What Else We've Been Up To In August

Remember how Caden has a really hard time eating? We told Caden he had to finish his dinner before we could go on a walk. We were about half way through our walk when we realized Caden still had food in his mouth. I guess we need to clarify next time that Caden needs to swallow his food before we go on our walk. 

Poor kid. I hope getting his tonsils out will help with this problem. Or else I need to become a better cook.

Have I told you this little stink bug is obsessed with our stairs? She drives me crazy! If we accidentally leave the gate open she rushes up the stairs. She gets all the way to the top of the stairs and then cries bloody murder for us to come get her. Tyler said one day he made a phone call downstairs and when he came upstairs he couldn't find her. He looked all over the house until he realized she was in her bonus room and had crawled under her crib and couldn't get out.

These two just melt my heart! Well let me rephrase that... these two melt my heart when they are best friends. Daddy was taking them to Home Depot for Kids Workshop. They insisted I take pictures of them around the house.

There is nothing cuter than this little girl fresh out of the tub and chillin in her robe.

Who gave the kids blue candy?

We went to Sandy City's Balloon festival. They had a fire truck the kids could go through.

The actual balloon festival was kind of a bust because it was too windy to launch them, so all we got to see was the balloons up, then they took them down.

We've had a lot of family parties, which means we've had a lot of fun with our cousins.

And Grandpa Collard.

Caden found this hat in his old clothes. He wore it the entire day.

We went to the Zoo again. They are letting people feed the giraffes now, so we got an up close and personal look at them.

Our cousin Clint was in Utah for a visit, so he went with us to the zoo.

Brynnli loves her bottle. She's getting better at holding her own bottle now.

Lucky girl. I would love to be able to take a nap any where.

Makayla learned how to pump by herself. She's basically spent the rest of summer swinging. 

 This picture is turned the wrong way, and I'm too lazy to figure out how to change it, but man, look at that great looking couple!

 So gross. Get a room!

 He doesn't always wash his hands, but when he does, he's naked.

 Makayla is like the ideal sister. She takes such good care of Brynnli. She even loves to feed her.

 Since Caden's surgery he's spent most of the month eating Popsicles, even right when he wakes up and at 3 in the morning.

 Some of us are more excited than others to go to church. And some of us don't even go to church. I'll let you figure out who is who:

 And finally, after 50ish years of working, my Mom and Dad are finally retired! We had a little bar-b-q/ celebration at our house for them.

Happy August!

Brynnli Turns 11 Months!

*Sporting her very first piggie tail!*

One more month and this little Stinker will be ONE YEAR OLD! I really can't believe how fast this last year went. I know I say that a lot on this blog, and I've said it with all the kids, but I'm being serious this time. Brynnli grew up faster than any of our other kids.

To celebrate turning 11 months, Brynnli decided to walk. She has been cruising on furniture a lot lately, and we all knew she was close. I was trying to prevent it as much as I could on my end. It sounds bad, but I just didn't want her to walk yet. I would never help her walk, and even when Makayla would try to help her, I would tell Makayla to stop. Brynnli obviously figured it out, which makes her the earliest of all our three kids to walk. Guess she's a little over achiever!

At 11 months Brynnli:

-Walks all over the house.
-Can say about three words: Eyes, Hi, and Uh-oh.
-When you ask her where her eyes are, she points to her eyes. If you ask her where her nose is, she points to her eyes.
-Still naps about twice a day and sleeps through the night.
-Loves to climb up the stairs, but still hasn't figured out how to climb down them, so she just screams a really high pitched scream until we come to get her.
-Is a really picky eater, but loves hot dogs.
-Loves Grandma Kathy.
-Is a very regular pooper. Can't wait to show this to her first boyfriend.
-Loves to play with her big sister and big brother.
-Still the best addition to our family!

Caden Rocked his Tonsillectomy

Remember how Caden snored SO loud every night? Remember how he even stopped breathing for a few seconds at night? Remember how we took him in to see Dr. Meads, and he said Caden needed his tonsils and adenoids out? Remember how the physician's assistant said Caden "wins the contest for biggest tonsils"? Ya all that happened, which led us to August 14 when Caden went in for surgery. 

We were so nervous for our little guy to have surgery. We talked to him about what was going to happen and even played Dr. and operated on his baby and snake. We were trying to act so excited about  it you would have thought we were going to Disneyland! Whatever we did must have worked because Caden did so well before and after surgery. He totally rocked his tonsillectomy!

We got to the surgical center and Caden got his wrist band. We played in the waiting room for what seemed like forever before they called us back. 

 We were trying to get a picture of his tonsils, but it was pretty hard. Trust us when we tell you, they were huge!

 They took us back to the room and we met with the anesthesiologist and Dr. Meads. They walked us through some things, and we asked way too many questions. We were just so nervous for our little guy, but we tried not to show it.

 Then they asked Caden if he wanted to walk or ride into surgery, and he chose to walk. He marched right in there like he owned the place! Caden gave us a hug and a kiss, and then he was gone. I wanted to bawl right there. Tyler and I waited in the waiting room for maybe 20 minutes before Dr. Meads came in to talk to us. He told us the surgery went really well and that he could see that Caden's tonsils were so big that they were overlapping each other. It was easy to see why he stopped breathing at night. Dr. Meads also said the adenoids were pretty high up, which also explains the difficulty breathing. We were so grateful to Dr. Meads for fixing the problem. We had to wait a few more minutes before we could go see him in recovery. That was probably the worst part because at one point we could hear him screaming and we couldn't go get him. The nurse finally took us back to see him. He was pretty groggy, but we were able to hold him and talk to him. We heard horror stories about kids when they come out of anesthesia and how they are very combative, so we were expecting Caden to be that way, but to our surprise, he was so good. He cried for a little bit, but we were able to calm him down. Even the nurses and doctors that came by to check on him said his calm behavior was very unusual. The nurse said they had to watch him for about 2 hours, so we sat in the recovery room and had a lot of water and Popsicles.

 Caden was content to watch Jake the Pirate and Doc McStuffins while we waited. What did people ever do without technology?

 They put Caden's IV in his leg, so we was showing us his bandage.

 After two hours we were ready to go home. Caden just jabbered the whole way. The one thing Tyler and I noticed immediately was that his voice sounded so different. It's hard to explain, but it was louder, clearer, and higher.

Our little champ did so well! Caden was even running around the yard that night and both Tyler and I were starting to question if he even had surgery or not. He was not acting like it at all. We tried to keep him lying down, but what three year old can do that for long? We had a lot of visitors come over that night to see how he was doing. Caden was loving all the attention, gifts, and popsicles.

We were aware that the third and forth day would be the worst, and that has definitely proven to be true. Caden doens't really complain about the pain, but you can tell he is just not himself. He is a little bit whiny and cries at the littlest things. Yesterday he was watching Toy Story 3 and the movie stopped in the middle, and Caden had one of the worst temper tantrums about it. I couldn't even understand him because he was crying so hard. We've been giving him his pain medicine around the clock to help him feel better. 

But honestly, I can't even believe how much better he is doing with his surgery. Even the first nap he took we could tell how much better he was breathing. He is sleeping better now after surgery than he ever was before his surgery. Tyler had his tonsils out a few years ago, and I was expecting Caden to be more like how Tyler was, but it is like night and day between the two. Don't get me wrong, we've had some rough times, but Caden has proved us all wrong, and it is doing so well!

We are so thankful for modern medical technology and that this surgery was not that invasive for our little champ. We are so happy he is on the mend and are hopeful he will sleep and eat better now that those pesky tonsils are out!

Throwback Thursday... AKA I LOVE KENNY

One of my favorite days of the year is here! Kenny Chesney Day! I almost had to miss my favorite day because Tyler almost had to go out of town, but luckily he was able to avoid leaving. He must know how important this day is to me!

Emily and I went to dinner and then we were off to the concert. 

 Jake Owen opened and I was surprised at how much I liked him. I mean he's no Kenny, but he tried.

 But when Kenny came out we danced and sang our hearts out to every song he sang. It was such an energetic concert. I don't think we sat down once. LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it.

Mmmmmm.... Love me some Kenny!

Since it was Thursday I thought I would do a little "Throwback Thursday" (because I'm cool like that) to 2008 when Emily and I scored "Sandbar" seats to the Kenny concert in Arizona. See there's the front row, and then there's the sand bar for people from his fan club who get selected to upgrade their seats to be even closer than the front row (because we were cool like that and were in his fan club). We were so close you could smell the sweat! :)

 I have never been so close to a famous person before. Kenny really felt the connection with me too.

 Even though there were though there were thousands of people around, Kenny sang to just me and Emily. Seriously.

 I had a picture I bought in Nashville of Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban performing together, and I held it up to see if he would sign it. He saw it and asked if it was for him, and I told him no and asked if he would sign it. He was in the middle of a song, but he signed it for me! Seriously one of the most exciting times of my entire life!

 The end.

A Hiking We Will Go

We've been in a rut lately. We needed to get out of the house. We needed to go someplace kid friendly. We needed to go some where different. Luckily Tyler had a place in mind that met all of our requirements: a hike to Silver Lake. I'll admit, when Tyler told me we were going on a hike, I was anything but excited. I couldn't think of anything worse than hiking up a hill with three kids. Little did I know, Silver Lake is not a "hike". They should call it a "walk on flat terrain, oh and hey, you can bring a stroller too". 

Makayla was our trusty tour guide on this trip. She was explaining all the exciting plants along our way that were "like 55 feet high".

We had Spiderman with us in case anything happened to us along the way.

Brynn just hung out in the stroller the whole way.

We saw a mommy duck with her cute little ducklings.

I just love that these two are the best of friends. I hope they stay this close forever.

After Silver Lake we drove to Draper and went on a long walk there. Brynn opted to ride on Daddy's shoulders and had a blast the whole way.

Since this hike wasn't really a hike, I think we'll be doing more activities like this in the near future. As long as we don't actually go on real hikes up tall hills.