Bentley's 12th Birthday

 Can't believe Bentley turned 12 this year! We decided to do a small party with her friends the day before her actual birthday. We met at the mall after school for a scavenger hunt! I split the girls into 2 groups and sent them with a list of items to get and pictures to take. They had 1 hour to do as many as they could and return back to our meeting spot. I also sent them with some money to buy one chocolate each at Purdy's. They had a great time doing this, and even said they ran into another group who was doing the same thing! We all went back to our house afterwards and put the pictures up on the big screen for us all to see. We had a winning group and some prizes for all (the winners got to pick first), but it was more about just having fun! We fed everyone some pizza and Nutella cheesecake because that's still Bentley's favorite dessert. Bentley opened her presents and that was the night! I sent the girls home with a "Better" brand cold-pressed juice from the Farmer's Market. Bentley's always loved these drinks and the girls were thrilled with them!

The next day was Saturday, which was Bentley's actual birthday. I made a big sign for Bentley's door and listed 12 reasons I love her, and had a B-shaped plate of candy for her to wake up to. We started the day with some homemade crepes and then did what we both like to do best and hit the mall! I love to shop with her and gave her a small budget that she stuck to. She also had to get Starbucks! Deacon had a basketball game in the afternoon and then after that we all went to Olive Garden for dinner! Bentley ate here when we were in Seattle and was excited when I told her we also have one in the north of Calgary. The kids all love it, and it made for a great day!

Bentley is turning into a super responsible, fun, witty, organized, smart, beautiful girl right before our eyes. Lately she is very into creating her own nails and bedazzling all her skin care products and other things. She is very social with her friends and loves to hang out with them. She understands the world and is just starting to babysit for Rebecca and doing great at it! I couldn't imagine life without my Bentley to help me when I need it and tell me ALL the grade 6 gossip. I can't wait to see where life takes her and I'm so happy I get a front row seat to her life!

January

 January may have started off badly with Bentley in the hospital, but it ended wonderfully! It did take Bentley a while to get back to the way things were. She wanted to go back to school so badly and she actually only missed a couple of days after the break. She started with a couple half days at school to ease her in, and I carried her backpack into her classroom to help her out. The first time she went back I got to watch her receive such an unbelievably warm welcome from everyone! It was the sweetest thing to watch as everyone exclaimed, "Bentley's back!!" Her friends ended up helping her carry her backpack after school to our van. Sports took a while for her to get back into, but eventually she was able to get back to her normal self again. 

It was a big year for her as she moved on from primary to YW! She went to the Temple/Priesthood Prep class which helped prepare her for the temple. We got her to get a temple recommend as soon as she could and decided for her very first time going, we wanted to go with her and do baptisms ourselves as well. Jeff was able to baptize Bentley and me. It was such a special experience and honestly so much fun! Everyone was so sweet and excited as we told them it was Bentley's first time and the matron even came to talk with us. There was a nice man who was thrilled when we said we could baptize some of the names he had in his hand. The spirit and peace I felt was so strong that day, and I could tell Bentley felt it too. We ended the night with ice cream of course!

Bentley also had another new event - her first school dance! Her best friend decided to ask a boy to the dance and, since she didn't want to be a third wheel, she decided she would ask someone too. She's not boy crazy and told me Truett was just a friend, and I wasn't worried one bit. She wrote him a little note that said "Will you go to the dance, yes or no" and in brackets wrote "you can hang out with Jax." It was adorable. I told her we could have everyone at our house beforehand for pizza, to play ping pong, and hang out and then get ready for the dance and I'd take them all there. It became a really fun night and I even stopped at Mr. Puff's after school for donuts. The boys were so nice and Bentley had a great time getting ready with Madi. After the dance she raved about how it was the second best night of her life (after the Taylor Swift concert)! I was happy she had such a great time. I also had to post a picture of her adorable alien she made for school. She did it all herself!

Deacon got Dragon of the Month for a second time and I was so excited for him! I'm also never surprised...he is literally the sweetest, most thoughtful boy. Leo continued playing basketball and I started to see a lot of improvement. 

Boston and I hung out a lot. I took him to the play center at the mall, got him McDonald's and he enjoyed our new bed! Jeff and I splurged and got a new one finally. We went all out and got one with a remote control to put the head up and down. 

Boston started swimming lessons and was a little nervous at first, until he realized it was so fun! He looked forward to it every week and it was really fun to watch him run and dive for things in the water, making sure he got all the blue things before anyone else. He also loved going down the slide. 

Jeff and I went out to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant for Angie's birthday and it was a good time, although we decided we'd rather not have to cook our own food! It was nice to hang out with everyone, especially because we hardly see them anymore, as they are always on trips! 

Bentley and Deacon's birthdays were obviously in this month as well, which I will write about in the next post.  

Bentley's Appendicitis

After Christmas, the kids had another week off school for the break. We didn't have any set plans, but of course we wanted to fill it up with fun things! Unfortunately all the kids started to get the stomach bug and were throwing up. When Bentley had been throwing up for 3 days, I started to get concerned. She told us she had pain in her stomach, and when we really looked at it and touched it, we realized it was probably appendicitis.

I forgot to mention our car situation at the time. It was a bit of a weird situation but because of the mail strike we didn't receive notice that payments weren't being made for insurance after we had changed cards, so we lost our insurance. It was hard to find any that was similar in price and when we finally did, they told us it would take two weeks to go through. We decided to rent a car for that time, but the rental place didn't have a van, only a small car. The 2 weeks turned into 1 month and it was brutal squishing our family into it. We were so happy to be able to drive our van again when we could!

Anyways, at that time we only had the one small car, so I dropped Bentley and Jeff off at the hospital and Jeff took her to urgent care. They waited a little over an hour to be seen and then Bentley had to get an IV to get her fluids up so they could do an ultrasound. When they got the ultrasound they discovered that is was appendicitis and she needed to go to the Children's Hospital. Bentley was in pain and sad for that time and I wish I could've been with her, but I was glad Jeff could help her and I could take care of the boys throwing up at home! Bentley had to wait and wait...all night until the morning. I was annoyed that they couldn't get her in right away because it's an emergent thing, and sure enough, during surgery they found that her appendix had ruptured. I figure it probably happened when she was waiting because would they not have seen that in the ultrasound? I don't know for sure, but they took the appendix out and then, because it had ruptured, she had to go on antibiotics and stay in the hospital for a few days. She was tough, and such a trooper!

The surgery happened on the morning of Dec.31. It was going to be a great New Year's in the hospital! I was thinking back to the year before when Jeff and I were in Vegas for New Years. I was really happy that we were in town and it was actually nice that it was Christmas break because Jeff had work off and the kids weren't missing school and activities. However, obviously we were hoping the break would be time for fun! It definitely wasn't that, but there were some definite positives. 

I brought Leo to the hospital to visit Bentley and then Jeff took him home so I could take a turn with Bentley. I brought a bunch of things and slept there that night. It was very boring, but also hard to see Bentley still be in so much pain. It was a really tough recovery for her. She didn't want to get up to walk very much and would complain a lot about different places that hurt. She was stuck to an IV and had to tell the nurse when she went to the bathroom. It was so much for a girl to deal with, but I was really proud of her! I brought a couple New Year's crowns and took a picture of us. Bentley was eating next to nothing and my job was to try to get her to eat and drink lots. She watched a lot of TV on her Ipad and it got old fast, but she wasn't ever feeling up to playing games or anything because it would hurt to sit up even a little.

Cindy offered to sleep over the next night, and I was so grateful because I didn't get much sleep there and hospital food gets old quick! After she did that night, I came back and was prepared for another night. Jeff was getting sick, so that's why he stayed home mostly after that. I brought her some McDonald's and she actually ate some! When the doctor saw that, he was very happy. Jordan and Melanie came for a visit and brought her some flowers (which apparently weren't allowed in the hospital, so they held onto them for us until we were home), and it was so nice of them! Ethan and Ryley came as well, and it was fun to see how knowledgeable Melanie was - sometimes even more so than Bentley's nurses. Bentley was on a different unit than where she should've been because of availability so the nurses didn't seem to know too much. 

That evening, the doctor came in and told us Bentley could leave if she wanted to. He thought she might recover better at home. We were really happy, but also really scared because she wouldn't have an IV giving her fluids or nurses helping give her pain meds in the night. We did go home though, very surprised! I was prepared to stay another night! We got antibiotics that she had to finish taking, and were told to swap Tylenol and Advil every few hours. 

The first few nights were hard. I had to set my alarm for every 3 hours and wake Bentley up to take pain meds and antibiotics. After a couple nights, we tried to take less. Then one night the pain got away from her and even after giving her the full dosage I could, she screamed in pain for about hour for the drugs to kick in. It was horrible! I also kept giving her hot towels and a heating pad, which helped her sometimes. I bought many different kinds of drinks to help her get down the medications and keep up fluids. It was a job! I felt so bad for her though and had no idea it would be such a hard recovery. We tried to get her walking as much as we could, but she hated it so much! She got really nauseous at one point, so I added some Gravol to the mix of meds. 

After a few days we told her she needed to shower. Her hair had not been brushed, and it was so insane, I worried I'd never be able to get it untangled. I stood in the shower with her, in our swimsuits, and put layers and layers of conditioner in her hair while brushing it through. I thought I'd never get it out, but it took about 3 hours until I did get it done! It was quite the accomplishment!

She slowly got better after that, but didn't go to school for about a week after the surgery and then just started with half days. I had to carry her backpack to her classroom for her for a few days. She missed sports for a month and then when she finally did go back to basketball practice, she said she got hit in the stomach and it hurt so bad. That scared her! She missed even more basketball and started to feel like she didn't belong on her team anymore. One night at Skills, her friend Emily from her team told her she missed her and she should come back. That was all she needed and she was ready to be back. I was so grateful for that friend! She was able to join the team for the finals and ended up winning Silver. They didn't go to provincials, but they did also join a tournament and did really well in that too. 

It was a crazy way to finish off the year, but it really was another good year! Many lessons taught and memories made. After a few weeks, we did our traditional fondue dinner night and watched home videos of the year! The kids were begging for it and didn't want to miss out on that, so we made sure it got done, even if it was a few weeks later. It's one of our favorite traditions and we love to see how much we've changed in one year!