2011 - The first half of the year...

Here we are in June and my last post was on little Pressers birthday in January.  Anyone want to vote for me for Blogger of the year?! 

This year has been a full one so far for us indeed.   Just for memories sake I want to write the highlights of whats been going on....

~Baby Presley is a baby no more.  She is walking around like she owns the place these days and we are just more delighted with her than ever. She is simply delish!

~On Feb 28 I got a great big surprise of an appendix that ruptured and had to rush to the hospital.  After 6 hours in the ER, I was taken to the OR for an emergency appendectomy. It was the worst pain I have ever experienced in my life.  It was a pretty awful experience and I ended up in the hospital for a week. Yuck!  But I made it thru to the other side and after about a month and a half I was feeling back to my old self. 

~ In March we decided to roll up our sleeves and do some home improvements. We tore up the floor in our kitchen and living room and laid hardwood floors.  I am so proud of my hubby and what a fantastic job he did! They look beautiful!  He is getting handier with every year that passes!



~In April one of my dearest friends moved back home to Minnesota. And even though I am nothing but happy for her to be home with her family, I miss her dearly.  My life has been so enriched by her friendship and I'm so thankful that not even hundreds of miles has changed our friendship.  Love you Betty-boop!


~ Kobe has just finished up another season of baseball.  He has grown so much in his skill this year and was awesome out their on the field.  This was his first year pitching and he just improved more and more every week.  He had the world's best coach this year.  Such a great guy. I have learned that coaches really do make all the difference.

~And Miss Maddie Paddie had another great soccer season this spring! She was up and down those fields and hung with all the rest of those kids.  You would never know she had anything going on with her heart.  She did tell me that she thinks she is done with soccer though and wants to try Dance in the fall. :)

~May brought lots of doctor appointments for us.  Kobe had his ear rechecked at UVA.  They gave us great news that it looks like his eardrum is trying to heal itself and so they want to keep waiting instead of surgery!  What great news!   Maddie had her appointment with the pediatric cardiologist on May 24.  They did an EKG and echocardiogram and found that everything still looks the same as it did in September, so we will need to proceed as planned with surgery.  This has definitely been a very difficult thing for me.  I'm just taking it a day at a time. 

~June brought many great things.  Kobe and Maddie finished up school and are officially a 6th & 4th grader! My babies. How can that be?! 

~On June 11 my brother Shane got married to the lovely Angela. I have a new sissy!  The wedding was so beautiful and I'm so happy for my big brother that he has finally found the one he was meant to be with!

                     (Check out those awesome red shoes! Angie baby was simply gorg!)

~On June 13 Miss Kensi turned 4.  We had a great day celebrating our wonderful Goose doing whatever she wanted all day .  The number one thing she wanted to do was go to Martin's and fill her own bag of candy from the bulk candy aisle. ha! We fit in some swimming, riding her new bike and a cookout with family and friends.  It was the perfect day! 

~ And that brings us to yesterday, June 15th.  We went back to UVA for Maddie's pre-op appointment. She will be having open heart surgery on Monday morning.  Even though I know this surgery is necessary and what is best for her, there is a part of me (a big part!) that wants to take her far away and just hide from all this.  The doctors went over everything with me. I heard lots of things I hope to forget and am trying not to let stay in my mind.  Maddie listened as they told her what would happen.  She seems very nonchalant about the whole thing. I suppose thats just as well.  I really want to just make all this go away. But I know the only way to do that is to just walk this out. Day by day.  I know that God has us all in his hands. I know it, I do. But man is it hard to think of just turning her over to them knowing what will happen and then just waiting 6 hours.  I feel absolutely horrible about the pain she will wake up and feel. I would do anything to take that from her. But I can't. And it feels pretty helpless.  So I find myself having to choose every day, every hour and yes, sometimes every minute to place my little girl in God's hands and trust.  Sounds so simple, but something I am finding is quite difficult right now. I know His plans for her life are good.   So that is what I am clinging to right now.  He loves her more than I do. And He will never leave us.  I'm just wishing it was this time next week. :)

So that catches up to where we are now.  I hope I am better at blogging the last half of this year than I was the first half. 

Hey there!

Remember me? Sorry for that long, aukward silence. Things have been so busy around here and I just haven't had time to write. And really, I have no time now to write either because at any minute Kensi will announce that nap time is officially over by belting out 'MAMAAAAAAAaa', which then in turn will wake up the other 3 babies! Nice.

But just wanted to check in and say hi and that I will be back with lots of posts soon. I am so far behind...erg!!! Oh well. I have lots of pictures to post here in my 'scrapbook' of my 30 bday party, Maddie's Party and my main man Kobe turning 8yrs old !!!!!!!!!! And we got some super cute pics of his party and all his cool friends gettin down to 'The Cha-cha.' :) Stay tuned.

And there she is now paging me. Gotta go. Talk soon. :)

My Crazy Day

What a long, crazy day its been. Its been one of those days where you think back to what you did this morning and have to wonder, " was that really today?" , because it seems like so long ago. Am I the only one that has these days? :)

So this is how it started out. These two playing, having a good ole time with a box.
Who knew a box of Huggies could be so fun and entertaining?! These two little bugs ran around all morning with Kobe pushing this little princess in her chariot while she hung on for dear life, giggling away. He is such a fun, big brother.


So about 10:00 Aaron's mom calls to ask if she could come and get Kobe and Maddie and take them out for the day. Uh, yeah...that would be great! So she came and picked them up and they were off. I was excited to have a day to spend with Kensi. So me and Kensi played for a while and then folded some laundry. Or I should more accurately say, I folded the laundry and she unfolded every piece I folded and then laughed as she did it. She's an incredibly big help! :) Such a big help that I thought she may need a rest since she had so tirelessly worked on the clothes with me. So I layed her down for a nap. This is where the normalness of the day ended and the crazy began.

I heard her crying in her bed about a hour after I layed her down. So I went up to get her up and noticed she was breathing weird. I figured she was probably just upset and would settle down. The problem was, her breathing never settled. I waited and listened for a whole hour and it stayed the same. It kind of reminded me of someone who was having an asthma attack. She just couldn't get a deep enough breath...like a hiccup breathing. It was weird. Very weird. She was working really hard to get a breath. Her abdomen kept going in and out really fast and hard. I tried several things to see if it would calm her and help her breathe easier, but nothing helped. I was trying to think what it could be because she hasn't been sick. I was afraid maybe I fed her something and she was allergic to it or maybe had suddenly got asthma....ugh...i was so scared. So I panicked and called the doctor. I always have this inner struggle with calling the doctor on his day off because part of me says I am just being a panicky mom and she is fine and the other part of me says CALL HIM NOW something bad is happening. So I went with my gut and called him and explained everything to him. After talking for a while, he said to take her into the ER to get a chest xray. That even though she has had no signs of being sick, sometimes in babies they can suddenly develope pneumonia (no idea how to spell that, but you get the idea:) ).

So I grabbed the diaper bag and ran out the door. I am such a worrier. I know that I shouldn't be and I tell myself over and over that God is in control. He has us in His hands, praying healing on her little body... and I still just have to fight that urge to break down and cry and make everything better. I hate seeing my kids sick or hurt. I just want to make it go away NOW. I want them to always be ok. And to make it worse Aaron was at work. He is the calm one in these situations, not me...my role is drama queen. So I had to put on my big girl pants and stay calm.

We got to the hospital, she is still doing the crazy breathing. And let me just say she was in no mood to be messed with. Not only did she pull out the death stare at each and every hospital staff member who looked her way, she also screamed as though her arm was being cut off when they tried to put the bracelet around her ankle. She pulled the little clip off her foot every time they tried to get her blood pressure, all the while screaming her head off at the sheer audacity they had to try and touch her. Yep. She was in rare form. It always seems to take forever before they call you back. Meanwhile, I can't understand why everyone isn't as panicked as I am that she obviously isn't breathing right. I am trying really hard to care about the woman with the broken arm, but clearly a baby that has been struggling to breathe for 2 hours is more important, right? I am having flashbacks of when Maddie was little and had struggled with breathing...my mind was running wild. See, I told you I get dramatic. :)

Finally they called us back. They took her temperature and it was 102...it came on so suddenly.They listened to her chest. Got her dressed in the sweetest, saddest - looking little yellow gown. And then we waited some more. The doctor decided to do a chest xray so he could see what was going on in her lungs. The xray in itself was so sad. As you can imagine, she was not happy. They put her in this chair contraption and put a plastic case around her body with her hands above her head so she couldn't move at all. I stood right there with her talking in her ear to try and calm her. It was awful. It makes me teary-eyed just thinking about it. Her little eyes were so wide and scared and she was hysterically screaming and saying, "dada, dada, dada". Talk about wanting to just sit down and cry. Ugh. That was horrible. But necessary to make sure her little lungs were ok.

Ok. I am rambling. Long story short, her lungs were clear, but her airways were "thickened" and there was a virus. Nothing major, just a common cold virus. The doctor said the airways in a baby are so tiny anyway, so when that extra mucous builds up in them, it makes them start doing that labored breathing because for the most part babies only breathe thru their nose. None of my babies have ever done "labored breathing" like that even when they are congested. So this was new to me. Oh yeah, and she has fluid behind her right ear causing an ear infection, but hopefully that will clear up on its own. But after the places I had gone in my mind, I was happy to hear thats all it was! Told you I can be a drama queen. :)

She has been so pitiful. And snugggly! Thats the nice part. She fell asleep and I layed her down for another nap. Aaron came home and took over 'Kensi duty', so I could run out and get Maddie some tennis shoes for gym class. We had found a cute pair last night at a store, but couldn't find it in her size, so I was planning to go out today and get it, but obviously plans changed. So, at 6:00 me and Maddie run out to some stores. I was already exhausted so I just wanted to find a pair and get home. We went to 4, thats right 4 stores before we finally ended up back at the store we were at last night. I asked an employee if they knew if they had any in the back because these were the onese we really liked (they are so cute...white, pink and gray!), and that sweet, wonderful employ found her size a few feet down from where we were looking last night. Frustrating! But happy to have found some that fit. I just wanted to pay for them and get home. But Maddie felt the need to try on every pair of shoes in the store. (I think she is going to be a shoe girl. Personally , I am a bag girl, but whatever). Finally at long last we got home.

It was late, but my super hubby had dinner all made and on the table for us. what a man. I think I'm in love. And of all days, Kobe picked today to suddenly let us know how much he missed our dog Bentley who we gave away OVER A YEAR AGO! He sat at the dinner table and just cried and cried. It was so sad. I wanted to join him. He has such a tender heart. Aaron cleaned up dinner, I got the kids clothes ready for the week, packed lunches while he had devotions with him. And we got the kids to bed only an hour later than their bed time. Not bad.

I am so thankful that my precious baby is ok. I am thankful to have Jesus to lean on and trust in no matter what goes on. I am thankful for doctors and xrays and modern medicine. I am thankful that we got Maddie a pair of shoes, and ones that are super cute on top of it all. I am thankful for the really good food Aaron made. And I am so thankful that sweet Kensi is sleeping peacefully right now.

This picture just makes me want to crawl in that crib and curl up to her. What a precious girl...


So now, I am so tired I can't see straight. I want to go to bed, but am kind of worried to go to sleep just in case she needs me. What I really want to do is go put her in bed with us so I will sleep better, but I know she will sleep better in her crib. So instead I just sit here and type about this endless day and can't believe that it was this morning Kobe and her were playing in that box. It seems like that was at least 2 days ago. So I think I am going to go to bed now. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little more layed back. :) Night.