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Thursday, November 10, 2011

Holiday Plans

So it's inevitable, the crazy hectic holiday season is upon us. We've made some plans to visit family and friends so I figured I'd post about them.

Christmas is going to be family time. We will probably go to San Antonio for a couple of days to visit, but it will be our first Christmas together in our home where we will be able to have and enjoy a tree and some quality family time.

For Thanksgiving we will be driving to Florida. It will be a longgg borrrinnggg drive there AND back, but we will truly enjoy seeing family that we haven't seen in years (well, since we lived in Florida). We'll be arriving on Thanksgiving day, then heading back home on Matthew's birthday (December 1st).

For New Years we're going to drive up to Colorado and stay with the in-laws for a bit. There's talk of me staying longer but I don't know where that conversation is right now (nobody talks to meee!).

In the meantime we're trying to solidify any other plans. It's going to be so hectic, and we all know I'm not a fan of traveling, but I know it's all worth it to see our family and have some quality time during this season. :)

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Kitchen Remodel = DONE!

I posted.. months ago that we were remodeling our kitchen. Between taking it apart, putting the new kitchen together, and dealing with all the small details and ridiculous parts of assembling a kitchen that you'd never imagine when taking on such a project. Today I spent about 3 hours finishing up filling the gaps between the cabinets and dishwasher, and a few other spots, plus finishing the toe-kicks. I present to you, our awesome new kitchen! :)

BEFORE





AFTER





The cabinets are IKEA Adel Medium Brown. I made the curtains, my mom put the green fabric on the barstools. I did the tile backsplash (from Home Depot) by myself. New stove is from Lowe's. Countertop is from.. I don't know, I'll get back to you later. Jeremiah did most of the work, and all of the really hard work, but I helped and I'm very proud of what I did. :P

Hope you like it! If you don't, that's fine, because I love it! :P

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Hospital Adventure

So Monday night was going to be mine and Jeremiah's first night to sit down and relax and actually spend a little bit of time with each other since we started doing upgrades in our house. We put Matthew to bed around 8pm and he was fine, and we sat on the couch and started to watch "Little Rascals". About 9:30pm Matthew woke up screaming. It was a sad and scary scream. We ran in there and he was inconsolable. He was clutching his lower abdomen and crying uncontrollably. It took about 20 minutes to calm him down enough to tell us that his belly was hurting. He would whimper for about 5 minutes, then have a bout of pain and start screaming again. I got dressed and prepared to take him to the hospital. Jeremiah was concerned about transporting him if he was in so much pain, so he called for an ambulance.

The ambulance arrived somewhere around 10pm, they checked him out and loaded him up. On the way to the hospital he would be okay for a few minutes, then start crying, then he threw up. After throwing up he fell asleep for much of the ride until he woke up whimpering right before we arrived.

They wheeled him into the hospital. At this point, like many kids do, he started acting like nothing was wrong. He became bright eyed and bushy tailed and I started feeling dumb for bringing him in. They got him in a room, took his vitals and got him snuggled in the hospital bed in front of the TV. He was okay for a while until he started crying again and curling up, then threw up again. He would have these waves and in between he'd be fine. The doctor came in and explained it could either be something small, or intussusception (telescoping intestine). The way she explained the latter seemed like exactly what he was going through. A medical website says this:

Infants and children with intussusception have intense abdominal pain, which often begins very suddenly and causes loud, anguished crying causing the child to draw the knees up. The pain is usually intermittent, but recurs and may become stronger. As the pain eases, the child may stop crying for a while and seem to be feeling better.

The doctors had an xray done, then we had to wait a while for a radiologist to come in since it was after midnight by that time, and they only have them on-call. During this time he had 3 or 4 more episodes of pain & vomiting. A while later, we had the sonogram done and waited to hear back. At around 3am, the doctor came back and said it didn't look like intussusception. The sonogram showed nothing wrong with his intestines, but the xrays showed lots of poo. She said that by itself didn't explain the vomiting, but it could be a virus on top of the bowel issues. She sent us home with a prescription for zofran (anti-vomiting medication) which they'd given him earlier to stop the throwing up. She told us to buy some Miralax (though I decided to buy Pedialax since it's just saline laxative rather than the medication. I figured if it didn't help I could go buy the Miralax), some sort of juice and some gatorade to help "loosen" things up and give him electrolytes.

We got home around 4am, hoping Matthew would sleep in. No such luck, he was up just after 8 in the morning. Tired and dragging, we made our way to Walmart and bought the things on the list, and headed home.

Since then, he's been feeling much better. Not that everyone wants to hear about bowel movements, but in the last 2 days he's had a few, the latest one being pretty ... decent. ;P I'll continue the fiber and laxative filled diet so that this doesn't happen again. He's still telling me his belly hurts a few times a day, but I think in another day or two he'll feel just fine. :)

I appreciate any messages, texts and calls I've gotten asking about his well-being and sending luck and prayers. I am glad it seems to be only that he's backed up and doesn't recur. Even though it turned out to be a small deal, there's nothing worse than to see your child suffer like he was that night.

Friday, August 19, 2011

New blog!

Hi there! I just created this blog so that friends and family can keep up with the things that happen in our home. I decided that with our extended family and friends being all over the country, this would be a good way for people to know what's going on in our lives, and maybe comment and let us know what's going on in your lives too! As of right now, the blog will contain stuff about Matthew, our home renovations and garden stuff, as well as some other random updates about things going on in our daily lives. I hope you bookmark this site and find it a reliable method of keeping in touch, despite the distance. :)