And so it begins...: Dump

It has been a crazy full couple of months. I can't remember if I documented this or not, but I wanted to put the few pictures my sister gave me of her trip to Honduras.

She had a blast and did some of the best warm water diving of her life.

Jen, swimming with the fishes...

Jen is the top of the pyramid.

Breanna got her senior pictures.

She emailed me a few.

Cannot believe how gosh darn old and gorgeous she is.

Mitchel's bike had gotten stolen from our backyard. Which was very unsettling.

However, Brent was lucky enough to find it the 7-11. Mind you it has almost been 2months. Brent walked across the street to the police station and asked if he could just take it back. It was sitting there next to another bike, unchained.

We knew it was Mitchel's due to a few distinctive marks, and a couple of caps from gel tires that Mitch had used. It was obviously left out in the elements and now has a couple rust spots. In addition one of the pedals squeaks horribly. Still, easily remedied.

We were so happy to have found it.

Carleen and I swapped some selfies.

I always miss my sisters once I am around them for awhile.

Thanksgiving break we spent almost 9 days together. I got spoiled.

Elysia and her mommy giving some of the classic kissy faces.

Here in Central we've had rain, wind, and snow...

It is currently almost 50 degrees, in December...crazy!

The wind is outside rattling the windows and blowing tree branches around the street. I was swaying with the gusts on my way to my final today...kind of scary.

These tumbleweeds keep blowing into our yard and I've had to dodge them on the highway.

When you do hit them they just explode into a burst of twigs flying up and swirling away in the wind.

I was able to be home in my comfy clothes a lot while August was feeling under the weather.

August's room is in full disarray, a few good days at home...and this was just after cleaning.

This was after he had emptied the entire hope chest to be able to sit in it...

This was Brent pretending to have a stache last month, but now he is actually growing one.

Like seriously...

I thought he was joking (like in the picture below) and would shave it off.

Nope he is really wanting to keep it around.

I love him, but I can't stand mustaches.

So...yea, we are making fun of his as often as we can.

I even showed him a photo shopped picture of a baby T"om Selleck, pretty much a baby with a mustache.

My dear friend Rhi had a birthday, and I noticed how much she and Laurel are looking like twins these days. (Miss these girls)

Grandpa had accompanied us to the Black Bear diner, where August got a pretty awesome dessert.

His favorite part was the cherries, he ate those and then gave the ice cream to us.

Breanna had brought this mask home from the movie theater and the kids enjoyed playing with it.

I thought it was cool that in the picture it looks like it is cropped in.

At pump it up, we got to see how absolutely tall Abram has gotten compared to Mitch.

On one of the drives over the mountain I snapped a pic of the beautiful mountain top full of snow.

There are many times driving over that you turn a corner and all of a sudden you are blinded by the light reflecting off of this peak. I usually capture it when it is speckled with snow...not covered.

Dad was all about Christmas music. He brought print outs of a bunch of Christmas songs. I was happy to partake in the singing of Christmas carols, but some of the other people were not so into it.

One of the sweet moments I got to witness was when Elysia and Dad sang You Raise Me Up Josh Groban style.

After we got home from Thanksgiving August started having some weird stuff go on.

He told me he had some "red stuff" in his "poop". When I went to observe this, I found he had some diarrhea and there was blood in his stool.

Due to the continuance of blood present in his stool, I had to take him in to the doctor. This was one of those times I wish Brent could have been HERE, instead of 3 hours away.

( I know he wanted to be here too.)

They sent me home with containers to get some stool samples.

Lucky me, I sat for hours waiting to collect poop.

After going 8x that day he decided to stop, right when I needed a sample.

It was the week before finals and I couldn't go to class, because I was sitting, waiting, and looking at the toilet.

Oh, and did I mention that I was freaking out. (pretty much the whole time)

This is unnerving, not knowing what is going on with your child. He was having NO other symptoms.

I finally got my sample and took it in to the hospital.

It took them two days to run the tests, which all came back negative.

By this time August was clearing up and his poop was returning to normal.

I had kept an extensive log of toilet times and what his stool looked like.

Along with taking a catalog of pictures on my phone.

We took one last trip to the doctor and agreed to wait and see if there was another instance of blood in his stool and if there was then we would come back and run blood tests and see a gastroenterologist.

So for now...we are good.

And, with all things in life you have to laugh at yourself. Here goes...

This was one of the contraptions that I made to catch the stool and not urine.

I tried to show Carleen he was feeling sick. (even though he wasn't)

No other symptoms except for excessive pooping with blood in stool.

He makes the best faces though.

One day I told August Dad was coming home and this is what he did.

He barricaded the door with toys.

He said that Dad wouldn't be able to come in without knocking it all down.

I guess the thought of this tickled him, because he was giggling the whole time he was building it.

It was precious.

But, unfortunately the boys had to go to school before Daddy came home, so it was demolished long before then.

I also took some selfies to send Dad while we were at one of our Dr. Apt's.

August had fallen asleep in the car on the way there, so I was trying to wake him up a little bit.

The nurse was insistent we get his height and weight, even though we were just there.

On the way back home from the Doc's August fell asleep, holding his own hand.

So cute.

August and I watched the Charlie Brown Christmas.

It was awesome as always.

Carleen was telling me Elysia has never seen it. So I was sending them little clips.

Then, it snowed again, so I snapped a pic after dropping the other two off at school one morning. August would not cooperate. He just buried his face into my shoulder giggling.

It was nice, because although it snowed, it really wasn't that cold outside.

In other exciting news...

My blood donor card came in.

Super exciting I know.

Still, I am glad it is here and I can be a donor.

Daddy and the boys were building lego towers and knocking them down!

Again and again.

Somehow this is really time consuming and entertaining thing.

I appreciated the time to study...or try to study.

Brent is the best at playing with his boys.

Oh, and yet again Brayden took a memorable school picture.

Believe it or not this was one of those moments of struggle as a parent.

On one hand I love that he is so funny and expressive. On the other hand, it is hard to explain to him that I love him being himself, but when it comes to school pictures it effects more than just him. This picture is going to be put in with the school class picture, the year book.

Still, I am always surprised and amazed at these little personalities forming around me.