Hair, lots and lots of hair

This is how much hair I cut every two months or so. From left: Brady, Zenock, Ammon, Gideon. It takes me just over an hour for four heads as long as no one puts up a fight. I also cut Ayla's bangs last night. Her pile was about the size of a fifty cent piece or a quarter. I use #2 and #4 clipper guards on the boys and #2 and #5 on Brady. Below Brady is sporting the newest hair trend: all business on one side and a party on the other. He looks absolutely thrilled doesn't he? I figured in the last 11.5 years I have been cutting my family's hair we have saved over $3000. That's crazy isn't it?

Napping

This chair has magical sleepy powers today.

Big four months

Today he is officially over 10 pounds! At the dr this morning he was measured at 23.75 inches long, with a 15 inch head circumference. Although he is still very small he is still proportionate to himself. He is way below the growth chart, but now he is following the curve so that eventually he will be on the percentile chart. Rydon is wearing size 1 diapers, and his 0-3 month clothes are still big on him. His acid reflux is still pretty bad as far as barfing goes, but the pain is a lot less which makes him more comfortable. The last several days he has eaten a lot more than usual which is sooooo good. I know his increased appetite has helped his weight gain a lot. This little man loves to smile at me. He loves kisses on the cheeks, raspberries on his neck, and he is starting to think being tickled is amusing. I say amusing because I haven't gotten him to fully laugh while being tickled. He does this half-chuckle thing. He rolls over from tummy to back often. Yesterday I noticed he was on his side trying to roll from his back to his tummy.

birthday fun

 The pictures mostly loaded up backwards. So I guess we start with her fun friend party at the splash park on Saturday morning. The Wilson and Hedden families came to celebrate with us. I made Olaf cupcakes and we had some yummy watermelon. The big kids spent some time playing football and twister. The little kids ran around like crazy, screeching when they got wet. Everyone had a wonderful time. Thank you, Wilson family, for her first dress-up clothes. She loves the fairy dress and the princess shoes. She wears them everywhere including nap time.

 Thank you, Hedden family, for the really cute peek-a-boo kitty, bag, bubbles, and chalk. She hasn't tried to eat the chalk yet :) She takes the kitty and the bag everywhere and gets upset when Gideon tries to take a turn with the kitty.

 Thank you, Winco, for coming through with bulk candy so I could make some decent Olaf noses.

 Here we are to Friday night, her birthday.

 When the bag was peeled down to show the castle and stable she shouted, "OOOOOOH!!" It was so cute!

 Playing with the bus and the chariot of blocks

 Two cute outfits from Grammy and Jerry!

One thing I didn't get a photo of was her opening the present from my parents. Mom embroidered an elephant on a new bath towel for her. She thought it was pretty neat. She has already claimed the towel and dragged it all over the house cuddling with it. For some reason she does this with towels instead of blankets.

 A playhouse!!!

 And a small castle to take with her to grandma's house!

 Discovering it makes noise!

 Gotta get IN the bag to get to the fun stuff at the bottom.

 I have been collecting Little People sets from yard sales for quite a while now so she could build up a good collection of them. She got a bus, chariot with building blocks, house, big castle, small castle that fits a few figures for travel, horse stable, and most of the people and accessories to go with them. They are all in great shape. I enlisted my sons to help clean everything up nice for her a few day before her birthday. She loves playing with everything so much. Gideon also joins in on the fun. He loves to watch the horses gallop down the stable slides. I will get a video of that soon because describing it just doesn't make much sense. Ayla already has a favorite black horse.

 Opening her birthday card from Grandparents Lindsay.

The "baby bug" cake as she says. She loved it. It tasted delicious! It turned out mostly as I was thinking about it in my head one night last week when I couldn't sleep.

Now that birthday fun is over, the next task for this cute girl is potty training. When we get back from Shriner's it is the priority on the list of summer activities. Woohoo.

Cute boys

You would probably never guess these were taken with my cell phone. Today I am very thankful for free photo editing on ipiccy.com. I am happy to put these up on my wall soon.

Birthday party at the park

We had a really low key party for Ayla this morning at the splash park. The Wilsons and the Heddens joined us. Ayla and the other little kids loved playing in the water and  running around. She was given a fairy dress up set complete with shoes, bubbles, a kitty bag, and a kitty that plays peekaboo. She thinks it is hilarious when the kitty hides its eyes. Thank you, friends, for coming to play with us!

Birthday girl

Ayla loves fire trucks, garbage trucks, super heros, lady bugs, taking a bath, anything with the "Frozen" characters, babies, giraffes, elephants, dogs, horses, and her special pig lovey. She loves to eat strawberries, cold chicken nuggets, cheese, and carrots. When she sleeps she has to have her Ana, giraffe, flower, and baby quilt blankets all on her....no matter how hot it is. Her vocabulary is exploding (finally!!), and she is becoming quite the imitator.

Science Fair

 Bubbles, sand, gak, foam, water...what more could a kid ask for to play in? The kid in the black shirt and yellow hat is Gideon. Zenock is wearing the orange backpack. Ayla is in the orange shirt, almost behind Brady's leg.

 These kids LOVED the hands on activities.

We went to the science fair at Cashman Center last Saturday. Ammon wanted to support his GATE friends in their Rubix cube competition. Sadly, the race took place too late in the afternoon for us because of nap time, but he still got to see his friends for a few minutes. Most of us loved the small planetarium they created. Ayla LOVED watching the robots. Gideon loved playing in the sand the most.

Swimming

 Two Saturdays in a row swimming and dining with friends. Thanks Merrimans!

 Thanks Coxs for the delicious short ribs and the pool heater!

Scout day camp

They got to do a large variety of things this year. Friday afternoon they took a field trip to Springs Preserve to check out the Nevada State Museum. Saturday Ammon hiked three miles all up and over the mesa, they both did some bb gun shooting and archery, and Zenock did some science activities. He came home with a bug board...there's a name for it but I can't remember what it's called. He was thrilled to take all the plastic bugs off and play with them in his flubber for the rest of the afternoon. I love that they love scouts so much. It truly is a wonderful, inspired program.

Check out that accuracy!

Mother's Day

Today wasn't relaxing in any way, well...except for watching the last 15 minutes of Star Wars, but it was nice. Because it took so long yesterday to shop for a garage door opener replacement (ours broke Friday night, and I didn't want to pay for new parts, shipping, and wait over a week to get them so we just bought a new opener) Brady installed it today so I didn't have to wait until next Saturday to park the van in the garage.

Brady gave me a Mother's necklace. It's something I have been wanting since we started having kids ten years ago, but it was unrealistic to purchase such a piece of jewelery until our family was complete. This is perhaps the most unique styles I have ever seen. I love it so much!

Thank you, wonderful husband, for taking care of me and doing things you would rather not in order to make my life more convenient. Thank you for having most of the tools you need when such last minute projects come up. And thanks for being willing to check off things on the "honey-do list."

The older boys made these in Primary today. I just loved reading their answers.

 Ammon's paper. Crafting....the kids know what mommy loves to do with my spare time!

 Zenock's paper. I love the "soing"...sewing and "woshing moves"....watching movies.

Lots of smiles

This is the reason I am not getting any sanding or staining done during nap time. He has been playing with me for an hour. I even got a short giggle out of him. It was so dang cute! I love hearing babies laugh.

The cleft surgery was unsuccessful

Dr. Menezes is supposed to be the best plastic surgeon in the valley. He is the only one here that does cleft lip and palate repairs. And he screwed up Rydon's lip, royally. It looked like he put in only one stitch, but there may have been two put in the bottom of his upper lip. The rest of the skin was super glued together all the way to his nose. Sometime Saturday during the night he pulled the stitch out. Because there was no longer anything to hold the tension of the skin and glue together to heal it began coming undone. By Sunday night it was very obvious. I called the on-call dr in Menezes' office. He told me not to worry because babies tear their stitches out all the time and so they will just fix it later at his next surgery in June. The next morning I made an appointment and firmly requested to be first in line after lunch so I could get home in time for kids to get home from school. I had to get a babysitter for Ayla at the last minute and ask a neighbor to also take Gideon to school. Talk about HIGHLY INCONVENIENT!! I am so very thankful for a wonderful neighbor who home schools her kids so that her daughter could come over and she had time to take Gideon to school.

Dr. Menezes told me Monday that this situation happens often...when after the surgery he said it rarely happens. He said he will repair the whole lip in June instead of just touching up was was done on Friday and then working on his nostril formation and a couple of other things. Both Brady and I asked him THREE times about getting arm restraints for him because we were both concerned about Rydon ripping his stitches out since he has his hand in his mouth all the time. The dr said it wasn't necessary all three times because babies rarely tear their stitches out.

(This is being written on the 14th, a full two weeks after the surgery)
My dad called me later in the week, I can't remember if it was Tuesday or Wednesday and told me I need to stick up for my kid because the doctor works for me, not the other way around. Everything he said echoed in my mind to what I had already been thinking through this whole ordeal. Talking to him that morning made me mad all over again and I started bawling like a baby. I was so embarrassed to be crying on the phone to my dad. I am sure he didn't mind though. I remember feeling like I wanted to punch the doctor in the face and make him fix Rydon immediately. Brady still wants to submit a bill to the doctor for his lost wages on Friday because he had to take the entire day off, which was his overtime day...the one day a week that makes the whole job in Primm worth it. In any case, I am not sure if we can sue the doctor and win....so since we cannot afford to pay for a lawyer if we lose, we are not going to follow through with that idea. On Friday, June 5th we are driving to LA to see a cleft plastic surgeon at Shriner's Hospital. From the suggestions I have had from people all over the pace about this issue, most of them have told us to go check out Shriner's. The other option we have is Primary Children's in SLC.

****UPDATE 

The bill came in the mail. It doesn't even include the surgeon's fee.  RIDICULOUS for 2.5 hours in the hospital! 

First cleft lip surgery

I said last night that I have been waiting for this day since January 26th, the day he was born. However, I was thinking this morning that it's actually not true. I have been waiting and wondering about this day since we found out about his cleft in October. That's a very long time to think about the surgery and how it may or may not affect him, me, and our family. I am so thankful it's over. Since he has to have so many in the future, I think perhaps the first surgery for the lip and the first surgery for the palate are going to be the most stressful and worrysome for me. All in the life of a mother, right?
 
Today was Rydon's first cleft lip surgery. It is stage one, meaning the lip muscles and skin tissue were sewn together. This helps the the second stage not be under so much strain and risk tissue tearing. We reported to the day surgery department at 6am. He went off with the nurses to surgery about 8am and by 8:40 Dr. Menezes was back, telling us it went great and we can see him soon. We left the hospital a little before 10am. In the photo below we were still in the waiting room and Rydon was hungry, so Brady asked me to take this picture and posted the caption on facebook: Two grumpy dudes who don't get breakfast. It was soooo funny!

It is so cute that he is holding Brady's thumb while having his first bottle since 11pm last night.

I love that his hair color is almost the same strawberry blonde color as mine. It's about time we had a kid with my hair! We are also hoping his eyes stay blue like Brady's...because we need one kid with those too :)

His pain will only last a couple of days. He has surgical super glue on his outer upper lip tissue, and a couple of dissolvable stitches in his lip.