14 mONTHS aND sTICHES

Here is the whole bloody story...Marley was playing at my mom's house on Monday and some of the kids went out the front door. My mom's house is a split entry home and Marley goes up and down her stairs at least five times a day. Marley decided she wanted to go outside and went down the stairs. I didn't see exactly what happened, I only heard bump, bump, boom and then crying. I ran to the stairs and found Marley laying face up at the bottom with blood coming out of her head. I instantly thought STITCHES!!! It took Marley about 10 minutes to calm down and then she was pretty reasonable.

Blake and I took her to our pediatrician's office and they first put some numbing gel on her head. We were so lucky that the doctor who was stitching her up works in the ER at Primary Children's hospital. She said she stitches kids up all the time. Marley had to get papoosed to the table and then the horrible part began. They poked her with a needle and then started stitching. Each of the 9 times the needle went through her head she screamed. The nurse was dipping her binky in sugar water, but it didn't really help. During the stitching is when I decided I was a really bad mom and that I should have kept her from falling! After the stitching they opened the straight-jacket thing and Marley was so sweaty and sad. She just laid shaking on my shoulder, but by the time we got to the car, she seemed fine. We had to take the band-aid off right away because Marley was trying to tear it off. Doesn't this picture say it all! I am tired and hurt, but I can deal with it. (That is Marley all right!)

This is Marley picking at her stitches. She did this for the first day she had the stitches. She must of gotten sick of me telling her no, because she finally stopped touching them.

We bought Marley some fruit snacks after her ordeal and this is her doing the sign for 'candy'.

And the sign for 'please'.

The wound looks much better now that it is four days later. The stitches are disolvable, but she has to go get checked out on Saturday. I think it is so funny what some people say about this little incident. I was at the park yesterday and one of the dad's started up a conversation. He asked me about Marley's stitches. After I told him the story he said, "I guess you weren't watching her very well."

-Yep, I guess I wasn't.

Now for some 14 month information...

Marley is still learning new things every day and she is so busy and fun. My sister calls her the Piranha because she is a biter. I was trying to get her swimming suit on one day at the pool and she was so mad. Every time she saw one of my limbs she would go for it with her mouth. She tries to bite quite often, although it has slowed down a little bit. She usually bites me or my niece Kaiya. I guess because we are the coolest!!

She has some new words added to her list: cheese and please.

She signs more things, but her most frequent are water, dog, please, candy, eat and tree.

Things she loves:

eating (especially candy), being outside riding in the wagon or stroller, swinging, reading

Things she hates:

being in her high chair, getting her face washed, getting dressed

Love her!!!!

Saying Goodbye to Summertime!!

I love summer time! It is fun to have no real schedule and to be able to do fun activities with family and friends. I feel sad that it is over, although we are starting an exciting time for Stratton...he is starting preschool!

This summer Stratton took swimming lessons. He took them for 6 weeks and the first 3 weeks were the longest most miserable times! Stratton did not like to go and it was pure torture waking him up and getting him to go. It was just as painful once we got to the pool. His teacher would ask him to do something and he would say, "No, no, no, I don't want to...I'm so scared." I guess most kids do this, but it was really frustrating. The most frustrating part was that we would swim everyday and he'd be fine, but 'swimming lessons' were different and he hated them. The second set of swimming lessons went much better. One day Stratton decided he could do it and just started swimming. By the end of swimming lessons he could swim about ten feet under water and he knows how to bob, hold his breath and glide. He even went off the diving board without floaties (my brother caught him and pushed him to the side). These were big steps for him and I am so proud of him!

This is Stratton after a few weeks of swimming lessons. He loved jumping into the pool to either Alyssa or Bryanna. We are so fortunate to have a community swimming pool in my mom's neighborhood. We went for about 2 hours each day during the summer with most of the cousins. That is how I grew up, so I wanted Strat and Marley to have the same experience as I did.

Marley actually hated the swimming pool for the first half of the summer. She would tolerate it, but she was grumpy the entire time she was in the pool. Over time she actually decided she liked to be in the water.
One day I was crazy and took most of the cousins to the Sandy Aquarium. I had about eight kids with me. The Aquarium is pretty small, so it doesn't take too long to go through so it was pretty painless. It helped that my niece came and took care of the kids too.
These are our sunflowers in front of our garden in the backyard. We planted peas, cucumbers and pumpkins at our house. We also planted tomatoes at my sister-in-laws house. The peas were good, but short-lived. The cucumbers were awesome until the dogs decided they were awesome too! The tomatoes are just getting good and the pumpkins are soon going to take over our entire backyard!
The pumpkins are out of control!
One day during the summer Strat and Mars went out to play in the backyard. It was really quiet for a while so I went to investigate. I found Strat and Mars in the dog kennel locked up. This was Stratton's doing, and he said they were pretending to be dogs. They played this game for about 45 minutes! - and they got super dirty...

Never play baseball with your three-year-old. Okay, so Strat is nearly four, but he can hit the ball pretty hard. I was practicing with him in the front yard and I told him he could have one more hit. I threw the ball and instantly it came back at me, right at my mouth. I was trying so hard not to cry! It was just a wiffle ball, but it hit me so hard and it stung really bad. I had to sit down for a minute and Stratton came over to me and said, "Oh mom, you're bleeding, I'm so sorry."
Jason and Stratton. During the Rocky Mountain Review, Blake go these lovely headbands from his trainer friend. Stratton loved the headbands and shared with my brother. My brother had to take the headband off after a minute because he said it was cutting of his circulation. Strat loves 'Jase' and asked me why we don't go live in Idaho like them. They have been staying with us for the last week and all I here is how he wants to live with Jason and Akaela. We were so glad they could come and I don't know why I have no pictures of their cute baby!!! We hope they come back soon!

Seth turns one!!! Marley's closest cousin just turned one and had an Olympic themed party. It was so dang cute! They had Olympic decorations and Olympic games. In this picture Strat is participating in a relay and Marley is having fun in the freezing cold water.

Marley on the balance beam.
Marley eating an Olympic flame!
And here is the cool cake. Seth went for the Olympic torch cupcakes instead of the cake, but isn't the cake soooo cute?
Simon has a super long tongue!

Todd and Cara's Wedding - August 8th, 2008

True to his word, Blake has started doing some blogging. He made this nifty collage for your viewing pleasure. Way to go babe!

Here is Todd and Cara, looking so happy! We are glad that Todd finally found someone that will keep him on his toes and make him laugh. I love to be around these two because you can just tell that they love each other so much! Since Sarah told Cara how great she is, I need to also. Cara we are truly glad that you came into Todd's life. You are perfect for him and for our family. Cara is a genuinely nice person and when anyone gives her crap she just lets it roll off of her shoulder and then she gives her best smile. I love that about her and wish I could do the same! We love you! Stratton was so glad to see Todd when he came out of the temple and kept wanting him to go to a little hideout he found by the temple. I think Strat asked Todd about 5 times to come with him. Todd finally told him he was a little busy right then.

Cara looked beautiful!!! She is beautiful all the time, but she looked stunning on her wedding day. She was even more stunning because she had a look of pure joy on her face every single time I saw her. It was an awesome sight. Stratton kept saying, "Cara, you look so pretty!"
Jake and Sarah...I used my brother's camera on the wedding day and so I decided to take a bunch of shots and I was experimenting. I think this one is pretty cool and they both look so nice, dont you think?
Yep, I wore green. Ash and Sarah were given orders to wear pink because Jake really wanted their family to be the ones in pink. He secretly likes pink and he does have a few pink shirts, not to mention his new pink tie! Anyway, my mom made the sashes and they just made the dresses look so much better!
This picture makes me laugh because they were looking at the sun, trying not to close their eyes. At least Maycee was smiling even with her eyes closed - too cute.
This shows Marley's ensemble, right down to her toes. The shoes are my favorite!! Black and white polka dot...how adorable!Just a sweet picture of Marley..

Cara made the church look like super nice restaurant with her decorations. It looked so good and the flower center pieces added just the right color to the whole place!
At the luncheon Marley went over to Cara's dad and just laid her head on his shoulder. This is not like her at all! She is usually running around and never stops for a minute. It was a very sweet sight to see him packing her all over, especially since she only met him the day before!
It's over! Stratton and Austin wanted to take their ties off the entire time! They were overjoyed when the time came to rip their shirts off!

Fathers and Sons

Blake took Strat camping with our scouts on Friday. One of Strat's favorite things to do is to get dirty, throw rocks in water, and sleep by his dad. He was able to do all of this favorite things on this camping trip!

Here is Srat, Ethan and Ellis showing off their rocks!

Who says you can't surf without water!

Lagoon

We went to our Stake Lagoon day this past week and the first ride of the day was the Lady Bug Drop. Stratton was so excited and jumped on the ride with Sarah! He had a smile on his face at the beginning of the ride and near the end of the ride his face told a different story.

It was so dang hot we decided to take a break at Laguna Beach. We only got a picture of Strat, but it was Marley that loved this part of the day. She could have spent all day walking around in the water and going down the small water slides.

After all that walking around it took Marley about 2 seconds to fall asleep. She took a nice long nap on the grass by our pavilion. She would have slept longer, but these dumb red bugs kept jumping on her and I would have to swat them off.

Some of Stratton's favorite rides were the 'flying rides'. The rides that make your stomach drop were not his favorite, but he loved the rides where he could 'drive'.

If you look really close you will find Blake and Tyler as passengers on this ride, Cliffhanger. I refused to go on it because I thought I would get too wet. Yep, I'm a wus.

Stratton and Austin watching the rides...
I don't know how we got Stratton on this ride because he was terrified! He even hated it while it was going. Finally near the end, he decided it wasn't so bad and when it was our turn to get off he said, "Mom, lets spin this thing." (Too bad it was a little too late.)

This was my favorite ride with Stratton. It is new and Stratton could steer up or down and try to get us wet. He did a couple of times and thought it was hilarious!