August

Sometimes when I see her fast asleep and hugging blanky close, I tell myself that she is still a little girl and isn't growing up in front of my eyes.

Camping in the living room!

Sierra's block version of Grandma and Papa's river house.

Camo and a pink baby doll go together quite nicely:)

Sierra's potato harvest

Jaxon loves to draw!

Helping with Daddy's birthday cake

Jaxon  walked right up and stuck his whole hand in the cake.  Then, shocked at the frosting stuck to his hand, proceeded to shake it all over Grandma Shelly and PopPop's carpet.  Nice.

Celebrating Anniversary #11

Tiny "helpers"

They "help" by taking all the clean utensils and drumming with them!  Hey, I was able to finish unloading the dishwasher!

A Portland visit!

Sierra loves the fair!

A friend from High School visited with her two kids.  Sierra and Austin became fast friends!

First time holding a kitten!

Jesse came home and I told him I needed 30 minutes to myself to shower and paint my toes.  This is how it went: Sierra sat on the edge of the shower and asked me every 30 seconds if I was done.  Then, when she saw me get out the nail polish she decided she wanted her toes painted.  After her toes were beautifully painted and dried she bounced on the bed while I tried to paint mine.  That's how my half an hour of "alone time" went.  FYI those are my toes above.  Toe nail painting fail.

Silly!

Such a sweet bubby!

She loved her friends 4 wheeler.  I tried not to have a heart attack!

And we are in training pants.  They may be hand me downs with little flowers  - but still, TRAINING PANTS!

Car work is a family affair.

August was a busy month!  We spent several days at the fair, Sierra and I had an overnight trip to Portland, and we started working on potty training Mr. Jaxon.  He's about a month younger than Sierra was but he was acting ready.  He'd squat down and look at his diaper when he was peeing and would hold his poo until the second we got home from town.  So I started putting him on the potty after his bath and after a couple of days he peed on the potty.  So we just worked on peepee after bath time for the first couple of weeks.  Then one day I put him on the big potty and he pretty much peed every time I put him on it that day.  From that point I felt like there was no turning back!  He doesn't really want anything to do with the little potty, he prefers the big one, and he will go anywhere we go.  At someone else's house, the store, etc.  Poopoo is a different story at this point!  I remember that taking a lot more time with Sierra too.

It's been a big month for Jaxon!  He says "shhh" and holds his little fingers to his lips, says uh oh every time he drops something (whether it was on purpose or by accident), said his first sentence, "there it is", says brrrr, calls Sierra "rerra", and has many other words that he starts using more frequently at the end of the month.  He's also going through a yelling phase and will yell for fun, but also if I tell him no, if Sierra tells him no or takes something away.  I mean yell until his face turns bright red!  He also enjoys doing this in the store because it sounds different.  Shopping is so fun with two!  Whew!

Sierra loved the fair and was such a brave girl this year!  Last year, she was afraid to go on the rides and luckily one of my friends showed up with her kids and they talked Sierra into going on a few rides.  This year she went on them by herself and had a blast!  Amy and Ben came down and we all went on the bumper cars and the big slide.  We ended up staying at the fair until almost 10pm!  It's the latest Sierra has ever stayed up but we all had fun and she was a super good girl (my parents stayed at home with Jaxon and put him to bed).  Jesse worked over 70 hours during fair week, so we didn't see a lot of him at home.

Sierra and I also made the trip to Portland with my parents to visit her Aunties and Uncles this month.  We stayed with Ben and Amy who graciously gave up their bed and slept on an air mattress.  I was super thankful in the middle of the night when Sierra was laying sideways in the bed.  That's manageable in a king bed without getting kicked too many times.  We visited the children's museum the next day and then headed home.  Jaxon and Jesse had some good one on one time without us girls too.

Jesse had some more testing done at the end of July down here in Corvallis with his Gastro and went in on his birthday to get the results.  I was nervous about the appointment being on his birthday.  It would be terrible to get bad news on your birthday.  I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't think about the fact that good news on your birthday would make the day even sweeter.  He did in fact receive excellent news!  All the biopsies they took of his now healthy colon and small intestine showed no signs of Crohn's, cancer, or colitis.  He also tested negative for Celiac's disease.  His chance of having Crohn's now is less than 2 percent.   His Gastro said that everything looked so good that he doesn't even need to come back in five years to be rechecked!  He won't need another colonoscopy until he reaches the normal age for routine ones!  Such wonderful news!  We're slowly getting past the fear and worry of the last year.  What a great thing to celebrate on your 32nd birthday!

A total change in subject but some other big news this month!  Sierra asked Jesus into her heart.  We'd been reading a story and right before her nap she asked to pray.  She said she wanted to be one of God's children forever and wanted him to be a part of her life.  I wish I had written down her exact words.  They were so eloquent for a four year old!  There was no prompting on my part.  We've obviously talked about Jesus a lot, we've read Bible stories, and we pray every night before bed, but this was something she brought up on her own.  I was so proud and inspired by her prayer.  But I'm proud and inspired by her daily and I try to let her know that.  I hope that both of my kids always know how proud I am of them.  I sure am blessed to be their mama!

July

Daddy is home!

Sierra was not very fond of the sparkler!

She loved to watch but was afraid they were going to be loud.....

And did not enjoy the smell!

Rodeos are boring after about 10 minutes....

But then you get some ice cream!

Happiness.

Deliciousness.

A wild Philomath Frolic Parade!  :)

Jaxon woke up mid way through the parade and did not likey!

Silly, fun, beautiful, and mine.  Sure do love them.

Ballet!

Bounce slide at our churches block party

Sierra sang "Chocolate Ice Cream Cone" in front of about 100 people!

Guess who this is from?  It lights up when it reels too!

Four years old.  Holy smokes.

Grandma Shelly made some adorable cupcakes!

Sierra telling Jess how to fix the master cylinder.  We'd be lost without her!

Jaxon lends a hand as well.

Isn't it beautiful!!

Smoothie lips!

Sierra turned 4 this month against her will.  She cried and said she wanted to be 3 forever.  This was not something I was expecting.  She was glad to celebrate with cake and presents, but the age changing thing upset her.  I remember always wanting to be older as a little girl, but not my Sierra.  I guess I should be happy that she had a great year as a 3 year old and is a happy girl?

Something else happens when you turn four, you get all sassy and smart and kinda mean.  I'm not kidding, it was like overnight Sierra turned into a back-talking, hands on hips, whatevering little tween.  I'm starting to really worry about her teenage years.  Everything is so drama-filled right now and she is very emotional.  Jaxon seems easy lately!

Jaxon is at the age where all of a sudden fears set in.  He's afraid of Zoey the dog, the phone ringing (although he does usually shout out hello), and he is rarely left anywhere without mommy, so he has some separation anxiety too.  The funny thing is that even though he is afraid of more things all of a sudden, he is also more social.  He waves to people in the store, and will walk up to men and start in with his baby talk.  He's still not saying a whole lot.  He continues to prefer pointing and grunting.  Some days I really worry about it because when I look back at Sierra's vocabulary at this point, it was WAY different.  But I realize boys and girls are different as well as the fact that all babies develop speech at different rates.  Towards the end of the month he did start using his words more often. 

The great thing about July is that we were healthy all month long!  We enjoyed time outside, had some play days with friends, Sierra started her second season of Ballet and it has gone great so far!  She is much less distracted by the other kids this year and listens very well!  She loves going!  Sierra and Jaxon spent a lot of time playing together.  Their favorites are hide n seek (Sierra is always the hider), chase, and tag.  Jaxon sure looks up to Sierra and loves to play with her.  She can also make him laugh so easily!  Any silly little thing and he is almost hyperventilating!  The kids really love to be outside and have really used the play structure that Jesse put up for Sierra's birthday last year.  Jaxon loves to slide and will swing for 20 minutes.  Sierra has never enjoyed swinging much, but loves to slide and climb up her rock wall.  She also loves to spend time in the garden with me!  We pick flowers, pull weeds, look for bugs and worms, and enjoy the fruits of our labor.  Jaxon loves to eat peas while running around stepping on all the plants.  Ha!

With all of the outside time, Sierra's allergies got worse and worse.  I tried local honey (REALLY local - harvested just a few miles from our house) and some natural allergy children's melts.  I even tried putting some stuff around her nostrils before we went outside to hopefully keep the pollen from getting in her nose but none of the natural things seemed to be working.  She would sneeze over and over, itch her nose, and if we went outside on certain days her nose would run like a faucet.  It started affecting her left eye too, so we put her on Claritin.  After a month on that we switched to Zyrtec and while she did get some relief with the nose running, it still was giving her grief so I decided to take her to an allergy specialist.  They did an allergy "scratch" test which should really be called a poke a million times test.  The poor girl got 11 pokes on her back with different allergens (indoor and outdoor) and we had to wait to see if she got hives in each of the areas that she was poked.  She screamed bloody murder.  I felt so bad!  Then came the hives and she screamed some more because she itched so bad.  This was not long after the whole mono blood test and it was fresh in her memory.  I had no idea what this "scratch" test would involve so I didn't warn her.  Warning her may have made it worse, but it's hard to imagine it being much worse!

After 15 minutes, the Dr came in and looked at her back.  He said she tested positive for allergies to tree, grass (which was by far the worst and she still had marks from the giant hive for almost a week!), and weed pollen.  Awesome.  He said that she will suffer every year from March through August.  He said she is very young to be showing such strong allergies and that usually children that have that severe of allergies also have parents with severe allergies.  Neither Jesse or I have more than mild allergies, so I'm not sure where they came from.  Poor girl.  The good news was that she did not show any reaction to any of the indoor allergens.  We have to try to keep our windows shut (this is our main way of cooling the house because we don't have air conditioning), wash her hair every night to get the pollen off before bed, keep the windows up while driving, etc.  Unfortunately we live in the forest and have grass fields where there are not trees.  I asked if living in town would change anything and the Dr said probably not.  When she gets older allergy shots will be an option, but there are a lot of shots involved and the kids have to be old enough to cooperate.  I hate the thought of giving her allergy meds for months out of every year, but she definitely needs some sort of relief.

Jaxon is also dealing with a food allergy of some sort.  My breastfed babies are not supposed to have allergies!  He started getting a terrible diaper rash randomly that makes him cry.  I call it baboon butt.  It's raised, hot, and hurts as soon as he goes potty.  I'm trying to figure out what's causing it but so far haven't been able to. It takes several days to heal.  Hopefully it's something he will outgrow?  I'm new to all this allergy stuff!  If anyone has any advice, let me know!!