Noah's eye surgery!

I haven't posted for a while because I've been busy taking care of everyone!! We're still working on Dave's leg, but I'll post later about that. Meanwhile, we've finally had Noah's eye surgery done.

On October 1st, we went to the surgery center at 7am. We simply told Noah that Dr. Satterfield was going to fix his eyes. We didn't want to scare him too much or he'd never come with us. He was actually pretty excited, he really didn't have a clue what was coming.

Here is Noah in the waiting room when we first got there. He was just his happy little self, like usual. You may notice his left eye is not centered like the right. That is why we're having the surgery, to tighten up the muscle that has slipped back and won't allow his eye to go much farther.

He's always so happy we just love our little Noah. This is his second eye surgery, his first was when he was 1 yr. old.
After a while they brought us back to another waiting room where we dressed him for surgery and he got to watch a movie on his own little DVD player while we waited for the "silly juice" to come.

We told Noah they would give him some "silly juice" to drink that would make him silly. He was pretty excited about that...until he tasted it. YUCK! He spit it out! They ended up having to shoot it up his nose to be absorbed through the membrane, it actually works faster that way anyway. He wasn't so happy about that, but he calmed down fast and kept watching his movie. He eventually got really sleepy and limp. His speech was slurred and he was talking about weird stuff. He was ready for his anesthesia! They took him away and got started. We were a little nervous, of course, but we've done this before.

The surgery took about an hour and then his recovery from the anesthesia took about 45 minutes or so. He was not happy when he first woke up. He was very mad in fact, and probably in pain. I felt a little guilty for not letting him know what was going to happen, but he never would have cooperated otherwise. He fell back asleep quickly (with some help) and when he woke up the second time he was much happier. He was, however a little nervous when he saw 2 Mommys. "Mom, look behind you!!" I looked and saw a mural on the wall... "No, mommy! Who's that behind you?!!" He was really scared at first. We had to explain to him that since they fixed his eyes they were being a little silly right now. He would see 2 Mommys and 2 Daddys for a while. Eventually, he thought it was hilarious and that's all he talked about the whole way home! "Look, there's two cars, look there's two carseats!"
Here is his eye after the surgery. The Dr. decided it was only necessary to operate on the left eye, that should fix the problem. He was pretty happy when we got home, not complaining or in lots of pain. He was just so in awe that there were two of everything. It made him a little clumsy though. He couldn't walk well and was bumping into things. Still happy though.
We bought him a toy at Target and an Icee. That made him feel pretty special. His recovery has been great. His eye is slowly looking more normal and he's seeing better now. In a few weeks he should be all better!!

What has Dave been up to you ask???

Dave is a busy guy, usually. However, because of his virus and leg infection he hasn't been into work since last Wednesday. So, many of you have been asking...."So what is he doing all day?". I caught him while he wasn't looking and got a picture to show everyone what an awesome husband I have. Here he is, stuck, immobile on the couch....he could be playing video games, watching TV, movies, etc..... What is he doing you say??? He's reading Eclipse, the 3rd book in the Twilight series!! He told me he was having Vampire/Werewolf dreams last night. He also was dreaming of an X-men guy that was a vampire and caught bad guys for the government.
Trust me, he's as manly as they get. He really likes the books though. But for different reasons than most women do, he likes the superhuman characters and all the action. He complains about how annoying Bella can be sometimes and how melodramatic she is. (In her defense, I think anyone would get a little dramatic amidst life with vampires and werewolves....)

Dave and I actually have great "Twilight series" discussions sometimes. I appreciate that he's interested in something I'm interested in. Depending on when he gets better and goes back to work, he may get Breaking Dawn finished!!

*************************************************************************************** I just thought I'd add a couple pictures of the kids. Noah fell asleep in this weird position at the dinner table last night. I couldn't believe he was possibly comfortable. He'd had a long day though.
This is a cool Lego pit that Logan built for the Lego Magazine's Cool Creations. He had me take a few pictures to send into the magazine. This one has Mason in it, but he didn't help Logan make it. Roman promptly destroyed it after only a few hours. It's been rebuilt a few times now, thanks to Roman's destructive nature.

The moral?....Wash your cuts boys & girls!!

WARNING: SOME GRAPHIC PICTURES OF MY HUSBANDS NAKED LEG. ALSO A LOOONG STORY TO GO WITH IT.......

Many of you know that Dave is an avid mountain biker. He rides just about every Saturday morning at 6am with a group of friends. He took advantage of his extra day off work last Monday and went riding that morning with two other guys. Its not weird for the guys to take a fall now and then when they hit a jump wrong. Dave actually doesn't bail very often. This trip, he took a jump wrong and his pedal swung back and smacked him right hard in the shin. It hurt pretty bad but just barely broke the skin. Not a big deal for a mountain biking accident. He walked it off. It began to throb a bit at work on Tuesday but he even played basketball that night.

He ended up with some kind of virus that hit him that night around 11pm. He began throwing up and continued for 7 hours, getting up about every 45 minutes or so. He was stuck in bed Wednesday and Thursday recouperating from this GI bug. All the while, his leg is starting to feel worse everyday. Thursday night he was able to hold down his food finally but now he couldn't move his leg enough to even get up and walk to the bathroom. He was crawling on the floor to get there. It had swollen up pretty bad and we couldn't figure out what was going on...was it just bruised really bad? Had he possibly cracked the bone? Wouldn't that have hurt bad right away instead of waiting days to happen? It was bad enough Thursday, that I made him a docter's appt. for Friday morning. He could barely get to the bathroom, we decided he'd need some crutches to help get him to the car and to the Dr.s office. (A HUGE thank you to all the ward members willing to give us crutches in such short notice!) It took him about 45 minutes to get downstairs to shower and get dressed and into the car, this usually only takes him about 10 minutes. So the docter took a look at his leg and seemed pretty concerned. It hadn't even occured to us that his leg was infected, but that's the diagnosis. Even though his scrapes from the biking accident were minimal, they were big enough to get some bad bacteria in there. His whole right leg from the knee down was red and swollen from his small cuts getting infected. The Dr. prescribed an antibiotic and some Vicodin for the pain. WOW, I can't believe this is all from an infected scrape. He can't walk, he can't go up and down the stairs, it takes him a good 10 minutes to get himself to the bathroom a few feet away.
(this is his ankle all swollen, it looked much worse yesterday. Notice you can't even see the bone.)

This has been quite an experience for me. I have a hard enough time being 6 months pregnant and taking care of all the kids needs. Now I've got Dave to take care of too. It doesn't matter that my back hurts from going up and down the stairs so much, that I was getting up in the middle of the night to take care of Dave's needs and not getting to nap later. I'm not complaining, it's just a bit exhausting. My house looks like it was hit by Hurricane Gustav, but that's okay, taking care of my family is more important. Charity truly is the pure love of Christ. I am grateful for the opportunity to gain a testimony of service and charity through serving my husband. I'm so grateful for those who were inspired to help our family at this time of need. My sweet visiting teacher Vanessa brought us dinner last night and my neighbor Hilari brought us dinner that I could freeze and I'll use on Sunday. My wonderful mom took Logan and Mason to the movies last night to get them off my hands, that was so helpful.
Unfortunately, this isn't over. He's getting better but these kind of infections don't go away over night. The Vicodin isn't working that well either so he's still in a lot of pain. He should be better by the end of next week hopefully. We appreciate all of your prayers!
(These pics don't really do his infection justice, my White Balance was a bit off I think. It's much more red than it appears in the picture. )

My little Scout!

Logan is our first boy scout. He actually started in June but we didn't end up getting his uniform until a couple weekends ago. This was the first meeting he got to wear his uniform to. He looks so handsome and he just loved wearing it. No joke...he wears his scout hat to bed every night! He wants to wear it to school too but I told him I don't want it to get lost. I've still got lots of patches to sew on but you get the idea. He's doing great in scouts so far. With Daddy's help, he's moving quickly through the Wolf scout book, passing off all kinds of badges. He'll be an Eagle Scout in no time!
I just had to include this picture. Noah is such a sweet brother. Instead of being jealous of his older brothers' activities he is excited for them. This day was actually scouts for Logan and Mason's first soccer practice. Noah was so excited for both of them. He keeps talking about how he'll turn 8 and get to go to scouts. He loves seeing his brothers doing fun stuff.

The end of the summer.....

This is kind of a random picture but I kept wanting to blog it so here's my excuse. Logan, Mason, and Noah went to a primary Pioneer Day activity a month ago and had a great time pretending to be pioneers. They went on a long "trek" from the park over to the church building, played some pioneer games, learned about some of the trials the pioneers went through, and even made butter! At the end of the activity all the kids got a packet with some snacks to use to make a "pioneer wagon". Logan's was the only one to make it home before it got eaten. He followed all the directions and got it done really quick. It turned out perfect!!
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The first day of school!!

On Tuesday Aug. 19th the boys started back to school. They were sooooo excited! Logan began 3rd grade in Mrs. Baker's class. So far he's enjoying being a big 3rd grader. He'll be starting piano lessons soon from our neighbor, we're excited for him.

Mason is now a big 1st grader! He gets to go to school all day with Logan and eat lunch in the cafeteria with all the big kids. He's been so excited to have recess with Logan but this year the 3rd and 1st graders don't have recess together, DARN! He is in Mrs. Cern's class with some of his friends from the ward. He's beginning soccer this week and his Sunday school teacher will be his coach!! We had to pull a lot of strings to get him on that team. He'll be with all the other boys his age in the ward. We're soooo excited for him!

Noah starts preschool again with Ms. Danai on Monday. Most of the kids from his class last year are there again, with just a few new ones. He's so much more comfortable this year. Last year he had a hard time leaving me for the first few months of school. Now he's dying to go back. We're looking forward to a fun year for him this year!

Roman isn't starting anything this fall. But he will get to enjoy some one on one time with Mom while his brothers are at school. Hopefully this will help ease the pain of getting kicked off his throne when the baby comes in December. We'll get him involved in something in the spring to help him too. He's actually doing pretty good potty training lately. I just hope he doesn't regress when the baby comes....

Noah's new glasses!

We're on the road to trying to get Noah's eyes "fixed". He has bad vision so he now needs glasses. He also has an over-corrected strabismis. His eyes used to be crossed and we had a surgery when he turned one to un-cross them. They were fine for a while but then become over-corrected...they were going outward. We will have to have another surgery to correct the over-correction soon. Meanwhile, we just need to get him to keep his darn glasses on!! He got the glasses on Monday and they were broken by Tuesday! Luckily Costco was nice enough to do their best to repair them, but if it happens again, we may just need to buy another pair. I actually don't think his prescription is correct. The prescription is as if he were far-sighted and we are ABSOLUTLEY sure that he is very near-sighted. We'll go back in a few weeks and the Dr. will see him and hopefully change his prescription. Wish us luck!!!