Enough is Enough

Apparently Seth has had enough. He posted a sign on his door.





if you can't read what it says here it is:

KEEP OUT!!!
keegan and paige
STAY OUT!!!!!!!!!!
Seth's property, not
mom and dads
if they are mean.

so there you go......Seth has had enough. I couldn't resist taking this picture. I mean how many of us put up signs like this!!!!

Church Ad

My cousin posted this on her family's blog and I just had to share. Really cute. I haven't seen the new church ads yet (may see some of them during conference this weekend). I really loved this one so I'm posting it here! Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Keegan!!!

My little guy is 5 (well officially on Tuesday but who's counting!). Here's a slide show of the fun.

Time to grill

I finally decided that it was nice enough to break out the grill for dinner. So we got out hamburgers and fired up the grill. And yes I had no help doing it, Dan was impressed! :) Then we ate dinner on the patio outside. It was a wonderful night. For FHE we played Disney Scene it and had a great time figuring out all the movies. I love this warmer weather and all the fun we can have outside!

now this is just silly!

seth and dan were playing with the football

I'm not exactly sure why I have decided to do this. Maybe it'll be cathartic, maybe this is a journal entry.....i'm not sure. I just feel like I should share. I don't want anyone to feel like I'm trying to play the pity card, I'm really not. There's just so much emotion raging inside me right now that I guess if I don't get it down I'll explode. And that would be bad. I mean who would feed the family if I exploded?? haha

So let me take you back to November just before Thanksgiving. Well.....a couple months before that we had talked about adding to our family. This has never been a problem for us. I guess I expected it to be just as easy. We wanted to try for another girl so Paige could have a sister. Everyone needs to know what it's like to have a brother and a sister (according to my dear husband). So that was the plan. Well, early in November we found out that we were expecting. Not surprised really, but terribly excited. About 6 weeks into it everything went awry and we lost the pregnancy. Heartbreaking really since I had never experienced that kind of loss before. Now I realize I was only a few weeks along and I hadn't had much time with this little one, but he/she was very real and very wanted. So it hurt for a long time. I still blame myself although I know it's nothing that I did. It just wasn't the right time. So we bucked up and moved on-I mean we had the holidays coming up and I wasn't going to be miserable for them. So we spoke with the doctor and he said to wait 3 months and if we were still interested in adding to the family, we should be ok at that point. (Yeah I know, this is all TMI so if you want to stop reading now I won't hold it against you.)
So we got through the holidays with much joy and glee (my parents came into town -thanks to my wonderful sister Donna for the tickets) and decided that it must have been a one time thing and we are ok to try again. Well no surprise, got pregnant right away. I experienced bleeding in the beginning only to be told that it was normal so instead of falling apart I just tried not to get attached because deep down I didn't want to hurt again like that. I don't think anyone should have to face that kind of pain. So I tried to keep myself numb from it. I told Dan and I made my first appointment. Even took the picture of the test. Yeah right, I'm not getting attached. I decided to get out my box of maternity clothes and go through them and to start buying up diapers and formula. Luckily I had only bought 1 package of diapers so far. Then on the morning of St. Patrick's day I woke up covered in blood. I immediately started crying because I knew what was happening. We were losing it again. I went into the doctor and he confirmed what I already knew. We were losing this baby too. So I went home to face the pain all over again. The next morning I woke up as usual and did the normal morning routine. As soon as I came out of the bathroom I got my world rocked. The pain was the worst I'd ever felt. So back to the doctor I went. He had some suspicions but just thought it was a normal miscarriage (especially since I wasn't symptomatic and wasn't in any pain- thank you vicadin that had been prescribed earlier in the day). So home I went and went to bed. At that point my very frame of mind started changing. I couldn't get out of bed. Not because I was tired, I just couldn't do it. So when my Releif Society president and one of her counselor's stopped by I wanted to get up and say hello and let them know I was ok (i don't like being made a fuss over). But when I got up and got to the door of the bedroom I didn't last long. Toppled right to the floor. I don't remember anything but being against the wall one minute and being on the floor the next. At that point it was back to bed and more sleep. No more heavy drugs as I thought that is why I passed out. So the pain was back and I passed out. Lovely..... but I managed to sleep the rest of the afternoon without any more problems. I actually started to feel pretty good, no more dizzy spells. So I figured a nice hot shower would help with the pain and as I tried to sit up in the bed again I passed out. Didn't even make it to the standing up phase. Good thing too, since I don't remember passing out that time either. Joy. So Dan called the doctor and was told to bring me in the the ER immediately. So we called the Relief Society Pres again and the Elder's Quorum President and both were at our house in 10 minutes. Good thing too because at that point I was throwing up everywhere. Not one of my finer moments. So Dan and Bro. Oberle helped me to the truck and Sis. Haymore stayed with the kids until someone else came and got them. Off to the ER we went. So at admin I was not coherent and Dan was about ready to punch the lady at the desk in the mouth. That would have been neat to see. My blood pressure at that point was 74 /40. Yeah, forget the admin stuff and put me in a room. So long story short (I know too late) I have about a liter of blood in my abdomen. All the tests confirmed it, not only miscarriage, but a tubal pregnancy that had just burst. Emergency surgery here I come. Luckily it was done laproscopicly so I have some nifty Spongebob band aids covering the boo-boos. They took out the liter of blood and cleaned me out and also removed my left fallopian tube. The diagnosis......a 30% chance of ever getting pregnant again and if I did get pregnant it would be another 30% chance of it being another tubal pregnancy. How's that for a blow. And the kicker to it all........if everything had gone as planned, we would have been pregnant with twins. The one stayed in the tube and caused the other one that had made it to miscarry. Man!!!!!!!!! How does a person recover from something like that? I've lost 3 babies in the past 6 months. Makes me sick to my stomach. And as far as I'm concerned, they were babies and they were mine and now they are gone (and now i'm crying......again). Yeah I had major surgery, yeah I lost a ton of blood, yeah I couldv'e died, but the only thing that comes back to me is that I've lost 3 babies. I have to admit that for a little while I was really angry, angry at God for doing this, for letting me experience this, torture. But then when I found out about all our church family was doing for us all that anger melted away. The fact that these people put their own lives on hold to take care of my kids and dan while I was in the hospital was a beautiful thing. I know that all this has happened for a reason and that I really had nothing to do with it. But now knowing that we may not be able to have any more does hurt, alot. I didn't feel like we were finished. But I have a feeling that we'll have another some day, may not be by our own means, but we'll have another one. But the talk of babies for us is on a perma-hold. And don't get me wrong, I am TRULY blessed to already have 3 children and I love them more than anything, they are my world.
My physical being is healing nicely. Only a little pain and discomfort but I am doing well. My mental well being.....well not so much. But I think that's why I had to write this down. Just talking about it hasn't really helped. I needed another outlet. I know it's going to hurt for a while but I have to deal with it the best way I know how and for now, writing about it is one way to move on. Thanks to those of you who have prayed for us-we have really felt it and for those of you who have helped in some way. It has not gone unnoticed. I'm just thankful that it was spring break this week and Seth wasn't in school. My boys have really been troopers in all this and they are taking very good care of their momma. Paige is blissfully unaware and I'm thankful for that too. She does understand that mommy has boo-boos on her tummy and can't pick her up, but is otherwise handling this well. I have really been blessed with good friends and a wonderful church family. There's not really much I can say about it to express my gratitude fully. Despite the pain and trauma, I would not trade the love and compassion for anything in the world. I pray that everyone is as lucky in that respect as we are.

So now you know what's been going on in our house over the past week. I'm anxious to get on with day to day life and to heal. We have lots planned for later in the year and I want to focus on that. Thanks for dealing with my rants today and I hope my next post will be lighter.
Our love to you all!

This is what happens when you have 2 bored boys on your hands. Oh the silly things they do. He hung there for about 10 seconds before his hands gave out.

Pre-K registration

We took Keegan to the school the other night for registration. I can't believe that he's almost 5 and will be going to school in the fall. Where has the time gone? Really!!!!!

He was able to meet one of the teachers, see a classroom, make a puppet he named Keegan, ride a horse, meet the principal and have punch and cookies. It was a fun night and we got information and a voucher for a uniform shirt. Can't beat that!! I think he might actually be looking forward to school. I'm not sure how i'll handle it with just me and Paige at home. I'm just glad that he's looking forward to it now.

Yeehaw ya'll

Last night we were able to go to the rodeo. The local college and the MWR on post were sponsoring it. We went with the Graham family and all had a great time. The one thing we didn't expect was the chilling canyon wind. They just had to put the arena in the area on post closest to the entrance to a canyon. The wind that was blowing out of it was FREEZING!!! All the kids' lips were purple by the time we left. It also lasted a lot longer than we thought it would and we ended up leaving before the bucking broncos finished and before the bull riding, which is the main part that I wanted to see. Bummer. Oh well. Next year (if it comes back) maybe we'll go on a Saturday and make a day of it. I really enjoyed and I think (for the most part) the kids enjoyed it. Other than freezing that is. But we got hot chocolate from Mc' D's on the way home and that appeased everyone.

wahoo...bring on the fun!

by the steer pen.

the steers used in steer roping. we never did see where they kept the bulls. probably safer that way, the boys would've wanted a ride.

watching the steers

i don't think he's having fun anymore, too cold!!

i was so glad i had taken the time to actually fix her hair. it was destroyed about 5 minutes after we arrived.

some of the rodeo folk

the calf roping was (go figure) at the opposite end of the arena from where we were. We had to strain to see it.

my camera isn't equipped to take close up night pictures. so it's a bit dark. this is the shoot where the horse and bull riders come out of.

yeah, it's windy.

brrr.....

Remembering Dr. Seuss

This week was Dr. Seuss celebration week at school. The k-3 grade teachers planned some nifty things for all the children to do. Each day was a different theme based on a favorite Dr. Seuss book. Seth had a great time this week learning all about his favorite author.

Monday- CAT IN THE HAT wear your best silly hat-we thought it fitting for Seth to wear his Dr. Seuss hat.

Tuesday- I AM NOT GOING TO GET UP TODAY come in your pj's day (this was by far his favorite day)


Wednesday- FOX IN SOCKS - wear your craziest pair of socks. Well, I have a drawer with nothing but crazy socks so he picked out my hershey kisses socks (sad that my 7 year old can wear my socks....) sorry no picture-it was a crazy day and I forgot to snap one.

Thursday - IF I RAN THE ZOO- bring your favorite stuffed animal. He chose a white teddy bear that I got from his great grandmother back in 1987.
and of course Keegan wanted in on the action so here he is with his favorite stuffed animal from Pokemon.


Friday- GREAT DAY FOR UP- wear whatever you want to day- they get the chance to "dress down" every Friday. Basically their uniform shirts and jeans instead of the khaki's or blue pants that they normally have to wear. But this time they got to wear whatever they wanted. No picture-but he wore camo pants and a Lightening McQueen t shirt. He was giddy about not wearing his uniform.