Celebratory Ice Cream

Meet Shelby. Shelby is Kimball's speech therapist and after a year of speech he's all done! No more stuttering and no more speech therapy for him.  Yay!

Cleaning and Donuts

Our ward has a serious commitment issue (very few people accept or fulfill their callings) so when it was our turn to clean the church I thought it would be a good idea to take the kids and put them to work. I'm really appreciative of the opportunity to teach them and to help out. After the cleaning was done we thought a donut on a Saturday morning sounded pretty good. All three of us chose chocolate with sprinkles.

New Bunk Beds!

I finally bit the bullet and put Cora in a regular bed. Good bye to the crib and good bye to my sanity! The only way to fit more furniture in their room was to get a bunk bed which the kids LOVE. Cora's sleep patterns are different than Kimball's (she needs less sleep) so it's been a little tricky getting her to stay in bed. I've tried skipping her naps altogether but she ends up falling asleep anyway around 4-5:00 and that's too late in the day. 

So at bed time Kimball falls asleep within 5 minutes and Cora plays and plays for at least two hours before she falls asleep.

Hydrotherapy

Both of the kids have made HUGE strides in their bravery and technique with swimming, all thanks to Cora's hydrotherapy. 

The first week Cora wouldn't even take her shoes off to get in the water. Now she'll put both ears in, her mouth, lay all the way on her back to get her hair wet, and go on her tummy. She'll let Alicia take her into the deep end and she's even learned the blow bubbles through her nose and pinch her nose to keep water out.

Because I'm cheap and won't pay the $8 for myself to swim for 30 minutes, Kimball has to be in the pool on his own. He's also learned to pinch his nose to keep water out, will jump in, put his head under water and float on his tummy, and loves his goggles. It's all self taught but I'm impressed at his progress as well, given that he's had to teach himself.

Bowling For FHE

The Grogan's invited us to go bowling with them for FHE one night. Lance and I haven't gone in a really long time and have never taken the kids. Kimball especially loved it! They both wore the smallest size bowling shoe, size 8, and they're just the cutest little shoes!

Summer Time Swimming

We've had a lot of fun this summer having all kinds of friends over to swim, both in the baby pool and the big pool. Cora's made progress with tolerating the water so even she has fun now.

Squeezing the air out of the beach ball.

Then one day I had the genius idea to put a tarp down and spray the kids with shaving cream. It was a hit! Cora didn't appreciate it at all but we invited friends over to join in the shaving cream fun, well worth the $3.

Lately

Wow, a lot happening the last little while and yet nothing out of the ordinary. Relief society retreat, new bunk beds, swimming, bowling, donuts, shaving cream mess, christmas gift projects, etc. One day I'll journal it all....

Hope in a Poem

"There are stars you haven't seen and loves you haven't loved. There's light you haven't felt and sunrises yet to dawn. There are dreams you haven't dreamt, and days you haven't lived, and nights you won't forget, and flowers yet to grow. And there is more to you that you have yet to know."
- Gaby Compres

Camping With a Few Accidents

Last weekend we went camping with Liz, Julie, Chris, and Jean and all of our families. It was SO MUCH FUN!!! Lance was the only one who wasn't able to make it (because of work) so there were 12 kids and 9 adults. We headed to Lake Spokane which is about 40 minutes west of our house. The campsites were nice and big but the dirt was such a fine powder that everything got dirty and I mean DIRTY!

Aaron took 8 of the kids on a bear hunt around the campsite. They each looked for things they could use to catch the bear with or to scare the bear off with. It was so cute and Kimball still asks if he can go on another bear hunt.

 Lots of marshmallows

 And goofy faces of each of my kids

We played lots of games and I found my new go-to camp food: a crescent roll cooked over the fire on a roasting stick, then dipped in melted butter and then dipped in sugar and cinnamon. SO yummy!! The outside is crunchy and the inside soft and a bit doughy - delicious!

About 40 minutes after the kids went to bed I could hear Cora crying in the tent (the adults were around the camp fire eating and talking). I ran over to the tent and found her huddled in the corner looking scared. I snuggled her up for a few minutes and laid her down to go back to sleep. She started crying again. That's when I noticed a string hanging down that I thought was from her pajamas so I pulled it but it wouldn't come loose. I shined my flashlight on the string and found that it was floss wrapped several times around her neck!! She had gotten into the duffle bag and went through all of the stuff, I think she put the floss around her thinking it was a necklace. I had to call Julie over to help me get her untangled and by then I decided it was time for me to go to bed. The kids actually slept great and I didn't sleep at all.

The next morning we had to roast more marshmallows and crescent rolls so everybody got all sticky again. Kimball and Liz's dog, Sadie, were best pals the whole trip. As we were just sitting around talking, I started to change Cora's poopy diaper by Liz's trailer. Kimball was playing with the dog and out of nowhere Kimball started screaming and fell to the ground and was scurrying away from the dog. I thought the dog just barked loudly and scared Kimball so I continued wiping Cora's dirty bum which I held in the air. As I'm pulling up Cora's pants I saw all the adults rush over to Kimball who's face is covered in blood; Sadie bit him in the face! I didn't realize he was bit at first so I felt bad that I couldn't get to him right away. Kimball was crying hysterically and was so scared. There was blood dripping from his face and he started to instantly swell up. I cleaned the puncture wounds with an antibacterial wipe, put some neosporin on, and put a few bandaids on his face. The bandaids were soaked in blood in a matter of minutes so I switched it out to some gauze. I took him over to a chair by the fire and put an ice pack on his face.

Just then Daddy surprised us! He drove up for the day and we were so surprised to see him which was great timing because all Kimball wanted was his dad.

Then we headed down to the lake for some water fun.

 

By sunday morning, this was Kimball's face - so red and hugely swollen. He cried all during breakfast because he couldn't open his mouth to eat. He was in a lot of pain. I toyed with the idea of taking him into urgent care and decided to go after church. Boy am I glad I did! The doctor said he had a bad infection so he gave him two shots of antibiotics in his legs and sent him home on a liquid antibiotic. He said if the swelling and redness continued within the next 24 hours to take him into the ER for a CT scan and to be admitted. Apparently the infection was BAD! I felt so bad for him because the swelling was causing him so much pain, he couldn't open his mouth to eat, and couldn't even smile.

By the next morning the swelling went down a lot. I think the Lord was watching over him because the dog missed his eye and sinuses and if I hadn't the "just in the case" feeling to take him into the doctor, he would've ended up in the ER by the second day. Tender mercies!