anger management

a week or so ago, we decided to attempt a little impromptu family photo shoot in hopes of getting a couple good pics for christmas cards and grandparents. i don't know about you all, but we love getting family pictures taken!!! always, always a good time!! i think the following picture sums the experience up nicely.

can't you just see the joy and happiness radiating off her adorable face!! we were looking though the pictures and brendan said "she needs anger management classes. her eyes are burning a hole in me." out of the mouths of babes......

why can't i take my tonsils home??

several years ago, around sixty five - give or take a few - larry's dad (pappa sir) went in to get his tonsils taken out. this was back in the day when it was common for doctors to make house calls and many doctor's residence served as the location of their practice as well. so on the morning of his tonsillectomy, pappa sir's dad drove him over to the dr's house where they placed him on a table located on the back porch. ether was administered, the back porch became a surgical room, the tonsils were removed and shortly there after pappa sir was carried to the car to recover at home. my..... how medicine has changed and how grateful i am for that change!!

today, brendan went in to get his tonsils taken out and thankfully it was not on the back porch with a rusty scalpel (i'm sure the scalpel wasn't rusty then either but in my head that's how i picture it). the decision to remove said tonsils occurred because a few months ago during a normal checkup brendan's tonsils caught his dr's eye. and not in a good way. after some questions about his sleeping habits she decided to have him do a sleep study. when the results came back it showed that he had sleep apnea and they referred us to a ear/nose and throat dr who confirmed what we suspected - they need to come out!! brendan was really nervous, which was to be expected. surgery of any kind is scary no matter how old you are so when your newly 11, it's terrifying. his biggest concern was the iv. it took me awhile to fully understand where this fear was coming from. we kept telling him that it would be just like a little bee sting and then finally he looked at me and said "that's not what you've said before. you said it hurt when it went in and didn't stop until it came out." oopps. my bad. i didn't realize that i had talked about that in front of him before, but apparently i did and he filed it away in his little elephant brain for future reference. my biggest fear for him was the anesthesia. i have never had a child put under before, nor have i been put under, so i was really concerned about how that would be. in the end, both of our fears were laid to rest with competent professionals that took care of things beautifully. the whole surgery went really well and brendan was such a tropper!! he kept up his sense of humor and had us laughing more than once. he was a little sad when he first woke up from surgery and had a few rough moments when the baby next to us woke up crying and continued to cry for awhile. poor little baby. he was just really hungry and scared. my favorite moment from the day was when we were sitting in recovery and brendan told us that he really wanted to talk to the people next to us to see how they were feeling and what they were in for. like i've said before, he is quite the compassionate and caring little boy. i also loved the way he quizzed everyone about what they were doing, why they were doing it and what effect it would have on him. i don't think they all thought it was as amusing as i did but i love to sit back and watch him process information and then fish for more to create a perfect picture in his head. why can't i take my tonsils home? what does pathology do with them? you asked the doctor if a 22 gauge was ok or if she needed a 20. why is one better than the other? and actually the nurses were really good about answering his questions, the surgeon however did not find them amusing at all. she was very quick to dismiss his question about the length of time the surgery would take. i thought for a second she was going to tell him off and we were going to have a little smack down in the prep room if i'm going to be completely honest about the situation. but, she did her job without any problems and i am grateful to her for that. although a little bedside manner might be helpful in calming the nerves of a child. but what do i know..... i'm just the mom ;) not a highly educated medical professional.

a before shot. i tried to get an after shot but it's too swollen to get a clear view

brendan nestled in his space suit thermal blanket relaxing to some tunes in recovery. they let him take the blanket and space suit hat (not in picture) home. he thought that was the coolest thing ever.


larry went down to the pharmacy to get brendans medicine and came back with this huge grocery type bag. he only has 2 prescriptions but a total of eight bottles. 5 bottles of antibiotic and 3 bottles of tylenol with codeine.

tonight, brendan is resting comfortably. he is still pretty sluggish and swollen and sore but his spirits are good and he is looking forward to eating some ice cream tomorrow. he is already tired of popsicles and slushes. that is something that i thought i would never see. a kid tired of popsicles?!?!

as for me, i am just thankful to heavenly father that everything went so well today. it was a minor procedure but you just never know. and it's always hard to see your little ones in pain, with monitors beeping. brings to mind how easily they could be not so healthy kids. i am also thankful to him for the peace that he blessed me with. i am not always the coolest cucumber in the patch when my kids have stuff like this going on but i was calm and composed all day today. and thanks to olivia and rachael for taking on my girls so that larry and i could be there together for brendan. to christy for giving my kitchen a break. and to those that sent prayers and best wishes our way.

my little man

today is brendan's 11th birthday and i don't have his birthday post ready yet. but i couldn't let the day finish without acknowledging how much i love this kid and how glad i am that heavenly father blessed us with his sweet spirit. brendan has always been fiercely independent and when he was younger i was concerned that this would hinder him in building relationships with others. but over the last few years, he has become such a caring and sympathetic kid. the past few days, we have had to talk about some of the trials that people go through in life. i wanted him to understand what was going on in the lives of our friends so that he in turn would be prepared for certain conversations. immediately, he surprised me with his overwhelming compassion and desire to do whatever we could to make things easier for them. touched my little heart his love and concern did. brendan is also going to be a great dad someday. i love to watch him interact with babies. he loves them and they love him. i think they can sense his kind heart. sometimes it is so easy for me to get caught up in the craziness of boyhood that it's hard for me to see the budding man who will emerge quicker than i can even imagine.

merry christmas to me

i have been wanting a giraffe print purse for a while now. i've looked in a few places and just couldn't find the "right" one. but, the other night i was out with the girls and i found this lovely item

i decided to go ahead and get it for myself for christmas. my first thought was to have larry go back and get it but it was on sale so of course i had to get it right then!! i promised myself that i would not use it until christmas. but i folded under peer pressure (yeah right) and used it the rest of the night with the intention of packing it away in the closet when i got home. which i did. but then larry and i went out last night and i just couldn't help myself!!! it was calling me from the closet, begging to be included in the fun. what's a girl to do??? besides, i needed to verify that i had chosen the correct size. i wanted one that wasn't too big, but was big enough. so.....i stuffed the following items into it for the movie: 2 water bottles, one package of whoppers, one medium package of licorice and one king size caramello bar - with room to spare. official verdict - this is the best purse ever!!

farewell little scooter....

little pink scooter you have provided us with hours of entertainment. we have enjoyed riding you up and down the sidewalk. feeling the breeze on our little faces and the sun on our backs. we have shared many laughs together and won many races. if only we had loved you enough to not lay you down behind mom's car where she proceeded to run over you. we hope that you find endless sidewalks in scooter heaven.

love always, the hahl girls

happy birthday lilsters!

on november 2 my baby turned 2. it is so hard for me to believe that she is that old. with each addition to the family the time that they are so super sweet and little just seems to fly faster and faster. when i started this blog, i made the decision that within the first year of it's life i would chronicle the birth of the kiddos since i have never actually written them down before. so here is lily's. i am sure that this will not really be of much interest to the rest of you (sorry) but i want the kids to know their story.

from the very beginning lily's pregnancy was harder than the rest of the kids. i think it was a combination of me just being older and my body being tired of stretching. i hurt all the time and was exhausted most of the time as well. and of course my favorite pregnancy companion, heartburn, was along for the ride and started way earlier than it did with the previous three. thank heaven for zantac and i am so glad that it made it onto the approved o.t.c. meds list! i could not have lived without it. towards the end the heartburn was so bad at night that the medicine was virtually useless. therefore i spent the last month sleeping upright on the couch until around 2 or so and then i would wander upstairs to bed. bella and brooke were both early, two weeks and one and half weeks respectively, so i was convinced since it was my fourth i was going to come super early. i had myself so convinced of the fact that the last two weeks of my pregnancy i would wake up in the morning mad and depressed that i had made it through another night without going to the hospital. it also didn't help that several nights i would start regular contractions and then they would just magically disappear. i tried a lot of the old wives tales to try and induce labor with no luck. finally at my 40 week appointment (i scheduled it a few days early) i broke down into tears, sobbing to my doctor that there was no way i could go another week. she made a call to the hospital and said that she could get me in for an induction on sunday, which was four days away and was one day after my due date. sad, but grateful for an end date i went home and took brooke pajama shopping at kohl's. i have such a vivid memory of waddling through the store holding back tears and feeling completely sorry for myself. i went home and made arrangements for the kids on sunday. bedtime came and i pulled out the change of clothes and shoes for the kids thinking to myself that it was a waste of time. i wouldn't need them just like i hadn't needed them for the last week......wipe away another tear.....choke back a sob... laid down on the couch and tried to get to sleep. contractions started sometime around midnight and didn't stop. i was so excited that if i could have leaped for joy i would have. we made the middle of the night phone call and dropped the kids off at niki and aaron's; racing to the hospital. the ride was like deja vu. with bella and brooke i also went into labor in the middle of the night, raced through the fairly quiet streets and they were also on a thursday morning. isn't that strange? all of our girls were born on a thursday morning.

the labor\delivery nurse really sets the tone for how things are going to play out. if she's good at what she does and has a compassionate nature, a lot of the stress is relieved. if she is not competent and has zero compassion, she just makes the whole experience way worse than it needs to be. my first nurse was not so great. it took her forever to get my iv in and when she was finished she told me that she would be right back to change the sheets. "what??? change the sheets??" i looked at larry who looked over to the side where my iv was and the shock in his eyes told me we had a problem. i peeked to survey the damage and saw that my sheet and the pillow my hand was resting on were soaked in blood. what she did i have no idea but my iv hurt the entire time it was in. thankfully a shift change happened before i had to see a lot of her and my next nurse was delightful. the only thing that annoyed yet amused me at the same time was larry. sounds harsh, but let me explain. i had been in love with the name lily for months and larry hated it. so he decided to throw some new names out at me while i was in a slightly incapacitated state. the nurse and doctor just kept laughing at us because no matter what he said it was met with an immediate no and he would flip through the name book and shout out the next one he saw. he did that for hours people!! tell me you wouldn't find that a little annoying. i had never met the doctor that delivered lily before but she looked just like halle berry. it was uncanny. she was really sweet and knew that i was uncomfortable with the fact that i didn't know her so she hung out with us quite a bit to calm my nerves. another weird tidbit is that all of my girls were delivered by a female ob and brendan was delivered by a male.
the actual delivery went well except lily was a lot bigger than the rest of my kids so i had to push more than the usual four times. she was beautiful and perfect and by the end of the day larry had worn me down enough that she was actually sade for about 18 hours. but then i went to fill out the birth certificate and just couldn't write that name down. she had been lily to me for months and i just couldn't give the name up. i called larry who was on his way to the hospital and told him that i couldn't name her sade and he (tired of the name debate) told me i could name her whatever i wanted. so lily grace hahl is the name i penned on the all important document. i think the name fits her perfectly.

one thing that shocked us about lily was that she had blue eyes. that was a major anomaly for us. the rest of our kiddos had been born with jet black eyes. larry and i would just stare at those beautiful eyes postive that they would change before too long. but 2 years later they are not as blue as they were but they are far from brown. i am curious to see what color they decide to be.

from precious little one on her blessing day to this.....

outgoing, adventurous, curious, loves to be cuddled, spunky 2 year old. happy birthday lil's! we love you!!

trick or treat

i love halloween. i am sure that i have probably mentioned that before, but i just want to throw it out there again. and i love good old fashioned trick or treating. there is something about the thrill of walking the street in the brisk (sometimes more like freezing) night air while leaves swirl around your feet, ringing the doorbell and anxiously awaiting your treat. then there is the added bonus of oohh's and aahhh's, aren't you so adorable, by the treat givers. such good times!! last night's adventure was perfect. the kids all loved their costumes which i made!! my first attempt at making halloween costumes. a big thanks to audra, the best costume maker i know for helping me. the temperature was ideal, just a little chill in the air. and the kids had an absolute blast. this was the first year that lily got to really participate and she loved it! after about two houses she figured out how it worked and she was all over it. at a couple of houses she even helped pass out the candy and got more than her fair share by smiling her sweet little smile and asking "two?"

our little fifties posse turned out to be really fun. the only thing missing was the head greaser, larry, who is off having his own adventure in the forest.