Boys & Trees

In our case, they just go together, boys and trees. Austin loves to climb trees. He's always got his eyes open for trees that are climbable. He'll try his luck with a tree just about anywhere. It's not uncommon to see him making his way up trees just about everywhere we go.

He thought he'd hit the jackpot with this one. John came across this tree while running an errand in town last week and took us back so Austin could climb it.

Austin really enjoyed that. He wanted to keep going higher and certainly could have, but his Mama wanted him to stay close.

I'm so glad he loves trees. It's one of the many things I love about him.

Fun in the sun

There aren't many things that Cameron loves more than playing outside. These are a few snapshots I took of him playing out in the yard last week. He sure is growing up to be a fun little boy. I just wanna know where my baby disappeared to!

He's talking up a storm and loves to hang out with the big kids all the time. He will mimic almost anything we say and has a large vocabulary. He also says lots of things that don't make any sense to us at all though. It's really cute to hear him rattle off some long sentence that isn't the least bit recognizable. He acts like he's just telling us all kinds of valuable information, which I'm sure he is, and soon enough, we'll understand him all the time! I can't believe he'll be 2 years old in just 3 months. They've been good times though. We're all just as thrilled as ever that he joined our family. He lots of fun and we love him tons!

Invaded...

We have some visitors that have set up permanent residence at our house recently. They've become rather bothersome though and we'd really like them to leave. Who are they? Well, here are some clues...

They make a lot of noise at night, when they are hard at work tearing holes in our soffits and scratching at the walls.

You may think they're cute, I used to. )Then they decided to move in.)

They are raccoons and they seem to think they own the place!

AUGHHHH!!!!! These (assuming there are more than one, not positive.) are smarter than your average Joe raccoons too. They are like stinking geniuses. They're not falling for any of our tricks intended to lure them, scare them, trap them . . . get them OUT of our attic!

Apparently this is a common thing around here, raccoons in attics. They like to live in there. It's better than the trees, obviously. There is a good possibility that it's a mother and she's taking up residence for the purpose of giving birth. FANTASTIC! I learned that raccoons love to have their babies in the shelter and warmth, protection of attics. Then the babies are raised in there. They won't leave unless forced to do so. Good news for us, right?

We store lots of things in the attic above our garage and one day a while back while John was up there organizing some stuff, he decided to open a window for a little ventilation. The window had a screen, so he never thought it would be a problem.

Well, that was until we saw the big hole that was torn/chewed in the screen and began to connect the dots to the sounds that we thought we had heard. We closed the window that day and set up some traps.

It was when we closed the window that the coons got mad. Their point of entry and exit had been closed off, so they started looking for a new one. They did that by chewing, clawing, and tearing holes in the fascia at the roof line all around our house. I mean lots of holes. We knew it was happening one night when it was outside of our bedroom. How can you not know that it's happening when an animal is remodeling your ceiling with it's teeth and claws at 2 am? We visited them several times that night, with spot lights and other items,(paint ball gun) intended to scare them away. They weren't even phased by us. We tried to scare them off and get them to stop working every few minutes and then went back to bed. It was a long night. We didn't win the war. They tore stuff up and we assessed the damage in the morning. We have a lot of stuff to fix thanks to their handy work. Good times. I'm really not lovin' raccoons anymore. NOT cute after all.

What a week.

Man, it's been a long week. Time usually flies for me, but this past week was a long week. Not trying to be a whiner, it was just tiring. We were blessed with lots of love from friends though, and are so grateful for the food, balloons, cards, treats and other surprises that showed up on our doorstep, or in our mailbox. They truly made a rough week, so much better. Our family is so blessed to be loved by such wonderful people.

Brooke is actually recovering now and we have the pain med side effects under control. Whew! There were some worrisome days, so glad they've past. Cameron is almost over his nasty flu bug and will probably sleep through the night tonight. (here's hoping) After sleeping most of the weekend, John has almost kicked his flu and is back to being his helpful self again. It's just in time, since I'm coming down with a cold now and starting to feel rather worn down. Austin somehow stayed healthy amidst our germ haven and returned to school today. We are beginning to settle back into normal life around here.

Just when I was really feeling like life was wearing me down this past week, Easter came around. I love Easter. Easter was the perfect reminder of how blessed we are and what a wonderful life this is that we have been given. I love rejoicing in the Resurrection of our Savior. I love the hope and peace that I am blessed with, because of His atonement and resurrection. I love the celebration of new beginnings that accompanies the atonement. HE LIVES! He is always there for me. He will always help me through the struggles I face. He Loves me, no matter what. Celebrating that Love and hope was just what I needed this weekend and I'm so grateful for it.

We are beginning to settles back into normal life around here, and what a wonderful life it is.

Home at last

Leaving Mom and Dad, with our friend the anesthesiologist, and her little stuffed dog, pre-surgery.

Brooke is finally home and feeling much better. She was wonderful for her surgery, it went well and she was very brave, no tears at all going in. (Thanks to our friend Dr. Williams for the great piggy back ride to the o.r. at separation time!) her surgery was all done by noon on Thursday. Our surgeon/ENT came in and told us that it was good that we did the surgery, as her tonsils and adenoids were very enlarged, specifically the adenoid was huge. Let's hope that means much improved breathing for Brookie.

The challenges came after the surgery. She had an unexpected stay in the hospital after having trouble recovering from the anesthesia. She spent most of Thursday at the hospital throwing up anything & everything that we tried to give her. (water, Gatorade, juice, sprite, popsicles, soup, pain medicine...) After many hours of throwing up and not keeping her pain medicine down, the doctors admitted her to the hospital overnight. They needed to keep her on an IV so she didn't get dehydrated since she wasn't keeping any liquids down. We also needed to have the nausea under control before we could bring her home.

They switched up her pain medicine and tried several different drugs for anti-nausea. The 4th one finally worked. They gave that to her (via IV) about 11:00 Thursday night and it must have done the trick because the throwing up stopped and she finally kept her pain meds down during the night. She woke up much more like herself Friday morning and was able to eat and keep down some breakfast and liquids.

We got home yesterday afternoon and she has been resting pretty comfortably, on the road to recovery. The pain medicine seems to work well and she only hurts when it's about time for another dose. It has a few side effects which are sleepiness, intermittent nausea and itchiness. Other than that, we can't complain. And Brookie sure doesn't either. She has been such a good sport about everything. We woke her up twice during the night to give her some yucky tasting medicine and she just took it without a complaint. She's such a good girl and I'm so glad she'll be feeling much better soon.

We appreciate the help, love and support from so many friends and family. Thanks for caring about our little princess!

feelin the love

I was sure feelin' the birthday love today from my sweet family and so many great friends. It's great to be remembered and I loved all the nice cards, messages, calls, emails, etc. I felt very loved!

Not only did he keep Cameron so I could go off and get a pedicure and have girl time today, but John brought me some beautiful roses and cooked (& cleaned up) a nice dinner. Then he had some little helpers in the kitchen whipping up a surprise. Ta da! Here's the cake that my birthday fairies made for me this evening. And here's me, blowing out what looks like LOTS of candles, yet it wasn't even as many as were truly needed...yikes! Could we even fit any more candles on there?
Regardless, it was a tasty treat to end a great day.
Now I'm off to bed, we have a big day tomorrow.