Birthdays

Birthdays hit at our home for Maddox, Kurt, and I. Mine is near the end of September and Maddox and Kurt start October. I am inching closer and closer to thirty (27)....eew! lol. Kurt took the kids and I to breakfast and then we attempted to hit the beach, out near Carpinteria. Unfortunately the weather was pretty ugly for a beach day, I was freezing!! My idea of a beach day is HOT HOT HOT! I stayed on the blanket wrapped in a beach towel and all my clothes the whole time. I was not about to change into my swimsuit...brr. I had fun watching Emmitt and Alaina run around and dig for sandcrabs. Kids are so oblivious to cold weather. Alaina is a bit more like me though she would be fine for about 5 minutes then have to snuggle up to get warm. Crazy Kurt decided to go in the water! Later that evening, Eliana came over to babysit. Kurt and I went to WinCo got some goodies and hit up the dollar theater. (pretty much my 2 favorite things about Bakersfield- WinCo and dollar theaters) We saw Cowboys and Aliens, and we were the only ones in there. It was pretty awesome, we both really liked the movie.

Maddox' birthday is the day before Kurts and he turned 2! I wrapped his presents that morning and he came walking into the kitchen saw them sitting on top of our microwave all wrapped up and got super excited. Funny how at 2 they already know. He made this squeal of excitement and kept pointing at them saying, "presents presents!" I told him they were for him because it's his birthday and he shouted, "YAY!!" I then told him he had to wait though until his brother and sister were home from school and he politely said ok. Then I went upstairs to tell Kurt how smart Maddox is, when we came back down Maddox had a present partially unwrapped in his hand! He pulled a little covert op and dragged a kitchen chair over to the microwave and then climbed up and grabbed a present, hid behind the table and ripped the paper off. Time to start locking things up around here. He looked so cute with his guilty face holding paper in one hand and his present in the other.

When we came over to him he just gave us this cute puppy face and said, "choo choo." ha ha. How can you be mad at that? I just let him have it and took the other 2 gifts upstairs. We had a nice little family celebration at home. Maddox loves choo choo trains so we got him a set and some Chuggington train cars.

For Kurts birthday (32), he had scheduled work so the following weekend I planned for us to do a little getaway with his parents. We drove out to Palm Springs and stayed in a nice resort there, and got some much needed downtime. It was conference weekend so it worked out perfectly. We got to relax and actually watch (and hear) conference. We ordered room service, and went dancing. It was a very nice relaxing weekend.

Like Father, Like Son. Emmitt digging in on Maddox' leftover birthday cake, and Kurt chowing on his leftover banana cream birthday pie.

Adventures with Maddox

Shortly after the kids started school, Maddox and I went on a little walk to the park. The park here is just a short distance from our house. So I whipped out my jogging stroller and off we went. He was talking away the whole time pointing to everything and telling me what it was. We were the only ones there so Maddox had free reign over everything. He is such a little jibber jabber-er I love it.

The walk back to our house was another story. Maddox did not want to be back in the jogger and was crying the whole time. The walk back is a serious uphill! Pushing a jogging stroller with a 50+ lb toddler in it, sure got my blood pumpin. I didn't want to let him out because I knew the hill would be too hard for him to walk. But I finally gave in after all his crying. So at this point we were about halfway up, instead of waiting for me to help him out, as soon as I stopped he goes toppling out and scrapes his little arm then starts screaming louder. I'm sure if there were passersby we would have put on quite a show! lol. (Motherhood----sometimes you just gotta laugh.) So I try to comfort him and get him to walk and he efuses to move, so back in the stroller he went. Screaming the rest of the way home. Yaaaa we are never doing that again. (or at least not without a nap first)

This is Maddoxs new favorite face:

I love this face! Who knows where it came from? He reminds me of a clown, ha ha. The black eye came from his cousin William, on his first day of nursery in the ward here. That's a fun story: Our first day of church up on the mountain......oh my. In all honesty I did not want to be there. We had just moved the day before so to say things were in disarray would be an understatement. I was stressed trying to find my church clothes and my curling irons, shoes, etc. Then we get there and the primary......me oh my. Suffice to say, "We are not in Canyon Country anymore toto." LOL. The nursery only had one leader at the time, a female teenager who has never had kids, doesn't have younger siblings, not really hands on at all. She basically has no clue what she's doing. Now William and Maddox don't play well together. They are both 2. 2 year olds do not want to share. So from what I was told William and Maddox were fighting over a toy and William elbowed Maddox right in the face. Hence, the black eye. Then because the teacher is doing nothing and the door is right there, Maddox leaves to go find someone who will stick up for him/comfort him. My Mom, thank heavens, is on the primary board and hears all this commotion. So she goes to find out whats happening. The nursery leader is standing outside the door of the room and plainly states, "I don't know what to do." Thank goodness for my Mom, "OK tell me what happened." "Well William and Maddox were fighting and then Maddox just took off." My Mom, now wondering where my son is, takes off looking for him, and he's halfway through the building crying. Ummm....hello?? Is anyone home? You let a toddler just walk away on his own. Well thank the lucky stars we're at church and no weirdo is lurking around ready to snatch my child!! UGH! So my Mom brings him to me, explains what happened and says, "I'm not so sure you want to put him back in there because she clearly has no control." GREAT! Now my child will never go to, or stay in nursery.

Since then things have changed. They called a new nursery leader or helper, who is an older lady and she is way on top of it! Thank you, thank you, thank you. We still have moments where Maddox does not want to be in there, but he's getting better. Going from a city primary filled with lots of kids to play with, to this mountain primary that's few and far between, has been rough for our kiddos.

Back to Maddox, he is talking so much it's incredible. He is a very smart, sweet, tough little man. He is definitely all boy through and through. LOVES to play with any kind of weapon toy. Loves to beat up Daddy and gun games (if you don't play dead he gets mad and yells your name till you die). He says prayers now and it is so stinkin cute! If there's a word he can't say he'll point to what it is or what he thinks it is. Which leads me to my next funny story.... Maddox can now say Emmitts name. He has never attempted to say either Emmitt or Alainas name till recently, and can now say Emmitt very well. It comes out more like "Memmit". So we'll drive in the car and play this name game where I point at Kurt and tell Maddox say Daddy. And he says, "Da da". Say Mama. "Mama". Say Emmitt. "Memmitt". Say Alaina. ------No response. Say Alaina.------silence. Say Lai-lai. -------he points to her, "there she is!" LOL. (see video below)

Maddox and William have been getting better at playing together but still have issues. These cute pics are from the farm, these cute boys being boys while their Dads were doing the same.

Little Engineer

Maddox attended his very first friend birthday party Saturday after my 10k. It was for his buddy Chase who was turning 2. The theme was Chuggington which is a cute train show on Junior Disney. My girlfriend Jenna was the host and her little boy Chase is crazy over trains! He & I have a special bond he says my name constantly and calls me, "mimi". I love that guy! Anyway Maddox had a blast eating pizza, and chasing bubbles which was by far his favorite thing. Everytime the bubble blower would stop he would yell for more. The little guys ran around laughing their heads off at the bubbles. Little ones are so easy to entertain. Maddox came home with a bunch of train loot all thanks to Jenna. His bag was filled with a conductors hat, a scarf, a train whistle, a bubble wand of his own, a beanie bear, trainstickers and tatoos, and a coloring book. We also got to bring home cupcakes and pizza! Best party ever- was Kurts response when he saw his leftover food! lol. Thanks so much Jenna and Chase we had so much fun and Maddox loves his train attire.

Quarantined

My poor baby was diagnosed with RSV just two days ago. He had some cold symptoms mainly just a dry cough though. Then Tuesday his breathing was more wheezing. I took him wednesday morning and could not believe the diagnosis. The doctors told me he was very sick and his rsv was borderline neumonia but because of his age they believed his at home treatments would work out fine. They gave him two breathing treatments while in office and a shot to help open up his lungs. Maddox was NOT happy! Then again, he wasn't happy as soon as we stepped foot inside the office. I swear he remembers his shots and now anytime the dr even tries to touch him he freaks. I was really glad that they did not admit him to the hospital. Just shows you how strong this guy is, he was still pretty happy even with all this crap going on in his body. His left ear is infected and his throat looked like strep on top of his rsv. Anyway I purchased a machine and now he has breathing treatments here at home and is on some heavy meds. He did not like the breathing treatments at first and acted as though I was trying to kill him but now he sits there calmly and quietly while it's done. I had a super hard time at the dr office with him, Kurt was at work and I had alaina with me. His first treament was fine because he was passed out, but the second one...was a doozy. I have never had such a horrible experience in a dr's office before. It took all of me not to start crying myself. He was fighting the treatment so so SO BAD, I swear he thought I was seriously trying to murder him, it was TORTURE! Finally the last 5 mins he fell asleep.
He went in for another followup Thursday and they said he still has a ton of junk in his lungs but sounds better, I could tell by his mood he was doing better. He still has to be quarantined for 2 weeks which means Mommy is too. He is much more himself lately- talkative, smiley, and running around trying to fight with Dad. I am so grateful for everyones love and prayers for our little man and he is well on his way to recovery.^