Goblins and Ghouls

A monkey, cheeleader, fairy, ninja and keebler elf taboot!!!

Our new family hobby...

Geocashing has become our new hobby as a family. We love to spend time together and this involves everyones efforts to find the treasure.

Fun with the Howards

We spent some really great vacation time with our family. Howards traveled a long ways to spend time and it was well worth it...well at least we think so. We are so grateful for all the memories.

Ear Pain?

Hunter had complained of ear pain for almost two weeks now. We had started and continued treatment for swimmers ear. We had been doing so many water activities that for sure that was the problem. It would wake him up at night and he would cry and squirm for hours at a time. He would end up sleeping next to me every night. During the day the pain was off and on and never consistent. It was so hard to know what to do. We took him into the doc on Sunday night for a second look to see if the treatment for swimmers ear was not right and if we needed to do something else. The doc looked in his ear and told us there was a lot of wax, I questioned to see if we should get the wax out so that the drops would be more effective. He told me that we just needed to use more drops and the wax would work its way out. So we continued on this viscous cycle of waking in the night, random tears and so forth. This was not right to me and I so I called our regular doc on Tuesday and insisted that the nurse make time for us to see him. We went in and he said the same thing at first "there is a lot of wax in his ear" However he wanted to remove the wax unlike the other doc. He went to remove the wax and he scraped at something much harder than wax. He took his light and it reflected back at us. There was something much more than wax in Hunter's ear. With mom holding his hands and head and dad holding his body we cleaned his ear the best we could and then attempted to look again, there was definitely an object in his ear. We held him down again and the doc pulled a watch battery out of his ear. The battery had been put in his ear at some point and continuously caused pain and pressure. His ear was inflamed and irritated. This could have been really damaging to his ear. We were treating it with steroids and drops that were eating and rusting the battery in his ear and causing acid to sit in his ear. We are so lucky and grateful that he had no permanent damage and NO more pain. Hunter has yet to admit that he put something in his ear so the mystery remains how it got there. My hope is that he will listen better now that he is all "charged" up!

Fourth of July

For the fourth we went to Idaho Falls. That is where the Smarts live. The fireworks are claimed to be amazing, set to go off with music and all, we hear it is quite a show. We really enjoyed spending sometime with family and enjoyed a little R&R too. We spent a day with Grandma and Grandpa Olsen too. We went to the river, had a little picnic and fed the ducks. We played in the water and slip'n slide. And we went to the Chukars, baseball game. The parades, food and company made for a great trip! Thanks for hosting us Ben and Linds!

School is Over...let the Fun begin!!

This summer I have the kids set up for 2 sessions of swim lessons. I know that this will be worth all the time invested. The lessons start at 8:45 for Kenna, 9:30 for Hunter, and 11:30 for Brianna.....Swim all morning!!! MaKenna learned to swim the length of the pool, dive, and tread water. Hunter learned to swim the short length of the pool and start to tread water too. Brianna was a little timid at first but warmed up and really excelled, I am excited to see what she will do next year.

Cutest Patient

My sweetest little patient had tubes put in his ears today. We know that this will help his sleep pattern and the pain that we cannot explain to him either. He is such a happy baby even when he is in pain and I am so grateful for modern medicine to be able to make these kind of physical ailments. The only part that was really difficult was when he came out of anesthesia. Once that wore off we were great!!!