How to Meet Your Insurance Deductible

Two Kids, Two Months, Two Surgeries.

First time I've met my insurance deductible since being on a HDHP for three years.

It all started with our little Kira. She is a snoring beast, and I have been worried about her sleeping habits. She started waking up in the middle of the night, and had also started wetting the bed (which she hadn't done since age 2). Kira was also ALWAYS congested. Doc said to have an ENT take a look. The ENT suggested we get the tonsils and adenoids removed ASAP and that the tonsils were actually touching.

The ENT gave us a little book about the surgery and hospital so Kira would know what to expect. It became her favorite book. We stayed upbeat about the surgery, but it had an interesting effect; Kira was EXCITED to go to the hospital.

Here she is prepped and ready. She was all smiles. The surgery went well. Kira was a great patient and asked to see her tonsils when she was coming out of the anesthesia. The nurse asked her if she wanted ice chips. She thought it sounded great, but was sad to learn that it was not actually ice & chips.

Recovery was difficult for about 10 days. It was sad to see her in so much pain. She hated all the medicine, too. She lost some weight, and woke up crying every night. Day 10 was a miracle. All better. Sleeping all night. Just in time for Mommy to do Parent Teacher Conferences. :) She is doing amazing now! The bedwetting and waking at night has stopped! We keep checking on her while sleeping, though. We're not used to her being so quiet when she sleeps.

A few weeks later, Douglas started running a fever. Verdict was a double ear infection. It took 2-3 days to clear up. The day we sent him back to school, he started complaining of a stomach ache. We shuffled him off anyway thinking he was just wanting to stay home. He called around 2pm complaining that his stomach was REALLY hurting and getting worse. Troy picked him up early. When I got home from school around 5, Douglas was still curled up in his bed in pain. I decided we'd better get it checked out. An ER visit consisted of puking in the waiting room, an ultrasound, and a CT scan. A surgeon took out his appendix a few hours later. He said it would've burst within the next 24 hours if we hadn't taken it out. Phew.

Douglas is doing well now. It was hard to keep him down and inactive for a few weeks. His wounds are still healing a bit, but he feels great. He is healed enough to start playing soccer this week!

ER visit. Although fearing the IV, he was grateful for the pain relief.

Douglas getting prepped for the CT scan. It was not very comfortable, but he toughed through it and did well holding his breath and staying still.Douglas home the next day with his battle wounds.

Although he used laproscopy (newer technology), I thought it was old school to use staples vs. stitches. He will have a nice little smiley scar under the belly button.

Even though we are done with new doctor bills until September 1st, I hope we are done with hospital visits. We are just thankful that our children are safe and well again. :)

Olson Christmas

Did I mention that my parents moved here from Texas? I am so glad they live closer. We enjoy seeing them more often, and driving only 3 hours instead of 23 to visit. We haven't celebrated Christmas with my family for 6 years, so I was super excited to get to party with them a little. We all got together on the 22nd for Gingerbread House making and a Bethlehem dinner. It was great to spend time together!

Gingerbread Building contest. My dad gave an award to each house, and then we each voted for our favorites. Mckaylee won first prize! A crisp $5 bill. My boys are already thinking of ideas for next year's competition.

Douglas, Kira and I got the most creative award.

Here are all the houses in their sugariffic splendor.

TJ and Gage worked together and got the award for the best accessories. I like their dog house made of caramels. There was even a mysterious piece of chocolate near the dog's backside. :)

We enjoyed a new tradition of having a Bethlehem dinner. The kids loved eating on the floor by candlelight.

Kim and Rob Bunker (still in Newlywed status) joined us for the celebration.

My mom got us matching Pajamas. Don't we look cozy?

So my dad nonchalantly mentions that he had some skin spots removed. We come to find out that there was some melanoma, and they had to remove a big chunk on his forehead. I had to get a picture of the fresh wound. We were teasing him that he looked like Darth Vader upon removing his mask. My dad will continue to get checked every 6 months, but the doctor is hopeful that they will keep the skin cancer under control. We're glad he doesn't need chemo or anything.

It was great to FINALLY spend the holidays with my family. I love them!

Here we are in front of the tree at my parent's home. The boys wore their new pajamas the entire day.

Christmas 2011

We had a lovely Christmas! I enjoyed everything except for the lack of snow. It seemed a little odd to not have any snow around Christmas; It was certainly cold enough for it. We had a great time at home on Christmas. Troy worked on Christmas Eve until 7 or so (the joy of retail), and then we read the Christmas story together and had the children act it out. Kira loved being Mary and wrapping her doll up like baby Jesus. We sent the kids to bed and locked them in their rooms... with a cell phone. We have a small home, and wanted the boys to wait for us on Christmas morning. We also didn't want snoopers up in the middle of the night, so we locked them in with one phone so they could call us in the morning when they got up (after 6:30 was the rule), or if they needed to go to the bathroom or something. Sounds like a pretty good plan, right?

Well, the plan didn't work so well because Troy forgot that he had turned his phone off at work and didn't turn it back on. So the boys tried to call us, but to no avail. Luckily, their mother was antsy for Christmas morning (I swear I'm like a five year old!), and kept waking up every hour or so. I heard the boys knocking on their door around 8 (they slept in more than I thought they would), and we let the festivities begin.

We had to wake up Kira, and so she was a little confused. She saw some toys on the couch, but didn't seem at all interested in them. She asked for her stocking and went through that first. Then she wanted to see everyone else's stockings and what they got. Finally, she warmed up to the idea that the toys were for her. She said, "Who gave me all this stuff?" We told her it was from Santa. Later that day, she asked why Santa didn't give her any presents. I think she was confused that Santa's presents weren't wrapped, so they didn't really count as "presents". We've put in a special request to have Santa leave ours unwrapped each year. :) I think Kira will remember that for next year and be less confused.

TJ and his marshmallow shooter and new NFL gear. He is a fan of the Broncos and the Cardinals. In the background is our favorite Advent Calendar. We started it a little late because I didn't even set up Christmas until the 17th.

Douglas got a new Bronco's hat from Kira, and a Harry Potter wand from Santa. Here he is concentrating on learning and casting new spells.

Kira got a doll house for Christmas. My friend at work asked if I wanted it, and I took her up on it. Kira LOVES it! It was not easy to hide for the week before Christmas. I had the doll house hidden at work, and she managed to find it when she came to visit my classroom after preschool. We convinced her it was for my classroom. Later that week, she found the furniture bagged up in my bedroom closet. Really? I was getting pretty bumbed out that she would have nothing surprising for Christmas. We figured it out with some Holiday stress put aside. Troy and I wrapped up the furniture in a box and while she opened it, we put the doll house in her room. We took her in there after opening the furniture gift, and she was very excited.

I liked that Christmas fell on a Sunday. It was nice to take a break from the Christmas mess, and celebrate the Savior's birth. The kids looked darling in their new church clothes.

Douglas got a Harry Potter lego set of Hagrid's hut. He built it all by himself! We had a little drama when it fell apart, but Douglas was amazingly able to rebuild it. It was hard to convince him that the destruction could be fixed.

TJ got a Star Wars Lego set of the Millenium Falcon. It was quite the chore to put that puppy together, but he is pretty proud of his work.

Kira got a Belle doll and horse from Santa. Belle is her favorite princess. She is my favorite, too, because of her passion for reading. :)

My Christmas gift was the complete set of Harry Potter movies. Perfect. :) We've started watching them from the 1st movie on. I was hoping to do a marathon and get them all watched before school started, but it is a good few weeks later and we are only to movie 5. I may just have to marathon it on my own since it's hard to find time to sit all together and watch a show. Either way, It's awesome to have them all at my fingertips. I love me some Potter.

Really, my favorite part about the holidays is having time off of work to hang out with my kids. We had a great time together. It was weird not to have snow to play in, but we played some card and board games, and even a little guitar hero. Kira had me playing with her and the dollies, and changing Belle's clothes (we had to make a rule about only changing her once a day). We also all got some books and enjoyed time reading. Douglas got a book called "The Janitors" by a local author. The author had come into Troy's store to do a book signing, so it was personally autographed for Duds. He was VERY excited about that. TJ got a book called "Michael Vey"by Richard Paul Evans (author of The Christmas Box). He had a difficult time putting it down once he started. It's the first of an upcoming series, and TJ highly recommends it. I may just have to borrow it.

Life just seems super busy lately. It's nice to have a little time today to blog and finish taking down the Christmas stuff. I love Christmas! Maybe I should just leave it up another month or so...

First Fall Snow

We had a little WHITE surprise last week. Kira was so excited when she woke up in the morning and I showed her the snow out the window. She looked at her sandbox and said, "My sandbox got snowed!" Then she said, "I gotta get my boots on and check for Santa!". She quickly did her chores on this Saturday with a promise to go out and play in the snow. She also didn't relent about the Santa issue. She didn't understand why Santa wasn't coming because there was snow. I tried to take her mind off of it by focusing on Thanksgiving. I probably brought that up too early because she asks me a few times everyday if it's time to go to Grandma and Grandpa's to see all the cousins. She is very excited to see Malleya and Baby Darcy again.

I headed outside with the eager gal and enjoyed watching her stomp in the snow around the yard as fast as she could. I also took her on a little sled ride. In the backyard, she said that it was my turn and insisted I sit on the sled so she could pull me around. Although the attempt was cute, she was sad that she couldn't pull me around. We decided to make a snow baby to put in the sled. She pulled it around the yard until it tipped over and met it's snowy demise.

Thanks for reminding me of the magic of snow, Kiki. I'm glad there is someone around that is not complaining about it. I'm also not complaining that it only lasted 24 hours.

Happy Fall, y'all!

Spooktober

In honor of Halloween, we took our annual trip to the Pumpkin walk.

Here are a few of our favorite displays:

And after our walk around the pumpkin displays, we get some pepperidge farm cookies, and take a moment to get a few pictures:

Douglarella:

Kikiyoda:

We carved some pumpkins at Grandma's house. I did type "we", but really I meant that "I" carved some pumpkins at Grandma's house. The kids wanted to do some of the tricky stencil ones this year. Kiki chose a kitty, Douglas chose an emerging skeleton with flames and TJ chose a spider. TJ actually did 90% of his stenciling and carving. Next year, we are doing the "draw some shapes and carve your own thing". It is much easier and less work for me! They still turned out okay and helped spookify our porch.

Halloween morning was a joke. Douglas woke up unwilling to deter from his idea to be the Grimm Reaper. I quickly found a black sheet and thought we could just do a wrap around and tie with a rope thing. Then I thought I could just cut off a corner and sew it on top for a hood-- that would only take a few minutes, right? We ended up rushing out the door with a lame drape and hood. That evening, I cut off some more off the bottom of the sheet and made some sleeves. We added the face paint, and Douglas was one scary dude. Mission complete. I need to not procrastinate this costume thing next year!

I love this picture below. Douglas is the red-eye KING. Not sure why, but he has red glowing eyes in every picture I take. Thank goodness for editing software. Anyway, I kept his eyes red for the picture below to enhance the creepy effect. Kira was not impressed, but Douglas LOVED being terrifying. He also needed a scythe. I found my painting tool pole, traced a blade on cardboard, taped it to the pole, and wrapped it with foil and leftover black scraps.

Kira was easy this year and wanted to be Scooby Doo (a hand-me-down). TJ is a football player! Last year he was a zombie football player, so it was quite a stretch.

Our neighborhood participates in traditional door-to-door Trick-or-Treating (I'm not a huge fan of the trunk-or-treat, so I'm cool with that). Due to the last minute costume adjustments, we got a late start on the Trick-or-Treating. The kids ended up fairing okay anyway, and we had a great night together. Wish it was not on a Monday. It throws the whole week into a loop. I'm all up for the idea floating around that Halloween not be set on October 31st, but become a floating holiday- the last Saturday of October. Sounds cool to me. Happier Haunting for all.

Canyon Colors

The Fall lasts about 5 weeks here in Cache Valley. We had to hurry and go to Logan Canyon and enjoy the colorful trees before they all turned to barren branches. We took a little walk and discovered that TJ is well on his way to teenhood (a bit of attitude from my sweet boy???). He really didn't want to go, as you might be able to tell from the photos below. Despite his temporary grouchiness, we enjoyed our little jaunt and celebrated Fall with a Papa Murphy's Jack-o-lantern pizza afterwards.

Our favorite sign at the Stokes Nature Center.

Fall Break allowed us some time to go visit my sisters and parents. Dad took us up Provo Canyon to see Bridal Veil Falls. I love the picture below. Douglas and Kira each held one of Malleya's hands during our walk. They love their little cousin! On Thursday, I told Kira we were going to see Malleya tomorrow and she said, "No, I want to go see Malleya toNow".

Beautiful kids and beautiful falls.

These grandkids sure love their Grandma!

Last Cookout

The birthday girl, Krista, is armed and ready to attack the cake.

Nick and Douglas chilling in the lawn chairs. This was unusual as they aren't usually the guys that sit still.

TJ, Kira and Jorge were cheesing for the camera. Jorge grew out his beard and curly hair to be in the New Testament film the church is filming. Remember his face... he's soon to be a STAR. :)

Mom LaMont is the saddest of all that the warm weather is leaving soon. We love Grandma.

Holly and Krista are cute sistas!

The last cookout of the year is usually awesome, but with a hint of sadness. The last cookout of the year represents the end of summer and the start of Fall (which is way too short). Winter will be upon us too soon....

Anyway, we did enjoy the last cookout with some Boise visitors! Krista and Holly took a little trip to visit us the first weekend in October. The boys enjoyed playing ball with Jorge and Nick in the backyard. We were able to celebrate Krista's birthday, too. Krista is finally looking pregnant. We are excited for baby to come in December.

Troy cooked a mean dutch oven batch of potatoes and chicken. MMMMmmmm. We can't wait to have them again next year.