HELP! At my wits end.

(Here I am looking oh so pathetic typing away. Man I am really white!)

Okay. For the last seven days I have felt like someone is strangling me. Literally. It is awful. A few days later I started feeling like someone was standing on my chest. Ouch. Which makes me slump over (standing up straight hurts and I breath shallowly too). I can't really eat or drink because that makes the whole condition worse. The pain lasts all day no matter if I eat or don't.



...Feeling bad for me yet? So, Friday at 5:30 I realized, "holy cow!" I feel awful and thought I should go see my doctor. Which of course I realized this once the office was closed. Just going to tough it out. Well I could hardly stand it so Saturday I called, she told me to go to the ER. I did; they ran every imaginable test with no clear diagnosis. So they released me to go see a ENT and GI specialist. But not before the head ER doc insults Chad and I. How you ask?



He comes into the room and says. "We're releasing you to go home for the next two days but want you to know that we think there is something really wrong here and that you must get into those specialists Monday first thing." (here's the insulting part)... "I learned long ago from my mentor that when people give you crazy symptoms that you should believe them because their not smart enough to make them up."



He left the room with that and Chad and I both looked at each other and did a totally UN-politically correct move in making retard pumps to our chests at the exact same time, we truly are one in mind (and super-mature). Upon doing the move that brought us back to our childhoods, I got dressed and we left.



So, Monday I got into the ENT specialist and he said I had a nasty infection behind my vocal chords, (when he asked me if it felt like someone was pushing on the back of my esophagus super hard, I started to cry because it just hurts so bad). He gave me a script for some steroids and said I should feel better in a few days. It's been two days and I feel worse! AGGHHH! Has anyone felt anything like this before and if so what in the heck is wrong with me! HELP!

Easter and the joys of chocolate chip cookies

Here are the boys waiting for the cookies to finish. They sat here for the entire 12 minutes it took for them to cook. Then we stuck the hot cookies in the freezer to speed up the waiting process. They love to help make cookies and if I do say so myself, I have the best chocolate chip cookie recipe...On Sunday we had an Easter egg hunt around the house (rainy outside). We hid 34 eggs with candy, coins, dollar bills and the grand prize of the $5 dollar egg. The boys were so excited they could hardly contain themselves all afternoon. Let the race begin!

Luke was mostly excited for an egg filled with five little chocolate eggs, he told me exactly where to hid it for him...and I followed the boy's instructions to a T.

Searching, searching, where o where is that big orange grand prize egg?

Lily found one egg, with help from Daddy. Which she promptly set down and the dog ate the whole thing, plastic and all.
Notice the big pink egg with all the candy next to it! That's one happy boy.

And of course Owen found the $5 dollar egg, he was worried that Luke might feel bad so he gave Luke all of the quarters that he found. And Luke still thinks that he has more money because he's got more coins. Ahh, I love the innocence of youth.

Celebrations and eye candy.

Can you tell that this is Luke? He is glaring a wee bit at us already, bless his heart (I've taken this Southern saying and made it part of my repertoire). Wanted to share a little celebration he and I had in the driveway today. He was excitedly walking up towards me jumping up and down telling me that he didn't steal the dinosaurs today! Hooray! Hooray! Yeeeessss, my son is not a thief today which is more than I could say about three of the days from last week. Congratulations Luke, your the man!
Now for that promised eye candy. I caught a glimpse of Lily coming downstairs in this atrocious outfit and couldn't resist the desire to blackmail her with it later. She put the boots on herself; even though the outfit had problems long before that but we're just having one of those non-matching days.

This is how she smiles lately. Somewhere God is laughing at me.

Haircuts for everyone and new family members!

Here is Luke with Fritz (doesn't Fritz look like there is nowhere else he'd rather be). The second cat we've owned in the last five days. Chelsy came home with us Saturday and we promply returned her Sunday morning (not good with people that one). In her place we got the dapper Fritz who was later dubbed Fritz William (Owen thought it would be clever to name the cat after he and his brother). So, here's to Fritz William...may he live long, not bite us, not poop/pee in any incorrect location and be a good sport with the many long days ahead from Luke's affection. Here here.

So this is a picture of Lucy's haircut. Who knew that she was so tiny. I like it so much I think I may die of happiness from the diminished fur-factor. She did not like it, as reported by the dog groomer and it took eight hours to complete rather than the usual three. So good times.

New and improved.

And in other news I got a haircut a few days ago. Upon seeing my new stylist (yet another example of my impatience, if my current hairdresser can't get me in the day I want I will always just try someone else out.) I thought to meself..."run away! run away! her hair looks terrible, thus she has poor taste, thus she will not give you the haircut that will make you look like the Christi Brinkley picture you brought as an example (true). Well I didn't because I didn't want to hurt her feelings (a girl thing) and I sat there for forty five minutes having a mild panic attack of sorts. I paid, even left her a tip, ran home re-did my hair to see if that would make a difference and promptly put it up on a ponytail where it will stay until I start this whole fiasco again.

Do you think there will tulips on Temple Square March 14th?

Well; on March 14, 1997 there weren't. That was our wedding day. If you happened to crossed paths with me in the weeks prior I would have asked you, "do you think there will be tulips on Temple Square in March?"

Everyone would say no. So in perfect "Jamie" fashion I kept asking. But today is our anniversary and my Chaddy makes sure that I have tulips in my life now. I just love this man.

Here we are right after Chad proposed. He wrote me a lovely letter, read it to me and sang to me. We cried, hugged and kissed (over and over). It was a wonderful beginning to our wonderful life together. It's been twelve years since, we've had many laughs, and cries too. We've brought three lovely children into our family; Owen, Luke and Lily. We've been blessed with many more good times than bad. I wouldn't have believed it twelve years ago that it just keeps getting better, but the sentiment really is true. I love, and understand much more deeply each year that goes by... (don't we look young!)Our wedding day. We got married at 9:40 am. I have no idea why we got married so so early. But it was great. After the ceremony we took pictures and then just Chad and I went to lunch at the Inn at Temple Square. They made steaks especially for us, we sat an ate and spoke of our future...and that night :). Our reception was at the Lion House and we stayed at the Armstrong Mansion. We honeymooned in Lake Tahoe.
There were pansies though.At dinner at Grandma Wiscomb's house in 1999. I have no idea what I was thinking with that hair do. I remember thinking that I looked really cute. Wow. This was taken while we were apartment managers and lived in the world's crappiest apartments.

Here we are in Michigan in the summertime of 2001. This was what we remember as the BBQ days. Practically everyday it was humanly possible we would have friends over and grill together. We'd eat, play and laugh. Very fond memories of these days together.

In Barcelona 2001. Took a summer trip with my family went to London, Paris, Spain, Italy and back through Paris. It was a whirlwind three and half weeks but there wasn't a church or sight to see that we didn't see. I can still remember the night train from Venice to Paris. It was so so incredibly tiny that Chad couldn't lay down or on his side and the AC broke so we had to open the window but then it was so loud that we couldn't sleep. Ear plugs would have been a good investment.
Re-creating the moment that I told Chad I was prego, September 2001.
First time holding our firstborn son; Owen. May 17th 2002. This was in Dallas while we were there on Chad's summer internship. We drove down from Michigan ten days prior and man.! That was one uncomfortable car trip, not only was I huge but we had the car so loaded up that our knees were into the dashboard and our cat, Bob was torqued about the whole matter.

Family picture 2002, I look totally out of it. This was taken at the Mapleshade apartments, Chad was in his first year as a lawyer and I was making my way around a big new city.
In Mexico 2004 while I was pregnant with Luke. We planned a fun trip for just the two of us. It was the calm before the storm. We we're weeks away from temporarily moving to Philadelphia to have Luke, see him operated on and all that chaos.
Back at where it all got started, Utah State in November 2006.
On vacation in Jamaica August 2006. An interesting selection of pictures for this post, pretty hard to find pictures with both of us in it.

It's been twelve years and it's gone by fast, some time faster than others but I wouldn't want to be enjoying these times with anyone but my Chad. Love you baby!

Hello Goodbye

Saturday we found a happy demonstration for Luke's personality. We were in the car and the Beatles Hello Goodbye song came onto the radio. Chad as he often does began to belt it out. Without ever hearing the song Luke naturally knew all the words. You see, Luke our lovely second child has a knack for contrariness. Chad would sing out "you say yes" and Luke would follow up with "I say no" We thought it a funny coincidence but we got through the entire song with Luke and Chad singing in perfect off-key harmony.

We couldn't be more proud. It's just so wonderful to see your children succeed at something they are truly gifted at.

Weather been too lovely to sit inside and blog

Owen showing me how he would disarm any bad guys. And Lucy eating more of the children's toys.
Doesn't she look like she could be a golfer one day?

If you look closely at this photo you will see that Luke is feeding Lucy some water. Poor Lucy, we keep her food/water on the table because Lily loves to eat it then dump the rest out. Luke takes pity on a hungry doggie.

Upon seeing Lily in this outfit Chad wanted me to rush out and find one just like it for myself. He doesn't believe me that they don't make them in my size.

Brotherly love. I will leave it at that and just enjoy the memory of this moment free from teasing/punching/pinching.