What a busy last week! And to clarify, Elden is still in the hospital. I realize in my last post it probably sounded as if Elden was home with us. I wish he was!

I will try to make this update short, but who knows, I might go into more detail than some of you care for. So if you are one of those people, scroll down for some pictures!

Saturday morning we left very early from the Ronald McDonald House and headed to Memphis. We were on the freeway by 3:00am. It was my choice to leave so early, so I volunteered to drive. It was my first time driving since I drove myself to the hospital about 2am on February 2nd.

We met up with Lena and Mike and three of their kids and Shanna and Haley in Memphis (well, Bartlett actually). I had envisioned getting some big hugs from my little girls, but no such luck. They were not happy to see me--not that they were mad to see me, but they shied away from me when I would try and hug them or pick them up. They instantly warmed up to Lee. I was not surprised though.

Lena and Mike did sealings and we watched their kids at the nursery in the Stake Center. When they got back from doing sealings, Shanna went up to Mike and pulled on his pant legs and raised her arms up for him to pick her up. It was weird and cute and funny. Lena and Mike had somewhat become their parents. Considering Lena took care of them for over two months (Feb 6th to April 18th) that is 10% of their lives!

While in Memphis I also got to see the Yorgasons and the Schauerhamers, which was really fun. I should have taken pictures of them!!! Plus I saw a couple other people that I know. I messed things up and didn't get to see my friend Laura though. Oh well. We drove into the Cabanas and showed Clark where we used to live. We still have a parking sticker on our van for that place, but no one was in the guard shack anyway, so we drove right in. We made it out without any gun hold-ups. (Lee was extra glad about that I am sure.) We arrived back home about 9pm.

It was great to see everyone at church on Sunday, back in our regular ward. It was so sweet as many people went out of their way to say hi to me and ask how Elden and I were doing.

Last week was VERY busy. We spent the week organizing some things and taking care of kids. It was great and weird to be back home. For the first few days we felt like we were babysitting Lena's twin girls. Also I think everything that has happened to me really sunk in.

One project that we finished up last week was switching kitchens. I know, not many people have the luxury of having two kitchens. Our "regular" kitchen has been invested [when I was re-reading my blog checking for mistakes, I thought it was so funny that I wrote invested instead of infested. Guess you can tell what's on my mind!] with ants for MONTHS; since last November! Sure ants are better than cockroaches, but it was even more frustrating because I basically always keep my kitchen clean. I cannot go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink (unless I know that Lee is going to do them.) And with keeping the kitchen clean the ants got into the dishwasher and would eat the food off the dishes in there! GROSS!

The week prior, Lee and my dad and Chris moved our washer and dryer into the ant kitchen and Lee moved a lot of things into the "laundry room". So we finished up the move last week. (Sorry, this was a little anti-climactic.) I really think our North wall of the house is invested [ha ha, I did it twice!] with ants.

We went to the park a few times and enjoyed visiting with our great neighbors. We walked to and from school a few times as it was wonderful weather last week! Lee and Clark rode their bikes to Clark's school two days. Oh, and Clark learned how to ride his bike in about 20 seconds! We all were excited about that and it was fun I could be there for it! We also made another big, fat loan payment. November 13th is getting nearer!

Friday morning we headed out for a craft activity at the community center. We were going to walk over so I wanted to wear something comfortable. With all the walking around our house my feet were hurting and I didn't want to walk a mile in flip-flops. So I wore a t-shirt, some stretchy shorts and my running shoes.

I got to the craft thing at about 10:20, and I saw through the window that one of my friends from church had showed up too. I opened the door and they said "Surprise! Welcome to your craft activity!" It was a BABY SHOWER for me and Elden!!! I was SOOOOO SURPRISED! I was SHOCKED! WOW! I was glad it was a surprise because I wasn't going to take up any offers of a baby shower. With Elden being my 5th kid and Lee already having two showers in honor of him and Elden at work, I figured the shower parties were done. But no!!! My friends Kelly, Claudia, Kristi, and Theresa gave me a fun shower (I think those were the main people...) A lot of my friends came and it was fun to see them and visit, even if for a little bit. Thank you everyone!!!

Saturday morning we went to Calvin's baptism. It was really nice. Malee gave a great talk about baptism and becoming part of Christ's family, and Calvin and his friend/relative that was baptised right after him, did a great job with singing a song together about baptism. After that we went home and finished some laundry and packing and headed up to Columbia again. I was able to do a little shopping and we later met Lee's parents up here. We had a nice weekend together--and somewhat crazy with all the kids--and they are all now at home, including Lee's parents. They will be with Lee and the kids for a week.

It was so good to be home. I really just wanted to stay, but knew of course it would be good for Elden for me to be with him.

Elden is doing really well and hopefully we can ALL go home in about 3 weeks! He is now 4 pounds 6.2 ounces and getting 37 milliliters of milk at each feeding. It was really funny when we came in Saturday night to see him. The nurses told me they had ran out of my milk and Elden had been getting formula Friday night and during the day Saturday. I was very surprised. We couldn't go down to verify and check the freezer in the main NICU as it was during shift change. So Lee and I went back to the Ronald McDonald House and got 50 or so containers of my milk. (I have about 200 of them there.) I brought them back and in the NICU freezer there about 30 containers of my milk! So, I put some containers in another plastic shoe box thing. The rest I left in the grocery bag on the bottom of the freezer. It was kind of funny. Lee and I were sure that I had left enough milk for Elden. And I had. Now there is a surplus in the NICU. A big surplus.

Tonight I went up to get Elden ready for his bottle feeding and he had pulled his feeding tube all the way out. The whole tube was across his face and a little behind his head. That was the first time I'd seen it ALL the way out from him pulling it on his own accord. Elden is now on all bottle feedings or PO feedings as they call it. Once he goes 24 hours drinking all of his milk from his bottle feedings he can get his feeding tube pulled out. Well, he didn't do very well at his 11:30 feeding, so he would have to wait another 24 hours. Tonight though, since he pulled it out, the nurses are just going to keep it out till he needs it again. Hopefully he won't need it. If he doesn't drink all of his milk during a feeding the nurse will have to put the tube back in to finish the feeding with the tube.

He will have another head ultrasound on Friday. I hope everything will look good and that a cyst won't have developed!

Enjoy your week!

Some pictures from my baby shower. I should have had pictures taken of all my friends that came! But it was such a surprise that getting pictures of my friends didn't cross my mind.