A night in the Emergency Room

Turns out that Jaxon's permanent marker escapades were not the worst thing he would put us through last week. Not even close.

My sister Miriam's daughter, Kiana, was getting baptized this weekend in Boise, so Daniel and I planned our trip up. We were really excited to spend time with Miriam and her family, and I was excited to spend time with my childhood best friend April, and her family as well. I have only seen her once in the last 3-4 years! So we drove up uneventfully (although we did end up leaving the morning after we planned because I am still no good at getting all of us ready and out the door in a timely fashion) and attended the Saturday afternoon baptism. Now, the only reason I am not spending more time on that important event is because that will be a separate blog in itself, once the pictures are ready.

Anyway, after the baptism, we went back to Miriam's house for dinner.


For brevity' sake, I will give you the reader's digest version. We were all staying up late talking, and when we decided to go to bed, I went to pick Jaxon up off the couch, where he was sleeping next to Dan. He was making weird noises, but I thought it was just because he was tired and mad that he wasn't in his own bed. He was crying and coughing, but it sounded off. My mom and sister both noticed and and asked if he had asthma, which he doesnt. After I had been watching him for a while (he was sleeping off and on, and would wake up and cry and cough again and again, with that weird sound), my mom came into the room and said she found her purse and that Jaxon had gotten into her chewing gum. We figured that must be stuck in his throat. We continued to watch him for a while, but since he seemed to be getting worse and worse, we decided we better get him in to the hospital before he could no longer breathe. We arrived at the hospital about 3am.

We ended up waiting in the ER, back in the room, for 3 hours, which at any time during, he could have stopped breathing, just to be told that the xray showed nothing (which they had told us it wouldnt since it was chewing gum) and that we had to go to their other campus, where he would need surgery.



When we arrived there about 7:00am, the doctor was ready and waiting, not wanting to wait any longer than necessary since it could dislodge at any moment and cut off his airway completely. The nurses tried pretty frantically to get an IV in, but couldnt get it for some reason. Jaxon was hysterical and I was crying, seeing him in pain from the IV issues and hearing the horrible noises he was making as he struggled to breathe. Finally, after a long while, they got an IV in and took us down the hall to prep him for surgery. He was crying and calling, "MOMMY! MOMMY!" as they took him away from me on the gurney, and it was so hard for me to let him go.


Daniel and I waited in the waiting room, but thankfully, it was a very short procedure. The doctor came in later on and told us that indeed, the gum had been stuck in his airway, and that she was able to locate it and remove it, and he was in the PICU, still asleep from the anesthesia.


Daniel and I went up to see him and called Miriam to bring over some clothes for him (he was just in a diaper when we rushed him out the door and to the hospital). He woke up not too long later, but had to stay for a while so they could monitor his oxygen sats and make sure his airway was not too traumatized to be able to breathe effectively. Thankfully, by about 11am, they told us he was getting better and we would be able to take him home.

After all of us being up all night, that sounded like a great idea. We went back to Miriam's house, thankful that we were blessed enough to have a positive outcome from something that could easily have been much, much worse.


I fell asleep on the couch, and woke up to Jaxon laying on top of me (I didnt even know he had climbed onto me) and a few pictures of that were on my camera :)

After getting something to eat and taking it easy for a few, we drove home.

I grabbed my camera this morning to take a few pictures of my sweet, happy, healthy little boy, but instead I got pictures of Jaxon back to his usual self

Climbing cupboards

Throwing a fit when he couldn't get up them

And begging for food

Today everything is pretty much back to normal, except I am a little tired, and a lot more appreciative of my little boy, mischief and all. Today I skipped making the bed and instead, got on the floor with my tough guy and wrestled around. And those little, big, and most often unfixable messes of his didn't seem so life altering. Today at least, they are just reminders that he is here, that he is okay, and that all too soon, he won't be little any more.

Blue Permanent Marker

Do I really need to say more?

What happens when a toddler gets ahold of a dark blue permanent marker? Somethin's about to go down. And in our case, it was

The tile
The carpet
The wall
The rug
A picture of Christ
Toddler's arms and legs
A pair of Guess shorts
A Guess Shirt
a stool
the kitchen counter
a Barbie
the kitchen table

Not to mention the bottle of hairspray used to clean it up, and the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser that pitched in as well. And of course, Jaxon couldn't be more proud. Good morning to Mom :)

Tagged- Twice

Wouldn't you know it. Carrie tagged me and I took so long getting to it that before I had it done, Alida tagged me too :) Lucky for me, they wanted pics of almost the same things, so that made it easy. Here they are, in no particular order.

So the rules are this- you must take pictures of the following things, as is, no straightening up etc.

My fridge (yes I know, a million gallons of protein on top. I think we have a disorder).

My toilet, in all its glory.

My kitchen sink

My favorite room in the house

My closet

What my kids were doing right then. Mason was at school and Jax was sleeping, so here are the other 2.

Dream vacation - Daniel and I went to Cancun in 2007 and it was amazing. Can't wait to go back.

And lastly, a self portrait.

I am tagging Torrie, Heather W, Morgan, Pam, Melanie and Marnie. So hop to it (faster than I did lol).

Oh yeah, I am coming back later on and adding this. I forgot that I was supposed to add 6 quirky things about myself (from Carrie's tag) so here goes:

1- When I walk, one of my feet points out at a 45 degree angle (because of a spinal deformity) so I look ridiculous.

2- When I eat M&Ms, skittles etc, I have to have the exact same number of each color. So if I have 8 brown, 5 red, 3 yellow and 2 orange, I eat 3 brown first, then I eat 2 brown and 2 red, then I eat 1 brown, 1 red and 1 yellow, then one of each until Im done.

3- If music is playing, I cannot stop myself from singing along, even if Im running with an MP3 player on (well, I try not to do this if there are a lot of other people running with me. I wait until I think they can't hear me). Those around me do not appreciate this quirk.

4- When I decided to do a triathlon, I could not swim. At all. I couldnt put my face in the water. Mind over matter I guess.

5- I always dream that I am being chased by bad guys. Im never faster or stronger than they are, but I'm always smarter so I think of creative ways to get away. One time I locked myself and my friend in the bathroom and shrunk us so we could escape down the drain. Hey, it was a dream and I knew it. Told you I was smart ;)

6- When I was in 2nd grade, I wanted to be an olpympic gymnast. Im 5'9', so you can see how that worked out. Then I wanted to be a singer. I can't sing, so you see how that worked out...the list goes on.....

A Race, A getaway, and a Grasshopper

This past weekend was Bear Lake Brawl, a first in a few ways. It was my first full triathlon since having baby Jayden over 2 months ago, it was Daniel's first triathlon, and it was our first one together as well.

My grandparents were unbelievably kind in letting us use their fifth wheel and truck so that we could take the whole family down and camp for the weekend. Daniel's niece, Alyssa, and her friend Alyssa (yes, we called them Alyssa 1 and Alyssa 2) came with us to babysit while we raced and then to enjoy the weekend with us.

I will spare you all the details of the "amost didn't make it down there"s since Im sure this blog will be long enough. Ill just skip right to the race stuff, and eventually, you will find out what the heck a grasshopper has to do with any of this.

So Saturday morning was the race. The swim was- well, different. Im not familiar with Bear Lake so I didnt realize that it stays shallow for, say 7 miles or so ;) Which does 2 things during a triathlon swim. First, it means that it's very, very choppy and wavey since the water is shallow, which makes it very hard to spot. Second, it means you can stand up at any time and look around to see where you are since you can't tell when you are swimming. So yup that's what everyone did. Trust me, it was the only option. I was laughing at those who went before me, stopping and taking their goggles off. What was wrong with them? I found out soon enough as I had no idea where I was going, couldnt see a thing..so there I was, in the middle of the swim, standing on my 2 feet with my goggles on my head, looking around...not my proudest moment...

And then, it gets too shallow to swim and you have to wade through the water forever to get to the shore. But all went relatively smoothly, craziness aside.

Onto the bike... My transition took what felt like forever. Im not sure why, but it did. Once I actually started riding, it went great and I felt like I rode very well. But alas, this is where the grasshopper comes in.

About half way through the bike, I was riding past some fields, when I started getting dive bombed by grasshoppers. Not that unusual of an experience, to be honest. Bugs and your face meet quite often when riding. But there was oooonnnneeee grasshopper---- it hit me right on the side of my nose as I was riding about 21 mph. I shook it off and kept going, but then I could feel wetness on my face. My thought was "Stupid grasshopper splatted his guts all over my face. Gross!" So I reached up to wipe his guts off my face with my arm (yeah, triathlon isn't the most glamorous of sports, and this isn't the worst of it, trust me...) When I looked at my arm, it wasn't grasshopper guts but my own blood that was running down my face! WTH??? So I assumed he gave me a bloody nose. I kept wiping it as I rode, since I could feel it continue to bleed. I would later find out that no, he didnt give me a bloody nose at all, he actually split my face open (no worries, it was a very shallow, very boring flesh wound people). I am sure this is the dumbest race injury to ever occur in the history of mankind. Dumb. Duuuuumb.

Anyway, so the bike went smooth as could be, grasshopper wound and all. And onto the run....

My MP3 player (that isn't allowed anyway but I was going to be a wild woman and break the rules- I am a maniac, I tell ya- crazy to the core) wasn't working, but the run was very uneventful most of the way. About 20 feet from the finish line, the volunteers that went with us (who just so happened to be stationed right before the finish) shouted at me, cheering me on, and then I heard them yell, "AnnaMarie, she's gaining on you!" So I took off into a full on sprint, and I felt her come up behind me. I ended up beating her to the finish by 0.9 seconds. Phew. Thank goodness they were standing there because I had no idea she was that close!

So I was done and I waited for Daniel. Dan started 15 minutes after me (but of course, he is faster so I only had to wait 5 minutes for him to finish). And his finish was even more intense than mine (not that this was a very intense race in any sense of the word). He had the same sort of a thing happen in that he thought he was in the clear, when just before the finish, he felt someone coming up on him. He started sprinting and the guy was shoulder to shoulder with him. At the end, you could not tell who was ahead, but according to the timing chips (well, that's another story altogether...), er...according to the times, the other guy beat him by 0.10 seconds. Imagine that. Daniel took 5th in the Clydesdale category (over 200 lbs, and yes, he is over 200 lbs, he is around 200.4 I believe). And then we waited for Tammy, who was in his wave as well. Hidee, my other friend who did it with us, finished before I did (of course, Im no speed demon at this point).

So there you have it. That was our race. It was a blast and we want to make it an annual thing and take the kids down each year to enjoy it with us. Perhaps next year, since I wont have just given birth, I can be more competitive. I hate losing. I really, really do.

After the race, we camped the weekend and had a blast playing on the beach, sitting in the hot tub, playing cards in the camper etc.. Here are some pictures of our fun.

The Alyssas- Thank you to both of you for taking care of my babies. You were wonderful and it was fun having you there with us!!

Jaxon in the cupboards. It's not the first or the last time for that one Im sure.

This is our whole race gang (those that went that is), including the girls who volunteered and got Tammy and Hidee into the race after registration was closed. L to R: Andrea, Bethany, Mackenzie, Tammy, Hidee, Torrie (with baby Ellie), Daniel and Me.

our bikes and a guy who was doing his first race who had a lot of questions, and kept making me laugh with his comments.

I think the rest are self explanatory....

Our Baby Girl is 5

Savannah, our one and only little princess, had her 5th birthday on August 28th. I can't believe she's 5. No really. Can't.

We had a fun, very unsanitary party for her at Leo's Pizza, where the kids played on the toys and ate pizza, cake and ice cream. They had such a good time and as far as we know, no one caught any contagious diseases ;)

Here are some pics. The first ones are the morning of her birthday, before school, all dressed up and ready to take cupcakes to her kindergarten class.

The next ones are from her party with her best buds, Maycie, Taylie, Shayla, Gabe, Nicole and McKinley.

While I wish she would stay little, I have to say how much I enjoy every second of her life. Savannah is my BFF ( as we lovingly refer to ourselves). I rarely go anywhere without my little sidekick. She is such a mini-me, just cuter, smarter, and much more charismatic ;) She loves to mother her brothers, who all completely adore her. She has daddy wrapped around that little princess finger of hers. She is so outgoing and funny and we all love her more than we can say! I feel so blessed to have her, and I hope she always knows how special she is.

NEW 4 ME

*grin*