March Madness!

March definitely came in like a lion... Kellen was hospitalized again. I was counting, he has been hospitalized 6 times in the last 15months. This time it was another seizure at home. Kellen was taken to St. Joesph's hospital for workup. He had 2 more seizures while he was in the hospital. They did an MRI, EEG, EKG, and some lab work. Dr Johnsen our neurologist said the best case scenario was all the test would come back normal and we would not have an answer for his seizures. Thank goodness everything did come back normal and Kellen was put on an anti-seizure medication called Keppra. Here is hoping we have no more seizure!!
Because of Kellen's hospitalization and new onset seizures, I had to cancel my girls trip with my friends Christy and Luna. I was able to meet up with them for some dinner and drinks before they left. It was so nice to see them and spend some time with them even if it was shorter than I had planned.
March was full of sick kids. First Kellen would get sick then Owen, then Kellen again... on and on this whole month. However, I am hopeful that March is leaving like a lamb.. the boys are finally healthy and I had a great birthday thanks to my husband, boys, and my family and friends.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just wanted to say thanks to the 2 best boys and husband a girl could ever want. They surprised me with some flowers and a charm for my braclet. Well, I should say the charm was a surprise. Owen did tell me 2 days ago..." Mom, we are getting you some red flowers for Valentine's day". What a little ham. I love you more than words can ever say. My heart is filled because of these 3 special men in my life.
We had a blast on sunday baking and decorating cookies with auntie Cherie and Jenna. We also celebrated Cherie's birthday with a special cake that Owen helped to make. Happy Birthday Auntie. You continue to get more beautiful every year!!

Happy Valentine's Day to all our friends and family.

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy birthday to grandpa Paul!! We miss you and love you very much. We wish we were there to celebrate with you. Owen has been singing happy birthday to you all morning.

Happy New Year's to everyone. I am not usually a resolution girl but this year I thought I would make some simple and attainable resolutions. My first resolution is to blog at least once a month to keep family and friends updated with our life here in AZ. I am happy to say I am already on my way to keeping this one since this is my first blog of the year. Secondly, I will smile more and laugh often. Not sure how to really measure this, but I will enlist the help of my husband. I tend to be a girl whose cup is half empty instead of half full. So, I thought by smiling and laughing more I will shift to be a more positive person, and at the end of the year my cup will be half full. Finally, I will lose the rest of my baby weight. Easily measured by stepping on the scale.

Our family hopes 2011 is full of health and happiness for all our friends and family!!!

The holiday season

Auntie Shel and Auntie Cherie
Kellen and grandpa Bob

The Engen-Thatcher family x-mas

Cute cousins

Daddy and Owen with the same tools

X-mas morning at the Engen house

Christmas came and went way too fast this year. We spent x-mas eve at Auntie Cherie's with Steve's family. On Christmas morning the boys opened their gifts and we ate our traditional

x-mas french toast. After a short nap, we headed over to our good friends the Thatchers for some more yummy food.

Heres hoping 2011 brings the Engen family less trips to the ER, no hospital stays, answers to Kellen's problems, and lots of health................

What a weekend!

Kellen being transferred from JCL to PCH hospital

So, our discharge from the hospital on Friday evening was short lived. It is hard to imagine from the last picture this happened to Kellen when he looked so happy. Friday night I went to check on Kellen to find that he vomited all over himself and his bed. We cleaned him up and put him in bed with us where he vomited one more time.

On Saturday morning he woke up sluggish but otherwise fine. Steve left with his dad to run some errands for the house, so the boys and I were hanging out together. This is when things took a turn for the worse. I was helping Owen get undressed when I saw Kellen fall to the floor. At first I thought he was puking, but when I picked him up his lips were blue and he was not breathing. I called 911 and just kept thinking I am going to give my child CPR. Kellen's eyes rolled back and one of his hands was drawn up to his chest. I would guess the whole incident lasted less than a minute but it felt like a eternity. Kellen was breathing when the paramedics arrived but was not responsive. He was gray and limp and would not open his eyes. To say I was hysterical is a understatement. The one thing that kept me sane was Terry. Terry is a fireman and a first responder. He is also the husband of Connie, the lady who watches the boys when I am sleeping after work. I was shocked when he walked through the door. Terry had just seen Kellen the night before, he kept saying he looked so good last night. Terry was wonderful. He was patient with me when I was hysterical and told me everything they were doing to help Kellen. He Kept reassuring me Kellen would be ok. Also he helped with Owen so he wasn't so scared. Owen knows Terry well and so he thought Terry was just there to visit. We all rode in the ambulance together to JCL hospital. Shorty after arrival Kellen was more responsive. We were then transferred back to PCH hospital for a neurological consult.

After 2 days, some lab work, an IV and fluids, and an EEG we were able to go home. Thank goodness the EEG and lab work were all ok. The doctors think Kellen had a vagal response to his reflux. This means when your vagas nerve is stimulated it causes your heart rate to drop and you pass out. I wanted to jump across the room and strangle the neurologist when she told us everything was normal and we should chalk it up to WBS. What is WBS? I was wondering that as well. She said WBS is weird baby stuff. How reassuring...

Yesterday, Kellen had lots of loose stool and was still vomiting. The good thing, he was drinking well. Finally, today I think he has turned the corner. Knock on wood, but he has not vomited and he had no loose stools. He is still not eating well and has lost over a pound since getting sick. However, I think this will come in the next couple of days when his stomach has more time to settle down.

Thanks again to all our family and friends who help out with Owen, brought us food, and were there for emotional support. Lets hope this is the last visit to the hospital for the Engens FOREVER!!!!!!

Happy to be home!

Our happy boy.

Snuggling with gramdma in the hospital!

Yeah, we were discharged from the hospital today. Kellen is not quite a 100% but well enough to go home. The results from the sweat test were not back yet, we will get them when we follow up with our pediatrician (Dr.Lisa) next week. They also did some more blood work today and that came back normal. Kellen is eating and drinking a little better but not back to his norm. He had no vomiting today and not as many loose stools.

The plan is to continue to see Dr Mccomber our GI (gastrointestinal) as well as a new doctor, Dr. Caspers. He is an immunologist. Our doctors think it would be good to pick Dr. Caspers brain to see if he has any thoughts or suggestion regarding Kellen's condition. The doctors said Kellen's situation is so rare that they can only speculate why it is occurring. Their theory is that Kellen is very sensitive to vaccinations. When vaccinated, Kellen's immune system is sent into overdrive causing the lymph nodes in his gut to swell. This reaction causes inflammation in his gut and is possibly why he gets the intussecption after vaccines. Again, this is only a theory. For now, we will hold off on Kellen's immunizations until his gut heals. In the future if we vaccinate him, he will need steroids prior to the vaccination and after to help decrease the inflammation in his gut caused by the vaccine. This will hopefully prevent an intusseption.

Thank you to everyone for all you prayers and concerns. We are so happy we did not get any bad news today. The Engens

Not again...

Finishing the CT scan. Kellen was

a trouper holding really still!! His

prize, a cute cuddly bear.

One of his rare perky times

Kellen was hospitalized yesterday with his 3rd intussecption. (This is when part of your bowel telescopes into itself, causing a blockage.) I thought this nightmare was over. We are currently at PCH and have been running test to figure out why this keeps happening. Everyone, including the doctors, are shocked that this has occurred again. So far, his CT scan showed no abnormalities or obstructions. We are set to due a sweat test to r/o cystic fibrosis. His lab work show that his is fighting off some kind of infection or a stress response. His ultrasound yesterday showed 3 spots where his bowels were intussepting. The second US, from today, showed that they resolved on their own. Yeah some good news today. Kellen is still pretty irritable and has a hard time getting comfortable. He is not really eating or drinking yet, and is having lots of stool loss. My poor bubba, I hate seeing him in pain and so lethargic. He is like a wet noodle when you hold him. However, he did have a few times when he felt a little better and would perk up for a short time. Hopefully tomorrow will hold some much needed answers.

We are finally back!!!

It has been almost a year since my last blog, so I thought it was time to start again. A lot has happened since the last blog. Owen turned 3 in July and had a toy story themed party back in MN. He has also mastered riding a trike and sleeps in a big boy bed. We are still working on the potty training which is a very slow and torturing process for me .

Kellen turned one in Novemeber. We had his birthday in anthem at the train park. It was the perfect day for a party. Kellen is now walking, talking, and getting into everything. Owen calls him destructo because he destroys all his tunnels that he had work hard building. He loves food and eats almost anything. He is definitely going to be the linebacker in the family.

Steve and I have spent the last year trying to adjust to our new family of 4. We moved last august into a bigger house and are still tryinng to settle in. Our 2 crazy boys have made the moving process much more challening. We will spend christmas this year in AZ. We are going to steve's sisters house on x-mas eve. The boys and I are hoping to get back to MN at the end of december.Well, that more or less gets us back up to speed. My new years resolution is to update at least once a month and become more blogger savy. Hope the holiday season is finding everyone healthy and happy.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our family and friends. This year was our first year together as a family of 4. Our new addition, Kellen, has made our family complete. He is now one month old and growing so fast. At his 1 month well check he weighed 9lbs 70z and was 20 3/4 inches. I thought he was a good pound bigger than Owen at this age but it turns out Owen was 10lbs 3oz and 21 1/4 inches at one month. I was shocked when I looked at Owen's calender to compare the 2.

Owen is the best big brother. He loves Kellen. The first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning or from his afternoon nap is ask, " Where is my baby?" Hopefully this love will continue as Kellen gets bigger and wants to play with Owen's stuff. Owen is getting to be such a big boy. He loves to play games. His favorite games these days are hungry hippo and whack a mole. He also loves to build with his blocks and clippos. And lets not forget his obsessions with cars and trains. He received lots of geo tracks for christmas, he was able to build radiator springs city. He loves to design the tracks and town with his dad. I, of course, hate how it takes up the half the living room floor.

A big thanks to my sister and my mom for all their help this last month. It made our transition to a family of 4 a lot easier than expected. We love you lots!!!

Welcome Kellen Eric Engen

Kellen was born on November 20th, 2009 at 1003. He weighed 7lbs 5.5oz and was 19 inches long. He is our chunky monkey. Kellen was slow to wake and eat at first so we had to stay an extra day in the hospital. He left the hospital weighing 6lbs 11oz. This last monday we had our second weight check and he is close to his birth weight, 7lbs 3oz. Yeah!!!

Owen has been the sweetest big brother. He was a little slow to warm at first, but once he did he couldn't get enough of his little brother. Owen wants to hold him, give him kisses, and most of all he loves to sing to him. Anytime Kellen moves or squaks Owen will say " Whats he doing?" He gets so excited when Kellen opens his eyes. Owen will say " He is looking at me." with a big smile on his face.

Thank you to all our family and friends for your prayers, gifts, visits, and encouraging words. It has meant the world to our family. We wish you all a safe and happy holiday season that is filled with many blessings. Lots of love- The Engens

The Polar Express

Last saturday we took Owen to the polar express. It is a train ride in Williams, AZ that mimics the book The Polar Express. When you board the train you are greeted by the chefs. The train takes off and the story begins. The chefs serve you cookies and hot chocolate as the book is read overhead. You are whisked into the magic and end up at the north pole. It is so cute. After you arrive at the north pole, Santa boards the train. He gives each kid a bell, just like in the story. They finish with some carols and you leave the north pole. It was a wonderful experience. Owen was so exicted to ride a real choo-choo. He kept saying.. can we go now. You can just see in the pics how mesmorized he was by the train.

More pumpkin fun.

Decorating pumpkins with dad.

Hay maze.

The Botanical Gardens

We hit our second pumpkin patch this year at the botanical gardens. It was a steamy day but we still mananged to have a blast. We took a tractor ride out to a hay maze and then to the patch. Owen decorated his pumpkin with dad and played for a short time at the petting zoo. After taking the tractor ride back, we ate a quick lunch of corn dogs. Then it was off to the butterflys. The gardens had this cute monarch butterfly exhibit that we visited. Owen loved all the butterflys flying around his head and feet. After some ice cream to cool us all down we headed home. I love October and all the fun festivals it has to offer. Only 2 more days til Halloween and Owen is so excited to go trick or treating. He is going to be Frankenstein.

Happy Birthday Dad!!

Tonight we celeberated Steve's b-day a day early because Owen was so excited for his dad's b-day. He picked out his cake, card, and even the stylish jeans we bought him . He sang happy b-day and we all ate yummy cake. Tomorrow we are going out to eat at Oregano's and then it is off to a football game. We are very lucky to have such an awesome dad and charming husband. How handsome are these two. Happy Birthday Steve!! 29 years young and looking better every year...love you

What a social butterfly.

Owen is such a sweet boy. On saturday I took him to the splash park. It was 100 degrees and a good way to cool off. Owen loves to play with other kids. He quickly makes friends when we go to play at public places. As he was playing with this little girl about his age, I was listening to his conversation with her. I heard him say to her " What is your favorite color?" I was amazed that he would ask her this question. He is so social, a trait he definitely gets from his dad.

On sunday when we were watching the viking's game, Owen says to his dad "dad its not my fault". He was referring to something he had just done. How he comes up with some of this stuff I have no idea. His other big saying lately is " I got an idea".. followed usually by lets play cars or trains. He just loves to talk. His vocabulary has exploded this last month because he loves to repeat everything you say. We definitely have to be very careful what we say around this little parrot.

It's pumpkin time.

6 weeks to go and counting..
Watching the fireworks with Jenna.

Oh pumpkin head.


The Engen family.

Playing in the hay.

Ohh... such a handsome boy.

Finally October is here, my favorite month of the year. I love October because the weather is starting to change, the holidays are around the corner, and things just seem crisper. This last saturday we went to Schenpf farms with Owen's cousin Jenna and his auntie Cherie. We had a blast. They went on some rides, rode the haunted choo choo train, picked out a pumpkin, had some great food, and finished the night with some fireworks. The weather was perfect, not too hot and not too cold.

Happy Birthday to our October family and friends- Logan 1st b-day, Jaxson, and auntie Shel. We wish you all a year of happiness and health.

We still have not settled on a name for the new baby to be. So, any suggestion would be great. I am 33 weeks and can't wait to be done. We had a little scare last week when the doctor said I needed another ultrasound. I was measuring small, so they wanted to make sure everything was still on track. The neonatologist gave us the thumbs us saying, "this baby is a A+". What a relief. I think I just have small babies. Owen was only 6lb 8oz and I don't anticipate this baby being much bigger. As of right now the baby is weighing 3lbs 4oz. He has Owen's nose and some hair but his profile looks a lot different than Owen. The tech assured us this baby was 1000% a boy! We can't wait to meet the newest member of our family.

Owen's belated birthday party!

All partied out!
Phi and dad enjoying the museum.

Owen's ice cream cake. Yummy!

We celebrated Owen's birthday this last saturday at the children's musuem. Our summer has been crazy, so we were a month late on his party. It was a blast with all his friends and our family. They did crafts-colored and designed eye glasses, frosted cup cakes, sang songs, and played throughout the musuem. Thanks so much to all our family and friends who attended and all the great gifts Owen received. Here are the only pictures I have of the party. I was so busy running around I forgot to take pictures. If anyone has pics from the party, I would be really grateful if you could email some to me.

Our 2yr old

Anniversary dinner at Ah-So
Our cute 2yr old

Beautiful Estes Park, Colorado

Rodeo parade in Estes Park

Yesterday Owen had his 2yr well check up. We are about a month late because of vacations and a crazy summer. He now weighs 24lbs 5oz and is 34 inches. This puts him in the 10%tile for weight and 50%tile for height. Yeah, he is no longer in the shrimpy catergory for height. This is the 1st time since birth that he has been anything above 25% for height. Lately Owen's favorite word has been NOT, which drives me nuts. "Owen do you want to go to the store with moma? " Owen's response, "NOT". Everything is not. He did do the cutest thing the other day at breakfast. He was reaching around me to get something, and he said "Excuse me, moma". So sweet.

So as I mentioned earlier we have had a busy summer. In early July we went to Estes Park, Colorado with Steve's family to celebrate his parents 50th wedding anniversary. We had lots of fun getting to see Steve's brothers family who live in Michigan. We don't get to see them too often so it was really nice to spend lots of time with them during the week. We went hiking, fishing, took a tram ride up the moutian, mini golfing, amusement park, and saw lots of fun animals. Owen's favorite was when we fed the chipmunks. They are all tame, so they eat peanuts out of your hand. He also fed some beavers bread in back of Chris and Brenda's cabin. It was lots of fun spending time with all of steve's family. We loved our Colorado vacation.

Oh, also in July Jennifer, steve's cousin, had her second baby... Benjamin Micheal. Congrats! Now the new baby engen will have another boy cousin close in age. Yeah!

Since returning from Colorado, we have had my neice Nicole, from MN, stay with us. She is Owen's godmother. Nicole will be a junior this year in school. She has been so much fun. She just loves Owen and has been a big help to me. We love her so much, it was really hard when she left this past sunday. We also have my soon to be adopted brother, Phi, staying with us. He arrived saturday aug 1. Phi will be a senior in school this year. He has been with our family since early grade school. It has been so nice to have one on one time with both of them. We love when family comes to stay with us. We miss our Minnesota family all the time.

On the 29th of July, we celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary. I have the sweetest husband ever. He is handsome, kind, and a wonderful dad. We took my neice and Owen to AH-SO. It was so cute to see Owen and Nicole's face as they cooked the food. They loved it. Lots of July b-days to celebrate. Happy birthday to my neices Hannah and Kellie! Happy birthday to our nephew Micheal and my best friends litte boy Grant. Happy b-day to Owen's little buddies Cole and Brady. And finally Happy b-day to our sweet little boy! He is growing way too fast. We are amazed everyday with what he says and does. Oh the other day he did a summersault all by himself. We are very blessed to have such a beautiful boy and wonderful family and friends. Happy Summer to all of you. Enjoy it, it's going fast.

It's a baby....

We found out today that Owen is going to have a little baby .... BROTHER. We are excited and anxious to add another addition to our family. I think there was something in the water at the house I lived in college. My senior year I lived with my 4 soriety sisters. Of the 4 of us, 3 have children. Laura has 3 boys, Su has 2 boys and another on the way (sex still to be determined), and me now with 2 boys. Hmm... makes you wonder if we were too much to handle that God gave us all boys to counter our crazy times at college.

Lazy memorial weekend

Playing b-ball with gramps.
Oh, man what have I got myself into.

I love to play,play, play.

These pictures are actually from MN and not this last weekend. We had such a nice and relaxing memorial weekend. I have worked friday and saturday nights for the last month, so our family time has definitely been limited. It was so nice to have 3 whole days with my boys. We went swimming, slept in late, and had lots of fun playing together. The weather was perfect. Why is it that the good times go by way too fast.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy mother's day to all my family and friends who are moms. A special shout out to my mom, who is the best mom in the whole world. Thanks for always supporting me and loving me. You are my angel who has always watched out for me and protected me. I love you!!

I love being a mom. It has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. I am very blessed to have a wonderful 22 month boy and a new baby on the way. I am very lucky mom. I never could of dreamed of a better life than the one I have because of my family and friends.

As promised here are some more pics of our trip to MN and Owen in his cute big brother shirt. What a handsome man.