Christmas Fun

I think this was one of the most exciting Christmas's I have had since I was a kid. It was so much fun to watch how excited Keagan was about it all. Keagan was bouncing off the walls Wednesday evening.

Andrew and I decided a few years ago that one of our traditions would be to open one present on Christmas Eve and it would be PJ's. This year, I decided that it would be fun to all have matching PJ's. I got a 50% off coupon from Joanne's Fabric and we went and picked out the material. We then used plain white T-shirts to go with them. So, all last weekend, anytime both kids were in bed (either for nap or at night) we would work on the pajama's. Keagan was so excited when he realized that we all had matching PJ's. Andrew had to work on Christmas Eve night and didn't get home until the boys were in bed, so I got a picture of the boys that night and then we set up the camera and got a picture of all of us in the morning.

Keagan got a kid size snow shovel from Santa Claus, which he was so excited about. We even had snow on Christmas day and so he was able to go out with Andrew and help shovel our driveway. All day yesterday (Friday) he kept asking to go outside and "shovel snow more". Keagan also got some Thomas the Train stuff from us and his Grandma & Grandpa Smith along with other great toys and clothes. Here is a little video of Keagan shoveling snow.

Of course Deker didn't really care what was going on. He got some great toys, bibs, books, etc.

On Christmas morning, we made Santa pancakes (an idea I got off my favorite website, Tip Junkie. We made regular pancakes, then used whipped cream, strawberry jam, bananas and M&M's to decorate.

Then, we went over to our friends, the Kolilis's, to have lunch, play games and watch movies.

Deker's first laugh's

Deker has really started coo-ing and trying to "talk" lately, it is so fun to hear. Once in a while, we can get Deker to do a little laugh by tickling him, but it is usually one short one and that is it. But, last Saturday, we got to really hear Deker laugh. Andrew was holding Deker and Keagan was playing with some toys and swinging them around. Well, Deker's decided it was quite funny and he just started all out laughing. It was such a joy to hear and even more fun that Keagan was able to get Deker to really laugh for the first time. Here is the best little video clip that we got. He was laughing even more before we got the camera out.

Here is a picture of the boys after it was all over.

Here is a picture that I think is really cute. We were having Deker "get" Keagan, which Keagan loves.

It brings me so much joy to see how much Keagan and Deker love each. Keagan is always wanting to help Deker. He likes to show him his books, make sure Deker has toys or anything else he needs. And Deker, loves to watch and smile at Keagan.

Keagan's Hair

As you all know, Keagan's hair is very curly. Every morning, we have to wet his hair down to comb it out and then we put gel on it. When we comb it, we comb in down and then "fluff" it up with the gel. Well, in the last couple of weeks, if we take too long to get it "fluffed" up. Keagan has started saying to us "No hair up".

Free Christmas Music

I was looking around on the internet this afternoonw while my boys were napping and found out that you can download 8 Christmas songs free from Opera's website. To start downloading them click here.

The website says they are available for the next 48 hours, but I am not sure when that started, so you might want to act on this quickly.

Enjoy!!

Tagged Again

My sister, Jeanette, tagged me with this fun tag. So, here is goes:

SCATTERGORIES...it's harder than it looks!Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things. Nothing made up!You CAN'T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

WHAT IS YOUR NAME: Brenda
BOY NAME : Bryce
GIRL NAME: Brianna
OCCUPATION: Banker
COLOR: Blue
SOMETHING YOU WEAR: Bra
BEVERAGE: Beer of the Root variety (aka Rootbeer)
FOOD: Banana
SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Bathtub
A PLACE: Boise, Idaho
REASON FOR BEING LATE: Bumper to Bumper Traffic
SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: Bam!

Here is Andrew's:
WHAT IS YOUR NAME: Andrew
BOY NAME : Aaron
GIRL NAME: Andrea
OCCUPATION: Accupuncturist
COLOR: Aquamarine
SOMETHING YOU WEAR: Airwalk Shoes
BEVERAGE: Aquafina
FOOD: Avacado
SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Antibacterial Soap
A PLACE: Atlanta, Idaho
REASON FOR BEING LATE: Accident
SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: Awesome

I tag: Anyone who wants to do this

Update on the Family

There has been a couple of things that I have wanted to blog about, so I thought I would do one big post about the things that we have been doing.

First of all, Deker rolled over for the first time on Thursday. He rolled from his front to his back and he's become quite the pro at it.
Friday night was our ward Christmas Party. We had a good time visiting with friends. Santa even came for a visit at the end. Keagan wasn't too fond of sitting on his lap, but liked it just a little bit better when he got a coloring book. Here is the best picture that we got of it. I (Brenda) received a new calling in the ward. I am now the nursery music leader. We have 5 nursery's in our ward and I get to go around to all the nursery's and sing songs with the kids. Today was my first Sunday doing it, and it was so much fun. Now is my chance to learn a lot of fun Primary songs.

We finally got around to decorating for Christmas today. We were going to do it yesterday, but I got busy finishing some craft projects I had been working on. When I was packing up our Fall decorations today, Keagan found a bag and decided to pack it as well. He started going around the house and packing his bag. He kept asking Andrew and I for more things that he could pack in his bag. Here are two pictures, one of the inside of his bag and another of him carrying it around. He just had to find the tallest bag and use that one. With the help and inspiration of many friends and our ward's Super Saturday, I have had a a really good time doing lots of Craft projects. It is always fun for me to see my finished project. Here are some things I have done.

This first craft is a Christmas Card Holder. It is something that I had seen at a friends house last year. My sisters and I made them together over Thanksgiving weekend, but I didn't quite get it done, so I put the finishing touches on it yesterday.

This is an Advent calendar. A friend of mine from my ward does a craft night every month and this is what we did in November. I really love how it turned out. Who knew that a pizza pan could be so cute? This nativity set is one of the things I did at my wards super Saturday this year. They had the blocks all cut out, all I had to do is paint, sand and clear coat. I loved how they turned out.
This is a project that I did with Andrew's side of the family last year over Thanksgiving. It is quite fun to see it hanging on our wall this year.

What?!?

One day last week, I was putting Deker down for a nap and Keagan was out in the living room playing. When I came out, I went to the fridge to get Keagan a snack and this is what I found.

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year, we traveled down to Southern Nevada to see my family. All my brothers and sisters and their families were able to make it (24 people in all). The weekend included:

Lots of very yummy food (I found this cute turkey rolls on Tip Junkie and since I was able to make the rolls this year, I thought it would be fun to do):

On Friday, we had Navajo tacos for dinner (scones, with chili and all the yummy taco fixings). My mom was making the scones and, as you can see, she had lots of help in the form of 3 toddlers.

Rides on the Four Wheeler and Rhino:

And lots of fun playing with family.

Keagan and his cousin Hafen, eating suckers.On Thursday evening, the girls went over to my brother and sister-in-laws house and made christmas card holders. The guys had the privilege of watching all the kids. They put in a movie and gave them popcorn.

Lots of kids playing.

Keagan's latest sayings

Keagan has been coming up with some funny sayings lately. I want to write them down and what better place than to do it on my blog, so here it goes:

#1 - Keagan likes to play with his bear and his bunny and treat them like his baby. Sometimes he will have us swaddle them up, then there are times when I will go to put Deker in his crib, bouncy seat or swing and Keagan bear or bunny will be in there. Well, one day last week Keagan had me swaddle his bunny, then next thing I know, he was walking back and forth Shh-ing his bunny, which is something we do with Deker sometimes. I wanted to get a video of it, but as soon as the camera came out, he would pause and say "cheese". So, here is a picture of him and his bunny.

#2 - "Funnysault" aka somersault! A few weeks ago, Keagan and I were upstairs playing and he learned how to do a somersault. He is so proud of himself and it is fun to hear him say "funnysault and watch him bend over and try to propel his feet over his head.

#3 - "I'm Busy", I am now afraid and feel bad that I have said this to Keagan. A few weeks ago, Keagan and I had to run to the store. On the way home, I was trying to get Keagan to say a 4-5 work phrase. Well, I guess he decided he didn't want to do it and kept saying, "No, I busy".

#4 - "I Play Quick". This is usually said when we ask him to clean up his toys to go take a nap.

#5 - "Almost to job/work". This past week Keagan was riding around on his escalade and he comes over to me and said "Almost to work" and starts driving it towards the door, then he would come back and say it again.

#6 - Friday morning after I finished nursing Deker, Keagan came running over and insisted on burping Deker. Keagan climbed up on my lab, had me put Deker on his lap and then began patting his back. Keagan his such a good big brother to Deker. He really tries to take good care of him.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. It is quite amusing to me the things he comes up with to say.

The Speedo Picture

I have been meaning to post this for a few days, but haven't had the time to. But right now, both boys are naping and so I thought I would take my chance while I have it. Here is the picture of Andrew in his Speedo. For the year after his burn accident, Andrew had to wear these pressure garments ALL the time, even while swimming. He could only take them off to shower. So, he got a speedo to wear while swimming. Here is a picture of him in it.

A couple more things

If you haven't read the post below, read that one first and then come back to this one!

A couple of people thought it would be a good idea to share some pictures of how Andrew's face, hands and legs look like now. That started me thinking and I realized I forgot to mention about his skin grafts. Andrew ended up getting skin grafts on both legs from just below the knee to the ankle as well as a skin graft on the back of his left hand. He had to wear preasure garments on his legs and his left hand for 10 months. He had to wear them all day and all night. The only time he could take them off was to shower each day. He even had to wear them swimming. The ones on his legs were like tights but thicker and tighter. They went from his toes all the way up to his waist. And then for his hand it was a glove. While in the hospital, they measured Andrew very carefully so that the tights and glove would fit perfectly. For his legs, they put a paper from his waist down to his toes and then measure every inch all the way down so that they would get the exact fit.

Because of the skin grafts on his legs, he has no hair and no sense of hot or cold on his lower legs and the back of his left hand. Good news for me, I can put my cold feet on his legs and he doesn't know that they are cold. :-) So, here are some more pictures.

Here is a picture of his orange colored pressure garments and in the second picture you can see the orange glove. Each time he had to order pressure garments, he got to choose 3 colors. If I remember right, he ordered them four different times. He would usually choose a fun color and then two normal colors.


Here is his legs now, you can kind of see that they are bald and the in some parts you can see the mesh from the skin graft.
In this picture, you can kind of see on his left hand (the upper hand) the line from his skin graft and then, of course, his handsome face.

Andrew accident

This is a going to be a long post. I believe the majority of the people that read this blog already know this story, but I wanted to make sure I wrote it down for my sake. I have a much longer version written down, but this is something that I always think about at this time of year, so I thought I would put it on my blog.

Today is the 3rd anniversary of the day that threw our lives upside-down for 2 months. Three years ago today (Thursday, Nov. 3), I was 8 weeks pregnant with Keagan and very much looking forward to our FIRST prenatal appointment in the afternoon. I had just gotten to work that morning and was starting what was looking like a busy morning since I had to leave right after lunch for my OB appointment, when I got a phone call from Andrew's cell phone. A guy that Andrew worked with at the time proceeded to tell me that Andrew was involved in a lacquer explosion and was being loaded up in an ambulance to be taken to the hospital. I was completely stunned and immediately scared because Andrew is not the type of person to go to a hospital for much, especially in an ambulance. A co-worker could tell that I was not doing well and insisted on driving me to the hospital. Because my office was really close to the hospital they were taking him to, I got there before Andrew did, so it took a little while before I could see Andrew, but when I did, he looked like he was in a lot of pain. His face, hands and legs were badly burned. The doctor explained to me that he was badly burned (which I could see) and that they were going to be taking by life flight (the small airplane) to the Burn Center at the University of Utah hospital in Salt Lake and that I would be able to fly with him.

I only had time to call Andrew's parents and my doctor's office. Andrew's parents got there just in time to give Andrew a blessing and then they loaded us up in an ambulance to take us to the airplane by the airport. Because they didn't know how much smoke he inhaled, they put him to sleep and put a tube down his throat, so they wouldn't have any problems with that during the flight. They also paralysed him so that he wouldn't have to feel the pain. The moment we arrived at the burn unit, a several doctors and nurses started descending on Andrew, it was surreal. A very nice social worker took me to a room and talked to me and got all the information she needed to call Andrew's boss and to start the Worker's Comp stuff. She then took me to the waiting room to wait while they did what they needed to do to Andrew. I called my brother and his wife who live in Salt Lake (Alma & Matti) and left a message for them. Thank goodness Matti got home shortly after I left my message and called back. She immediately dropped everything and came to the hospital to be with me. She was such a life savor that day. She was with me when I finally got to see Andrew for the first time, which was a very good thing. She is a nurse (in the same hospital in the Labor and Delivery) and was able to explain things and to just be there with me.

The doctor told me that Andrew had 21% of his body burned and that they were 2nd and 3rd degree burns and that he would definitely need skin grafts, but they wouldn't know for a few days how much would need to be skin grafted and that he would probably be in the hospital for about 3 weeks. On Nov. 8 (Tuesday) Andrew had his skin graft surgery. Between those days, Andrew had to endure bandage changed twice a day. They would take off all the bandages and scrub down his legs which was extremely painful for him because of all the exposed nerve endings. After his skin graft surgery, he had to stay in bed for 5 days. The most he could move was to roll to his side once a day so they could change his sheets. Finally after 5 days, he was able to get up and start talking and going to physical therapy again.

Andrew was healing very well but before we could go home, I had to learn how to do all his dressing changes. For those that don't know, I am a VERY squeamish person. But I was able to learn to do it. On Nov. 18 (Friday), which was 2 weeks after the accident, Andrew was released from the hospital, but they wanted us to stay in Salt Lake for the weekend to make sure everything was still going good. On Monday morning, Andrew had a follow-up appointment. He was then cleared to go home. We were very grateful to be going home because that was the week of Thanksgiving.

The following Monday (1 week after we got home), I was at work when I got another very sad phone call. My dad called me to tell me that my grandma had passed away early that morning. So, we began making plans to leave in a few days to go to my home (Caliente, Nevada) to my grandma's funeral which was that weekend. The day we were leaving to drive down to my grandma's funeral, we woke up to a couple of feet of snow on the ground. Because of all the snow, we had to take the long way which is through Salt Lake, down to Cedar City and then over to Caliente, and with the snow, it took us even longer. It took us 8 hours just to get to Salt Lake, then we had another 6 hour drive to get to Caliente, Nevada.

The Wednesday after the funeral, Andrew had a follow-up appointment at the burn unit in Salt Lake, so we stayed an extra few days with family, then drove up to Salt Lake. Andrew had his appointment then we proceeded to drive home to Boise. We were about 1 mile from the Burley exit when our car broke down. Thank goodness we had a cell phone, we called a tow-truck and they took us to a hotel and towed our car to their shop. We ended up staying the night in Burley and then had some good friends come down with a car dolley to tow us home. At the time our car broke down, I had my breaking point as well. I was so frustrated that all these crazy things were happening. But Andrew was able to laugh it off and helped calm me down as well.

I am so grateful that Andrew's accident happened at work because Worker's comp paid for everything, even the hotel I stayed in that was right by the hospital. I am also so grateful for my brother, Alma, and is wife, Matti. They did so much for me and Andrew while we were there. I don't know how I would have made it through without their love and support.

For those that would like, here are some pictures of Andrew while he was in the hospital.

Day after accident
Face 3 Days after accident
Legs 3 days after accident
1 week after accident #1
1 week after accident #2

Halloween

Andrew's brother David, his wife Leah and their two girls Olivia (2) and Aubrey (3) months came over to visit the past few days. We had a good time visiting this them and Keagan had a great time playing with Olivia.

On Saturday night Andrew's sister Anna and her fiance Chris came over and we all went to our wards Chili Feed and Trunk-or-Treat and then we did a little trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. Taking the kids around our neighborhood brought back a lot of fun memories of when I was a kid.

Keagan was a monkey, Deker was a bee and Andrew was the tooth fairy. At our wards activity they gave away some prizes, we came home with two because of Andrew. Andrew won a prize for best adult costume and for the best decorated trunk. We decorated our trunk like a bedroom complete with bed, dresser and window to go along with the toothfairy theme. He then passed out the candy while I took the boys around the Trunk or treat. We had a lot fun with family and friends.

Pumpkin/Skeleton Wreath

On Thursday morning, my friend Kristi came over with her two kids and we made pumpkin/skeleton wreath's (another idea from my Sister-in-law Matti). To make this you paint white washable paint on the foot and stamp it on the black paper over and over, then paint orange washable paint on the palm of the hand and stamp that on white paper over and over. After it dries, draw faces on the orange pumpkins, cut out and attach to poster board cut into a circle.

Kristi's oldest boy thought it was great, but the two 2-year-olds, did not want any part of the painting of the hand or feet. I had to force Keagan to paint it foot and hand, but after I got it painted and stamped on the paper the first time, he didn't mind it so much. Then he had fun cutting and gluing it. It was fun to do this Halloween project and to spend time with friends.

Our Halloween Activities

We had quite the fun day yesterday. We started with making our pumpkin shaped pancakes (see post below). After we cleaned up from that we made Spudnuts which are donuts with potatoes in the batter. Afterwards, we took some to a couple of friends houses because we didn't want that many in our house.

After our afternoon naps and dinner, we went to a pumpkin patch and picked pumpkins then went on a hayride which is pulled by a Tractor. I mention the tractor because as soon as Keagan saw it, that is all he wanted to do. Because it was late by the time we got home, we put Keagan in bed and then Andrew and I enjoyed hot chocolate and our homemade donuts.

Today (Sunday) after dinner, we carved a pumpkin. By we, I mean Andrew did all the knife work because I am not all that fond of knifes and all I did was scoop out the pumpkin. But it was fun to watch Andrew and Keagan have at it.