Tappana Times: September

Well, it seems I'm always a month behind these days. I have plenty of blog posts on my mind, but I just haven't gotten around to them. One excuse is that I STILL have been sick. I really hoped I was over it last time, but then my bronchitis came back and then when I was recovering from that with a second round of antibiotics and steroids, I got another deep sinus infection! And this one has been a kicker. I've been pulling all the stops to keep from having to do ANOTHER round of antibiotics, but it's slow going and miserable. Three months of being sick people. It really puts a damper on things.

To get back to our lives last month, we joined my parents on their ward camp out, but that was just after discovering Ammon had pneumonia (poor kid could hardly walk from the cabin to the bathrooms without coughing so hard he was gagging) so only Lydia stayed overnight with Grandpa and Kayleen and Ryan since the rest of us were sick.

One of the fun activities included these blow up balls you could get in and ram others. Lydia loved it. Ammon really got the raw end of the deal. Not only could he not join because of pneumonia, but also because he still had his arm in a cast.

Although he cried because he didn't get to sleep over and couldn't get in "the soccer balls", Ammon soon was able to get his cast off!

He actually cried more about getting the cast off than when he broke his arm! He didn't like how it looked and felt floppy (it actually startled me too, it was SO floppy - it didn't look right at all. And I think my reaction was what made him so nervous...whoops!). He felt like it was unsafe and wanted the security of his cast back on. The doctors convinced us that after a couple of days of use he wouldn't even notice it anymore, and they were right. It took a lot of reminders and convincing on our part to get Ammon to use his right arm again, but now you would never know he broke it. Hooray!

Of course, in September football season is in full swing, so I did an impromptu photo shoot of Kendrick in his BYU outfit.

He wore out after about ten seconds of smiling, but I was able to use our outtakes to describe our unfortunate loss against the Utes.

The game was just bad, in so many ways.

What was good was walking in to this sight:

Two of my favorites: my children and books. Combined, they make my heart sing.

I hope my children develop the love that I have for reading. This makes me think they are on the right track.

Kendrick's hair is getting rather long and after bath time it gets quite poofy and silly-looking.

And this boy started to pull himself up in September.

Now, a month later, he's a madman and pulls himself up on everything and walks along the furniture to get into everything, causing all sorts of trouble. Oh to go back to just pulling himself up onto his knees.

The main excitement of September was the return of school.

Lydia started 2nd grade with Mrs. Sipila.




















Ammon started kindergarten with Mrs. Riggs.












Lydia started a week before Ammon and she was really excited. She loves everything about school and was ready to take on a new year. With her new haircut, she looked much too old and mature.

She has quickly made friends and complained about how boring math is. Her PE teacher, who adores her, sent her home with another prized eagle feather (a reward for good behavior) and it felt like Lydia never even left school.

Ammon had a bit harder time adjusting to Kindergarten. At first I was surprised, given how well he had done at preschool, but then a few days in we realized he had pneumonia and probably had been feeling terrible. Mix that with his shyness, loss of afternoon naps, and the overwhelming busyness of a big classroom, and it's no wonder he wished we were on vacation so he didn't have to go to school.

I thought it would be easier sending my second kid to kindergarten. But I found it was only a teeny-tiny sliver of a bit easier, and only because I knew what to expect. It still hurt just as much to know that now Ammon was starting on the path away from me. He was beginning down the same road that Lydia took a couple years ago, slowly headed for independence away from their mom.

I felt panicked that he wouldn't know what to do, that his shyness would disable him, that his cough would make him throw up at school, and that terrible things would happen without me. The poor guy was going to get overlooked and feel overwhelmed and it would just be terrible. Of course, I was being dramatic, and it did help that I knew his teacher from when Lydia had her, and she is AWESOME. I had faith in her and in Ammon to figure things out, but I had also gotten used to it being me and Ammon together. I missed my bud. And when he came home and said he had cried at recess because he had missed me I felt totally justified - see, he's mine, he's not ready, and we should stay together forever.

But my rational part keeps my in line and I knew Ammon would adjust and he would love school eventually. So I kept putting him on the bus. Though he cried the second day as well, he started to get used to the routine, recovered from being sick, and he now enjoys kindergarten. I love hearing about his afternoons at school. I can already tell that school is going to be quite different with him than Lydia. He's so much like his father and we already got a note home that he's working on focusing when instructions are given and knowing what to do when he doesn't know what to do. (when Brigham read that he said he got all sorts of flashbacks, haha) Ammon can read and do single digit addition and subtraction, but he obviously has plenty of other skills to start developing and I'm looking forward to seeing all that he can achieve and the joy on his face as he excels. He's one smart little boy!

It just stinks that he has to climb up those steps and ride away from me in order to be all that he can be. And yet I'm so happy that he gets to do so. The paradoxes of parenthood strike again!

Tappana Times: August

August started out like any other summer month. Lazy evenings spent out on our new trampoline that my mom snagged for us from someone who left it behind when they moved away.

We enjoyed Sunday walks to my parents' house for dinner.

Kendrick looks grumpy, despite being catered to with bottles and stroller rides, but really the days were beautiful as we strolled along the neighborhood.

And we had plenty of plans we were looking forward to, to enjoy the last month of summer.

And then Ammon broke his arm. And all hell broke lose.

We walked to the elementary school behind my parent's house after Sunday dinner, and Ammon landed wrong after falling off the monkey bars. Brigham called for me in a panic and then I saw Ammon's arm. We carried him back to the house and then spent a long night, first in the emergency room,

And then we moved to the Children's hospital in Tacoma.

Ammon didn't cry once. He never said he felt any pain and had no pain medication. I kept asking the doctors if this is normal and they mostly said no, he must be tough....??? Ammon did ask me on the way to the emergency room if I thought throwing up or breaking your arm is worse. I told him throwing up...only because I didn't want to focus on current terrible situation. We then had a bizarre discussion comparing and contrasting throwing up and broken arms.

It was a long night, but we had good doctors. The worst part was when they couldn't get the IV in Ammon's arm. Brigham happened to stand up right when the nurse was inserting the IV and banged loudly into the metal table right behind the nurse, startling everyone, and made her blow through Ammon's vein. She tried to be nice about it, but it was totally Brigham's fault.

The break was in the best case scenario place in Ammon's forearm - away from any growth plates - and Ammon picked a sweet green for his first cast.

Even though the break was in his forearm, his first cast went above his elbow to prevent him from twisting his arm too much and accidentally moving the bones back out of place.

Ammon was really shy about his cast. He didn't want people to write on it...or even see it for that matter. In this picture of the kids picking black berries a couple days later, he tried to hide it behind his back.

Kendrick trying to the take the credit for the blackberries I picked.

Ammon was whiny and tired as we picked blackberries, and soon I realized why as he came down with a very high fever and was struck with the virus that became the beginning of the end.

Ammon also started a couple bloody noses (one so bad, his nose was gushing) and passed out on me and seized for a few seconds. The doctor thought it was a combination of the fever and bloody noses and not feeling good that caused him to pass out, but ran some precautionary tests to make sure. Imagine my surprise when I get a call back that the EKG came back with an induction delay and right enlarged ventricle. We then had to wait a month before we could get in to see a cardiologist. Luckily, it was machine error and Ammon's heart is fine! We are blessed for that!!

The virus Ammon started with decided to destroy our entire family and has turned into bronchitis/pnemonia/bronchiolitis/deep sinus infection/double ear infection and six weeks of coughing and sickness. And going strong.

Ammon and I have been so sick and it really cramped our end of summer style. We mostly didn't leave the house at all and when we did, I felt terrible. Poor Ammon couldn't move a muscle without it sending him into a coughing fit. Luckily, antibiotics have him on the mend. I was doing better, but seem to be hit with a second wave.

Despite being sick, we tried to squeeze in what we could.

Lydia made a big decision and got a good majority of her hair cut off. She's had around two hair cuts her whole life, so it was a big deal. Her side bangs are super cute and she's loving the new style.

As Lydia was getting her shoes on to go I snapped a picture of her long locks. I miss that long hair sometimes.

Kendrick turned eight months old.

The big open mouth smile represents everything we adore about the cute little troublemaker.

His favorite activity is pulling out the movies over and over again.

And I just had to throw this one in here because it's hilarious.

After we met with the orthopedist Ammon was able to get a sweet, waterproof, short-arm cast.

He liked the new cast so much better, and after some bribery, he even let us turn it into a BYU cast. Pretty awesome. I loved that it was waterproof and that we didn't have to worry about wrapping it for showers or baths.

Speaking of which, um, can they be any cuter?!?!?

No. No they cannot.

We're pretty big BYU football fans around here, so we always get excited for the BYU box that gets dropped in each state leading up to the first football game. The day it was Washington's turn, we were ready! Then we learned that they were only dropping in two different locations that were HOURS away. We were really disappointed and the kids were too, since we had been building it up for them. So I came up with the genius idea to make our own.

I made the box and my mom got a few things to put in it. Then we enlisted Brigham to go hide the box and take a picture for us to go find it. My mom had the genius idea to put it on facebook for any other fans in our area to race for as well.

Brigham sent this picture...which looks like 99% of Washington!!! We had no idea where to find it and we were terrified we wouldn't get to our beloved box first. But after a better picture, we raced to the park and were victorious!

The best part was that we did have other people try to get the box, and it was even a topic on the BYU sports discussion board the next day.  We were sad that we couldn't race for the real thing and win some BYU swag, but we loved reppin' the Y with our own BYU box and fun times. Talk about true blue fans, right?

Kendrick decided to finally start crawling.

He was pretty shaky at first, but with lots of bribery encouragement, he is a pro now. 

And gets into more trouble than ever before. Not even bronchiolitis can slow this one down.

Tappana Times: July at Home.

July started with Kendrick sitting up all by himself, and he's never looked back.

It also was a holiday weekend, and with family in town, we hit the green and played terribly at miniature golf.

The 4th is actually my birthday, so to celebrate the beginning of the last year in my twenties, I had the most rich, decadent, delicious peanut-butter chocolate dessert. Ever.

Reeses cheesecake brownies, for the win. I pretty much ate the entire pan by myself, since it was too rich for everyone else. Weak sauce.

We started out Independence Day by getting a free lunch at Cafe Rio. As you can tell, food makes me happy.




















Afterwards we went to family in Bellevue for dinner and enjoyed company of cousins and aunts and uncles. The one dark spot on the day happened while driving home from Bellevue. We were rocking out to Backstreet Boys (I'm indoctrinating my children) and I wasn't really paying attention to how fast we were going. Next thing I know, I have cop lights flashing behind me. I was going 16 miles over the speed limit. Whoops.

I hoped that since it was my birthday the cop would let me off easy, but no such luck. However, he did include stickers for my kids along with the ticket.....thanks.

Though, that part of the day was lame, we still enjoyed fireworks at the lake and it was great birthday. I tortured my family by making them take family pictures in our red, white, and blue.

And really, Kendrick stole the show in his All American Boy outfit. Gah! So cute!

Besides Fourth of July activities, we spent a lot of time playing games together. Lydia and Ammon are teaching Kendrick young.

Making a birthday sign and taking a picture of it to send to Uncle Kenny on a mission. Lydia and Ammon did a great job!

Long evenings with Dad gone at meetings and Mom and the baby hanging out late.

And one Friday evening, Brigham took me on a date to the Desmoine Waterfront Park and Beach.

It was beautiful. We watched people crabbing and fishing off the pier, and enjoyed the sunset after walking on a trail and wandering the area.

It was a much needed date night away, and we had fun together!

Since Kendrick started sitting up on his own, we moved him out of the newborn tub, into the big boy baby tub! He LOVES it! He just splashes and splashes and talks with glee.

The rest of our month was spent in Utah and Montana on vacation and with family, but I've already told you all about that.