Krysta's 4 Now!!

I can hardly believe she is 4 already!  She loves flowers and pretty things and dancing around the kitchen...

And playing with her preschool friends,

and spending her birthday with her Grandma and Grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  My camera had died during this trip, so all these pictures of that day are courtesy of my mom (Thanks!!).  Since her birthday falls around or on Thanksgiving every year, we often get to spend it with some extended family.  Thank goodness she loves it. 

So that day, we went to my sister (Megan)'s ward in Lehi and then went to her apartment to have lunch before heading home to Idaho.  We all had what Krysta had requested from her grandmother to eat for lunch: meat and cheese sandwiches, carrot sticks, chips, and cake with pink frosting.

 Her grandma Linda made this cake just for her, and she was so excited by it, the pink frosting, her name on it, and the pretty blue flowers.

 Grandma and Grandpa also gave her a book and a pretty new dress-up dress.

 She loves getting cards...

 Here she is, wearing her new dress-up dress and giving her Grandma a big thank you hug.  I love these pictures.  And I like the look on her daddy's face in the bottom one.

We came home and celebrated her birthday with just our family the next day, but due to the broken camera, we have no pictures of it.  It was so much fun.  I love four year-olds, they are so cute.

Krysta, we love having you in our family.  Your sweet and innocent manner endears you to everyone around you.  I love your  questions, and the amazing things you can think up and tell me about.  I love spending everyday with you and being able to teach your preschool sometimes.  I am amazed at how brave you are, especially this past year with all the medical tests and surgery.  You are so patient and accepting of it all.  I love that just holding my hand through it is enough for you to be able to handle anything.  I am so grateful for all that you teach me about faith, love, and acceptance.  Happy fourth birthday Krysta!

Russell's First Birthday

Make sure you enjoy this video, courtesy of Emalyn's budding filmography skills.  At the end, the shaking is due to her vigorous clapping, while holding the camera.  We have very multi-talented children.

This is Russell enjoying his pseudo-birthday cake, soy pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.  We recently discovered he cannot eat dairy, thus the SOY cookies.  I just LOVE his contagious laugh here.

Giving Russell presents is as much fun for you as it is for him. ha ha. Enjoy.

Aaahhh Russell, can it really already be a year since you were born?  Time has flown so fast.  You bring so much joy to everyone around you.  With your easy smile and adorable laugh, and your intense joy that you find in everything around you, you are loved by everyone.  You also keep me running to you...running to close the dishwasher so you don't break it by sitting on the open door, running to close the bathroom door so you don't play in the toilet, fall in the bathtub, and eat the toilet paper, running to close the gate to the stairs so you don't fall down them, running to keep you away from the organ foot pedals so you don't get stuck again, running to find a new seat belt for your highchair so you don't climb out and sit on the tray, running to close the cupboard doors so you stop making copies with the printer (seriously, how did you figure that out so fast!?), running to take the aluminum foil away (again), and just running when I hear you exclaiming "whoa, whoa" in that deep voice when you find something absolutely amazing that will probably cause you more trouble.  I hope this stage lasts forever though, because you are absolutely adorable.  We love you, our now 1 year old Russell!

Tyler's 9th birthday

Just in case you can't tell, ...it's a volcano cake.  It's what Tyler requested.  The chocolate chips are lava rocks, the green is green patches of grass on the mtn, and of course you can tell what the lava is.

Emalyn gave Tyler some candy,

Krysta gave Tyler a hot wheels racing car,

and he also received the Lego Indiana Jones Wii game and a Dagedar launcher.

I love his face here! Reminds me of a certain older brother of mine...

The candles were SUCH a disappointment.  They were supposed to be relighting candles (which I thought would be fun with the volcano cake), but as you can see, only ONE relit.  So he just thought it was a wierd fluke.  Oh well, it was fun anyway with the one candle.

Tyler is such a good boy and son to have in our family.  He is a very positive and fun guy to be around.  His enthusiasm is contagious to everyone around him, and a special blessing in our family.  He always tries to choose the right and be a good example to his younger sisters and brother.  He has done well in cub scouts-he's already earned his Wolf badge.  He has really loved reading about science this summer-you can ask him any question about the body and he knows the answer.  He retains the knowledge he's picked up from the books really well.
We're so glad he's part of our family! Tyler, we love you! Happy 9th birthday!

Russell's haircut

Okay, so I was tired of all the comments and doubts about Russell's gender...so we cut his hair today! All his beautiful curls are gone!

Here are the "before" pictures:

 Looking at them now, I have to agree somewhat, it was really long.  No wonder people couldn't get his gender right.

And the "after" pictures:

 He closed his eyes for every picture I took, because of the flash.  Or he's just really really tired...

Catching up-March 2011

Our adorable Krysta:

We went to Utah a few days before Krysta's surgery at Primary Children's hospital.  While there, we got together with Scott's family-who had a whole lot of surprises for her to open right before her surgery.

Russell, being held by Jared.  Later I found out that this was the first time Jared has held a baby-so we had to document it.  

After her surgery, Krysta had to stay in the hospital for the rest of that day, that night and the next day.  They had so many fun activities for her to do! Her Grandma Linda came and did some of the activities with her.

Doesn't she look so good for being less than 24 hours since surgery?

Krysta, outside her room, as we're getting ready to go home.

And Russell, at four months old.

Yay!!

Last weekend we had Krysta's *last* appointment in regards to her VUR.  Everything looks really good! She's doing great! They did a nuclear cystogram, and NO reflux showed in her kidneys.  So we stopped the antibiotics Sunday.  Now we just wait and see if she gets more infections.  If she gets a lot of infections, then we'll have to go back to Primary Children's again.  They told us to expect at least a few infections, because she's probably really prone to them.  But because of the surgery, they cannot spread to her kidneys and cause damage.  Unless she gets ALOT of infections, which could mean that the surgery did not work as well as it looks like it does so far.  The surgery is 98% effective the first time, so it probably worked great, and we're not worried about the what ifs.

Mirror Surprise

I don't want to go to that job today
for fear of what I might miss,
A touch of your hand, a wink of your eye,
or maybe even a kiss.

It seems such a waste of time to leave
for something as silly as money,
So when I get there, I'll sit back in my chair,
And dream of my evenings with honey.

I found the above on my mirror last Friday.  From my honey.  And it still makes me sooo happy to see it there!

Easter

Yesterday on Easter, our ward choir sang a song that is so beautiful. Emalyn recently joined the ward choir and she loves it!  I was just reading my mom's blog and she inspired me to put the song on the blog.  It is called  "Behold the Wounds in Jesus' Hands."  I just love the words in it.

Behold the wounds in Jesus' hands,
The marks upon His side,
Then ponder who He meant to save
When on the cross He died.
We cannot see the love of God
Which saves us from the fall,
Yet know that Christ from wood and nails
Built mansions for us all.

Behold the outstretched hands of Christ
Our God, who came to save,
Whose love and grace redeems ours souls
And lifts us from the grave.
Though bruised and battered as we stray
His guiding hands caress,
He washes and anoints with oil
Then in His arms we rest.

Behold the wounds in Jesus' hands,
Look to your Lord and live
He yearns to bless you with His love
And all your sins forgive.
Oh empty is the heart of man
When it is filled with sin.
Come open wide your broken heart
And let your Savior in.

Behold His wounded hands and feet!
Come touch and see and feel
The wounds and marks that you may know
His love for you is real.
Then as you fall to worship Him
and wash His feet in tears
Your Savior takes you in His arms
And quiets all your fears.

Your Savior takes you in His arms
And quiets all your fears.

Home to Idaho

This is from about four days ago. Since then a lot has happened:


We came back from Utah yesterday. I was nervous about making the drive with Krysta, (especially since she'd had a slight fever the night before) but she did really well. She did get another fever and she throw up around Roy, UT, but we were able to clean it up and continue our drive without any other mishaps. We got home just in time to put the tired kids to bed and then unpack. Krysta is doing ok today. No fever, but she did throw up once so far. We've taken her off of the Lortab because I'm pretty sure that's what's making her so nauseated. So now she's taking a medicine for the bladder spasms and ibuprofen for the rest of the pain. She's doing much better and eating and drinking better. I finally figured out how to get her to drink- Capri Suns! She's drinking much better with those than with anything else we've tried. And it seems that as long as she's drinking and she doesn't overdo it, she doesn't get a fever.  It's really hard to not let her overdo it-she's constantly lifting things, running up and down the stairs, climbing things, etc.  I'm hoping that as the Lortab wears off, she stops doing things she shouldn't do because she no longer feels THAT good.  Not that I want her in pain, I just want her to keep an appropriate level of activity for her recovery.  So far she hasn't complained of pain today.
It's so nice to be home. It's always hard to leave family that we love and whose help we love to have, but it's nice to be home.  It feels like things will return to normal soon.  Yay :)  I just feel so blessed to have been the recipient of soo much help and faith and prayers. 

grandma's house

Just to clarify-we're not actually home, we're just out of the hospital.  We're staying with my mom and dad in Orem, UT.  Krysta is still doing great-we had a bit of a rough time last night when she had a bladder spasm and some other pain in the night, but she's super happy and doing great this morning. 

  For those of you who don't know what the surgery was, it was a bi-lateral ureteral re-implant for vesicoureteral reflux.  If you want to learn more about vesicoureteral reflux, click here.   If you want to learn what the surgery is, click here.

Home again ALREADY!!!

Can you believe it?  We came home from the hospital today, around 6pm.  She did so great today, with drinking and eating a bit.  She did throw up last night, but that was the only time, and she didn't have too much nausea today.  She is able to go to the bathroom on her own since this morning.  Once they got her up and walking around this morning, she didn't want to go back to bed.  She's a normally pretty active little girl, so she didn't see any need to get back in that hospital bed.
They had soooo many activities there for her to do: she made bracelets, colored, painted a green picture, could order ANY food/drink she could think of, got to play several musical instruments and sing with the music lady, watch any movie she wanted, and string foam beads into a necklace.
 I learned to love that hospital.  They were so caring and attentive to her and to us.  They tried to help and accomodate us in every way they could.  Being at that hospital also made me grateful that Krysta's surgery wasn't more serious.  There were other parents there with children in a lot more serious condition and undergoing much more serious surgeries.
I am so grateful for how well she is doing.  We have to keep reminding her to NOT jump, run, play soccer.  She really feels pretty good considering.  The only time you can tell there's some pain is when she walks.  She walks pretty slowly (which is even more strange when you see her try to run a minute later).  And then the bladder spasms seem to be pretty painful, even though she's on medication for them.  Thank you for all your prayers.  I know they have helped her and us through these last few days.
I'm exhausted.  Running back and forth between her and feeding Russell at the hotel was hard.  I'm so glad we only had to do it for two days!
I'm also grateful to my mom for staying with Russell in the hotel and to my other mother (my m-i-l), Nancy, for taking Tyler and Emalyn for the last two days and agreeing to take them for two days.  They are soooo good to us.

Update on Krysta

Krysta had her surgery today and it went really well.   It took about 2 hours and 45 min, but they said everything went smoothly.  Her ureters were big enough after the surgery that they didn't put a stint (a drainage tube) in.  They said that even with all the swelling that will occur, they won't swell so much that they close off, so urine should flow evenly from the kidneys to the bladder.  She's been eating really well, and hasn't had any nausea, so that's a really good sign.  She was REALLY sleepy, only waking up for a few minutes at a time until about 6pm tonight.  The first thing she said to me was, "Mommy...it doesn't hurt..."  That was a wonderful thing to hear.  I'd told her that after she woke up from the hospital she would have an owie on her tummy.  So she was surprised to wake up with no pain at all.  After that she had ice cream and lots of goldfish crackers.  She has a caudal block, which is similar to a spinal block, just lower down, so she is numb from the hips down.  She can't get out of bed or anything.  The most painful thing is the bladder spasms she's had a couple of -and they said she'd continue to have those for the next 3-4 days or so.  She's on a lot of pain meds besides that too.   She's loving watching Blues Clues and eating goldfish crackers. 

Ironic

I have a horrible nasty cold.  For those of you who know about Krysta's surgery, you're probably seeing the irony.  I haven't gone to other people's houses for 2 weeks now, trying to keep her healthy for her surgery.  I've told certain other people to let me know before I see them if they are sick so that she won't catch anything.  And then Sunday, I got sick.  So I'm washing my hands,using hand sanitizer, and basically trying to disinfect everything I touch trying to keep her healthy.  The surgeon told us that if she has a cold, a UTI, or anything else, they will not perform the surgery. 
So I'm doing the only thing I can do, after all.  I'm leaving it up to the Lord.  He is over all and if it would be better for her to not have her surgery on Monday, then so be it.  I'm trying to work out my peace with this, while at the same time, really hoping that she doesn't get sick and we can go ahead with this surgery. 

Speaking of ironies..about a week and a half ago, Emalyn came home with a letter from school saying that she'd scored low on the reading testing they did and asking for permission to enroll her in an after-school reading program.  I thought this was strange, because I felt she was a great reader.  So Scott and I decided against enrolling her in the program.  I spent the next few days really listening to her read to see if there really was a problem, but again felt that she was doing fine.  A few days later, she came home with another note.  I was sure it was going to be a letter asking us why we hadn't enrolled her in the after-school program, etc.  But to my surprise, it said that she'd recently scored really well on the reading testing and asking for our permission to enroll her in an Enriched reading program for the gifted and talented.  Now THAT one I agreed with and signed the letter.  I still have yet to hear how this all happened.  Maybe she really jumped ahead in those four days? ha ha.

We're going private...

We are going to make our blog private.  There are things I'd like to blog about, but it makes me too nervous to do so if the blog is public.  So I'm going to send an invite to everyone's email address that I have.  If you want an invite and I don't have your email, send me one.  My email is amyscottjensen@gmail.com.

Pinewood Derby video

I'd forgotten that Tyler and Scott made this video a few months ago, with Tyler describing his car and some details about making it.

Emalyn's Family Home Evening lesson-Armour of God

You might not recognize these pictures of our sweet Emalyn.  They show a "different" side of her personality.

A few weeks ago, when it was her turn for the lesson, we decided to do it on the Armour of God.  It was a lot of fun to make and here she is, all decked-out in armor. I asked her to have a "warlike" face and I was amazed at the face you see below. Beware, all kinds of foes!

It was a good lesson.  We discussed all the things that can cause us to remove part of all of our armor against Satan.  The kids did really well with this discussion.  Emalyn did a good job of doing this lesson.

Tyler's first Pinewood Derby-January 2011

Tyler got the idea for his car by looking online and picking out which design he liked best. He and Scott both spent a lot of time on it. This is Tyler sanding the car.

Here's Tyler's car, before the wheels were put on.  We didn't get a picture of it after the wheels were put on. Hopefully I can get one soon and add it.

This is the first race his car was in.  He did pretty good, Scott says it would have done better if they 'd put more weight in the front.

This next picture is of Tyler earning his Bobcat and pinning the pin on my coat.  Yay Tyler!