Been getting a lot of sweet emails from people wondering how Maliyah is doing. She is doing great, but she will have more blood work done tomorrow or Saturday.

The kids have school out next week until next year. Weird to think we have just gotten through another year. For the most part this year was great. We got to do a lot of fun things as a family. But most importantly we are still going strong as a family! We are very blessed to have Maliyah's kidney still working well.

This school year started out great for the kids. Kendra and Maliyah love school, Courtney is on the fence about if she likes it or not. She's had a lot of big changes this year. Austin is finally catching on and working really hard. Justin was having a very hard year, especially when Kendra or Maliyah are in the hospital. I have some pretty great kids. Regardless of the fighting and arguing I know that they love each other a lot!! Love this quote, "Having one child makes you a parent, but having two makes you a referee".. It's so true! Wonder what 5 make?!?!

The more time in the hospital we spend, the more I realize how grateful I am for modern medicine. Little things like IV fluid is a life saver. I'm getting a lot more careful about the medicine the doctors are allowed to give my children. Unless it's a must have. And the girls are feeling the same way. Every drug has a side effect that aren't very fun. Maliyah learned this again. She was put on a drug to help with her c-diff, and the medicine was causing extreme itching, just because we changed from the liquid to a pill form. Basically she scream for 3ish hours because it hurt so bad, she was even bleeding from where she was itching.

When we were struggling with Justin for so long, we learned that he has a hard time express how he is feeling so it would make him act out. Now we are handling that better. We just need to get him to eat more. He was playing at his friend Joe's house yesterday, he told Joe's mom that, "if you play to many video games you can get fat and die". He's so clever!! It's been really good for us to have him as one of the challenges. But we can really tell that he is growing up and slowing moving to another faze of his life.

Austin is one of the easiest children we have. He is also so sweet! This last weekend him and Courtney were sick with the stomach bug. Austin would setup throw up and tell us and go right back to sleep. He missed the bucket once and he profusely apologized. Broke my heart! That's just how he is.

Courtney is defiantly a tween with how sassy she can be, but she still loves to be with her family.

OH MY!! Kendra is just Kendra. We were driving to get the boys from their friends house, she was telling me how to drive. I just laughed. She is a self motivator and gets stuff done when she needs too. A great quality to have.

The worse part about being a parent is the discipline. Maliyah didn't do her book report, so she wasn't able to go to her best friends birthday party. Not sure who it was harder for, Jake and I or Maliyah. My bet would be us. When I was little my parents use to say the same thing to me, but I never understood it completely until this happened with Maliyah.

Jake and I had such a great year together. We go out on a date once a week. We both look forward to it. And it's not something big each time either. Maybe ice cream or a drive. Just being together. It's so great to have a great relationship with Jake. And to be a great example for our children. Eternity isn't long enough to be with him!!

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and if I don't post before New Years. Have a Great New Year's as well.

Love,
The Herrin's

What a FREAKIN' week/month we have had.

Started out not to bad, but by the end we've had enough. I swear whenever the kids get flu shots they all seem to get a lot more sick. I really hate them, but this year I let the doctor talk me into them. Oh Boy!! Was I wrong, and that never happens ;) (wink mean J/K ).

Let start with the easy little man first. Austin had been having strep a lot these last several months. His tonsils were very swollen they were almost touching and his airway was being obstructed. So he went in for surgery at PCMC. He is by far my easiest child, I thank God for him everyday, well for all of them. But he is such a sweet child. More to come about that later. Austin was very nervous about the surgery as anyone would be. He was sad most because he was giving up his title of the only person that has never had surgery in our family. He cried some before we left for the hospital. So we went a little early to visit Kendra and watch some TV with her. It was finally his turn to walk down to the 2ND floor, I HATE that floor so much!! This is where the ICU is and the OR rooms. Can't go around some parts of that place without having a flashback or something. We got Austin all registered for the surgery, Mary Anne the Child Life specialist came to do some hospital play with him. She was so sweet with him, calmed his nerves. And when she left he came over and told me "I like this place". I laughed and wondered if he would think that after the surgery was over. He still liked the place after. LOL Austin is recoving very well right now. Just praying he doesn't get the bug we are all coming down with.

We were all setting around playing with the dog last night and talking about what to give Jesus for Christmas. Austin comes over to give me a hug and says, mom I know what you want for Christmas, decorations for the house or a new house. Well he was telling me all that he was rubbing my shoulders. He is so sweet! But little does he know, I want nothing for Christmas but a healthy family. :) To much to ask for??

We had a great Thanksgiving with family. The day after Kendra was admitted to the hospital for dehydration. She ended up staying there for 6 days. She didn't mind one bit because she had everything she needed, a kitchen to bring her whatever her little heart desired, great nurses to help with whatever she needed, great techs that love her to pieces, but mostly the FOOD!! Kendra tested positive for a bowel infection, but now I just believe she had the same stomach bug as the rest of us were pleased to have. :) HURTS LIKE CRAZY!! Kendra got home on a Wednesday and was dying to go back to school the very next day. She gets sick VERY fast, but gets better fast, most of the time.

Jake was the next to get the nasty bug. He got sick Sunday night and Austin had surgery that Tuesday. It was a lot to handle trying to jungle everything, but once again my mother in-law helped me out. Can't even explain how lucky I am to have her. She even brought the kids dinner when I was at the hospital. Then I got sick and Jake got Kendra out of the hospital. What a crazy and hard week that was.

It was really funny because a volunteer had come to visit us when Kendra was in the hospital. I said to him that we'd be back very soon. He just laughed, thought I was kidding. Oh no!! I just know what's about to take place. LOL A "sick sense".

Well Maliyah got sick last night and was admitted to the hospital today. That is probably why I have time to update my blog. Doctors think maybe she is having an appendictis, but I'm not worried about that. The thing I'm most concerned about is her creatinine(more than doubled) and the damage the kidney may have because of this virus. Dehydration is extremely dangerous for her transplanted kidney. So we have to hurry up and wait. I tried to find the espisode about Sponge Bob's take on doctors but couldn't find it. That espisode when he gets sick and is scared to go to the doctor. Man, he is right on!!

Hope all of you are having a great holiday season.

Love,

The Herrin's :)

So far I really HATE this winter, 6 out of 7 people in our family have been sick. Jake is very lucky that he is healthy.

So I have a lot to update. There's big things that have been going on.

Austin almost hung himself with the seat belt. I had just gotten the kids from school and was just coming up our hill. Everyone was really quiet and didn't think much of it. But then I pulled into the garage and no one jumped out like normal. I opened the door to help them and Austin was hanging with the seat belt around his neck and his hand blocking the belt from cutting off his oxygen. I'm surprised how calm I was. I cut the seat belt off. And all the kids were crying. I asked them why no one told me what was going on. They didn't really reply with great answers, they just shrugged their shoulders. That was very scary to say the least!! He had a deep marker around his neck.

Kendra and Maliyah had another surgery on the 10th of October. It went fairly well. We are just having problems with the pain meds, the side affects are getting worse. Not sure why. But we change to Tylenol, ice and a lot of distractions. Seems to work really well for Maliyah, but Kendra was a lot harder to help control her pain. But it was their decisions to not have anymore pain meds.

This last Sunday Kendra was playing outside with her friends riding her big wheel. She hit a large bump and got hurt. Took her for x-rays and nothing was broken. Maybe she is just being a drama queen, hard to tell. But before school she is crying and can't get around so of course she stays home from school, during school she is getting around just fine, and the cycle starts over the next day. She said that she couldn't stand all the way up. She missed several days of school, before I finally just told her she was going, got her a stroller to help her get around. And the very next day everything was great. What a stink!!

We have been worried about Maliyah's blood levels over the last month or so. I was very worried she was rejecting her kidney, her creatinine was slowly going up and her infections were out of control. We even took her to the urologist several times, he wasn't sure what to do. So I had a great idea, and guess what? It worked like a charm!! Boy, I'm so glad things are better with Maliyah. Her creatinine is even back to it's baseline, 0.4!! Love that number!!

Justin was having a lot of problems at school, he didn't want to do his work. So we decided that if he did all his work at school and then came home and did his homework quick we would get him a new video game. He's been doing great!! The tank game worked like a charm. I was really feeling bad about him having such a hard time at school, so I searched a little about different things. I came to a site about a little boy Justin's same age and his behaviors at school. I felt a hole lot better. I'll take my little problem over that mom's HUGE one. I felt horrible for her.

Courtney and I are becoming better friends the older she gets. She really tells me everything that is going on in her life. She is almost taller than me, in a week I'm sure she will be. The boys at school notice her a lot more. Courtney had her first dance and a boy perposed to her. She said that she just ran into the bathroom. We have a rule that none of our kids can have boyfriends or girlfriends. I hope that rule does last.

As you can tell this last month or so has been crazy to say the least.

Love,

The Herrin's

What a great weekend Jake and I had!!

Jake's best friend got married this last weekend in LA, and Jake and I were able to go and witness the event.

We left Friday morning and we arrive about 9:30am. We rented a convertible Mustang that we spent most of the weekend in. We even have the sunburns to prove it. LOL We went from the airport to Venice Beach where we soon realized what a dive that place was. There were so many homeless people. I was also shocked by all the marijuana "pharmacy's". Ever so often you could get a small smell of the marijuana. Needless to say we didn't stay long. We went back to our car to find a parking ticket for $58, we had payed for parking but Jake miss read the number and put it in wrong. So he's working on getting that fixed. Our hotel was 20 minutes out of LA and we were so glad that it wasn't any closer, way to much traffic. We drove Sunset strip for awhile that night and saw the "Lemon Basket", from the show Famous Foods. I was even able to take a nap, and that never happens. :)

Saturday morning we went to Santa Monica Peir. It was really beautiful there. We walk down on the beach where we met some of Jake's friends that were there for the wedding as well. That night was the wedding. We've never been to a Catholic wedding before. I really enjoyed it and learned some interesting things about the religion. We just had a great night.

But SUNDAY TOPPED EVERYTHING!!!! I was driving down highway 1, up the coast of California when Jake said that he had a surprise for me. So he told me the way to go and we ended up at the BACHELORS MANSION!!!! I was so excited!! Jake was laughing because I was crying. The gate was open and they were setting up to start filming on September 17th. I got a picture right in front of the mansion that Jake took. and several other ones that I will upload here. HOLY COW!! It was the best day ever!! I was on cloud 100 the rest of the day and night. I haven't always watched the show. I just starting watching it in Jake Pavelka season and loved the show. I was hooked because of the villains on the show. Two have been from Utah so it's fun to watch.

I'll post picture of the weekend we had.

Have a great day!!

Love, The Herrin's

WE JUST CELEBRATED OUR 5TH ANNIVERSARY SINCE THE SEPARATION SURGERY!!! I still can't believe that we got through all of that crazy, stressful and painful time. It's still hard to look back and remember that time in our life. We still have a lot to get through with the girls. The strength they show and the huge smiles on their faces melts my heart. They are so strong!! And their excitement for life is contagious. They are just as hard to handle as their brothers and sister, I'm so glad!! Even though the fighting can drive me crazy at times, the laughter makes up for it. We have such a great family. They are growing up so quick, and into the best young people.

Goodness!! I'm so glad that school has started. Thought I would be sad about missing my kids, but boy I get so much done during the day. But can't last to much longer, I start school again at the beginning of next week. I only got 2 weeks off from my summer semester. The best news is that I can go during the day instead of at night. And I can take a lot more classes than before because I have more time.

Courtney had a great first day of school, other than almost forgetting her schedule in her first period class. She is going to a secondary school, so she has 10 periods and an A and B day. Since she made the dance team we will be able to see her dance a lot more. Courtney will dance at different assemblies and also half times this year. Can't even wait to see all of them. I will post some videos of them as they happen.

Kendra and Maliyah were so excited for their new teacher. They came home saying how funny she is and how much they like her. MUSIC TO MY HEARS!!! It's amazing how much having a great teacher changes the child/children's outlook on learning. I want my kids to be excited about it. There were no surgeries this summer, just couldn't find time and we didn't want them to miss out on any of the fun. I don't think the girls really cared that much either. So unless they need a surgery their next one will be on their backs in October.

I took the kids over to my parents house yesterday. When we were leaving Justin says to Grandma Warren, "Take care grandma", then he looks at me and says, "ladies first" and holds open the door for me. I was laughing, it just made me so happy to hear him says that. Both my boys are turning into little gentleman. Which I think all men should be.

Yesterday Austin came home from school telling me that a kid in his class had taken off his shirt in class. He said the whole class was laughing, he said "it was just weird". They have such a great sense of humor.

Take care

The Herrin's

What a slacker I am! :)

We have had a great Summer that is flying by.

We met with the doctors about the girls having surgery this summer. Jake and I are still debating on what we should do. Jake wants both of the girls to have the surgery and get it over with, I want Maliyah to go and enjoy transplant camp and just have Kendra's surgery this summer. So one of us has to give, won't be me though. :) Maliyah is very excited for 5 days of camping and being away from home. She will be staying in cabins, and they have great activities for the kids to do. Wonder if I will get a phone call from her begging us to come and get her because she is home sick. Either way, I just want her to try. I asked Kendra if she wanted me to find her a camp like Maliyah is going to, she was adamant that she wasn't going to go. Which doesn't surprise me, she has a hard time when Jake and I have a date night, so most Friday's are difficult for her. Kendra will call us several times when we are gone.

Justin and Austin are having so much fun with friends. They are outside playing on our trampoline and riding bikes. Justin mastered Super Mario Brothers and beat the whole game. He was so proud of himself.

Courtney just started babysitter a lot this summer, she even started a dance studio in our basement for some of the neighborhood kids. She is really great at making up dances and teaching them to others.

Have a great summer. :)

Courtney worked so hard to make the school dance team. The Saturday right after try-outs she told Jake and I that she wanted us to go and look at the list to see if she made it. She had no desire to go and see it. So Jake and I headed to the school. We were so excited to see her name on the list. I decided that I couldn't just tell Courtney that she made it. I had Jake go to the store and get her a cake that read, "Congratulations Courtney you made it". So we just showed her the cake. Then we gave her a cellphone the we promised if she worked really hard she could earn. No matter if she made the team or not she was going to get one. She didn't know that. :) Jake and I were so proud!
Courtney wanted me to stay the whole 3 hours at the try-outs too. So I was so tired to say the least. Couldn't imagine how tired Courtney was, oh wait she wasn't at all. Right when she got home she went swimming with her friend Taylor. Guess I was tired enough for the both of us. Courtney will also be performing the play, The Mid-Summer Night's Dream tomorrow at school.
The girls FINALLY got their new legs! I'm so glad that is over! They fit perfectly for now and Fitwell is so easy to work with. This summer both of the girls will have major surgery. So we will probably have to get the bases to be refitted. Still waiting for the other stuff.
Maliyah has been doing OK. She's been having a hard time with infections because of her suppressed immune system. Even with all her infections she still goes to school. She has a great teacher, Mrs. Merrill, that has been so great with both of the girls. She is very understanding of Maliyah's and Kendra's needs. She is always trying to make them feel comfortable at school, which I love! I know that Mrs. Merrill loves my girls. They also have a great instructor Mr. Child. He is so great with the kids as well. It will be sad that he isn't coming back next year. Ms. Jess left to get a new job that had better hours since she is going to school. The girls sure do miss her, but their new aid Mrs. Kristi is great with the girls now and she has five kids too. The girls think that's cool.
Kendra is doing really well. I can't stress enough how much of a difference having an understanding teacher makes on the girls. She doesn't seem to have as much anxiety and she is excited to go to school. I'm sure the girls have missed less then 10 days of school this whole year.
Austin and Justin were the VIPs this month since their Birthday isn't until June. I had a great time making their poster with treats. Yesterday Austin had a tootsie pop, and Jake was teasing him with the song from the commercial . It goes, how many lick does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop. Jake didn't think Austin would know the end, but he replies, "the world may never know". We were laughing so hard. The commerical is probably from the 50s. Justin has a more sarcastic sense of humor. Which I love :) I'm not sure if I have posted this story on here. But I will now. Justin and Austin have to come with me to Maliyah's doctor appointments and they take several hours sometimes. Don't ask me why, I have NO IDEA!! Anyway, one of the doctors come in and they were talking to Justin and asking him some questions. He always says, "hahaha so funny", when she started laughing about something he said, "hahaha so funny." Justin just has his "lines" he says. Like "see ya suckers", he doesn't ever mean to be mean. It's just Justin.
I have to say thanks to each of my children's teachers for all your hard work with Courtney, Kendra, Maliyah, Justin and Austin. Being a teacher isn't the easiest job. But you all do such a great job!! It was great to have you all on our team this year. Because it really takes a village to raise kids. :)
3 more days of school after today!! Yea, SUMMER!! Hope the snow and rain will stop soon. :)
The Herrin's
P.S. This was a fast post so forgive the grammar. :) And I just posted new pictures today.