September in Review

Spent a Saturday at the park flying planes. It was a great day

Legos are the thing around here recently. They're everywhere!

We made homemade rootbeer over the holiday weekend. The kids thought it was super cool!

This is Black Beauty, she's our rental. We didn't exactly love each other but I'm thankful we had something to get us from place to place. We drove her for three weeks before a rental van became available (who we only had for a week & never named.) Our van spent the entire month in the shop waiting on the insurance people to get things together & then waiting on the shop to do the work correctly. Needless to say, it was a complete headache. I'm Thankful though that they accepted 100% fault & the lady was fully insured. Yet another blessing!

Who said a sedan wasn't a family car? My kids clearly love being so close.

The Saturday chores still continue.

We did a lot of hanging around the house.

We took the kids (& Black Beauty) camping one weekend

And had a blast! They've already planned out next outing.

I love this picture of Randy being an awesome Dad. I think they where discussing what causes a tree to fall in the forest. Also, before he took them on this "hike" he made each of them a walking stick. The kids thought they were the coolest things ever!  

 The Daughter rode a horse for the first time at a her good friend's house.

We went to The Daughter's Back-to-School night to check out her classroom & met her teacher.

 The Daughter had games on Saturdays. She's become a much more confident player, it's been so enjoyable to watch.

Baby Girl started sleeping through the night!!! It's amazing what a good nights sleep will do for a Mama.

Bike repair is a common activity around here. Someones bike always has a flat tire.

The many wildfires in our region have left us with very smoky skies. It was so smoky we couldn't see the mountains that surround us. Several games and activities where canceled due to the horrible air conditions.

We read while waiting for the school bus in the mornings. It's a great motivation to get ready quickly.

Evening snuggles with her Daddy. Melt my heart.

When he comes home with dyed hands you know it must have been a fun day at school.

Our poor Baby Girl has gotten worse. She's still inconsolable, losing weight & projectile vomiting. To make things worse she recently started having extremely bloody Diarrhea too. Something no parent wants to discover. The first diagnoses was Salmonella until her labs came back indicating that she was actually fighting an allergy. We began cutting things out of my diet with no avail so on to formula we went. I could no longer nurse my baby, very emotional. Sniff, sniff. We had to do a 12 hr Pedialyte only diet to get her re hydrated and give her tummy sometime to heal before we could try formula. Then we began trying several different types of formula to see if we could get the bleeding to stop. After about a week of different formulas we we discovered that she had a milk protein allergy and that the amino-acid based prescription formula, Elecare was the one that seemed to be helping. Of course it was the most expensive one. Luckily between our two insurance plans the cost is pretty much covered. The insurance arranged was another week's battle involving phone calls, visits to a dietitian and lots of paperwork.  Our amazing doctor gave us several cans at no cost to use while we hashed out the details with the insurance companies & waited for our first order to come in from the medical supply company. Have I mentioned how wonderful our doctors have been?

And to make things even more stressful, she refused to take a bottle. She was too sick to not eat so we had to syringe feed. It was an all day, week long progress. It was overwhelming at moments.

Once we found a formula that worked (no more bleeding or vomiting, yay!) and she started gaining weight, we began the bottle battle. It took about a week of fighting & refusing to eat before she finally gave in! She's still very picky about the bottle type but she's willingly eating so we'll take it!

The Little Man & I always stop and get a snack after his social group each week. We have about twenty mins between when he gets done when we have to pick up The Daughter from school. Most of our Mommy/Son moments involve a treat, it's the way to his heart.

The Daughter still helps out at her Papa's store once a week and still very much looks forward.

 I love spending my days hanging out with Baby Girl.

The Little Man's view of people. A fun perspective. This time he was taking pictures of me speaking with his OT after an awesome social group.

Happy 3 months Baby Girl!

There you have it. It was another busy month filled with some crazy stressful moments and even more blessings.

August in Review

She's getting use to the constant crazy around here.

Did my first major shopping trip to Costco with all three kiddos in preparation for the FamLee coming.

All the FamLee (minus Grandma & Papa) arrived. We had a fun crazy weekend spent at the pool, eating great food, painting nails, celebrating Birthdays, going on walks and enjoying each others company.

And the big reason everyone came was to bless Baby Girl. The zipper in Baby Girl's dress broke while getting her ready moments before it was time to leave. We had to pin it shut which we didn't have time for so we where late to church. Then she screamed through the entire blessing. It was blistering hot outside &  everyone complained about doing pictures.... It was a disaster! Luckily the rest of the day went much better. 

The next day was spent hiding out at our favorite parks avoiding the messy house after all our company left.

Chores...even in the summer. She's an awesome helper.

The Little Man helped Jeromie fix our window when it decided not to roll up anymore by getting the need tools for Jeromie when he asked. "Hand me the green screwdriver" They made a great team.

We checked out the Sound Exploration exhibit at the CREHST museum. 

We enjoyed Sunday walks along the river with good company.

Randy spent another week on travel for work. Found his dinner fortune humorous especially after a server crashed caused him to work late into the night every night that week. It was horrible. He needs a relaxing vacation for sure!

The Daughter had soccer camp for a week and rode her bike to and from each day. When did she become so independent? 

Randy met his BFF, Ryan in Portland to see Jack White in concert. They talked now stop for days about it so I'm assuming it was well worth the craziness to get there. BTW, do guys use the term BFF? Probably not. Oh well.

Robbie & Sienna often came over to play. The kids love them so much!

We loved the summer weather & getting to play outside all day. This is the train they made. They took turns being the engine & yelling "choo choo" I'm sure the neighbors loved it. :)

While getting ready for the day I overhead a conversation between sisters that went something like this: "Please don't grow up while I'm gone at school. I have so much to teach you!"

The Daughter was ecstatic when she found out who her teacher was going to be. Love that she's so excited for school.

Baby Girl is still crabby and crying most of the day. Still vomiting & having coughing issues. They're thinking it's severe re-flux now and have put her on Zantex. Hoping it helps her feel better ASAP. You'll notice she's wrapped up in The Little Man's blankie. He comes running with it every time she starts getting super upset. 

I challenged myself to read all of the conference talks from April's General Conference. I spent my time at the pool reading (& enjoying Red Vines) while the kids swam & baby napped. It's been a really uplifting experience. 

We spent our last day of Summer at the pool getting in the last few rounds of Marco Polo with friends. 

The kids had their first day of school. The Little Man started Kindergarten & The Daughter third grade. They were both super excited. 

At the end of the month Baby Girl celebrated 2 months. She's starting to smile and coo at us. It melts my heart.

And we finished off August with a car accident & an Anniversary all on the same day. The Baby Girl & I were on our way to pick up kiddos from school when a lady ran a stop sign & T-boned us. No one was hurt. Total blessing! Randy & I spend our 11th wedding anniversary working with the insurance companies & trying to get a rental car on a holiday weekend. We still haven't gone out to celebrate our Anniversary. We need to do that!

July in Review

We brought home Baby Girl. Felt wonderful to be home and have all my family under the same roof again. I sure missed my kiddos while in the hospital.

Baby Girl meet her closest cousin. Hard to believe they're'only 5 month apart. Isn't he the cutest chunky monkey ever?!? Seriously love him!

When will the swelling go away? I haven't had ankles in months...

Baby Girl had her first bath with the help of her big sister.

I fought some major nausea for most of the month. It was a good day if I could keep down toast for the first two weeks postpartum. Way frustrating especially since I had already completed that phase way back in the first trimester. It was no fun!

Randy taught The Daughter to play Chess in the evenings and was knocking the socks off everyone she challenged. 

We had a several hour power outage one evening so we dusted off the board games. Randy & I played Monopoly late into the evening and had a blast! Wow, I think that's the first time I've ever used the words Monopoly & Blast together in a sentence... Am I getting old?

After two weeks they are still very much in love with her! Hooray!

3 yellow jacket stings + a large dose of Benedryl = one sad little boy. That trip to the river didn't turn out as planned. Poor guy!

Our Baby Girl was not doing well. By week two she had lost a pound & half, was projectile vomiting like nothing I'd seen before & was having weird coughing/stop breath episodes. She had her first ultrasound at two weeks where they discovered things where not flowing correctly through her pyloric valve (it was barely opening) & she would more than likely need surgery ASAP. Our Pediatrician recommended repeating the ultrasound a week later to see if it was better or worse. She mentioned she had a feeling we needed to wait a week but wasn't sure why.  We repeated the ultrasound & found that the valve was opening much more than before and was now considered with in normal range & her symptoms where getting more mild. Surgery for the next day was called off. Everyone was stunned.

This Kiddo said she had a headache, next thing I know she had slept the entire day away and was running a high fever. Poor Kiddo! After a really crummy feeling weekend she was back to her normal self.

We harvested our first Tomatoes of the season. Yummy! Only half of our plants produced this year, it was weird.

Baby Girl had more blood work done. She's not a fan.

We have FamLee close again! So excited to have Robbie & Sienna home from school. We sure missed them while they where gone. The house has felt pretty empty the past several months.

A common interaction between the two. He's all up in her space, super excited to see her and she's not sure what to make of it.

And there was a lot of crying. Baby Girl would cry pretty much non stop from mid afternoon until late evening every single day. It was exhausting... and frustrating... and more exhausting.

A classic Summer activity. The Daughter & BFF had a blast out in the blistering sun selling refreshing ice cold lemonade. And they even made a profit!