Only the Israelsens

Some people go for a nice Sunday walk. Maybe a Sunday drive. But, it just wouldn't be us if we didn't involve an animal in some form or another. Okay, it just wouldn't be Jacob if we didn't involve an animal. But, I admit, it's great. So here is a little Sunday "drive" with the Israelsen family. I actually felt like I was in a parade. The girls needed some candy to throw or something. Deep down, doesn't every girl want to be on a parade float waving like Miss America? My time has finally come! I'm gonna start practicing my wave. Elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist.... Oh, don't forget the perma-smile. Maybe some sparkles on my cheeks. Would it be too much to throw in a tiara?




Na. I'll leave the "princess" stuff up to these two little ladies. Even if they are princesses of the pony cart!

A New Decade

My twenties were good to me. Really, really good. No, it hasn't been easy. No, it hasn't always been joyful. I've had just as many tears as I have smiles. But it's about the grand total, and it takes all of it to make it good. I graduated from the U. I found and married my best friend who I get to be with forever, and love more every year. For nearly 5 years we have lived down South where we never dreamed we would live, and never dreamed we would say that we have lived down here for 5 years. We have two beautiful little girls who amaze us, and entertain us, and challenge us, and make us smile on a daily basis. In a few short months we will experience the incredible and life-changing journey of childbirth for the third time and welcome our first son into our family. As I look back on the past decade of my life, I feel nothing but absolute and complete gratitude for all the experiences and opportunities the Lord has given me. For truly, it all comes from Him. I only pray I have the wisdom to continue to let Him in every aspect of my life.

On Sunday I entered a new decade. My thirties. When you're 12, 30 seems like an eternity away and really, really old. And I am going to guess that when you're 60, or 70, or even 80, 30 seems like it wasn't all that long ago, and you realize that you really weren't all that old. So, what do I think about turning 30? I think it's awesome. There are days where I honestly feel like I am just getting started in life. The past few years have been such amazing stepping stones, and I have so much more to learn. Life is about progress, so I view this number game of birthdays as one more step up. When I reach forty, I hope to look back and review a whole new set of amazing experiences and opportunities that the past decade has brought. And then take another step up.

So dear thirties, I welcome you. I'm quite certain there will be days I will curse you. There will be days I love you. There will be days I will want to freeze forever. There will be days that won't end soon enough. But all together, I pray the Lord will help me make the most of these days that I have, because someday, it will all be a memory of a lifetime. And so far, what an incredible life it has been. And really, really good.

Did I mention that I have a very handsome husband? Yep. Really, really good.

Stitchless

Allie and I took our last venture into the hospital yesterday to get out the stitches. I tried to prep her the best I could to avoid another scary situation. She cried through the whole thing and we had to hold her down a bit, but it was quick and painless. Well, I'm pretty sure it was painless. I think having someone come at your face with scissors is just a bit scary when you're a little tyke, so the tears were out of fear. But, after a few quick snips we were on our way and she was happy as can be.

So grateful for good medical care! Not so grateful for the bill I will be receiving. Grateful for a healthy happy little girl. Still not so grateful for her tantrums. Even with a big cut on her head. Good thing she can make us melt all at the same time!

Let the healing begin.

Time Lapse

Swelling- forgot that would probably happen! Here we have the progression of the puff:

Saturday: It starts. (The pic came through dark, so you can't see it in her eyes very well, especially her left eye).



Sunday Morning: It settles in. You can't tell me this isn't the cutest little puffy face you ever did see. It was a good thing she and I went home after Sacrament meeting yesterday. I got really tired of telling the story.



Sunday Night: The peak of the puff. Poor little thing! Kenna would squint her eyes, look up at me and say, "Hey mom, this is what Allie looks like!" Well, she was right I guess. At least it didn't seem to phase Allie even a bit.



Today (Monday): Starting to let up a bit, thankfully. She's just playing like a normal little 2 1/2 year old! We'll see what the next few days bring.

Allie and the ER

It was a nice sunny day yesterday. The girls pretty much spent the entire day out in the sunshine playing their little hearts out. Periodically throughout the day I heard a cry from Allie (mind you, her cry tends to be in the form of a scream) come from the backyard, and I would go out to meet Allie and give her a love after she's gotten a little scratch or her older sister has pushed her down or something little like that.

So, later in the afternoon the girls were out back playing on the grass, and I was inside with the windows open so I could hear them. Once again came the cry from the backyard so out I go to meet her- this particular scream sounded a bit more serious, but I had no reason to think we had major trauma. That is until I opened the door to find Kenna and Allie both standing there, and blood is pouring down Allie's face and dripping down her front. That was not what I expected! I grabbed her and pulled her in the doorway to try to assess the damage and figure out what in the heck was behind the massive blood mask she was wearing. Well, it didn't take long to see she had a major gash up above her right eye that obviously needed some serious attention and stitches. This is when I really hate to be alone! My mind started going crazy trying to prioritize all I needed to do. Thank goodness for sweet little Kenna, she was so calm and ran right back to grab me some tissues without me even asking her. I had my phone in my pocket and made a call to Jacob at work. Of course he was on the other line! After about three of my repeated calls coming through back to back on his cell phone, he figured something was wrong and called me right back. I summed it up quick and told him we were about to head in to the ER. He said he'd meet us there. Then I looked across the street to see our neighbor boy, so I yelled out to him to have his mom come over quick. Fortunately she came right over and had just as much shock as I did when she looked at Allie! She was so good to escort Kenna over to her house to play, then grabbed my shoes for me and ran Allie and I in to the hospital. Fortunately on the way over the bleeding stopped and Allie actually fell asleep laying in my arms on the way in.

Jacob walked out to meet us and he too was surprised by the gash. It was bigger than he was expecting! They got us right back into a room and started to try to clean off all the blood to see exactly what was going to be needed. At this point I was really concerned how they were going to do this- Allie is such a fighter even to have her ears looked at when she has her check-ups. I was certain she would be on the fight. She didn't like getting cleaned off, but we were able to hold her down so they could let some gauze and saline rest on her forehead for a while. They put the little IV in her hand, but even that went better than expected and she didn't cry and wiggle too much for that. Getting her all cleaned up we could see she had another good cut in between her eyes and several smaller scratches around her eyes. As we waited for the actual Dr. to come in, I sat on the bed with her and held her the whole time, and she ended up falling asleep again! So did the lower half of my body, but I tried to maneuver just a bit every once in a while to keep the blood flowing! Well, finally they had a PA come in who was going to do the stitching, and we talked about how we were going to get her numb to do the stitching. Since she was sleeping, we decided to give the old needle a little try without sedating her, and see if we could work it in without upsetting her too much and having a big fight on her hands. Well, it worked. It worked beautifully. The PA let the lidocaine sit in the gash for a bit, then started with the needle. The first poke bugged her the worst, but we were able to get it in and gradually work our way down the cut while Allie slept the whole time. I was absolutely amazed. I was certain we had little angels in that ER room with us because it all just worked out so well! If anything, I am positive I had little angels- I was really surprised I kept my cool and didn't just burst into tears every 5 minutes. I knew if I got upset it would really upset the girls, so I tried my best to be tough!

Well, we got her all stitched up. She ended up waking up, but got sidetracked with Shrek on the TV and laid there like a champ the whole time. It was such a relief for me. After that, we looked at the other smaller cut in between her eyes and the PA decided it could easily be super glued together with the Dermabond. No prob! She actually hated that worse than the stitches but it only took a quick minute.

Last on the ER agenda was to get some antibiotic through the IV line then we could head home. By this time Allie was very alert and acting like a chipper little lady! Jacob decided to go to the pharmacy for her prescription so we could head straight home when we were done. I took her in for a quick bathroom break before they hooked up the line. I had her look in the mirror, but it didn't seem to phase her. She just pretty much said flatly, "oh." It took about a half hour for the antibiotic to work its way through the line. She ended up taking down an apple juice, some chocolate milk and some graham crackers, and chatted and laughed with me the whole time. We even made a phone call to talk to Grandma Shelly and Grandpa Kerry. We got everything finalized and were heading out the door with a bouncy little two-year-old again!

Well, once again it's the very detailed version of the story, but someday we'll have a good look back at our ER experience. Now we just have to figure out exactly what happened. At first we were slightly concerned one of our dogs bit her. We're still not 100% sure how it happened, but I'm pretty confident it was not a dog bite. From what we can gather, I'm pretty sure she was sitting on Wrangler (can't tell you how many times she has been scolded for doing that) when he got up to move and it threw her into something that gave her this delightful huge deep gash on her forehead. If she was sitting on him when a truck drove by then he would have jumped right up and took off running after the truck and that really could have thrown her. The mystery will be what actually did the slicing. Guess we'll never know exactly what happened. Just glad that we're on the mend! The doc said the skin came together very well and hopefully we can get by without too much of a scar.

All I can say is we had many little blessings throughout the whole ordeal, and I made sure to say a prayer of thanks last night as I recognized that the Lord is always with us. I told Jacob the next time we're in the hospital it better be for a baby! And we WANT to be there.

I have some before pictures, but decided not to post them for any weak stomachs out there. So here we have the after pictures and it looks much better than when we started!

Major cut:

And smaller cut:


And happy little girl who's all cleaned up with her puffy little face:


And of course big sister who wanted a picture too:

The end.