Spencer's birthday weekend extravaganza

Spencer turned 2 on August 22nd!! We had a weekend of events planned for the occasion.

The festivities began at the fair, that Friday night. Spencer loves to go see the animals, and just run around. He loves feeding the goats, right out of his hand.
The fair was immediately followed by a trampoline slumber party. Lindsey, and her 2 kids, joined us for all the festivities. Spencer and Alex had so much fun jumping on all the blankets and pillows. Scott was pretty lame, and slept inside. It ended up being really nice outside, really clear. Lindsey's 2 slept in shorts and were fine.
Spencer woke up to a Cars (Disney/Pixar) themed house. His main gift was his new castle and forest fortress. We love ebay, and craigslist:) This castle/forest fortress/and accessories was cheaper than just the new imaginext castle alone...which is what I initially bought.
If you've seen the movie Cars, you probably can recall the tractor-tipping scene. Spence got a die cast "frank" for his birthday. He is constantly running around saying, "oh-no it's Frank!!" However, he leaved the "r" sound out, and switches the "a" sound for a "u" sound....you can imagine how it sounds.
Katie and I played with the castle for awhile. We set it completely up, and carefully analyzed which one would win in a battle. Based off of number of people, weapons, placement, dragons, and a few other factors.....the forest fortress would win. Then Spencer came along and actually played out the battle. I guess girls and boys differ in their play:)

After he opened presents, and played for awhile, we went to Planet Kid.

Spencer loves the zip line:)

That evening we ordered pizza hut, and had a birthday dinner. Lindsey made the cakes, and made Spencer his very own small tire cake. Our ward had a water party that evening, so we walked over after dinner. Spencer ran around, threw water balloons at dad, and squirted everyone with his squirt gun. Afterwards, we invited a few of our friends to come and do some night swimming. It was a very action packed day, and Spencer was ready to crash when it was finally bed time.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to me (August 15) I'm now the big 2-5!!

Thank you everyone for lots of nice gifts and lots of food - - it was awesome!!

We're making progress

Spencer has always been a horrible sleeper. And I'll admit it comes from my side. My mom said that from the day I was born, I never took longer than a 20 minute nap. When Spencer was first born he would wake up every hour, and took really inconsistent naps.Throughout his first year, I put him down for a nap, at the same time everyday. Some days he would fall right asleep, others it would take hours. Some days he would be asleep for 2 hours, while others it would be 20 minutes. There was no telling what his nap would be like for that day. Needless to say, I never, and still don't, every really get anything done. Up until he was almost a year he had yet to sleep through the night. He finally started sleeping all night, around 11 months. However, he was still in our bed. The naps were still hit or miss, so by the time night rolled around I didn't care where he was, as long as he slept. After awhile, we tried to have him sleep right next to our bed...on a mattress, that was about 6 inches lower than our bed. That was a nightmare, he woke every 20 minutes. We've tried everything, but nothing works...hard to change someone when it's in their genes to be a bad sleeper. A few days ago, I was de-cluttering all of our stuff, and took a load of stuff to a used kids store. Spencer is really into planes, trains, and automobiles right now. And when we walked into the store, we saw this awesome fire truck bed. I don't have the slightest clue as to why I bought it, but I did. Why buy a bed, when we can't get him near any but ours? The first night, I crammed myself in by him, until he fell asleep. The whole night, I was subconsciously waiting for him to waltz in....but he never did!!! He slept in it ALL night:) Night number 2 wasn't so great, but we are making progress:)

School

I'm so excited to start my flute lessons again!! School starts on Monday. I had to change the background to fit the occasion:)

Best Friends

Lindsey and I are fortunate enough to have a life-long friend, named Melina Vaughn (now Melina Vaughn Pugsley). We grew up together, Melina grew up down the street from us. We were all born into the same ward; so I guess you can say that we have been friends since nursery. I don't think a day went by, growing up, that we didn't see each other. We car pooled to high school everyday, every year. We've gone on numerous vacations together. Melina dropped her glasses, and lost her contacts in our pool, several times. I can't even count the number of birthday-IHOP- 4 in the morning parties we've had, or how many times we've been to McDonald's. We use to come back to our house (Lindsey's and mine) for lunch during high school, and decide that going back to school was superfluous. One time on the way to school we ran out of gas, and decided that once we got the gas going to McDonald's, then home was a better idea then actually going to school. We drove a VW bug to school, and Melina would sit int the middle...yes in the front...and yes it was stick shift....how....we don't know...but we did it. Matching pajamas, movie, and snickers cake was a regular...as well as matching underwear...I guess we still do:) I could go on for hours writing down the stuff we use to do. Melina graduated and went to BYU-Idaho and became a 9th grade English teacher in Salt Lake City. She also recently got married to Seth Pugsley. We miss her a lot, but still keep in touch. Melina had to show Seth where she grew up, so they came and visited us. It was so fun. I'm sure that Seth had a blast listening to all of our, "Remember this" and "Remember that" stories. All of our laughing at inside jokes, and talking about people we knew.
Swimming was an obvious. A good chunk of our lives have been spent in the pool.

Another chunk of our lives was spent at IHOP:) We took Seth to most every spot in Boise with some significance, played games, and did a lot of visiting. It was so nice to see her:) I don't have a scanner, or else I would have scanned some pictures of us when we were little. Maybe I'll update that when I get a chance.

2nd camping trip of the season

We just got back from our 2nd camping trip this year. This time we made a reservation at Ponderosa State Park in McCall. It was the same group as last time: Scott, Spencer, and I, Lindsey, her 2 kids, Katie, and Katie's friend Cassie. This time was really fun. Scott's parents let us take their camper (thanks again!!). So we didn't have to deal with as many coolers or tents. Our fire started...no problems there. We did a lot of hiking around. Well, for us it was a walk, for Spencer, Natalie, and Alex it was a hike.

The wonder pets: Linny (Alex), Ming Ming (Natalie), and Tuck (Spencer).

Matching camping pajamas

All Natalie wanted to do was play with bugs. She brought up her bug collector kit to find some. We found a whole bunch of one particular kind of black beetle. It may not have been an actual beetle, I don't know. They had really long antenna, and longer legs than I think beetles have.

I was too scared to take the lid off, for a better picture. And yes, she did play with them...not just look at them. For awhile, she would grab one out, put it next to her, and start scooting off, and wanted it to follow her. Of course it wouldn't, so she would have to go back, grab it, and put it next to her again.

The first bug that we found for her ended up crawling away. At that time, she only had the one. She was so upset when we couldn't find it.

When she lost it, she sat on the ground, curled up in a ball, and just cried. It was so sad:( After that, everyone went searching to find her another one.

Katie and Cassie got the tent, while everyone else stayed in the camper.

Walking around town, is also a favorite pastime while camping in McCall. Katie and Cassie bought new sarongs, and Spencer decided to wear it:)

A rough few weeks

It all started out with a runny nose and a little cough; both symptoms lingered on for 2 weeks. However, he never really acted sick, they were both just an annoyance. After 2 weeks though, he really started to act sick. Real clingy, didn't want me to put him down, just a lump. So, it was that day, that I called the doctor. I knew that his pediatrician was retiring (He was my pediatrician growing up), but he still had 2 day left. Right after I made the appointment, his fever started. After being examined by the doctor, he was prescribed some antibiotics and sent home. A bad cold, I guess...no ear infections, or trouble breathing. Two days after being on the antibiotics, he got worse. His fever would not break, and he turned from a clingy lump, into a crying clingy lump. Also, he wouldn't eat or drink anything. I know that he doesn't eat much in the first place, but he had dry diapers for 2 days. And his cry was a real sad cry, a "something is hurting me" cry. Eventually, after 2 days of crying (not even kidding, it never stopped), it went from a sad cry, to a mad cry.....he kept getting so frustrated that we couldn't help him, or figure out what he wanted. He started hitting himself, and me in frustration, plus the antibiotics still weren't doing anything. So finally, after a long day of non-stop crying (from both him and I), we took him into the ER. He stopped crying when we took him in the car. There were 2 things that made him stop crying: the car, and McDonald's chicken nugget happy meals, with Sprite. He started screaming again when we got to the hospital, all during the hour wait to get in, and the first few hours we were in the ER. He had to get blood drawn, and an IV put in for fluid replacement. That was a disaster. They tried both arms a few times, both hands, and both wrists. I don't know the terminology, but they said that it kept "blowing" the vein. His little arms, had red dots all around where they tried to get it in. They said his veins were minuscule, and he was the one kid that they get a year, that's a challenge. Finally, they backed off for awhile. They did try again later, and finally got an IV in. His arms, and hands, are so beat up. They did every test imaginable, including x-rays. We ended up in the ER for 6 hours. During all that time, he kept crying for the car, or home.

Since they finally got the IV in, they gave him some morphine, which relaxed him a little. After awhile, it was hilarious, every time someone came in, he would point to the door and say, "away." He's not dumb, he's knows what they do....and it doesn't feel good. After 5 hours, and not much headway, they decided to get a urine sample. All his diapers were still dry, and he would not pee. So they had to catheterize him. Poor guy. Scott says they're pretty painful. And after that ordeal, it hurt him to pee. So, he held his pee, all day Sunday, and all Sunday night. At this point he had a lot of Sprite, and all the fluid from the IV in him. He told us a million times that he had to go; he says, "pee pee toilet." We tried to get him to go, but he wouldn't. He just bawled. We obviously had a horrible night, because he had to go so bad. But he still wouldn't. Finally, at 6 in the morning, we threw him in the bathtub, and he instantly went. Then, luckily, he crashed till almost noon.
The next day, I took him back to the new pediatrician. Her suggestions were, either get a CT scan to check his sinuses, or a spinal tap to check for meningitis. However, he was acting better. We didn't know if the screaming was only from the peeing stuff, or from whatever was making him scream before we took him into the ER. So, instead of jumping into something big, we decided to do one more round of blood testing, to see if it looked like he was getting better. So the poor guy had to get poked again. Fortunately, it looked better, so she ordered more antibiotics. Right now, we think that it was a sinus infection. He's getting better, he still has a week of antibiotics. However, the doctor also thought that it could be a virus, which is festering in a joint. He kept walking really funky during all this. She said that sometimes viruses can live in joints, like your hip joints, which in turn can make you walk funny. So, we are going to finish the 2 weeks of antibiotics..and if its a joint infection, he'll start walking weird again, after he's been off the antibiotics. Great. So right now, I'm really hoping it was just a nasty sinus infection.
Whenever someone in my family is sick like that, we always set up the couch bed in the family room, for them to lay on. So they can be ill, but still be around everyone. Well, our couch bed is busted, so we set up some mats, and made a nice bed with our down mattress pad, and a lot of pillows and blankets. All he wants is McDonald's and to play "blastoff" - Mario Kart racing on the wii. So for the past week, I've done nothing but sit with him on his little bed we made, and play the wii. He had 7 happy meals in about 3 days time. He's feeling better now, the antibiotics are finally kicking in, and we hope it stays that way.