Bob

Today Bob is at the Stake Center helping to prepare for the satellite feed for Stake Conference this weekend.  Bob loves his calling and I’m so glad that the people in this area appreciate his talents.  Sometimes he is gone a lot but I can’t complain because his willingness to help others is one of the reasons that I fell in love with him.

TODAY’S FAVORITES: 

Zojirushi BBCCX20 Home Bakery Supreme Bread Machine

I picked up this bread machine last week when I dropped Stefan off at the Airport to go to Air Force Boot Camp.  Bob and I want to use our wheat and since I don’t often feel up to kneading and baking four loaves at a time I tried to get a decent loaf out of the bread machine that we have but it just wasn’t working well.  

Jerri Ann had just purchased this machine and when I was staying with her we really enjoyed the whole wheat bread.  When I first tried this new machine it didn’t mix the bread very well.  I finally discovered that the right paddle wasn’t turning so I gave it a bit of a nudge and now it seems to be working.  I baked three very bad loaves before I figured this out.  We have had one good load and I hope that it continues to work and that we don’t have to send it back.

Bob has been eating a slice every day with some local honey on it and he seems to really enjoy it.  That makes it worth it.  It takes me minutes to add the ingredients and then about 3 1/2 hours before the house smells divine.  I really like that this makes a 2 lb. loaf and has two paddles.  The load is baked horizontally instead of vertically like the other machines.  

I Love You!

When I went to get the car this morning, in the hospital parking lot, I found this note in my car. Bob had left for work at about 4:30 am and drove through St. George so naturally he pulled off the Interstate and left this note in my car.

Life has been so crazy lately that I sometimes forget the normal things in life. Bob is so sweet and tries to do all that he can to make my life easier.

I sat in my car a moment and thanked Heavenly Father for such a good man. Then I started up the car, helped Mom into the car and took her home to recuperate.

Thanks honey.

Hospital Beds & Update

This is the fourth hospital room that I have slept in in the past two weeks. Wow, the time seems to go so slow yet whiz by.

My first hospital room was in Labor & Deliver with Christy in Salt Lake City. The recliner transformed out into a bed/torture chamber. Christy was up a lot that night so fortunately I didn't have to lay on the bed very much.

The second hospital room was out on the general floor with Christy. This bed was a fold-up cot that bowed in the middle. Ryan can attest to how uncomfortable that bed was. Actually it worked so much better than the first bed that I got more sleep on it. The biggest problem was trying to get out of it, it was low to the ground and creaked a lot.

The third hospital room was with my Mother here at home. The hospital was newer and they had a love seat that folded out and was actually quite a lot better than the other rooms. It was a bit hard but I was so tired that I pretty much passed out.

The fourth hospital room was in St. George with Mom and the new hospital is beautiful! They had a love seat that flipped up a twin cushion. The room was too warm and I was so tired that I had a hard time sleeping. I also didn't know what was going on with the twins and so I couldn't sleep until early morning.

Enough with the whining! The beds may not be comfortable but the Doctors and Nurses took such good care of my family that I really shouldn't complain about my accomidations.

Mom and Jerri Ann both came home today. Mom has to take it easy for the weekend but can go back to work on Monday. I'm not sure how long Jerri has to rest from her heart attack but she is home now and you can call her! Both are feeling a lot better. I am so grateful that they are both healthy and will recover completely.

I need to catch up on some sleep but again I can't sleep not knowing how the twins are. After next week when Mom gets back to work and I get a Dr. appointment and root canal out of the way I will be ready to maybe get back to normal. We still have a long haul until the twins come home and Christy will really need help with four kids, ages four and under. Such is life....

Twins Update & Heart Attack Update, Oh My!

As usual, Christy expresses herself so well and a lot of you don't have access to their blog since it is private so Christy said it was OK to copy the latest updates on the twins especially since there are so many of your out there praying for them.

"Well today's been a really hard day. We got news that Emily's PDA valve has actually increased in size and so they will be preforming the heart surgery on her tomorrow to close her PDA. So even though they say the sugery doesn't take long and is fairly easy to do, it's always a risk. But I feel that everything will be fine and the doctors are so skilled at what they do.

We also got back Ethan's brain scan today and it was hard to hear the news. It is showing that his brain is bleeding on both sides and is at a level 3 right now out of 4. It's pretty severe they say. The blood that is showing is still in his vessels and hasn't gone outside of that, but he has a really high chance of having mild to severe brain damage which could result in cerebral palsey or other mental or physical disorders when he is older. The nurse practioner said there's really not a lot they can do for this other than monitor him and hope that the blood will be absorbed and not continue to get larger or go outside those vessels. They will do another brain scan on him next week.

Well, that's all the news for now. Ryan and I are heading back down to Utah tomorrow to be with both of them. It's been hard writing this... Thanks again for all your prayers for our family! We love you all!

Oh, and I wanted to add a few pictures of our babies...

This just puts it in perspective of how small their hands and feet are...and actually Emily has quite large feet! Some of the nurses have said her feet are the biggest they have seen! They for sure got their dad's feet, toes and long fingers! haha!

Emily Jean

Emily snuggling with her blankie under her shades

Emily with my wedding ring around her wrist

Ethan's little foot

Our little Ethan "

The pictures are so precious. Can you believe how small they are? It is so hard to be away from them and the older girls. Oh yeah, I drove home to take care of Mom. I arrived at the hospital about 2:00 this morning. I felt so horrible leaving the girls but Christy's friend, Stephanie, came and picked them up so that I could take off and not have to drive all night. Today they transferred her to the hospital in St. George where they have a Cardiologist.

Mom's chest pains weren't going away so they did an angiogram and found out that her heart and arteries were healthy. Mom had Bronchitus and had coughed so hard that it affected her heart and she still has some lingering pain. They are keeping her in the hospital for another night to keep an eye on her.

My Sister, Jerri Ann had an angiogram also and did actually have a small heart attack. Here's the crazy part, it was a side effect of taking a migraine medication! One that she had taken before! How crazy is that? The good news though is that the Doctor told her that she has the heart of a 20 year old! Cool!

Now my Mother and Sister have matching scars from their angiograms. I told them that they were going to have to find another way of bonding because this method just isn't working for me. And NO, I refuse to get a matching scar!

Bob was so sweet, he took a day off of work and went and retrieved Mom's truck from work so that she wouldn't worry. Ryan & Christy were also worried about them, as if they didn't have enough to worry about! I've talked to so many family members in the past two weeks but wish that it could have been about something more light hearted.

Thank you everyone for your prayers and concern. I don't know how we would have been able to handle all of this withought your prayers and concern. Heavenly Father has blessed our family so much. While we are currently having a lot of challenges we are also being blessed.

Dylan and Tammy

At Jason & Jessica's wedding we were able to get together with family and friends. I love this picture because Dylan has grown so much and is such a sweet boy. We don't get to see him as much as we would like but it sure was fun to play before the wedding started. Dylan was a big help preparing for the wedding (we picked up a lot of beans). Infact, we both got in trouble for running around too much and had to sit in time out!