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.

I should've given credit to the photos. I assume they're AP? I got them from the Comcast news online site.

Destruction in Chile

As most of you know I served my mission in southern Chile. We dubbed it "the frozen chosen" due to the severe cold temps in the winter. Think penguins. Now you got it! :)
I woke this morning to news about my other home country, Chile, which I loved with all my heart. It broke my heart to see the footage of the devastation they are suffering. While it didn't happen (epicenter, that is) in my actual mission, it was just north, the next biggest city to the north of my mission in Osorno, Chile.
What I can't stop thinking about is the people who I met who actually live in the north, the companions I served with, and those who may have moved north after I left Chile.

How do the people rebuild? What becomes of the neighborhoods? Chileans are such a warm, loving people. Their culture dictates they are kind to one another. Oh, that I could be wealthy and fly there to help them somehow. So instead, I ask that you all join me in prayer and fasting on their behalf.
Thanks.

clean again! clean again.....thank goodness I'm clean again!

mkay. so i once again have a clean counter and still no pics of the china. i've been busy doing other things, like blessing my home. so i have strayed from my blog community a little bit. there are more important things to me than sitting at my computer and typing my blog.
but i have to say that it is wonderful to be able to go shopping and get new clothes that actually fit the body!
since i had the swine flu and lost a ton of weight (okay, not actually a ton, but you get the drift) I've needed to go shopping. especially for church clothes.
so i've worn my new dresses 2 weeks in a row now, and have gotten lots of compliments on them. nice to have a new dress. even better when the one woman at church who i admire the most for her attire thinks i look adorable! what a boost.
so i'll post more later. maybe much later. we'll see. my kids need me.