A nap and a caffeinated beverage in the same day are not a good combination for me. Needless to say it's 1:45am and I am so going to pay for this tomorrow. I've always heard if you can't sleep you should get up and do something.

I've made some barrets, done the dishes and am now catching up on all the blogs I stalk. I'm thinking of going out to my garage and refinishing a lamp I bought last week at the auction.

We've been fairly boring here lately. Just the usual. Diapers, dishes and dirty clothes.

Travis came home from the hospital on Friday. He looks so amazingly fabulous!! I will get an updated pic and post it as soon as I can. But...wow. What a difference a week makes. I went over to his house to see him and when I rang the bell he answered the door and I instantly had tears. I had expected him to be in bed and still swollen.

My family has once again been blessed immensely. We are so happy to have Travis with us and in such wonderful shape.

Well...I have lost 19 pounds. Hooray for me! But I have also lost all of my weight loss ambition. It's so frustrating. I was totally motivated, eating healthy, exercising everyday and then I got sick, then I switched cable companies and didn't hook up the new one yet (I watch TV while I'm on the eliptical), then.... I could go on for days with excuses.

Urr...I do feel better about myself though. I don't wake up every morning and go to bed everynight frustrated with my body.

So...I have 11 pounds to go and only 4 weeks. EEK! I don't know that I am going to make it. I need to kick it into high gear!!

I had the opportunity to spend a few days with Travis in Salt Lake to give my aunt and cousins some time off.

It was so nice. It was good to see him and to be able to help him. After 10 days of lots of pain and discomfort it seems like the doctors have figured out a good combination of pain meds to keep him comfortable. He was up all night Friday night due to a change they made to his trach. His doctor came in Saturday morning and saw they had changed it and was not happy. So a long painful, sleepless night turned out to have been for nothing. He continued to be miserable all day Saturday. He would cough a lot which leads to him needing to be suctioned which leads to more coughing and more sucretions which leads to more suctioning...are you getting the picture. It's a cycle.

When his night nurse came on we asked for something to help him sleep and he was right on it. He called his doctor and they tweaked his pain meds a little and added another one and within 30 minutes Travis was able to sleep. He had a wonderful night Saturday sleeping a good amount of time and only having to be suctioned a few times.

He did great all day Sunday. Therapy came and walked with him around the halls and said he did fabulous. The doctors ordered him to walk the halls four times on Sunday. He has pneumonia and he needs to be able to get up and walk around to help clear it up.

His surgeons came to see him and were so happy with the progress he has made(a few hadn't seen him since the night his surgery was done). They said he looked great and was right on track for his healing.

His eye surgeon thought she would have to do another surgery on his left eye because he had some bleeding behind the retina but when she looked at it today she said it was healing itself. Hooray for small blessings! He could also see the doctor wave her hand out of his left eye. He couldn't tell how many fingers she held up but seeing her wave his hand is far beyond what we were told he would have just after the accident. His right eye is fine. He sees the same out of it as he did before the accident.

His trach could possibly come out today. They put a smaller tube in it yesterday so he will be able to start talking. That was not an easy thing though. Travis ended up passing out. I was gone by then so it was my aunt and Travis' dad. Scary!!

He could possibly come home this week. He needs the pneumonia cleared up and my aunt will need to learn how to do his feeding tube and care for his trach if he still has it.






All things considered Travis looks fabulous. He is extremely swollen right now and his incisions look ouchy but those things will heal. Because of the plates they used to fix his face I think he will make it out looking just like himself with a few scars to prove it really happened. Karl and I have nicknamed him "Ironman". During his fourteen hour surgery they put a metal plate in his:
Lower jaw
Upper jaw
Under both eyes
L cheek
the bone that is inbetween your eye and hairline on his L side
and his nose.

It is so completely amazing what modern medicine can do. And what an amazing blessing it is to live in a time when these things are available.

Travis likes to have pictures taken but does not ask to see them and as far as all of us know he has not looked in a mirror. It's a wise choice on his part because how he looks now will not be the end result. He understands that and maybe that's why he chooses not to see himself right now. He does touch his face a lot. He says it feels "big".

Thank you for all of your prayers, thoughts and comments. Trials are hard to face but with the hard things you endure you also are able to see the true love our Heavenly Father has for us. And that miracles do happen. It is amazing.

Update on Tavis...It's a little graphic

Travis was able to get his big surgery done yesterday. They had not done it previously because the day he arrived in Utah the doctors decided his left eye could possibly be saved. They did a three hour surgery and said they were "encouraged" by what they saw but it's a "wait and see" situation. They had to wait five days after that operation before they could fix the rest of his face.

In those five days Travis came to more and now knows what is going on without having to be reminded. He has not be able to have anything to eat or drink by mouth because they didn't want to risk any of the bacteria in his mouth finding it's way into his lungs because of his trach. He had a feeding tube put in on sometime around Tuesday or Wednesday. My aunt was hoping that would relieve a lot of his discomfort. He hadn't eaten since Thursday so that's quite a while to feel hungry. I struggle to fast 24 hours let alone 5 days. We learned with my mom that nutrition is a huge part of your body being able to heal. It takes a lot of calories and is extremely important that you get the nutrients your body needs.

They also weren't putting the cap on his trach so he could talk...I'm not sure why. But I can imagine the frustration that must give a person. You can't talk, eat or drink. No fun! My aunt says he will look at her and hold his fingers up and gesture to her "just a little bit, just this much water." Oh...that would be hard as a parent to have to say no when it seems such a simple innocent thing.

The surgery yesterday ended up taking 14 hours. Could you imagine being those doctors and nurses. That's a LoNg day! He had 42 or 47(I can't remember) fractures in his face but they weren't just fractures they were shattered. They cut from the top of one ear across his skull and down to the top of the other ear and folded his skin back to be able to fix the upper half of his face. And then also cut along his neck to fix his jaw. I am not sure of all that was put in in place of the broken bones but there was a lot of talk about screws, and bolts and I would assume a few metal plates.

He handled the surgery well. My mom said he is in a lot of pain today and swollen. They were not able to fix his eye socket completely without causing damage to the eye they are trying to save. He will have to have another surgery on it later down the road.

They did find that most of his teeth are still there. They are chipped and he will need braces to realign them but he only had a few knocked out.

His right eye is ok. So he will have vision in atleast one of his eyes. If everything goes as planned he should be able to come home in the next few weeks and continue his recovery at home.

It will be interesting to see how the person who hit him is charged. He fled on foot from the accident. Completely uninjured. He has been in trouble with the law since he turned 18, he is now 26 but none of his prior charges have had any real if any punishment. He does have previous DUI charges. My cousin hired and attorney for Travis and is hoping that this time a charge will stick and he will get prison time. If they are waiting for him to kill someone before they decide he is a problem I think they have enough evidence!

I've been on a little break from couponing lately. But today I scored a deal that makes me remember why I LoVe coupons and finding a fab deal! Call me crazy but it is the funnest thing! It leaves me feeling totally happy...ahh.

I bought:
15 boxes of Post cereal
9 (yes 9) Dreyers ice creams
10 weight watchers frozen meals (to conteract the ice cream...haha)
4 Digiorno pizza's with breadsticks
and 1 can of Old Orchard frozen juice concentrate.
All for a grand total of $35.46, my savings...$141.08. If you divide the amount of things I purchased with my total I spent 90 cents on each item!! Go me!!

Karter says his bedtime prayers by himself now. So that means he is often saying things that Karl and I have to hide our giggles about.
Tonights prayer had the following...
"Please help me to be the best baseball player. Please help me to be happy so I can talk to Derek Jeter."
I wonder if Derek Jeter knew my son was praying to talk to him he would give him a ring?
Haha...so funny.

We had a dinner at our church last week and when they sent the food sign-ups around I decided to sign-up to make a bundt cake. I had never made one before and had recently found a bundt cake pan at a local thrift store. It was only 75 cents!
While I was pouring the batter into the pan I noticed that my pan was a little on the small side. I thought "hmm...that's odd. I didn't think bundt pans came in different sizes." and then I popped it in the oven.

A bundt cake has to bake for 40 minutes. I walked past the oven after 10 minutes and saw my cake overflowing. It was everywhere in the oven. It was at that moment that I realized that my bundt cake pan was actually a jello mold. Hello genius! This could rank under the same category as using a weed to make a rhubarb cake (a story for another day...you be quiet Uncle Bobby!) Any-who. I decided since it was already everywhere I would let it finish cooking and see if I could salvage it to make a "mini" bundt cake.

After it cooked, I did the icing how I had been instructed but I cut the hole in my bag a little too big. So my icing came out in large globs instead of nice, pretty thin lines. I put larger spaces inbetween them to make up for the amount of frosting that would be on each slice. Then I put the flowers on. It looked a little funny but not that bad...until I got to church and realized that the cakes were going to be used as centerpieces. Oh great!!! I quietly set mine down on a table and then went and sat a table with some friends...whose bundt cake looked like a million dollars compared to mine.

As the meal was winding down and some were ready for dessert one of the guys (who is totally funny and ususally making jokes) we were sitting with looked around the room and said something to the effect of "look at the frosting on that cake." I instantly burst up laughing. With a good response he kept up the jokes about the cake but I was laughing so hard by now I was crying and couldn't even hear him anymore. I looked at my friend and her husband who knew it was my cake and they were both crying from laughter as well.

That's about the time I hear Karl lean over to the guy and say "that's Sadie's cake". Oh that poor guy. He probably wanted to die. We were laughing so hard we had everyone in the room looking at us.

Needelss to say this poor guy spent the rest of the evening trying to make it up to me. He went and ate some of my cake, apologized a ton, kissed my feet (not really). I was so not offended. I'm not an easily offended person. That was classic, something I will tease him about forever.

A few days later he showed up at my house with a brand new bundt cake pan, some cake mix and frosting with a note that read...
Sadie,
Thanks for not getting "Bundt" out of shape about my comments on the cake frosting. This will help you try again.

I was laughing as I opened the door. I decided to give it another try. Amazing how something turns out the way it should when you cook it in the right pan. My little frosting critic received my first "real" bundt cake as a thank you. I didn't want him to think I couldn't cook!

This is my not so great first cake....

There is an update on Travis on my cousin Mindy's blog.

My family faces another challenge tonight and I ask you all for your prayers at this time.

My cousin Travis was hit by a drunk driver last night. He is alive...but unfortunatly not well. The initial report I was given this morning was a TBI. All I could do was sink to my knees and start crying to Heavenly Father. So many hard memories flooded my mind. My mom's sweet siblings were right next to us for the entire time my mom was in the hospital. How could they make it through this again, how could they watch one of their own children go throught it? How would my family be able to survive this again? What would be the extent of the damage? How would it all turn out?

Almost as soon as I pulled myself off the floor Karl called me from the hospital. His brain is fine. No damage to it. Such a huge blessing. He had the same neurosurgeon my mom did. He is a fabulous doctor.

Every bone in his face is broken...better put, crushed. His pallet and his left eye were the doctors biggest concerns. His pallet is "mush" and they are worried that if it is not repaired correctly it will rot and leave a hole from his mouth to his nose. He will loose his left eye. The retina is completly out of his eye. They are worried about his right eye and are unsure if it will heal. He was taken into surgery last night. After three hours of surgery the doctors decided the damage was beyond their skills. They flew him to the University hospital in Salt Lake City (200 miles from here).

My mom and I arrived at the hospital just before they prepared him for the flight. Oh the memories my family has in that ICU...they are hard ones to relive. Stepping off that elevator onto the second floor, turning left and picking up the phone to call the ICU to have the doors opened for us. That routine is all to familiar. And the smell...it hits you like a ton of bricks. Smell is definatly the longest lasting memory. Looking into the chapel window where we have spent so many hours together as a a family. Praying and crying. Hoping and fearing. Not just for my mom but for my cousin Troy who we lost two and a half years ago.

Seeing someone you love laying so still, monitors beeping, cords everywhere and having one sided conversations is so so hard.

They are keeping him unconscious and he has a trach. They could not intubate him due to the damage. When they moved him from his bed to the stretcher he started moving around. As much as you want them to not be in pain it is a relief to see them move and respond to things. It was three weeks before my mom did that. He listened to my aunts talk to him and calmed down when he was asked to.

They are planning a twelve hour surgery tomorrow. We are sketchy on the details but it is something on his nose to keep it from collapsing. They are going to pull all of his teeth and wire his jaw shut. And I would assume they will be doing something with his left eye.

He has a very long recovery ahead of him with multiple surgeries. Our family will be fasting this weekend, focusing on Travis being able to have sight in his right eye.

Life is unpredictable and fragile. Travis was hanging out at my house yesterday, playing on facebook, letting Karter talk his ear off. I took a second look at him as he was walking out to his car, taking a drink of his soda. I thought..."He looks happy. Must be the sunshine."


Thank heavens for prayer and the ability to cry. They are amazing things and the best emotional outlet there is. There is nothing so humbling as getting on your knees and crying as you pour your heart out to a loving Heavenly Father.

My friend Brit has just launched her new website Esbechic. It is so much fun. She is going to do giveaways, craft tutorials, ideas for thrifty living and lots of other stuff.

I get to do the giveaway this week. I donated some of my super cute flower clips. So hop on over to Esbechic to get registered.

Add her blog to your favorites...your going to love it! Who wouldn't love the chance to win stuff.

PS...if any of you are crafty, creative or have any fun ideas that you would like to share on Brit's blog she would love to spotlight you. I know a few of you are brimming with ideas...I would love to see some things from Martha Stewart in Vegas(I mean Tara) and Lisa H. I loved your blog post about the super cute wall art you did in your boys' room.

Any-who. It'll be one more sight for us to all blog-stalk.

Someone decided I needed their cold. And because of that I am sick, tired and GrOuChY!! The kiddos have been extra naughty today (or maybe just seem that way to me). Days like today make me wish Karter still took naps...ugh. The boys were eating dinner and I said "I love my cute kids" and Karter replied back "I love my mean mom". Sad...:{ Moms don't ever get to be sick and hide in our beds or sack out on the couch. No fair. Instead everyone else gets to feel our rath. In my house atleast. You are all perfect moms that never loose it. :) Don't pretend like your not.

Our house is the gathering place for my family. We spend most of our time together here. I love that I have a house that can accomodate all my rowdy brothers, my husband and all the kids. It makes it easy for me since my kids have their beds to go to when it's naptime or bedtime and I don't have to worry about them breaking other peoples stuff.
I do get quite the collection of other people's stuff though. Can you guess what the most left item is.....? Socks!? Wierd huh. I don't understand. People wear their socks here and don't notice that they are leaving without them ?. That seems a little odd to me. I am going to dedicate a drawer in my house to "guest socks". If you think you are missing a pair come on over and check.