This is what Audrey brought home to Nathaniel today from his AWESOME class!
All of his teachers and classmates wrote sweet cards to him.
What an amazing teacher to take the time for the class to support each other and bless Nathaniel during this health struggle. It was so sweet to this mommy, and Nat enjoyed reading what his classmates wrote him. Now they are all displayed on his cool lock cabinets that I finally got put in his new room.
Not only is UCSF a FABULOUS hospital, they take GREAT care of my son and our family AND they are a teaching hospital (and while sometimes I get annoyed with that and just want to see the "real" doctor, I love that these "newbies" are getting hands on learning).
I also LOVE that we get to go North instead of South. I am sure that there are very nice hospitals in southern California, but I HATE Los Angeles traffic and roads.
And UCSF might be 4 1/2 hours away from our home, I have a FABULOUS car that allows the kids to watch DVDs and listen on their headphones, while I BLAST my music (today a great mix my friend left me that I really enjoy), with comfy seat (heating pads included) and cruise control. Who would mind that drive in all of that comfort?
And to top it all off??? The Lord blesses me with such beautiful scenery to look at while driving!!
So, it might be long, and hard at times, but I am still blessed!
It was a long haul to UCSF today. I worked last night at my night job, then we left afterwards. I only made it half way up before I was falling asleep, so we stoped and napped at a Motel 6 for like four hours. It wasn't perfect, but it helped. We were back on the road by 7 this morning and checking in at UCSF at 930. Both Nat and I were really tired, as you can tell by this oh so fabulous picture of us...
Nat did well in the pre op room, and only cried a little. He is getting better at not obsessing so much. I am not so sure he has improved in his sleepy time manners though... he did not vomit on anyone today at the hospital (that is a first!), but he did punch the anesthesiologist as she was putting his mask on him. Oy Vey. The actual surgery was rather quick. They were able to completely blast all of his stones, and clean up a bunch of debris that was in his bladder. The Dr came down to tell me that he did great, he is really clean inside and we don't have to come back next week like was originally planned! (Praise the Lord, because it's not cheap to keep travelling up to UCSF!) I got to go into the recovery room right away due to his earlier violence. He was a sweet sleeping angel when I got in there.
And he actually woke up well today too. Nathaniel often wakes up from surgery in a violent, sick manner but today we had no more violence and no vomiting at the hospital. And few tantrums (one of the hardest part of anesthesia is that he can't have his behavior meds :( ) After just and hour and a half he was released. We headed home.
He was very sleepy still when we headed home, but woke up pretty quickly. Unfortunately the stress of the day and the lack of sleep caught up with me almost as quickly. We didn't make it far when I was once again falling asleep at the wheel, so we stopped at one of our favorite hotels. I was ready to splurge on comfort this time!s And I am really glad that I did. Not only was the room really nice and the bed super comfortable (I am weird about beds...) but the service was OUTSTANDING!!! I needed a room that we could get to with the wheelchair because Nathaniel still was weak and he had a Foley cath in with a bag. I also needed two queens, not one king. The wonderful manager switched another person out of this room to put us in here. Then when Nat started having trouble and I called down for a shower bench not only did she bring a shower bench for us, but also some Sprite for Nat and she came back in a cleaned up the room while we headed out to find a pharmacy. It is so nice to get great service and with a concerned smile too. She is definitely getting a thank you note when I get home :) And by the way.... in case you were wondering... peanut butter pretzels taste yummy, and are a relatively healthy snack for the boy while he watches TV and mommy sleeps, but they are NOT fun when they come back up!! GROSS texture, color and clean up!
This is what an expensive hotel bed looks like, and man was it worth it this night! And Nat loved the brand new (just installed today) flat screen TV. Sometimes a girl just has to pull out the credit card for comfort and trust that the Lord will provide a way to pay the bill!
I love that there was even the perfect place to hang his Foley bag right by the bed! How nice of them was that :)
The sun room at our new house, which is going to house Audrey's bed and be the play room, had plain concrete floors. Brr cold, and a little hard too. 
So I have been researching flooring options and how to make this room a little child friendlier. I looked at laminate flooring (which I have installed before), carpet tiles (have played with those too) and plain carpeting. The price of things was way more than I could deal with until I found a killer deal on a fairly nice, really large piece of carpeting at a garage sale last weekend. I know then that I would be figuring out how to install it.
So Saturday was the day and Josie and I decided to attack this project. We rolled the piece of carpet out to look at it and make sure there weren't any huge stains we needed to work around. Then we flipped it over to work from the back side (I thought it would be easier to cut that way, but who knows if I was right or not!)
Measure, measure, measure.... lots of measuring to make sure it was just right!
Once we had it all measured out and the picture drawn on it we started cutting it.
We finally had the shape of the room with all of the cut outs done. Now it was time to flip it back over and give it a test run!
The fit was good, but in our excitement we forgot to sweep the floor really well. I would definitely suggest sweeping BEFORE the carpet is in the room!!
Audrey did enjoy helping with the sweeping. And that is the carpet tape on the floor. We got the floor swept up, LOTS of tape on the floor and the carpet down.
Josie and I asked for a large rolling pin, thinking that was the type of tool we needed to get the bubbles smoother.... Never in a million years did we expect Faline to decide she was a rolling pin and come in and roll on the carpet, but boy was it sure funny!
Audrey thought it looked fun in addition to being funny and joined her Aunt!
The large heavy box of laminate (which is for sale if you know anyone who needs 60 squ. ft. of flooring cheap...) with the two large girls jumping on it worked pretty good too :) Can't say we weren't creative! 
All in all I think it came out well. Not perfect, but much warmer and nicer than the conceret.
And it is amazing that the carpet matches so well in this room too. Like we coordinated the carpet and paint, but in all truth we did no such thing.
Nathaniel did help some. He liked pulling the backs off of the tape a lot. He also made a good go for guy, getting us things we asked for, but mostly he like the ball breaks with Grammie best when she got there! As you can see the swing set still needs put back together... that is on today's list.
While Josie and I were finishing the carpet Faline and Audrey decided to re paint Nathaniel's desk. 
This is a desk that we got off of Freecycle a few years ago that was hot pink when we got it. Re painted it at that time to match Butterfly, a dusty green color, but it was pretty grungy so we decided it needed a fresh coat of paint for the new house.
So Faline found the browns that I am doing the main areas with and started transforming the desk.
And man was the Lord ever smiling on me today! I seriously scored on some things :) As you can see from the back of my car I had acquired A LOT of new things. And that is with the four back seats laid down! Only room for the driver and passenger (sort of tight there too..)
This was not on the need list, but my heart did a flip flop when I saw it and it gave me serious butterflies.
This little number Lorena actually found for me last night and had the woman hold it for me. So cute and it would look great in a bunch of places in my house... gonna have to decide where it goes!
Now these were NOT on the need list either. But sort of like the bedroom set for Audrey, I saw these and thought of Nathaniel right away. Our neighbors at the old house had these reindeer that they put out at Christmas last year and Nathaniel FIXATED on them so much! He would sit and look at them for HOURS. So I see these four boxes sitting there and think that I should get one for Nat. So I asked the guy "How much?" He says $5.00, so I turned to Lorena and said "they are $5.00 each, help me pick on for Nat." Then the guy said, "No, $5.00 takes all 4 of them. Want me to help you carry them to your car?" How does one say no to that???
Now in Faline's had are two real treasures.. both on the need list! On one side you see a hand held shower head. Our new house is not handicap equipped in the bathroom, and while I have permission to change that, I still have to get my own supplies. This little number was thrown in for free at Goodwill with the score of the day... In her other hand is a spinning CD tower that takes up a 10" space and holds over 200 CDs!!! I was looking for some practical storage solutions for my CDs that I could access them easily and not have them take up all of my shelves. I think this is going to be great and at the HUGE price of $2.00 even if it doesn't work I am not out much!
This was COMPLETELY on my need list. I told myself that I MUST have a over the toilet storage rack by the end of the weekend, even if it meant that I had to buy it retail. And I really wanted one that had cabinets and drawers.... God heard the desire of my heart and didn't make me pay retail either! This little guy came home with us for the whopping price of $18.00... not bad at all and COMPLETELY what I needed! (Cathing supplies must be handy, yet I tire of looking at them every time I walk into the bathroom!)
At Goodwill (the warehouse) I spied this little number and fell for her lines... fell HARD for her lines. She is just so darned .... butterfly worthy!!! I had to sit in her to prove to myself that while she was candy for the eye, she just couldn't be all that comfortable. Crud! I was so wrong!!! She is as comfy and she is cute. Darn it all to heck. I sent Faline to ask a price, know FULL WELL that I would spend up to about $50.00 on her. She snagged my heart hard and fast. Imagine my delight when the sales lady came over, took a glance at her and said $15.00. SOLD!!! So fast did I load her up in the car, no one was gonna take her from me, and ESPECIALLY at that price! So when I got up to the counter to pay the lady said $15.00. I told her I had the shower head too, but she looked at that and said "thanks for getting it out of here for me, $15.00 please." Holy molly! That shower head was also on my "MUST HAVE by the end of the weekend" list and was in PERFECT condition and would have cost me well over $50.00 retail!!! As Faline says, I got my shower head for less than half price and they threw this AMAZING chair in for free :)
