Mia K.

Anna's "Mia K." (Peter's mom, Kathy) is so great! Thank you Mia for letting me take good naps, for taking Anna on long walks several times a day, for loving her, playing with her, feeding her in the middle of the night, for changing diapers and for letting me sleep for a little while after a long night at work! Thank you for the yummy fruit you brought with you to share and for helping our broken Daddy out for a night. We so appreciated you coming up to help! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Booties anyone?

My mom started making these cute booties. She's going to start selling them at a boutique in Chico. Let me know if you are interested! Anna has two pairs and I love them. I've gotten a ton of compliments on them already!

A sweet smelling rose and smiles.....

I love these sweet smiles. My parents came up to help with Anna on Tuesday and stayed until Wed. night. It was so amazing having them here! It was such a huge help. I was able to take a good nap on Wednesday while Anna was just a doll with them. She loves playing with them. Especially my Dad. She loves his beard. We potted my new rose bush that Peter's mom got me for Mother's day. I am so excited! We trimmed it back, put it in a big pretty pot and I cut off all my new blooms from it. I am loving them and the way they smell, they smell amazing! It's a double delight rose, my favorite.

Here's a picture of the first bloom:



It was nice to get some things done around here with some help for once. My mom did all of our laundry which was AMAZING since I hate laundry duty. I feel caught up, a little more rested and have enjoyed the rest of my week. I have been praising the Lord this week for the restoration he has brought to our relationship with my parents!

Shredded

Peter's achilles was indeed shredded, gone, nothing left. The awesome Dr. Kiechbush sewed the threads of shred back together and said he should be as good as new in about 8-10 weeks. Well, at least he can come out of his 10 pound boot by then. The new question is, how do you hold baby and crutch every where at the same time? He's supposed to be non-weight bearing for 8 weeks minimum and that was heavily stressed from the Dr. himself. Apparently an achilles repair isn't so simple and a high majority of patients have to go back in for multiple surgeries because they re-tear them. I'm praying this doesn't happen. God is completely capable of healing this tendon and I have faith and trust he will heal it right the first time. It's going to be an interesting two months with him not being able to carry Anna around. I'm pretty sure he'll come to heavily rely on the baby bjorn and the moby! I'm feeling weary already having to do all of the work with Anna and working nights. It's all catching up with me. I know I'm only doing 2 nights a week but they are spread out and it takes a good day and a half to recover. By the time I'm recovered, I'm back for another shift. I'm tired, worn out, exhausted. I would love to sleep for 3 days straight! Anna has also hit another growth spurt so we're back to waking up every 3 hours to feed. I feel like I'm just a boob lately. Also, my nursing doesn't stop when I leave work, I now take care of a hurting husband post-op. At least making sure he gets pain meds around the clock coincides with Anna's every 3-4 schedule so it's not too hard to remember with this foggy brain I have. Two peas in a pod I tell ya. I would love some prayers for the weariness I'm feeling. I'm feeling as shredded as Peter's achilles.........

Waiting.....

I'm here at the surgery center of Reno waiting for Peter to get out of surgery. This surgery center is great! They have computers for family to use when waiting, movies with TVs, etc. Not to mention really comfy couches in the lounge! Not what I had expected. I was ready to sit in a hard chair in a 1980's waiting room with me, myself, and my book listening to the secretary answer phones all morning. No siree is this what I had in mind. It's great! I am so thankful my parents came up to watch Anna today and will be here to help tomorrow. Then, we're on our own. Still a broken husband, a cute baby girl, and a very tired mommy. I'll keep you all posted on how Peter's doing. He should be out of surgery any minute now.

Dr. Kiechbush and a Broken Husband

Peter did it. He crashed on his motorcycle racing on the 4th of July......So, we spent some time in Enloe's prompt care getting his 1 1/2 inch puncture wound on his left elbow irrigated, numbed, x-rayed etc. We got some great antibiotics and left on our merry way being told to come back on Sunday for a wound re-check. Being a nurse, I figured we could wait until Monday morning to go to the Dr. in Truckee. Well, Sunday he was going to try to race and down play his injuries. He called on Sunday and said his arm was so swollen that he couldn't bend it or get his leathers on and was going to come home. Around 4:00 he came hobbling up the door. My first thoughts were "what now?" I opened the door and with a smile and a purple swollen left ankle to top off his previous injuries, he said, "I twisted my ankle." Off to the Dr. again this time for an ankle x-ray. Not broken but with a report that he may need surgery on his elbow puncture wound to clean it out and get rid of the huge (half an apple size) blood clot in his joint.

We left........went home......and first thing Monday morning went to our Dr. in Truckee. She took one look at his arm and sent us for a surgery consult in Reno to the ER. We spend most all day in the ER only for Dr. Cole to tell us to go see Dr. Kiechbush an orthopaedic surgeon for the consult on the elbow now being told it may be broken. Not to mention it's now so hugely swollen he can't even bend his fingers at all and is black, blue and purple from mid bicep to palm. So, this morning Peter went to see the ortho guy. Not concerned about the arm.....well, at least not as much as with the ankle. Turns out he tore his achilles tendon and is now going in for surgery this upcoming Tuesday. They missed this in Chico and missed it in the ER in Reno. Good thing we have good insurance to take care of all this! I knew God had me working for a reason (:

In the mean time, we are trying to make it together taking care of Anna.....mostly me on my own doing most of the work now. Peter's left arm is in an immobilizer at 90 degrees and his left ankle is now in a huge boot and he has a spiffy pair of crutches to help him hobble around. Although, after a trip to the Dr. today his strict instructions were to keep his toe above his nose unless he has to get up to pee. These next couple days are going to be quite interesting.......

Through it all Anna is still just as cute and happy and smiley as ever. For an update, she's now rolling all over the place. Tummy to back, back to tummy, spins in 360's, smiles, laughs, coos, grasps things. I just started giving her a sippy cup at dinner with a little bit of my mommy milk in it. She loves holding it and tipping to up to try to drink out of it. She almost has it figured out on her own. She's getting so big so fast and it's fun to watch her learn and grow and do something new everyday. She's quite the trooper.

Did I mention Peter is officially grounded from racing??

A Year Ago.....

I woke up this morning and remembered that it was a year ago today that we found out we were welcoming a baby to our little family. I was scared, reluctant, terrified, not ready, excited, nervous, happy, etc. The emotions ran the whole gamet. Peter was excited, thrilled, happy and super positive about the 4 positive pregnancy tests. To re-live the moment.......I was unpacking our bathroom stuff as we had just unpacked our whole new house the night before, and I stumbled upon a pregnancy test we always kept around "just in case." We certainly weren't planning on getting pregnant. I figured we didn't need to keep it around, let alone unpack it because I wasn't pregnant or was planning on it any time soon. Well, I figured I was 3 days late which wasn't like me and I didn't want to keep this test around so I'd just take it. So, I peed on the stick and waited the 3 minutes....more like 20 seconds and I saw a little plus sign emerge. My first thoughts were that it wasn't right, couldn't be right but maybe it was?? Peter came home 1/2 an hour later and I showed him the test. He was immediately excited while I cried through telling him my findings. How we had just moved away from everyone and as far as I was concerned, everything. How we weren't ready for this. He reassured me that this was an incredible blessing, one that we could and should embrace. We then proceeded to Longs Drugs to take 4 more tests, all of which were positive. Once reality sank in, we went and took a picture in front of the Truckee population sign reading 14,300. Peter held up 3 fingers in front of the last 0 to make the population now 14,303.

Looking back on this day makes me smile. I would have never imagined that Anna would be half as amazing as she is. I couldn't picture what our family would look like, what it would be like to be a mommy, the completeness it would bring our marriage. Needless to say, God knew what he was doing in giving the gift of this little baby to us. She has been such a joy and delight. We love her more than we could have imagined, and I love my husband even more for joining me in the journey of parenting. Our baby girl is such a blessing, it's fun to reflect on this day we found out she was coming!