A weekend of Camping

This past weekend we went up to my grandpa's cabin with our family. Joe went to the ward's fathers and sons outing so he wasn't able to come with us. We had a great time. Emily, Madison, and I went on a hike with Ben and Sara and had fun looking at the places Ben & I used to build forts with Dean and Mathew. The forts are all gone now, of course, but in some places there was still piles of wood. Madison kept telling us to be quiet because there was bears. Emily had a great time picking the pretty flowers. On Friday night we roasted marshmallows and had smores. Yummy! Emily decided that she likes these brown marshmallows better than the ones we make at home on our BBQ. We came home Saturday after lunch. It was a really quick trip. Joe had a good time on his father's and sons outing. Next year he might even take JJ along.

Emily the Architect

After the park tonight Emily decided to play with her blocks. Joe went in to change JJ's diaper and Emily said she was building houses. She did a really great job.
She told Joe that this one is Callie's house. Callie is my friend that lives in Boise and we went there a couple of weeks ago. It actually looks quite a bit like Callie's house.

She was working on this one when it was time to clean-up. She said this one is Lizzie's house. Lizzie is her friend in the ward and again it looks similar to this house.

Fun with Dad

Tonight while I was fixing dinner Joe took the girls to the park. They had so much fun. They came home telling me that Daddy was chasing them around like a monster. While they were over there I snuck some pictures from our back door. (we border the school and so the park is right behind us) He was chasing after them in both pictures.

JJ is 10 months

JJ turned 10 months on the 14th. He is starting to look so much like his Daddy. He already did, but it seems like the older he gets the more he looks like him. He has an OT (occupational therapist) that comes once a week to work with him and he is doing great with that. He loves her so much and started grinning and grunting at her as soon as he saw her last week. He knew that she plays with him and was ready for some fun. He is starting to make improvements in areas that we never would have noticed. Things like how to get to sitting position like a normal child (apparently none of my children have been normal in this regard), how to protect yourself from falling over, we are working on the crawling position, and raising arms over the head without falling over. She said once we get all of these things down then it will be easier for him to put weight on his legs. When they first evaluated him for physical therapy they were thinking he might have some sensory issues because he doesn't like his hands touched and doesn't like the feeling of things on his feet (they thought that might be why he doesn't put weight on them), but the OT thinks that it is because he doesn't put weight on them that he doesn't like the feeling of things on them. She thinks that the more we work with him the better he will get about that and soon he won't mind the feel of things.


JJ is getting to be such a crack up now and loves to make the funniest faces. This is one of his favorite. I love how he makes such a cute little O.


Here he is raising his hands above his head pretending he is shy. He loves to pretend he is shy, but he will go to anyone really.


Here he is waving. It is hard to tell because his hand is just a blur, but he loves to wave. He will say hi by waving. We were actually saying "Hi, JJ" to try to get him to smile and look at us and so he started waving. He doesn't wave bye yet.
We love JJ so much and are so glad he is in our family. We think he is such a cute little boy.

Another campout in our backyard

We just bought a new tent this last weekend because we are going to Yellowstone in July and need one for that. Joe had Wednesday off so we decided to sleep in the tent on Tuesday night to see how we liked it. We had a lot of fun. Madison didn't get to stay out all night because she was goofing off to much. I was gone to a baby shower so by the time I got home she was already in bed inside. We are glad that we decided to test it out and that it rained that night because it leaks very badly. The bottom of the tent leaked which I had never seen before. We had a tarp and everything and yet all the seams in the bottom had water coming up through them. Joe decided to take it back yesterday and luckily we got a full refund for it. So now we are on the hunt for a tent again.

Emily's GI Appointment

We had a follow-up appointment for Emily on Monday. She still isn't feeling any better and hasn't grown at all (she actually lost weight). Taking away soy has helped some, but not completely. Her NP Barbie said that they have another medicine we can try which is Singulair. Kind of crazy that she is taking all these medicines that are meant for other things but also are supposed to help with EE. If she isn't feeling any better in a month then we are supposed to take Milk, Wheat, Eggs, Peanuts, and Soy out of her diet. If she starts to feel better than after a couple of weeks we can start adding them back in one at a time to find what is causing this. Hopefully that will work because if not Emily gets to have another Endoscopy this year. Barbie said that sometimes when children have been in pain since birth their nerves endings will always tell them they are in pain (she had a technical word for it that I don't remember). So they would want to do another Endoscopy to see if she still has eosiniphils in her esophagus. If she does then the next step will be a formula diet (yuck). If not then they have some therapy she can do to treat the nerve endings so they won't tell her that she is in pain anymore. We are hoping that the singulair will work so we don't have to do all this other stuff.

Potty Training (Still)

Madison is still potty training and doing really well at it. We learned that she has to wear panties otherwise she doesn't care if she wets her pants or not. I also learned that she has to be the one to change her panties if she has an accident otherwise she doesn't care. Today during sacrament meeting she said she had to go potty. I took her to the bathroom and when we returned she yelled to her dad "I went potty!" Everyone around us was snickering because she was so loud.

Our Little Singer

Today at church JJ was quite the singer. During Relief Society while we were singing an opening and practice hymn he really belted it out. So much so that at times I couldn't hear anyone except him and the piano. Maybe someday he will really love to sing when he can actually use words.

Batteries fix everything

Tonight we were eating dinner and Emily got up to use the restroom. She came back and said, "Mom, the toilet is broken it needs new batteries" I said, "What?" Again, "The toilet is broken it needs new batteries." I said, "And that will fix it?" She said, "Yes it will, you need to put new batteries in it." "Okay, Emily"

My Sister is Engaged!

I have been waiting forever to post about this because I told Rachel I couldn't blog about it until she did. Rachel is engaged. Tim asked her on her birthday May 25th and they just set the date for January 5th 2010. We are all excited for her and think that Tim is great. Now she can officially start planning her wedding.

Saturday's Garage Sale Finds

Saturday I went garage-saleing again. Sara came with me. We had a lot of fun and found some great things. I got a trike for Madison for $5. I never knew how much she wanted one. I just saw it and thought it was a good deal so I bought it. When we brought it home she kept looking out the back door and saying "my bike". She still hasn't ridden it yet because we have been so busy, but hopefully that will be on the agenda tomorrow. I also was able to get a coat and a shirt for Emily for 50 cents each. She wore the shirt today and loves it because it has strawberries on it. The coat is for next winter because Joe and I were talking about how she might still fit into her coat from this year, next year, but Madison will need a coat and that is the one that will fit her. So we just bought Emily a new one.

Our Fun Friday Evening

Last night, I decided to take Emily to the free movie at Settler's Park. We called Ben & Sara and they wanted to go too. So we picked them up on our way. Madison and JJ stayed home with Joe because he had schoolwork to do, and Madison doesn't really enjoy watching movies. She lasts for about 15 minutes at most and then she can't sit still. Last night it was raining so we kept hoping that the rain would stop so they could do the movie. At about 9 pm it stopped and we left my parent's house (we stopped to pick up my Mom on the way) and went to Settler's park. When we got there it was very obvious that they weren't having the movie because there weren't any cars in the parking lot. We decided to go rent our own movie instead and headed off to the closest Redbox. Benjamen picked out our movie and we headed back to my Mom's house and watched our movie while we ate Root Beer Floats. Emily watched a separate movie back in my parent's room. We had a good time and enjoyed spending time with family. Maybe next week it won't be raining and we can watch the movie at the park.

JJ wants to play too

Tonight after family home evening we decided to play Chutes & Ladders. As we were playing JJ decided that he wanted to spin the spinner just like all the rest of us. We let him try once and after that each time we would go around he had to take his turn too or else he would start crying. It was so funny.

Emilyisms

-Thursday we ate dinner in the car on the way to Jared's graduation because we ran out of time at home. On the way home Emily announced "Mom, why did we eat dinner in the van? We can't eat dinner in the van because it is not the kitchen! and we don't eat food out of the kitchen! It makes our car seats messy when we eat in the van."

-Recently Emily had a friend over who informed her that her doll was not modest (Emily likes to undress her dolls and then leave their clothes off) Emily asked what that meant and I explained to her. Last Saturday when we were at the Zoo and there was a lady wearing a tank top she said very loudly, "Mom, why is that girl not modest?" (She does this a lot now and it is very hard to explain to a 3 year old that not everyone learns the same things.)

I need to start writing more of the things she says down because I tend to forget before I can blog about them and I want to remember them when I am old and grey.

Maddie's ER Trip

Sunday morning Madison decided to eat some Aspirin. I was taking a shower and Joe wasn't out of bed quite yet. When I got out of the shower she comes walking in with a bottle of aspirin wanting me to give her more. I asked if she had eaten some and she said yes. Emily chimed in and said Madison had eaten two of them. I thought she should be okay and called my Mom to make sure. She said it was probably best to call poison control just to double check. When I called them they asked how many were missing from the bottle since I told them I could only remember using one aspirin from the bottle for a bee sting. We counted the entire bottle of pills to find out 30 were missing. They said we should take her to the ER for blood tests to make sure. So I took her to West Valley Medical Center while Joe took Emily and JJ to church. While at the ER she got her blood tested twice and had to drink charcoal. She hated the charcoal and ended up with it all over her clothes, the floor, the chair, and me. After the second blood test the doctor came in and said that her levels had been a bit elevated after the first test, but after the second test she was down to a 6 which was the same as if you were just to take an aspirin for a headache. So we got to go home. Yay! Hopefully she won't be doing anything like that again since she hated the experience so much. We will be moving our medicines to our bedroom too so she can't get into them again.