How I Livened Up Etna during the noon hour on Wednesday

The car needed help...it had popped out of park a few times...mostly on an incline.  I reminded Brian that me MUST put the emergency break on all the time if we drove it (which we hadn't been much since the darn thing wasn't starting!!  But then a guy from church fixed that problem and was going to work on the stay put problem next week).  I did remember to do so when I went to storage, was at my grandma's and when I stopped at Napa to buy a new radiator cap for the dumb car.  However, for some reason it didn't even cross my mind to do so when I parked in front of the post office to run in and get the mail.  Grace was sound asleep in her carseat, so I ran in to get the mail (car in park and turned off because I needed my key ring to get the mail of course).  Next thing I know, as I'm picking up a package, someone is sticking their head in the door and asking if anyone had a dark blue Explorer because it had just rolled across the street and hit a telephone pole.  I about died...it was high school lunch break and some high schoolers were getting Grace out of the car...she was NOT happy.  She was fine except she'd bit her tongue.  But she was mad.  After calling out the fire, ambulance and police (our police chief and I think he's the only police officer on the force currently - was in Yreka having just sat down at a meeting (and he'd made good time getting to that meeting because I'd passed him at Kellems Lane (about 5 minutes or less from town...a good 20 minutes from Yreka) when he got the call...he told me he was fine with missing the meeting...he'd gotten to drive really fast to get back to the valley...glad I hadn't been on the mountain then!)  Anyway, the car smashed the left front pretty well.  We've been feeling like we were keeping the darn thing running with prayers anyway.  Now we have to wait and see what the assessment from the body shop is for the insurance company. The car's 11 years old and has almost 180,000 miles on it...trade-in value isn't very much.  But we fit in it more comfortably than we all fit in the Nissan Sentra...

The Sacramento Zoo...

We had to go down to Sacramento last week for me to see another specialist about my aneurysm. I scheduled it during Spring Break (not the boys' - their spring break isn't for another couple of weeks) for Brian. This is what we did before the doctor appointment. The kids got to see their Great-Uncle Brian (Grace for the first time) and Aunt Sarah (and later Aunt Carrie & Uncle Ben). They also got to see their cousins Elisha (mom), Zach & Natalya (kids) when we stayed at Terry & Theresa's in Woodland.

Grace is 18 Months Old!!

This is a Nathaniel face!

Cool Whip Kid!! I was making a dessert for Mom that she needed to take to work for someone's birthday...Grace was ready to get out of the high chair...this kept her happy so I could finish :)

Nathaniel's Trip to the ER (plus Daddy ready for surgery...the two are not related!)

We always said he'd be the one that gets us to the ER (well, now I'm thinking Grace will too!) He wasn't feeling well Friday afternoon. Seemed better Saturday and went out and played in the snow for a little while. Saturday afternoon he complained of his throat hurting and was running a fever. We debated on taking him over to the ER in Yreka, but he seemed a little better. When he got up Sunday morning he wasn't looking too great. He woke up right as I was leaving for Ward Council and I had him go to the bathroom. He was really lethargic and laid in Grandma's lap as I left. So when I got to the church I told Brian and we decided he needed to get over the mountain to the hospital with him.

After about 7 hours there and the on-call ER doctor calling in our pediatrician, they decided that Nathaniel had an ear infection again (this makes 5 in five months...tubes and adenoid removal are in the future) and some kind of muscle infection. This was after a negative strep test, blood work, chest x-Ray, bloody urine (which Nathaniel thought was cool) and a urinalysis. It wasn't really blood in the urine, something similar but different from the muscles. Anyway, he had a check up with the doctor on Wednesday and his ears are better. He gets his last dose of medication (he had two) as soon as I finish posting this. Now hopefully we can go more than five days without meds!! (He was on a penicillin for 10 days, finished up the 5th of Feb. Then on the 10th of Feb. had pink eye (probably due to the ear infection from January) and finished those meds on the 16th or 17th and then the ER visit on the 20th). And of course, all of these have required making him up in the middle of the night. That gets so old so fast!

So here are a couple of pictures Brian took of him with his phone Sunday in the ER to send to Joshua, Grace and I to assure us he was doing fine. I told Joshua he is now the only one in the family to have not been at the Yreka hospital for some reason (Nathaniel - ER; Daddy - Crohns & kidney stone; Grace - being born; Mommy - having Grace and having her gall bladder out). And then I told Joshua that's okay and he doesn't need to try and fit in with the rest of us!!

They gave him this pillow - some older woman makes them and donates them to the hospital. Nathaniel is such a sweetie - he gave it to Grace when he got home...he said it was for her.

This week Brian started a rotation at the Yreka hospital (yay, no more Mt. Shasta for a few weeks!!) and got to be in several surgeries. Here's a picture a classmate took on their phone of him all decked out in surgery scrubs :)

Grace

Grace is 17 months old now!!

These pictures are all from January (mid-to late), sorry Grandma, I haven't taken much this month with everyone being sick. And the ones I've taken, I haven't downloaded yet!

Sitting pretty in the kitchen

Peanut butter sandwich and her first banana (she is sooooooooo picky with her food!!)

And she's a really messy eater...

...and a lazy eater...why hold the food when she can prop it up on something?

Her brothers hate the "strings" on the banana

"Helping" Mommy

Our little Beaver...she destroys, errr, devours, books (and anything wooden)

In January she moved to a big girl bed...we got her a toddler bed. We were worried she was going to tumble out of the crib if she tried to climb out.

There's not quite enough room for a full-size twin bed in the bedroom, but this cute

little toddler bed fits at the end of the bunk beds perfectly!!

She loves it...just wish she'd sleep all night in it!!!

Happy 2011!

I know, this is a few weeks late, but we ushered in the new year with a "new addition". Brian's kidney stone finally decided it was time to come out. Late on the night of Jan. 2nd, I took him to the ER again (this is the third time he's gone to the ER with this, the 2nd time I've had to take him...the first time he was already at a hospital doing his rotation for class).
We got to the ER a little after midnight and got home around 630 the morning of the
3rd. Luckily, Grandma kept on the boys to get them ready for school because I wasn't really functioning (Brian slept after they gave him some good drugs while they decided what they were doing with him...I didn't, but I did read the first Gregor the Underlander book that Joshua has been dying for me to read for months). Grace didn't want to nap, so I still didn't get any sleep.
Brian woke up around 10 that morning and called the urologist in Redding that he'd been referred to and they said they could see him at 1. Brian stumbled in to the shower, I made arrangements for Grandpa (luckily he had an extra day off work for the holidays) to pick up Nathaniel at preschool, Joshua to get a ride home from Cub Scouts after school, and threw stuff together in the diaper bag for Grace. I was supposed to drive since Brian had been given some strong meds, but only made it as far as Weed (1 hour) before I was falling asleep since I hadn't slept the night before (man, was I glad I'd grabbed a pseudo-nap Sunday afternoon...at least I'd rested some).
We found the doctor's office right at 1 pm. Being as Brian started the new semester the following Monday, we were hoping they could do his surgery that week. They were able to schedule him in for Thursday the 6th - as the doctor told him, the stone was going no further on it's own (it was almost 8 mm). So we did preop bloodwork etc. on Monday. He was in pain for a good part of the week - not helpful when you're trying to get a ton of stuff ready for the next semester - and finally Thursday came. Joshua stayed home because he had school, but Nathaniel got to come with us this time - preschool is easier to miss than third grade is. Plus, Nathaniel and Grace had check-ups on their ears in Yreka that morning.
Once we were done there (and both got good reports on the ear infections being gone!) we headed to Redding. We dropped Daddy off at the out patient surgery building and then we went to Turtle Bay. Of course I forgot my camera, but had my phone and one of these days I'll email myself the few pictures I took with that and maybe post them.

Brian came through just fine. We spent the night in Redding because we were all exhausted.

And that pretty much sums up our first week of 2011...I really really hope it's not a sign for how the year will go.

And here are pictures of the kids I took on New Year's Day...

I think he was trying to give me a pirate look...

Finally she held still

She loves to do this when she's being silly or when she gets upset with not getting her own way...

I think this was being silly

Merry Christmas!!!!

Love,

The Lee Family

Brian, Beth, Joshua, Nathaniel & Grace