Noël's space

I cannot believe my baby is 5!! Amazing! E. is such a sweetheart and the joy of our life! Since day one she’s been an alert, social little thing…and she hasn’t grown out of that! E. is always up for an adventure! She wakes up every morning with a smile on her face and excited for the day! Her eyes will pop open and she’ll say, “Mom, its morning!” and will start climbing out of bed (not wanting to waste a single second).

E. is my little buddy and goes everywhere with me. She has always been the type of child we could take anywhere at any time – a definitely “go with the flow” kind of girl! And in the past few years we’ve been able to take her to any meeting or apt. – as long as she has paper and a pen or some books she can sit quietly in a corner for as long as we need! That leads me to the next thing…E. LOVES to read! It is a common site to see her walking around with her nose in a book! Whether it’s walking up to soccer practice or into church or just heading out to the car for a drive she pretty much ALWAYS has a book with her!  Her favorite Princess is Belle (I encouraged that one a little, how can you not love a Princess who loves to read)!

E. is a total Princessy girly girl who loves all things girl (except for getting her hair done – I blame that on slow growing hair and her experimenting with scissors once she finally got enough hair to “do”)! She loves to dance and really moves to the music whenever she hears it (wherever she is)!! As girly as she is, she informed me the other day that, “Mom, I’m kind of a girlish boy, I mean, boyish girl!” I told her, “You are definitely a GIRL who likes some boy things!” “Yeah, because I want Forces of Nature, Bakugan, and Pokémon!” She also really loves sports! She enjoys watching sports with her dad and has loved learning volleyball and basketball this year! She just completed a Daddy and Me basketball class and boy does she have a great shot!

Obviously, I could go on and on – what parent couldn’t!? I love E. so much and am so grateful to have her in my life – she is our little miracle and we recognize her as such every single day. One thing I love most about my sweetheart is her budding testimony. She has a great love for the scriptures (I hope that continues) and an amazingly simple and real understanding of the Gospel! My greatest desire for her as her mom is that she will always remember who she is and strive everyday to be the best E. she can be! Thanks E. for making me a mom! I love you!

5th BIRTHDAY at Disneyland!!!!

Birth – day (St. Vincent Hospital, Portland, OR)!!

Blessing Day – 7 weeks old!

2 years old!

This picture definitely captures her excitement for life!

2 1/2  years!

2 1/2 years!

3 1/2 years!

3 1/2 years!

4 1/2 years!

We have spent a lot of time on BYU Basketball this winter. Whether it’s going to the games or watching them on TV we’ve enjoyed cheering on the Cougs! E. has become quite the huge fan of BYU but has had to learn that it’s okay to like the U also (but we absolutely cheer for the Y when they play each other)!  Her favorite player on the team is Lee Cummard. She’s heard us talk about what a great player he is and everything, but I think the fact that he shares his name with one of her favorite uncles helps too! This past Saturday was Senior night and the night the Cougs clinched the title of MWC Champions so there were lots of fun festivities! It started out with honoring the Seniors so we got to see Lee’s wife and little boy. Fortunately we pulled out the win and got to celebrate afterward. We went out to the Victory Bell and got to slap hands with many of the stars of the team…..except for Lee. So we went back in and hunted him down. We found him on the court signing autographs and Bryan worked his magic and got Lee to sign E.’s program…he then told the crowd that was his last one and had to head for a team meeting but would come back and do more signing if they wanted to wait! We so lucked out!! E. said, “Thanks Lee!”  E. was thrilled and as we walked back up the stairs she said, “He signed his name and team number! I wish he signed his phone number!!” So cute! Don’t worry, we’ll all be cheering our team on this weekend and for several weeks to come (we hope)!! GO COUGARS!

A few games ago, E. blew her very first bubble!! It was a very exciting night!

Well, I’ve decided to finally write something about our fun summer! So I will just mention the highlights.

* Eliza recovered from the removal of her tonsils and adenoids amazingly! Drinkable yogurt saved us – Eliza loves yogurt and after a few traumatic doses of the “yucky” medicine Bryan had the idea to first squirt the yogurt into her mouth and then the medicine and have her swallow it all together! Worked like a charm!! Her voice was a bit higher and louder for several months, but it’s pretty much back normal now. It has been amazing to see all the changes for her. She can now sleep with her mouth CLOSED!!! And for the first time in her life she experienced fluid coming up through her nose (she didn’t like that very much)!

*The Wasatch Back Relay Race:  Logan to Park City  - 178 miles – so fun!! This was a definite highlight and accomplishment. I had talked Bryan into running this with me (well actually, it was more like his buddy Sean talked him into it) and we started training in January! The 2 days of running and driving and like NO sleeping was awesome! Good times! My 3 legs added up to 15.6 miles. My very best run started at 4:00 am after about 1.5 hours of sleep and I loved it!

*Reunion/Trip to Lassen National Park and Yosemite! We LOVE seeing the beauties of this world! It was our first time to either of these parks and they were breathtaking! We enjoyed the 4th of July in Carson, NV.

*Ashton, ID Half Marathon – Bryan had already filled his running quota for the year….but I just couldn’t stop! I had kept running after the relay race and figured I’d better get the half marathon in this year while I was ready for it! Who knows if I’ll ever train like this again! I loved Ashton, ID! Thanks Megan for getting me through!

*Tons of yard work/soccer/football! We bought a home that needed a lot of TLC! So most Saturdays we were busy working! And then football and soccer started and our Saturdays were packed! That’s right, BYU football has taken over our weekends!…and we wouldn’t have it any other way! The best part has been taking Eliza to the games and seeing her excitement (as you can see in the pic, we did need some treats to help the time pass)! My brother plays football for Dixie State in St. George so we’ve taken a few trips down for his games as well! Eliza also started soccer this year! It is so fun to see her play (or dance, or blow kisses to the side-line, or purposely elbow and/or run into the opposing team – we’re working on that).

We had a great summer! And if you actually read all of this – thanks for caring!

Well, the deed is done. E's huge tonsils have finally been removed. She is doing really well and we are anxious for her to get feeling normal again.  On Thurs. we headed up and when we got there they informed us that they were ahead of schedule so we had hardly any down time. They got us right in for the initial exam and then we met with the doctor for a second and then onto the anesthesiologist who was great with E. and let her listen to her lungs and heart. E. brought her purple doggie and her purple blanket. We walked with the anesthesiologist and a nurse down to the big double doors where they had us give hugs and tell E. that we love her and we would see her very soon. Then they walked away. E. walked the whole way down this long hall just chatting away with them! We watched for as long as we could before the doors closed on us - we couldn't believe how brave and how big she seemed. They gave E. laughing gas to put her out and then gave her the IV. At the class the night before they taught her that she should breath in the yummy air and then if she smells something yucky (once the medicine started to flow) she should take a really deep breath (at which point she'd probably be out) and then blow the yucky smell away. We went down to the cafeteria to grab something to eat an headed up to the waiting room. We waited about 10 minutes before the doctor came in and said everything went well....what relief!!! He also said, "Her  tonsils were huge and so were the adenoids!" From that statement we derived that he'd decided to remove the adenoids as well. When they called for me to go back to see her (only one of us could go which killed Bryan) she looked so drugged but calm, but as soon as she saw me she started crying and grabbing onto me and practically jumping of the bed. She kept pulling at the IV in her hand and doing this cry/cough that she totally did as a baby! Finally, after she kept trying to clear her throat (which made me cringe every time) she said so sadly, "There is something in my THROAT and I have to get it OUT!" Once we finally got her to calm down and got her to start eating a slushy we were able to explain to her that there is nothing in her throat  that she can get out and that if she keeps doing that it will hurt more than help. Finally Bryan got to come back with us and we spent the next couple hours watching the Disney channel and shoveling slushy into E. Some of the Utah Blaze players came in to visit the kids and one of the quarterbacks came to talk with E. and gave her a stuffed animal of Chief, their mascot. Finally we were able to leave and E. wanted to be pulled in one of their wagons out to the car! By this point she was chatting it up with everyone and being so pleasant! We couldn't believe how good she was doing! Everyone at the hospital was so great! What an amazing system they have up there PCMC. We couldn't be more grateful for all the caring and professional people who cared for E. that day!

On Wed. night we attended a pre-surgery class at Primary Children's Medical Center where a nurse and some child-life experts walked all of us through the next day's process. We watched a movie about a little robot who came to the hospital for surgery and then the child-life experts let the kids play with all sorts of doctor's tools. They sent each child home with gloves, two medical hats, a mask, and a doll (with out eyes, nose or mouth as E. always points out) that they could use as their very own patient. Then they took us on a tour of all the different rooms and areas that we needed to know for the big day. The class was incredibly helpful and E. had a really great time - it really made the next day not so scary.