“If We Lose The Ways Of Our Ancestors, We Lose Ourselves.” - Gail Johnston

John Bennion 

John Bennion, father of 

Israel Bennion, father of

 Glynn Bennion, father of 

Owen Bennion, father of

 Anne Hansen, mother of

Matthew Hansen... 

Matthew Hansen

oh Butter!

 Heath has been really excited to go to go to the beach.  He's been packing and unpacking backpacks and carrying them around saying "Im going to the beach now"

















The other day I had started some spaghetti when Heath had to go to the bathroom. When we came out Houston had pushed a chair over to the pot and was putting pasta in the pot for me.... it was a little scary.

 Heath's armor made from our junk mail. 

 Pancakes have kind of become a tradition at our house on Saturday mornings and the boys just love them.  They each uaully eat at least 3.  Last time we had them Heath had finished one and looked at the serving plate which was empty.  (we were waiting on the ones cooking)  He said, "HEY! who ate all the pancakes!" (Matt had taken a phone call and was in his room) "Daddy's not eating these right now..." and he stuck his fork in Matts stack and swiped them.

 Then once the batch was cooked Houston swiped all of them and put them on his plate. "Pancakes!"

 Cutest milk model I know.

Heath, July of last year

 These boys will do anything to eat some stick of butter.  Even climb onto the counter and up into the cupboard. Little Runts!

Houston May of this year.

So Long

 So my hair's gotten pretty long. Its almost down to my waist in the back and so hard to manage.  I feel like every day is a ponytail or messy bun day and just feel pretty frumpy.
I've been working on talking Matt into how awesome it will be if I cut it off again.  Saying little things like "oh look at this picture, remember when my hair was this short, wasn't it cute?"  I know he doesn't really mind what I do as long as I like it, but I know he really likes it long and wanted to make sure he'd be alright with the change. Anyways, after a couple months of that he agreed that it probably was time to cut it short again.  

So here's the before:




























 And the after:
I absolutely love it! It's so EASY! just shower, then let it dry.  No fussing over anything!

 

And by the way Matt loved it.  He also got a hair cut that day, but not on the top of his head.  He asked me to braid his beard for pictures before he shaved it off...

oh dear.

Houston pointing at Matt and saying, "Hair?"

 Then he went into the bathroom and it was gone! I don't know what was worse the mullet right after we got married, or this.... keeps life exciting, that's for sure.

Loins & Tigers and Boys

 A couple days before we moved we paid our favorite St Louis attraction a goodbye visit.   We were all ready to go, just waiting for Matt to finish all of his tests and get his things packed, so figured we'd enjoy the time with nothing to do.






Houston riding the tiger.  He'll tell you exactly what it says through the whole ride.

 Heath on his favorite.


















In the penguin house this one huge penguin was following Heath along the glass. It wouldn't leave his side.  There were several people coming over and taking video of it following him. I guess it likes bright blue hats? Heath thought it was pretty cool at first, but after a bit got a little freaked out.

 My favorite place is still the butterfly house.  I think I could stay in there for hours and watch them.

 Houston's new trick is going up and down stairs without using his hands to hold on to anything. If you try to hold his hand he'll push you away and say "My Hand!"  He's such an independent determined little guy!





















Heath's photography skills:

 Houston was standing there watching the lemurs and this girl came and stood next to him.  He pushed her away and yelled, "HEY!" then looked up at her and said, "Mine!"  She was such a good sport and just laughed.  He's such a little runt!

The Recovery Road

The week Matt was in the hospital was the week of his exit exams.  He had a test every day that week, then had finals Monday Tuesday and Wednesday of the next week.  So after coming home Thursday night, he chilled for most of the weekend trying to recover and study, then Monday started taking tests.  He had 9 tests in all to make up.  His professors were super awesome and worked so well with him on scheduling them.  They all turned out pretty good.  I'll just say we all felt pretty sorry for him that following week.  Sore, tired (from not sleeping very comfortably) and having to study and take all those tests. He was such a trooper.  I'm sure blessed to have him as my husband.  : ) 

During those days we took lots of walks.  Matt needed to get out and walk at least twice a day, so we usually joined him to get some wiggles out.  The boys loved it!

My Mum gave me this blanket a little while ago.  Its a blanket my grandmother made me when I was little and has been in storage at my parents house.  Houston has claimed it as his own.  He carries it around with him from room to room while he's playing, and snuggles it to sleep.  I'm not going to lie, it's pretty cute to see your little boy loving a blanket you loved as a kid.

The boys had been playing supers one day when Matt said he was ready for a walk, so they flew down the sidewalk.

Pretty cute if you ask me!

Matt and I did some dancing in our living room a while back and I guess the boys caught on to some of the moves.  I came into the living room and caught Heath trying to teach Houston how to "swing"
There was sure a lot of giggling going on.

Something Matt will never have to do again

 Saturday morning(May 2nd) Matt started having an upset stomach.  We figured it was just a stomach bug so he was eating blan things and taking it a little bit easy.  The upcoming week he had exit exams every day and then finals the week following so he had been studying hard all weekend despite the upset tummy.  Sunday morning he was feeling especially yucky.  Heath tried to make him feel better with this? yeah we're not sure what putting fluffies in the eye and a towel across the chest is supposed to do but Heath was just sure it would be great.  Matt stayed home from church and tried to keep studying but just didn't seem quite right.    That night I started asking him more questions about what he was feeling.  He realized his stomach was mostly just hurting on the right side now. We satarted looking around online and thought he may have appendicitis.  We tried doing the rebound test,  (where you push where the appendix is, when you release it is the most painful)  but it didn't really hurt Matt on the rebound.  He didn't have any of the major symptoms of appendicitis, no high fever, no nausea, no loss of appetite, no abdominal swelling, just a slightly sore stomach on the right side.  We agreed to see how the night went and if it was better in the morning must have just been a bug, if it was still sore he'd go into the Dr since he didn't have to be at the school to take his test till about 1.

  Monday morning came and Matt got in the shower to go to school early and study.  When he got up he felt his normal self again... but by the time he was getting out he was pretty sore.  He agreed to go into the Dr, our friend came over prior to and gave him a blessing.  It was pretty neat, afterwords Matt and I were talking and we both had the impression that he did have appendicitis, and that he would have to have surgery, but that everything was going to be just fine and not to be worried.  We're so blessed.  Matt went into our family Dr and he wanted to order a CT scan.  After the scan he called and told Matt his appendix was inflamed, but had not ruptured yet.  He referred us to a wonderful surgeon and said he would be calling shortly. Very soon after Dr Sakabu called and talked to Matt for a while telling him about what he needed to do, what to bring, where to go in the hospital, and a bit about his condition.  It was pretty neat that he called and not one of his office ladies. Earlier that morning We had told Heath that if Daddy had to go to the hospital He would get to go play at the Lopez' house.

Heath was so excited and said to Matt, "Daddy, please be sick and go to the hospital. Please can I go to London's?"  Shows what Heath is really worried about.... : )  We dropped the boys off at Lopez' and got to the hospital around 1.  Matt was still doing just fine, didn't really seem to be in that much pain.  We got all checked in, IV started, and settled into a room.  By the time 4:00 hit Matt was really in pain.  It reminded me of the intense pain I had with labor.  It was pretty hard to see him like that and not be able to help him in any way.  

 Dr Sakabu had given Matt his beeper # and said if he got worse or needed anything while we were in the hospital to call him directly, so that's what we did.  He ordered some morphine and they gave it to Matt. About 10 minutes later he was sleeping like a  baby.  Well except for the fact that he took up the whole bed. After about an hour of sleep Dr Sakabu came in to talk to us about the surgery.



He brought up Matt's CT scan and showed us his appendix. A normal appendix is about 2-3" long and just hangs down at the end of the colon where the small and large intestine meet. From the CT scan they could see that Matt's appendix was not hanging like normal, it was curved up and laid directly behind his colon.  He said that there was the option of giving him some pretty intense antibiotics and not doing the surgery because of the weird placement, but advised that the surgery would probably go well 

and going the route of antibiotics would mean being hospitalized for a couple weeks and wouldn't guarantee a fix. We all felt comfortable going with the surgery.  He told us they would start it off laparoscopically, but if they were having a hard time getting to the appendix, would switch to opening him up old style, and assured us he'd just do whatever would be better for Matt.  He was a very personable and kind Doctor. Every person we came in contact with in the hospital would say, "oh your seeing Dr Sakabu? he's the best!"  That was pretty reassuring.

Matt called his niece, Ana, just before going in for prep. Ana had appendicitis a couple years ago so Matt wanted to ask her what to expect and weather he should be nervous or not.  She assured him it wasn't that bad.  Thanks Ana.

He's only smiling at this point because he knows he will soon fall asleep and when he wakes up the problem will be gone.











Saying goodbye:

Matt was under for just under 3 hours.  The nurse was so kind and called me periodically throughout the surgery to let me know everything was going just fine.  Even though I am normally a super worrier, I felt so calm and comforted during the time he was under. I was so blessed.  After the surgery Dr Sakabu came out and gave me some pictures and told me that Matt's surgery was one of the hardest & longest appendectomies he'd performed, because of the odd placement, but that it had gone just perfectly.  His appendix was attached all the way up his colon so he had to cut it off the whole way up. They were able to do the surgery laparoscopically, so that made his incision healing go pretty fast.  His appendix had been perforated, but had not ruptured yet. Matt got back up to his room about11:30pm and was being so loopy and making me and all the nurses laugh so hard.  They brought in a bed for me, and we zonked out.   The next morning Matt tried eating a bit of food, and it went well.  He was pretty sore but doing ok.  I went and picked up the boys from Lopez's and we came back to take Matt for a little walk. 

He continued to get stronger each day and was able to eat more and more like normal.  Wednesday morning Matt started throwing up. The Dr figured his colon was in a bit of shock after being disrupted in surgery and wasn't letting anything through.   They took him off food, and back on the IV.  By thursday though he was starting to pass gas. Thursday night they told him that if he could take his antibiotic orally and keep them down he could go home.  I picked him up at 11pm Thursday nigh.

Out of order, sorry: One day we went to the dollar store and picked out a balloon to take to Dad.  Heath got him a spiderman one, and Houston one with trucks.  They were so excited!

Houston seemed to not think anything was different.  He did occasionally walk through the house calling "Daddeee...Daddee..." but didn't seem to affected by Matt being gone and sick.

Heath on the other hand seemed to have a pretty rough time with it.  He became super winy and always worried about me not being right by his side.  If i'd go into another room he'd come running, "wait for me mommy, don't leave me all awone!"   He would talk and talk about Matt when we were at home and ask all the time when we were going to the hospital to be with him.  Then when we were at the hospital he'd be his normal Heath self.  He would ask too why we were leaving Daddy all awone.  Id tell him the Dr's and nurses were there with Daddy, but he didn't like that answer.  He was so happy when Matt got to come home.

Matt pretty much lived in our recliner chair for a few days.  He'd even sleep there during the night. I found myself getting up several times every night to walk out there and watch his chest to make sure he was still breathing,  it was almost as bad as having a new baby, but it was my own worrying self's fault. 

Houston hardly left his side.  He would play on or right next to him most of the day.  I think these boys missed their Daddy.

Sunday was mother's day.  It was a good one, the boys were really good at church, which was so nice seeing as how I was alone.  When all the kids went up onto the stand to sing a mother's day song during church Heath wanted so badly to go too.  I told him he had to wait until he was a sunbeam to go sing with all the big kids, to which he replied, "MOM I am a Sunbeam.  I sing the Sunbeam song all the days!"  next year little buddy.   We just took it easy at him, had us some beans and bread.  Have I mentioned before how wonderful crock pots and bread machines are?

These next few pictures may be a bit yucky to some, but here's some pics from Matts surgery.

Cutting / ripping the appendix off the colon

Clamping off the appendix top

Heath calls it Daddy's fish appendix, I guess it looks like a fish to him all stretched out. Matt wanted to bring it home to make slides out of it for his classes, but he didn't ask them soon enough...

The nurse that was the 2nd in command for Dr Sakabu during the surgery and called me durring, and talked with us before was like Vondra's twin with brown hair.  It was so crazy! I wish I'd taken a picture of her.  After she talked with us Matt said, "Great now Im going to dream about Vondra during the surgery!"   She even talked just like her.  It was so funny!