Mother's Day

I love being a mom! Even though it is a lot of work, it really is the best job in the world! I love seeing Elle, Easton and Jayne's sweet faces every morning and laying by them before bed at night. There's no better way to start and end the day. I love reading to them, playing games and just talking to them. I love seeing their eyes light up when they are excited about something and comforting them when they are sad. I love their smiles and laughs and their cute voices. I feel so lucky that I get to be with them everyday and that I get to be their mom!

My family was all still in town over Mother's Day which was so fun! We had pizza and roasted Smores and stayed up late visiting and watching a movie the night before. On Mother's Day Don made a big brunch with yummy waffles and smoothies after we got home from church. I had a great day! It was so nice to celebrate with my mom and my brothers and sisters and my own sweet kids. The only one missing was my sister Heather and her family.



Roasting Smores






I got the sweetest cards from my kids!

You are nice and kind to me. You are helpful, loveing, happy and sweet. You are the best mom in the whole wide world! You look lovely all the time. You help me when I am sick. You are always happy. You help me with my homework when it is hard. You buy me stuff I need. Your hair feels like silck. You always comphort me when I am scared at night. I love you mom! Love, Elle Adamson

Grandma Smith

My sweet Grandma, Darla Jean Anderson Smith, passed away on April 30, 2011. She was an amazing woman! She was sweet and kind and never had a bad word to say about anyone. She happily served everyone around her and never expected anything in return. I have so many fond memories of going to visit her as a little girl--a cookie jar that was always full, the best homemade jam and pickles, eating rhubarb from her garden, Grandma bringing lemonade to us in our haystack fort, going into "town" for a treat, coloring pictures of the horses, playing on the farm equipment and playing Dominoes and Rummikub for hours. She loved games! And, just recently, calling her to see who her favorite was on "American Idol" or "Dancing With the Stars" which she watched regularly.


My Grandma and Grandpa on their wedding day and while dating



Celebrating my Grandma's 80th birthday last summer


My brothers and sisters were all able to come for the funeral. They came to Salt Lake and then we all drove to Rupert, Idaho together. It was so nice to be with them and my dad and see our aunts, uncles and cousins too. It was a quick trip so we left the kids with Don's parents, knowing that it would be hard for them to sit still so much.

The funeral service was really nice. The grandsons sang "I am a Child of God" together and even though it was off key, there is something neat about a bunch of men singing. My sister, Sena, and cousin, Susan, did a great job at the life sketch and made us all laugh and cry. All the granddaughters did a medley of Primary songs and then the oldest, cousin, Kevin spoke. It was a nice tribute to Grandma Smith.


Grandma's house and the farm



My dad and all of us kids



My brothers and cousins-Pallbearers


My dad and his siblings







After the funeral, we all went back to my Grandma's house and each of the granddaughters got to pick out a few pieces of my Grandma's jewelry to remember her by. It meant so much to all of us. Then, my Uncle Jack went and put on my Grandpa's old World War 2 uniform because he was the only one that could fit in it. It was nice to be together, share memories and laugh.

I will miss my Grandma but I am happy that she finally gets to be with my Grandpa again, who passed away 9 years ago. I know she missed him so much. We love you Grandma!

Lesson Learned: Back-up your Back-up

I am obviously really behind on blogging. Partly because it is summer time and we have been busy having fun and trying to fit it all in before school starts again. And partly due to the fact that towards the end of May, the drive on our computer with ALL of our pictures crashed.

One day, while trying to upload to Picasa, I couldn't access our pictures folder on our media drive. I told Don (aka my technical support) and thought that for sure he would know how to access it, because he can pretty much figure out almost anything. But he couldn't get it either. Don said not to worry because even if it failed, we still have a copy of all of it on our back-up drive. Unfortunately, after checking the back-up drive we learned that it was making a perfect back-up of everything on Don's computer but only backing up the short cut to the media folder, not the actual pictures or video. Seriously, back-up your back-up. Computers are amazing but not totally reliable. We thought we had all our bases covered but we didn't. I didn't want to worry yet, because this sort of thing probably happened all the time, right? Somebody would probably have an easy fix. Don said he would take it to one of his tenants that did this kind of thing for his job. This guy opened up the drive, scanned it and found nothing. Then, we both started to panic. Our media drive has everything on it--pictures of both of us as kids, our dating, our marriage, our kids being born, first steps, vacations and every event from the past ten years. Plus, all of our videos--including our kids' births and their first words and giggles--were on it too. I was sick about it. Those memories are irreplaceable. If we had a fire, that is what I would grab. We decided it was worth the cost to try and get them back. We checked into some data recovery places and found this place in Logan that does a lot of work for the colleges and big corporations. They told us that if there was any information on it, they would find it. They had to take it into a clean room and go through the whole drive. After a couple of weeks of wondering and waiting...thankfully, we got it all back. We are both so grateful! Lesson learned. We now back-up into the cloud, have burned DVDs of each year of pictures and have learned that the external drives from Costco were not meant for that amount of data storage. I'm just so glad to have all of our pictures back. The only bad thing is that now I have a lot of catch up to do. :)

Home from the hospital...at last!

After spending 6 days in the hospital with Jayne, there really is no place like home...

We have definitely had our share of sickness lately. It all started a couple of weeks ago when Jayne got a nasty stomach bug that had her throwing up like crazy. Of course it just happened to be the very day that Don and I left for a weekend getaway to Vegas with friends. Our sweet niece, Natalie, had all three kids and had to deal with throw up too. She is amazing! Jayne was perfectly healthy and happy when we left, but about 3 hours later, we got the call that she had thrown up. We almost turned right around and came home but we kept thinking it was something she ate because she had no other signs of sickness. Natalie insisted she was fine and told us to stay. When I found out she threw up about 6 more times that day, I started checking flights to fly home the next morning. It was hard to really relax and enjoy Beatles LOVE when I couldn't stop thinking about Jayne and how hard it must be for Natalie. But, when I called the next morning, Natalie said she seemed a lot better and wasn't throwing up and told us to stay. Even though we were gone only a couple of days, we were anxious to get back to our kids and to rescue Natalie.

We got back Sunday and it is a good thing because it all spiraled downhill from there. Jayne wasn't throwing up anymore but was still not really herself and now it was Easton who had a fever and started throwing up. Tuesday was Easton's 5th birthday and he was still not feeling well. I felt so bad for him. I tried to make him birthday pancakes and he didn't even want to eat. He just laid on the couch. We took him into the doctor and found out he had strep throat. At least that is an easy fix with some antibiotics. He was pretty bummed we had to cancel his party and was really concerned that he wouldn't turn five if we didn't celebrate. I assured him that he would. He is such a sweet boy. Then, that night Don started throwing up and although Jayne wasn't throwing up anymore, she still wasn't herself. Wednesday came and everyone seemed to be doing better. We had rescheduled Easton's party for Thursday and thought we were in the clear. He felt great and had a really fun time with his friends at his Star Wars Birthday party. (More on that later.)

Thursday night, Jayne got a fever. We gave her Tylenol and she seemed happier before bed. I checked her oxygen with the pulse oximeter and it was 96% so I thought maybe it was just from being in the sun at swim lessons. Then at 5:30 am Friday morning, she woke up crying. Don and I both went in and she had a high fever and her oxygen was reading 67%. I didn't believe it at first and kept checking it. How could it go that low so fast? We gave her Tylenol, gave her a bath and then I called the doctor on call. He told us that we needed to get her to the emergency room fast and that we should call an ambulance. Jayne wasn't acting as sick as her oxygen showed though so we were confused and wondered if our pulse oximeter wasn't working. Don's parents came to stay with the kids and we just took her ourselves knowing that there wouldn't be traffic and we could get her there just as fast. The Tylenol must have kicked in because she was pointing to trees on the way there and waving. We got to the emergency room and they checked her oxygen and took her right back. It was reading 72% and it should be mid to high 90's. After a chest x-ray and a swab to figure out what virus it was, they checked her in to the hospital. She started to get worse as the day went on and by Saturday night, they took her to the PICU because she was requiring 6 litres of oxygen and had to go on high flow. It was stressful, to say the least. I was worried about Jayne, feeling bad that I wasn't there with Elle and Easton, exhausted from being at the hospital and not eating or sleeping, Don had left because he was sick and throwing up and I was starting to feel sick myself. I felt awful but I had to go home and sleep. I stayed with her Friday night but you don't get much sleep when they come in every 2 hours. I knew she was in good hands with someone by her bed the whole time in the PICU, but I worried that Jayne would be sad that I wasn't there. That was definitely the low point. I came home and went right to bed but worried the whole night. I got up the next morning, saw Elle and Easton and left to go back to the hospital. Sleep definitely does wonders! Don and I both felt a lot better that day. Don and the kids came to visit that afternoon. Happy Father's Day Don! What a way to celebrate! (He really is an amazing dad!) Luckily, Jayne started to do a lot better and got to move back to a normal room Sunday night. They finally figured out it was Human Metapneumo virus (HMPV) and said that it was a really aggressive virus. As the days went by, she slowly recovered and required less oxygen. We just had to wait it out and give her supportive care as she fought off the virus. Monday was Elle's 8th birthday and I'm not going to lie, I woke up and I cried. I was pretty sad that I wasn't there for Elle when she woke up. I wanted to make her birthday pancakes like we do every year. I wanted to give her a big hug and tell her how happy I am that she's ours. I just wanted to be home with all my kids. Thankfully, Diane and Tami came and sat with Jayne later that day so that I could break away for a couple of hours and go to Elle's special 8th Birthday party we planned at the Lion House. Elle loved it and I was so happy I got to be there with her. By Tuesday, Jayne was acting more like herself and was stir crazy. She was tired of sitting in a crib or chair all day long. She wanted to move around and explore but had too many wires attached to go very far. It was hard to keep her busy. We watched a lot of Strawberry Shortcake, Signing Time and Backyardigans.

Wednesday night, I finally convinced them to let us take her home. They didn't want to let us until she was stable on .5 litres of oxygen but I think the doctors could tell we were done being there. We were told to keep her on 1 litre of oxygen, suction her nose out and check in with the doctor every few days to check her stats. Easy...just let us get home!

Today was our first day home and Jayne is so happy! She was able to sleep all night long without interruption, she played with her babies, read books, rode her little trike down the driveway and loved being with Elle and Easton. You wouldn't know she was ever sick, except for the long trail of tubing that follows her everywhere and the hum of the oxygen machine running constantly.

I tend to worry a lot about Jayne's development and how I am going to get her to talk. But, right now, all I care about is that she is healthy and she is home. The couple of times I did come home to shower and repack my bag, I didn't like walking by Jayne's room knowing she wasn't there. I missed hearing Jayne's little sounds during family prayer, as if she was saying it, and then clapping at the end. I missed hearing a cupboard door slam and then wondering what she was into now. I missed tripping over babies, purses and toys scattered around the house. Our home will never be home without Jayne. She is ours and I am SO glad we are all together again!


In the PICU



Watching movies



She loves her blankie and babies!

Easter Sunday

We were all so happy to wake up to a beautiful sunny day on Easter! Elle and Easton were really anxious to find where the Easter Bunny left their baskets but because we have church at 9am, I told them that we had to wait until after church to find them. (They weren't happy but I didn't want to rush it. The funniest part is that when asked at church if the Easter Bunny came, they both glared at me. Oh well... Luckily, I wasn't the only mean mom that made their kids wait.)






Elle was pretty excited to get the American Girl dog "Honey" and Easton couldn't wait to play "Guess Who: Star Wars"



Yep, that's Jayne standing with no support. She is getting so big! She got a new pretend play beauty kit. She loves the hair dryer and pretending to put nail polish all over her hands.

Dying eggs and Easter egg hunts

Easter is one of my favorite holidays--dying eggs pretty pastels, seeing my kids try to gather as many eggs as they can at egg hunts, and as silly as it may be, I look forward to Easter candy all year long. Everything really does taste better in an egg shape, right?



Elle and Easton were SO excited to dye Easter eggs











EASTER EGG HUNT

We had a fun Easter Egg Hunt with our ward. The kids loved it!

Elle and Easton finding eggs



Jayne loved putting eggs into her basket! And once she realized there was candy inside, she couldn't open the eggs fast enough! She tried to eat right through the wrappers. It was so funny! We couldn't even get she and Ila to stop for a picture.






Easton and his buddy, Drake



Elle, Jayne and Easton with their candy spoils


ANOTHER EGG HUNT WITH COUSINS


Our kids have the best "big kid" cousins who planned an Easter egg hunt for them at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Elle, Easton and cousin Mitch were so excited and raced around the yard finding eggs in bushes, rocks and trees. Grandpa and Nate were so cute to hold Jayne's hand and make sure that she got some eggs too.



Don and Jayne






They were all pretty excited to open their eggs and find silly bands and rings, tiny plastic animals and of course, more candy! Thank you Sammi, Lindsay and Nate! You have no idea how much you are looked up to and loved!