Together We Can: September 2008

I'll admit it..... I hate taking my kids to their well child visits. It doesn't get any easier with each child. I think it only may get worse.
It actually happened a little weird for us. I had his appointment set up for yesterday. It was scheduled for 4:00 pm. My contract time is from 12:30-4:00 pm. In the past, my principal has been really great about letting me leave when the bell rings (3:45) and going to things like Dr.'s appointments. This year we got a new teacher. She has decided that she wants to leave every Friday 1/2 hr. early. My principal told her no way. She then proceeded to tell him that all of us don't stay for contract time. Well...he has pulled a lot of us aside and told us to be very careful about it. She is keeping tabs. Wow..an adult tattle tale. So that was my dilemma.
I called my peds. office and told them that I had set up my app. back in June and didn't know that the school year would be this way. I asked them if it was okay if I was late. They said it was her last appointment and that we could reschedule. So, I did. I rescheduled for this Friday at 4:00 pm. We get to leave at 3:30 on Fridays.
I picked the kids up and DS was very, very wheezy. With every breath he took, he wheezed. After getting home and letting James and my sister listen to him, we decided to call and see if we could get him in. The after hours was open and guess who was on call that night??? My ped. What?? I thought I would have been her last appointment. Oh well.
So we took him in and before she even listened to him, she said that we could do his month visit. And I quote, "and we can even do vaccinations with a small cold". After listening to DS she told us that he indeed had croup. She prescribed steroids to open up his airway and we did do the well visit and the shots.
He weighs 16.5 lbs and is 25 3/4 inches long. He is in the 75% for his weight and 85% for his height. His head is in the 55%.
Fast forward to today. He is so pale and is miserable. When he is awake, he is whining. His eyes are swollen and he is miserable. I will not do vaccination again when he is sick. He just doesn't do well.
So, after reading this, it seems like I am annoyed with my ped. I am not. I still like her. I am just tired from having a sick baby. I was going to take a picture of his poor little face, but he just doesn't want to be put down and a picture is just not that important. Or is it??

Thanks to my awesome brother in law, Josh, and his sweet wife, Sarah, we are up and running again. Hopefully, what he did has allowed me to deal with my pictures again. If it is working, sit back....there is a ton!!! If not, I guess we will have to see what our next step may be. Now that school is back in session, time on the computer is little for me. Some of you may say, but she only works part time..... That's right, but the other part time job is watching 5 children under the age of 4. Teaching school is actually easier than being home with the kids.
So onto the summer report. I am going to start with May, as that was the beginning of MY summer. It was very nice to have an extra 5 weeks off this year. Are you ready??

May:

Our sweet son was born at the beginning of this month. What a great experience!! Everything went smootly and my recovery was great. Our sweet boy came into the world weighing 8 lbs. 10 ozs and was 22 inches long. He has a head full of black hair and quite the allstar around here.

Memorial Day: We headed to Delta to decorate my dad's headstone. DD#1 had a hard time understanding that Grandpa was in heaven, when her Grandpa Rick (my mom's husband now) was home and alright. It was nice to remember my sweet dad.

June:

We used our rebate this year for Lagoon passes. We went the first time on June 14th. DS was only 5 weeks old. It has been great fun being able to go whenever we wanted. We would go on Monday nights when it wasn't busy. Having the passes allowed us to go for a few hours here and there and not feel guilty for wasting all that money on one ticket. After the second time, we were attending for free. The girls have absolutely loved going all summer. It was (and still is) well worth our money. We are off this Saturday for DH's work party there. We will be doing Frightmares as well. So, we are still enj0ying that purchase. I don't have any pictures of the first few times. I knew I had all summer to take pictures and here we are at the end of the summer and well....no pictures. This is a picture of DD#2 after spending the day at Lagoon-A-Beach all day. She was falling asleep on the cooler.

We celebrated DD#2 second birthday. We had a playgroup that morning with water and a bbq that night. She chose to have a Winnie the Pooh cake. Needless to say, her birthday approached way too quick and I didn't plan her bday cake that great. Luckily, my sister gave her a cute card and I quickly cut it up and placed it on top.

DH and I took a quick weekend getaway and went to St. George for the night. We left on a

Saturday morning and came home Sunday night. Thanks Dad and Mom J for watching the girls. While in St. George, we went to Tuachan and saw Les Miserables. What an amazing and fun thing to do. I will NEVER grow tired of watching this musical. When the opening song began, I got teary eyed. I don't know if it was post partum emotions or emotions that reminded of my time on my mission. I think it was a little of both. We had a great time. DS (who we took with us) didn't want to sit the entire time, so I spent some time at the top holding him. He was so little. I can't believe that I thought he was so big. Thanks Dan and Kim for letting us stay with you. It was tons of fun. ** The picture is on the other camera. Sorry.

We attended DH's family reunion the next weekend. It was in a Monroe. It was great fun. They only hold it every 3 years. It was nice to see family members. The theme was Faith of our Fathers. Friday night, they had a Buckin Bronco and a rodeo for the kids. DH's cousin brought some of their farm animals and let the kids feed them and pet them. It was so much fun. On Saturday, the family gathered together and were placed in Hand Cart companies. DS didn't want anything to do with the Trek. He screamed and screamed while in the stroller. I made the decision that it was not worth it to go. It was a sad choice to make. I realized just what some of the pioneers faced. They didn't get to not go just because their baby was screaming. They had to push on and trek in all kinds of weather. I stayed back and watched all the items of the family. A funny side note. I was sitting in the town's park and enjoying the quiet time. There is a small hamburger joint across the street. I watched cars pull up and leave. I was quite shocked when a four-wheeler pulled up to the drive up window and ordered. That is one SMALL town. It made me miss my hometown. I enjoyed the quiet, slow pace of the place. All the companies came back with beet red faces and were so hot. I was glad that I didn't go with DS. The girls loved it and got to ride in the handcarts. It was so much fun.

July

July seemed to be a little less hectic than June. We didn't travel as much. It was nice.

We headed to Delta for the 4th. We love, love the 4th in Delta. It was so good to see family and enjoy the parade. We especially love to go to the park afterward and catch up with old friends. DH and DD#1 went to the derby. DD#2, DS and I stayed at Grandma B's and blew bubbles and watched the fireworks from her lawn. (So, it was only me. The other two were sound asleep) DD#1 had a blast and talked about it for days. For pictures watch this slide show.

We spent the 24th of July at home. DH had to work. We did go down to Lehi to have a bbq with my mom. Thanks mom. That night we lit fireworks. The girls had a blast except DD#2 when the neighbors let off the noisy ones. It was fun to be together as a family.

We blessed DS during this month. It was very nice and special. We also had our transformer catch on fire that day. I blogged about it a few blogs back. You can read about it here.

We celebrated DD#1's fourth birthday at the end of the month. We did almost exactly what we did for DD#2's. She wanted a princess cake. I don't know why my white cake sunk, but it did. The decorations were cute and then she got to enjoy them. She was thrilled to receive dress up items. She has got a lot of use out of that present.

August:
We went to St. George for an impromptu family reunion. We had a blast. On Saturday we went out to Sand Hollow and enjoyed riding in the boat and on the 3 man tube. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. The next day we had lunch (after church) at my mom's condo that they got. We enjoyed swimming in the pool later, as well. Monday, we went shopping for school clothes for DD#1. I am waiting on these pics from my sister in law.

School began. It was really hard going back to school this year. I think it was because DS was such a hard baby this summer. He really was very, very fussy. It made it very hard to handle. I really worried about the babysitters. I just didn't know if he was going to be okay with them or scream the entire time. I have had to watch screaming babies before and it is not fun. I just wanted him to be okay. he did pretty well over all. He is getting better and better everyday. I think that establishing a routine will help him out a ton.

We had some cousins over to make an invitation for a sister in laws baby shower. We pulled out the dress up and some make up that DD got for her birthday. They had a blast getting all dolled up.

September:
We spent the last weekend of August and the first day of September camping in American Fork Canyon. Labor Day in our family equals our HUGE family reunion. This is my family reunion. We are talking about 350 people attending. The girls had so much fun sleeping in the tent the first night with dad. I went down to my mom's because DS is still too young to sleep out. We had a great time seeing family members that we hadn't seen in a year.
On a sad note, my great uncle passed away a few days before, so we attended his funeral that Saturday.
DH's and my team took 2nd in the volleyball tourney. We had to alternate playing this year because we have so many children. :) Thanks mom for taking the girls to the children's crafts during the tourney. We appreciate all the help you give us with our kids.
That night during dinner, it started pouring rain. It was pouring so HARD!! Luckily our tent was under a huge oak tree, so most of the family congregated under there. Needless to say, DH went down the mountain that night. There were a few die hards, but not many. We are now just putting away things and getting things washed. It took a few days to get it all dried out.
My mom took pictures of the reunion and hasn't emailed me them yet. I will get this updated when I receive them.

On Sunday morning at 2:45 am, my youngest brother called and let us know that his wife had their 3rd child. They now have 2 girls and 1 boy. My mom, my sister, me and my youngest brother all have 2 girls and a boy. My brother just younger than I has 1 girl and 1 boy. We will see if he will follow the family plan. She is a cutey and we are excited to have her join our family. They are stationed in Japan with the Marines, so it may be a little while before we see her in person. They named her Raegan Aoibheanne. She is beautiful.

We have had a GREAT summer. DH, after 7 years of working Saturdays, finally had them off. We took full advantage of this. It has been so much fun. DD#1 starts preschool next week, so this is where I will end. I hope you all had a great summer as well.

DS has began to really show his personality lately. He has the cutest little laugh. He has started sitting up and eating. These are two big milestones. He also has finally started acting a little more calm. We are pretty sure he had colic and his stomach was bothering him. We are grateful he is calming down. We love him to bits.