Grandmas and talking

I took Drew back to the Dr. yesterday to see if they could figure out why he is still in pain. And finally, they gave me some good things to try and help him. Dr. Knochel thinks that he has acid reflux, hence the reason he keeps crying that it hurts, especially at night. And, his tummy that is always swelling up and going down is all full of gas, so we're going to try taking lactose away and see if that is the problem. So, overall they should be easy fixes!!
Drew's newest thing is to repeat whatever Alexis says. If Alexis asks to go play with Mary, Drew will wait until I've answered her and then ask the same exact question and expect the same exact answer. It gets just slightly annoying when you have to answer the same question twice, every time. It is funny to watch his little face though, because he really expects you to answer him and not act like it's an odd request.

Alexis is such a little talker. John followed me home from Logan in his car and he took Alexis with him, at my suggestion of course. My car was relatively quiet and peaceful, John's car was full of Alexis talking his ear off. She kept saying: "Guess what dad?" And her favorite joke while they were driving was: Banana pants. No, it doesn't make any sense but she was laughing so hard it had to be funny.
Before we left Logan, Alexis told me that she didn't want to go home with me, she wanted to stay with daddy in Logan. I told her daddy had to work so she had to come with me so someone could watch her during the day. She replied with: "I'll go to work with daddy then." I erroneously believed that when I told her that they didn't let little kids go to daddy's work that she would drop the subject. Instead, she came back with: "Then go find a neighbor to watch me while he's at work and when he's done he can watch me." She thinks far too much for her own good.

Madison absolutely loves grandma's. At the 24th of July parade, we found a spot to sit, and she walked over to this grandma and crawled up on her lap. We had no idea who the lady was, but she was nice enough to let her sit there the entire time and feed her candy! And then at Wendy's the other day there were two grandma's sitting behind us and Madison kept turning around and saying hi ya and playing peek-a-boo with them, they loved it!

This week is finals week . . . hooray! I have three finals and eight quizzes. I do believe that it might just kill me. Our goal is to finish the last final on Saturday and then pack up the house and move everything we need up this weekend. HA HA HA. I dream big I know.

Don't worry, John is surviving all of this. He's actually doing really well. He's gone hiking a few times, biking, playing golf and sleeping through the night. I think he's a little pampered at the moment, but it will all end as soon as we move up there!

24th of July

It's already August, ugh. I can't believe how fast the time has flown this summer. We just had Great Grandpa Rappleye's 86th birthday celebration this week. John and Nancy came up and we all had a great time. There was a LOT of birthday cake and cupcakes followed by roasted marshmallows. We were seriously concerned about the kids being able to fall asleep that night.

Alexis was being brave during a recent trip to the Peaks and she decided that she would practice blowing bubbles under water. She was doing so well, she took off her life jacket and did it. This was in the baby pool which has about a foot and a half of water. Well, she decided that she knew how to swim. Ha. I tried to tell her that she didn't but she just wouldn't listen. She wanted to go to the Lazy River without her life jacket and I consented. When we got there she was standing on the step waiting to get in and I was putting Drew and Madison in their floaty tubes. When I realized Alexis was no longer on the stairs, I turned and saw her underwater, eyes bulging out of her head and a tube was going over her. Poor girl, when I finally was able to pull her up and sputtered for a moment and then said: "I don't know how to swim." I thought it was classic, since she didn't die or get hurt.

For the 24th of July we went to the Spanish Fork parade, then swimming at the Peaks for the day and then off to Grandma and Grandpa Wadley's to celebrate with Great Grandma and Grandpa Rappleye.

I know it's blurry, but look at her face with that tongue. I couldn't not put it in.

Here's what we get when we ask them to say cheese for the camera:

Even John doesn't know how to smile for the camera!

This is what happens to clean laundry when you have two midterms and seven quizzes in one week! I didn't fail any of them, hooray!!

This is what we found when we went downstairs to clean the toy room.
The kids love to put the barbies in a "swimming pool" and have fun.
It obviously doesn't matter what the swimming pool is as long as there is water in it!

Last week of July- Where's the summer going?

John Here. Tiffani is a little busy with school, kids, doctor's appointments, house showings, studying, cooking, cleaning, laundry, changing diapers, disciplining children, etc. etc. etc..... without her husband to help. So she has tasked me with updating the blog this week.

Collected a few pics. Enjoy.

Tiffani showing what a season pass to Seven Peaks will do.... change your race. Some of us get tan....the rest of us just burn, peel, then go back to white. (me)

Maddie enjoying her new front yard bench.

Spaceship house I saw yesterday on my bike ride. What you see is just the roof- not a UFO.

View from the top of Naomi Peak above Tony Grove lake- Logan Canyon. It was a 6.4 mile hike round-trip. 2.5 hrs walking time. Beautiful.

Looking towards Cache Valley

Lots of wildflowers along the trail this time of year.

Wishing I could just sprout wings and fly out into that mountain air...maybe in the next life.

And the water supply is where?

Drew's first hospital visit

So in my haste to get to the hospital I forgot to bring a camera, only after the fact did I realize that my phone has a camera, oops!!

Drew woke up screaming bloody murder that his stomach hurt.
Every time I tried to touch his stomach to figure out what was wrong he would scream even louder.
After he woke up Madison with his screaming, I had two kids who wouldn't stop for anything.
I called my sweet mother-in-law and asked for help, she came running.
When she arrived I was able to call Dr. Eric and ask what he would do, which was take him to the hospital.
This all happened during the 9 o'clock hour.

At just before the 10 o'clock hour Drew and I arrived at the Emergency Room.
My kids have this uncanny knack for calming down and stopping all screaming when we arrive at the doctors.
After FOUR hours of waiting they finally got to seeing us.
They took some blood for testing and then sent us for an ultrasound.
He was asleep when they started drawing his blood, and his little face scrunched up into a little puppy dog face. The longer they took to draw his blood, the more scrunched his face became until he had little tears start to fall down his cheeks. About that time, he started crying.
Good news . . . his White Blood Count (WBC) was well within normal ranges and his ultrasound didn't show anything abnormal at all.
So, they sent us home.
We arrived home at approximately 5 o'clock in the a.m.
Poor Mom, she was stuck at my house for so much longer than she had planned.

When I called Dr. Eric to tell him what they had not found, he said that you can get Messanteric lymphadenitis, which presents similarly to appendicitis, and that may possibly be what he had.
Poor kid just can't seem to catch anything normal.
He seems to be feeling better, hooray!

July so far

July 3rd we woke the kids up super early and took them to see the balloon festival. When we woke Alexis up and told her we were getting ready to go she said: "I'm too tired, I just want to sleep, go without me." I can just see the teenage years now.
When we got there, they were filling up the Tony the Tiger balloon. It was pretty cool to see the guy standing inside of it getting it ready to go.

Tony the Tiger balloon.

We found our neighbor friends at the balloon launch, Alexis and Drew were so excited to see them there.

The balloons getting ready to take off.

Balloons taking flight.

Daddy and Madison watching the balloons fly away.

We decided to have a picnic at Canyon View Park and the ducks were so aggressive, they came right up to us trying to steal our dinner. Drew grabbed his fishing pole and started chasing them away. What a great little protector!

Alexis fishing.

Mommy and Drew fishing.

The only thing we caught while fishing, we're true Wadley's!

We went to Grandpa Hakes' for a July 4th bbq and I guess Drew had to pee. What a cute little butt he has!

I had Alexis clear the kitchen table and when I looked up to see how it was going, she was on top washing it! What a great little helper she is.
Don't worry, I sanitized it after she was done, I didn't want foot germs all over my dinner table.

Two great video clips of John playing baseball in the basement, yes, in the house, with the kids. They love to dance to the "horse song" as we call it. I loved Madison's moves while it was going and then I found the one of Alexis dancing while playing baseball, gotta love it. She's a good mix between priss and tom-boy! Drew is running around Alexis while the song is going because that is usually how they "dance" to it, they will run around and around in circles until their parents think that the song will kill them.

Tiffani is WONDERWOMAN

This blog is usually updated by Tiffani, while I keep my own blog...(jawsbites.blogspot.com) but today, Tiffani has asked me to update the blog this week as her schedule is ULTRA SUMA MEGA GRANDE busy. She is doing a summer term at UVU.....Anatomy no less. It has the reputation of being one of the hardest classes on campus. So far Tiff the Wiff has gotten great scores on her Quizzes and such. So NICE JOB Tiff! Of course having to watch all three kids while half of them seem to be perpetually sick doesn't make things any easier. Also not having a husband...as I am in Logan at my new job....doesn't help much either. She's WONDERWOMAN!! Hopefully we can sell the house soon so the family can move up here with me. Our plan is for me to come home every weekend to see the kids and hopefully after summer term is done, we can just move everything up to Logan and SQUEEZE into my little two bedroom condo I'm renting. It's a great place though.

Last week the kids came up to Logan for a three day weekend. We had a great time. Tiffani was greatly impressed with my apartment selection abilities.....LOL. The kids had a great time feeding the ducks and Carp. It was a feeding frenzy. Kinda gross actually. See video. We also went to a really cool park named Ryan's Park. We went to the Logan Zoo which was pretty cool. They had some Eagles, Turtles, Owls, Monkeys, Pelicans, and lots of other birds.

The kids loved being toted around in the bike trailer. At one point I didn't realize that I was spraying them with dirt and dust from the ground that my bike tire was flicking on them. OOPS. Both Alexis and Drew loved riding in our old school childs bike chair that attaches behind the seat. It provides a whole new vantage point that also leans to the left and to the right.

All in all a great weekend.

Happy Birthday Madison

We did a bug theme for Madison's first birthday. Not only was it easy, but it was cute.

Daddy and the birthday girl right before the cake was to be demolished.

She really liked the little black dots and the candy eyes. I don't think she would've cared if we'd just painted that on her high chair and left the cake out!