6 months already!

He looks all grown up with his lip closed and nose formed the right way. He gets the nasal stent removed on August 7th. He is not quite sitting up yet, he loves to roll around on the floor, he has started grabbing my hair, put things in his mouth (like burp clothes, his bib, and his clothes if he can), and he has had his first bowl of rice cereal. I haven't been consistent with solid foods, so this month I am really going to work on it. And just for fun, here is a comparison of the last 30 days of his life.

Playing with friends

I had to go to the doctor yesterday, so my friend babysat the kids at her in-laws house. They went swimming the whole time I was gone which made the little kids extremely happy. Ammon got to stay for a while after I got back and had delicious ice cream. Zenock was at a birthday party at the water park during this time. Both boys had a great time swimming and playing with friends.

Cute baby Rydon

His lip is healing so well. Now that the glue is off I get to put Sun screen on it every day for a year no matter the weather. I love his smile. It was cute before with his cleft as well. We had a fun time with samples in Costco today. I also decided that Rydon would be an Olympian if spitting up all over everything when a burp cloth is right in front of him was a sport. He is such a barfy baby.
The last picture is here because I took it in California and had it blown up for my family photo wall. I will cherish this photo always because it was taken two days before Rydon's lip was closed forever.

The super glue is off

Rydon's super glue came off this morning. I love how it looks. He is a mini Gideon. I also wanted to show what a bugger looks like when in his nasal stent. This is for my journaling to remember later, so if you think it's gross, sorry. The qtip on the left is his super glue, and the right one has the bugger. I have to dip qtips in hydrogen peroxide and gently clean his nose every day. He doesn't like having his nose messed with at all! The other pictures are from today as well. We went to the kids club at the mall where a clown does a show and  makes balloon things for the kids after. Everyone loved it, and Ayla had her first outing wearing panties and not having an accident. I think she just about has potty training down. It's been very long 7 weeks with that.

Recent crafting

 

I made the names out of vinyl for my friend. She has a FHE assignment board and the tags have been empty for three years. I am excited to give these to her as a thank you gift for all she did to help us during Rydon's surgery last week.

 This is a clever accessory. It is a vinyl roll feeder. It really helps the vinyl stay lined up when cutting since the project was too long to use my cutting mat. I love this, and wish it would have been available sooner. Special thanks to my sister, who works at a vinyl warehouse, for saving this one for me! They have been out of stock for over a month, and more aren't coming in until sometime in August.

 These are so neat. There are several of Brady's co-workers who have requested hard hat stickers. They are fun to make. Top is Venom from Spiderman. The king pig, below, was perhaps the hardest one to create so far because all the pieces where individual due to the color change. I also had to figure out how to make him have black eyes.

 The Ironman is Brady's.

 Top is Denver Broncos NFL. Bottom is Arizona Diamnondbacks MLB

 These two are for Brady's step dad, Jerry. He does all the quality control for the solar frames they are building out in Primm. Top is San Fransisco Giants MLB. Bottom is Utah Jazz NBA.

Currently I am in the process of making Ayla a twin size quilt for her big girl bed. She loves Frozen characters and Minnie Mouse, so I am combining the two to make a strip quilt for her. I am taking it to Idaho in August to quilt myself!

Post surgery photos

 Taken yesterday, the 14th, one week post-op. You can see the glue starting to peel away near the top of his upper lip. It should be gone later in the week.

Taken the 9th, I think. Two days post surgery

Cleft lip surgery day!!!

The day I have waited for since January has arrived!!! His surgery was delayed about 1.5 hours because Dr. Howell had an emergency surgery before Rydon. He was extra mad to not be eating since shortly after we got to the hospital at 5:30 am. The cute nurses took him and played with him for a little while so we could relax and take a short nap before they got too busy. Finally about 8:20 they came to take us to the surgery prep area. Rydon screamed for a good while because he was just hungry. We both felt so bad for him. We could do nothing for him except hold him while he screamed. It was not my favorite thing. They took him back to the OR a little before 9am. He was in for about three hours. When he woke up from anesthesia he screamed and screamed and screamed....for three hours straight. He was throwing his body around so much that he kicked out his IV's in both legs and bled all over my pants. It was horrible. They kept telling us he wasn't in pain because the anesthesia would keep him numb for about four hours after waking up. I think he really didn't like the numb feeling or something. In any case, that experience was horrible. Finally at 3:30 we were able to leave the hospital and make our way through gross traffic to Torrance (however, we had a dead battery and had to wait for the hospital engineer to come jump us. That was a fun, unexpected thing). While it only took us 35 minutes to drive into LA, the drive to Torrance was over an hour because we didn't get onto the freeway until almost 4:30.....the crappiest time to travel in the LA area. The rest of our kids had a fabulous day playing with ShaeLee's kids. They jumped and rode cars and played all day long. I am so thankful ShaeLee volunteered a while ago to watch our kids so we could be a little less stressed at the hospital. It worked out so well. We stayed there again Tuesday night because of the dead battery situation. Wednesday we tried to get on the road home at 11:30am, but the van wouldn't start again, nor would the battery charge enough by the jumper cables. It was such a frustrating time. At about 12 we finally got it going and headed to Costco for a new battery....which we found out they didn't carry in stock. So we had to get jumped again by their tech guy and then find a Pep Boys close by. When we got there it took them an hour to hook up the van to their diagnostic machine, find the battery we needed, and put it in. But then after that warning lights were still going off on the dash so we had to have it tested again. We were there over an hour!! Finally, about 2:30pm we got on the road headed home. The van did fine the whole trip...for which I am so thankful. After spending 5 days in California, I will do my best to not complain about bad traffic or high cost of living here in Vegas because CA is so much worse!!!! It is a nice place to visit, but I am sure I would never want to live there.

 Last photo before going back for surgery.

 Playing at the May's

 This does not even come close to showing the bumper to bumper traffic for miles on the freeway.

Pre-op with Anesthesiology and the BEACH!

 The real reason we came to California was to take Rydon to Shriner's Hospital for his cleft lip surgery. We met with the anesthesiologist on Monday morning for a pre-op and then headed down to Torrance to stay with our friends, the May family, and go to the beach. It was the first time all of our children have seen the ocean. Zenock had his dream come true to be buried in the sand. When Ayla saw him, she tried to push him out of the way so she could get buried as well. She loved having her legs hiding and trying to find where her toes went. It smelled so good out there. Although the cloud cover was fairly heavy it was still nice to relax and let everyone play for a few hours. There are some really cute videos on my phone that I need to load onto youtube so I can share the link here. Keep checking back for that.

 A family picture, including the sleeping baby Rydon. Naps on the beach are awesome!