1st tooth and construction in our own backyard

Alegra's first tooth poked through in the middle of the night last night. It is her bottom right tooth (looking at her). She loves to chatter and take and babble now, I think she can finally hear herself alot better so she is just talking away.

We woke up to an excavator in our backyard this morning. It is pretty exciting at our home. A digger, a skidster, and a dump truck! Pretty cool. We are having a neighbor/landscaper help us dig the hole to put the trampoline in and level out the ground where the play set is going to sit. I didn't really realize what a big job it is!

Shawn stayed home for a little bit this morning to make sure everything was going smooth with the construction. Cruz and Shawn took the opportunity to get some good photos on the digger.
Cruz on his own digger working hard!
Cruz on the REAL thing!

Primary Children's Hospital at Riverton

Alegra had her tubes put in today. She had her surgery at Primary Children's Hospital at Riverton. I was extremely impressed with the facility, the nurses, and the doctors. I have to admit I was pretty nervous this morning. We arrived at the hospital at 6 a.m. She had her procedure done at 7:30 a.m., and we were on the road by 8:30 a.m. Alegra did so well. She didn't cry when the doctor took her for surgery and she really didn't cry when she was waking up from being under. She was hungry and I nursed her right away. It was only 15 minutes I was away from her but I was so happy to have her back in my arms. I am just so thankful that this is our first time at Primary Childrens and hopefully we won't have to go back! Cruz wasn't allowed at the facility so daddy stayed home with Cruz.

Alegra is 7 months old today!

I can't believe how fast time flies, especially with number 2! Some things about Alegra:
-She goes down for bed between 7 and 8 p.m. and then I wake her up around 10 p.m., she usually makes it until 5 or 6 a.m., eats, and then goes back to bed until 7 or 8 a.m. Some mornings she is up at 6 but I like it when she falls back to sleep :)
-She doesn't have a nap schedule like Cruz did when he was this age, luckily she is flexible. She usually has a morning nap and an afternoon nap and she pretty much just dropped that 5 p.mish cat nap. One of those naps is usually on the longer side, like 1 to 2 hours. Today though, someone (I won't name names) kept waking her up!!!!!
-Most of the time if she is not too tired I can put on her mobile at night and she will fall asleep watching and listening to it.
-She is chewing on things and drooling, but so far no teeth.
-She really likes to roll all over the place, she can roll from front to back, back to front, and every which way. It is amazing how far she can move in a room from where I left her
-She can sit up on her own. She is getting better and better at this and I actually put her in a high chair at McDonalds and she did pretty well.
-She is still nursing and she nurses about every 3 to 4 hours. She usually nurses 6 times throughout the day.
-She eats rice cereal, oatmeal, fruits, and/or veggies 3 times a day too.
-She is not too much of a fussy eater, she likes to eat, and usually eats anything I put in her mouth!
-She is nice a chunky, and I LOVE THAT! She has these chunky little legs that I just love to hold!
-She just started figuring out how to pull the bows and headbands out of her hair!
-She laughs at Cruz no matter what (even when I caught him literally stepping on her)!
-She is usually pretty good natured and goes with the flow
-When she is tired she usually has this moan from the back of her throat rather than a full blown cry, it is kind of funny.
-She pretty much will still go to anyone too (besides that 1 week time period when she didn't like my mom, but she probably had one of her many ear infections at the time)
-She is going in for surgery on Friday to get tubes.
-She has had 6 ruptured right ears drums and at least 1 infection in the left ear that I know of. Lets hope those numbers diminish.
-She really likes her toy giraffe Sofie, and so does Cruz.
-She likes to kick at this bar of toys that is over her stroller.
-She loves to jump in her jumperoo

We love our Alegra girl!

Happy Fathers Day!

Cruz made some wonderful pictures for Shawn for his Fathers Day. We also bought daddy some yummy dark chocolate bars, gu for riding his bike, and some Cliff blocks for riding his bike too! Shawn was able to get a pretty long ride in early in the morning on Fathers Day, all of Big Cottonwood Canyon and most of Little Cottonwood Canyon. We then went to church together as a family and then we all went back up Big Cottonwood Canyon to spend some time together and eat dinner. We hope you had a great day dad! You deserve it! Thanks for being such a good daddy to Cruz and Alegra.

Swingin'

Love these two!

Cruz with his favorite guitar hat on.

Alegra scratched her face today, ouch!

Tubes for Alegra

After meeting with the Ear, Nose, Throat Specialist yesterday, Dr. Kelly, we have decided to go ahead and have Alegra get tubes. Her surgery is scheduled for Friday June 25th. Please keep her and the doctor in your prayers! Dr. Kelly hadn't really seen a baby come in that had so many ruptures in such a short period of time. He has seen lots of babies with several ear infections, but not so many ruptures. Another reason he thought it would be a good idea for her is that she still has fluid in both ears which is affecting her hearing, and that is after taking extreme measures with shots of antibiotics to heal her ears. I don't want it to affect her speech down the road. Also, Dr. Kelly said usually children who have ear infections/ruptures continue on that same path until they are about 2. I can't have her suffer that pain every few weeks! She might still get ear infections with the tubes but she definitely should not get as many and they shouldn't be as severe, and hopefully Dr. Kelly said we could just treat them with drops instead of all these antibiotics.

Update on Alegra

I took Alegra to Dr. Pete yesterday afternoon. He was shocked to see us because when he checked her right ear the week before it looked like it was clearing up. He checked and he said it was definitely infected. Then he checked the left ear and informed me that the left ear was super infected too! 2 ear infections, poor girl! Since neither of the 2 antibiotics have worked and she has actually picked up an ear infection (in the left ear) being on one of the antibiotics, he decided to go the strongest route. Alegra is getting a series of 3 shots. She had one Monday, we had one today, and the third is tomorrow. It is a powerful dose of antibiotic, and hopefully this will clear her ears up. Dr. Pete also gave us a referral to an Ear, Nose, Throat Doctor. I was very happy to find that Dr. Pete referred his patients to a Dr. Kelly. I have been doing some research and I have heard nothing but the best about him. And I know we are being taken care of right now because when I called Dr. Kelly's office today they had a cancellation for tomorrow, so we get to go in tomorrow. Usually Dr. Kelly is booked pretty far out even with a referral. We will find out tomorrow if he thinks we should go ahead with tubes or what our next step is. I just can't believe how happy Alegra has basically been with a double ear infection.

Cruz's group swimming class

Cruz had his first group swimming class at Swim Kids today. I don't know if you can call it a group because it is just him and another little boy. The other boy's name is Oliver and he is almost 4. The boys are both about the same level but they have strengths in different areas. We decided to go with a group class because I can pay the same as a private lesson but he gets 15 minutes longer, so his lesson is 30 minutes long. I was very impressed with the teacher, so I hope they get her this whole summer. She has her hands full though, both boys are very active and both want to do their own thing. About half way through the lesson another teacher that I really like had down time so she took Cruz and worked with him. Near the end of his lesson she took him down towards the diving board. Cruz LOVES the diving board. When he got out he started running toward the diving board. Lenny, the teacher, is very firm with him and I totally appreciate it. She yelled and it him and told him to come back to her and WALK to the diving board. Cruz walked so slowly he looked like a snail. All of the parents in the pool area were laughing so hard, I couldn't even look at him because I was laughing too hard, Mr. drama! I am hoping this will be good for Cruz. These teachers definitely pushed him harder than he has been pushed in a long time swimming and by the end of the class he was having a hard time listening and paying attention, but I think this will be good!

I love how friendly kids are. Cruz and Oliver seemed like best friends after the lesson, even though they hardly talked, and Cruz invited Oliver over to our house.

This picture cracks me up. I took Cruz with me to the post office to pick up some mailing material. I had picked up a stack of stickers that you write your name on. I think I got a phone call when I was getting Cruz into the car and I must have put the stickers within his reach. Needless to say, when I got off the phone and pulled into the driveway, this is how I found Cruz, stickers all over the place! I know I should have been mad but it just made me laugh!

Little Cottonwood Creek

Cruz our little worker man loves to help out!


Little Cottonwood Creek, that basically runs through our neighborhood, hit record levels Sunday night and Monday. To say the least, everyone has been on edge. It was the perfect storm.....very warm temperatures over the weekend to melt the snow and a total downpour Sunday night. The combination made a raging creek/river, seriously! Cruz and Shawn walked up to the end of the neighborhood and helped fill sandbags last night. I think most of the houses in our area are o.k., but the creek actually flows all the way through town and in many areas people are having some serious flooding issues. Cruz likes to tell you about Little Cottonwood Creek though, and how a policeman told him to not get too close. Actually I am very scared of that, so I haven't taken him anywhere near it. One of my favorite trails (because it is so convenient for us), Temple Quarry, is closed right now. I am anxious to go up it when it opens to see the damage....it is really crazy how powerful water is!

Swan Valley and more ear problems with Alegra

Shawn's parents left on Tuesday in the evening and on Wednesday the kids and I packed up and headed up to Swan Valley with Grammy Raddon and Aunt Rebecca. Rebecca is studying for the GMAT right now and job hunting, so she was able to go with us. We kind of wanted to get the house ready for summer. On Thursday my mom and I worked like crazy in the yard trying to get it weeded, get the swing set up, and put the trampoline up. Cruz had a blast playing with Casey and on the swing set. Alegra was such a little gem and sleep most of the day. I am glad I felt like we accomplished a lot on Thursday because I got the stomach flu late Thursday night/early Friday morning. Boy, that flu took me out for a solid 24 hours, I hardly had the strength to even nurse Alegra. I guess it was a good day to be sick, if there is a good day to be sick, because it poured down rain the whole day in Swan Valley and I had my mom and sister to help with the kids. Luckily I woke up feeling much better on Saturday morning. My mom continued cleaning the deck furniture, grill, deck, and we worked on the garage together. Shawn was going to come up late Saturday night with my Uncle Bud, but by 3:00 Bud called Shawn and told him he couldn't make it up to Swan Valley because he was up all night at the hospital with a kidney stone. The girls and Cruz (and Cruz really likes to tell you who is a girl and who is a boy) decided to head back to Salt Lake. We cleaned up the rest of the cabin and we were on the road by 6:30 p.m. It was a quick, interesting trip! To top the trip off though Alegra was kind of fussy all afternoon and I kind of thought maybe she was getting the flu I had. She really screamed for about the first 45 minutes of the trip (at that point I kind of thought we were crazy for leaving but when I initially thought about it I thought they would sleep most of the ride home). Luckily she did end up falling asleep. When we got home around 11 p.m., I checked her right ear and there was fluid coming out, she ruptured her right ear drum AGAIN. Poor thing, no wonder she was screaming. Fluid and gunk continued to leak out all day today. I have a call into my doctor and hopefully I get a call back first thing in the morning. This is the 6th right ear rupture in 6 weeks. She has been on amoxillan and the next stronger antibiotic, seriously with both antibiotics, within 48 hours of taking the last dose, she gets another ear rupture.

It is official, Alegra is sitting!

Today is the official day that Alegra is sitting on her own. Don't get me wrong, she still falls backwards and to the side, but she can sit all by herself (especially with a toy out in front of her) for atleast 30 seconds, if not longer. Good job little lady! She is getting so big and she has the cutest little personality. She was a gem this weekend!

A Hike, Fly Fishing, Etc.

Grandma Frye made Cruz a quilt for his big boy bed to match the wall hanging she made him when he was born.

I thought Cruz would be exhausted after a big beginning to his Memorial Day but that little energizer kept on going. He played on his swing set, worked on fly fishing with grandpa, and took Grandpa and Grandma Frye up the Temple Quarry trail some. Cruz loves his swing set and he is always trying to rescue baby penguins (don't ask me where that came from) and watching out for Shark attacks.

Hike
Fishing
Eating a big bowl of ice cream after an exhausting day. Cruz is wearing his fireman hat the firefighters gave him at the race today. That was like the best gift EVER! He wore it around the house and outside ALL day, and he got so upset when the string broke, I have promised to fix it though.

Intermountain Cup Race in Draper Utah

Cruz at the start line
When the announcer said, "go", Cruz was turned around looking at something else. In my head I thought he would stay at the start line forever looking at whatever he saw, but once he turned around and saw the other kids pedaling, he was off.

Cruz competed in his first mountain bike race yesterday. Shawn was racing in the Draper Race and an hour before his race they had a race for children 9 and under. Cruz was the only kid on a pedal-less bike and he was by far the youngest competitor. He finished 27th out of 27, but he sure did great. He was really hitting all the bumps and hills. No one is going to tell this 3 year old he can't do something! Shawn did pretty well too. It was his first race on his new bike. Unfortunately he had some mechanical difficulties during the first lap, but after some time he was able to repair his bike and continue on to the second lap of the course. It was fun for Grandpa and Grandma Frye to see Cruz and Shawn race!



Doug Peterson, Dad, and Cruz
Cruz got a ribbon for finishing the race. It was so funny because all the kids were standing up in front and smiling for parents cameras and Cruz yells out, "airplane", and he was pointing at the sky so interested in the plane and clueless as to what was going on around him...it was really funny!