The Boys Lately

Kai

Lately Kai has really gotten into coloring.  When there is no structured activity going on, it's not uncommon to find him with crayons and a coloring book.  He is also getting quite good at drawing on his magnet doodle pad (I don't know what else to call it!).  I figure he has to have inherited it from his daddy because it's definitely not from me!

Kai has also grown by leaps and bounds in this last month.  I seriously felt as if he just woke up one day a better behaved boy.  It was so strange.  I wanted to find out who kidnapped my 4 year-old and replaced him with this one.  Although, I do have to say, it's been great to have him so well behaved.  He's consistently sleeping through the night (again, finally!) and he even sleeps in a good portion of the time.  He listens better and has been super affectionate and sweet.  He even is enjoying being my big helper again.  I sure do love my time with my Kai.

Kai is also just super talkative.  But that's not new!  When he's playing he can most often be found narrating everything that's going on, even if no one is listening.  He loves to play pretend and if you listen in on the stories he's telling himself you're sure to smile.  He's got a great imagination and a too-large-for-a-4-year-old vocabulary.  It makes it interesting.

Yesterday we had friends take us to the YMCA as their guests to go swimming.  At first Kai was not having any of it, but after about just 10 minutes he warmed up and had a great time.  He walked around confidently in the shallow kids' pool (about 2 ft. deep) and learned to splash and throw the plastic rings.  Then we went into the deep end (only 3 1/2 ft deep).  We put Kai in a life jacket and he loved holding onto my friend's hands and floating around kicking his feet like a boat.  We spent about an hour and a half there and he was doing great.  He is so ready for swim lessons!

Finally, Kai told his first real joke yesterday.  I had asked him to help me look for something and he replied, "Detective Kai is on the case!.......the PILLOW case!  Hahahahahaha!"  It totally made me laugh and it still does.  I love this kid!

Finn

Finn is becoming more and more of a handfull.  He is full of energy and just a lot of fun...and a lot of work.  He has learned many new words in the last month, including "cheese" when mommy is taking pictures.  Some of his words aren't exactly right, but they sure are cute.  He uses the word "go" for a car and "foo" for a dog, for example.  It's totally cute!  He has also learned to say words like "show" for a TV show, "silly" for when he's silly, "Ho" for help and so many more.  He also has phrases, like "It's just dirty."  I love listening to what he says and how he says it.

Cheese!

Finn lifted his "go" up onto the fireplace and thought it'd be a good idea to try and ride it up there.

At the beginning of July Finn was consistently sleeping through the night.  And then he stopped.  After a couple of weeks of not sleeping well, he finally started sleeping through the night again (knock on wood).  He's learning to eat, but he's still not doing great.  It is better for now, though.  And he's mastered the art of climbing just about anywhere you can imagine.  He can even climb the metal rope ladders on the play sets at the park.  He's my handfull and I have a feeling he always will be.  But he sure can make you smile!

Wrapping Up July

Somehow July just seemed to escape from me.  We certainly kept busy with play dates and adventures.  Of course, we also had the boys' cousins here.  While there were no really big events in July, the month sure seemed to fly by.  And somehow, I didn't take that many pictures. 

Kai began soccer classes in June and continued those through July.  His soccer class meets every Friday at 9:30am and lasts 50 minutes.  Despite some initial rough moments, he has grown to absolutely love going to soccer!  He has told me it will make him very sad when he is done with soccer this Friday.

The only picture I have of soccer right now.  This was his first class.

On July 11th Finn had his quarterly clinic visit.  He weighed in at 22 pounds 2 ounces and was 32 inches tall.  The nutritionist would like to him weigh 24 pounds for that height!  According to their records he had a 2 inch height growth in the last 3 months.  Unfortunately, in that time he didn't even gain a full pound.  They adjusted his medication a bit to see if that could help and then they sent us a case of Boost Kids' Essentials 1.5 (which is Pediasure but with even more calories) to try.  Other than that, he's doing fabulous.  No growing bacteria, no coughs, nothing.  He's having a fantastic summer!

Also in July I was called as the new Wolf "Den Mother" for our ward.  We have had several day-time den activities that have either had me bring the boys or have taken me away from them for awhile.  One day for a pack activity we went to the park to launch water rockets.  I took the boys and our babysitter and we all had a good time.  It was nice to have Megan there to play with the boys while I did the scout thing, and it was also nice to have my boys there, too.  A week after that we had a scout field trip to Hillside Gardens.  What a fascinating place!  The scouts brought picnic lunches and then we got a tour of the Gardens.  That time I had to leave the boys with friends, and they seemed to have a great time, too.

Our den (minus me) at the Gardens

Finally the end of July got a bit crazy.  On Thursday the 28th Reid worked late.  I put the kids to bed and then settled in to watch a chick-flick.  Reid came home after 9pm and laid down on the couch.  He said his stomach wasn't feeling well.  Well, I stayed up a bit too late but finally headed off to bed around 11pm.  I woke up to Kai tapping me around 3:20am on Friday morning.  I took him back to his bed and noticed that Reid was missing from ours.  Just a few minutes later Reid came upstairs obviously in pain.  He told me where he hurt and said he was thinking about heading to the ER.  At that time Finn woke up.  I asked Reid if he needed me to drive him and he said no.  So, I headed to Finn's room.  Unfortunately, Finn did not want to settle back down.  After an hour, we left the bedroom to check on Reid.  He was still feeling poorly and unsure what he was going to do.  I grabbed a bottle for Finn and headed back to Finn's bedroom.  After another hour, Finn was in bed and I headed back to mine.  Reid was still not looking good.

Kai woke me up again but this time it was 7:30am.  And Reid was still in the same position.  So I told him I would call his doctor.  It was at that time that we were told they were booked for the day.  We then decided it would be best for Reid to go to the Urgent Care up the street.  Reid was out the door in about 5 minutes as the Urgent Care opens at 8am.  Around 8:40am Reid called to tell me that he was being sent to the ER, and then about 20 minutes after that Reid called for help with filling out his paperwork.

After that, I didn't hear from Reid again for 2 and half hours.  During that time the boys and I were at Kai's soccer class and playing on the playground.  We've been taking a babysitter to soccer and so while we were doing that I checked with Megan to see if she was available the rest of the day, just in case.  Thankfully she was.  At 11:30 Reid called to say that the were waiting on a CT scan.  Around noon we got the results of the CT scan which showed that Reid had appendicitis.

Megan arrived to watch the boys shortly after 1pm and I headed to hospital to be with Reid.  I arrived in his room right around 2pm and he was scheduled for surgery at 2:15pm.  Of course, they were late.  I visited with Reid and helped out a bit while we waited.  Once he went into surgery I sat in the waiting room.  After a bit more than a hour the surgeon came out and told me that everything had gone well and that Reid was doing fine.  After another 20 minutes or so the nurse came out to tell me that they were moving him to a room on another floor.  I beat him to his new room and waited for him to come in.  Once we got him settled and dinner ordered and I saw that he was doing ok, I headed home to get back to the boys.  I ended up back home at 6pm, so I just threw a frozen pizza in the oven.

The next morning Reid was ready to be released from the hospital, so thankfully Megan came to stay with the boys again and her mom drove me down to the hospital (since I needed to drive Reid's car home.)  It was nice to get Reid home and to see him looking more like himself.  Of course, he has some restrictions (like he can't lift the boys for three weeks!) and he's still a bit sore, but he's doing better.  In fact, he's heading back to work today after 5 days off.

So, that's our July in a nutshell.  It ended a bit poorly, but we're all doing well and looking forward to August.  Just for fun I did a count.  July had 1 dentist appointment, 2 Urgent Care visits, 1 CF clinic visit, 2 CT scans, 1 ER visit, 1 overnight in the hospital, multiple episodes (too many to count) of kids sick to their stomach, 2 mild colds/runny noses, and 1 kid with a fever for 2 days.  And none of that counts me!  It was a busy month despite the fact that I don't have much to show for it!

Visiting Cousins

We were lucky enough to have Reid's sister Kristi and her family come to visit us for a couple of days.  They arrived around dinner time on Wednesday the 20th and Kai was so excited!  He quickly made friends with his cousin, Owen, who is also 4 years-old.  Thursday the 21st was mainly spent playing at the house.  Unfortunately we were awful hosts and totally slept in, and then Kai got sick.  So our day was pretty much shot.  We did try to go to Garden of the Gods in the afternoon but got rained out.  It turned into just a really long car ride instead.

Finally on Friday the 22nd we got ourselves organized and headed to the zoo.  We had a great time and I'll admit that it was probably my best visit to our local zoo ever.  We saw more animals in their cages than I can ever recall seeing.  We spent a good 4 and 1/2 hours covering every inch of the zoo and eating lunch, too.  It was a good day and we were in good company.  Kai had moments where he enjoyed playing with Ethan more, and then it would switch to Owen or Bryn.  He really loved all of his cousins and he just kept saying how cute Isaac was.  Kai would have loved for his cousins to stay forever, but unfortunately they had to leave bright and early on Saturday the 23rd.  He sure missed them that day and it was certainly a dull day compared to the previous two.  Here's to hoping that we see them again soon!

Kai and Owen

Our family

Kristi's family

Kai loves to show his friends his love by holding hands
(I think I'm going to be in big trouble when he's a teenager!)

At one point Finn thought it'd be more fun to ride in the double stroller with
Isaac than in his own stroller.

Reid

Finn loved standing here in front of the gorillas.  He threw a fit until I took him back and this is where he finished off his day.

Saying goodbye at the end of a long day

Bear Creek Nature Center

Our next stop on our adventure list was the Bear Creek Nature Center.  The drive to the center was beautiful and the center itself was a lot of fun.  The kids loved the hands-on displays so much that we actually had a hard time getting them out of the visitors' area and onto the trails.  Once we did manage to get them outside, we took a nice short hike.  Overall, we had a great time on this adventure and definitely would like to go back and do it again.  Oh, and the Dairy Queen when we were done was fun, too!

The inside of the center

Kai and Maddie

A map of the area

Ethan was not up for having his picture taken.

There's nothing like a good friend.

I love the mountain views and I love that Kai and Maddie were still holding hands.

The Butterfly Pavilion

One of the places on our adventure list this summer was the Butterfly Pavilion.  Kai has been anxiously looking forward to this trip for quite a while.  We decided to go on Thursday the 7th.  It was bit more of a drive than we had anticipated as it took us a good solid hour and 10 minutes or so to get there.  (The Pavilion is on the northwest side of Denver.)  We arrived to see some small school buses of children and what looked like a fun place to explore.  Here's what greeted us outside the museum.

Once inside the pavilion, there were 3 main display areas and one children's play area.  The first display area is called the Crawl-A-See-Um.  I will confess that this was not my favorite part!  Inside were all kinds of creepy crawlies, the kinds that I don't even like in tanks.  There was even a guide letting people hold a tarantula and then rewarding them with a sticker.  I asked Kai if he wanted to touch the tarantula and he started to cry.  So we moved on.

The giant South American Cockroach.  Ugghhhh, this gives me the heebies.  And an assurance that I have no desire to travel to South America and encounter one of these!

The second area in the museum was an underwater area.  This area was not very large and didn't have anything that we hadn't seen before, but the kids enjoyed it.  Kai loved petting the starfish, but the horseshoe crab was not about to get any love from me or the kids!

The third and final display area was called "Wings of the Tropics".  Finally, the butterflies!!  This was a neat place to be.  We spent a fair amount of time just strolling and watching the butterflies.  It certainly would be a photographer's playground.  There were just so many beautiful colors all around!

The last area was the children's play area.  This was seriously one of the nicest play areas that I have seen at a museum-type place.  If my kids were just a bit older, we could have spent hours there.  As it was, we spent about 45 minutes.  The kids loved climbing on the bugs and running through the maze.  Of course, the other kids were running through the maze while their parents sat outside talking and so I stayed close to my kids.  As much as I could, anyway.  The maze was a fun educational place and maybe someday we'll take them back so they can learn a bit more about nature.  It was a fun day that we even topped off with some nearby Diary Queen.  Yay for adventures!!

The outside of the maze

One of the displays inside the maze.

The most beautiful blue butterflies.  The living versions were pretty much impossible to get a picture of.

The kids sat down to watch a documentary on cicadas.  We've been getting a lot of comments lately about how much the boys look like twins.  While I can't quite see twins, they certainly do look very, very similar--just differnt ages.

Kai did several "rub-a-bugs"!