Dino Tracks

A couple of weekends ago we decided to go driving around to see what San Antonio was like out in the country. We came across at Dinosaur museum. Emma and Gavin are really into dinosaur right now and thought it would be fun to go see real dino tracks. The museum really wasn't impressive but it was fun to see the tracks and learn some history about this area. Gavin had a BLAST. It was a really cold day that day so we didn't last long outside. Gavin wanted to have all the toy dinos inside. He was so cute. He lined them all up in a line and was so proud of them. Cute kid. He already has a ton at home but he did good to put them back. It was a good day at dino museum and McDonalds for lunch.

Potty training updates....Might be too much info

Gavin has been potty training for a couple of months now and we are doing great. Both mom and son are handling it well. He mostly is half dressed at home. Easy access for Gavin to run to the potty before and accident happens. He is doing awesome. He is going by himself. I hear him in the bath room so I'm always there to help. We are branching out more with "unders" during nap time and going out. I make sure that I'm not long so we can come back and go potty. I haven't tried the public bathrooms yet or showed to pee outside. If we are going longer then 2 hours I put a diaper on him. I know....I know I'm awful for doing that but it is working for us. When Emma was potty training and we were traveling in the car we would let her pee outside next to the car. I would hold her up and let her go. So much cleaner than a gas station or something. I don't think Gavin is ready for that yet. He is kinda of a priss when is come to stuff like that.
Anyways.... He is going good. I'm so proud of him and so happy that I'm not buying diapers as much. Hooray!!! Good all around.

Emma's School Performance

I'm posting this late but here it is. Last November at Emma's school her class was learning all about Native Americans and how they had the first Thanksgiving Dinner.
All the kids got to help make their costumes. She looked so cute. She got to pick her Native American name. She was called Little Flower. It is on her shirt if you can see it.

Here they are singing their songs. It was so cute to see all the kids waving to their parents. I just brought my camera. You could have seen all the cameras and video recorders.

Here is half of all the kids. There were a bunch of them. I learned so much from their songs. Gavin loved it too.

Gavin did it finally......horray!!!!!

This morning for the first time Gavin went to the bathroom for the first time. Im so excited for him. Gavin and I have been working on potty train since the begin of the school year. For the first week or so he was peeing in his unders. Now he understands to hold it until it is time for me to tell him for go potty. He can hold it for about an hour. So every hour on the hour I tell him to go potty. If it doesn't make it and goes in his unders he kinda gets in trouble. Im trying to teach in that it is NOT ok to pepe in your unders. I thought that Gavin was not going to understand that when you have the feeling to go...just go to the potty and go without me having to tell him.
Well....this morning for the very first time Gavin went to the potty and peped in the potty. I heard him in the bathroom and ran in there to see if he was playing or going potty. I peaked around the corner to see what he was doing without him seeing me. He did it...He did it. Im so happy!!! Now lets see how long it will last. If it is a one time deal or he finally understands to go potty. He just turned 3 in Nov. so Im thinking it is really good that he might finally understand this whole thing. Im really tired of buying diapers. Of course he still needs them at night but now Im not having to buy them as often. I just bought a large box of pampers yesterday $30. dollars. I can't wait for the time to not buy them anymore. That is a ton of money just on diapers. I have know idea how much I have spend of diapers for both Emma and Gavin combined. 5 years of diapers. agh...
Anyways...Im really happy that Gavin is almost fully potty trained. I love you Gavin my big boy.

Edmondson updates...Kinda random

So it has been 4-ever since I have blogged last. I keep meaning to write but don't have the time or Im too lazy to write. Now that Gavin is sleeping, I really don't have a reason not to blog something.

Here are just updates of what is going on in our lives.

Garrett (AKA daddy) - He is working and likes his job. He stays busy with it. He learning and grown in the company. He is of course a great hubby and daddy to our two kids that can't get enough of him when he walks threw the door when he gets home.

Katy (AKA mommy)- Yes, me....where to start. I have been super busy now that the holidays are over. Cleaning, cooking, driving everywhere, blah blah blah and so on..... doing all the mommy stuff. I have been working on the potty training with Gavin. That is a hit or miss situation. I really try to stay home alot more to work on it. It is doing better than he was. He does great with not peeing on the floor. He can hold if of about an hour than we have to rush to the potty. He still hasn't be able to go on is own when he gets the feeling to go. Going number 2...well that is a whole other story. (rolling my eyes) don't even get me started on that. We are light years away from that. Other than that, I good. I have a bit of a cold. Not feeling well. I have was calling to be the CTR 4 teacher at church teaching the 4-5 year olds. Hummm...... well it is doing ok. The girls are sweethearts. The boys.....are way into superman too much to the point it really starts to annoy me. I guess I better start getting use to that with Gavin turning 4 at the end of the year. All in all a good class.

Emma (AKA I'm a BIG girl MOM)- She is doing better. Her lungs are cleared up and no permitted damage. She has made a new friend across the street and they are two pees in a pod. We tees her that she has a boyfriend. His name is Preston and he a a really cute boy. They always want to play with each other after school. They are in the same kindergarten class at school too. His mom and I are becoming good friends too. Emma is enjoys reading and wanting to google everything with dad. That is a fun activity that they like to do. When she ask a question about something, Garrett and Emma look it up. They are so funny together. I can't believe that she is going to be 6 in a couple of weeks and she is growing like a weed. I'm having to buy the pants all the time. shhhhessshh.

Gavin (AKA I'm a RAWWER mama- DINOSAUR) He is so much fun. Gavin is learning a growing awhile. He is potty training and going to speech therapy classes. He loves his teacher. I like her too. She really does a good job with him. He goes twice a week. Gavin is so funny. He thinks he is such a big boy getting to go to Emma's school. He things he is going to school too. He loves it. Gavin's speech really have improved. People can understand him a little now. It is is hard at times but way better from where it way. Gavin is Emma's little shadow following her around everywhere and being the annoying little brother to Emma and her friends. Poor Gavin. He still is the most pickiest eatier in the world. I'm not sure how it is as solid as a brick though. Good genes maybe. For the most part he is a very happy little boy.

As for the plans for the year. We are excited to go on all of our family vacations this summer. Of course of yearly visit to Lake Tahoe. Can't wait for that. We always have so much fun there. Maybe we can get in some cliff jumping in there, and of course going to Denver to see my sister. She is having her first baby in August. That is going to be so much fun. RODE TRIP!!!! My mom and I are going up there for a couple of weeks. We are going to have a blast. I love being around family. Too bad we don't live really close to anyone. :-(

As for us Edmondson family, we are happy and do well for the 2010 so far. (It has only been 2 and half weeks but who is counting). We are hoping for a very uneventful year with no big surprises. The last couple of years have been a whirl wind. We are taking it easy and taking one day at a time. Now that we are in San Antonio, it has been great so far. We are hoping to be here for awhile.

Emma's pneumonia

Well, for Thanksgiving we went o Denver Colorado to spend time with family. My sister and her husband live there. We were so excited to have the kids see snow and play in it for the first time. Emma and I were getting over allergies and thought that by going up there it would clear things out- the dry air and all. She had a slit cough but I didn't think anything of it.
We arrived on Saturday morning and was ready to play. We went shopping and had a great day. That night in the middle of the night Emma woke me up not feeling well. She had a temp but I didn't bring a thermometer with me. I gave her some tynole and told her to go back to sleep. My sister found her thermometer that next morning and she had a temp of 102. I wasn't worried about it she has had a temp that high before and thought it would go away soon.

On day three she still had a temp and she was starting to say that she really didn't feel good. I was starting to think that she had the flu. Again she has has the flu before so I was doing the usual things to keep her healthy but the weird thing was that she wasn't punking and having dierria. She wasn't eating anymore and she just had a really high temp. By day three or four is was getting up the 103 and not going anywhere. I was rotating between mortine and tynole everything 4 hours. She had a cold compress on her head and she was wearing her panties only so I could get her temp down. Nothing was working. Later that day she was starting to pant like a dog like it was hard for her to breath.

I took her to a doctor up there and he said that "she had the 5 day flu. Take her home." The only thing that he did was do a streap test on her and it was negative. Well duh..... I KNOW THAT SHE DOESN'T HAVE STREP!!! He also said that everything was clear. She sounds good. He made me mad.

Five days later....Emma was still sick. Nothing had gotten better. In fact she was getting worse. One day it was 103 all day. The next day she wasn't eating anymore and her temp had gone up to 104. She was pale white with bright red checks. She was panting like a dog still. Garrett and Tony gave her a blessing that she would feel better soon. The blessing that she got was a couple of days ago. Ever since that day that she got her blessing, I kept having the feeling that is was something else. It wasn't the flu that was making her sick. My heart was hurting so bad for her trying to keep her from crying. I was doing what the doctor said. It was the flu and it will pass. On day 5 of being at home with the flu.... her temp. got to 105.9. That is when I rushed her to the ER. I told the ER doctors what had been happening and what the other doctor did. The X-ray above showed that Emma had a very serious cause of pneumonia. She is lucky that her lung didn't collapse. For a normal x-ray of the lung it is suppose to be black. He lungs are full making the x-ray show up all white.

Emma's states were:

temp. - 105.9

pulse oxygen - 80

heart rate- 130 It might have been higher.

I remeber the numbers being really high.

left lung - full of fluid

Right lung -some fluid

flu- possible swine flu

I can't remember anything else.

The ER docs. put her on oxygen right away. I don't have any before pictures of her but she is looking soooooo much better after she was on oxygen for about 45 minutes. Emma did not like the IV but she did well for having on for the first time.

Here we are waiting to be transferred over to the hospital were she would be staying for 5 days. It was Thanksgiving day and Gavin was with my sister at their friends house eating dinner. Garrett went home to take care of Gavin and I went with Emma to the hospital. I followed the ambulance to the other hospital. I felt bad that I wasn't in there with her. She was brave. Lacy brought me Thanksgiving dinner to the hospital.

This is the that next morning. She looked terrible. She was on two different very powerful antibiotics. That morning her new doctor came in and looked over everything. Dr. Gooding saw that she was very sick. She wanted to put a tube in here lung to drain all the fluid out. The pediatric surgeon said he wasn't going to do anything until he got a CT. I really didn't want her to have a tube. I wanted to wait for the antibiotics to start working. The CT showed that she didn't need a tube. Thank goodness!!!!

Here Emma is doing some breathing treatments. The black vest she is wearing had tubes that hook up to it. When the machine on it blows air into the vest and makes her vibrate. It is to vibrate Emma so it will loosen up the fluid in her lungs. At first it was hurting but the more she did it the better it got. She did that three times a day with the mask to breath in medicine too. The therapist rotated between two different ways to break up the fluid. The vest is one and the other is pounding on her back. They would tilt the bed so her head is down and her feet is higher then her head. She would lay on the side and they pound on her back. She would cry when then did that one. The more they did it the better it got.

Here she is doing both. The vest and medicine. I think this might be day 2.

Here she is getting ready to get her CT done. My pictures are out of order. The nurse is trying to transfer all her equipment to her chair. The IV pole and oxygen. Ton of cords!!!!!

This might be day 3 or 4. She was feeling better to get out of bed. The nurses wanted her to walk the halls to get her moving. She needed to get some exercise. One lap made her start coughing so hard, that is all we could do. We couldn't leave the pediatric unit, because the labor and delivery unit was on the other side of the doors. No sick kids are allowed to leave. So we walked from that back wall to the door on the other side of the hall. It might have been 80 feet?? The more she walked the better she got.

My sister came alot to keep us company in the hospital. It got really boring after awhile. She also brought us food. Hospital food. Not the greatest. I'm soooo sick of watch Hanana Montana

Emma has a big thumbs up for feeling better. Still on oxygen on day 3.

Garrett and I rotated with the kids so I could go home and get some sleep. There was a couch that folded out to a bed. NOT the best thing to sleep on. Plus all the nurses coming in the middle of the night. Some night Emma had to do some breathing treatments. Poor thing she slept right through some of them. The vibrating vest, I would think that would be hard to sleep thought but she was so tired.

Garrett and Emma walking that hall. The only annoying thing bout that IV pole it has to go everywhere!!! Even to the bathroom. I swear she was going to the bathroom every hour. I know that she was getting alot to Saline but gezz. I have to unplug everything and take her and then plug her back up. That was even during the nights too. On day 3 she had to get another IV put in. Her old one wasn't working anymore. I swear the whole hospital heard her scream. She remember the first one and did not like it. Me and my sister had to hole her down. Plus she was wrapped in a blanket. That helped alot. Poor girl. I almost lost it myself. Watching her scream and cry. I had to be strong so she wouldn't see my eyes get all teary. We both did good. My hearing came back too.

This is day 4. She is doing alot better. She is smiling know. I haven't seen her smile in a long time. Every morning she was to get x-rays done to check the progress with her lungs. Day three noting had improved. It didn't get better but it didn't get worse. Day 4 was good. The cord on her finger is to check the oxygen in her blood. She was at a 94 so we are trying to see how she does walking around without being on oxygen. So far so good.

We are walking the halls with no pole yeah......

posing for the camera.....

Emma was flashing in the back. It was a bit drafty. She had pantys on.

Here she is doing her lung exercise. She blows into the green tube and it does something. I can't remember.

Here she is getting two things done at once. She is breathing in medicines and blowing out to exercise her lungs. You can see the cord in the picture.

Emma was tired of sitting in her bed.

coughing alot!!!!!

Aunt Lacy visiting us.

Emma feeling better.

This is the morning of day 5. We are getting ready to go home. Here Emma is doing some more breathing treatments. The x-ray that morning showed more improvement but not completely better. The only thing that let us go home was a test that came back was negative. Emma was tested for streptococcus pneumonia. That is very dangerous strand of pneumonia. Look it up.

We are ready to go home. After spending the first part of the week in bed and the last in the hospital, I would say that out Thanksgiving vacation SUCKED!!!!!!! It became a very scary, stressful and expensive vacation. After all that we had to drive back home to Texas. Lucky us.

As soon as we got home I had to find a pediatrician to follow up with the get more x-rays done. Emma wasn't allowed to go to school for a week. I had to do all her breathing treatments and home and get more very expensive antibiotics. Me....Dr. Mom gets to take care of Emma.

All I can say now after being home for two weeks. She is doing soooooo much better. Shes gone to school this week and is doing fine. She isn't coughing anymore and is acting like nothing has happened. It is amazing how fast kids can bounce back. I love her so much and is very gratful that she is doing better.

As for that other doctor that I took her too. Im very upset with him. I told them that she ended up in the ER and amidtted to the hospital for pneumonia. He really didn't resond like he missed anything. This could have been prevented from geting so bad. The other doctor messes up big time. Anyways.....I'll get off my soap box.

So, she was tested for the flu Influenzia A and B that came back negative. But those test are so inconclusive anywasys that the resluts really don't matter. They only show about being 30%- 40% acturate. Emma was suspected to have swime flu that went into pneumonia really fast.

Thank you everyone for all the kind words and prays for her.

My Photo Editing Business

Hi everyone!
It has been a long time since I have posted anything. I have been busy with my new online business. Yes, Im a business women now.

I've always been the creative type. I have a passion for pictures. I love looking at a picture and notice all the details- the light, the color, the composition and the emotion. I've been editing pictures for the last five years. It mostly started out as a hobby then my hobby became a passion. Now I have my business of editing photos. The software I use is Photoshop CS4. I love Photoshop. I have unlimited amount of creativity with it. A blend of creativity, style, and attention to details are words used to describe my work. Details do matter! My main focus is making sure the viewer has know idea changes have been made to a photo. I have been thinking of going back to school as well. I will find out in a couple of days if that is happening. Im keeping my fingers and toes crossed. In the future I am planning on doing the photography side of it too. As for right now photo editing is my main focus. Im so excited about it.

Here is my website so you can see my work. Im still working on it so bare with me. Eventually I will have a actual website instead of a blog. Im working on it.

http://www.wix.com/edmondsonkaty/FIX-PIX

Let me know if you need anything done. Im happy to help.

Katy Edmondson

I can Fly............

Gavin is growing up to be such a boy. He loves to have a cap and jump onto things thinking he can fly.
His latest trick is tucking his blanket into this shirt and having daddy throw him up in the air.

All you can hear is HIGHER......HIGHER.....HIGHER.......

FLY........FLY ................FLY..............

Poor daddy is getting so red in the face and tired of throwing him in the air. Gavin isn't a little boy. Garrett isn't going to be able to do this much longer. Gavin is so cute when is wants to fly. Let hope Gavin doesn't get any wild ideas and break something one day.

On the move again....

Well...here is our big announcement. We are moving to San Antonio next week on the 26th of September. Garrett got a new job with Catapult Systems Inc. He is going to be a Computer Software Engineer. We are really super excited about the move. We are going to be in North San Antonio around the 281 and 1064 area. We are hoping to be there for a long time. We are so sick of moving. With Garrett's last couple of jobs not being very stable with the economy, this company is not going anywhere. The company was rated in the top 25 best companies. That makes us feel better. If you are ever in San Antonio, please hook us up. We will be out of touch for awhile but will be back online soon. Wish us luck.

Life in Saudi Arabia....

Well... Grandpa Edmodson got a new job in Saudi Arabia and left last weekend. Last Saturday was our last visit with him for a long time. Grandma Edmondson will be leaving in January. A one way flight from Houston, Tx to Saudi Arabia is 16 hours on a double decker air bus. I'm sure those plane you fly in style. He is right outside of Aubi.

Here is a letter that we have receive from his first couple of days.
Update:

It is good to have friends and family around the world who will stay in touch! I really appreciate the your note. I have never felt isolated before and I won't here as my LDS manager has taken very good care of me. We will have a team of 6 leadership consultants and when they arrive there will be a good bond.
The people here have been wonderfully kind and accommodating. I run to the beach (about 1.5 miles to the Persian Gulf) and have a swim in a very nice pool every morning before work... it has been great! The air quality is OK and importantly, though there is a big city "feel" (like Long Beach) there is very little traffic on nice freeway systems main roads. However, off the main road, things are a bit more primitive. So my location is great but the accommodations are what you said "manageable" not fashionable (no one in the bureaucracy is trying to impress or show any favors to this American).
I expect that you have seen the work experience many times before. People smile and are gracious. Their heads all nod "yes" and there is no attempt to do anything different (yes we want to hear about improvement but things are working "comfortably" now). Our new High Potential may have an opportunity to move some new people into leadership positions in a couple of years.... but I wouldn't bet on it.


He sounds good and is liking it there so far. We do have more family that has been living over in Saudi for the last 4 years and love it there. They are showing hime the ropes. It is so interesting listening to their stories about how it is over there. I have heard some amazing stories. Life is so different there.

Honestly, I'm not sure if I want to ever live there. I have heard lots of positive things about living in the compounds. Living in the compound is the ONLY way I would go. It is very westernized in the Aramco Compound. Women can't drive ever but I think American women don't have to were the burka. I might be wrong. Definitely outside the compound you do have to were a burka. Live there is so laid back. With the culture, there are so many religious holidays so you get lots of days off work. Really you get ALOT off. You get paid a ton with alot of down time if you are an American. It took my father en-law about 3 months to get a working visa passport to go over there. So once he found out that he got the job, he didn't leave until 3 months. That is very slow to get a visa.

I love there saying,"We have been around for thousands of years, we are not going anywhere any time soon."

Well, grandpa, I wish you the best and be safe!!!! We already miss you. Im loving that we have skype!