January Calendar Blocks

Now that January is over I have finally completed my Calendar Blocks. I found these on www.pebblesinmypocket.com. It looks like they are going to have them every month. I got February and will hopefully get them done this week. I will post those also. The dimensions for the blocks are 3.5 x 2 and 1.5 x 1.5. January block paper is 1 and 1/8 x 3 and 1/8 The papers on the side of the little blocks are 1 and 1/4 x 1 and 1/4. I used mod podge to put the paper down and then went over it to help it stick firmly. The numbers on the first block are 0, 5, 1, 3, 2 and 4. Second Block 0, 1, 7, 6/9 (you only use one as they will work as both), 2, and 8. Good Luck, ask me any questions you need to. Shannon said that Lowe's still cuts wood.

Ward Christmas Party

Ok, I know it's ridiculously late to be posting pictures of our Ward Christmas party, but it's for my journaling purposes.

Our friend Leanne was nice enough to set up a backdrop and her lighting and take professional pictures of families at the Christmas party. She has a successful business and has done some amazing pictures for families that we know. Would you believe this was taken in the Primary room? The theme was pajama breakfast and Trent has been asked why he wasn't in his pajamas. His reply was that this was nothing that you would want to see. TMI maybe? I figure not in my circle of friends :)

Nathan is of course in the I like Santa, but not up close phase so I had to be with him in order to get him in the picture.

The guy in charge of activities dresses up like Buddy the Elf, and yes, he sounds and acts exactly like him when he is in character. The kids love it. Tyler thinks that Elf the movie is so funny. His friend Ryan apparantly goes around saying, "Son of a Nutcracker!!"

Hansen Family Pictures

Taken by Desiree-November 2008

You can probably tell that it was very difficult with 3 boys, they didn't give us much to work with:)

A conversation with Tyler

Tyler: Mom, we have a boy in our class named Nathan like my brother.

Mom: Yes, I've seen him before.

Tyler: Have you seen his dad before?

Mom: Probably.

Tyler: He must eat a lot because he is big.

Mom: What do you mean big, like tall?

Tyler: No, he has a big belly like Santa. Remember how we sang He's too fat for the chimney?

Mom: Yeah

Tyler: Nathan's dad is like that he would be too fat to fit down the chimney.

Mom: (Laughing) Well, we shouldn't say that at school, not to Nathan or his dad ok?

Tyler: Ok, but he really is big.

I have to address Katherine's comment on here because it really is true!! I was complaining about this a few weeks ago. One day I went to pick him up and the teacher motioned me up to the door and said she needed to talk to me. She told me that Tyler had said that one of the parents picking up a student was fat. I was baffled as to how he knew this word. Trent and I don't use it or talk about people this way so we figured one of the kids at school had said it or something. Well, a few weeks later I learned that they were singing this song called, "He's too fat for the chimney," about Santa Claus. It finally clicked. Here they taught these 5-year-olds this song and Tyler had not been introduced to the word fat yet. How was he to know that he couldn't use this word outloud to describe people as a fact when they hadn't talked to them about this word other than teaching it to them in a funny little song? I had NO problem with the song, but if they don't want these kids going around using the word to describe people shouldn't there have been a discussion that it wasn't appropriate to use this word other than in this funny little song? There, there's my rant about a contradictory teaching in the schools. So yes, Katherine, you are absolutely right, it is ALL the school's fault in this situation!! :)

Nathan's tooth

Ok, finally Nathan's tooth. So New Year's Day brought on a lot of sadness for me for my little baby Nate. We were at Neil and Shelly's house (Trent's dad and stepmom) and they have tile in their kitchen and 3 tile steps that lead down to the tile in a family room. Shelly and I were standing inches from Nathan with our backs turned when all of a sudden he was face down at the bottom of the stairs. We have NO idea if he tripped on his feet, pajama pants, or just simply the second stair. I picked him up immediately to a mouthful of blood and at first just thought that it was his lips. Upon further inspection Trent found out that his top left tooth was hanging by one root. He did his best to shove it back into place and hope that it would grab on. My sister in law Jessica's cousin who is a dentist came over and said that was the right thing to do and we just had to wait. So I took Nathan to the dentist after we got back and without looking at it she said that they don't save baby teeth and that it needed to be extracted immediately. She took an X-Ray and said that he had broken a root. She wanted to do it that day, but I wanted a second opinion and some pictures. So Trent called one of our old dentists and he said that we did the right thing by shoving it up there and we should wait it out. So we did and unfortunately it started to get infected. So we started him on antibiotics until she had an appointment open on Monday. I wasn't able to get professional pictures done unfortunately with all the drama we have had this weekend, but I did get a few snapshots.

Before

After

After Extraction

Our Hospital Visit

It seems like since New Year's Day hit we have had a lot of things going on in our little family. New Year's Day Nathan knocked his front tooth out of his head. (More on that later) Last Tuesday I took Nate and Cael to see Dr. Gifford because they were both very sick. They both had the starts of croupy cough and crappy breathing. Nathan had an ear infection and started antibiotics. They both got an injection to the leg of a medicine that was supposed to open their airways and help them breathe better. He explained that when kids are still little their lungs are very soft. He said that when they get sick like this their lungs sort of collapse and close the airway off so they need help getting it back open again. So this injection was supposed to help them both. Nathan got a little better, but even today still has a cough. Friday I took Cael back because he had just gotten worse. The Dr. ordered a home nebulizer to be delivered Friday night. He said not to worry it would be late at night before they got to it. So we waited until 11 p.m. I finally called the company who told me that they had no order for our home. He said that he could deliver it, but that I would have to give him a credit card number and sign a paper saying that if it wasn't covered being directly ordered from me instead of the doctor that we would pay it. It was $350.00!! I was in tears I was so frustrated. I tried our insurance company and of course they had no answers for me. So at 9 a.m. when urgent care opened I called in. Luckily our doctor, Dr. Gifford was the physician on call. I don't know how we got so lucky, but Heavenly Father was watching out for us. We went in and when he tested Cael's oxygen levels they were 90% and they are supposed to be 100%. He told us that he would have to be admitted to the hospital. I was supposed to go to a baby shower for Kiersten about an hour after he first told us so I called a friend to have her let Kiersten know why I would not be there. From there on we checked into the hospital and I was busy there for the next 2 days. Tests (tested negative for RSV, pneumonia and flu A and B, doctor says he had a common cold like older people would get, but a little baby just can't take it), blood draws, the IV insert (which took 5 tries, for anyone who has ever had an IV put in you know that this was difficult to watch) breathing treatments, oxygen, holding and rocking because he was so uncomfortable. Trying to sleep in a chair myself because the bed that was in there was off limits to parents. (At 2 a.m the first night I said forget it and used the bed. The next night I had the same nurse and she didn't say anything so I just used it again. I was SO lucky, no other rooms had a patient bed in them, they were all cribs. I also did not get a roommate which is unheard of. About midnight the second night a nurse came in and said they might move someone in, but again we were being watched over. I was praying so hard at that point that they would not do that because I was SO tired.) The first night I got 4 hours of sleep between feeding and people coming in to do the breathing treatments. Sunday his breathing improved somewhat, but he still needed continued breathing treatments and observation. He had to endure more blood draws that day and by 3 p.m. was so exhausted that he could not sleep. He cried and was just to tired to go to sleep or eat until 8 p.m. It was so difficult to feed him with all those tubes and wires that he had a hard time and was refusing. We finally gave him a bottle around 8 and he was able to get full and relax until about 2 a.m. We were up then and again at 4 a.m. and then he slept until 7 a.m. Dr. Gifford greeted us that morning (Monday) and gave us the good news that he could be released. I had not been out of that room in 2 days so this was good news. The whole time all of this was going on our kids were not allowed to be there so they stayed a few hours here and there with my friend Debbie. They ended up staying the night there Sunday night because Trent had a training that the district has paid a lot of money for on Monday. There are 5 trainings in this course and if he would have missed the first one he could not do the rest of them. So the boys had their first ever friend sleepover and Debbie took Tyler to school. So Cael is home now and doing better. He still has a horrendous little cough and I have to do the breathing treatments every 4 hours, but he looks better and he is able to rest better with no cords attached an no one constantly poking at him.

Our Great Dr. Gifford

(Notice Tyler hiding under the counter? He said he couldn't be in the picture because he wasn't sick:) Silly kid.

Free parent plate at each meal, but I had to ask myself if it was really worth it :)

So many grateful feelings came from this experience. On the way to the hospital I was telling Trent that I can't imagine living years back when parents had to watch their children suffer through these things and many watched them die because they could not get to a doctor or a hospital for the proper treatment. This was not a serious situation, but if we did not have the proper care and transportation like many in this world have not, it could have been so much worse. I am so grateful to live in a time where the doctors have advanced education, good medicine and we have good hospitals to care for our children. So grateful that Trent has a job in which we have excellent health insurance where we could spend a stressful time in a hospital without worrying how we were going to pay for it. We are so blessed, this is such a huge thing.

So grateful to have good new friends that helped us through this time with our children and with a ride to the hospital so that Trent could get my car to me. So grateful that our little Cael is starting to feel better and breathe better.

The rest of December and into the New Year...

December 26

We got a wonderful visit from Trent's Aunt Cindy. She has been kind enough to keep up with the grandchildren's birthdays and we love her for caring so much!! She brought Cars, Pajamas, pretty little keepsake boxes, etc. A Thank you shout out to Aunt Cindy, not sure when I will get to all the Thank you cards for the season. She brought her husband Kelly which for a little while we thought didn't exist. When we have visited with her he has stayed behind with his family to visit with them. I was a little nervous that the kids were being too loud for him at one point and yelled for them to calm down. Once I realized that he was hiding below the stairs egging it on I knew that he wasn't overwhelmed and was loving every minute of it. For most of the visit he had at least one of the seven children on his lap, if not three at a time. We had such a wonderful visit.

That night we took off to Yuma to stay the night and head to Tucson in the morning.

December 27

We headed to Tucson in the mid-morning. We thought that we had enough gas to get to Casa Grande and were a bit nervous when we got in between gas stations in the middle of nowhere on empty. We found one on the side of the road seriously with nothing around it with about 10 miles of gas left in the tank and about 27 miles from Casa Grande. Very lucky. We stopped in Casa Grande and hit Burger King which is always pretty gross and then headed over to the Wal-Mart behind it. We had wanted to get our little nephew Cason som U of A gear, but were not successful anywhere. All they had was Diamondbacks. We headed out and made it to Green Valley right outside of Tucson in about a half hour. When we got there Rebecca and her sister were hard at work preparing food for the blessing the next day. I HAVE to share her brilliance, I was SO impressed. She had borrowed crockpots and was putting together 5 crockpots of the lasagna recipe that I shared with most of you. It was so smart. The garage was so cold that we just put them out there overnight and brought them in and plugged them in in the morning. We had figured that it would feed about 50. I think there must have been about 75 people come through that house and we still had one full pot leftover in the end. She had Neil and Shelly bring salad and her parents brought rolls. Shelly made brownies right when we came home from church and there was enough food to go around. Pat on the back to Rebecca.
I mentioned her sister was there. Rebecca's sister Amy and her family are fantastic to be around. Amy graduated with Trent and yes they have kissed. I have to mention this because I think Trent has kissed every girl in his graduating class and I am the one that gets the hard time for being friends with boys from school? Anyway, we love Amy and Clay. They have six kids and still counting and it's disgusting how small she is after six kids. I told Rebecca that it is so unusual that we hang out with her siblings and her family when we are there because it doesn't seem like this is normal. I love it!

December 28

This was Trent's birthday. Unfortunately like all of his life it was overshadowed again...by a baby blessing. Sorry Trent. The big group of 75 did sing Happy Birthday to him thanks to his High School buddy Trevor (also Rebecca's brother and graduated with Trent). Unfortunately I was outside while they were singing so I didn't get to see him react with embarrassment.

We took family pictures that day since we were all finally together again. It was the first time since 2004. I love it when we are altogether with Trent's family. Things seem to go smoothly without a lot of drama.

Hansen/Evans Family

(Back) Lisha, Clark, Ryan, Trent, Amber, Cael, Neil, Shelly, Rebecca, Cason, Nick, Adam, Jessica, Dominick, Alexa, Jackson, Cody, Tycee
(Front) Ally, Emma, Nathan Tyler, Kalee, Alana, Rylan, Cashton, (Bottom) Luke
Hansen Family

Trent Hansen Family

Ryan Hansen Family

Nick Hansen Family

Adam Hansen Family

Cody Evans Family

Neil and his Boys

Hansen Brothers

Hansen Sisters

Shelly and Neil

Alexa

Hansen Boys

Hansen Girls

Why does the girls picture look like it was so much easier to shoot? Girls are just so much more cooperative about photo ops :)