The One with 200+ Kids

Two Sundays ago (I'm falling way behind in the blogging world) Parker had his Primary Program in church. One of my good friends is the Primary President, and it wasn't until that program that I realized HOW big of a calling that was. I mean, it's always a big calling, but we have over 200 children in our ward - that's a lot of kids to put into a program, herd all over the place, keep quiet, and teach. I was VERY impressed with what a wonderful program it was, and Parker did AMAZING!!! He is turning into such a little man - complete with singing through barely moving lips. He is pretty cute!

The One with the Double UP

Currently I am in week seven (of nine) of my final block of classes to finish my Associates in Health Administration. It is pretty exciting to be almost done with this degree finally, and move onto the bachelor's program.

I'm twenty-five, I'm a little old (at least I feel like) to not have my bachelor's degree yet. I am also super inpatient, and super ready to get started in my career field. I know I could go out and find a job with my AHA but I know I could find a better paying one with my BHA. But here's where the inpatience comes in. All the credits I started when I was at BYU-I were for a Biology degree, so nothing is really transferring over. Which means to finish my bachelor's I have another two years.

I don't want to wait to years though.

So instead I have spoken to my counselors and we are doubling up classes for my bachelor's program so I can be done with it in a year.

I thought things were a little hectic now . . . . I can only assume they will get slightly more hectic with this new method, but I know it's worth it. With any luck I'll be done with my master's when I'm 27. I like the sound of that!

The One with the Frenuloplasty

Surgery time at the Marshall house, right? I know that's what you're all thinking. I don't know what it is with our little family, but there's always something medical happening it seems like. Or maybe it's that we're always paying off medical things that have happened. The payments last oh so much longer than the procedure, that is for sure. That is my favorite part of Eric's job having such awesome benefits. We rarely find ourselves in a situation where we have to make payments for longer than a couple months. It is awesome. I am so glad to finally be done with individual insurance plans!

We had to be to the surgery center with Pax at 6:30. That is so early. Especially since it takes us 30 minutes to drive there. That means up at 5 for Mom! SUPER FUN! It was nice at least that we didn't have to worry about trying to keep Pax happy without eating for hours.

He went in, he had surgery, it took about 20 minutes, and the anesthesiologist brought him out himself. Of course Pax was already crying. In the SWIDENT surgery center the nurses always talk about hwo most babies just sleep when they come out of surgery. A nurse brings them out, puts them in your arms, and they are just asleep and slowly wake up.

I call crap.

At least for all of our kids. Every single one of them wakes up screaming and flailing. It makes me feel slightly bad for the other patients since there is only a thin curtain separating the rooms. We eventually got him calmed down enough to go home.

He has one stitch in his top lip and one under his tongue. I don't think he has any idea what to do with his tongue - it's such a new thing for him. He hasn't quite figured out how to suck on his bottle well again. And other than a few bites of pudding he hasn't eaten anything baby food-ish either. It's okay though, I know we'll get him back into the swing of things.

As of right now, I am beyond ecstatic for bed tonight. Instead of sleeping off all the anesthesia last nigt Pax decided to stay up all night, forcing me to watch the entire final season of One Tree Hill. And as much as I like the show, and as much as I wanted to watch the final season, I definitely like my sleep better.

Here's to hoping I can get at least four hours of solid sleep tonight!

The one with the Red Card

At Parker's pre-school they have a green card/red card system. The kids start out with a green card every day, if they do something they shouldn't they have to switch their card to red. If they have a red card at the end of the day they don't get a sticker.

One day I picked Parker up and his teacher told me he had gotten into a fight with his friend and they both ended up with red cards. I'm not sure who was more embarassed in this situation, me or Parker. Parker is a really good kid too, so it was that much more surprising to everyone in the situation. After a few discussions with Park, Eric and I decided we could use the whole concept of a red card to our advantage. Now in our house we have a green card/red card system. It gets talked about quite frequently, "You better stop that or you'll get a red card" or "Do you want a red card?" etc etc. It may seem weird, but it's a consequence he seems to understand better than "people won't like you if you act like that".

Keept his in mind as I go off on a tangent real fast.

When Eric and I first met I was startng a defensive driving course. Basically, it was court mandated. When I was a teenager I was a little into speeding everywhere I went. I doubt it helped much that I drove a red camaro, nothing like a sports car that is red to catch any police officer's eye . . . . and their radar gun.

BUT since we have been married, I haven't been pulled over once! Probably because I now have kids with me in the car and I don't want to hurt them by getting into an accident. Eric's been pulled over a few times but usually he gets off with a warning after this comment "Officer, here's my concealed weapons permit, I have a gun in the glove box, would you still like me to pull out my insurance and registration?" I can't use that excuse. If I told an officer there was a gun in the glove box they'd probably cart me off to jail since I DON'T have a permit.

Last Wednesday I had activity days. To get Parker into pre-school I had to switch my work days so I now work on Wednesdays. This was the first Wednesday that I was going to have to leave early to make it home in time for activity days. I ended up leaving way later than I intended - try getting three kids out the door on time for anything, it's ridiculous. Eric had also just had surgery that week and was not feeling great. I was on the freeway heading home, and i just kept getting stuck behind this semi, he didn't want to drive the speed limit. The guy next to him didn't want to drive the speed limit. They kept swapping who was in the lead, but neither one of them would get in front of the other enough that I could pass between them. When they finally did, I went for it, squeezed through the opening and speed around them. I know, I shouldn't speed, but I was in a hurry, and I just needed to get around these people.

Bad idea.

Usually I see the police. And usually it's in enough time that I can react and slow down to five miles under the speed limit, or check my speed really fast to make sure I'm doing fine. I keep reviewing this situation, and I STILL have no clue where this motorcycle cop came from. But he tagged me and pulled me over.

Clearly there is no divine protection offered against speeding home to get to a church calling. Words from the wise . . . . . or at least someone whose experienced it.

He was very nice, showed concern for my husband who had just had surgery, etc, so I couldn't even be mad when he came back with a ticket. The kids were a little confused what was happening, so I was trying to explain it to them.

Parker's response: "MOM! You got a red card!"

Those were also the first words he yelled at Daddy when we walked in.

Yes, I got a red card. And it cost me ninety bucks.

The One with the Carpal Tunnel

Monday September 24th Eric went in to get his hand chopped off.

Well not literally, although Parker was super excited to see daddy come home with a hook. But it didn't happen. In his right hand he had carpal tunnel as well as a cyst at the base of his thumb where it meets up with the arm's long bone.

The surgery center was sadly (and unbeknownst to me) owned by West Valley and only furthered my hatred towards them. I guess I should correct that. I don't hate them. The doctors appear to be competent, but the administration aspect is just off.

Anyways, I don't even want to get into it, I just get angry. The good news is he got in and out ALIVE and with all of his appendages. I also got an amazingly hilarious video of my drugged out of his mind husband on the way home. If you haven't already seen it, you should check it out on Facebook, I promise it is worth the 12 minutes of your time.

And now about 5 days later, Eric is doing okay. He's sore, A LOT! And I think he's getting a little over not being able to use his dominant hand to do anthing like do his hair or brush his teeth - and I can't lie and say I am not looking forward to the day when Eric can help out by changing diapers again here and there.

I'm sure the process will be slow, but we are looking forward to it being over . . . . just in time for the other wrist to be done! MAN! Employer insurance was super amazing though again, looks like we won't be paying more than $300 for it total, which I am ecstatic about! He keeps talking about "when I graduate and leave to go [somewhere]" and I'm just like NO WAIT DON'T LEAVE! But we will find a way to survive I am sure!

The One With the Frenulum

Since coming home from Sun River our life has resumed it's normal craziness. Monday we went back into work. Tuesday Parker had school and then we all bombed out to Paxton's last oral therapy appointment before his therapist leaves to have a baby. She cleared him as good to go for about three months before he will have to come back in. Wednesday back to work and scouts. Thursday Parker had school then head out to Paxton's ENT appointment to meet with the doctor about clipping his tongue.

I just have to say, for all my Idaho friends, if ever your child needs a pediatrict ear nose and throat doctor, get in to see Dr. Beck at Southwest Idaho ENT. She is incredible. She is the only peds doctor in the area, so she is super hard to get into, but she is amazing. Only crappy part is she is so amazingly awesome in the room, that she always runs HOURS behind. So we sat in the office for about an hour and a half AFTER our appointment before she came in. But once she was in, she looked and it was a no brainer - CLIP THE TONGUE. She said it was one of the tightest she had seen. Also to be cut - both frenulums. The frenulum is that little piece of skin that attaches your lip to your gum, clear up inside your mouth. They are typically way far up above your teeth - but Pax's come down inbetween his two front teeth, hence the large gap teeth! So three clippings will happen on October 10th. It should be awesome!

You know what IS awesome??? Employer provided health insurance. We went into Dr. Beck to get tubes put in Parker's ears, and it cost us three grand, our deductible, to get them in. I just got the pre-approval sent over from the doctor from the insurance company, we are paying them about a hundred bucks for this one. It is amazing! LOVE IT! After five years of paying five thousand dollar deductibles for everything under the sun, it is incredible having an insurance that helps out better.

So, the big day! OCTOBER 10th!

The One With Sun River

The second week of September the fam went and joined up with Eric's parents in Sun River, Oregon. Eric BEYOND LOVES this place. I think he will want to retire there. For everyone that grew up in Boise I could almost compare it with a McCall-type city . . . . only better? Yes, better! Way more locations, way more things to do in general and way more to do with kids. McCall is awesome, but it seems like unless you are there without kiddos, you're pretty limited. Sun River is awesome because you can actually bike EVERYWHERE! It was awesome!

We got up Saturday the 8th and drove up there, taking our dear sweet time, and then didn't drive back until the following Saturday. The kids didn't sleep well - or really at all. So the nights were a little tough, but the day time was spectacularly fun.

And now you can enjoy a mass barage of awesome pictures from our vacation. After our computer crashed a few months back, I'm super into making sure that all of the GOOD pictures are at least online somewhere so we don't lose them again! :)

I love this picture of Pax, just crawling around, stretching out in Burns where we stopped for a rest on the drive in.

 Papa took Parker and Preslie to feed the horses apples on one of our many bike rides.

 I have never seen so many deer in my life as I did on this trip, and definitely not in as close of proximity as I did here. There was this one time we were on a bike ride and stopped because there were two deer standing in the center of the path. We stopped to look at them and then realized that there were MORE deer - 10 TOTAL TO BE EXACT! Insane! Plus the deer loved our back porch for some reason - actually I know why. Eric's Dad LOVES to put out food for the "wildlife". He puts out nuts for the birds, corn for the squirrels, it makes it awesome because you can sit at the kitchen table and just watch a million animals eat all day long.

 Here are Parker and Preslie getting ready to go fishing. LOVE their faces, HILARIOUS!

 This picture got quite the comments on facebook, made me laugh super hard. I promise that although she looks like she is terrified, she was actually really excited to go. The kids got tired of saying "CHEESE!" in every picture so we were trying to come up with other things for them to say like "pickles", "Princess"< and I think she was saying "Dragon" in this one.

 Here is my proof! Super excited. She just needs her glasses and her "purse" to make her day.

 This picture of Parker just looks so GQ - like he should be wearing white shorts and boat shoes sitting on a sailboat somewhere. Just wait, he'll have another picture like this in 20 years.

 Pax mostly chilled with Mom and Dad in our boat with his super cute hat Grandma Lewis got him. AWESOME! Love his huge eye balls!

 Uncle Jeff was all prepared to come down and meet us to head with us to the High Desert Museum, which we would have loved. But long story short, some awful things happened back in Portland, enough to make me sick and lose hope in humanity, and he was unable to come down. We look forward to meeting him and the girlie friend on a trip they'll be making down here soon. So we all went to the museum together!

How many people have gotten to feed a deer???? Like literally, out of their hands, feed a wild deer?!?! Well, now I can say that our ENTIRE family has. The deer loved our porch and were always hanging out, it didn't take Eric's dad too long before he had them up eating out of his hand. This little mama had twin babies that were so tiny still and she came back almost daily and would eat a million apples, pears, corn, asparagus, celery, carrots . . . . anything we would give her.

In short, we had an awesome time. After that long away it's nice to come home but we had such a blast there it was almost hard to leave!!!