I forgot!

Just wanted to update on Jared's finger and girls camp too... We haven't had a chance to determine school.

Jared's finger is doing great! He has the stitches out and it's healing beautifully. He will have to still wear the splint for few more weeks. On... it's in the first week of Aug. he will see the doctor again and start physical therapy!

Girls camp is NOT going to happen for me. After I made known my thoughts and feelings to all the leaders... I pretty much got the response of “Well DUH! We weren't expecting you to go anymore”. I still feel horrible, like I'm totally letting the girls and other leaders down. I do take comfort in knowing how understanding and wonderful they are though. And as many of you said... there will always be other chances to go to camp. LM is only here now, and he needs his mom. Thanks for all the advice and words of encouragement!

Our crazy, but fun, weekend

So I actually started this a couple of days ago and just now got to finish it. Such is the life of a new mom, right? To be honest, I think it was more of having family here and last min. prep for the trek. Family is now all back, safely in their homes and Jared is on the trek. I'm thinking it's finally time to breath!!

What a crazy week it has been!! I wouldn't change it for anything. I'll try going chronologically. Wed., Thur., and Fri. family came into town. My aunt, uncle, and cousin stayed with us. So fun having them!! Not much happened during those days, except a lot of visiting! LOVED it. After spending so much time preparing for trek and Little Man, I needed a break.

Friday was a big day for us!! Neither Jared or I slept well Thurs. night. Jared woke up early to get some work in, I made last min. preparations, and at 0830 am we left for the hospital! The doctors started their rounds at 0900. When all is said and done it was 1:30 pm when we actually left the hospital.

We came home, Jared made a sandwich and went back to work. I got food, took a few mins. to breath, and then I had to take Little Man to his pediatrician appointment. The dr. was very impressed with how well Little Man looks. After the appointment, got to relax for a bit, then my mom came over to meet LM. She left and about 5-10 mins. later my cousins started to arrive. We had a ... cousin BBQ for a lack of better explanation. My grandparents, their 5 kids, and the spouses went out to dinner. All the cousins had the option of coming here. Anyway~ we had a blast with visiting and eating with the cousins that were able to make it. I don't remember time, but the other adults left to see a slide show while Jared and I stayed home with the 7 kids. We played, then put on a movie, and ate popcorn. I think it was just after 10 pm when everyone left. We finally got to go to bed!

Sat. I went to a park where we had a family picnic and pictures taken. I'll post the pictures when I can. Anyway~ I went and had fun while Jared stayed home with LM. When I got home we cleaned up a bit, then LM's case worker showed up. She was just checking up, making sure we're going okay. Um... I can't remember but I think the rest of the day was hanging out, lovin' on LM. We did work more on trek stuff. I have to tell this awesome story! So that night (Sat. night) we had my mom, niece, and two nephews over. Mom, being the awesome women she is, bought each of the kids a toy. Niece got a bath-time baby doll and Nephew 2 got a toy dog that you can feed. When they were getting ready to leave Niece said," OH! I got to get my foster baby!!" Nephew 2 said, "Oh, I need to get my foster dog"! Just totally and utterly melted my heart. Proud moment for sure.

Sunday was pretty uneventful. Since we're not allowed to bring LM to public places yet, Jared went to a 0900 church, and I went to our normal church. Nothing to exciting.

Yesterday, LM had his first visit with his mom. It went well, from what I heard. The state supervises the visit, and I go run errands. After I actually went shopping with his mom. We had a blast! Or at least I did. She's got things to work out in her life, but she definitely has the determination to get custody back. She's really nice though. After, ... my mom was watching LM... I went to get LM, hung out with my family, then went to Jared's work to show off LM. When I got home, I just needed to rest. I didn't get a chance to nap, but I returned phone calls, and chilled. We went to go intro. LM to my grandparents. They just adore him!! So fun to just watch him swoon over him.

Yeah, so that's been our last few days. LOVE IT!! Things should hopefully calm down now.

Now, for the reason all of you are reading our blog lately... LM! :o) He's doing amazing! He's the perfect baby, in my eyes. He eats every 3-4 hours. Meaning, he only wakes up twice in the night. Not to bad if you ask me. He's doing his potty business good. Hardly ever cries! He's just amazing. I don't know if I've publicly announced this or not, but LM will most likely go to a kinship placement. Meaning, he will go to a family member and stay with them until his mom can get custody again. We will most likely have him for about a month. Sad days, I know. Such is the life of foster care though. We'll keep you all posted. Thanks so much for all the love , support, and prayers. Love to all!!!

Quick update

Been a wonderful, crazy last couple of days. Main couple of things is Little Man is home!!! YAY!!! I'm so excited. He came home today. He's weighing in at... ah, we'll say 6 lbs. He's one ounce short. So glad to have him here. Been an adventure already.

In other news, I did get a letter back from the nursing director. That student DID have a special situations, so I will not be readmitted right now. I can work for a year, and try again for the advance placement. We'll see. Once things calm down here I'll make a final decision on school. I'm thinking online though. Not sure what Jared's thinking though, to be honest.

Jared will get stitches removed on Tues. and will start physical therapy... probably this week!

Other then that, life is grand!! Love to all!!

Life is wonderful

Things here have been great. Busy and changing, but good. Here's a break down of each one of us.

Jared's finger is doing great. Luckily, it's never really caused him pain (only when it gets bumped by him, me, or something else). Another tender mercy, is even though he got 80% of the tendon, he does not need surgery! YAY! Both his primary care doctor and the hand specialist are pleased with how it's coming along. Jared will get the stitches out next Tues., the 28th. Today he'll get a small splint and start physical therapy. Work is keeping him way busy. Same with scouts. Jared is still being superman, and doing it all!

I've been way busy preparing for Little Man to come home (more details later), for a family reunion we have this weekend, and for the trek next week! I've loved every minute. I wish there was more time in the day, but it'll all work out. I know some of you guys have been wondering about school. The nursing director still have not contacted me to say if I was readmitted. I did e-mail her last Fri. and still haven't heard back. I'm assuming I'm not readmitted. So... next step would be to look into the online program I found. We may go to the dean, but we're both assuming she won't change her mind so we'll probably do both things simultaneously. Other then that, nothing with me.

Now for the update you've all been waiting for... Little Man! He's doing wonderfully! He's grown about 6 oz since we've first meet him. He's now 5 lb. 10 oz. He has not had any more breathing/ heart rate problems. He's starting to eat better too! They put him on a feeding protocol. So, stage 0 is all tube feedings in a 12 hr. shift, stage 1 is 1 bottle, 3 tube feedings in 12 hrs., stage 2 is 2 bottles, 2 tube feedings, and it goes to stage 4 which is 4 bottles, no tube feeding in 12 hours. On Mon. when we saw him, he was at a stage 2. Jared feed him that night, he didn't eat as well as he should have so we were worried they'd keep him at a stage 2 (the nurse told us he could be advanced on Tues.). Well, last night when we got there the nurse informed us he was advanced to a stage 4!!! So freakin' excited!! Go Little Man!!! Oh, and I told Jared he's no longer allowed to feed Little Man (at least not in the hospital). :o) So if he keeps doing great on stage 4, Little Man should come home sometime between Fri.- Sun. I think. Sun. night the nurse showed us how to do a swaddle bath (pretty much it's bathing them in a fleece blanket to help keep the baby warm). Yeah, Little Man was not a fan! I don't know if he was too hungry or what, but he was not a happy camper. I told him if he learns anything from me it'll be to love baths!! Think that's about it. He's such a mellow baby. So far he's a great first one, I think.

no that's not Little man! Just a cute baby I found online

Oh! Some of you may, may not be interested in knowing what we decided to do about the 3 big events we have this next month. Scout camp for Jared will remain the same. He'll go, have a fabulous time, and hopefully keep those boys in line. The trek we have decided that Jared will go, I will stay home with Little Man. With Jared's finger he won't be able to really push or pull the handcarts, but with how big our group is, that shouldn't be a problem. With Girls Camp, the jury is still out. I feel bad backing out last min., I've got two sisters-in-law that have so willing accepted to watch Little Man while Jared's at work for that week, and it could work out for me to go. But my wise, all knowing mom and amazing husband have both counseled me to pray and consider staying home. Any thoughts, comments from all of you are more then welcome.

Anyway~ that about sums it up for us! Sorry to be so long winded. At least I added random pics. to help break it, right? ;o) Love to all!!

One Quick Moment

Devin is taking a break and I am going to do a post. For those of you that are following our blog you may remember that I built a book scanner. What you may not know is that I am working on the 2.0 version of the project. This includes rails for parts to glide on and other such things. I am mainly done with it but I need to build a plexiglass box for one of the final parts.

My brother Jason was over and we had cut up some parts for the practice run at the project. I have some scrap plexiglass to find out how to get the real one together. We had cut the stuff up and I was opening the epoxy to glue the parts together. I had the epoxy in my left hand and the knife in my right hand. As I cut through the tip I decided I had not cut enough and one quick moment later I had cut open my left index finger around the knuckle.

I went over to the sink to wash the cut and when I looked down I saw something I had never seen before in my life. It was white and glistening. In case you have not figured it out yet it was my finger bone. for the nursing crowd out there it is the intermediate phalangy on the digitis secondus manus on the sinister hand. I just figured the sinister side needed some punishment.



As we where getting into the car Devin wanted to head to the ER and I wanted to go to an insta care. The second is much cheaper. I decided to call our medical tie breaker, my doctor brother Brian. He recommended the ER because I may have nicked the tendon. I relented and went to the ER. Luckily it is closer to my house. Devin normally wins these type of disagreements. (side note from Devin: Thank you so incredibly much for always being on my side for these things Brian! It's like we both have medical training or something ;o)

I walked in and the ER there was no one in front of me and they started to take my vitals while Devin checked me in. The doctor came in and looked at my finger and said I had cut my tendon 80% of the way through. He numbed my finger up and sewed the tendon and my finger back together. I was impressed with how efficient everything went. I spent more time waiting for the nurse to bring back my insurance card than I had my finger cut open. From the time I had cut my finger to the time I got back home was about an hour and 15 minutes.



I was just disappointed that Devin would not let me keep working on my book scanner. Heck She even made me type this blog post with a digit down.

Our first foster placement

Thanks so much for all the love and support!! So blessed to have such great family and friends!!! You are all the best! Yes, we do have a foster son! Here's explaining stuff... grab the chips and soda! :o)

Let me begin by saying I am happy to answer any and all questions. But please be understanding that due to this being a state matter, we cannot disclose some of the details. We also cannot post any pictures of him on facebook or our blog. The only way to see him is to see us! Bwhaha lol Like I said, please ask anything and everything, but if we say it's confidential, please be respectful of that. Here's a bit more detail:

I will start out by telling you what we decided his online name will be. We decided Little Man (LM for short). Little man is actually not totally in our custody yet. Due to some health problems, he is in a hospital and should be coming home soon! Not entirely sure when. We think next week sometime. Don't hold us to it. This is a fairly new case. Meaning, we don't know if we will be able to adopt him. We don't know quite a bit of stuff yet. We'll learn as it unfolds.

So here's the story on how things happened. Tues. at lunch time I got a call from our foster care worker saying that Little man was possibly going to come into state custody. If he did, would he take him? Of course I said YES! She informed me that the custody hearing was Wed. afternoon. Wed. I was so incredibly anxious like all day! Finally late afternoon I got a call from a different case worker saying LM did get placed into state custody! Bitter, sweet. Happy for us, sad for birth family. We went and saw him for the first time this morning. LM is so stinkin' cute!!! So excited to have him in our home!

I have a friend who brought up a good point. Not everyone understands foster care, adoption, and the difference. Let's begin with foster care.

FC is a state program. When birth parents, for one reason or another, are not caring for the child to the standards state sets, the child can become a ward of the state, in FC. The first option is for the child to go to another family member (kinship placement). Not always available though, so the child will be placed with foster parents (that's us!... well, we're one of many!!) A judge will set specific requirements that the parent(s) have to do in order to get the child placed back into the parents custody. Depending on the age of the child is how long the parents have to fulfill. If the child is ... I may be wrong but I think it's 2 or older... the parents typically have a year. If the child is younger than 2, the parents have 6 months! If the parents are unable to fulfill these requirements by the time alloted, the judge can grant an extension or the parental rights will be terminated. This means that the state will no longer help the parents. The child is still not able to be adopted, but a whole heck a lot closer. I'm little fuzzy on things here, but after so long the child will become what's known as legally free. Once this happens, the fostering family can adopt the child. This would be a good time to answer a question I got in my comments... "what is respite care?" So when Jared and I want to go on a date we can get any body we want to baby-sit. Now, if we want to get away for the night we have to leave LM with someone who is 18 yrs. or older and has a background check. If we want to go see my family is Vegas for a few days, but can't take LM for some reason, then we have to do respite. We leave LM with another licensed foster family. So respite is just a long baby-sitting job with kids in the foster care system. Hope this makes sense.

Adoption is right away, birth family picks an adoptive family. With LDS, this typically happens right before or after the baby is born. I'm going to use the typical scenerio to make it easier to understand. So birth family picks adoptive family. At the hospital birth parent(s) will sign their rights over, adoptive family will take the child home. After 6 months, the adoptive family can finalize the adoption.


So with FC is can turn into adoption, but it may not. We may have LM for 1 month, 1 year, eternity! Hope this helps differentiate the two. Maybe, hopefully answer any foster care, and adoption, questions. If not, please, please, please ask.

Pictures I forgot

I found more pictures from our AZ/ NV trip. There's also a picture of the birthday cake we had for the foster child we watched last week and a video of Buddy. I thought the video was cute, but some of you might not think so. lol

The cake... yes, the candles are in the shape of the number 2.

Let me kind of preface this video with... Buddy has a purple blanket that we gave him on day one. The dog seriously has attachment issues with this blanket! Whenever someone else touches it he goes crazy. In the video I accidentally stepped on the blanket. Now enjoy! lol

This is one of the many pictures you get when you give a 4 year old your camera

Jared and our nephew

My beautiful sister and her son... one of thenm

My sister, my Aunt, and me

Jared and my sis. "tearing up the rug"... ``

I put more pictures then this on our picasa and facebook. Love to all!!!

My "medicine"

I don't think I can express enough how amazing all my in-laws are!! I just love them to pieces. My mother-in-law especially! She's so thoughtful! One day, I went out to check our mail, and I found a big package with this in it

A bunch of reeses to be able to deal with the headache of everything with school. She had this cute note in there too:

"MEDICATION

treats: depression, discouragement, sadness

effect: sooth mouth, stomach, heart. reminds you-someone loves you VERY MUCH!!"

Isn't that the sweetest?? It just made my day. I am still so happy I had to share with all of you. Oh, and Mom... the medicine works great!! Thanks ;o)

Love to all!

AZ and NV trip

Here it finally is! Our post on our last vacation!!

We had a blast on our recent vacation!! It was much, much needed after dealing with all the school stuff we have been. While we were gone I told myself that I would NOT really think about school, make any decisions while there, and just enjoy my side of our family. And that's just how it happened. So! Wed. after meeting with the nursing division chair, I finished last min. things, picked Jared from work, we picked up lunch, and on the road to Vegas we went. Let me take a min. here to apologize to any Vegas people that may have wanted to see us. I didn't tell anyone we were in town. I just wanted to be able to go, relax, and not try to juggle a schedule. Anyway~ so we got to Vegas and just hung out that night. Played a game of Skip-Bo with my sis. and mom, but nothing too exciting.

Early Thur. morning we got on the road to my sis. who lives in AZ. We had a BLAST! We ran errands that day, took a nap, and then... Anna had to work, and her hubby was already at his work, so she asked us to baby-sit for a bit. No prob! We just played with the boys. They love Jared!! They think he's a jungle gym hehe... Well, our bro.-in-law ended up being late from work because of car troubles! No fun. But not huge deal, right? That night, we're going to bed... Jared and I were sleeping out on their couch pull out bed that ended up being really uncomfortable so we took the blankets, pillows, and went to my sis's craft room on the floor. No biggie. Buddy was sleeping up by our heads, okay? Well, about 4-4:30 am Buddy kind of walks on Jared and shakes! Jared's first thought was"Dude! You never slobber, what's up?? Wait! That's too much to be slobber, are you really that hot?" So Jared gets up, feels Buddy's blanket and the thing is like as heavy as Buddy is! Jared's third thought was pee. But that's way to much to be pee. So Jared gets up to put Buddy outside, I wake up to everything, and see that the whole floor by the wall, where Buddy was is sopping wet! I first thought it was the washer/dryer.. but Jared pointed out that it was the wrong area. So I go into the garage (near the room where we were) to see the water heater had broke! So Jared turned off the water and gas while I woke up my sis. and bro.-in-law. Turns out Anna just wanted to give Jared a shower :o) OH! and in the process of turning the heater off, poor Jared burned his arm.

So Fri. was spent working on that. We did go swimming at my sister's in-law's. SO FUN! Poor Jared kept getting jumped on. He loved it though. Buddy got his first expirence of swimming. He wasn't to fond. He thought playing with the other dogs was more fun. Well, it was more like Clyde tried to get Buddy, Buddy tried to get Elmer, and Elmer just hid and didn't want anything to do with either one. Bonnie just kept a close eye on Jared to make sure he wasn't going to hurt "her boys". Yes, 4 dogs were there. Anyway~ we had lunch, naps, and then got ready for a bbq that night! We had my family that lives in that area over. SO FUN!! I really enjoyed catching up with them.

Sat. I woke up with... let's just leave it at stomach problems. The Mon. before my dr. started me on a strong ibuprofen for tendinitis.... Yeah, ended up the med didn't agree with me. I wasn't going to let anything stop my having fun though, if I could help it. We went to a place called Fun Factory. They have the bouncy, blow-up slides, castles... whatever. The kids loved it!! So fun! We were there for like an hour and 45 mins. and the boys were both crying for more. We got lunch, Jared took a little rest while Anna and I worked on some trek stuff (Thanks again Ann!), then Jared and I were off to Vegas again. We stopped to see one of my cousins on the way out of town. She's so cute! Here are the pictures from AZ!

This was a common playing position for Jared... these boys love their uncle and that dog loves her boys

Buddy's first swim

The pool was too cold for my liking, so to the hot tub I went!

We thought this was too cute!

Sun., I still wasn't doing the greatest and Jared wasn't was feelin' super great. He slept all night, woke up for breakfast, slept all morning, then I woke him up for church. We went to sacrament, then headed by to my parents for more naps. Jared slept until like 5! LOTS of sleep. We had dinner, played, and had a good time. Oh! My bro. and his family, who live near me, were in Vegas too. So we just all had fun visiting.

Mon. we went swimming at my grandparents. I totally had mixed feelings. It was fun to be there and see the place. But it was so empty, full of memories, and made me sad to think that's probably the last time I will ever be there. I'm glad I went though. After swimming, we had lunch, then my bro. and his family got on the road. My mom and I went to JoAnn's to get some stuff for the trek. BUSY!! Remind me to never go there on a holiday again. lol After, we meet up with Jared and Jared and I got on the road to come home. Here are pics from NV:

Our niece with my dad's new puppy, Duke

Swimming at the grandparents!

My younger sis. with two of our nephews and our niece

My sis. took this awesome pic. of us... I just wish I didn't have one eye shut! lol It was way to bright

SUCH a great trip... despite all the things that happened in AZ! We decided that we were bad luck and my sis. got us sick so that we'd never go see her again. hehe Totally just playing. Anyway~ that was our trip. Hope your summer is off to as a great of start as ours is!! Love to all!!

Old school

When we were just in Vegas (Yes, I'm getting to that post in a bit) we went swimming at my grandparents house. Probably the last time I'll be there :o( Anyway~ while we were there my sis. found this picture of me and 3 of my siblings.

Miss my grandparents!!! :o( This was taken the Christmas before my Grandma died. Thought I'd share. Love to all!

This last week

We had the privilege of doing respite (aka baby-sitting for a days at a time kiddos in the foster care system) this last week. We got 13 and 2 (remember I use the number in their age instead of names.) last Sun. evening and their foster mom picked them up Fri. after lunch. I think that's the longest we've had kids so far. It was a blast! Anyway~ I'll kind of do a run down of the week.

Mon- We mainly spent the day playing, napping, etc. Nothing exciting that I remember.

Tues- We meet up with some adoption friends for lunch!!! SO MUCH FUN!!! Loved seeing all those ladies. Wish we could have talked more. That evening we celebrated 2's birthday!!! Too young to realize what was going on, but we still had fun. We had some friends over, had pizza, cake, and presents. Let me tell you, it was weird trying to decide what to do for a kid's birthday party! Here are some pictures of the party.

Jared trying to get 2 to do something silly/crazy

the results of the silly/crazy act lol

sorry, I would post more pics. but the rest have the kiddos in them. Can't put pics. of kids in the foster care system on-line.

Wed- Wed. was a bit of a rough day because I had a 24 hour bug or something... but it turned out fine. Oh! Side note: I definitely agree, Mom's should NOT be allowed to get sick. The kiddos had a visit with their mom. Which they loved! Luckily Jared came to the visit too because I could not have handled everything with being sick... I'll spare the details and leave it at that. So after the visit, we quickly got us all dinner and rushed off to church activities. This is a normal occurrence for Jared. I had to go because we were certifying the young women for girls camp. They asked me and another medical leader to teach on the medical part. Jared took one of the kids, I took the other. I left with the kids as soon as my part was done. Between still not feeling good and it was bedtime... we left. OH! That night too, some friends of ours dropped off their dog for us to watch while they're gone. This dog is a cockapoo too! In fact, this is the dog that lead me to look at the breed. So funny to me the similarities and differences, both physical and personality. Check out some pics. I got of them

Jared rubbing the tummy of both dogs. Buddy is on your left (Jared's right in the pic) and our friend's dog is on your right (Jared's left in the pic)

My BIG Buddy-boy! at 40 pounds

Our friend's little princess at 7 pounnds

Thurs- 2 woke up about 5:15 with maybe the same thing I had. Luckily I woke up feeling better and 2 didn't act sick at all! But after changing diaper, sheets, pjs... it was time to be up, according to 2. My amazing husband got up with 2 while I went back to sleep for a while. The kids had another visit with their mom. When Jared got home and we had dinner, we went to go see my grandparents! I love watching my grandparents interact with the kids.

Fri- We had a playdate in the morning with a friend. Then the kiddos foster momma came to pick them up. I spent the rest of the day cleaning up and getting back on track.

Sat- We had some friends and my grandparents over for lunch. It was a blast just all visiting. I should've busted out the camera. Sorry :o(

Anyway~ that's a run down of our week. Hope yours was just as fun... but not filled with the sickness. Love to all!