little skinny bunz. She has always been so tiny. We get a kick out of how she runs....just like Phoebe from Friends. She loves her long hair and wants it to grow as long as Rapunzel. Macie loves to swim and color outside with sidewalk chalk.

She eats like a bird but loves sausage and corn on the cob.

Macie starts preschool this year and is so excited to be a big girl.

She is feisty, tells it like it is and has a fantastic pout face. She loves to dance. She is a snuggler and would curl up on anyones lap and tell you all about her love of horses.

Macie is also a HUGE Michael Jackson fan, (bet cha didn't know that) in fact for her birthday I took her to get her hair trimmed and she sang both Beat It, and Thriller (almost word for jumbled word) to all the women in the beauty shop.

She is so fun to be around and cracks us up with her silly faces and sassy personality.

We love her so much and wish she would stay this little forever!

dad

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*This is the man that told me fantastic bedtime stories.
*He is responsible for my thick hair.
*This man taught me to stay out of the sun before 3 pm yet never made me feel bad for laying on the balcony surrounded by tin foil covered in baby oil.
*This man would stay up into the late night helping me with my homework. He is the reason I graduated from high school. Embarrassingly enough, he REALLY is.
*This is the man that obsessed over his lawn and taught me to appreciate keeping things neat and orderly.
*He is the first person I talked to when I had deep life questions.
*This man has sacrificed a lot of brown hair to the drama of 3 teenage girls.
*I have never known a man to make a 15 minute trip to the grocery store last 2 1/2 hours because he is so friendly and chatty and knows everyone he sees and has to get every detail of what is going on in their lives.
*This man loves his family and would give everything he has to see them happy.
*He is a hero of a grandpa and one heck of a Wii bowler.
I cannot say enough wonderful things about my father. He is such an exceptional man. A man of many words. When he speaks, I listen. He is a dad to me as well as a wonderful example to my kids that adore and crave time with him.
Happy Father's Day.

..and the rains came down and the floods came up

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Hey wouldn't it be so crazy awesome, if after all the drama of the last 2 weeks we were to add more to the mix for Sawyer.

Yea, sure.
How about a Virus!
Let's make it horrible and painful.
How about Chicken Pox!!!

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That's not quite enough you say?

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Ok.....let's make it even worse.
How about Sawyer ripping out his PICC line.
Breaking it right off and bleeding all over.
Then we can add in a whole new IV in his ankle. Yep ankle.


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That would be awesome!

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when it raines it pours

Last weekend was busy enough with Ellies birthday, Baptism, and family in town....but it all got so much more complicated SO FAST!!

I'll give ya the whole story if you want to read, if not you can just scroll down to the sad pictures of my baby in a teeny tiny hospital gown.

Monday night (the 6th) I noticed Sawyer had a 1inch spot on his foot that was red and a little swollen and it made him walk a little funny. But he was happy so I didn't really think that much of it. I ran some errands in the car and he fell asleep for about an hour. When I went to get him out he was so hot (104 temp) and his foot was bright red and almost bruised looking. It had also swelled up so bad he wouldn't let me touch it.
I meet Scott at our Pediatrician's office and were quickly sent to the ER. Initially they thought it might have been a spider bite. He was diagnosed as having a bacterial infection called Cellulitus. Which we now think came from a scratch he had on his foot a few days earlier that got infected. He was given every kind of test you could imagine. He had a catheter, had blood drawn, had 2 Xrays, an ultrasound, and then an IV was put in.
We were admitted and he was immediately put on an IV antibiotic. He stayed at 104 for a day when the Tylenol wore off and it didn't go down till we had been there 2 days. We started to see improvement on Wednesday but the doctors worried that the infection might be in the bone.

They didn't feel comfortable doing an MRI on him in Klamath and we were scheduled to head up to Medford or Portland to get one. But then they suggested we try a bone scan. It's results were inconclusive but to be safe they decided to treat it as if it was in the bone. So he needed a PIC line put in. If you don't know what that is it's a lot like an IV but it goes into a vein and a small tube is inserted and runs up the arm and shoulder and rests near the heart. YEA....SCARY!!!

So after 5 days in the hospital in Klamath we headed up to Medford and he was taken out of my arms and walked away with a total stranger to undergo anesthesia and as sad as I was it made me smile to see him smiling and pointing to the ceiling saying "Look" to show this stranger the lights. He was such a good boy through out this whole thing.

All went well and we were admitted overnight for more chest Xrays and blood tests.
The blood test came back saying that his liver might be not happy with the antibiotics and this has set us up with even more to deal with on top of 3 WEEKS of IV antibiotics at home. We have to flush out his PIC line every 2 hours for 3 weeks and every 7 hours he has to be hooked up to a pump that administers his antibiotics.
Wheww!


It has been a very stressful and crazy week and at the end I am so glad that he will be ok and that we have such fantastic Doctors, Nurses, Hospitals and medication to rely on.
Also, that we have the support of Family (who took care of getting all the other kids to and from school on their last week of school.... who cared for them night and day for a week...and who came to keep us company in the hospital)
For Friends (who also took care of our other kiddo's...who called, texted, emailed and came up to check on us... and brought my family delicious meals.)
And for the blessings of our Heavenly Father who kept us comforted and our sweet boy safe.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Ellie's Baptism

Ellie was baptised the day after she turned 8.

She was the only child being baptised on that day so we got to focus on making it a little more about her and our family.

Ellie asked for yummy treats and little bit of pink...so we did both. This picture is before all the yummy treats and refreshments were put out but her favorite part were the paper flowers I made. She wanted to give one to everyone who came.

Ellie was lucky and got both of her grandpa's to give wonderful talks and and her Dad to baptize and confirm her. Her Auntie Kara and Auntie Julie gave beautiful prayers and Aunt Anne played beautiful music for everyone and it was led by her Grandma Pam.

Ellies cousins and friends sang a sweet song for her and she was pleased as punch about that!

We have a bunch of traditions in our family that Ellie is now old enough to take part in. First, in Scott's family, when a grandchild turns eight Grandpa Bud gives them a nice State Quarter collector and they take a trip to the bank to get quarters and see how many they can get. This is such a fun collection she now gets to do with her Grandpa.

Ellie's Great Grandma Mortenson (Nana) gets all of her great grandchildren their own triple combination scriptures with there name on them. Ellie is just in love with hers and truly treasures them. Also, her other Great Grandma Casey (GiGi) got her some wonderful things to prepare her for her big day including 2 fantastic books that were perfect.

Next, in our family when you are baptised you receive a halo of fresh flowers to wear after. For Ellie we went with a fresh flower tiara/headband. It smelled so good and even had little sparkly crystals.

She wore dangley earrings for the first time, a little heal on her church shoes for the first time and some fancy jewelry. Her bracelet was handmade by her Grandma Lynnie and was so stinkin' cute and thoughtful.

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She was just beautiful in her pretty white dress!

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We were so glad to have as much family there as we did.

We are so proud of her decision and love her so much.

crazy 8

My firstborn is EIGHT!

This girl is becoming a young lady right before our eyes. We are proud of her and how she is growing up.

At eight, Ellie is obsessed with reading. She tries to get bigger, thicker books every time she checks out a new one. She is still a picky eater and has learned that if she doesn't like what was made that night, she can make herself a bowl of oatmeal or a PB&J and she feels pretty grown up. Ellie loves to draw, loves to play outside for hours and will answer almost every question I ask her in song form. (She even sings her spelling words)

Ellie asked for a pool party this year because she is a fish in the summer. One of her favorite things to do is swim. I have really noticed how helpful she is around the house lately and wow is she a great helper with her little brother and sister!

We love you so much ELLIE!!