Kari's Crazes: 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.