Livi Goes To School!

Livi started kindergarten on August 26th!  I have to say, for several weeks before she started, I would have slight panic attacks while laying in bed.  I never sent Livi to preschool or anything so she has pretty much been with me ALL the time.  Excluding play dates and primary.  Livi can be quite shy when she first meets people so I was worried that she wouldn't make friends very quickly, and I was worried that being gone from home for 7 hours every day would be hard on her.  BUT, I'm happy to say that she absolutely adores school!
The night before her first day Phil gave her a really nice blessing.  Her teacher had also given her a packet of confetti with a little poem about how the confetti was magic and if she slept with it under her pillow she would get a good night sleep and not be nervous.  Livi was super excited to sprinkle it  under her pillow and when she woke up in the morning she was so excited because it had worked!! After I picked her up the first day she said, "mom, guess what?!  I made two friends!" long pause, "and one of them is named Emily!"  Which is one of my best friends names.  She loves her teacher, Mrs. Allen and she just loves everything about school. When she gets home, if her and Jack have any disagreements she will say, "I wish I was in school!" I totally cried the first day dropping her off.  Phil went into work late so he could come with us and he got a cute video of Livi hanging up her back pack and me trying not to let her see the tears in my eyes.  Jack was really sad after we got home on the first day. But after we played blocks and cars and trains and play doh, I think he got over it.  The second day we dropped her off he said, "me no sad!" Every day when we pick her up, as soon as she comes around the corner, Jack runs and gives her a huge bear hug or grabs her face with his hands and just stares at her.  It's adorable.  We ride our bikes to and from school and that has been really fun.  Although, the afternoon ride home has been SO hot.  I usually don't cool down until dinner time.  (I have been so hot this pregnancy!)

Jack rides in a trailer attached to my bike.  The 5th and 6th grade school is on the same street as the elementary school, but it's on the other side of our house.  So every morning older kids are riding their bikes in that direction. The first day as we were riding home from dropping off Livi, we were in a little group of other moms on their bikes and I was bringing up the rear.  I could hear these kids coming up fast behind me but didn't think much of it. Then I hear tires skidding across the sidewalk and all of a sudden I got rammed from behind.  Some kid ran into the back of the trailer and flipped it on it's side.  I think he hit the tire.  Luckily, Jack was buckled in and he was fine, but it obviously terrified him and he was screaming and crying. I almost started to cry, not sure exactly why, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with hormones.  The other moms got after the boys and told them to slow down and they felt so bad and were really apologetic.  The poor kid that hit the trailer was limping as he walked away.  I don't think I said anything because I was worried I would cry.  

Livi has since made lots of friends, one of whom is a boy named Jordan.  She said he's "definitely" one of her best friends.  She told me yesterday that a boy in another class told Jordan that Livi was his girlfriend.  "But he's not, he's just my friend" was what Livi told me. I can't believe how much my little girl is growing up.  Sometimes I feel like I just became a mom and have a hard time believing that I have a kid in elementary school.  I'm so proud of the person that she is becoming and am so excited for her.

It's A Boy!

We are so excited to be adding another boy to the mix!  My official due date is December 29th, which puts me at 21 weeks.  I've been feeling good. The first trimester was very similar to Jack's.  A little nauseated but if I chewed mint gum and made sure to eat every two hours I was okay. It was mostly just after dinner that I would feel pretty yucky.  I also noticed that if I ate a lot of sugar I would feel really sick.

This pregnancy has been different because I am making very conscious choices about what I eat.  Because Jack was so large, 9.4, and he had low blood sugar, my Dr thinks I may have developed gestational diabetes at the end of that pregnancy.  When I did the glucose test at 26 weeks my blood sugar was perfect, so if I did have it, it had to have been at the end.  That has been a hard pill to swallow.  Especially thinking that I probably caused it by eating ice cream every night.  Now, I'm making a concerted effort to eat as if I did have diabetes in order to nip it in the bud.  Sometimes it's a struggle, but for the most part, I feel great and am really seeing the benefits. Phil is reaping the benefits also.  I'm not sure how much weight he's actually lost, but he fits into pants that he hasn't been able to for years.  He has said on numerous occasions that he wants to keep this up forever. Basically, I eat a lot of meats, eggs, natural peanut butter, string cheese, fruit, salad, and whole grain breads. I have also discovered how much I love brussel sprouts.  Breakfast is by far the hardest, I LOVE pancakes and waffles and crepes and donuts and cereal, oh my goodness how I love cereal.  I've been able to cut all of those out, although I will admit to making whole wheat waffles and eating them with PB and fruit, but it's not the same.  It's amazing what we can do when we are thinking about the health of our babies.  I sometimes wonder how I'm going to make it through Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas without losing my mind or my will power.   But it gets easier every day and it helps that when I do indulge I feel like crap.

I have felt him move a ton.  Livi got to feel him kick the other day and that was really neat.  She is so excited to meet this little guy.  When we found out we were having a boy I asked her if she was okay that it wasn't a girl (she really wanted a girl) and she said, "I wish it was a girl, but I'm okay, I just want a baby."

Now we'll just see when he decides to show up!  I'm hoping it's not on Christmas....is that bad?

July Festivities

We've had a fun July so far.  Three of Phil's high school buddies from Boston came and stayed with us for a few days. They are such nice guys and really fun to be around.  One day we headed down to Galveston to show them the beach.  Their reaction was hilarious.  If you haven't ever seen Galveston, the water is basically brown.  Not very appealing or inviting.  But the water is warm and the sand is nice, so I'll take it. The kids loved playing in the sand and we had a hard time getting them to leave.

The 4th was really fun. It's definitely one of my favorite holidays. We went to the parade in the morning where Phil was randomly a drummer in the Union Army band.  A guy in our ward heads up this "float" every year and kept asking for volunteers to play the drum, he wasn't having any luck so Phi stepped up and said he'd do it.  Even though he's never played the drums before.  He did a fantastic job and they sounded so awesome.  Their group actually got first place for most patriotic!

The kids LOVED the parade.  They waved their little flags and Livi would wave at the people in the floats.  A float loaded with mermaids drove by and she about flipped.  She is a little obsessed with mermaids right now.  

After the parade we went swimming and had a blast.  Livi has been taking swimming lessons and is doing a phenomenal job.  I'll have to write a separate post about that.  Later that night we had a BBQ and I made some red white and blue rice krispy treats, which were a big hit.  Phil was beyond impressed with my dedication to holidays.  A few days earlier I had went and purchased a few of my favorite fire works from when I was a kid. Black snakes, sparklers and smoke bombs.  I thought I remembered Zippers as these awesome things that would "zip" around really fast in a circle so I got a few of those, and a fountain.  Phil was super paranoid about all of the fireworks (technically they are illegal in the Woodlands) and I thought he was being such a stick in the mud.  I mean, they're sparklers and black snakes and smoke bombs?!  Then I lit the Zipper. It shot up into the air, over onto our neighbors roof, (covered in dried pine needles), and almost rolled into their rain gutter, (also full of dried pine needles and leaves.)  My heart dropped into my stomach as I was waiting for their house to catch on fire.  That convinced me not to do the fountain. I think I was remembering a firework called the Flower, not the Zipper.

After that near felony experience, we headed over to the Waterway to watch the real fireworks.  It was insanely packed so Phil dropped us off and we went to find a spot.  Right before the fireworks started Phil miraculously found us ( I had forgot my cell phone) and we watched one of the coolest firework displays ever.  This is the first year that Livi has really liked them, they have always been a little too loud for her, so that was extra fun.  And Jack, of course, got a kick out of them.  After the fire works we got to our car and it only took us an hour to get home.  An hour.  We live about 5 miles from the Waterway. Next year we decided we're riding our bikes.  

Speaking of bikes, I sold my road bike and got a beach cruiser instead!  I love it!  I feel like I'm driving a Cadillac because it's so much bigger than my last one. 

 Pat, Paul and Andrew

 telling me no pictures

I don't think we need a paternity test 

Mom and Maddie Come to Visit!

In June Maddie and my mom flew out and stayed with us for about 10 days.  Maddie is a music therapist at a school so she gets the summers off and decided, what better time to come and visit! Her boyfriend Stan ended up flying in for the weekend because he couldn't take it anymore.  I was really glad he did, it was great getting to know him a little better.

I was really bad at taking pictures, but we had a lot of fun.  We obviously had to hit up Old Town Spring for some fried Twinkies, and we mixed it up a little this time and got fried Nutter Butters as well.  Nothing beats the fried Twinkies for me though.  Now I want one.  We went to a drive in while my mom watched the kids. (Love having free babysitters around!)  We saw, Now You See Me, then snuck over to the other screen for the second feature and watched Fast and Furious 6.  We didn't get home until almost 3 am and I told Phil as much as I love the drive in, I'm glad we only go once in a while because staying up that late kills me.  I'm getting too old I guess.

Other than that we went swimming almost every day and ate at some yummy restaurants.  We took Maddie and Stan to Rudy's so they could experience their brisket baked potato. And my mom requested a visit to Chuy's again.  She loves that place.

Maybe someday my family will move to Texas so we can live by each other!  Nothing beats having family around.

May

Wow, I'm really not very good at this blogging thing.  I love looking back over old posts, so I want to keep doing it.  But it's hard for me to make the time when there are so many other things I could be doing.  Like taking naps!

Let's see...I left off after my mom's first surgery.  The mass and one of her ovaries have since been determined to definitely have been ovarian cancer.  Luckily, stage 1.  She has since had another surgery where they removed her appendix (a lot of ovarian cancer starts in the appendix), 17 lymph nodes and did a whole lots of biopsies of tissue throughout her abdomen.   All the results came back negative, as in no other cancer cells, and she is free to recover!  No radiation or chemo needed.  She will have to go back every few months for check ups, but that's it. Her Dr. stressed how very lucky she is.  He said he rarely sees ovarian cancer earlier than stage 3, because most people have no symptoms until it's almost too late.  Thank goodness for that gnarly mass, it literally saved her life.  Recovery is still slow going, her core is still sore and simple things like sweeping and vacuuming really take their toll. But she is incredibly grateful and is now trying to figure out why God wanted her to stick around.  I said it's because she has 8 kids who still really need her.  Especially me.

We spent nearly a month in Utah and Arizona in May.  We drove to Mesa for Phil's brother Jason's wedding to Alexis.  My Dad and Kathleen drove down for their wedding.  They really adore Jason and were so happy they could come. We stayed in Mesa for a few days and enjoyed all of the festivities, then drove to Vegas where I dropped Phil off at the airport so he could fly home for work.  Little side note, on our way to Vegas Phil and I switched drivers at some dinky little gas station in the middle of no where and Phil starts driving.  After a little while he asks me if we're going the right way.  I ask him if he got on I-90 (not sure if that was the actual name) and he said yes so I said yes we're going the right way.  About 20 minutes later we see a sign that said, "Welcome to California"!!!  Keep in mind, we're supposed to be going to Nevada.  He had got back on the freeway, just going the opposite direction.  And I was supposed to be navigating, but figured he had just got right back on.  It was only about a two hour set back :-(
Anyway, after dropping Phil off in Vegas I continued on to St. George where I stayed with my Dad and Kathleen and one of Kathleen's relatives (her aunt?) for the night.  Then the kids and I woke up the next morning and drove to Loa.  We had Brighton's bridal shower, Julie's baby shower and Michael and Brighton's wedding over a two week period and it was so fun.  Phil flew back into Salt Lake the night before Michael's wedding, then the day after the wedding we made the trek back home. Whew! I was so sick of the car by the time we got home. Michael's wedding was the first time in 7 years, since my wedding actually, that all of us siblings have been together.  It's always fun when we get together, I just wish it could have been for longer.  I never get to see Nate-he had never met Jack-so that was extra nice.  I'm trying to get pictures of the weddings from Michael and Jason, because I didn't bring my camera to either.  Hopefully soon.

 saying bye to Nano and Zeus in Mesa

 Brighton's bridal shower

 trying to find a good spot for the picture... 

 haha! Brighton opened this and Jack went over and grabbed it and said, "oooooo" and brought it to me

  Evie kept trying to tell Livi to lift her pinky, but that girl will not be told what to do

 playing "crack the egg" on the trampoline

As always, it was great to be back in Utah for a little while.  I was really bummed I didn't get to see any friends while I was in town.  I was either in Loa or doing wedding stuff so never really had a chance.  Next time, I refuse to leave without seeing people though.

Mom

Where to start.  I have been wanting to record what's happened while it's still fresh in my mind.

Back in December my mom was having some issues of the female variety and became a little concerned.  She made an appointment with an ob/gyn but they couldn't get her in until January.  At her appointment her Dr told her that her uterus felt really hard and told her to get an ultrasound. At the ultrasound they found a large mass on her ovary, about the size of a grapefruit.  The radiologist came in and expressed his deep concern.  He said it looked really worrisome and sent the pictures to her Dr in Salt Lake right away.  Her Dr. called her that evening and told her she was scheduling her for surgery.  She would have a hysterectomy, remove the mass and repair damage done to her bladder from the mass.  They scheduled her surgery at Huntsman Cancer Institute.  There were 3 doctors performing the surgery, one to remove the mass, one to do the hysterectomy and one to repair her bladder.  So in order to coordinate all of their schedules, they couldn't get her in for another 2 weeks.  We were all concerned about this because my mom was in more and more pain every day and able to eat less and less.  I called her Dr's nurse to see if there was anyway we could get the surgery moved up. She was very sweet and understanding but basically said no way. Not with 3 Dr's on board.  My mom spoke with another nurse and expressed her concern about waiting that long and the nurse told her that there are only 7 gynecological oncologists in all of Utah and that she has one of the best performing her surgery, along with a gynecological bladder specialist and her very wonderful ob/gyn, and that it was an act of God that she was even able to get in in January.  We had held a family fast right after the ultrasound and I really believe it was an act of God and an answer to our prayers.

Fast forward to the day of the surgery.  I was still in Houston.  We figured it would be best for me to come when my mom was discharged from the hospital so I could go to Loa and take care of her. My mom is barely able to eat anything at this point.  The mass has grown so large it makes her abdomen stick out to the point she looks 5 or 6 months pregnant.  Needless to say, she is miserable.  Going into the surgery her Dr told her that there was a 50/50 chance that it was cancer.  She had met with the local Wayne County Dr in the interim and she told him what was going on and explained what her ultrasound pictures showed.  He told her that based on her ultrasound, it was most likely cancer.  The mass was made up of two substances, which is very indicative of cancer.  As opposed to a cyst which is fluid.

In the weeks before the surgery it was very difficult not to cry and imagine the worst.  Obviously, I was upset and worried.  Worried that I would lose my mom, and terrified of what she would have to grow through if it was cancer.  I kept thinking about my aunt that had died of stomach cancer several years ago.  I remembered going and seeing her a few days before she passed away.  She was at home being taken care of by my sweet uncle.  She was in so much pain and so near the end that she was just a shell of the woman I knew.   It broke my heart to see her like that and it broke my heart to think of my mom having to go through that.

Don and Maddie would text me through out the surgery and give me updates.  After about 6 hours that seemed like a thousand, Maddie called me and said, "It's benign!"  The only way I can describe my reaction is to compare it to Emma Thompson's in "Sense and Sensibility" when she finds out Hugh Grant's character isn't actually married. Uncontrollable weeping.  Oh my goodness the relief.

The mass ended up being the size of a volleyball.  And there were actually two.  The first, smaller one was a calcified teratoma.  There were bits of bone and hair in it! It was inside the large one, which was filled with a substance that Michael said was like Caro Syrup.  That's why it appeared as two different substances in the ultrasound.  Michael works in the gross lab at Huntsman and he was there when her uterus and the mass arrived.  He said he was holding her uterus in his hands staring at it and a co worker asked him what he was doing.  He said, "Just looking at the place where I grew up."  Amazing!

My mom stayed at Huntsman for 5 days, where my cousin, whose mother is the one who passed away from cancer, was my moms nurse.  I flew out the day she was released and was able to go home and take care of her for a few weeks.  I am SO incredibly grateful I could go and wish that I could have stayed longer.  It is going to be a lengthy recovery for sure.  I have never cried when I leave my family to come back home, or when they have come to visit me and have to leave.  But leaving my mom this time, I bawled.  I cried all the way to the top of Fishlake and periodically until we got to my Dad's in Lindon.

A week after the surgery, my mom went back to the Dr to get her staples removed and to get the results of the biopsy.  The Dr. said my mom has borderline something something something. She said she was going to present the pathology results to a group of oncologists at Huntsman the following week, because she wasn't quite sure what the next step should be.  We looked up the term when my mom got home and it is stage 1 ovarian cancer. So we were really confused.  Was it benign, was it cancer?  But her Dr never called it cancer specifically?  All of the oncologists at Huntsman met and discussed her case and concluded that they had never seen this pathology before so they were going to send it on to Harvard to get their opinion. A week later her Dr. called again and said her pathology report had been sent to Johns Hopkins for a second opinion, and all of their Dr's. said they had never seen anything like it either.  Given all this, they decided to have her come back in and have her appendix removed and do a biopsy of her fat "apron" to see if there are any more of these cells lurking about.  She goes back in in April.  If there are no questionable cells then they will call it good.  If there are...we don't really know what the next step will be. Her Dr said she will probably go down in the history books.  So the roller coaster ride isn't quite over, but we are all, especially my mom, very optimistic.

I have really seen some amazing miracles through out this process.  My parents don't have health insurance.  My step dad is self employed, and basically, if you own your own business, health insurance is ridiculously expensive and they haven't been able to afford it.  To make an even longer story some what shorter, through a series of events my mom was really led to this particular ob/gyn.  She didn't know that she practiced through Huntsman.  But because she is affiliated with them, this amazing network of Dr's was opened up to her.  At my mom's follow up appointment her Dr, Dr. Pittman, told my mom that all three Dr's had waived their fee, and so had Huntsman.  $40,000. She said, "your balance is zero."  In addition, she told her that any more work they do in reference to this mass ie, her appendectomy and biopsy, will be free as well.

I believe that this happened because my mom has never once faltered in paying a generous tithe.  There have been times when it comes down to "pay the bills or pay tithing" and my mom has always chosen to pay tithing.  And it always works out, usually in a pretty miraculous way.  I believe this is just one of those miracles.

I am so incredibly grateful for my mom and the person that she is.  I don't think I could admire anyone more. I look back at my teenage years when I know a lot of girls think their mom is nuts or really bothersome.  At least that's the stereotype.  But I don't recall ever arguing with my mom or thinking anything other than she was my best friend.  I thought she was literally perfect for years. I still think, though, that she is as close to perfect as one can get in this life. Every important lesson I've learned in life has come from watching and listening to her.  I hope I can be half the person she is.

Jack Turns 2!

Jack turned two in February.  I seriously cannot get enough of this kid.  I find myself constantly staring at him and smothering him with kisses.  He has the most perfect little face, I could eat him!

I made a train cake.  Or choo choo as Jack calls it.  He and Livi had a fabulous time helping me color the frosting and put the cake together.  I called Phil earlier in the day and asked him to swing by a store and get him a present.  He really loves airplanes right now, so I told him to just get him a little plane, nothing fancy.  After waiting for Phil for quite a while, I called him and he was at his second toy store, searching for a toy.  I told him to forget about it and just come home.  He texted me a few minutes later, "I got it!!!"  He got him a Batman figurine that shoots these missile thingies.  And a cute little wooden plane.  I thought the Batman guy was pretty scary looking , and it was for kids 4+.  We agreed to take that one back. He loved the plane though.

 they love to put pillows and blankets under here and pretend to take naps. 

Jack brings SO much joy to our family. I love the way he communicates.  Yes is "day", Livi is "maa" "teetee" is teeny, "boo baw" is lip gloss.  He will say, boo baw, teetee.  Translation: may I have a teeny bit of lip gloss.  He is obsessed, with a capital O, with lip stuff.  Chapstick, lip gloss, vaseline, you name it. And he spreads it from below his nose to his chin. Adorable.  If you ask him how old he is he says, "DO!"  He hates nursery, but is slowly warming up to it.  He doesn't cry the entire time now, just when I drop him off.  He and Livi play so well together.  I have random people in stores tell me how well they play together.  They have their run ins, but they are best friends and do everything together.  

The other day Jack was growling over and over again so I asked him:

"Jack are you a monster?"

"No!"  (more growling)

"Are you a pirate?"

"No!" (growling)

"Are you a lion?"

"Day!!"

Jack, we love you so much!

Christmas

We had a great Christmas.  Christmas with kids is the greatest thing there is. They love every little thing about it which makes it so much fun for us.  Leading up to the big day we did a few fun activities.  We built gingerbread houses, saw Santa, made Christmas cookies and listened to our fair share of Christmas music. Building gingerbread houses was hilarious.  As you can see in the pictures, Jack mostly just dipped his candy in frosting and then ate it.  His house broke within 5 minutes, but he was perfectly content to just eat. I loved how seriously Livi took it.  

Jason arrived Christmas Eve afternoon and Phil's parents drove down from Boston.  Christmas Eve about 6pm, they called and said their car started smoking about 30 minutes away from us and they had to pull over and stop the car.  Phil and Jason went to pick them up and wait for the tow truck.  So, I'll admit, Christmas Eve I put the kids to bed and was all alone feeling pretty sorry for myself.  Knowing that my family was all together eating a delicious feast and having a rip roaring good time.  I finished wrapping presents and was about to go to bed when they all got back.  Nano and Zeus brought a car FULL of toys.  So we stayed up pretty late helping them wrap and assembling the kids big presents.  Once everyone got there it was great and I stopped feeling sorry for myself.  We gave Livi and Jack a few presents, but I'm pretty sure Nano and Zeus gave them 20.   

Livi's excitement Christmas morning was priceless. She couldn't believe how many presents there were and that Santa had actually come!  After opening presents we cleaned up and while the kids played/napped, Phil Jason and I watched the most recent Batman.  Not a very good Christmas movie, but I loved it. Alexis, Jason's girlfriend then, now fiance, flew in Christmas afternoon.  We got to meet her for the first time and couldn't be happier for Jason.  We loved her and I'm SO excited to have her as a sister in law.  We had a traditional Hofer Christmas meal based around funeral potatoes, ham, and rolls with a no bake cherry cheesecake for dessert. 

 Even though this is way too bright, I love this picture.

 I love what's happening in the back ground

 Let it be known, that I, ME-most horrible crafter/sewer ever, made that tree skirt.

 first glimpse of the loot

 Livi clinging to her Dream lite, the one thing she really really wanted.

 such a good dad

 since Alexis got in in the afternoon, we had two sessions of opening presents.

For New Years we met up with a bunch of friends at Chuy's then went back to Troy and Marielle's and had a dance off on the Wii.  So fun.  We popped open the sparking cider at 9 so we could get home and put the kids to bed.  Then we watched movies until 1:30.  Jason thought we were really lame for barely acknowledging midnight. Happy New Year!!!!

P.S. My brother got engaged to Brighton right after Christmas and Jason got engaged right after also.  They are both getting married in May and we couldn't be happier for them!

Here is a little article about Jason's proposal:
http://hoh.rollcall.com/flake%E2%80%99s-big-week/