Seeing big differences

My little baby boy is not so little anymore. He is a 8 month, 20 pound ball of energy! So much has changed in the last few weeks, I thought I better write about it. Brigham has become such an amazing little man. His surgery went very well and we and his surgeon are extremely pleased with the results.

Right after surgery he was just really sleepy and hungry. He slept nearly all day! The day after surgery he wasn't in pain anymore and he was back to being his regular happy little self. Except for a few things. He was extremely wiggly and wouldn't sit still. Ever. haha. He immediately started to army crawl everywhere. He is happier for longer. He smiles bigger. He laughs at funny faces. It is like he was given a new life. One where people look nicer and the toys are much more fun to play with. One where the trees have leaves and mommy has earrings. haha. yeah. He pulls on my earrings now. But that is something I am willing to deal with if it means he can see.

I was talking to my dad about all the advances there have been in medicine and what doctors are now able to do. I am a firm believer that the things they do are miracles. Science is a miracle. All truth and knowledge flows from a loving God. Men are inspired by God and by the intrinsic desire we all have to create and therefore become more like our God who created all things. I am grateful that I am able to create. To bring life onto this earth. I am also extremely grateful for those with great minds who have created cures and created techniques to fix my little ones. We were blessed to have an amazing pediatric ophthalmologist who did a great job fixing Brigham's eyes. Our little man truly has a new outlook on life. :) 

Right before surgery

Day after surgery (his eyes are looking more straight everyday)

8 months old!

Update on the Burdett Family

The phone call I have been long awaiting has finally come! Brigham has a surgery date set for April 16th. Am I nervous? yes. Excited? yes. I am hoping that his eyes and his brain take to the surgery well so that he can see the way that we are all meant to see. I am grateful that he will be getting surgery a few weeks before Lindsey (my sister) gets married. He will be able to see how beautiful she is when she comes out of the temple a married woman. Lydia is so excited to go to the temple and see Auntie Lindsey in a beautiful white dress. Lydia tells me she wants to go inside the temple. I am truly blessed in this life I am living. 

Also in other news, we will be moving again come September. We will be moving to Orton to live in and fix up Anthony's parents house. Anthony is super excited to be able to live in the country again. Also he has become very interested (obsessed) with building an underground greenhouse. He will be able to build one when we go down there. 

Now, we as a family felt very inspired to move up here to Cochrane, but after spending a few months up here, we felt prompted this was not the place for us to stay. It is so beautiful up here and the ward is amazing. Leaving this place is not going to be as easy as I thought it might be when we first moved. When we first decided to move from Lethbridge, Brigham wasn't crossed eyed at all. Since we moved up here he has had many appointments with specialists in Calgary, just minutes away. If we were in Lethbridge, we would have had to drive up almost every other week. I know some people do it, but with a small baby it can be difficult...especially when you have to be on time. Haha.

This weekend we are going down to Cardston to be there with my sister as she goes to the temple to receive her endowment. I am so proud of her and the life she has lived so far. I hope I can be so fortunate as to see all my kids in the temple one day. :)

Sunday musings

This past Sunday we had a lesson in Relief Society about the significance of the sacrament. It was awesome. I felt the spirit and I am sure others did too. Although most of the conversation seemed to centre around teaching our children the importance of the sacrament, and how to keep them reverent during the sacrament, my mind was elsewhere. Not far away but I was taken back to my University years. Back to when I was playing rugby for the Pronghorns. It was a lot of hard work and a lot of fun. The girls I played with were awesome and so nice. It was a little bit of a harsher environment than I was used to but I wasn't doing anything bad. Well except for the fact that I was required to play on Sundays. In my position (Wing) there were quite a few girls and so I didn't play every game but I did play often. I used to hope that I wouldn't have to play on Sundays but the finals were ALWAYS on Sundays, and who doesn't want to play in a final. It really wore on me (and my spirit) and I lost confidence in my playing ability because I wanted to play, but at the same time I really didn't want to. I am sure my coaches thought I was the strangest person on earth. Anyway, back to the point. Since I was on the team and we travelled many different places I was unable to just sneak away and go to church. I really wanted to, but I just couldn't. There was a time in my first year that I missed something like 3 or 4 Sundays in a row. I never felt worse in my entire life. It was a hard time for me because it was so spiritually draining. I can see why it has been so easy for people who continue on in Sunday sports to just become complacent with their lives in the spotlight. The fame and the accomplishments. The "fun". I came from a home where I could feel the spirit and I could not deny it. I yearned to take the sacrament because I had been taught of the importance of making and keeping covenants in this life. There was a part of the lesson that stuck out to be because I feel strongly that we should partake of the sacrament often and remember the great sacrifice of our Saviour.

The Lord has commanded us to meet often to partake of the sacrament.

The person who absents himself from a sacrament meeting week after week and month after month, and nothing prevents him from coming, is not loyal to the truth. He does not love it. If he did, he would be present to partake of these emblems—just a little piece of bread, a little cup of water. He would want to do that to show his love for the truth and his loyal service to the Son of God.

We have been called upon to commemorate this great event [the Atonement of Jesus Christ] and to keep it in mind constantly. For this purpose we are called together once each week to partake of these emblems, witnessing that we do remember our Lord, that we are willing to take upon us his name and that we will keep his commandments. This covenant we are called upon to renew each week, and we cannot retain the Spirit of the Lord if we do not consistently comply with this commandment. If we love the Lord we will be present at these meetings in the spirit of worship and prayer, remembering the Lord and the covenant we are to renew each week through this sacrament as he has required it of us.

I love the Lord and I am so grateful I live in a time where I can go to church every week! It is so close too! An easy 2 minute drive. After feeling the spirit there and knowing what I know, there is no reason for me to not go every week. It is that important.

I don't regret playing rugby, but I am glad I got out of it when I did...testimony in tact. 

Brigham and his eyes

I consider myself to be very blessed and just a little bit lucky too. There are some things that I just simply have not had to endure and I am so very grateful. I am so blessed to have two beautiful children. However, one of them is cross eyed. That is what I want to talk about. Ever since Brigham was about two or three months old he started to cross his eyes. At first I thought, no big deal, all babies cross their eyes sometimes. But thennnn they never went back. He has been diagnosed with congenital esotropia. They don't know why it happens, but from what I've read it happens more often than you would think. Sometimes it can be fixed with glasses, but in Brighams case, we are looking at surgery.

Ahhh. My little mommy heart! Surgery? They like to do this particular surgery between the ages of 6months to a year in hopes that the eyes will restore binocularity. Else the brain will switch back between looking with one eye to the other like he is now. Actually right now he only likes to look with his right eye, so we have to patch it for an hour a day until he is back to "normal". Then comes surgery. And of course I have watched the surgery on youtube. Save yourself. Refrain from watching it. Your eyes will itch for the next few days if you do.

I thought at first I could fix his eyes with a little workout routine I developed. Haha. I honestly think it helps to keep his eyes working and not settling into lazy habits. But much to my dismay I cannot fix every ail that my precious children may encounter. I am so very grateful that I live in a day where this type of thing can be fixed. Even if it has to be surgery. I read the comments under the gross eye surgery that I watched and there were adults who were talking about how they dealt with crossed eyes their whole life and how much they were made fun of. Brigham hasn't really been made fun of but young children do ask questions and I am totally ok with that. But make fun of him and you are in for a world of hurt. Lydia can sure pack a punch. haha. In all honesty though I am grateful that this surgery option is available. To get him back to normal. Or as close to normal as he could ever be with the parents he has. :)

Oh and as a side note, the Alberta Childrens Hospital is so cool! Well at least the part we went to. They have done a good job making it look like a happy and safe place to be. The people that work there are extremely friendly and nice as well.

Yes, we are moving

You heard right. The Burdett family is packing up and moving. We are moving to the wonderful town of Cochrane. Anthony is working at CNRL for 8 months. It is part of his schooling as it is through the co-op program they have at the U of L. I wasn't too keen on it at first because I really did not want to move. I have lived in Lethbridge my whole life and I have never lived more than five minutes away from family. So this will be quite different than what I am used to. I also wasn't too excited because I recently got called to work with the Young Women at church. I feel like I am leaving all my new best friends behind. 

In life you have to be able to look at things in a positive light. I am excited to go because it will be a new adventure that only my little family will share together. We will only be 15 minutes away from the Calgary Temple. Cochrane is really family oriented. We will be 2 1/2 hours closer to our B.C. family. There are new people in Cochrane that we will meet who will impact us for good. I am sure of it. 

Anthony and I try to live our lives in such a way that when God speaks to us we can hear. It is one thing to hear but it is often hard to listen to what we hear. Sometimes we know what is right but we don't follow through with it because it doesn't fall in line with what we want. It is scary. Well hey, life IS scary sometimes. What I have found is that when we follow Gods plan for us, things will always work out. 

We do plan on moving back to Lethbridge after we are done with the co-op job. Anthony will have to finish his schooling. It is weird to think, but when we come back, Brigham will already be one! And Jeff will only have a year left on his mission. CRAZY! 

Here is to looking forward with faith and believing things will all work out for good. :)

Lydia misses her Uncle Jeff

It seems like every time we go to my parents house to visit, Lydia will run to the top of the stairs and start calling for her Uncle Jeff. I'm sure it is a cute but unwanted reminder for my mom that her baby boy is gone on his mission. 
At my house we have a globe. Anthony and I will point out on the globe where Jeff is on his mission. when she sees the globe, she will point at Russia (not even close to where Jeff is) and say: Jeff, Mission! Jeff, Mission! I have no idea why she points at Russia. It could just be the odds, seeing as Russia is the largest country. haha. 

For all those who are wondering, he is really enjoying his mission in the West Indies. He is in St. Lucia which is a small island. He and his companion opened the area that they are in right now. I guess there aren't too many members so they don't get fed very often. Jeff will have to learn a thing or two. I am pretty sure the only thing he knew how to cook before he left was ramen noodles. :)

Uncle Jeff and his nieces and nephew

Brigham Rodney

I don't know why, but I love to read birth stories. They are all so different! Since I like to read them, I figure I should write Brigham's down so others can see how it went the second time around for me.

I started having contractions on August 26th at about noon. Anthony, Lydia and I were at the Helen Schuler Coulee Centre just checking things out. We went for a walk outside after we saw everything there was to see in the building. I was getting pretty uncomfortable about every five minutes. This pregnancy I had Braxton Hicks contractions so at this point it wasn't really anything different than what I had been feeling for the past week. But they stayed. So we drove over to my parents house and Anthony persuaded me to get on the treadmill to keep the contractions coming. While I was on the treadmill the contractions came 3 minutes apart, but they weren't painful to the point where I felt like I needed to go to the hospital. I went on and off the treadmill for a couple hours and the contractions would speed up to every 3 minutes while moving and down to 6 minutes apart when I was just sitting down. I got an app to measure contractions and by the time I went to the hospital they had been averaging about every four minutes. I didn't go to the hospital until about 8PM after I realized that I hadn't really been feeling any movement from Brigham. I figured he was just tired from being squished all day. After my dad, Anthony and Jeff gave me a blessing I went to the hospital with my sweet husband.

When I got to the hospital I was still in really good spirits, nobody really believed me that I was in labor. I didn't really believe it at that point either. I was certain they were going to send me home. They hooked me up to the machine to monitor Brigham's movements. I had to be hooked up longer than normal because he was sleeping. The monitor picked up a few movements and the nurse said he was doing perfectly fine. My contractions had slowed down to once every 7 minutes or so. The nice nurse lady checked me anyways because the whole labor and delivery floor was empty. She was very surprised to find that I was 5 cm. My water had not yet broken but she said that she would call my doctor and get him to break it for me.

He came and broke my water around 10:00ish and they put me back on the monitor and my contractions were still only 7 minutes apart. so I went for a walk after they took some blood from me. I immediately got a hematoma in my arm. It just looked really swollen. At about 11:00PM I was feeling something. haha. I went back into my room and endured through contractions coming every three minutes or so. Soon enough the nurses were looking nervously at each other and then out the window. The one nurse kept on checking her watch. I was really feeling it at this point and I thought to myself I don't remember it being this painful. haha. She just helped me breathe through it and finally the doctor showed up just after midnight. Brigham was born about 5 minutes after he showed up. I was soo happy that I only had to push for 5 minutes!! I pushed for 2 hours and 45 minutes with Lydia, so this was a piece of cake!

Brigham Rodney Burdett was born at 12:15AM on August 27th, 2013. 6 days early. He weighed 7 lbs 15oz and was 21.5 inches long. He has been an excellent baby and lets me sleep. Lydia on the other hand had a bit of jealousy and started waking up in the middle of the night after having slept through the night for over a year! So between Brigham and Lydia waking up I got only a few hours of sleep the first couple of weeks.

Lydia has since been cured of her terrible sleeping habits, but has not been cured of her pinching habits. She definitely loves her little brother and hugs and kisses him all the time, but she is still almost a 2 year old.

Having two kids is definitely hard, but so fun at the same time! They are both so cute and I totally get what is meant when they say you will have joy in your posterity.

 Lydia meeting Brigham for the first time.

 The Burdett Family:)

Leaving the hospital