Halloween during Covid

 We decided to not do the trick or treating this year in order to protect ourselves and our friends and family. So we are trying other activities to celebrate the holiday. We decided to set one of our Christmas trees up and decorate with a fall/Halloween theme. 

 

The Munchkin decided she wanted to wear a poodle skirt this year for Halloween. It came together fairly quick. Now just need to adjust the length and add the poodle applique. So much fun! 

It has been three weeks post op and I am finally starting to get around town. It doesn't take much to wear me out though. I am going a bit stir crazy at home. I am ready to head back to work. Just hope I can handle a full work schedule when they give it to me. I have at least a week before that happens though.

Our poor dog gets the worst separation anxiety while we are out and about. You wouldn't know it to look at him. He his so sweet! Today I was given an ultimatum by the landlords. He has woke the neighbors up one too many times. We either need to put him in a doggie daycare, or he will have to go. So I have until I go back to work to find somewhere to take him.

He was home alone this AM because little Love Bug K. needed to have some major dental work done at the surgical center. They wanted us there at the crack of dawn. We didn't get home until around noon. Yeah, he was home alone all morning. Not good. The Love Bug did really well, and then slept all afternoon too. She seems to handle the anesthesia well. Which is always a good thing.

That is all I have for today. Talk to you soon.

Surgery

I need to post updates more often. Well, the latest with me is that last year I had the BRCA gene testing done and found I was positive for a mutation with the BRCA II. Two surgeries were recommended. I had one last summer and the other just last week. This took my cancer risk from nearly 80% down to something like 0.02%. That is less than the average woman. I am happy and have absolutely no regrets as far as that goes.

Now I just need to finish healing from this last surgery. It has not been fun. They think there may be an infection trying to set in. I have been having a lot of pain on the right side. More so than on the left. With my last surgery I had gone off of the pain meds by know and was out running (walking) errands and doing a lot more than I am now. I tried to do the same this time and I am in too much pain. The meds they have me on just knock me out too. It is going to take a while to get back to driving I think. My appointment with my surgeon is tomorrow. Wonder what she will say. Sometimes it hurts with the chest expansion when I breath. The pain is even starting down my arm today. It wasn't that bad yesterday when I was at the ER. At least they gave me antibiotics just in case. Yea, I am such a wuss when it comes to pain.

Anyway, except for that, everything is looking good. Incision sites look good, I have decent range of motion, I am up walking around. Gave myself a shower yesterday. Been doing laundry. Just need to stay on top of the pain is all.

I will post again later.

Flour, flour everywhere!

The Christensen Family http://hc-christensenfamily.blogspot.com/
My girls got into the flour multiple times this last weekend.  I don't know what I am going to do with them sometimes.  I scrubbed Pebbles hair three times with shampoo but realized after she got out that she still had some flour paste matted on her scalp that made it look like she had really bad dandruff.  Oh dear!

Summer Time

I love these pictures of the munchkin.  Unfortunately, the Scarlet O'hara dress has now fallen apart as she would wear it so much.  My girls love to dress up.

This picture was taken at the Lake while we were taking a walk around the greenbelt.  The girls love to look at and collect rocks.

I sure need to update this more often.  Now that I have the Blogger app on my phone hopefully I can do that more easily.  Anyway, these are the most recent professional pictures we had done of the girls.  Aren't they adorable?  This was for Christmas 2011.

Catching up to do.

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

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!

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!

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!

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!

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

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

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

New pics of the Munchkin Fairy

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

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

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





Another pic from lunch at the park.