AMATEUR TRANSPLANTS: Anaesthetists Hymn LIVE

my first blog

Soon to be SRNA (student registered nurse anesthetist)!!!

Well I have to make my first blog entry because I think I am pretty cool. As most of you know I have been preparing to go to nurse anesthesia school for the past million years of my life ( ok, maybe 5 or 6 years), and we are now finally starting to see the fruits of my sometimes disgusting labors. We originally applied to a large number of programs (7) thinking I would be lucky to get into maybe one or two, but we have to this point received 3 offers! Wow! We had no idea I was so awesome! Seriously, we are feeling very blessed and fortunate. So let me just tell you a little about our possibilities because Kristen would probably tell you there is only one possibility-but I am here to tell you there are several!

First, I will tell you about Kristen's favorite.

Sometime a while back I made the mistake of telling Kristen there is an anesthesia program in Manhattan, NY, and it suddenly became apparent that if I did not apply to Columbia I would probably need to start dating again. So I did. In December you all read about our fun trip to the Big Apple, that was our main purpose in going. It is based in a very old Columbia University building in Manhattan. They accept 25 students per year. We would live there and I would rotate through various hospitals in the area. Pros: Great name, good program, great clinical experiences, Kristen would keep me. Cons: VERY EXPENSIVE tuition, VERY EXPENSIVE housing, there aren't any mountains.

Number 2:

Texas Wesleyan University is a little school in Fort Worth, TX, that accepts a large class of 130ish students each year. While I was impressed with the program, I was a little unimpressed with area it is located. Before my interview I drove around the area looking for some fast food to eat-I was unable to find anything. The area was pretty sketchy to say tne least. Someone said it best when they said, "...the area around TWU is a good place to buy crack in." I actually resorted to stopping at a gas station to get some chips and pop, and they had the CANDY behind the counter! Anyway, if we were to go here ( we wouldn't live near campus) we would stay in Fort Worth for 12 months for the classroom portion of the program, and then move to Colton, CA to complete a 16 month clinical residency at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center. This is actually supposed to be one of the best clinical sites the program has. Pros: Cheaper tuition and housing in Fort Worth, respected program, not in NYC, great clinical site in CA, it might be neat to live in CA. Cons: Huge class, high cost of living in CA, would have to relocate x 2.

Number 3:

Baylor College of Medicine is located in Houston, TX. I applied to this one as a long shot. They accept a small class of 14 students per year, and in my opinion and many others, is probably the best, well rounded program at preparing it's anesthetists in the country. It is located in a huge medical center in downtown Houston, which is nice because all of the clinical sites are within 1 mile of the program. Very nice facilities. It is located in the medical school which means they work with the med students in some of the classes and labs (including cadavers). I would say I was most impressed with this program as far as education goes. Pros: Already mentioned most of them, low cost of living, average tuition. Cons: Located in Houston (haven't heard many good things about Houston), Kristen isn't a TX fan, far from family (as are most of these), longest program at 30 months.

This Monday I have a final interview(I am turning down my other two in Virginia and U of Pitt.) at Gonzaga in Spokane. This school holds a lot of potential because of it's location (close to my family and Washington is da bomb) and it's reputation. I guess they all have good reputations. Gonzaga also begins later than all the programs (Jan '09) so we'd have a little more time to save money and prepare. However, they only accept 8 students per year which means I would have to be pretty awesome. There are only 2 programs in the NW, so I think the competition for slots is pretty high. But we still feel pretty good about life. Anyway, that's what I am up to these days in case you were wondering about anyone other than Kate. She's doing well too. There's your Kate fix. No cons to this bad boy.

baby brother's blankie

my mom's friend came over yesterday and taught us how to do a simple crochet around the fleece baby blankets that kate loves so much. she gave me one for kate when she was a baby with a really pretty scallop edge that became our favorite swaddling blanket and I made 3 more (only without the crochet part!) because we couldn't get enough of them. I finished this one in a day. kate just LOVES her blankies so much (when we were at the store picking out the flannel she saw the bolts of it and said "blankies!!" and got all excited) I knew she was going to try to claim her brother's for her own. so as I was crocheting around this one she would run up to me and say "blankie" and I would say "yes, this is for your baby brother, where is yours?" and she would run and get it and show me. she did this seriously about 50 times today...but I think she's getting the point!

we went to walmart today and picked out some more flannel. now I have a new time consuming obsession!

President Gordon B. Hinckley

as a family, we were really sad to hear of the passing of President Gordon B. Hinckley today. with him being 97, it isn't shocking, but it is nonetheless sad. he is the prophet of my youth and really the only one I was old enough to pay close attention to. I will miss him, but it is such a comfort to know he is with his wife and how happy he must be.

our big girl!!

late yesterday afternoon I had an overwhelming urge to set up kate's big girl bed. ryan really didn't feel like making the switch but I finally talked him into it. I told him I was nesting and it was a pregnancy thing and I couldn't help it. he tried to tell me that if I was really nesting I would be cleaning up the house like crazy. (I think that was a hint....but my cleaning days are monday and tuesday!!) anyways, he carried it up to the loft and then I waited anxiously for kate to wake up so I could make the switch. she finally did and as soon as she was up I showed her the bed in the hallway and she got her cute mouth open wide excited and awestruck look on her face. (its one of my favorites!!) it took a while to set it all up and kate was just running all around, reading books in her little rocking chair and watching me strain my back. (I probably should have waited for ryan to get home from the gym, but I couldn't help myself!) once we got it all set up we sat on it and I told her it was where she was going to sleep so she would lay down and do her pretend snore and she said prayers about 50 times (arms folded and saying jibberish with a loud "amen" at the end!) I had the sheets in the washer and kate was sitting on her unmade bed, so excited and reading some books. I told her I had to go downstairs and switch the laundry to the dryer and asked if she wanted to come with me and she shook her head no. so I ran downstairs and the monitor was still on from her nap so as I was switching laundry I could hear her upstairs reading her books as happy as can be! when I got back upstairs I realized I forgotten to put the dust ruffle on so I coaxed her off the bed and took the top mattress off and she ran out of the room screaming and crying, she was so mad at me!! once I got it back together and she was sitting on top again she was happy.

after dinner we made a really big deal out of going to bed and she was acting so excited. we brushed teeth and said prayers and then we tucked her in with charlie, baby, and la la and all 4 of her blankies (all of kate's sleeping necessities!) and then we both gave her kisses and I was leaving the room so pleased with the smooth transition to the big girl bed and overwhelmed with how cute my baby was....but then....as soon as I turned the lights off she started screaming bloody murder!! I went in and comforted her a bit but then we left her in there crying. the second I closed the door I had my ear to it...and I didn't hear anything! I ran downstairs and turned the monitor on (afraid she had fallen and broken her neck or something) and I could hear her post crying breathing, but all was well. it only took a second and she was calm. tonight she went to bed perfectly in it!

what a big girl!!

today I tried to carry this "big girl" thing over to nursery. kate has gotten progressively worse with anticipating nursery at church (although she is getting better once she's in). 3 weeks ago she started getting really clingy at the closing song and as soon as she could tell sacrament meeting was over she started crying. 2 sundays ago she started crying as soon as we walked into the foyer before sacrament meeting. and today she cried in the car as we pulled into the parking lot!! sheesh, you would think she was going to prison instead of a toy filled, singing time, snack time, coloring time extravaganza! but when I dropped her off at the door today, there was only a little fake crying and then the teacher said she stopped the second I left. I'm glad she's learning to like it!

my yogurt girl

kate is a really good eater in general, but you should see her down a yogurt! she loves them! and she's really good at using the spoon all by herself to clean out the yogurt cup all the way to the bottom. she uses both her left hand and her right hand, depending on her mood.

my favorite is how she licks her lips with her cute little tongue after every bite!

hooray!!

NEW BEGINNINGS IS OVER!!! its been a long process, but our new beginnings pep rally was tonight and it went great and the girls had fun so I call it a success! I was the supreme-o in charge person (although I did a lot of delegating so I felt like I didn't do much) but that did mean I having been thinking about it non-stop for the past month. unfortunately I didn't get around to ordering the pom poms from the online party store until I had to pay $19.99 for 3 day shipping. today I got home from work and STILL no package of 48 pom poms so I tried to remain calm and I tracked the package. the man at the party store tracked it and said it said "out to be delivered" and gave me the tracking number. so I waited a while and got some stuff done and then ryan asked if I checked it myself online so I did at 5:09 it said something like "need valid address" so I started freaking out and I called and they had gotten the street number wrong so it was being sent back to the ups warehouse!! which is almost a half hour away from my house!!! I sped there, waited forever for them to find it (when the guy on the phone had told me that ALEX was going to be there witht he package for me) NO ALEX!! and then sped home and I was only 10 minutes late. sigh. fortunately, everything else went fine so I was in a better mood in no time. (the nachos at the end helped too!)

so, now that new beginnings is over, I hope to get back to my blogging habit. I have felt like I can't because I keep forgetting to take pictures. but here are some funny things about kate:

kate HATES her eyedrops (which we are officially done with) but yesterday morning I was trying to get her to come get her diaper changed....and some eyedrops too, but I wasn't going to tell her that....so I was saying "come here so I can change your bum...and then I'll do something you don't like too much" and she had run to ryan and was sitting in his lap and she pointed to her eyes and said "eyes." she knew what was coming! she's so smart, I love her! and I had to work today so when I got home I asked if ryan had done the eyedrops this morning and he said yes because kate had reminded him.

kate knows there is a baby brother inside her mom's stomach. (well, either that or she thinks her mom is calling her stomach "baby brother" now.) either way, its really cute to ask her where baby brother is. she kisses him goodnight and the other day we were sitting on the couch eating grapes and she was feeding them to her baby brother. sometimes I like to confuse her when she's pointing to mama's hair and kate's hair and mama's eyes and kate's eyes (one of her favorite games) and then I'll say "where is your baby brother's eyes?" and she'll stop and get a really confused look on her face. for some reason, that always makes me laugh really hard. (am I awful?)

monday I bought kate some panties at target because they were on sale and she got really excited about them. I'm pretty sure she has no idea what they are, but she loved walking around with just her panties on (and her mom crossing her fingers that she wouldn't have a mess to clean up!) she likes to sit on the potty but has yet to tinkle in the potty. its hard to try and get her to understand "tell mommy when you want to go pee pee in the potty" when she has NO idea what pee pee is. she's young still, but I'm trying to start early.

well thats it, some exciting facts to hold you over until I finally get my camera out and get back into the swing of things!

pink eye

its been a crazy week with not many blog worthy events, but I did take kate to the dr yesterdy for a goopy eye that has lasted a little longer than I thought it should and he said it was a mild case of pink eye. luckily it isn't really bothering her much. the dr gave us a perscription for some eye drops and the pharmacy gave her a sucker. once she realized that you don't hold it by the round part, she got the hang of it and really liked it

so now we do eye drops twice a day. the first night I did it she laid on the floor so good and didn't cry or anything. she was so brave and I was so proud! both times today she knew what to expect and had her eyes closed really tight, but we still managed to get those drops in there

oh yes....

I really just like this picture

where are my prioritites?

I really don't know why its been a week since I've blogged. I haven't been particularly busy...just the normal stuf. its funny because my mom (who lives in the same house and sees what we're doing every day anyway) was asking me why I hadn't blogged in a week. kind of sad....but sinceI'm behind that means I need to play a little catch up, so here it goes.

monday night we got pumped up for a little football and kate looked oh so cute

unfortunately, neither of our teams (ohio or oklahoma) did well in our bowl games. (and when I say "our" I mean my family....excluding ryan. he loves to cheer against us! luckily this year he worked both nights so we didn't have to hear it!)

this week we also got the good news that ryan was accepted to columbia university. we were kind of disappointed that the letter came so early in the month because they want a $500 deposit asap saying we'll come and he still has 2 more interviews (and 1 is his favorite in spokane). so we have some thinking to do....but it is at least a good feeling to know you're wanted! way to go ryan!

on friday we enjoyed a day off for both ryan and I and we did a lot of house cleaning (I lost my loaded gift card christmas present from work and I spent all day looking for it....and didn't find it. I am so sad!!) but then we went to the park that night to have a little fun. kate has become a very brave slide girl but her favorite is still the swings. here is a picture of our entire family taken with ryan's cool new tripod. its this small tripod that the legs wrap around things so you can take it anywhere and cling it to things to get pictures. in that picture it was wrapped around the swingset bar. it was a christmas present from mike and hilary for ryan and we LOVE it! thanks guys!

we got in the car and were trying to think of somewhere to go for dinner and nothing really sounded terrific, but ryan suggested peter piper pizza and I thought it might be fun to try it out and see how kate liked it. (since neither of us were very hungry we decided crummy pizza would be okay for dinner!) well kate LOVED it. sometimes I am amazed at how I underestimate her level of enjoyment with things. to me she is still a little baby who like to look at her fingers for hours.

she loved the carosel and we could hardly get her off when it stopped! doesn't she look big riding that thing?!? then we got some tokens and played some games. my camera ran out of batteries, but it was funny to see her throw the ball a foot up the skeeball ramp and get really excited. there was also this little dump truck thing that just rocked back and forth and when it was going she had this really serious look on her face (with her hands on the wheel like she was driving) and I was thinking it was a waste of a token because she wasn't having any fun, but when it stopped she got really mad. apparently she liked it! once our tokens were spent we ended up with 30 tickets and we went up to the little counter to spend it. again, I didn't think she was going to get excited about these little toys but she loved them. she got 2 rings, one of those popper things a spikey ball thing. I showed them to her and her mouth opened really big and she was so excited. she put the rings on and wanted to hold the balls!

we headed to the car and somewhere between peter piper pizza and the car we lost her spikey ball. a younger kate wouldn't have noticed or would have been easily distracted by the rest of her loot, but she kept saying over and over "ball. ball." ryan went to go look for it and she said "da da!" and I told her da da was going to go find her ball and so she kept saying "da da, ball. da da, ball." I soon thought that might have been a mistake because she was going to think her da da was a failure if he didn't come back with a ball!! so I ran in and asked the prize lady if I could have another one and she gave me 2 "just in case" which I thought was really nice. that satisfied kate and she gripped her toys tightly all the way home.

saturday we were able to go to the temple which was really nice. mom and dad went to an early session (they had taken the bus up with the ward) and then mom stayed outside with kate and we went in with dad and did an afternoon session. it was so nice to be there with ryan, we were lucky to have such a good babysitter!

and now another week begins. another round of laundry, toilet scrubbing and work!

kate's pretty purse

today kate's pretty purse that grandma townsend got her for christmas came in the mail and she fell in love with it! she was carrying it around all day long and pretending to put her makeup on from her little compact. (seriously, can my little baby be old enough to be pretending with makeup?!?)

also, today we were doing some deep cleaning and I found this hilary hand-me-down in the closet and kate started stripping immediately so I could put it on her. I was so surprised that she loved the hat, but she wore it all day long! I wanted to take a picture so I said "show mama your hat" and this is what I got:

I guess I was a little too specific....so then I said "say cheese"

tonight ryan had his first night off in what feels like forever. (he's worked 6 of the last 7 nights) so we decided to go to the park and enjoy the nice weather and then go to jamba juice for dinner. this is how kate left the house:

OH MY GOODNESS, I love her! and then when she was in her carseat she got her cell phone out of her purse and started talking on it. I giggled all the way to the park!

merry christmas!

so we did have christmas, I'm just a total slacker when it comes to blogging it! so here it goes. we flew up to spokane on the 14th and enjoyed the freezing cold weather from the moment we got off the plane. when I tried to put kate's coat on near the baggage claim area before we went outside she threw a big laying on the floor fit. I seriously looked like I was abusing my daughter or something she was screaming so loud. but she was grateful to have it when we got outside and it was the last time she complained about bundling up! that first day kate kept pointing out the car window saying "cold! cold! cold" over and over again. yes, my tucson baby, its COLD!!! natalie's fiance paul came and picked us up at the airport all by himself! he was so brave, there is no way I would have been that brave the first time I was meeting some of the inlaws!! (but then again, I am a wuss!) we now can say we've met and we like paul and we gave natalie the go ahead to marry him. we gave her permission to set the date (ha) which she did for march 8th! wahoo!! we stayed a night at natalie's house and then drove up to wenatchee. we spent a few days just hanging out and making gingerbread cookies. kate got to play in the snow for her first time. at first she was scared of it but she soon got the hang of it!we built a big snowman and a snow chair for kate to sit in and a snow saguaro to make us feel at home!

don't you love her too short snow suit and her make-do snow boots!!

then on thursday the real fun began! we drove to kennewick to jeremy and jen's new house and met the hilary and mike there. it was a lot of kids running around and was really intimidating for kate, but she got really attached to brielle! she must have a magic touch, because she never gets attached to anyone like that! we went bowling and unwrapped presents and just had fun hanging out together.

on friday we drove back to wenatchee and spent christmas with us and hilary and mike's family. kate had lots of fun with her cousins and it made me excited to see the "big girls" excited for christmas and santa claus...because kate had no idea it was coming! (this is ella, kate and grace in their christmas pjs on christmas eve!) the next morning she did have fun on unwrapping presents, even if she had no idea where they came from! it was really exciting to see her get excited this year. she LOVED her camelback!!

she walked around drinking it all morning!

here is our family in our matching christmas pjs (and one of my favorite christmas traditions!). they matched the rest of our family spread out in tucson and california too!

we flew home the day after christmas. it was nice to be home after a december full of stress and traveling, but it was all worth it to spend such good time with family!! now its back to real life and work. I still haven't unpacked my suitcase...but I took care of my blog! (I have priorities!!)

olympics here we come!

we took kate ice skating when we were in wenatchee. we got to the rink only about 15 minutes before it closed so ryan just got some skates for him and some for kate and I was the photographer. (plus I think ice skating when pregnant isn't exactly legal!)

despite how kate looks in this picture, she actually got really excited about the ice skates. shoes are kinda tricky with her. except for crocs (which she'll wear all the time), she'll only let you put shoes on her if she likes them at that moment.
she's showing them off to the camera she's so excited!



kate LOVED being on the ice. unfortunately her legs just kinda flopped there and she couldn't really do anything but she wanted to have her feet on the ice so ryan's back got tired really fast. when he would try and pick her up she would yell and scream and kick (with ice skates on, that can be deadly!) until he put her back on the ice to "skate". we were glad that it was closing time so it wasn't long before we had to take her off the ice....kicking and screaming! (but once we got the skates off we were safe!) as we left, I made a promise to kate before we left that I would let her take ice skating lessons when she grows up!

for jen (grammy's kitchen)

I guess there is nothing like a request to get me motivated to start blogging again. you know how you feel when you don't write in your journal for a long time and you dread doing it because you know you have a lot to catch up on? thats how I feel about my blog "journal"

but my sister asked to see my mom's new kitchen. she got it to make her house a cool grandma house. she had it all set up for when we came home from washington, but she wasn't sure if kate was going to get the concept or not. there is one in nursery but its always so crowded with kids that I had never seen her play with it. well, she walked right up to it and started stirring in a pot like she was born to make pretend soup! pretty funny.

since jen requested pictures, I got my camera out and aimed it at the kitchen and I hear next to me kate (who was sitting on the couch next to the kitchen) say really loud and clearly "CHEESE!!" ....so I had to redirect my aim

I laughed so hard. she's definately getting the hang of this whole camera thing! so then I told her to go stand by her kitchen and say cheese

so she did! this is her practicing to be a beauty on the price is right.

this is her making soup

and this is her getting something out of the cupboard. notice the diaper hanging out of her too big yet too short jeans! she's got plumbers bum!!

oh how I love her!