Tubes

On a different note, Alex has had chronic ear infections for the last seven months. Our pediatrician referred us to an Ear Nose & Throat Doctor, and he recommended tubes. So, on March 5th, Alex is having tubes put in his ears. (I'm so glad my Mom was already planning on being here!)

Alex is such a happy baby, he's really only fussy when he's sick. It's been a long few months because he's had an ear infection about every two weeks. Hopefully this will help, and he'll be back to feeling great all the time, not just when he's on antibiotics.

Weather Change & Cute Boys

We finally have melting snow. It has actually been warm the last few weeks (in the 40's), and so our snowman has melted down to not much. (see above!) Even though it has been steadily melting, we still have an enormous snow pile right at the front of our house. It's still at least six feet tall, so I'm thinking it will be there until about May...



Alex LOVES to run around the house in only a diaper. Unfortunately we are no longer able to let him do that. He has discovered how to take his diaper off. It was cute as long as it was dry, but that isn't always the case. He now ALWAYS has to wear a pair of pants. Not as fun, but definitely safer.

Alex's next favorite thing to do is chase the cat. If you notice, Bunsen knows just where he can sit. Out of Alex's reach, but close enough to still torture him.


My sister was nice enough to share her daughter's ball pit with us. She gave it to us when Brenton was about 18 months old. Brenton loved it. We eventually got tired of the balls being everywhere in the house, so we put it away.

Last week I got the ball pit out for Alex & Brenton to play with. Alex loves balls. Ball is actually the first word he said (except for Mom & Dad). They both LOVE playing with all the balls. They chase each other all over the room, but always end up diving into the ball pit head first. Because they love it so much, the first night it was up, they wrecked it. They were both trying to get in at the same time, and ended up putting a couple of VERY long tears in it. We found out very quickly how destructive two little boys can be. Very sad. Sorry Nikki.

They continued playing in the 1/2 blown up toy, until I found another replacement at Walmart. It's not nearly as nice or durable, but so far it has worked. I'm sure it won't last long with two little boys in the house, but at least they'll enjoy it while they can.

Once there was a snowman...

These are a progression of pictures of the snowman Kale & Brenton built shortly after the first storm. The first one is the day it was built, the next a few days later, and so on... His hat and collar get bigger and bigger, yet his legs get shorter and shorter.

Snow, Snow & More Snow

The pictures from below are from the first couple of snow storms. We really got hammered even more after this.





It has been snowing here for quite some time. We've had LITTLE breaks in between, but not long enough for things to get cleaned up.

The first snow storm we had, Kale took Brenton outside to play. They sledded down the driveway, and built a snowman. After a little more snow, they went back out and dug a snow cave. Brenton really seemed to enjoy that. After that storm passed, the snow suddenly lost it's appeal. Between not being able to keep up with the shoveling (Kale isn't supposed to shovel at all, and I'm just plain lazy), and taking three to four tries to get out of the driveway, we stopped having fun with the snow. It takes about 30 minutes to shovel out our mail box so the mail will be delivered. Our driveway is a whole other story. After about 2 hours I just gave up. Our deck had snow up to the railing, and that was before our roof was shoveled off. Yes, our roof had to be shoveled off.

The below picture is of Kale on the roof after he'd shoveled a small small corner of snow. Kale spent a little time up there (way more than he should) on Friday & Saturday. I spent time up there on Saturday, but we just weren't making a whole lot of progress. With having almost five feet of snow up there, it was a lot of heavy lifting. Danny came over on Sunday to help (after being up on his roof all day Saturday & Sunday, and then a church rescue party came. (Our church was canceled due to the amount of snow on it's roof. It was deemed unsafe to enter the building until the snow was shoveled off. Contractors were coming this week, but until then, no one was supposed to enter the building.) Due to church being canceled, and the enormous need for people in the ward to get their roofs shoveled off, our Bishopric put together a team of people to shovel out people, who couldn't do it for themselves. Yup. We are one of those. Anyway, we had about 7 people show up and after a couple of hours we were finally able to feel safe in our home again.

Because we threw the snow from our roof off the easiest sides, our deck was plastered with the heavy snow. It went from having light snow up to the railing, to a very heavy snow pile much taller than the railing. We knew that it wouldn't hold that much snow for very long. So, Sunday evening, I went out and shoveled off as much snow as my body would let me do. I got about 3/4 the snow off, and the rest I spread around. The deck still has snow a couple of feet deep, but at least it's not 5-6 feet deep anymore. Our new problem is that we have no where to put the snow that is shoveled. The snow from the roof & deck is all along the side of our house. It goes up to the top of our 6 foot privacy fence. Besides worrying about our fence collapsing, we are trying to prepare for the major issues we will have once the snow starts to melt.

If you look at the weather forecast for our area, we are currently in the middle of another snow storm, and we are supposed to have continuous storms through the rest of the week. At least it's supposed to turn to rain for a couple of days. Hopefully that will help melt things a little before the next set of storms hit next week.

We went from bragging to people about our mild weather (we are in the panhandle, we get weather from Washington, usually), to complaining about all the snow we have. This is crazy!

1st Day of School

Brenton had his first day of school. When he turned three, he graduated from his speech therapy through the Infant/Toddler program. What is nice, is he qualified for the school districts program for speech therapy. He goes to school Tuesday & Thursday of each week. He actually gets picked up by a bus, taken to school, and then brought back home. He absolutely loves to go to school, but more importantly, he loves to ride the bus! If you ask him what he did at school, he ALWAYS says, "yellow school bus."

Birthday party #2

After we returned home, and Brenton had his cast removed, we had a combined birthday party for Alex & Brenton. (Brenton turned 3 on January 10th.)

I made a Cars cake for them (I'm very proud), and we had some people over. Danny & Crystal, Danny's parents Grandpa & Grandma Sevy, and our neighbors Mike & Cathy Bohna. We had a pretty good time. The boys really enjoyed having people over, and opening more gifts.

Cast Removal

With Brenton's arm casting being so traumatic, we knew that the removal would be hard. As soon as he saw the saw, he started screaming. We ended up having to strap him down, but it did go much quicker that way. With him being strapped down, we only had to help comfort him instead of trying to keep him from moving. After a few minutes with the saw, and him screaming bloody murder, the cast was able to be cracked and removed. No burns this time, we were very grateful for that. We are also grateful that the cast was on for only 3 1/2 weeks. The smell when the cast was cracked was terrible! It just filled the room. I can't imagine how nasty his arm would've been after 6 weeks in a cast. Hopefully we'll never have to find out.

Christmas in Salt Lake

After Christmas, we headed down to South Salt Lake area for Christmas with my family. It was so wonderful to see everyone together again. My brother Jason & his family, plus my parents came from Wisconsin, my brother Scott came from Arizona, and we of course came from Idaho. We spent a couple of days at my sisters home. (She's the only one that has ended up in Utah.)

The picture on top is Brenton & his cousin Kiara (Nikki's daughter) playing with toys on the kitchen table. The picture below is Uncle Scott with Kiara & Brenton. I have no idea why Brenton has no shirt on. My guess is he started getting ready for bed and got distracted.

I don't have many pictures from this time, so Nikki & Mom, please send me some if you have them. I didn't get any pictures of my brother Jason's family, so please send those if you have them.

While at my sister's house, Kiara was diagnosed with Strep throat. The day we left, my dad went to Urgent care, and found out he had it. Everything went wonderful for us until we arrived back home. The day after we returned, I got Strep throat. That followed with Kale getting it, and then Alex. My mom ended up getting it, also, but thankfully, that was it.

Christmas in Cache Valley

Our first stop in Utah was Cache Valley. We were there for quite a few days, but Kale had some doctor evaluations to attend. Those appointments really seemed to eat up our time to see people. We never have enough time to get together with all the family and friends we would like to.

We spent Christmas day with Kale's family. The boys (and us) got to open presents and even stockings. Because Brenton would want to play with each toy he opened, it took almost all day to get the gifts opened. Both boys, as well as us, were very spoiled this year. (As always.)

The girl in the below picture with Alex & Brenton, is Britt's friend Yoko (sorry, I'm not sure how to spell that). Yoko is from Hong Kong. She was on her way to school at BYU Hawaii, but stopped in Utah for a few days. We were able to spend time with her over Christmas. The boys loved her, as did we. She is such a wonderful and fun person, and hopefully things are going very well for her in Hawaii.

Christmas in Idaho

Prior to leaving Idaho, we had a small Christmas party with our friends Danny & Crystal. They brought the boys gifts, and they (really meaning Brenton) enjoyed opening them. Alex isn't really interested in tearing paper yet, but Brenton loved it.

The pj's Brenton is wearing in the picture, are from Danny & Crystal. Alex received a matching pair. If you look closely, you can see the fire engines on them. Immediately after putting them on, Brenton went and found his fire hat. He wore it around the rest of the night.

Alex 1st Birthday

Alex had his first birthday December 21st. We arrived in Utah on the 22nd, so we had his first, 1st birthday party that weekend. (We had another after we returned home.) He really seemed to enjoy the cake. I think the part he enjoyed the most, was having a bowl to put on his head. (The bowl was one that Kale used as a kid! Cool huh.)

1st Haircut

On our way down to Utah for Christmas, Alex had his first haircut. Someone had suggested giving him a sucker to suck on. That was the perfect distraction. He just sat on my lap sucking his sucker. (He'd never had candy before, so this was something completely new!)