The always uninvited "split-second"

It always comes when you least expect it, and what it brings is never good. Sometimes the split second is life changing in the worst way, other times it may be a terrible accident, and yet other times it can be something that will disrupt your life for a little while, but then end and things can go back to normal.


This last split-second visited our home on sunday evening. We were running in from church and changing quickly to head to a family super-bowl get together. I took the older girls to change them and Kevin took Lexie while he went to change. He set her on the bed, in the middle, and went to the closet. He could see her from there, but she's turned into an expert roller these days. Right off the bed she went. That was just a split-second.


After an hour of her trying to sleep and repeatedly waking up screaming I took her to one of those 24 hour emergency rooms. We got right in and they took X-rays of her and a cat-scan. Since we didn't see how she fell or what exactly was hurt, they had to cover the bases. I had a feeling it was her legs and after waiting a few hours for radiology to review her scans, they told me that she had fractured her hip. This is an incredibly rare injury for infants to have so they didn't know how to treat it there and wanted her to be seen by an orthopedic surgeon. At 11:00pm we headed down to memorial hermann to be seen. Little did we know that we would be waiting in the emergency room down there all night.


We got to the ER and went back to a room by 1:00am and waited. They gave her some pain meds by 3, and took blood to get her labs done in case she needed surgery. We waited till 5am to see the ortho, but she didn't know what they were going to do yet. So we waited some more for her to consult with some other doctors. I was so nervous that she would have to have surgery or be put into a cast for 6 weeks. They both sounded like awful choices. Finally at 7am, she came back and told me that they were going to put her in a sling/harness. I was so grateful. It's still not fun for her and I'm sure she's a little uncomfortable, but of the options we had, this was by far the best one. After that, we waited until about 10:30am for the prosthetics people to show up with the sling and fit it to her. Lucky for us, while waiting in the ER we were blessed, all night, to be able to listen to the lovely sounds of people coughing and vomiting since we're in the middle of flu season. It was the longest night of my life.

Our happy and strong baby girl, this is what the harness looks like, no one can imagine it, including me, so I thought you might like to see just what it is.

Her legs can go back and forth, but not extend. She isn't moving her left leg at all though, she learned quick to hold it still!

At last, by noon we were up in our own room so she could be observed for 24 hours to make sure the sling fit right and wasn't bothering her too much. Luckily, the let us go early and we came home last night. She's doing amazing and is spending most of today catching up on all the sleep she lost, I'm sure the pain meds are helping her sleep a little bit better too. She's a trooper and smiles bunches, but she'll be sure to let us know when she's not feeling too good as well.

It was awful to be visited by that mean split-second, but we feel blessed that it wasn't worse than it is. I'm so grateful that it wasn't her head or her spine that were injured, and that she's handling things so well. I'm also so grateful for the priesthood and the fact that Kevin could give his daughter a blessing and in turn, give me the comfort that I needed. We are also so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family around to support us. Especially those that were able to come in the middle of the night so Kevin could go with me downtown. We are so grateful for all the words of comfort and all the help offered by so many of you, you have made this so much easier for us than it would have been.

We're just praying that she heals quickly and isn't in pain for too long. Thank you every one and I hope that pesky split-second will go on vacation for a really long time!

On a side note, this was the big news on sunday at our house, until Lexie fell that is, Peyton got a fun new haircut! I love it, and think she looks like the sweetest little doll! What a cutie!

There's a door in my closet

When my parent's were out here a few weeks ago, we put my dad to work. He was gracious enough to spend some of his time here putting a hole in the wall in my closet. You see, Kevin and I have taken our time getting started on food storage, but we finally started. There's not alot, but when you have no storage room in your house, it makes it seem like there's alot more food storage than there really is. So if you've been to our house in recent months, you've probably seen the pile of food on the floor in our dining room, yes, isn't that the perfect spot for it?

Well, yeah for my dad, he put the hole in the wall, added shelving and a light to our HUGE empty space under our stairs, and then added a door. I LOVE IT! It's so nice to have somewhere to store everything, and now I can see that we really don't have much, but there's lots of room to add more, yeah, I can't wait to start!

Look how big that space is!

Lots and lots of shelving and a little bit of food

even more empty space, finally a place to hide presents from the girls, I'm awful at that!

The girls also love this new room, although I think slowly the novelty is wearing off. Halli say's it's her cottage, and Peyton says it's here house, and they love to show their friends whenever they come over. Too bad they'll be banned from it as soon as we paint the door and add a doornob that locks. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. :)

Little Girls

I just saw this today and it's my new favorite quote:

"Some women are dripping with diamonds, some women are dripping with pearls, look at me, lucky me, I'm dripping with little girls!"
from the musical, "Little orphan annie"

gotta love it!

How do you get to Heaven?

Last night we had FHE, and Halli did the lesson for us. She taught us about the premortal life and all that happened there. Well, Kevin and I did a little coaching through questions, but all-in-all she did really well. She also drew a picture of heaven, the earth, mars and saturn.

The earth is in the middle, and the red person on the earth is Halli. Mars is the cookie looking one on the bottom, and saturn is above that with the rings. Heaven is the blue cloud with all the red people and the green person in the middle is Heavenly Father.


Our conversation went a little like this:

Dad - So, who did we choose to follow after the war in heaven?
Halli - Jesus
Dad - How do you know that?
Halli - I just know!
Mom - you know because you have a body, right?
Halli - oh yeah.

Dad - So how do we get back to Heaven to live with Heavenly father?
Halli - you die.

I couldn't stop laughing at that one. She is right after all, we can't get there if we don't die. I love how simple their minds can be!

We love when Grandma & Grandpa come to town!

Last week we were blessed to have my parents come stay with us for a very short three days. The girls were beyond excited to have them here and were very sad when they left. We did have some fun while they were here though.

We visited Halli at school for lunch, which she LOVED. We played Wii lots, it is tons of fun, and I'm feeling a little sore in my shoulder from bowling! We also learned that Halli is an awesome wii bowler! My dad was put to work while he was here too...more on that later. We did a little bit of shopping and alot of hanging out and cuddling with Grandma & Grandpa. It was so sad when they left, Halli was crying and Peyton was doing alright as they pulled away, and once we got in the house, I had just sat down and heard awful crying from Peyton, I thought Halli had hit her or something. But no, she just broke down and wanted Grandpa Logan to come back...I felt awful for her. (sorry mom & dad, not trying to make ya feel bad!) She's still saying "gwandpa Wogan gone" and "gwandma gone home" So cute! Luckily they'll be back in February for another short visit. We miss ya both, and are so glad you got home safe!

Since we were having so much fun I didn't pull out the camera too much, but here is one afternoon as we were out playing. Halli isn't in too many of them cause she was riding around the block with her dad. yeah for no training wheels! She's so proud!

Don't worry, Grandma was right next to these two, so Lexie wasn't in danger!:)

Okay, she isn't really smiling, but I love her eyes in this photo!

Lexie and grandma having some bonding time!

Peyton and her main sqeeze. She loves grandpa logan.

tickle time with grandma.

Peyton saying "cheese" what a cheeseball! Gotta love that girl!

We had some serious fun and can't wait till next time!

My Evil Plan - part II

A little less than a year ago I wrote about my evil plan to get my family to move to Houston. This is a tough one, since California may have a little more appeal for most people, but it never hurt to try, right? Well, in April of last year my brother and his wife moved down to college station, so that was a decent start, now I just needed my sister and my parents, Sorry Ryan & Kate, I would love to have y'all out here, but I know there is probably VERY little chance of that happening, so you're gonna be a little left out of the mix.

Well, I am very happy to report that my parents were here visiting for three very short days following their very long drive to help move my sister and her hubby down! Yes, you heard right, my sister now lives less than 30 minutes away, YEAH!!! I can't believe she actually lives this close and isn't really planning on leaving anytime soon. (I know they may have to as her hubby is doing an internship and my get a job somewhere else, but we'll pretend that won't happen!)

Now we just need to get my parent's down here, that may be a little tougher. The last time they were here, my dad said he could live in conroe, and considering the fact that he's always been slightly anti-houston, that's a pretty big concession. I guess he liked all the trees and the lake! So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best! Here's to a future post titled, "my evil plan - Complete!" Wish me luck!

Our Mini Vacay

The company Kevin works for was doing some work on the Hilton in Downtown, and we were able to go down for a night last monday, and enjoy a pretend vacation with the girls! We were planning on going to "the Aquarium" to hang out and enjoy some rides and then stay for dinner. It ended up being way too late, so we just had dinner and enjoyed the scenery inside the restaurant before heading to the hotel. We set up for the night and got the girls situated and as soon as that was done, Kevin had something in mind that he wanted to do......it wasn't what you're thinking. The Hilton is right next door to the Toyota Center, and there was a rockets game. That's right, he left us to go see the game, and he even got in, without a ticket. I don't know how that boy does that, but he always manages to get things for free!

The next morning we headed to a park next to the hotel, they have an outdoor ice skating rink there, which I really wanted to do, but it didn't work out, instead the girls played on a playground right there, and I was able to play with my new telephoto lens for my camera, yeah! Once they were done there, we headed back to the Aquarium to play a little bit more. It was tons of fun and it was great to feel like we got to have a little vacation not far from home. Lexie could have slept a little better, we were both a little tired the second day, but other than that, we had an amazing time and it was great to just hang out with our little family and enjoy the moment!

Look at some of these awesome fish! The girls loved it here!

The middle picture is the inside of the restaurant. It totally felt like you were underwater. Halli thought it was cool to be like a mermaid.

Our cozy and comfy hotel stay. The girls slept great, except for Lexie, who slept great on me all night, so I had a very sore back the next morning. I guess she just didn't like the closet. That or the fact that she had her shots that day, not such great timing.

The view from our hotel, not our room but in the hotel, you can see it looks down on the toyota center. Yeah, Kevin was lovin that.

This was at the park the next day, tons of fun!

Halli actually smiled at the camera! I think she hates it, she always turns her back to it and tries to avoid it, so yeah for the smiling happy picture!

This is inside the shark tank, we went twice and both times as soon as we got outside, Peyton was saying "more" and wanting to go back.

Riding the carousel, nothing's better than that!

The ferris wheel, looking down on houston! The other girls were there too, they just didn't look as happy in their pictures, I don't think they really cared.

This is pretty cool you could touch the sting rays, or go underneath and look at them through the glass. The girls loved this and stayed under there for quite a long time!

All-in-all it was a great mini-vacation,and we thoroughly enjoyed our time together, we just might make a mini-vacation over christmas break an annual tradition!