Yes, we are alive.

To bring this blog back from the dead I will post about the recent things going on in our house. Heh. I WOULD post pictures, but lucky for me..My camera broke. Grrr!! But, it's also a WONDERFUL excuse to get a new one :).

Anessa got glasses! YAY! Welcome to the world of the blind young one. She looks super cute in them. Again, when I get my new camera *wink wink* I will post a picture of her. This last week she has been going up to the CPD (Center for Persons with Disabilities) building for her dyslexia testing. Yes, I said dyslexia. I knew Anessa had some learning difficulties since pre-school, and so she's been in Special Education for a learning disability since then. We've noticed that she can do really good at math problems when it only involves numbers, but when it comes to deciphering them..Forget it. She also has an extremely difficult time with phonics and reading. I've had 2 special education teachers plus her pediatrician mention this to me, so I figured we might as well see what is going on. Will let you know the results later. I'm not upset, it just means we have to work harder, and there is nothing wrong with that! She's super smart in a whole lot of other ways and I couldn't be more proud of her accomplishments thus far. She's a hard worker!

Peyton is doing really well. He's such a smart little guy. He's teaching himself to read. Everyday he will pull things off the shelves or books out of the closet and spend HOURS sounding out words and asking me questions. I LOVE it! He's been cracking us up too with some very interesting sayings. His new favorite one is to say "my tenders feel weird" or my "tenders" this or my "tenders" that. THANK YOU, Kung Fu Panda.

Cohen is doing pretty darn good. I've noticed that when he's super stressed he will either spin circles for a long time or lay on the ground and flex his muscles, and since his dad has been gone he's been doing it a lot more. He misses his daddy so much, it breaks my heart. The FUNNY things he's been doing is repeating EVERYTHING he hears..and not just once, but many, many, many times. Mitch, in the car today, said in the 30 minutes that we had been in the car he had heard mommy or daddy about 300 times. He also has learned some less than desirable things from the kids. Meaning the word "shut up". He mainly says it to Peyton. The reason it's funny is because, Peyton has this what I like to call "theme music". He sings it all. the. time. It gets old. So we were driving in the car one day and I guess Cohen got tired of hearing it and I hear this "shup, pee-pee" come from the back. It took me awhile to figure it out, but he was telling him to "shut-up, Peyton". He also had a humerous encounter with his speech therapist. She's trying to get him to say Peyton not Pee-Pee. Here is how it went:

ST: Cohen, say PAY.
Cohen: Pay
They then go on to repeat this many times.
ST: Cohen, say TON.
Cohen: ton.
They do this many times as well.
ST: All right, Cohen, say PAY-TON.
Cohen: PEE-PEE!! (he said this with emphasis as well). I had to walk into the other room and just laugh. It was great.

Aja is doing really good. She's crawling still, but not getting any more "graceful" with it. It's kind of funny to watch her. It's more of a get on her elbows, pull her self forward JUST using her elbows, flop forward on face type of move. It doesn't look pleasant, but it's how she gets around. She is so stinkin tiny! I bought her some Robeez awhile ago and they STILL don't fit! Once I get that new camera *evil cackle inserted here* I will post a size comparison picture. She's got a cold right now,and so of course I'm on full-alert. Anytime a shunted child gets sick the virus, bacteria or whatever is going on in their body, can attack the shunt and cause a malfunction. So she's on my radar right now, hopefully we will pass out of this one with no trips to PCMC. Her head isn't growing now either, which was a concern that I mentioned a few months ago and the sutures closing too early. It's remained 41.5 cm since she was 2 months old. I've got to make an appointment with her neurologist for her 9 month follow up, so I will keep you posted on that.

We just got back from a trip to Elko. Mitch had some work to do down there so we went with him. It wasn't the funnest trip of my life, but it was good to spend time with him. It seems that I have brought back a case of vertigo with me too. LOVE IT! I've gotten vertigo in January for the last 3 years. I'm SOOOOOO lucky. Hopefully it passes soon. Anyway, that is just a bit that is going on in our house. I will post pictures soon! ;)

A lot of emotions.

So, last week as you all know, was a very hard week for me. Not only dealing with Cohen's teeth and the whole lame-o jury duty thing, but a few deep rooted emotional things as well.

On Tuesdays Peyton has gymnastics and I usually go there and sit and watch him while he does it. Last week there was a little girl with her mother there watching her sister. I observed her for a bit, and noticed that she walked with great difficulty. She eventually came over to where I was holding Aja and started to play with her. In talking to her, I could tell that she had some mental handicaps as well. Also, I noticed that her eyes were somewhat crossed. She was very sweet and played very well with Aja. The girl then started to examine Aja, and started to touch Aja's shunt site. She said, "what is this bump; does she have a shunt?" I told her yes. She asked if she was born with hydrocephalus, and I again told her, yes. She then began to tell me that she had a shunt and that she had hydrocephalus too. Now this caught me off guard because I had yet to meet anyone in Logan with a shunt. I have to admit, I started to cry a bit there, but turned my head so she wouldn't see.

After gaining some composure, I walked over to the little girls mom and told her what her daughter and I were talking about and showed her Aja. She has the same neurologist as us and we both kind of laughed about him as his bedside manner is quite "brisk", but it's a good thing because, and although he was very overly-blunt with Mitch and I when we were in there, I would rather have a doctor tell me straight up rather than sugar coat it. Anyway, I went on to ask her if her daughter had any malfunctions. She told me yes,she had had three shunt revisions and she said that her daughter went in normal one time and came out with some limitations. She also told me that her daughter had Cerebral Palsy and that I should approach my doctor about it because about 75% of children with hydrocephalus develop some sort of CP. Anyway, I chatted with her for a bit longer and then left.

I guess all in all, I'm just a little emotional about it all. You always have your kids' best interest in mind and I've been wondering for awhile what Aja's quality of life will be like seeing as she will have some limitations (in the sense that she won't be able to participate in a lot of the same activities as other children), and after meeting that amazing little girl, I wonder what Aja's future holds for her. This might sound all doom-and-gloom, and that isn't where I'm trying to go with this at all. Mostly, I'm positive about Aja's future as well as Cohen's, but I can't help but wonder. They didn't realize that this little girl had CP until she was 3, so it's not something that we will notice right away is what I've gathered from reading up a little on CP. Also, malfunctions are quite common and I sometimes wonder if that is something that will happen. It's always in the back of my mind.

Isn't she lovely??


Our stats are:
Weight: 13 lbs= 7%.
Height: 25 inches= 14%.

Bought the kids dentist a new car yesterday...

So, as I have mentioned before, Cohen has really bad teeth. He was born with no enamel and has pitted dentin. So no matter what I do, the kid will always have cavities. We waited until his two-year-old molars finished coming in and then I made the appointment. Since they didn't know the extent of decay to his teeth, they wanted to put him under general anesthesia and do all the work that would need to be done. I had to starve him of course, but what really sucks is he didn't get to go in until 2 in the afternoon! It's hard keeping a little munch mouth like him out of the pantry. I had to move all the food to the top two shelves so that I could ensure that he didn't eat anything. He was quite a pathetic sight all day long. He even begged me for water. It was so sad.

Since Mitch wasn't able to be there to give him a blessing, I told Cohen I would say a little prayer for him. He sat there very quietly and folded his arms and listened. He even said "amen" which was really surprising to me as he's never said that one before. Also, I was sitting there holding him before he left I said "I love you, Cohen" AND..I got an "love you, mommy" before he left!! I sat there and bawled. Those were the words I've been dying to hear from him for the longest time. The ones I was afraid I would never hear and he said them clear as day!

Are you ready for this? The poor kid got 8 caps and had to have a root canal done! I was so sad for him.

In the car ready to go! The kid has no idea what he is in for.


All dressed in his little outfit.


Coloring while we wait. He looked so little to me.


I don't think you want to see the after pictures. His mouth looks really gross right now. He seems to be doing alright though. His tooth which he had the root canal done on is bothering him a bit, so I'm hoping that here in a few days he will start feeling better.

One more time..UPDATED!

I'm calling the court house one more time and letting them know just how difficult they have made my life right now. I will update and let you guys know how it turns out.

**UPDATE**
Court got canceled!! YAY!! Thanks for all of your offers of help! I'm so glad I don't have to worry about that one anymore. I have great friends!

SWEET!

I DIDN'T get excused. Mitch CAN'T get off of work. I'm going to go sit in the bath tub right now and have a good ol' fashioned cry. Thanks very much.

So LAME!

About a month ago I got a request from Cache Valley saying I had to register for jury duty. So Mitch got on the net and filled the on-line version for me and asked for me to be exempt due to the fact that I'm nursing, living here alone and am the primary caregive for our kids. Thought that would be the end of it right? For Christmas, Logan City decided that they would send me a SUMMONS! LAME! Don't they even read those forms? So today, in this lovely snow storm, I had to run all the way to North Logan to get a letter from my pediatrician (I'm trying to get as much help as I can) and I wrote a letter myself and then had to run that dumb thing in. Mind you I got this just a few days ago and I was called to serve on the 8th.

So what does the clerk tell me? The JUDGE has to approve it now. I really, really, really hope the judge takes pity on me. I have NO idea what I will do if I have to serve. It's from 8 in the morning to 8 at night, Aja won't go to anyone else, and I have a previous obligation that morning that I have been waiting for for over a month. I guess I'm supposed to call tomorrow and see if the judge is human and lets me off the hook. Will update when I know.

Whole lotta catchin' up to do!

WOW! I can't believe how long it has been since I have blah-ged.

First, Anessa's party went really, really well. Thanks Lori and Maynard for coming down and just holding a baby for me! It might seem like little to all of you, but the girl won't let me put her down, and I couldn't have gotten anything done having to hold her the whole time. Since Anessa's birthday is in winter, we decided to have a Hawaiian themed birthday. First the girls made flower bracelets out of silk flowers, then they built "sand castles" out of sugar cubes, and while they did that I hot glued the rest of the flowers onto headbands so it would look like they had flowers in their hair. We then finger painted some cutie ceramic shells. Top it off with dinner of Malibu Chicken and cake and ice cream and of course..Presents. I was really sick, but luckily made it through.

Christmas was really fun. The kids got great toys. I'm happy to say that ALL toys have been played with. Nothing has been left out LOL! We then braved the storm and drove to Mitch's parent's house for a few days. It was nice to spend time in Idaho. It's a lot slower paced there and I feel like I can relax without having to get a whole lot of stuff done all the time. We then came home for one night, and since the kids were out of school for the week, we decided to spend the week in SLC so that we could see Mitch at nights. It was fun to see my friends from the West Side and East Side! It was also nice to spend some time with my poppa during the days. He's a good guy. For New Years we went to my moms for dinner and a competitive game of hand and foot. The girls got beat, and I think this was the first time in three years that I have seen Jim win a game! I was so excited for him HAHA!

Here are some pics of our HOLI-day (cue Madonna music here; that one's for you Anna).