24th of July

for the 24th of July this year we decided that we would go to the zoo. we haven't been in a couple years and now that the babies are a little older we thought it would be a perfect time to go. It was pretty hot but not too bad actually. and there weren't alot of people there, at least not as many as I thought there would be. Calan was so excited the whole time and he was just screaming over everything. it was a happy scream and was so funny to see his get so excited! his favorites were the monkeys and bears but really he loved everything. all the kids had so much fun and i think we will go again soon. here are some pictures of the fun time at the zoo...

After the zoo we went over to Randys moms house and had a bbq and then lit off fireworks. the kids took turns lighting the fireworks off which i thought I would never let them do but with some help they were ok. I am sad that summer is almost over and I am going to try and enjoy what is left!!

Camping and Accident prone child

last weekend we went camping with some family and friends and OF COURSE i forgot my camera! so i didnt get to take any pictures but it was alissa and calans first time camping and i have to say they LOVED it!! they were so in their element and were so happy the whole time! it did rain on us but we didnt let that get us down! we went fishing at strawberry and alissa loved holding the worms! thats my girl! while we were there Alissa was sitting on damiens lap in his camping chair and they tipped over. Alissas head hit damiens eye and he started screaming. I picked him up off the ground and noticed right away that his eye was all swollen. I dont know what it is about him but he is my accident prone child! it seems like everywhere we go or whatever we do he gets hurt in some way. I took a picture of his eye 3 days after the fact and this is what it looked like...

dance classes

this past month or so I have been taking Oaklee and Alissa to dance class. they both really seem to like although alissa does get tired about the last 15 minutes or so but she is always begging to go back to dance class! I just had to put some pictures up of them in one of their cute outfits! I am so happy to have my little princess and she brightens up my day! she is such a sweet little sister and calans best bud! Don't know what I would do without my little lissy!

Damiens disaster

this is his left and NORMAL side

this is his right side and its still pretty swollen under and next to his ear lobe

I thought I would just give everyone an update on Damien and for those of you who don't know I thought I would tell you what happened. Well on mon morning he woke up and came walking down stairs and i looked at him and almost screamed! the whole right side of his face was swollen. I asked him what happened and he didn't know what I was talking about and I felt his head thinking maybe he was sick well he wasn't warm at all! then I started asking him questions like do his ears hurt or did he fall and I, for the life of me, could not figure out why he had a lump on his cheek and why it was all swollen! I started calling my mom and my mother in law and asking if they knew what could be wrong and they both threw out ideas like spider bites and allergic reaction but nothing seemed to fit. so I thought ok maybe I am just overreacting and I should just give it some time and it would clear up. Well not the case! by mon night he was starting to be in pain and by 10 that night i thought we should take him the the er but he laid down for a minute and fell asleep. me and randy were really worried cause he wasn't acting like himself and before he fell asleep he asked to go to the doctor and if you know damien you know that he HATES the doctors! so randy set an alarm to wake up every couple of hours and just go check on him. we actually didn't end up needing that alarm because he woke up every hour or more just crying in pain. he wouldn't let me touch him or move him so i knew it was bad and the swelling was getting worse as the night went on so we put him on the floor in our room so we could keep an even better eye on him. about 4 in the morning he woke up just screaming by this point and when i got up to console him i felt his face and it was a golf ball size lump and his face was swollen clear up to his eye! I thought that's it I can't take it anymore i was in tears by this point because I felt so bad seeing him in pain so I called my mom over to sit with my other kids while me and randy ran him to the hospital. well the doctor didn't have to do much assessing before he knew what it was. its something called acute parotid gland swelling or parotitis. Its when one of your 2 saliva glands get blocked and infected and its stops the flow of saliva. there are many ways it can be caused and they don't know which caused his but they think it might have been a stone, like when you get a kidney stone, that got stuck in the canal that connects the 2 glands and exerts saliva into the mouth. the doctor said it is very uncommon and he himself hasn't seen it for 4 or 5 years!!! so they have him on an adult dose antibiotic that looks like a freaking horse pill that he is suppose to swallow!!! i just have to crush it up and he has to choke it down. then we also have to give him sour things like lemons and such to try to get that saliva flowing and get it unclogged. lets cross our fingers and hope that it gets better cause if it doesn't then we have to go see and ent doctor where they would have to biopsy it! but I know it wont get to that point... so far the swelling hasn't gone down much but it hasn't gotten worse and he wasn't up all night screaming. I am just glad it wasn't something more serious and that it is treatable....my poor buddy! this was our second trip in a week. Bailee had to go last wed because he bent his thumb all the way back while jumping on the tramp and ended up tearing the ligaments in his thumb and cant move his thumb and has to wear a splint and will probably require physical therapy. he is just happy it didnt happen during baseball season!!! lets hope this is the last er trip...EVER!!! I will try to put up pictures later with both their injuries...

sorry these pitcures arent very good of Bailee's hand but you get the idea. his injury was a week ago