Postings from a galaxy far far away...

It has been so long since I posted anything I frankly don't even know where to start. So Like scrap booking I guess you have to skip the stuff that happened in the past and just go with the current stuff.Here is the most current photos I have of all my family. Rebecca is still in school. She and Preston have little Sophia Marie. She was born on October 30, 2011. I got to go out the the delivery of Sophia. It was the first time I SAW a delivery. I never could figure out the whole mirror thing in the labor delivery room. There were always to many people in the room to really see anything. Really I was busy at the time... Sabrina is in school as well. She is moving and shaking out there. She is in her 2 year of school. She is in the RS presidency. In July she will return home till next January where she will them resume her schooling. I am so glad the girls are out there together! Love this photo of the 3 girls. Benjamin just turned 16! I can not believe it! Since his last surgery in 2010, his/our life has changed. He is wheelchair bound. He is unable to use the lift up the left side of his body 2 inches up but has no real control of it in the way of grabbing something or using his leg to walk. However, lets talk about the great things in his life. He is the SWEETEST person on the planet. He used to be angry and out of control a lot of the time. Those are days that are gone gone gone. The sweet wonderful person that i could only get a glimps of before is here with us full time. I can not even believe he was so rotten. The seizures have all but become a thing of the past and wow what a difference. We can not joke anymore and say," Do you only have half a brain? What were you thinking?" You can do a lot with just half a brain. Abigail is soooo close to 12. She is planning her party already. She is not ready or anything. She is going into the 6th grade. She is playing the piano. She loves to shop and shop and shop. She is for sure going to give this mom a run for her money. Abigail broke her arm close to the last day of school. She was in a volleyball class after school and piano and had to miss the big game. She was very unhappy. However, she got her cast off just in time for the end of the year recital. Nathaniel is 10 now. He is going into the 5th grade. Time flies by! He is in piano as well. The teacher just loved him. Every time I saw her she would say," He is a natural." He really likes piano and I almost never had to remind him to practice. He wanted to... Right? True Story!!! Now don't ask me about his homework because it is not the same story. Reading is for sure not his favorite subject. He still loves Transforming everything into a Transformer. He loves Lego's and drawing. Watch out Disney here comes Nathaniel.

holy CRAP

Sabrina is graduating soon and Benjamin just turned 14 and is now a teacher at church... Kids are growing up so fast

TODAY

well what a shock to have your daughter start a blog about losing weight... I am so happy for her and want to support her in all that she does. I too want to lose weight and be healthier! So I am going to gain inspiration form her and try to set agoal for weight loss and a time frame in which to do that but for now I am going to sleep and decide tomorrow... LOL always tomorrow!

Update On Benjamin

Well, This is the story today on Ben...

Ben in back in the ICU for at least a few more days, maybe more, who knows right now. The resection surgery where they removed the temperal lobe and a few other parts of the brain began to swell alot on Saturday. The surgical site is infected. The infection type is related to MRSA they are calling it ORSA basically the same, so I am told! He is stable. He is in a lot of pain and that pain is not under control. The infecous control team of doctors said that his infection was in fact quite bad. We asked them to give a 1 to 10 scale based on their experience and they gave him a 8. Not super good but there was still room on the scale for worse! The infection was on both sides of the bone covering the brain. They are afraid that the bone might not be able to be saved. WE are NOT focusing on that right now we are going with the idea that the surgery and meds are going to fix this and will not even go into the mess that might happen IF the bone can not be saved. The doctors are thinking that he will be on IV antibiotics for a minimum of 6 to 8 weeks. So we are happy that we did not wait until our scheduled appointment to have Benjamin have examined. He is also having trouble with high blood pressure so we are on a drip for that as well. He is currently still having seizures. In fact I had to stop writing to go and help with one... Not so sure we are getting the best result yet from the surgery... We will keep our fingers crossed that we see improvement. He had a PICC (periferal inserted central catheter) it is a special kind of IV that goes into the vein and runs into the chest cavity intil it hits a main artery. That way they can give more things in the IV site and at higher doses. He will be leaving the hospital with this in place (with any luck) and that is how the IV will be able to go home with us! We hope that it stays in place so we do not have to get another one! He is not breathing well at this point so we have in on oxygen. He is not eating now so he is getting tube feeding that goes thru a NG tube in his nose and we also give the PO (by mouth) meds thru that line. That way we are not fighting with him to take the meds like we had to last time...That was a JOKE! They are doing everything that they can. He is very sick but not fatal. SO we are blessed. It could have been worse!

Thanks to all who are praying for us I truely feel like we are being strenghened and held together by the power of prayer.

Where have I BEEN?!?!

I took an extended vacation from bloggin! I am back... (for today)

So far we have had a great year. Ben is having his brain surgery on the 27th of April. We are looking forward to not having seizures! If you want to learn about it look up "intracranial eeg" and it should take you to a web site about epilepsy and you can learn from there! I started facebooking... CRAZY... but I did. Do I really want to connect with so many people? Am I a private person? I did not know that I was until I started blogging and facebooking...and I would be thinking, do I want to share "that". But oh well...I did!

Kids are great, Brad is great... We are living the everyday life, working and eating and drinking and cleaning up after we are finished.

I have been decorating the house... Of Course... and I finally figured out how to get the room Benjamin has always wanted! He wanted clouds that reminded him of being in heaven, but really he is 12 and I was having a problem with it! To top it off he wanted ME to paint them.. SURE... But, Lowes to the rescue! I found wallpaper and then a wonderful surprise they had vintage wallpapper planes. That is 12 year old boy. So clouds it is!

Our Days In The Hospital!

Benjamin and I have been in the hospital now for 4 days and we were getting BORED! So, I thought that I would blog a bit about the boredom...

Here are a few pics of Ben and the nurse who was doing the ictal testing however he has not had a seizure YET!!!!

How can it be that at home he has them all of the time and of course at the hospital where they want to see them and record them they stay away!

So we have been here and seriously we have had 2 seizures. One while they were putting the EEG on his head and on e the other night while he was in the bathroom and the video cameras were not recording! Just our LUCK... or Lack of Luck!

Looks like we will be doing this all over if they do not get the imaging that they need! Wooo hoooo... Another week of sitting on my bum doing nothing! Not really nothing...I clipped and organized my coupon books which I was weeks behind, I finished all of the blocks for a quilt top but did not put it together because I did not want to lay out the blocks on the hospital floor! I re organized my scrap booking tote... I read Midnight Sun AGAIN!! I love it and I will be so happy when Stephenie Meyer finishes it. I have faith that she will because she will need closure just a little time I think! Now I think I will read The Host of course by Stephenie Meyer, Or I could finish Mansfield Park... I am half way thru that... So much time and so few things to do!

First Day of School

Well today is the big day that I have been waiting for!

The day that all of my kids are in school full time... What a long road it has been to get to this point! Of course Rebecca is not is school right now however, she is married and does not live at home so I do not think that it counts. Here are a few pictures of the kids on their first day back to school!

Nathaniel is very excited!

Benjamin has to catch the bus by 7:20! WOW that was early!

Abigail always has to have something pink on! What a beautiful girl!

Sabrina was off to school to early to get a actual picture of her before school. So here is a very recent picture of her! She is taking advances zoology this year and had to do a summer project. She needed to collect 20 bugs, pin them and categorize them. She did not think it was going to be fun however, she really got into it catching the bugs. Funny story! She went to turn in the project the first day of school and the teacher looked at her and said you have until OCTOBER to turn it in! Guess he was on the phone when she picked up the summer work packet and forgot to tell her that it was not due until later... I think it was great to get it out of the way during the summer and not have to work on it during the time she would have other things on her mind... At least that is what I told her!