Elijah Update…

He is feeling much better and is sleeping most of the night now. I never did start him on antibiotics since the Dr. wasn’t sure if it would help. I decided to just give him Tylenol for the pain and was planning to take him with me to my appointment and have our regular Dr. check him out. Monday was a great day for him so I never even had to take him in. Not sure what caused the ulcers but so glad he is feeling better!

A picture I just have to share of one of the days he was sick. He was grumpy so I just let him watch his favorite show, “signing time” and this is how I found him a few minutes later:

 

Here is a picture of him from yesterday:

 

And a blessing came from all of it. We don’t see Eli doing this anymore:

It actually kind of makes me sad. But glad I have this picture to remind me how cute he was doing it. Now, we are working on Micali to see if we can get her to stop. ----not having any luck so far.

A few random pictures

 

Micali and Eli on Thanksgiving

 

A couple family pictures my sister took. We were freezing and the wind was blowing like crazy!

I think my belly has grown a little since I posted pictures 10 weeks ago. This is from tonight at 30 weeks. Wow time is flying.

 

 

Micali snuggling with her daddy this morning. She was totally trying to pretend she was sleeping! 

That is all for now! Have a good week everyone! We are excited to start some Christmas goodie making and baking!

A rough week for the little guy

……………….and me too I guess.

We got home from our trip to Kansas on Sunday morning and quickly got ready to go to church. We teach the primary and it was also our turn to do sharing time so we really had to be there.  Church went good once the kids made it through sacrament meeting and were able to go to nursery.

We all came home and took a long family nap. Monday morning I unpacked everything and got a lot of laundry done. I was feeling really good about my progress I just needed to fold the laundry and wash a few dishes and the house would be back in shape.

Well---that is when it happened Eli came down with the stomach flu. He needed his mommy and I didn’t get off the couch much the rest of the afternoon.

Tuesday he seemed to be getting better although he still wasn’t eating much. He didn’t sleep well that night at all and was up at least every hour. (this is where I should get the “BAD MOM” award) I thought he just needed to adjust back to sleeping in his own room after vacation and made him cry for a half hour two different times before I went in to check on him again. I couldn’t see that anything was wrong with him and was getting frustrated with him.

On Wed. morning when I was changing him I noticed a little white patch underneath his tongue. I decided to just keep an eye on it see what happened. He and I were totally exhausted but he was still not sleeping for more than an hour at a time night or day.

Here is what his tongue looked like by Thurs. afternoon when I took him to the Dr. to find out he had tongue ulcers.  

The Doctor appointment went horribly. I wasn’t able to get him in with my normal Doctor so I just accepted who ever at the clinic still had appointments available. My appointment with a very GRUMPY Eli was suppose to be at 4:15 by 5:30 I was still out front in the waiting room and Eli had been crying and fighting me holding him for that entire time. I thought I was going to go CRAZY. They finally got sick of me out there and put us back in our own room and said the Dr. will be right with you. He finally came in about 6:00, Eli had been either in my arms crying or on the floor crying this whole time so I also started crying mostly for the fact that I couldn’t do anything for him and I was running on little sleep.

The Doctor was less than nice. I had finished the crying and dried my tears awhile before he finally got there but when he came in he asked me if I had been crying and it started again. He asked me dumb questions like if someone was hurting me, if I was okay and safe….blah blah blah. I was just like will you please look at my screaming child and leave me alone. He spent just a few minutes with Eli. Said those were just tongue ulcers. Gave us a prescription for an antibiotic he wasn’t sure would help. Told me these ulcers could last up to a month and sent us on our way! Wow thanks so helpful!

Anyway, we did have some fun with Eli between his meltdowns and him sitting in front of the TV watching Signing time. Grandma K gave the kids their Christmas presents while we were back in KS and I decided we needed a change of pace and pulled one of them out of the closet. Micali and Eli both had fun with the musical instrument  set and Eli even smiled a couple times. Micali is quite talented with drumming, marching, and playing her kazoo.  

*Eli did have a clean shirt at least 10 different times throughout the day. He has been drooling like crazy since these ulcers showed up. It is kinda gross.

Now it is Saturday and things are definitely looking up. Eli slept for 5 hours straight last night so I am hoping he is on the mend!  Remember those clothes I mentioned washing on Monday? They finally were folded and put away last night too. I wouldn’t have made it through this week without my amazing husband who helped out so much and washed a lot of dishes too.

All of us together

So let’s put this into perspective so you can see what ALL of us really means:

2- parents

12- children

6-spouses

14 grandchildren

For a total of 34 people.

This is what it looks like:

 

 

Some of the things we did:

* ate a lot of food—I was seriously amazed at how fast anything edible could disappear

* spent a lot of time outside enjoying the amazingly warm weather

* Micali and Eli had so much fun with the animals on grandma’s farm—chickens, cats, and a dog

 

*played the piano

* tied up Uncle Danny (micali’s new trick while wrestling her daddy, she pretends to tie him up so he can’t move)

* paintballing some of us played some of us enjoyed the game watching from the truck

* Brother Devin leaving to go back to Fort Bragg—He is seriously BUFF!   

* Star’s baptism, family dinner, and a little basketball

 

We had so much fun during our time in Kansas and are grateful for the memories we were able to make.

More pictures to come when I figure out whose camera caught the other fun times we had!

Pulling of a GRAND surprise

A couple months ago I was talking with my sister Kendra. Neither of us were going to be able to make it home at Christmas time so we devised a plan to surprise our parents for Thanksgiving. Although it would be a quick trip we were going to pack in a lot of fun.

Well, in the meantime my Grandma Kueser became sick and it started to look like her time here on earth would soon end. On Monday November 16th I got the call that my Grandma and passed away. Her funeral would be the week before Thanksgiving. I got on the phone with my sisters who live out west and we decided that we really wanted to go to Kansas, especially since if we did it meant that all twelve of us siblings would all be together (this doesn’t happen very often).

As plans were made for the funeral we were able to have the day pushed back to Friday so that we could meet at a central location and drive to Kansas. We all prayed for good weather and safety and were very blessed in our traveling. We left at 4:30 in the morning with the minivan packed to capacity. Four excited sisters and 3 babies 3 and under. We got to our hotel at 10:30 that night just a half hour away from where the visitation and funeral would be the next morning. It was truly a miracle. 18 hours in the car with such young kids and we only made 4 stops.

The next morning we were giddy with excitement.  So far our parents hadn’t heard of our arrival. We did feel a little silly that we were surprising them at a funeral but we hadn’t wanted to cause them any more stress on top of what they were already going through. So as we walked into the visitation prior to the funeral we gave the brothers our children to walk with in front of us. My mom first saw Eli and thought “Hey, that looks like Eli” and then my dad saw me. They both looked at each other and then back at the long line of children entering. They then realized  we had all made it back and we were all overcome with emotion.

My dad had the opportunity to share some thoughts and memories of grandma and I was so grateful to be able to be there to hear him and to attend her funeral with so many of the relatives in attendance. It was a very nicely done service, the music was beautiful and the flowers were outstanding. I think Grandma was probably very pleased that day and I am glad that she is now in a better place where she can be comfortable and happy!

* One of the most important things I took from Grandma’s funeral was her example of service. It was so nice to hear of the many times that she gave of her time to help others. My dad said she was often the first to show up to help when someone was in need. Whether it be meals, clothes, or a helping hand Grandma would see to it that she did all she could to make others comfortable.

Love you grandma