BACON’S 2!!!

Bacon turned 2 this year. It’s crazy to think but he is most definitely 2!! I don’t know that I would call them “terrible” but he is different from the other boys for sure. His pediatrician says he’s just normal and the other two were abnormal. Bacon does a lot of things the other boys didn’t. For example: he climbs everywhere, gets into everything, writes on stuff, eats erasers, eats toothpaste, etc. And no matter what we do, what kind of trouble he gets in, he keeps doing whatever he wants. It’s a bit frustrating for us because we’ve never had that problem with the other boys! There are also good things: he loves to get his teeth brushed, he loves to take a bath, he loves to “go potty” in the toilet and he really loves to help us clean up (most of the time anyway), especially if it’s a mess he made.

I don’t think he knows he’s only 2. I acts like he is 4 or 5 most of the time. Whatever the older boys are doing, he is doing or tries to do. He is a funny little kid. Always giggling, smiling and running around. He likes to play games, play the computer (insert mommy scream here), color, draw, play the piano, wrestle, tickle, be tickled and dance, with or without anyone. He really loves music. He is always bopping his head around when he hears music. In the car, when I turn the radio on, he often yells, “Loud mommy! Loud mommy!” He doesn’t stop until the music is good and loud too.

So for his 2nd birthday we celebrated this crazy hooligan with friends. It was quite fun. He is a ball of energy. It was so fun to watch him open his presents. He opened the present from Grandma and Grandpa Parker and undressed right then and there! They had given him a Thomas the Train shirt and shorts set. He wanted it on right then and let us know! It was hilarious! He is a kid who knows what he wants!

Tim made the cake and did an amazing job. It was a white cake with blackberry filling and blackberry flavored frosting. So yummy! And it was a soccer ball. Bacon LOVES any kind of ball and loved this cake!!

Birthday Balloon! It's got all sorts of balls on it.

 

He loves to open presents!

Opening car #2.

His friend couldn't wait to play
with the toys either!

 

The plastic water plane. It's one of his favorite
outside toys. Especially after a monsoon!

Garbage truck from Grandma and
Grandpa Dutson.

Opening the clothes from Grandma
and Grandpa Parker.

Starting to pull his shorts off in excitement!

The new clothes! He LOVES trains!

Daddy did a great job with the cake! 

 

Blowing out the candles!!

Baconator’s Allergies

Since the beginning of February Bacon has had 4 ear infections: 1 in Feb., 2 in March and 1 in May. It’s been getting VERY FRUSTRATING!!! We had to cut our vacation short in March because he was throwing up and had an ear infection. He was throwing up from the medicine too and had to eat M&M’s just to get the medicine down. We had to meet with his pediatrician 2 weeks after the last one just to make sure the medicine worked and the infection actually went away. *sigh*

I had posted on facebook my frustrations and a friend suggested going to the allergist. He had a lot of ear infections as a child and said allergies was the cause. I decided I was going to try everything because I AM TIRED OF EAR INFECTIONS AND DOCTOR VISITS!!! So I made an appointment with the same allergist Pickle goes to.

Yesterday was the visit and it was very informative. We talked for a bit and she felt all Bacon’s symptoms pointed to environmental allergies. She also said food testing the 6 major groups minus the peanuts (milk, wheat, eggs, fish, peanuts and soy) would be good. Then because of Pickle’s tree nut allergies she wanted to test all those individually. This would all be done by skin testing.

If you have never had or know what skin testing for allergies is, I’ll explain to you what they do and then you will know exactly how much “fun” it isn’t.

1) The doctor pulls out a sheet of paper and marks all the items she wanted tested. Each item is in a category and has is number within that category.
2) The nurse comes in with the list and first cleans the back (for children) with rubbing alcohol. (not so fun). Next she looks at the list and with a pen, marks up the back with all the numbers for each item to be tested. She starts with the first category on the left side of the paper and works her way down and over. She adds a spot for the control positive and negative. Bacon did ok with that. He was laughing and moving around the whole time. I thought that was nice because he was about to hate life….
3) After all the marking is done, she pulls opens up the trays of testers. Each tray has 4 to 5 rows of tiny little needle with a plastic handle and organized by category and number, which corresponds to the paper she used to mark up Bacon’s back.
4) Then the “fun” begins. One by one she finds the needle that corresponds to the number on the back and pricks the spot right next to that number with the needle. Each needle is sitting in liquid that has whatever it is used to test for allergies. He was sobbing by the end but hadn't really screamed.

Just to give you an idea of what his back looked like: Bacon is not even 2 yet, so he is pretty small. He had 4 1/2 columns of numbers on his back. The first 2 columns were for pollens, molds and pets. The third column was for the major food groups and the control. The last 1 1/2 columns was for the tree nuts.

They prick the skin and then wait for 15 minutes for the reactions. If there is a reaction, the skin around the prick will turn red and there will be a whiteish bump. How big that bump is will depend on how allergic to that specific item you are. The entire back itches but can't be touched. That was not fun with a 2 year old. He did much better after he got a sucker.

The left side of Bacon’s back was totally red. He had big bumps by EVERY pollen he was tested for. Thankfully there was nothing there for the molds, pets and not even the major food groups. HOWEVER, less than 2 minutes in to the 15, I noticed #5 of the tree nuts had gotten a huge bump, bigger than I ever saw with Pickle. So I concluded he was allergic to that nut but wasn’t sure which one it was. At 8 minutes the nurse came and looked. She was going to stop then but we ended up waiting for the full 15 minutes. The doctor looked at his back and was very curious about tree nut #5.

At the end of the 15 minutes, two nurses came in. One measures the bumps and redness while the other records it. Those numbers are compared to the positive and negative control and that is how you know what allergies someone has.

As the nurse was measuring the doctor came in and said, “Well, here’s the good news, we know he is allergic to a tree nut. The bad news, they aren’t the same ones as Pickle!” Nice right? More nuts we can’t have in the house!!!! He is allergic to Hazelnuts (tree nut #5) and Almonds. The doctor said she wasn’t surprised as hazelnuts and almonds have very similar proteins. Although he didn’t test as positive to almonds, so that’s a milder allergy but still an allergy. After all that, he was rubbed down with some lotion stuff and given some medicine to help with the itching.

We settled on a course of action for him. He will get a nasal spray twice a day during allergy season to see if that helps. I figure he was plugged from the allergies and when some virus came through our house or whatever, he would get an ear infection because his ears couldn’t drain. I’m hoping this fixes the problem. And he got his own set of Epi-Pens as well. Sometime in the next week he will be getting his own allergy bag to take with him everywhere. Now I have to remember the diaper bag, Pickle’s allergy bag and Bacon’s allergy bag. *sigh*

And the worst part of it all: Pach’s favorite lunch (and the only sandwich he really eats) is Nutella. And what is Nutella? Hazelnuts and cocoa. Nice. Tim wants to get rid of that but I am undecided. I think I am going to take him in for a food challenge (where the doctor gives him a tiny bit of the food he is allergic to and keeps increasing the size to see how allergic he is). I think I want to know. We know with Pickle a sliver of cashews, pistachios, pecans or walnuts will give him problems. But I have zero idea with Bacon. I think that is something I want to know and then I will make my decision.

Joy School Graduation

The school year ended for Pickle too. He had his Joy School Graduation a couple days after Pach.
It was so cute and fun. The kids sang a couple songs, with help from past Joy Schoolers and us moms. They did a great job and were so excited!

Pickle got the award for “Best Listener.” As a group, we mom’s decide on the award for each child. Some kids got “Most Energetic” or “Best Singer” or as Pach got “Best Monster Drawer” and “Best Scissor Handler”. I agreed with most everything but I clearly had no input whatsoever with “Best Listener.” Even Tim laughed when I told him what award Pickle was getting. He knows how it really is at our house! I would NEVER have given him that award. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pickle but when we have the following conversations almost daily, you know he must be acting WAY BETTER at other people’s homes:

Pickle: “Mom, what store are we going to? The big one?”
Me: “Yes, we are going to Fry’s. The big one you like.”
(a 4 to 5 second silence)
Pickle: “Mom, we’re going to Fry’s? The big grocery store?”
Me: “Yes, we are going to Fry’s. The big grocer store that you like.”
(another 4 to 5 second silence)
Pickle: “Mom, where are we going? Are we going to Fry’s?”
Me (somewhat exasperated): “YES!!! DO YOU LISTEN TO ANYTHING I SAY?”
Pickle: “DON’T YELL AT ME!!”
Me: “Well, did you listen to anything I just said to you?”
Pickle: “NO!”
Me: “You asked me a question and you didn’t listen to the answer? Do you ever listen to me?”
Pickle: “NO!! I DON’T LISTEN TO YOU!!”

Just about every day we have a conversation like that and most of the time he doesn’t listen at all. And it doesn’t even have to be him asking me questions. It can just be me asking him to do something and he ignores me. At times, he is actually quite proud of the fact he asks questions and doesn’t listen to me. Someday he’ll get why I finally  yell at him right?

Anyway, he was VERY happy with his award. Then we handed out the graduation certificates and ate food. It was also pretty short and fun. He got to wear a cap and gown. I’m not sure how he felt about them though. The cap kept falling off his head. He did look cute though and was so excited about it all.

Pickle all ready to go!

L.T., the Media Man at the graduation.

All the kiddos singing.

Pickle and his "Best Listener"Award.

All the kiddos after getting their awards.

Pickle and his diploma That's his good friend J.T. next to him.

Pickle and J.T. Sadly, J.T. is moving onto Kindergarten this year! 

Kindergarten Promotion

The school year is over! The “last” day of school was on May 23rd, which for us, consisted soley of Kindergarten Promotion.

Pach was VERY excited about this, though I think it was only because he got to wear a graduation cap! He LOVED that.

I got to the school early to get good seats for myself and a friend. On complete accident, I got what turned out to be phenomenal seats! As I was waiting for the MPR (Multi Purpose Room) to fill up and the promotion start, things got a bit exciting. Two ladies actually started yelling at each other over saved seats! After a minute, a gentleman walked over to them and said, “Ladies, please! There are children here!” One lady walked off and the lady who was saving the seats sat down with a very loud “huff!” Totally craziness over kindergarten promotion! Luckily the people who sat next to me were really nice over the extra 4 feet I was saving.

Promotion was nice and short. The kids all came in wearing their caps and sang 3 songs. I don’t remember what they were but I do remember PACH ACTUALLY SANG AND DID THE HAND MOTIONS!!!! I was totally and completely shocked! Even at church, during singing time in primary, he won’t sing!! (For those who don’t know, primary is for kids ages 3 to 12. It’s broken into two parts: singing time and sharing time, which is a short lesson that has to do with the gospel). I have been singing a few songs to him for years and he knows them all but still won’t sing them at church so I was so surprised and happy! And he was pretty cute too!

After the 3 songs, each teacher said a few words about her class and then said the names of each student from her class as they walked down the steps and took the “certificates” from the principal. It was just a small piece of paper rolled up. The real certificates were on a table in the back. It was nice and short. 30 minutes from start to finish. Perfect!

We got a picture of Pach with his teacher and a couple friends. Then something else happened that is a rarity, Pach moved fast! He is generally very slow about stuff but when he gets on a mission that boy can move! He wanted to give gifts to his teacher and the two parapro’s that helped in his class. I had gotten gift bags of stuff ready and left it in his classroom (at the front of the school vs. the back of the school where the mpr is). After the graduation, he practically ran to the classroom to get them. I was walking that was talking to a mom of one of his classmates and he was not happy with me. We made it to the classroom and talked for a minute or two more. He wouldn’t even wait for me to help get the bags down. Luckily the friend is taller and helped Pach. He then headed to the door, opened and left saying, “Come on mom!” What had come over him?????

We were heading back to the MPR when he saw one of the parapro’s, Miss Sharon, who helped a cute little autistic girl in his class. If I have this correct, she is a behavioral paraprofessional, is like a teacher’s aid, who helps students who have behavioral issues or special needs. Pach really liked having her in his class. He even gave her a real hug after he gave her his gift! So cute!

We then raced to the MPR and found his teacher Mrs. Slade in the front. He gave her the gift bag and gave her a very big hug too! She was so surprised and so happy! He didn’t really say anything, just held his hand up with the bag. It was so cute to watch this little boy soooo excited!

Last stop was the back of the MPR to give Ms. Syble, a paraprofessional educator. That means, if I am correct, she helps out as a teacher’s aide as well with all the kids, like a teacher’s assistant. She corrects the homework, helps set things up, takes them to music or art and to lunch, etc. A little different than the behavioral parapro. That was all something new I learned this year. Pach really liked having her in his class too. He just thought all those ladies in his class were great!

And then, in true Pach style, he SLOWLY walked out to the car. All the way back to the front of the school, walking his normal slow walk. Gotta love that kid!

Pach in the flag shirt, ready to sing!

Pach singing and doing the moves. So cute!

Getting his diploma from the principal.

Mrs. Slade, the best kindergarten teacher ever! And Pach.

Pach, LT and PT, 2 of his great friends! They were all in the same class too!
I LOVE his smile! He is so happy and excited!

Pach and his diploma. 

Mother’s Day!

This was a great Mother’s Day. It started a little rocky. Pickle woke us up coughing around midnight (or at least me. Tim was sound asleep). I gave him some cough medicine, some water and tucked him back into bed. He came into our room again, coughing about 10 minutes later wanting to snuggle with me. He and I went into the spare room, where he coughed for another 10 minutes and then ran to the bathroom to throw-up. Poor guy! This is when Tim finally woke-up. After that Pickle snuggled right down and went to sleep. Around 2 am, I heard crying from the hallway and went out to find Bacon, dragging his blanket behind him, crying. I picked him up, took him to Tim (who I had to wake-up) and said, “This one is yours” and headed back to Pickle. I got up at 6 am to get ready for church and Pach got up a bit later.

Church was SO nice! It was just Pach and me. We both just sat and listened. He colored quietly and I got to hear what was going on! The little primary kids (kids ages 3 to 12) sing two mother’s day songs and they did a great job! I also got a Cadbury Candy Bar, which will be delicious when I get around to eating it. I didn’t even have to teach my primary kids today! The men in the ward taught so all the women could have the day off! Loved it but I did miss my kiddos a little bit.
Arriving home, the kitchen was totally clean and Mother’s Day presents wrapped and sitting on the table with cards! Tim had Pach go to the office and do something secretive and then we all had lunch. Through the whole thing Bacon kept yelling, “CAKE! CAKE!” The cake Tim made me was sitting on the table and that’s all Bacon wanted.

We finally got to open the presents and that made everyone happy. The boys all “helped” me open their present to me. Bacon went first. He had even signed his name on the card he gave me! He said I was “the best mommy ever!” So cute!! He gave me “Rockabye Baby Lullaby’s: Bon Jovi Edition”. Someone took Bon Jovi songs, changed up instruments and made them into lullaby’s. So fun!

Bacon and me. I had just poked him in the eye...
so he wasn't very happy.

Next was Pickle. He also wrote his name on the card and said he was thankful for me “taking him to soccer camp” and “playing with me”. He drew a picture of me and when I asked him to tell me about it, he said, “It’s you! I made you a Christmas Tree”. Indeed his portrait of me looked like a Christmas tree and was half green and half purple. He gave me “Michael Crawford Sings Andrew Lloyed Weber”. YAY!! Michael Crawford was the original Phantom for the Broadway version of Phantom of the Opera (or as the boys like to call him Condor Man). He has an amazing voice. I am very excited about this one! (Condor Man is a Disney movie Michael Crawford made that the boys LOVE).

Pickle and me with Michael Crawford, a.k.a. Condor Man.

Then came Pach. He wrote on his card he was thankful I “took him to soccer camp”, “played with him”, “walked him to his classroom”, “for reading to me” and “for singing to me”. He drew me a couple pictures as well. One was a little stick figure sitting on a big, fat pig. He said that was me giving him a horsey ride. I was a little off with the pig. Another picture was him playing soccer. And the last picture he goes, “I’ll have to think about it. I forgot what I drawed.” I was laughing so hard! I love my boys! He gave me another CD, “Susan Boyle: I Dreamed a Dream”. Tim said shopping was easy since I left those in his Amazon.com cart.

Pach and me with Susan Boyle.

Tim’s present was last. I’d seen it last night but it was still amazing to me! He is so talented it. He wrote me a card that made me cry, it was so sweet and beautiful! And he made me a gorgeous key lime flavored cake. He spent 2 hours last night making pink, key lime flavored fondant petals, to make it look like a flower. Then he put little white roses on top. It was beautiful! And it tasted great too! I LOVE key lime flavored stuff.

Picture of the great cake!

close up of the amazing cake.

The cake.

And as if that wasn’t enough! I was going to make some chocolate cupcakes with chocolate raspberry frosting for a friend, as part of her Mother’s Day present. Tim made the cupcakes, then suggested making straight raspberry frosting dyed pink and putting a raspberry filling in the cupcakes. So he made the filling, while I made the frosting. THEN he cut out a little of the cupcake and I filled them. He then frosted the cupcakes and said, “You can put the silver beads on them too, if you want.” So I did. And this is how they turned out:

I took my friend 10, so she and her kids could each have 2. She ate one,
then finished off 2 other's. I'm not sure her kids will each get their two....
They are that good!

While I was delivering them, Tim made the dinner: honey glazed chicken with rice and salad. It was yummy! And he even cleaned up all the mess afterward! Such a great hubby! And there is enough chicken for dinner tomorrow and probably Tuesday too! Score for me! No making dinner for 3 days!!
Thank-you Tim! And the boys for the best Mother’s Day EVER!!!

SHOT THROUGHT THE HEART!!!

About 6 weeks ago a friend posted a picture of her Bon Jovi Concert ticket on facebook. This was the conversation Tim and I had:

E: “Mindi posted a picture of her ticket to see Bon Jovi. She’s always wanted to see him and now she is going.”
T: “Are you going?”
E: “No.”
T: “Why not? Isn’t he your man? Don’t you love him?”
E: “I don’t love him but he is my favorite.”
T: “Then why aren’t you going?”

So I went to Bon Jovi’s facebook page, saw two friends who live here that like him (Charlotte and Rita) and sent out an email. Fast forward five long weeks and we were headed off to Glendale, AZ to see Bon Jovi in concert!

I need to insert a big THANK-YOU to Tim. He not only came home early so we could go BUT offered to watch kids so we could leave even earlier than we had planned! I told him we were leaving at 3:30 pm and he said that would be pushing it. I explained Charlotte couldn’t leave until Parker (her oldest) got home to watch the younger boys. Tim’s response was, “Well, if it’s just watching kids for an hour, then go early. I’ll watch them.” AND HE DID! He picked them all up from school, took all the kids back to Charlotte’s to wait for Parker to get home and even made the boys do their homework! Such a great guy!!

Ok, enough gushing…..

We left at 2:30 all “decked” out. We hit rush hour traffic around 4:30 but still made it to the arena by 5:30 pm, two hours ahead of concert time. We got dinner at In and Out and had a great time visiting. I don’t do girls night out like that often but it sure is sooo much fun when I do!

We headed back to the arena and waited for, what should have been a little less than 1 1/2 hrs but at 7:30 the big screen said, “30 minutes to start time.:” It ended up being good for Mindi, who came with some other friends of hers, Kellie and Julene. They might have missed a little bit. Finally at 8:13 Bon Jovi took the stage and the place went crazy!!! We had “great” seats which made it even better. We were a couple rows down from the main level of the arena, looking straight at the stage. It wasn’t the floor but we could see. I say “great” because the couple in front of us gave us quite a show too, only it was a little bit naughty and not nearly as fun!

They played all the classics and a few of the songs from their new album. He started with “That’s What the Water Made Me” from the latest album and ended with “I Love This Town” (the second encore of the night). He sang 26 songs and the band had a couple little interludes of their own. Completely amazing. The only bummer was Richie Sambora was not there. :(  I was a little bummed a few songs didn’t get played but since they have 12 original albums, 2 greatest hits albums and 2 live albums, with mostly great songs, I guess they just can’t sing them all.

The favorites of the night were the classic stuff: Born to Be My Baby, Raise Your Hands, Keep the Faith, You Give Love a Bad Name, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, It’s My Life (a little newer), Bed of Roses, Bad Medicine, Wanted Dead or Alive, We Got It Going On (it’s a little newer), Living On A Prayer (which was the last song of the first encore. I thought they would have ended the show with that one). Instead they came out and did Always and ended with I Love This Town. I liked all the songs they played but the crowd didn’t go as crazy for those: What the Water Made Me, Have a Nice Day, Who Says You Can’t Go Home, Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen From Mars, Want to Make A Memory, We Weren’t Born to Follow, Lost Highway, Whole Lot of Leaving, Because We Can, What About Now, Last Man Standing. He got a big cheer when he channeled his “inner Jagger” and they played Start Me Up and he moved like Mick Jagger.

I was a little sad they didn’t play anything from their Bounce album, like Bounce or Misunderstood or Love Me Back to Life. They also didn’t play I’ll Be There For You (but I am pretty sure Jon always sings that one with Richie and he wasn’t there….), Blood on Blood, Lay Your Hands on Me, Runaway, One Wild Night, Summertime and I could go on. It was a great show! I was hoarse and sweaty. My feet hurt and we didn’t get home until after 2 am but it was ALL WORTH IT!!! I’m so glad I went and that I had the company of two great ladies to boot! And so glad Mindi decided to go and posted a picture of her ticket online and that I told Tim about it. I owe the night to Mindi! This was my third concert since August and this one takes the cake! IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!

Rita, Me and Charlotte

That's What the Water Made Me

We Got It Going On

Bed of Roses

All bowing at the "end"

Living on a Prayer