Nelson fun

Last night Steve and I sat down and wrote out a list of fun and free things to do in the next few months (for both us as a couple, and for the whole fam). I was surprised how many things we came up with. Today we started our fun with a picnic. 65 degrees isn't too bad. As you can see, we attracted quite a crowd -- but it was ok because the girls enjoyed the attention.
Excited to be eating a special picnic in a special spot : )

Lot of fun at the park. We played soccer with the red ball-- rule were that adults couldn't touch it so I picked up lydia and swung her legs at the ball to help her kick it.

Kiera has a new best friend ever since I was sick: Elmo. He comes everywhere with us. Oh, and she informed me this week that Elmo needs clothes. So now Elmo wears Lydia's red shirt. Kiera has even been teaching Elmo to read (which is nice since it helps her to remember what she has learned).

The girls LOVE to wear these slips/tu-tu. They would wear it all day long every day if I would let them.

Family favorite: Playing "tinkerbell". Steve helps the girls to fly around the house. they love it.

The sun is coming out

It has been raining for the past week. The weather seemed to match my mood at times.


Yesterday the sun came out for the first time. Beautiful. I must say that I have been overwhelmed by the amount of love and support I've felt. You really do find out who your friends are while going through hard times. From many friends I've felt nothing but a sincere desire to help and to try and lift my burdens. I don't need much physical help, but all of the love is very much appriciated.

Some reasons I'm glad I'm well and able to particpate in family life again:

Lydia's first experience with Root Beer (steve's favorite). She's a fan.

Dipping fries in icecream, and dipping icecream in ketchup. Yum.

Thus it Ends

We wouldn't normally blog this but we're at a point emotionally that we'd rather blog it now so we don't have to tell people individually over and over again.

Loma Linda Medical Center has a policy to terminate a pregnancy only when the mother's life is threatened. We had to follow through with that policy due to Cambrie's physical condition, which was getting worse and worse by the hour. We're probably more pro-life than most people but we feel in these circumstances the decision had to be made.

Just like post labor and delivery for our two kids, Cambrie is recovering quickly and will be OK. I think now we'll be looking into others options if we were to have any more kids by means of surrogacy or adoption.

Thank you to everyone that has expressed or given their support. It's extremely comforting to experience the overwhelming love friends and family have poured into our family and for that we're so grateful for you!

Warning: survival mode only

It is good to be home again. I'm so grateful that I was able to get the help that I needed so quickly this time. Loma Linda hospital is WONDERFUL.

Although I feel a lot better than before, I still am mildly nauseated. I have a feeding tube that runs 24/7 and I have a PICC line (and IV) so I can hydrated myself with a bag of fluids every night. so my 2 problems now are:
1. I'm WEAK. (Laying in a hospital bed starving probably contributed)
2. I'm hypersalivating. This is something I do every pregnancy for a month or 2. The trouble is that I can't swallow it or I vomit, and if I spit much of it out I get very dehydrated (I'm dependent on only 1 bag of IV fluids to hydrate me per day) so I am left with trying to hold large amounts of saliva in my mouth (I know-- gross!). This makes communication very difficult especially with my little ladies who don't understand my sign language. It is frustrating, but this too will pass. Anyway, if somebody out there wants to communicate with me, do me a favor and email instead of calling : )

My mom is here helping out until I get stronger and more able to manage life. My little girls seem to be handling everything ok since Steve was home for most of the time I was in the hospital (good planning on our part). I am on "survival mode only" though. You won't be seeing any cute hairdos on my girls any time soon, if you come to my house you are likely to find a disaster area. Anything that I can let slide...I will. One day at a time.

She's Home!

...feeding tube and all:)

One More Day

Hopefully Cambrie will come home tomorrow (Tuesday). I'll spare the details of all her complications and just say that though there are several setbacks in her condition, this pregnancy is being handled much more efficiently that the previous two

"Nother Update

I'm sure when I'm walking down the hallway to visit Cambrie that all the nurses glare at me and think, "So that's the inconsiderate husband who wanted more kids and who put his wife through this living he..." Actually, this pregnancy couldn't have been planned any better. Knowing the circumstances of Cambrie's health condition during pregnancy, the Loma Linda doctors are the ONLY doctors that we've found that are willing to render the appropriate treatment. Who knows if we'll have any more since we'll be moving in 2 years to a place with less access to medical care compared to LLU--who knows?

Cambrie's tentative discharge date from the hospital is this upcoming Monday. For those that are still reading on and interested, she had to first start off with about a 1/2 cup of nutrients a day until she was stabilized. She's finally reached that threshold yesterday where she gets enough nutrients to limit her vomiting to a minimum (still constantly nauseous but it's tolerable--relatively speaking), but at least the feeding tube is helping her out tremendously! She's doing fairly well and so long as the feeding tube doesn't have any complications she'll continue to be doing well enough.

Her mom's coming down to help with the kids starting next week; even still, Cambrie will be pretty weak to play or interact much with our kidlets. For those living near us, if you have time so your kids could interact/play with ours it would be the biggest help to our family.

For those interested, here's some photos of our Christmas break

Cambrie Update

Cambrie got her feeding tube in yesterday afternoon. It should take about 2 days or so for her to go from vomiting uncontrollably to having a semi-normal pregnancy (fingers crossed...and arms folded). The major warning that the GI doctor gave her was to not throw up for the rest of the day post-op or there would be serious complications. Well, when she came to after the surgery, that's all she was doing. Try throwing up without being able to use your stomach muscles and having open abdominal wounds--not fun. Anyway, sparing all the gruesome details, just know it was a long night. Hopefully this hurdle for her won't take as long as Lydia's and Kiera's complications.

It's a good thing they're worth it!

Cambrie update:
Here we go again! Right on schedule almost to a tea. Cambrie's logged a time table how her previous 2 pregancies went and this one is nearly similar to the day.

For the past 2 days it's gotten worse where even a sip of water will make her vomit--say nothing about food. The doctors told her to come in since her ketones are dangerously high

She's currently staying the night at the hospital getting juiced up on IVs (D5LR). Her 1st 2 pregnancies they spent a lot of time experimenting on different drugs to stop her uncontrollable vomiting and then resorted to TPN or a feeding tube. As of right now, they're just going to cut to the chase and will most likely give her the feeding tube--perhaps that will get her nausea more controlled faster.

I'll keep you updated

No preschool for us....

In the past 6 months or so we've been debating on the subject of preschool. Virtually ALL of Kiera's little friends are in preschool (or will be soon). Neither Steve nor myself nor any of our siblings attended preschool and we all turned out great (at least I think so).

I was going to participate in a preschool co-op type thing but it ended up falling through. I looked at some of the expensive preschools around but I couldn't justify them:

1. Kiera is doing fine academically (she can read simple sentences).

2. I feel like she is doing fine socially.

So because of mainly financial reasons I had decided not to put Kiera in preschool. However, I recently became absolutely sure of my decision of not doing preschool EVER for any of my kids. Why? Because of a book I recently read. "Hold On to Your Kids". This is more of a philosophy book than a parenting book and it comes with my highest of highest recommendation. This book has ABSOLUTELY changed the way I look at life an parenting (unlike the other 10 parenting books that I've read that have nothing more than good tips).

Ever heard of kids who feel like the worst punishment is to have their parents be disappointed in them? This book explains how that is possible....along with lots of other stuff.

Thank you so much Lindy for recommending this book to me. It really has changed me. I'm just so glad I read it so early in my parenting life.

December Happenings

December is a lovely month. I did succeed in waiting until the day after thanksgiving to put up our Christmas decorations although it was difficult. The girls absolutely love the decorations and the lights. Kiera is particularly fond of the Cinderella ornament and Lydia likes the "Nack" ornament (snack) which is a little white box ornament that I frequently fill with fishy crackers.
We have a family tradition of dancing together as a family to a Shedaisy Christmas song with all the lights turned off except Christmas lights. They both shriek with excitement when we turn on the music. Kiera understands the concept of Santa and it is nice to have leverage of santa only giving presents to good girls. This is such a fun a magical time of year. I love it.

For those of you who have not heard yet: we are expecting baby #3! We are very excited and just a little nervous. Kiera told me several times the 2 weeks proceeding us finding out that we were pregnant, "mommy-- there is a baby in your tummy!" Amazing how children can be so intuitive. According to Kiera this baby is a girl.....but Steve is really hoping for a boy.
We are as prepared as we possibly could be for this pregnancy so here goes nothing!

A Child's Prayer

With all the turmoil happening in the world, we asked Kiera to offer a special bedtime prayer...this is what we got (click on the link to view it better:)

Darn cute pictures and hillarious story

Sorry for those of you who already read this on fb, but I had to but it on my blog too since it is so funny: On Thursday we were at Disneyland and I had to take Keira to use the potty. As we went in the stall and I shut the stall door Kiera said "Please keep your arms and legs inside of the ride at all times". I laughed out loud and so did the person in the stall next to me. No, she has never said that before. The potty at Disneyland is a pretty crazy ride.

A need for higher altitude

Lydia cracks me up. That little lady is S-P-U-N-K-Y and quite the opposite of her older sister who is timid about everything new. This week we went to a mcdonalds playplace and Lydia climbed right up inside. Kiera has NEVER gone inside one because she's too chicken. But, watching Lydia's example she went a few feet into it before getting nervous and coming back out to observe Lydia from a safe distance. the same thing happened with bubble bath: Kiera was too chicken until Lydia demonstrated that it was ok.



For the past 2 weeks when I can't find my girls I'll frequently find them in the garage in the car climing around. I still haven't been able to catch it on "film" (we don't have film anymore!) but Lydia frequently will stand on the bottom of the steering wheel and hold on to the top of it and rock back and forth. It is soooo cute because she is about the same size as the wheel.
I'm frequently finding Lydia on table tops and other random places where she is not supposed to be. She knows how to get a stool and take it to where she wants to climb up. So, I can't even leave knives on the kitchen counter top. No injuries...yet.

Powerful video

Anyone who felt ungrateful has now been humbled.