For Jason

Jason has had some really exciting things happen lately and I think he was feeling a little left out of the blog world. So here are all the details, because he really likes the details. It's really lengthy, and I apologize. If you don't want to know about Jason's urine and it's contents you might not enjoy this.

It all started at the end of October, one cold and dismal Tuesday morning. Actually, he hadn't gone to bed yet; he was studying. I was in bed and at 1am he came to tell me that there was a disturbing amount of blood in his urine and the on-call nurse had told him to go to the emergency room and that someone else should drive him. I really did not want to get the kids out of bed at this hour, but also knew it was important for Jason to get to the hospital. Luckily Jason has friends that aren't married and one of his buddies that lives nearby had just gotten home from the library and was willing to drive him. After a long night, they told him the blood was not a good thing but there was nothing else wrong with him so they didn't know (this is one of the main reasons I hate doctors, but I won't get into that). So they told him to go to the family clinic in a few days just to check things. But lucky us, we know a lot of medical residents one of which is in Urology. Jason gave him a call and he was able to get him an appointment for the next week at the Urology Dept. Meanwhile Jason has no other symptoms, but still some blood. Weird.

1 week before his scheduled appointment, he had two tests on the same day and left for school rather early. On that same day both kids miraculously slept in until almost 8 and when I finally got to my phone to turn it off vibrate from the night before, I had already missed 3 calls and had 2 texts. All from Jason. He was having a kidney stone attack and was back at the ER. I was relieved for a moment only because we now knew what this was all about. We'd dealt with this before. Oh, yes, this in fact was #7 for Jason (and it turns out #8 as well). There was a rather large stone in the process of being passed and one still in his kidney that was 7mm! Two weeks later he has yet to pass either and is prepared with plenty of pain meds. After going to his scheduled appointment the next week they decided that he would need surgery to get the one out of his kidney, but it's scheduled for January. Why so long? Because 1. Jason doesn't have time till then and 2. they are hoping that he will pass it on his own by then and not need the surgery.

Despite all this, Jason is doing well in all his classes despite having found a new nemesis in one of his teachers.

And for all of you that need a visual, here are the culprits. It doesn't look that big, but you can ask anyone who has had one, it doesn't take much.

9 months a little late

Andres is 9 months old (he's actually closer to 10 now, but we just barely went to the doctor this week).

His stats have pretty much stayed the same; above average in everything, the most dramatic being his head.

Weight - 22 1/2 lbs 75th percentile

Height - 29 3/8 inches 80th percentile
Head - 18 3/4 inches 93rd percentile

He's still not crawling, but he is getting pretty close at pulling himself up and has started scaling furniture if we help him get up there. He is much more interested in walking it seems. He has the best smile and laugh. He's such a happy guy. He loves his sister and laughs at her and with her constantly. He has started to get a little wary of strangers, but seems to be okay if one of us is around, even Addie. He's now bottle fed and has given up baby food (he only likes to eat the stuff he can do himself). He sleeps well through the night and in the day. I know I've said it a lot, but he really is just a very pleasant little guy.

One big change recently is that we are now doing cloth diapers. I know what you're thinking. Probably the same reaction as both grandmas - "Why?". Well, a while ago I had heard of a couple people from my ward in Rexburg trying them and it put the thought in my head. These were all very sane and normal people. But still, it was kind of like "That's nice for them". But then, I found out that one of my sewing day buddies does cloth diapers and she had one with her (obviously) and showed us all how it worked. I was intrigued to say the least. So I went back to my friend's blog and found this, an opportunity to try different kinds for only $10. So that's what we're doing now, but I've already decided I like them and have ordered from here. We like it, but Jason is not excited about changing a poopy one. But he's gone so much that it doesn't really matter. And it's SO much cheaper, even using liners that are (get this) flushable!

For my Dad

This post is really just for one person. My new phone doesn't take video (I know, lame!) and so I took a video of the kids this morning to wish a Happy Birthday to their Grandpa. For some reason our camera takes video in black and white and I haven't figured out how to change it. And it's been a really busy day so I'm sorry this is so late. So, you can watch if you want (it does star the cutest kids in the world), but really it's for Papa Dexter. I hope you had a great day - we love you!

Week of Halloween

This Halloween seemed to last for a few extra days. Our excitement started last Monday when we carved our pumpkin. Addie helped throughout the whole process. She didn't even mind getting her hands dirty. We have a book that talks about the different kinds of faces a pumpkin can have and when we asked Addie which kind she wanted, first she said Happy. After Jason carved a happy face, she said she wanted a scary face. So our one pumpkin had two faces.

We took about 7 pictures to get a good one of all of us with the pumpkin. It's getting more and more difficult to get everyone to sit still.

On friday our ward had a Halloween party with trick-or-treating so we got out all the dress-up clothes to see what we could put together. Andres didn't really appreciate wearing this, but we sure thought it was funny. For some reason he also looks really chubby in this picture; he's not really that big, but he is that cute.

And here is our cute little Cowgirl. I love this costume and thought it was perfect for Addie's spunky personality.

The pink things on her boots are actually little spurs. AND she even let me put two little braids in her hair. She looked adorable. These pictures were taken about 15 minutes before we left for the party. Right afterward she said she didn't want to wear it anymore, that she wanted to be a butterfly.

Yup. A butterfly. Jason was gone on a campout and I still had to get Andres and myself ready. So when she took everything off and refused to put it back on, there really was not a lot I could do. So I found a shirt that matched the wings and had butterflies on it, and that's all she wore. I tried to find something real fast to make into antennae, but I couldn't find anything. So basically she had orange wings on. That's it. And I didn't get a picture because we were running late and Jason wasn't with us. Our neighbors did get a picture of all three of us at the party, so when I get it I'll put it up.

Here's Andres and I at the party. He doesn't look very excited to be matching mom, but I sure thought he looked cute:

When Dad got home, he decided he needed to be a butterfly for awhile:

On Halloween, we woke up and got ready for church. The kids looked pretty cute if I do say so myself.

And for dinner we got together with our neighbors and had all sorts of really yummy Halloween themed food. It was a lot of fun, and yummy.

I made candy corn cupcakes and a toffee dip for apples:

The pizza was supposed to look like a candy corn too, but we were more concerned with taste and wanted more than just a plain cheese pizza. So we settled for a fajita pizza that looked more like a lumpy, moldy candy corn. It sure was tasty, though.

So our Halloween was just fantastic - with good food, fun, and friends.

Now it's November and I can't believe how fast time has gone by. Now I need to start working on Christmas. Yikes.