Daisy's Endoscopy

Daisy had her endoscopy and we found out she does have Celiac Disease. It was a blessing to hear that it was something easily treatable with a gluten free diet, which is found in wheat, rye, oats and barley. It's different then an allergy. She isn't allergic to wheat, rye, oats or barley, it is the gluten that is in those foods that eat the lining of her small intestine. The good news is, it's been 2 weeks that she has been on the diet and she has only thrown-up one time (and I know what it was that I fed her). She has also gained one and a half pounds already! The rest of the kids were tested the other day (they have a 10% chance of having it)and Danny and I still need to be tested (one of us are the carriers, I'm pretty sure it's Danny). Daisy has done so well about not eating what her siblings are eating. She understands that she will get sick and she doesn't want that at all! Before the diet she was throwing-up 10x's in a 2 week period and her tummy was constantly blotted and cramping. Here are a few pictures before her endoscopy...

One of Daisy's favorite meals (before Celiac), spaghetti (she won't be having typical spaghetti ever again.

Short Vacation to Cali.

We went to CA for my brother Greg's wedding and got to do some other vacationing items while there. We stayed the first night at Grandpa & Grandma Gravell's. The kid's always love visiting grandma and grandpa! They enjoy the BBQ, swimming, juice, snacks, treats, (basically being spoiled) and of course all the fun they have with both Grandpa Ernie and Grandma Debi!

Daisy loves her Grandpa! Daisy was all alone in the spa and her floaty came off. Thankfully she's a screamer, I ran over, stepped in and pulled her out. (You possibly can't see, but I'm wet from my knees down; not sure why Danny cut my face off).

I was happy to get this shot of Max!

Debi was a great sport playing ping pong with the kids for a while!

Settling down before bed and after a long fun day!
The next night we stayed at Shelly's house (a friend of my sister's). Shelly was so sweet for having our large family crash her house. While staying there Walt unlocked the front door and went on a walk (almost made it all the way to the park up the road) and he also let Shelly's dog out (she was a goner), which thankfully the neighbor found and brought her back home and Shelly found Walt. Oops.

Most of the Gravell cousin's. Aren't they sooo cute!
(We are missing Walt and Vincent).

Our family! Hanna & Daisy were the flower girl's, sadly I got stuck at the top of the stairs helping them know when to go down, so I didn't get to see how they did.

Heather and Greg Gravell! Heather looked beautiful!

Celebrated My B-Day

Danny and I stayed the night at a 5 Star Las Vegas hotel, Vdara. It was really nice, but a little too pricey for us. We actually got a fantastic deal on Price line, but then when we got there we had to Valet park only, there was an additional "hidden" fee we had to pay, everything was hard to get to and the pool was not kid friendly (we had planned for my mom to bring the kids the next day to swim). We would have been much happier at the Rio. The biggest perk about the hotel was it is a non-smoking and non-gaming hotel. We relaxed, shopped, ate and slept in (I couldn't do that too well), all in all we had a had great time together!

Since we couldn't swim at our hotel we went to one of my mom's time shares and was able to get into the pools there. We had a lot of fun together!

Check out Danny's Before & After shots; that he "reveled" to me on our night out! He started working out in February and I hadn't seen his chest since then. He lost 31 lbs. in 3 and 1/2 months! Before....

After...

Max's Baptism

Max Daniel Jensen was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Saturday May 28, 2011.
Some things that you might want to remember about this day is that your cousin Andrew spoke on Baptism and Grandma Susan spoke on the Holy Ghost. I'm sure you will also remember that dad held you under the water a little too long because he was trying to get your legs to go under and you came up coughing out some water. Then dad had to try again, the second time you laid so flat and straight to be sure you went all the way under. There were many family members there to share this special day with you.
We are so proud of you Max and pray that you will continue to follow your Savior Jesus Christ's example so that you will continue to have His Spirit to be with you always. We love you Max and feel so blessed to have you in our lives!

You and dad in your "whites" ready to be baptized.

You & dad (Bishop Jensen at the time). Unle Tom, dad, Uncle Jeff and Max.

You and Grandma Dee Dee. It was Grandpa Ernie's 65th birthday.

All the boys, or should I say "Men"!

All the family that were able to be at your baptism.

You & Zachary are best of friends. You with your brother's & sister's.

Grandma Susan made you this beautiful "Eagle" quilt.

"Who's Bad?"

Walt Sleeping

I just think pictures of sleeping children are so cute! This picture of Walt sleeping with his thumb in his mouth made me think of my brother Kurt (I also sucked my thumb, but this is the way that Kurt would place his pointer finger on his nose just like Walt in this photo).

A funny story about Walt...last week I went outside to check on Walt. I found him with only a shirt on playing in the hose with some mail that he hands me which is not ours and was soaking wet. I instantly slap his hand and he asks in his cutest 2 year old voice, "Why?" And continues to say, "why" while I'm trying to explain to him why I slapped his hand. I put the mail in the sun in hopes for it to dry out a little before I go tell the neighbor what had happened to his mail. While I go gather his shorts and diaper that he left in the gutter in the mud I start to understand what Walt was doing. I realized he went to get the mail (I'm still not sure why he got the neighbors mail, because they live over a half acre away), but while getting the mail he must have dropped it in the mud and decided to be a big helper and wash it off. I quickly realized why my innocent 2 year old was so confused at me slapping his hand. There is still so much for me to learn as a mother. I need to do better at seeing things through my children's eyes before I quickly over react.

Preschool 2010-2011

This past year I taught 3 different preschool classes, I taught a Mon/Wed preschool class, a T/TH Pre-K class and a Mon-Thurs. afternoon Pre-K class. This last week I had two Pre-K Graduations and a Preschool Program to finish up the school year. It was a busy week, but the programs turned out very nice and I'm happy to be done for the summer! It worked out with Danny being home with the kids this year, but it takes a lot of time, patience, and energy; so it's good to be off and have the whole summer with the family! Van was in my preschool class and the pictures are from his class program. Next year Van will attend my Pre-K class and the twins will be in my Preschool class, which is crazy to think about!
Congratulations Van you did it!

Friends Are Great!

It's so wonderful to have such great friends! Since I was in the hospital with Daisy on my birthday we couldn't have our planned potluck birthday luncheon last Friday. So my friends moved it to yesterday (a week later) and we enjoyed each others company. I forgot to take pictures until the end so here are a couple pictures of those still hanging around talking. Thanks guys for being such wonderful friends!


My Hair!
Danny thought it would be fun to bleach my hair, at home! So we tried and it didn't turn out so well. I went and had a girl I know look at it today and she said it will take her 4 hrs. to "fix" it and she can't do it until Wednesday. Thankfully I'm so tall and most people can't see the top of my head, because that's where it's pretty bad. It's blotchy all over too. I should know by now that going cheep isn't always better! Thankfully I got it fixed on Saturday night, so I didn't have to go to church the other way.

Update on Daisy

Now I'm thinking she might have just had a virus and they killed it in the hospital. When we first got there they just gave her a really strong general antibiotic to kill a various. Even though she tested negative for all that she was tested on I think she must have had something lingering around for sometime now and her body couldn't fight it anymore. She has had normal stools all week and has not thrown up since Sunday (and Sunday it was just a little). She has been eating all foods and has been just fine. She also has her color back and is playing again. I still will go to the GI doctor to see if he found anything, but I feel she is all better. Possibly it was an answer to prayers and Priesthood blessings. We feel so grateful and blessed that she is doing so well. Thank you for your prayers, thoughts and concerns.

Here is a picture of chunky Daisy in January.

Here is Daisy today. (She is skin and bones. She was starting to wear 3T and is back down to 18-24 month shorts and pants).

Here is a picture of her PLAYING today. (It's been a very long time since she has been interested in playing).

Daisy's Hospital Stay

(Very bummed I forgot my camera) Here is a picture from last week of Daisy (she fell asleep on the coffee table). Daisy has been having stomach problems since February. Eight weeks ago she was having stomach blotting around every three days and her stomach would get as hard as a rock, she would end up throwing up and have diarrhea (actually, I would say liquid stools, there was substance, but no form just a plop of stool). After a couple weeks we talked to the doctor about it and we were thinking she could be allergic to dairy. So we stopped giving her dairy and the problem went down to only once a week. We felt we found the problem and maybe just needed to get more perfect on her diet. Daisy has lost 2 lbs. since February. When she was around 18 months she was normal on the growth chart now she is at %5 for her weight. On Monday she received a vaccination (which we started her vaccines in Feb.) after her Mondays vaccine she started getting a normal temperature, but by Tuesday the temps had not gone away without repeat pain reliever and her temp reached 103.5 so we brought her back to the doctors. The doctor said she might just be having a little reaction, but since she is acting alright (besides a fever) we just needed to continue with pain reliever switching off from Tylenol and Motrin every 3 hrs. On Wednesday she started throwing up more and I asked to do some blood work. Thursday her blood work came back and was all wacky. Her white blood count was high and other levels in her blood work were off.Doctor said to keep her posted on Daisy's behavior; throughout the day Daisy wasn't wanting to eat and wasn't keeping anything down. I called the doctor and she decided we need to go to the hospital. In the hospital they placed her on an iv and gave her an antibiotic that fights infection. They did a chest x-ray, stomach x-ray, tested her for RSV, Influence, Strep, urine and stool test, and did new blood work the next day. We also saw a GI specialists (stomach allergy doctor) and did some blood work. Well everything came back negative except the chest x-ray had some fluid in her lungs,(the allergy test won't be back for another week) and the blood work showed that the white blood count was going down significantly. The blood work showed she was still a little dehydrated, but for the most part gave no real answers. They were going to release us (that doctor didn't think we needed to be there), but Daisy threw up when we were getting ready to leave. So they decided to keep us another night. Saturday's doctor was awesome and on top of the situation, but still couldn't give us many answers. Her 2nd chest x-ray showed more fluid in her lungs so they changed her antibiotic and treated her for pneumonia. Since her white blood count was coming down and hadn't had a fever since Friday he decided to take her off the IV to see if she would continue to drink and keep down her fluids. She drank enough and kept her food down (with just one little throw up at 3:00) so we were able to leave at 7:30. When we got home at around 9:30 she threw up a lot again. Today she has some more color and has kept her food down. Also, while in the hospital we gave her all kinds of food and her stomach didn't have any blotting, so we have continued to allow her to eat whatever until we find out further from the GI specialist next week. As long as she is keeping hydrated and having no fevers we don't need to "worry". I still find it very strange that we are treating her for pneumonia, but she is still throwing up, but I do believe she could have that on top of a bigger problem. Since her white blood count is dropping it shows she is doing better. Which she is looking and acting much better, but it's stressful not knowing. We have a few thoughts of what it could be from google (crohn's disease is what we currently are thinking, we thought maybe dairy allergy or even celiac disease, just not sure). We are hoping to find out more answers from the GI doctor next week.

Max Turn's 8!

Since Daisy was in the hospital, I sadly missed Max's Birthday. I didn't mind being in the hospital for my birthday, but missing my son's birthday was hard. Good thing his party was ALL BOY and so I sent Danny home to do the party on his own, which I knew he would do fantastic! The theme was an out door camp/boy scout party. They built a fire, tied knots, did archery shooting, roasted hot dogs (ran out of time for samores), had root bear floats and opened presents. The thing Danny missed was pictures (he did get this 1) and singing Happy Birthday (I guess those are things us moms would never forget), but most importantly Max had a wonderful birthday! Happy Birthday Max we love you!
My mom thankfully took Hanna, Van and Walt with her to CA to my nephew Baxter's birthday party and they had a great time!

Spring Break Accomplishments!

During Spring Break Danny and I got a lot accomplished...
Potty Trained Daisy. (This picture was taken the day after Daisy returned home from the hospital. Still looked pretty sick.)
Recovered these VERY dirty dinning chairs (with my moms help).

I learned (finally taught myself) how to french braid.
Danny fixed the girls' curtains.
I worked at an event with Danny (Sugar Ray concert, my first concert ever), served drinks and made a lot of tips.
We went on a little family trip to Death Valley. We went to the sand domes and had lunch with our friends that live there (really bummed that I forgot my camera).
We relaxed and enjoyed our week off! It always feels great to accomplish stuff!