It's Millertime Baby!

Change

2011-07-15T09:21:00.001-06:00

So, I am going to change the url of our blog. I just want to start fresh & update the url anyway since it is dct, for dennis, calena, tavin. We have a few more additions :). Stay posted for the new url.

That is called L-O-V-E

2011-01-05T22:58:00.002-07:00

After a night with friends the boys came home worn out, so much that Tavin went to bed and tucked himself in after we all read our stories. Impressive!
Well, Alec was still going strong and after Dennis and I left the room. He was making noise for a little while before it went silent. I went in about an hour later and look what I found... Alec fell asleep on top of Tavin! He really does love to snuggle with his brother, I guess he really wanted to be close tonight, LOL!

Nights like this I wonder why I am so concerned about having another one of these little guys, I wish we had more of them (nights like tonight).
Thanks Michelle for having these little guys over, they were SO happy a the way home and to bed!!!

No wonder why I can't sleep at 3 a.m.

2011-01-03T03:04:00.004-07:00

I know I have not gotten on here in a long time, it kinda feels funny to be using a normal keyboard, I have gotten so used to just checking my email and facebook with my phone that I don't bother getting on a computer anymore.
So, here it is 3 something in the morning and once again, I just can't sleep, or maybe I don't want to tonight since it is the only time I have peace in this house. I really don't think I can handle much more of living here, not necessarily the location but the situation. Dennis reminded me so lovingly tonight though, I don't have much of a choice. Isn't that just great. So now what do I get to do, it feels like I get to just watch my children's lives just dwindle away and get worse day by day. Now we get to top it off with a third, oh yea.
Aren't I supposed to be excited to have another baby? Maybe it is the depression (when isn't it anymore) talking but I think I was a bit on the naive and stupid side for getting pregnant again! Dummy me, what did I think would happen? Well, what I thought is that my Husband wouldn't be out of a job for 17 months and be home with us. I love having him here, his company is enjoyed but seriously, we have no freaken schedule anymore, I keep trying but with both of us here I can't be the one who is "in charge" of anything specific like Moms normally are throughout the day. When he does get to go back to work, if he does, it is going to be a HUGE adjustment, I am not looking forward to, but in another way, I am.
So here is the problem... It has gotten so bad around here with Tavin's lack of eating that we have resorted to telling him that he is going to have to go to the hospital if he does not eat what we give him because his body is not getting enough nourishment from food and is going to get so week he will die. In order for him not to die he either needs to eat his food or he needs to go the hospital and get shots and an IV so he will not die! How freaken pathetic is that one!
As he sits there screaming in his chair at every single meal we have I just sit there thinking, this is our life, I hate it! Alec now just screams when he sees food because of what he sees Tavin doing. I try to keep mealtime separate but it still doesn't work because Alec has the ability to walk into the kitchen to see what the commotion is, which he does every time. Tonight Tavin threw up twice at the table, of course because he had some jello it was all red, lovely. He gets himself so upset before he takes his bites that his body reacts by gagging and vomiting. All this is doing is teaching him to hate food even more, but what in the crap else am I suppose to do, I can't just let him not eat. It isn't hat he isn't hungry, he will actually be hungry for hours and feel sick before he tells me. He is so used to being hungry that it hurts his tummy when he eats a full meal (and when I say a full meal I mean a full meal toddler size!).
Every time I have him seen it is always the same response... His weight is fine, he doesn't look sick. Yes well if you ate what he ate you would look fine too. A body cannot live off of cheese, crackers, dried fruit and an occasional grilled cheese or peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or and dry cereal alone. It is no wonder he has been on medication to have normal bowel movements (which he still doesn't and normally bleeds when he does) for the past two years of him life.
I seriously just cannot take it anymore, I am ready to just drop his off somewhere and have someone else fix this issue. We have a few services come from Early Intervention for Alec, there is an eating therapist, speech therapist and a behaviorist. The eating therapist can't do much because the problem is stemming from the example his brother is setting for him. She keeps offering suggestions, none of which have worked thus far. The Speech therapist has only been twice now but on her first visit is the one who told us about the adenoids being enlarged and creating the problem with the constant drool and lack of speech. Had the surgery and he is talking up a storm now, problem solved. The behaviorist comes as a part of the supplemental assistant to families, she is here because of Tavin. The problem is, his problem is eating which they refer back to the eating therapist. She is very helpful when I have other issues and has made several suggestions to help Alec, none of which I can do right now. One suggestion she had that was great was to take him to a daycare a few days a weeks, just for a few hours, over mealtime. This way he can be with other kids and have the example of them eating and be more apt and willing to try new foods and have better mealtime habits. Great idea!!! No money for daycare. Dennis has no job. I could go and get a part-time job to pay for it, just to cover that expense, only I am having a baby in a month and a half, and who is going to hire me for a month? Let alone I can't put him in for one month just to take him back out.
I keep looking for answers, asking for suggestions of places to get help from every professional I know but nobody has any answers. There would be some solutions available if we had decent insurance but Medicaid (which thank goodness the boys have that available) does not offer any program that offers anything close to dealing with eating issues, or services for children with Aspergers. If you want help with that you have to go through some other State based program that SUCKS! All they do is give you different suggestions to help treat behaviors. These are some of the suggestions we were given... Get him in swimming lessons because he likes being active, take him to museums so he can have plenty of opportunity to explore different things and go to some conferences for Parents who have children with Aspergers. Okay you idiot of a women, if I had money I would do all of those things, then again, if I had money I wouldn't be on Medicaid having t0 get advice from her in the first place! Isn't that where they are supposed to be paying attention to their clientele before offering advice.
I am just extremely upset and at a complete loss as to what to do. I would pray but I think that is kind of a joke right now. Everything I pray for these last years, it's like I am talking to a wall. At one point I believed that if you ask in complete faith it will happen, well guess what happened, nothing. I have learned though that once I am at a point that I think and fully believe that I cannot handle more of anything, that life has completely overtaken me and I am beginning to go under, I will always have a little bit more piled on, just to push me under a bit further. It;s like it is a test to see how hard I can swim, only doesn't God know that I can't swim at all?
For 17 months now we have been praying for Dennis to find a job, any job, we have even prayed for a job at Costco, Home Depot, etc... even with his Masters Degree, who cares anymore, just a job. All this time I have been consoling myself, as well as Dennis with this b.s. line of, oh you couldn't have had a job at this time or another because then you wouldn't have been able to help so and so in this horrible situation, it must be in God's plan that you were to be home to be able to help. Yes well, life is grand when you can help but when you can't support your own family no excuse of being here to help someone else really cuts it. I just think it's all a big line of junk. For whatever reason it has become apparent to me that God just does not want to intervene in my life, I guess it is more of a free for all.
I just really want to escape right now, from my kids, but especially from the kitchen. I don't want anything to do with that whole area of my house anymore. For all I care at this point we can all live on crackers alone, and eat them all in the living room. How much worse can this get and how awful it must feel to be Tavin right now, all the damage I am doing to him psychologically, I just don;t know what else to do! Can't I just quit my job as a Mother?

Once here, now gone. In loving Memory of my Brother

2010-11-04T04:08:00.004-06:00

I don't know where to begin, it's 4 a.m. and I can't sleep, all the thoughts are running through my head of what needs to be done and how to do it and how life is now going to be.
Tuesday morning I went to the dentist and has a filling removed and replaced as well as my gums cut away where they had grown over a chipped tooth. Okay it hurt, and of course I can only take Tylenol, which does nothing, because of the pregnancy. So my mouth numb and so tired I sat holding both boys after Tavin got home from school with them both snacking on bread as we watched Veggie Tales. I tried to put my head back without them noticing and fall asleep but it just wouldn't work.
A moment later, at 12:40 our house phone rang, it was my Sister and Dennis picked up. She told Dennis to tell me she was on her way to Ogden Regional, Jason had been taken by Ambulance to the hospital and they don't know what is wrong. Dennis asked if I should meet them at the hospital but she said no, Babes from work was taking her and she'll be fine. Immediately after that phone call Dennis got a call from Costco for a job interview on Thursday, yea!!!
Within five minutes I received another phone call, this time on my cell phone and it was Babes, who I just met a week or so ago, she is one of Tonia's co-workers. She said, "Calena you have to get down here, Jason is not responding, Tonia needs you!" I jumped and I remember throwing my socks off, yet to be found, and grabbing my flip flops, grabbing my purse and telling Dennis I have to go. I remember thinking that shoes took too long and I'll be fine with no sweater, I didn't have time (it was like 42 degrees outside). I knew I had to go. He's been to the hospital on 2 separate occasions from heart attacks, and we know his life at this point is just fragile and who knows when it will end.
I raced my car there, which only took about 5 minutes. I ran to the E.R. desk and told them I need to go back with my Sister. She said, "You're here with Jason, oh good, can you give me information, your sister can't give me anything." I told her I would try and I felt so stupid, I couldn't remember his birth year, or his address. How do I not know their address??? She got up and when returning told me that they are not letting anyone back right now. I was about to say something but received a call again from my Sister's phone. It was Babes and she was bawling, I knew it was bad. She told me to run to the Ambulance drop off and she could get me in. I snuck in with her and as she took me to the room where Jason was lying on the bed with at least 12 Doctors/Students, whoever they were surrounding him, I saw my Sister sitting in a chair off to the side with a small old woman standing behind her. I took one look towards Jason and saw CPR being performed, a bag pump thing over his mouth and several tubes being pokes into his body. I put my arm and up and remember saying, "Don't look at him!" Then realizing we had to look I did and just held my Sister as tight as I could. I kept running my fingers through her hair because I remember her doing that for me during the birth of the boys, I remember that helping me and I didn't know what to do for her. Babes sat on one side and I sat on her other, holding her as tightly as possible. At some points she was shaking so bad her whole body was moving so I held tighter. She was just staring at him. His chest was being pushed down several inches with each pump of the hands of CPR, the bag was inflated over his mouth and his eyes were half open and blood shot. His body looked pale compared to his normal milk chocolate covered skin. They shocked him on at least two separate occasions trying to revive him. I remember at one point seeing the clock at 12:54 and again at 1:22 but that is all I remember of the time in that room. I was sobbing with my Sister and Babes and remember saying repeatedly, "Come on Jason, Come on Jason!" I also remember repeating, "Oh sh**!" Sounds so stupid now but that just kept coming out, thank goodness I was whispering!!! I do not even swear and I have no idea where that came from, ha.
At one point Tonia told me that he is leaving her alone, he can't leave her alone! I told her that she is never alone, we will always be there with her, I will never leave her alone. She told me about that morning and how today was the day he had once again promised her to quit smoking, and he called her whining about wanting a cigarette and she told him to stop whining, she had to get back to work. He has "tried" to quit so many times it was just old news to her, she's been through so much with him.
I knew deep in my soul that he was gone when I got there but I kept having hope, I kept quietly praying to please let him live, give him one more chance to make good choices, stop drinking and smoking and live a little longer, just till the girls were a little older.
I sat there crying, watching. Then, they took the bag off his mouth and kept CPR going, Doctors were calling out orders above all of the other Doctors. It was then that as I saw Jason's blood shot eyes, his head turned, dropped to one side and he was staring at us! His eyes red, half open, looking right at us, I couldn't look away, I wanted to but I couldn't. There was no life in his eyes and his body was left staring at us! I couldn't hold it together so well and was shaking as I was squeezing Tonia, smoothing her hair, holding her shoulder pulling her into me. We watched together as they did an Ultrasound and the Doctor saw nothing of interest.
I had my head pressed against her left arm, looking towards her lap, with my arms wrapped around her body holding her from shaking when suddenly the compressions stopped, I heard it. Immediately I saw two men's feet pointing towards us, I couldn't look up, I just staring bawling. My Sister's body went limp and she kept saying, "No!" All they said was, "I'm sorry, we did everything we could." I remember thanking them but not looking up, I couldn't face them. Later Tonia said that one Dr. has a tear in his eye. This is the same Dr. who has been working with Jason for the last few years, trying to keep his body going.
The Doctors cleared the room and the sweet little lady who stayed with us told her to go hold him. I walked her up to his body that was then covered with a sheet, Babes to one side and me to the other. She held his hand, and then laid on his chest. Suddenly I remembered, he's with his Dad. I told Tonia, "He's with his Dad now, that's where he has always wanted to be." That seemed to bring her peace as she relaxed onto his body even more. His Dad passed away on 2004 and that is when his alcoholism began, he couldn't handle it, and the Doctors kept warning him that he had to stop or he would die, but he couldn't, he just couldn't.
After a while I knew I needed to get the girls from school. The social worker took me to another room and I told her, I need to pick them up from school, I was beginning to panic, I could feel it. She was asking me questions and I could not remember where any of them went to school, or where they day care even was for the two little ones. I was panicking because how am I supposed to pick them up from school if I don't remember how to get to their schools, or even the name of them. What was I going to do? I had called Dennis somewhere in there and told him to please come, same with my Mom. I couldn't get a hold of Mike or Elise (my Brother and Sister-in-law) but I kept trying, and Dennis was trying. I was still alone to deal with this though. Babes ran up to me and said that Shannon, a friend of my Sister could pick up the older girls, I just had to cal and give the school permission since I am an emergency contact. They gave me the phone numbers and I made the call. Babes arranged for the pick up of the little ones from day care too. All the girls would be coming here.
I was trying to figure out Tonia's phone to call Vick, Jason's cousin who lives with him. He is the one who found him and called the Ambulance. As I was searching for his number and Babes is trying to help a call came in on Tonia's phone, it was Jason's MOM!!! I had to answer it! I said, "Hello, this is Calena, Tonia's sister." She asked, "How is Jason Calena? Is he okay now?" I was in shock, I had to tell her and I began sobbing. I remember saying, as well as I could with my mouth still numb, "They did everything they could, it just wasn't enough, he's gone Marilyn!" She was frantic and hung up. I called Vic and told Vick the same thing, he hung up. Then a Nurse brought me the phone and said it was family. I answered it and it was Jason's brother. He said to me once I answered, "I'm trying to find out about my brother, Jason Young, I was told he was taken there." I just kept thinking, why me? This can't be my job! I can't tell one more person, but I had to. I had to tell a Mother her son was gone, a brother he could no longer see his only brother, and a cousin, best friend and roommate that the man he found that had only been alone five minutes was dead!
Then Elise called. I answered and said, "Elise! I need you at Ogden Regional, Jason just died, get here please!" She said, "What?" so I repeated myself. She said she was on her way with Mike and hung up. After I was off the phone I sat there with my hands in my lap, not knowing what to do next. The social worker told me to take some time and relax, but I couldn't, Tonia needed me. So I went back in to the room with her.
They then moved his body to a more comfortable room, more private. Dennis got there and went straight to Tonia and just held her. She was pretty well collected until he touched her and she broke down. He held her until they rolled in Jason's body. Then Elise and Mike showed up. We all cried together as Dennis, as calm as ever stood back, red faced and peaceful looking just watched us. He held it together for us, we couldn't.
I can't write anymore tonight. My eyes hurt from the tears, my nose is sore from my constant draining. I gotta say, this pregnancy sure isn't helping the emotional roller coaster I have been on these last two days. I'll write the rest tomorrow.

God be with you till we meet again Jason, may you rest in Peace. We love you my Brother.

I just want to say Thank You!

2010-07-24T22:56:00.005-06:00

I wish to take the opportunity to express my tremendously deep feelings of gratitude for everybody that has read Calena’s blog post and has responded either by response on the blog, e-mail, or phone call. As you may know, I rarely make posts on our blog so this truly comes from my heart. To those that have reached out a helping hand, that have offered encouragement, that have simply listened to the extremely difficult time I am having with searching for full time gainful employment to support my family, I wish to say ... Thank you.

In the October 2008 LDS General Conference, Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave, a talk titled “Hope Ya Know, We Had a Hard Time”. The expressions of simply hoping that Heavenly Father is still listening and is fully aware of what is going on in my heart is something that I HOPE for every day.

At the end of the talk, he tells of an experience he has with President Thomas S. Monson; “When our beloved prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, was asked on his birthday ... what would be the ideal gift that members worldwide could give him, he said without a moment’s hesitation, “Find someone who is having a hard time, … and do something for them.”

To those of you that have reached out, that have provided support, job leads, kind words, and support of many types, I tell you that you have fulfilled the Prophets birthday wish and have provided us hope to keep fighting what seems to be a losing war. I pray that Father will grant unto each of you the desires of your heart, Happiness, and lasting Joy.
Once again, Thank you.
Dennis

Solitude

2010-07-20T00:45:00.004-06:00

First off, with the good news. We went to the Doctor today for the baby and all is well. I am 9 weeks pregnant and due Feb. 21, 2011! We saw the ultrasound and the little babe looks perfect and his heartbeat sounds great too :-)
As for everything else… So it’s of course just another day around here for us, with more news of everyone else around us getting jobs in which they have no experience nor education, they just know somebody, or kissed the right butt, either way. Sorry, do you not love my optimism, that's all that's left in me? Well, maybe that is the whole problem, we don’t know “somebody” who is willing or cares enough to help Dennis have a connection for a job. We have to once again, as always for us in life, depend upon ourselves and find our own way. He’s been going on 11 months now with no hope for a job.
At first everything was okay, we had student loans to help us live and he was working hard on school so it was okay to be a little bit more picky when it came to searching for a job. Well, a few months later when January rolled around the job hunt became much more serious, as he had been out of work for 4 months. Ever since then he has been applying for things not so glamorous, not so enjoyable, but a career can be changed so just get in somewhere we thought. Well, the last few months both of us have been searching for jobs and applying like crazy for even dare I say, “crap” jobs! We are to the point where anything, anything will work, he just has to work. Loans are almost gone, completely gone. That is how we live, we don’t have unemployment, he only received that for a grand total of 3 months, yea for those 3 months that we felt like we were living large! Once loans are out I have no idea what we will do, and it stresses us both out, but have faith everybody says. I do but Dennis’ is running low, it’s like a bathtub draining, it’s eventually drained with no drops left.
So what do we do? We are applying for at least 3-4 jobs per day, most often more than that. One day I remember staying up really late at night and getting 12 resumes submitted, yet all of those jobs were turned down, just like the rest of them. A day does not pass that jobs are not applied for. Federal jobs, private industry jobs, state jobs, university jobs, non-profit jobs, etc…I mean even low paying jobs, temporary jobs, part-time jobs.
He’s educated, he has experience, but none of that matters. We have asked so many people for help yet the answer always is, “If I hear of something I’ll let you know.” He’s had 4 interviews so far, all of which have gone well, none of which lead to anything. He had one interview with U of U, one with SUU, one with IHC and one with Davis County Family Enrichment Center. Everyone likes him but not enough to hire him. That is the point right there, it’s just not enough.
It’s sad really because it has taken such a toll on him that he doesn’t feel like he is ever going to be able to provide for us. His hope is gone and I hate it. The worst part about it is that I can see it too, he has reason to feel like that and I understand. I can’t even console him anymore, I don’t even know what to do. I try every time but the more rejection letters he gets the more angry he becomes. And day in and day out he says to one of the boys, “You will have a future, I’ll be sure of that, you won’t turn out like me. I’ll give you direction and make sure you succeed.” It breaks my heart more and more each time I hear him say that because he must feel so awful inside, even more than he could ever express.
And then tonight, as we were saying prayer together before going to bed I was saying something like, “Please help us all to get the rest that we need throughout the night…” and of course over the monitor we hear Alec wake up crying. Bad timing. After prayer Dennis says, “God is just laughing, he doesn’t care about us anymore.” Of course I’m not going to bed after that so I sat there thinking and finally just had to get up.
I know one of the hardest things for him to do is to face people in social situations because he knows they’ll ask about his job or what he is doing or something along those lines. He hates it, you might as well just poke him with a needle in his eye. And he’s sick of pretending like everything is fine, cause is isn’t. I feel like I keep trying to go on and do the pretending for him when I can and be positive and social and do everything I think that I should be, but I’m burnt out. I’ve decided though after laying in bed thinking how to help him… I’m going to do what he wants to do so badly and that is to just disappear. Every time I talk to somebody he doesn’t even have to ask what they said before he knows, he can hear me talking, but it always comes up about the job, or lack thereof. So as non-social able as he wants to be that is what we are going to become. It may sound stupid but I think if I am less sociable than no will be inquiring, no one will be looking, there will be nobody to look at and think, Why have they got it so made anymore, or why did they succeed yet I fail. So I am cutting myself off, no more facebook, no more blog. When he gets hired and finds a job, a job that helps him to feel any ounce better then I will be back, but until then if this can help Dennis in any sort of way than so be it. It is all I have left to offer him, and I really think that in some way it may help him. It certainly won’t hurt, nothing much more can.
Sorry if you actually hung in there and read this whole book. I know it sounds like a big sob story but if you read these often enough you know I don’t normally get very personal or emotional, I always figure it is best left unsaid. This time it was very personal. Well, goodbye for now, hopefully just for now.

Tavin at the Rodeo!

2010-07-14T11:25:00.012-06:00

We took Tavin to a Special Kids Rodeo on Tuesday night at a nearby park. It was so much fun for him! He qualified to go because he has Aspergers, although I wasn't sure how he would fit in because it isn't a very well "seen" special need. He was fine though, the people there were SO nice and accepting and helpful for the children! When we first got there they gave him a t-shirt, that you can see is huge! And a number he was supposed to wear, but he didn't like the way it felt so they didn't mind that we took it off. That was one thing I loved, they were so easy going that whatever worked, that is what went.
He was assigned a Rodeo Princess to accompany him around the Rodeo, she was so cute and I want to say about 9 years old. The first activity should could involve him in besides running was painting the horse. There is actually a picture on the front page of the Standard Examiner this morning with Tavin painting the horse! It was a surprise to us this morning when we picked up the paper, but a very good one!
Then he went and rode a horse! He was excited about doing this all week but once it came down to it he refused. So I held him and insisted he do it. You all may think I am mean but if I don't insist he would never try anything. So I handed him over to the guy and told him that he may try to refuse and the man was so kind, he said, "That's okay, I'll get him on."
He just put him right on. Once Tavin was on he didn't refuse any longer. He took to it quite well. I walked along just in case he tried to make a dive for it but looking back, I could have jut let them take care of it. I'm just not used to having people there who can handle the surprises we deal with.
The one lady said that he is a "natural rider." She said that a lot of kids get on and are either scared or stiff but he just let him body move with the horse and relaxed quite well.
Here is his Entourage. They walked him around and around. They were the nicest ladies ever. His horses name was "Peaches" and she was 35 years old. Apparently for horses that is ancient! They olny normally live 25 to 30 years so this was one old horse, but huge and so calm.
Okay, not sure what is going on with the tongue...They walked him around for a good 10 minutes until he was ready to get off and be done. Then we went over to the face painting. He didn't want his face touched though so we went with his hand. He really wanted the ice cream cone so that is what he got! I'll have to find that picture and get it on later. Overall, it was the best night for him. He also got a trophy and some treats. The picture of that is on the other camera though so I'll add that tonight.
Check out the Standard Examiner though and let me know when you see him!

The Big News...

2010-07-08T23:56:00.001-06:00

How my boys announce it... Tavin says, "My Mommy is growing a baby in her tummy!" meanwhile, Alec claps and giggles. :-) Man I love my little men!

Alec's 1 Year pictures!!

2010-06-05T16:58:00.007-06:00

"I'm a Big Boy Now"

Here's my little stud muffin!!!
Only 1 month late but we finally got out in the nice weather and took Alec's 1 year pictures. He is such a little stud! Both of my boys are, I just love them to pieces. Oh and an update on development...

He is saying all sorts of stuff, that is, when he wants to! He has said,
"dog"
"Mom"
"Dad"
"what's that"
"I wan Mama"
"yay"
"ba ba" even though he is just about off of bottles, he still wants them occasionally :-)
"Ta-in" for Tavin, it sounds the same but no V sound comes out
"A-ic" for Alec
"Nana"
He still is not eating great, still liking the baby foods but will also eat Spaghetti O's really well and yogurt, he would eat that all day if I let him! Especially the key lime, that is his favorite. He loves crackers and dry cereal, pretty much any kind is good but mostly fruit loops and marshmallow maties (lucky charms), he does just like Tavin and eats the marshmallows first, must be genetic to go for the sugar first :-)! He now will also eat shredded cheese though too and that is new, but won't eat it sliced.
Alec still is not walking, but he really is still trying. He will take steps but then wabbles and falls. He has done up to 7 steps, fallen, gotten back up and done 5 more. It won't be too much longer. He can stand, holding his balance and drink at the same time though.
Neither of the boys love running bare foot. Alec doesn't mind walking in it but once he gets more than his feet in it, look what happens... he's holding his legs up as far as he can and won't tough the grass!

And there is my little Alec in a nutshell.

P.S. Be sure to read the new post below to see what happened to Tavin arm too. I just got that on too.

Tavin's hand

2010-06-05T16:37:00.003-06:00

If you can see Tavin's hand, he hurt it pretty bad the other day. We had set up the tent outside in the backyard to do a practice run of camping. It is one of the hardest things with Tavin is that he has an extremely hard time trying anything new. Not sure if it is part of his anxiety or just something that goes along with the Aspergers or what but either way, we don't do many new things in this house, and when we do, we do them slowly and talk him through everything. Really puts a limit on the fun we get to have, it's quite sad. But anyway...
We had the tent set up and two of his older cousin's over spending the night. He hadn't had a nap and was really tired and had been playing in the dirt for a long time. Well, he was running and tripped over the bungee that was staked into the ground (for the second time), only this time he fell on his wrist/thumb and hurt it pretty bad. We didn't know how bad because when he was crying I thought it was partly because he was so tired and it was his breaking point. I took him and showered him and got him into bed and snuggled up with him till he fell asleep. He cried the entire time, but see that isn't terribly abnormal when he is that exhausted, he hates showers or baths when we have to wash his hair, so that explains all of the crying. He didn't complain of any pain or anything, we were very sure to check for injuries. It may be gross to all of you but we keep his hair so short so that I only have to wash it every other day. We have to pick our battles and I don't want a meltdown every single night over washing his hair at bath time, so we have meltdowns only every other night instead.
Anyway, I peeked in on him at 10 and he was whimpering in his sleep! Holding his wrist that I had wrapped up in an ace bandage for the night. In the morning he seemed to not be in pain other than the fact that he wouldn't use his hand, at all. And he is right handed and it was his right hand that got hurt, I had forgotten to mention that. I finally got him to show me, which was difficult in itself and noticed it was hugely swollen and discolored all between his thumb and index finger.
Dennis took him to the E.R. since we thought it was broke and I stayed home with my sleeping Alec and two niece's that were over. Dennis usually has to take his places where he will have to be held still because of how strong he is and how hard he fights to be free. He gets in "fight or flight" mode a lot when touched, again, part of the Aspergers. It all makes sense nowadays.
So they returned 2 hours later and it turns out, thank goodness it is a sprang but the Doctor doesn't know if it is the wrist or thumb or fingers or what. He is supposed to stay in a cast for a week, except for bathing.
Oh this is not fun for Tavin! Poor guy, he isn't complaining at all though until the pain is unbearable, which is annoying because if he doesn't tell us when something hurts how are we supposed to fix it!!!??? Day to day concern for us.
So the pictures were taken 3 days after the fall so it looks a lot better than what is actually did or even does now but the discoloration is from a blown capillary.

Oreos...

2010-05-30T22:45:00.003-06:00

Thank you Oreo!

We were on our way home from the Layton Park, from feeding the ducks in the rain (which turned out to be quite fun) and Alec was fussy. He just was sick of riding and was tired and ready for a nap. Thankfully we had to stop at my Mom's house on our way home and she had left a bag with a couple Oreo cookies in it for the boys on my pile of stuff I picked up from her (she wasn't home). Well, I knew it would be messy but it was SSSOOO worth it, I just handed him the cookie to hold him over for the 15 minute drive home. Oh he loved it! The only other cookie he has EVER had was the golden Oreos but know he got Chocolate, as you can see. It was cute that he held it up for me when I turned around with the camera! This is a boy who loves the camera!!!

My little Tavin

2010-05-17T20:47:00.007-06:00

Today I took Tavin in to finally receive the long awaited diagnosis. We went to a preschool specifically for children with autism and met with a Child Psychologist. After a couple of hours of her playing with Tavin and doing several testings, etc... she came to me and said that she could conclude the final "official" diagnosis of asperger's syndrome (or otherwise heard as disorder). Because of the diagnosis results he was able to be admitted into their program, which is amazing by the way!!! He will begin in September with them. I am sad that he won't be in Ms.Lonah's class anymore, she was the most wonderful teacher Tavin could have had! But this program is much more specialized with a quicker rate of success since all of the kids are on the same spectrum instead of so many different challenges. The program runs M-F with short days W. So from 9-2:30 he will go and have breakfast, lunch and snack, recesses, tons of group and one on one sessions. They said that they focus in on whatever it is that he is ready to do, if it is reading he is ready for than they work with him on that. I am positive he will love that since he is already writing letters on his own, I just spell out the words and he writes away! He amazes me! The Psychologist was amazed at his language abilities and articulation, he is way above his level of speech! I was given quite a few resources to look into today and I found a website that was really useful. If you don't understand what aspergers is I copy and pasted a bunch of the information and highly suggest that you read it. The Director of the program today was laughing with me about how we should all just get shirts that say "Stop starring at me, my son has autism, This is not me being a bad parent!" Then on the back have it say "Stop judging, get educated!" For anybody that knows me there is no way I would do that but it was kind of funny since I had just finished telling a story of our Walmart trip Saturday morning and the women in line in front of me. Grrr, some people... Anyway, as one part of the program I get, well am required to as well, but I get to help in the classroom up to 3 hours per week and then we have twice a month parent meetings in which they offer free babysitting for both kids at the school while we are there in the other room, that way we can PAY ATTENTION! Imagine that! There are lots of requirements to keep him enrolled but it sounds well worth it and I am very excited for him. Oh and guess what they are going to work on right away... eating!!! Yea!!! Too bad I have all the way until September, but oh well. It is amazing how hope can pull you through. Okay enough rambling, here is the information I found. Read on if you can stand to :-)...

Description Autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are a group of neurodevelopmental disorders defined by qualitative impairments in communication and social interactions, restricted interests and activities, and stereotypical behaviors. Abnormalities in these three developmental areas tend to cluster together in affected individuals. All individuals with ASDs have qualitative abnormalities of social development in combination with disorders of communication and/or stereotyped repetitive interests and behaviors. The social skills that develop naturally in typically-developing children do not do so in children with ASDs. There are many behaviors and deficits that relate to each of the three domains mentioned above. As children with ASDs mature, these characteristics can change but the diagnosis remains.

Asperger syndrome involves significant impairments in social interaction and range of interests and activities, similar to a child with autism, but without a clinically significant delay in onset of language. Communication may be impaired by an inability to read social cues, making socially inappropriate comments, or having a narrow focus of interest. Cognitive function is within normal limits. An alternative name is Asperger's syndrome.

Prognosis depends on many factors and is difficult to predict, particularly in the young child. Important factors include level of cognitive functioning, the presence of epilepsy or other medical comorbidities, joint attention skills, and functional play skills. While most children diagnosed with an ASD retain their diagnosis by age 9 years, many show considerable improvement, particularly those initially diagnosed with PDD-NOS. Favorable prognostic factors include early identification and appropriate behavioral intervention, as well as successful inclusion with typically-developing peers in mainstream educational and community settings. Poorer outcomes are associated with the presence of mental retardation, epilepsy, no functional use of language by 5 years, comorbid medical/genetic conditions, and comorbid psychiatric disorders. [National: 2001] [Johnson: 2007] [Charman: 2005] [Turner: 2006]

Impact
Health care costs are significantly higher for children on the autism spectrum than for typically-developing children. [Croen: 2006] Regardless of the level of cognitive functioning, children on the autism spectrum who receive early, intense behavioral and educational intervention show significantly greater improvement in cognitive and adaptive functioning than those who do not. [National: 2001] Donations are welcome :-)

Oh, funny story though, we had to go see Pruitt today and Tavin was sitting in his chair so Pruitt came up and said, "Hey Tavin can I have my chair back?" Tavin said, "Oh yes, yes sir!" It was adorable, I don't know where he comes up with this stuff but Pruitt thought it was funny as it gets and said he felt like he was back in Oklahoma suddenly. The things my little man says...

The latest of Dennis' pictures

2010-05-12T14:41:00.001-06:00

He just took these in the living room one morning while I was showering. I'm amazed with what he can do so fast with these pictures! I cannot wait until the weather is warmer so we can get outside and take pictures (which I hear is coming Monday!!!).

Out with Friends

2010-04-28T12:43:00.002-06:00

Last Saturday we went to a Kid's Safety Fair with our friends the Ryerse's. The kids had a blast! I don't have many pictures available right now cause Dennis has to convert them from his camera but this is what I do have for now.
There was a huge slide thing for the kids but Tavin got freaked out when it came to climbing the latter for the slide so since Melanie is so little she got up there with him and helped him through the whole thing. I was so grateful for her doing so! Tavin had a wonderful time once he got through it and then went back for more! By himself! I was so proud of him for doing it all by himself. Sounds little for most I am sure but only Melanie and I know how hard it was for him to accomplish such a thing. It was huge and there were SO many big kids on there pushing and crowding the little ones, I'm sure I would have been scared too at first being that little.
In this next picture Alec and Tavin are flying a helicopter. I have a picture of Tavin, Emma and Callahan flying together too but can't access it yet to upload so that will soon come, it is really cute.

Other than that Tavin got to drive in a Police car (pretend anyway) and sit on a Police motorcycle with Emma and Cal, which we have pictures of as well. Then we all went over and had a picnic. Dennis got some awesome pictures of Alec and Callahan in the grass, we will get those on here soon too. I just had to post in the meantime so you know we didn't disappear into thin air. We are here and eventually I will get all caught up.

Alec

2010-03-20T23:13:00.002-06:00

Even though it has only been two days since the accident... Alec is fine! The bruise is so light that if you didn't know it was there you would never even see it. The gash in the eyebrow is healing so fast too that it just looks like a small mark now. He has healed so fast! His energy is back and has been back to my "sneaky little Alec" that is normal for him. What a blessing!!!

What a Miracle!!!

2010-03-18T21:20:00.001-06:00

Today I was in the room and Dennis stopped in for two seconds to talk to me when he suddenly walked out. Then I heard from the other room, "OH NO!" Then a thump, thump, thump. I knew what happened and ran as fast as I could. All I remember is seeing Dennis sitting on the couch with Alec in his arms and I was grabbing the phone. Although, during the time that I cannot remember anything Dennis said that I got to the top of the stairs when he had just picked up Alec from the bottom. I guess I stood there talking to them but I don't remember any of that. All I know is I saw his head was red and had marks so I called 911 as Dennis was trying to get Alec's eyes open to see them. He was screaming, immediately in fact he started screaming, which we knew was a good sign.
We have 13 wooden stairs that leads into a concrete basement floor. There is a half door that locks at the top of the stairs, which we lock ALL THE TIME! Guess not this time, neither of us remember why it was unlocked though. We always double and triple check, but not today. A Police officer arrived so fast and did a quick check on the situation, then opened the house up for the EMTs. Suddenly our house was filled with 7 grown men and suddenly I realized how small our living room was! They asked what happened, his age, looked at the stairs and announced, there is 13 with concrete at the bottom! I told them there were no open wounds but I panicked and called because they are wooden and his head is banged up. They told me several times I did the right thing and they need to check his neck. They had to strap him into a stretcher! Like Dennis hadn't seen enough, he had to lie him down on the stretcher, he said that was the worst part of it all to him.
Dennis told me later what had happened is he just suddenly had a feeling to check the stairs. He rounded the corner as he saw Alec's last little foot drop down the stairs! He chased him down, trying to catch him the whole way. He kept trying to calculate jumping in front of him but it kept coming out too risk because if for some reason Alec bounced then Dennis could have landed on him and made things so much worse! He thinks he grabbed him before Alec hit the concrete though, thank goodness!
This is so hard to write, it makes me sick to my stomach, literally!
I rode with Alec in the Ambulance while Dennis stayed home because Tavin was due home from school via the bus in 10 minutes. Can you imagine what would have happened if he would have come home to that!!!
So we got there and the first thing the EMT said when I saw him out of the back of the truck was, "He is SO strong!" They couldn't hold his head still, no strap could hold him. They had to cut his clothes off on the way to McKay Dee since that was the only way that jumper was coming off without moving him. Eventually they finally all got the point that nothing was going to hold his head except for a person so a Nurse got assigned the job, she struggled with it too. They had strapped his arms down to keep him still and he got those out too. At one point he got them loose and reached out for me to hold him, I wanted to break down and cry! That was so hard, to not pick him up when he was reaching out to me and crying hysterically! They had to give him Morphine to calm him down. At one point as we stood there with him, me trying to keep him calm he started vomiting. 4 times it shot out of his mouth. The Doctor was passing by and rushed in to flip him on his side on the board, they were afraid he would aspirate, they were trying to suck it out of his mouth and the suction thing broke and stopped working! Thank goodness Alec is used to puking, he just pushed it out with his tongue what he could. He did so good!!! The whole time though, every person who worked on him said, "How old is he? He is so strong!!" I just wanted to yell, "I KNOW! I have to hold him down for diaper changes every day, I know he's strong people!" But I didn't :-)
They took him for a Cat scan and I got to be there holding his hand. Finally the results came back... NOTHING! No injuries!!! No breaks, no fractures, nothing! Bruises on his head was what we walked away with! We have to watch him closely but other than that they released us.
The rest of the day he has just been a very calm Alec. He got excited and played with Tavin for a little bit but after that he just watched out the windows while we drove, wanted to be held while we were home and just rested in my arms.
Thank you Heavenly Father that he is okay! I guess God makes stocky boys for a reason, I think that is the only thing that protected his ribs from breaking with how many times Dennis said they hit the stairs, over and over again. Thank you!!! We have been blessed so much, thank you again! And again, and again!!!
I'll get pictures on tomorrow. Our computer crashed on Tuesday so I have to figure out how to load them on Denis' computer. What a week!

Tavin's 3 year pictures, finally!

2010-03-14T15:47:00.001-06:00

Doing what he loves to do!!! Run! I love the way these turned out. It is so much nicer than taking him into a Photo Department where it is hot and stuffy, he gets so much anxiety in those places. Here we were able to get him doing what he loves most, and completely comfortable too.

Alec at 10 months

2010-03-13T23:05:00.006-07:00

What a big boy! He weighs a whopping 23 lbs. 9 oz.! He's doing great though and is cruising the furniture at an amazing rate. Monday we have an appt. with his Dr. to check his ears and talk to his about getting tubes, as the other Dr. suggested we think about doing that since he has had so many ear infections that just won't clear up. We'll see... but look how handsome he is!
Dennis took these pictures Friday morning. His hair is so long I need to give up the fohauk and comb it down. He looks like a little boxer though doesn't he, with the one tooth down and the other coming in. What a cute little guy, or big depending on how you look at it.

Closing it off

2010-03-11T01:23:00.007-07:00

Come Saturday night I am making the blog private. I know it's a pain but it makes me kind of nervous sometimes to have so much information out there for people to see, some of whom I don't want seeing if you know what I mean...
Leave me you email address if you want to be able to get in after Saturday.

Also, I never got any of these cute pictures of that Dennis did before, check some of them out. His blog site is http://timesreflection.blogspot.com/ These ones on here were just purely for fun!

It's the "outtakes" Here is Tonia laughing cause her heel just melted into the mud!And Shai won't cheer up so peace signs it is, before Dennis got a really good one though.Are we ever going to be ready for this picture? By now the kids were froze, Tavin had a leg full of mud, Kenidee just was not havin' a smile for the day... It was a cute idea. We'll try that again in warmer weather.I'll get some more up later, there were some pretty funny outtakes.

2010-03-09T22:10:00.002-07:00

How is it that Tavin weighs as much as he does? Get what he ate today...

Breakfast:
One piece of toast covered in cinnamon/sugar mix
like 8 oz. oz. of juice

Lunch:
Fruit strip
Gerber yogurt melts (like 1/4 cup)
small cup of strawberry jello

Snack:
1 bag of freeze dried pears
1 pouch of fruit snacks

Dinner:
a cup of V-8 splash juice

That is it and I am not kidding!!!

Eating Journal

2010-03-08T21:31:00.002-07:00

After Tavin's appointment with his Occupational Therapist I have decided that for the next two weeks (or at least one weeks if I can make it that long) I need to keep track of exactly what it is he is eating. She told me that the other Doctors that we will seeing within the next two months are going to ask the dreaded question again that we hear over and over and that is, "What will he eat?" I hate sitting there fumbling for words trying to picture our pantry and all the foods Tavin will touch. It's exhausting! I'm trying to find patterns here too, I've never tried this before. I mean I have done it in my head but never out on paper (or on the computer). I know he likes crunchy things that are kinda bland. Here goes nothing...

Breakfast:
1/2 Chocolate Carnation Instant Breakfast
1/3 cherry poptart

Lunch:
Gerber Yogurt Melts (like 1/4 cup)
a couple sips of Grape Juice

Snack:
two bites of Lime Jello with Pineapple juice
two cookies
one piece of sliced American cheese

Dinner:
the other half of the Carnation Instant Breakfast from this morning
some shredded mozzarella and cheddar cheese mix (like 1/4 cup)

And that is it. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Oh and I am going to be closing this blog off to make it private. I know it is a pain but I put an awful lot of private info on here for all to see. Please leave me your email if you want to be able to get in. I'll probably close it off at the end of this week. Thanks!

Random pictures I've forgotten

2010-03-04T21:49:00.004-07:00

So I finally emptied my camera onto the computer and look what I found...
Dennis' hand after stitches. Same day I had to go the Insta-Care for myself and then found out the boys had bronchitis, bronciolitis and R.S.V. along with ear infections all around... What a long day!!! This picture was taken like 4 days later I think.
And this is what Tavin will look like as an old man! Still a stud!

And my blue eyed little man. What a hunk!
I was trying here to get a picture of the eczema but it doesn't look nearly as bad in this photo as it did in reality, thank goodness!
Tavin insisted on sleeping in the pack n' play! He fell asleep with the hanger on his face, he must have been one tired little boy! What a goof ball!
You can't tell me these boys are not related!!! They were watching their cousin do something, I wish I could remember what...And last but not least, Tavin got in on emptying the bookcase as soon as he noticed that we thought it was funny that Alec kept doing it. I just wish I got a picture of both of them smiling. I'm not great of picture timing... Alec would pull a book down, taste it, throw it aside, go for another!
Life is hard at most times but I there is no doubt about it, I sure do love my boys!

Alec - updated

2010-03-03T22:10:00.004-07:00

Alec is now giving kisses on demand :-), saying Mama (and Dada, but has been for a while), and giving "loves" or otherwise known as hugs. He is also crawling faster than fast and cruzing along some furniture. He's growing up so fast and has loved wrestling with Tavin lately! I'll get updated pictures up soon but just wanted to record this now. Here is the latest picture I have on him on the computer, boy I need to empty my camera soon!!! He has 3 teeth, none of which show here.

Our Valentines!

2010-02-16T21:31:00.003-07:00

The Ryerse's came over Saturday night to celebrate Valentine's Day with us. The plan was to have dinner, some cheescake (oh, yummy!) and then play a little air hockey, Guitar Hero and the Newlyweds board game.
After dinner Tavin got his ring out to give to Emma and Daddy was supposed to be videoing, but didn't get the news that he was supposed to be on that :-). Anyway, here is the recap of what happened, it is adorable!~
What happened is I took Tavin in his room and unwrapped the sucker, he then went out to the living room where Emma was and said, "Will you be my Valentine?" whilke handing her the ring!!! She took it, not knowing what to say, so we had him say it again. Then of course Emma said, "Yes!" Then they both plugged their mouths with the heart shaped ring pops. Tavin gave her a picture frame of the two of them together too, he is the one who picked that particular picture of them too. We have SO many pictures of the two of them together since they were like 10 months until now, at 3 years so there was a lot to choose from.
Anyway, while Dave and Dennis played Guitar Hero Melanie and I went to put the kids all to bed, they were all so tired. Alec went down and next was Callahan (we set the pack and play up in our room), I took Emma and Tavin and were working on them when we heard some commotion. Poor Callahan has puked everywhere (well in the bathroom), tons!!! Boy that little guy can really empty out his whole system in a matter of seconds! Poor little thing!!! Melanie was covered, so we wrapped things up. We'll have to get together soon and play again cause we have so much fun together. Here is a clip of the kids playing together on the elipticle too. The reason I pulled Cal off in the end is because he reached for his Mom and his legs went off to the side, they were about to get caught in the center between the pedals if I didn't get him off a.s.a.p., it looks like I just up and grabbed him though.

After they went home we just cleaned up a little and headed to bed. Nothing special here. Dennis and I really do need to get better about doing things for holidays that have meaning, instead of spending them like any old day. After 7 years you'd think we would have this down, but no, we can't be perfect :-).
Maybe we will celebrate Valentine's Day tomorrow, the boys won't know the difference. And from this time forward we will be big on holidays, that is my new goal (let's see how long it lasts, ha ha).

Our O.T. Visit today

2010-02-08T22:14:00.002-07:00

Since I don't want to write this down twice I figured I would write it in here and then just print this off :-)
So while visiting with Lori (Tavin's Occupational Therapist) she made some suggestions we are going to take. All of these ideas, suggestions and activities make for a BUSY Mom and Dad!!! So here it goes...
For now, don't worry about what Tavin is or is not eating, let his just eat whatever to get through the days. Get back on the V-8 Fusion drinks to get that going again and see how he does with it. For now our main focus is going to be to touch the foods. We are supposed to start role playing and do "cooking school," aprons and all. We are to prepare meals together and record them (camcorder). Then watch cooking shows on T.V. together and point out that after the Chef's make the food they taste the food. But when doing our own cooking school do not offer him the food. This should take the pressure off of him because we are not at the table, there is no pressure to eat the food, we are just touching it to prepare it. So for example hot dogs, since he won't even touch a hot dog during mealtime she suggested if I take him over and have him empty the bag of hot dogs into the water to boil he may at least be interested in touching them at that point, there won't be any pressure to eat them, just to cook them, get it? It totally makes sense to me but it may just be because I am in the situation and I understand the entire problem here :-) K- so we are supposed to video record ourselves together in the kitchen then watch it later for reminders, just like we will be doing with the T.V. shows.
Also, we are to take lunch meats and prepare lunches for Daddy (even though Daddy eats with us at lunch). Don't offer Tavin the food, it is for Daddy. Take cookie cutters and make different shapes with the meat and make the sandwich. I am supposed to take a bite of the meat while making the sandwich though and talk about how the heart shape tastes the same as the diamond shape, etc... After 3 days of making these then offer him a bite to see if he wants it, if not than just let it go and don't bring it back up till tomorrow. Also we are supposed to alter the foods he eats only by changing the appearance a tiny bit each day. When I say tiny I mean TINY! He is to change the color of his milk by putting in the food coloring himself and by stirring it and all. He needs to watch the changes happen and then we are to talk about how the blue milk tastes the same as the white milk and the purple milk too.
Another thing is that we are supposed to make smoothies together in the blender. I told her I bought the stuff to make them and I was already on top of that one so she gave me some tips on what to do. Take the blender to the table so he can be in control of it. Make a really good smoothie the first time and a couple times after too (to get him addicted almost), using the stuff we know he will like. He can then watch the banana change forms, etc... Then a few days later after he goes to bed or when he is at school experiment around and mix in stuff here and there like spinach or carrots or whatever we can, maybe even some meat baby food. Make sure it tastes okay but that it has the nutritional value as well.
Baby steps!!! She told me reverse everything once again and take baby steps! We are not looking for him to eat anything right now, just touch it. And not gag just from the texture. He about gagged when she took a slice of turkey and wiped it across his hands today to wipe off the pudding they were playing in, she was pretending it was a washcloth, he didn't like that so much!!!
Oh my Sweet little man! Who knew we would have so many trials so soon in life together. Thank goodness for educated people who care! Miss Lonah and her teaching assistants, Lori the O.T., Jackson the GI (and Harnsberger the other GI), Becky the Social Worker, Dr. Pruitt his Pediatrician, and I would like to say friends and family too but sadly that isn't the case. Very few are there and they know who they are, I love and appreciate them greatly for all that they do. And to think I could actually be stressed out more than I am now if I didn't have all that help... doesn't sound good to me.

Oh, hello! Update on Alec... He is crawling and pulling up on everything he can! His third tooth has come through and the forth is just waiting to bust through that swollen gum! It is black and blue and full of blood. What a doll though, I just love him to pieces!!!

A Clean soak!

2010-02-06T20:58:00.003-07:00

First off, Tavin's is doing wonderful using the bathroom! We had one accident today but it was cause it is hard to literally run to the bathroom and stop yourself from peeing at the same time! :-) Other than that, pooping and peeing in the toilet, how great is that!

Anyway, as you all know my boys have been cursed with the dreaded eczema. Alec much worse off than Tavin was. This is what I have found though that helps so much!!!!!
Take an old sock, fill it with about a half cup oats (like oatmeal) and drain the water through it into the bath. P.S. that sock is really not that dirty (it's clean) but the oatmeal makes it turn really dark :-)
Soak in the water for at least 5 minutes. It turns the water all cloudy looking too, which is great for pictures cause then I don't have to put smily faces over the boys' stuff when the pictures are printed :-)
Alec has eczema so bad on his legs they are just rough to touch and aquaphor isn't helping at all anymore. I heard this idea a while ago and though I would try it. It works wonderful for his legs and lower back because that is what soaks in the water. Doesn't quite help the upper body though but I guess we can't have it all.
Oh and here is my cheap toy holder for the tub... See what it is? A $1 linen mesh thingy you use in the washer and a command hook. Boy I am cheap but it works just as good as those stupid $14 toy holders for the bath from Walmart!!!

Potty Training? What happened to that?

2010-02-03T22:53:00.002-07:00

Today we had Parent/Teacher Conferences with Tavin's teachers at his preschool. Ms. Jenny and Ms. Lonah are the sweetest ladies ever!!! Last night Tavin made cookies to take to them. All I did was read the directions and help him count the measurements. Then I stirred in the end and he even scooped the dough onto the cookie sheet. He did a wonderful job and they were some of the best oatmeal raisin cookies ever!
Well, at the meeting today we found out that Tavin is doing excellent! He is listening, cooperating, improving on his interactions between other peers and teachers, etc... He has been having a wonderful time and learning tons of new things. His teachers said that they just love having him there and we also got to tell them lots of silly things he repeats from school. Turns out it is Ms. Lonah that he is repeating after and he fluctuates precisely as she does, which is adorable because she is from South Africa and has a very thick accent and speech pattern! I love it!
So at the end of the meeting Dennis asked how he has been doing with interest in going to the bathroom (cause he isn't interested here!) and Ms. Jenny looked at us like, "Don't you know?" She then told us Tavin's little secret that he has been keeping from us!... He goes potty everyday! When it is time to go, he goes! I wondered why he has dry diapers so often when he gets home.
So pretty much, he has potty trained himself! Good for him! Potty training is such an important time for children in developing confidence in their ability to have independence and self-control. Not only that but to know that they can do it. If while potty training there are not positive feelings and intrinsic motivators it really can create a spiral of negative feeling of self. That is why it is so important to wait until they are ready, who cares if he's 3 (it is the average age of successful potty training for boys). I am just so happy for him and the most exciting thing is that he is happy for himself.
Oh I guess I forgot to mention what happened after the meeting and why he is so proud...
On our way home I turned around in the car and said, "Alright honey, your little secret is out. Have you been going potty at school everyday when all of your friends go?" He smiled shyly and said, "Yes." It's hard cause he never talks about his day with us, that is just something he struggles with. It is just one of those things that is hard for him to recall the activities and actions and get them out in words to repeat and explain. That is the only reason we didn't know, it's just cause we have to find out what happens from the teachers (gosh he is like his Daddy!). So I told him, "Okay, well since you are being such a big boy going potty in the toilet than you don't need diapers anymore, let's get some briefs on you when we get home and you don't have to ever wear diapers again!" Sure enough, we walked in, changed into briefs and he used the toilet the rest of the day!!! He peed so much this evening, I have no idea where he was holding it all! He went 5 times in like 2 hours (after drinking a ton for lunch though), each time was like a huge amount.
I figure these first couple days he will wear a pull-up to bed at night but I don't think he will need them really. He wakes up dry all the time anyway. He never has taken drinks to bed with him either so that isn't an issue. So I am not actually why I did that, but oh well, it's okay.
Way to go Tavin~ Mommy and Daddy are proud of you babe!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-06T22:07:00.005-07:00

For New Years Day Tavin and I went to the Treehouse for a little celebration where we met Melanie and her family (Tavin's best little friend Emma, it's her fam). They did a countdown to 12, only it was noon instead of midnight. They were having a magic show after and everything but it was so packed we did not want to stick around. We'll go back another day and have some fun. Here are some cute pictures of the kids celebrating together.
Here is Alec in his Christmas jammies. Him and Tavin got matching ones, I'll get the picture on here soon of them together with them on cause it is hilarious!!! He's such a happy boy!
And here is a picture Tavin made for his Teacher's at school who gave him a book and ink pad with two stamps for Christmas. If you can read the writing on the side it is worth the time to read it! You'll them find out why he has ink on his face :-)

Photos

2010-01-01T11:50:00.013-07:00

If you don't know already, Dennis has gotten his camera that he been wanting for the last 5 years or so. We made a decision together that during his time of unemployment it is a good opportunity for him to make some money doing something he really thoroughly enjoys and also take tons of time to practice and gain some good experience taking some awesome pictures. Here are some of his photos he has done so far:

While he is still learning the trade he wanted to offer an "introductory special" to anyone interested. For $40 he'll do an on site session, no limit on time either. Then, when he's done you'll get a CD with all of the pictures as well as some with touch ups, that way you can print what you want. Let me know if you are interested.

He does such amazing work, I just love these pictures! Again, if you are interested let us know. Just comment, email or call. Check out his blog at TimesReflection.blogspot.com

The most precious of moments...

2009-12-15T21:32:00.002-07:00

Now that is some Brotherly Love!!
Tavin was so careful while pushing Alec around the circle in our house over, over and over again!
They love playing with each other so much! Every time Tavin gets home from school and Alec is sleeping the moment that Alec hears his brothers voice he wakes up. Tavin runs in to the crib, peeps through the slats and says in an excited manner, "Baby Alec's awake!" And then Alec gets a smile ear to ear (like the one in the picture) and they start playing. I love every minute of it!

Tavin's scope

2009-10-21T21:54:00.002-06:00

Here are the shots of Tavin's esophagus during his scope. Numbers 3, 10 and 13 showed the eczema like texture of his esophagus and the striping that indicated allergic reactions to something he was eating, which turned out to be milk protein. Image 10 also shows swelling in the esophagus. The swelling with the combo of eczema like texture made it painful for him to swallow.
And for those of you wondering, yes that was Dennis talking up there, we all know I don't speak that matter-of-factly :-) If you want correct terms we all know it's just best to talk to Dennis for that one. Lol

There have been a lot of interesting and some fun things going on here lately that I have got pictures of so hopefully I will have some time tomorrow to update more. Bye for now :-)

Can I just scream at some point?...

2009-10-14T22:48:00.003-06:00

Today was a rough one- but it was a good reminder how adorable my boys really are.
All day long Alec has been spitting up, all day long it has been pouring down his mouth then clothes and then onto mine, or it has been shooting out straight onto me immediately. Either way, nonstop, all day. It's just one of those days. After a while of it, and Dennis trying to reorganize the basement and then do schoolwork to top it off I had enough! I just broke down and started crying, but I was trying to hold it in so I wouldn't upset the boys either. Tavin looked at me and said, "You sad Mommy?" And as I was trying to fight the tears I said, "Yes, Mommy is sad right now, I'll be fine though." A few minutes later as I was calming back down he turned and looked at me again and said, "You calming down now Mommy?" I had to reply that yes I was calming down and thank you for caring. It made me feel so good as a reminder that I am raising a very caring boy and though life is much more than I can deal with right now as long as I know that someone cares I can get through it.
So to top off the fact that I have no idea what to feed my poor child who can't eat about anything anymore he threw up tonight I think everything he even drank today (which apple juice has become the new diet). And Alec, I know for a fact that over half of his food came back out onto me today. I have come to the realization that I think they are allergic to not only Milk Protein but to me, their own Mother. (Oh, did I mention that we found out that Tavin is severely allergic to Milk, which means no eating ANYTHING with even traces of milk!) Dennis could not get Alec to calm down tonight when he was finally up there with us so he handed him off to me, which was fine cause I don't like to watch him cry and not be trying to comfort him if that makes any sense. Well, as soon as I take him, oh yeah, I sure did get it, all down my shirt and pants and onto the floor, just as I was trying to sit down. It's like he smells me and lets it go. Oh dear I love my children! I cannot lie, I do not love my life, but I do love my children.
Sorry for my vent session, again, I just am in the mood to quit my day job, oh wait, the night job isn't much better, I've got 2 loads of bibs, burp clothes, sheets and blankets that have to be washed and ready for yet another long day at my terribly stinky house. Ahhh!
As a note: Melissa, I am jealous of you that you can just cry when you need to. You say that you cry over everything, don't ever think that is a bad thing though. I think I have made myself so numb that I have lost the ability to cry as much as I need to and I just turn off instead.
Well, I'm off to go and check why Tavin is not yet asleep and is running around upstairs. Good night to you all.

My Spelling

2009-09-15T23:22:00.002-06:00

My Mom called me to bring it to my attention that I had some spelling issues in my last post. Well, this is for you Mom... I no hooow 2 spel, sumtymes I makee ti-po's sow oups. U did rays me 2 spel gud an I taak pryde in my spelingg butt sum tymes we make mistaicks. I am 28 yeers olld an dunt want lecturs on spelingg. Dunt tak mee rong I stil luv u, just make ing a point thet my spel ing cud b wors.
P.S. This was just a vent session :-), I'm done now. I guess I shouldn't take things so personal but I do and I felt like crap after I found out I made typos. Oh well, I guess I will triple read my work from now on, sorry if anybody can't understand what I am saying through my errors though.

2009-09-10T22:09:00.002-06:00

So that everybody is up to speed and has the same information, and so I don't have to repeat myself 50 more times :-) I'm going to let you all know what we have found out these last few days.
We had a talk with Tavin's Pediatrician about some concerns we were having and he referred us to go and see an Occupational Therapist, which we did this last Tuesday. It was a two hour appointment, during which she observed Tavin playing and also talked with us about the concerns as well as had us do a few questionnaires. The conclusion is that he has SPD which is Sensory Processing Disorder. Now she stated this before she said the next thing and made sure we knew that since she is not a Medical Doctor she cannot make a diagnosis but because she works with this so often she feels important to let us know of her entire observation and that was that not only does he have SPD but also has some autistic tenancies. Some of these are the reciting of books and movies, he'll recite half of a book without a second thought, he has an exceptional memory! His eating, and see, I knew this was not a normal 2 year old pickyness! He does a lot of food jags where he gets hooked on one food and then all of a sudden wants nothing more to do with it. Also no imaginatory play, stuff like that. She doesn't think it is even moderate, so probably mild autism if anything, and it might just stay considered autistic tenancies, but we won't know until it is technically diagnosed. So she referred us to go and see a Nero-psychologist for a diagnosis. That is the struggle we are having now is finding one that works with 2 year olds.
A benefit though is that we are finding all of this out now while we can work with the difficulty and find positive and constructive coping methods instead of not looking into it and developing negative coping methods in the meantime. Under the age of 5 is when serious development of coping methods occurs in children so we are very blessed to have noticed these tenancys so early.
He is an exceptionally talented and smart young man so I have all of the confidence in the world that we will work through this as time goes on he will turn out to make it through his trials just fine. In the end it will only make us stronger!

It is now that I thank Dennis for pushing me to go to school and finish my B.S. in Early Childhood because if I hadn't we would probably not have caught on to this for a lot longer!!!

Service with a smile :-)

2009-09-09T01:42:00.002-06:00

Last Saturday I went to my Grandparent's house and helped out their neighbor by washing her windows/screens and removing and replacing all of her curtains for cleaning and then vacuumed her floors. She can't get up on a ladder and needed them all done. After I was at her house for about 3 hours doing all of that I went over to my Grandparent's house and vacuumed, dusted and mopped. It was a lot of work by the end of the day, especially because for some reason elderly people don't seem to get hot, I felt like I was dripping with sweat, I know, that's gross.
Even though I didn't get home until almost 7 hours after leaving that morning I felt so good. The poor women next door couldn't do the work herself and her husband has passed on. She is so lonely. I walked out of her house with a lamp, some yard animals, and some propel waters. She insisted that I take it all! She gave me everything she thought I could use and it made her so happy. While I was working too she had gotten hungry and politely insisted that she feed me lunch. I think it made her day to have company during lunch, even for a sandwich and fruit, she was so happy.
My Grandpa has been getting sick and although normally he refuses help for anything and everything (hum, I wonder where I get that from...) he didn't fight me and my Mom cleaning the house up a bit. It felt so good to just go and do a little here and a little there. It has made me think...
With the economic times being as bad as they are I really would like to take the opportunity to serve. The need is high and the help is low. I just don't want to go alone, does anybody else have the desire to help out? I am thinking of maybe going to help at the Bishop's Storehouse (cause I'm sure they are swamped) or maybe like serving lunch or something at the homeless shelter. Or if anybody has any other ideas...
Let me know if you are interested and maybe we can all go as a group! That would be a lot of fun and give us all a good reality check of how blessed we are to have so much! Our families, our friends, our homes and our faith. I know I am blessed and I would love to bless others, especially right now! Please come with me and let's go bless others as we have been so greatly blessed!
Let me know if you are interested and if you have a suggestion.

A bit of August

2009-08-24T23:47:00.007-06:00

August 9th
Brothers! What a precious thing! Tavin wanted Alec to lay in bed with him so I put him down. Tavin covered him up with his blanket and then turned on the mobile I had temporarily set up on his bed. Look how adorable!
It almost makes me tear up, how cute they really are with each other.

August 11th
Tavin had his cousin Tianna sleep over. We pulled out the air mattress and had them sleep on that. It was so cute, they were both so happy.

August 12th
Look how happy Alec is, he reminds me so much of Tavin when he was a baby too.

August 13th
The picture says a thousand words...
And then we have this. Ever wonder how a real man cuts coupons... wonder no longer (notice the pocket knife).

August 17th
We bought Tavin a helmet for his bike from his cousin Kyler and it came with knee pads. He was so excited about them he wore them the whole night!

So that is a bit of what we have been up to with Daddy being home with us. It's like Saturday every day :-) Except for Sundays of course.

Boy Boys Boys, surrounded by boys! I love it!

2009-08-22T00:19:00.002-06:00

Today Tavin said, "I want to wear my underwears," it was adorable! I always call them briefs or pull-ups though so I don't know where he picked up calling them underwears, but it is precious!

Also today we spoke with the Doctor from Primary's over the phone. He suggested upping the medication .1 ml every 4 hours divided further apart between feedings. If we do not see major improvement by Sunday we are to page the Doctor and they will schedule an ultrasound. The Doctor is also interested in Tavin's eating habits since his symtoms were the exact of what Alec's is right now. I guess he was saying it could be a genetic thing lacking enzymes or something (Dennis was the one on the phone so I was only relayed the messages and Dennis isn't the best at relaying, he admits it).

Other than that, life is good with my unemployed husband :-0.
We have lots of family time together and he at least doesn't have to stress about getting school work done in time since he has study time everyday. Life is stressful and without the help of my anti-anxiety medication is would be a lot more stressful, but I really do love my life with my wonderful little family!

The Medical Update for Alec

2009-08-05T22:13:00.004-06:00

We took Alec in today to see a Gastroenterologist at Primary Childrens Hospital. You all know he has been spitting up an excessive amount, which is a serious problem for me. I guess I am just not content with my child being in pain and it not having a resolve. We go through at least 10-20 burp cloths a day, and at least 8 bibs, that is the minimum! Tons of towels, tons of sheets, etc... and I have only made it through one whole day before with him where I got to wear one shirt through the whole day without changing!
The Doctor claims it is acid reflux and put him on prevacid. Same situation with Tavin, only this time it is more extreme. My motherly instinct: it is not acid reflux, this is not what acid reflux is! This is extreme! Nobody seems to quite understand either (although a lot of people really do try) until they have been with him for an entire day, when you see him spit up occasionally, that is not reality. He spits up all day and sometimes it can be quite violent. Everybody tries to be nice and understand too by saying, "Oh my child has acid reflux too, I know its hard." But really this is way worse than what I have seen of acid reflux and I just think people think I am exaggerating.
Anyway, we took him and and it turns out... dun dun dun...
The Doctor believes he has an allergy. He cannot digest proteins (which babies eventually grow out of and learn to digest them). He's eating way too much (89% for weight!) because he is trying to sooth the esophagus from all of the violent spit up. He eats about 48 oz. a day!
Treatment: he has been put on an antibiotic that constricts the stomach (we give it 4 times a day for a term of several months), making the food process through the stomach and creating stools instead of going up instead of down. The allergy to proteins are stopping the food from processing (does that make sense?) through the stomach and creating the stools. Plus we have to slow the eating down! He has been put on a regiment of 3 oz. every 3 hours instead of 6 oz. every 2 hours! This is going to be hard! She said to force the pacifier if needed, trials are coming, wow. Both Doctors said that we should see results immediately though.
They also said that he seems to have acid reflux slightly but that is not the problem and we are to stop using prevacid right away cause there is no point, it is 100% ineffective for him since the problem isn't stemming from acid reflux.
Okay I think that is everything. We also talked to the Doctor about the eating problems we have with Tavin and they said to get him an appt. asap. The Doctor wants to make sure he is not having the same problems as Alec since he did have the same problems Alec is having when he was small , he was also treated with prevacid which didn't work for him either.
The Moral of this story: Don't just believe the Doctors, Motherly instinct usually is reality! I knew it wasn't acid!!! even with Tavin I knew it wasn't acid reflux. Grrr Pediatrician, I wish he had ordered tests or reffered me out!

Random tidbits

2009-08-01T22:18:00.002-06:00

Tavin has been on a kick the last few days, "I'm gonna scare Daddy." Then walks up to Dennis and says, "Kachow!" (like on "Cars").

Every time Tavin sees Alec spitup lately too he'll say, "Sticky baby!" The spitup really is sticky too, I am not sure if I had said that before or if it came from when he got spitup on and learned himself that it was sticky.

Just yesterday Taivn and I took a trip to Walmart by ourselves and found Mater, Sherriff and Philmore from Cars. We have been looking for Mater since before Christmas! We were both so excited. Well all today Tavin has been running around playing with his toy cars and saying things like, "Mater pushed me." Or "Silly Mater, he passed me." And everytime Sherriff drives off the table he gets down to pick him up and says, "Sherriff, are you okay?" He is so stinken cute!

Alec is now smiling and talking more than ever. Everytime he has a huge spitup he falls asleep for a few inutes after, I just think his body has to heal from it and so he needs the extra rest. Dennis said today that after a few "spit ups" that he has never seen that much some out of a baby that small before (maybe it's cause he was out of town last Saturday), and otehr than last week I have to agree. I called and scheduled an appt. with a GI at Primary Childrens for Wednesday, so hopefully he will help! He's such a happy little guy though!

Oh and also about Alec... when I had Tavin I was jelous of people who had sleepers like Alec. He goes to bed anywhere from 8:30 to 10:30 and sleeps anywhere from 5:30 until 6:50! No wakings in between!!! He has been doing it for weeks now! Tavin didn't do that until, I can't even remember but it was over 9 months I think.

Life is amazing, I need to take more pictures!

C is for cookie...!!!

2009-07-26T20:27:00.000-06:00

I'm preparing to make my pumpkin chocolate chip cookies in bulk. For those of you who have missed out before and/or wanted in they are going for $2.50 per dozen, you can get them frozen or freshly baked. Let me know if you are interested. Oh I can't wait, I love these cookies! Chocolate chip is coming next... we are also working up to snickerdoodle and oatmeal raisin.

The beginning of another fun weekend!

2009-07-09T14:22:00.002-06:00

Dennis' Aunt Cathy and two of her boys (Robbie and Bradley) came out to visit from Wisconsin for a few days. We had so much fun. Aunt Cathy is known as Aunt Chicken because long, long ago she introduced Tavin to the chicken dance because she has a chicken that does the dance, as you will see in the pictures. Dennis had Tavin start calling her Aunt Chicken from then on. So of course, she brought the chicken with her!
And here she is doing the chicken dance! Oh how we love our Aunt Chicken, ha, ha, ha!
And here is Robbie and Tavin playing during dinner. Robbie is a big kid at heart and Tavin has always just loved him so much! Even though we rarely get to see him right away Tavin just jumps in his arms and stays there for the whole visit, it's great!
So this was the portion of the visit at our place. The next day we drove down to Cedar for the rest of the visit.

Parade!

2009-07-09T14:06:00.003-06:00

Before I show the parade pictures, check out Alec's hair! It's red! It shows up more red in pictures than by looking at him because of the lighting, but still, it is red!
So on to the parade...We went to the city parade on the 24th of June and met up with our neighbors and friends. Dennis rolled the canopy down a couple of blocks so we could all have some shade too, cause it was really hot, as you can see by Tavin's face! In this picture is Dennis, Alec (in the stroller who slept through the entire thing!), Tavin and Keri, Aidan and Madison.
And at the beginning of the parade of course they have the flag go by. Can you tell what Tavin is doing?
That's right, he has his hand over his heart! What a stud! Then here is Keri and I taking the boys into the street for candy.
After the parade was over the boys went next door to Jake and Mindy's for swimming. I went too but just sat in the shade with Alec while he slept. It was so nice of them to have us over, I know the boys had a ton of fun!

Father's Day

2009-07-09T01:23:00.002-06:00

Tavin and Alec wanted to show Daddy how much they love him by baking him a cake for Father's Day but since Alec is too small to bake we had Tavin do all the work.
Here Tavin is giving Alec a kiss for trying to help.
The cake turned out yummy, I guess we have a little baker on our hands.

Our week in Cedar

2009-07-09T01:02:00.004-06:00

We found a park out in Cedar City that is so fun! We went for the first time and in rained us out, so we went back the next day. These pictures are from the second day.
Look how red Tavin's face gets in the sun! He looks like he is on fire! It goes away once he cools off though, he just overheats so fast and so bad!
This next picture is of Tavin and Alec's Aunt Crystal, Aunt Tiffany and her son (their cousin) Henry playing in the dinosaur sand box. The toddler in the picture is not ours :-)
We are definitely going to have to make it a habit to visit this park more often when we are out there.
These were taken of Alec the next morning when we woke up, he was so smily!!! The first is a pre-smile, the second is a full blown happy boy!

Our trip to Idaho Part 1

2009-07-08T22:34:00.003-06:00

Here we are in Yellowstone (June 13). Dennis and I have never been there and can I just say, don't go for your first time when it is raining, and with a 2 year old with no rain gear, and a newborn who has to eat every 3 hours! All we did was drive in the park, go to Old Faithful and then go home pretty much because the weather was so bad. Tavin walked around the geysers at the end and got soaking wet, but was so excited to be walking since we had been trapped in a car for so long that day, as well as the day before, poor guy! But we did get some fun pictures...
We actually got to see it twice because when we showed up we had got there barely in time, but Dennis' Dad had to stop to use the restroom on the way so they arrived about 30 seconds after the eruption! So then we had to wait around for it to go off again.

Here Dennis and I are at the first showing...

And this is during part of the walk, look how cute Tavin is under his spiderman umbrella!
We went into the log cabin thing while we waited for the next showing and got some ice cream. Tavin seemed to enjoy it, until it tipped over and spilt, whoops!
And here is the second showing! This time Tavin was all into it and had his mouth dropped open while it exploded and said, "Wow!"

June 1st, I'm catching up now

2009-07-04T00:34:00.002-06:00

Here is our little smiling Alec! What a happy boy, even with the massive diaper rash and the harsh acid.
And look at this funny picture. There is a story behind it... Dennis does a lot of things with his toes, he gets it from his Aunt Cathy who has monkey-like feet (she can pick up 10 lb. weights with those toes I am sure). So this particular day Dennis walked up and turned the fan off with his toes, well he then walked away. A moment later he turned around to see Tavin trying to turn the fan back on with his feet! How silly! Like Father like son!!!

My little stud!

2009-07-04T00:31:00.000-06:00

May, 30th
Look how grown up Tavin looks in this new outfit!

What a good picture

2009-07-01T01:30:00.003-06:00

Dennis' family was here visiting and we got this picture of Alec with his little sister Debbie (otherwise known as Auntie Bubbles). Alec is so alert and was looking right at her for so long.

And now on another subject, this is a picture of Dennis' other sister Crystal, we are looking for her a man. She's 28 and single. Anybody know any single guys to hook her up with? She's in Cedar city for the summer but can come up here anytime I'm sure since the family is up here often. Let me know if you come up with any ideas.
Oh and this picture is taken with no makeup and after a trip from Cedar, and she doesn't know I am posting it :-) Surprise Crystal.

Family Dinner

2009-07-01T01:19:00.003-06:00

Here we are at our Monthly family dinner at my Grandparents house. I was passing Alec around, since this was the first time most of the family got to see him. May 23, 2209

Alec's Great-Grandma and Great Aunt Sara

Alec's Great Grandpa

Alec's Great Aunt Claudia

Alec's Great Uncle Marv
And this is their son Eric and his new ride! He just got off his mission in March so this is his very first vehicle, way to go Eric (he's my cousin).

What a smart looking guy

2009-07-01T01:14:00.002-06:00

May 22, 2009
Tavin put on Dennis' glasses when they were reading before bed. He has been so insitant on wearing his glasses lately, probably because everybody in the family has glasses and he doesn't.
He looks like he belongs in college here.

Rash Rash go away!

2009-06-16T00:02:00.001-06:00

Back to the Doctor we go today, the diaper rash is worse and we need it gone, now! So Alec now weighs a huge 10 lbs. 8 oz.! And we are home with yet another new cream, hopefully this one will wrk.

Criss Cross will make ya Jump, Jump (oh the days)

2009-06-15T23:36:00.006-06:00

We got out Tavin's jumping toy while both of his Grandma's were here. While Dennis' Mom was staying here we invited my Mom over for dinner too so we could all visit. I know Tavin enjoyed it. Here are some of my more favorite pictures. We invited over our neighbors too, so Kayla is the cute little girl in there with Tavin.
After Dennis was worn out from throwing Tavin in the cage several times he sat down and took a break with Alec, he is such a proud Daddy, with such a cute baby!

Driving everywhere

2009-06-15T23:25:00.003-06:00

For those of you who have not been to our house since May 16th, see our new furniture addition. We got this for Tavin, originally for outdoor use but Tavin and Dennis built it and Tavin was having a ton of fun using it inside. It then became a wonderful toy for Tavin to play with while I was feeding and caring for Alec. Well, 5 weeks later, Tavin is still not sick of it at all!!! He loves driving his car, all day long he drives around the house, good thing it fits through all the tight spaces. One day he was driving, leaned out the window and said, "Excuse me!" to his Thomas the train that was in the way. Well, of course Thomas didn't move so he said, "Excuse me Thomas!" So I moved the train and said, "There you go bud." Tavin then said, "Thank you Mama!" I have such a little polite boy! He amazes me.
After we built it I couldn't get him out for his snack so look, Tavin went through a drive through! How funny huh!

He even has a cup holder in the back!

2009-06-11T13:09:00.002-06:00

My Sis sent me this funny email and I thought it was so good I had to post it on here for everyone to read! Thanks Tonia!

For those of you who watch what you eat, here's the final word on nutrition and health. It's a relief to know the truth after all those conflicting nutritional studies.

1. The Japanese eat very little fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

2. The Mexicans eat a lot of fat
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

3. The Chinese drink very little red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

4. The Italians drink a lot of red wine
and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

5. The Germans drink a lot of beers and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.

CONCLUSION

Eat and drink what you like.
Speaking English is apparently what kills you.

Putting on the pounds

2009-06-10T19:26:00.002-06:00

I had to take Alec in for a checkup at the Doctor's office on Monday for a massive diaper rash. Get this he weighed 7 lbs. 8 oz. at birth and now he weighs 9 lbs. 15 oz.!!! He's getting huge!
Update on his medical info though, the diaper rash was more than a rash, there were like wholes in the skin almost. The Doctor said that the diaper rash is caused by the acid in his system, he is pooing it out causing it to like burn his skin! He gave us a compound to have filled and use that cause Desitin wasn't helping at all. He then told us that he thinks Alec's acid reflux is worse thant Tavin's was by everything he has seen thus far, and then he went on to say that Tavin's reflux was one of the worse cases he has seen in his practice so far. See, I knew it was bad but I sometimes chalk it up to being an exageration in my head, like come on it couldn't have been that bad, could it? But I guess it was. Anyway, my baby is growing healthy and fast, and get this, he is as strong as Tavin was at this age. I am raising ox. He is picking up his whole upper body and holding it while turning to look around, he holds it for a long time too. He is doing great, I am very blessed!

Being a Brother is tiring!

2009-06-07T21:44:00.003-06:00

Shhh! They are sleeping! (And yes, Tavin really does sleep like this on his own!)

Enough said!

May 14th

Mey 12th, a bit behind

2009-06-07T21:25:00.003-06:00

So 2 days after we were home from the hospital Dennis built not only the swing for Alec but Tavin got a surprise too. He has been wanting a rocking chair for a really long time, he has always loved sitting in mine so much, and also on the rocking loveseat too (boy did we score when we made that purchase 6 years ago). Here are some cute pictures of Tavin and Dennis working on the chair together.

And ofcourse a bit of fun with Daddy is needed. These two goofballs were balancing the box and their heads and then tipping it over.
This is funny, I was putting the box away for the breast pump that I have and Tavin took off with it. He was walking around with the box for so long we were all joking that he could be a door-to-door salesman for Medela! Lol! Then, like my little Tavin always does, he put his feet up for a little rest from the hard days work.

Look at this adorable shots of Tavin holding Alec in his new chair (it really is Alec he is holding, even though the baby looks fake, he's not).

What a day!

Mothers Day

2009-05-30T22:03:00.004-06:00

I don't think anybody received a better gift this Mothers Day gift than I did! I got to bring home my baby! What better gift can a person ask for? I can't think of a single one.
So Saturday night I stayed at the hospital alone with Alec. I wouldn't let the Nurses take him, even though they kept asking to. Dennis got to the hospital at 9:30 in the morning. Nothing too eventful happened for a while. Then at like 11 or so some men came by to offer us the Sacrament and then some Relief Society sisters came by and gave us a little message.
After a while Dennis' parents came by to bring me some stuff from the house and then his sister Tiffany came by with her family to say goodbye since they were taking off for home. This next picture is a really cute one I thought of Dennis, his Dad Sr. and Alec.
Once they left Dennis and I ate some lunch together and then packed up all of my stuff. We waited for my Brother and his family to come since they were also heading back home.
I didn't get a good picture of Elise with Alec though so she is missing from the pictures, even though she was there.
They took off and while I went pee for the last time this is what I caught Dennis doing...

Resting!
But it was really cute.

At 3:00 we checked out and went home. A whole 5 1/2 hours earlier than needed, but there was no need to sit around the hospital and be bored either. As we pulled up we just caught Dennis' whole family packing up and getting in their cars to head home. Except for his Mom Debbie, she was staying with us to help out for a while, thank goodness!
For the rest of the day it was pretty much just trying to get everything cleaned up, put away, and rest. Tavin did a fabulous time adjusting and kept coming up to Alec to say, "Hi baby!" peeking over at him, it really was adorable! Here he is doing it one time...

Finally more pictures

2009-05-25T22:18:00.005-06:00

Wow, I had no idea it was going to take me so long to be able to get to a computer to get the blog updated or even check my email! I am starting to forget all of the cute and wonderful stories and things that have happened since we've been home from the hospital which really upsets me. I hoped to get them all down here, especially because I don't have time or patience to keep a journal other than this blog. I've got to do better!
So as far as I remember I left off before telling about how my Mom stayed the night with me at the hospital and we sat up staring at Alec because he would occasionally choke on spit up. He was so quiet about it that if you weren't looking at him you'd never know. So I got a little sleep the next morning but other than that I ran on adrenalin all day Saturday.
Here are some fun pictures I got on Saturday of some of the visitors we had.

This is my Brother-in-law Jason and my Brother Mike's daughter Shailicia.

This picture is of Tavin walking into the room for the first time. Isn't he just adorable!
Here is Tavin holding Alec for the first time. This was taken when Dennis got back from school. He had stopped by that morning on his way out just to peek in and make sure I was all taken care of and then left school about 2 hours early to get back to us. It was a long day without him! I guess his Professor was pretty shocked to see him at school but it was funny in a way because he was informed that he "set the bar" for the rest of the students, and I can't imagine them being happy about that, lol.

This is our first family picture we have, and so far the only family picture. Hopefully that will change soon (me with my double chin and Tavin with his yummy sucker laughing).
Here's Tianna and Jaidee holding Alec now. The girls were all so gentle with him!
And here Annaka taking her turn.
And finally Tonia gets her chance! She got to the hospital 15 minutes after his birth but didn't get to hold him until the next day! Once she finally got him she was not letting go.
Tiffany and Christian along with Henry came up from Idaho. We got a picture of Henry and Alec together, now we just need to photo shop Tavin in for all three of the grand kids on the Miller side.
Dennis' Mom got this next picture and I just now saw it for the first time. It is of Tavin peeking through the cart they wheel the baby around in.
Tavin and Jaidee were all over the drinks! Soda, soda, soda, they couldn't get enough!
Here is Jaidee, giving her new cousin loves!
All the kids huddles around as I changed Alec's bum for the first time. I really am spoiled, as long as Dennis was there he would take care of all the diapers so I wouldn't have to get up to do it. Also I had my Mom and Dennis' too helping out with the diapering duties.
And now it is Grandpa's turn to hold the newest Grandson.

It had tuned out to be such a crazy day. My Mom hung out until about noon when she finally went home to get some much needed rest. Dennis' Mom came over about eleven I think to help out too. At I think it was 11:30 Jason brought Tavin, along with Jaidee and Shailicia over to see us. Tonia said that Jason could not wait to get to the hospital to see Alec and Tonia was jelous because he was going to get to hold him before her even though she had already been to the hospital. :-)
When Tavin arrived he wanted nothing to do with me, and nothing to do with Alec. He was all about pushing the buttons on my bed though. It was all totally understandable to me, afterall here his Mom is sitting in a hospital bed with a baby all of a sudden. Then on top of that, his Nana and Aunt were there who he hadn't seen yet, then Grandma was there too. It was all just too exciting. I think he was also afraid that he was getting dropped off by his Uncle, which he was having a party over at their house with them so there was no way he wanted to leave that and stay with boring 'ol Mom, not now.
Even though I understood everyone thought I was heart broken and kept trying to console me, I appreaciated it but really was okay. I knew he would come around, my Tavin always does.
After Jason left with the kids Dennis' family came back over, I think. Now here is where everything kinda goes blank, I was getting really tired. Oh I think I remember... Dennis' Dad arrived from Cedar and was hungry so they wanted to meet up with Tiff and Christian at Applebees but Dennis' Mom Debbie didn't want to leave me alone. I had a difficult time convincing her that I would be okay but finally I did it. She was just wanting to make sure I was okay, which I really appreciate. They took off to Applebees and brought me back a chocolate molten cake about 2 hours later, oh yum! During that time I would have liked to rest but the nurses kept coming in, and then the social security and birth certificate people, they just kept coming...
When they got back I think is when Dennis arrived too, or maybe close to that time at least. Then Tonia brought Tavin back with Annaka, Tianna, Jaidee and Kenidee or something, gosh I don't remember how this all happened. Dennis got a really good chance to show Tavin baby Alec and explained things very well. Tavin sat down and held Alec in his arms and said hi to his baby brother! It was adorable and made me melt to see all of my boys together like that! It was a great Mom moment :-).
At the end of the day Dennis and his parents stayed until about 2 a.m., just visiting and then Dennis came back at 9:30 Sunday morning. It was another long night of no sleep. Oh how nothing changes,lol.

Welcome to the World Alec!

2009-05-17T16:07:00.007-06:00

So as I'm sure everybody knows by now, I had our little baby boy! I'm just finally getting time to write about it. I'm doing it day by day so hopefully I'll be able to get everything down.
So this is how it all happened, it's kinda funny...
Friday morning I woke up really wanting a haircut! I couldn't get in with my normal girls right then though so I seriuosly ran to Great Clips and quickly got it done. Then ran to Walmart and picked up some hair color, cause my hair looked awful. I got home at 12:45 and Dennis colored my hair (good thing he didn't drip color and stain my forhead or anything, that would have made some bad pictures). :-)
Dennis was getting ready to go to school on the evening of the 8th (Friday) and just about ready to leave. Tavin had to go poo so he was sitting on his potty chair and Dennis had stopped in the bathroom with him to visit before he left. I went in and was standing by the sink. Dennis said that he thought Tavin was a bit constipated so I was asking him, "Is your poo stuck Tavin?" And he said, "Yeah." So we were talking about pooing with him. Anyway, yeah, I felt a whoosh of liquid, I told Dennis, "uh, either my water just broke or I just peed a bit." Dennis tried to convince me that I peed but I wasn't buying it cause that would have taken a total lack of muscle control for that to happen. So when I moved it came again, and then again, so I headed for the toilet. Dennis walked out of the room, getting ready to leave as well as Tavin (cause the poo never came), well I yelled to him, "It's not stopping Dennis." Tavin then came running in and said, "Mamma's poopoo stuck too?" How adorable was that!!!? I couldn't help but smile, it was so thoughtful of him to check on me. So I called my Doctor and was told it was my water leaking and get to the hospital!
Dennis had to make a thousand phone calls to get ahold of somebody for school to let them know he wasn't going to make it, and finally did, luckily. I put on a pad and got dressed, grabbed my hair straightener and ran it through my hair (cause I never fixed it after coloring it), ran into the bedroom and quickly put on some foundation, eyeliner and mascara (I was going for the basics here). Dennis in the meantime was calling our neighbor and his mom, etc... Dennis ran Tavin over to Mindy's next door and we pulled out the car seat and all that fun stuff. My sister came and got Tavin like 15 minutes later from Mindy's and took him to her house.
Dennis and I got to the hospital, which I refused to ride in a wheelchair because I kept flowing occasionally and it was grossing me out, it was nice and distracting to walk. So we get there and check in about 4:30. They checked me and I was dialated to a 3.5 and my water had definetly broke, but no severe contractions were happening. They had me walk to the delivery room and right then my Mom showed up. As we were getting checked in Dennis called and texted everybody and so his Mom (from Cedar city), his sister Tiffany and her family (from Idaho), my Brother and him family (from Wyoming) all got on the rode.

Here Dennis and I are waiting for Alec to make his appearance.

They put me on the lowest dose of potosen (level 4) and let the contractions begin. When they got pretty rough I asked for the epidural, which came about 30 mintues later. That went in great and about a half hour after that it actually started to help with the pain (it felt like it was taking forever cause the contractions were every 3 minutes). Right when the epidural started working they checked me and I was a 6.5.
About an hour later my Doctor popped in and let me know he was around. Since my nurse was geting ready to check me anyway he decided to just do it since he was already there. He barely checked and said, "You're ready, his head is right there!" He showed us with his fingers that he was only about two inches away from being out!
I looked at him and insisted that he must be joking! He kept telling me he was serious as he was quickly getting everything ready but I just kept laughing in disbelief. I didn"t even feel any pressure!
So the Doctor got down there and told me to lift my chin and push. The nurse was counting to 10 and the Doctor said that this was going to be a one push baby! I got his head out before 10! Then I had to do a couple grunt pushes to push out his body. The Doc told me I need to go do classes for the rest of his patients on pushing, so that was kinda funny.
We began video taping while the Doctor was prepping and stopped once Alec was in the crib getting his Hep B shot, it is only 14 minutes long!!! I was in labor for only 4 hours! It is unbelieveable to me! I still am in disbelief. We had called my sis to come right when the Doc had come in but she made it like 15 minutes too late. :-(
Alec was born at 8:18 p.m. and weighed in at 7 pounds 8 ounces and is 19 1/2 inches long. So him and Tavin were only a difference of exacally one pound! He scored a 10 on his APGAR test so the Pediatrician was pretty happy with that, he said they rarely have that happen.
I was then wheeled into the postpartum room and that is when Dennis' whole family and my Brother and his family showed up. All at once!
The rest of that night is kind of a blur. I know that Tavin was at my Sister's house and stayed up with his all of his cousins till after midnight! My Brother and his family stayed at my Sister's house over the weekend so all of the cousins on my side were together (except for Alec of course). It was a hard core party for him!
My Mom stayed at the hospital with me over night while Dennis came back to the house to get all of his family comfortable at our house. My Mom and I stayed up all night because Alec kept choking on colostrum and when he would start we couldn't even hear him, so we stayed awake staring at him. I finally did get in a nap at 6:30 or so. So all together I got an hour and a half the first night/next morning.
Alright, I am going to end here for now. I'll get the rest on here later with tons more pictures!

Doctors visit and the park visit

2009-05-04T14:14:00.002-06:00

I went to the Doctor's office today and found out... I am dilated to a 2.5 and he stripped my membranes! He wanted to know if I wanted to be induced before he did the stripping but I told him I would rather not and do it naturally. He said I could have him anytime from tonight to 2 weeks when he's due. I'm hoping more for tonight! We'll see.

Then we went to the park with Keri and Melissa, along with the kids. Here are some cute pictures I captured.

A shower for Alec

2009-05-03T21:55:00.006-06:00

My sisters and Mom threw a baby shower for me on Saturday, it was so sweet of them to do that too! Here are some of the cute picture my niece Annaka got during the shower...
Here is Emily and Keri sniffing some poopy diapers, I love the look on their faces in this picture.
Then we did the game that everybody cut the yarn the size they thought I am, thanks a lot guys!! Keri and Mindy got it about right on but the rest of you all thought I was one and a half of what I am, it really was funny! I'll have to get pictures hopefully from my Mom cause Annaka didn't take too many for me (I guess we were too busy playing).
We had so many kids playing so it was really loud, but they were all having fun, here is a cute shot of Kyler that Annaka captured.
And then there was a yummy cake! It was white with strawberry filling, oh yum!!
Thanks to everybody who came! And especially to my Mom and sisters who put it all together! This is a list of everybody who came since I don't have pictures of everyone to show...
My Mom Frances
My sister Tonia and her 4 daughters (Annaka, Tianna, Jaidee and Kenidee)
My Grandma
My sister-in-law Elise and her 2 kids (Shai and Kyler) who came down from Wyoming
My sister-in-law Tiffany and her son Henry (Dennis' sister who came down from Idaho)
My sister's friend Sarah and her daughter
Keri, Madison and Aidan
Mindy and Kayla
Emily
Michelle and Colby
It was a ton of fun visiting and really just hanging out with everybody!

After the party was over Tiffany's husband came up from the basement and we got to visit with them for a while before they had to head back home. Look at this adorable picture I got of Henry tickling Tavin's toes!

Check out this funny video of Tavin playing with the balloons from the shower too, what a cutie!

And at the end of the day this is an updated Maternity picture Dennis got of me. With 15 days left to go until Alec's due date this is how big I am (you can see the belly button bulg, lol).

A sign for Alec

2009-05-03T21:49:00.001-06:00

Tavin made a sign for his baby brother Friday, it says, "Welcome Home Alec." I wrote it and then Tavin traced the letters, he did a really good job tracing too! Then he drew with some markers and finally got into the finger paints. This is the first time he actually enjoyed his hands getting covered in paint, normally he only dips in the one finger. It took some encouragement but after he got one hand in it he dipped the other one too. It was a really fun family time making the sign!
He was being so careful about where he wanted the paint to go and what he wanted it to look like, watch this...
The sign is now hanging by the crib in the boys' room, I need to get a picture of the finished project, then I'll post that too.

French Bread! Oh yum...

2009-05-03T21:44:00.002-06:00

This is my first experience ever making french bread! It turned out so yummy that I ate half of the loaf that night! Look how good it looks...
I am not saying this to brag at all but it was the best french bread I have ever tasted!

My shopping spree and family dinner

2009-04-26T21:51:00.004-06:00

I wanted so badly to buy some outside toys for Tavin this year! He absolutely loves being outside but we don't have really anything to do out there (besides rake nasty pine needles, yuck), so Saturday I was in a mood to shop, poor Dennis. He went to school from 7:30 till, well I picked him up in Kaysville where his ride dropped him off at 5:30 and took him straight to my Grandparents for family dinner. We ate, did our thing and then went right over to Toys R Us. We didn't get home until 9! And because he had school the previous night along with homework he hadn't even gotten to bed until 1 a.m. the night before. He was just having it rough, but he was a good sport!
Here are some pictures from family dinner.
This first picture is Tavin holding Kenidee (he loves to hold her!) and she turned and gave him a hug (she's only 10 months old)! It was adorable! Jaidee saw me pull out my camera and so she snuck into the camera (she's 6 months older than Tavin), which was just funnier than funny.
My Sister pointed something really comical out while we were at my Grandparents house; there were almost just as many rolling chairs available to sit on as there were table chairs (so not including the couches). We had not only a wheelchair but a Rascal and also a walker on wheels! Tavin loves playing with his Great Grandma's chairs too! There are just so many wheels! So my Grandpa had a great idea, he wanted to take the kids (Jaidee and Tavin) for a ride outside in the wheelchair. Only problem was that Tavin wanted to push and not ride, then Tianna wanted to jump in for a ride too so this is what it looked like outside. It was adorable! My Grandpa is the sweetest thing ever! I just think he's great, look at this...
Do you see Tavin's little head peeking over the chair? Here the men are pushing while the ladies are taking a ride. That's a taste of life for ya huh, lol. Most of the time Tavin didn't even need his Great Grandpa's help pushing but they were coming to a corner so Grandpa was helping out. He is the strongest 2 1/2 year old I have seen (and I am not just being partial).
This next photo was taken while we were visiting inside. Tavin told Dennis, "Daddy, massage!" So Dennis was giving Tavin a massage, which tickles Tavin's neck something fierce! It is funny to hear his giggle when he gets a neck "massage!"
That is all I have for photos so onto the next part of the evening...

So we go to Toys R Us and it seems that I am not the only one wanting to get some cool toys. They were having a sale that if you spend $300 on Little Tykes outdoor toys than you get a sand and water table ($99) for free. I really wanted a sand and water table anyway because they are very useful in different educational venues and I would really like Tavin to get to enjoy that kinda thing without buying a sandbox. So Dennis surprisingly didn't have a hard time finding what he wanted to buy for Tavin! He picked out an inflatable trampoline with a slide!! I asked Tavin if it looked like fun on the picture and if you can imagine Tavin said, "Yes!" all deep voiced making it very clear that he was positive it would be fun! Then we got him a Cozy Coupe (classic toy!) and a small picnic table for him to sit at and do projects or whatever while we are outside! Then of course, we made it by $2 on our total, we got the sand and water table for free! Yea!
I originally wanted to get a little playhouse or something as the big toy but Dennis was pretty excited to get one of these (I don't blame him, I think it's a boy thing...) I'll get pictures up as soon as the weather clears up and we set it all up!
I go through sparatic phases of just wanting to spend money, even though I really shouldn't, I just don't care. It's amazing to me though, I have no problem taking student loan money, which I hate to have to use, and spending it on Tavin, or even on Dennis most times. But, when it comes to going on vacation or taking time for us or even going on a nice date and forking out some meney, "heck no" is always my answer! We are so cheap, and by we I mean I. I cut corners wherever we can, never staying in hotels, always driving straight through the night or leaving somewhere early no matter what. Always getting water at resturants, never ordering anthing really expensive, I try to stick with the cheapest I posibly can, even when I really really don't want to I'll suck it up anyway. Anything I can cut out I most often will, but sometimes when I think that Tavin might have fun that he otherwise cannot have, I'll spend the money and I don't even care! I guess that's motherhood for ya. Oh well, I enjoy it.
I just can't wait now to set up all the new toys...!

The Visitors... dun dun dun

2009-04-17T22:32:00.005-06:00

Today was an exciting day, we got to see my brother's family who we have not seen since before Christmas!! They moved to Wyoming and have been so busy that we haven't been able to get together. He and his family came up for a couple of days and so my whole family met up at Artic Circle tonight to have dinner together and let the kids play in the play land (this was Tavin and Jaidee's first time in a play land, my sister and I are a bit of germaphobes, yes we know, but we try to do better).
Tavin was so excited to get fries for dinner. While we were eating a man came around with mini cones for all of us, so this is Tavin and Dennis eating their mini cones.
And here is my sister's littlest girl Kenidee eating her ice cream cone. She is only what, 10 months I think. It was her first time eating ice cream, and she really enjoyed it too.
As a side note: While Tavin was eating his fries he yelled over to my Grandpa who was at the next table and said, "Great Grandpa, you eating fries? Your fries yummy?" It was adoarble! Okay back to the other info...
Annaka, Tianna, Jaidee, Shailicia, Kyler and Tavin all played really hard inside the play land (well, maybe not Annaka so much, she said the tunnels were too small, she is almost 13 so I guess it was okay for her not to play so much). Here is a picture of Tavin coming down the slide. I couldn't get my camera to focus correctly so I didn't end up with too many pictures of the kids playing, even though I took about 20.This is Jaidee and Shai going down the slide together.
My Grandparents and Mom stayed in the lobby area (not in the play zone) since my Grandpa's hearing aids don't work so well in louder areas. I got this cute picture when I went in to go visit with them from my turn in the play zone.
If you can't tell my Grandpa has his arm around my brother Mike, and Mike has his arm around his wife Elise. It just looked cute with all of them hanging onto each other like that. I didn't realize until tonight either how much Mike looks like our Grandpa.
And this is just a random picture of my Grandma and Mom. They were just talking away.
And since we didn't spend Christmas together I still had the kids' gifts to give them from us, so here is what we got them. They were both so happy!
If you can't see it, it is a pillow that I embroidered her name in. It says Shailicia with a heart on each side. And the next picture is of Kyler who put the hoodie on as soon as he opened it and wouldn't even take it off even though he was burning up while going back to play.
My brother's family got some 4 wheelers I think is what they were and so the kids were showing us their helmets. Tavin wanted to try Kyler's on so here he is, what a little stud! He looks so big!
Kyler was so cute with Tavin the whole time. Since we haven't seen them in so long after they played together for a few minutes Kyler came and told me, "I didn't even know Tavin could talk now!" He was so excited to hear Tavin talking so much!
And the last picture I captured was this one of my brother holding Tavin with Dennis. What a cute group of boys!I was disappointed when I saw that I didn't get any pictures of my sister, Annaka and Tianna. I could swear that I took a picture of them all but I of course don't have one.
It was such a wonderful time! I love seeing all of them and I miss having my brother and his family here so much! Now that they are settled in their new home though they have a bit more free time on his weeks off so we will be seeing them again a lot sooner than in another 4 months! Elise told us tonight she will be down here probably at least twice before the baby is born so we are way excited for that! Yea!

Our Easter Weekend

2009-04-14T17:56:00.009-06:00

After Tavin had went to bed on Friday night Dennis' family arrived from Cedar City. So Saturday morning Tavin got to wake everybody up, which he thoroughly enjoyed. At 9 Tavin, Dennis' Mom and I went to an Easter egg hunt with my Sister and her friend out in West Haven. When we got there Tavin saw the Easter Bunny and ran up to him. I was unsure of how that was going to go since he has never been interested before in Characters, even Santa. He attached himself to the Bunny though and didn't want to leave his side. Here is a picture of Tavin and Jaidee (his cousin), Tavin wouldn't look away from the Bunny though so this is the best we have got... He did give the bunny 5 a lot :-)
While we waited for the hunt to begin Jaidee and Tavin kinda played around by the ropes, this was a cute little picture I got of them together. They are so loving!
Here is Tavin during the hunt. Dennis' Mom has better pictures but I have to wait for a copy of them so this is what I've got for now.
After the hunt we went over and played on the playground toys for a while. Tavin went down some massive slides for the first time and loved every minute of it! When we were walking back to the car I decided we should take a short cut but ended up walking through mud. My shoe got stuck and came off my foot! Yuck! I had to drive home barefoot, talk about disgusting!
On another note: All day Saturday I was having some major contractions, like at least 2 per hour and they were really strong so even though we had planned on leaving for Cedar City that night with Dennis' family for Easter we didn't. Dennis and I were worried that the contractions were going to get worse so we felt it was best if I stayed here. We offered for the family to stay here so that we could at least have Easter together and since we had pretty much everything for a dinner here anyway it was no big deal but his little sister was upset and wanted to go home so they did. So no Easter together.
It was a good thing we stayed home too because later that night, about 10:30 or so I had to call my Mom and have her come to stay with Tavin while Dennis ran me to Labor and Delivery. I gotta tell ya, I was wishing really bad that the family had just stayed here the night at that point since it would have been a whole lot easier and faster to get out of here. Everything turned out fine though and we got back home at almost 1 in the morning. What a night.
Sunday morning Tavin woke up to his Easter basket and had so much fun! Surprisingly he loved the trains he found inside so much that he didn't even touch the candy for quite some time!
Don't get me wrong though, he did get to the candy, and really enjoyed it too! Here is is playing with some of his new little trains. See the big smile on his cute little face.
And here he is on his little search for eggs around the house...
We never did get to dye Easter eggs since we were supposed to first do it with the family but they left rather abruptly, then because I was having pregnancy complications we never were able to sit down and do it, so Tavin just had the plastic eggs to find. Oh well, still enjoyable.
Once all of that fun stuff ended Dennis went back to bed for a few hours and Tavin and I did our normal breakfast, etc... When 11:00 rolled around Tavin went in and kissed Dennis' head to wake him up. Once he was awake we got him all packed up and the car ready to go for his little mandatory trip to St.George. Tavin was sad because he knew something was going on and I was balling! I am not a crier but I was on Sunday! I just could not help myself, I just didn't want him to have to go but I knew he had to. I was emotional because we were supposed to be going with him at least down to Cedar City to keep him company on the ride and then to have spent Easter together but it didn't work out like that. He then had to drive down by himself, and not only we were separated on Easter but none of us had any sort of Easter dinner. Mine consisted of leftover chicken-all-a-king and Dennis' was Jack-in-the-box. What a way to celebrate huh. Anyway, 1:00 rolled around and Dennis left. I thought we would all be fine once my crying stopped but it never did all night, it just kept coming and going. Poor Tavin, he had to put up with it all day.
Then to make things a little worse, get this... Tavin went to bed at his normal 8:30, I went to bed at 11 after talking to Dennis for a while. At 1:11 Tavin came and climbed into bed with me. At 1:31 I picked him up and took him back to his bed (I was afriad he would roll off the bed without Dennis' body there to stop him). I went pee thinking that I might as well since if I didn't then than I would have to in a couple hours anyway. Well, I was bleeding, so I called my Mom and she once again came over. I ran up to the hospital for Labor and Delivery once again. Two trips through the E.R. two nights in a row, wow, it's just too much!
At least the story gets better. I got home at 4:00, updated my Mom and then Tavin woke up (again, weird), he was all excited to see Grandma so he was getting all riled up and then told us he had to go potty! Oh and he did alright! A lot! He looked down afterward and said, "I did it!" We were all so excited for him and he was so proud of himself, which rightfully so he should be. I'm wondering if that is why he has been waking up around 3:30 every night lately. We'll have to keep a closer eye on that now. Anyway, I got to bed at 5:00. Thank goodness my Mom was here, I only got up once in between to get some breakfast ready but got to sleep until 10:00. My Mom hung out here until 12:30, when it turned into nap time anyway.
Needless to say, it has been quite a weekend. I am so excited that Dennis is on his way back right now from the Conference in St.George. He should be here in about an hour (which would make it 1 a.m.) and I am not going to bed until I have him safely here!
The fun part about him being gone is that he took my car and so we have had his. Tavin has loved that every time we go anywhere we go in Daddy's car! He gets so excited to ride in Daddy's car that it is just adorable!!! I think he is really going to miss that his car seat is once again going back into Mommy's car in a matter of a few hours (I won't miss it though, I forgot how low the Honda sits, it's quite difficult to bend with this big belly!).
Even though this picture does not have Tavin in it, because he was running away from the girls at the moment, you can see how big my belly is really getting, it's kinda funny... here it goes:

Whoa is all I can say!

Tavin in little briefs!

2009-04-09T13:21:00.005-06:00

Okay this is adorable! Today was the first day out of Pull-ups and into briefs. He has been wandering around naked (except for briefs) all day, except he wanted on his flip-flops too. Look how cute...

The first accident we had today Tavin looked at me and said, "Uh oh, I dripped!" It took all I had not to giggle! How cute is that though, he dripped! We haven't made it yet to the bathroom in time today but strange enough he seems to go every 25-30 minutes, I wish I could plan my bathroom trips as consistent as that. It just seems like he goes right after we are done in the bathroom, oh well, we still have a good portion of the day left. So far it's been a good day though.

Roses, Flip flops and Potty training! (Including randomness)

2009-04-06T22:02:00.005-06:00

So first off, this is just an adorable picture of Tavin smelling my roses I got for my birthday, I just have to share it... (He still insists that the vase is the Piston Cup too, I love it.)
This next picture is of Tavin wearing my oven mitts. It's been one of the more challenging things, to teach Tavin not to touch the oven/stove when the "red light" is on. We have an old oven and so it bleeds heat extremely hot. Tavin wanted to touch the oven door but it was on so Dennis put the oven mitts on him and let him touch the door. He's just so curious. He's already experienced burned hands though so we have to be even more careful now.
And I went to Old Navy a while ago and bought Tavin these flip flops for this summer. At first he saw them and wouldn't even let me try them on his feet, so there they have sat. Well, suddenly he was ready to wear them and look, he loved them so much he even slept with them on! This is Day 1 of the flip flops...
I pulled up the blanket so you could see them in the picture, otherwise he was all covered up.And this is Day 2 of his new favorite shoes. He found the red ones now though so he wanted one of each on! So there he is in a long sleeved shirt, flip flops and his new little pull-ups. We are confused what season it is around here...
On the potty training, I don't have pictures yet because, well it's kinda funny. We are using my Sister's potty chair that she has used for her girls, well did you see that, girls. She brought it over Sunday and we went to town trying it out. It works way better than having a seat on top of our toilet seat and Tavin loves to take it apart and put it back together too! Well, we were looking at it and thinking, oh there is no splash guard, oh well, we can manage. We figured she threw it away since, yeah, she has all girls, why would she need a splash guard? Well, you can't take pictures of him sitting on the potty chair if his boy parts are totally visible to the camera, so I've got no pictures yet.
For those wondering, this is why a splash guard is important...
Tavin is sitting on the chair and all of a sudden goes pee, but with nothing holding him down the pee shot across the bathroom (yes, all the way across the bathroom!), so nothing got in the actual toilet itself since by the time I tucked it for him it was too late.
Experience two: same thing only Dennis was in there with him and I had a towel laid out waiting for it to happen so it was less messy, and Dennis tucked it way faster than I did which meant success at filling the potty chair, but still a little messy!
Needless to say I talked to my Sister and she had the splash guard but we just didn't even think of getting it (we are just not accustomed to boys on the family, I'm learning). I went over tonight and picked it up. Hopefully tomorrow will be a little less puddley in the bathroom and a whole lot more pee in the toilet! Thank you Tonia for letting us use the chair! It's making all the difference.
And I have learned something about myself during this experience too... I am not risky or brave! I am scared to use briefs yet because I don't want to clean poo out of them quite yet, so we are using pull-ups for now. At least until we get this under a little bit of control. See, it's all me, I'm just not ready for that! Tavin was ready a long time ago for potty training, but I wasn't, therefore here we are today, in progress.

On another note, sorry this post is long. If you are wondering what a Little Green Machine does (which is what I got for my birthday), look and learn...

Now you see it
Now you don't

Last May somebody spilled root beer on our basement carpet, which is a pale green really thick beautiful carpet. Dennis didn't think it was ever going to come out but wahlah! It came right out, no problem! I can't wait to clean out my car now!

My Birthday!

2009-03-31T21:33:00.009-06:00

Today was my 28th Birthday and although my boys are both sick it still turned out wonderful! First off, Tavin has para influenza; which is the flu paired up with croup and bronchitis! Needless to say, we have not been going out of the house unless absolutely necessary. Dennis has bronchitis that will not go away and a lingering sinus infection as well. So far I am okay, let's hope and pray I stay that way!
Here is a breakdown of my day...
Tavin and I stayed home and did our normal day to day stuff but needed quite a few groceries and diapers pretty badly. Because it was snowing it made me want to take Tavin out even less since he is so sick already so my Mom came over and picked up our shopping list and brought it all back for us! She also brought a surprise. She wanted to pick me up a Bavarian creme doughnut, since that is my all time favorite, but the store was out so she brought me a Boston Creme cake instead!
This was one of the few things Tavin had eaten yet for the day, and this was after nap too. He's just so sick he won't eat anything! Anyway... they sang Happy Birthday and we ate! Yum!

Here Tavin is eating with my Mom.
Then she left as Dennis pulled up, so they swapped places, Tavin loved that, to go from having Grandma to having Daddy home!
So Dennis brought in not 1 rose but 50 of them for me!!!
And he brought me a whole Box of Milky Way candy bars! Talk about a good birthday, chocolates and roses, what more could I ask for?!
This is funny though because the boys went downstairs to get my large vase and once they came upstairs Tavin said, "Piston Cup!" pointing to the vase. He was insistent that the vase was the piston cup (from CARS)! How cute huh!
Tavin stood on the chair by the sink and held the roses under the water with me while I cut them and he kept saying, "Just like Mommy!" and "Oh Beautiful!"
What a stud!
All the flowers wouldn't even fit in the vase though so check out below what I had to do to make it work. Lol, it worked!
Then, my good friend Melanie came to the door unexpectedly (well, not to Dennis but to me it was) and brought a cake and balloon and ice cream and a birthday card! Also she brought Tavin a few gifts as well that Emma had picked out for him to help him feel better!
How amazingly sweet is that!
Do you see Tavin's little hands holding onto the cake! He was ready to take a fork right to it!
We then got online with Dennis' Mom, Debbie and Branden in Cedar city and they all sang to me and I made my wish and Tavin and I blew out the candles.
I cut the cake and we busted open he ice cream, well check out this picture...
So now at this point Tavin has eaten Boston creme cake, some dry cereal, a juice box and now ice cream. Who cares, at least he was eating something!!! The ice cream must have felt great on his throat though because he ate like half of the tub!!! Oh thank you, something helped!
Dennis gave me my gifts which totaled to be a box of Milky ways, a book titled "A Daughter of God," all those beautiful flowers, and then a Little Green machine!!! Now I can shampoo my car! Yea!
Then after our cake and ice cream Dennis and I made dinner together. We had french toast with strawberries, bananas, whipped cream and strawberry syrup. Oh yum!
Dennis took this next picture just before we put Tavin to bed. I have a hard time smiling when pictures are being taken and it always looks like I am scuzing the camera so he found a cure, and look, it is a real smile, not a fake one. Right before he snapped the camera he had Tavin turn and say, "I love you Mama!" Now what can make me smile more real and bigger than that!
What a great birthday it turned out to be, sick boys and all!
And thanks a ton to my Mom and Melanie for being so wonderful and making me feel so special on my birthday! I am blessed with a wonderful family and great friends!!
Oh and before bedtime Tavin and I both got blessings given by Dennis! What a night topper!
I love you baby! Thank you!

I opened the blog back up

2009-03-27T23:09:00.002-06:00

After Dennis commenting one too many times on what a hassle it is to read the blog now that it was private I deleted any personal information that would be on here and opened it back up. I have to admit, it wasn't very fun logging in every time anyways so whatever, it was worth the try to do the whole private thing anyway.

Wheeler Farm, and Tavin is writing like a pro!

2009-03-23T21:51:00.004-06:00

So first off, we went to Wheeler Farm with some friends and it was lots of fun! Here are the cutest of all the pictures that I've got, there were a lot to choose from so it was hard limiting the pictures I'm posting, here it goes...

Here are all the kids lined up in their strollers, Tavin is almost all the way to the right if you can't find him on your own.

Tavin really liked the horses! We even saw one of them poop, he thought that was funny. For a few minutes after he kept saying, "Horse pooped, that's funny!"

Even though you can't see it too clearly in the picture, there is a cow with a calf. Them other is licking the baby clean. Tavin was intently watching and later that night was telling Daddy about how the mommy was licking the baby for a bath.Tavin loved the tractors!!! I wish they didn't have as many as they did because we could not seem to get away from them until forever after he discovered them! I have some adorable pictures of him on the tractors though!
So, we were watching the pigs eat and Tavin thought it was very interesting, though when I asked him if he wanted to touch them he very insistently said, "NO!" and then shrugged back.Tavin was so excited to play in the hay stacks! One time he got stuck and cute little Lauren (who is standing to his left in the photo) held out her hand to help him down. Adorable is the only word for that!Here is little Evan (Lauren's brother), Tavin and Colby all sitting on the haystacks. Tavin and Colby started throwing the hay after a while and were having so much fun!Here is yet another tractor! Look how small Tavin looks compared to the tire! Tavin said, "That's a big Tire!"

Here we are on the hay ride, Tavin was so tired at this point that he sat on my lap the whole time and cuddled up, watching the large tires go 'round and 'round as he says. Though his facial expression doesn't show it right now he really did have a blast on the ride. He told Daddy all about it later after we got home, and he was still really excited!

Here he is after the ride stopped, before we climbed off. See, he's got a smile now!

Okay and look at this... Tavin wanted to take over my grocery list, so he did and I started fresh, but then he wanted his name written on it. I write it, then he tells me each letter after I write it, that's just what we do. Well, Dennis and I were getting dinner ready and so after writing his name for the second time I went about my business in the kitchen. Tavin turned around to me and said, "Look an N!" I went and looked. Look what he did! The N that he wrote is on the left upper side of the page, it looks so good!!! It's funny to me though because it's not like he picked an easy letter to write first, he chose the N. He was so proud f himself, as he should be!

My little stud! Here he is after showing me his letter.

Funny story about the pen he is using, it is him favorite pen to use overall. It came from my Sister when she was working at a Urologist office so what brand is it advertising for you ask?... Viagra! I just make sure we keep the pen kinda covered in our pen basket so it doesn't go out in his backpack to a friends or something. That would be awkward. Anyway, thanks Tonia, Tavin loves his blue Viagra pen!

Our 2 1/2 week vacation to Wisconsin!!!

2008-08-12T22:20:00.001-06:00

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