So Far in 2009 . . .

Hannah won her district spelling bee, so on to regionals it is.

Noah learned how to ride without training wheels.

Kendall and I had a great time at the Phoenix Children's Museum.

Joey celebrated his birthday (no he's not three, that's just how many candles I had!)

We celebrated by spending a weekend up north without the kiddos. It was great. Even standing in the snow it really wasn't that cold, but the scenery was beautiful.

I think we're off to a good start.

Remembering

When I realized the date today, it took me back twelve whole years to when Hannah had surgery as a baby. I thought I'd write down the story.

She had been sick for a few days, with a fever and just not acting quite right. She was 8 months old and just starting to crawl. She all of a sudden stopped crawling and when she would sit up she would lean to one side strangely. I took her to the doctor and of course she acted fine while we were there. The doctor went ahead and ordered x-rays of her leg and hip just to make sure nothing was wrong. That was on the 13th. The next day she seemed a little better, and the doctor told us that the x-rays were normal. That night, she had a raging fever all night and didn't sleep, it seemed like her hip was hurting, and my mom and I knew that something was definitely wrong. We took her to the doctor as soon as they opened (January 15th) and they did some blood work. They did a test to find her "sed rate" which measures inflammation in the body. A normal range for her would have been 0-15, and hers was 40. They also reviewed the x-rays again and realized that the x-ray technician had not done the hip, just the leg. They immediately sent us to the hospital.

I was supposed to start a new job at Wells Fargo that day, and I had to call them and tell them what was going on. I was worried I would get fired, but I obviously didn't care about anything but Hannah at that point. When we got to the hospital they did some more tests, including a spinal tap. They did not let me come in the room and I just stayed out in the hall crying and completely freaking out. They determined that she had a bacterial infection that had settled in her hip joint and needed to be cleaned out through surgery. Some time that evening, they took her into surgery. I cannot describe the feeling of having your child taken away on a gurney and realizing that you have no control over their life at that point. I'm so thankful that she received a priesthood blessing.

The surgery went perfectly and they were able to completely clean out the infected area. We still to this day do not know exactly what caused the infection. It could have been an injury that we didn't realize she had, or just an infection that thought her hip would be a nice place to live. We will never know. She stayed in the hospital for nine long days after that. I would sleep in one of those reclining chairs each night next to her metal hospital crib which looked more like a cage. At some point she would end up in the chair with me and I would fall asleep nursing her. My mom would come to the hospital every morning so I could run home and take a shower, and then come straight back. We had a great medical staff that took care of her, from nurses to our pediatrician to the infectious disease doctors and her surgeon.

She had to have a pick line put in her shoulder so that IV antibiotics could be administered to make sure that the infection was completely taken care of. We had to learn how to do that and keep it clean Amazingly she has no scar from the surgery and just the slightest scar from the pick line. My mom had started a new job right before this happened and she was absolutely hating it. When Hannah was sick she called and quit her job, which turned out to be one of the biggest blessings. Being a single mom I already relied on my parents a lot, but I would not have been able to work or go to school if my mom had not quit her job and taken care of Hannah during that time. I also think about how young and uneducated I was about everything that was going on. Thank goodness I had my parents to ask questions and keep up with the medical side of everything.

We had to follow up with the surgeon for several years after that, because there was a chance that Hannah could have had one leg shorter than another or other permanent damage from the surgery, but by the time she was about 4 they determined that she would have no side effects from the experience. That was such a relief as well.

I know many of you have experienced traumatic moments with your children and can relate to how scary it is. I'm grateful that we were so blessed. (Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that while all this was going on, my brother Chris found out that he was going to have brain surgery! When it rains, it definitely pours. Thankfully there was a happy ending to that story too.)

I wish I had a scanner so I could post a baby picture of Hannah!

A Great Weekend . . .

Joey and Noah went on the Father and Son's Outing from Thursday-Saturday, (where apparently my foil dinners were the envy of the camp--who knew?!)

so imagine my surprise when the doorbell rang Friday morning and these

were delivered to my door. It actually made me tear up when I read the sweet card from Joey and the kids. You have to understand that getting flowers from my husband is a rare occasion. (He gives a great back rub, but is not great in the gift department. Most of the time, I'd rather have the back rub and pick out my own gifts anyway.) Apparently my Noah has been urging Daddy to get me flowers for weeks now. Haven't I trained him well?

Friday night we celebrated Hannah's birthday with a few friends by going to Dramagenics, a new family-friendly improv club. It is just starting up, so our group of 6 made up about half the audience, but it was a really fun time. The girls loved it, and some of them even got to go on stage and participate. They all got t-shirts too. It would be a fun date night or even night out with the family. (They also had buy one, get one free coupons in the Val-pak mailer a few weeks ago!). The birthday party turned into an unplanned slumber party where I went to bed and the girls stayed up way too late, which I suppose is the way slumber parties are supposed to be. We've found it's the perfect opportunity to do this when the boys are out of the house!

Sunday morning I got to sleep in while Joey made breakfast. Of course we ended up being late for church because of it, but it was worth it. He's rarely home before church because he has so many meetings, but it seems like whenever he is home we are late. I'm not blaming it on him, it's just that I get lazy and think I have more time since he's here. At church, my kids did the traditional Mother's Day singing with the Primary, and it was the last time all of my kids will be in Primary together. Makes me a little sad. My kids also showered me with fun homemade gifts, but I forgot to wear my "Super Mom: Hero of the Universe" button to church.

After church, we enjoyed a nice dinner with my family and Noah finally lost that tooth. Then he literally lost the tooth. Lucky for him, we have some good connections with the tooth fairy and she came anyway.

(Hi Randi, I know you're stalking my blog!)

Spelling Bee Update

So on March 29th, Hannah competed in the AZ State Spelling Bee at ASU. Because of the crazy month we've had, I hardly had any time to help her study, so I was not getting my hopes up too much for her. Of course, she surprised me and won 5th place with hardly any studying! The top five winners all received trophies, and she also won a savings bond and an Amazon.com gift card. I'll update later with the words she spelled, I don't have it in front of me. I know that the word she missed was tatami, she spelled it tatimi. She says she knew the correct spelling and even in her mind thought she spelled it correctly. We're so happy that she's done so well in the spelling bees this year. Great job Hannah! (The photo is right before the spelling bee, do you think she was nervous?)

I promise that my next posts will be about Noah and Kendall. Poor things, they've been very neglected on this blog!

By the way, Hannah was mentioned in the Surprise Today, a local newspaper, and also online in this article:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/mailstory-clickthru/232029.php

The spelling bee will air on PBS locally on Sunday, April 13th at 5 pm and also on Wednesday, April 16th at 11 pm. Check it out!

Happy Heart Day!

This is the Valentine that I helped Hannah create on the computer. We had them printed 4x6 through Winkflash and she is passing them out at school. I think they turned out pretty cute. To explain the elephant, they are her current obsession and she had to have one on there. I told her it looks like a subliminal message of "Vote Republican" and she thought that was pretty funny. I'm just glad she is over the cow obsession so that she'll eat beef again.

So, I think Valentine's Day is pretty much a Hallmark/florist holiday. We don't really celebrate it much as a couple, probably because his birthday, our anniversary, and my birthday all fall within about two months of each other, so who needs another holiday in there to buy something else?! And the cost of flowers is just ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, there were times in the past that I would have been offended if I didn't get a present and a night out, but it's just not that big of a deal. Not that I'd be mad if I did get something now, but I just don't really care all that much. What do you think? Is it a big deal for any of you to celebrate Valentines Day? Do you have any fun traditions or stories?

She's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Apparently I'm a blog slacker. It's been awhile, and I didn't even notice that I changed my comment settings so that they had to be moderated. I just changed them back. Anyway, to update you all on the spelling bee saga, Hannah competed in the regional spelling bee last Thursday, February 9th. She took second place!!! She was so close to winning . . . the other girl misspelled a word, Hannah spelled it correctly, but then missed the winning word, and that gave the other girl a chance to swoop in for the win. Here's the list of words she spelled correctly: biblical, sputnik, adamant, praline, misanthropy, malaria, coyote, myriad, eiderdown, homogeneous, notochord, gestalt, megalopolis, synchronous, bellicose, dressage, sevruga, and homburg. The only word she missed was belay, but to give her credit it wasn't on the study list, and being pronounced "buh-lay" she spelled it bilet, like a French word. So she now goes to the state spelling bee on March 29th at ASU, which of course being my alma mater she's sure to have some good karma coming her way. It was so exciting (as much as a spelling bee can be), but I would literally hold my breath every time it was her turn. The only bad thing is that I was so ready to be done studying. Those words are hard and they make me tired!

Great job Hannah!!!!

Our Little Akeelah

Dr Larabee: Where do you think big words come from?
Akeelah: People with big brains?

In case you hadn't heard, Hannah won the spelling bee at her school back in December, and then won the district spelling bee this month. She goes to the regional spelling bee next week. So she's had her 15 minutes of fame twice now, with her name up on the marquee. And no, someone didn't spray paint over her last name; I'm just a little freaked out about internet safety so I blurred it out (I'm loving my new Photoshop Elements). And I promise not to make every post a movie reference.

By the way, I paid her $5 to try and make it to the school spelling bee, because she told me she didn't want to do it. Great parenting skills, all that intrinsic motivation I'm trying to teach my children.

Hooray, Hannah! You rock!