Another one Bites the Dust

So Camden has always been kinda accident prone.  I think it just started when he was born.  Like the kid didn't go through enough then....  It isn't uncommon for him to have a bump or bruise on his forehead and it always seems like one will be just about gone and he will have another boo boo on the other side that appears.  I'm pretty certain that he will be the reason for our first trip to the emergency room for a broken bone or such.  It's really not a matter of if, it is just becoming a matter of when.  Let me remind you, last year right before Christmas, he was pushed off the bed by a jealous sister, (not mentioning any names but I am sure you can figure it out ;)  )  and he had a bad rug burn and bruise right by his eye.  Well this year for Christmas, he decided to go bigger and better.  Well not so much better for mom, but one day when he compares scars, it will be a better scar to compare.  About a week before Christmas, the little monkey was trying to be big and climbed on Maysie's little cook stove that like goes up to my knees, so he could get a book of the shelf.  He watched his older sister do the exact same thing just moments before, but I think he must of tuned out when she was being scolded for it.  Anyways, I was watching my sister in laws 3 kids and was busy feeding the baby a bottle on the couch, when the next thing I hear is the thump, and of course it was followed by screaming.  I looked up and didn't think it really hurt him, because, well he is accident prone, and he does stuff like this all the time, and he was already trying to gather himself up off the floor.  Normally all he needs is a hug and he's on his way again.  Well, when I gave him his hug, I looked down at my hand that was rubbing his head, and then I looked at my shirt which he would bury his head into and noticed blood...  Everywhere.  Luckily Rob was home so he came in and grabbed Camden for me so I could put the baby down and then go help Rob.  By the time I was done, Camden was getting a nice shower in our kitchen sink and was all done with the crying and just wanting to play in the water.  His attitude...  Been there, Done that, All better now.  We got the bleeding to slow down but we couldn't get a good look at the cut.  So what does Rob do...  He gets a razor and shaves around it....  I was practically in tears, Camden's hair is just now getting to the point where it would stick down on top instead of poking up like a porcupine.  Let alone....  My poor baby.  Luckily the cut wasn't very long.  Deep was another story, but the cut was kinda weird, it spidered into 3 parts and looked like a letter Y.  We decided that it probably wouldn't be long enough with each section to get stitches so there was really no point to go to the ER.  Luckily, Rob has had lots of experiences with his own accident proneness (Is that even a word?) that he knows how to make a pretty mean butterfly bandage and take care of random cuts and bruises.  So for a few days, Camden's head looked like this picture.

 

Once we got a good scab that wouldn't break open whenever he hit his head on something, we just covered it with a band aid and taped the ends of it to help it say on his head better. (We forgot to take pictures of this but just imagine the last picture with an normal bandage going over the cut with white tape across the top and bottom)  When we went to church, one little boy asked his mom why Camden was wearing a football on his head which was actually a pretty accurate description of what it looked like, especially with the way his hair was shaved.  I didn't think it would be super noticeable, you know since the band aid was brown, and his hair isn't overly dark, but apparently I was wrong because we were sitting in the back of the chapel in the over flow section and the Bishop noticed it up on the stand...  "Ouch!"  was the comment we heard most often. 

On Christmas even, his scab was thick enough that I could cut his hair to make it look not so noticeable, (luckily his hair grows super fast too)  and though, it is now shorter than it has been in a while and we had to cut the top a little bit narrower than normal, you can hardly tell that anything happened.  There  is a small difference in the length of the hair where it was shaved compared to the rest but you have to look close.  It won't be long until his scar will go to a white color instead of the red and you will never know it was even there, unless of course he one day bic's his head, or he receives his Dad's hairline (but I think his thick hair takes more after me....)  We'll just have to wait and see

This picture was taken about 2 days before Christmas when we were changing the bandage.  If you look close you can see how it split into a Y shape.     Now I guess we just play the waiting game to see when the next time we have to deal with another one of this kids accidents.  :)

One Special Girl

The reason for this post is just for our family's records.  Feel free to read on but I feel obligated to record this in our family journal, which of course happens to be our blog....

Maysie is just an incredible being to be around...  Well most of the time.  She of course has the occasional dramatic reaction to things and can be moody, unpredictable, and stubborn but I have to remind myself that she is a girl.  And girls do that stuff every so often.  Maysie has always been and very in tune to righteous things.  I can remember when she was about 18 months or so she would always run up to a picture of the temple that we have placed on an end table and she would point directly at the front doors of the temple and say "Daddy, Daddy" over and over, insistent that Daddy needed to go there.  The last few weeks we have had many more comments from her that is about the same.  About 2 weeks ago, we were just gathering at the foot of my bed (our normal spot for family prayer) when Maysie said very clearly and bluntly, "Daddy, you need to get baptized and take us to the temple."  This caught both Rob and myself off guard.  For one, she was able to recognize the fact that you have to be baptized before you enter into the temple, and for two...  We have never talked about this as a family before, and even the lessons at church wouldn't get that technical.  Remember she is only 3.  Since then, she has repeatedly said in her prayers at night, (I am the one that is with her when she says that - no prompting, just her honest and sincere prayer), to bless Daddy that he will want to go to church with us and then he will get baptized and we can go to the temple to be forever.  There has been times when it takes me so off guard and the spirit is evident that I walk away from her room with tears starting to surface.  This morning, Maysie had yet another righteous experience, that just totally came out of the blue.  After spending most of last night up with a sick little boy and me also having a horrible sinus headache for the last few days, I tried to sleep in as long as the kids would let me.  Since Camden got sick in the middle of the night, he just slept in my bed and luckily he was out cold....  Maysie woke up around 7:30 and came into my room.  She just turned on cartoons, and got a coloring book that was left in her room and sat on my bedroom floor coloring while I procrastinate on getting up.  Shortly after 8:00, she comes and touches my arm and said, "Mom, Jesus just left."  I not trusting my halfway incoherent self, made her repeat what she just said.  Sure enough said what I thought she said.  "Mom, Jesus just left."  I asked her where she saw him, and she said he was just standing in the doorway to my bedroom watching us.  I then asked her how she knew it was Jesus.  She replied, "Because he looks like the pictures and I wasn't scared of him."   I can't really doubt her because she is so young and innocent.  She doesn't know what a lie is yet and I dont' think even a kid who has an incredibly wild imagination could come up with a story like this and consistently say the exact same thing.  I know it is possible to see Christ when you are pure and humble.  It has been recorded multiple times in the scriptures that people have seen our Savior:  Joseph Smith, The Brother of Jared, the Nephites that Christ appeared to after the resurrection.  Then I think about this country song...  I can't remember the name of it or who even sings it but it is about a little girl who was comforted by a man when she was enduring an abusive situation where she was either a witnessing the abuse or the abuse was inflicted upon her (I can't remember which it has been so long since I heard the song) when later she goes to church and she discovers that it was Jesus Christ who was the comforter by  the picture that was hanging up inside the church. I know such miracles exist. And When Rob woke up for the day I told him to ask Maysie about who she saw.  Again she answered the questions the same.  He then asked her if she talked to him or if he talked to her.  She said no, but that she knows that Jesus loves us and he watches over us all the time.  The whole time, I kept thinking to myself, Wow!  I sure hope she NEVER. EVER, forgets this experience.  And I also kept thinking, Christ was here in my messy house, (Like I said, I haven't felt too hot the last few days and felt good just to be able to have dinner on the table and such)  I was half way asleep and missed it - or was I just not in tune enough to have my own experience like this, and boy this sure puts things into perspective.  Sometimes we forget that Christ is always there.  He is always watching over us and even though most of us don't get to have an experience like this one, He is there.  I know he helps us through our trials, and through the ups and downs that life throws at us.  I know that Jesus Christ loves each and every one of us and he is here to help if we only ask, and sometimes even if we don't ask.  How is it that through my sweet innocent child that I can learn so much. 

Then later tonight we had scouts.  I am still a scout leader so this is a weekly adventure for me and the kids to go to scouts.  As we were pulling up to the church, Maysie asked me if I thought that Jesus would be there.  I told her it was highly possible since the church house is one of Heavenly Father and Jesus's many houses.  So as we got out of the car, she starts yelling, "Jesus, are you here.  I am coming to your house to go to scouts.  Jesus, do you hear me."  Of course, that got a smile out of me, and then I had to have a quick discussion with her that sometimes Jesus has to "hide" to watch us so he can see if we are being Christlike or not because we could see him all the time we would be obedient and Christlike but we have to remember that we have to be like that even if he isn't there, and when there is alot of people that is when he likes to "hide" to watch us the most. 

I know that Maysie is a very special child of God.  I have known that she would set a good example since before she was born by the promptings and feelings I received when I was pregnant with her.  Maysie was wanted so much in our family, and for a long time, we didn't even think we would ever be able to have children of our own, then miraculously we discovered we were expecting Maysie.  When we were looking at names before she was born, I came across her name on the Internet, and then later in the name book...  I knew of a few people that had her name but I never thought of naming my own child that, then I saw the meaning of her name....  "Child of light"  I knew there that this was the name for our baby girl.  She was bringing a whole new light to our family.  I knew that Maysie was going to be the main factor for Rob wanting to go to church with us.  I knew that she was going to be special.  I didn't really think that the reason why she would be so special would be because she has the light of Christ within her, but it really is.  She has always had this magnetic internal light about her that just draws people towards her.  When she was a baby, we had people following us in the grocery store just to get a good look at her.  (Creepy - I know).   At church on Sunday, (Her first day as a sunbeam since we only went to sacrament meeting the week before since it was a baby blessing for my nephew Coyan and we had some family stuff going on right after) I was told that Maysie was by far the most obedient kid in her class of like 10 kids.  It didn't really surprise me when I was told this because I know that she has righteous desires and she wants to be like Jesus.  When she was a baby, the only thing that would calm her down when she was crying would be if I sang primary songs to her.  She has always just had this intuition for seeking after and surrounding herself with things that can draw the Spirit. She is one special little girl and my deepest hope and wish for her is that she can always remember to seek after righteous things and remember that she is a Daughter of a God who loves her and is always there for her. 

Halloween 2011

Halloween was so much fun this year.  Maysie has figured out the whole trick-or-treating thing and Camden was just excited to eat candy.  Rob had to work so it was up to me to take the kids around the neighborhood.  I made the costumes this year, (I tried to go the cheaper route, but in the end, it was probably about as expensive as just buying one - we just get to enjoy the using the clothes that I had to buy after the holiday too.)  Maysie wanted to be Strawberry Shortcake, of course that is probably no big surprise there, and Camden was a cute little cowboy.    We got the kids dressed in their costumes early so we could get pictures of them outside. 

For Camdens Costume, I made his vest (without a pattern) and then bought his shirt, boots, and a hat.  I was pretty proud of how it turned out.  He looked so cute and loved his hat but he can't stand his cowboy boots.  (Good thing I was able to pick up them at a 2nd hand store for cheap - or it could have been a total waste of money)  :)

For Maysie's costume, I made her a hat (also without a pattern) and then found her a striped shirt to go with some of her Levi's.  Her hat was kind of a nightmare to make and was a little more "top hat" looking then I wanted but I couldn't figure out exactly how to make it look more like a sun hat.  I got online and found some tutorials but when I made it like those patterns, it was small like an infant, not the toddler size that I needed and it was pointy.  Not exactly the look I was going for.  Luckily, I used a plate and a bowl and just came up with my own thing and it seemed to turn out ok.  The important thing is that people could tell what she was - that is what matters.  We actually bought that hair spray stuff to make her hair red, but that turned into a disaster and we are still trying to get that off of our bathroom floor.  Maysie was ecstatic and absolutely loved her costume which I guess it the ultimate goal.

    

Here is both kids together.   I think that this may possibly be the best picture ever taken of the kids together ever.  They are both looking at the camera which is a major miracle.  :)

We took these pictures right before Rob went to work, so I guess you could say that Rob dressed up as a Mavrick employee for the day.  ;)'  For some reason this picture of my little family makes my heart melt.

I took the kids just on our street and the street behind and their buckets were almost full of candy ( we have some very generous neighbors that just give out handfuls of candy to the kids they know.  Camden found a sucker among the mix before we even made it off of our street and he shoved it into his mouth wrapper and all and refused to take it out for anything.  Needless to say he became a sticky mess but at least he was happy.  When we were almost done trick or treating, my Brother In Law Joseph called and told me to make sure that I took them over to his house to trick or treat there.  I figured if I had to load up the kids to do that then I might just as well take them down to Rob's mom's house so she could see the kids all dress up.  By the time we got back it was late, so I felt kinda bad that no one could really trick or treat at our house since we were gone the whole night...  I bought the candy and everything so we ended up with an over abundance of candy which put us on a sugar high for quite some time. 

Summer Part Dos (In pictures)

I can't believe it has been 6 months since I last posted...  I am becoming such a total slacker!  Well lucky for me, one of my new years resolutions is to blog better since my MIL challenged us to start writing our family history now as part of our Christmas present, (a copy of her grandmothers history that was recorded by her own grandma many years ago).  So like any obedient child should be....  Here we go!  :) 

So this is how the rest of our summer went, mostly by pictures because that is what we have to help us remember what we actually did (see at least I do something right - I capture our life in photos :) )

For Maysie's birthday Geoffrey the Giraffe (The Toys R Us guy) sent Maysie a card with the 10% off any item coupon or something like that.  I took her to the toy store and after walking all though the store 2 or 3 times, she settled on buying this cute little pink umbrella.  This totally surprised me and believe me, I tried hard to talk her out of it.  (She is so stubborn - just like her Dad ;)  )  This picture was taken after we got back home and she was showing Rob what she bought.  As you can tell by the look on her face, she was so excited, and even now whenever it rains, she insists that she needs to go outside with her umbrella and is always delighted when she is allowed to do so.

 

This weather this summer was kinda weird....  It seemed like there wasn't too many warm days where we could really set up our wading pool in the back yard which is an all time favorite thing for my 2 little kiddo's.  After a few days of solid rain, I got tired of hearing the kids complain about not being able to swim so I told them they could go swimming in the bath tub...  The next thing I knew, Maysie had ran upstairs and had gotten her swimsuit and Camden's swimsuit and was half undressed before I realized what was going on.  They had so much fun "Swimming" that day that by the time they were tired of it they looked like a couple of white prunes from being all water logged, and I had to admit it ended up becoming a great rainy day activity to do...

   

At the end of summer we finally got our swing set. We got a good deal on this heavy duty swing set from Lifetime.  It is big enough to have fun things on it like the look out binoculars, steering wheel, rock wall, rope climb, etc, but small enough to fit in our small back yard perfectly (my favorite feature) and it is made of solid metal so there is not maintenance (Rob's favorite feature) and sturdy enough for us adults to play on it too.  This thing of course came in a gazillion pieces and took a couple of days to assemble.  (It probably would have been faster but Rob doesn't like reading the directions unlike me and had to dismantle it a few times after discovering it was put together wrong....  After the 3rd time I was finally able to convince him that instructions are handy and I read it to him while he put it together)   Luckily the weather has stayed warm and dry that the kids have been able to use it quite a bit this year.  Camden has now mastered the climb up to the slide on both the rope and the ladder (the rungs are few and far between on both) by himself and Maysie has now figured out how to utilize the rock wall.  Rob and I have even been able to work on our trapeze skills which always results an eruption of laughter from both kids when that happens, apparently we look silly when we are hanging upside down. We planted grass right after we got the swing set and it has now grown in good and strong.  This spring we will put the sprinkler system under ground in that area so we are not dodging the sprinkler pipes like we are currently.  I have to admit, we definitely use this area of our yard way more now then when it was our garden area.  :)  Since we got rid of our our garden (well technically we haven't planted a garden for the last couple of years...) we help with Rob's mom's garden where we get to reap some of the benefits, without having to do all of the work ourselves.  It's an ideal situation for me.  It's not like we are not over multiple times a week anyways.  This year Maysie was able to help with it alot.  She helped plant, and did some weeding, and got to watch things grow little by little...  One of the times we were over there just cuz, Maysie went out to help grandma bring in the ripe items for the day.  I guess Maysie found this deformed tomato (It had a weird growth on it) and she told Leona that it looked like a nose so they came inside and they created this little veggie-man with some of the produce they brought in and then used some raisins for eyes.  

"Every one meet Veggie-man.  Veggie-man meet Everyone"

Maysie refused to let us eat this tomato.  She insisted on keeping it on a little plate in the fridge so this is the creature that I stared at every time I opened the fridge for 2 weeks when she finally aloud us to get rid of it.

Another big thing in our home this summer was our grasshopper collection.  Our yard is in abundance of these little things and the kids are just fascinated with them.  Rob and Maysie caught a couple of them and put them in a jar at the beginning of the summer, and then Maysie thought that every grasshopper seen after that had to go in the jar too...  She got quite good at catching them and if she couldn't get it she would ask for help from either mom or dad because she was determined that it needed to go in the jar to be with it's family.  :)  At one point we had 16 grasshopper stuck inside that thing at one time.  Maysie reminded me of a seagull when the early saint came to Utah and the grasshoppers infested their fields, only that instead of eating them, she caught them and put them in a jar.  :)  I felt kinda bad for them, but it did become a great learning tool.  We found out what the like to eat - dandelion leaves, not grass; they need water or they die; and if left outside in the jar the overheat and they die; and we also discovered that they mate like mammals and don't lay eggs (totally didn't know that one before which was interesting explaining it to a 3 year old - good thing she buys the story that they are hugging because the one grasshopper is sad for being in the jar and it can't jump very high - this mom is so not ready for the birds and the bees talk yet).   

At the end of September, we went to Huntington to see Chris and Bec (Rob's sister) for a few days.  Maysie loved playing with her cousins at their house for a change and us adults had fun just spending time together.  We took our 4 wheelers down and took the kids out for a ride on some of the little hills just outside of town on one of the days.  The kids had a blast and was sad when we had to go back to the house.  When we weren't on the 4 wheelers the kids were outside on the trampoline playing the Easter egg game or animal charades (Hilarious to watch when 2 out of the 3 people are only 3 years old) or they were riding bikes.  Maysie discovered that riding bikes on dirt/gravel is not cool with training wheels since she got stuck every time she tried to peddle and would tip.  She got a couple of "gravel burns" on her arms after she fell off her bike that she then resorted to just pushing the bike around after her cousin Ambree who was on her own bike so badly wanting to be big too. 

At the end of August one of Rob's half brother Jared got married to a cute girl named Katheryne so we were able to attend their ceremony and reception.  One of the traditions in his family is to have a big program and dance at the reception.  Rob was so excited to dance with Maysie just to have Maysie refuse to dance with him.  Dancing with her cousins is way cooler then dancing with her Dad I guess.  Then at the end of October his half brother Jeremiah got married in Montana and we took a road trip up there for it. It was like 10 + hours of driving, with the kids, who was already board with all the activities we brought for the whole trip before we even got out of the city!  Luckily they did pretty good and we could entertain them with the car game (A game we made up to help teach Maysie her colors where she has to find a car the color that we say).  Camden got sick once we hit the curvy roads right outside of Salmon (and only like an hour from our destination) so we had to stop, change his clothes and try to clean out/cover up his carseat as good as we could so lucky us we got to endure the aromas of vomit for the rest of our trip since we didn't have time or really a place to wash his car seat out.  The wedding was beautiful and we could witness some crazy Montana thunderstorms (seriously, it was blue skies and sunshine yet it was pouring rain at the same time...  odd huh).  After the ceremony we went to some hamburger place (can't remember what it is called) but oh, my yum!  If you are ever in Hamilton, MT, you have to go there.  (The place is pretty famous there so you'll know what hamburger place I am talking about if you just ask someone or look for the signs).  The hamburgers were huge!  We were so full and Rob couldn't even finish his hamburger which is a major accomplishment.  :)  It was opening weekend for the deer hunt and traveling the mountains you would see hunters everywhere hiking with there guns  (It was kinda an eerie feeling) on the way there we saw lots of deer and elk but on the way home we didn't see any animals...  they were either too scared to come out in the open by that time or else some body's dinner by that time.  I'm all for responsible, gun safety educated people to go out and hunt animals to provide for there families but I think by this experience, I am one to just stay home and not go anywhere in the mountains during hunting season.  It's down right scary seeing hunters everywhere with their guns out pointing every which way and driving through the middle of it.  Luckily we made it back safely and it seems like it didn't take as long to get home as it did to get there.  Jeremiah and his wife Allison had a reception here in Salt Lake a few weeks later where Rob was finally able to dance with Maysie.  She gave him 1/2 a dance which was a huge accomplishment and it made Rob feel so much better that she will still be Daddy's little girl in his eyes.  And for all the other songs that she wouldn't dance with him to, well, I was glad that he danced with me unless we were busy attending to child #2 who can be quite problematic for others if we aren't around.  (Seriously, I don't think I have danced that many dances with him on one night since our own wedding....)