Car Accident... not mine!

Donald sent me this link in an email, I was laughing so hard & I just had to share.

This guy was calling his buddy when he witnessed an accident in front of him & started giving a play by play. Hilarious!

Click on the link below. Enjoy

http://www.chumfm.com/MorningShow/FunFiles/FunFilesDetails.asp?ArticleID=72

When it gets quiet...

So I was working on some apartment stuff & I noticed that it was quite. I looked up & didn't see anything awry so I kept answering emails. After another few minutes I decided to get up to see what Payton had been up to. Above it what I found on the couch. And below she had pulled out all of the diaper wipes.

When I asked her what happened to all the babies she picked up one of her babies & showed me.

Yes was very proud of what she had done. I was just glad it didn't involve crayons or tissues!

She is feeling much better now. The sores in her mouth were gone on Tuesday just in time to play with her cousins before the went home. Last night was the first night that she slept thru the night... can you say Hallelujah! All toghether now! She woke up in a great mood & ate a full breakfast. What more could a mother ask for!

Payton's room

So for several weeks I have been wanting to hang some things up in her room & just haven't made the time to do it. So I finally decided to just get it done. Last week I hung up the Princess canvases & the flower (which are actually place mats that I got for .99c each & tacked them to the wall with removable tape). I love how it turned out!The only thing left to do was hang the curtains I got several months ago (are you noticing a theme here?)
So instead of having fleece blankets up she now has black out curtains & shear pink curtains. I love it!
I also have these glittery Butterflies & Dragonflies that I got at Micheals several years ago & now they have a use.
Payton loves her room & I'm glad it is not decorated where it looks like a little girls room instead of a hodge podge of things thrown together.

I love it when a plan comes together...

About 2 months ago, when I was last at IKEA, I got these mirrors. You've probably seen them before, they're cheap & popular. I hadn't decided what I wanted to do with them until last week. While in Utah I got the plaque below at the Quilted Bear & decided I wanted it on the wall in my living room. But having it on the wall by itself looked a little naked until I remembered the mirrors. So I stained them using the darkest stain I could find. It took 2 heavy coats & wha-la!

Yes some of them are crooked. I will be putting tape or something similar behind the crooked ones after I do a coat of spray on polyurethane. Yes I do love it when a plan comes together & the vision in my head matches the result!

Tangent... During this post I was remembering back to that show the A Team! I loved that show. I'm sure if I were to watch it now it would be pretty terrible so I'm not sure I would even watch it if it were on. I wouldn't want to taint my memory of it. With cigar in mouth... "I love it when a plan comes together."

Getting Comfi

Payton has been mostly happy during the day & miserable at night. She still has sores in her mouth & every now and then runs a little bit of a fever. I'm ready for her to start feeling better. In order for her not to be contagous she has to not have a fever for 24 hours & the sores in her mouth need to be gone. Fever... we're almost there & the sores... I'm praying that she doesn't have to suffer much longer.

Our Olympian

Representing the USA, Payton Hicks! This '16' year old hails from Pasadena CA & weighs 30 lbs, dripping wet (including a soaked diaper) & is not missing any of her teeth (baby teeth). She will be representing the USA on the Floor Exercise. We have a lot of hope that this young athlete will win your hearts as she has ours.



She has since figured out how to go straight over the top but I haven't gotten a video yet. She's feeling a little bit better today but is still running a little bit of a fever. Yeah we might already be over this.

Coxsackie Virus

Coxsackie Virus is what Payton has right now. It explains the high fever (which last night got up to 103.5) & if it's not gone by Saturday then we are to go back to the Pediatricians office. Oh joy!

I didn't ask if it was contagious & from the moment I realized it I have been having a kind of sore throat... If I could worry myself into catching something I think that I would have a full blown Coxsackie outbreak myself. I found an article that confirmed that it is highly contagious, Yippee!!

Payton only has had the high fever & is only sleepy now because of the Tylenol/Motrin regiment that we have her on. She's had no more nausea since yesterday morning. You wouldn't know she was sick by watching her play but the moment you touch her you can feel that she's warm.

So we are coming up to the 3rd day of fever, with only yesterday being a really high fever.... So if I don't get it then we should be past this by the end of the week.

Our Sick little girl!!! & Cath Update

Yes she's not feeling well. She's had a fever of 102 on & off since Sunday night. Sunday night when I got home she went right to bed & woke up around 1 with a fever. We gave her Tylenol & Donald stayed up with her. She fell asleep mid movie so we knew that she wasn't feeling well. Sometime that night she threw up but since she didn't really have much for dinner it wasn't a lot.

Yesterday she was fine until dinner time came around. We were making dinner & then found her on the floor laying on the cool tile while waiting for the Tylenol to kick in. As you might be able to tell from the pictures she moved around quite a bit. Then about 10 minutes later she was out cold! We left her there for about 15 mintues before we took her into bed.

As soon as Donald layed her down her eyes popped open & she said 'daddy numm numms'. She hadn't had anything to eat yet but we figured that she wasn't feeling well enough to. So she got up & didn't really eat too much for dinner. She feel asleep so fast... I wasn't even 1/2 way into the first verse of "I am a child of God".

After spending most of the night sleeping in bed with her I moved to my bed. About 2 hours later I woke up to her sitting on the floor next to me whinning. All of a sudden her hands went to her mouth & her eyes got really big. Let me tell you nothing gets the blood moving like a throwing up child. She was sucking on her pacifier so there wasn't any mess & she was fine after that. Today her fever has been constant but she's had an appetite so that's something.

CATH UPDATE...

We are going to be the first case on Wednesday Oct 15th, so we will have to get to the hospital around o'dark thirty (5:30ish). Also Dr. Burke wants to see her on the 6th which is the week before. So now we wait... & I'm glad she's sick now so hopefully she won't be in 3 weeks!

Donald's Trip - John Muir Trail

Originally Donald was planning on starting work right away, actually overlapping during finals week. Well it didn't work out so he had to delay starting by 1 month. So with all that free time he decided to go on a 5 day trip into the Sierra National Forest.Apparently they had to go thru private property at some point.
As if hiking wasn't enough of a work out.
Donald & Derek hikin' buddies.
He was able to get some really good pictures.


He took these because I told him that he had to bring back some scenery pictures with him in it.

These pictures are beautiful enough to tempt me to go... maybe... sometime... in the distant future.

Soft Date for the Cath

So we've been given a 'soft' date for the cath October 15th. I was expecting sooner but one of the Dr.'s that Dr. Burke wants to do it will be out of town until the week before. We will get a call later next week once the paperwork has been processed for the insurance & that's when the appointment will be made officially. (Not to insinuate that the insurance will deny the procedure they just wait till everything is in order before actually scheduling the appointment.)

In the meantime Payton has had us all cracking up. I'll have pictures soon. All I have to say is that I just love her little personality!

Here we go again...

So over the weekend we (my dad & I) noticed that Payton was a little bit bluer than usual (or rather she would get bluer faster when she was getting upset which has been VERY frequent in the last few days) & was really cranky. I thought it was because her Grandma was gone taking Kristin up to school or the fact that Donald was gone on a High Sierra trip for 5 days... so that is over 1/2 of her peeps gone! But Sunday morning she woke up & was doing this fast breathing, in through her mouth out through her nose & totally freaked me out. She was playing a little but not hard so I sat with her, turned on a movie & she stopped. I watched her closely but she didn't do it again. I think that she probably figured out a new way to play around with her breathing & did it, the little stinker. Either way it unnerved me to the point that I was going to take her in on Monday to see Dr. Burke.

Once we got there I asked for the pulse ox machine so I could get a read on her before going into the office. Sitting down resting it was 78-80 (which is about 4 points lower than last appointment 2 months ago). To make a long story short (we were at the office for about 2 hours) she allowed Dr. Burke to do the echo cardiogram (or at least the parts she usually 'allows') & everything looked good. Her heart function is still excellent, excellent to the point that the Dr. who was in there with Burke commented that the side of her heart that she does have looks perfect (as if all of her heart were whole). They did see turbulence in her blood flow which is evidence that she has developed more collaterals (new passageways that the body creates when blood pressures get really high & she has always been on the high end of the pressure scale). We already knew there were some there because there were a couple big ones that they couldn't get to 2 years ago when we had our last Heart Cathedarization.

So we are headed for another Heart Cath in the near future. I will be getting a call this week to find out when it is scheduled for. Depending on what they find we will most likely be doing the next surgery within 30 days of the Cath (which is usally the time frame anyway). Our goal is to get her in & out of the hospital before Cold & Flu season is in full swing. Yes it is a bit fast for us too but she is only 3 months shy of when they like to do the surgery anyway... it is about 6 months sooner than we were talking about before she started showing signs of needing it.

So the game plan is to make sure that Payton doesn't get sick so that everything goes as planned without any delay. The last 4 weeks Payton has had a runny nose so we haven't been going to more than Sacrament Meeting & staying clear of Nursery but now it looks like we will be absent for the foreseeable future. Oh Joy! :( Last year I stayed home with her from mid November to April-ish. So now it looks like by the time we are done with the surgery it's time to become a hermit with her again.

I will post again when we have the date for the Cath. If you have any questions feel free to comment or email me.

When we got back from our trip I decided that I needed to make some pillows for Payton's babies. I found this princess fabric at Walmart & it was settled. I really like how they turned out! Payton loved them. I counted her babies, found 4 & made 4. When I gave them to her the next morning there were 5... Oh well. She still plays with them & actually shares them with her friend when she comes over.
I also made these file folder actives for the trip. I rushed to get these done by the time we got there & one of her cousin started to play with us & when I saw that wasn't going to go well I put them away. She plays with them all the time & they were so easy!
Payton playing with her babies!
Payton is really into pretend play right now. This was something that before 2 months ago never really interested her. I think it helps that her friend is already into it so now Payton is too. She puts her babies to sleep & diciplines them & feeds them & loves them. It's great.

Utah (Part 5)

So the last day we were there we stopped by this huge sporting goods store... when I cannot remember the name right now. They had a ton of big stuffed animals & of coarse a huge aquarium, with some of the ugliest fish I HAVE EVER SEEN!That didn't phase Payton though... she loved it!
Right before we lefted she was watching & pointing at one & it turned towards us. Payton freaked just a little & then decided it was time to go. I thought it was funny but she obviously didn't. It was good trip & it has given us confidence to take another car trip with her someday.

Utah Trip (Part 4 Church Family Reunion continued)

So here are all of us. It was a lot cooler of a day so it was 'easier' to get this pictures taken. Not all of the kids were happy about it but hey that's how it goes most of the time.The same goes with the picture with the Grandparents.... Ryan was the only one not loosing it! Someday we will get a picture where all the kids are happy & smiling... or one of us will need to get really good a photoshop!
Someone gave Payton a sucker & she loved it! She sat there for 20 minutes just going to town on it.
These were really good that I just had to share!
The one below makes me smile every time! She is so serious in this pic... when is she ever serious!
It took a while to get her to let me take a picture then when I did I showed her the picture & she started laughing. I tried to get her to take another one but she acted embarrassed. Crazy girl!
So a had a slight scare. All of a sudden I couldn't find Payton ANYWHERE! So I started looking on the playground & then noticed she has down a small hill playing with some girls.
Payton really has 1 friend that she plays with but has always preferred to be around adults. It didn't always used to be this way but I think that the kids she was playing with pushed her & took a toy away or something & that sealed the deal for her. All I know is that she was crying on the floor & her toy was in another kids hand... tangent... sorry... the point was that I was so glad that she found some friends that were as sweet & gentle as her.
Payton had so much fun during this trip! It was good to be able to spend time with family & especially with Donald!

Utah Trip (Part 3)

The 2nd family reunion was the Church family reunion. It was at a different park that was just as fun.Payton & Donald were joined at the hip this whole trip! Payton really took advantage of the time she had with him.
I would really like to know who taught her this 'game'. It's totally gross & I'm sure the reason that she loves it is because she always gets a reaction! Always!
So her & Donald were having fun getting their finger wet & wiping it on the other person.



Look at that face! She sure does love her daddy. I was so glad to get a semi-break.