Elsie's six on friday

I know I will forget to post a special post for Elsie on her birthday because of the holiday and all, so I will do it early. My sweet, energetic, hilarious, outgoing girl will be six on july 3rd. She was a surprise when we found out she was coming and she keeps surprising us everyday with her sense of humor and imagination. While I was in labor with her the fireworks at the stadium where going off to welcome in our own little firework (little did I know how true that would really be)!! Our life would for sure be less exciting without her around. One of my favorite things about her is that she will come home from church or after she watches high school musical 1,2 and 3, and belt out primary songs or "I want more" song into her microphone downstairs and the whole family can hear it, but at the same time I love that when she prays, like she did today, and without help, she will pray that our baby will grow well, and that moose (our dog) will too. :) We love you Elsie and wish you a happy 6th birthday on friday!! (hopefully we will be camping)

I took some updated pictures of our kids the other day, and for fathers day so Jake has some in his office, so here is a few. They are cute kids, but I am biased! We took them at Spence and Tal new place, which is perfect for taking pictures! Seeing how old they are getting makes me feel so old!

and baby makes....5!

In about 28 weeks, meaning I am about 12 weeks along (give or take a few) we will welcome in our baby number 5! Getting pregnant was not a shocker (cause it took awhile), it was the decision to have another, and it was also a very neat experience for me. We had an ultrasound yesterday and everything looks great. It is still amazing to me to just be talking to the doctor and look over at the monitor to see a little head and body on the screen and hear the fast beats of a heart. Then at one point the baby did a little wave with its hand. very cute. Anyway we are excited, I keep telling Jake having number 5 will not be as hard as having number 2 go through a bone marrow transplant, being pregnant with number 4, and then staying with her at the hospital with him.
I have been feeling sick but in a week or so it should be over. I do hope the pregancy goes fast, cause, dang, it is harder in your 30's!

p.s. Jake thinks it is a girl (I don't know why he would think that), while I am still holding on that it is a boy!

Update

It's been raining.

just this and that

I have been slacking in my motherly and wifely duties lately. With summer here I don't have to get my kids up and ready and off to school, we can just hang out and watch movies or just do whatever, or not do. This rain hasn't helped any.
Addie is finished with elementary school. She is pretty sad because she loved the 5th grade. She won a few awards including the principles award for being such a nice student. They had a reenactment of the civil war, and all parents had their camera's and video camera, all but me, I forgot, dang it. It was pretty cool, and they got to throw water balloons in the battle. That is another thing I have been slacking on, picture taking, everytime there is something to take a picture of to make the blog more interesting, I forgot my camera. Elsie is excited to go all day to school. Summer should go fast, it always does.
We have clinic yesterday and after a little problem with her picc line, almost getting it taken out,not being put to sleep when they were going to take it out, tears shed because she doesn't want the i.v. team called, they finally were able to get the picc line working again. Good for chloe but I was looking forward to not having her picc line out. She however doesn't want to get poked or have iv's when she gets her bone density fluids (which will be next week). She is looking good and the tapper is still on.
Spence and Tal and Avery are hangin with us until they are able to close on their new house, we are glad to have company although both Tal and Spence will be counting down the days to leave with my kids hogging all their time and attention. "Tal....Tal....Tal...wanna play the wii." "Spence....Spence...Spence, look what I can do! Well I don't care what Jake says, I like having them here. (haha)


The other day we had a massive hail storm, killing all my plants and garden veggie plants. Chloe was crying to me to move all the plants cause the flowers were all coming off. They were just going to have to die, I did not want to go out in that storm, they were the size of jaw breakers coming down fast. Rhen was crying it was so loud. So now our plants look bald.

clinic appointments

We had a couple of trips to primary in the past week. One was last week to the dermetologist, which was a waste of a four hour drive, didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. On tuesday our regular visit went really well. We still have to go down every two weeks until her tapper is over in aug. but she looks awesome. We still put on creams gallor, but tappering so far hasn't caused a flare up. This morning I had a big scare, Rhen had gotten on the table to where chloe had taken her pills, opened them up and ate some prograf (transplant anti-rejection pills) and some acyclophere (an antibiotic). I was crying and so worried, I called poison control and after some checking and giving him the the dosage that he took, he said that he didn't think he took enough to hurt him. Luckily, he took the smaller dose of prograf and not the bigger one. Thank goodness for poison control!! The man was so nice and understanding of my crying on the phone. When they called back two hours later, and he was playing and having fun. He does have major runny poop though. All I can think of is tender mercies!!

love the imagination

Elsie has the biggest imagination I know. Last night when Jake went to tuck her into bed she was kicking back on her bed (well the mattress that is on the floor, for another post) holding a pretend remote for a tv. She was pointing it to her Jesus picture on the wall. When Jake came in the room she hurried and (pretended) to click it. Jake asked what she was doing and she said I was watching tv and it was on an immodest channel so I had to click it back to the Jesus channel.

the tapper is on!!

Hilary (her nurse practitioner nurse) was so glad to see the progression the new cream has had on chloe's rash. So we got the tapper schedule on the Prograff pill (which is an anti-rejection pill) and will be done in the middle of August (we are hoping nothing prevents the taper). So we are hoping school in the fall!! OH MAN, she was so excited about that (prayers are answered)! She will still be on her steroids, but it is such a small dose that is can be tappered off in two weeks. I asked about waiting the few months being off the meds to go to school and it seemed no big deal to him. So I am hoping we don't hear another story when we go next time because we happen to see another doctor. That is one of the frustrating things with this is that one doctor will have an opinion about how we should be cautious and then the next time we see another doctor who doesn't think things are a big deal, example, last visit Jake was told no to camping, today we saw another doctor and he asked if we had plans for this summer and I look at him like, are you really asking me this? I told him that she can't do much, but he seemed to think camping would be fine if we are cautious and have a trailer. So go figure. We will just use our best judgement, I guess. We had a good clinic visit today!!

all boy

Rhen loves to eat markers, baby shampo, toilet cleaner, dirt, chapstick, glue and everytime I go to get it from him he laughs and runs. He has figured out that it is a lot more fun to be outside than inside, here he is at play...

Anything that comes out of Rhen's mouth whether it be comprehensible, or not ends with the word ball. He loves balls and is entertained by them for hours. He has the cutest fish face while he eats the chapstick. He walks around digging his finger in the chapstick sucking on his finger and then walks around with his cheeks sucked in.

He is learning how to drive, his dad wants him to start early so when it comes time to take the fj rock crawling, he is ready!

pinewood durby for girls...sweet!

Addie and Chloe were pretty excited when they were able to participate in the derby in activity days. They had a fun time racing their cars, both chloe and addie won a race or two. Addie got most original, her sweet ballerina shoe, and chloe's was a cute duck! Looks pretty life like!

Chloe update: with the help of prayers and the new creams we got, her rash is 90% gone!!! She looks so smooth and soft!! We are excited to hear in a week or so if she can start her taper!!