"TA-DAH"

One thing CJ loved about living at Gramma and Papa's this summer was their sport court. It was the perfect canvas for many a chalk picture. On this Saturday, CJ discovered that not only was he really good at drawing circles, but that we all really seemed to like it when he drew those circles. It wasn't as much the circles that we liked, as the fact that after he drew each circle, he'd point to it and shout, "Ta-dah!"

In mid, "Ta-dah!" (can you see the vein bulging in his neck? that's how into it he was :)

 Pointing out more of his work

As you can see, he was really enjoying himself

CJ's SURGERY

CJ was born with an epigastric hernia - that means that the lining between his abs never really sealed together in a small section above his belly button, so fat was then pressing through creating a small bump, as seen below:

We've known he's had it for a couple of years, but his doctor told us that sometimes children outgrow it. He suggested that we wait on it and if it had not gone away on it's own by the time CJ was 3 or 4, we should have it operated on to close the opening.

Now that CJ was almost 3, even though it wasn't painful for CJ and didn't bother him, we decided to take him in for a consultation with a pediatric surgeon to get his opinion. The surgeon said that as CJ grew and became more active, the hernia could become increasingly more uncomfortable, so it really was best to take care of it now. So that's what we did.

On Thursday, July 9, CJ checked into Seattle Children's for his first (and hopefully only) surgery. The surgery took less than an hour and CJ was a champ with the anesthetics. He had the whole post-op staff wrapped around his finger.

Cutest surgery patient ever!

CJ and his doggy, JJ, got matching ID bracelets

Sesame Street was on tv in the prep room

Pre-surgery markings (that ended up not getting washed off before they used the skin glue, so that blue circle and x stuck around for quite some time :)

Just a little refreshment in the post-op room

Checking out his IV

The drugs made CJ a little silly :)

We had him home in time for lunch, and by that afternoon, you would have never thought the kid had just had surgery! He was running around and just as happy as could be!

MOTH MANIA

CJ found this moth and instantly they were BFF's. He really loves bugs!

SPRINKLER FUN

Still trying to catch-up

Please be patient

OUR SOGGY 4th OF JULY 2010

SCUBA EYES

Got these goggles for a buck at Target. Money well spent.

MONDAY NIGHT MUSINGS

- Can someone please invent clothes that don't need to be washed?! I mean, seriously! I've been doing laundry non-stop for two days and I'm only slightly making a dent in the mountain in our room that is our laundry. Oh, how I despise it.

- I confess, I went to the midnight showing of Eclipse. Not because I had to, but because I could, so I did. It was actually Sheila (my mother-in-law), Bryce, and Bryce's cousin's wife, Maria. It was fun. And I actually don't mind the screaming teenagers. It's the annoying teenagers that were sitting in front and behind us that were making crude comments the entire time, at both the movie screen and to each other. Yeah, lots of fun. Anyway, it was good. Not as good as I thought it would be, but good.

- Somehow we've ended up with only two binkies for Mattie. One of them is good, and the other goes flat, so it's the bad one. Well last week we lost Mattie's good binkie, so we're stuck with the bad binkie. It does its job of calming her down, but I think it will be a blessing in disguise and force Mattie to wean herself off the thing. I was just going to go cold turkey or cut her binkie in the next couple months because Bryce and I will not send our kids to nursery still on the bink...so she has until Sept.

- Speaking of Mattie and church, she is IMPOSSIBLE these days! She is so wiggley,it makes it impossible to get through any meeting. 18 months old can't come fast enough!

- We're pretty sure Mattie has started saying "no" in the last couple of days. And so it begins. Time will only tell how quickly her screaming tantrums will turn to screaming "NO!" tantrums (not that she has lots of screaming tantrums :)

- While brushing Mattie's teeth last week I noticed that two of her top molars and one of her bottom have broken through and are almost all the way in! It's her bottom R and upper R and L number 4 teeth, and I'm guessing they probably broke through about two weeks ago. But still only 3 in the middle on the bottom. Weird.

- Mattie has just gone speech-crazy this week! 7/4 - she said 5 words: shoe, hot, bubble, whoa, and ow.

- It was a rainy and depressing Fourth of July here in Seattle and I miss Utah like crazy!

- Melt my heart! Mattie has this fear of inclines and declines. She's still a little unsteady and so she gets unsure and frustrated and just stops and whines when it comes to hills. Well today when she was playing outside with CJ, he was down in the firepit area, and she wanted to be there too (mainly because the balls were there. She was yelling, "baaaallll" over and over the entire time :), but was stuck on the hill down to the pit. So I asked CJ to help her and he very willingly walked up to Mattie, took her hand, and led her down the hill. It was so cute! And it was another moment that I wished I had another appendage that was a camera.

- I just feel like I have no time lately and it's been so frustrating! Anything that I want to do, outside taking care of my kids - run, work, projects, read, scriptures, etc - I have to either stay up late or get up early. And it's not because I'm super busy, but I think it's because we're not in our own home. CJ is an escape artist and loves to leave the house, and Mattie and CJ both are constantly "exploring" and getting into things. We've already broken things, lost things, and pretty much taken over things since we've been here and it's only been a month. So I feel like every moment the kids are awake, I need to be watching them, like a hawk, to try to prevent any more disruption than we've already caused. Needless to say, not much gets done and it's very exhausting. On that note...

Happy Monday!

FROWNY FACE

This fake frowny face made its debut this summer and seems to like it around here

MONDAY NIGHT MUSINGS

- CJ has started saying "oh" when he's disappointed about something

- We finally had a beautiful day on Tuesday, so Gramma got out the kiddie pool. The kids loved it! We couldn't get Mattie in at first...then we couldn't keep Mattie out (she got in fully clothed). And we couldn't keep CJ's clothes on! He kept taking off his pull-up and walking around naked!!

- Yes, pull-ups. Ugh, still waiting to potty-train...again

- Bryce and I spoke in church on Sunday about Joseph Smith. There were four speakers so we didn't have to speak for a very long time, which was nice. I spoke about the First Vision, and Bryce spoke about the martyrdom. It was a really great experience. As I prepared for the talk, I thought back to when my testimony of Joseph Smith began. It was really touching to remember some of my earlier experiences, and to compare them to Joseph Smith's experiences. To think about who I was when I was 14, and then compare that to who Joseph Smith was when he was 14 - I can't even imagine the faith that boy had! Anyway, I really enjoyed being able to speak about Joseph Smith and was grateful for how it made my testimony of him grow.

- I am the youngest of 6 - my oldest sibling is 16 years older than me - and because of the age differences, sometimes I feel like I barely even know half my family. It kind of bums me out. But this week my brother, Chris, came into town for 5 days to run the marathon with me. He went on his mission when I was 7, and he got married shortly after getting home, and then moved out of state just a couple of years later. I hadn't been around him in so long that I had forgotten how genuine and thoughtful he is. But as we hung out, I started to remember...things like how he used to get me Nesquick chocolate milk mix for Valentine's Day, or how he is so positive, or how he hardly ever says anything bad about anyone, or how it is so important to him to lead by example for his kids, or how gentle he is with children, or how willing he is to help others (he stepped right in to help with kiddos at church and getting them ready, etc). Most importantly, he gave up his goal to help me cross the finish line. Wow, he's amazing.

- On Sunday, I took CJ to nursery and the nursery leader asked him if he was going to stay with them today. Shocked, I asked her if he had been running away. Sure enough, we have a little escapee on our hands. So we had a nice long talk about how he needs to stay in nursery and that next week, if he tries to leave nursery, his teacher is going to come and get Mommy or Daddy. So we'll see how it goes...

Happy Monday!

LOW-RIDER