Cam-Bam

What a CUTE baby!!! 

Sometime during all our summer fun, Cameron turned 4!  He wanted a Spiderman cake.  

And we took him to dinner at "Chinese" per his request.   My baby is growing up.  He is so fun.  Loves Honeynut Cheerios and would eat them for breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, and dinner if he could.  He loves to dress up--reminds me of his older brother Dustin.   

 

 The bouncy toy he got as a gift.

Being silly one day 'dressing up' with a hat and beard and necklace.  I had some great shots of him and his dress-ups but they are on my lost phone.  He particularly likes hats.  He wore his wizard hat to the store and the library one day.  He put smiles on lots of peoples faces with that.

This fall he started laser treatments for the port wine stain on his face and neck.  He will have one every two or three months for a year or so.  Kind of a wait and see thing as to how many treatments.  We go to Albuquerque to the UNM Children's Hospital.   He is put under anesthesia.  From the time he went back to the OR and when they came and got me while he was waking up was an hour.  Not very long.  He looks very bruised at first but the bruising goes away pretty quickly and should all be gone after two weeks.

being silly at the hospital before the procedure

He seemed okay with everything.  His face seemed to hurt when I had to put the vaseline and sunscreen on and when he took his shirts off, but other than that it didn't seem to bother him.  The day after I asked him if he wanted to go to school (preschool) and he said "Well, I can't go to school with dots all over my face!"  Very cute.  

One day after  

 

One week after

 

The goal of the laser is to lighten it up, (make it less noticeable), but also to prevent further complications and tissue growth later in life. 

A New Backyard

Before...

 

This isn't a great picture, but it shows the fence just behind the pool and behind that is gravel that goes out to the side walk/road.  To the right where you can't see is a patch of weeds and a carport.  

NOW!! 

 

(there is a gate at the end of the driveway so we can use the carport if we so desire--like when we get a camper trailer??) 

I had some other pictures I wanted to post of the progress of the yard:  fence building, the family working together to move all the gravel, my brother using his tractor thing to pull out metal fence posts, bringing dirt, getting sprinklers in, laying sod...But alas, I lost my phone where all the pictures are.  I know I need to use a real camera, but a phone is just so much handier!  I am so sad that I didn't get all my pictures off my phone from the last year of my life.  soo soo sad.

Anyway, I am soo soo happy to have a backyard with grass and a fence!  What a great hubby and family I have to work so hard to make it happen! 

A Story About Bread, sort of

It's funny how things seemingly unrelated affect each other, or somehow become intertwined.  Like an episode of Seinfeld.  (you know, by the end of the show all the little story lines seemed to come together...)

A few days ago the window on the driver's side of the van got stuck in the open position--all the way down. Little did I know it was going to hinder breakfast this morning.

We have a one car garage that is filled with bikes, motorbikes, and all kinds of stuff besides a car.  My honey decided to make room for the van in the garage until the window gets fixed.  For safety and keeping the rain out. And it did rain last night.

This morning I decided to make french toast for breakfast.  But halfway through I realize that I will need more bread which is in the freezer in the garage.  I manage my way through the laundry room, which is piled with stuff from the garage, without falling and get to the garage door.  I realize however after I open the door there is no way to get the freezer open with the van there.  Scott notices what I am doing and inquires.  He said he will move the van.  He did but I still couldn't open the freezer because one of the motorcycles was barely in the way and not worth the effort.

He inquires again if I got the bread.  I say no but don't explain.  He said "I made the effort to move the van so I will get the bread."  He came back in a few minutes laughing.  I am very grateful he was laughing.  He said "There is no bread in the freezer!"

I told the kids who hadn't had french toast yet to have frozen waffles. (which of course was okay with J because she doesn't like french toast anyway).

Let me ask you, how many of your husbands would have been laughing?  I can just imagine some saying something like "All that and there isn't even bread in the freezer?"  Why can't you keep it stocked up?  How can we run out of bread?  It is the main staple for our kids and some of them will be malnourished without their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."  I have a great husband who has a great sense of humor and can see the funny in situations instead of always getting upset.  And he picked a great day to roll with the punches because I didn't wake up in a "Ready For a Brand New Day!" mood.  I love him.

For the record, I haven't run out of bread for a long time.  butter, eggs, bananas, yogurt, peanut butter, yes-- but not bread.

Lots Happening

One of these days I want to get back to posting regularly.  And not just family updates, but for now...

After 5 doctors' appointments, 3 x-rays, 2 different antibiotics and 11 days of missed school, Brennen is all better.  Anxious mommy here for a while, but really no need to have been. And like the doctor said, he was lucky to have stayed out of the hospital.

I am headed to New York!  To the Village of Palmyra.  My parents are there on a mission and my sisters and I going for a visit.  So amazing hubby and the kids will be on their own

except

for Dustin who is getting on a Greyhound bus and heading to Brigham City for Peach Days to hang out with his buddies he left behind when we moved.  Ah, to be a teenager again and live for the social scene and not much else.  Well actually I would never want to be a teenager again and I am not really thrilled that he chose to miss two soccer games and spend his money on a bus ticket so he could go 'hang out' and really do nothing.  But of course I live for sports and not much could have pulled me away from games when I was in high school (yet my kids just didn't inherit my competitiveness) and my husband reminded me that I am sometimes too frugal with my money.  different strokes for different folks.

We had a great time camping in the beautiful Colorado mountains.  We tried to hike a trail that we used to hike when I was a kid that went to a waterfall.  I think the last time I did it was at least 10 years ago.  I got my family together and two of my nephews and discovered that the trail sort of disappeared.  It was great at first but then it split to go up and we were supposed to stay down near the river and there wasn't really a trail anymore so we had rough terrain until we got back to the river.  Long story, but the river has changed over the years and we never made it to the waterfall.  Just played in the river and climbed on the HUGE rocks.  It was still fun, but the moral of the story is scout it out before you are the leader of a hike that you haven't been on for many many years.  I have pictures of the big rocks.

And back to my trip...I was getting Sunday clothes ready for the kids before I leave.  I did most ALL the laundry in the house which is a great accomplishment.  Anyway, I open Janessa's drawer to look for some white lacey socks and what I find a bunch of dirty church socks in her drawer.  Some aren't that dirty depending on how soon she took them off after church, but still.  How many times has she worn them to church without them being washed?  Of course I should be proud that she put them away and they weren't under her bed.  I am sure nobody will notice that her socks are a little dingy on Sunday.  Because apparently I haven't noticed it, or that her socks haven't been coming through the wash.

Sadly, I am leaving a sick child.  Andy has missed school all week because of a sinus infection.  He has been on antibiotics for two days but hasn't improved yet.  I am sure he will be just fine and the meds will start kicking in tomorrow.  Overall, he is probably my healthiest child.  He rarely gets sick.  We all get the stomach bug, and it will miss him.  When the kids pass a cold around, he doesn't usually get it.  However, when he was a baby he was sick all the time for about the first two years of his life.  His immunity wasn't great, but now it is built up wonderfully and most of the time he is as healthy as a horse.  I think it might be because the germs can't keep up with him.

And now, most wonderful news!  We have a backyard!! A beautiful wood fence and grass.  We laid the sod the week before Labor Day.