Emma's surgery today

So my big girl to my left had her adenoidectomy this morning at the Covington Multi Care Day Surgery Center. whew! what a mouthful! :)
All went well, and she's home sleeping in her bedroom right now. Poor little thing, when she woke up though she felt sick to her tummy (as she put it) and had an "owie throat" which they gave her some drugs to help her through.

Here she is goofing off before they came in and gave her the meds to start it all off. She wanted to pose this way, telling me that she wanted to put her arms out "like this, mama!" She's quite a character, that little Emma Grace girl of mine. I sure do adore her.

I know, I know. But I couldn't resist. She looked so peaceful and beautiful sleeping in her post-surgery drug haze. Poor little thing. But I'm hoping this adenoidectomy will help her be healthier from now on. I'm crossing my fingers no more colds every 6 weeks, like clockwork. So is her doctor.
doesn't she remind you of what Sleeping Beauty must have looked like, drooling and slobbering all over herself while she slept those 100 years? :)



So I thank you all for your support in this quest for better health for my Emma. I'm most appreciative that Ryan's home teaching companion, Dan, came over last night with his sweet wife and the two men administered a Priesthood blessing for her. I think it helped me as much or even more than it did her. I was uncharacteristically calm in the waiting room. No floor pacing for this mommy!

Talk to you all later. I'll post later about Will's role in the pack meeting last night. Let's just say it should be a crime to have a flag bearer as adorable as he was!

the Dining Room paint job

Ok, so as promised here's a new picture of my dining room. Specifically, the corner the table is currently in.

okay, so now that i've taken the pic and posted it, the frames look...pink! they're actually white though.
The paint chip was "Tailor's Chalk White" by the Martha Stewart paint line at Home Depot. The wall color is also a Martha color, "Aegean Blue", which I'm loving so far. No, not love. Lurve. Yes, lurve. L.U.R.V.E.
Eventually I'm planning on putting actual crown moulding at the ceiling line and painting it the same trim white.
When we first bought the house I wasn't thrilled we had paneling in this room. But painted, it almost looks "farm-like" which is the look I like alot. Especially Swedish country, which is my ultimate goal. After the rest of the room is painted this same blue, the trim painted the same white, then we're going to tackle the flooring. Pretty bad. U.G.L.Y. In fact, so bad that I won't even take a "before" picture of the beige carpet. Just know it's in our dining room/family room, it's where we do most of our living. We watch TV, play the Wii, play toys, eat our meals, and have our tickle wars.
So you can imagine the dot-to-dot capability of our carpet! Yucko! It will be yummo when we rip that carpet up this week and see what kind of shape our wood floor is underneath. We have pulled up part of it previously and saw hardwood, we just don't know what the shape is. It could be a goldmine of beauty, only needing a good polishing, or it could need a total overhaul. Either way, it's got to be better than this ugly carpet.
So when I know more I'll let you know more!

The Crazy Caterpillar and The Dream

Ok, so did the title grab ya? Wondering what the heck I'm about the blog about? :)
Alright, alright, I'll tell you.
First of all, please see the adorable art Tommy brought home from school today. He's such a great artist!

Now for the dream. This morning Will wakes up and tells me he had a dream last night. Not just any dream, mind you, but a dream about an adorable little baby boy! Yikes. Let's just hope he's wishful thinking. I asked him what the baby's name was and he told me Jacob. Cute name, but let's hope he's not being prophetic. He was for Emma. He dreamed about her a full year before I was even pregnant with her. He'd walk around the house asking where his little sister was. Now he's moved onto another baby boy. Oh boy. Hey, I didn't know I was so punny! :)

Let's hope he doesn't start a new trend.

Have a great day!

Enjoy the cute art!

Happy Birthday to Me! :)

Well let me say first that I've been having a great day thus far for my 40th birthday. After all, it is just a number, age is a state of mind, etc. Right?
That being said, my husband is getting lots of mileage calling me a senior citizen. Well, at least he looks older than I do! (even though I'm almost 4 years older!) :)
So Sunday the kids are in Primary and they're doing their birthday song. The Primary chorister asks if there are any other birthdays they don't know about during the week. Will excitedly raised his hand and announced, "Tomorrow is my Mom's 40th birthday!" Bro. Jephson, the 1st counselor in our bishopric, told me about Will's announcement. Very cute. So now I guess the whole ward probably knows I'm 40 today. No biggie.
Then last night my mom and dad came over (thanks for the yummy cake, the pic will be at the bottom of this post) for dinner. Dad blessed the food, but had to get his jab in first. He said how grateful he was that I had made it this far, to my 40th year, and how wonderful it was I was so very old. I forget the verbatim prayer, but you get the gist. Ha ha ha. Very funny, 70-year old man!
I still say that I don't really care about 40. My birthday "freak out" was over 25. Sounds silly now, huh? I realized I was a quarter of a century and that freaked me. Bah. Now that I'm several years away from that I realize just how ridiculous-sounding that really is!
So happy birthday to me. I have a favorite birthday song from Primary days. It goes like this:
"Happy, happy birthday (Heidi) dear, happy days will come to you all year. If I had one wish, then it would be...a happy, happy birthday to you from me!"

Kix Box Art

Had to post this, couldn't pass it up. This is Tommy's latest art.
He told me that he wanted the guy to look up at the other guy at the very top, but couldn't get his eyes just right. That's why the arrow pointing up.
Enjoy my kid art!

update on emma grace

kay, so i thought i'd let you all know that i just got off the phone with the children's hospital neurology dept nurse and she told me that emma's mri results, are.................normal.
i exhaled for the first time since tuesday when we were up there taking it. i didn't realize how worried
i'd been. like i told my sister today when i called her with the results, in my heart-of-hearts i knew she
didn't have a tumor or anything, but when they roll your baby away in a drug-induced sleep for the mri you begin doubting your instincts and questioning yourself at every turn. "will she really be okay?" "does she have a tumor?" "will she be one of the kiddos locked up in the hospital for months undergoing chemo, have a bald head with a bandage on it from surgery...." the thoughts go flooding through your mind.
so when that wonderful nurse called me and told me the results, i exhaled.
just thought since you are all on this journey with me you'd want the results.
so it looks like she has the "hereditary epilepsy" us christensen peeps have/had. i outgrew mine, tommy
outgrew his.
so she has surgery scheduled for march 24th to take her adenoids. i'm hoping that will end her constant
trips to the doc and her constant illnesses.
first she has to pass the muster with the anesthesiologist at our clinic with our doc. if he/she doesn't want to do it then we'll go to children's in seattle for the procedure. i.will.not.step.foot.in.mary.bridge.ever.again!
not that they're awful or anything, but their neuro docs missed her diagnosis completely. they disregarded her non-fever seizures and lumped them all into being "just" febrile seizures. um, duh, she has "childhood seizure disorder" and needed to be put on meds a long time ago.
so more later. this is getting pretty long-winded.
thanks for your support and prayers.

Emma update

okay, so yesterday was a looooong day for us! whew, i'm glad it's o.v.e.r!
we left the house at 8:15 for me to take the boys to my neighbor's house (she
drove the boys to school for me) so i could go pick up my friend, holly (thanks holly!) to
go with me to children's hospital for the day. then we got on the first of 4 freeways.
yes, you heard right.
f.o.u.r freeways. let's count.
1. highway 18
2. highway 167
3. 405
4. 520 bridge to montlake exit
yep, 4 freeways. yipes!
so our check in time was 9:30 and i'm very pleased to announce that we pulled into the
children's property at.....drum roll, please.....9:22 am! yippee!
so after i gave my van over to a very uninspiring valet (i found out later he was in training, hence
his dunce-look in his face) and getting our badges made for security purposes, we
checked into the clinic.
then the waiting game began. i handed the receptionist for the radiology dept the stickers with emma's
info on them and we waited. oh, and i filled out a form for them about her health history,
did she have any metal implants, a hickman catheter, etc.
no, she doesn't.
thank goodness.
so while we w.a.i.t.e.d for an eternity, (ok, not really) a clown by the name of  "pookie" kept emma and
another adorable little girl company, performing little magic tricks and she gave the girls little plush puppies and those expandable rings with a smiley face on them.
too cute.
one of the "tricks" was a disappearing plush mousie she named "speedy". well when pookie left, emma kissed speedy. pookie looked at me and said, "um, your kid just kissed a rat!" :) i retorted, "well, worse things could happen. it could've been a "real" rat!" we had a good giggle.
so 45 minutes later we were called to the back, and then we waited back there for almost an hour as well.
i'm not a complainer normally, but i'm very glad i had holly with me to tag team emma. she was sooooo
bored and restless. climbing the chairs to look out the window and see their awesome playground down below. it seriously rocked you guys. i'm considering contriving a reason just to go back so the kids can play on their playground. think castle, dragons, and in the summer, it looks like a water feature as well.
plus they have an awesome round patch of grass to run in circles. or twirl.
so the nurse finally came in and took her vitals, deemed her medically sound for the sedation, and then finally the anesthesilogist (sp?) came in and listened to emma, deemed her fit for sedation, and a few minutes later
i was walking emma down the hall to get on that enormous bed. emma put the strawberry scented mask
to her face (she got to choose the scent) and after fighting it a little bit, she succombed to sleep.
i kissed her forehead and walked away, trusting my little girl's life with strangers. hard.
intellectually i knew she'd be fine.
emotionally i worried.
once again, soooo glad i had holly with me. she distracted me. "let's go get a coke!" she said and we left the tiny room for 30 mins of distraction.
we walked to the cafeteria and got a coke, then we realized it only took 10 minutes. 20 minutes left. ouch.
so we went to the gift shop. can you say a.d.o.r.a.b.l.e!? holly even found a mother's day gift for her mother-in-law, a woman impossible to shop for.
we got back just as they brought emma back into her little recovery room. it took her almost 40 minutes to wake up from the sedation! wowza. that girl can sleep! :)
she inhaled her apple juice, goldfish crackers, more juice, graham crackers, and then we got her dressed and out the door and in the van.
oh, my van was just fine, by the way. and the ususal guy, who DOES inspire confidence, was there and retrieved my van.
so we left, went to mickey-d's and emma inhaled her burger before we even got the the freeway. she was hungry. well, sedation dictates you don't eat for several hours before so you don't aspirate food into your lungs. so emma hadn't eated since dinner the night before, and it was 1:00 when she finally got lunch.
i'm hoping the neurology nurse will be able to read me the report over the phone so i don't have to wonder what the findings were from her mri.
i'll let you all know when i know something.
thanks for all your support. it really means a lot to me to have friends like you who care, who buoy me up when i need it, who love me.