Family BBQ

The weekend after Daves surgery we thought it would be fun to get together with Daves parents and have just an impromptu BBQ at the park and then swim at the pool. We brought burgers and dessert to cook on the BBQ. I cooked a killer peach dessert (recipe courtesy of Martha Stewart of course!) While we were cooking dinner we saw a ton of people vacating the pool. At first I thought it was a party that had ended but soon found out that a little person was not wearing their rubber pants and had left some fecal matter in the pool. (Might I just add that I got kicked out and yelled at by two Trabuco Canyon residents at the pool last year because Luke was not wearing rubber pants!) So they had to close it and we didin't get to go swimming but we played on the playground instead. It was a fun evening and we should do more BBQ!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

David and I went to see this last night. I loved, loved, loved it!
I think everyone should see it.

We reap the fruits of our labor! Part II

Check out my zucchini! Its over a foot long!

It's not Funny!

Apparently to Logan it was. On our way home from visiting Dave at the Hospital Luke started doing raspberries, saying "It's not Funny!" and being goofy and Logan thought it was hilarious.

Appendectomy

I'm a few days late to blog this but better late than never. Tuesday David had his appendix taken out. I know, I know how did this all come about well I will tell you. . .

Monday night after dinner David was complaining about have a stomach ache. We decided to just sleep on it and see how he felt in the morning. Well he woke up still feeling gross but the pain and become extremely painful in his lower right side. Of course David went to his medical books and diagnosed himself with appendicitis. I of course that that he was over reacting and didn't not believe him. He decided to just go to school and see if he could make it through the day and I went about mine. Later in the morning I got a phone call from him saying that he felt nauseous and that after his class he was thinking of going to the doctor. I said okay still thinking that it was nothing. Around 11:30 I got a message from him, (because I didn't hear my phone it was left in the car. I was sooooo concerned I know.) saying he had drove himself to the ER and was admitted and was waiting for the doctor to see him. I told him that I would head down there when he got his diagnosis, I had the whole brood with me and I didn't want to drag them along and have them wait in a dirty hospital for several hours and it be nothing. So I went to the pool and let the kids play and I happened to run into Leslie McConkie and Renee Hartman. We were just talking and I finally got the phone call I was waiting for. David had had his catscan and sure enough he was right, APPENDICITIS! I felt like a big idiot! He was going into surgery at 5:30 -6 and I wanted to be there. Leslie McConkie was so kind to take my kids for me, thanks Leslie. I immediately started making phone calls and getting things setup. So I dropped everyone off my mom met me at the house and within an hour we were off. My mom happens to work with Toby Carron and he is in the Elders Quorum presidency so he called Mark Klien (our home teacher) to come down and adminster a blessing to David, along with Dad and the Bishop, thanks guys! (The Bishop happened to be there because our Relief Society President was in the ER also.) It 6pm they rolled him up the Pre-Op and we were just waiting our turn. David seemed very calm and clear minded. He said he really wasn't scared it was a very routine surgery. I on the other hand was a little nervous, routine surgery can go wrong at anytime. The nurses, anasesiologist and surgeon came in to prep Dave and what not and soon after they wheeled him away. He was in the OR for a little less than an hour and the doctor came in told us things were great he was a little grougy from the anasegia but thing look great! Pheww, that was a relief. The rest of the evening went by fast, the took him to his room to recover and he had to stay overnight. The boys and I picked him up Wednesday later in the after noon. He was walking around and looking great. It's been a couple days and he is still very tired, can't lift anything or drive but he is doing well and we're all just greatful to our Heavenly Father that he is still with us and that nothing went wrong. We truly are being watched over latley.

9 month Photo Shoot

Family Pics

Before Kyle and Karli left for Tennessee and Trent left for his mission my Mom wanted a big family picture with all of us, so we had friend take our pictures at the lake. It was later in the day and we only had a short window of time because the boys were already in their magic hour. But I think we got some great shots. Thanks Tyler!

Finger Painting

As a stay at home mom you try to find ways to keep your children occupied when your "TO DO LIST" entails 12 loads of laundry, cleaning the floors (not just sweeping, mopping too), changing the sheets on all 3 or more beds, cleaning the upstairs bathroom that everyone and their mother uses because the bathroom downstairs has now been marked "LUKES" and is no longer considered for company use. (If you know what I mean.) Two words: boys spray and miss. Okay four words, but you get the point. And catch up on your filing for the past 4 months! I'm sure I could go on and on but that was all I could remember off the top of my head.

Anyway, I always feel guilty when I have these kind of days and have Luke plop himself down in front of the TV and veg. And I feel even worse when David asks Luke, "What did you do today buddy?" And all he says is "I watched . . ." and lists all the movies. Then I get the look from David of disappointment because he hates when Luke watches more that 1 hour of TV a day. So I made a promise with myself that I would try to put off turning the TV in morning with telling Luke that we have to do school first. So Luke and I together will do 15-20min of school time. We go over letters, numbers, shapes, colors, animals and ryhming words. Then he can watch a little TV. When it is over we try to do one of our many activities one of them being art. That is one thing Luke and I can relate with, we like to create things! So here he is finger painting in the back yard.

Water Fountains

On Monday I started watching Megan and Camryn Vallely for the 3rd summerin a row. I absolutely love having them with us. They are such a huge help and extremely fun to be around. The girls had gotten some gift cards for christmas to the book store at the Irvine Spectrum and wanted to use them and I said sure! Walking is always good and the water fountains are even better. We shopped around for a little while, went to the bookstore the girls got some books to read for the summer and we treked our way back to the fountains.

Luke has been to the fountains before but Logan has not. So it was fun to see his reaction watching the water come out from the ground and spray him in the face. Logan was determined to see where the water was coming from and stuck his fingers in the metal grate and would not unbend his fingers to let go! He got so frustrated and started having a huge fit (Big Surprise!) and I had to go over and rescue him. He is so persistent with everything. He reminds me of myself, shocking I know. We didn't stay very long and soon headed back to the car and make our way home for lunch. It was a fun little side trip!

1% Vent

On Sunday Logan turned 9mons. We went to the doctor this morning to do our routine well check and shots. OUCH! Anyway at Logan's 6mo appointment his weight was 14lbs 15oz and in the 4%. Tiny guy I know. Dr. E told me that if he didn't improve his weight buy the next visit he would be considered failure to thrive and something would have to be done. Well 3 months down the road were back again and these were the stats;

Height/Length: 27 3/4 in (34%)
Head Circumference: 17 3/4 in (44%)
Weight: 16lbs 4 oz (1%)

1% are you sure I was thinking to myself. I know that he is a tiny guy but not 1% material. Oh goodness I knew that the lecture was coming from the Doc anytime now. Sure enough it went like this. . .

Dr E: So how many bottles are you feeding him a day?
Me: 4-5 6oz bottles.
Dr E: Formula?
Me: Yes. (Thinking to myself "What else would I be feeding him? Soda, Beer. I'm not that bad of a mom." And yes the guilt is starting to sink in.)
Dr E: Good. Good. Now that is 24-30 oz approximately a day, we want to make sure that he is getting at least 32oz a day so we need to up that amount. (Great, anxiety building!) Now if he is still hungry you are more than welcome to mash up what ever you are eating and feed it to him.
Me: We already to do that. (Guilt and anxiety dropping slightly.)
Dr E: Well good! What you don't want to do is be feeding him Cheerios, fish crackers, water, juice and other forms of empty calorie foods. Because those will just fill him up and not give him the proper nutrition he needs. Hmm okay!
Me: Yeah sure. (Hmm sure. . . As I allow Luke and Logan to stuff their faces with Cheerios, Gerber puffs and sip water from a bottle to keep them quiet and still at this doctors visit. By the way I feel like a loser of a mom and thinking I should enroll in parenting 101. Oh and by the way the guilt and anxiety have now ballooned through the roof!)
Dr E: Great. So we need to have a mandatory check-up for Logan to make sure that he is gaining weight in 1 month from now. My nurse will set that up for you, alright.
Me: That sounds great! (MANDATORY! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? What if I don't want to come back? Can't you just accept that my child is small maybe a late bloomer and will catch up all in good time? I can't help it if he has a fast metabolism and has 4-5 poopy diapers a day. Believe me he eats plenty. If you wanted to give me some advice on something that may be useful to me say. . . sleep. Sleep is something that I could use some advice on. But, if you tell me just to let him cry, I don't want to here it I already do that! And believe me they don't all give up!)
Dr E: Alright, we'll see you in 1month take care. Oh, the nurse will be back in to give him his 5 shots. Okay, have a great summer vacation!
Me: Thanks. You too! (5 SHOTS! Whoa nelly! Do you give this many to your own child. 5 seem to be an awful lot for such a tiny guy.)

The rest of the doctors visit is a blur other than 2 nurses coming in one to give the shots the other to hold his legs still. Me at the top trying to console me screaming child and the 3 year old yelling at the nurses, "What did you do to make my brother cry!"

It was a great day at the doctors but I do have this to say, I consider myself to be a well educated person and I have great common sense. I don't on the other hand agree with everything that the doctors say, so when they make me feel insecure and inadequate for caring for my child my back lash is this. Remember medicine is a science and not everything is factual and has a guarantee. So with that said, SCREW what the doctors say! This is to all you mothers out there that know what I am talking about. You do what is best for your child, keep giving them that TLC, feed them those CHEERIOS (remember they are fortified with vitamins and minerals), kiss those boo-boos, and feed them popsicles when they have bit their tonge. Because remember you know your child better than any old doctor. And you are great at what you do!

Thanks! To all you readers out there reading my vent! Have a great day.

Happy 4th of July!

Usually on the 4th we start out the day with the LOC wards annual pancake breakfast but I had come down with the stomach flu the night before and still was not feeling well that we skipped that and just hangout at home to rest. Later we had such a blast hanging out with our dearest friends the Trotters. We relaxed a little, ate, swam in their backyard and played games.

Our original plan was to go to the Laguna Hills Community Center and watch the fireworks, but all the kids and some of
the adults were getting tired and we decided to
scratch that idea. I

had bought some poppers and we took the kids across the street to the park and let them pop them

in a safe area.
They had a really good time and I have to say so did I.
It was a great day fun and filled with good memories.

"88 MILES PER HOUR!"

No, not really just 84MPH. I have been debating whether I wanted to post this or not so here it goes. I got my first speeding ticket on the 241 toll road. It the last thing that I needed but whatever, check that off my list. Root canal and crown in May check and speeding ticket in June check. I don't really think that I was going that fast he was clocking me going on an incline and when my car goes over 80MPH it starts to shake. My poor baby is really old but she has to hang in there till Dave is done with school. Anyway another milestone for me. You know as parents you usually write about your child's but every once in awhile you have one for yourself! Drive safe everyone.