Family Outing to Chuck E Cheese

We are so excited to have Donovan home from the hospital in time to celebrate his birthday. Because he's still recovering we decided to postpone his birthday party for a couple of weeks. But we still wanted to do something so that he would feel special and know that we didn't forget his birthday. So we decided to take the family to Chuck E. Cheese for some games and entertainment.

 

We ate dinner earlier than usual and we let him eat on the special "red" plate. After dinner we opened a few presents we had received from family (in anticipation of his birthday). Of course he had fun opening the gifts.

 

After opening the gifts we headed out to Chuck E Cheese. Because our boys participated in the reading program at the library this past summer we had some coupons for tokens at Chuck E Cheese. So we loaded up on a cupful of tokens and headed in to play some games. The boys had a blast playing the different games. I don't know if the fun came from the game or just seeing all of the tickets pop out afterwards. Either way, the kids were having a blast. Donovan beat me head to head on the air hockey game 10-9. David ended up with about 50 tickets which got him a nice little treat. The other 3 boys totaled over 70 tickets so each boy was able to get something fun.

 

From there we headed over to Sonic to get a soft-serve ice cream cone. The boys thought they were in heaven! They ate their ice cream cones on the way home. When we returned home the boys hurried to get ready for bed because Michelle was going to read them one of the new books that Donovan had received for his birthday. After the story the boys went right to bed! In the end everyone got exactly what they wanted for Donovan's birthday.

 

Happy Birthday Donovan!

Cold water from our faucet!

When I came home from work there were 2 faucets on the kitchen table. Michelle has been plotting to get faucets for some time now. I think that losing cold water from both our sinks was a motivating factor.

Our kitchen sink starting leaking water several months ago. We took the cold stem apart a couple of times and "fixed" the leak. That would last for less than a day before it would start leaking again. We finally turn the water off to the cold side (under the sink). Our kitchen cold water was from the hot side before the water heated up or from the bathroom.

A couple of weeks ago our bathroom sink started leaking on the cold water side. So I tried to replace the cold water stem only to somehow completely shut off all cold water. We're still not sure what happened but we lost all cold water except for a drip.

So for the past few days we've had to turn the cold water on (under the kitchen sink) anytime we wanted cold water. Michelle had enough and bought 2 new faucets fixtures. (We're done trying to fix these old faucets!)

When I came home from work Michelle had already started the replacement process on the kitchen sink. Once I got there Michelle allowed me to help. Over the next several hours we slowly worked through the process of completely replacing both fixtures.

In the end our sinks look great! And we now how cold water with the turn of a lever. A completely revoltionary concept. We're adapting to a whole new way of life, life with cold water.

I think the sinks look great.

Donovan's Family Birthday Party

We wanted to do something fun for Donovan's birthday. We know that the boys had a blast the last time we went to Chuck E. Cheese. So we decided that we would go there as a family and have some more fun together. The boys had a blast. Each kid played a handful of games, collected the tickets and redeemed those tickets for prizes at the end. They are looking forward to the next time they can go to Chuck E. Cheese.

After all the fun we headed up to Sonic for some soft serve ice cream. Our boys arrived home happy and tired, and just a little bit sticky. What a great birthday party celebration.

Story Time

Our boys love to listen to stories. Tonight the boys cuddled up to Michelle as she read them a bedtime story.

Donovan returns home from the hospital

Donovan is finally home after spending a week in the hospital. Last weekend Donovan was not acting like himself and we could tell he was getting sick. We gave him his nebulizer treatments (albuterol) but it just didn't seem like it was doing anything for him. So on Tuesday Michelle took him in to see the doctor. His oxygen saturation was very low so he was admitted to the hospital immediately. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting that news while I was at work. I knew he was sick but I didn't realize he was doing so poorly.
With some coordination by Michelle I was able to take my dinner break and meet our hometeacher at the hospital to give Donovan a blessing. That visit had to be the fastest hospital visit I've ever done since I had to be back to work (including travel time) in just 30 minutes. I'm very glad we were able to administer to him because by Wednesday Donovan's condition worsened. His oxygen saturation (O2 sat) dropped below 80% even though he was on 6 liters of oxygen (L/min). His heart beat was racing at 180 bpm and his respirations were up to 70 rpm. The doctors we seriously considering life-flighting Donovan up to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. I found all of this out while I was at work!
Fortunately Donovan began to stabalize at that point and the doctor was able to keep Donovan at Utah Valley Region Medical Center (UVRMC). His repirations dropped to 30 rpm, heart rate dropped to 120 bpm and his O2 was reduced to 3 L/m. Although he was getting more stable he was still in the hospital for another 5 days. We were very blessed that Michelle's mom was able to come down and stay with Donovan until Saturday and come back on Sunday night.

We discovered that Donovan had RSV, a virus that can makes kids very ill and hits the lungs pretty hard. In this case is caused a severe asthmatic attach which was keeping Donovan from getting the oxygen he needed. And because of the inflammation he began to develop pneumonia in the bottom of both lungs. In spite of his poor condition he was very polite to all the nurses and the doctors. In fact, all of the hospital staff had nothing but nice things to say about Donovan through out his stay.

Donovan finally came off the oxygen on Monday about noon. He was able to maintain his O2 sat at 90% for 8 hours so the doctor let him come home. We took Donovan to see our regular doctor on Tuesday and Donovan checked out as still doing ok, still healing. He was cleared for school yesterday and made a grand entrance to a cheering classroom! Apparently all of his friends at school had missed him during the past week. He is still on a several medications but he appears to really be on the mend.
This week has been real tough on our family but we are grateful for Donovan coming back home to us. We are grateful to Grandma Petersen for spending a week with Donovan in the hospital. And we are grateful for our ward friends who have helped with prayers, meals and babysitting through out this family trial. Most of all we are grateful to a loving Heavenly Father who has watched over all of us and blessed us greatly.
Welcome home Donovan!

Puzzles Everywhere

I came home from work today and this is what I saw...

My boys have been hard at work putting together their favorite puzzles. They just didn't stop to clean up and put away the puzzles before starting on the next one. And David, Donovan and Michael were so content to work until all the puzzle were completed.

Boys

David and Donovan have rediscovered the computer. The boys have been playing the Wii so much that they forgot about the computer downstairs. Now that time has passed, these computer games are cool again.

Quinten is helping to put away the clean dishes. He feels like he needs to help do his share of chores around the house.

Aleky is always willing to help put the dishes away, especially if he can sort the silverware.

Balloon Games

These are moments to be cherished! My boys are having a blast playing with balloons. I have no idea what they are playing but they are doing it together and that's all that matters.

Sunday Morning

We've just moved from our late church schedule to an 11:00 am church schedule. So what do young boys do between the time they wake up and the time they go to church? My boys play on the Leapster. We only have 1 so they have to share.

Once you set it down your turn is over and the next boy gets to play.

Aleky isn't into all of the electronic media yet, so he is content to hang out and get ready for church. He just needs to be careful not to get yogurt on his shirt.

Quinten's Birthday Party

We had a little celebration for our young man. He just turned 1 year old! It doesn't seem like it's been a whole year since Quinten joined our family. But here he is, enjoying his birthday cake and learning all about opening presents, with special instruction by his older brothers.

Just Dance

I got "Just Dance 2" for the Wii this Christmas. My boys saw me dancing and they wanted to give it a try. David was the first one but Donovan and Michael were not to be left behind. So I let them have a try.

If you ask me, I think they may be hiding some raw talent in there. We'll just have to work on refining it a bit over the next few years.

New Year's Eve at Grandma's House

We ended up going to Grandma and Grandpa Petersen's home for our New Year's eve celebration. Originally we were going to make a trip up for a "Grandma's Christmas" but one thing led to another and it didn't quite work out like we expected. So turning lemons into lemonade, we had a New Year's celebration with Grandma and the cousins! I love it when we can get together with all of the little cousins, they always have a blast playing together.

We met at the bowling ally in Tooele for family bowling. Grandma got the babies and the bigger kids got to bowl.

David could not be separated from Devon so he joined their family and we got Cynthia in our family. The Petersens didn't share any of their kids. After that, the bowling balls went flying, some better directed than others. But we all had a good time.

Our family had a pretty close game but Aleky clearly came in 2nd place! He's getting pretty good throwing those huge balls down the lane.

After bowling we had a rendezvous at Grandma's house for dinner. After gathering everyone in for a blessing on the food the kids were sent downstairs to eat.

It wasn't completely unsupervised but they did have the run on the place. Really, it was all we could do to get a time out for the food. These kids were playing non-stop and having a blast playing with each other.

Going to bed wasn't any easier but we finally were able to calm to crowds and they went to bed just a couple hours after there regular bedtime. None of the adults stayed up to see the new year come in; we trusted that everything would happen just fine without any supervision.

We are very grateful to have such a wonderful family. We are looking forward to the next family gathering.