4th of July

I never posted about our 4th of July. It was really uneventful. We had a BBQ with Mom and Dad and then went to the sewer to watch the fireworks. The kids were afraid of the noises so we watched from inside the car, not how I would suggest watching, but oh well. Anyway, I'm really posting this to show how Kynadi walked around on the 4th so she couldn't hear the fireworks people were setting off near my parents house that evening. I thought it was pretty funny. Who knew the head set would come in handy for more than just drowning out the noise of the saw while I cut!!

Fun Pics of the Kids

On one of our trips to UT we stopped at the outlets in Park City and I found the girls some glasses for the summer. They had fun wearing them...as you can see. It had been raining a lot at that time to, which would explain the umbrella...not sure how to explain Brooklyn's dirty mug though...she's almost two I guess!

The other pics are just some recent ones. I was trying to get some pictures of all three kids, but as you can tell, Brooklyn is missing and was being very uncoopertive (I think she's on my lap helping to take the pics)

First Train Ride

While we were down in UT this last week, we took the trax from downtown SLC up to PC for Kynadi's appointment. The girls were pretty excited to ride on the train for the first time.(not that you can tell from Brooklyn's expression)

Linken--what a Kid :)

Linken is the happiest baby you could ever have! I have read and heard so many people talk about how hard the third baby is. For me completely opposite. Linken is the best baby, he makes you think you could have ten kids (not so convincing that I'm going to though!--I do still remember the days with Brooklyn) He just got his two front teeth a month or so ago and he was still happy. Anyway here are some pics of him recently. The one time I was taking his pictures I couldn't get him to stop smiling.

Brooklyn turned 2!!

July 6th was Brooklyn's birthday. She was pretty excited for it to come. When I asked who's birthday was coming up she'd point to herself and say "me", then follow with an excited "d.dd.dd..Dora". So we had to have a Dora birthday. Everything she got for her birthday was Dora, except for her bed. She got a hat, play-dough, a back-pack (that has to go EVERYWHERE with us), a ball, a coloring book, dishes, and then the bed with sheets.

John and I made her a trundle bed so she could start sharing a room with Kynadi and Linken can move out of the cradle into his own room. So far she has spent a lot of time still in the crib. Hopefully this will improve! I think the trundle turned out pretty good for two non-professionals. Although it may have caused Dad to have his heart attack, since he was out painting it with his spray gun I'm apparently too uneducated to use! (that's another story though) Also, I do have to say the Kreg joint is the best $100 I've ever spent on a tool. It made putting the trundle together sooooo easy. (I think I should get paid for advertising for them)

Anyway, her birthday was probably not too exciting. She got to wake up to all her Dora decorations (thanks to Elaine for giving them to us) which she really liked. But I made her wait until John got home to open her presents. He came home around 2:00 and so she finally got to open them and have cake--I forgot to buy ice cream; just less junk food for them to eat though. After all that we packed up and headed to UT. We were planning on going to UT on Tuesday anyway for the kids appointments, but since Dad had a heart attack on Sunday and had been life flighted to the U of U we went down that night. Not that we saw him that day though.

So that was our little Brookielyn's 2nd Birthday. What a girl. I love her to death. She is the funniest little thing to watch. She's so cute and full of energy. She is very independent and often likes to do her own thing rather than play with all the other kids--they usually just make her mad. :) She's beginning to be quite a mamma's girl, but I love it. She always wants to sit on me and wants me to come with her to accompany her in whatever she may be doing. Cute. Everyone always comments on her bright red hair. It just matches her personality perfectly. She can be a little fireball if she wants, but she is also so happy and sweet (if she wants to be). I love her lots and am sooo grateful she is mine forever and part of our family!

I still got IT!!!

This is just my post to brag about myself!!

A couple weeks ago I was entered in a tennis tournament put on by the tennis club here in town. I have to say first that it has been YEARS since I had played, but they were looking for more woman so I decided to do it. The night before I was a bit panicked about making a fool of myself so I made John go up to the courts with me and hit around for a bit.

Anyway, there were only 3 of us entered in the woman's singles, but as you can see from the pic I took first place. Not only did I take first place but I beat them pretty good. I think the first girl the score was 6-2, 6-0 and the second was 6-4, 6-1. Plus these girls were young (barely 20!) I turned 30 this year and have three Kids!! Needless to say, I was proud of myself even if there were only 3 of us. So if you don't like my bragging --- TOO BAD -- I don't have the right to do it very often! I learned I still have a big competitive gene in me...guess that never goes away. It was lots of fun, even if I was sore all over the next day.

Linken Update

My little Linken is a trooper!!! I can't help but love the little guy.

Well, last week I took Linken in for his 6 month check up. My normal doc wasn't there, but I was very impressed with the "substitute doc". I was concerned with his development. He still isn't sitting up and doesn't crawl or anything. So when she examined him, she agreed that he was behind in his gross motor skills. I asked if it would be related to the craniosynitosis or the surgery at all. She didn't think so, but wants him to work with the CDC (child development center) here to help him develop. I commented on how they are familiar with us, since that's who is working with Brooklyn on her speech and Kynadi with her Scoliosis. This put some red flags up for the doc and she found it interesting that all my kids have "issues". She mentioned maybe we should see a geneticist to see if there is some connection. Hmmm...who knows.

Then as she continued to examine Linken. She listened to his heart for quite some time. She said she heard a heart murmur and thought it would be best to have an x-ray of his lungs and heart to make sure nothing looked abnormal. After discovering this she thought Linken could have a "syndrome" of some sort which would cause the murmur and the craniosynitosis. Nothing conclusive, but she just wanted us to be on top of things. So anyway, after that appointment we went to the hospital and had the x-ray. The next day the doc called back and said Linken's heart looked like it was enlarged. She said we should go get an EKG for Link, so we did. The EKG didn't seem to show anything abnormal. But she called after she got the results of it, and said we should probably see a cardiologist at Primary Children's just to make sure there isn't anything wrong with his heart. So more visits to UT for us. Great.

I wasn't so concerned about the visits to UT as to what is going on with my little boys heart. The first couple of days after learning all of this I was pretty worried. I didn't want his heart to stop working all of a sudden. It really made me think and realize how precious life is. What if something did happen? I found myself wanting to hold him more and spend more time with each of my kids. I don't ever want to regret not holding or caring for them enough. It puts life in perspective for me. Anyway, there maybe nothing to worry about, which I hope is the case, but we'll find out more when we see the cardiologist on August 28th!!! (that was the first opening they had a PC's--nothing like making me wait and worry more!)

Funny Brooklyn

Brooklyn is starting to talk more and more. The speech therapist comes to our house every other week, and it has really helped her realize she can talk. She's still hard to understand sometimes, but its fun to listen to her learn to say new things.
My favorite "new" phrase from Brooklyn came a few weeks ago. We were in the car and Linken started to get fussy and was crying a bit. Brooklyn sternly turned to him and repeatedly said, "No whining!" Looks like she's heard that one a bit.