Haircut & St. Patrick's Day

One of the days Dave was home helping out I asked if he would take Oliver to get a haircut. Oliver's hair was getting way too long and definitely needed a trim. I kindly asked Dave if he would make sure they left it long enough in the back so he still had curls knowing that Dave really wanted to have it cut off short. I was fully prepared for Oliver to come home with no curls, which ended up being the case! He told me that he told the lady to leave the curls in the back. I guess after she cut it she realized she went too short. Although it is shorter than I wanted, it is way cute and makes him look so grown up.

At Walmart afterwards

He adores his big brother (and you can see his curls are gone)

I've never been one to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. I have a little four leaf clover pin that I'll wear that day but that's about it. I always make sure the boys are wearing green though. Other people do such fun and cute things like having green eggs for breakfast, etc. I'm just not one of those people.

Miles' preschool teacher is a big celebrator of all holidays. She taught the kids St. Patty's Day songs and invited the parents to come watch them perform them at the end of preschool. It was such a beautiful day so before we headed over to watch Miles perform, Oliver and I spent some time outside. I was hopeful he would wander around our big open field back behind our house, but he had other plans. He wanted to go explore the parking lot instead.

So happy to be outside!

 

Miles' preschool class

While I was recovering...

Before my surgery was scheduled, we had been planning a weekend trip to Tremonton to visit Dave's family and to attend Lily's birthday party. After I found out that I was going to be having surgery, I suggested that Dave take the boys to Tremonton without me so that I could have a nice quiet house all weekend long to recover in and they could still have a little weekend get-away. The surgery center highly recommended that another adult supervise for me for 24 hours. At the end of those 24 hours Dave loaded the boys up and headed out.

They were having so much fun that they decided to stay an extra day and didn't come home until Monday afternoon. I missed my boys dearly, but I was SO thankful for a quiet house to relax in. The pain pills I took for the first several days pretty much knocked me out so I essentially slept almost the entire time they were gone. I tried to watch a couple of cheesy chick flicks but ended up falling asleep during them.

They, on the other hand, had lots of fun! As I've said a million times, Miles absolutely adores his cousin Lily. They are only about 6 months apart in age. He has loved her from day one. I think Miles overwhelms her sometimes, but overall they are good buddies.

Here are some pictures that Dave took of their weekend away.

Lily's cake - Tammy is amazing!

Oliver enjoying his pancakes

Heading out for a hiking adventure

Selfie time

I think they went to a place called Locomotive Springs to hike

I think all three boys had fun visiting some of the Kents, but they were all exhausted when they got home!

Lap chole

Last spring I woke up early in the morning one morning in TONS of pain! The only thing I could think of that was causing the pain was a build up of gas. The pain was so intense and was the first time I had ever experienced anything like it. I woke Dave up and made him go get me some Gas-X from the store before he headed off to work. I was so hopeful it would take away the pain, but it didn't and the pain lasted a few more hours. When Oliver woke up I was able to get him to his swing, but then I spent the rest of the time crawling around on the floor. It was intense!

Last fall I experienced that same pain again. It felt like someone stabbed me in the right upper abdomen. The pain lasted for about three hours and was again the worst pain I had ever experienced!

The next "attack" came at the end of January. I ended up having two attacks in a 24 hour period. That was enough for me to call my doctor the next morning. They got me in right away. My blood pressure was super high even though I wasn't currently experiencing pain. My doctor suggested that I have an ultrasound to check out my gallbladder. Dave had thought it might be my gallbladder, but I was convinced it was gas pains. I had an ultrasound later that day. He also had me do a stool study which was negative. When my doctor called me with the results of the ultrasound he said there were stones and some sludge (which eventually turns to stones) in my gallbladder, but it wasn't bad enough to warrant surgery at that point. He told me to just keep him posted with how things were going. I had a followup appointment with him on Friday, February 27th. I told him that I was doing well. I had felt like that pain was starting a couple of times over that month, but after I took some Tums nothing ever came of it so at this point I was convinced it was a stomach issue and that I had it under control.

By that next Tuesday (March 3rd) I was in severe pain again. This time I had three attacks in a 24 hour period! Dave called my doctor and they had me come in on Wednesday. Overnight I almost went to the ER because I was in so much pain, but I didn't want to have to go alone but also didn't want to wake the boys up so we could all go so I suffered through. Along with the pain I started having vomiting spells. I haven't vomited in probably 14 years so I wasn't excited about this new symptom at all!

At my doctor's appointment on Wednesday, March 4th, he suggested that I get in right away with a surgeon. I was sent directly from his office to the surgeon's office. The surgeon looked at my ultrasound, talked to me for about 10 minutes about my symptoms, and then suggested surgery...in two days (March 6th)! He said that I had a gallstone right at the opening leading in to the common bile duct. He was worried about it moving in to the common bile duct and worried about the fact that I was having multiple attacks per day so he thought surgery was needed ASAP.

Dave was able to get work off on such short notice and my sister-in-law, Tonya, was able to come down for the day (she lives about two hours north of us) to watch the boys. I was super nervous about having my first surgery, but was a little relieved that it was going to be done laparoscopically which has less recovery time. My doctor told me that I shouldn't lift anything over 20 pounds for 6 weeks, but when I mentioned that Oliver was about 25 pounds he said that I should be fine to lift him as long as I try to keep it to a minimum. It would've been a long six weeks if I wasn't allowed to lift him at all. Glad that didn't happen!

All went well with my surgery. The surgeon did tell Dave that a stone got away from them during the process of removing my gallbladder, but they were able to retrieve it. Dave had asked him for a video and/or pictures so he gave Dave some pictures. He told him to Google a laparoscopic cholecystectomy to see a video.

I had some problems post surgery with vomiting. It runs in my family so I should've expected it. I was super sleepy and felt like I was in a fog for a very long time. The requirement for me to go home was to get up and walk, to urinate, to have my pain controlled, and to not be nauseated. After a few hours I wasn't sure I was going to be able to accomplish all of that any time soon. After puking up my heavy duty pain pill, the nurse decided to give me an IV anti-inflammatory med instead. It wasn't long before I started feeling MUCH better and was able to take a walk around the day surgery center and urinated. My nausea and pain pretty much went away. She told me that I might be one of those people that ibuprofen works better on post surgery than the prescription pain meds. I took both for a few days post surgery, but ended up taking ibuprofen the longest because it helped more and didn't make me so drowsy.

I slept pretty much straight through the next three days only waking to eat a little something and take more meds. After watching me for 24 hours (suggested by the surgery center), Dave took the boys up to Tremonton to visit family and attend Lily's birthday party. It was so nice to have a quiet house to relax and recover in. Dave didn't come home with the boys until Monday afternoon. He then went back to work Tuesday, but I quickly realized that I wasn't able to take care of the boys alone quite yet and asked for him to come home. He worked things out with the school so that he could be home half days the rest of that week and the first part of the next week. He was around to get Miles to and from preschool and that was a HUGE help! It was so nice to have him around so much. He was a huge help and had a huge responsibility taking care of the three of us. He's an amazing man!

A week after my surgery I was able to fulfill a volunteer responsibility I had previously agreed to at the United Way and attended a benefit auction for the Women's Leadership Council (the group I used to work with). I helped with the check-in and check-out process. I was sore, but made it through the evening. A week and a half after my surgery I had my followup appointment with the surgeon. I was feeling great by then. He took off my steri-strips and said everything looked good. It took about ten days to feel back to normal. That's a pretty fast recovery! Overall my recovery went smooth. I occasionally had sharp pains in various parts of my abdomen, my incision sites (there are four small incisions) were sore for several days, and I had trouble sleeping because I'm a side sleeper and it hurt to sleep on my side, but other than that I did well.

I'm glad it's all over and hope and pray I never have to experience pain like those "attacks" ever again!

Pre-surgery

Post-surgery sleepiness

Post-surgery forced smile

My gallbladder

A few pics & videos from Dave's phone

After looking through the pictures and videos on Dave's phone today I realized he had a few cute ones from January and February that I want to include on the blog. So here is January and February through Dave's eyes.

Another traffic jam

Our vampire fairy

1st time swimming at the Provo Rec Center

As part of our classes we are taking at BYU for Miles we've implemented a reward system. It helps us focus on the positive things he does and catch him in the act. Every time we see him do something nice or making good decisions we give him fuzzy pom poms (the number depends on what he has done). He gets to "cash" those pom poms in each day, each week, and each month for prizes/rewards that he has chosen. The daily rewards are smaller things like dessert after dinner or delaying bedtime by 30 minutes, the weekly ones are sort of mid-size like going swimming or spending time at a park, and the monthly rewards are bigger things like visiting his cousin Lily (she lives 1 hour and 45 minutes north of us) or picking out a toy at the toy store. He came up with all of his rewards. I thought it was so cute when he included seeing Lily on the list! This particular week he decided he wanted to go swimming. While we lived away from Utah, Provo got a brand new rec center. We hadn't visited it yet so Dave decided to take Miles there. They both had a great time and said the new rec center is pretty cool!

Dave is such a GREAT husband! He is always good about taking the boys away when I've had a particularly rough day at home with them or when I'm not feeling good. He took the boys to the park several times and also took them for a walk down by the Provo River. The boys love to play and go exploring with their dad!

January & February

January was a pretty slow month for our family. February was a bit busier. Like I've mentioned before, we've had a very rough winter in our house when it comes to illnesses! It seems like once a "bug" works its way through all four of us, then we start again with another "bug." We currently are dealing with a stomach "bug" that has gone through Miles and now poor Oliver is dealing with it. I'm hoping the adults don't get this stuff. I'm SO ready to be done with this winter and to move on to spring and hopefully (knock on wood) better health for our little family!!!

This post will contain lots of pictures so here we go...

Random shopping trips - The boys love riding in carts together when they can!

One of our delicious eMeals dinners

We eat out way too much. I just don't enjoy cooking but sure wish I did. We subscribed to a service called eMeals to see if it would help. For a very nominal monthly fee, they send you weekly menus with a grocery shopping list. There are several different menus to choose from. We originally picked the "kid friendly" menu. Until I got sick in February, we did a much better job at eating at home more. It makes it much easier when you don't have to think about what to cook every single day.

Traffic jam - I love his imagination!

 

We got to watch this cutie one day in January. Miles was so excited to have a little girl in the house. He kept saying, "She's so cute!" He also wanted to keep her! He was pretty upset when her mom came and picked her up at the end of the day. Oliver, on the other hand, didn't know what to think of her. At first he'd run to the kitchen to hide from her, but he eventually warmed up to her. It was funny watching him.

Such a cutie!

 Valentine's Day:

Miles' Valentine's for his classmates

One of our neighbors invited us over for a cookie decorating party to celebrate Valentine's Day. By this point Oliver had come down with a cold and had a horrible runny nose, but I was so tired of being cooped up in the house so we went to the party. I'm so glad we did! Miles and Oliver had a blast playing with the toys (and the other kids) and I enjoyed chatting with the other moms. What a fun tradition!

Decorating his cookie

The finished product

Playing

My card from Dave - he proposed in a similar manner

My mom came out for a visit at the end of February. By then Dave and I were suffering from a cold that both of the boys had had already. It was a nasty cold that lasted about three weeks in each of us. So, we weren't the best hosts during her visit because we didn't feel so hot. She was a huge help with the boys though and allowed us the opportunity to rest! We did manage to do one fun thing while she was here. Miles loved riding the train up to Salt Lake when we did it last fall and my mom loves riding on trains so we thought that would be a fun thing to do with her. This time we just rode the train up to Salt Lake and then rode it home. It was only about two hours round trip. We figured the boys could handle that much better than what we tried to do in the fall. Miles got a little whiny towards the end of the trip, but I think he had fun. My mom seemed to have a good time as well. 

Waiting for the train to take us back to Provo

He just melts my heart!

It was a little chilly and Miles wasn't happy about that

On the train ride home

The boys love their grandma!

Miles started complaining about a sore in his mouth. When I looked in his mouth to check it out, I quickly realized that he had an adult tooth coming in on the bottom behind his baby tooth. There was a fairly large gap between the two and his baby tooth was solid as a rock (not wiggly at all). I called his dentist and they recommended that I bring him in to have his baby tooth extracted. After the dentist looked at it he said that the other adult tooth was close to coming in as well so he decided to pull all FOUR of the front bottom teeth! I was SUPER nervous about how Miles would handle all of it, but he surprised me. He freaked out during the numbing process, but the dentist and his assistant were able to get him calmed down. He then was a champ during the extraction! His baby teeth still had their entire root. The dentist was surprised because he said they should've been at least halfway dissolved by now. He was glad that I brought Miles in. Now his teeth will have a better chance of coming in straight. Miles only needed ibuprofen the first day and acted like nothing had happened the second day. The dentist said it would take several days before he was pain-free. I have decided that Miles has a high tolerance for pain! The tooth fairy visited Miles that night and brought him $1 per tooth. He was so excited to go spend his money. He found a dragon at Target that was under $4. I was amazed!

Right after the extraction

His bloody gums

With all of our illnesses, the boys sleeping in the same room just wasn't working out as well as it was shortly after we got Miles his new bed. Miles would cough and wake Oliver up, etc. Oliver is such a light sleeper. I want a third bedroom so bad but know that it isn't going to happen anytime soon so I started thinking about other options. We looked at sofabeds for several weeks before we decided to go ahead and make a purchase. We found one that has a memory foam mattress (it's pretty comfortable) and was a heck of a deal (it's not a color I would normally choose, but it was the floor model and all they had). Our plans are to at least have it for when guests come to visit, but we can also use it as our bed when the boys are sick, etc. and aren't sleeping in the same room. It's nice to have the option. Now we have to decide if we are going to get rid of our old couch or just have lots of places to sit in our little living room.

Our old & new couches (the white one is the new one)

Oliver had his 15 month checkup on February 25th. I put his stats from this appointment on the previous post. Basically he is doing well and is developing like he should. He has slowed down on his growth, but he's still a big boy! He had so much fun playing with the paper that goes on the exam table while we waited for his doctor to come to the room!

Everything goes in his mouth these days

And that was January and February!