Little Milestones

I read in the Parents magazine about making "finger paints" with food coloring and vanilla pudding. So, I decided to give it a try, I substituted banana cream for vanilla. The kids loved it and I had a lot of fun cleaning up after them. Alexis is making a nasty face because she saw me with the camera and decided to ham it up. Drew wasn't as interested in eating it as he was getting it all over his hands and then shaking them like a dog. I think it's an outside thing from now on, but it was a lot of fun for them!!


Madison had her first taste of real food today. I blended a nectarine with some milk and fed it to her, she LOVED it!! She also "played" in this little toy for a while. She was more interested in sucking on the giraffe than anything else, but it was cute. Madison also started really laughing this week. It's so fun. She laughs when tickled or when you move her arms really quickly or when you play with her face, especially her nose. She loves to be cooed at as well!!


Drew has to sleep with one arm under each pillow. Yes, arms under the pillows not head on the pillows. It's so cute because he insists on having it just so each night and when we don't do it, he does it himself.

The last week

A cute picture of Madison hanging out in her bouncer. She currently has a nasty cold and only wants to be held and loved. I'm glad it happened on the weekend when John was home, hopefully she feels better tomorrow.


Drew found my lipstick and had a little too much fun. He was so very proud of himself.


Our next door neighbors are great! Their kids love to play with our kids and this was the game they came up with Friday night. Drew was having fun trying to get it to go where it was supposed to go! Starting from the blue shirt with the caution sign and going left: Drew, Dallin, Mary, Alexis and Christina.

In Alexis' preschool they taught her about strangers and how they might entice them to come with them and what you should do. It's so cute to hear her telling us how she should kick, hit or bite them and that they will offer her candy or a puppy, the classic stranger danger. I can't wait til Halloween, I hope she doesn't hurt anyone!!


Sunday night we took the kids to Canyon View Park to play. John decided to go golf ball hunting in the river. I took the kids and we walked on the trail above the river, we were having fun spotting daddy through the trees occasionally. As we were walking something caught my eye, and I noticed two deer about half a football field ahead of us. Having recently read someones blog about their terrifying encounter with a deer, I thought it would be wise to just turn around. But, yes the big but, I couldn't resist showing Alexis and Drew the deer. We had stopped walking and I got down to their level and pointed out the deer. Alexis was so excited until she actually saw the deer. Her little eyes got so big, she turned around and started running and screaming in utter terror. It was funny then, but now it is even funnier. The poor girl cried for about five minutes. I've never seen her so scared, hopefully she doesn't have nightmares tonight!!


John may not appreciate this being posted, but I think it's cute. Drew loves to sing the doggy song. The only problem is that we have to sing it, he only does the barking at the end of each verse. We were hoping he'd ditch the binki and do it, but he was holding on for dear life. Which reminds me, being the bad parents that we are, we cut the tops off of all his binkis one night this last week. The day after we did it, Drew went looking for his binkis and surprised me by noticing right away that they were different. He wouldn't even put them in his mouth. He kept saying they were Madison's. I told him they were all broken and he could throw them away if he wanted. He did and he waved bye-bye to them as well. Later that day he wanted his binki again and so I pulled one out of the drawer. He looked it and said "noooo" and then threw it in the garbage. We had about two nap times and a bed time that were more work than normal, but he doesn't seem to care that they are gone!! Madison will not take a binki no matter what I try, so I am again a human binki until she gets old enough to pacify herself.

Drew is also doing really well with potty training. Today he told us when he had to go, and he went. We're still not done and probably won't be for a couple of months, but he's doing great for his age!!

It's finally finished!!

Ever since we got married, we've slowly been putting together a theater setup. John was so excited to put it all together in one of the basement rooms. It has been a TON of work, but we are finally finished. Yay!! We're so excited!

Random bits and pieces

Tiffani and Cheryl at Carl's Jr. Tiffani's mouth is full of food, but John didn't care.







Pictures of the fam doing our "camping" duty. The kids love the idea of camping and Tiffani HATES camping. So, as a comprise we did a dinner out in the woods over a little grill. The kids loved it and we endured it.




John took the kids to Canyon View Park while I went shopping. They were ornery, but they had fun I'm sure.

Maddie Jo is the biggest baby we've ever had. She went in for her two month check-up. She's even more off the charts than before in height and she is 90% for weight. She's wearing clothes Alexis wore at six months!! So, she's getting bigger. One big plus for having a big baby is that she sleeps through the night, if you count six hours as sleeping through the night, I do!! It's heavenly and John and I both appreciate it, the only draw back is that she doesn't go to sleep until sometime between twelve and one. Oh well, we can't complain.

Drew has to ask why all the time. I finally told him: "because Jesus said" one day and he actually stopped asking why on that line of questioning!! Alexis is just as Alexis should be. She has taken to being a miniature mommy which is sometimes really helpful and sometimes a pain our neck. She likes to put Drew down for his nap, which is very helpful and Drew doesn't seem to mind. She also has taken to telling us that things she wants and we tell her no to are: "not a question". She gets this from Tiffani. When Tiffani tells her to do something and Alexis tells her no, Tiffani would reply with: "It's not a question". It backfired. Also, we count down from five so they know that it's time to do what we asked. The other day Tiffani was on the computer reading something and Alexis came in and told her that it wasn't her turn. Tiffani told her she would be just one minute and then she could have a turn. That did not fly with Alexis because she told her: "No, it's my turn. I'm going to count to five." And she did, when she finished counting, she tried to pull her off the computer. When we finish counting we pick them up and move them to where they are supposed to be, funny how they mimic EVERYTHING we do.

Little bunny foofoo

This was so funny to me. We were eating lunch and out of nowhere Alexis starts singing this song. She learned it in nursery, and she was doing hand motions with it. Everytime she sings "popping them on the head" I crack up laughing.

More medical stuff

I'm using this blog to replace journaling, so some of this won't be terribly interesting! At Madison's one month appointment she was 23 1/2 inches and 9 lbs 13 oz which puts her in the 50% for weight and +97% for height. Alexis went in on the same day for a check-up. She was 30 lbs and 30" which puts her in the 50% for both! Drew was 23 lbs which puts him in the 10% range. Drew has been having penile, for lack of better wording, problems. He was screaming because it hurt so we went to the Dr. He had a little blood in his urine, which led us to do an ultrasound to check for a few things. None of the things it could have been showed up which was great. They did discover a hydrocele. This, from what I understand, is just excess fluid which isn't too big of a deal. But, in true Drew fashion he made sure that it wasn't just something that would fix itself. They think it's a hydrocele that comes and goes, which means that there's a hole in his abdominal wall and it would need to be closed so that he doesn't get a hernia or infection. We have an appointment with a pediatric urologist next week to see if that is really what is going on, hopefully not!! We're also going to be checking his eye because it leaks clear fluid. We're hoping for just a dry eye but it could be a clogged tear duct. Poor kid just isn't having much luck in the health department! Hopefully he out grows it sooner rather than later!!

Blessing Madison

On Sunday we blessed Madison and what a fun and exciting build-up to blessing day we had!! On Thursday we took Drew to the Dr. because his lips were turning blue again. No need to worry, he has acrocyanosis which means that his extremities can turn blue because his blue blood pools there. So big name for something we don't have to worry about, wahoo. Funny thing is....it seems like when I take him to the Dr, I'm always a couple of days early. Drew got this cold from John who has had it for about a week now. Monday morning he woke up with a nasty cold, that would explain the blueness!! Friday we took these pictures of the kids all dressed up in their blessing day outfits so that I wouldn't have to worry about getting it done on Sunday, what a great idea! We loved how these turned out and John revealed that he could add color to black and white pictures. Had I known this sooner, he would've been put to work much earlier on other pictures! Saturday was busy, busy getting ready for blessing day and getting all the food prepped. Alexis was next door playing and she came home crying that her arm hurt. After a few minutes it was apparent that she wasn't joking. She couldn't open her hand and she wouldn't move her arm that was swelling up. So, off to the hospital with Madison and Grandma Hakes in tow. We took a few x-rays of her wrist and shoulder and it was a nightmare to get it done because it hurt. When they said that they needed some x-rays of her elbow and we'd have to go back, I asked for her to be drugged. Thankfully they did, unfortunately, it hadn't fully kicked in when she went back. Grandma took her in for the elbow x-rays and was the one who was in charge of manipulating her arm into the positions it needed to be in. Apparently, her elbow had become dislocated, not a full dislocation, and when they manipulated it for the x-ray it popped back in!! Yeah, all sorts of nasties avoided with that. Sunday morning I woke up with a big infection, yes, it is possible to have everything happen in one weekend. Thankfully we have great family members, and they all pitched in to get the dinner cooked in time for the party!! So, even with all the problems we had this weekend, it could've been much worse, and the party went really well!