Chillaxin' at the Dentist

If my 3 year old can be this relaxed, there should be no complaints from grown ups about a trip to the dentist. Oh, and this was his first time ever to the dentist. He just needs a remote and a (root) beer.

There will be a short intermission as we re-group from the last several weeks. It all began when my grandma passed away the first weekend in October. A week after returning from her funeral, I got mastitis. The next weekend I had severe pain and will soon have an ultrasound to determine if I have gallstones. Parker got a peanut M&M at our church Halloween party (we didn't need to go to the hospital because I think we caught him on the first M&M) and then this weekend he fell off the toilet and hit his head on the tub. He was knocked out cold. We took him to the ER and had a CT Scan done. Thankfully, there was no internal bleeding or injury, but he did have a concussion. He wasn't able to keep anything down for 2 days and we began to worry about dehydration. He seems to have almost entirely recovered tonight and will just continue to get his strength back in the next few days. Of course, throughout all of this, Jamie was traveling 4 days a week for the last 3 weeks.

Know that we are okay, just tired and a little overwhelmed. We are grateful that nothing was worse than it was and that each of these events were over a weekend so Jamie was home at the time.

Bring on the holidays!!

I think it's funny...

Maybe you have to be a Sara(h) to fully appreciate it.

Let us bask in the glory of her cuteness!

We went to Josie's House of Photography for her 7 month shoot. They turned out great as always!

Emma with her bestie, Macy.

Thanks again Josie!

Emma has started real food.

She started cereal a few weeks ago and quite enjoys it.
As you can see, she was so intent on the whole process, she went cross-eyed watching the spoon.

Parker, the ever helpful one.

A happy cereal girl. We are just keeping fingers crossed that no allergies show up with this one!

No teeth yet so it is a lot of spitting and gumming to get the food down.

Jacob's 7th Birthday (a month late)

We are to the point that we are on the every other year rotation. One year we do a family party and the next is friend. This year was family. We celebrated a couple days before because Jamie was going to be gone on the actual day. When we asked Jacob what he wanted to do ... shocker, he wanted to go to the Lego store.

He then wanted to go to Taco Bell and get the 10 taco party pack for lunch - he is so Jamie's son.

On the day of his birthday we asked Josie and her kids to join us for cake and ice cream.

I can't believe it has already been 7 years! He is so mature for his age and I sometimes forget he is still just a little boy. He is an amazing big brother and such a thoughtful person. I feel blessed that he is our first.
I love you Jacob!

Did we see him at Costco?

I love conference weekend. The kids, not so much. But we did get a kick out of Parker when Elder Packer started his talk and Parker asked, "Did we see him at Costco last night?" The best part was that Parker was asleep in the cart at Costco the entire time and we weren't even sure if he knew where he was. And no, we didn't see him at Costco.

What do your friends do when you leave on vacation? Mine give my room a MUCH needed makeover. I guess that's why my friends are better than yours.

BEFORE
(in the middle of packing for said vacation)

AFTER

Gorgeous right?

Thanks again Josie and Chelsea!

First Day of School

Well...here we go again.

Jacob started 2nd grade last week (hence the two fingers, that was the best I could get out of him). He got the teacher that he wanted and is in a 2/3 split class. There are only 9 2nd graders and the rest are 3rd, we'll see how that goes.

We got there in time to walk with our friends from Kindergarten.

A quick shot before we were shuttled away.

Parker started today. He could not have been more excited! He's been asking me for days if he was going to school today. A few days ago when I could finally say, "Parker, you go to school in 2 days!" He answered, "I go-a school tomorrow next week?!?!"
They do group snack at his preschool, but because of his allergies, he just takes his own everyday. Which means we had to go get him his own lunch box. Again, could not have been more excited! He was carrying it around all morning and loading it with everything he could find.

In the classroom checking stuff out before they started. They weren't letting parents in, so we have crappy pictures through the window.

This is when I picked him up. Don't be fooled by his face, that was just because he wasn't sure about who was taking the picture for us. He told me about going outside, singing the monkey song during circle time, how much of his snack he ate...way more than I got out of Jacob when I'd pick him up.

So far so good for both of them. I already don't like helping Jacob with his homework because he has the attention span of a gnat and I'm terrified about letting Parker out of my control because I dread getting "the call" that he ate something he shouldn't have.

Other than that, they are off to a great start and I am so proud of them for how well they handle facing their new situations.

*An update on Parker and his asthma: he is doing better. I take him into the Dr. tomorrow to see if we need to continue the breathing treatments every 4 hours around the clock, or if we can lengthen them out a little. We have rescheduled the appt at the allergy clinic for next Tuesday and we go to the pulmonologist in few weeks to begin figuring out his asthma plan.

Thank you so much for all of the continued prayers and well wishes. It really does mean so much to me when people are going out of their way to check in and see how he is doing. We'll keep you posted!

How we ended our summer

The plan was to do some really fun things with our last few days, like join my friends at the beach today, and to collect all the school supplies together to make sure we have everything.

Instead, we spent two days in the hospital with Parker.

It started this weekend when his seasonal allergies were really bothering him and because we had an appointment with the allergist, we couldn't give him anything to get it under control. It then triggered the upper respiratory stuff that we love so much and we were back on the nebulizar by Sunday evening. After lots of breathing treatments and a really rough night, we headed to the doctor to see if it was something more. Once she listened to his lungs and after an additional treatment in her office, she said that was the tightest he had ever sounded. She sent us to the ER.

Seven hours in the ER, 3 more breathing treatments, 2 continuous hour long treatments, and a chest x-ray later...he was admitted and put in the pediatric ICU. They continued his treatments and added some more medication. He and Jamie had a sleepover in the hospital that he was not very excited about. He just kept saying, "I wanna go home". It broke my heart every time.

The nurses and staff all loved him and thought he was so cute. He was very good about taking his medicine and putting up with the whole ordeal. When all was said and done he was officially diagnosed with asthma. One more piece to his complicated little puzzle. I'm just glad he is home and we know what we are dealing with and have a plan in place.

Thank you Chelsea for everything you did for the kids and the house, (you don't really need to go back to school, right?) and thank you to the friends and family that were praying for us.

So not quite like I envisioned summer ending, but I certainly won't forget it anytime soon.

Our trip back east ... there are a lot of pictures!

We spent about 10 days back east at the end of July/beginning of August. As always, we had a great time and saw lots of family.

We started in Virginia for a few days with Jamie's parents and brother and family. Then we headed to Pennsylvania to my brother's to take part in my newest nephew's blessing. We then went to my sister's beach house and then back to Virginia for a couple more days before heading home.

This is my nephew Max holding Emma.

Here is Elliot James, the man of the hour. He looks like an adult baby, not an old man, just an adult. He was so cute and little. He was a very good boy for his blessing.

Jacob and Parker playing with their cousin Isaac. It was really nice to see my brother, Doug, and his adorable family. I didn't get pictures of my brother or his girls, but trust me, they were there and it was fun.

This is the Virginia part of the trip.
Jamie's brother, Nate, held Emma and even got her to fall asleep. I thought they both looked quite comfortable, it was pretty cute.

We visited the Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Museum with Nate, Denys, and the kids. There were lots of cool planes, a space shuttle, even the Enola Gay.

Nate has a fancy camera that he does cool stuff with, including tricked out light saber photography. You can only imagine how much Jacob enjoyed that.

Of course Parker got in on the action too.

The group shot with Jamie's family after church.

Emma and I enjoying their neighborhood pool. We went there just about everyday and loved it.

This is the time spent at my sister Lauren's beach house. It happened to be my birthday so of course there was cake involved. It was a Parker friendly cake and you can see how excited he was that he was going to be able to take part.

We had some gorgeous beach days. My parents were there too which was very fun to get to see both sets of grandparents on the same trip. Lots of hanging out with cousins, digging in the sand, delicious food, with a little outlet shopping on the side. I do love Bethany Beach, DE!

Emma napping in her own beach tent.

Jamie sculpted Jacob into a Lego brick.

The older boys "built" a fire pit behind the house for roasting marshmallows for our s'mores. They were the biggest marshmallows EVER and oh so tasty!

The kids did a pretty good job despite the fact that they didn't go to bed before 10 every night and were up with the sun each morning. There was a fair bit of driving too. We visited 3 states but drove through many more, and they took it all in stride.

Parker had the toughest time. He got a peanut butter cracker, an ear infection, upper respiratory stuff that required breathing treatments (we now own 2 nebulizars) , and his seasonal/dust mite allergy hit him pretty hard too. A trip to the ER, an urgent care clinic, multiple drug stores, and lots of medication later, I was happy to get him home. But, despite Parker's best efforts, we had a really nice visit.

Jacob and Emma watching a little Star Wars on the flight home, Jacob put the headphones on Emma so she wouldn't miss anything. Always the thoughtful big brother.

I Like Friday the 13th

But mostly because that was the day we were married ... 11 years ago.

Happy Aniversary Jamie -- you still make me laugh!

It's been awhile

She is the reason why.

Everything certainly does take a little longer with 3, especially since I feel like I'm stopping every 20 minutes because she needs to eat again. Emma is such a good baby and none of us can get enough of her.

Thanks to Chelsea and Josie for the darling pictures.

It makes taking a bite of an apple a little more difficult.

To the fathers in my life

Thank you.

Does anyone know where May went?

Sorry for my lack of posting, let the re-cap begin!

Most importantly, we blessed Emma. Thank you to everyone that came to celebrate with us. Along with the friends that were there, we had both sets of grandparents and the boys were in heaven.

Jamie gave a beautiful blessing about Emma being thoughtful and having faith. He also mentioned her following the example of the strong, righteous woman in her life, namely her mother and her grandmothers. He always does a great job. They are a cute pair.

Our new family. Maybe one day I'll get a picture with everyone looking at the camera and smiling, but I'm not holding my breath.

Seriously, how cute is this baby?

The dress that Grandma B bought and added a little lace to because, "it just needed a little something more".
Thanks Mom.

It was such a nice day.
I feel so blessed to have Emma in my life and to have so many friends and family that are excited about her too.