Our Annual Pumpkin Carving Party

On Sunday, we had our annual pumpkin carving party at my parents house. We ate some very yummy chili (thanks Riley!) and breadsticks, and then we started carving! This year we got some great cut-out patterns from this website. Here is Riley carving a Mario pumpkin for Max.

Natalie and Craig getting the "guts" out of their pumpkins.

Sam got to chill with grandpa John while the rest of us were carving.

Natalie carving her masterpiece. I think her pattern was by far the hardest!The finished product! Riley's puking pumpkin. :-)

Mario (carved by Riley and Max), Wario (carved by my mom), and Princess Peach (carved by me).

Jack Skellington (carved by Craig), and the witch (carved by Natalie)After our pumpkin pie and brownie dessert, it was time to call it a night. We had a great night! This is such a fun tradition.

We have a Diagnosis

On Tuesday we spent most of our day at Primary Children's with Sam figuring out what is wrong with his kidney. He had to have 2 tests done in medical imaging in the morning. We knew it would be hard to watch, but I didn't know HOW hard! Poor kid had to get an IV before they could do his renal scan and they just couldn't seem to get it in. After being poked 4 times (twice in each hand), they finally got it. Between the IV and the catheter that he had to have, he was screaming. So sad. He calmed down and was able to get some sleep after they put the sandbags on his arms and legs and put him under the scanner. This picture is of my little radioactive baby under the scanner. He had to stay like this while the machine took pictures of his kidneys and bladder every 15 seconds for 45 minutes. Luckily, we were able to sit right by him, and even reach in and comfort him the whole time. At the end of this test, it seems that there is no blockage and that his kidneys are working normal, so now onto the next test to figure out what is causing the dilation.

We went directly across the hall to wait for an X-ray room. He got to have his IV taken out, which was great. This picture is of him in his little hospital gown with his poor little bandaged hands.

While we were waiting, he started to get hungry. Just as I started feeding him, they came out to get us for his VCUG. Needless to say, he was TICKED when he had to stop eating and get underneath another scanner. For this test, I had to hold his arms down while the nurse held his feet down. It only took about 10 minutes, but it was so hard to watch my hungry and mad baby scream. After turning him from side to side so the machine could get pictures of every angle while his bladder emptied the contrast, a Dr. came in to make sure we were getting all of the right pictures and to explain the findings to us. From the results of this test, it looks like he has Vesicoureteral Reflux.

In the above picture, you can kind of see the pokes and bruises on his hands. :-(

After feeding Sam and eating lunch, we were able to meet with a pediatric urologist to determine what this diagnosis means for us. The doctor was so great (everyone we worked with up there was amazing, which made it nicer). Since he doesn't have a blockage and both kidneys seem to be OK, there is not much we can do at this point. His reflux is a grade 4 or 5, which is pretty serious, but at this point, nothing is being damaged. So, this diagnosis means that we have to make appointments every 4 months for a year to go up and have ultrasounds done to watch the severity of the kidney dilation. He also has to continue to take a maintenence dose of antibiotics every day for a year to prevent UTI's (if he gets a bladder infection, it will reflux into his kidney and cause permanant kidney damage, thus the antibiotics). When he is 1, we will have to repeat the VCUG test to see if the problem is correcting itself. If it is, great! They will continue to monitor him until it has fixed itself. If it doesn't start correcting itself and continues to be a grade 4-5, they will have to do more tests/scans to pinpoint the exact problem and schedule a surgery to fix the problem. So, now we wait and hope for the best!

Being at Primary Children's made me realize again how lucky I am to have 2 healthy and happy boys. I am thankful that we were just there for outpatient tests, and although fixing the problem may take a while, Sam doesn't seem to be bothered by it and so far there isn't any long-term damage. As I watched the little kids who are in the hospital long-term being brought in for tests, or walking around the halls and lobby because they are tired of being in their room, my heart ached for those kids and their families. We are very lucky!

In happier news, I finally caught a smile on camera. He is started to smile a lot now and he will even sometimes give me a little giggle. He is such a fun and happy baby.

What happened to the Fall?

I am not a huge fan of the 4 season weather we have in Utah. I usually don't really mind the spring and fall, and I love the summer, but I HATE winter. I tell Riley almost every other day that I would like to move to Mexico if we could figure out a way to make money there.

I think I'm bitter about the weather because summer was not long enough this year, but I can handle fall. . .what happened to fall??? Snow already!?! As I write this, it's 38 degrees outside and my heater is blaring! I'm tempted to pack my bags and move to Arizona where the weather this week will be in the mid to high 90's.

I generally like the fall, it reminds me of when Riley and I met. I love taking walks in the fall air, driving up the canyon to look at the pretty leaves, and visiting the corn mazes and pumpkin patches. I'm hoping that it really does warm up a little bit this week so that we can do some of these things! Until then, I guess I'll just stay indoors and make some of my favorite fall food--apple pie, pumpkin anything (cookies, bread, pie, you name it), chili, yummm. . .I'm making myself hungry!

One Month

I cannot believe it's been a month! Sam is so much fun, and things at home are returning to normal. Sam is a pretty content baby and has been pretty easy so far. He has the cutest smile, although so far he has only smiled in his sleep and a couple of other random times (I'm sure it was gas, but I'd love to say he was smiling at me!) He loves to eat, and luckily we've gotten his nursing down from over an hour to about 30-40 minutes. :-)
Sam has also started to sleep a lot better at night. I swear the kid hardly needs any sleep in the first place. Aren't newborns supposed to sleep a lot? Last night he did great though and let mama sleep for 5 hours before needing fed! YEAH!
Max is such a proud big brother, he is doing great with Sam. Today when Sam was crying he said it was "so cute". He loves to help us out around the house and go and get whatever mom needs. He's also content to entertain himself when I'm feeding Sam or taking a much needed rest. Max is also watching out for Sam, and whenever there is a commercial on TV for a "toddler" toy, Max makes sure that I am paying attention so that we can buy it for Sam and save it until he's a toddler. :-) He's got a mental list going of all the toys that Sam "needs". What a good big brother!