Jocelyn's 2nd Birthday

I have to preface this blog with a huge thank you to my husband.

You see, I wasn't clearly using my head, and I ended losing ALL of her birthday pictures. (Really, it is a long story of how it happened and I won't bore you with the details.) The important part was that I had no evidence of her 2nd birthday.

This really upset me and I felt as if I had missed a part of her life since I had no verification of it. I knew that both grandma's at the party had been taking pictures, but it wasn't the same. There were specific shots that I was so excited to see and photos that I had captured that were priceless and they were all missing.

Well, that's when my husband comes in.

He found a program that recovers files that had already been deleted. Unfortunately, not all files can be recovered. He downloaded it, and was able to find about 1/2 of our pictures. I am still missing certain ones that I was really excited about, as well as some videos (singing happy birthday to her as she blows out the candles) but the important part is that at least now I actually have some birthday pictures. I would never have thought that was even possible.

Thank you Sam!

So, our baby turned 2 on July 19th but she seems so much older for the following reasons:

1) Jocelyn continues to grow in height and is still in the 90th percentile for her age.

2) She sings her ABC's, as clear as day, only stumbling on "now I know my ABC's, next time won't you sing with me."

3) She can count to 14. Yes, 14, and again, very clearly.

4) She sings Twinkle twinkle, Jingle Bells, and Itsy-Bitsy Spider.

5) Does not/will not sit in a high chair and prefers not to be in a booster seat.

6) Is extremely independent and wants to do EVERYTHING on her own.

Her birthday party had no theme...just good company, good food, and good times. A friend of ours let us borrow her large bouncer for the yard (pictures below.) The kids had a lot of fun with it except that it was 100 degrees outside and even hotter inside the bouncer. We ended up put a sprinkler directly in front of the entrance so that you had to get wet as you went in and as you came out. We were attempting to prevent any heat exhaustion or stroke.

Jocelyn partaking of her special cake

Genevieve and Ashlyn



I saw this cake off a friend of a friends blog (thanks Sara!) and thought I had to try it. Each layer has fresh fruit in it. Red has raspberries, orange-oranges, yellow-lemon, green-lime, blue-blueberries, and purple-blackberries. It was not the quickest or easiest cake, to say the least, but it was exciting to see the results. It was completely covered in white chocolate frosting, so no one had any idea what kid of cake it was...until it was cut into. It was actually really fun to eat, because we all seemed to eat slowly, trying to decide which flavor was are favorite. It actually smelled like fruit loops when it came out of the oven.



The large bouncer that barely fit in our side yard.


These were taken prior to the guest arriving. All of the shots with the kids in it are unable to be retrieved. :(

The birthday girl

At the end of the day, when everyone had left, Jocelyn found her blankie, her finger, and a nice resting place. She was BEAT!

As Sam took down the bouncer, the girls had absolutely no energy left. Genevieve is very motherly and is trying to comfort Jocelyn

Is it time for bed yet?

Lovin' the summertime

Just a few random shots of the girls enjoying the warm weather

And this would be Jocelyn's artwork...on my white chair!

Is she actually sharing her chocolate cake???

Enjoying Mother Nature

Sam and I and the girls went to Boulder Cave on a hike this last weekend. Jenna had a blast and was a great little hiker. She hiked on her own for awhile until she got tired and then got in Sam's pack.

Jocelyn started out in my pack. She wasn't a big fan of it though, so we let her walk until she got wore out and bribed her back into the pack with some food. :-)

Both girls were a little bit nervous in the cave where it was completely black, but they were both strong and brave and didn't get too scared! Sam even hiked up behind the waterfall with Jenna on his back.

Isn't she so cute when she is happy? No really, she is, she just doesn't want to show you!

Is Jocelyn doing the Grapevine?


Slow and steady wins the race.

Now here is a true little hiker! Even has an apple in hand!

Another eventful week

My poor little Jocelyn has again thrown us for a loop. Her blood sugar has been stable, no worries there. However, she gave us a scare on Thursday morning when she woke up screaming, holding the back of her head, and saying "Owie!" I had know idea what was bothering her, but I figured she had a headache, so I gave her some tylenol and rocked her. This seemed to comfort her, but as soon as I moved, which caused her to move, she screamed "owie" again. I was on my way out the door to work, so Sam took her for me. After being at work for 30 minutes, I got the dreaded call from Sam. The, "somethings wrong with her, I can't move her without her screaming, she is in pain, what do I do" call. So, I did what any mom would do. I cryed. Then I put my big girl panties on and told my boss I was leaving to take my baby to the ER.

Side note: I have not had good experiences with Memorial Hospital (the only hospital that our insurance covers.) I would not choose to go here, but at 7:00am, when the Medi-center isn't open, nor is the general doctor's office, I had no other choice.

So, for the abbreviated version of our stay, the nurse listened to my story, asked a couple questions, witnessed her crying and wimpering with any move, and told me the doc would be in.

A long time later, the doctor came in, listened to my story, asked a couple questions, witnessed her crying and wimpering with any move, and looked in her ears. He told me that her left ear was slightly red and infected and was probably causing the pain. He did say that that was not a normal reaction from a child with an ear infection...you know...the part about her holding THE BACK OF HER HEAD!

After I told him that I wasn't really convinced it could be that, I asked him if it was possible that it was Mastoiditis. He said, well, we can do some blood work.

Did he exam her? No. (besides looking in her ears) Did he look in her eyes? No. Did he feel around her ears, neck, head? No. Did he ask if she could walk? No. Did he touch her in any way? No! No! No!

Blood work came back normal except for some slight dehydration. Wrote me a perscription for a left ear infection. Told me that he wasn't completely comfortable sending me home. But did. And told me to bring her back if she didn't get better.

So, I went home and held her and cuddled. She got to the point where she would walk around, play with her toys, and then boom, she would scream, holding her head. Another minute would pass, and she started eating. No problems. Then, scream, etc. This kept going and I decided that this was not right, so I called her doctor. The nurse asked a couple questions. Did the Dr. at the ER feel any lumps, did her eyes look okay, did her neck move well, when he tried to move it? And my answer to those were "uh, no, he didn't since he didn't even touch her!"

So, I took her to the best doctor's office ever! My doctor did a THOROUGH exam. The first, most amazing part, was that neither ear was red! No ear infection! (I was fuming mad when I heard that part!) She wanted to do a CatScan, but hesitated due to the amount of radiation. Get this. A CT scan on a child her age, is equivalent to 750 chest x-rays! Huge amounts of radiation that has statiscally shown to decrease intelligence level. So, they like to keep these for people with obvious head trauma etc.

So, we are giving her allergy meds (since she has had a cough and runny nose for the last week or so) in hopes that maybe there is some pressure in her head from allergies. If, by Monday, she is still having head pains, they will consider a CT, although, I am not quite sure I will agree to it yet!

As of today, she hasn't complained yet of any pain, so I am hugely relieved. My "mother's intuition" is telling me that it is not serious or life threatening. That means something doesn't it?!

Oh, and just another note: Looks like part of our ER visit will be credited after my husband called the ER doctor and told him that she doesn't have an ear infection and that he did a crappy job of not examing her! Nice work Sam! And another note: Probably won't ever go back there again! :-)

Daddy Daughter Day

Genevieve has been, well, slightly testing our patience lately. She is in a small phase that consists of screaming, kicking, flailing, crying, fit-throwing, and just overall nastiness when it comes time for bed. I know, this is surprising considering that we are talking about my sweet little bean, but it's true. So, after a little bribery from her grandparents, she showed us last night that she is a big girl and can go to bed without all of the craziness. To show her how proud we were of her, and to add any kind of encouragement to keep it going, Sam took her to ride "Thomas the Trolley Train." Unfortunately, she was a bit timid on the trolley and made Sam hold her tight.

Jenna is getting a good look at Yakima graffiti. Nice.

Play dates are awesome!

Today we found ourselves hanging out with the Humfeld cousins.

Juliana is 10 and is the biggest helper! She is very motherly as well. At one point, Jenna got in trouble and I made her sit on the bed for a few minutes for disobeying me (surprise, surprise.) I was about to go get her when Juliana brought her out to me and made Jenna tell me sorry. It was very cute.

Isaiah is 8 and is all boy. He excels at every sport he plays! A ball cannot ever stay in his hand, it must always be air born or bouncing off a wall. He enjoys Lego's and riding his bike. Actually, he enjoys his sister bike more since it is bigger, but he looks a little silly riding a bright pink bike!

Macrina is 6 and just finished her 1st year of school. She LOVES to take care of Jenna and Jocelyn and plays very nicely with them, catering to there every need. She has lots of energy and keeps up with Isaiah very easily!

Mikayla is 4 and has a CONSTANT smile on her face. In fact, I took about 15 pictures of the kids together, hoping that at least 1 would turn out okay. Going through them, someone is usually blinking, turning there head, not smiling, etc. but not Mikayla! She is super-cheesy in every picture. She is the most photogenic person you will ever meet!

Genevieve and Jocelyn are very blessed to have so many cousins to play with, here in town.

Everyone make a crazy face!

Cheese! (You can tell that Isaiah has posed for team sports pictures before!)

Playdate #2

Is it just me, or is everyone elses house so much more fun than your own!? Today we got to go play with Bodie and baby Brielle at my friend Meghan's house. We did all sorts of fun things both inside and out. The girls love their swing set, sandbox, and pool. Unfortunately, I didn't take very many pictures, but Meghan got a video of Jocelyn showing us her biceps! Although the video is pretty cute and shows her strength, I will say that she did take a pretty good fall at one point. Her hands were wet from the pool and they slid right off while she was air born, sending her flying!

Thanks Meghan for a very fun day!!