Little Miss Eliza Ann

Eliza Ann was born on February 10, 2010 at 10:53 pm. She weighed 7 lbs 3 oz and was 19 1/2 inches long.

Our sweet boy

When Isaac was born I noticed that one side of his tongue was very thick. I tried to ask his doctors in Japan if they knew what caused it, but with the language barrier I didn't get very far. They assured me that he was healthy and normal so there was no need for concern. But as his mom, that wasn't good enough. I wanted answers just for my own peace of mind. Over the last almost 2 years, I have been trying to get this question answered. I have done a lot of research on the internet and I have spoken to a couple of pediatricians here in the states. We even went to Primary Children's hospital in SLC to rule out Beckwith Weidemann syndrome (which was scary because of Shane's strong family history of Wilm's tumor). He didn't have that, so I was still left without answers. When we moved here, Shane and I started to notice that Isaac had what looked like a lump under his chin. It almost looks like he just has a double chin, which is normal for babies, except his is only on one side. And it is the same side of his face and directly under the side of his tongue that is thick. When I took him into his pediatrician here, I told her the whole story and showed her his thick tongue. She looked under the tongue and said he definitly has some type of cyst under the tongue and thought it might be a ranula. She refered me to an ear, nose and throat specialist. When he saw Isaac, he suspected the same thing, a ranula (which is a saliva filled cyst) that just needs to be surgically removed. He wanted Isaac to have a MRI just to be sure. I felt like we were really starting to figure things out, but at the same time, I wondered why this would make his tongue look so thick. My other question was why this cyst seemed to become very large whenever he was sick. When the results from the MRI came back, it showed that it was not a ranula, but something called lymphangioma. It extends clear up into his tongue and from under his ear all the way toward the chin. There is not just one cyst, but hundreds, some very small and some large. This made a lot more sense to me because it is in the lymph system and that is why it gets bigger when he is sick, and it also answered the question of why is tongue is big. So now what to do about it??? Luckily this really isn't a life threatening thing. I am very grateful for that, but it is still something that needs to be taken care of because it keeps growing. We were given two options, the first was to try to have it surgically removed. We were told this could be very tricky because of all the nerves in that area of the face, and also that because there are many cysts that are very small (like the foam on root beer) it would be almost impossible to remove them all. The other option was to go to a doctor in Phoenix who does a technic to sclerose the cysts. This means that they would drain the cysts with a needle and then inject them again with something that would cause scarring of the tissue so that the cyst would colapse and not refill with fluid. Both of these options have their drawbacks and so we dedided to meet with the doctor in Phoenix and see if she thought this would be sucessful. This meeting was about a week ago. After looking at Isaac's MRI, she thought this proceedure could work very well. Now we just need to decide when to have it done. We thank all of our family and friends who have prayed for us to find answers. I feel like we finally do and I am grateful that we aren't dealing with something much more serious.
I wanted to give the update so I hope this wasn't too long. I will post again when we decide when we will have it done.

we LOVE visitors

Shane's Aunt Carolee, Uncle Ron, sister Melody with her son Carter, came to visit us this last weekend. We enjoyed having them here so much.


Ron is quite the handy man and completed more projects around the house while they were here than I even know about. I also had a good time taking Carolee and Melody shopping to decorate this empty house. We made some great purchases made some headway too.
Shane keeps bragging that we have now had two visits from his family to our new house and only one from mine (thanks Spencer and Kristol!). My family really needs to step it up a notch. Maybe getting people to come and visit won't be such a tough sell once the weather is cold up north and perfect down here. Start making your reservations now!

House Pics

I am finally going to post some pics of the new house. I am not including a picture of the outside for safety purposes. I tried to just walk through the house and take pictures of most of the rooms. We still have a lot of upacking and arranging to do, so I am a little embarrassed of some of the rooms. I took these pictures almost 2 weeks ago, and already a lot has changed, but this will give you an idea...

We're having a...

GIRL

It looks like #4 will be a girl. We are all pretty excited about this, especially Cailey who really wanted a little sister.
Now we can start thinking of a name. This is always so hard for us, so we are open to any and all suggestions.

Home Sweet Home

Well...where to start? The three months since my last post were filled with a lot more waiting, uncertainty and frustration about getting into a house. The brief version is that the house that we were waiting for in short sale went into foreclosure on June 1. So we were basically back to square one. At that time we changed realtors, and started looking again. The same house came back on the market a few weeks later as a foreclosure and listed at a lower price than what we had offered before when it was a short sale. We made another offer and it was accepted by the bank. Even after that there were so many crazy things that happened. For example, the title company lost our file for a few weeks, the title didn't get recorded properly when the bank took possesion, so we had to wait for the bank's legal department to straighten it out, I could go on...but we did finally close on August 10th. That week Shane's dad, and sisters Janette and Jessalynn, came to Tucson to help us paint. We got a lot done in 3 days and are very grateful for their help! Carpet was laid on the next Monday/Tuesday, and Wednesday 5 ladies from my ward came and helped me clean. Friday we received everything that had been in long term storage for 4 years (why did I keep some of this stuff?) and Saturday, August 22, we brought all of those boxes from Japan that were in the rental house to the new house. That night we started living here among all of the chaos. Since then I have been trying to tackle projects each day, but it is still pretty overwhelming and chaotic here. Besides all of that, we love being in the house. I love how the paint and carpet look and I feel very blessed. It makes you forget that you ever thought this was a trial. I wish I could post pictures of the progress on the house, but I just found the camera last night. (I am lucky to find anything these days!) Pictures will be soon to come.
Besides everything dealing with the house, we also found out that I am expecting again. Baby #4 is due on Valentine's Day Feb. 14. We are very excited about the addition, but I must say that feeling puky has not made the move easier. I am feeling pretty good now though. We will find out the sex of the baby in about 3 weeks.

SLOW boat arrival...

After living out of 4 suitcases for the past 5 months, our things from Japan finally arrived last Tuesday...all 49 boxes! Although we were ecstatic to finally have our stuff, we aren't quite sure where to put everything. We are still in a small rental home and hope to be moving soon, so for now we just have boxes stacked everywhere. This was right after the movers left. Bryant soon found a box of toys and within minutes we had toys scattered all over the house.
Over the last few days I have been going through boxes, stacking them in every closet and corner that I can find and have cleared out the living room except for a stack of boxes along one of the walls. It sure was a lot easier to keep the house clean when we only had 4 suitcases of stuff!

Also this week, we went to see Cailey perform in the Kindergarten Luau. The last month or so they have been learning songs for the luau and a lot about Hawaii. Yesterday Cailey asked me if we could go to Hawaii.
This is Cailey's teacher Ms. Boreson. She has been a great teacher.
I just thought I'd throw in one more picture of the kids in their new pj's and sunglasses.