September 2015

The 1st of September I had my second doctor appointment to check on baby, they couldn't hear the heart beat great with the regular heart monitor so they grabbed their quick ultrasound machine to check it that way again.  That's how they did the first check too.  With my other kids the first ultrasound I had wasn't until 20 weeks, so it was pretty cool seeing that at 10 and 14 weeks it already looked like a baby!  Kind of crazy, I thought it took them longer to look like a baby!  Everything was still doing good with me and baby!  

That evening Ben went to pick up a boat from another ward member for their scout activity that night.  Hunter and Aspen wanted to go with him since he had just gotten home and was already leaving again.  That ward member also owns the property across the street from their house and they have made it into a little park, so Hunter and Aspen went and played on the playground while Ben talked with him about the boat.  After a few minutes Aspen went running to Ben yelling about Hunter being hurt. Then she tripped and fell on the sidewalk so was too hysterical to tell him about Hunter. Since Hunter himself wasn't coming he didn't think it was too bad, so he got her calmed down then went to check on Hunter and found this:

He was bleeding pretty good so Ben grabbed his shirt and cleaned off some of the blood so he could check it out to see how bad it was.  Then he found a rag in the truck and had him hold it on it while they came home.  When they got home we decided we better take him to get stitches or at least have Derrick check it out to see if he needed them.  So Ben headed to scouts, since they were going to the lake it was earlier than usual, and I loaded the kids up and headed to Derrick's office.  Hunter had decided he would rather just have him look at it instead of going to get stitches.

Derrick finished up with his last patient of the day, then came out and checked on Hunter, he told us that it wouldn't hurt to go get stitches put in it, or if we didn't want to he could try getting back together with a butterfly bandage.  Where Derrick went to Chiropractic school he learned how to do stitches and a whole lot more that Utah Chiropractic licenses don't allow him to do.  So since we are in Utah he can't get the stuff to stitch him up, he said otherwise he would have liked to do stitches.  Hunter didn't want to go to another doctor, we explained he would probably have a smaller scar if he did stitches but he didn't care.  So we loaded up and headed to Derrick's house where his bandages were.

Aunt Tiffini knew just what to do for him.  She got him a popsicle to suck on while he laid on their counter for Derrick to check him out.  He made sure to open it up and really clean it out to make sure there wasn't anything in there.  He showed me how deep it was, it was so deep we figure if it had been any closer to his eye he probably would have ended up damaging something on the back of his eye.  It was kind of crazy!

My mom ended up meeting us at Derrick's house.  She has started a new thing with the grandkids and takes them to dinner and then to go pick out their birthday present.  This was the night she had planned on taking Hunter on their dinner/birthday date.  While Derrick was still cleaning Hunter up I ended up getting a bit woozy and had to sit down.  I'm guessing it had to do with pregnancy and that it was getting late and I hadn't eaten, blood doesn't usually bother me much, but my mom figures it was probably a combination of seeing my son like that and the other 2 things as well.  Hunter did really well for Derrick, he ate 2 popsicles while he was laying there and really only pulled faces when it hurt.  After Derrick got him all fixed up my mom took me and the kiddos out to dinner, but since it was so late and Hunter had school the next day we had to postpone his getting to pick out his present with her.  He ended up going and getting an Iron Man Hulk buster Lego set with her when he did get to go a couple weeks later, Dayson's birthday is Sept 2nd and Hunter and Jack's are both on the 3rd, so it was a busy week trying to get dates in with all 3 boys!  Ben's mom also took Hunter several days after his birthday to pick his present from her.  She took him after coming and watching one of his soccer games.  He came home with a Pokemon movie, a box of Halloween cereal (he told her he hadn't ever had it, so she got it so he could try it, it's the Boo Berry kind that's only around at that time of year) and also a slushi from DQ.

I wish I would have taken a picture of it right after Derrick got done because it looked great.  It didn't start oozing like this until we got home from our dinner with my mom.  So I quickly took a picture and sent it to Derrick to see if I should be worried about it.  He told me to bring him by his office in the morning just to make sure it was OK.

So the next day we skipped school and headed over to Derrick's office.  He checked it out and it looked like it was still staying together so he left it how it was and we just threw a bandaid on top of it to help protect it a little more.  After we left Derrick's we went to Walmart to get the stuff I needed to Hunter's birthday the next day.  I had planned on getting him a shirt to go with the shorts I had gotten him a few weeks before, but since he was with me I ended up letting him pick out his birthday shirt.  It did not match the shorts I got him but a shirt he already had ended up matching OK.  After we left Walmart Hunter was getting antsy, it was only 11 o'clock.  I hadn't planned on taking him to school that day but I could tell we were both going to go crazy if he came home, so I asked him if he wanted to go to the rest of school, he said he did so we headed over.  Since I hadn't planned on him going to school he was in flip flops and didn't have his backpack or anything.  I walked him into school and then down to his classroom as well.  It was pretty cute watching him go in, several of the kids came over to check out his eye and find out what happened.  He said he ended up just sitting there talking at recess with some of the girls in his class instead of playing so that he wouldn't hurt his eye.

Here he is 2 days later on his birthday.  His eye got pretty swollen for a couple days.  Happy 7th birthday!!  Only 1 year until you will get baptized!  It makes me feel old thinking of that!

He decided he wanted cupcakes this year instead of a cake, but he still wanted some cool ones.  He had lots of big fancy ideas to have some Pokemon cupcakes but I talked him into having them be Pokeballs, I figured I could handle that.  This was what they originally looked like, Ben helped them out when he got home.

For his party Hunter wanted to go to the Children's Museum, we let him pick 3 friends to go with him.

Ben got off work a little early and he went and picked up Hunter, Talee and his friend Isaac from school in our truck, while I brought Aspen, Timber and picked up his friend Karston (he's in Kindergarten so gets out of school earlier than the other 3) in our car.

  Talee loved helping Timber up and down and in every seat in the airplane!

Isaac was the music man in here, with Hunter's help occasionally while the rest of the kids played around on the stage.

I loved this picture of Karston, Talee and Aspen jumping of the stools!

Last time we went we could not get this bubble thing to work, Talee showed us how to do it right.

I can't decide if she liked pushing her face against the glass or if she didn't realize it was there, haha!!

Hunter and Timber racing in the Frozen room.  Ben had to take Timber down it, he kept trying to teach her to hold onto it, but every time he started her down the slope she would let go and almost fall off.  Ben took her down it several times, she loved it!

On our way back from the Children's Museum Ben picked up Domino's pizza with the boys and me and the girls went and got Little Caesars crazy bread, the best pizza/bread stick combination if you ask our opinion.  Did you notice the switch in passengers, Karston and Talee switched spots, poor Karston wouldn't hardly talk on the way over, he knows us well, but I think he was bummed that he wasn't with Hunter, Talee loved switching to be with the girls so it worked out great!

After pizza it was time to open presents, Ben's parents and my mom came for this part too.

Ben spent a bit of time picking out the perfect set of pokemon cards for him.

He even had a present left on the porch from his primary teachers!

Hehe, I loved the faces she was pulling!

Ben's addition of smarties to the pokeballs made them look much better!  When he first saw them he didn't know what they were, I had to explain them to him.  When I told him I was decorating them as pokeballs he had imagined it flat on the top not a literal pokeball out of frosting.

Hunter seemed to like them!  And cupcakes are much faster and easier than a full cake, so makes me happy too!  And funny thing, my kids eat cupcakes way better/more than they do cake anyways.

Him breathing kept almost blowing out his candles, so he covered his mouth while we sang to him.

We tried to tell him to put the candles closer to each other, but that's where he wanted them to be.

Can you tell it's a pokeball?

First piggy tails!  I love them!  Do you notice how her hair line is actually up at the middle of her ears?  She has some fuzzy hair trying to grow in to fill in her hair line below that too, so I'm guessing this is all the hair she had as a baby and now that her head is bigger she's working on growing hair in to cover the rest of her head!  You really don't notice or think about that though unless I point it out.

Timber thought she needed to try out Harper's seat, she is still in a rear car seat like this so maybe she thought it was hers??
Sophie got baptized the first weekend in September (Labor Day weekend) so 2 days after Hunter's birthday.  We had the whole family at it... except for Mike.  He was gone on a job, but we got a family picture of everyone that was there and my mom blew it up huge to hang on her wall.  Mike has given her a lot of crap about the picture without him in it!  I think it's hilarious and make any kind of comment or reference to it anytime possible!
After Sophie's baptism they had donuts at their house.  Derrick changed Hunter's butterfly bandage and cleaned it up a bit for us there.  Hunter was ridiculous for him!  He had been so good when he was fixing it up the first time, but this time he screamed and screamed, it was pretty embarrassing.  We figured it would be a quick and easy thing to do, but nope, he made it pretty difficult and of course it was when there was a bunch of family there wanting to visit with Derrick and Tiff, and they were helping with our screamer.  I felt pretty bad that he acted that way, but everyone has there own personality so it's not like we could make him be good for him, although we sure wish we could! 

Right after the baptism we ran home and quickly packed to head to Delta.  See what I mean about all our family events being back to back with something else?!  We quite often go to Delta for Labor Day weekend.  It's also the opening of the dove hunt and there is a place just outside of Delta that Ben's family likes to go dove hunting.  We had bought us a new tent and this was our first time getting to use it.  We also bought an air mattress.  The tent and the mattress were awesome!  We have had air mattresses in the past that end up deflating in the night, when they end up doing that I would much rather just be on the ground, but this one was amazing!  And the tent fit us all and our stuff and room to spare, yay!  We had been having to bring a second tent with us to put our stuff in and we would just barely all fit in our tent.  We did try having Hunter and Aspen sleep in the smaller tent one time but it stressed me out that we wouldn't hear them get up in the morning and they would go drown without us even knowing they were awake.  And with them being in their own tent, even though it was about a foot away, they thought we couldn't hear them (I know, this totally contradicts my worries about not being able to hear them get up in the morning) or something and would keep talking and keeping each other up, so this was a much better option for us!

They of course had a blast in the water as always!  We didn't let Hunter actually swim until Monday after we had gone to the store and gotten him some waterproof bandaids to cover his still healing cut.  Luckily we were only there part of the day Saturday, he did pretty good at keeping his face dry but I doubt he could have lasted a full day without getting it wet!

Sunday we spent the day playing games, and we had this surprise guest.

We had two games of Rummikub going this one outside with Dwayne, Dixie, Tyler and Kerri and Grandma and Grandpa Turner watching.  Then me, Ben, Joslyn and Tyson were inside playing it on the table in there.  Where I was sitting I could see outside and kept watching this crazy goose running around the table!  Hunter, Tayten and Aspen Smith were all trying to catch it...

Finally Hunter did!  Hahaha!!!  The crazy thing didn't even flap while he was holding it like this!

I took the above pictures of the goose off of Dixie's facebook page, I came out to get a picture of it, this was my picture from the balcony.  I asked him to turn my way so I could get a better picture and he started bounding up the steps to show me!  I had the door to the cabin wide open so I panicked and told him to go back down the stairs with it so he wouldn't let it inside!  He turned around to take it back down the stairs but not before it had pooped right outside the door!  I'm pretty sure if I was being carried around by my neck I might do the same thing!  Even after he let it go it was still just hanging out around the cabin!  You would think after Hunter catching it like that it would go away!  We had been encouraging the kids to chase it hoping they would scare it away since it had pooped several other times around the cabin, but he just really wanted to hang out with us, I'm guessing he just really wanted those M&M's he was trying to get haha!

The drive home on Monday all 3 kids were asleep shortly after we started driving!

Got to love this note!  It says, "I am sorry for punching and biting you.  I hope you have a great day Sophie!"  Yep, we started out 1st grade with a bang!  Because of him biting and punching this girl (who is always so very sweet to Hunter, and happened to be the one that was most concerned about his cut and sat with him all recess long the next day when he didn't want to bump his eye or anything) he got in school suspension.  Talking to Hunter he said that they were lining up to go to lunch and she was dancing and he didn't want her to dance so he punched her a few times then bit her too.  It happened late enough in the day on a Friday that the Principal just called and talked to me about it and we decided that we didn't really think that suspending him from school would do much, so we decided to try in school suspension and hope that would do something.  So on Monday when he went back to school, he went to a 3rd grade class and had to do all his school work sitting in the back of their classroom.  The Principal had him go to one of the dual immersion classes so that he would still be hearing the Spanish happening around him.  It was probably one of the longest days ever for me!  I was so worried about him being with all the older kids, worried about what they would be saying about him, worried that he would be lost, sad and feeling alone.  I pick Hunter up from school on Monday's because Aspen has dance right after, so I don't want him going home to an empty house.  When I picked him up that day he didn't seemed too bothered by the day.  He did say that he doesn't want to have to do it again though.  The Principal had originally told me that he was going to put him with the 4th graders, but then that morning the teacher had called in sick, so he put him with the 3rd graders so that a sub wasn't having to worry about him.  He has 2 cousins in the 3rd grade dual immersion, he did end up in their class.  One is Brandi's son, I tell Brandi almost everything, so she already knew Hunter had this going on, so we talked after, cuz I was curious what her son would say about it.  He was very sweet and had just said that Hunter was in his class, he didn't really even know why, and only knew he was there because he was in trouble because Hunter told him.  Unfortunately this wasn't the last incident he had.

A mere 2 days later he was suspended.  He had gotten mad in computer lab because he didn't get to finish what he was doing when time ran out.  His teacher (not the one he was supposed to be with, he was supposed to be with his English teacher, but the Spanish teacher was bringing her class into the computer lab as his was leaving and stayed to help with him even though that was supposed to be her free time) talked with him and thought she got him all calmed down and took him back to be with his class.  They were practicing their dance for the school dance festival.  He told the teacher there that he didn't want a partner, but he really did want a partner so then got upset and ended up taking his clothes off!  What?!  I was very shocked when I got that phone call!!  Luckily he kept his underwear on at least, but still, what was he thinking?!  This also happened towards the end of the day so I ended up going and picking him up and we walked down to his teachers classrooms and got all the work they were going to be doing the next day so that we could do it at home instead.  That night he had soccer practice, on the drive there I told him he better listen to his coach and do what she asks him to do this week.  He struggles listening to his coaches too.  Why we keep putting him in sports, I don't know!  We always talk with him before even signing him up and he always says he wants to do it and that he will do it, but then when he's actually there he just doesn't, it's really frustrating.  Anyways, back to that nights practice, he again wasn't doing what his coach was asking him to, she ended up making him run laps!!  This was probably one of the best coaches for him!  He still had his struggles of not following her, but she wouldn't take it or ignore it like all the coaches in the past had, she made him run laps if he did stuff like that, and it actually helped him quite a bit!  One of the other kids on the team is in his class at school, so the mom had to laugh about what he told her when he got home, she had also told a mutual friend of ours about it who happened to text me about it while I was at the practice.  She then text back seconds later apologizing for saying anything, my response back was simply that it was totally fine what she said, cuz had it been someone else kid and not mine I would have been laughing too!  It is pretty funny from others perspective, but being the mom in the situation is very frustrating!!  I'm sure someday it was be funny, but not right then.  The next day for he discovered that he does not like being suspended.  We did all the work from his teachers and for recesses he would get to go pull weeds.  He actually did pretty well with it all, but he did say that he would prefer to go to school and learn instead of be at home.  I have had to remind him of that several times throughout the year, when he is having a rough time I will say would you rather do what your teachers ask you to do or would you rather mom be your teacher at home.  He always says school.  I agree son, I agree.  It's way funner there!  I do tell him if he can't follow the rules then I will be his teacher if we need me to be.  I am glad to say that that was the last time he was suspended, but it was not even close to the end of the problems.  He struggled in preschool and kindergarten as well, but it seems a bit worse this year.  His teacher's were pretty gung-ho about trying to help him out at the beginning of all the struggles, but it has gotten to where his Spanish teacher has really pushed to get help for him and for me.  She is an absolute sweet heart and I know she is working her hardest to help us!  It does make things a bit awkward since I know them both so well, and knowing the stuff they are dealing with each day with Hunter, and all the extra work they have to do to try to help him, but I'm so grateful that they are willing to do it!

The life of a pregnant woman: at first it's exciting and fun...

then it just gets uncomfortable and annoying...

here it comes...

it's a bear!  Haha!  After this she kept bringing it back to have me help her put it in her shirt many more times!

I stepped out off my car to get my mail and glanced something near my foot, it gave me quite a start when I saw a snake!  It wasn't moving and had stuff bulging out of it's side, so it must have been dead but it sure scared me for a minute!

All the bandaids are off and it healed up pretty well!

She is getting too big!  She loves swinging and even at a park with no baby swings she was able to do her favorite thing!  After Aspen's parent meeting at school we met up with Brandi and Tucker for mid morning park visit.

Timber has discovered her belly button and loves to stick her finger in it as a comfort!  This night I started buttoning up her jammies and she was getting upset with me, it took me a minute to figure out that it was because she couldn't get to her belly button with these jammies!  I undid one of the buttons and helped her find it again, haha!!

We took a Sunday afternoon drive up the mountain to see how far we could get.  Ben was thinking of coming this way for his muzzle-loader hunt that was starting a couple days later.  We made it the entire way, this is where the road ends.  We got out and had some snacks and wandered around for a few minutes then headed back home.  Ben was planning on hiking in and staying on the mountain for like 5 days.  He ended up deciding to go a different way than this but once he got up to where he wanted to be he only spent one night and it was all too thick to hike very well and he didn't see any deer until he was hiking down to come home!  I sure didn't complain, but he was pretty bummed.  He of course didn't stay home, just came for a little while then headed back out for the evening hunt, but he did end up coming home to sleep every night after that which makes me much happier!  I didn't really like the idea of him hiking around alone, for 5 days, with no service, I can't imagine why someone wouldn't like that idea though, can you?

My mom came over the night that Ben left for his muzzle-loader hunt and brought us dinner.  We discovered that Timber is allergic to ranch!  Poor girl was having a grand ole time playing in and eating it, then rubbing it all over her face.  Of course we had no idea this was what we were going to find once I washed off all the ranch!  I really like the hidden valley packets that you mix with mayo and milk and most of the time have that on hand, but I just had the pre-made hidden valley ranch this day.  Weird that the packet you make yourself is just fine for her but the same brand of pre-made ranch turned her skin bright red and kind of poofy!  Now we really watch her with ranch and always make sure to have the good stuff on hand for her!

I was pretty tired one day after school, so we did homework on my bed... then all of a sudden I woke up and Hunter and Aspen were gone playing and Timber was alseep on me like this!  Apparently homework was a bit much for her too!  This is a first picture of my baby bump too!  She's such a sweet little girl I just love snuggling her!  I just figured she was tired but when she woke up she felt pretty hot.  She ended up having a fever for the next 2 days and I could tell she didn't feel good but she didn't have any other symptoms.  It turned out to be her canine teeth all trying to come in at once!  Hunter and Aspen didn't really do much when they teethed, so this was knew to me!  Poor girl did not feel good at all!