That's not chap stick!

I spent the morning cleaning out the car, a much needed chore that has been neglected far too long. Kayman was playing in the car while I was vacuuming it out and he found what he thought was chap stick. When I turned off the vacuum and saw what he was playing with, I realized it was my lipstick! Doesn't he look pretty?! He was so proud of himself!

New do

Jess told me yesterday that she wanted to get her hair cut short again, so I jumped at the chance. For a long time, she wanted her hair "as long as Rapunzel's" but it wasn't growing fast enough for her. She has very fine hair and it doesn't look too great long because she doesn't like to have it fixed. So when she said she wanted it cut I was so excited! We got it cut in an A-line and she loves it. She is starting preschool next week, so she is very excited to have a change before her big day.

$2 Tuesday

Thanksgiving Point had $2 Tuesday in August, so the last Tuesday of the month I decided to take advantage of the great deal. I think it's normally $10 to get in.

The girls were SO excited to finally go see the dinosaurs again. They have been asking to go for a while, and I planned to go sometime when the weather gets colder, but I couldn't pass up the good deal. They were thrilled. Kayman was pretty excited to see the huge dinosaurs also. He loved it!

Syd is very intently digging for dinosaur bones. This was her favorite part of the trip..until she got in trouble for getting a little too into it. She stood up a little and started brushing sand away so fast that the kids behind her were getting pelted in the face with sand. She had no idea, and it was so loud in there that I had to yell her name to get her attention. She was so embarrassed when she realized what she was doing. She didn't mean to. The girl has such a sweet heart.

Kayman's favorite part was the huge shark mouth. Here he is trying to climb into the exhibit. So sneaky.

Jess was in a picture-taking mood. Even if it is in front of the shark's open mouth.

Here are my kids and their friends who joined us on our adventure.

Kayman and his friend checking out the dinosaur bones.

Syd was very helpful in making sure Kayman could see everything. He loved every minute of it!

A dream come true

Draper City put on a play last night that the girls were thrilled to go to. I usually don't let them wear their dress-ups outside the house, but this was a special night. They got to wear their princess dresses and slippers to the play Beauty and the Beast! Kayman even enjoyed it quite a bit! Mostly when the beast was on stage and his favorite scene was when the beast was fighting off the wolves. Kayman was laughing out loud. Such a boy.

After the play we went out to meet the beautiful princess. Syd was so excited to get her picture taken with Belle. For Jess it was enough just to be so close to her. She was too shy to get her picture taken.

As we were walking away from Belle to leave, Syd got panicked and said, "Mom, I want to go see the Prince too!" How silly of me. Of course she wants to see the prince, she is starting to notice boys now. She is always telling me about the boys in her Kindergarten class and how cute Jayden is. So we went to see the prince and she was so happy when he picked her up and said he wanted to get a picture with her. I caught him mid-sentance, so it's not the greatest picture, but Syd couldn't have been happier!

How 'bout them apples?!

I love the summer. I have always loved being outside, swimming, the smell of sun screen and chlorine soaked swim suits, freshly cut grass and lavender, water parks, lemonade stands, slurpee runs, boating. Because of my love for summer, I have never looked forward to autumn because it meant that summer was coming to a close and winter was just around the corner. I don't like much about winter.

Over the years, I have learned to love autumn because of a few traditions we have started in our family. One of the traditions has started a bit earlier this year. It feels like autumn already, and the apples on my apple tree were just about ready, so I made my traditional apple pie. Maybe I'm biased, but I have to say that this is the best apple pie you can find! So Yummy!!!

I got the recipe for this delicious pie at an Enrichment night early in our marriage and have been baking it ever since. This is one of my favorite things about fall. I like it best right out of the oven, still bubbling, with some vanilla ice cream on the side. If you haven't tried it, you are really missing out, and we'll have to have you over for a taste! Bon appetit!

That's just nasty!

I am not a big fan of spiders or bugs. As you know, we have had a grasshopper infestation this summer so I am already avoiding my yard...and it shows. Then Andy found this in the garage!

I am sure glad we haven't spent too much time hanging around out front lately, Kayman is usually in and out of the garage playing with whatever he can find. He probably would have found this Black Widow and tried to pick it up. These things give me the creeps.

Movie Night

One of our favorite things to do on a Sunday evening is have a movie night. The girls choose a movie, usually a Barbie movie of some kind. I don't recommend you have too many Barbie movies in your home, they are not easy on the ears. Most of them have terrible singing in them and the animation is awful, but for some reason my girls can't get enough of them. Jess chose Barbie's Diamond Castle, so Andy and I didn't spend a whole lot of time watching the movie, but the kids loved it. I think Kayman even enjoyed watching the pretty girls. Either that of he knew where he had to be to get most of the popcorn.

Jess requested pink popcorn, which is strawberry flavored and very delicious, and they each got some sprite. What a treat!

A Day Out

As one of the final Saturdays of summer, we decided to spend the morning as a family outside in the beautiful mountains that surround us. We went up Provo Canyon to Bridal Veil Falls. It was so beautiful. It was just a short walk from the parking lot down to the base of the falls. We are so lucky to have so much beauty around us.

Jess spotted them first!
Kayman didn't love the cold water on his feet, but he tolerated it for a little bit.
Kayman and me.
These girls had so much fun climbing on the rocks and playing in the COLD water! They were nice enough to pose for a picture for me.
Syd walked Dallas on the way back. She's giving an impromptu peace sign. Not sure where she learned that! :)
Man and his dad.

Cowabunga Bay

We surprised the girls and took them to Cowabunga Bay, a water park in Draper, yesterday with our friends! We got a babysitter and left Kayman and Annabelle home so we could enjoy the big slides with the girls. They have been begging to go ever since they saw it from the freeway when it was under construction. It was so fun! We spent 4 hours there and went on every slide. The girls loved every minute of it! There are spraying hoses and buckets of falling water everywhere! Half the fun of waiting in line for a slide was spraying people along the way! The guys especially had fun with that! It was a great way to spend a hot summer day before fall rolls in.

I wanted to get some pictures inside the park, but I really didn't want to have to worry about my camera...so here you go.

Hard to get

Kayman has become quite the ladies man. He gives the girls this look that just begs them to come play with him, then he runs away. He is such a tease. He's started to play hard to get a little young!

When it was time for our friends to leave, little Addy couldn't get enough hugs from Kayman! He was a little unsure of how to respond to all her hugs, but he didn't protest. How could you refuse a hug from such a beautiful girl? Aren't they just so cute! Thanks Jon and Laura for a great night! Kayman appreciated it too! :)

My big girl!

Syd started kindergarten on August 4th and she LOVES it! Her teacher, Mrs. Black, is great with her and Syd couldn't be happier. She was a little bummed that she didn't know anyone in her class, but she is already making friends. She finds some of her preschool friends at recess and gets to play with them a little bit too.

Syd went in for testing the week before school started, and I think she did great. Mrs. Black asked her to spell a few words and Syd froze. She has never spelled before and didn't really know what to do. Mrs. Black just told her to do her best and Syd started writing something (I didn't get to see what) and ever since then she has been very interested in how things are spelled.

She is already such a good student. Each of the kids is supposed to read or be read to for 15 minutes every day. Syd makes sure she gets her reading in, and she uses it as an excuse to stay up late in bed with her light on. "Mrs. Black said we have to read, so I have to stay up and read my books!" How can I argue with that?

So now that Syd is in the big school and going every day, she is trying to figure out her new place. She is acting up a lot and just waiting to see what my reactions will be. She has been a little difficult to be around, we are butting heads quite a bit. Hopefully as we get into a routine things will get better. Of course, as soon as we establish a routine, she will go off track for 3 weeks. Gotta love year round school.

Annual Powell Trip

We went to Lake Powell with Andy's family and spent a week on the house boat in Iceberg Canyon. It was a wonderful week! The only downfall was that we had to come home 2 days early due to 7 people getting swimmers ear. More people got symptoms once we got home, so it's a good thing we came home when we did. We had a great time while we were there though. Here is our family, minus Kayman, who was staying with my parents.

Jess on the tube.
Jess and Syd
A typical picture face from Jess. She has so much personality! :)
Pretending to water ski behind the boat.
Syd helping Daddy drive Grandpa's boat.
Watching skiers.
Syd tried to ski! She attempted once and didn't want to do it again, but I was surprised she tried! I think it helped that her cousins her age were all doing it.
Going down the slide on the house boat.
Jess wasn't a huge fan of the slide.

SOOOO Cool

The girls got to go out on the town with Grammy (my mom) and she took them out in the convertible bug! They loved it! They fell asleep by the time my mom brought them home, she wore them out! What a cool Grammy they have!

Garden Fresh Dinner

If you read the previous post, you know that my garden sucks this year due to the grasshoppers. I did manage to get a few things, but this is about the last of it. I have a few tomatoes left, but everything else was destroyed. What a yummy dinner I was able to make though. Garden salad and fried squash. I added a side of fruit and some BBQ chicken for a complete meal, and it was a big hit!

They eat them in other countries! EWWWW!

We have had a terrible time in the yard this summer. I started out really motivated to keep it looking great, but then it got out of control before I knew it. We had vacations and the weeds took over. I finally got that back under control, but then the infestation came. We have thousands of grasshoppers invading our yard! It's disgusting! Take a loot at the damage they have caused to my plants.

These are the raspberries I was SO looking forward to eating! They beat me to it.

This is the bark on one of my trees. I am not positive they did this, but I haven't seen any other critters I can blame at this point.

My garden pretty much sucks, this is what most of my vegetables look like.

I don't think the broccolli is going to work out this year.

My hollyhocks have nothing but stems left. Look how big those suckers are! Those ones are about 2 inches long.

We had a fire the other night and Andy started catching what he could and roasted them up. Even though there are probably thousands of them, he still felt better watching a few of them burn. Dallas ate a few for us as well. He has a good time catching them.

Here is a roasting grasshopper. We got so many that the yard started to smell pretty bad. Sorry to any of you neighbors who may have smelled something strange Friday night. KILL THE GRASSHOPPERS!

Hyphema

July 19, 2009 we were at Andy's parents house visiting with family. His sisters and brother were in town with their families for their annual summer visit to Utah. We took Dallas with us and tied him up in the back yard with a long bungee cord. The cousins were out playing with him for a while and having a great time. Kayman and I went to check on them and I noticed that Syd had tied his cord up pretty short so he couldn't move around a whole lot. I set Kayman down and fixed the cord so Dallas wouldn't go nuts.

As I was fixing the cord Syd and her cousin disappeared from the back yard and the gate was open. I went out front to find them playing in my sister in law's car and was nervous they would get hurt. I got them out of the car and when I turned around, Dallas was out front. I thought to myself, "How did he get up here?" I went around to the back yard and saw Kayman on the ground crying and Dallas had broken free from the bungee cord. My sister in law grabbed Kayman as I was coming around the corner, so I tied up Dallas again and went to talk to the girls about the dangers of playing in the car.

Andy was holding Kayman and he wasn't calming down. If you don't know Kayman, here's a little about him...he cries a lot, and something very minor can cause quite the tantrum from him...a little frustration sends him into raging fits that turn the heads of strangers who probably think I am hurting him...his shrieks are pretty regular and intense...but once he gets some comfort he usually calms down pretty quick. Once I noticed that he wasn't calming down I went to see him. His forehead was covered in welts and my mother in law told me his eye had a little blood on it when they brought him in.

We got him a popsicle to calm him a bit and when he stopped crying and opened his eyes we started inspecting them. They looked okay at first, just a little red, then after a few minutes his right eye started filling with blood. Andy and his dad and brother gave him a blessing and we rushed him to Primary Children's Emergency room. By the time we got there, the blood was up to his pupil. This picture was taken in the ER waiting room. As you can see, Kayman is in good spirits by this point. It took about an hour to get a room.

We were seen by the nurse, then the Doctor on call, then her boss who told us she thought it was a hyphema, but she was going to call Ophthalmology to check it out and in the mean time not to let him touch it. I asked what could happen if he touched it. She told me that if he has high pressure, rubbing his eye could cause a ruptured globe and that it could fall out. That was a little scary to hear, and we didn't let Kayman touch his eye at all after that. She also told us not to let him eat any more of the crackers and juice he had because if they need to admit him and perform eye surgery, he shouldn't have anything in his stomach. Ah! Eye surgery on a 20 month old?! By now it was bout 9:00 p.m. (this happened at 5:30) and Kayman missed dinner and was starving!

Ophthalmology made it down shortly after and confirmed the hyphema. He called it an "8 ball" because he whole eye was black by this point, as you can see below.

The Dr. took his eye pressure and had a hard time hiding how nervous the results made him. He said "Ooh, I hope that isn't right." He took it again 2 more times and the same result each time. Normal eye pressure is about 15, and Kayman's was at 44. We were told that if the pressure didn't go down by 8 a.m. he would need surgery. The high pressure can cause glaucoma and blindness. Kayman was prescribed 3 eye drops (one for the pressure, one to dilate it so it can heal, and a steroid) and an oral medication to decrease the pressure in his eye. We finally got out of there at midnight. We were to have Kayman sleep upright so the blood could drain from his eye and return to the ophthalmology department first thing in the morning.

Kayman slept fine and by the morning, the blood had drained from his eye, but his color was way off. His eye was green!

The Dr. couldn't see anything in his eye because it was still filled with blood. His eye basically got squished in half and ruptured all the blood vessels inside. We were told to continue the medications and not let Kayman do anything, he was basically on bed rest. (yea right! Have you seen the energy this kid has?!) Any kind of trauma could cause the bleeding to start again and cause blindness. The Dr. stressed that this is a very serious injury and that it is very important that he be as still as possible. We were to return in 2 days to check again. That appt. went fine and not much changed. It was healing, but he still couldn't tell if there was any damage to Kayman's vision.

I took Kayman in today for another appt. and the Dr. said his vision should be just fine. We can stop giving him the drops and he can resume normal activity! Yay! Kayman has nearly made a full recovery. We are thrilled that his vision is okay, as far as they can tell at this point. They can't find any damage to the optical nerve. My only concern was the fact that his eye is still so dilated and he has been off the dilating drops for a week. The Dr. said that sometimes it can take a few weeks for the drops to wear off. Hopefully that is the case. The other reason that it may be dilated is if the pupil muscle was torn or damaged during the accident. If that is the case, this is permanent. Here is my little man today. He looks so much better and is back to his old self! Hopefully the pupil will go back to normal, but we are just so grateful that he didn't need surgery and that his vision is okay. We have truly been blessed. This accident was so bizarre, and we are very grateful that more damage wasn't caused by this. Love you buddy!