January recap!

We started 2012 by kicking off the new year at home. We lit off sparklers we've had from 4th of July and watched the ball drop at the New York time via the internet. At about 8:15 pm Claire asked when it was going to be "midnight." It is a good thing we didn't try to keep her up. Carter ran into the street to bang pots. It was really nice to be home and a great way to start off the year!

We went on a looong bike ride January 2nd with family. It was great but ended up being almost 10 miles and Carter was mildly dehydrated and tired. He just reminded me today about how he "almost died" on that bike ride. We rode along the Santa Ana river bottom trail and had lunch after at In-n-Out.

Then life got back in to full swing. Daniel continues to be busy as Secondary Language Arts coordinator where he helps teachers be even better educators. He works with a great team and is getting valuable experience. He does demo lessons in the classroom, facilitates trainings, etc.

Awhile ago, I was going to do a blog post entitled "why I never blog anymore" but decided instead I should just start blogging and summarize why it is difficult at times. One word, two syllables: William. He is a busy, busy boy!! A few months ago, he began getting my wallet out of my bag and taking cards out of it. I didn't even realize it until I was at Costco one day and half of my cards, including my ATM card were gone. I searched high and low and one day while I was searching I noticed him putting playing cards in a vent in our wall. I got out the screwdriver and low and behold, there were the majority of my cards, some coins, screws and various other items. Fast forward to this month. I was sitting paying bills at the computer and in a millisecond I noticed he had grabbed my ATM card and it had gone missing! Back to the trusty vent I went. I had to get pictures because he thought it was sooo fun to use the screwdriver.

That's when I realized this has all been a big game for him! What a stinker!

What I found inside the vent!

He keeps us on our toes! He is so fun though and is learning many new words. His favorites all involve things that go. "Vroom vroom" for car and when said with gusto and the sign it means motorcycle. He loves trains and airplanes as well. He now says "dada" as much as "momma" and even asks for him sometimes in the morning! He loves to help me cook and can be often found like this:

Claire is getting ready for full-day kindergarten in the fall. She takes a dance class nearby that has tap, ballet and gym all in one. She said her favorite part is the gym time but she can be found practicing arabesques at home. Since the classes year is half over, they invited parents in to watch and I grabbed a few shots, but I really am not the best photographer:)

She isn't always right on, but she has fun and is a good listener!

All day she looks forward to her "special time" with Mommy while William naps. We do something different every day and the amount of time varies depending on what I need to get done. I have a hard time doing only make-believe (her favorite). We play often that she goes to her imaginary friend (Stacy)'s house and then I call her and she comes over to play a game or read at my house (on the landing of the stairs). The she gets her make-believe and I get my structure. One day she conned me into making a huge fort and was quite pleased with the result.

She also loves to create things in her room and she created her own sleeping area in the house Grandma and Papa gave her from Christmas. She even dragged her shoe rack in there to create shelves. She is very creative!

Carter continues to excel at reading and art. He started an art class downtown on Saturday afternoons and started piano as well. He is enjoying them both. He finally lost his front tooth! It was loose well before Christmas but he didn't want to just yank it. It ended up coming out at school and he was thrilled because he got a special tooth necklace to put it in.

He also lost a bottom tooth that he swallowed during breakfast! All these lost teeth put him over the edge and figured out the whole truth about the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny and Santa. We swore him to secrecy from all younger or still believing children and reminded him that if he doesn't believe, he won't receive;)

For exercise in the evenings, Danny will pull both little kids and Carter will ride his bike. It then allows me to cook in peace. :) Two weeks or so ago I got a call and knew immediately they were in trouble. The bike trailer's axle snapped going up a hill! I turned off dinner and drove to get the cutest motley crew I had ever seen!

Every time we pass that area, William says "daddy bike" and sometimes adds a "whoa." Our boys are always up for adventure!

We couldn't start out the new year without some family goal setting.

We ended up summarizing our goals with three words: serve, organize and create.

We have enjoyed as many nights as possible by the fire and are about a third of the way through the novel Indian in the Cupboard with the kids. William usually goes to bed before we read but the other two are enjoying it a lot.

Of course there are difficulties but we are constantly reminded that life is good.

Summer of 2011: Gratitude & Lessons Learned

This year the Thanksgiving holiday brought a greater sense of joy and sweetness to our family than it normally does. We are profoundly grateful to count three happy, healthy, strong-willed children with us as we vacation in Northern California to spend time with family. My brother Rob, along with his wife Laura and new baby Chloe, recently relocated to Mill Valley, a beautiful community just North of "The City" (what people from the Bay Area call San Francisco) so my family converged here from all over the state to celebrate Thanksgiving.

On the journey to our destination Danny and I reflected on the numerous lessons we learned throughout the two month period of William's hospitalization. Here they are in no particular order:

-We cannot control the situations in which we find ourselves here in this world, only how we react.

-Slow down and appreciate each moment, not only because we don't know how quickly our circumstances can change, but also because each moment has beauty regardless of our emotions
.

-Appreciate professionalism. There was a huge difference between health care workers who demonstrated true professionalism and those who did not. Sincerity and professionalism are paramount in any profession, but when someone's life is on the line, there simply isn't room for shoddiness of work and lack of compassion. I for one have always tried to embody this as a nurse but find myself all the more aware of my actions now in light of our experience.

-God answers prayers most often through other people. Time and again when asked ourselves "How can we make this work?" or realized that Carter and Claire needed to be attended to but we needed to be at the hospital next to William and then a family member, friend, co-worker or a member of our church would text, call or "Facebook" us with an offer to help. Our family and friends were the tools through which divine intelligence provided help. We also benefited from the strength of other people's faith; sometimes people we didn't know until William became ill appeared as if out of the blue to offer helpful suggestions or shoulder on which to rest and cry.

-There is a LOT of good left in the world still. Throughout the ordeal we met the some of the most kind-hearted and wise people and although we've benefited from the charity of others throughout our lives, for the first time it seemed we found ourselves on the receiving end of the kind of charity and compassion that we never thought we'd need. The Ronald McDonald House organization, for example, was a God-send. Thanks to them we saved a great deal of money (although you don't technically have to pay, we agreed to pay a substantial amount of the operating costs in order to help others benefit from their services in the future. The amount, however, was a fraction of what it would have cost us to stay in a hotel. Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) was wonderful and their compassionate, professional staff was the biggest reason William survived this ordeal with as few chronic issues as possible. Also, I'd be remiss not to mention The Beauty Bus who gave Claire and me free makeovers on her birthday. Although that might sound trite, it really brightened an otherwise bleak period.

-Trials leave us with increased empathy and compassion. We find ourselves more understanding and sensitive to the trials of others than we were before this experience. We now realize more fully that everyone in this mortal world is in the midst of some kind of difficult trial but we simply don't know about them (and sometimes they don't either).

-Recently we heard someone say that when we look back at our lives, we will view those difficult moments more fondly than the "fun" or comfortable moments in our lives. We can already see that this is true. If all our summer plans had panned out the way we wanted them to, the summer would have come and gone and we'd be the same people. But as things unfolded our family grew stronger, our faith greater and we feel we are better people because of this experience. Of course we wouldn't have wished this on William, but we accept what happened and don't have anger and or fear regarding this situation.

-No matter how bad it is, it could be worse. We met so many families going through situations that we felt were even more difficult than ours. At the Ronald McDonald house we met a family who financed everything to come to LA from England for cancer treatment for their little girl because the doctor's in England refused to try more aggressive treatment options. A wonderful man named Alejandro was sleeping in the parent room at CHLA week after week and despite the fact that his daughter's brain tumor came back even after it was in remission, he had faith that God's will would be done and emanated faith and peace.

-Health insurance is a huge blessing. We haven't sat and tallied all the bills that CHLA and Children's Hospital Central California sent Kaiser, but two days in Madera alone caused our insurance to be billed $16,000. Furthermore, the helicopter transport from Fresno to L.A. totaled $15,000! We are so grateful to not be filing medical bankruptcy.

-Play with your kids! While William was sick, family and friends would relieve us from the hospital so we could to spend time with Carter and Claire. It was suddenly easy to be fully present and just play with them; they needed it and so did we. Now that we have been home a while it has become easier to justify doing unimportant things rather then focus on using every moment efficiently as parents, but we still remember how apparent it was then and that helps us refocus our priorities.

-Find joy in the journey. There were often times we would want everything to magically be returned to "normal" and for it all to be over, but as we gained clarity we began to see each moment as an opportunity to learn from our trials, meet wonderful people, learn about ourselves and find joy, no matter how bumpy the journey.

Halloween Weekend

This post will be in media res, as the synopsis of our summer is going to take a while to compose and I want to post something.


Happy Halloween 2011!

We started the weekend with Carter's school parade. He decided he did not want to wear the mermaid, err... merman tail, aka "Fin Fun", which my mom crafted this summer at his behest and which ended up inspiring our Halloween theme. Since he had a change of heart, he instead became the Greek god of the seas, Neptune although we all thought of him as Triton since that was the original intent.

Here he is feeling confident pre-parade.

Once it started he became timid, concerned that "everyone is looking at me" and started saying "I'm weird" as he walked around. I guess it's hard to be the little fish in a big sea. Carter, like all of his peers, is still trying to figure things out and that's OK. When he got home both Danny and I talked to him about the fact that everyone looking at you isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on the reason.


That night we carved pumpkins and biked to the Halloween house. In case you haven't heard of this residence, essentially a family which lives just a little over a mile from us created a computer controlled light show that now has had over 6 million hits on YouTube and has garnished significant attention from the media. It was fun but we couldn't get in front of the house and the kids were pretty antsy. We met up with friends there and had fun once we found them. We did almost got killed more than once on the way there and back since there was no shoulder on the road during portions of the route. We've been told Riverside is not a bike city and it is true! There just aren't bike lanes or sidewalks in some places around here and not that much of demand for them obviously. It was a memorable experiences for sure; from now on we will be more careful about planning our routes!

Our pumpkins:





Saturday morning Carter had a soccer game. He is on a team with great kids and a kind coach. They aren't winning much but Carter seems to enjoy it and it has been good for him to learn to persevere; even after he got hit in the face with the ball earlier this season, got smashed in the face by an elbow and sustained a black eye and had some major bodily collisions, he still kept going!

Here he is being goalie:

From October and Nov. 2011

And, his loyal fan club:



Aren't they cute fans? :)

Saturday night was our ward Trunk-or-Treat and it was great! There was a bounce house, popcorn, cotton candy, tons of cars decked out and lots of fun costumes. We had fun getting ready together! Major props to our dear family friend, Kathy Rex, who is a seamstress extraordinaire and helped me make Flounder with no pattern!





Triton!


Walking in a tail only caused a few injuries; thank goodness we have legs, not fins!


I had to post this just so you can see how lady-like Ariel is:) She refused to wear the correct top and hiked her tail up into a skirt. Claire plays by no one's rules but her own when it comes to costumes and what-not. Ha!




Flounder & Ursula


Prince Eric be lookin' good! Danny was a good sport.


So happy to have him Flounderin' around!!


Pleased with himself to have stolen lights from the pumpkins!


This picture sums up my life;)

On Halloween proper, we made chili and had all the family come over to trick-or-treat with us after dinner It was very enjoyable! Our neighborhood had lots of trick-or-treaters and the kids LOVED being with their friends and cousins!

Ella, Shayla and Claire playing tether ball out front (the house came with it:))


Peyton, aka cutest Rubber ducky ever


Ryan, aka handsome Captain Ameria


These two are only 4 1/2 months apart. It is fun to watch them grow up together!


Ryan, Carter, Ella, Claire & Asher...the two youngest cousins weren't complaint!


Uncle Wes!


Nana with her girls in the niche they hung out in most of the evening. Once we got home from trick-or-treating, they had fun sitting up there handing out candy!


Pretty Apey & Peytie


My handsome brother and red neck extraordinaire, Eric.


Eatin' some chili


Cute Kollin...I couldn't round up my kids for a picture with him:(


Eric & Syd

A good time was had by all! I put away Halloween decor today and we are gearing up for Thanksgiving which we'll pass together with Rob & Laura who live just outside of San Francisco. They had their first baby, Chloe, on October 7th. I got to go see her last weekend, but the kids didn't and are very excited to meet their new cousin!

Thanks for reading! We look forward to posting more now that things have finally begun to settle down. William is only on one medication now and we can't help but feel great gratitude that he is home and doing so well.

William's Illness

Hello friends and family!

I am sure nearly everyone who follows this blog already knows about our youngest son William's terrible illness. A few short weeks ago he was as healthy and happy as a baby could be. Then, suddenly, he somehow (we have no idea how) was infected by e. coli which led to Hemolytic-uremic Syndrome (read more here) which caused complete kidney failure. He then experienced a perforated bowel and while under surgery it was discovered that half of his lower intestine was necrotic, or dead, and had to be removed.

William is currently in critical but stable condition at Children's Hospital Los Angeles in Hollywood, CA.

You can follow his progess at williamantoniotodd.blogspot.com, a blog my sister is updating on a nearly daily basis.

Please pray for William. If you do not pray, we appreciate your thoughts and support regardless.

Kindergarten Wrap Up

Summer is in full swing already around here but it was just earlier this month that Carter "promoted" from kindergarten. We switched his school when we moved and have been so happy with his new school! At the promotion ceremony, the kids sang the school song and I have to admit getting teary eyed--schools were a big factor in our decision to move and I feel so blessed.


At the honor roll assembly before getting his award (just have to mention that I was at work that night so Danny had to rush home from work, pick up kids and get them there all on time--he's a stud)






Carter was on the Principal's Honor Roll--he loves to learn!


At promotion


The note regarding promotion said to have the kids dress nicely, so we had him dress that way. He was mortified when he saw other kids not dressed up. He calmed down when he saw all the girls were in dresses and one of the boys was in a lava-lava.:)


Love those freckles!


Receiving his diploma (ha ha)


We are so glad Nana was able to join us that morning


And this picture is just so sweet


Danny took Claire and tired William home before the end of the ceremony and then Carter and I just walked home so we didn't get a family photo


With his great teacher--I should add that we really loved his teacher at his previous school. Carter always says how great she is and how she taught him to read!