The Christensen Family

Catching up to do.

2011-12-13T20:03:00.002-07:00

Well it has been awhile since I last posted on here. So much has happened in the last year and a half I'm not sure where to begin. Just for future reference, I'll be refering to H. interchangably as the munchkin and K. as Pebbles. These are just little nicknames that William and I have have for them.

We have moved to Blackfoot to be closer to my family while I was working at the hospital here. William has been working with one of the oil-field companies and is stationed out in North Dakota for two out of three weeks leaving me feeling like a widow while he is gone. I didn't have any support down in Pocatello from his family and who we had thought were friends down there, so we moved. However, the move took a toll on the munchin more than we thought it would. Due to my 8-5 M-F schedule, I was unable to figure out a way to keep her in therapy and had difficulty getting her to her appointments with the neuorologist. Needless to say, she regressed drastically.

I loved my new job at the hospital. I had started it at the end of January, 2011. I was in charge of the billing for the extended care facility and was also doing the follow-up for the blue-cross claims for the hospital. I learned so much and it was fascinating, but it was a stressful job in and of itself. Being a single parent with the issues I was having at home made it worse. I missed William terribly. He had started his job the month or so after I had started mine.

Forgive me while I back track for just a minute. Beginning with my pregnency with K. I had been having more and more headaches which is very odd for me. My mother and my sister have had issues with headaches all their lives, but not me. Anyway, these headaches just kept getting worse and then around the holiday season last year my body would start doing odd things after I took pain meds for the headaches. I would get dizzy, I couldn't walk straight and would literally walk into the walls, my body would start twitching and I developed a stutter. I went to the ER three times and had many tests that showed everything was normal but they wouldn't let me work until my body was safely under control. I was still working as a CNA at an assisted living center at the time. I was refered to a neurologist (different from my daughter's) who said these are just my migraines and prescribed me a medication to take twice a day to help keep them at bay. I'll still get bad ones every so often, at certain times of the month, when I'm really stressed, so on, but this helps to control it.

Anyway, I got it all under control just as I was starting my new job. However, I was starting to get the headaches again about six or seven months into it. Most likely from the stress. I actually fell apart in my boss's office (it about scared her to death). I did some serious thinking after that. I loved the job but was I being fair to them? Was I being fair to my family? Especially the munchkin who was suffering and regressing because neither mommy or daddy were there. William was making enough that I could stay home. The plan was that we were going to move the family to North Dakota so we could all be together, but that hasn't happened yet. Now it looks like we are staying here and William will just continue to travel back and forth. The reason being, we don't know what options there would be for the Munchkin over there. I have her set up now in therapy and she is attending twice a week. They say she is doing well but in the evals she is definately behind. I guess we just take it one day at a time and see what the future will hold for us.

H.'s condition

2010-07-15T22:51:00.003-06:00

We took H. to see a pediatric neurologist in IF a few weeks ago. He diagnosed her as being autistic. We are having such a hard time with her. We can't communicate very well. She is doing better in trying to let us know what she wants but it is still so difficult. Ever since K. was born H.'s behaviors have skyrocketed too. (this we were expecting though).

There was one day that H. and I were out running errands and we stopped by McDonald's for lunch. Afterwards when we were walking back to the car she ran between two parked cars into the parking lot and was hit by a car. Luckily she wasn't severly hurt, just scratches and bruises. Ever since then I have been a nervous wreck if she is out of my sight for very long.

We also had an EEG done on her and found that she was having little mini seizures in her sleep. So he put her on some seizure medication. The doctor wants her to have speech and occupational therapy outside of school. We are having a terrible time finding a place that can do those services with a child so young. Family and coworkers are helping us get more information. I hope to get H. into those sevices soon.

Needless to say, it has been a stressful couple months with H. I hope she starts doing better soon. I have been so worried about her.

She is here!

2010-05-22T23:58:00.003-06:00

Well, munchkin #2 is here. She was born on Sunday, May 16th, 2010. My water broke at 8:30 AM and she was born at 9:49 Am. We barely made it to the hospital in time. There wasn't time to give me any pain meds or even get me completly undressed. The doctor ended up missing delivering the baby. Anyway, its done and she is absolutly gorgeous!

K. with daddy

K. with Grandpa West

Daddy sleeping at the hospital. It was a long day.

36 weeks!

2010-04-22T16:50:00.002-06:00

I only have four weeks left! However, Baby K. is trying to come early. On April 1rst, (that's right! April Fool's Day) I started preterm labor. I ended up spending four days in the hospital. They were able to stop the progression of the labor but not the actual symptoms. They gave me some meds and sent me home. My doctor then put me on bedrest until this week.

Now that I'm not on bedrest or the meds anymore they said that if I go into labor, then we will just let nature take its course. While I was in the hospital they gave me some steroids for the baby's lungs. She should be ok if she is born in the next little while.

The problem is, I AM GOING OUT OF MY MIND! I am so bored. I don't have the energy to do much. Even though I'm not on bedrest, the bed or couch is still where I spend most of my time. Anyway, I can't wait until the little decides to come. I am ready for all this to be over.

2/3 done!

2010-02-20T19:42:00.002-07:00

Here I am ready to start my third trimester. I'm so ready for this little girl to come. The pregnancy has caused an old back injury to flare up. There are times that I am in so much pain I can hardly move and am just crying and shaking. My Doctors' had me cut back my hours at work. I'm now working half of what I was before but it is making a big difference.

Another problem I've been having is that I'm not eating enough. I just don't feel hungry. My doctor said that I'm basically dehydrated and starving. At least the baby is ok. She is very active.

I only have three more months to go.

It's another girl!

2010-01-11T20:09:00.001-07:00

I had my ultrasound on Christmas Eve. We are having another girl. Secretly I was hoping for another one, the little munchkin has been so much fun! Now we can pull out all of the darling outfits she grew out of and use them again.

Putting up the Christmas Tree

2009-12-06T20:06:00.004-07:00

The weekend after Thanksgiving we decided to put up our tree. While William and I were putting the branches together the munchkin began putting on the ornaments by herself. She insisted on using both color schemes for the tree this year. Here is the finished product.

Halloween

2009-12-06T19:47:00.003-07:00

2009-10-24T18:25:00.001-06:00

So the other day the munchkin was watching one of her movies. During one of the songs she started singing along. I decided to join in. I sang maybe one or two phrases when the munchkin promptly shushed me. "Ok!"

The munchkin at the fair

2009-09-07T16:42:00.007-06:00

New pics of the Munchkin Fairy

2009-09-07T15:20:00.003-06:00

There was a new booth at the fair where u could get some fantasy/renaissance pics done. We had to do it of course. Here are the results.

Hard to believe she was in a "not-so-pleasant" mood. It was time to eat and she had been riding the rides all afternoon.

Catching up

2009-09-06T17:03:00.002-06:00

A lot has happened since I made my last post. I need to log on more often. Yesterday we took the munchkin up to see the parade that opened the Eastern Idaho State Fair. She didn't seem to excited about it. Of course, she is just getting over an ear infection. Later that afternoon we took her to the fair to see the sites, try the food and ride the rides of course. She had a blast. I'll have to load the photos we took so you all can see the fun she had.

Pretty Nails

2009-07-31T19:41:00.002-06:00

The munchkin is a girl through and through, she likes to have her nails painted like me.

Another pic from lunch at the park.

Munchkin Pics

2009-07-17T17:48:00.008-06:00

Here are some pics of the munchkin this summer:

Having lunch at the Alameda Park, hosted by the school district.

She tears apart her sandwiches (or in this case a chicken burger) and eats each piece individually.

Here she is watchin a movie in her "lazy chair"

Weekly menu

2009-07-05T16:22:00.012-06:00

This is an idea that I learned at an enrichment activity. I thought it was a good idea and wanted to share it.
I typed up these little "What's for Dinner?" cards (altered a bit from the ones they showed us) in microsoft word. I was able to print nine per page. Anyway, I listed different meals that my family will eat (or rather what I will prepare), where the recipe can be found (like cookbooks, recipe box, family favs, etc), and the number of servings.

On the back I listed the ingredients needed for that particular meal. I did up cards for every meal that we've used. Even ones that don't have a set recipe to follow like spaghetti or burritoes.

I got two baseball card sheets, and labeled each slot with a day of the week. You can also label a slot for a FHE treat as I have done. I then glued magnets onto the back (I should have placed mine differently as you will see). I then can plan my menu for two weeks.

You can take the sheets with you when you shop so you can see what items to get.

These hang on my fridge with the current week on top so I can easily see what I had planned for dinner that night.

Tell me what you think about it.

The Fourth of July

2009-07-04T20:47:00.005-06:00

We had a fun evening planned for the fourth of July this year. We took the munchkin to the park during the afternoon. As you can see from the pics below, she had a blast!

We headed over to the fairgrounds around 5:30 PM to stake out a place. There was only one other group of people there. Sweet!

While William set up our BBQ grill, I took the munchkin over to the carnival for a little bit. She had so much fun. You can't see it very well in the pics but she insisted on Frog joining her. When she was on the motor bike ride, there wasn't anywhere for Frog to sit but she insisted that he join her. The ride operator finally just stuck Frog in the handle bars. With that, she was happy as a clam.

While she was riding, I watched the clouds turn dark, and could see lightening off in the distance. When I started feeling a couple of drops here and there, I decided to let her have one last ride then we should leave. Well, she didn't get that last ride. A minute or two later, the sky dumped on us. We joined everyone trying to find some shelter. While waiting for William to come pick us up, I watched the rain get heavier, denser, and finally saw it begin to hail. Needless to say, cooked up our hot dogs and stuff at home. So much for the fourth of July celebrations. I've never seen it rain like that on this date.

Oh well, there's always next year. I'm glad we had some fun a before the storm hit. I hope everyone else had a good fourth of July.

Married four years

2009-06-28T01:30:00.010-06:00

William and I have been just recently had our fourth wedding aniversary. I can't believe how the time has gone by. I wanted to talk a little about our wedding day.

My uncle Charles was our photographer and he took some amazing and fun photos all throughout the day. I am a big fan of his work and have included his website in the list of favorites if you want to check it out.

It was weird going around getting everything set up with the veil already attached to my hair. It kept getting caught in whatever I was standing near.

I remember that I insisted on decorating our wedding cake. It turned out lovely. Here you can see my brother helping me put it together and the finished display.

The cake was a lot of work but was gorgeous when we were finished with it.

Here are a few photos of William and I on the Quad at ISU. We were there because the scenery with the trees and buildings looked really nice. William's father works at the school so we were able to use one of their event rooms free of charge.

It was a day that I will never forget. The time flew by so fast, before I knew it, it was all over.

William has been my sweetheart and always shall be. How did I get so lucky having a boy like him choose me? I hope our life together on this earth shall last for a long time. I am grateful to know that even when that life does end, our relationship as husband and wife will not.

I love you William.

Nap time

2009-06-16T18:27:00.003-06:00

Here is a picture of my two angels taking a nap. Chloe (the cat) loves napping on the munchkin's bed during the day.

The search goes on......

2009-06-16T14:14:00.002-06:00

Well, William has been without work for a week now. We are looking everywhere for empoyment options. Everyone wants experienced workers though. So we keep trudging along. The thing that really makes me nervous is not having any medical insurance. We are covered thru the end of this month but after that......nothing. I'm worried most about William's health. The tests and trips to doctors in SLC are not cheap. We'll figure out something.

The munchkin is as busy as ever. William has nicknamed her the "3 foot tornado" because of how destructive she can be. She insists on throwing everything out into the middle of the floor when she is playing. She put her toys away only to dump them out a few seconds later. Ay-ya!

We took her to the infant-toddler screening the other day. Sure enough there are concerns in almost every area. Her hearing in the right ear is a little off (they think), there are concerns with her social behaviors, and she is a year behind on her speach. They were going to refer us to some specialists who can run actual evals to see where the problems are, I just haven't heard from them yet. Hopefully we can get her some therapy or what-not so she can get to the levels she should be at this age. Time will tell.

The weekend

2009-06-14T17:05:00.002-06:00

The munchkin and I are very happy that William is home. He has been gone for soooooo long. He was very much missed. He and the munchkin have been running, and playing, and tickling all weekend long.

The downside to the weekend was that the munchkin wasn't feeling very good. She had a high fever Friday night (no seizures though). She was so miserable. Saturday and Sunday her temp was fine but she had the runs really bad. Other than that you wouldn't have known she was sick. She was acting like her normal, little self.

My first post

2009-06-09T19:47:00.003-06:00

My family suggested that I begin a blog and here I am! This blog is about my little family and the crazy, but fun, things that we do. I hope to keep everything up to date. See ya around!