My twin brother

I was about 6 and I desparately wanted my mother to have a baby. My parents admitted that they had the same desire, but it was in the Lord's hands. They explained to me that I could pray to Heavenly Father and ask for a baby. My mom claims that I diligently asked in every prayer I said for the next year, I was even so bold to ask for that baby to be born on my birthday (isn't that every little girls dream?). Finally my dream came true.... well almost.

I remember the day very well. It was my 8th birthday, a month past my mother's due date, and we were waiting excitedly for the phone to ring. My grandparents were staying with us because my mom had gone into labor and was at the hospital. The call finally came and the phone was given to me. My mom wanted me to be the first to know that I had a new baby brother. I tried to say something, but words wouldn't come. I felt the tears streaming down my face and I couldn't hide my dissappointment. I'd asked all this time for Heavenly Father to bless our family with a baby on my birthday, but I'd forgotten to specify that I wanted it to be a girl. Doug was my 3rd brother and a few years later I also had a 4th brother. As much as I wanted a sister, I grew to love each of my brothers and I learned that being the only girl did have a few perks.

The moment I saw Doug in the hospital, I loved him. He wasn't a typical newborn, he was a month overdue and seemed to be more alert and active. He was blessed the same day I was confirmed. We've always joked about how we are part twin... foolish twins I might add, both born on April Fool's Day. We recently went to California for his wedding. He found his perfect match and it was really neat to see them sealed in the San Diego temple.


Jared and I had a great time in California. We left our children with his parents so it was a nice vacation, just the two of us. I had to laugh when we got our rental car. Doesn't it look like the car that Mr. Incredible drives when he is undercover. ha ha

The kids were able to attend the reception in our hometown, Kennewick, Washington . Linsey and her cousin Savannah were flower girls.

This was my favorite picture of them.

Hunter and his cousin Zach... typical boys.
I guess they were fighting about who was going to marry the bride. Too bad she's already taken guys.

We are so happy for Doug and Desiree. They are both such neat people with a bright future ahead of them. I'm glad to have such a great brother and new sister-in-law. It's taken over 23 years to finally get that sister in the family that I prayed so hard for as a child.

Threes Tag

I've been tagged by my friend Tracie, so here it goes:

3 Reasons To Love 3:
This one is tough. When I think of the number 3 the first things that come to my mind are how I felt like the carpet was pulled out from under me when I had 3 kids, and for me, the terrible two’s are not so terrible, but 3 seems really difficult.

But......., I do have 3 children and I love each of them so my 3 reasons to love 3 are Linsey, Hunter, and Emma.

3 Things I Love:
A sunny day on the beach with a slight breeze
Clean sheets
Caramel Hershey kisses

3 Things I Miss:
taking naps
old friends
Craigo’s breadsticks (Ricks was the best!)

3 People Who Make Me Laugh:
My husband for sure, life is never dull at our house. He’s especially fun to watch movies with because he laughs out loud and you can’t help but laugh with him.
My kids, not their jokes, but the everyday entertainment they provide.
My friend Rachael, she’s always pulling out old stories that make me laugh.

3 Things That Scare Me:
The fear of something happening to Jared
Snakes
Being home alone

3 Things On My Desk:
Disneyland Guide (yes we went while we were in California for my brother’s wedding… without the kids. We had to scout it out for later which is why I brought home the brochure.)
old magazines
wood letters for a project I’ve got to finish up.

3 Things I Still Want To Do In Life:
vacation to Hawaii
Travel the world with my husband after my children are all happily married in the temple and successful in their lives…..
I’ve always wanted to sky dive

3 Things I Can Do:
make zucchini bread in 9 minutes (from garden to oven, not including baking time obviously)
braid my fingers
get my two oldest children to beat me to the car buckled and ready to go before I sit in the drivers seat. (It’s a battle that I finally solved with bribery… for a couple months they earned a sour gummy worm each time they beat me. Totally worth it!)

3 Things I Can't Do:
Teach my 2 year old to whisper in sacrament meeting
Play sports and look cool
Get the pen marks off Hunter’s door.

3 Things I Regret:
buying a couch you can’t clean with anything… including water
not putting in a/c 3 years ago when we first thought about it and since then the cost has almost doubled
not keeping up with family and close friends as much as I would like to

3 Favorite TV Shows From Childhood:
Smurfs
Full House
Little House on the Prairie

3 People I Tag With This Blog:
Anyone who has the time… it’s fun!

Home at Last!

We are so glad to tell you all that we are home! Thanks for all your love and support these past few days. We appreciate all the phone calls, emails, messages, meals, babysitting, and prayers. We are very blessed with such wonderful family, friends, and neighbors. Thank You!

We took a few pictures over the last few days. I'll share a few.
The first is our happy Emma, home at last!

This isn't the best angle, but you can see how her neck is swollen under her ear.

Here is Emma's bed. (She hated it!)

Once Emma started to feel better, she loved taking walks. We referred to them as more of a parade. It started with Emma, followed by a caterpillar pull toy, the IV pump, dad, and then mom of course.

While in the hospital, Emma got to do a few things that she normally doesn't get to do at home. Here she is playing with my cell phone. This made her REALLY happy!

We couldn't get Emma to eat much the first few days.
Dad was thrilled when she accepted his donut!

A visit from the family! (That is also my bed.)

Emma's little friend Natalie came to visit and brought her a new baby.

She also brought her a cool new cup.
"Look, no hands!"

It's been a long week and we are glad to have things back to normal.... whatever that is. :)
Thanks again for being such great family and friends. We love you!

A quick update

Anyone who has spent the night in a hospital can relate to the restless nights sleep one can get. If that IV monitor beeps one more time I think I might have to throw it out the window. The nurses (doing their jobs) come in constantly to check Emma's vitals and it ALWAYS wakes her up. I don't understand why they have to draw blood at 4:00 in the morning and it's a bummer when the IV fails in the middle of the night. I have given up on sleep for the time being and since Jared left his laptop I figure I may as well write a quick update on Emma. Plus, when Jared comes during the daytime he does a great job running innerferance with the nurses. Yesterday he claims he had to stop 2 clowns (and I mean real clowns) as they flamboyantly bounced into the room just after Emma and I had finally dozed. He then continued to shew away the constant stream of nurses for the next 3 hours giving both of us the best sleep we'd had in the last few days....

Anyway, yesterday was a good day for Emma and she made a lot of improvements. Her fever has been gone and without any pain medication she seems to be feeling much better. She is acting more like herself which is reassuring. The antibiotics seem to be doing their job at last and it looks as if surgery is completely out of the question. We are so relieved. In the morning the doctor should give us an update, but I really think they will let us go home later in the day and finish her recovery with an oral antibiotic.

Emma is up again. She hates the monitor they put on her toe. Is it morning yet??

Progress

Well, we just got some good news, they have wireless at the hospital. Just kidding. That's not the good news. We just had another CT Scan and the infection looks basically the same as it did the night we went into the ER. That means it's not turning into an abscess, no surgery, at least for now. We are still going to have to stay in the hospital until her white blood cell count goes down, her temperature goes down and she eats more. They are going to mix up the antibiotics a bit and do an ultrasound to make sure there is no clotting with all the pressure in her neck.
Camille is really tired. I'm doing fine but I've been sleeping in my own bed. Emma isn't doing great, she cries every time someone walks into the room. I think she's tired of getting poked and prodded. I'm tired of watching her get upset. Good thing I'm getting some sleep or there'd be a few docs with black eyes by now.

Emma Update

As some of you have heard, Emma is in the hospital with an infection in her neck. It's the early stages of an abscess. They are hoping to knock it down with IV antibiotics. If that doesn't work, they will have to do surgery and clean it out manually. The specialist came in today and he's coming back to evaluate her Monday sometime. Right now she is scheduled for surgery Tuesday morning. We are really hoping that the antibiotics work so she won't have to have surgery.
This all started on Friday when Emma came down with a fever. On Saturday she still had it and she stopped moving her neck, like she slept on it wrong or something. By Saturday night she had massive swelling on one side of her neck. We decided to take her into the ER. We got immediate attention since several of these signs pointed to Spinal Meningitis. Good thing she doesn't have that. They did a CT scan and then sent us over to Mary Bridge Children's hospital in Tacoma. Camille is there right now with her. There is absolutely no place for me to sleep there so I'm home, going back first thing in the morning.
An abscess happens in children usually from a ruptured lymph node (we have more when we are kids). The infection from this can snowball into a round pocket of pressurized infection. This has to be drained/removed in order for the body to heal. If you hit it with antibiotics before it hardens, you can recover without surgery. I'm just glad we live in modern times when we have such good doctors and medicines. A hundred years ago she would have died from something like this.
Please keep us in your prayers. That's the most we could ask for right now. Thanks.

Pioneer Trek

Jared and I took on nature as we ventured off with the youth in our stake to see what a pioneer trek is all about. For those of you who don't know, a pioneer trek is where you go out into the mountains dressed as pioneers and pull handcarts across a trail doing as much as possible to reinact what the pioneers went through as they crossed the plains. For us, this included wearing pioneer clothing (long sleeves, bloomers, and bonnets in 104 degree weather). We also slept under the stars, prepared to make shelter with tarps in case of rain.

Jared and I were a Ma and Pa for a family of 9 children.


Here is our handcart.

Our company captain was President Crabtree. The youth cleverly thought of the name Sebastian Spruce for our company name.

They gave all the families a colored bandana to wear. Ours was tourquoise. It was a fun idea until the colors started rubbing off onto our clothes and skin. Notice the blue forehead.

The handcart wasn't too hard to pull, I'm not sure why Jared is pulling the Mr. Incredible strength face.

this one is even better

Well, the handcarts weren't too hard to pull as long as we were on flat ground. Going through rivers and uphill or downhill were definitely more difficult.

the kids liked to run...... that was against the rules.... shh...

This is where the men were called away for the Mormon Battalion and the women were forced to pull the carts all on their own. We pulled the carts up the steepest parts of the trail and it was really hard, but a good experience. At points some had to leave their carts and help another cart up the hill, then come back and all retreive the next cart. Lots of teamwork, prayers, and even tears.

One night we set up camp in this grassy meadow. It was really pretty and fun to sleep under the stars, but that tall grass and weeds made anyone with allergies miserable, myself included.

A small storm blew in, see the pressure clouds in the background.

A view from the top.

We played lots of fun games. Check out our amazing lap sit.

4 legged races

It got a little dirty.

repelling

Here's the Millpond Ward crowd.

All in all we had a great experience. It was neat to hear the youth bear their testimonies about the impact that this experience had on them. Jared and I were glad to be a part of it.

Glamour girls!

Linsey celebrated her 7th birthday with a glamour girl party. We painted all the girls fingernails and applied nail stickers over top, put glitter on their faces, flowers in their hair, everyone got a pair of sticker earrings, and we made neclaces. All the girls took turns taking a walk down a runway like a model and at the end of their walk they stopped and posed for their very own glamour shot. The girls all looked georgous and we had lots of fun.

After going back and forth about cake decisions, Linsey chose to have cupcakes at her party. They were a big hit.

We piled the candles on top and sang Happy Birthday awaiting Linsey to make her wish and then blow out the candles. She thought.....

and thought.....

and thought some more.

We all began to grow restless so to hurry her along I finally moved the cake closer to her. What a wish that must have been! :)

Eating cake at last!

Bubbles

Everytime I wash the car one or more of the kids want to help me. As some of you know, thanks to my Dad, I am very particular in how and in what order my cars are washed. The McInellys have a 12 step process that somehow is part of our DNA. If any step is skipped or not done well, it's like the car itself feels neglected and has a sad face until we start over again and do it right. Having the kids help is something I like to have happen with most things. However, with car washing I've learned that all they really want to do is play with the bubbles. I must admit, bubbles are fun and fascinating. So, the other day as I was washing the car and getting multiple offers of help, I decided to give them what they really wanted, some bubbles.
A few drops of soap into the kiddie pool and the hose on high and hours of fun ensued. The screams even attracted the Hatch kids. Looks like fun, eh?


Let me know if you want the McInelly 12 step car care lesson and I'll email it to you. Just be warned that if you know it, you might feel obligated to do all 12 steps and then your friends and neighbors will make fun of you for washing your car all of the time.

Summer Fun

I sure love summers in Washington. They make all the rain almost worth it. What happens here though is that you only have a couple of months to pack in all the outdoor fun you can handle before the good weather is gone. So every minute you can you spend outside. With school not getting out until the end of June, most of the fun starts around the 4th of July.

This year we decided to forgo the long drive to Canada and stay in the US for the 4th. We traveled to Kennewick to visit Camille's parents for the week and swam in their pool nonstop. We did take a little break from swimming to do some fishing. I've decided that my kids have to like fishing. I'm counting on them to be my excuse to make fishing time = family time.
Here some pictures of our last trip.




In this last picture Linsey is holding a gatorade bottle with two little sunfish inside it. We caught them with a net in the shallows. They took them home to show Mom and later we learned about how things die, especially when shaken.