March 9, 2006

It's been a while since I've written anything....that is because we have been in limbo for a few weeks. We moved to Nevada, but our rental house wasn't going to be ready in time, so we stayed with the Armantrouts for two and a half weeks, and then finally, last week we got into our house. We are actually living in Boulder City right now. We like it a lot. In February Sean had to come out to Vegas to start work, while we stayed in Clearfield for a couple more weeks (until we had to be out of our apartment). We told Caelan then that we were going to move to Vegas to a new house with a swimming pool. Every day that Sean was gone she explained to me that Dad was at the "new house at the swimming pool," even though he was really just staying with a friend. The two weeks we were at the Armantrout's were heavenly for Caelan. She loved planning with Grant and getting lots of attention from the two older girls, Katie and Sarah, not to mention all the lovin' from Heather as well. It's fun to still have them right around the corner. She has learned about Dairy Queen. This is a pretty small town, but we have several fast food places on the main street. One day we told her we were going to Dairy Queen for ice cream. We said the magic word, and now the place has stuck in her mind. Every so often, out ofthe blue, she will ask to go to "Dairy Keen" for "Ice heam." She's a crack up. We have a couple parks in close walking distance, so we've taken several trips in this beautiful weather. She is a little monkey with no fear. She climbs and swings and runs all around. She mostly just loves anything to do with the outdoors. A few days ago we went to a park with a rock climbing wall. I stood below her, and she climbed up the whole thing, with just a little guidance from me. She's pretty excited about the swimming pool, but it's been chilly here for the past week or so, so she hasn't asked about going in yet. We've been telling her over and over again how important it is never to go by the pool without mommy or daddy. I think she is getting the picture. She is full of funny things to say and do. She has quite the personality. Bedtime is quite the ordeal every night. We read from her picture Book ofMormon, and then say prayers and then Daddy and I give her a ride in her favorite blanket to her bed. She has to ask me several questions before I can leave the room. Then she turns on her nightlight and goes to sleep -or not. She usually plays with toys for a good hour and a half. She gets up at least once to tell us she has to go potty. Every so often I see her little head peak around the door. She just doesn't want to miss anything that is going on. She is learning lots and lots of songs. I can sing a song just once and a day or two later I will hear her trying to sing some ofthe words to the song. It is awesome. We went on a hike a couple weeks ago in Red Rock Canyon. It was just a little hike (1 mile round trip), but Caelan hiked the whole thing, singing as she went. She made up a little tune, "Today, I'm going," which she pro ceded to sing over and over again for a good lizmile on the trail. She was great entertainment for anyone we passed. She climbed up the rocks and hills and around the logs. She was a real trooper. Well, that's the news here. Oh, I better write about his first hospital experience (minus birth). In February, while Dad was in Vegas and we were still in Clearfield, both kids got fevers and were coughing a lot and just sounding pretty bad. Caelan started getting so bad that I called the doctor and made an appointment. My doctor is open 24 hours, so the earliest they could get us in was 8:10 PM that night. We went in, and the doctor looked at both kids and decided to check Ben (since he was there). We got chest x-rays for Caelan and did the usual check for her. Then he sent us over to the hospital (right next door) to test them both for RSV. We went over and did the check (that took about an hour). It was completely traumatic. They had to wrap up the kids' arms and then stick a long tube up Caelan's nose and suck out mucus. For Ben, they just used a suction machine to such the mucus up. Both kids were hysterical in tears -I really couldn't blame them. Then we went back over to the Doctors office. He did an official check on Ben. Both kids had ear infections and RSV. There is really no cure or treatment for RSV -it just means the kids have a really bad cold that you have to watch pretty carefully. Since Ben is so young, they tried a breathing treatment on him to see if that helped him improve at all. It helped a lot, so they sent a nebulizer home with us. We got home that night at 11:30PM. I was exhausted -not to mention the kids (who both fell asleep in the Doctors office -Caelan on the floor, and Ben in my arms while I was giving him his breathing treatment). Within a week, they were doing 100% better.