We have been enjoying the new year. We still love our dog. She always has to be in the middle of the action snuggled up to whoever has the soft blanket. This is what down time looks like at our house:
Matthew made this card to give to Aaron for Father's Day back in preschool. He still has it in his wallet and makes him smile whenever he sees it. It is hard to believe Matthew used to be that little!
We got a new rug the other day since our old one was falling apart. It is so soft! After we laid it out Sophie gave it her seal of approval when she fell asleep on it.
It was dance recital time for Sarah. I still love fancying her up and I think she likes it too. Here's my cute girl before we left for her recital:
Aaron and I had to divide and conquer the night of Sarah's recital. Josh had a Cross Country banquet an hour before Sarah's recital started. I went with Josh since I had already seen Sarah perform her dances at a different venue that way Aaron could see all of her dances. It was fun to hear about the Cross Country season from his coach and other runners. Josh even got recognized for his grades since he kept them high during the season. He received the Academic Achievement Award--wahoo!
After the banquet Josh and I sped over to watch the rest of Sarah's recital. We got there just in time for her second dance which I was happy about. Here's my cute dancer:
She loves her flowers from us and G&G T at the end of her performance:
She came to give us hugs:
Here's all her cute dance outfits:
She loves her flowers:
Since she is part of the one of the three performance teams she even gets her head shot in the program. Here's my cute Sarah girl's head shot:
Speaking of Sarah she won her class spelling bee. Her teacher snapped a picture of her as soon as she found out she had won. Way to go Sarah!
Here's her spelling bee winners certificate:
We celebrated her win by going and getting her a start of a root canal. We sure know how to party around here--haha! No she had this appointment scheduled for three weeks so we knew it was going to happen. One of her teeth that she had broken back in May had started to abscess so she needed to get it taken care of. The endodontist drilled into her tooth to put in some antibiotic solution and another solution to kill the root. Unfortunately, while he was in there he saw that the other front tooth was starting to get infected, too, which meant she needed a root canal for both teeth--DOH!! Sarah was pretty upset, but she handled it like a trooper. The endodontist only started the root canal with the antibiotic solution and then had us schedule another appointment in 6 weeks to finish the job. Here's my poor girl getting worked on by the endodontist:
That evening it happened to be a lunar eclipse in addition to the blood moon. We were only able to catch a quick glimpse of the moon before everything got covered over with clouds. The photo doesn't do it justice, but it was still pretty cool to see:
Saturday we had a fun family party with G&G T, my brother and my sister and their families to celebrate the January birthdays. It was a fun party and the cousins had fun hanging out with each other. That evening I had a much needed girls night out with my friend, Erin. We went to the temple and then to dinner. Then we did some shopping. It was so much fun. It was also really needed because things were about to get a bit stressful around our house.
Sunday was pretty exciting for us. Daniel got to speak in church for his first time as a youth speaker. He was pretty nervous when they asked him to speak, however, not too nervous since he didn't even start preparing his talk until Saturday morning the day before--haha! He did great. The previous Sunday Josh got to bless the sacrament for the first time after becoming ordained as a priest. He was nervous, but he did well despite needing to say the sacrament prayer twice. It was cool to see!
Monday morning Aaron was scheduled for shoulder surgery. Back in October when we had done iFly (indoor skydiving) it had injured Aaron's shoulder which needed to be repaired surgically. Luckily, he was able to schedule surgery for Martin Luther King Day so he didn't need to take a sick day from work. Thankfully, G&G T were able to come and hang out with the kids to make sure there was no fighting at home. Here is Aaron before they wheeled him away for surgery:
I told him that was a pretty nice look he had going on and that he should save his hair net and hospital gown to wear around town--haha! He didn't think I was very funny, though. After the surgery the surgeon came to talk with me and show me what they had found in his shoulder. I am sure the pictures made all sense to the surgeon, but I just had to smile and nod because I wasn't quite sure of what I was looking at. Here's the pictures he showed me of Aaron's shoulder joint:
I have faith the surgeon knew what he was doing since that's what he gets paid the big bucks, however, I just smiled and nodded like I understood what I was looking at when we looked through the pictures. I did find comfort in the fact that one of my nursing friends really recommended this surgeon and had elbow surgery done by him. Since I don't work in the hospitals up here I really don't know the doctors very well so I was glad when she recommended him.
After surgery we came home and started the long recovery. He will need to keep his arm in the sling for 6 weeks. They sent us home with a cool little ice machine which is what that blue thing is on his shoulder. It keeps ice water on his shoulder while it is turned on which is pretty cool. They gave him a nerve block in his shoulder to keep the pain level lower for the first 24 hours. After that started to wear off he was hurting quite a bit--poor guy!
The next day I got Aaron comfortable and then left him home to go and see the school wide Spelling Bee. Sarah didn't make it very far, but I thought it was pretty cool she made it as far as she did. Here she is getting up to spell her word in front of the judges:
Tuesday evening it was the Access to Music concert at Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City. I had signed us up to attend back in November so we had been waiting to attend for a few months. The Access to Music concert is a special concert put on by the Utah Opera and the Utah Symphony for special needs kids and their families free of charge. They do this every year so kids with special needs who can't always control outbursts or have regular 'concert behavior' are able to enjoy the music without offending anyone if they are noisy, wiggly, flapping their hands(Matthew), etc. throughout the concert. I won't lie, it was noisy, but I think they kids really enjoyed the performance as did the audience. There was clapping and yelling by the whole audience throughout some of the fast paces symphony prices which probably wouldn't have happened at a typical concert. I am grateful for these opportunities for kids with special needs. We did miss Aaron, but he probably enjoyed having a quiet house to try and recover from surgery.
Here is our view as the performance started:
We even took a picture in the foyer with one of the performers at the end of the show while we were eating our refreshment cookies provided from a local bakery.
It was pretty frigid as we walked out to our car after the show, but we were able to see the temple which was pretty cool.
Things didn't go 100% smoothly, though. I ended up parking in the wrong spot for the concert and got to bring home a nice parking ticket. I had read the street sign wrong and the free parking times were different than I had thought so I got a ticket. DOH!! Oh well, I guess maybe that's the price for having some culture right--haha!
Wednesday, the next day after the concert, I was minding my business when I got a call from the school. If you know me I HATE calls from the school! I answered and the school secretary let me know they thought Noah had broken his finger by sitting on it weird (insert eye roll and big sigh right here) and that he needed to be picked up. I was just getting the shower as she called so I quickly showered and threw on some clothes so I could get him. When I got there his finger was black and blue and swollen, but didn't look as bad as I had pictured. When I got him home I was planning on taking him in to the InstaCare, but it was over an hour wait. We got our name on the waiting list, but after a few minutes Noah said he absolutely didn't want to go to the doctor about his finger. After talking about it we decided to wait it out and see how he felt in an hour. He said it didn't hurt too much so we decided to stay home and wait and see. Here's what it looked like right when I picked him up.
The bruising did spread to part of his palm, but it didn't seem to really hurt him too much. I think he just really jammed his finger and that it wasn't really broken.
He's been fine ever since then. His finger is tender, but he is able to bend and use it so no worries. This is why I HATE calls from the school because 90% of the time they are never a good call.
Anyway, as I was going through pictures on my phone I found this gem from Josh. What a dork!!
Wednesday evening was pack meeting for Noah and scouts. Noah was excited to help out with the flag ceremony.
He also liked receiving his awards and picking out a cheesy cheer to do.
Back in November Vivint Gives Back did a super BYU fan contest. They were going to pick 3 families that were the biggest BYU fans. I sent in a picture of all of us in our BYU gear and we were picked as one of the families. It also helped that only one other family submitted to this contest so we were almost guaranteed a spot--haha! We were pretty excited. They wanted to get some head shots of Matthew to display at the game so I drove Matthew down to Provo one morning a few weeks ago so he could get his picture taken. I tried to make a day of it with Matthew, but he was insisting he needed to get back to school in case anyone needed directions anywhere--the crazy kid. Well the basketball game we were invited to was Thursday night. We had known about this game and had planned on going for two months, however, we didn't know about Aaron's surgery when we won the tickets. Aaron had been hurting quite a bit from his shoulder surgery, but really wanted to go so we made sure he was medicated and drove down to Provo. They provided us with really close parking passes and dinner in the Annex. It was pretty cool because there were some cooler people than us that dined at the tables next to us like the president of BYU, the athletic director, etc. We felt a bit out of place, but were still excited to be there. They even provided access to a fridge full of drinks. When Noah heard about the fridge full of drinks he yelled, "MOM WE EVEN GET FREE DRINKS!!" Again we didn't quite fit in, but still enjoyed our meal. Aaron's shoulder was hurting quite a bit, but he still tried to make the best of it. Here we are enjoying our dinner:
They provided us drinking glasses that were stemware which the kids aren't used to drinking form. Noah also said, "Hey Mom look at me! I am being fancy and putting my pinky up while I drink!" We all had a chuckle over that one.
After dinner they let Matthew and I on to the court to watch the players warm up. Matthew was so excited and was shouting exit numbers as we walked to where they wanted us to stand.
Watching the players warm up:
The security guard that was manning the area where we were at loved Matthew's enthusiasm and even asked if he could get a picture with Matthew. It was really sweet. He did snap a picture of Matthew and me, too.
Cosmo even came over to say Hi and sign the game ball:
Here's Cosmo and the other winner of the biggest BYU fans:
Matthew was beside himself with excitement when they announced him and the other winner in the Marriott Center. He was jumping all over the place which you can see if you watch the video clip:
They even displayed his picture on the Jumbotron as they were announcing him. That made him even more excited if that was possible. This is what the head shot was for that we drove down to Provo to have them take a few weeks ago:
After receiving the gameball they let us go to our seats. They sent us on our way with a really cool Nike back pack, BYU socks, a foam #1 hand, and a cool BYU basketball jersey. Matthew was pretty excited. We even got some good seats to watch the game from.
Aaron was hurting quite a bit, but put on a brave face. I made sure I sat by Aaron's shoulder so I could protect it. The kids aren't as aware of his post surgery shoulder so if they would have sat by him I can only imagine how many times they would have bumped it--OUCH!
Here's the view from our seats:
We were able to stay until the game finished and BYU won--Wahoo! However, it didn't finish until after 11 pm which made for a long drive back home. We got home and I got everyone to bed at 1 am only to have to get up again at 5 am to start our next day which was a Friday. That was a difficult morning to wake up for, but I did it. The kids had piano the next morning bright and early and Aaron is unable to drive right now so I am the soul taxi driver for our family right now. Ugh!! It makes it pretty crazy trying to get everyone to everywhere that they need to be (especially getting Josh to work) by myself. Anyway, after getting everyone to school I got to go back to the high school to help Josh register for next year's classes.
I got the high school in enough time to see Matthew give his traffic report over the school intercom. His teacher says that is the highlight of his week. I am glad they let him do these things!
In order to give his updated traffic report we can only listen to News Radio as we are driving to drop him off at school. He insists on it which is pretty funny. I am glad I can help him out with his traffic updates--haha!
He did wear his new BYU basketball jersey that day, too. Cute boy!
Aaron did pay the price for going to the basketball game, though. He was in immense pain the next day which wiped him out--poor guy. Taking it easy is hard to do, but it is needed when you are trying to recover. Recovering from joint surgery in your 40s is a bit harder than it was in your 20s. He has to sleep in a recliner with his ice machine set up as well as his CPap machine, too. It takes a bit to get him settled in for bed--poor guy!
Saturday Matthew got invited to a friend's birthday party. She was doing a fancy dress up murder mystery to celebrate her 18th birthday. There were so many people there. Matthew had been looking forward to going to this party. I was nervous since he can be a handful, but when I went to pick him up the girl's family and friends all told me how much they loved him. That made me feel better about things. He ended up staying an additional hour past the end of the party since everyone was hanging out and wanted him to stay. Wahoo Matthew!
Sunday I got to give my first young women lesson in the Beehives class. I was a bit nervous, but things went okay. I was missing for the first few minutes since I wanted to be in Daniel's class when he got set apart to be the Teacher's Quorum secretary. Wahoo! Aaron stayed home from church because he was hurting, however, Josh had to stay home from church because he woke up and his left eye was completely swollen shut. While we were at church Aaron made a Telehealth appointment for Josh to have an antibiotic called in for what we thought was pink eye. The Telehealth doctor wasn't convinced it was pink eye so she told us to watch it and if it didn't clear up by the end of the day with the antibiotic eye drops that he needed to be seen ASAP. Well as the day went on his eye got worse and more painful. I ended up taking him in to the Urgent Care Sunday night. Thankfully, we got a very thorough doctor. She did ask him to sit on the bed and when he did I couldn't help but notice that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree (Aaron) in wearing shorts and flip flops in the middle of winter. It was funny, too, because Josh is so tall he always gets comments about it. We were keeping track of all the comments through checking in, waiting and actually getting back to the room. Every person we ran into said something about his height. By the time we got back to the room and the doctor said something about how tall he was Josh and I started giggling. I am sure the doctor thought we were kind of weird, which wouldn't be wrong I guess--haha! Here's my tall boy with his shorts and flip flops on waiting to be examined:
The doctor did a really thorough exam and it was discovered Josh had a corneal ulcer on his eye which was serious. The UrgentCare doctor consulted with the ophthalmologist on call and he said Josh needed antibiotic drops given to him every hour throughout the night and he needed to see Josh ASAP the next morning. Double DOH!! That wasn't the news we were hoping for! Here's Josh getting examined in the Urgent Care:
After going and getting the antibiotic eye drops filled we finally got home around 11 pm and settled in for the LONG night. Sophie was my buddy and stayed next to me as I spent the night on the couch. She was our comic relief as you can see:
So every hour I set my alarm and got up to give Josh his eye drops all night long. Let's just say it was a LONG night and I am so tired. Anyway, his poor eye looked horrid and painful:
The opthamologist was able to squeeze us in this morning and Josh's eye looked pretty bad and was quite painful. The opthamologist was pretty concerned after he saw the corneal ulcer. He said he wanted us to continue with the every hour schedule with the eye drops through the next 24 hours and to see Josh again the next day to make sure it was improving. If not it would lead to scarring of his cornea which could cause some blindness or worse case scenario needing a cornea transplant which isn't good at all. Here is Josh being checked out by the opthamologist:
We have another long night ahead of us as we get to party every hour with the eye drops. I am hoping that this will clear up and not scar too much. It already is going to scar his cornea, but we are hoping it won't be too bad. Keep your fingers crossed for us!! It is crazy because it feels like we are running Operation Drain the Flex Spending Account ASAP right now. Between Sarah's root canals, Josh and Matthew getting their Wisdom Teeth out in the next few weeks, Aaron's surgery and Josh's eye issues we are burning through our Flex Spending pretty fast and it is only January. UGH!! Good thing I love my crazy expensive weird family!!
