Newest Family Picture... FINALLY!

After years and years and years ( did I say years ) I finally have a new family picture to share with you all :-) 

The only problem with our family picture is that it's already outdated!! This one was taken at Thanksgiving 2010 just after Nathaniels adoption was finalized. We also just in the last 2 weeks found out that we will be able to adopt our newest foster son Aiden and that is due to be finalized sometime in November 2011, if all goes well. So in th last 10 months we have gone from a family of 4 to a family of 6!

Pictured left to right: Nathaniel, Ian, Jonathan, Kya & Laura

Our newest addition Aiden...

  

 Snuggled right in with Jonathan, this pic was taken the first time we could hold him.

 Screaming like a banshee because he was mad I took him out of the bath!

This is Dad holding Aiden (right) and Kami's newest son Logan... it's amazing what a few more weeks of incubation does, these guys are only one day apart!!

I promise to post new family pics as soon as the adoption is final!

50's Car Show

Every year the city of Coeur D'alene host a 50's themed classic car show called the Car D'lane (isn't that cute?). We have made it a point to attend as many as possible and this year was no exception. The weather was beautiful, the cars were awsome and we all had a great time checking out these classic dream cars.

The boys took this picture just for you Grandpa Odell! This bison sculpture is one of my favorites we have downtown, and we thought you might like it.

Shiny, LOVE the color!

I think the boys were pretty tired by this point in the day. Shortly after we went to the beach to cool off for a while.

The next pictures are some of my personal favorites

I love panel wagons!

This one was my favorite of all the cars this year.

I'm ready for that road trip, Dear!

Jonathan's favorite for the day.

This one nathaniel spent 15 minutes drooling over and asking the owner tons of questions. We finally abondoned him to continue looking at other cars. Do you think we have a lead foot in our future???

My new project

Our poor little house in bursting at the seams... so I'm finally getting a sewing room!
With all of the new medical equipment, supplies and longer nursing hours; we have had to make a few changes in our lives. Jonathan's parents graciously offered to find other housing arrangements so that we could make room for everything and everyone. Kya now has the biggest room in the house which we have nicknamed the "suite", the boys are doubling up in Ians old room and I am finally getting a long awaited sewing/craft/school room.

Due to the fact that Kya's care has taken on a whole new level of physical/emotional requirements, I felt that it would be beneficial to us all (aka -the boys) to allow me to have a space to use for my creative outlets (aka- stress relief) avaliable 24/7. The boys, with very little grumbling, agreed to share a room for now to help me. I am incredibly blessed to have such wonderful kids! So in return I have already made good on one promise for a new Kilt and all new crazy shorts are on there way...

It may not look like much but I am excited! I have painted the top 2/3 of the room and am working on applying the wainscotting and chair rail trim. I've always wanted this finish on my walls so I saved my pennies to buy the supplies and have done most of the work myself. I will post more pictures after I finish it.

BEWARE: Nathaniel typing

So I was sitting next to mom (she requires that I call her mom on her birthday), when she gave me my laptop (which she thinks is hers), and tells me to update the family blog. I guess I'll start with the youth conference I got back from yesterday. There was about 1600 youth there, which is unimportant, however, there was about 800 girls, which is probably the most prominent (if not only) reason why I went. The dance was two and a half hours, me and Jake (I suppose I could say "Jake and I" but I won't), danced with about ten girls each and regardless to what Ty tells you he danced maybe twice.
Day two of the youth conference consisted of two thousand mormons sitting in a large room listening to war stories then making Christmas and Thanksgiving day cards to those serving in Iraq, one soldier who spoke referred to Iraq as "the land of death and contention." Then we watched a presentation about teen closet, which is the most inaccurate description of foster care that I ever heard, I was trying very hard not to laugh when they said that "all the social workers would like to provide for the children as much as possible". Then they said "there could be a foster child sitting right next to you" and then I couldn't take it anymore I had to burst in laughter.

After the youth conference my family put me in a dress and then showed me to a bunch of old men in dresses and tried to convince me this was normal (highland games). I came too late to see any of the games, but I got to see some celtic (pronounced kéltik, NOT séltik) dancing and singing.

Ian is totally loving having any excuse to re-inact the movie Braveheart!

You'll never guess what's under here...

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I suppose I should blog about the logging we did almost a year ago because both mom and Jonathan (he has to wait for his birthday just like laur-I mean, mom) hinted very heavily about that. In all these photos Jonathan is the one with the beaming grey hair, Ian is the one hiding from work, I'm the one in the orange hat (I was not interested in "accidentaly" getting hit with a splitting maul by Jonathan), mom is the one hiding behind the camera, Grandpa was being Grandpa, and kya was sitting in the truck bossing us around.

Now that you've seen me in these pictures you're probably wondering something...I like dinner and a movie, long walks on a beach, I prefer redheads, but I'll settle for a smoking hot blonde. Contact my dating advisor Laura Dale.

I'm really NOT crazy....well about this anyways!

So let me tell you all what a weird month we are having.

Poor little Kya has been back in the hospital for a little more than 2 weeks. She managed to come home to us for 10 days before (oddly enough) the PICU at Sacred Heart called us and asked us to bring her back in! That's a first let me tell you!

She had been having a difficult time for about 3 days prior with hyperventilating and that coupled with what they knew, turns out that Kya had a blood culture from her previous visit come out positive for MRSA (a really hard to kill staff infection), she needed to be put on IV antibiotics for a long while and get some fluid off her lungs.

So we dutifully brought her back and began her treatments to get her lungs healthy. A week goes by and she looks good, feels good, acts great and I was thinking we were heading home... NOT! I then found out that in order to treat the MRSA properly they needed to actually take out her Port-a-cath, a permanent central line under the skin & our ONLY I.V. access! So poor Kya went into surgery and had that removed, they put in a regular I.V access in one of her little decrepit veins and began her 14 days of Vancomyacin antibiotics.

The new plan was to have her "line free" for a few days and then put in a PIC line (an externally placed central line) to then finish her course of treatment in the comfort of our own home. Monday she gets the PIC and everything is going great! We are on schedule to go home Tuesday, I have my nurse meeting me and we are ready to go!

We show up at the hospital and out the clear blue, I begin to have this overwhelming feeling that I CAN NOT BRING HER HOME! The spirit so strongly was telling me that something was NOT right! Of course I become a complete basket case and start uncontrollably crying (thank you hormones!) and cannot for the life of me explain how strongly I feel like she is suppose to stay in the hospital. I give the staff several different reasons why I feel uncomfortable bringing her home (she had some clinical reasons which were justifiable) and I know they all think I am nuts, because I THINK I AM NUTS! But after making the decision I feel much better about everything, although I am still a crying basket case! (I really wanted her home!)

Wednesday I show up for my visit and guess what... The PIC line goes bad and they can't use it! ( Reason #1 why we would have had to be re-admitted had we gone home) So back to regular IV's until they get her in for a new one. Thursday a new PIC in the other arm.

Friday night guess who has a fever? You guessed it, Kya is running a 102 temp! (Reason #2 we would have been re-admitted had we gone home). Now Saturday rolls around and she is doing well, temp is controlled with Tylenol & Ibuprofen, she's needing more O2 than at home but she looks good, she is acting AWSOME and I'm feeling much better & validated about my crazy "over-reaction" with ensuing emotional breakdown! Since now she's started indicating that maybe she wasn't quite done being sick.

Sunday (today!) Last night I felt like I should stay the night here at the hospital so I had poor Jonathan drive me out at 12:oo in the morning! We visited with Kya and played she is SO HAPPY! He goes home & I pass out in the waiting room. It's 8am and Jake Stellmon was our nurse last night and he stops me in the hall...you will never guess what happened! Kya started Desating about 1 hour before (could not keep her oxygen levels up) and they could not figure out what she was doing, so they did an ultrasound on her chest. She has a plural efusion (hole in her lung) and needs a chest tube!!!!! (this would be reason #3 that going home would have been very short-term and potentially life threatening)

So today I am very grateful. I am grateful that I listened to the spirit. I don't often have experiences like this so I'm a little dense when it comes to knowing what the Lord wants me to do, but at least he knows my weaknesses and made sure I could figure it out! I am really grateful to have the gosple in my life and I am learning to appreciate how much knowledge that brings to me and how much more difficult my life could be if I did not have the Gosple!

I will update the blog in a day or two and let you all know how she is doing. Thanks so much for your well wishes and concern we really appreciate it!

An open letter ...

Dear Friends,

All I can say is WOW! It has been a heck of a roller coaster and the ride is not over yet. What you may not know yet is that our life as we knew it before is over and a new one has taken its place. I will say that the readjustment has been extremely emotionally challenging, all time consuming and has dramatically affected how we will live our lives from here on out.

The high points of our new existence are these; Kya has had such a problem with her secretions in her lungs and not being able to clear them from her airway, causing her to go into pulmonary & cardiac arrest twice in the last 2 months, we were asked to consider giving her a tracheotomy (a permanent hole in her airway, through her neck) we consented and now everything has changed.

Due to Kyas chronic lung problems, she now is benefiting from extra pressure support provided by a ventilator to keep her left lung opened up and help it not to collapse. She still does all of her own breathing and if you see her around town or at church (maybe in a few months) she may not even be using her ventilator but these times off the vent must be kept short because she gets VERY tired quickly, her lungs start to dry out and then begins the problems with collapsing lungs.

Obviously our very special child now has even more very special needs. I am resigned to the reality that most of our own personal freedoms have to be put on hold for this season in our life. We must remain within earshot of Kyas monitors and within a certain radius of her person so we can assist her in clearing her airway in a timely manner, so as to avoid the necessity for CPR in the future. She is on a regimen of breathing treatments every 4 hours and medications every 6 hours. This dampers the social life a little bit.

Over the course of the next few weeks our nursing company will be able to get me more assistance and we will hopefully be able to get enough sleep to function as a human beings again, but for now it is night shift trade-offs and catching a nap whenever Kya lets us. Our anti-bacterial hands soap, hand sanatizer and Lysol purchases just quadrupled every month so now would be the time to buy stock. Also traveling anywhere (even the grocery store) is a two person job requiring a minimum of 45 minutes of prep-work to get out of the house and so it will be very limited from now on as well.

Although the emotional and physical demands are higher there are defiantly benefits to be had:

1) is that my house is spotless! Kya requires as much cleanliness as is feasible in a lived in home and I have lots of free time late at night. So Fly lady & I are good friends again!

2) I get to sleep in my own bed again…. YEAH!

3) No more dogs on my bed, no more dog hair all over my house and no more “accidents” to clean up. Yep, all the animals have been kicked outside (dog / cat hair & trachs do not mix!) and I could not be more pleased. I LOVE my animals but I am ready for them to be outside forever.

4) Last but not least, I have been reminded again about what is most important in this life, family! I am determined to enjoy every second I get to spend with my beautiful little girl and I will take every opportunity I have to spend time with my boys one-on-one while they are still young enough to let me. I am trying harder to be an awesome girlfriend to my husband and I am remembering to appreciate all of his hard work which allows me the freedom of staying home with my kids instead of carrying the financial burden as well. I have learned that my husband truly is named appropriately after Jonathan in the bible, who loved David and was unwavering in his devotion.

We sincerely want to thank all of you for your concern and especially your prayers. I know without a doubt that the Lord has heard and answered those prayers. We have received so many blessings of comfort, peace and also many tender mercies that I am unable to express with words what it means to me. Your faith is amazing and we would have been lost without your concerns expressed on our behalf.

JUNE 1ST

8 weeks and 2 days later and a hole buch more eqipment and wear finaly on the way home to are new and exsiting life with kya. laura will update more as she has time