I'm still trying to get a little caught up on blogging about the rest of our summer, and here we are the middle of September.
I am catching up though!
And I am such an avid photo taker, I just have way too many to go through, so bear with me as I try to do the best I can...
Toes
Riley found his toes.
Lemonade Stand
The boys did their very first lemonade stand. They helped me make the brownies and the signs and mix the lemonade. Okay so I maybe went all out and made it too pinterest-y with the glass vase. But I admit this was my first lemonade stand too. :)
Preston was a trooper and stood by that lemonade stand for over an hour and a half. Our neighbors bought some, a couple of people in cars pulled over, some kids, and a guy walking by. All gave him way more than what he was asking for in change.
Sitting Up...Almost
Right after this photo was taken, CRASH! Poor baby. At this point he was pretty wobbly and could only sit up for a few seconds, but he tried bless his heart!
Grey Be Gone
A before the trial-coloring (de-greying) and hair cut
A during...the hair color always looks darker during application, so don't freak out.
And then an after...
Don't you love how you can see Taylor in the mirror, in his underwear, asking Will something and he is shushing him. :)
I was a bit sad that he decided to hack his beautiful sideburns off. But never fear, he grew them back 2 weeks later.
The color didn't get rid of all of the gray, but it covered some of it and in my opinion, looked pretty natural looking. And I can't remember the brand I used, but it is one that turns itself off after 10 minutes so you can't over-color the hair.
Squammish 50 Mile Race
We went to B.C. for one of Will's races. We rented a hotel for 2 nights and made a weekend out of it.
I always enjoy going to BC for the food and scenery - ha!
I know it's only a couple of hours north of us, but it's a different country and things are a bit different there.
We totally had to scramble at the last minute and order all new birth certificates for the boys because they got misplaced, and we needed them to get across the border. I think Will paid a bunch of money to have them expedited. Whoops!
And actually, we had totally forgotten to order Riley's birth certificate in the first place, and so we needed to do it anyway.
Running is such an early morning sport.
After the first check point, I took the boys back to the finish place and they were able to compete in the kids 1K race. Preston is ultra competitive and so he enjoyed it and was sure he was going to win and get a medal, but uh, we got there a bit late and so he didn't get a great start to the race. But he finished strong!
Taylor just had fun running around :)
Ok so Will totally mapped everything out for us with times, but apparently he was running a bit faster than he had anticipated and we ended up waiting at one aid station for 3 hours.
Yes. 3 HOURS.
I finally let Preston drink Will's sports drinks.
Waiting...
And waiting some more....
I must have been so bored to start taking photos of Preston's beautiful boy eye lashes.
We finally gave up and drove to the finish, and OF COURSE Will was already there.
Seriously I cannot even count the times on one hand that I have totally missed him coming into the finish of a race. The number is too great. I'm either lost, stuck nursing a baby, at the wrong aid station, driving around lost, or whatever.
Luckily he still loves me anyway :)
So Preston totally ran around this building like 40 times. Not kidding. He had a goal and he did it.
Will and his running buddy Jay at the finish.
Collecting drop bags...and helping dad.
Taylor's 4th Birthday
I can't believe our little Taylor Bug turned 4 years old on August 17th!
So we celebrated at Grandma and Grandpa's house on the way home from B.C. since it was the same weekend as Will's race.
Taylor is such a low-key little guy. He doesn't like to be spotlighted or have attention on him, and so doing birthday candles in orange cremesicle ice creams was totally his speed.
He scored some pretty sweet toys...including some Transformers, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuff. Which, I might add, sounds like 1990 again.
Riley Sitting Up!
Annnnnd he's doing it!!
Man down.
Gahhhhh I can't get enough of this cutie.
Sleeping Underneath the Piano...
I found him like this. I must admit, I too like sleeping underneath the piano on occasion.
Red to Blonde...Again.
I changed my hair. Again.
In May, I decided I wanted to go back to my natural red color and of course if you remember, I went through a HUGE ordeal with dying my hair where my stylish totally did the wrong color, and I then had to get the color lifted and redone.
Anyway. And then after having my hair red/auburn for the entire summer, I decided I just did not feel pretty as a redhead. Maybe it was just this particular red. It didn't suit me. I missed being blonde. It was less work, and I could get away with wearing less makeup too.
Red hair was higher maintenance.
So I tried to take two photos in the same place, same lighting, and same pose.
Actually that is not really a true representation. That red hair photo of me above was a bit manipulated in color. It has a filter on it. Here is the actual true colors...
ok so anyway. My hair had some damage done to it from the first red-hair dye experiment and so we have to be very gentle on it while lightening it. It will take several times to get to where it was before, but I was very happy with this first lightening. My dad, Will, my mom, everyone said "It's Jenni again!"
I have to say, it feels good to be ME again.
Preston's First Day of 1st Grade
Well, I can't believe our Preston is back in school again already after a fun-filled summer, and in FIRST grade no less!
He got to pick whatever he wanted for his first breakfast before school, and he chose waffles.
I'll admit it was a tad bit difficult setting that alarm clock the first morning for 7:30 a.m. so that we could make sure he was dressed, fed a proper breakfast, got his backpack and school supplies, and got first-day-of-school photos taken.
And this kid has grown SO much! Here is a comparison of his first day of Kindergarten last year and his first day of 1st grade!!
Last year was Disney Cars, and this year it's all about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
We took Preston to school as a family so we could see him off to his classroom. I think Taylor is going to fit in quite well when he goes to school next year.
Preston was SO excited to find his "best friend" Alex from last year. They chased each other around the playground until school started at 9:05 a.m.
Last year Kindergarten was only a half day, and so now that he has a full day of school EVERY day, he was pretty tired when he came home. He sort of vegged in front of the Kindle - haha. But he deserved it. Long day for a 6 year old.
P.S. The day before his first day of school, he had a "meet your teacher" day...
Preston with Mrs. Reorda
Bad Tonsils
Around February of this year, my mom told me (after the boys had spent the night at their house) that she noticed Taylor had a hard time breathing when he slept. She was concerned he had sleep apnea because he would stop breathing, and then gasp for air.
I started going into his bedroom at night to check on his as well, and noticed that he snored (we already knew that), and it just didn't seem like he was getting enough oxygen. I too felt like he had some sort of sleep apnea thing. As a parent, things like this are always concerning - especially when sleeping - because we can't keep a watchful eye on him every single second he is sleeping but we just have to hope he is going to be okay.
Well I made an appointment with his pediatrician just to see what was going on.
As you can see from the photo above, this particular doctor wasn't exactly easy on Taylor during the appointment and it kind of traumatized him for a few days afterwards. He regressed in his potty training (wet the bed and his pants) and was clingy.
However, the doctor did determine that his tonsils were swollen and referred us to an ENT doctor. (I also had my boys see a different pediatrician the next time we had appointments).
It was one of those things where you think at first, ah great, more doctor appointments and more money. But that is the reason we do pay for health insurance so that if we need to take advantage of seeing a doctor or specialist, we CAN.
Taylor had a few appointments with the ENT doctor - two of them actually - until we found one that we liked the best and worked the best with Taylor. It is kind of a big deal to a 3 year old when an adult wants to stick a piece of wood down your throat and peek into your ears. It's uncomfortable and scary.
Over the course of many months, Taylor went on antibiotics a few times. The first time it shrank his tonsils down a little bit, but as soon as he was done taking them they swelled up again. And the other times he took them again, it didn't do any good at all.
He snored so badly at night time, and in the mornings we would check his throat with a flashlight and it was just a frightful mess to look at. His tonsils would be so swollen that they would touch in the middle and his uvula would be squished against them. I honestly don't see how he could be breathing very well with all of that going on.
Because Taylor was so young, we had the option of waiting to see if he would outgrow the tonsil yuckiness, but the ENT's recommendation was in his particular case that they really needed to come out. Antibiotics weren't helping, he wasn't getting good sleep, and not really getting enough oxygen. It was also effecting his hearing.
So we scheduled an adnoidectomy for September 5th.
It was a very early morning. The surgery center called us and said we needed to be there by 6:15 a.m.
I didn't want Preston to have to sit there in the waiting room with us when he had to be at school later that morning and needed the sleep, and so I arranged for him to go to the home of someone in our ward. However, they flaked out at the last minute and so poor Preston had to be up at 5:30 with the rest of us and come to the hospital...
They were so great with Taylor. The way they spoke with him and made him feel comfortable, and even let Tigger have a wrist band as well - it made him feel a little better and smile.
At this point Taylor was now 4 years old - still quite young for an adnoidectomy. We were just very vague about what we told him.
We explained that he was going to go to the hospital and lay on a table and take a nap. And during his nap, the doctor was going to fix the ouchies in his throat. With all of the medicine and check-ups he had done over several months, he was aware that he had "ouchies" in the back of his throat.
He was SUCH a good little patient. He did everything the nurses asked him to do. He even willingly went with the nurse back to the operating room without us parents (we weren't allowed to join him).
The operation itself was only about 30 minutes long, and we waited out in the waiting area until the doctor came out to talk to us.
Riley slept for the first couple of hours and finally woke up to nurse right about the same time they said we could go back.
The doctor said that the surgery went really well, and that they removed 3 huge masses of tissue including his tonsils and adnoids. His adnoids were the same size as his gigantic tonsils! That is pretty large especially for a child his size.
When I was done nursing Riley, I joined everyone and walked back and found Taylor in Will's arms like this, and moaning a bit. He was just waking up from the anesthesia.
I have been under anesthesia before for my gall bladder surgery and remember waking up and just feeling REALLY out of it and extremely tired. Taylor was the same way, but also very whiny and crying - which the nurses assured us was very normal. He had a bit of a queezy stomach and didn't want any of the popsicles they offered.
Riley was all smiles.
We stayed there until he was well enough to leave, and then we went to the pharmacy to pick up several perscriptions. He got some lollipops which were numbing - he could only suck on them 20 seconds at a time every hour. He was also given hydrocodine (which he refused), and some anti-nausea disolving pills for his mouth.
The first day was really rough on him. He was in a lot of pain and a little bit scared. He really clung to Will the entire day and snuggled him a lot. Will was very sweet and pampered him with whatever he wanted.
He got to watch movies, drink juice and suck on popsicles and take lots of painkillers. He also just slept a lot.
The first thing I noticed even from the first day was that his snoring was gone! It was incredible.
It took him about 3 days before he was talking. The first few days he would just motion to us when he wanted something. He did not want to use his voice at all. But he was doing well -not bleeding or hemorrhaging.
He looked so pale and weak to me. He is already a skinny little kid and I just wanted to protect him and make him feel better. He didn't really want to eat much - which was understandable. And all during his recovery time, Preston was in school. So he got the Kindle all to himself during the day to watch movies and play games.
It has now been a little over a week since his surgery and he is doing really well. He had his follow-up appointment a few days ago and his throat is healing well. I looked in it myself and it was all pussy and scabby - it just reminded me of what an incredible brave boy he was.
Preston was complaining about Taylor getting some special privileges and special foods, and I finally just told him exactly what happened to Taylor and that the doctor actually took a knife and cut out the ouchies in his throat. I could see the compassion on Preston's face instantly and he no longer complained about Taylor getting the temporary special treatment.
I will say this though - Taylor has had the worst breath! Ugh it's awful. I have brushed his teeth for him twice and it is still awful. I asked the doctor about it, and he said it was due to the fact that he has scabs in his throat and they will be falling off and they start to stink. Lovely right? haha. Poor guy.
The other thing is his voice is slightly different than before. It is actually quite higher. The doctor said this is due to the fact that before when his tonsils were swollen he wasn't used to having as much air space in his nasal cavity (the resonance chamber) and he is having to readjust and relearn how to push more air out through is nose when he talks. So he sounds very different. It's kind of cute.
Random Photos
And now for random cell phone photos...
Birch Bay Romantic Getaway - Aug 1
So shortly after we returned from our 3 week roadtrip, the boys got to have a 2 day weekend with Grandma and Grandpa because they missed them a ton. And Will and I decided we needed a "vacation from our vacation" and rented a little beach cabin in Birch Bay.
Although, it wasn't entirely just the two of us. Haha...
It's what happens when you have a baby who only exclusively breastfeeds.
We had a really great time talking, driving, relaxing, sleeping, and oh our cottage had THE most amazing massage chair. Heaven!
But uh, yeah, back to the THREE of us...
This was from early August...Preston road his bike 6 miles!!
Costco Shopping trips with only one child is a little bit like a mini-vaca...
and then there's Costco shopping trips with ALL 3...whew! First time doing that by the way.
Will was gone at Scout camp for an entire week, so the boys and I went and spent the night at G&G's for a night and then went to the beach!
Riley and I hiked up to Will's and my "lot".
Still there and still vacant.
We also hiked up to Denny Creek as a family...
Papa, the expert baby fingernail clipper-er.
Oh and somewhere in there, Riley had his 4.5 month checkup and is in the 79% for weight, and 89% for height. He was 18 pounds.
I went to urgent care to get a lyme test which came back equivocal, and then went to a lyme specialist and went on antibiotics for 21 days to get rid of possible lyme in my system...
...all from a stupid stupid tick that bit me in the Redwoods. Found it burrowed in my skin 2 days after getting back.
And yes it was about this size. Crazy right?
We also took a trip to the Oregon coast spontaneously...and literally drove the ENTIRE coast. Of course we had to stop at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and get cheese samples and ice cream...
And we also took a weekend trip to Sequim...
(we also went to church there)
I'm still trying to lose pregnancy weight...
The boys and I have been having fun either doing stuff, or staying at home...
Riley still likes his toes...
and is still cute sleeping....
And I promise that all of these weekend getaways had a purpose to them, which I will write ALL about next time I blog.
But for now, it's 3 a.m. and I'm single parenting it this weekend while Will is running the Plain 100 mile ultra marathon and I need to be up in the morning for church with all 3 kids.
And so goodnight!
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