The Things Kids Say

I am so in love with my kids. Thay say the most innocent, darling, and funny things.

Emma, when she cut her toe at her cousin's house "I have a bloody nose on my toe."

Amelia, when we were playing with her horses on the trampoline, decided that they all had to lie down to take a nap. "Let's sing them a night-night song. How about I Am A Child Of God?"

And then Amelia wanted to take a handfull of dolls to the store the other day, and I told her she needed to leave them home. My usual answer to her why is that we can't take naked babies anywhere, and they are always unclothed. But not that day, so Amelia promptly replied, "but mommy, they're dressed."

And today, we dropped the boys off at school because they missed the bus, and so we were going to run our errands before dance class. Amelia decided to pitch a royal fit when we got to the store, so I buckled the girls back in their seats and said we would just go home, and not come back to town for dance class. Now, little Emma is quite enamored with "dance class," even though she is not a participant, and pretty much every day will dress up in her tinkerbell costume or another little tulle skirt she has because she is going to "dance class." And Emma was not about to let Amelia miss that class. After my threats of "you will stop or you will not go to dance" as we pulled out of the parking lot, Emma, in her little pleading voice, said, "Mia, stop. you have dance class. Mia, stop, you go to dance." And Amelia stopped and said, "I'm done crying." So we went to the store and then to dance class.

Wonderful!

And the boys. Since Sam played flag football this year, they have been playing non-stop. In fact, the other day they came inside for a piece of paper. They had made up about 15 plays and were writing them down on this piece of paper. Then, they created a front and back cover and made a play book by attaching these three pages with brads. (so that they could add pages if they wanted to. if they had used staples, they couldn't have added to the book. according to Sam) Then they found old blue tshirts, and wrote their names and numbers on them. They have practiced these plays tirelessly. I absolutely loved watching them create their "team." Their enthusiasm and excitement were tangible. One night I took the camera out to catch them in their practice.

Pumpkin Princesses & Hunters

Sam, the hunter, with a bear. (Representing the true story of being chased by a bear when he went hunting with Nate last month.)

Clay, the elk hunter, with the HUGE antlers on his backpack. (Because we couldn't figure out how to attach them to his head to be an elk)

Amelia, the pumpkin princess, who really does not look very well in orange, and who couldn't keep the wig on for more than about 5 minutes at a time. But, man, she's cute!!!

Emma, hated the hat, which had to be contrived to make it stay, but loved it that people were just dumping candy into her bucket.

Look at these darling Trick-or-Treaters. We had such a fun day! We started the day at the elementary school parade. We stopped at Rips to see Ron & Kathy, and the girls each got a candy bar. They thought that was pretty cool, and were ready right then to go Trick-or Treating. We had to pass some time before a meeting I had, so I took the girls to a puppet show at the library. Fun Fun Fun. We have fun story time ladies.
We started our evening when I picked the boys up from school. I tried to feed them to fill their bellies with "good" food before the candy excitement kicked in. It was partially successful. We walked to the courthouse, where they are always dressed up awesome, and then we hit the road to make our regular visits. Great-Grandpa, Aunt Sherrie, Uncle Burton and Aunt Evelyn, our old neighbors, and Grandma&Grandpa. I'm still not sure how so few visits translated into two shoe boxes full of candy?!?! (And that's after they've been eating candy for 3 days)

we love halloween

Emma's Birthday

My baby girl Emma turned two today. What a day. She spent half of the day in her "dancing dress" twirling and spinning to Brandenburg Concertos 2,4 and 6 in the living room. (didn't get a picture) She wanted hot dogs or macaroni and cheese for lunch, but we settled on chicken nuggets. She was patient, though, waiting for her cousins to come before she could open her presents. What a girl! What a day!

The Prognosis

We're all pretty tired here in the Lester household. But we're happy and extremely grateful for such great friend, neighbors, and family who have taken such good care of us as Nate recovers much more slowly than he would like to. (Although it's right on track with what the Dr. said!)
So, we have the pathology report. (Confession: it came last week, but I just haven't got around to the blog thing here) The report indicated that Nate has a rare intestinal disorder known as primary pneumatosis cystoides intestinalis. Translation: pockets of gas in the mucosa or intestinal walls. This appears identical to cancer when it begins to ulcerate, so it is clear why the Dr. felt an urgency to remedy the situation. There are complications that can occur with this disorder, and the suggested remedy is to do just as they did with Nate and remove the offending section. It will not recurr, and after recovery, Nate will be as good as new. We're happy! No Cancer! YEAH!!!!!

Recovery

Thank You! The collective prayers and faith of so many family and friends has buoyed us. We have been strengthened and we have seen miracles as Nate has undergone this ordeal. I remain grateful and humbled at the outpouring of love and support.
Surgery went very well. There were no complications, and the surgeon removed about a 10"section of the colon at the splenic flexure. We are still waiting for pathology reports, but are confident that things will turn out well. Nate is (of course) in pain and annoyed at the NG tube and the catheter (who wouldn't be?). The focus now is to manage the pain and get him moving as quickly as possible. If you know Nate well, you know that all he needs to hear is how high to jump and he will jump higher. His desire to be well, combined with his determination, competitive spirit, and faith will help him heal quickly.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Tender Mercies

I had every intention of posting on the blog tonight. I was going to write about our exciting, busy lives, being a soccer mom/coach, and a flag football dad/coach, and making fresh salsa from the tomatoes and peppers that we have grown in our garden. You know, the idyllic country life that we love. But tonight warrants a shout of thanksgiving and a prayer for help.

Nate, having a family history of intestinal polyps, and having a sister-in-law with her stomach removed this summer, and an aunt who recently discovered more of the same, felt impressed to have a colonoscopy done. To me, it was a wellness issue, way to be preventative! Nate's not a big "go to the doctor" kind of person, so I was happy that he was taking charge of his health. Friday, the procedure seemed to take a little longer than I expected, but I still felt no concern. Needless to say, I was pretty shocked when the surgeon came in and told us that he had a cluster of "ugly" polyps that were too attached to the mucosal lining to be able to cut them out without risking perforation of the colon. He suggested that Nate have surgery to remove that portion of his colon pretty soon. 8-10 inches.
"How soon, Doc?"
"How about you come back on Sunday and we will prepare you for surgery Monday?"
UM, excuse me while I cry for a minute.
"You'll be in the hospital for 5 to 7 days, and then there will be a two to three week recovery period after that."
The last couple of days have been a blur of quick decisions and generous gestures from family, friends and neighbors. The support has been amazing. From prayer, meals, child care, and helping us keep Nate's practice running, the love is overwhelming, touching, and incredible to me.
We went to sacrament meeting this morning with Craig and Chris, and left a little early so that we could be at the hospital by the appointed time. Although we felt a little anxious about the unknown, we felt that we had made the right decision to continue with the procedure in our little town with the surgeon here.
The first procedure they did was a scan to make sure that there was no cancer spread to other parts of the body. Because of the advanced stage of the polyps, the doctor is pretty sure that we will find cancerous cells in the biopsies he took from the polyps in the colon. His hope was that it has not spread. When he came back with the news that everything looked clear, we felt incredibly relieved. (although we did discover he has a very large kidney stone that will have to be taken care of after this ordeal: that explains the back pain)
This will not be fun for Nate, who has had next to no solid food to eat since Thursday, when he preped for the initial procedure. Right now he is at the hospital being "cleansed" again. That is difficult. Surgery is tomorrow afternoon. We would appreciate your prayers.
About the tender mercies.
"If you would have waited until next year to have a colonoscopy, we would have been discussing how to live out your last days."
Nate felt impressed to have this procedure done.
It will save his life.
I will live mine in gratitude.
I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Seattle

Awhile back, Adrienne (Darren's wife:sister-in-law) invited me to go with her to Seattle. They had lived there for a couple of years, and she still has some good friends there. So, we made arrangements, and the two of us took off for a girls weekend. It was SOOO FUN! Her friend, Shalene, was a perfect hostess, and she showed us around the area. The weather was absolutely perfect! We went to the Puget Sound, got manicures and pedicures, spent some time shopping in the city, at Pike's Place, and, of course, Target. I LOVE Seattle! The water, the mountains, the trees. It's absolutely gorgeous.

I wished that I lived closer so that I could've taken home a $5.00 boquet of flowers!

LOVED THEM

Seattle, What's with the Pigs?

Mt. Rainier: Next time (yes, we are going back) we're going to do some hiking here.

We had a wonderful time, even though I had to leave Amelia, who had thrown up the night before I left, and, as Nate found out when he took her to the Dr. on Friday, had strep. Then Emma got the runs, and the boys had soccer games in the middle of it all. And, since I wasn't here to tell him not to, Nate thought he would see if he could move our bed (It's huge). Well, he couldn't, and he threw his hip out of place, and he's still not quite right yet. Since the girls were sick, Kathy, our neighbor and friend, took the boys to church on Sunday. They told her that "Our mom is never going to Seattle again."

Well, everyone survived, and perhaps the sweetest part of being gone is coming home because when I got home there was a cake made just for me with the message "Welcome Home, MOM" and a heart and a flower.

(picture coming soon)

And then, the next morning, Clay said"I have something for you." He went downstairs, retrieved his bell, and sang me a song that he had made up for me. It went something like this,"I really missed you mom, I'm so glad that you're home, I really missed you mom, We're so happy to have you back" All to the ringing of the bell. It was soo sweet.

And Sam, in his grown up way, gave me a hug and told me how happy he was to have me home, and then proceeded to tell me about the very exciting football game they had watched, giving me a precise play by play:)

The first thing that Amelia noticed that morning were my painted fingernails. She said, "You have color on your fingers? It's pretty." She was just tickled about it. So, that day we painted her little toes and fingers, and then painted Emma's toes too. It was fun..Amelia sat there so grown up like, and so thrilled to have "color on her fingers" too.

Maybe next time I'll take the family!