Chef Whitney

Whitney has been begging me lately to let her cook something. She really wants to learn how to cook. Friday I let her make some cookies. The only recipe that I had all the ingredients for was Snickerdoodles. I supervised the process and put the cookies in and out of the oven. Everything else Whitney did all by herself. She did a great job. The cookies tasted perfect! Now she wants to move on to learning how to cook dinner.

Before & After

Whitney and I went and had our haircuts. I had about 6 inches cut off, Whitney had about 8 inches. Whitney was originally going to try and donate it to locks of love, but didn't want to go that short. This was good, because even at this length it was a bit of a shock for her. She has adjusted to it now and loves her hair. If you see her walking now she is swinging her hair back and forth as she goes.

Potty Training Day 325

I don't really know how long we have been potty training, but it has been a long time. It was a rough year for Grant. He was completely potty trained, and then we moved into my parent's house. Had a few rough days, but then we were back on track. Then we moved into an apartment. Still kept going, but we had lots of accidents. Then we moved again to our new house. The first week he did great, then every single time was an accident. I was so preoccupied trying to get our house settled, that we just went back to pull ups and then somehow he was completely back to not being potty trained. I knew he was having surgery in a short time, so I decided to just let it go until after so we didn't have to start again. Grant's New Year's Resolution was to get back to being potty trained. It is very frustrating, because he knows what to do, he just doesn't do it. As long as I am nagging him all day long to go to the bathroom, we are good. If I leave it up to him, it doesn't happen. I wish I knew how to get him to just do it on his own. We did the potty training chart. His reward for finishing the chart was a "big doughnut, without a hole."

Dinosaur Museum

Grant went to the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum for a field trip. I didn't bring my camera with me. (Let's face it - I have so many pictures of my kids at the dinosaur museum that I could probably print a whole book from just Thanksgiving Point!) Grant saw all the other kids getting their pictures taken, so he really wanted to get his taken too. Thank goodness for the camera on my phone. Not the best quality, but it pacified him, so why not.

Cassidy

I have a bunch of pictures of Cassidy from her teacher. Her teacher, Mrs. Downs, posts all her pictures on Shutterfly so we can download them if we want.

Grandparents Read-a-thon Day. Grandma Roberts came to Cassidy's school and read with her and her friend Gaby. (Grandma is just going to love this picture!)

Cassidy had to do a report on an ancestor that migrated. We've always done ancestors on my side of the family, so I thought it would be good to get some info from Aaron's side of the family. Aaron's mom had to go back quite a ways to find an ancestor that migrated. Hans Heinrich Felder (10 great-grandfathers back) migrated from Switzerland to South Carolina in 1735.

Cassidy's class did a play called Aesop's Fables. They sang several songs with a brief story in between. Cassidy was one of the story tellers.

Ashby Filmworks

Whitney got a new video camera for Christmas. This has resulted in some fun video productions put on by the kids. Then Dad got involved. Now they are making movie trailers. Whenever Dad is left at home with the kids, I come home and find them making movies. Here is the movie trailer they made to invite our Ashby family over for a New Years Eve party.

I'll post some more of their trailers if I can get them from Aaron's computer.

Christmas 2010

I didn't take a single picture on Christmas. How lazy am I getting! The stomach flu hit me about 11:30 am Christmas morning so we will just blame it on that. I staged a couple of pictures later on, and stole some so that I would at least have something to show for the day.

We had a great Christmas morning together. Santa brought the kids a pillow pet, except Whitney, she got a giant dog. Grandma and Grandpa Roberts came over and opened presents with us Christmas morning. It is so much fun having them be part of that with us.

We spent Christmas Eve with our Roberts Family. We enjoyed a yummy dinner and a musical program put on by the girls. Here is a picture of everyone in the Christmas PJ's.

We celebrated with our Ashby Family the evening of Christmas. I had to have Aaron bring me home shortly after I got there because of the stomach bug. Everyone seemed to have a great time. We are so blessed to have all of our family living within 30 minutes of us.

The next few days we cycled through everyone getting the stomach flu. Not the best way to spend the Winter Break. Hopefully we are all past that now.

Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam

My baby has graduated from Nursery. We thought that his first week would be a struggle. He had missed Primary the weeks that they brought the nursery kids into Sharing Time. At the "Meet Your Teacher" breakfast he wouldn't leave our side. We feared the worst, but come time to go to class, he went right in and sat with his class and did a fabulous job. Most of the kids were crying, but he just sat there quietly. In honor of his advancement into Primary I bought him his own scripture case and a Book of Mormon with his name in it. He loves being just like his sisters, taking their scriptures to Primary and getting his scriptures out when we read as a family. Even though he can't read, I think it is great to encourage his excitement for the scriptures.

I'm so proud of my boy. He is growing up fast!

Grant's Surgery

We have been taking Grant to doctors since he was only a few months old trying to solve a mystery. When he was a baby he would always spit up through his nose. We did a swallow study, He drank a dye while being x-rayed. We did some genetics testing to determine if he had a certain disorder, but it came back normal. When he started on solid foods we only noticed the problem when he was sick and vomiting.

Grant also didn't pass the hearing screening when he was born. This led to tubes several times and numerous visits to the ENT for evaluations and testing. His ears seemed to be filled with fluid most of the time.

When he began to speak we noticed more problems. He couldn't form any hard consonant sounds. He started speech therapy and all the therapist we talked to seemed to agree that his speech was hyper-nasal. The airflow was escaping through his nose when he talked. They encouraged us to find out if this was a structural problem that needed to be solved first.

I couldn't help but think that two things were related - him spitting up through his nose as a baby and his speech being hyper-nasal. When I would talk to our ENT, he would brush it off and say it was fine. I finally ditched the ENT and found a new one. Our new ENT, Dr. Grimmer, was much better. On the first evaluation he thought that Grant's soft palate was short. He wanted to do a study that involved threading a camera through Grant's nose and watching him talk. The first attempt at this procedure was disastrous. Grant was screaming and they couldn't see anything. We decided to try again in six months and see if being older would help. The second time was much more successful. The doctors were able to see that his palate wasn't completely closing off the airway to his nose. He brought over a plastic surgeon and we scheduled a surgery to fix it.

This diagnosis solved the mysteries we have had since Grant was born. It was the reason he spit up through his nose as a baby. The reason there was always fluid in his ears, thus creating the hearing problems. The reason for the speech problems. It was such a relief to finally have some answers.

The technical name for the surgery is "Pharyngeal Flap Surgery." The plastic surgeon created a flap of skin at the back of his throat and connected it to his soft pallet. This develops a functional seal between the nasal cavity and the oral cavity.

The day of the surgery Grant was very scared. We had tried to talk to him about it, so that he was prepared, but this just left him very anxious. On the trip to Primary Children's Hospital he threw up. You can see in the picture that he was extremely tense and terrified. He was finally given some Versed that helped him really relax. I've never seen anything quiet so funny as Grant was on this drug. No more worries.

The surgery lasted about one and a half hours. During the surgery they had to put a stitch through his tongue. You can see the string taped to his cheek. They left this stitch in for a day. They had it there in case he started chocking on in tongue they could pull it out. This stitch was completely miserable for him. He wanted nothing more that to have that off. I don't blame him, that would be so annoying.

Right before we left the hospital Grant threw up on his frog blanket. In the confusion of leaving we accidently left his blanket. I am very sad to lose it. My mom made it for him when he was born. My only consolation is that it is now donated to the other little sick boys there. I hope it helps them feel better.

Grant was able to leave the hospital the next evening. Being at home was much better for Grant. Less strange noises and strange people. It was much harder for mom and dad to have him home. Coming home you also put on all your other hats. We weren't given a lot of instructions from the Doctor so we had to try and figure out things for ourselves.

It was has been a rough few weeks of recovery. Grant refused to take any medicine. We had to pin him down and force it in. We had a lot of medicine spit in our face or vomited up. The first three days he was getting medicine every few hours. Every six hours for the antibiotic and 4 hours for the Lortab. We would have to wake him up a couple of times a night to give him medicine. After three days we were able to just give him Ibuprofen which would last longer. I kept thinking that he would get better at taking his meds, but it didn't. It was a struggle up until the last time I gave him medicine which was yesterday.

It has been pretty hard for him to eat very much. He was always hunger, but couldn't eat anything. I imagine he has lost a lot of weight. There are still some things that he can't eat but it is getting a lot better.

Summary, it has been a long, painful, frustrating 2 1/2 weeks, but I think we all survived, barely. Grant hasn't had any medicine today and he is able to tilt his head back for the first time today. He goes back to the doctor on Tuesday.

UPDATE - On the way to the doctor Grant threw up in the car- again. I think it was even in the exact same spot on Foothills Drive as the first time. He was so nervous, even though I tried to tell him that all he had to do was open his mouth. Considering what happened to him the last time he went there, I can't really blame him. I didn't have any change of clothes in the car, so I had to stop at the gift shop at the hospital and buy a lovely $14 t-shirt that was way to big for him. At least it covered up the pants a little. After a bribe of a doughnut, he did a great job opening up his mouth for the doctor. The stitches are all dissolved and everything looks good. I am worried that he has sleep apnea now. Listening to him breath at night scares me. The doctor says that it could take 6-8 weeks for the swelling to go down. And up to six months for the really deep swelling to go down. After the 8 weeks, if his breathing isn't better than we will have to do some sleep studies to make sure that he is ok. We stopped at the cafeteria and bought the promised doughnut and he sang most of the way home. I then had a lovely time cleaning all the throw up out of the car. Yuck. He has lost so much weight. I weighed him today and he is at 29.3 pounds. I think he was around 38 before. For someone that was already small, losing that much weight is a lot. He can't keep his pants up now. I need to try and bulk him up somehow.

Happy Birthday Cassidy!

Cassidy is now 7 years old. For her birthday she has a cooking party. I made each of the girls and apron that they got to decorate.

They also got to play the game where you press flour into a cup, turn it upside down and take the cup off, place a dime on top. The kids take turns cutting away at the flour. The person that makes the tower fall has to retrieve the dime with out using their hands. Emma was a good sport and went for it.
They made cinnamon rolls, the girls loved being able to roll out their own dough, put the butter and cinnamon on it, roll it up and use string to cut it into slices. Each girl took home at least a dozen rolls.

Then for lunch they made their own pizza.