I.NEED.A.BED!!!

It's been a while since I've had a good night's sleep. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that Pete and I don't have a bed anymore. We once had a waterbed, which Pete found on Craigslist for free. He really, really, really wanted it. Whatever. We had it for a few years. It wasn't that bad to sleep on. We just started getting tired of it. Then one day a few months back Pete found a brand new Coleman Queen Size Double High Air Bed at our favorite Goodwill for $20. Sweet deal! And it was surprisingly comfy. Until a few weeks back. It started leaking air. We'd go to bed with it fully inflated, but ended up on the floor by morning. We've been playing that game for a while now. Pete finally took the time a day or so ago to search for the hole. He found it and patched it up. Yay!! Sadly, either the patchwork didn't work or there's another hole somewhere because come Tuesday morning, we were flat on the floor again. I was ticked because I was really looking forward to some good sleep. I ended up getting out of bed..I mean the floor, and slept on the couch. We've now resorted to our pull out bed in the living room. Yay!! (sarcasm). I'm hoping Pete will take the time this weekend to patch up any more holes there might be in the air mattress and that it will work. If not, I don't know what we'll do. I don't want to continue sleeping on the pull out, and we really can't go out 'n buy a new bed...especially since we know all the medical bills for Kristjan's surgery will start rolling in soon. Blah...

Hospital Trip - Part 2

All was going well last Thursday after being discharged from Children's Hospital. As soon as we arrived home, Kristjan went over to the neighbors where Clifford was staying to show off his incision. He played the rest of the afternoon (no running/rough housing/jumping, of course). Kristjan's next dose of meds was after 5pm. Pete gave him oxycodone, tylenol, and ibuprofen. Shortly after that, we sat down for dinner. While eating, Kristjan started rubbing his eyes and complaining they were itchy. Since this is normal behavior for Kristjan and dealing with allergies, we gave him some claritin. But after dinner was over, Kristjan was still rubbing his eyes and complaining. After closer inspection, we noticed the whites of his eyes were very irritated. This signals to us that something is wrong and it's not just normal 'allergies'. Pete called the on-call surgeon at Children's. While waiting for the doctor to call back, Kristjan's symptoms get worse: a few hives on his face and around his eyes, his eyes and skin getting rashy. I decide we need to go to the hospital. I have him in the car when the doctor finally calls Pete's cell. Pete explains the situation, and Kristjan's symptoms are getting worse. Finally, we're instructed to hit Kristjan with the epi pen and go to the hospital. We've NEVER had to do this before (luckily). It was heartbreaking, but necessary. I held Kristjan in my arms and forced his head to look away while Pete gave him the shot. Then we drove to the hospital. I thought we were going to get in a wreck the way Pete was driving. We arrive back at the hospital, explain the situation, and are immediately taken to a room. Poor Kristjan. He'd had enough of being in the hospital and being pricked 'n prodded. He told me he didn't want to stay in the hospital again. That broke my heart! We stayed at the er for a few hours as the nurses/doctor watched over Kristjan. They had no idea what could have caused this. Pete and I think it was one of the meds, since it was the only thing 'new' to his system (all other food/drinks were safe, and he'd had before). We were eventually discharged and back home after midnight. Tomorrow we take Kristjan in for testing with his allergist. Pete had a doctor's appointment with Dr. Hoing today, and told her about this. Her bet is on the oxycodone. Even though Kristjan had it in the hospital with no reaction, that was the only 'new' medicine he'd ever had, and it takes a few exposures to a particular thing before a severe reaction will occur if you're allergic to it. So we'll see. We're hoping it is the medicine, because if it's not, we have no idea what it could've been to cause the reaction. Again, we took pics to chronicle yet another adventure to the hospital. I love the first pic. It's a picture of Clifford wearing 2 different shoes. We were in such a rush to get out the door to go to the hospital, Clifford didn't even pay attention to what shoes he put on!! It provided us (and even the doctor) a bit of comic relief during this ordeal.

Hospital Trip - Part 1

It's hard to believe it's only been a week since having to take Kristjan to the hospital. It feels like it was just yesterday. I think Pete and I are still trying to recover from the exhaustion of all of it. Last Tuesday evening before bedtime, Kristjan started complaining that his 'tummy hurt'. We just assumed it was something he ate or maybe gas, and told him he'd feel better in the morning. 5am the next morning, Kristjan was crying out to me for help. I bolted into his room. His pain was worse. He needed help out of bed and to walk to the bathroom. Since the pain was in the lower right abdomen, all I kept thinking was that it was his appendix. And come to find out, he threw up twice during the night (another sign leaning to appendicitis). As soon as 8am rolled around, I called the doctor's office for an appointment. Typically, Dr. Hoing is very hard to get a same-day appointment, but somehow, she was available that morning. Kristjan and I left the house at 9:30am....and never went back. We basically spent the rest of the entire day and evening in doctor/hospital offices. When we saw Dr. Hoing, she sent us across the hall to get a blood sample, urine sample, and xray. She then examined Kristjan and said in her opinion this was textbook appendicitis. She then sent us to Kirkland to get an ultrasound to confirm. By this time, I picked Pete up from work. After waiting and waiting, Dr.Hoing called us with the ultrasound results and told us to head to the hospital. We were at Evergreen Hospital for HOURS before the doctor came in to tell us unfortunately we'd have to go to Children's in Seattle because our hospital don't perform such surgery on children 8 years and under. It's now after 5pm, which meant rush hour traffic. We took took the toll bridge (bill should come soon in the mail for that!) to get there quicker. We went through the same routine at Children's..some paperwork, retelling what happened, waiting, waiting, and more waiting to get into surgery. Pete left the hospital at 7:30pm to go home. He needed to take Clifford to our neighbors for the night and put together a hospital bag for us. After 9pm, Kristjan finally goes into surgery. Again, more waiting. Pete came back to the hospital after 10pm. The surgeon finally comes in to talk with us. All went well. The surgery took 20 minutes. They went in through his belly button. We just had to wait for Kristjan to wake up. Given it's past 11pm, and we know Kristjan himself was exhausted from all of this AND the sedatives, he never really woke up. It wasn't until after midnight when we were taken into a room with him to sleep. Peter and I were emotionally and physically drained from dealing with the various doctors, the traveling, the lack of food, all the phone calls/texts we needed to make, the arrangements for Clifford, etc etc etc. BUT we're so grateful to have caught this early, so no need to worry about complications. Thursday morning Kristjan slowly started to act like his normal self. By late afternoon, we were finally discharged and ready to head home. Here are the pics we took chronicling this adventure. You can see in the first few pics Kristjan is all happy and silly...but by the end of the day, you can see a difference. Poor boy

Kindergarten Celebration

Last Monday I attended Kristjan's Kindergarten Celebration. The setup was the same as when I attended Clifford's last year. Parents got to see what the kids' class schedule is like. We also did some writing and reading time. Then came the snacks and a video picture slide of the kids through out the school year. I'm so excited for Kristjan to finally be a first grader!! I've waiting a looonngg time for both boys to be in school full time. Not only will it allow me to have a moment of peace 'n quiet, but it will also make going to work easier. Just gotta wait for September...Oh, and check out the pic with the plants. That's what we decided to give to the boys' teachers end-of-the-year gift. It was a lot of fun to make.

Edmonds Art Festival

Some Saturday a few weeks ago we attended the Edmonds Art Festival (we've been so busy lately that everything is a blur and days/activities just mush together). Kristjan's art piece from the school's art extravaganza was hanging in the festival. We walked around looking at various art booths, tried a lamb gyro, and then took a look at Kristjan's art work. We're so proud of him!!! How exciting to have his art hanging in an actual art festival!! After the art festival, we decided to visit the Root Beer store, since it was on our way home. It opened up a few months back, and we've been meaning to stop by. We took a look around before each picking out a root beer for a treat. We watched a video on boxee a while back about a guy who owns a pop store (no name brands) in California. One of the drinks he talked about in the video was Moxie root beer. So I decided to give it a try. I didn't care for the flavor. So I switched drinks with Pete. I liked the taste of his better.

Quick Yakima Trip

Before Pete left for his Texas trip, we took a quick overnight trip down to Yakima. All his siblings were in town and his parents scheduled a photo shoot for an updated family pic. I wasn't too fond of the idea of this being done on a Friday night at 6pm. As soon as the boys got out of school, we drove down to Yakima and headed straight to where the pics were being taken. I had to put my makeup on in the car (do you know how SCARY it is to apply eye liner in a moving car going 75 mph and your husband purposely going over bumps just to get a laugh???) and change our clothes in the car once we got there. But the pics turned out great. It's been a while since our little family has had professional pics done, so I'm excited to put up our new pics once the order is ready. While down in Yakima, we visited our friend Grace. Her and her husband Jeremy just had their first child-a boy named Eli! He is so precious. Grace was there when both my boys were born, and we're so excited for them to finally have one of their own. After a bit of catching up, we headed back to his parents house for a bbq lunch and a mini-birthday party for Pete, his mom and nephew Louis. Pete had to fly out early the next morning for his trip, so we loaded up the car, left the boys there (they came back home the next afternoon), and made the long tiring drive back home so we could pack Pete up. Enjoy the pics. Most of the pics were taken by Clifford, who stole my phone and went overboard with the camera, but managed to get some good pics