A few thoughts

Sometimes if I ask Gracie if she wants to take a nap she'll say no and then a little while later she'll say she does want to go ni-nite. So I asked her today if she wanted to go ni-nite and she said, "No, dedo" and smiled really cheesy.
Max was playing with my hair today. I have my bangs pulled back in a couple of bobbie pins today. He had one of Gracie's hair flowers in his hand and said, "I'm just going to cover these up with a flower because when I see them I think they are kind of hideous."

I'm finally enjoying the summer. We're just kickin' back and havin' fun and I'm feeling very relaxed. In most ways I'm not looking forward to school starting. I am, however, looking forward to having a cleaner house. That's it. That's the only reason I'm looking forward to school today. Tomorrow if the kids start fighting I'll look forward to school starting then too. I'm really looking forward to having some one on one time with Gracie. She is such a sweetie and the poor thing is kid #4 so she pretty much just has to go with the flow. It will be nice to not have anybody in preschool. Being able to keep up with the house better will be nice. It will be nice to feel like things are more calm and relaxed. I really NEED some calm and relaxation in my life!

Can you believe I actually braved free swimming day at the pool for International Days? They said there were over 1,000 people there that day and I believe it! It was crazy! But we had fun! Gracie freaks out when the waves turn on but by the time we left that day she wanted me to take her to the biggest wave in the pool. She's so cute! I love spending time with my kids and feeling like I can actually feel like doing fun things like that with them by myself. I am really thankful for modern medicine!!!

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me....., scripture marking, that dadgum tooth fairy!, Brian's delicioso burritos

~As a parent you I feel the magnitude of the responsibility I have to raise good, decent, humble, active participants in church, and successful, upstanding citizens of this crazy world. I realize that I have to be a good example to them in every way because they learn so much by watching others. Now that I have a daughter I feel this responsibility even more than before! What she sees and hears me do will shape the kind of person she will be, just the same as it will shape her brothers. But it will also shape the kind of wife and mother she will be. Kind of mind blowing for me! She truly watches EVERYTHING I do. She is so cute to watch as she does stuff I do. She loves to help me with every task. She is a hard little worker! Her favorite way to help is to hand me the clean dishes from the dishwasher. Today I got out a towel to dry the dishes with since I usually use plastic cups and they just never seem to dry in the dishwasher. Well, Gracie got herself a towel out of the drawer and came over and started drying off dishes too. Oh my goodness! It was adorable! She melts my heart! She.is.JOY!!!
~So I went to that little scripture marking class last month and the teacher gave us a piece of paper with all the scripture mastery scriptures on it. She said she figures that if the youth of the church need to memorize them she should probably at least have them marked in her scriptures. She marks them in a rainbow of colored pencils so she knows when she runs across them she will remember that they are scripture mastery scriptures. I have been marking them in my scriptures since Brian got them for me a few years ago and I haven't marked very many scriptures in them yet. Although, Gracie has done her fair share of marking them!  ;)   I have so enjoyed marking these scriptures because they are just wonderful, inspiring, faith building, thought provoking, scriptures! I don't really take time to read scriptures on my own. We do as a family and that is wonderful but I really feel like I need to make more of an effort personally to study the scriptures on my own. I am so grateful for the scriptures! What a wonderful gift we've been given by our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ!  The prophets in the scriptures had such courage, such faith, such obedience. We can learn so many things from them!!!
~K, soooo, my face had been feeling like I was having birthing contractions for a couple days. So intense and unbearable! I don't think I've ever cried from the pain I have there before. I just try to be tough but that pain had me curled up in a ball on my bed, crying like a baby!!! Then my last tooth on the top on the right hurt so badly it's ridiculous so I went to the doctor. The crappiest part was that my T.N. could be causing that pain or it could just be a rotten tooth. My dentist said the only way he could tell if it was the tooth was to remove the filling I had in that tooth and basically do a root canal which would cost like $1500 and it could just be the stupid nerve causing it in the first place and I would have wasted $1500. I just had him pull it. He said it's really not that important of a tooth anyway. So, now I've had 3 teeth pulled. And not once has that dadgum tooth fairy brought me so much as a penny! Can you believe that?!?!  :)
~Brian makes these AMAZING pork burritos! I mean seriously TO DIE FOR!!! They are super easy to make too. And the smell fabulous!!! Ok, so this is what he does....

Brian's Delicioso Burritos

*Place a pork roast in the crock pot.
*Pour a can of that green chili verde enchilada sauce over it.
*Cut some onion up and throw that in. Brian cuts it into pretty big chunks so the kids can easily pick it out.  :)
*Cut up an Anaheim pepper and throw that in too. We didn't have one last time and it was still fabulous!!
*Let it cook in your crock pot for  like 6-8 hours from frozen.
*Put some on a flour tortilla and roll it up and ENJOY!!! We put cheese on the kids' meat in their tortilla because they'll pretty much eat anything that is covered in cheese! :)

Welllllll....

I went to that Dr's appointment. The first lady that came in acted like I didn't even have TN and was trying to diagnose me. I was like I know what I have I just need further treatment...HELLO MCFLY!!! So she finally got her superior who knew a lot about TN and she came in and was like yes, I totally think you have TN. She said that she thinks I should just keep trying to find the right medicine and the right dose for me and if I ever get to the point where I don't get relief from medication anymore then I should consider surgery but otherwise it should absolutely be a last resort. She said that she understands my desire to get off of my medications and not have to take them forever but since TN can go into remission and since I am much younger that most people with it I should just patiently wait it out. Most people who get it are in their 60's or 70's but you can get it at any age. She said the surgical treatments are fairly new and they can be scary. They can cause you to have even more problems than you already had in the first place. Or the problem can happen all over again. I have heard some real horror stories so I suppose it is best to not have surgery. BUT since November, when I FINALLY had a diagnosis from 3 different doctors and I started researching treatments and stuff I have just been dealing with the pain the best I could knowing that there was an end in sight. I just KNEW that I would go to this appointment that I have been on the waiting list for all of this time and they would tell me which of the procedures they thought would work best for me, I would have it done and then I would be all better. I could be the mom and wife I really want to be again. So today I have been very upset. I just can't help it. Now that I don't have an end in sight, no motivating factor, what do I do. Am I strong enough to endure this crap? It seriously sucks! I don't want to have Trigeminal Neuralgia!!! I just want it to go away! I don't want it to continue robbing me and my family of ME!!!! I know that this stupid thing gets progressively worse and I am really scared about that. The fact that they call it "The Suicide Disease" because it just gets so horrid that you just can't take it anymore terrifies me. I have tried so hard to be as positive as possible. People are always surprised when they find out what I have because I try so hard to not let it show. But right now I just want a whole day of just staying in bed, just sleeping and crying and wallowing in self pity. Just accepting it fully as something I will have to endure the rest of my life and trying to get all the negative feelings out. Then the next day I can just get out of bed, dust myself off and go forward. But instead I have to just keep going and that really sucks. No wallowing in self pity for me. Ok, so I am still wallowing today but I just can't do it while laying in bed. :) I get to do it while I clean the house. Tomorrow is a new day and hopefully I have a new attitude because today's attitude really bites!!!

I'm so excited!!!!

So, I've been on a waiting list with University of Utah Neurosurgery since November. I could have had an appointment a long time ago if I wanted to go to just any old doctor but this is my HEAD we're talking about here! I want to go to someone who knows what they're doing. Since I've had this Trigeminal Neuralgia diagnosis I have heard many a horror story. Most likely I'll have to have surgery where they cut into my skull and treat the nerve so I really don't want to just go to some Joe Shmo that wants to use me as a guinea pig or something. It's been SO tempting to just go to someone else, especially lately since my medicine hasn't been working so well but I am SOOOO excited because they finally called today!! I have an actual appointment on July 11. I am so happy I could cry. I'm also more than just a little bit scared. I mean, surgery is scary!!! I'm hoping and praying that they can help me and I can be a little bit closer to normal.  ; )

It's exactly the way I pictured it!!!

Today is wonderful! I feel fantastic! The kids are having tons of fun! They played in the mud with friends. I mean PLAYED in the mud, mud from head to toe. It rained today, whatchya gonna do?! They rode their bikes. Our back "yard" is just dirt and weeds. I think it is ugly but I also think it's a really cool "boy" backyard. There is a big dirt circle drive kind of a thing that the kids like to dig in and ride bikes on and stuff. There is a big area that is like an acre that they can ride bikes on. They catch lizards. They get super dirty every day. They have a couple of adorable little neighbor friends to play with. I have a friend who comes over sometimes to play  and our kids like to play together. They have the 2 little kids to play with that I babysit. I'm so glad because I had to FORCE them to play outside last summer! They hated it and I felt so bad for them. So now they are happy and I am just so glad!
As I was hosing them down and we were laughing and they were having so much fun being hosed down, it occurred to me that THIS was exactly how I always pictured motherhood being. Everything about today just feels...GREAT!! It's great to feel good and to feel like I'm able to keep up today. I have felt really rotten for like almost 3 weeks now. So-much-pain. Yesterday pretty much sucked!!! No other way to put it! It was painful and I had to take 6 kids with me to the vet to see what is wrong with my poor, sweet, dog. More about my dog later. He's a mini schnauzer. I LOVE HIM!!! He ADORES me! He's been with us since January and has been my little pal through all the good days and bad. They say he's bleeding internally and they think he got into poison. He's on vitamin K and an antibiotic. After that I had to take Gracie to the doctor because she has an ear infection. Thankfully I only had to take Gracie and Tessa, they are both 2. They are adorable! But every time I turned around it was something. It just kept getting worse and worse all day. So it's amazing to feel so much better today! It's great to feel like I'm more "together" today. I really just love being a mom today!!!

Tomorrow is a new day.

Hopefully it's a pain free day.

 Hopefully it's another day where things just flow and everyone is happy.

Hopefully it's another day that is exactly like I always pictured it being.

I just always pictured the house being a LOT cleaner so hopefully tomorrow it WILL be!!

     ;)    

I'm hoping you are having a really great day too!!!

Hooray for great days!

Randomness...

~There is a chick in our ward named Nicki who has the cutest hair! I asked her who she goes to, since I'm still trying to find someone to do my hair. She said she does it herself and that she works at a salon here in town. I figured if she can do her own hair that well, she must be GOOD!  Well, you can imagine how thrilled I was when she called me a couple of weeks ago and asked me if I would like to do a trade. I would watch her kids 1 or 2 days a week and she would do my family's hair.

Ummm, yeah!!!!

 To  be honest, I was a bit worried. I mean, you never know what you're gonna get when you watch other people's kids. But they are so well behaved. Ty is 8 years old and Max and Matthew LOVE playing with him. Tessa is going to turn 2 in July and she and Gracie get along really well too. I do have to save poor Tessa from my bully daughter, who has a hard time with this whole sharing thing, from time to time. But other than that they are getting along really well. Ty has great manners too. So far it's going great and everyone is happy!  It's been fun getting to know Nicki as well. I finally found a picture of what I want my hair to look like and I can't wait to have it done!

~Between having Zack on a Cal Ripkin Majors team, Matthew on a Cal Ripkin Pee Wee team, and Max starting T-ball this week on a city league team, we go to a LOT of baseball games! We have 9 this week alone. Tonight will be #7. It's been a lot of fun watching the kids having such a great time! It's been really fun to see the different ability levels too. T-ball and Pee Wee are just so remedial compared to Majors. Everyone cheers for both teams and are just so positive and nice. There are a few overzealous (crazy) parents who expect super great things out of their poor kids at this level and are continuously disappointed when it just doesn't work out the way they want it to. It cracks me up to listen to them! Then you go to the Majors and h-o-l-y  c-o-w! The parents REALLY get into it! Last year was really fun to watch but this year is AWESOME!!! All of the players finally really get how to play and they make some incredibly awesome plays! It's exciting to watch and I don't dread the games like I used to. I think a lot of why I dreaded them so much in the past was the way I felt physically. It has been so incredible, the contrast between how I feel this year as compared to how I felt last year. It was bad! It just makes me so grateful each and every day that I feel better. I still have some sporadic pain here and there most days but most of the time I feel great! It's truly a blessing!!! An answer to prayer for sure!!! 

~I have finally started trying to lose some weight. I have gained 20 lbs since November and I can't fit my fat butt into any of my jeans except my maternity ones and ones that have that stretchiness to them. Definite low point!!! And I saw some very cute, thin, girls I went to high school with and I looked like the stay puffed marshmallow man. So humiliating!!! So, I decided I have to do something about it! I've been trying to exercise and I have made some minor changes with my eating habits. I lost 10 lbs!!! Which inspired me to keep at it! Brian has lost some weight too. We both need to be healthier for sure!

~My kids have finally figured out that it's so much more fun to play outside than it is to stay in the house, which is a huge plus! Last year I had to force them to play outside.

~We were able to find Matthew's backpack that he left at school on the last day of school. It had his inhaler in it and some other medicine equaling about $70. I was totally freaking out. We looked in the lost and found 2 different times before we found it.

~I feel like we live at the dentist office. Matty and Zack both have retainers. Both of them have broken them twice. They have only had them since like April or something. Matthew even threw his away at school and the super nice janitor spotted it on his tray in the garbage can and took it out. Thankfully! Course, about 3 hours later he broke it. I tell ya, this could drive a mom to drink!

~So we all know it's not good for us to eat fried foods. I rarely fry. Maybe a few times a year. I found another reason not to do it a few weeks when I was frying some chicken for my family to have between baseball games while I was at a Young Women's barbecue and homework burn. I placed a wing in the front of the pan and reached over it to put another one on the other side of it at the back of the pan and right when my hand was about an inch above the first wing, it popped. Oil splattered on my wrist. It burned it bad! It blistered up and has gone through some interesting changes over the past 2 weeks. Not fun! There is one part that I can't get to heal and it was the most blistered. So frying is not my friend! I feel so bad for people who are burned in accidents.I can only imagine what they must go through!

~Oh, and for those of you wondering, the Essure thing has been wonderful!Just make sure you get everything worked out with your insurance company and your drs office before having it done.

A little catching up...

K so I know I haven't blogged in a really long time, it's actually been almost a whole month! Crazy for me! But my medicine has been working REALLY well...most of the time anyway. I still have some really bad days, sometimes for several days in a row. But I'm definitely having more good days than bad days...I'll take it!!!! On the really good days I think of a zillion things to blog about but I'm running around doing all the things I can't do on the bad days. I still try to just work through life in pain on those days, I'm just a LOT slower! I have to sit down more often and rest. Thank goodness for recliners! I just try to find joy on those bad days by spending more time with the kids. Reading to them. We like to watch movies and eat popcorn together when it hurts too much. I love the chance that those bad days give me to just spend time with the kids, snuggling 1 or 2 kids on the recliner while we watch our movies. The good days have been like a dream come true! I can mow weeds, clean more deeply, run errands, organize our house better. When we moved in a year ago we just haphazardly put things away just to get rid of the piles boxes in the house. I have reorganized most closets, drawers, cabinets, to make them more functional. I just get so much more done on good days than I do on bad days for sure!!! I have caught myself feeling FANTASTIC many times and doing things I couldn't for so long and I just feel so incredibly happy that it always brings tears to my eyes to feel NO PAIN and I feel like myself for a change! Then when I go back to having my Trigeminal Neuralgia pain on bad days that brings tears to my eyes too. I am so grateful to have found a wonderful doctor who knew what was wrong with me AND how to help me! I am grateful to a wonderful friend who, when I mentioned I didn't have a dishwasher, gave us a dishwasher that they had in their garage that was from a different house they had. Her very clever husband build a cover for it since it is the kind of dishwasher that is meant to be built in to your cabinets. We had to have it as a portable one so he made it portable. He also came over to our house 2 evenings in a row hooking it up. I cannot begin to tell you how grateful I am to have a dishwasher!!! As you might imagine, we have a LOT of dishes around here seeing as how there are 6 of us and we eat out once or twice a month, if that often. So 3 meals a day for 6 people.....fun stuff!! I have spent more hours washing dishes this past year than I care to think about. What a time saver a dishwasher is! I feel giddy every time I close the dishwasher door and press the buttons to start it and walk away after spending a few minutes loading it! It's unbelievably freeing! And I am so incredibly grateful that they so generously gave us the dishwasher and that he sacrificed 2 evenings hooking it up!!!

Baseball season has been going on and tonight Matty has his second game at 7:00 and Zack has a game at 6:00 to make up for the game they couldn't play yesterday because of rain. Matty is a natural when it comes to hitting! He's awesome! Zack has been playing second base this year. He has always played third base before so it's a bit different but he likes it and does a good job! He's been hitting the ball, being pitched to him since he was 2 years old but he's been hit by the ball a couple of times from some wild pitches and he has not hit much at all for 2 or 3 years. It drives us nuts because we know he can do it he just needed to get past the fear of getting hit. I finally told him a couple of weeks ago to just forget everything his different coaches have told him about how to stand and stuff and just watch the ball. It doesn't matter how he stands or what he does if he doesn't watch the ball. I told him baseball is meant to be fun and if you aren't having fun then what's the point?! And I told him that the worst case scenario is that he gets hit by a ball. He's done that and he lived so don't worry! It did the trick! That night he actually hit the ball!!! We were so excited for him! He has been hitting the ball at games ever since! They had a tournament last week. Friday night his team won which meant he had a game Saturday morning at 9:00. That was Gracie's bday and I had a zillion things to do so I couldn't go to the game. He hit the ball way out to right field and made it to 2nd base and 2 of his teammates scored off of that hit! What a confidence boost for him! I was so happy for him! His team lost but they still have the best record in the league for the tournament  with only one loss, so they play tonight again. They would have been finished last week but with all the cancelled games because of rain, the tournament is still going on. I can't wait to see how his team fares!

Can you believe Gracie is 2 now?! It just blows my mind! I'll try to post some of the fun pics of her bday. For now I have to go...busy, busy, busy!!! :)

I'm still alive...

So, I've had some major writer's block lately but I am still alive in case you were wondering. I was in a really crummy mood for a few days there. I just felt really, really discouraged. No hope. No joy. Just empty and sad. My pain had started to go away because of a combination of medications I was taking. It was still there but very dull. Occasionally bad still, but mostly dull. I'll take it!!! Well, the medicine stopped working and it upset me. A lot!!! I've also been having a time where I'm so sick to death of scrimping by and pinching pennies I could scream. Just not in very good spirits. Low. Very low. Then last Sunday at church Brother Banasky asked me how I was feeling and I gave him my standard answer of, "I'm ok. How are you?" Then he said, "No. Really. How are you feeling?" I told him it really hadn't been a good day, painwise. He asked if I had asked Brian to give me a blessing. I told him that I hadn't even thought about it with the crazy morning we had getting ready for church. But I did ask Brian for a blessing after church and it was a really beautiful blessing! Brian even explained some neat feelings he had as he gave me the blessing. After that I had a REALLY low few days and then on Wednesday I was able to talk with my friend, Sherelle and she helped me talk some of my feelings out. Then that night some very kind members of the Relief Society came for a visit while I was at YW and Brian talked with them a bit about me. They just recently found out about my health issues and wanted to express concern and support. Our wonderful bishop called later and talked with me. Having so many people reaching out to me and praying for me really has helped me these past few days. I have felt so much happier and have had more energy and strength than I have had in such a long time I can't even remember. I know with all my heart it is because of a Priesthood Blessing and the prayers of others on my behalf. I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am thankful for my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I am thankful for all of the inspired programs of the church. I am thankful for members of our family, members of our ward, and friends who follow the spirit, and try to live like Jesus and serve others in His behalf.

Tonight I went to The General Young Women's Conference Broadcast and a wonderful dinner that the Stake YW Presidency prepared for us. It was a wonderful night. I so enjoyed visiting with the leaders from our ward and the YW from our ward who attended. The broadcast was wonderful as well. I am so grateful for my calling. I am so grateful for my YW leaders when I was a YW and for the amazing General leaders of the YW. At the end of it Elder Eyring talked a bit about the challenge in the Book of Mormon that Mormon gave to everyone who reads it to pray and ask for the witness of the spirit testifying to them that The Book of Mormon is true. It made me remember when I was in college and fervently reading The Book of Mormon. I will never forget how I felt as I got to that part in The Book of Mormon and how strong my desire was to pray and know for myself that it was true. I already had felt the witness of the spirit telling me the words were true throughout my reading but I just felt strongly that I should accept the challenge and pray for that witness. I had a lovely and sacred experience that I will never forget as I prayed and received that very strong witness that it was indeed the true word of God. It was so strong and powerful that when I have struggled at times in my life since that moment I CANNOT deny the truthfulness of the book!!! It is the most wonderful feeling and I feel so strongly that everyone should get that witness for themselves as well. Especially in this day and age when there are so many evil forces surrounding us trying to lead us astray. We HAVE to be steadfast and immoveable in our commitment to living the gospel. Having that strong witness and testimony can be THE thing that keeps us going no matter how hard it gets.  I am so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who knows me and loves me and never gives up on me, even when I give up on myself. I am so grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ who loves me and suffered my sins and pains and challenges and frustrations and sadnesses and everything that I go through. I am grateful for His compassion and understanding. I am also so very grateful for the Holy Ghost and His companionship. For His comfort and peace that buoy me up and carry me through the hard times I face in this life. I know with all my heart and soul that nothing else on earth can bring us such joy and bring our spirits such comfort and peace than living the gospel to it's fullest and bringing ourselves closer to the members of the Godhead through our faithfulness and diligence in keeping the commandments and asking for their help when we need it! I love them and I am thankful for them. I am thankful for a wonderful husband and beautiful children that keep me going. I know I am incredibly blessed and I am so grateful for all of the many blessings I have been given. I know I am so far from perfect and that I have so far to go but I am so happy for the patience and love of my family and my Father in Heaven!!!

Dana's here! Stupid Medicine! Fun weekend! Blessed! Making stuff...

 I really try to be positive and remember the many wonderful blessings our loving Heavenly Father has given us. But sometimes I have a bad day. Today is one of those days. I really hate feeling like this. I hate thinking of the things we don't have and really facing the disappointment of unrealized dreams, wishes, hopes, as meaningless and trivial as they may be. I hate feeling like I know my joy is there somewhere I just need to try harder to find it today than most days. I changed medicine last weekend and it made me weird. Well, I'm already weird so I guess I should say it made me weirder. :)  I went off the first medicine too quickly which caused CRAZY withdrawals. I was a MESS!!! My mom came and helped me Monday and Tuesday and left Wednesday morning. I appreciated her help so much! I just hate having something wrong with me! I really hate medicine and all that goes along with it! I just hope this one actually helps and then I can start appreciating medicine in my life instead of resenting it! Every time I add a pill or switch medicines I am just plain weird for days. I added one Friday morning and I was still weird from changing the medicine in the first place and now I'm definitely weird!!! It was fun spending time with my mom! I have missed having her come and stay and the kids were THRILLED about her staying!!! Zack thought she had gone home Tuesday because Brian had her car and when he came in the house after school and saw her he dropped to the ground and said YES!!! You're still here!!! Cracked me up! I said, Hey, no one ever reacts like that when they see me! :) 

My sister Dana came Friday for a visit from Colorado. She stopped by on her way to my parents' town. Then we went up Friday and stayed until Sunday night. Brian gets paid monthly now instead of twice a month. It started in January. We only had 1 of his 2 week paychecks to last the entire month of January during the lovely transition. I only mention it because it was truly a miracle that we survived the month! We were so truly blessed! We didn't have to beg, steal, or borrow or anything we just...made it through. I know we made it because we pay our tithing!!! If it weren't for that who knows what the month would have been like. It wasn't an easy month at all!! It stressed me out so much I just can't tell you! We had some touch and go moments. Syphoning gas from one of our cars to the other was involved but we made it! LOL!! Definitely a low point! But it all ended up well and when the month ended and we evaluated the situation we just truly felt blessed! We felt like marathon runners crossing the finish line! When payday hit it was like a drowning person finally getting water! We were so happy!!! We had run out of EVERYTHING!!!! We had plenty of food and clothing and gas (just not in the right car LOL). I ran out of laundry soap on Thursday or Friday and payday was Tuesday so that was kind of hairy but I had planned my last soap well so that we had everything we needed to last til payday. The laundry room just became a VERY scary place! HAHA All in all it worked out! I just mention it because I am so grateful to my Heavenly Father who always takes good care of us and makes sure we have everything we NEED. I am grateful to be His daughter and to know that He loves me and my little family and that He is mindful of us and our needs. My testimony of His love for us and my love for Him grew during that month. It was difficult going through the month but looking back it was such a blessing. I know He loves all of us and looks out for us! See there, I'm already feeling happier just remembering His love for me! The best gift!!!

Well, now that Brian is only getting paid once a month and we have 6 people in our family and a limited budget we decided while we were in Utah County we would make a trip to Sam's. I so miss living in Pleasant Grove where I could go to Costco every paycheck and load up. I'm learning to be more organized. I have always made up a menu for the entire 2 weeks and shopped right on payday for everything we might need during that 2 weeks. I don't ever want to find ourselves at the end of the pay period, out of food to eat and out of money so we always cover that base first thing!! I guess I am pretty organized already but now that I have to do it for an entire month at once I have to kick up the organization a few notches. Life happens and things come up and if I don't do it up front we won't have it at the end. I bought 2 things of laundry soap this time I can tell you that! And I bought Ziplocs at Sam's because we ran out of those and I use those for EVERYTHING!!! And flour lots of flour! I'm learning as I go. We love a good trip to Sam's or Costco so it will be fun for us to make a monthly grocery shopping trip up there and to some of my favorite grocery stores like Macey's and I have heard wonderful things about Winco. Can't wait to check them out!

I got a pedicure while I was up there too. I used a gift certificate Nathan and Heidi gave me for my birthday. It was nice! I was going to get my hair done there but chickened out and a pedicure was just what I needed! So relaxing! My friend Sherelle taught me to make those cute little flower clips for little girls' hair so I took all my supplies up with me and we all made cute little flower clips! It was really fun! It was fun spending lots of time with my sisters! I love them all so much! Dana, Stephanie, KayTee, and Heidi (Nathan's wife) are all different, beautiful, talented, wonderful women! We laughed and had a great time! I wish we all lived close and could just spend time together like that all the time!!! I think about all the times we spent singing into our hairbrush microphones, dancing, watching chick flicks, braiding each other's hair, talking, playing games, and just being silly when we were kids and I miss that time. Now we enjoy each other in different ways. Instead of Prom dress shopping we went grocery shopping. We're more tired and poop out sooner than we used to. We have little kiddos to care for and to put to bed early. But we savor the moments we can spend together and I'm so grateful to have them in my life!!!  Last night we went to Steph and J.J.'s for a fun Super Bowl Party. It's always fun to go to their parties! The food was divine! It was a fun weekend! Dana will be here until Friday. Maybe that's what I'm most upset about today. She's in UTAH and I'm HERE! Not fun! Whatchya gonna do?!

I am going to embellish the middles of some of these differently. I just put a brad in for now til I find what I'm looking for. They were fun to make! Remember if you click on the picture you can see them bigger.  :)

Ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble, ramble...

So, yesterday was Max's 5th birthday. I let him invite some friends for the first time. He was so excited and anxious for his big day. One really nice thing about having a birthday in January, in a small town, is that Walmart has some super sweet deals on toys they've marked down that were left over from Christmas. We got him a scooter for 15 bucks!!! We found some other great things too and he was happy with his loot. I had been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for 2 days. I had a Dr.s appointment and a dentist appointment and I've had to run Brian to work all month because we need to register his car but can't until February 1st (UGGHH!!!!), which means back and forth to take him, to get him at lunch, to take him back and pick him up if I need the car in the afternoon, if not he drives back after lunch. I had to run some errands, visit a new young woman in the ward (which was the highlight of my 2 days of crazy and turned out really well!!!!), run Max back and forth for preschool, wash a million dishes and clean frantically every extra minute I could find, all one handed while lugging around my adorable 20 month old little Gracie who is getting over a cold and NEEDED her mommy. Yesterday morning I made a batch of strawberry cupcakes (yes, pink, I know, I tried to talk him into chocolate but he's stubborn) and a chocolate cake. Of course my stupid pain was terrible all day both days because stress makes it worse and I was more than a little stressed! So, I'm at my dentist appointment that took an hour and a half and I get this phone call from the school saying Matthew threw up. SUPER!!! I go to pick him up after my appointment and I'm asking him on the way out to the car if he was sick to his stomach or what and he completely fell apart and says, through his tears, that he was choking on a piece of chicken and tried to drink to make it go down but it wouldn't go down so he started puking and it finally came out. SCARY!! He did that once at home and I had to do the Heimlich on him. He needs to chew his chicken better! I was sad for him that he was obviously so traumatized by the whole experience but relieved that he didn't have a stomach bug that would cause me to cancel the party or anything. So, it's getting down to crunch time. 2 hours till the party. I still needed to pick everything up and vacuum, make frosting in at least 4 colorful options so the kids could decorate their own cupcake, wash a bunch more dishes (they never end!!!), clean the bathroom, dust my adorable Ikea shelves, decorate for the party, wipe off counter tops and stove...I'm only ONE woman needing 14 more hands. I decide a prayer is in TALL order. I called the boys together and we thanked Heavenly Father that Matthew didn't choke to death at lunch and then asked that I'd be able to get everything done in time for the party. I was frantically trying to do my best at that and running out of time when my angel friend, Sherelle, drove up in her chariot (mini van) and offered to help me out. Bless her!!! She really saved my tail! And she stayed and helped me with the whole party too! Thank heavens! We didn't quite finish all the tasks on the list but we did get all of the really important stuff done and the rest didn't really matter in the end anyway. I don't think I'll ever do another midweek party again. It was fun but just too CRAZY!!! Once the party was over I still needed to make the chocolate cake I made earlier in the day, into a football. I was definitely channeling my inner Paula Deen yesterday with all the butter and shortening I used in making two kinds of frosting and a chocolate cake from scratch. And it...was...good!!! Sherelle showed me the super fun little comment thing I added to my blog. I am so excited about it! Then when Brian came home from work he made a pizza crust and homemade pizza (that's what the birthday boy requested) and I got to work looking for scrapbook paper for our little Y.W. activity. It was so fun! I'll post about that later! Then we ate and sang Happy Birthday to Max and then Zack and I were off to pack meeting at 6:30. His leaders were nice enough to give him his awards first thing so I could be there for it before I needed to go pick up a couple of the YW for our activity at 7:00. When I got home I CRASHED!!! I am exhausted today! Oh to have the energy, focus, and cleverness I used to have before my pain started sucking it all out of me. I'm starting a different medicine combination today and I'm really keeping my fingers crossed that it does the trick since the pain seems to be worsening and the ibuprofen doesn't seem to be doing anything for me anymore. Crazy days! Crazy life! That's what keeps it interesting, right! I hope you all are having fun with your interesting lives too!!! Have a good one!!!

 

 His cake that kinda, sorta looks like a football....I'm NOT a professional!!!  ;)

Here's Hopin'!!!

I've known for a long time I needed to get healthier but I just wasn't there mentally. Do you know what I mean? When you decide to get healthy it's such a mental change!!! It is for me anyway. If I haven't really done that it's not going to work!! Well, ever since I was thrust into this stupid world of drs and medicine and pain and CRAP I have felt such a lack of control. I really really hate having to take medicine. I really really hate drs appointments and wasting hours of my life in waiting rooms, on hold with receptionists, on hold with my insurance company, etc. Well, one of the stupid medicines I'm on causes you to gain weight. SUPER!!! As if all that elbow exercise I've been getting doesn't do enough damage on it's own I have to take a medication that makes me gain weight.When I was first diagnosed I was just totally grateful that my kids are healthy!!! I can handle having health problems better than I can handle having my kids have health problems!! I was also so incredibly grateful that I didn't have a brain tumor I didn't care what else they said. Now the realities of my "condition" or whatever you want to call it have sunk in and honestly it's HARD!!! It SUCKS!!!!!!! I hate it and I'm ANGRY!!! I'm not angry at anyone I'm just angry! It sucks and I'm angry! I can't help that! Probably natural to feel that way. I'm not living IN anger if that makes sense. I STILL feel so incredibly GRATEFUL for the kids good health and that I don't have a brain tumor I'm just mad about this stupid thing. I am trying to learn to function and deal with it to the best of my ability. When I bend over and my face explodes in pain I get MAD that this stupid thing effects me and the way I funciton and take care of my family. I am grateful for my freakishly long finger toes now because they help me pick stuff up! I knew there had to be a good reason for them!!! I'm hoping to get one of those little claw picker upper things for my birthday so that will help, too!! It's hard to not have control over my body. I may not be able to control the stupid medicine I take but I DO however have control over whether or not I get my fat @*# up and ride the exercise bike or what kinds of food I put in my mouth. Now that the medicines have gotten me back to a pretty decent functioning level (haven't helped pain but have helped dizziness and nausea, etc) I feel like exercising!! Brian asked for an exercise bike (see January 1st post) for Christmas and has been riding it faithfully for a couple weeks now. I've been trying to mentally be ready to do it. The end of last week I couldn't even button my fat pants. It's definitely TIME! I became mentally ready at that very moment!!! Seriously bad! Granted I just had that Essure procedure and there was some bloating and swelling but STILL!!! So, I have ridden Brian's bike twice so far. I feel fantastic when I'm done. Don't you just feel so good about yourself and your efforts after you've taken good care of your body and have exercised? And don't you feel so invigorated? It's the best! So I'm hoping that exercise and some food changes will help counter act the effects the medication has on my weight!!!

Here's hopin!!!!!

Gotta learn as you go...

As with everything else in life, having Trigeminal Neuralgia is a learn as you go kind of thing. Apparently there are some super fun triggers for the stupid thing. It is always painful but some things REALLY set it off and make me feel like when the dentist hits a nerve when he's fixing your tooth that EXTREME pain lasts for HOURS. So far I've learned that drinking, eating, heat, cold, chewing gum, talking on the phone, and touch are my triggers. Drinking cold or hot stuff on that side of my mouth or chewing food, especially hot or cold stuff on that side of my mouth, or rinsing my mouth out with cold water after brushing my teeth just send me to the moon! Wearing my cute little adorable hat I showed you all in August just sets it right off because touch is NOT good for the stupid thing.  :(  Being out in the cold air is NOT good. :(  I love winter! :(   Waking up on that side of my body is incredibly painful. Apparently it's because of that touch thing again. I TRY to sleep on my left side but HELLO I'm a crazy sleeper! Like I can control what side I'm sleeping on. It totally sucks waking up like that! I am convinced that that is where that saying, "She woke up on the wrong side of the bed" came from! I think that when I hold the cell phone on the right side of my face when I talk it sets it off. It's either the heat from the phone or the touch of the phone on my face or both. I have noticed some of these triggers for the last year or in some cases, 2 or 3 years but I just thought they were teeth problems. I was accepted by University of Utah Hospital's Neurosurgery clinic for treatment I just have to wait til June to be seen. I am on a cancellation list so I'm praying that I move up quickly so I can see if I qualify for the treatments they have for TN. I'm trying to remain as positive as I can about it all but I'm really irritated with the stupid problem! The medication I'm on hasn't helped the pain at all but it has helped some of my residual symptoms, like, I don't feel so dizzy or nauseous most days. Which is a nice improvement I must say! I have more and more good days which is great. Still lots of bad days but improvement is always good! I'm up to 5 pills a day. I start 6 a day tomorrow and have to do that for a week to make sure it isn't helping the pain. If it still doesn't then I have to switch medication and this process continues until I finally find one that actually treats the nerve. I really hate taking medication! I really do! But hopefully it eventually helps! Then I would be cool with it! Sometimes I wish I could put ice on it or a heating pad or something but hot and cold make it worse so...Anyhoo, just thought I'd give a little update.

PART 2 OF...Stick a fork in us...we are DEFINITELY done!!!! (we think!!!)

Oh yeah, we're done! To see part 1 go here . There is absolutely NO way I can go through a pregnancy again! I realize now that the Trigeminal Neuralgia was most likely the cause of the major dizziness I felt while I was pregnant with Gracie and why I had so many headaches and why I felt so crappy.  I know I would have felt that way to some degree but the feeling car sick all the time, like my head was spinning and stuff is how I feel a lot of the time from TN anyway and add pregnancy to that and UGH!!! When I think about being pregnant again it makes me hyperventilate a bit so I'm thinking...definitely done!!! We were weighing the options...vasectomy or tubal ligation. I told Brian that I figured I had carried and delivered 4 babies so he was up! It was his turn to experience a bit of pain and sacrifice his body a bit to keep us from having more since tubal ligation is supposed to be more invasive, more costly, more of an uncomfortable recovery for a longer period of time than having the big V. He is a big ol' chicken :)  and started googling options for this sort of thing and discovered a procedure called Essure. Basically, it is something they do right in the Dr.'s office, all we have to pay is our $25 copay, they give you a percocet and a Valium for pain management because it can feel a bit crampy during the procedure if you don't do that, you don't have to be put under or anything, the Dr. says its like having a pap smear. They open you up with that double shoe horn looking gadget and insert a scope into you and release metal coils into your fallopian tubes. Scar tissue forms around them, eventually blocking them completely. 3 months later you go have them put dye up in you and do some sort of x ray to make sure nothing is getting through the coils. This is a permanent fix. No reversing it. The accuracy of this procedure is even better than either the tubal ligation or the V mainly because they actually check to make sure it worked and things are COMPLETELY shut off. There is no affect on your hormones or periods or anything like that. Everything continues on as normal, whatever your normal is. The recovery is the easiest of the options as well. They say you feel loopy that day from the medication you took and then some people feel a little crampy like you're on your period for a day, some people a few days. That's it. Seems like the best option for us financially and physically. I still would prefer to have Brian have a V instead of me having to do anything but since I live in constant fear of getting pregnant again, at this point I don't care I'll do anything to ease my mind. This TN is just more than enough to deal with right now. I was a bit sad as I watched all the cute little pregos at the Dr.'s office. It's still hard to think about that part of my life being completely over. Not an easy choice. If I could guarantee another pregnancy would be as easy as my pregnancy with Matthew was, and if I could know for sure that the baby would sleep through the night from day 1 like Gracie did, and that the baby would be as easy as Gracie was, and if I could know that if the pregnancy was as hard as it was with Gracie I could hire a full-time maid to clean while I was pregnant and a nanny to take took care of my other kids while I laid around feeling like I was going to die, and I could know that I could hire a maid to clean once the baby came or a full-time nanny to help me take care of the baby while I cleaned and kept up with life, then SURE, I'd be all over having another baby! So, there you have it, we are DONE!!! I am scheduled to have the Essure done on January 4th. Dr. Thorpe will perform the procedure. He was the Dr. on call ,instead of Dr. Dayton, the night we had Zack. I'm trying to look past THAT experience!!! No fond memories there!!! Not many Dr.'s do this procedure and my favorite Dr., Dr. Harrison referred me to him. Little nervous but also looking forward to a little peace of mind!!!

Roller coaster week

I started my anti-seizure medication, Gabapentin, Monday. It has been a roller coaster week! The plan is to take 1 each night for a week. If I don't see any progress I take 2 pills for a week. I can add a pill each week if I'm not seeing improvement until I'm up to 6 pills a day. If I still don't see improvement I have to switch to a new medication and I will continue this pattern until I finally find the right one. I took the first one Monday night and when I woke up Tuesday I felt like I'd been run over by a truck. I felt HORRID!!! On top of just feeling so horrible my head felt like it was spinning. Some of the side effects are fatigue and dizziness. I already have fatigue and dizziness so added fatigue and dizziness was so bad!! I thought there was NO way I could live like that!!! Then when I woke up Wednesday and Thursday I felt a bit better but not much. Thursday night Brian convinced me to take a muscle relaxer I had been prescribed a couple years ago, along with my gabapentin. When I woke up Friday I felt FANTASTIC!!! No pain! And can I tell you that sleeping straight through the night without waking up at midnight or 4:00 in excruciating pain because the ibuprofen wore off was AMAZING! I can't tell you how WONDERFUL I felt! I can't tell you how long it has been since I felt THAT good! Around 8 am the pain started to come back and I took some ibuprofen and then throughout the day it got steadily worse but I felt great for a few hours and that was SOMETHING! Saturday when I woke up I didn't have the nerve pain. My head felt like it was in a vice. Warning: TMI coming up! I was having a visit from my Aunt Flo and the cramps were comparable to labor pains and just horrid all day and the ibuprofen didn't touch the pain. I only occasionally take darvocet and I would have done that yesterday if it hadn't been recalled on Friday for causing heart problems in people that take it and even causing deaths. Apparently gabapentin can cause added problems with menstration and can even cause early menopause and stuff like that so that's a super fun side effect. Anyway, even though I was in pain in other ways yesterday I'd take that over the nerve pain any day of the week! This morning I feel good again. It takes time for the medication to build up in your system and it takes time for your body to adjust to it but hopefully once everything gets adjusted it will be the perfect solution and I won't have to take more than one pill a day. I really don't like to take medicine of any kind. I hate that I am even taking so much ibuprofen but I'm grateful it helps take the edge off the pain since most people with TN don't get any relief ever from anything.
There are 2 permanent solutions we have learned about. One of them is a gamma knife procedure where they pinpoint radiation to the nerve which damages the nerve which stops the nerve from causing pain to the face. It is all done on the outside, no surgery. I think this would be an awesome solution but I've read that it usually helps people who have pain that comes and goes but not so much with people who have it constantly like I do. I am going to find a neurologist who can perform this treatment and see if it would work for me. The other solution is to cut open your skull and treat the nerve right up to where it goes into your brain. Sometimes it is caused by a blood vessel pressing up against your nerve so when they cut you open if they see that that is the cause the move the blood vessel away from the nerve but sometimes it will move back there eventually. This procedure sounds very scary to me and the recovery is excruciating so I'm really hoping the gamma knife thing will work for me so I don't have to take medication all the time that can cause side effects that suck or have to have surgery. Hopefully I can find something that will help me feel human again and will help me be the kind of mom I want to be and that my children deserve!!! Here's a picture of the nerve and everywhere it hurts me. Fun stuff.

Great news!

NO TUMOR!!!

I do have trigeminal neuralgia but for who knows what reason. They don't know. But it's not caused by a tumor or M.S. in my case thankfully!  Basically I will have excruciating pain the rest of my life because of a nerve in my head that for some reason has been causing me excruciating pain for about 3 years off and on and especially for the last year. I have to start taking anti-seizure medicine in an attempt to control the pain. I will have to take it the rest of my life. So, I know that this pain will not be easy to deal with as the doctor told me but I am just glad I don't have anything life threatening!!! This has been a very scary few days I must say! I just kept looking at my babies thinking how hard it would be to not be here to raise them and watch them grow. I am so grateful for my life and for the lives of my family! Among about a million thoughts I had during the past few days, I started thinking about all the things I wanted them to know about me if something were to happen to me. My testimony. Testimony building experiences I have had in my life. Little fun tidbits about me and my siblings and parents as I grew up and stuff. The things I like. The things I don't like. I wanted them to know the details of Brian and my courtship. EVERYTHING! I started realizing that my journal is very factual I guess you'd say. Like a travel log. I want them to know about me as if I was having a conversation with them telling them the stories and such. You can learn so much from other people's experiences, how they got through the challenges in their lives, and how the celebrated the great blessings in their lives. And I LoVe hearing stories from my parents and grandparents from their childhoods!!! I decided whether I was ok or not I wanted to start telling my story in a more meaningful way so that it is documented for them. I hope it will be fun for them to read some day. That my grandchildren will read it someday and enjoy it too. I wish my grandmothers and parents would have done this! One time Stan set up a video camera up in my Grandma Irvine's living room without her knowing it and got her talking about her life. She had such interesting stories to tell. Anyway, I think everyone should start a little history book about themselves for their posterity. I think Tara H. would especially love doing this and hers would be so clever and fun to read!!! Not just a journal where you sit down and write what happened that day. Get a big ol' 5 subject notebook and start writing about yourself. I started writing where I was born and on what day. Who my family members were when I was born. Then I just started writing about things like my parents divorcing when I was 1, my mom joining the church when I was 2, my mom meeting and marrying Stan when I was 3, my younger siblings' births, and then things just started to flow. Stories and tidbits my mom told me about that time. Things I remember from my childhood. Pals I had. It is rather random but it's written down anyway. I have written about my fear of drowning when I was baptized because I was so scared of the water and how I prayed really hard and can you imagine, I didn't drown! Or about times I received priesthood blessings or fun holiday memories and such. It is fun and I write it like I would tell it to someone else, dramatically and full of fun and silliness. It is just a fun project. You should try it! I even decorated my notebook really cute so it makes it even more fun to write in. Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts! I appreciate it so much!!! So blessed!!!

I'm scared!!!!

About a year ago I started having a LOT of pain on the right side of my face. It ran across my lower jawbone, my upper jaw and cheek bone, up to the top of my head and everywhere in between. My teeth really were the worst. It felt as if I had a HORRIBLE toothache and the pain radiated from it all over. I had a tooth that had had some problems for years and a dentist had told me I would probably have problems with it the rest of my life because of the issue with it. Well, I was in such constant pain, needing round the clock medicine for it that I finally just asked Dr. Bailey to pull it. I kept having pain in my teeth and would go in for visits and Dr. Bailey suggested a couple of times that I see a TMJ specialist. I never did make a special, costly, trip up to Salt Lake to see a specialist because I just couldn't see going all the way up there just for me and besides the pain wasn't consistent with what I had read about TMJ. Well, this entire year I have experienced this pain in varying degrees MOST days. Each time I would get a tooth fixed I would start feeling pain in another tooth. Then I would suffer with it for weeks because it's such a pain in the butt to make it to a dentist appointment. My biological father and both of my biological grandmothers wore dentures so I just figured I had bad teeth genes and eventually that would be my lot. Usually when he would fix a tooth it would feel better for a few days before I noticed another one hurting. Sometimes the pain was bearable, sometimes I needed some ibuprofen, about 4 weeks ago it really intensified and I was back to using ibuprofen round the clock and 3 teeth were bothering me. I called Dr. Bailey's office and had to wait a week to get in. The pain got so bad the weekend I went to Manti for baptisms for the dead which was Halloween weekend that I was taking 4 ibuprofen and a Darvocet we had left over in our cabinet and I was STILL in pain. I was also taking some sinus medicine because I also started feeling a LOT of dizziness, pain and pressure that made me wonder if I had a BAD sinus infection on top of it all. Well, I called first thing Monday morning and they got me right in. He did an x ray and said my teeth looked fine but I had a cloudy sinus that I have 2 teeth growing into and he thought the dizziness could be from an inner ear infection because my ear hurt too, everywhere on that right side hurt too but sometimes tooth pain radiates so I just thought it was teeth. Well, I took the antibiotic he prescribed and showed very minimal improvement if any at all. My mom was like, you NEED to go to a Dr. so I finally did and it is IMPOSSIBLE to see a doctor the day you call the doctor's office in this town. Maybe just if you are a new patient, but Dr. Etzel was the only doctor in town that could get me in the next day so I went to him. He said he thinks I have a condition called Trigeminal Neuralgia a.k.a Acute Facial Pain. I saw my regular doctor Dr. Harrison on Friday in Provo for my yearly visit and she is a family practice dr, a DO, she delivered Gracie. She is AWESOME!!! I really trust her judgement. I explained my symptoms and she said she thought it was Trigeminhal Neuralgia and I hadn't told her his diagnosis. Dr. Etzel had sent me to have a C.T. scan Thursday. He told me he wanted to do the scan to eliminate the sinusitis as an issue but that he REALLY thought it was the trigeminal neuralgia and that he would give me details and talk treatment after the results of the C.T. were back. Well, his office called Friday and said that he wanted to discuss the results with me in his office and then she told me something I can't remember how she worded it but basically it was a message from him and it was letting me know that it is the trigeminal neuralgia. What I've read and what Dr. Harrison said is that often times you have a tumor that is putting pressure on this nerve in your head causing the pain. Sometimes it can be caused by M.S. Sometimes you have had an infection of some kind and it can trigger this condition. Sometimes you just get this condition for no apparent reason. Dizziness is not a symptom of it. And either are some of my other symptoms. They didn't have any openings to discuss the situation until Monday at 11:00. So I have been a wreck all weekend waiting as patiently as a very impatient wife and mother of 4 little kids can possibly wait to hear whether she has a tumor in her head or not. I keep thinking about words I've waited to hear in my life. I love you from Brian. Will you marry me? Forever. You are pregnant! It's a boy! It's a boy! It's a boy! It's a girl! Mama! How exciting and thrilling those words were to hear. How exciting the anticipation was as I waited to hear these beautiful, life changing, glorious words! I'm terrified of the words I will hear on Monday. Of course my mind has gone over all of the possibilities. If I hadn't had so much pain, and if the dizziness and pain had not debilitated me so much these past weeks. If I wasn't fully aware that this has gone on for an ENTIRE year meaning that if I have a tumor it has grown in my head for at LEAST a year. Why didn't I listen to Dr. Bailey and see that specialist a year ago? Maybe they would have figured it out all that time ago. If I hadn't lived in this town, in the 8th ward for about 7 years, off and on I might think it couldn't happen to me. But you can't live in that area and watch so many around you get diagnosed with cancer, M.S., or other diseases and not realize...it can happen to anyone! I'm scared! Really, really scared! How do you tell your children you have something wrong with you. I don't want to have to know the answer to that! Prayer is a beautiful thing! It is the first step towards experiencing a miracle in your life! It is comforting and healing to the body or spirit or both. I was going to wait to blog about this until after I had the results. Instead I decided to ask for your prayers. Please pray that it isn't really anything major. Please also pray that I will have the strength to endure whatever the answer might be. Whatever HIS will is for me. Thank you friends....

And so it goes...

~I hate going to the Dr. I can't decide which I'm more worried about. That he'll tell me that something bad is wrong with me or that he'll blow me off and just act like it's no big deal and I'll have wasted time and the $25 copay. Either way, not looking forward to it!!!
~Poor Matty has strep throat. Of course he didn't tell us his throat hurt until AFTER he went to Primary yesterday. I hope no one in his class gets it. I hope no one else in our family gets it. You gotta love this time of year. I feel like I need to get a job just to pay for our copays and prescriptions.
~They say there's no use crying over spilled milk but I have to say that it does help a little to cry when your 4 year old drops a brand new gallon of milk on the floor, breaking it and causing milk to go all over the frig, the floor, under the frig, and run down the slanty floor and get all over the coats and jackets that he thought would be so super fun to unload from the closet. I've asked him to ask me to get him drinks but he thinks he is 20 years old, does not need parents, and certainly does not need help doing ANYTHING!

~big sigh~

Today was just SUPER!!! I know it could be worse but the way I feel today, it was plenty!!!

On a positive note though, some of you will remember my cousin, John's son Parker who had meningitis at the age of 8 months about a year and a half ago. Well, I know it's been a long time since I updated you about his condition but he got a cochlear implant some time back and has been doing really well with that and now......HE WALKS!!! Renee put a little video on her blog of him walking. WONDERFUL!!! Such a blessing and an answer to so many prayers!!! So happy for Parker and his parents and beautiful sisters!!!! Miracles happen!!! God answers prayers!!!

I'm good. It's all good!

So my phone has been on the fritz for 3 days now. I can text, receive texts, and I can receive phone calls and make phone calls. The problem is that I can hear people but they can't hear me. We never changed our phone number or service when we moved from Salem so we still have T-mobile. There aren't any T-mobile stores here so we have to wait until Friday when we go to Spanish Fork, to get my new sim card. Apparently mine malfunctioned. Yesterday's craziness (read last nights post for more info) was even crazier without my phone. I had to run to Brian's office for a few minutes to call the rec center, the coach, and to make an appointment with Dr. Bailey since my tooth was killing me. Then, when the secretary from the high school called me to tell me she knew where it was she had to just tell me but I couldn't thank her. Thankfully she understood since I had explained my situation to her. Well....this morning gave me a heart attack!!! Matty is going on his first field trip of the school year with his new teacher this morning. We discussed his peanut allergy and epipen needs the week before school started but I don't think we talked about field trips. I start panicking! Especially since they are sending all the students with peanut butter munch-ables from the lunchroom for their lunches except Matty and the other boy in his class this year who is also allergic to peanut butter or if you just planned on sending them their own lunch. I can't call the office to ask the secretary to PLEASE remind the teacher to take his epipen. We shut Brian's phone off a couple weeks ago since we couldn't afford it so I couldn't text him to call. We don't have a home phone because our local phone service is ridiculously expensive to hook up and have!! Thank goodness for instant messaging on the computer! I messaged him and thankfully he got the message and called the school right away.  She was very helpful and promised she would tell the teacher right away. I was so relieved!!!  PHONES ARE NECESSITIES!! I've gotta have one! How did we ever survive before cell phones?! Really! I can go without a lot of things in life but contact with the outside world is not one of them. Phones and internet are NECESSITIES!!! I can live without cable. I can  live without eating out (it's difficult but I do it!!!). I can actually live without a lot of things but phones and internet are just too important in my life, I've realized! Not for frivolity but for NECESSITY!!!