Finishing up July

As I was driving back from visiting Brigham at the hospital I came upon this storm.  I was fascinated with the two little white clouds in front of the darker clouds.  I actually watched them grow bigger.  It was just a cool picture to share.

 Bump had to work on Pioneer Day (July 24th).  It's a Utah state holiday and many people have it off.  Instead he took the day before off so that we could have our 6 month dental check up in Tremonton with Uncle Darin.  After the checkup we decided to head just a few miles further outside of Tremonton to Promontory, Utah where the Golden Spike monument is.  We hit it at the perfect time when they were just getting ready to park the trains for the night.  It was fun to see the trains up close and watch them move down the track.  They are exact replicas of the original trains that met in Promontory and joined the East and West coasts by train.  One is a coal burning engine and the other is a wood burning engine.

Our kids are at great ages where they are fascinated with these historical areas and loved exploring the museum and seeing how the trains worked.  It was a really great trip!  I'm glad we took the time to stop.

 Update on our cat, Fly.  She and Fin are best friends and they get along great.  She is a feisty, mean cat that had better be a good mouser, but we love her and are really glad that we got her.  Funny.  I never thought we would ever get a cat and now I realize that they aren't so bad.  Cats are easy!

Yesterday Corban had an early birthday check up with Doctor Allred.  He is retiring tomorrow.  It's funny how having a good doctor for your kids really puts your mind at ease.  His daughter Emily was one of my best friends in high school and I have always felt close to him because of that.  But my real love for him came when I had Gabby in the NICU and asked him to be my pediatrician.  He was a comfort to me because of his experience and openness with what was taking place.  He checked on her daily and would always call me and let me know where she was at.  He would check each of my kids ears and throat when one would come in sick, just so I wouldn't have to make a separate trip back.  He listened to my concerns and trusted my feelings about my kids.  He never over reacted to issues and kept me calm and at ease in every situation.  I will miss him so much.   I am so grateful to him for being there for me and my kids.

Brigham Jared Wright

I had to do a post all about this little guy.  I stole these pictures from Casi's facebook page mostly.  This little guy is the reason that I have got to spend so much time with his brothers and sisters this summer.  Jared and Casi have had such a roller coaster ride dealing with having a preemie with additional issues. It seems like just when things are going well and he seems to be progressing something happens and he gets sick or takes a turn and things go down hill for a bit.

 

After Brig got sick and they thought he had RSV the kids weren't allowed to see him any more.  But Brig's bed is right by a window, so Jared and Casi go permission to let the kids see their brother through the window.  This is the first time that the boys got to see Brig.

Casi's friend was able to come and take some nice pictures of him in the hospital.

  

I think that little onesie is just perfect!

Here's one example of Brig becoming so sick that they had to do a spinal tap to see if he had meningitis.  He didn't and they didn't know what was up with him.  His white blood cell count was really down and nobody could figure out what was wrong.

Then he went from that to doing great and being completely off of oxygen for a few days.  This is what he looked like when I went to see him a week ago last Sunday.  He was eating good and growing and it looked like he would be home before too much longer.

Then he got sick again.  He had to go back on oxygen and wasn't eating well.

The doctors decided that it must be related to his heart and decided to transfer him to Primary Children's Hospital and prep him for heart surgery.  Here he is going for his first car ride.  Wide awake and looking around at everything.

Jared and Casi's roller coaster is not over yet.  When he got to Primary Children's the doctors decided he didn't need heart surgery yet and not only that but they decided to go ahead and send Brig home.  They discharged him on Saturday and he is now home with his family.  Jared and Casi are still in shock that he is actually home and wonder what will happen next.  His white blood cell count is still low, but we keep praying and hopefully this little boy will bulk up and stay strong so he can stay home where he should be.

YIP Week 25 - 26

The first two weeks of July

July was a terrible month for taking pictures, so I am just playing catch up now and putting a few things down that happened.  We always love the 4th of July.  This year was not our usual group and I didn't get a group picture this time.  Jeremy and Jen stayed in Kaysville since Keaton was in their parade for Student Council.  Jared and Casi obviously wanted to stay close to home and be able to spend time with Brig at the hospital.  So we had Tracy and Steve with no kids and Bump's cousin Annalee and her 3 boys come and watch the parade with us.  Ann and her boys stayed for the day and we had a BBQ and just chilled.  The boys didn't want to leave, so Ann took off and the boys ended up spending the night and playing video games.  Bump drove them home in the morning on his way to work.

 That same day after driving Ann's boys home we had a really big rain storm.  We have needed rain for a long time and it was a welcome relief.  But since it hadn't rained in well over a month there was a lot of oil from the road in the water on the roads.  Bump ended up hydroplaning in the Saturn and slammed into the side of the freeway and totalled the car.  The Saturn has been good to us.  It had 240,000 miles on it and was 12 years old.  We knew that it was going to die on us at any time.  I'm thankful that Bump wasn't hurt.

So, the next week we ended up getting our new car.  Welcome Mr. Mazda 3 to the family.  We ended up getting a really great deal on this brand new car and it is Bump's affordable dream car.  He has hands free Bluetooth features and a great Bose sound system.  Plus it gets over 40 miles per gallon and one fill up lasts 500 miles, so it's great for his commute.  He is happy with it and I am happy that he's in a safe car that he loves.

We have discovered over the last month of having cousins over at our house for long periods of time that Ed has a thing for shoes and gloves.  Every time I see him he is in a different pair of shoes.  Today he chose Quincy's church sandals and they fit him perfectly.  He was looking pretty cute with his girly sandals, army vehicle and cordless drill.  I love this kid!

It's always a challenge figuring out something that all the kids will like and eat for dinner.  Tonight I made Cauliflower and Wisconsin Cheddar soup.  The kids ate it up and most of them even had seconds.  Oh yeah!  Whose the queen of the kitchen?  Me.

YIP Week 24

June 24th - July 1st

We have been trying to integrate our chicks into the flock and it hasn't been going very well.  We are finally just letting them be and hope they can fend for themselves.  Well, any time Bump walks by the chicken coop this little girl, MaryAnn, flies right up to him and lands on his shoulder to escape.  It's always a surprise and pretty funny to watch.

The primary elections were on Tuesday.  I love that I get to vote.  We have a guy in our ward (he's Bump's first counselor in Young Men's) that is running for a seat in the state house of representatives.  I love voting when people I know personally are involved.

We had a few more days of cousin time this week.  I usually end up taking Jared's kids for a few days at a time during the week.  Today the kids played in the new sprinkler toy that Grandma Wright left for them.  It was a hit!  I don't know what my kids will do when they don't get to see their cousins as often as they have been able to this summer.

Friday morning we left for Currant Creek Reservoir to meet up with the McMillans and camp for the weekend.  It has become a yearly tradition now and it is so much fun!  The fishing didn't seem as fast as last year when we camped earlier in the season, but everyone caught fish still.  Here is Quincy's giant fish.  She was the first one to catch anything.

I came up to meet everyone along the shore after dropping the boat trailer and saw this beautiful picture of Bump and some of the kids in the drift boat.  It was perfection.

 Everyone had a good time fishing.  Here is CJ and Sierra.

CJ and Corban

Bump making Gabby kiss her fish before she released it.

The nice thing about camping with the McMillans is that Jen makes everything so much fun for the kids.  She reminds me of my mom.  This year she brought some face paint and the older girls painted the younger girls faces.  She also brought some cupcakes for the kids to decorate like cookie monster.  They were darling and the kids had so much fun.  She also had fruit loop necklaces for each of the kids to make and snack on while they were fishing.  She is a great mom and made this trip so much fun for all the kids.

One thing that's fun about the McMillans is that each of my kids has a buddy to hang out with.  

Gabby and Sierra.

 Quincy and Skye

 Corban and Carter

YIP Week 23

June 17th - 23rd

These two awesome people came into town for the week.  They made the quick trip down from Washington to help Jared and Casi by watching their kids.  Lucky for me I got to see them every day.  They would come and let the kids play together and hang out with me!  It was a great week.

On Tuesday we got together with my sister-in-law Tricia and her kids and met up at the zoo.  It was so fun to spend the day at the zoo with so many cousins!  Of course I don't have many great pictures of the day and I am missing pictures of everyone there, but here are a few at least.

One of the days while the kids were playing and my parents were here Quincy face planted it on the tile floor in the kitchen.  She had a really nice cut on the inside of her lip and her top lip was swollen for a few days.  Luckily Grandma was there to hold her while she sucked on some ice.  Casi said that Ed and Lewis were very concerned about Quincy when they got home later that day.  They told her all about it.

Some wonderful news from overseas. . . these guys are all back together again.  This week Erick came home to Germany after being in Afghanistan for a year.  I am so happy for Tera and the kids.  Glad he's safe and they are a happy family all together again.  Now we just need to get them back to the USA so we can see them more!

On Friday I took the kids to hang out at Lee and Tricia's house.  My mom brought Jared and Casi's kids out too for some more cousin time.  Dallin and McKenna caught some crawfish and were busy cleaning them and prepping them for the cooking pot.  It was their first time dealing with crawfish and they had no clue what they were doing.  It was funny to watch and they sure made a mess.