Monday, January 30, 2012

Monday Morning 1/30/2012

Good morning!!

I don't know what suprises me more, that its already the second to last day of January 2012 or that all my peoples are still snoozing away. I hate to disrupt the quiet but I'll have to get the hubby up so he can start his day too. Its nice in the early mornings to be able to sit and have coffee with him.

Monday means back to business. And there is lots to do around here today!!
Laundry
Dishes
Groceries
A meal for the Pastor and his family
Scouts
these are just some of the things that have to be done today. Thankfully Colby is feeling lots better and has been on the meds long enough that he isn't contagious anymore so he will be going back to school today as well.
Kara on the other hand took a very late nap after being super cranky all day and then when she woke from her nap she was holding her neck saying "ow boo boo" so I called the dr right away and they told me how much of Colby's meds I could give her till the prescription they called in for her could be filled today. Hopefully like Colby she will bounce right back and she won't be as sick since we were able to get her meds right away. I guess now we wait to see how long it is before Brady comes down with it. And here I thought I was doing a good thing teaching them to share, lol. I never thought teaching them to share would come back to bite me, lol

Thats my day today, busy at home, busy with kids, busy with errands, Just Busy!!

have a great day!!!
Dana

Saturday, January 28, 2012

A Busy Saturday

Good afternoon!!!

Thought I would take a moment to blog a bit while the baby is napping and the boys are quietly watching a show.

I ended up taking the oldest to the dr yesterday, turns out he really was sick. We weren't in the dr office very long before they told us he has strep throat. They wrote us a prescription and sent us on our way. I had his prescription filled, picked up a few things and then hurried home. After he ate some lunch I went ahead and gave him his first dose. Just a few hours went by and he was already acting a whole lot better. He took another dose last night before bed and got up this morning and took the morning dose, and I swear you would have never known he was even sick at all. He is back to his normal self, appetite is back and all. I know it was just an antibiotic they gave him but I tell you it was if they had put a mircle in that bottle.

I went over to my mom's house today to get my daddy's truck, I brought it back here, loaded up our trash and took it away, then stopped at the church to see if we could lend a hand. Mike had went there straight away this morning, to help with the moving and demolishing of the parsonage. I don't think I mentioned it but Tuesday night our parsonage burnt. Thank God no one was there, and no one was hurt, but its a total mess. The majority of the day has been spent moving out our pastors things and then once that was done they started on tearing out the walls and ceiling so that hopefully the work crew can get in and repair the damages.

Tonight we have a scout activity. The boys are looking forward to that!!

Thats about all I have to report. I hope you all enjoy your evening!!!
Dana

Thursday, January 26, 2012

A day at home

My oldest is not feeling well, and so Momma is keeping him home from school today. He's camped out in our livingroom on the couch watching Mickey Mouse Club House with his little sister, and not complaining like he normally would and trying to convince her to watch his show so yeah he is really sick.

We are going to be home today, I originally had plans to maybe meet up with a friend for lunch and then this evening meet up with my mom to visit a new discount grocery store that has come to town but with a sick child, all of that has been squashed. He needs to rest and if he doesn't show any improvement then a trip to the dr is in his future. I hate when their sick. Normally I am scolding them to stop running around like they're on fire or stop wrestling, and horseplaying, etc but its hard to see him miserable and not wanting anything but to just be still on the couch. Poor fella.

I have plenty to do around here so there isn't lack of something to keep me busy and by having him on the couch he is close to me in case he needs me for something.

Here's hoping this is a 24hr thing, although to be honest I really don't think it is. :(

Have a great day, hoping your households are warm and illness free!!!
Dana

Monday, January 23, 2012

PTL HE'S AWAKE!!!

I just received the call from Michael that Andrew is awake!!!
He's breathing on his own they have removed the restraints and he's trying to talk, he can't of course because of the swelling and irritation but he is trying!!! They will put back on the oxygene tonight just in case he forgets to breathe in his sleep, I guess because he's been on so many meds and the machines have been doing all the work for him but he is definately on the right path back to us!!! PRAISE THE LORD!!! GOD IS SO SO SO GOOD!!!!

Update on our Nephew

The news on Andrew as of last night is that they went ahead and did the tracheotomy, they said his throat was raw and bleeding from the ventilator, now that he has the trach he is resting and doing well, they are still removing congestion from his lungs but the bleeding in the lungs is no longer a problem and they hope that if he stays stable they will be able to completely back off of the sedation and as long as he stays stable through all of that then the hope is that he will be moved to Rehab in the town we live in so LOTS closer to home, by or before the weekend. We are extatic about that news!!! Of course they won't say for sure as it all depends on how he is doing.

Sunday, January 22, 2012

My Christmas Present

Well we just broke in my new christmas gift!! Mike bought me a set of 3 Kitchen Aid attachments. I got the Shredder, the strainer and the grinder.

We just broke in the grinder and made our own hamburger!! It was awesome!! It worked so great!! The boys even took a turn helping-with super close supervision- and they liked helping too!! Definately a great christmas gift!!

I can't wait for gardening season and harvest season to get here so that we can try out the other attachments!!!

Ok now I'm off to use some of this beautiful ground beef to make us some dinner!! I'll be back probably tomorrow or at least in the next few days for an update on our nephew!!!

Enjoy your evening!!
Dana

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Updates

This update is from Sunday:

I tell you the power in prayer is amazing!!We received a call yesterday morning about a little after 6am and they told us Andrew was going into surgery at 8am,I immediately started to pray, then like clock work Mike's alarm went off at 7am so that we could get up and ready for church our normal sunday routine, the amazing thing was that when his alarm went off it was set to a christian radio station and normally it goes off in the middle of a commercial or in the middle of song but yesterday morning it went off and then there was a pause then Amazing Grace started playing from the beginning, I knew then that was a sign and prayed again. Then we got ready and knowing there was nothing we could do while he was in surgery but wear out the carpeting in the waiting room we went to church. On our way to church Mike and I both talked about that song playing and how we both hoped it was a sign and agreed it probably was.I can't tell you enough how much I love our church, before church started the pastor started with a long and heartfelt wonderful prayer for Andrew, it moved Mike and I both to tears. The love and prayers in church sunday all for our nephew was just overwhelming. Yesterday was also communion sunday and Mike and I both spent extra time at the rail. When the time came to send up the offerings the pianist plays a different song ever week, this day though she played Amazing Grace while the offering was being collected and Mike and squeezed hands and both started crying we KNEW it was a sign, it had to be. Many people stopped us before and after church concerned for us, and for him. The feelings were just overwhelming. We are so blessed to have such a church family and friends like all of you like we do I am just in awe of it all. After church we left right away and headed for the hospital about 2 hrs away. When we got there they told us he was still in surgery so we had to wait and wait and wait, then they told us surgery was over but there were complications and it would be longer to see him in recovery they were working on him to get him stabilized. Our hearts sank but we knew we had received our sign and he was going to be fine so we waited, finally at around 4:30 they let us see him. The complications were nothing too major what it was that his intibation tube was too small so it was clogged with blood clots from his lungs, which they tell us is normal to have a bit of blood in your lungs when you’ve been hit by a car, and while they have him on a ventilator they are suctioning out the blood from his lungs with the help of the ventilator so they needed to change from a small tube to a larger one but it was routine and not a great big deal.The surgery they tell us went well, they removed the fixators and have rebuilt his legs with rods, plates and pins. His color is much better, Saturday when we saw him he was gray and green looking, yesterday all that was gone and he has some of his color back not quite rosy but better than grey and green.They have inserted something into his veins to record his BP every second instead of using the cuff that only takes it every so often. His blood pressure was around the 130’s but the nurse said it was ok. I touched his arm and started talking to him and his blood pressure came down to like 108 the more I talked to him the calmer his BP was, we were just amazed as he is still completely sedated. Mike and Talked to him a good long time and told him it was going to be ok, it would take time but they were fixing him up, and when he woke up he needed to be calm so they could help him more, on and on we talked to him and coached him to be calm and let the doctors work and do the best they could do the fix him up good as new and he stayed calm the whole time, it was only when we mentioned the brace on his neck which he hates that his BP ever went back up. We told him how much we loved him and how we would always be there for him and his BP came right back down. This was a huge huge blessing to us. There still is more surgery that will happen either today or maybe tomorrow no one is really sure and that is all for the plastic surgery. They will keep him sedated till after the plastic surgery operation.Hopefully after that he can wake up and we can talk to him, Mike is just sick over Andrew being this hurt. I know I have probably said before but Mike helped raise him till he was 2.5-3 yrs old, so like he said Andrew was his first little buddy. Speaking of yesterday when I got to see him for the first time I was asking questions and the nurse sort of reacted like I was questioning her ability to do her job and was quite gruff with me, I assured her that I wasn’t at all questioning her ability that I just wanted as much info as I could get, that she may see a grown man laying there (Andrew is 18 and 6’5/6’6 after all ) but what I see is a little boy, who though I might only technically be his Aunt it’s the same for me as if my own child was laying there. Mike was the only guy I knew when we started dating who drove a mustang with a car seat in the back and it wasn’t even his child, this boy has been part of my life since he was VERY small, an in that reguard he is like a son to both of us. After that she relaxed a bit and I guess she could understand where we were coming from better.From then on out she has been very nice and answered any questions I have.

Monday's Update:
As of last night there was no change, the surgeon they thought was going to make rounds at 8:30 and we hoped we would know more and have an idea of when the next surgery would be but by 10:00 last night the surgeon still hadn't been by. Its so frustrating. Don't get me wrong the level of care he is receiving is amazing but the lack of communication is so frustrating. I guess we just have to be patient and leave it all in God's hands, and trust in that. I know its the best thing its just hard to wait. thank you all for being on this journey with us, the road doesn't seem so lonely when there are so many who are there backing you up!!!I'll keep updating as we have more info, hopefully we'll hear something today.

Friday, January 13, 2012

Its been a rough week!!

Instead of typing it all out again, Here is the email I sent my pastor:

Our 18yr old nephew Andrew was hit by a car yesterday morning. He is in grave condition. They took him first to our local hospital and they worked on him but decided he needed more specialized care so they sent him on to a trama center hospital, which is supposed to be the best trauma hospital in the country. The car that hit him was speeding, when it hit him it threw him up in the air, flipped him around and when he landed he landed on top of the car, caving in the roof of the car and breaking the windshield. They said they had to peel him off the car.He has a huge cut on his head, plus lots of other cuts and gashes,a brace on his neck, the bones in both of his legs from his knees down have been completely shattered. They said the only thing holding his legs on were his tendons. This is really bad.


Wednesday's Information:The first hospital thinks they got all the bone fragments out with the first surgery, the second hospital hoped to do surgery today. He has a trauma team assigned to him, 2 orthopedic surgeons and 2 plastic surgeons also assigned to him. All in all Mike said he thinks there are like 7-8 doctors/surgeons on his case.They said they think they may be able to save his legs, the dr said “fairly certain but there have been cases that even after surgery and such for whatever reason the patient still ended up losing their limbs” meaning that he thinks that they can save his legs, but you still have to factor in infection an such, its a lot that can go wrong.He will probably have to have steel rods replace his bones, plus plastic surgery to repair and close the wounds.

Thursday's information: The trama center hospital took him into surgery today and had to reassess his legs, apparently they found more bone fragments and weren't able to start the reconstruction procedures yet, it could be this weekend before they could start. After bringing him out of the reassessment surgery, he did not react well to the anestesia (sorry for my spelling) his heart rate is too high, his breathing is hard and fast, the blood oxygene levels are way off, he is in extreme pain, and drugged up from the meds they are giving him and he doens't know what he is doing, they had to tie him down because he was pulling at the iv's and tubes and using the pull up bar to try to get up out of bed, he keeps saying I want to go home, so because of all that and the additional medical problems they had to sedate him after restraining him. He is in intermediate care recovery after his surgery today, Mike said its a step down from ICU/CCU. But I am not sure Mike just called me in tears after seeing him like this tonight. He said the dr's said it may be a possibility that a bone fragment has made its way to his heart and that is why he is having so many other problems but they aren't 100% sure, they just don't know. Andrew's father never even showed up, neither day to either hospital. He chose to go to work instead. Which doesn’t surprise me since almost a year ago he told my nephew that his wife was more important to him than my nephew. My nephew has been staying with his grandparents- His father's parents. Andrew's mother is Mike's sister and she is the one who brought them to me about 5 yrs ago they were 13 and 11 at the time, it was a week before my nephews birthday and she told them she was leaving town, there was nothing for her here and she moved that day to Arizona. She left them with me and left them crying and begging her to stay and told me that when I was finished with them I could take them to their father. This boy needs saved. He has been cast about like a piece of trash for so long. Mike and I on different times have tried to step in and help but the father and stepmother won’t allow it, they put all kinds of ridiculousness into the kids heads and so the kids wanted nothing to do with us because of what they had told them. Thank God that since our nephew has been staying with his grandparents they have encouraged him to reach out to us and he has, this past yr has been great. We love this boy and would have taken them both as our own all those years ago if they would have just let us. This boy needs a chance, he needs to know he is loved and not disguarded. Please pray for him, for his healing, for the doctors to do what is nessessary to save his legs and his life, please pray for him. He needs and deserves saving.I don't know what this will do to Mike if Andrew doesn't pull through this. When Andrew was born his parents were seperated and Mike was the only father figure in his life for the first few years of his life. That's part of the reason Andrew's father doesn't like Mike, because Mike was there for Andrew from the day he was born when Andrew's own father wouldn't be. I don't know what else to say, I probably rambled on and gave more family history than you probably needed or wanted but I guess I wanted you to know how much he means to us. Thank you for reading this far. I appreciate it greatly!!

Monday, January 9, 2012

Pantry Challenge

Ok so I semi-joined the pantry challenge over at http://goodcheapeats.com/2012/01/pantry-challenge-week-1-done-share-your-progress/

And I say semi-joined because like I told her, my efforts would be somewhat like cheating since I totally just went grocery shoppingon 12/30/2011 for the whole month of January 2012.

We're not doing alot of scrounging up dinner around here at the moment because I planned out our menu, shopped accordingly and hopefully won't have to do a big shop again till next week and it should be for February's menu but we will see.

But even the best laid plans are well just that plans, they aren't successful unless those well laid plans are carried out as intended. There are bound to be hiccups along the way. How we handle those hiccups determine whether or not our plan is successful.

Last night was one of those hiccups. We had planned on our menu Fried chicken dinner, which I didn't lay out because for Dh's birthday on Saturday his grandma bought us a family size pack of steaks- nice steaks for us to cook on Sunday evening. So that was the plan, Steaks and baked potato, mmmm sounded good to me...... then wouldn't ya know it......hiccup!!!

We got out of church a bit late, which set the whole day's plans off schedule just a bit, we got lunch, went to the grocery store for my gram, went to grams for my great uncle's birthday celebration, then went to the cemetary, then dropped mom off at her house,then finally got to come home, only to have a neighbor and fellow scout leader call and say they needed to get our opinion on some finalizing of Scout Sunday plans and so he came over for coffee and a last minute pow-wow and by the time they left it was dark and cold and dh didn't feel like grilling out.

But we still had to eat so what to do??? I peeled some potatoes, dh went out to the freezer and got some breakfast sausage links and we had breakfast for dinner, fast, easy and yummy. And we totally didn't order out which would have been a knee jerk reaction!!

Having stuff on hand, easy quick items to throw together for dinner really saved us.

Just another reason to keep a stocked pantry, which I am thankful to be able to have bought our months worth of groceries a week or so ago. Otherwise it wouldn't have been such a smooth recovery for dinner thats for sure!!!

Have a great day everyone!!

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Need Prayers!!!!

Friends I am asking for prayers for a coworker of my mom's. Her coworker had a severe heart attack last week and underwent what was supposed to be a 3way bypass, but once they opened him up they found that they needed to do a 4way bypass. Once out of surgery and when he started to come out of sedation he started pulling out his iv's and tubes and such and they had to sedate him again to calm him down so the dr's could put all his iv's and tubes back in, but now he is in a coma and hasn't been able to wake up from the last sedation. Please pray this man pulls through and wakes up, he has 4 very small children who need their daddy.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Just ordered my first 2012 christmas gifts :)

I got an email yesterday from a company we shop from occasionally. They had these talking plush items om sale that coincide with a family favorite show so I forwarded the email on to the hubs and he agreed they would be well loved additions to our kid's christmas items.

So this morning I ordered them, I even ordered dh one, lol to put on his desk at work!!!

My dh and my kids love Doctor Who, so I ordered them a talking Tardis, a talking Dalek and a Talking Cyberman!

Yay!! I am on my way!!!

Other Ideas I have are:

For the sister-in-laws and other females that receive a gift from us: crocheted socks!! Socks are the only reason I have ever wanted to learn to knit, but I found some free patterns on Ravlery.com and even some books out there that show crocheted socks that look as great as knit ones so I am thinking each sil will get a pair of crocheted socks as their small personal gift.

I am still working on an idea for a small personal gift for the guys in the family they are a little harder to figure out.

Then as a family gift I am taking the boxes that Kara's diapers come in, I am going to wrap them in christmas wrap or decorate them some way then I hope to fill them with hm goodies, either baked, canned or mixed up.

I am thinking hm spaghetti sauce, hm dried noodles- maybe I've only made noodles once, hm grilling spices, hm baking mixes. Or maybe a pizza basket with hm pizza sauce, hm pepperoni- agian maybe since I haven't done this but want to try to make my own etc.
Who knows what I will come up with for my hm goodie baskets.

Other crocheted ideas for the ladies are washcloths for the kitchen, or scarves and hats.

I am excited to be sure!!!
What ideas do you all have rolling around that you might want to share?? I am open to all ideas!!!
Have a great day!!
Dana

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Call me ridiculous if you may but....

Yes, I have already started thinking about Christmas 2012!!!
I want a more homemade more crafted christmas for our family and friends and the ideas are just rolling around in my head like crazy!!!

I hope sincerely to be able to keep up this momentum and have our gifts made and ready to go long before the holiday rush and shopping craziness goes full blown!!

Alot depends on our garden, or the ability to purchase from the farmer's market should our gardening efforts fail. Doesn't a "basket" of hm goodies sound like a wonderful family gift?? And I do use the term "basket" loosely because I plan on reusing the cardboard boxes I buy diapers in, only I'll dress them up so they look all festive!!!

Also I love to crochet and I love to have a project going at all times so I've got some crocheted gifts in mind too!!

Lots rolling around in my noggin!! Thankfully I write all my ideas down in my idea notebook- crazy or not, lol- any idea is just that an idea, its not concrete unless I act on it. But writing them down gives me time to think about them, and whether they'll make a good gift or not!!!

That being said I want to devote more time to crafting!! So I gotta jump off of here and get some of my "chores" done so I can maybe have time to do some crafting this week. Probably not christmas crafting but more likely baby crafting, a sweet lady in our church is fixin to have her first baby after years of trying and I would like to make her a blanket for the little munchie!!!

Have a great day!! The housework calls!!!

Monday, January 2, 2012

Happy 2012!!

Another great weekend!! We celebrated New Year's away from home this year, and that is first for us because we normally stay home. Never the less we had a great time and a great meal with friends/neighbors!!!

Yesterday we went to church as usual then afterwards held Kara's 2nd birthday party at the church's banquet hall!! She has such a big time!! We are blessed by the family and friends that were able to make it!! I have a few pics and I will have to upload them so that I can share... maybe tomorrow if time allows!!!

Today we had a good day too, Mike was off again today so he took the boys and they had a Father/Son day and Kara and I picked up my mom on our way to town and we had a Mother/Daughter day!!

The boys spent the day going from Hobby shops to Comic Books stores, out to lunch then the game store to spend some gift cards they received at Christmas from their Uncle who enjoys spoiling them!!

Kara and I took my mom to town to help her find some after christmas bargins and she also needed to pick up a few household things.And shopping is always more fun with a buddy!! We went to the dollar tree, to Kmart, to lunch, to another dollar tree, to Hobby Lobby, to get a sweet tea at McDonalds- my personal shopping weakness- no trip to town finds me without a McD's sweet tea along the way, lol, then to a Family Dollar, a Variety Discount store, then to Dollar General, then finally home!!! Mom's greatest bargin was 26 strands of garland- the kind that looks like artifical tree, regularly 7.99 a strand on sale for 80% off and she only paid 1.60 each!! A roll of fabric christmas ribbon regularly 17.99 a spool on sale for 80% off and she only paid 3.60 for!! After we checked out and we loading the truck I told her to "quick get in and lets go, it feels like we robbed the place we saved so much" lol. She was quite happy with the bargain she got!!! What a sale!!! All that garland is going to look great next christmas season on her split rail fence and yes the ribbon she bought will be on the posts of the split rail fence as well!!

After all that we went to mom's to unload her packages, and I called home and had Mike and the boys meet me at mom's so he could fix her garage door as it had blown a capasitor. All in all it was a great day. The boys were happy to have their daddy all to theirselves but by late afternoon Kara was missing her daddy!!

Glad we are home now, it's really cold outside, there's talk of snow and with Mike going back to work tomorrow, and the boys going back to school as well, its was good to be home in plenty of time to jump back into our routine and get ready for the coming day.

We've had dinner, the dishwasher is loaded, the boys have showered and as soon as teeth are brushed and prayers said they will be off to bed. I need to get off of here and get Kara in the bath as well and get her ready for bed too!!

Enjoy the rest of your night!!