Sunday, November 26, 2006

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving with my family in Farmington/Kaysville. We realized that these pictures are probably going to be the last ones we'll get of Tasha with a normal sized tummy (since we're now expecting another kid, Kaya has been prepping to be a "mommy". It's fun to hear how she thinks she'll give the new baby a bottle, rock her to sleep, and put her to sleep. She realizes what a new baby does though...she says the new baby will "drink a lot and poop a lot".)

Memorable moments of Thanksgiving:
1. First time a Bigler family picture has been taken in a long, long while.
2. Lots of good food (I redeemed myself from a previous Thanksgiving mashed potatoe mishap...this time they were delicious)
3. Sleepless night with kids
4. Red Vine Licorice
5. BYU 33, Utah 31 - one of the best rivalry games of all time!

Post-cast bath

Pabla?

Ang would have killed me if I didn't publish this pic. Paul's going to kill me when he sees it. I guess I'm more scared of what Ang will do than Paul... :)

Cast

Dr Stott said that the greatest trial any parent would ever endure is for a 3 1/2 year old to have a hip cast for one month or more...he was right.This surgery resulted because of Kaya's hip dispacia, a condition where the hip joint doesn't wrap completely around the ball of the femur. The extra wear and tear that this creates makes a future hip replacement innevitable. For Kaya, that would have occured in her late twenties had we not done this surgery.

So, as with every surgery, we prepared Kaya by bringing her doll Emily with her, so she could have the same "surgery". The doctors raised their eyebrows when we requested them to put a cast on Kaya's doll, but they did it.

The first cast soon became a nightmare. With Kaya's vesicostomy and feeding tube, they had to be very creative with the cast around her abdomen. With the cast originally around on two legs, the urine from her vesicostomy soon began eating away her skin. It was terrible...probably the worst skin break-down we've ever had. Only 1.5 days after the cast, we decided to take the cast off the right leg and leave it on the left. We are very glad because the bar between the legs was removed and Kaya's mobility increased substantially.

Still, we had to adjust everyday activities; eating and bathing were the biggest changes for Kaya.
At first Kaya's movement was pretty much nothing. She always wanted to be carried. And talk about HEAVY. We have no idea what a regular 4 yr old feels like. The extra 10 lbs was a workout!!! (Or I'm just getting soft).






All in all, we're glad it's off...although it was fun to carry her by the cast and twirl her around in circles on the new wood floors. So far, so good though. Her leg is a little tender, so walking is still a little slow. But for the most part, she's doing good.




Happy Halloween

Little BoPeep, who found her sheep:
BoPeep Dress: $0 (Sandra Smith's mom)
Pumpkins: $.50
Candycane Staff: $5 (will soon be given to Grandparent's dog as a chew bone toy)
Cast (under the dress): $2,000 (from Dr. Stott, Orthopedic doctor at Primary Childrens)
Smile: PRICELESS



Wood Floors and Tile

Many hands make light work. With my family, it's not hard to make a big job seem small. My original estimate to wood-floor completion was one day...but it was soon apparent that if I didn't have more help, I'd never get it done. So, thanks to my Dad, sisters, brothers, in-laws, and friends, we finally got it done!Five hundred sq ft of floor doesn't seem to big when it's all in boxes. But when you start unloading each box and moving across the floor only 3.5 inches at a time, the task becomes daunting. The first line of the wood floor was the most difficult...if it was off at all, then the rest of the floor would be off. After much calculation, we determined the straitest line possible and began to lay the floor. And just as we began finding a rythum, laying the floor quicker than Billy the Kid's draw on a hot summer day, we'd run into a weird angle or a corner, or some other distraction that took one hour to figure out. It turned out that most of the difficulty was in the hallway--and thanks to Ryan C's and Matthew A's expertise, they finished the really difficult stuff while, Dad, Ann, Nate, and I finished the office and began on the dining room: by this time we had almost reached perfection in floor laying. Our system was too good. We finished in 10 minutes. ha, ha, ha. While Ann and I picked what boards were to be laid in what order, Matthew and Nathan would pound the boards into place and staple them down. Meahwhile, Dad was taking measurements and making strategic cuts with the mitre saw. All said and done, all wood floor contractors would be proud...and worried.

Dad promised to stay to the "bitter end". The end didn't come until later that night, about 10pm to be precise. But oh, what a finish! It looks so good, and was the bowling alley for Kaya while she was in her cast. She really liked being pushed across the floor and spun in dizzying circles.

Now, we like to get up early in the morning just to look at the floors :).
















These hardwood floors are just so much better than the subfloor particle board substitute we were living with.



















The next adventure took place the next weekend with the tile. Again, the Andreasen's came and helped, as well as Tasha's parents from Durango, Colorado.


We finished grouting and tiling in one day and were able to call it quits early evening. We certainly live in the "projects"...but since everybody's help, we are able to call our house a home.