Pioneer Extravaganza

24th of July was more than I asked for. We went to Provo's celebration that they have. The missionaries helped and did many booths and activities for children. The one that we did first walking into the park was planting wheat grass in little pots, they were able to color the pots and then the missionaries put the seeds and soil in. And then we waited in line for at least thirty minutes to sit on a 1917 Provo Fire Engine. They had plastic fire fighter hats for the kids to wear and let the parents wear a real one. There was a bell and a manual fire siren. Then we went and looked at some booths and went to the activities that the Indians had, Kacen and Abbi got war paint and Alona sketched a picture into a rock and both girls made friendship bracelets. I took a picture of Alona in the door of the tepee! And then we moved on to the bubbles, a big basin of dawn diluted in water.More dawn than they would have me think I swear. Well Kacen fell in as I previously posted and the last picture on this post is one of the best ones that I could get of his eyes. My camera had water in the lens so I had to wait a while to take a picture of him.

When we got home from the hospital the girls played outside in the rain while wearing their fire fighter hats to protect their heads! So cute.

Question of the Day

Alona was brushing on finger paints to her triceratops when I peeked through the window before picking her up from pre-school. When we got home Abbi wanted to paint too. I made a triceratops and let Abbi use watercolors on it. Alona comes up and asks over and over, Why is there a tri in triceratops?...Tri means three and the triceratops has three horns. Even after answering this question she kept asking. Cute girls!
We have been singing one song every day for one week straight. This week it is Search Ponder and Pray, last week it was Little Purple Pansies. It has been amazing to watch the girls get to know these songs and see how they can remember the words.
Abbi's new phrase is so funny, when I'm trying to show her how to do something she says No, ME! And I say "Yes, You!" She wants to do it herself but she can't half the time unless I show her how!

July 26th

Today's observation:
The longer that it takes me to cook a meal the more that my children will disdain it.

Kacen fell into a bucket of bubbles (dawn dish soap diluted in water) he was screaming hysterically, had a hard time breathing and had soap coming out of his nose, mouth and eyes. I shouldn't freak out so much, this is not my first child it is my third. When I pulled him out of the bucket I felt like a first time mother, I felt so helpless, I just desperately wanted him to be ok. His Dr.'s office was closed, and silly me I didn't want to drive to the instacare, the ER was only a minute down the road. Yes I felt retarded taking my baby to the ER just because he had fallen into dish soap, they see so many more serious things, but this was serious to me! They cleaned out his eyes with 500 ml of saline solution. I had to hold him down, that was very hard to sit and watch his eyes were wide open, he was screaming hysterically and liquid was poured over his eyes. I just wanted to hold him. It was a great thing to have his eyes cleaned out, he was able to open them afterwards before he wouldn't open his eyes, he got himself so worn out after cleaning out his eyes that I picked him up and he was calm and went instantly to sleep, stayed asleep the whole way home.

Yesterday me and Paul were able to make it to the temple! Marta came down and watched the kids while we went. I love the calmness of the temple. It took longer than expected, we got home about 8:00, I fed the baby, we did sparklers and the girls went to bed and then we were able to go and eat. We got back and the baby was so happy to see me!! Marta did a good job at keeping him calm until I got home. Kacen still won't take a bottle.

Alona does an awesome job at being a big sister, She helps Abbi get up onto Alona's bike and pushes her back and forth in the backyard. Alona played with Abbi today while I fed Kacen. They kept themselves busy in the backyard and in the house, swinging on the swings, pretending to put out fires in the backyard, riding bikes and playing with babies. They are so great.
Today is mine and Paul's 6th Wedding Anniversary. We went out together yesterday and did not budget for any gifts, but thats ok...part of being an adult! We did budget to go out for dinner! One quality that I have noticed about Paul this year, he does not complain about others, not just me.

This past year has been really difficult for me, I have had to try really hard every day to be happy, happy with where we are living, happy with the pediatrician that we have, happy with the ward that we live in, happy though we are far from family, happy despite many things. One thing that is constant is the gospel, I have had to rely on the strength that I get from praying to be at peace with things, to know that I cannot change things, everything that I left behind still makes me sad. I was having problems with anxiety attacks and other problems and sought professional help, once the anxiety attacks stopped I no longer desired to have the help and now I am trying really hard to be better. I asked for help from the ladies in our ward two nights ago on the 24th, which is really hard for me. I do not feel comfortable/connected with this ward, But I need to put forth effort and so I called around and asked for someone to help me with dinner. I felt silly, the reason that I was asking for help was because Kacen at first didn't want me to put him down after he woke up from taking his nap after the hospital. It is really hard to cook when your child does not want to be put down, because I have no one else here to hold them or cook.

Yo-Ho-Ho

My little Pirates.
Alona came home from preschool almost two weeks ago dressed as a pirate and Abbi wanted all of the same accessories that Alona had, so me and Abbi made a pirate hat together. Yeppers, Abbi is wearing a homemade pirate hat.
Alona was so excited, she had a sword and a map, and at pre-school they followed their maps to a real treasure of fruit loop necklaces and fish crackers! They even had to fight off crocodiles (children pretending with their hands!) with their swords.There was a pirate ship in the middle of the classroom and they sang real pirate songs. Before they left for the day their teacher made them make pirate noises, ARGHH!

Learning Curve

Paul cleaned out our gross smelling garbage can, woohoo! I felt so bad for the mailman who had to come to our mailbox right above our garbage can. And he cleaned out the car, it looks so much better. He hasn't had school so far this month due to the fact that if he misses four days then he fails the class anyways and he would of missed four days after his surgery. He is still not completely pain free and has another appointment on Friday to talk about it. I am waiting for the final bill from the surgery that says the insurance has paid please submit your payment now, ten I will call them and work out a payment plan. It is odd how things work out, Paul got a raise and makes a little more each paycheck and now that will be going to his Dr bills. We have never had this much in medical bills, but this is also the most that he has ever made. It is a blessing just at the right time.

Whenever the door is open Kacen crawls straight for it. If it is the back door, he is so excited to go and play with the toys and eat things off the ground. If it is the front door, he plays around with the drain or anything else that is out there and then heads straight for the stairs, he is great at climbing up the stairs now, and one day he won't need me there to catch him. On Saturday was his first attempt to walk along something, he moved his feet twice.

We went swimming tonight, we had great fun during our family activity. We went to the Veterans Memorial Pool. Abbi didn't want to leave her daddy, she sat on his stomach or back and he moved around in the water with her on him, occasionally another one of the children would get on with her. Abbi got out with me, she was so cold. She was shivering and her lips were blue, but when she saw all of the fun that Alona and dad were having she wanted to get back in! Alona went with me down the kids slides a couple of times, she was willing to do the small slide, no problem but the one that was a little bit longer I held her and she went down with me. She was screaming that she didn't want to go, but then when we got down to the end she was laughing and happy, she really enjoyed it! Afterwards we went to the creamery, in our bathing suits! We got four different kinds of ice cream and shared them, Kacen had some too. He helped me and Abbi get ice cream on our legs! He kept pulling off Abbi's scoop of ice cream from her cone, it landed on her leg and in the grass we just put it back on the cone and everything was good as new! Abbi shared her ice cream with Paul and I but then when Alona would ask Abbi for some ice cream she would make noises at her and run away. Alona was so sad that Abbi wouldn't share, when we were ready to leave, Abbi handed me her ice cream and told me that she was all done and then Alona was able to try some. Alona had raspberry sherbet, Abbi had cookies and cream in a waffle cone, Paul had Fudge Moose tracks and I had banana fudge.

Alona learned about dinosaurs in preschool this week, when I got there to pick her up they were singing about the steg-o-saur-us! How he has bony plates on his back and they are on his tail too and when other dinosaurs come to fight they'd better get back. Or something like that, I don't remember the exact words. Alona told me, "Mom, did you know dinosaurs lived a long time ago!?" Yeah they lived 200 million years ago, "No Mom, they lived a long time ago!"

I got great kids, Abbi is a vacuum lately she is learning and remembering so much and she understands and is so improved with her speech. I love being around her.

4th of July

For the forth of July I made red, white and blue breakfast... pancakes, strawberries, and blueberries. We didn't have whipped cream so milk was our white color. We went to the "Grand Parade" in Provo. Which happened to be just a two minute walk down the road and more than an hour wait for it to get to us since we were at the very end of the parade. Alona got up and danced every time that a band came by and well Abbi enjoyed the bathroom the most. She took her dad to the port-o-potty over and over again. Kacen wanted to crawl all over and eat everything on the road and stand up onto the chairs that we brought.There were three big balloons, that was so amazing. I had never been to a parade with big balloons, and neither had the children. There was a care bear, Bob the builder, and silly me I don't remember the other one.This is also the first parade that did not throw candy, Alona was disappointed and so was I!
Then we came home half past noon when it was over!! Val and Ruth showed up moments later and we went to sundance and ate KFC food and rode the chair lifts that were there. It scared me to death thinking of taking Kacen on there, but he ate and slept most of the time. The girls enjoyed the long ride and Alona wanted to switch who she was riding with on the way up there and back down.

We went across the street from the MTC at the big field there and waited for the fireworks to start, they didn't start until almost 11:00. They were from the stadium of fire, the kids were good sports and really enjoyed the wait, they had glow in the dark bracelets that they had fun whipping around. Kacen's first experience with fireworks was quite uneventful, he just wanted his sisters to share their glowing bracelets so that he could eat it.
And Kacen can climb stairs!!At church yesterday he climbed the stairs up to the nursery, I just made sure he didn't fall! He is growing up so fast.

Recovery

Paul went in for surgery on Tuesday, he was great about the whole thing. I was able to be with him while we waited for him to go in. It was quite a wait, I was so glad to have Ruth there to entertain Kacen while I was with Paul, though I kept checking back on them in the waiting room every so often to make sure he wasn't screaming and or hungry.When Paul had finally been rolled into the operating room, I went to go to Kacen and miracle of miracles...Grandma had gotten him to sleep.
All can assume that the surgery went well, the doctor came out and talked to me when they were finished. The most important thing that he said was that "it looked much better in there than it did in my office." Paul just goes back in next week to see the results of the biopsy. He woke up and then came in to the room we were in before he went into surgery. He was in the most pain I've ever seen him in. Not just whining and not wanting to get up and do anything, he was extremely ornery and raising his voice when he kept saying it hurt and clenching his fists and all of his muscles were tightened, which he usually just laughs when things hurt so he was really hurting. They took out what was hurting him and after it stopped burning it was much better. Though he was still in much pain and for the past few days he has been home, but he has been lying on the floor with a heating pad and pillows his laptop in hand and no desire to get up and move much unless his pain pills are really working.

Paul is having surgery tomorrow, he's not scared, I am! And he has to take a few days unpaid, not so fun. Instacare thought he was just dehydrated when we went in on Fathers Day, he was still hurting on Tuesday so we took him to the ER, they did a catscan and pumped him full of liquids and pain killers and found that he had something there, they sent him to a urologist last Thursday and they did a cystoscopy and found what they think are tumors and so he goes in tomorrow to have surgery.

Bear Lake went alright. Okay maybe more than alright, Paul has been with us for almost a week, I was so much more sane!! All of us except for the baby got burnt, and yes we all wore sunscreen! We went and played at the beach, Kacen really enjoyed his handfuls of sand that Im sure tasted wonderfully! Alona collected seashells and Abbi played with our sand toys, eventually she warmed up to the water. Alona and me ventured out until the water was halfway up her thighs. A little boy borrowed one of our buckets and caught two little fish in them. We enjoyed hobo dinners and smores with our camp fire and the girls wouldn't go and play in the trees and weeds..."it is too poky", Alona said when I asked her to go play. We got there late Thursday and left at lunch time on Saturday, most of the time Paul wasn't feeling so well.

Kacen still has a double ear infection, he screams and is quite ornery with me. He is eight months old and still does not sleep through the night. He seems to be my most difficult baby so far, or maybe that because I am doing this one with so much less help.