He's Walking!!!

Nephi is having a fabulous time walking everywhere!! He can get up all on his own in the middle of the room and loves to carry his blanket down the hall. Ya know, I never tire of watching a kid take their first steps. David and I were talking about this the other day. Just because we have a bunch of kids, it still is miraculous to us and facinating when our youngest takes their first steps. Nephi is a cute little boy who loves to smile and laugh!! We are so glad he came to our family!!!

He's Free!!

Today we went to the orthopedic and Hyrum had his cast removed. We were sent to get x-rays and then return for a new cast, one below the elbow. We did the x-rays and then had an hour to kill before his actual appointment. Hyrum was thrilled that he got to eat in the hospital cafeteria. He ate a turkey sandwich - which consisted of buttermilk bread with two slices of turkey - and some chocolate milk. Personally I thought it was a pretty boring, normal lunch...but he was so thrilled. The first thing he told his sisters later was that he got to eat lunch in the hospital cafeteria. I'm so glad that it doesn't take much to make my kids day!! Okay, so back to the doctor visit. After our fantastic lunch in the cafeteria, we went back to orthopedics and the doc looked at Hyrum's x-rays. He said that his arm is healed and he doesn't need a cast anymore - to which Hyrum responded, "What!!! no cast?!?!? Please can't I have one?" I think that Hyrum was the first patient this not so young doc ever had that asked for a cast. Hyrum was/is very concerned that it is not really healed all the way. We finally came up with a reasonable solution. Hyrum got a brace to wear for as long as he thinks that he needs it. Hyrum was much more willing to leave after he got his brace.

The biggest thing for me is that his arm still looks wrong. I don't really know how to explain it and Hyrum is refusing to take any pictures of it. I asked the doc and he said that it will take 6 months to one year to straighten out back to its normal appearance. We go back in 6 months for a recheck! Hopefully this doc really knows his stuff and Hyrum's arm will return to normal!!

Tomorrow I send Hyrum off on a 3 day - 2 night fieldtrip to Calaveras Big Trees and Mercer Caverns. It is a couple of hours east of Sacramento. He is so excited and I hope that he has a fabulous time. Because of finals David and I are not going to be able to go at all, so we are trusting that the other kids and their parents will help look out for him.

Hyrum Update

Well, we took Hyrum back to the Doctor for a recheck on his arm and they xrayed it and they said that it looked good. YEAH!!! WOO-HOO!!! I was so terrified that they would have to do something to torture the boy more, but we were lucky. They did have to change his cast as his arm had been so swollen and now the cast was too roomy. He was excited that he got to change the color of his cast and went from green to red. The doc then said that we need to go back on the 19th of May for another xray and at that time they will recast again, this time with a cast that stops before the elbow. Hyrum was thrilled! He said that he wants a blue cast, but I think he now wants a green one and then he will color on it with a black sharpie to make it look like an army cast. Interesting!!

The only concerning thing was that when they took off the original cast, his arm was totally crooked (is that spelled right?). He was a little concerned and mentioned to me that his arm looked really funny. The doc said that that was normal, but that within 6 months his arm should look normal. Hyrum and I were okay with that...as long as it really happens!!

Hyrum has adapted well and thinks that it is great that Mom has to write his summaries for school as he dictates them. He is even still able to play baseball. He hits the ball like he is holding a tennis racket and is practicing his back-hand. He is really quite good and was so excited that he did not have to sit out the entire season.

Utah Trip

I have been working on this post for at least a week now, but there have been constant interruptions. I don't know why I expect to just have all this time to blog...I guess I just have high hopes.

The last weekend in April David, Nephi and I went to Utah for David's youngest brother, Kenny's wedding. (Um...not sure if I got the comma in the right place there!) We shipped the other 5 kids out to my parents' house for one night and then the girls went to the Browns' house and the boys went to the Ducker's house for one night and they all ended up at our house with my parents and then Susie, the babysitter, until David and I got home around 1am on Monday. So a HUGE shout of THANKS goes out to all the people that helped watch our wonderful kids. I was so terrified to leave them, not that I would miss them, but that they would be way to crazy at everyones' houses and then I might lose my friends ;)! Just kidding....but really I was a little concerned that the kids would be a handful and to my pleasant surprise, they were really good.

We left on Friday around 4 and drove to Oakland Airport. Our plane was about 30 minutes late, so Nephi had a great time exploring the airport. He loved looking out the window and seeing the planes and all the people...he kept trying to sit on the window ledge...it was so funny. When he would stand up he couldn't see because there was a bar right at his eye level; he got a little frustrated.

We finally got to David's parents' house in Alpine, Utah around midnight. The next morning was Kenny's wedding. Kenny and Jane were married for time and all eternity in the Mount Timpanogos Temple. The sealer had a wonderful sense of humor and was a joy. It was beautiful. The best part for me was that I got to sit next to my husband! We walked into the sealing room and sitting there were Bob and Wendy Bagozzi. He was the Bishop when we moved into the Eastern Avenue Ward 10 years ago. The moved to Canada some years ago. Apparently Jane is Wendy's niece and they had made the trip down to attend the sealing. What a delight to walk in and see friends. So, now we are related to the Bagozzis!!!! That must be what it will be like walking into the Celestial Kingdom...friends everywhere! I can't wait!

After the sealing we took Nephi back from the sitters waiting outside the temple and went back to Mom and Dad's house. He played for a while under the table. The table was behind the couch in the family room. He thought that it was the greatest jungle-gym. It was a beautiful table and we were thrilled that he chose that as a great toy and not the stairs!!

Once we got him down for a nap, David and I left Nephi again with Melanie (our brother-in-law, Brent's sister) and her friend, and we were off to the luncheon. It was held at Magelby's in Provo. It was so nice, the food was fantastic - the world's most awesome rolls are there - and we got to sit with David's brother, Bill and his wife, Kristy. It was so fun to visit, especially without any of my children interrupting our conversation. David's sister Tami and her husband, Brent, put together a wonderful DVD of pictures for Ken and Jane of their journey through life so far and how they got together. It was really nice to see the two of them grow up before our eyes. Side note here....Nephi sure looks a lot like Uncle Kenny!!!

We rushed home from the Luncheon - did I mention the awesome rolls - and quickly changed into picture clothes, grabbed Nephi and drove down the street to attempt to take family pictures.

I say attempt because it was so windy that I don't think the photographer was able to take any pictures without someone's hair flying up. It definitely made the photo shoot memorable. David loved it!!! After the photo shoot, we got to rest for a little bit and then we headed over to the reception. Nephi loved the chocolate fountain...see the evidence to the left! - At least as I am typing it in, the picture is on the left. Once I publish the posts, they occasionally seem to have the pictures in different places!

When the reception was over, we went back to the house, put Nephi to

bed for the night and then went downstairs to the malt shoppe/theater. We took a bunck of pictures of my in-laws downstairs to show our kids!! Mom and Dad have a 12 foot screen that we got to watch movies on. It was fantastic! There is also a beautiful old fashioned malt shoppe. It is really cool. But, I must admit, the thing that I went looking for was the Elvis scarves. I had been telling my kids that Grandma Cox had some of Elvis' scarves that she had gotten when she had gone to see him in concert. The first thing they asked when I said I had some pictures of some of the Elvis things that Grandmad had was..."Where are the scarves?" I don't think that they believed me. But when I was able to show them the evidence, they were in awe. Grandma - I think that you are their hero!!

Sunday we spent the morning cleaning house for some more houseguests, a non-member business partner of David's dad and his family. Then we all went to church and that was the end of the schedule. We spent the remainder of our time in Utah eating Yumburgers in the cool malt shoppe, visiting and enjoying playing outside in the beautiful yard with our littlest boy.

We had a great time. I really enjoyed spending time with David's family; they are awesome!! It was a nice break from the everyday and the scenery was beautiful. Thanks to all who helped us pull this off!!

Poor Hyrum

Okay, so almost daily something has happened that I thought, "I should put that up on the blog." Then last Friday, something so horrific, so terrible, so tramatic (for me) that everything else is going to be left out!!

Last week was the all school play at the kids elementary school. "Rockmania" was a play that was written for school kids that included 9 rock-n-roll songs that the kids and teachers sung and danced to. Vilate was a singer all three nights in the "Lollipop" song that Kindergarten did. Faith had two songs. She sang one night in "Locamotion" and danced the other two nights and she sang a two line solo in "Dance to the Music." It was an awesome school play. There were over 200 kids in it. The play lasted a total of an hour and 15 minutes. All kids were able to be seen and participate and there were different singers every night. If the kids weren't singing in the mics they were dancing on stage and singing. They also had the kids in charge of the sets, with parent supervision. Hyrum helped with "Surfing in the USA" - the second graders song. It was amazing.

So, we got tickets for Wednesday night and went to see the show. Thursday night I dropped the girls off and at about 7:15 pm, I had all the other kids in bed, except for Nephi. I had just sat down to nurse the baby and veg with the TV on, when the phone rang. It was Marty Monroe, another mom at Mission. She told me that Vilate had fallen off the stage and had hurt her knee. She offered to have Carmen Kirkpatrick, yet another Mission mom, bring her home, or I could go and pick her up. I figured that if she was offering the ride, it couldn't be that bad. Vilate got home and it turns out that a boy stepped on the ties of her ballet slippers as they were walking out onto the stage and she tripped. She ended up bumping her knee, the one that she scraped when she fell off her bike the previous Friday. She reopened the scrape and the blood was the reason for the freak out on her part.

Okay, so then Friday came. It was the last night of the show and as such after the show was scheduled the cast party. Because Hyrum had worked on the sets, he was invited to attend. Since Vilate had fallen off the stage the night before, I decided that I should probably be there in case of any other accidents. I left Helaman and Gloria home with Susie, the most awesome babysitter!! We got to the show and because I didn't purchase tickets, I just stood in the back for the two opening numbers, Vilate and Faith's songs. After that I went out to the back playground with Nephi and Hyrum and most of the third graders. Hyrum's friend Gavin, from second grade joined us. Nephi was playing on the ground just crawling around and all of a sudden, after being outside for less than 10 minutes, I heard Hyrum screaming my name and looked over. He came running at me with a terrified look on his face. I looked down and his right arm was disfigured. I looked as though he had a second wrist about an inch or two above his wrist. I turned to the mom with me and said, in what I think was a calm voice, that I was going to need some help.

It seemed that I stood there on the blacktop with Hyrum for an hour, but I am sure that it was only 2 minutes, maybe even less. I picked him up and screamed for Faith to get the baby, I was now in panic mode. I ran to the third grade classroom while screaming that I needed someone to help us. I put Hyrum in the nearest chair and was told by the parents that someone had gone to get Dr. Laurie Givant, another Mission mom who just happened to be there that night. Laurie came and while she was assessing Hyrum I called David at work to tell him what the plan was. He was to go home and stay with the little kids, I was taking Hyrum and Nephi to the ER and the girls would get a ride home from a friend.

After the doctor splinted Hyrum's arm we went to the ER. After x-rays and a few hours of waiting in pain, the doctor finally came in and said that they would have to "reduce" or set his arm. They offered to "knock him out" to which Hyrum responded, "What? You're gonna hit me?!?!?" or to give him a shot in his arm to numb it. Hyrum went for the shot and after they administered it and gave him some Tylenol w/Codine, they started the settting process. It turned out that they had to set it two separate times that night. We finally got home around 12:30am and had an appointment to return on Monday to Orthopedics to get the cast.

I felt so bad for Hyrum and we got donuts for breakfast Saturday morning, then he got a balloon, and I bought him pizza for dinner. On Sunday he stayed home from church. David went for Sacrament meeting and then I went to teach Relief Society. So, Monday morning we were back at the doctors. The story just gets better here!

The Orthopedic doctor looked at Hyrum's ER x-rays and said that his arm was not set right and that he would have to re-set it. Oh, NO!!!! So after the first 3 tries with x-rays in between, he determined that traction would help. So, we sat in traction for 30 mintues and then he was given a shot of Lidocane. (I'm sure that is misspelled, but it is like the stuff that they use in your mouth when you get a filling.) Then we tried 3 more time before it was finally "good enough." It was pure torture for Hyrum and it was not a picnic for me either. Now we have a green cast and a much more comfortable sling. He went to school yesterday and was very disappointed that he couldn't participate in PE at all. He claimed that he could do it all with just one hand! Poor kid!!!

We get to back to the doctor on Monday for more x-rays and hopefully no more settings!!

Well that's the highlight of the last couple of weeks. I so am hoping that we can have a few boring weeks!! I'm sure it will NEVER happen, but I can hope, right?