I can't believe it...

I live in a circus right now.  Seriously I do...no joke!  What's that?  You want to know why? Let me tell you...

I woke up this morning and I could have been given a lot of different nicknames (ie Green Giant, The Hulk, etc...).  I woke up with green spots.  Not small spots...BIG spots!!  Trenton fell asleep last night and woke up in the middle of the night saying he thought he was going to throw up and he couldn't go back to sleep.  So I let him color in my bed, not on my bed, but on multiple pieces of paper so it wouldn't get on my bed.  I told him that he needed to clean up and get in his own bed when he got tired because Derek was coming home. (I've let him do this before and never had a problem)  Well, I guess Trenton lost his green marker in my bed.  Alas, it ended up underneath me somehow and I got covered with it in my sleep.  (No, we still have not found the green marker.)  So needless to say my day started off, well, colorful.

I am sick right now so that doesn't help my patience level, but it was fabulous having Derek home today because he let me sleep.  (Thanks honey!)  Well, after Derek had to take off again for the day all heck broke loose to put it mildly.  We have a family in our church that needs dinners for the week and I got put in charge of finding people that could bring meals to them.  I got a phone call back from someone and the conversation lasted less than 2 minutes.  I come out (while I am walking out I hear the toilet flush mind you...you will find out about this later) and turn the corner from the office and there is crayon EVERYWHERE on the tile and on the wall. Kaydon I guess found one of Trenton's crayons and decided he wanted to make a picture.  I went to go get my Magic Eraser only to find out that I am out (trip to the store tomorrow to get it off the wall).  I walk back down the hall and go into the bathroom and there is water everywhere on the floor.

Now you need to understand something.  Kaydon LOVES to pretend he is going to the bathroom and then flush the toilet so I figured that is what he did when I heard the toilet flush.  Boy was I WRONG!!  Kaydon somehow got his hands on one of my sponges and decided to flush it down the toilet I guess.  So I got to go "fishing" in the toilet to get it unstuck and then I cleaned up the mess.  Well by this point in time I was angry but I didn't yell (I am trying not too...it was hard but I didn't).  I put the kids in front of a movie so I could have a little bit of time to cool off.  I didn't even go into the other room.  I was on the tile next to where they were at and I was sewing about 4" of fabric really fast.  I look down where I am sewing and in that time Kaydon managed to get a bottle of water and open it.  I look up and he is pouring it ALL over my wood table.  I don't have a fancy table...it's cheap, it warps very quickly.  I run over, grab a towel that I needed to fold off the couch and wipe it up.  After I get the puddle of water cleaned up I look at my table and there drawn on my table in permanent marker is clouds.  Lots of big fluffy clouds....thanks to Trenton.

I lost it.  My children are in bed.  I cried afterwards and wondered if I should even have any more kids because I felt like I obviously can't control the ones that I have. It was a hard, stressful day.  My children drive me crazy and there are times I feel like in a couple of years I will have to be checked into an insane asylum, but they are amazing.  I can laugh about it now-I don't know if it's a "I've lost my mind and gone crazy" laugh or if it's an "my life is just funny" laugh yet.-but I love my kids.  They really are the light of my life and I don't know what I would do without them (even when Kaydon gets into the fridge and paints "art" on the floor with the eggs he just threw down on the tile).

Now you know why I live in a circus.  I hope it made your day happy.  I know my first thought was about a saying that my mom has at her house that really upset me before, but after today I totally understand.  It says, "Grandchildren are your reward for not killing your own children."

Cousins....

Trenton is SO excited!!!  He has two of his cousins spending the night tonight at our house.  They have been playing hard and having a blast.  They are "sleeping" in their fort right now ( our littlest tent), but you hear them telling stories to each other and then they giggle.  I love having kids laughing in my house and having fun, but more than that I love that Trenton and Kaydon get to live close enough to their cousins to be best friends with them and make such fun memories.  There isn't anything sweeter in life then hearing kids laughing together.

My life is pretty stinking awesome!!

Today I had one of those "uh-huh" moments where I am reminded how wonderful my life is.  I will admit there are times that I have something happen ( and usually it isn't the first time...maybe I have to be learn something new) and I think to myself "WHY THE HECK DOES THIS HAPPEN TO ME?!?!?!?!"  You know what though?  I would take the trials I have to face anyday over the ones that other people have.  Really, my life is pretty amazing.  I am truly watched over.  I have 2 handsome, wonderful boys and the most perfect man I get to call my husband for eternity.  I know what my purpose with life is and I know what will happen to me when I die.  I have an amazing church I get to be a part of and because of it I get to be with my family that has passed on before me.  I have a roof over my head and food to eat.  I have my family who I love so dearly.  I have amazing friends that help to lift me up everytime I get to see them or talk to them.  There are so many other people out there in the world that don't get to have those things and I do.  I think that is pretty stinking awesome that I have those blessings!!

My amazing husband

Okay, I am the luckiest girl alive.  Not only am I married to my best friend who is so very wonderful to me, but he is also very smart.  We just bought a van last Thursday and it has just a couple little things that needed to be fixed.  Some of the things that needed done are things that I myself cannot even begin to comprehend how to fix, but Derek said he could do it (and if Derek says he can do something he always can).  The lady that we bought the van from had an estimate done on everything that needed to be fixed.  She got everything done at the dealership and I mean EVERYTHING (even light bulbs changed....sad in my opinion, but hey, to each their own.).  The quote to get everything fixed in the van was almost $4,000!!!  Insane, right?!  Well, my talented husband has bought all the parts we need to get it back up to perfection and has already begun the work.  Total cost: $250.00.  I LOVE THIS MAN!!  I am SO very grateful that he knows how to work on vehicles.  My dad always told me I needed to marry someone that did and boy was he right!  So thanks for the advice dad and thanks to my father-in-love for having the patience to teach Derek how to work on vehicles.  There are so many areas that I can brag about my Derek, but today he deserves to let me tell everyone about his wonderfulness about cars.  I love you sweetheart with all my heart!!  Thank you for all that you do.

P.S. We got a name for the van.  During the day it is Green Giant, at night Trenton says it looks more blue so then it becomes Blue Giant, but alas, we must have a nickname that Kaydon can say, so it is usually called Vannie.

Pre-Christmas excitement

Okay so for anyone that doesn't know, Derek can be stubborn.  :-)  I love that man, but he can definitely be stubborn.  He started Thanksgiving night with really bad pain in his side.  He thought that maybe he had gas from overeating or something.  He came home and took some medicine for it and it didn't help.  After a few days he thought maybe he was constipated, but it wasn't that either.  Now for people that don't know, Derek has a kidney disease called IGA Nephropathy.  Long story short: he found out because he was taking a drug screen for a job and they said he had large amount of blood and protein in his urine so we had all the tests done and they found out that it was it was.  So when Derek started having blood in his urine again it really freaked me out because it was darker than I have ever seen it.  I told him to set up an appointment with the doctor but he said he was fine and didn't like to go to the doctor so he wasn't going to go.  So finally after almost two weeks of him being in pain, I called our doctor and set up an appointment and told Derek he was going to go no matter what.  Derek finally grasped the situation of how serious something like this could be when he doctor started as he told me "what seemed almost to be running through his office yelling at people to get tests done".  He thought Derek either had really bad kidney stones or his appendix had burst.  He told him to get next door to the ER and get a CT scan done.  He didn't want him to go anywhere else.  So Derek listened and went over there.  Within about an hour of checking into the ER he was being wheeled back to surgery.  Derek's appendix had not just burst, but completely BLOWN up and he had abscesses that had grown in between the pieces.  His surgeon kept telling him that he needs to listen to his wife and then she would turn to me and kept telling me that I should be burying my husband, not having him going in for surgery because it probably happened around Thanksgiving.  Most people die within hours of their appendix being burst and here we are talking DAYS.  So Derek went in and had to have his appendix removed the "old way", not laproscopicaly (they tried) because of it being blown up.  We came to find out after he was out of surgery that is in one of only 10% of people in the world that their appendix is behind the colon instead of just dangling in front of it.  For that reason it kept all the poison from it contained back there and that is the only reason he didn't die.  We are all very glad he didn't die.  :-)

One really cool thing that happened though when we were in there was we got to meet the real Santa and Mrs. Clause.  This guy was AWESOME!  He was Derek's roommate and he went in to have his knee replaced. I have never seen anyone that looked more like Santa in my life.  His wife was always at the hospital helping him too so Derek and I started calling them Santa and Mrs. Clause (we did wait though until one of the nurses brought it up just after he came in asking him about his beard and how much it looked like Santa; we can't have people thinking we are crazy).  So every time I came in to see Derek he would ask me how my boys were being and if they needed to be brought coal instead of presents or anything like that and then he would ask me if I had been a good girl too.  It was fun and we all loved it.  Anyway, Santa got to go home the day before Derek and before they left Mrs. Clause turned around and gave Derek a Christmas card.  It still makes me cry to think about it even.  When Derek opened the card they had written in it and they said: "Derek & Dana, Santa has been held up with shopping because he needed his knee to be fixed. If you could please help Santa & I out by going shopping for your boys it would really help him out. God bless you and your family and have a very Merry Christmas.  Love, Santa and Mrs. Clause." Inside the card was $100.00 cash.  It left me completely speechless that theses people that we had only met a couple of days before could be so very selfless to give us such a large amount of money.  They truly were an answer to prayer and I still thank Heavenly Father for their generosity daily because it helped us out so much during a time that we had no money coming in.  Needless to say we had and still have a lot to be thankful for from this whole situation.  We definitely have been watched over.

Thanksgiving

Okay, I know that I am horribly behind with what has been going on in our lives.  I am hoping I can actually get better about keeping this updated this year.  Thanksgiving was fantastic.  We got to have Uncle Brandon & Aunt Amanda come down from Utah to join in our eating.  We love them and are so excited when we get to see them.  :-)  In fact when I told Trenton that Uncle Brandon was coming he started going crazy and jumping all around screaming, "YEAH!!  I GET TO SEE UNCLE BRANDON!!!  HE IS SOOOO COOL!!"  Then I told him that Aunt Amanda was coming with Uncle Brandon and he got more excited (I didn't think that was possible).  He was about to jump up and he didn't get up instead he turned to me with his HUGE blue eyes and said, "Mom, that made me SO excited that I tooted."  I laughed and laughed.  I love that boy.  Anyway, it was a fantastic Thanksgiving.  We had all the Kim Miller family along with some friends there, Danny's parents and brother came, and my parents came along with Paul and Britney.  It was a fantastic feast and we got to try Amanda's delicious homemade mustard.  It was fun getting to sit around and catch up with people and just enjoy the holiday (and the pies).  Thanks for everyone that came and helped out.