Adam's ER Adventure

Yesterday I was sitting on the couch, enjoying a break before I started the evening grind and I heard a terrible scream. It's amazing how fast that mom adrenaline kicks in man. I ran up the stairs and saw Adam sitting on the floor next to a chair with his back to me. When I first heard the scream I thought he had got his hand stuck in Jake's desk because there is a tiny gap just the perfect size for a little toddler hand to barely fit in and I'm pretty constantly worried about that but when I saw him on the floor, I calmed down for a second. Until I saw how badly it was stuck in the chair. I pulled it out of the chair and the tip of his finger (maybe a little more than half way to his first knuckle) flopped over and the blood started gushing. Gushing guys. For reals. I grabbed the tip, straightened it out and just held it while I started to freak out. Some people can stay calm in this kind of situation, ie Jake, but not this girl. I was looking around trying to find something to cover his hand with but since I was washing our bedding there wasn't even a blanket in our room. I went through a series of thoughts/plans on how we could get Jake home fast to help me deal with this and then I realized that *I* needed to do this. (Seriously not a calm person guys. Plus Adam was crying and we were both covered in blood. Not so good.) I grabbed Adam, ran downstairs, grabbed a bunch of napkins and called my neighbor. (Thank you so much to the Miller's for helping out, I don't think I could've done the ER with all the littles) Because she is awesome, Tiffany walked over and took Natalie and Mikey back to her house and then called Jake for me (because I'm not so good with the talking on the phone and driving) As I was driving I thought to myself, do I go to the ER or can I use the instacare clinic? We don't really take our kids to the doctor more often than for immunizations so I wasn't sure what the instacare could do. So what's a girl to do? I called my dad. I knew Jake would tell me to just go to the clinic because I knew that there was no way he would believe how bad the cut was. My dad told me to go to the clinic and if it was too much for them, go to the ER. Uhm, duh Meredith. I could've figured that out if I could've just calmed down. Because at this point I was crying and shaking. Shaking for two reasons- one the adrenaline and two, all I had eaten by this point in the day was my morning cereal and a Graham cracker Natalie shoved in my mouth. Adam was still freaking out in the back saying over and over again between cries "Mama, I hurt my finger. It's hurts." I realized my freaking out was only adding to his so I took a few deep breaths and started singing him his favorite songs. No joke, once I calmed down he stopped crying. Like within seconds. We got to the clinic, still all covered in blood, Adam holding a red soaked napkin on his finger, both with tear streaked faces and I'm sure it looked so dramatic. The receptionists all jumped up, got wet ones to clean us up, stickers for Adam and called a nurse out front to look at it and tell us if we needed to go to the ER. This is when I really realized that Jake not believing how bad it was was in fact the rule, not the exception. Including me. The nurse took off the napkin and all the receptionists and the two nurses were all like oh wow it *really is* bad. And I looked at it again and saw how gross it was and that the finger was being held on by a skin flap. I was suddenly so amazed by Adam. He was sitting there, not even really crying, just watching the nurses. They all commented on how tough he was. Jake and I have always thought our kids were pretty tough, especially Adam but I always assumed it was just that irrational parental pride you know. "I made you and love you so you're the best/cutest/smartest/toughest/etc. ever" but after yesterday, my belief that Adam is tougher than average has been validated.
Anyways, we met up with Jake, who is perfectly calm and I can just tell that he thinks I'm overreacting because I do that. I'm seriously such a spaz about the kids in pain because I have the pain tolerance of... something that has a very low tolerance. I cry when Natalie steps on my toe haha. It shouldn't even be called a tolerance, it's an insult to the word really. But luckily, the kids seem to have Jake's tolerance not mine. We got to the ER, they check us in, all the while telling us how amazing it is that Adam isn't crying. Really Adam thought the quick bandaging the nurse at the clinic put on was so cool and wanted to show everyone. Everyone kept being like oh no, did you hurt your finger and Adam just gave them a blank stare because obviously he cared more about the red tape and gauze then the gushing wound. The nurse opened the bandage and was like oh wow, that's bad and Jake was shocked. He looked at me and was like "baby I totally thought you were exaggerating. That's really bad." Yeah I know. It was terrifying. They started calling it a near amputation which I didn't love and were talking about tendon damage, broken bones, and stitches. I was so devastated for my little guy. And because I hadn't eaten and am pregnant, it made me a little faint so I couldn't even hold him while they worked. (The nurse wouldn't let me. She was like we don't want anything happening to you so just sit over here, we'll take good care of him) Jake did it which was great but I wish I could've been there, cuddling my boy. I realize that's more about me than Adam though so it's okay. He knew I was there which counts I think. The doctor came in and looked at it and told us they were going to freeze it, xray it and then stitch it up. He was going to lose his fingernail but that would grow back in a few months. So it started. Adam hated the shot to freeze his finger but after it took he was back to his energetic, happy self. He wanted to get up, run around, play with his finger, you know, be a two year old boy. The xray showed a tuft fracture which is apparently pretty insignificant. It was just the tip of his bone broke off and there is nothing to be done about it, it just corrects itself once they stitch the finger back on. So they soaked it for like 10 minutes, put a little turniquet (how do you down that word!?) on it, took his fingernail off, and stitched it up. And Adam *watched*. The entire time. I think he actually liked to watch it. I didn't watch but Jake said it was making him a little nauseous, apparently it was really nasty. The doctor told us about how they normally need someone to hold the kid, sometimes even sedate them so it was amazing that Adam just chilled there. He didn't pull away once. Someone even said he was best pediatric patient he'd ever seen. We're very proud haha. So the tech bandaged it up for us and we left. We went back to the clinic to pick up Jake's car and I noticed that Adam had pulled the dressing off his finger. So we went into the clinic and they redressed it for us because they put a special kind of dressing on first, zeroform or something like that and I wasn't sure if it'd be okay to not have that. The nurse was awesome and covered his finger and wrist with coban and then put another bandage on top of that so if he does try to take it off again, or rather when he tries to take it off again, I'll have a better chance of catching him time.
We have to leave the bandage on for 5 days and in 10 days we go get the stitches out. As for now, we just give him Tylenol and ibuprofen as often as we can to try and fight the pain, which so far is a losing battle (note, I'm writing this at 6 in the morning, we normally sleep till at least 8 but Adam woke up needing medicine)
Once again,  thank you so much to Tiffany and Ty for taking our kids, it was so great to not worry about them in the ER with us for those couple of hours. Adam is a trooper and honestly, probably handled the whole thing better than his mom. :)

Thanks for reading!

An update and announcement.

Well for some reason, I can't get pictures to upload but that's okay. I'll just talk... or type I suppose.
Just a quick update!
Let's see, we went to Disneyland which was amazing. Honestly, it was so much better than I thought it was going to be. The kids loved it. Well Mikey and Natalie loved it. Adam mostly just liked it. But he got to ride a train and so I think it made his life. Plus he met Mickey Mouse and Jake from Jake and the Neverland Pirates so that was cool. When I can get the pictures to work, I'll post a bunch of them.
Jake is still working in Alpine and really enjoys it. He is also in the Young Men's presidency (an organization in our church for the boys age 12-18) and he loves it. I struggle with it because I'm just about the neediest wife ever and it's time consuming but I'm so glad that he gets to do something he loves. This week he is at scout camp and so between the two nights he'll spend up there and work, I won't get to see him much but he loves camping- although honestly I'm not sure he knows what camping on the mainland is really like but after this week he will.
I'm in my third trimester and getting more and more nervous every day. Four kids- sounds scary to me. But I'm excited still. There isn't a whole lot more to say about me. I'm not super sick like with previous pregnancies but still a little sick. Plus I'm exhausted. Without a doubt the most tired I've ever been. It's uncool because I love sleep and I am a terrible tired person.
Mikey is starting preschool in August and he's pretty excited. He is also going to start speech therapy so hopefully he'll enjoy those things. He is obsessed with Power Rangers, dinosaurs, and Octonauts. Every time I call him, he comes up to me and says Reporting for duty, Captain and salutes me. It's cute. He is turning 4 in a few months and wants a dinosaur birthday party. So I'm slowly working on that because I'll be 36 weeks pregnant in his birthday so I need to get on that. But my absolute favorite thing he does is whenever he gets hurt he tells me he's okay because Jesus made his body so it can heal. It makes me so happy. I just love the gospel and am so grateful that his love is starting young.
Adam is just a handful. He talks so much now and it's so crazy. Every day when Jake gets home from work, Adam says Dada what are you doing here? But my favorite word he says is color. It might be cutest thing I've ever heard. Literally. Adam is also in the process of being potty trained or as my dad says "parent trained." He won't tell me when he needs to go but he'll pee in the toilet and we've have 2 whole days without any accidents. So it's progress. I just need to not have three littles in diapers. After Natalie was born, I'm pretty sure all I did was nurse and change diapers. It killed me and I'm not doing that again. (Hopefully)
Natalie is just a doll. She is turning into quite the little diva though. She is such a girlie girl and Jake and I are constantly amazed by it. I'll get her dressed and then she'll go and find a dress to wear. She also will bring me headbands and hair elastics so I can do her hair but it doesn't stay in very well. She's a little crazy. But really exciting is that we just enrolled her in dance class! I didn't know they did class so young but I found a woman who has a studio in her house about 10 blocks from me. We are going to try it for the summer and if she likes it we'll keep her in until May. :) I'm so excited for it and Jake is being a good sport.
Now for our growing addition. Our baby is a girl! We are planning on naming her Haylee Jill Kaleimana'o'i'o. I'm having a hard time mastering the middle name but I have time to work on it. I can say it right most of the time but I don't always spell it correctly. So I hope I got it right. We really love the name Haylee and almost used it with Natalie but it didn't feel right. I wanted to name a baby after my mom hence her middle name of Jill and her Hawaiian name is after Jake's sister Hannah. We couldn't come up with any ideas for her middle name and I was texting with Shelly and she asked what Hannah's middle name meant. I texted Hannah and she told us it meant precious child of God and that it is a great name for a little girl. I looked at Jake and we were both like it's perfect. And so there is how we picked her name. So thank you to Shelly and Hannah for helping out with that.
I think that's all for now. :) next time I'll post some pictures so everyone can see how cute out little family is. :)
Thanks for reading!

Busy Birthdays

(okay this post is like almost three months late because my internet sucks and everytime I tried to upload pictures it crapped out. my bad. Enjoy anyways!)
Oh have these last few months been busy or what! Canadian Thanksgiving, then my birthday, then Halloween, American Thanksgiving, Christmas, Adam's Birthday, New Years, Natalie's Birthday. Whew. I am so glad that I don't have another birthday celebration to plan until June. (Yay for Jake)

So! I am finally going to share Adam and Natalie's birthday festivities with the world! World, are you excited? You should be because they were awesome! (next time maybe I'll blog about Christmas. Stay tuned. But at the same time, I wouldn't hold my breath.)

Adam turned 2! I can't believe it. And yet, I can't believe that that chunky little dude is only 2. It's conflicting. On Adam's actual birthday we had some cake and presents and we ate hot dogs because I don't think he loves anything as much as hot dogs. For real. It's no wonder he's the size of a small truck haha. I also made him a football cake and while it was delicious, I am not sure that the frosting was worth it.

Adam loves football. Seriously. L-O-V-E-S loves it. So naturally, we did a football birthday party for him! I was basically working on the decorations from December 26 until his party, which was on the 3rd of January. It doesn't look like a ton of decorations but it took forever. It would that the season wore me out and it took everything I had to do the party, even as slowly as I did it.

We gave each of the kids monopoly money and they had to "buy" their food. Well some of it. The popcorn, fruit cups, nachos, drinks and cupcakes were for sale. The other food you just got to eat.

I love these cupcakes so much. That are pretty much adorable.

We also had hot dogs, jello cups, french fries and sliders. Jake put the concession sign up for me and I made a comment about how I would've done it differently but it was still good and Jake was like Oh you just don't have my artistic vision. Haha

The Happy Birthday banner and some of his presents! (The banner is still up because I am too lazy to bring a chair into the living room to take it down. It's okay though, I think Adam loves it)

Jake told me that I should just do it all BYU football themed but I couldn't. I wanted to but I  decided that it might be nice to do a generic party. Plus, green, brown, and white looks nice. And it's way cheaper. But notice the wall color and the BYU picture on the wall. We love BYU over here. Adam and Mikey have started to say Go Cougars with out any prompting. So proud.

I made a few little games but mostly the kids just ate and climbed on the elliptical. It worked out.

We had a great turn out but I didn't get pictures of the littles because, well, I wanted to eat and visit. But I think everyone had a great time and I know that Adam loved it!

Now, on to Natalie's party. Although what is a word for an event that party just doesn't do justice to. I know that it wasn't massive as Logan standards go but it was big for here. We had about 100 people come and it was lovely. Jake's dad flew in from Hawaii and cooked for everyone and Hannah, Eliza and Tiere (is that how you spell her name?) performed at the party and we had decorations and music and it was great. Natalie definitely didn't make a full round and a lot of people mentioned to me that they didn't get to see her at the party and can you believe this!? I was so busy that I didn't even get a picture of her at the party. It was a completely nuts day and as much as I liked it, I am so glad it's over. The party was supposed to start at 5 and we went to start setting up at 1. I had all the decorations planned out to use long tables and what do you know, all there were were rounds. So my lovely sister in law ran to the store for us (which takes a long time because we live a good amount of time from it) to get round table cloths and then we didn't have the correct cords for the music and yeah, it was stressful. I also ran out of time decorating the cupcakes and I ran home to change at about 5:10. Yeah, you read it right. The party started at 5 and I didn't even get dressed for it until 5:10. I was stressed out man.

Another sad note, I finally had calmed down enough to remember to take pictures and everyone started cleaning up already! So the pictures leave something to be desired but here they are none the less.

We had a fondant flower making party. I wish I would've got a better picture of the cupcakes but they turned out really cute

Hauoli la hanau (happy Birthday in Hawaiian) We also had a Who does she look the most like with pictures of Jake, Mikey, Adam and me at one year old and  Natalie through the year with pictures from each month of her life.

I know I did these so it sounds kind of vain but I am truly obsessed with the decorations I made. It took forever but it looked so cute that it was worth it

These are the centerpieces after they got moved from the center of the tables haha

Thanks for reading!

A Blogging Life

I have this friend who writes a blog and I like it. It's a good blog. She's a good writer, she has a way with words that I'm jealous of. But sometimes, I have to make the difficult decision to not read her blog. Some days, it makes me feel bad. It's not her fault, it's all me. But guys, for real, her blog makes it sound like her life is perfect. Her house is beautiful, her kids seem like the ideal, and she just loves her life. She negotiates through the daily grind unlike anyone I've ever met. She constantly talks about how much she loves being a wife and mom. She is always eating incredibly healthy and she takes pictures of her kids playing in such clean spaces. And you know what, that is what I want. She is amazing and I admire her.
I want the motivation to eat healthy but guess what, I love me some tootsie rolls and potato chips. And you better believe after cleaning up that seventeenth half eaten snack that I had to prepare just so they can throw it on the floor and ask for something different, I'mma treat myself. When I take pictures of my kids I frame the shot so there is minimal evidence of the huge mess surrounding them. I suck at keeping my house clean. I've said it once and I'll say it again, if I could pick any talent, it would be to be able to keep my house clean. While my friend seems to thrive on the daily grind, there are some days where I think "if I have another day life this one. I'm going to stop trying. Tomorrow I will do nothing and it will end the same." Some days I just wish my kids came pre parented and my role was an occasional life lesson. (Is it okay to say that? I don't even know) and oh geez. Kids man. Kids are tough. I love them. There is absolutely nothing better than being the one with the magic kisses or being the one whose hugs make it all okay. Or how about when I pick my kids up from nursery or preschool, and they yell mama and give me a running hug. Or when I see them playing nicely together. It melts my little heart. But some days they cry and scream and kick and bite and won't eat anything (except each other) and won't sleep (seriously what's  with kids not wanting to sleep? That might be the most incomprehensible thing in the universe to me) Having a three year old, a two year old, and a one year old is no picnic. It's more like I'm the food and they are the ants.
Don't get me wrong, I love it. 9/10 days I couldn't imagine a better life. But that tenth day, man. Enough said. I'm sure my friend had tough days just like I do. I sure hope I hide it as well as she does. Although apparently not because I just wrote this post... hmm.  I guess it's probably okay though because even on the worst of those "tenth" days, I still get these cutie little sweeties.

Oh My Goodness.

Oh my goodness.
I am going to use my blog as a place to complain.
I try to not do this because I want to be able to go back and reread my blogs and not get crabby.
But it's happening.
Sorry.
Here I go.

Never mind. I typed it all out and I feel better now. Not 100% but probably 80? So I deleted it. No need to put all that negativity out there.
Kudos to me. I did a good thing.
And I am going to praise myself. :D Because it's one of those days where I just need some compliments.

And now, I am going to share the link on facebook. Because sometimes, I want to let the world know that I don't suck.

Thanks for reading.

all by myself

Oh man world. (Or few random followers) Today is one for the books. Today I took all three kids out by myself. Now I know most women or men wouldn't think this is a big feat because well, you probably do it all the time. I however, never have. We just got a second car last Monday and I just was scared about it. That's all. The idea of taking all three out in public alone seemed overwhelming. But I did it folks. And it was great.

Except here is my one bad experience today. We went to the dinosaur museum in thanksgiving point and there was this mom there with her two boys and I promise you, her one son who was probably 7 was the biggest cry baby I've ever experienced. And that includes my colic babies. Seriously. Adam accidentally splashed him in the face and he screamed. Screamed people. Gah. Then he tripped over Adam and he flipped out. The mom was like "oh my poor baby. Too bad some moms don't watch their kids better. We should just leave." (As she puts siren her book to rush over to him. Hypocrite.  As you can tell this mom out me in fine firm. I get crabby folks.) Good riddance I tell you. (Adam fell over and just got right back up. He's 1. This other kid, not so much.) So this kid who barely fell kept screaming about his leg and his owie. Then we ran into him later in the sand quarry and Mikey threw sand at him so I told him no that it wasn't okay and if he did it again we were leaving. So naturally he does it again so I tell him we are leaving, and I apologize to this mom and she goes "pfft. Okay, fine." Gah. If I was violent, I would've wanted to hit her. ( It's possible I'm more violent then I realize haha)

Now here are some pictures of the happy memories.

Mikey loves to jump over the cracks.

Adam shaking off his hands. 

This girl. She is just gorgeous. And truly, so sweet.

Whole big magnetic wall and he chooses to make a dinosaur on the floor. Whatta kid.

Thanks for reading!

A pumpkin patch!

Cornbelly's! It was so good this year! 

Jake's dad is in town for a few days so last night we went to cornbellys. We were pretty excited about it because Mikey had been taking about a pumpkin patch for weeks. Seriously weeks. I'm considering making "pumpkin" a swear word in my house so I will stop hearing it all the time.  

The entire time we were there Mikey kept being like pumpkin? Mama I want a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. But in the mean time we went in the kiddy maze, went in the corn kernel beach thing, watched the pig races and a bunch of other things.  Mikey ran too fast in the maze and I lost him for a minute which was significantly less fun than the rest of the trip but Mikey thought it was hilarious. Adam was obsessed with this mechanical band thing. He was dancing around and nothing could distract him from this band

 It was adorable. Natalie was a good little girl just hanging out in her stroller. Also Abby and Jake's dad provided a delightful little picnic for us so that was great. It is so awesome that you can bring food in. And to end a great night, they did a fireworks show. Now I don't love fireworks like the rest of the Logan's do but I do really love watching my kids watch them. They are all just so awestruck by them and I love it. There is something so special about watching your kids experience something magical. :)

Now just a few pictures. I forgot my camera and I really hate the camera on my phone so I took just a few.

Adam watching the silly mechanical band.

Mikey was just so excited.

They loved that corn kernel beach thing. I liked it okay except they kept eating it which was but cool.

Thanks for reading!