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!

Scott's night job and Christmas 2010

Doesn't he make a handsome Santa?  We bought this for a lip sync we did at my parents' house right after Christmas.  He really wore it!  The kids especially loved it.

I love the looks on everyone's faces.  So funny and memorable.  I believe Krysta has this look on her face due to the instructions to not open presents until after the pictures were taken.

Or she's just happier with her mama....

ha ha.

Can I open another one, please Daddy? Please Daddy? Now please? Is it my turn yet?

Tyler got a paper airplane book for Christmas.  He really loved it.  He made all of the paper airplanes in the book (at least a hundred) by the end of February.
We had a great Christmas.  There are no pictures of Russell because he slept right through it all.  But those of us who were awake enjoyed watching eachother open presents.

Tyler the Musician in December

Tyler's 2nd grade did a reading in December of "The Brementown Musicians". It was fun to go and hear him read together with the class. However, they had him in the back, so even though I tried, I didn't get any good pics of him. But right after the reading, they had each child demonstrate rhythm and counting. Tyler got to do the maracas.

Tyler also had his first piano recital in December. He played Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He did such a good job! We are so proud of him.