Our own little Frankenstein

WARNING!!! This entry is not for the faint of heart so stop reading now if you get grossed out easily or are eating anything you want to enjoy!

Saturday Bryce took Abbey and Braxton down to a dirt track in Mona, UT for a little experience on a motorcross track. They had a blast! I took the other two kids to do errands and received a phone call around 6 pm from Bryce. It went a little something like this...

Amie: "Hello! What's up?"
Bryce: "What are you up to? Are you still in Park City?"
Amie: "Yeah, I am just letting Landen play at the park for a minute. Are you guys still riding?"
Bryce: "We are done now. I think we might need to take Braxton to the doctor."
Amie: "WHAT?! What's wrong?!"
Bryce: "I think he might need some stiches in his finger. I am not sure. It is pretty deep."
Amie: "What happened?!"
Bryce: "He wrecked on his motorbike and cut his finger."
Amie: "The doctor's office just closed. We need to go to the insta care."
Bryce: "Ok. We are just about to load up everything. I will call you when I get service on my own phone."
**Bryce must have sensed panic in my voice cause then he instantly said...
Bryce: "Don't worry. He is ok."

Bryce hung up and I gathered my stuff up and headed home. Almost 45 minutes later I get a hold of Bryce and they are still in Santaquin! They had carpooled with some people down there and had to wait for a ride back home. Luckily a friend was on his way to Lehi and gave them a lift home. It is now after 7:30 pm and the kids come home FILTHY dirty and STARVING! After a microwaved corndog we headed off to the insta care. I couldn't see how bad Braxton's finger was cause it was wrapped in gauze, courtesy of Allen Bezzant. Now you can see for yourself what it looked like!

Picture #1: Can you see that the end of his finger and his whole fingernail are hanging off the end of his finger? If you look closely you can see how thick his skin and such is on the right.

Picture #2: The doctor is trying to get the finger back into place to be able to sew it on right. His finger was so badly mangled that they had a hard time.
Picture #3: The finished product. The doctor had to burn holes in to his fingernail to be able to attach his finger back on. The skin kept tearing and wouldn't hold otherwise.

Braxton was SOOOO brave! He screamed his head off when they had to unwrap the gauze to get an initial look. Even with the large amount of neosporine that was put on it, the gauze had stuck to his wound a bit. I was dying out in the waiting room. It was heart wrenching to hear him screaming and there wasn't anything I could do about it. That is when I called my mom to come get Abbey and Landen so I could go back into the room with him too. I couldn't just sit back and let Bryce be the only one involved.

Braxton screamed his head off again when they had to give him the shot to numb his finger but he held his hand absolutely still. The poor kid was scared to death. Dr. Robbins and the nurse were so good and patient with him. It took them over an hour to stitch it all up. We then had an x-ray done to make sure he hadn't broken his finger too since he would jerk and scream if you touched any part of his finger at all. The x-ray came back fine. I think that he was just scared it was going to hurt if we touched it at all.

We finally left the clinic at 10:30 pm. Bryce dropped us off at home so I could get Braxton to bed. He then had to drive to Provo to the closest 24 hour pharmacy to get the prescriptions filled. We all finally made it to bed sometime after midnight. I don't think that our heads had even hit the pillow before we were asleep.

We have no idea exactly how he hurt his finger so badly. There are no holes or tears in his motorbike gloves and really no other injuries on Braxton. I guess his wreck wasn't really that bad either. No matter what, I think Braxton will always remember his first set of stitches.

Braxton is doing amazingly well. The doctor warned us about how bad it would hurt when it came unnumb and what to expect in the following days. We gave Braxton medicine that night and he hasn't said one peep about pain this entire time! HOLY COW!! Let's hope he doesn't mind it when they pull the stitches out on Saturday!

Our streak of good luck is over. Our kids have now have had a broken bone and stitches. All within 2 weeks of each other! I think I need to bubble wrap them up before letting them get out of bed now!

2 weeks old

Mason had his 2 week check up today. He is growing like a weed! He is now 21 3/4" long and 9 lbs! That means he has grown almost 2" and gained a pound since he was born! I forgot to ask what percentile that puts him in. He was too busy screaming his head off from having to be undressed and such. I guess all of these middle of the night feedings are paying off! I will try to remember that tonight at midnight, 2 am, 4 am, 5:30 am etc... :)

Mason is 1 week old!

I have always taken my babies to get their pictures taken when they are a week old. With this little guy I haven't gone anywhere or even made any effort to get my hair done. Mason was spared the workout of a major photo shoot and instead had to put up with me and my camera for a few minutes. He was a good sport but hard to photograph cause he liked to wiggle all over and was very alert of everything going on around him! I can't believe over a week has gone by already! He is sleeping better at night. And as I type this he has woken up several times crying but I think something I ate didn't agree with him. He appears to be a pretty content little baby and I hope that keeps up!

Mason is here!!!

Waiting for the nurse to come and get everything started.

Abbey, Braxton, Mason & Landen.

All dressed and ready to come home!

The kids made us a sign to welcome me and Mason home!

On Tuesday March 30, 2010 Mason T Christensen made his arrival! Dr. Mower had scheduled me to go in and he would break my water. We went in at 8:15 am and I was having consistent contractions so we were off to a good start! Things progressed steadily throughout the day and by 5:15 it was show time! We had to wait for the doctor to come to the hospital and change his clothes. After a few pushes he was here! First thing that they mentioned was that he was a fiesty one... probably cause he started crying quickly and wiggling. He was born at 5:28 pm, weighed 8 lbs 1 oz and 20 inches long. He has Bryce's little chin, my earlobes, I think he has my lips but overall looks alot like Landen. He also has cubby cheeks and little fat rolls on his arms and legs. He ate really good at the beginning and then decided that he wanted to sleep TONS the 2nd day. This made him lose weight and we have had to do some follow-up appointments to check his bilirubin levels and weight.

The moment we came home Mason decided that he had had enough of sleeping at night. He likes to be awake from about 10:30 pm till 6 am. He will cry if he is not being held or fed. He is gaining weight and was circumcised today at the doctor's office. He did really well. He LOVED the sugar water and didn't make a peep as long as they kept the sugar coming. I still had them numb him and we gave him some Tylenol right after. He has slept the entire time since we left the office. I think we will have another long night coming. I am glad that event is over with.


The moment Mason was born I instantly felt such love for him and that he was part of the family. After all the worrying and wondering I had done about how it would be to add a baby to our little bunch... it went right out the window and things just feel right to have him here.

The other kids seems to be adjusting well. Abbey LOVES to hold Mason. Braxton is starting to show some interest. Landen doesn't really care a whole lot. He likes to hold him for about 30 seconds a day and other than that, he is happy to be doing his own thing.

Sticks and stone will break my bones... and so will exercise weights

Our first broken bone goes to... (drumroll please)... ABBEY! The night we brought Mason home from the hospital Abbey was playing around with some exercise weights and dropped them on her ring finger of her right hand. They are little 3 lb weights that she was was transferring from her left hand to her right and it fell and broke her finger. We weren't sure if it was broken or not. The boys were running around all crazy, Bryce was gone to the pharmacy picking up some stuff for me and I was chatting with my mom for a minute in the dining room. She came up from the family room whipping her hand around and grabbed a bag of ice to put on it. I wasn't very sympathetic (which I feel so bad about now) and told her to ice it for a minute and chill out. Then she showed it to me and it was huge and swollen. She wouldn't bend it either. The next day it was still swollen and so we made an appointment. She couldn't use her fingers to play the piano but she gripped onto her motorcycle handlebars just fine. This morning we took her in when we took Mason for his checkup and the x-ray showed 2 fractures between her middle and top knuckle. It was definitely broken! Luckily it was one of the best breaks possible and she is supposed to take it easy for several weeks but then she will be back to full speed soon. Our most mellow and cautious kid is the first to have a broken bone! Who would have thought???