Growing

Madison is getting so big. She is sitting in her little chair and she is can turn the little dial to make music and fun sounds. It's amazing that at only four months old she can be this cognizant of things around her. She also really wants to just sit, she just doesn't like being on her back anymore. Oh how quickly they grow.

Drew has an infection like thing on his leg that he doesn't like so much. The poor kid, he's such a trooper though. He loves to pick the movie that we are going to watch and is getting really good at saying "Jungle Book, Ariel, Pongo (101 Dalmations) and Baby Einstein, he can even give the name of which one he wants, Mozart, Animals, etc.

Alexis loves to say family prayer and she does such a good job. Tonight her prayer went something like this: I love girl scouts, I love boy scouts, thank you for today, I love Grandma, I love Stephanie, thank you for today, I love princesses & barbies, I love boys, thank you for today and so forth. It is so hard not to bust up laughing when she's praying. And when she's done, she says "I did a great prayer, huh? It was a long one!" It's fun to see them growing.

BYU Game & Well Child check-ups

John's Dad buys three season tickets to the BYU football games every year. This week was John's turn to go. His Mom & Dad went to Logan and weren't going to be back in time for the game so they gave all three tickets to John. Since we have two under two, they were free, which means we all were able to go!! We figured it was a once in a lifetime type of thing. It wasn't too bad, they were really good, not really entertained by the football itself much though. They were excited for the cotton candy and Alexis loved the band. Her favorite part was the drums. Drew's favorite part was probably the BYU song, he would clap along and roll his hands. Maddie Jo did well, she slept through the loud cheering and was happy when she was awake.


This is the face Alexis kept making. She kept asking if it was over.



Thursday we had Drew's two year and Madison's four month check-up. You know you've been at the Dr's too often when you don't have any questions for the Dr. and he doesn't have any for you!

Drew Madison
Height 34 in - 25% 26 in - 90%
Weight 24.6 lbs - 10% 16.6 lbs - 95%

All in all the visit wasn't too bad. Drew cried for a few seconds with each shot (3) and Madison only cried for a couple of minutes.

As a side note, John's fantasy basketball draft went really well, he's very excited.

More Drew

I got so busy on Tuesday and it hasn't slowed down so I forgot to post the new fun info. Tuesday afternoon Drew started whining again, like he always does. I wondered if maybe ALL his little whining episodes had to do with blood in his urine, so I ran him down to have it tested again. Lo and behold, there was blood again. Ah ha, this is why he is ALWAYS whining. So, we were referred to a urologist, who in turn referred us to a nephrologist (kidney dr.). We are still waiting for the nephrologist to call us to even set up an appointment, it's ridiculous all the hoops that you have to jump through just to get your kid into a specialist. Eric Hogenson, who is our regular Dr., doesn't have any clue why he would have this. However, I wonder if he has some ideas and just doesn't want to worry me with them. Anyway, we'll update you when we know more.

Drew's Cardiologist

We saw Dr. Day, a Cardiologist this morning and we have such wonderful news! Drew's heart is not what is causing any of his problems. He has PFO, Patent Foramen Ovale. When you're still in the womb you have a hole in your heart between the two upper chambers, when you're born, the hole closes, usually. Drew's foramen ovale is not open, but has a flap. This means that blood can switch sides, it increases his chances of having migraines, and if he has a blood clot it increases his chances of having a stroke. PFO is fixable, obviously it is heart surgery, which in and of itself has risks. There is no need to close the hole until or unless there are problems. It could still close on it's own but if it doesn't, 18% of the soldier aged population has a flap and they do just fine. Now we just have to figure out why he's getting blood in his urine and we should be good!!

Playing at the farm

Cheryl & Ryan invited us to go to a farm with them that was free admission. Who can argue with free? Well, it was free admission but if you wanted to pet the animals, ride the animals or anything else, it cost money. It was still fun and the kids loved it. I didn't get any pictures of them painting their ceramics, but they both painted a cute little ceramic that I'm hoping I can throw in the garbage before it gets smashed into my carpet.

This older gentleman had made a "train" for the kids to ride in. The only problem with it being called a train is that he was towing them behind a semi truck (picture below shows it) instead of an engine. It was adorable, and the kids loved it.


They had a petting zoo. It consisted of a tiny enclosed area with a newborn calf, some chickens, a couple of tiny goats and a couple of rabbits. Drew was more into touching things and getting up close and personal. Alexis is a little more cautious, however she loved the rabbit, too bad it didn't like the kids as much.


Alexis loved riding the pony and wanted to do it again. Too bad John and I aren't really into taking care of animals that big, she'd love to own one.

Whenever we want to get a picture of Drew looking at the camera I ask him "where's mommy's nose?" and he dutifully points. So, that is why he is pointing in this picture and a lot of other pictures that we haven't posted.

Drew LOVED the bees. They had them in this glass enclosure so you could see what they were doing, and Drew loved to point at them and say "bees, bzzzz". The lady thought it was cute that they were getting right up there next to them and enjoying, they weren't afraid at all.

Alexis was intrigued with the bees as well, but she had a healthier dose of apprehension than Drew did.

Drew decided that after his birthday he was done with pull-ups, he wanted to be a big boy and wear underwear. He's only had a few accidents this week, which is great and one night he woke up to go pee and then he peed when he woke up for the morning, so he had dry pants for one night!! Today he had another episode of screaming, which makes me think he had blood in his urine again, but I wasn't about to run to a hospital to find out that I was right and then have nothing done about it. Tuesday we go to the Cardiologist and then on Thursday he gets his last immunizations until Kindergarten. Hopefully somebody will give us something so that he doesn't have to keep suffering.
Madison is trying valiantly to roll-over. I'm so excited for her, but don't actually want her to do it yet because I know my life will completely end when she becomes mobile!
Alexis is loving preschool and missing Grandma Hakes, who moved to South Dakota last week. I don't know that she fully understands how far away it is even though we looked it up on map quest. Alexis has also gotten a serious attitude problem the last couple of weeks. She wants to be the boss and tell everyone what they should and shouldn't be doing and if they don't she gets mad and bops them one. Honestly, I don't know where she gets the hitting part, the attitude I'm sure we can all safely assume comes from her mom, oops! We still love her though, and she can be a big helper and sweetheart, especially if there is something in it for her.

Birthday & Wedding

This is my FAVORITE picture from the wedding. Stephanie and Drew love to do Eskimo kisses and they caught this one at just the right moment.

Drew had his second birthday on Sunday!! How quickly time flies, it seems like he joined our little family just the other day. He took cookies to nursery to celebrate and then we had a bus cake with family. Sadly, this is the only picture we took of his birthday. We were having too much fun playing and talking. Glad we got one!

Brixton was married to Kristen on Saturday in the Manti Temple. I'd never been inside the Manti Temple, and I love the old features and woodwork.

L to R: Me, Max, Cheryl, Brixton, Stephanie

L to R: Ryan (Cheryl's), Brixton, Max and John (mine)

I loved this picture of Steph and Alexis.

Picture of all the family. My Uncle Jim and Aunt Janet came to the luncheon as well as my Uncle Mark and Aunt Menie who traveled from SD, with four kids and a dog that had four puppies!! During the luncheon they had everyone go around and tell how they were related and a funny story. Poor Brixton everyone told one of his embarrasing stories. We were excited to hear Kristen's but her family was so kind and they didn't embarass her nearly as badly as we did Brixton.

Grandpa Hakes with Drew & Alexis.

Grandpa and Grandma Hakes with the kids.

One of our family shots. We took family picture while there, but no one told us that the kids were too short and it looked odd. Oh well, we'll have to retake the pictures at a later time.

John and Drew, my two handsome guys!! Don't they look sharp? We were glad we took pictures to begin with. They had Cold Stone come and serve icecream and as you can guess all the kids LOVED it. Drew was completely covered by the time the reception was over.

the girls. I look like my body has been put inside a twisting machine, it felt that way too. I loved the dresses that we got for the princesses. Alexis loved having to hold her dress up while she walked, just like the princesses do! Maddie could have cared less, she only wanted to suck on something, anything, it didn't matter as long as it was in her mouth.

Big family picture! Yes, you can see the bride in this picture. Her dress was gorgeous, as was she.

Sister picture.

John and I. Drew was crying in the background because we weren't holding him, so we were hurrying, otherwise, we might have gotten a better picture.

Ramblings

After having talked to a couple of people, the Body Worlds description was somewhat vague so . . . I didn't love it. I wouldn't go again, unless it was free, it was a lot of money for a glorified text book. Having said that going to see what it was all about was worth it, I just wish it would have been a little cheaper. John liked it much more than I did and he thought it was worth it. Hope that clarifies a little.

Another Drew update: Monday he had blood in his urine again, although not much. We went back on Tuesday, and the blood was gone. However, we were told to get an ECG (which has nothing to do with the urine) to check his heart because his lips are still going blue, he is always tired, doesn't run around as much as other kids his age, and a list of other fun things. We have to go to a Cardiologist before they'll let us have an ECG so, hopefully it isn't his heart and this is just something to rule it out, but we'll find out on the 21st.

I feel bad for the poor kid, something is wrong with him, but no one can give me something that is causing everything he has. The best case scenario is that I'm just a worry wort and there is absolutely nothing with him. Lets just hope that's what it is.

Oct. 5, 2008

Madison is getting so BIG. She weighs 16 lbs and she's only 3 months old!! John takes the kids to the park for lunch four days a week. This was Madison's first time in a big kid swing. She is wearing 6 - 12 month clothes. She is talking all the time, sitting up for less than thirty seconds on her own, eating food, and turning into a true little person. It's so sad to see my baby turning into a pre-toddler. I wish they'd stay little a little bit longer.




John and I went with Madison, my Mom and Stephanie to the Body Worlds exhibit in SLC a week ago. John thought it was way cool, like a 3-D text book. There were a lot of displays and it was hard to take it all in cuz there was just so much to look at and read about, we spent two hours walking around looking at things and we could have easily spent another couple of hours. It didn't seem like they were real, even though they were, which was nice because I wasn't sure how John was going to react to the whole thing. As you can tell based on his comment he really liked it. It was worth paying for once, I wouldn't pay to go again, and I don't think John would either. We also bought the audio that went with it, John enjoyed it because he hasn't done much studying in anatomy. I've taken a zoology class and the audio didn't tell me anything that I hadn't already learned.

Drew is doing fabulously with his potty training. We ran out of diapers the other day and instead of finding time to go buy more, we decided to just finish the potty training. He still has accidents occasionally, but they are relatively small ones. He left watching a movie downstairs, and climbed all the way up to go to the bathroom by himself. The only problem was that he didn't make it to the toilet. OOPS! But, he tried!

Next week we'll have fun pictures to post. Brixton gets married on Saturday! And Drew turns two on Sunday!