LEGOS

We had fun going to this traveling LEGO roadshow at Fashion Place Mall.  Very impressive that these awesome national landmark models were built all from LEGOS.

Seeing all of these models just made me want to go back to DC

Cub Scout Cake Auction

Jared has been going to cub scouts with Kyson  and having a good time in their den.  They had a fun activity coming up that Jared was excited about - for their pack meeting they were doing a cake auction.  The boys earned points by coming to scouts on time,in their full uniform and with their book.  They would get to use those points to "BUY" their cake in the auction.  Jared picked out this fun MINION cake to do.  He did a great job on it.  We made a practice cake a couple of days in advance to make sure it was going to work out.  And then made it again for the auction.

decorating the real one

Kyson made a Utes cake

Cousins at pack meeting

the cake Jared picked at the auction

the cool "cake" Kyson picked - which was perfect since he doesn't like cake

Pi Day

This year Pi day was a really big deal - because we could really learn about Pi more than just 3.14.
I woke everyone up on a Saturday morning early so we could take this photo at the precise moment of pi (only Jared has his numbers mixed up).
Jared and Kamryn learned about pi at school in math club but couldn't really tell Paul what Pi was - so they had an at home lesson about pi.
I made breakfast pie and pie for dessert.

We took this photo again at 3/14/15/9:26:53 pm - so we could get it right this time and happy to have help from some of our friends :)

National Cereal Day

Our family eats an extreme amount of cereal

Sometimes its cereal for all 3 meals in one day

So of course, National Cereal Day is a big deal at our house.

Kamryn's Room

Kamryn's room decor finally all finished.  It was really fun to work on these projects for her room and we had a fun time making all those different k's.

Lucky

Today's journal prompt in Mrs Larson's Juniors English class:

List 10 things that are LUCKY

1. Four leaf clovers
2. My favorite number
3. Shooting STARS
4. Favorite shirt/socks
5. St Patrick's day
6. Green
7. Fingers crossed
8. A wink
9. Rainbows
10. Penny on the ground

Journal prompt for Senior English:

List 3 things you are grateful for

1. My husband
2. My kids
3. Gospel

The Kids' Essays from School

Jared and Kamryn brought home their report cards yesterday.  They both are doing very well in school. They also brought home their recent essays from UtahWrites, a program they use at school for testing writing skills.  I loved their essays and want to save them here:

Here's the prompt they were given:

"Is it a good idea to pay kids for good grades? Some parents think it is.  Others think kids should always do their best without expecting a reward.  What do you think? Write an essay giving your opinion and use strong reasons and examples to tell your opinion is best."

Kamryn's essay -

"Parents should pay their kids for grades for several reasons.  One reason is that if you pay for grades it could make them try harder.  If you pay them they can learn to use the money properly.  If they get bad grades they should pay you.  You can save up your money for special occasions.  Your kids could be working really hard to get and go where they want.  Those are some of the reasons why parents should pay their kids for grades.
Now I'm going to tell you a few reasons why parents shouldn't pay kids for their grades.  Your kids might expect money for everything like unloading the dishwasher, cleaning your room, and doing chores.  Getting smart is good enough payment for education.  Your kids might waste your money on silly things.  You would be losing your money.  You already pay for everything your children use.  Plus they would get too spoiled if you pay for grades.  Those are some of the reasons why parents shouldn't pay their kids.
I know that my parents won't pay me for grades but I would prefer to get paid for grades to save up money for important things. I would save up my money for stuff like college and a mission.  Three or four dollars would be for each good grade I get.  Paying my parents would be a punishment for me getting bad grades.  I don't care if I don't get paid for grades, but if I had more money I could save up for important things.  Those are my opinions of being paid for grades."

Jared's essay -

"Parents should pay for grades, and I'm going to show you a few points of view about it.  One reason why paying kids for good grades is because it would motivate them to try harder.  Another good reason to pay kids is because they can save up for college.  One last reason to pay them for their grades is because they can learn to use their money wisely.  Those are a few reasons why parents should pay their children for good grades.
Parents shouldn't pay their kids, and I'm going to share a few reasons with you about why they shouldn't.  One reason why you shouldn't pay them is because they might waste the money you give them on toys that they won't want when they get older.  Another reason is because they will expect money for everything, like brushing their teeth, making their bed and so on.  One final reason to not pay your kids is if you don't have the money to do it. These are three reasons to not pay your kids for their grades.
Now for a final paragraph I'm going to tell you what I would prefer.  Firstly, I think that kids should get payed for their grades, because I think kids deserve something for their hard work.  Secondly, I don't get payed very often, and my six year old cousin has more money than me.  For one final reason about my opinion is, because I want to save up for college, and go to the Brigham Young University.  That was some of my opinion about payment for grades."

I love their essays and thought they did a good job.  Maybe we'll have to think about paying them for good grades :)

Kamryn's 2nd essay

PROMPT - If you could change one part of your life, what would it be? You could change where you live, the size of your family, your personality, or anything you like.  Describe the change and what it would mean to your life.

"If, I could change my life I wouldn't change too much because I already have a great life.  I would never change my family though because I love them.  If I lived by everyone I know and love I would be able to.  I wish I could say "I love you" to all of my relatives that died.
It would be awesome to get anything I want or anywhere I want to go for free.  Even though I'm already getting a new room I would still want a new room.  If, I could have a baby brother or sister I would want one.  I would also want to have more friends.  My best friends are Leah, Ryan and Olivia (I don't play with Ryan and Olivia a lot though, Olivia goes to gymnastics and Ryan is always playing with someone).  They are some amazing friends.  My family got three French exchange students in the last three years so I would want to know how to speak French without learning it.  If I could change the weather I would make it snow in the summer when it's hot, be able to go swimming in the winter, and not have it rain in the Spring and Fall.  In school I wish we didn't have to take science, I wouldn't want there to be recess, and I wish we could go to drama class twice a week. I would also want my own iPod (everyone in my family has one except for me, but Jared lost his).
Teleporting would be awesome, because I wouldn't have to do nothing in the car for as long as we would be in the car.  I wish my teacher gave us more math homework too.  I also wish I could go back in time and change wrong things I did.  The future would be awesome too.  That is all of the things I would want to change in my life (well, most of the things)."

Kamryn's Basketball Season

 Kamryn had her last basketball game last weekend.  Her team made a lot of project over the season.  She had an awesome coach who taught them a lot.  Even though Kamryn always said she didn't like basketball she also made a lot of progress and was a very consistent shooter in practice.  She made 7 baskets in a row before their last game.  She always looked happy out there playing.  She says she's not going to play again unless we make her, and we just might make her :)

After their last game we headed to Macey's grocery store to get ice cream to celebrate and have a little trophy ceremony.  I'm happy Kamryn had this opportunity to play with such great girls and for such an awesome coach.

Poor, Poor Boy

This was my letter to Brooke last week and rather than write the whole story again, I thought I'd just share my letter here:

"So its Thursday night and I'm sitting in the hospital with TAYLOR.  He's asleep and so I thought i'd start my letter to you - its going to take awhile to write it all down.

So I can't even remember if I told you how the week kind of started out 

so a week ago today (last Thursday) my dad ended up having to go back in for emergency surgery on his enlarged prostate.  He'd had surgery the week before and it didn't do the job and he started having a lot of complications.  So I spent that Thur night at the hospital while he was in surgery.  I was back in to check on him every day and he seemed pretty good at first but then each day he seemed to get a little worse.  He was in the hospital until Tues and then he was transferred to Highland Care center - the same place Grammy was after she fell and broke her back.  The dr at that center thinks he could be there for 20-30 days.  I was shocked - I thought he'd be there just for a few days to get his strength back.

So while all that was going on -- Sunday night we had our valentine's dinner and Mary was there for dinner and that was fun.  Taylor was at dinner and seemed fine.  We had family time in the living room and everyone opened their little presents.  By the end of the evening tho Taylor wasn't feeling great and was lying down on the couch.  At that point he was just complaining of his back hurting.  He's actually been complaining about his back quite a bit -I've been blaming it on his bad bed.

Monday morning he'd planned to have Sarah over for breakfast as part of their valentine's date.  Well, in the morning I woke up and Taylor was laying in my bed.  That was a bit of a shock.  He said he hadn't slept since 2:00 and had started throwing up at 5:00 am.  He cancelled the date with Sarah and felt bad enough that I took him to see Dr Memmott at 10:40.  When I made the appt and told the nurse what was going on, she suggested maybe kidney stones.  I sure hoped not.  He did a urine sample and it was all negative.  So with no other indicators of anything else being wrong, the Dr figured it was stomach flu, which is very prevalent right now.  

We went home and Taylor threw up the rest of the day and didn't sleep much that night.  On Tues I let Kamryn stay home from school because she had a cold and to watch over Taylor.  I had a dentist appt and had to go check on my dad for his transfer to the care center.  While I was gone Taylor was crying out in pain but he didn't tell me that until much later in the day.  I was gone for about 2 hours.  Taylor had pretty much switched from throwing up to diarrhea and had really bad stomach cramps.  I figured it was a pretty terrible flu.  He was in a lot of pain and I felt really bad for him.  He sat with us at dinner for a few minutes. When he got up to walk to the bathroom he was totally hunched over and could hardly walk down the hall.  It totally reminded me of when Justin had his appendicitis.  I was definitely thinking appendix at that point.  It was just hard to decide what to do.  He also started running a fever too.  We definitely should have taken him in but didn't that night.  I feel bad about that now.  He was still fairly calm and was lying down on the couch. I gave him some ibuprofen for the fever but worried about doing that since he had an empty stomach.  he seemed to be settled down enough to sleep. I told him to get me or call me anytime.  So we went to bed.  I checked on him several times during the night and he seemed to be asleep.

In the morning I cancelled going to exercise with Jenny - I was beat and needed a little more sleep.  We'd decided that I would take Taylor back to the dr in the morning if he wasn't any better.  When I talked to him at 7:00 ish he thought we should go back and was in pain again.  I called dad and we agreed that I should just take him to the ER at IMC.  At first I was going to take the kids to school and then take Taylor but he didn't really want to wait.  I remembered Justin was home and could take the kids.  So we struggled getting taylor to the car - he was in a lot of pain and had no strength to walk.  He couldn't decide what was worse - walking himself or having Justin carry him.  He ended up walking out to the van and we were off.

WE got to the ER at IMC about 8:30 - they took him right back to a room and had nurses right in with him.  They got him started on an IV with saline to hydrate him and gave him some morphine.  He looked pretty pale and grey.  They took blood and got a urine sample.  He was in the bathroom a LONG time.  His sample was pretty dark and ugly looking.  Def not the same looking as the sample he gave on Monday at the DR.

He seemed a bit better and more calm once the morphine started working and the iv got in him.  The nurse came back with the blood work results - his White blood count was 26!  Normal is 4-13.  For sure indicator he was full of infection and the nurse said it sure seemed like appendix.  His belly was tight and super sensitive to touch.  Then the Dr ordered at CT scan with contrast.  that meant over 90 minutes he had to drink this lemonade type drink which was the contrast.   When he finished the drink they took him for the CT scan.  He wasn't gone too long.  We waited just a bit for the results - the Dr came in and said it was definitely his appendix and it needed to come out.

All this time it was just Taylor and me at the ER.  Dad had an important meeting with the owner at the Lehi hospital.  As soon as that was over he called me to check in - I knew it was the appendix but hadn't talked to the surgeon yet.  So dad came straight to the hospital and got to Taylor's room about 5 minutes before the resident surgeon came in.  he looked so young!

He told us they had a narrow window to get Taylor in for surgery before his surgeon boss had to start doing clinic.  Or it would have to wait until the end of the day.  Once the Sr surgeon came in and examined Taylor and his belly was so tender to the touch she was afraid that the appendix had ruptured.  So that got him priority to get into the ER asap and they rushed him to get him ready.  They took him upstairs for surgery and we met with the surgical nurse and the anesthesiologist.  taylor was very calm thru all of this and said he wasn't scared.  He received very good care from everyone.  They took him into surgery at 1:30 and it took about an hour.

I had put something about it on FB so i was getting lots of comments and texts - that passed the time quickly, responding to them.  It was about 4:00 by the time they brought him out of recovery to his room on the 11th floor.  He was "drunk" sounding - a little funny.  He was in pretty good spirits due to some good drugs.  Dad and i spent the evening with him.  AT one point we thought he was asleep so we snuck down to the cafeteria for some dinner.  First time I'd really eaten that day except for cookies from the OR waiting room.  It was a "date" for me and dad.

I stayed over night with Taylor.  No way could I leave him there alone.  It was definitely a good thing I stayed.  I wasn't too thrilled with the night nurse (and now she's back again tonight) - she wasn't very attentive and waited too long to give Taylor pain meds and tried to talk him out of taking good pain drugs.  I actually ended up liking her a lot better the 2nd night.

I slept on a couch in the room and maybe got about 4 hours sleep.  We were up from 3-5  helping Taylor.  The surgeons came in at 6:30 to check on Taylor.  It was a new head resident surgeon that we'd never seen and about 4-5 other resident surgeons charting and taking notes.  The nurses call them "the cronies"  One of the residents was the first resident we saw in the ER.  He was in on the surgery and said it was NASTY.  Taylor's belly was full of pus :(  He also had a stone of some sort in there, probably calcified poop and it was probably the cause of all of this.  Taylor wasn't too happy when the surgeon pushed on his sore belly, esp at 6:30 in the morning.

He will be in the hospital until he can eat regular food and pass gas.  He's had a kind of tough day today but he's had a pretty good attitude about it.  I stayed all day except for a couple of hours when I went to get the twins.  I checked them out of school early and took them to meet Susan half way.  She kept them the rest of the day and took Kamryn to dance for me.

Dad came here after work for about an hour - sadly Taylor was finally asleep most of that time.  Then dad went to play church basketball but is coming back now.  I'm going to stay the night here again - I don't like leaving him here alone.

So, wow - what a week right ??

Love you 

Mom"

Taylor in the ER
When the resident surgeon came in to examine him the first time
he gave him a bad time about the UTES blanket
He obviously went to BYU

When he first was brought to his room after surgery

The night nurse checking his vitals

The day after surgery Taylor passed the time by mostly watching Cartoon Network

It was a huge effort to have a shower and wash his hair
before his girlfriend came to visit ...

It was a good diversion to have Sarah there for awhile

Lots of sleeping and napping going on in that hospital room

 2nd night in the hospital was much better

We both got a lot more sleep

The surgeon cleared him to start eating regular food

so he was happy to have cereal for breakfast

The awesome view from Taylor's room on the 11th floor

The view looking north towards downtown.

The surgeon and nurses encouraged Taylor to go for walks 

to get his strength back up 

and get his insides working again.

After going for this walk they said he was good enough to go home

Back at home

We got him set up in my recliner chair for a couple of nights

It was still a pretty tough couple of days for Taylor

It took Taylor several days at home to recover.  He needed a lot of help for a few days.  The bad thing was it was the last week of the Trimester at school so he was missing several finals.  I emailed his teachers and went in to talk to them to help work things out for him.  He didn't go to school on Monday except at the end of the day he stopped into his French class to see them making beignets.  It was good for him to be back around friends and laugh a little.

Each day during the week he made it to a little more school and yesterday he finally seemed to be back to his regular self. 

We're so grateful for the miracles of modern medicine and that Taylor could have surgery and be so quickly taken care of.  We're so happy he's getting better :)