Caleb's stitches and other stories

So almost two weeks ago, we were having a garage sale, and Caleb woke me up real early in the morning, so I decided I'd better get to work.  Caleb was helping me open up the fridge to get out some ingredients to make some muffins, and the butter container (held  1 lb of butter, and was a hard plastic rectangle container) fell out and hit Caleb on the head.  It started bleeding like crazy, like head wounds do, and I immediately covered it with a cloth, and yelled for Travis.  Austin was with me at the time, and was really worried about Caleb.  As soon as Travis got down, I got out a little ice pack, and Travis held it to his wound for the next twenty minutes while he cried, and tried to get away from the ice pack.  It stopped bleeding, and we woke up the rest up of the kids and got everyone into the car to take Caleb to the hospital to get his stitches (nothing else was open yet, as it was almost 6am).  By the time we got to the hospital, Caleb had calmed down a lot, and we left the older kids in the waiting room, while Travis, Samuel, Caleb and I went back into the trauma area for Caleb to get his stitches.  So the doctor came and looked at Caleb, and determined that he needed stitches.  So Travis left with the other kids to go set up the rest of the garage sale, and Sam stayed with Caleb and I.  Caleb fell asleep while we were waiting for the doctor to come do his stitches.  The nurse was able to put on the topical anaesthetic while Caleb was asleep.  Another half hour later, the doctor came in to do the stitches.  Caleb woke up, and one nurse held his head, while the other held his arms and body still, and I could hold his little hand.  They numbed up the rest of his wound, while Caleb cried, and then they covered him with a towel with an opening for where the wound was.  Caleb calmed down, and just fussed during the doctor putting in his stitches, and Sam and I sang to him to help him calm down.  When they were done, Caleb had 4 little stitches in his head.  We got them taken out a week ago, and it seems to be healing nicely, although he'll have a nice scar. 
Yesterday Travis was studying in the baby's room, and Samuel pulled a blanket down from the baby's crib, and it knocked a stack of flashcards off of a tall box next to Travis, and it fell onto the blanket.  Travis told Sam to put the blanket back, and when Sam flipped the blanket back up to the crib, it shot the flashcards back up on top of the box almost exactly where they were to begin with, it was awesome!!
Yesterday Samuel and I went to Costco to return a swimsuit and as we were going in, Samuel asked me why I was taking my swimsuit back, and I told him it was too small.  So Samuel said to be "so you need a size "big"?"  I almost got offended, but then remembered how old he was, so I simply said "no, I think I'll try a medium size."

Samuel decided that Daddy and I needed a "mantic"(romantic) dinner, so he made this dinner and set it up all by himself.  He was so sweet, he got a candle, and had me light it, and made up plates of food for us, we even had a leftover bottle of sparkling grape juice someone had given us for Christmas, that he found.  He also kept all of the other kids out of the room, so that we could have privacy.  Samuel can be such a sweetheart

Austin made a nice display of nature things outside our back door, she was very sweet

Austin in front of her nature display

Me with the ivy bouquet, tiara, necklace and bracelet on, that Austin made me

Caleb loves his bike trailer

Caleb still happy about his bike trailer

Joseph is happy

Joseph made this big tower of legos for Caleb to knock over

Caleb in his car seat pre-stitches

Betsy and Caleb

Joseph with the hole in his lip that needed stitches

Joseph, Austin, Betsy, and Samuel on the Cougar in front of BYU stadium

Caleb at the hospital just before getting his stitches

A close-up look at the wound

Caleb just after getting his stitches in

Caleb after getting his stitches out

Poor Betsy

We got home tonight from our family home evening activity at trafalga, and it was already past the kids bed times, so we told them to run right inside and go straight to bed.  I grabbed the baby, and everybody was running in the house.  Travis shut the last door to the car, locked it, and went inside.  I went upstairs and changed the babies diaper, and then went downstairs with Travis to tuck the boys into bed, and say prayer with them.  That took a few minutes, and then went upstairs to say prayer with the girls, but Betsy wasn't there.  Austin said she never came in, so I ran out to the car, and sure enough Betsy was in the car pounding on the window and crying hysterically.  When Travis locked the car, and it beeped showing the alarm was on, Betsy panicked.  We didn't realize she was still in there, and she didn't calm down long enough to realize all she had to, was unlock the door to get out.  My poor little girl, was in there for about 15 minutes, that's a long time for someone who is scared and panicking.  So I quickly pulled her from the car and carried her in the house, and cuddled her for a while, until she calmed down and was okay again.  I guess Betsy has learned three things, 1.  Get out the car quickly when we get home, and 2.  You can unlock the car from the inside, and 3. panicking makes things worse

A Night to Remember

Caleb's poor little bandaged hand

He can still crawl with his little hand

The night started with Samuel getting mad at Joseph while they were plaing the Wii, because he would'nt let him win, and he threw the Wii remote and it hit the T.V. breaking it and the remote.   I found out that our warranty expired last month and the T.V. is unrepairable.  Samuel has learned a great lesson.  He no longer has a T.V. to watch or to play Wii games on.  We'll be able to get a new one once we move to Colorado, but not until then. 
The babysitter arrived just as I was finishing up my phone call to the warranty office.  We had been planning this date to the Tree Room restaraunt in Sindance for a while, and we're very excited.  We went to this Restaraunt 10 years ago, and Travis has talked about it ever since, and I was able to get a dinner for two voucher for a great deal.  We brought the baby with us, since he has a really hard time with babysitters.  As we drove the twenty minutes up there, the roads were great and the mountains and trees were beautiful.  We had a delicios dinner, my favorite part was the creamy butternut squash soup with maple cream.  Travis really enjoyed his steak with mango sauce.  Caleb enjoyed all the bites of food we gave him, although he kept squeezing out of his high chair, soTravis and I were taking turns holding him.  While we were waiting for dessert, Travis was holding Caleb and playing angry birds with him on my kindle.  (he loves putting his finger on the screen and letting the bids fly).  Caleb suddenly stood up and lunged and grabbed the flame on the candle in the middle of the table.  We quickly stuck his hand in a glass of cold water, and kept it there for the next twenty minutes or so while he cried.  After looking at his hand and seeing several large blisters on the inside of his hand, we asked for some burn ointment and bandages.  A guy came over from the safety office and looked at his hand , then put some pain relieving ointment and bandaged his little hand up, and said if the blisters get much bigger we should take him to the hospital.  My poor little baby was so upset.  We finally put him in his car seat and took him out to the car even though he was still crying.  When we got outside, it was snowing like crazy, and there was aleady 2-3 inches of snow covering our car and the road.  Travis started driving carefully down road, but about 1/2 mile later we were sliding off the road toward a river below.  I got out of the car with the baby, while Travis tried to get the car out, but it just slid closer to the river.  I called USAA and got a tow truck to come.  A lady passed us and offered to give the baby and me a ride home, we took her up on her offer.  It was hard to talk on the phone to get a tow truck coming while the baby was crying so hard, but we finally figured it out.  Caleb finally fell asleep and I called Travis to tell him a tow truck was coming, and he told me another car slid and hit our car.  I enjoyed talking to the lady who drove me home, and discovered that she grew up in Missoula, MT and knows my brother-in-law.  She also has two autistic children and we talked a lot about our children.  After I got home, I tried calling Travis and couldn't get a hold of him, and was really worried.  I finally got a hold of him after an hour, and the tow truck had pulled out the car who hit him, and was pulling him out next.  Travis finally made it home after about 11pm, after the tow truck brought him all the way home.  Our car still works, but is a little beat up in the back, but not too much.  We are very grateful our prayers were answered and everyone made it home safely, and Caleb slept about normal through the night.

Were going to Colorado, Austin's Birthday, and more

So we found out we're going to Fort Carson, CO which is near Colorado Springs, for our next duty station, we'll move there the end of August.  We are really excited, it is supposed to be a beautiful place to live. 
Yesterday was Austin's Birthday.  My little girl is 9 years old.  She was born 9 years ago in Blackfoot, ID at 2:54 am and weighed in at 5 lb 9 oz.  She had a little trouble breathing and was on oxygen for about 5 hours, but then was fine.  From the day she was born, Travis started working her out, so she is a very strong girl, and can do more push ups and sit ups then a lot of boys her age.  Austin started walking and talking at 9 months of age.  Joseph would pick on her a lot, and she would get back at him by sitting on his head while he was watching T.V. or push or pull him off the couch if he fell asleep there.  But she is also very protective of her brother, when she was 18 months old, we were at a park.  And a very large dog was chasing Joseph and scaring him, and Austin ran up to that dog, and whipped out her little finger and scolded that dog (who was twice as tall as her) and told it to leave Joseph alone.  That dog turned and with tail between it's legs ran back to find it's master.  Austin is a very helpful and caring girl, and I love her very much.  She loves to cook and sing and play with her friends.  She is a very big helper with baby caleb, and loves to play with him. 
We had a birthday party for Austin yesterday on her birthday, and 14 girls came to the party.  It was a little chaotic, but fun, we played games like fruit basket, guess the animal, charades, tape the tail to Austin's little brother (samuel), a memory game, and some balloon games.  Then we had lunch, cake and ice cream, and than opened her presents, by playing spin the bottle.  She got many gifts, and had a great birthday. 

Yesterday during the party, we couldn't find Sam, so Travis went to find him.  He was up in our room and had been going through my purse and other drawers, probably looking for candy.  But ended up finding some Tiger Balm. If you don't know what Tiger Balm is, it is a type of muscle rub to help losen up sore muscles, but it has a very strong odor to it.  Samuel was playing with this and rubbing it on the carpet and other things.  Samuel had to take a bath, and we cleaned up our room, but it still smells strongly of tiger balm. 
Travis was singing "Feliz cumpleanos that's how they say it in spain ", to Austin,  and Joseph said "Hey they ripped that off from the spanish", I laughed at said they speak spanish in spain, and Joseph said, "Oh, I thought they spoke French" Silly boy

I was holding Caleb and Travis came up and kissed me on the lips, Caleb was watching pretty intently, then looked at Travis and then at me, and then this look came on his face that was like a light bulb moment, and Caleb lunged forward and up, with his mouth hanging open, and tried to kiss me on the lips, it was pretty funny.

Some of the kids were in our room this morning, and I laid back on what I thought was my pillow, and was getting comfortable, when Betsy started giggling and said "ummmm....Mom, that's my bum" we all started laughing, it was pretty funny

At church today, we were in Sunday School and Caleb was crawling around, and he would pick up a block  and then put it behind his back and let it drop, then he would turn around to find the block, and repeat the process over and over again.  He got to the other side of the room, and there was one of those curtain/partition divder things, and Caleb started pushing against it and thought it was pretty fun, once he realized it would move a little.  So he pushed on it for a minute, than started crawling back towards me.  Halfway back, he stopped and turned back toward the partition and then crawled full speed, and plowed head first right into the partition with a little growl.  On the other side of the partition you heard a bunch of kids start laughing.  Caleb was a little disappointed that he didn't make it to the other side.  I quickly scooped him up, and kept him away from that side of the room, until Sunday School was over.

The Beautiful Birthday girl, in the new dress her Grandma Hardy gave her

Austin and her friends playing dance kids, they are doing "the monkey"

They are dancing "the lion"

They are playing fruit basket

Caleb getting macaroni for the first time, he likes it

Austin by her birthday cake

Funfetti birthday cake I made, with butterflies, dragonflies, and lady bugs

Caleb playing the piano

Travis got Chaplain, Caleb's Birthday and other stories

We found out this week, that Travis got accepted for an active duty chaplain, we are so excited!  He will graduate in april, and then start Chaplain training at Fort Jackson, SC May 19th-Aug 17th.  We should know in another month where we will be stationed.  Next the kids and I need to figure out what we're going to do, and where we're going to live, since he is not authorized to bring us with him.  
The kids had a couple friends over, and the kids and I were dipping chocolates for about an hour and a half for Valentine's Day, which was fun, but tiring.  I ran upstairs to feed the baby, and when I came back downstairs, the girls had dropped a bottle of purple nail polish, and it broke on the kitchen floor, they had stepped in it, and tracked it all over the floor,thankfully not onto the carpet though.  So I started scrubbing spots, but realized I just needed to mop the whole thing.  I spread mop water all over the floor and let it soak for a minute.  The baby kept crawling into the kitchen and getting all wet, so I had to change his clothes 4 different times, I scrubbed and scrubbed and managed to get all the nail polish off.  Then Samuel came downstairs, and was naked, completey covered in white cream from the top of his head, down to the tips of his toes.  I gave a little shriek of suprise and shock.  He had gone upstairs while I was cleaning the floor, and used a entire bottle of creamy destin, stripped naked and rubbed it all over his body, except a small area on his back where he couldn't reach.  He even had it covering his face and in his hair.  As I went upstairs to take him to the bath, I realized he had rolled around on the carpet, so now I had a new mess to clean up.  I bathed Samuel about three times, and got the cream off, but he still smelled like desitin.  Samuel said his skin felt really smooth.  Then I cleaned the carpet as best as I could.  At this point it was 7:30pm and we hadn't had dinner yet,(Travis was in class, and at the library until 9pm).  I was grateful that travis had put some meat, carrots and potatoes in the crock pot for me while I was taking my test earlier, that was definatly divine intervention.  So we had our crockpot dinner, and I put the kids to bed.  I was exhausted, but very grateful that I didn't once yell at the kids or get upset with them, (I think that was divine intervention too).

Caleb turned 1 year old on the 17th.  I can't believe my little guy is already 1, it has gone by too fast.  He is feeling a little sick again, and I'm just not ready to overload his system with sugar yet, so I made him a whole wheat zucchini cake shaped like a lady bug,and covered in applesauce for his birthday.  We stuck a candle in it, sang happy birthday to him, and helped him blow it out, then let him have at the cake.  He had a great time playing in it, and eating it, and throwing it on the floor.  I will be happy when we move out of this house, and Caleb won't be sick anymore becuase of he mold problem.  Caleb is still crawling more than walking, but is quickly walking more and more.  He also loves to say "uh oh" when things fall down, and loves to jabber and talk about "da da" and "ma ma" and "au de"(austin), and we love to pretend we're having conversations about him.

On friday, Joseph was playing at a friends house, and was rough housing with one of the boys, and somehow he got hit with a plastic cart in the mouth, and it cut up the inside of his mouth/lip, and it was really big and deep, so I took him into the urgent care, and they said it needed stitches, so they put in 4 stitches.  When they numbed it up, it made it swell up, but it has gotten even more swollen, and I think he may have an allergic reaction or something to it, because his lip is really swollen, and painful.  I took him back in on Saturday, becuase they said he shouldn't eat until the swelling goes done, but it just got more swollen.  They said to just give him ibuprofen until the swelling goes down, and it went down some, but is still pretty swollen, and still bleeds every so often,so I'm going to take him in again tomorrow and figure out how to help his lip get better.  He has been pretty miserable, and was worried about going to church and telling everyone what happened, since it hurts to talk.  So I made him little business cards telling what happened, so he came to church, and would just give people a card, when they asked him what happened.  ( I wanted to take a picture of him, but he wouldn't let me)

I was in the kitchen earlier today and Samuel called urgently "help mom, help" and I came out of the kitchen and saw Samuel hanging by one hand, at the top of the stair railing, about ready to fall to the lower level of the house.  I quickly caught him before he fell, and he told me he wanted to slide down the railing but slipped, but caught himself with one hand.  Crazy boy

This video is of Caleb being a DJ.  Austin got this music maker toy for her birthday from her Grandma Kathy, and Caleb loves it

Austin and I made a deal with each other at the beginning of the year to try to be better about sharng our talents (after we had a lesson on "The Talents" parable).  We decided we would sing a duet together in church.  We sang a duet of I love to see the temple/Teach a Child.  We practiced every day, and even though we were both scared we sang our duet today in sacrament meeting.  It went really well, and everyone was quick to tell us they liked our song.    I'm really proud of Austin being so brave.

Caleb climbed on top of the treadmill

Caleb wants to get closer to the T.V.

Caleb got very close to the T.V.

Oops!  Caleb fell into the garbage

Mommy saying goodbye to Caleb before she goes to the Sweetheart's Ball with Travis

Austin looking Beautiful in the dress her Grandma Kathy gave her

I don't remember exactly how we got on the subject of different words for the butt, but Travis said "Hiney" and Betsy said "That's how you say it in french!"

This last weekend we had a big birthday party with Travis' Mom and her husband, and Travis' sister Maia and there family, and Travis' Aunt Nora and Uncle Nick, and his Grandma.  It was quite the full house, but it was fun seeing everyone and having a fun little birthday party. 

Caleb's first steps

Caleb took his first steps one week ago.  Travis, the kids, and I were all watching Caleb, and I would stand him up, and then he would take a couple little steps to Travis, and he would go back and forth between us.  Every time he would take some steps, everyone would clap and cheer for Caleb, and then he would grin and clap for himself.  It was a lot of fun!  Caleb is getting braver and braver, but is still only taking about 3 or 4 steps at a time.  He is very vocal and loves trying to talk to us.  He loves to head straight for the bathrooms, anytime we aren't paying attention, and he loves to empyt out drawers and cupboards.  He has four teeth, and is a great stair climber, up and down.  He still doesn't like to be babysat, but he does okay as long as he is at home, and Austin or Betsy is home too.  The past couple of weeks have been busy, but they usually are.  Travis and I were released from our calling as Sunday School teachers on Sunday, and have been called as Temple Patrons.  I'm so excited, we get to go to the temple every week.  We'll probably go seperatly most of the time, but hopefully once a month we'll get to go to the temple together.  I will miss teaching the Sunday School class, they were great kids.   Last week Samuel was really sweet.  The kids have been earning money by keeping their things picked up.  They start the week with two dollars in their jar, and if I have to pick up any toys, clothes, backpacks, or other belongings, or turn off their light, I take some money out of their jars.  It has really helped the kids keep their things picked up.  Samuel had earned a little over a dollar, so he really wanted to go to the dollar store, and by me a present.  I told him I would take him after school the next day.  So all day at preschool, he told everyone that he was going to the dollar store to buy me a present.  So I came and picked him up, and we drove to the dollar store.  I made sure he knew he only had enough money for one thing, and he said "yeah, I'm buying you a present".  So we went into the dollar store, and he told Caleb and I to wait by the door and not peek, so his present could be a suprise.  So he shopped around for a few minutes, and kept checking to make sure I wasn't peeking, and staying by the door, which I was.  Then he got in the line, and waited for his turn to check out.  When the cashier rang him up, she told him "that will be one dollar and seven cents.  Samuel hands her one penny and says, "here you go".  At this point I walked over and told Sam he needed to give her more than one penny, and helped him count out one dollar and seven cents.  I thought for sure he would throw a fit about having to give her most of his money, but he was fine with it, grabbed his package, and told me not to peek, and we left the store.  When we got home, he told me to wait in the living room, while he wrapped his present for me.  About ten minutes later, Samuel came in the room with a package completly covered in scotch tape, I think he used almost the entire thing.  He showed it too me, and then said he still needed to hide it and not to peek.  So I waited again, while he hid the present.  When he came back a looked at me for a while, then said "okay, go find it".  So I looked around, and he helped me find it, then had me try to open it, but there was so much tape, than he had to run and go get some scissors and cut it open.  Inside was a percalin heart-shaped, container filled with candies.  When I opened it up, Samuel looked at me and said "I wanted to give you this, because I love you so much, mommy" and than he gave me a big hug and kiss.  Such a sweet boy!  I love him too.

Joseph went with his scout group to go see William Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" at BYU and he was called up out of the audience as an extra.  He said he was in a lot of the scenes, and he actually had to get married, and said when he had to give the girl the engagement ring he was "blushing furiously", he said his favorite part was when he had to call another character a "meddling, dog-hearted, wagtail", and then he threatened him with a long knife. 

Samuel's hot tub, and new clothes

Caleb in his new green sweater his Grandma Hardy made for him

Samuel getting a massage

Samuel doing a tree pose (well at least he is trying)

Samuel doing the turtle pose

Samuel doing the fish pose

Samuel doing the alien pose (he made this one up)

Austin and Betsy in their new dresses from their Grandma Stevens

Caleb

Caleb and his silly Daddy

Samuel and his Mickey Mouse

Samuel getting ready to run

Caleb watching Samuel in his "hot tub"

Samuel in his "hot tub"

Yesterday, Samuel changed into his swimsuit and came and told me that he wanted to go swimming in the backyard.  I told him it was too cold, and that the hoses were closed for the winter.  So in response he dumped out his toy bin, and dragged it to the back porch, and had me help him dump warm water into it from the kitchen sink with water pitchers.(this took about 15 minutes)  Then I put the tea kettle on the stove full of water and every 10 minutes I would pour in a batch of boiling water.  Samuel stayed in his "hot tub" playing with his rubber ducks for about an hour and a half.  He loved it, and I was happy it kept him busy for so long.  Travis went to El Paso on Thursday to go to his interview for active duty chaplain, he drove there all day, had his interview friday morning, then drove to albuquerque, NM after lunch and went to the temple, and had dinner, he drove all night long, and arrived home at 6:30am, then proceeded to sleep for 8 hours.  I sure missed him while he was gone, and having a car.  I managed okay, but it sure wasn't easy.  We had a very boring New Year's Eve, we were all in bed by 9pm.  Travis and I were too tired to stay up late this year, but we did wake up when all the fireworks went off, and said "I love You" and kissed.  The kids were disappointed that they didn't get to stay up late. oh well, there's always next year.