Sarah's Got Curves!!

So, once upon a time in a land far, far away(or possibly just the porch) one of my friends noticed that my back felt really screwed up! like there was a big lump there! WOW!! So after joking about how it could be a tumor, Siamese twin, alien, etc. I had Mom and Dad look at it later. (Mom says she thought it was a tumor too. Wow. thanks for the support, I can feel the love BURNING. well actually looking at it, quite a couple people thought that. huh....) When we went in for some shots at the doctor we asked her about it. She thought that it was scoliosis but said to go see a specialist. (grr this is getting more complicated than my teenage mind wants to handle) so, we go to a specialist a month later at Primary Childrens Hospital. They took X-rays and such and Dr. Smith concluded that it was indeed Scoliosis. The weird thing is, I dont stand weird or my hips or shoulders aren't uneven. (joy...) I have 2 curves in my back the top one is 23 degrees and the lower one is 47 degrees. In the shape of a backwards "S" the only 3 options for scoliosis are: watch it, brace it, or surgery. Watching it is for very small curves and bracing it is for smallish curves and if you are still growing. But, my growth plate got lazy and decided it wanted to stop. So, screw that plan. Which leaves us with option 3! surgery!! yay!!! (honestly i wasn't that surprised I was sorta expecting it) so surgery is planned for June 28th, I'll be in the hospital for about a week then recovering at home(which means confined to the couch in the family room) for a month. then physical restrictions for 6 months. I have been doing a ton of reading about it and im actually looking forward to it! as crazy as that seems! Yes, i give you all permission to hold that against me in June and July. And to answer a few often asked questions:
does it hurt?
nope. It tends not to hurt much in kids and teens. it will start to hurt when i sit or stand for a long time, or walk up a big hill or something like that.
how did you get it??
dont know, sorry! i have idiopathic scoliosis which means they don't know the cause. this particular type of scoliosis is pretty common in teens, particularly girls.(5% of teenage girls and 2% of boys)
what are they gonna do??
Im hoping that they will use the more recent surgery and have only a few 1 inch incisions were they will put in a camera and fuse the curved bones together(not all the way!) and support it with rods and screws)

i'll answer any more questions you have! but this is getting pretty long so i'll stop now....

Katie and Holly's Birthday Party

We had a fun birthday party for Katie and Holly the other night! I forgot to take a picture of the cake- and the best pictures somehow disappeared and I don't know how that happened! Still a fun party though!

Christmas in the making

Dolly putting up with us :) even Levi puts up with us somehow...










decorating the tree!!

Dolly ;)

We finally did it! We got a dog! Mom and Dad have been talking dogs for a while so yesterday, we hopped into the car, drove down to the Humane Society, and fell in love with Dolly. It was like at love at first sight for us I swear. :) She is a Dachshund LH mix(well thats what the paper says anyways) and is 6 years old. She is pretty small but the sweetest little thing. We all love her and are super excited!(well Levi is still getting used to the idea but hopefully we'll get over that stage soon! Now for some pics!! more pics soon to come....

baby simulator!!!

Can you see the pissed-off look in my eye from Mom waking me up from a NAP to FORCE me to take this picture?!?! gah! well that's how it seemed like at the time anyways....

hey! Sarah here!
so of course, me being me i thought an over-the-weekend baby simulator would be FUN and a "good experience" Yeah...
The crying and cooing noises still haunt me even though it's been a few weeks since i had it. Well it's not like it was all THAT bad...just it kinda sucked by the last day. So after much debating her official name was Jabuka. it means "apple" in Serbian. But I kinda forgot and called her Abby. (sorry!!) She turned on at 3:00 on Friday at the Alta football game at the U. Yes, i am possibly insane but i don't care. She stayed with her Auntie Dominique for the first bit then I got her again. It screamed a couple times during the game and i only got a few dirty looks from people, and only one 10 year old asked what the crap i was doing with a doll so I see that as a success! YAY!! The bus ride home was interesting a we got a couple of pissed off kids but that is expected. But actually this one guy really liked the reaction he was getting from all the girls when he held the doll once so he constantly was yelling "pass back the baby!!" it was pretty hilarious.
For the rest of the weekend she tended to be nocturnal and liked to wake up about 7 times a night and sleep all day. Typical baby huh? And luckily she didn't cry or anything at church!! Well i gained back sleep over the next 2 days and so it's all good in the end...

p.s. i probably will NOT do that again. Once was pretty darn good for me!

Mississippi Hot Dog!

Taylor and Alex have always wanted to play instruments. This harmonica was the latest hobby of Taylor's until...Violin, yea! I didn't realize how inexpensive it would be until I looked at KSL and found a 1/4 size violin for Taylor and bought it the next day. I just got Alex's 1/10 size violin today - we ordered it online. It's so tiny! There are actually 2 sizes smaller!

Playing the first rhythm in the Suzuki method is "mississippi hotdog" - that really brings back memories for a lot of us I'm sure.

Such tiny violins! Can you tell I'm excited?

Brian's 20th Birthday!!!