Mini-Vacation & Other Family Pictures

Sorry this post is a few days late, but work this weekend was definitely CRAZY, and that's usually when I find the quiet time to blog. Trust me, I was disappointed too! But, here we are, and better late than never right?

As I mentioned in the last post, Sam had an upcoming business trip to Kansas (which he enjoyed by the way), and I made a hot date with my family in Idaho to try and stay sane. Turns out it actually worked (minus one really bad day) and I rather enjoyed spending time with my boys all by myself! I know that sounds kind of ridiculous, but seeing as I don't usually do a lot of the child care tasking at home, I was nervous about how I would handle everything. I admittedly only had to survive 4 days and a 5 hour car ride home all by myself, but I was pretty proud of how well I handled it--hopefully the boys would agree! Wouldn't want to do it full time or anything (definitely enjoy co-parenting a lot more lol) and I did have some help from my sister and her husband, but nevertheless it was satisfying to realize what I can handle when push comes to shove. The coolest part was probably getting to have a special relationship with Max for a few days--because when daddy is home, everyone else is pretty much shoved aside. Without the big guy around, I actually got to be the first choice recipient of his hugs and attention (we won't dwell on the gross diaper changes and vomit after choking on dinner lol). It made me look forward to the day when he realizes he can love mom and dad equally when we are both around (I have to assume that day will come seeing as how Jayson went through the same phase). I was pretty busy chasing the boys around to get many pictures of our mini-vacation, but here are a couple I managed to snap, for your viewing pleasure :]

This was near the end of our bad day, in case the expression on my face didn't give that away. Max had been playing outside in the backyard unsupervised (for a whole three minutes lol), where Jayson and Mayce had ever so kindly made mud with the garden hose. I was trying to get dinner prepped for my kids, when next thing I know one of the older kids is hollering that Max was eating mud. Needless to say he got a bath RIGHT after the picture!

 On our last day in Idaho we went to the Boise Aquarium. Well, all of the not in school kids anyway. Not anything overly amazing to rave about in my opinion, except for the ray and shark tank (not only do you get to feed them, you can touch them)! However, the kids thought it was pretty swell. This was my best attempt at a group photo shot. Clearly I will not be hired for a photography business anytime soon lol,

Max was pretty sure he was guardian of the stroller/purses on our outing. That is, when he wasn't trying to drink the water out of the tanks that you could touch fish in. Seriously, I am learning more and more how gross little boys are! :p

We finally got our family pictures back on a CD in the mail, the day before we left for Idaho! Between being gone and then going back to work, I had hardly looked at them until tonight. Can I just tell you guys how much I love my 33 pictures? I seriously want to slap them all up on here, but that would take up way too much space, so I will try to choose a select few to share. Disappointed with Google Drive for making these pictures so grainy on the blog here, because they look a lot better in person. Oh well. And thanks again to Jenny Fowler for taking these awesome shots :]

Guess they do share some of my genetics after all lol

Couldn't share one of me and the boys without giving you a comparison of Sam and the little guys :]

Honestly isn't that too precious??

Love the skip in Max's step here!

Love this handsome guy to death, and then some :] Also can I just say that I was having the perfect hair day here, which NEVER happens (the hair gods were clearly smiling on me haha).

I waited until the very end of the photo shoot to try for this shot, and the boys were so clearly done taking pictures (my fault in planning). But, I really wanted to get a shot with the teddy bear, and at least it kind of worked out. It was a little bittersweet for me when I was planning out logistics for our family pictures this time, because we were supposed to be a family of five by now. Life definitely does go on, but I never forget my sweet baby girl Zoey, so it was nice to include her in the photo shoot in a small way. 

And just in case I haven't put up a big enough barrage of pictures, here are a few from us trying on Halloween costumes Sunday night (can't believe it's only a month away)!

Max had two costume choices this year: raccoon or giraffe. He absolutely fell in love with the giraffe costume, and I have to admit he is pretty darn adorable in it! Hard to believe that Jayson wore that costume just last year....

Jayson didn't really have much of a choice in the costume box this year (the disadvantage of being the older brother lol). We got this soldier costume as a hand me down from my sister's youngest son, and I have to say that Jayson took to it a lot better than I thought he would. We actually had a big fight about him taking it off before eating dinner (I'm taking no chances of him ruining it!), so I'm thinking it will work out just fine this year. 

For the first time in what feels like all summer, I don't think we have any big plans these next two weeks! Maybe because it's finally fall LOL. However, I have high hopes to attack the house during my week off and get some good deep cleaning done before the weather gets all cold and miserable. Also, I think it's in the books to try and have as much fun as possible with the kids outside before that's not as feasible. Have a great few weeks!

Holidays & Celebrations

Sometimes I feel like two weeks is almost too long to go without writing anything, because I practically forget what happened "so long ago" and have to stare at the calendar and rack my brain desperately! However, it's better than nothing, so here's what I remember for the past 14 or so days :]

Max had his follow up "surgery" on Monday the 25th, and was a real trooper for the whole event. I say "surgery" because they didn't exactly operate on anything; they just put their nice flexible endoscope down his throat to check and make sure that the laryngeal cleft repair done a few months back had healed appropriately. The procedure only took about an hour, and the doctor came out and told us that everything appeared to have healed up nicely from the previous surgery, and that he really had no explanation as to why Max would still be having trouble with swallowing thin liquids. He recommended a follow up swallow study in six months to see if he was making any additional progress at that point, and pretty much told us to just manage his symptoms. While it is a huge relief to be done with constant doctor appointments and surgeries, I just really wish that the outcome of all this craziness would have been him being able to drink/eat normally (well, as normal as a CSID kid can lol). It's very frustrating to constantly have to make him up batches of thickened liquids to have available wherever we go, as well as having his special straw sippy cup all the time. Even water by itself is off limits now! He can't eat any food that gets too thin when your saliva dissolves it, because his airway rather loudly lets us know that he can't cope with it. This can really put a damper on any attempt toward a well balanced diet, which actually frustrates Max as much as us I think. But I will say, overall it is a better situation than the feeding tube, so I can't complain too loudly. The good news too is that Max really doesn't mind the texture of thickened liquids, and is quite happy to sip down a drink from his cup. And we have noticed how much better he sounds when we carefully monitor the liquids in his diet, and that's a gratifying feeling (for all of us I imagine). So I guess we continue this course for at least another six months and hope for the best.

Max REALLY wanted to wear those gloves.....maybe he will follow in mommy's footsteps and work in a lab?? :]

The next day was my studly husband's birthday, and he turned 27 this year :] Not sure how happy that makes him, but I love birthdays, so we are going to pretend that it's a good thing. We didn't do much on his actual birthday because it was near the end of my week on, but he did get to buy himself a brand new KitchenAid mixer that was desperately needed in our house....I know THAT made him happy! The Saturday after his birthday I treated him to a fancy four-course murder mystery dinner and got the kids a babysitter. Well actually, my good buddy Cortney hooked us up with a baby sitter (NEVER try to find one on Labor day weekend last minute!!) and she along with her hubby doubled for the dinner. It was even more fun going with friends, definitely recommend both the dinner and good company! This was the first time we had ever left the kids with a non-family member babysitter, and I was kinda nervous, but everything went fantastic and it really hit home to me that Sam and I have GOT to get out and date more......even if we have to pay a good babysitter every now and then. I can't believe that I didn't get any pictures of the murder mystery (especially because we were all spiffied up!) but I did get one of the birthday boy on his actual special day, so that kind of makes up for it, right?

Why do little boys never want to wear clothes?? Also, I love how Gidgett photobombed this picture lol.

By some crazy miracle, all four of us had Labor Day off: The plant was closed at Sam's work, it was during my 7 off, and the daycare wasn't open for the boys..........so we planned a fun day together! Max tried to thwart it by waking up with goopy, sealed shut eyes, but a semi-quick trip to the pediatrician's office got him fixed up pretty good (they figured it was probably just viral but prescribed us eye drops in case anyway). We visited the Children's Museum to see the Bob the Builder exhibit one more time before it left, and I somehow managed to miss getting a picture of them playing in that exhibit. I did manage to get a picture of them fighting in the toy airplane outside though, winner moment there haha :p When my kids got too cranky to stand anymore, we packed them in the car and had dinner at Golden Corral with Nonnie and Granny M. It was so nice having more adults than kids at the buffet....I think we actually had half a chance to eat this time! Plus the boys were absolutely ravenous from playing so hard that they actually took some time to eat as well (usually they pick at their plates for a few minutes at a buffet, and then want to run around the restaurant like crazy children). Overall, we had a great vacation day together, and I wish we had more times together like that!

Why get along when you can fight over every toy, right?

On Wednesday, since it was my last day off (and I wanted the boys to have a chance to get in one more visit by themselves with the grandmas) we went to the zoo after naptime! Learned a valuable lesson about the zoo though: if you go at 3 o'clock, the only animals out and about are the elephants and seals. Thankfully, that seemed to be enough for my kids to enjoy, but if I didn't have a season pass I would have been super bummed out! It was also very hot, and after about an hour and a half, Jayson complained of a stomachache, so we headed home. Pretty sure he was just dehydrated a little, and wanted to ride in the stroller. Silly boy, but it worked. We still did have some fun though, and I'm glad we went :]

Jayson saw a little girl hugging the otter, and all of a sudden HAD to get his picture taken with the magic otter. Power of persuasion right?

In a desperate attempt to not leave the zoo, Max climbed onto the giant bear statue and parked it. Good thing they run cold water through the bear so you don't get fried from sitting on it!

On Saturday all of my boys got to go to a superhero party! One of my coworker's sons turned 4, so a celebration was quite in order. Apparently everyone had an awesome time; I was at home sleeping, enjoying the big downside to working graveyards. You know, missing out on life. Ah well. Sam said that Jayson loved the superhero obstacle course, but kept trying to clean it up and put it away. Max spent the majority of his time trying to swipe sweets that would make him sick as a dog. So all in all the usual haha. Here are some fun pictures from the party that Sam took:

Max enjoying a good swing :]

Jayson enjoying the swing too.

And of course, loving the trampoline!

The other fun thing was getting to see cousins both weekends! Audrey, Cadence, and Adelaide came to visit us two Saturdays ago and everyone had a great time, as far as I could tell. Max only sat on a twin once by accident, so overall a good playdate lol. He is definitely not used to younger kids than him in his house (or really even in his daycare class anymore), so being careful is not exactly in his nature! This past weekend the Marler cousins stayed at our house so they could go to one of their Utah cousins' baptisms. We didn't see a whole lot of them on Friday or Saturday, but the kids got to play together all morning on Sunday, and my little guys were in heaven (Jayson especially--he and Mayce just adore doing stuff together). Means I didn't get a whole lot of sleep, but hey, it's overrated right??

Not much to report on the job seeking hunt for Boise. I kind of blew it with the last job I applied for, so lesson learned: take the job they offer you and don't try to champion for the better position that may or may not be open. I've tried applying a few other places, but no bites yet. Sam will probably start trying to look for jobs now, but I'm not as optimistic about him easily finding a job....or moving anymore. Still want to; just have to see if it's going to be what works out. Sigh.

Busy next two weeks for us coming up (but when aren't we busy??) Sam is going on a business trip for a part of my next week off, so the little boys and I are going to have some fun in Idaho! Hope everyone has a good next couple of weeks like we are going to (that's the power of positive thinking there lol).