Ouwee!!

Last week Thursday, we were supposed to take the kids to the Leonardo Museum up in Salt Lake City, but plans were quickly put on hold. The day started out as normal. To define normal, Cliff gets ready for work and in the midst of that Leilani wakes up. I grabbed her from the crib, but needed to take the garbage bin outside. When I came back inside the house, Leilani wanted me to pick her up. I am at the point in my pregnancy where bending takes a lot of effort and so I decided to pick her up by the one arm. NOT THE BRIGHTEST IDEA!!!! Why? Because while she was eating her breakfast she was screaming and I couldn't figure it out. I pulled her out of her high chair and fed her myself. It was going well for a bit, but then she started to scream again. She wouldn't let me put her down, so I sat with her in our reclining chair for a while and thought she was just not feeling well. Within a few minutes, I realized that it was her arm that was hurting. Yep, the one I picked her up with. Her elbow had been dislocated and every time I would move that arm she would scream. POOR GIRL! So before we could get her in to see the doctor to have her pop it back into place, I put a HUGE triangular bandage on her so that she could at least keep from moving it while I got ready to get her to the appointment.

So, the moral of the story and lesson learned: Don't pick your children up with one arm even if it takes a little more effort to bend while you are pregnant or you will be paying for a doctor's bill that wasn't necessary let alone not the child's fault.

Cheesebooger!

The title says it all! She is definitely a little booger sometimes, but one that loves to eat cheeseburgers. In fact, whenever she eats, she shoves her mouth full of the food. But, this is the first time I just let her have the hamburger to eat it by herself while we were chillin' outside. It got a little messy towards the end, but she did pretty darn good for her first.

Reading Time

I have tried to make reading a part of our daily routine this summer because Maika really needs it to keep up with what he has already done. So, I have made it a point to get to the city library and let them check at least 2 books out and then I grab a few extra for them that I might think are good for all of them to listen to.

But, it seems every day that we get home from the library, they have to have Dad read to them. So they all gather round and listen to him read. Beats having to listen to Mom all the time. Even Leilani has to get in on the action.

Annual Denver Trip

This year the annual trip wasn't just my sisters and I, it consisted of our families minus Cliff. My sister, Nezhone, sold her house in Arvada to move to Montrose to be with her husband. She quit her job and they will be moving this week. So before she moved, we had to make one last trip to the house and to the thrift stores for some school clothes shopping. I spent around $100 and came home with a load of jeans for the boys, shirts for the boys and Kalena, and some nice shorts for Kalena. I also bought me a couple of things.

Along with the shopping, we always go and watch a movie because of my lovely sister, Shara, who works at the movie theatre there. I was about ready to head into Madagascar 3, but changed my mind last second because all the kids wanted to be with their cousins watching Spiderman.

Then Shara took the kids to a water park while I had to make my stop over at the Penzey's spice store. If you have never tried their spices, you must! We don't have one in Utah, so I either order online or just go and stock up when I am in Denver. They have all the spices out in a sample jar so you can smell them. I could spend hours in there and lots of money if I had it, but I have to stick with a budget.

It was a crazy, but good time being with my sisters and Mom. I will now have to make the trip to stay with Shara because she will still be there by herself living the single life. But, now I can stop and split the trip into two and visit Nezhone in Montrose and stay a few days, then head off to Denver. How nice will that be instead of having to drive the whole thing in one day with 5 little kids that need to go to the bathroom ALL OF THE TIME!!!

We even took the kids to a park and that is when I decided to try Instagram on my phone instead of having to edit the photos on the computer. I was pleased with the results, but it killed my battery pretty quickly.

Leilani was just happy to be down on the ground crawling around. It was in Denver that she learned how to stand on her own without having to pull herself up from holding on to anything.

Aunty Shara and cousin, Talia with Lavea'i riding on the bumblebee. They all love their Aunty Shara cause she always does fun things with them.

Their cousin Jakai. He was so sad to see them leave. His poor little heart was broken when we left and I don't know how long he cried.

Nezhone and her newest edition, Aidrick. He is such a good baby! Rarely cries...only when he is hungry.

My Mom who was writing her plans for her funeral so there wouldn't be any arguments as to what should go on and who would be doing what. Kalena asked me on the way home, "Is Grandma going to die?" I asked her why she was asking, but little did I know that she was listening to Grandma talk to Nezhone and I about the arrangements.

 There she is...STANDING ALL BY HERSELF!!!

I realized when I was downloading the pictures that I didn't get a single picture of Cajsa's kids. How bad is that! Sorry Cajsa! Cajsa and her family came back with us and we spent a day a 7 Peaks water park and just hung out. The kids played a ton of Xbox 360 along with playing with the toys downstairs.

My kids were very tired by the time all was back to just us. I think they have caught up on their sleep though.

Pre-Op

Cliff was only going in for a arthroscopic surgery, but ended up coming out with a little more done than expected. His shoulder has been hurting him for a few years now and was getting to the point that he couldn't sleep much at night because it hurt so bad. So, come to find out that they had to shave some of the clavicle because there was bone on bone...which if that was all they had done he would be going strong right now. But, when they were in doing the surgery, the surgeon found more that needed to be done. His biceps tendon had to be cut and reattached. This means that he still cannot use his arm for another 3 1/2 weeks. It is his right arm too. He is still in pain and has to take pain meds every night before bed, but it is getting better a little each day. But before they wheeled him out for surgery, we took a picture so that the kids could see Dad in all his glory. The face he made was for the kids so they would laugh. I don't think I have shown it too them yet either. After surgery wasn't so funny though. I didn't like seeing him come out of the anesthesia. He was in pain, couldn't really talk and just not himself. They said he tried getting off of the bed by himself. I can only imagine a small nurse trying to hold this 275 lb. guy down so that he wouldn't fall on his face. Then, of course, we don't get out of the surgery unit until 10:30 p.m. because he was the last one scheduled for the day and I have all his medications that need to be filled so that he can sleep through the night and not feel any pain. So, needless to say, it wasn't easy getting to a 24 hour pharmacy. I ended up getting to bed that night around 3:30 a.m. and waking up at 7:30 a.m. to Leilani talking gibberish. What a fun time! But, at least he won't be in pain once it is healed, at least we hope.

July 4th...Something Different

Last year we didn't do fireworks because we had gone up to Washington to visit my sister and her family. This year, we decided to just do our own thing. What did we do, you ask? We packed up the van with some camping gear and went to Nun's Park in Provo Canyon. Not the ideal place for camping to Cliff and I, but the kids LOVED it! They always like it when we sleep in the tent. I even was okay with it being pregnant. I vowed never to go camping again while I was pregnant, but it wasn't too bad this time.

We headed up there pretty early in the afternoon to pick the spot we wanted. The kids were hungry and we tried to hold off as long as possible, but around 5p.m. Cliff started to work on the fire to get our yummy foil dinners going. Leilani was helping him get the wood out of the bucket even though he didn't need anymore.

All around the campsites were a bunch of bottle caps from old beer bottles. So, Kalena found an old soda bottle and put all of lids in them. Thanks for cleaning up the campsite a little bit better.

Maika kept wanting to go in and out of the tent and since he doesn't know how to tie his shoes yet, I had to end up limiting how much he could go into the tent.

 The kids ALWAYS have to get in the tent as soon as it is put up. They love to hang out and play inside of it.

 So much for clean clothes on Leilani, I didn't even think about changing her into a bit more grungy clothes. Oh, well. The dirt came out of them. All she wanted to do was crawl around and play.

Cliff had a couple of ropes in his car and gave them to the kids and said have fun. Those ropes entertained them until they went to bed. They acted like they were cowboys and kept trying to lasso everything.

 Tula'i finally lassoed the big tree trunk.

 Kalena wanted the rope, but ended up being the "cowgirl" that collected all of the hay and had to do "all the work."

 Then there is Lavea'i who doesn't need a darn thing to entertain him, he is entertainment in himself. He just wanted pictures taken and that we did.

The next morning we were the first ones up and out of camp. But we did hang out a bit in the tent first before taking it down.

After camping, we came home and unloaded. We hung out for a bit and then headed out to 7 Peaks water park. The kids had a blast and we enjoyed just being us for the day. On the way home this is what they looked like.

I LOVE taking family trips together. They are lots of enjoyable memories made.