August 2012 - Florida Trip

On July 31 (Wednesday), the kids and I met up with my mom, dad, brother, and sister for a trip to Florida. Husband had found temporary work (helping a man we knew from church with some construction work), so he stayed behind to earn a little money for our first month's rent when we moved. 

We drove all day and arrived in Orlando around dinner time. My kids were FANTASTIC travelers this day. We took a portable DVD player with movies, books, coloring books/crayons, and other small toys for Jeric. He sat in the back with Daniel and Anna most of the time (I rotated back with them a little, as well). Rosebud and I sat in the bucket seats in the middle row. She cried when we first started out, then got used to it and slept most of the way. We always stopped for about an hour when we got gas, so that I could feed her and let both of them stretch out a bit. Rosebud also had her first experience with Cheerios on this day (she was about a week less than 6 months old and this was the first non-breastmilk food she ever had).

Here are some pictures from the drive down south:

Don't be mad, you two.

How she spent most of the trip.

Curious George fan!

On Thursday, August 1, we went to Disney World! This was my third time at Disney World. I realized on this trip that I've gone once every nine years: age 7, age 16, age 25. So watch out for my next visit in 2021! Haha. (Coincidentally, my sister is nine years younger than me, so she has gone twice: ages 7 and 16.) We've also done Sea World and Universal Studios once each. All fun!

The last time we went to Disney, my parents bought three-day passes that never expire. We only used one day on that trip, and we used another day on this trip. (My dad says that he has known exactly where those tickets were located at every moment of the past nine years.) Anna's ticket had to be upgraded from child to adult, but even that was unexpectedly free! My kids were both under three (Jeric by one month), so we spent NOTHING to visit Disney other than food and souvenirs. 

Here are pictures from the Disney World portion of our trip. Some of these are from my brother and sister, some were from my camera.

Jeric got some Mickey Mouse ears right when we went into the park. Loved them! Still wears them often. (See on the left side of the picture? That's my mom. This is the most I've got of her in a picture. She kept ducking out of them! Also, she didn't ride any rides...motion sickness. But she says she still had a good time. I wish I had a picture of her!)

In the middle in the shade you can see my dad holding Jeric (see, he wore his Mickey ears almost the entire day), Daniel (with his back to the camera), and Anna (half-hidden). They were in line for the first ride of the day, the Magic Carpets. Jeric was so excited! I think he'd have been satisfied to ride it over and over all day long.

First break in the shade. She was a tired baby girl!

Grandpa, Uncle Daniel, Aunt Anna, and Jeric ride the Magic Carpets. They're in the one on the left. Grandpa in the front row; Daniel, Jeric, and Anna in the back row. If you click on it to make it bigger, you can just barely make out J-dawg's Mickey ears between his aunt and uncle.

Cooling off in the fountain. Sorry they're sideways. He loved this!

Cute girl.

Again, sorry it's sideways. This was Rosebud's very first experience in a stroller in her life! She didn't quite know what to make of it.

She was trying to get the straw in her mouth before this.

This is where she spent most of the day: in the Ergo we borrowed from Aunt Joni. Amazing! 

Hey, look, it's Captain Jack Sparrow! (Jeric was NOT a fan of the Pirates ride, but we did it because it was hot that day and the ride was nice and cool. We kept telling him they were "silly pirates" but he only kind of believed us. At least he didn't have nightmares or anything.)

At this point in our day, Daniel, Anna, Jeric and I rode the race car ride. Jeric was disappointed that he wasn't tall enough to drive the car, but he insisted on riding with his Uncle Daniel--not with Mommy. It was pretty cute.

Jeric also rode the merry-go-round with Daniel and Anna, but all of those pictures are on Anna's camera and I don't have them. :( He was so cute and loved it. I think he'd have ridden several more times.

The sword-in-the-stone was right by the merry-go-round, so Jeric attempted to pull it out (as did Daniel, haha). Those pictures are also on Anna's camera.

We then made our way to the teacups. Jeric rode with Anna and I and we let him decide how fast we would spin our teacup. While waiting in line, he said he wanted a yellow teacup, and there were only three. We were about halfway back in the line for our turn to ride, so we watched carefully for where the yellows would end up, and when the door opened, Daniel made a beeline for the one farthest from us. It worked like a charm and Jeric got his yellow teacup! He was so excited about this ride and just laughed and laughed.

The two of them just grabbed the nearest teacup to our yellow. And y'all, I have NEVER seen a teacup spin as fast as these two had theirs going. It was so funny to watch. 

Winnie the Pooh was on his way somewhere, and that lady was some sort of security guard who didn't let anybody high-five Pooh or anything! But Jeric still enjoyed waving at him. He also met the Rabbit (from Alice in Wonderland) and "Tigger the Tiger."

We then rode on the little kids rollercoaster next to Dumbo. Jeric insisted he wanted to ride it, so we let him try it out! He rode in the car with Grandpa, with Daniel in front of them and Anna and I behind. My mom stayed with Rosebud and our stuff whenever I rode on rides. 

After the rollercoaster, Rosebud needed to eat again, so she and I stayed with my mom while the rest went to ride Dumbo. Apparently, they have changed the way the Dumbo line works. You get in line and get a beeper like some restaurants use. Then you go to an indoor (air-conditioned) play area, where you wait until your beeper goes off. Then you get in another short line and get on the ride. Pretty cool, huh? Here's a picture of Jeric and Uncle Daniel playing while waiting.

After Dumbo, Jeric wanted to ride the train that goes all the way around the Magic Kingdom. All of us except my mom got on and rode a ways, but then Daniel, Anna, and I thought we might want to ride Space Mountain. So I left my babies on the train with my dad and the three of us walked over. The wait time posted was 100 minutes, though, and I knew Rosebud wouldn't make it that long without eating again, so I told the two of them to have fun and walked back over to where my mom was waiting for the train with most of our stuff. I arrived at almost exactly the same moment that my dad got off the train with the kids. The three of us walked over to one of the restaurants in Tomorrowland to wait for Daniel and Anna. Jeric also took a nap in the stroller, which he needed!

Rosebud and I waiting in the restaurant. Isn't she adorable?

When the big kids joined us, we walked over to an ice cream shoppe on Main Street in Downtown Disney. My brother decided he wanted to try wearing Rosebud in the Ergo. I think they look pretty cute together. She even fell asleep on him for a while.

We sat on the street to eat our ice cream. (I wish I had a picture of Jeric because OH MY GOODNESS he was a mess. It was so funny.) Then there was a show going on up at the Castle and Jeric wanted to see it, so Grandma, Aunt Anna, and Uncle Daniel (still carrying Rosebud) walked over with him.

Mickey, Minnie, princesses, etc.

We decided we'd had enough for the day, so started to walk toward the exit. We stopped and got a toy for Jeric first, and then we headed out.

Awkward. It cracks me up. (1) Anna's balloon ears. (2) Daniel's hand. (3) Jeric's imitation of Daniel.

Very favorite picture of the day. It kind of reminds me of that statue of Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse.

The next day, Friday, August 3, we left Orlando and drove to my aunt's house in northern Florida. It should have only taken about 3 hours, but ended up taking twice that because we had to stop frequently. Poor Jeric had a bit of a stomach bug going on (not vomiting; the other end) and had a few accidents because he simply couldn't stop it (he has been potty-trained since April...one day he just told me he wanted to use the potty and that was that). It was pitiful! We ended up buying him some new clothes (two shorts & t-shirt outfits that he loves and wants to wear everyday...one was Toy Story, the other was Cars) and putting him in Pull-ups temporarily. He was so sad about it and it was just not fun at all. But by that evening he was much better and didn't really have any problems for the rest of the trip.

My cousin and her husband drove the 45 minutes from their house to visit while we were there. I was so excited to see her! She is the only girl cousin I've got (on either side of the family) who is within 7 years of my age (she's about 9 months older than me), so we were always good friends.

After my cousins left, my uncle took my dad, Daniel, and Anna to the beach for a little while before it got too late (they're pretty close to the ocean). My mom and I stayed with my aunt because my kids needed to go to sleep. We all planned to spend most of the next day (Saturday) at the beach.

Well, wouldn't you know, I woke up sick in the early morning hours. UGH. So I missed out on the beach! My aunt stayed with me and Rosebud, and I spent a lot of time sleeping it off. (By the time everyone got back, I was fine. I think it must have just been that traveling threw off my system.) I sent Jeric with the rest of them. He was SO excited to go to the beach. It was his first time and I HATE that neither his dad or I was there to see it. I sent my video camera with my mom, but of course the battery was dead even though I'd charged it the night before we left on our trip. They took pictures on their phones and my sister's camera, but I don't have them except for these two from my brother's facebook:

Baywatch...or something.

When I get the pictures of Jeric at the beach, I will definitely have to post them!

They left the beach in the early afternoon, earlier than planned, because a huge storm came through. We braved the weather and went out to eat that night at this huge mall, only it wasn't like any mall I've even seen before. It was more like a Tanger Outlet Mall, but it wasn't outlets. Then we did some shopping. :)

Here are a couple of pictures of my kids playing at my aunt's house:

We planned to go to the first hour of church with my aunt and uncle on Sunday and then head for home, but a(nother) torrential rain storm came through and we ended up skipping church and just starting out during the first lull in the storm. It rained off and on for the entire trip up the coast, and Rosebud didn't sleep quite as much as she did on the way down, but she did fine overall. Jeric was fine because he had Uncle Daniel and Aunt Anna to watch movies with the whole way. They dropped the kids and I off at our house at about 7:30 that evening. We had a great time! It was a fast, busy trip, but I'm glad we went.

Last weekend

Last week, my mom's sister, her husband, and their five younger children (ages 20, 17, 14, 10, and 7 -- they also have two older sons, a daughter-in-law, and a grandson-on-the-way) were in town from Utah, so I took a couple days off from my babysitting job and we went to visit with family. We haven't seen them since we moved back from Utah more than a year ago, and it's been a while since they were in NC -- my aunt and uncle came for our wedding, but my cousins haven't been here since the 17-year-old was a baby! So only two of these five have ever been here, and they were too young to remember.

It was a fun weekend. Saturday was also my sister Anna's 15th birthday, so we ended up going hiking down to some waterfalls. My camera was (oh-so-typically) dead, so the only pictures I have are ones my dad took with his phone. Most of them are of Jeric!

I don't know why, but I labelled all the pictures in Paint. Maybe you won't even be able to read the font size, but at least the brightly colored arrows will show who is a part of our group!

******IMPORTANT: To our wonderful nephew Lathen, who turned 7 on the 6th and had his birthday party the same day as this hike, we are so sorry we didn't make it! We wanted to and it just didn't work out. But we will come and see you (at your new house!) very very soon. We love you!

And now, the pictures:

A general update

J-dawg's language development continues to astound me since the placement of his ear tubes last month. He is communicating verbally more and more each day. Sometimes he makes two-word or a word-and-sign sentence (for example saying more while signing food). There are a few things we are working on, like he'll only say the first sound of a word but not the ending sound (sock is sssss), that are probably due to his hearing loss with his infections but that my speech therapist friend is sure will correct themselves with time as long as he frequently hears words pronounced clearly. So I try to be especially clear when I'm talking to him. So far it seems to be helping.

Jeric's language development continues to astound me since the placement of his ear tubes last month. He is communicating verbally more and more each day. Sometimes he makes two-word or a word-and-sign sentence (for example saying more while signing food). There are a few things we are working on, like he'll only say the first sound of a word but not the ending sound (sock is sssss), that are probably due to his hearing loss with his infections but that my speech therapist friend is sure will correct themselves with time as long as he frequently hears words pronounced clearly. So I try to be especially clear when I'm talking to him. So far it seems to be helping.

He turned 18 months at the beginning of March and officially began attending the nursery at church. LOVES IT. I'm glad. It definitely makes things easier for me and Husband with our callings. I also took him for his 18-month check-up a couple of weeks ago. He is still healthy and growing! He weighs about 26 pounds and is around 32.5 or 32.75 inches tall. He's grown a couple of inches since Christmas! My sister-in-law just loaned me some clothes and I'm looking at them thinking they're going to be a bit long but NOPE they fit (size 2T). Ugh! He is growing so fast. He nearly gave me a heart attack the other day when he walked down the stairs, forward facing while holding a sippy cup in both hands (the reason he didn't want to turn around). It took all my willpower but I didn't freak out and grab him, I just stood by ready to catch him if he fell. And he made it! I was so proud of him, and of me for letting him do it by himself. :)

A couple of weeks ago we left Jeric with my parents (he had a blast at the stake youth basketball tournament) and went to the Raleigh temple with Husband's brother Kevin, his wife Joni, and her brother Ammon and his wife Jess. Confused yet? It had been several months since Husband and I got to go, so it was a great day!

After the temple, we went geocaching with the others -- it's one of Ammon and Jess's favorite hobbies. For those who don't know what it's all about, it's like a high-tech scavenger hunt. People create "caches" (some are large containers that people can put things in, others are as small as a button and contain only a list of those people who have found the hiding place in the past) and post the GPS coordinates on the website. Then other people can go and find the cache and sign their name to the roll or put stuff in the container if there is one. It's pretty cool. I will have to try it again in the future because most of the ones we found were in the woods and I was having a highly allergic kind of day, so I couldn't participate much. Sorry for being a bummer, y'all! But I did have fun. There are a few pictures on Jess's blog -- here's a link to it. You'll have to scroll down a bit to find the pictures from that day.

And yes, we did climb down into that huge water-drain-pipe-thing in search of a cache (which we never found) that was (supposedly) hidden under the road someplace. I still can't believe I did it -- I am SO not the adventurous type -- but everyone else wanted to and I certainly didn't want to spoil their fun.

Husband is still just working hard at school. He has a few classes this semester that are frustrating because the teachers are incompetent (I'm being completely serious here; it's terrible), but he's doing ok still. I know he'll be glad when it's over!

He spent a lot of time the last couple of weeks helping some friends with some renovation work in the house they just bought. They removed the popcorn from the ceilings, tore out the carpet, cut out some doorways in walls, reconfigured the kitchen a bit (it won't get completely redone for a year or so), did some electrical work, painted the walls and molding, waited for the new carpet to be laid in the bedrooms, and began installing the hardwood floor in the rest of the house. Then they moved all their stuff in. There is still more work to be done but it looks AWESOME and we are so excited for them that they finally have the room their family needs! They are about our age but have two older foster children they are adopting, as well as a boy about 5 months younger than Jeric, and she's expecting another boy in June. I know that Husband has really enjoyed getting to help out so much with the work they needed done.

As for me, I'm having a birthday tomorrow.

Miraculous, really

The placement of Jeric’s ear tubes on Friday went very well. Because of his young age, he was first on the schedule for the day (Friday is kids’ day, and they do the littlest ones first). We arrived at about 6:40, registered and waited a little while, and they took him back at about 7:20. They called about 5 minutes later and said it was done! We waited for the ENT and spoke with him about it briefly, and about 15-20 minutes after they let us know he was done, he was awake and we went back to recovery to be with him. He was not a happy baby! I sat down and rocked him and nursed him for a while and then he wanted Daddy, then he wanted me and to nurse more, then he wanted Daddy, and back and forth. Poor thing was so disoriented.

After discussing what we needed to know about caring for Jeric’s ears with tubes, we left for home at about 8. I gave Jeric some children’s Motrin and we all went straight back to bed. We slept about 3 hours. Jeric woke up in a good mood and stayed that way! After a while he pointed to his ears and said “ow,” so I gave him some more Motrin and that was the last he needed of it.

When we took Jeric to the doctor 2 weeks ago, he said that both ears were infected but the left was worse. On the day of the tube placement, the opposite was apparently true — the doctor said Jeric’s right ear was really bad. He said the two ears had probably been going back and forth like that for months and that for all that time, Jeric had probably been hearing like he was under water or like everyone was talking into their hands.

Within half a day of the tubes being put in, Jeric was pronouncing words he had already known much more clearly. He said several new words that day, and has continued that pattern in the three days since. He wasn’t behind verbally for his age, but apparently he was quite a bit behind where he could have been, because his speech has just exploded! He was always one to jabber about things that caught his interest, and  it was clear that he was trying to say something and we just didn’t understand, but he didn’t do a lot of repeating words after I said them. It seemed to take him a while to be able to say a new word. Now, he follows me around repeating everything I say.

He is a happier little boy. From the first ear infection, he hadn’t been the same — I’m sure some of it is because he’s getting older and testing boundaries and all that — but the last few days he has been more like he was before, just older and more capable. He hasn’t pitched as many fits, he has been more patient, he doesn’t squeal as much. It’s amazing. He has also started sleeping through the night again instead of waking up in pain at 2 or 3 am.

I am so thrilled with the results of this procedure already! I was nervous, but it has been really good for my boy. We have a follow-up appointment in a month.

Other good news: he doesn’t have to wear ear plugs — no restrictions on bathing, swimming, or showering!

Last SVU football game, November 2010

My brother Robert is #41.