A 5 Month Old

A five month old! He is growing so fast. Ryker has the cutest little rolls, the best smile, and an infectious laugh. He is a professional at rolling over and always wants to be on the move. He is trying so hard to crawl but can't get his arms underneath him and just ends up scooting his face across the floor and getting really mad. He has started to put everything in his mouth.

A Surgery

Jax has snored pretty much since the day he was born. I had mentioned to our pediatrician that he wasn't sleeping through the night and she asked if he snored and that he probably needed that checked out. It never occurred to me that a snoring baby wasn't normal. We just thought it was cute. After the visit to the ENT he determined that Jax's adenoids should come out. Jax has had surgery before but its always kind of a nerve wracking thing, at least for this Momma, especially when the doctor tells you he can't see anything wrong, but that is what the symptoms point to. Are we doing this surgery for nothing? We had to be to the hospital before seven. One of those instances of hurry up and wait. The doctor only does surgery once a month so there were a lot of little kids in the same boat as us. Jax thought his tiger gown was cool and he is always excited when he gets to watch Disney channel. Ryker was pretty chill through the whole process. As the morning went on the nurses were bringing kids out of recovery back to their parents but they all had a hoarse hysterical cry and it broke my heart. Then it was Jax's turn to go back and of course he cried as the nurse took him away. So much trauma for Mom (more so for Jax). After about a half hour the nurse came to give us an update. She said his adenoids were the biggest she had seen, also he was in recovery. A little later the doctor came in and said they were the biggest adenoids he had ever seen and that Jax should be able to breathe much better after the swelling from the surgery went down. Good news! He never seemed to have a problem with breathing other than the snoring but at least the surgery was needed and everything went well. A little while later I heard Jaxon (with a hoarse, barking cry) coming down the hall. He did not want to be comforted. He kept grabbing at the pulse/ox monitor on his toe, the IV in his arm, and his gown, and tried to tear them all off. He felt a little better after we took his gown and the pulse/ox off but he was still pretty sad and disoriented. I think he didn't like how the anesthesia made him feel. It was a battle to get him to eat or drink anything so we could go home. He slept the whole way home and some Darth Vader and Tinkerbell rest and relaxation had him smiling again. Now the only trick is how to keep our active little guy calm for a few days to heal up?  

Epic Sprinkler Battle

Wyoming goes from pretty cool weather straight to hot weather and we don't have air conditioning so for a good three months its pretty miserable at our house. Needless to say we spend a good amount of time outside playing in the water until the mosquitoes chase us back in. The other day Jax was having an epic battle with the sprinkler. He would run in take a few swings then scream and run away. He and I were entertained for a good long while. He had some pretty great Jedi poses. I sure love this little warrior of mine. 

How Does Your Garden Grow

 My Mom loves flowers. Her garden is always very beautiful and I love to look at it but growing up that always meant that every spring we would have to weed and spend night after night planting flowers. I did not love that. I always swore when I grew up and had a house of my own I would keep everything simple and minimalist and then I moved to New Mexico. There was hardly any grass (people had turf), nothing green (people had fake flowers in their planters!) and I actually missed mowing the lawn. I swore when we moved from New Mexico I would have a lawn but still keep the landscaping super simple. Then we moved to Wyoming and I got my lawn! Its got a lot of crab grass and does not look fantastic but we are working on it. The first summer we pulled out a lot of ugly bushes and got rid of some trees to make room for a vegetable garden. Without the bushes the flower beds looked a little sad so the next year we planted some tulips, lilies, and irises, which I love but they are all spring blooming flowers. So I broke down and planted some pansies and marigolds (which remind me of my Mom). This year we worked on our last big flower bed which was over run with weeds and only had spring flowers and was driving me crazy with its ugliness. The goal is to plant enough perennials that I don't ever have to plant flowers again so we got some flowering bushes that will hopefully make our yard beautiful next year after they have grown a little. I know have a yard that I'm not embarrassed for my parents to see and it turns out I have more of my Mom in me than I thought :). 

Jax and Ryker were my garden helpers. Jax had a little shovel and would come help me dig sometimes but mostly he "hunted" the kitty next door. Ryker was a good supervisor. 

Hogle Zoo

Last weekend we went down to Utah to go to Hogle Zoo. I've decided that we live too far away from everything to do weekend trips anymore. This will last about as long as it takes for me to get stir crazy at home :) Jaxon went to bed late and woke up early so he was pretty cranky for the zoo. They had animatronic dinosaurs that Jax liked more than the animals. He was both equally scared and fascinated by them especially the one that spit water at us. It was pretty funny. He did love the elephants. The carousel and splash pad area were definitely his favorite. Next time I think we will head to Lagoon. Luke and my favorite part was the bird show. They had parrots, hawks, owls, and doves that soared inches from your head. Pretty cool. 

 

My cousin Connor works at a Colombia store outlet so Luke and I went to check out what they had. I finally found a warm winter coat and Luke found some shorts to replace the ones he melted holes in crashing down the alpine slide years ago. Victory!

My cousin Jacob had his mission farewell so we went there before heading home. Its always fun to see family. They had a luncheon afterwards and during the prayer Jax started singing "Shake Your Booty." I was dying laughing. Fortunately I was the only one who could understand him. I love my silly little guy.