Bad Blogger!!!

What a naughty blogger I've been. It's been clear since Halloween when I posted last, the shame! To be honest I sort of forgot about my blog, and blogging altogether. So I finally had a day off today and was looking at everybody else's blog posts from the last few months and thought to myself "I should catch up!" This is my catchup attempt! I am going to try to do better!

After surgery, with her red sore eyes.

Chels had strabismus correction surgery on her eyes on July 22, 2011. She did so good and was a trooper throughout the whole thing. She did lots better then Mom did!!!

Chels got her face painted at Pride Days.

D in a bouncy house at the Blackfoot Pride Days.

Ross Park with Leah and her kids.

Chelsea's second pair of glasses after she saw a pediatric opthamologist.

Ross Park with my friend Bobi and her kids.

Happy 4th of July!!!! 2011

Ross Park with cousins.

First time at the circus. What a fun night!

First swim lessons for Chels. She passed level one and loved it!

Baby Animal Days at the Fairgrounds 2011.

Easter 2011. Cute matching outfits.

A fun day trip to Salt Lake with Leah.

Chelsea's first fish!!!! With the help of Papa.

Getting so big!

Chels got her first pair of glasses in February of 2011.

My gals from Germany came to visit in the last month of December. SO FUN! I miss them tons.

Christmas 2010. Chels and Dean hugging it out.

Boise State game in December with our friends Luke and Leah.

Happy Halloween!!!

Wow, this year is flying right by. It's sort of like I blinked and all of the sudden it was the holidays, crazy.
Chels picked out a costume at a second hand store clear back in August and I told her that if I bought it for her she had to be that for Halloween. I never thought she would really make it the months until Halloween but she did. She was so excited to be a butterfly! Jake wanted Little D to be a fisherman so we kind of used the money we saved with Chels' second hand costume to buy Little D a fisherman costume. Then he got sick. He had a sour tummy for about 10 days and was really dehydrated and loosing weight so we just put him in his costume for Grandma's houses and he'll probably wear it again next year.
Our cute fisherman. He would not keep the hat on or hold the fishing pole. We'll try again when he's 2!

Chels as a beautiful butterfly.

Jake took the kids to a pumpkin patch while I was working one day so we didn't get any pictures of that. But, I did break out the camera for the carving. Once again Jacob out did us all and turned out something professional looking. Chels drew a face on a pumpkin and I carved it for her. My pumpkin was a flower but I didn't even take a picture of it...it was bad!

Little D with his green pumpkin. Actually I think it was a squash.

Doing the cleaning. Chels tried hard but she was so slow that we ended up finishing it for her.

Pink Poodle in Paris Party!

Chels turned 5 on Sept. 17...I can't believe it! I know everyone says that when their child turns a year older but 5 seems like such a big girl! Whenever anyone asks me how old she is (I had someone ask me if she's 3 on Tuesday, haha) and I say 5 they always ask me "Why isn't she in Kindergarten?" since I usually get asked this when we're out and about in the middle of the day. Well she's not in kindergarten because here in Idaho the cutoff date is Aug. 31 and her birthday is Sept. 17. So next year she'll be an old kindergartener, but someone has to be the old kid in the class right? So we are just enjoying our time together right now. I try to do something fun with her on my days off and she has been doing kindergarten workbooks I bought so she will be all ready when the school year rolls around again. I just can't believe I have to send her off into the big world that soon, it makes me very sad. I'd rather just keep her with me!
Anyways, for her Pink Poodle in Paris Party (she picked the theme herself) we went swimming with all the cousins and then had pizza and cake at Grandma Evans' house. It was lots of fun and she already can't wait her 6th birthday party.
This picture is unrelated but I still threw it in there. She hates these things and doesn't let me put them in very often.

This was my little 5 year old on her actual birthday. She got a Zooble that morning before we headed out and she loves that little thing. I have to admit, it is pretty cute.

In her dress that Grandma Davies got her on the day of her party.

Opening presents after swimming. She got lots of fun toys. This is the supermarket that her friend Annika from CA had. She has wanted it forever!

Blowing out candles. I have better pictures of the cake and some of swimming on my mom's camera. I'll have to get them and make another post. I tried really hard with the cake but the poodle and the Eifel Tower were falling off. Oops!

FUN to be ONE!

Is there anything sweeter then a first birthday? Probably lots of things, but Little D's first birthday yesterday was pretty sweet. We were going to have his party at the playground behind our house but we had to switch it to my mom's house at the last minute because of inclement weather. All of his cousins on my side were there and Jake's parents also came. My brother's and Dad couldn't get away from the grain harvest that early in the evening so they weren't able to make it, but it's OK and totally understandable. We had cake and opened presents. Pretty low key but it was still fun. The perfect way to spend his first birthday. I'm just going to say, like all parents usually do, that I can't believe a year has gone by since he was born. It just doesn't seem like he's been around for that long. I'm so glad we have our little Buddy in our lives. He's so sweet and cuddly. He is a total mama's boy and I love it. He has put us through some tough days during this first year but I wouldn't trade him, or the time we've had, for anything. We love him SO much!!!
We got him a balloon bouquet but he wasn't too sure about that. As soon as we took it apart and gave him the football balloon he was happy. The whole bouquet was just too scary!

Can you tell what his theme was? Jake was beaming with pride. His future quarterback.

Buddy got tons of awesome present from everyone. Thanks for all of those who came, it was so fun.

He couldn't decide what to play with first!

And of course, eating his cake. I can't say this is the first time he had cake but it's the first time we just gave him a piece and let him go at it. He loved it!!!

It was weird to see him dig in and enjoy it. Chels wanted nothing to do with her cake on her first birthday, it was too messy for her. But little D loved it.

Such a cute picture I caught. This is the car Grandma Evans got him. He has already gotten on and off it probably 100 times. Jake and his dad put it together and gave him his first ride.

On the Move!

Soooo, just like his sister before him, Little D started walking about 10 days-1 week before his birthday. What a little stinker. But unlike Chels he's still very cautious. She just took off and never looked back no matter how many times she fell. D will walk a little and then sit down cause he gets scared. He's so sweet. And I included some pictures of his new favorite trick, which sister helps him out with. She opens his closet and he climbs in and throws all his clothes out, uggghhh!

Ear tubes for little D.

What a looooong morning we had on July 21. After poor Little has suffered through ear infection after ear infection since he was 5 months old he finally got tubes placed in his eardrums. It was by no means a serious or complicated surgery and I'm so thankful for that. It was sad to see our little guy all doped up and to have to watch the Dr. carry him off to some unknown place that we weren't allowed to go. I can't imagine having a baby with health problems and sending them off for major surgery where you don't know the outcome. I am truely thankful that my children are healthy.

We had to be at EIRMC in Idaho Falls at 5:45 am (I didn't know this time existed!). They admitted our little guy and got his vitals and things like that. After 2 or 3 more nurses came in to do their parts and ask their questions D had had it. And he fell asleep. The anesthesiologist came in to describe how they'd be putting him under and to ask if we thought he'd have separation problems when it was time to take him and I said "yes" because he's such a mama's boy, hehe. So they brought in some meds for him and we had to wake him up. We gave him the medicine and started to walk down to pre-op. During this 3 minute walk his head started bobbing, the meds were taking effect....so sad! I hated to see my little buddy like this. His eyes and head were rolling around and his body was totally limp. SCARY! The Dr. came to pre-op and talked to us. Then the anethesiologist came and took him. We walked down the hall behind him watching him take our baby and this is when the tears came. I knew he'd be fine, and I knew we'd see him again in less then an hour but this was still one of the hardest things I've done. He was just looking back at me with those droopy eyes and I wanted to run up and grab him and say "never mind! we don't want the tubes!!!" and take him home. But the Dr. turned to go to surgery and we had to walk on to the waiting room. The LONGEST 45 minutes ever!!! The Dr. came in to talk to us after about 30 and said things went perfectly and gave us instructions for afterwards and later that day. I guess while we were in the room talking to the Dr. they paged us to come to recovery so we didn't hear it. They called Jake's cell and we left the waiting room. As soon as I opened the door I could hear D crying. So we walked faster. Poor little guy was scared to death with two nurses he'd never seen before, and he was starving (we weren't allowed to feed him after midnight). We fed him a bottle and he downed it so fast and then was mad that is was gone. He cried for about an hour straight while the nurse kept coming in to monitor him and was doing his check-out papers. We could tell he didn't feel right and this was making him mad. He wouldn't really open his eyes and he didn't even stop crying when we'd walk around with him. He was just mad! As soon as we got in the car he feel asleep. We were out of there by 9 am. We came home and he slept until noon...and so did we! Overall it wasn't bad and I'm hoping this will help him. We haven't noticed much of a difference yet. He still has his cranky times and he still pulls at his ears a lot. I'm hoping that after they heal he'll be more comfortable and happy!
Before surgery when we were doing tons of vitals and waiting.

Such a tired boy with his bear the hospital gave him.

Looking a little out of it after they gave him his medicine in pre-op.

Finally eating afterwards, he was starving!!!!


We love our little D so much and we feel bad he had to go through this. But, if it helps it will all be worth it.

Motherhood: An Eternal Partnership with God

Have you seen any of these Mormon Messages? I'm sure all of you have. I've been meaning to post one of them because I love them all but when I saw this one I just HAD to post it today! So thanks ML for sharing it. It made me feel uplifted and hopeful. So all you mothers, just take 3 minutes and watch it, I promise you won't regret it.

Lots of Firsts!

Just a quick post since I haven't posted forever and because today was a big day for little D. Today he figured out how to sit up from a laying down position, crawl, and pull himself up to standing. HOLY COW! I can't believe it. We have waited so long for him to any of the above and then today he does everything, it was amazing! I haven't witnessed him pulling himself up but Jacob and Kirsten (his grandma Davies) both did. His crawling is still slow but he can definitely do it and he crawled all over this evening just looking at everything from his new perspective, so cute! I am just realizing we might need to change our whole night-time routine. We've always just layed him on the floor and he falls asleep but right now it's 10:00 and everytime I lay him down he just flips over and sits back up, hmmm.

We also got his ears checked yesterday since his pediatrician thought we should tubes and they looked great (which I suspected since he's slept through the night for two nights in a row now). So she's giving him one more chance. One more ear infection and we're off to the Ear Nose and Throat Dr. for our consultaion. Hopefully since it's summer time now he won't get sick anymore, hopefully.

In this picture I was trying to get a shot of his two little baby teeth on the bottom. Of course he eluded me. But it's cute so I posted it anyways.

He loves to kneel up next to things and play, he'll sit in this position forever.

This was how I tested him tonight to see if he really could crawl. I put the number two forbidden object on the floor (number one being the cell phones) and sure enough he crawled right over to them. What a rascal!

In other news Leah and I took a mom's only (plus baby Stella) trip to Salt Lake City. We planned on taking pictures everywhere we went but we only ended up with one picture at PF Changs. We also went to IKEA, the Cheesecake Factory, the Fashion Place and Layton Hills malls, and we stayed in the Hilton in downtown SLC. It was so much fun and is now going to be an annual or semi-annual event!!!

This last weekend we had our Landon Family Reunion at Cherry Hill. Once again I didn't take as many pictures as I planned on taking but here are a couple. Chels loved it and talks about "Cherry Mountain" everyday.

She thinks she can swim now that I bought her this little floating donut. She's so funny.