This is Halloween

This Halloween was the best Halloween I've had in a long time. For starters, we all dressed up this year... including Grant. What? How did that happen? I have to thank his brother Nathan for dressing up, because I really think that helped to motivate him. Yes, he did only go as a fly fisherman. However, he did say (as he was painting my face for my witch costume) that maybe he'd do something a little more fun next year. The other thing that was pretty awesome was how inexpensive our costumes were. We always spend all this money on costumes for the kids, and they end up being made with cheap material, and they just aren't worth it. This year, Hunter was Harry Potter. He wore black shoes, black slacks, a white button up shirt with a maroon tie and a gray sweater over the top. Then he wore a black cape (from my parent's halloween collection), and Grant made him a wand in like 5 minutes. The glasses came from the movie theater. When we went to our 3D movie this summer, we saved the Harry Potter shaped glasses. We just popped the lenses out of the frames and they looked perfect. Ayla was my little kitty. I bought her some black sweats and sewed a tail on it, and I bought a black jacket and sewed some ears on it. Then I painted her face, and it looked perfect. We went trick or treating in a fun neighborhood by Grant's grandma's house. The kids were practically running to the next house. One house gave then pop and after that, Ayla was asking everyone for pop.
So aside from me eating WAY too much of the kids Halloween candy, this was a wonderful Halloween.

FIVE!

How is my little boy 5 already? I can remember being pregnant with him like it were yesterday. I thought my pregnancy would last forever. And now it's 5 years later.

I feel as though Hunter has grown up so much in the last few weeks. He's doing so well in his school online. He's starting to sight read. He started playing the piano 2 weeks ago. He's done so well with that. I gave him a few chores to do on a daily basis; things like unloading the dishwasher, getting the mail, and giving Oreo food and water. He has really enjoyed it. I just hope that lasts. :) On top of everything else, Hunter learned how to ride a bike this week. He has been so excited. He wants to constantly ride his bike down to his cousins' house to play with them. It reminds me of when a teenager first gets their license and they are constantly driving everywhere... even if it's only 20 feet away.

The first day he learned how to ride, I decided to take him to the church parking lot so he could get some turning practice in. It can be kind of difficult on the sidewalks around here. So I packed up the water bottles, the bike and the kids and headed on over. It was like a playground to him there. No cars and no cracks in the sidewalk. Just a lot of room to ride around in. Ayla was my little cheerleader. As Hunter was riding, she would cheer "go Hunter go!" over and over. It was adorable. And everytime he got close to us, she'd pick up his water bottle and run over to him to give him a drink. I really wish I had brought my camera for that. It was adorable. Hunter loved it. And the few times he did crash, he was all smiles about. He kept saying how he was going to tell Daddy how many cool crashes he had. And he kept talking about going mountain biking with Daddy as well. It was so fun.

Hunter's birthday was on a Sunday this year. We had gotten some pizzas the night before and I made his birthday cake as well. I had decided this year to do a Mario themed birthday cake for Hunter. That was well received considering the fact that it's basically Hunter's favorite thing at this point in his life. It turned out good, except for the fact that after a while, the bottom of the cake started to collapse which made the top of the cake tilt. You'll see in the pictures below that in the end, Grant had to hold the top of the cake up with his finger when we sang happy birthday to Hunter.

Overall, it was a great day. Hunter woke up bright and early to open presents. Ayla wasn't thrilled in the beginning... I don't think she was too impressed that only Hunter got gifts. :) In church, Hunter volunteered to say the opening prayer in Primary. Then he got sung to and got some candy as well. He was just all smiles during church.

Ayla on the other hand was a pain in the butt in church. She has been going through a faze where the only person she wants is me... not even Daddy. This makes it hard since I lead during sacrament meeting. She is constantly upset that she doesn't get to go up with me and gets mad at Grant for holding her. I took her to nursery and as usual, she was pretty upset and didn't want to go. I substituted in Primary that day though, so I had to leave. The wonderful nursery leader took her and let me leave. When I got back to pick her up, she was out cold. The nursery leader said that she had been sleeping for over an hour. I think Hunter must have woken her up that morning to open his birthday presents. Needless to say, she got in a good nap that day.

We had family over for dinner that night, and it ended up being a lot of fun. I'm so happy that Hunter had such a great day. It is sad to see him grow up so fast, but so fun to see the kind of person he is becoming. I am so blessed to have this amazing little man in my life. I couldn't have asked for a better boy. He is one of the sweetest kids I have ever known.




We LOVE making birthday cake!





Opening presents.





If you look closely, it looks like Luigi is holding up the castle. :)


My bike rider!

Ayla's birthday, and all the many doctor visits

These last 8 days have been LONG and frustrating. Last Wednesday (as mentioned in my prior post) we visited the doctor because Ayla had not been peeing at all in 24 hours. He recommended Milk of Magnesia and told us to follow up with him the next day. On Thursday, we headed back in with bad news: it had not fixed anything. So he told us to try a suppository and follow up with him the next day. Unfortunately, that didn't do the trick either. So on Friday, our pediatrician told us to try Mirilax and follow up with him in a week. Friday, nothing. Saturday, nothing. Luckily, Sunday showed some progression. And on top of it, it was Ayla's birthday! But I will get to that good stuff later. On Sunday, she had 3 really good wet diapers. It was wonderful to finally see some progression. Monday also went well. However Monday night, Ayla started to act really fussy. I thought maybe she was just tired, so I put her to bed. Tuesday morning she woke up acting like she was in pain. She had a fever, she wouldn't eat or drink anything, and she wanted...no... DEMANDED I hold her ALL day. I didn't leave our couch downstairs. Thank goodness for the internet- especially while she was napping on me. She kept acting like she had stomach pain, so I gave her a suppository to try and help things along... especially since I had not changed a diaper the entire day. The bottle says it should create a bowel movement between 15 minutes and an hour. 2 hours later, she was still in the same diaper and we were at the doctor's office yet again. The on call doctor thought she was all right as far as her bowel movements and the fact that she hadn't peed, but he checked out the rest of her. Her tonsils were swollen, so he did a strep throat test. It came back negative. He told me to buy some gas drops to give her to help with any pain in her belly since she was gassy. The next day, she woke up exactly as she had the prior day, minus the fever. However, she was still as grouchy as ever and as clingy. We did the same routine that day as well. I called her pediatrician, and he said if she hadn't peed by today to bring her back in. So I woke up, checked her diaper, and once again she was dry. As soon as they opened, I called the doctor to make her appointment. Not even 10 minutes later, she started acting like she was feeling a little better. I just thought, well she still hasn't peed. As we were leaving to go to the doctor, I changed her diaper only to find a little pee in there. Not much, but some. Then I started questioning myself... was I being over paranoid? I took her in anyways. As soon as we walked in the door, she was giggling, and ran to play with the toys. What in the world? It's not like I wanted her to be sick or anything, but I didn't want to show up acting like everything was wrong when she wasn't acting like it. So we got called back in. After looking her over and asking me a few questions, he noticed something that I hadn't really paid attention to: a rash on her legs and a little on her arms and some around her mouth. Granted, the ones on her arms and mouth were barely even noticeable, but the ones on her legs were. Turns out, she has hand foot and mouth disease. Something that causes a fever, and no desire to eat or drink. Therefore, no pee. After doing a catheter just to rule out a UTI, it was determined that the only problem was the hand foot and mouth disease and that the Mirilax had helped to get her better originally. The only problem was, she happened to have another problem the same time she was dealing with the other thing making us think it had something to do with the original problem. So annoying! However, I am SOOO glad it has all been figured out. Apparently this disease only lasts for about 3 days and today is day 3, so we should be out of the clear tomorrow. Yeah! Needless to say though, it was a long week. Today has become my "do whatever you want day". And I have.

Now as far as Ayla's birthday went, it was wonderful. Grant is seriously like a little kid sometimes. We had his parents here that day, and Grant sent Ayla and Hunter down to wake them up at 7 in the morning so Ayla could open presents. He can never wait. So she opened her presents, and enjoyed the morning before heading to church. I got the opportunity to sing in church that day as well. Now, I say opportunity because this was the least nervous I was singing in front of people that I've ever been. It was kind of nice. Anyways, Grandma P. took Ayla to nursery which was wonderful since Ayla hates going in there. It made her enjoy it so much more. We got home and got ready for dinner. We had a lot of family over (and some friends) that evening for dinner. Then Ayla got to blow her candle out and open a few more presents. By the time everything was over, I think Ayla had had an overload on people for the day. Not that she doesn't love people, but I think she prefers some alone time as well. She was begging to go downstairs by herself to watch Dora. She and Hunter are so different in that way. We had a great time. I can't believe my baby is 2. Where has the time gone?

Other things going on: Hunter just started pre-school this last Friday. It is a different kind of pre-school than most of you are probably familiar with. It is an online pre-school called Upstart, based in Utah. It's a free program that they do online a minimum of 5 days a week and 15 minutes a day. Hunter has loved it so much however, that he has been doing a minimum of 30 minutes a day- most days closer to an hour. He has already learned so much, and he is having fun as well. My nephew did this as well and excelled so much. He was one of the smartest kids in his class the following year in Kindergarten. I can't wait to see how well Hunter does. For those of you interested in learning more, check out this website:

http://www.waterford.org/proven-results/upstart

The other thing that Hunter has been enjoying lately... Angry Birds. For those of you not familiar with was that is, it is an IPAD game. Grandma P. just got an IPAD for her birthday and brought it for the kids to play with. It is a game where you sling shot birds over to try and kill pigs.... sounds pretty gruesome, I know. The first time I saw what it was, I thought it was horrible. Then I played it. Now I am as addicted as Hunter. It's fun to figure out what angle you need to shoot the birds to knock different things down to get to the birds.

Anyways, here are a few pictures.




Hunter playing Angry Birds.


The beautiful birthday girl the night before.



She loved that new baby.





She was a little shy at first when everyone started singing happy birthday. I wasn't sure if she'd blow the candles out. She finally did though (with a little help from me... that candle was hard!) and she had so much fun. Oh, and can you tell that's a Dora cake? Her absolute favorite thing in the world right now.

And her eyes aren't even brown!

Growing up, my dad used to always say, "you're so full of crap your eyes are brown". Well if I'd ever believed that was true, his saying was proved wrong today.
Let me explain. This morning Ayla woke up and was acting almost like she was going to throw up. She was gagging a bit, and just not acting like herself. She ended up spitting up a bit on her hair while she was laying down, so I decided to give her a bath. Normally she loves baths, but she was acting like she was in misery the whole time. I gave her some dry cereal and Gatorade for breakfast, and she just sat in front of the TV all morning not moving. She ended up falling asleep, and I had to wake her up to eat lunch and get ready to leave- I had to pick up some things for Hunter's online preschool for this fall. As I was getting her dressed, I noticed that it was almost 2 pm, and she hadn't peed or pooped all day. In fact, she woke up dry. Meaning that it had been almost 24 hours since she had peed last. I called the doctor and got an appointment that I was able to go to right after Hunter's school thing.
We got there at 4:45. Ayla was in a great mood at this point, to my surprise. She was running around playing like she had been feeling great all day. After looking her over, the doctor said that it looked like her stomach was a bit descended. So he sent us over to get an x-ray and some lab work done. First off, Ayla was amazing with both of those. I really think that God decided to send me a child that could handle this stuff better than Hunter does. He's almost 5 and I still have to hold him down just to get a finger poke to check his iron. For the x-ray, she just layed still. I told her that they were taking a picture of her tummy. She did great. Then they took some blood. When we first sat down, Hunter started asking the lab technician if she was going to poke Ayla. She said yes. He started panicking and begging her not to. The lady said she had to so we could see what was wrong with Ayla. When he started to panic some more, she told him he could sit away from us so he couldn't see anything. He was more than happy to. Ayla had a few vials of blood drawn and the entire time, she didn't even whine once. She was talking to the technician about Dora and her birthday cake, and she didn't even panic at all. Amazing.
Then we went back to talk to the doctor about her results. Her lab work looked fine, but her x-ray showed some problems. Her x-ray showed (as my dad would say) that Ayla was "full of crap". :) Apparently she has so much poop inside that it was blocking her bladder making it so she couldn't pee. Now, the doctor did say that this may not be the only problem, but he told me to give her some milk of magnesia and lots of fluids and to follow up with him tomorrow. As of right now, that's what it looks like though. We'll see for sure tomorrow I guess. However, my dad's theory was proved wrong- Ayla's eyes are blue. Although I do know that children's eye color can change up to what, age 3 or something, so for all I know they'll change at that point. I'll tell you what though- if they do change to brown, I will be laughing my head off.
Other than that, things have been going well with us. Ayla has shown more interest in the potty lately, so I figured we may be starting with potty training soon. We've spent lots of time in the bathroom lately, so I got a few pictures in there.
Oh, I almost forgot- we just got back from a vacation this last Thursday. We spent 4 days at Grant's parent's cabin in Salmon. It was so much fun up there. We all went kayaking, boating, swimming, and had some fun with the family. It was nice having Grant with us that long since he's been working so much lately. He got a second job about a month ago, and since then he's been working 70-80 hours per week. So I enjoyed having him around, and I know the kids enjoyed it as well. Plus, I got a great tan while I was up there. I loved it.
Anyways, here are a few pictures of our life lately.



Ayla with her blue sucker mouth after getting home from the doctor





Very sanitary, I know. :)



Ayla is GOOD at her pouty face. :)


Grant holding our newest niece Lily along with the new proud daddy (Grant's brother Nathan).

What we've been up to

We seem to have been keeping ourselves busy lately. I feel as though life just keeps getting busier, and I don't even have any kids in school yet!
A few weeks ago, my sister Melissa and her family came to visit from North Carolina. When they got here, I'd realized that I hadn't seen Melissa in 2 years and Timothy (my brother in law) in 3 years! Time has gone by so fast. Plus, they have an adorable little 1 year old that I hadn't met yet, so it was fun to get to know my niece Natalie. I wish I had taken pictures when I went up to my parent's house, but I totally forgot my camera (as usual). I really need to get better at that.
The following week I spent at the Bannock County Fair doing a Pampered Chef booth. I had a really good time there. I got to visit with my grandpa a lot while I was there, made a new friend who was doing a booth next to mine, tried some deep fried oreos for the first time, and saw a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while... including an old teacher of mine who was one of my favorites. Mr. Robinett was my 3rd grade AND 6th grade teacher, and he was so much fun. He moved 8 years ago to Washington and I hadn't heard from him since. He stopped by on Friday to say hi, and it was so nice to see him.
While I was at the fair, my sister in law Stefani had her first baby! I was so excited to come home and see her. Lily is just adorable, and I have enjoyed holding her as much as I can.
A few days ago I got the opportunity to help a friend cook some food for a party she was having. It was such an enjoyable day cooking and chatting and eating good food.
Yesterday the kids and I went to the fair with my brother and sister in law and their kids. It was such an enjoyable evening eating fun food, listening to music, and playing. Hunter went on a little roller coaster while we were there. I thought he would hate it since he is terrified of swings, but he absolutely loved it. Then there was a little boat ride that Hunter and Ayla- Ayla had a blast. Then they went over to some bounce houses. Once again, the kids had a blast. Ayla was a little nervous at first, but once she got the hang of it she wouldn't come out of there. It was so much fun.
Anyways I have a few pictures to post- I really need to get better at bringing my camera places. I do have to say- the one picture of Ayla with her finger to her lips: Ayla's new thing lately has been telling people to "Shhh". She tells me, and Hunter, and really everyone else to "Shhh" all time. It will probably get frustrating later on if she keeps doing it, but right now it is hilarious.

Hair Cut

The other day I gave Hunter a hair cut and I decided to be nice and let him watch a movie on my computer while I was cutting it. However I have found that it's just easier to have him naked and then have him take a shower afterwards. I got some cute pictures of him getting ready to get his hair cut. He just makes me laugh.

I also have some other pictures to post of both kids as well. Ayla has gotten to be so much fun lately. She can still be a little grumpy (typical 2 year old stuff), but when she is in a good mood, she is hilarious. She still loves playing with Hunter, and I am constantly hearing them giggle when they are playing. It makes me so happy to hear them having so much fun. Yes, there are still the occasional fights and tears between the two of them, but overall they are great friends and happy to be together. I just love my kids.

Also, I wanted to post some pictures of what Grant and I accomplished a few weeks ago... well, Grant mostly. I helped a little. We have a buffet that matches our kitchen table that we have been needing to finish for years. We finished our table about 3 or 4 years ago, and the buffet has just been downstairs collecting dust. Grant had a week off around the 4th of July, so we finally finished it. I just LOVE it.

The Final Harry Potter

Grant and I went and watched Harry Potter last night at 12:30. It was one of the best movies I have ever seen. It by far topped the other movies, and it topped my expectations. We saw the 3D version last night. The glasses for it were awesome- they were shaped like Harry's glasses. I totally kept them. I of course bawled throughout the movie. I knew I would. It is sad to think that the movies are over. It has been such a fun 10 years. Hopefully there will be another movie or book that will be as exciting as this one has been. If you get a chance to go watch the movie, do it. You will not be disappointed. I'm hoping to get a chance to watch it again.