Never put a rock in your nose

This is Sammy’s best life advice he has at the moment, he seems to tell almost everyone we hang out with these days. It is like his own little public service announcement for his fellow preschoolers.

We had a scary night in the ER a couple months ago with Sammy. I’ve been so busy I hadn’t had a chance to blog about it but wanted to be sure we never forget that night and the lessons learned. Gloria was keeping him at her house while I got some work done and she called to say I should come get him. He had put a rock in his nose and she was worried. When I got there however, he was sound asleep and looked as peaceful as could be. I used a flashlight to look up his nostril while he slept and I honestly didn’t believe Gloria, I couldn’t see a rock at all. I am beyond thankful my friend Jill and her girls happened to be visiting Gloria while I was there as she played such huge role in me staying calm and not freaking out. I let him sleep for a while until Jill’s husband who is a pediatrician advised we wake him and get it out since the nostril would swell. Yikes. I tried several times to blow it out by putting my mouth over his as advised but it wouldn’t budge and I am pretty sure my child thought I was actually trying to eat him. He was terrified every time my mouth came towards him! The afterhours clinic told us to bring him in a soon as we could and that is when the roller coaster ride began.

We saw 4 doctors, all of who laughed with us about it and found the humor in the situation. As each one held my scared little boy down (with the help of several nurses) and tried repeatedly to get the rock out we all realized it was not going to budge and was not quite the humorous situation we all thought it was. They decided to call a pediatric ear nose and throat specialist to meet us at the ER and if he couldn’t get it out they would surgically remove it at 8 am the next morning. WOW. I could not believe how serious things had gotten so quickly!

The ER doctors were so wonderful with Sammy. They found out he is a huge Lightening McQueen fan and put him in the room with all of his favorite cars on the wall. There was also a little girl a few months older than Sammy who had stuck 2 beads in her ear, so she was called “Bead in Ear” and Sammy was labeled “Rock in Nose”, which I found hillarious. I will spare the gory details but we basically had one of the worst nights of our lives. In hindsight we would have been much better off with the surgery. At least then he would have not felt the pain and fear. They were able to remove the rock but it took a nurse holding Sammy’s head, one to hold his arms, one his legs, and one that held him on her lap in a bear hug type position.  The ENT and an ER pediatrician worked for a good 25 min on the rock. There are no words to describe how horrible it was to see my baby screaming like I have never heard before with so much blood. He had past the crying point and was screaming and shaking, it was so bad I had to leave for a few min since it made me sick. I felt so helpless. Gloria and I prayed the whole time, while Sam stood next to our baby and tried his best to comfort and encourage Sammy. It was so scary but thankfully the rock came out and the entire kid area of the ER cheered and were giving high fives.

I don’t know if I was more happy the day he was born or the moment that ginormous rock came out, it was such a feeling of relief. He had a pretty bloody nose for a few days after and he had nightmares for a solid two weeks after, poor baby. In fact, the incident still works its way into his play times, he reenacts it when he is pretending with his cars which is a normal way of processing it all in his little mind. It was quite the ordeal but it made me so thankful that we were only there for a rock and nothing more serious. I am so thankful that I have a healthy child and we do not have to frequent hospitals. This experience has made me thankful on a daily basis that he has no serious health conditions.

Thank you to all of you who prayed us through that awful night and for all of the encouraging text messages while we were there!

Here is a picture with him, his rock, and his stickers. It was taken the next morning so hopefully the bloody nose is not too yucky for you. He was so proud and I wanted to capture the moment.

The rock is in the container, I was hoping to show how big it was but it didn’t come out.

He got two cool stickers about being a tough guy and a brave boy!That he was!

Uncles times Two!

Sammy was in uncle heaven when Caleb came into Jax for the weekend and we all headed over to his parents house to visit him. He go to hang out with both his Uncle Brennan AND his Uncle Crumb (what he calls Caleb) at the same time. Caleb was Sam’s best man in our wedding, they have been best buddies since they were boys and have gone through so much together. Caleb moved to Japan about 7 years ago to teach English and while there he fell madly in love with his now wife, Sayuri. We have loved getting to know her and are thrilled that the two of them found each other. I love watching them interact as they speak a mix of Japanese and English with each other. Caleb has told us many of Sayuri’s “firsts” in America which always make us smile, like the first time she ate corn pops for breakfast. They moved last year to Hawaii where Caleb is now working. Although they were legally married in Japan before moving here they never had their wedding ceremony so it will be this coming March, in HAWAII!!! YEA! We are so excited for them. 

Sayuri was visiting her family in Japan so we didn’t get to see her this time but we were still excited to catch up with Caleb and his parents. Caleb’s dad, Robert, was actually one of our groomsmen when we were married and Sammy adores him. He loves to show off for Mr. Robert in a big way. Sammy and I let Sam have some alone time with Caleb during the day so they could catch up without us around. They went up flying in Robert’s plane and I did my best not to focus on them being up in the sky. All in all it was a super fun night and made us wish even more that we could live closer to Caleb & Sayuri.

 

Look what I made......

an ABC book to help Sammy recognize his letters!! I am just a teensy bit proud of myself if you can't tell. I never get to do this kind of thing, I had a blast making it. I wanted to share it on here to brag on just how EASY and FAST it was to create. I don't really have much free time to do this kind of thing so I was blown away at how quick it went. The part that took the longest was deciding what picture to use for each letter! Once I did that I just dragged and dropped the pics right into place and literally made it while I watched a tv show, something else I rarely get to do. All in all it was a super fun night and I can't wait for this to arrive in the mail. If you are interested in making one for your little one, Shutterfly is having a special on photo books/ digital scrap books right now that includes free shipping. I originally started it thinking it would be $19.99 but then I got carried away and added some extra pages, of course!

Check it out if you have a moment:

Click here to view this photo book larger

Fourth of July

So I am playing around with the auto posting feature in windows live writer to get the hang of it. Who knows when this will actually post but I won’t learn until I try, right? =) Look at me getting all fancy with my blogging skillz.

We had a great 4th of July up in OP with friends and fam. The McCarver fam invited us for a good ol’ fashioned cookout during the day and we met up with Linda, Patrick and sweet Caitlin for fireworks that night. So much fun!

Fireworks under the bridge with Sarah & Brennan

Sweet hugs for Grammy who kept him safe

I lost track of Sammy for a few min at the cookout. Look who I found just about to put his finger into the icing on a cupcake…

What.. you don’t eat your cupcakes with a bucket-o-berries too?

He would have been so excited if only he had been awake to see it….

Me and Linda Kaye doing our mommy thang…

The kiddos all ready for the big night, can’t you tell?

 

Love the amount of confusion on Sammy’s face right after he woke up to find himself surrounded by bounce houses, farm animals, and hundreds of people.. his words were “what happened me? Where I go mommy?

Gilfriend was ready to PART-AY! Look at her! She loved all of the excitement

We took Sammy back up to see the fire trucks after he woke up and one of Mr. Swartz’s guys let him “drive” it aka sit on the seat

Watching the display!

Yep, I totally LOVED the fact that even with fireworks going on my Caitlin bug only had eyes for… you guessed it ME! She wanted me to hold her the whole time and with every sniff of her sweet baby head my uterus skipped a beat. Too much info? Yea I kinda thought so. Sorry. Isn’t she just a doll?? Big beautiful eyes like her Mamma and as sweet as pie!

Its the little things…

Little things are indeed little, but to be faithful in little things is a great thing~ Mother Teresa

I have been having some very super cool “God” moments lately. He and I have been on quite the journey with one another. Can’t wait to share more about that but for now just wanted to post one little tidbit while I have a moment. Do you go to God with everything? I mean everything, even the little stuff? Do you think He even cares about the little things that are important to you? Well He does, more than you know. He craves and yearns for you to talk with Him and share those desires of your heart. Yes He is God and He knows everything about you right down to the number of hairs on your head so he technically already knows them but what He wants most of all is for us to be in a relationship with Him. To simply spend time with Him and share our hearts and thoughts with Him. Just as we want our own children to come to us for wisdom and counsel, God wants the same with us. He wants to fill us with unspeakable joy so that when those terrible times come, and they surely will, we will be found in Him. He wants our joy that comes from His love to spill over and touch the lives of others around us.

I love when God answers the smallest most insignificant prayer of mine, almost as if to say.. “See my beloved, I really do care about the little things in your life”. Psalm 40:16 says He wants for all who search for Him be filled with joy and gladness. I will share an example that sure some may explain away as a coincidence but I know it was not.

I have wanted since early LAST summer for me and my Sams to spend some time on the beach together, a day of pure family fun. Sam hadn’t been able to join us on the beach since Sammy was a baby and I just longed for to share that time together. In my head we would frolic around, laughing and giggling.. well not exactly but you get my drift. We had tried since Feb to orchestrate this day and every time we had a day picked, something with one of our families would come up or some random event would cause a change in plans. I finally got sick of it and declared July 3rd would be our beach day. If anyone wanted to spend time with us they were welcome to join us on the beach because that is where the 3 of us would be. Wouldn’t you know Sam was given MANDATORY overtime that day? We changed our plans, no big deal, Sammy would be off schedule but we would just drive straight to the beach after he got off that morning but then…. his car broke down. Yep. We worked through it and found a way to still be on our way but by that point I was a tad bit cranky (ok.. cranky is an understatement). Then as we were driving up, the rain clouds rolled in and it started to pour. Sammy became very grouchy as he refused to take a nap in the car. Two hours into our trip with a whiney toddler and rain so loud Sam and I could barely hear each other it seemed very clear our beach day would not happen.

Sam asked me one little question and I lost it. My pitiful tear rolled down my cheek while I asked him “Why does this have to happen? Why is it virtually impossible for the three of us to spend a day on the beach together?” I whined. My wonderful husband put it all in perspective thankfully and reminded me that in the grand scheme of the world and all the problems going on, we are doing pretty good if this is what I have to be upset about. Yes, I agreed but Ouch, the reality check hurt and I felt like whiney princess. I closed my eyes and silently prayed for God to forgive my poor attitude and to give me a change of heart so we could enjoy what was left of the day together. At this point we were minutes from the beach and were looking for a place to turn around and head to his parents’ house.  All of a sudden Sam jerked the car and our wheels literally squealed as he pulled us into a CVS parking lot. “You wanted a family fun day on the beach, well we will have one. Rain or not, tired toddler or not, we will make the best of it. It’s not lightening, we’ll be fine. It will be great, you’ll see”. With that he left the car fighting the wind and rain and ran into CVS to get us some giant bottles of water. “What happened mommy? What Daddy doin in dat wain?” Sammy asked. “Well baby, looks like we are going to the beach in the rain” I replied. I thought Sam had lost his mind and so did the man in the booth we paid $7 (YES SEVEN BUCKS NOW, TALK ABOUT INFLATION! I was floored!) to so that we could drive our car onto the beach during the monsoon.

It was simply amazing, as we drove to find our perfect spot the rain slowed and sure enough, by the time we got out of the car the rain had stopped. The sun peaked out from the clouds and we had a BLAST together. It wasn’t too hot, we even had a breeze! It was everything I had hoped for and more. We had a great talk about God and all the beautiful things He has created with Sammy. It really was a time of true joy as we laughed & played together. We did not frolic but Sammy and Sam chased birds down the beach so that sorta counts, right? It was the perfect day and wouldn’t you know just as we got all packed up and closed the last car door out of nowhere the bottom fell out and the torrential down pour continued? It may sound weird but I got a tingly sensation all down my spine and as egocentric as it is to think that God stopped the rains just for us, I do. I am sure there was a bigger purpose and plan to it all BUT I do know that His timing was perfect and allowed us to enjoy the window of perfect weather while it was there.  I thanked Him for showing me that He understood just how important that family time was to my heart and He worked out all the details so we could still enjoy it. I am so grateful that he cares for the little insignificant desires of my heart just as much as the big ones! I love my Savior!

He LOVED putting his feet in the sand and ran squealing as soon as he got out of the car

Our little all American boy spread his patriotism to those driving by us as he yelled “God Bwess Amew-ca” and waved his flag to each car. The honks and laughs/waves he got in return encouraged him to then up it from one flag to TWO flags.

 

 

Should’ve switched to Geico…

Sam is an expert on beach life having lived on the beach and surfed for so long, so yep.. that is what you’re thinking. He showed our TWO YEAR OLD how to TOUCH A JELLY FISH without getting stung. I have no further comment on this.

Sammy likes some sushi so when he found seaweed he said “oh yummy, I eat it please?”

Oopsy!

Thank you for his sharky swim suit Grammy! He loves it and calls them his “sharps”

This is called progress! My child who once hated the sand and was so upset if a spec got on him now buries his face in it for fun!

They have my heart, just look at them!

A little update on us

I sure do miss blogging! We have been very busy making so many sweet memories this summer and I have been spending the time I would typically use to blog to catch up on some summer reading. This is the first summer since I started grad school that I have not been slammed with work so I have enjoyed doing some pleasure reading for a change. I have had so many ideas of things to write and share on the blog but haven’t taken the time to do any of it. We have been having quite the summer and I can’t believe all of the amazing memories we have made and it isn’t even over yet!

To bring you up to speed, Sam is loving his job but of course the night shift does play quite the toll on our time with him and is exhausting in many ways for him and for Sammy and me. We decided to really maximize the days we do have with Sam and have headed off most of those days in search of some adventures. We have also been able to spend time with precious family and friends we haven’t seen in a while. On top of all of this, Sammy and I took a spontaneous trip to the Keys (amazing time!!) and I am making good progress on my dissertation. I am finishing analyses now and then have the final two sections to write up then I am DONE! That light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter and brighter, thank you JESUS! Hannah and the kids are still gone and our house feels overwhelmingly empty at times as I miss them with all of my being but I am learning to cope. I treasure the sweet phone calls from them and am so thankful their mom is super cool about letting us stay in touch with them.

Sammy is doing great & loving summer but asks about “his” Hannah every day, sometimes more than once. I have been able to pick him up earlier from school now that things have slowed down some for me and I am eating up all of this quality time with him. He has been having super great reports at school. His teachers say he is really coming out of his shell (finally! Its only been a year.. I’m just sayin) and is being a big helper in the classroom. The potty training is progressing, don’t know if others have found this or not but he seems to be trained (except over night) when it comes to pee but not even close when it comes to #2s, it is rather frustrating but I am trying not to push him. Just when I think we are out of the woods with one behavior issue (biting, spitting, etc) another one creeps in. He has began to pinch now.. UGH! It isn’t very frequent yet but I want to catch it before it becomes so. If any of you mommies out there have dealt with pinching your advice is appreciated!

This was his response when I told him we were going on a vacation to the ocean!!! He was more excited than I thought he would be!!!! He threw his hands up and yelled “Yay! My turn for Bay-Cay-shun!” because all his buddies in his class had been coming back from their vacations and telling about all they did.

 

Here are a few pics from our trip to the splash park with his friend Jane.

My coordinated matching kiddo.. can you tell there was a sale so we stocked up on beach gear??

Little Miss Janey LOVED the splash park, she was a adorable!

Big Day for a Little Bookworm

Sammy got his very first ever library card! I know this may not sound like a big deal to many but for me and my son this is huge. He is such a bookworm! I have to say, he gets it honestly. Sam and I both are bookworms ourselves. I have always loved to read, in fact one of my favorite things to do is to get lost in a great book. I always feel like such a nerd when I literally can’t put a book down and I stay up until the wee hours of the morning reading only to then find myself dragging the next day. I mean, seriously, I am 30 years old. Shouldn’t I have outgrown this? I have no self control when a truly good book is involved, I tell myself just one more chapter.. and then I am lost in it. I remember getting in trouble as a little girl for sneaking away to read when I should have been doing chores or my homework and even one time as an adult! Yep that’s right. Once when I worked at Citibank my book was so good that when I came back from my break I just couldn’t put it down so I hid it in a folder and tried to finish the chapter while taking my customer service calls. My boss failed to see the humor in the situation, much to my dismay.

So, for this lifelong nerd, it makes my heart sing to see the love of books that Sammy has. He truly has always loved reading. Sam and I would read to him while I was pregnant and I remember he always kicked and moved much more compared to other stories during Wynken, Blynken, and Nod and it still is one of his favorite bed time stories to this day. We learned early on that one of the best discipline tactics with him is to take away one of his favorite books. Boy will he snap into action then, he becomes sweet as pie when a book is on the line. I hope that Sam and I can continue to foster his love of reading and learning as he grows and I see this special day truly as a milestone for him.

Well I decided it was way past time he checked out his first every library book so off to the library we headed. He was like a kid in a candy store when we arrived in the children’s section and boy did he put on quite the show for the librarians. He could barely contain his excitement! They said he was hands down the most excited they have ever seen about getting a library card and I have to agree, even I didn’t expect his reaction. We ended up checking out 12 books rather than one (I have already warned you.. books are my weakness. We discussed this in the first paragraph, remember?). We have enjoyed reading them and Sammy has taken extra special care of them and done a great job putting them back in the new designated “library book spot” after he reads them.

They had some great preschool computer games that I totally wish I could get a copy of. He played these for a solid 40 min!

check out his giant stack of books! She let him scan each one in himself, which he loved.

Here he is proudly holding up his library card with his name on it and his giant sack of books. I am so thankful for the sweet librarians who made the trip extra special for him.