Persimmon picking is good for the soul.

Ella has a horrible cold.  She coughs so hard that she throws up, her nose is constantly running, and she isn't sleeping.  Needless to say, it's been a tiring week.  Yesterday was a very warm day and so I ended up taking the girls to a friend's house in Costa Mesa.  They have a large backyard filled with fruit trees, herbs, and veggies galore.  Plus, they have 2 wonderful gentle dogs that love little kids.  I figured the fresh air would do her good, there wouldn't be any little kids around for her to get sick, and if she threw up, we'd be outside.  It was definitely what the doctor ordered, both for my mental state and for Ella.  Persimmons are in season and my friend's trees are drooping from the weight of all of the fruit, so we relieved them of a big bag.  I see persimmon orange marmalade, persimmon muffins, and persimmon candy in our future!

Hutchings' Halloween 2010

Saturday night was our ward's Trunk-or-Treat.  Nate and I had forgotten to think about our own costumes, so we threw them together...

Yesterday both of the girls were quite grumpy.  Ella has a bad cold, so she has a legitimate excuse.  Savvy's excuse is . . . that she's almost four?

After a bit of candy acquiring, they perked up.  I may be biased, but I'm pretty sure that Savvy makes a pretty cute black cat and Ella makes an adorable monkey.

Parenthood can be surprisingly disgusting.

I knew before becoming a mom that there was a lot of "grossness" involved in parenthood, but sometimes it still shocks me at just how gross being a mom can be.  I have expected to clean up accidents & barf, be peed on by an infant, and be thrown up on by a sick kid. But Ella took things a step further yesterday.  Yes, this little angel took the level of grossness to a whole new level.

Nate is currently on a business trip, so we had a very relaxed and messy dinner of beef ravioli with a nice bright red tomato sauce.  Both the girls managed to make a royal mess with their dinner, and so when they were done, I stripped off their clothes and took them up to the washer to put stain remover on them.  Ella was just wearing a diaper, running around with a cracker, and extremely happy.  When I came back down, I got down on the ground to start wiping up some of the marinara sauce splatter off of the floor, when Ella came over to me gagging a bit.  I figured that she had stuffed her mouth too full of cracker (which she does ALL THE TIME) and was gagging on it.  She pulled some stuff from her mouth that looked a lot like mushed up cracker, and handed it to me and said, "Yucky."  I didn't think anything of it, and was about to wash my hands off in the sink, when I got a whiff of whatever was in my hand.  It was definitely NOT cracker.  I took a closer sniff, and then quickly went and examined her hands.  That's when I figured out that she had reached into her diaper, taken out a sample of poo, tasted a bit of it, and then spit it back out and handed it to me.  At this point she was REALLY gagging, and then threw up all over the kitchen floor.  I was SUPREMELY grossed out, but have to be thankful that she threw it up and that she happened to throw up all over my stone tile kitchen floor and not the family room carpet, especially considering she had just eaten a healthy helping of bright red marinara covered ravioli.  I have to remember to be grateful for the little blessings.  And then of course, there are the BIG blessings.  No matter how disgusting motherhood can be, my family is the best!!

Kid Logic

Squirrel told me today that I should put my tonsils back in so I could feel better. Gotta love the logic of a not quite 4 year old!

Let's add insult to injury.

So as if a tonsillectomy and an adenoidectomy aren't enough, my body decided to reward me with an oral thrush infection.  So now, instead of me just being in pain and having no real sense of taste, the inside of my mouth is covered in nasty white spots, my mouth aches even more, and everything tastes like I've been brewing my own special sort of moonshine in the back of my throat.  My body is determined to have the last laugh on this one.  Good thing I've got some good soldiers (doctors) on my side who are about to spring a sneak attack of Nystatin Oral Suspension on that infection.  Take that! Ha!

Tonsillectomy & Adenoidectomy

For years I have had ongoing problems with my tonsils.  Even when they weren't infected, they were unusually large and looked as though 2 globulous alien creatures had taken up residence on either side of my throat.  In recent years, if a case of tonsillitis got bad enough, my throat would be almost swollen shut.  Yeah, not fun.  Back in 2006 I was actually scheduled to have a tonsillectomy, but then surprise! We found out I was pregnant with Savannah, and so the surgery was canceled.  Fast forward 4+ years and here we are today.  During the time since that canceled surgery, I've had 2 kids and lived in Japan--all conditions which were prohibitive in me moving forward with any plans to eradicate the little suckers.  Finally, when I stopped nursing Ella, I talked to my general physician who agreed it was time to move forward with our tonsil war plans.  She referred me to an ENT, who I saw in July.  He asked me a couple of questions, took one look at my tonsils, and immediately decided to schedule me for surgery.  Unfortunately he's a very busy guy, and was booked 2 months out, so I was given a surgery date of September 3.  On August 19th, just 15 days before my surgery date, I came down with a nasty case of tonsillitis and a sinus infection.  Is it just me, or does it seem like those suckers were determined that they weren't going anywhere?  Luckily, I got in to see my general physician the next day who put me on antibiotics and I narrowly missed having to call my surgeon to reschedule my surgery.  So finally, THE BIG DAY rolled around.  I've never been so excited to be in pain in my entire life.

From everything I've read, and from everyone I've talked to who has had this done as an adult, life is 100 times better once you have recovered from surgery.  The surgery went well and I had a tonsillectomy and an adenoidectomy (lucky me).  Once I got home I was definitely not feeling so excited about things because it hurt like the dickens.

I just have to keep reminding myself that the end result is very worth it!  WARNING: If you have a weak stomach, I suggest stopping here, because I'm about to show you a small glimpse of why I'm so uncomfortable right now.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
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TONSILLECTOMY CARNAGE: You can't see, because I just can't open my mouth wide enough, but my uvula is so swollen that it actually rests on my tongue.  That makes swallowing interesting!

Children Are A Gift

Such a pretty little package!

The Princess & the Frog??

No, that is NOT a plastic lizard that Savannah is holding, it's a living breathing lizard.  Would it surprise you if I told you she was at her Papa's house (my dad) when this occurred?

Travel Insanity

Things have been a whirlwind of activity for our family over the past month!  On June 26th, the girls and I drove up from Corona to Draper, UT by ourselves.  We made great time (we left at 4:30 am PST and arrived at 4:30 pm MT) and the girls were really well behaved.  We spent the rest of the day and the next day recovering.  Then at 6:00am on Monday, June28th, a car picked us up at Nathan's mom's house to take us to the SLC Airport.  The girls and I flew to NYC for an event to raise awareness and money for the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.  (If you want to hear more about our trip, you can see pictures and read all about it in my 2 posts I wrote about the event: Post #1, Post #2.) 

We stayed for one night and left for the airport immediately after the event at 2:30 pm the next day, exactly 23 hours after we had arrived in NYC!  The girls had a predictably rough flight home, but we all survived to tell about it.  This is what a 3.5 year old looks like after attending the funnest party on Earth, and then spending multiple hours in the Newark Airport and 5 hours on an airplane:

We got back to Nathan's mom's house at about 10pm on Tuesday, June 29th, and then I spent June 30th recovering and repacking.  On Thursday, July 1st, I left for the SLC airport again, flew to San Francisco where I had a quick layover and switched from Delta to Japan Airlines and discovered I had been upgraded to business class for my flight from San Francisco to Tokyo.  It was the best surprise ever.  I figure it was karma repaying me for having so calmly survived the 11-hour drive from California to Utah, the two 5-hour flights to and from NYC, and staying in a small hotel room with the girls, all by myself.

I arrived in Tokyo at about 3:45pm on Friday, July 2nd, and took the Airport Limousine bus into the city where I met up with Nathan.  We spent that evening in a hotel and then moved to our friends', the Smith's, home for the remaining 4 nights of our stay.  We had an amazing visit in Tokyo.  It was so nice to go back.  We both have missed Japan a lot, but realized being there that we had missed it even more than we had realized!  Despite the fact that many of our friends were out of town, we still managed to see quite a few dear friends, have tons of fun, eat tons of our favorite yummy foods, and generally take advantage of our short time in Tokyo.

On Wednesday, July 7th, we left to return to the US on separate flights.  Nathan was lucky and had a direct flight, getting back in the early afternoon.  I flew to LAX where I had a 5-hour layover in the horrible Delta domestic terminal, and then flew the rest of the way to SLC, getting in that evening.  We spent the next 5 days enjoying time with Nathan's family.  Nathan's sister Misha was in town with her 2 little ones, which was really fun because we got to meet her new beautiful baby boy! 

We drove back to Corona on Tuesday, July 13th, and have spent the past week and a half trying to catch up and recover from the insane amount of travel we have all done.

Savvy-isms

Last night when I put Savannah to bed we were talking about me being gone and then coming back from Japan.  She said, "Did you miss me a lot?"  When I said yes, she said, "You're so glad you came home."

Tonight when I put her to bed she said, "Give me a magic kiss that will help me sleep."