Soccer Class

For the month of February we had Claire enrolled in a Smart Soccer class. It was a fun little introductory class to soccer that involved the parents. Claire was pretty excited for another class and I think she enjoyed this one. :)

Just a Little Announcement...

I set up this photo shoot to make a little announcement. I wasn't sure how clear it was, but I got some cute photos. :) 

Everett will become a big brother this August. :)

stitches

in all my years, through all the dumb stuff i've done and all the full-contact sports i've played, i have never had to get stitches. i've broken a few bones, been thrown through a couple tables with barbed-wire on them, fallen off a bridge or two, had a couple concussions, and there was that one time in high school football practice that i got my chin cracked open and was told to get stitches, but stubbornly didn't go. yeah, my pride has gotten the best of me a time or two. but a pregnant wife trumps pride.

i was playing in a uvu flag football game. we were on defense and it was 4th and goal. the quarterback rolled my way so i rushed him. i went low to pull his flags, so when his arm came forward making the pass, his elbow connected squarely with my forehead. the qb started to complain that it was roughing the passer (it wasn't! i went low and his arm came into me!), which i started to argue with. he turned to argue back with me, but then the blood started pouring. i ran over to the sideline to find something to bandage it up. all the refs, players, and fans came over to gawk and help bandage me up. i hated it. the ref gave me a concussion test and everyone was advising me to go to the hospital to get it checked out, which i refused to do. they finally got me bandaged up and we were able to keep playing, which we won. i headed home to clean it up, but when my pregnant wife tearfully said that i needed to go to the urgent care center, there was no arguing with her. :)

as much as i hated everyone crowded around me at the field, i hated it more at the urgent care center. the first thing the doctor said was that if i wanted some nice, neat stitches, i probably should go to the er. he said he could do it, but it'd probably leave a bigger scar, which was the first good news i heard during the whole process. well, five stitches later, i was patched up. the stitches meant i had to miss my tackle game on saturday because my helmet would have torn my stitches right out. but they were out a week later and i will have a cool scar to remember the experience by. a cool harry potter scar. i am the boy who lived.

Valentine's Day

Back in February we went to a Valentine's Day party with friends. It's become an annual sort of thing with our little group of friends. It was a lot warmer this year so we had our party outside. It was full of fun, we passed out Valentine's, played some games (the kids learned a new game- red rover), celebrated a birthday, and decorated heart cookies. :)

Fire Station Visit

One of our friends set up a play date tour of a fire station. We had a pretty good size group ranging in age from about 2 to 5. I think the kids enjoyed it for the most part. They started with a talk about fire safety and then they showed us the fire trucks and the kids even got to sit inside an ambulance. I think their favorite part though was shooting the water from the hose. :)

bullies

one of the most difficult experiences that any parent can go through is watching their child go through pain and sadness while not being able to do anything about it. we had such an experience a while back. we had just finished one of claire's soccer classes at the provo rec center so we decided to play at the indoor park for a little bit. claire went off to play with some of her soccer classmates while everett went off to do his own thing. he found a nice little secluded spot at the very top of the playground and plopped down for a bit. everett had just recently had his eye surgery, so his eyes were severely blood shot. maybe that's why the two boys who approached him thought he was different and strange. at the encouragement of the older boy, the younger boy started to hit everett. everett did not love this, nor did we, but he was about the same size as everett and didn't have much power behind his little punches. it was when the older boy decided to start hitting everett that we were up and yelling at the kids to stop. i started to head up, but quickly realized i was too big to make the twists and turns to navigate the playground. amber headed up, quickly making her way to save our boy. i finally caught the attention of the older boy and firmly told him he was not to hit my son anymore. i'm not proud about yelling at a little kid, but it needed to be done. amber meanwhile had our crying boy in her arms and was heading back down.

we took everett over to a bench and were trying to comfort him, as well as calm down ourselves. to her credit, the mother of the older boy came over with her boy and apologized for what her boy had done. we noticed her later taking her boy home, sternly talking to him. the one thing we overheard was, "you made a mommy cry today!" we will always remember that first moment that we had to watch one of our little ones be bullied. we had a long talk with both claire and everett about how we are never mean to anyone, even if they are different than us, and about how we need to stand up for those who are being bullied. ever since that day, whenever we've gone to that park, claire has firmly told us that she will stay with everett and make sure no one hurts him. it was a tough moment for all of us, but at least we all learned a lesson from it.

Everett's Eye Surgery

So earlier this month we took Everett in for eye surgery. He had gotten glasses a few months earlier and we were also told to patch his good eye to help train the weaker eye. After patching and getting used to his glasses, we were definitely noticing an improvement in his eyes - they were crossing less, but his ophthalmologist was pretty certain he would still eventually need eye surgery. They had to loosen a muscle in one eye and tighten a muscle in the other. We were told it was a very simple, easy surgery and he would be in and out in a few hours and be back to his normal self by the next day and that's exactly how it all went. I was still pretty nervous and emotional, but things went pretty normal. He couldn't eat anything in the morning so the night before we made sure he had a good meal the night before and we got ice cream afterwards. We woke up pretty early the next morning, left Claire with grandma, and headed to the hospital.

He seemed so happy and completely unaware at first that something was about to happen. It wasn't until the nurses were trying to get his vitals and put a bracelet on his leg that he got very apprehensive. We had our fun trying to distract him and talk him into letting us change his clothes into the hospital pajamas. The doctors even gave him a new toy motorcycle in an attempt to make him happy, but it wasn't until after he got some drugs in him that he was more cooperative. And then he started getting a little loopy. It was interesting seeing him loopy, but he was happy again.

Then the moment came when they wheeled him away from us. Then we waited. It wasn't too long, but it was still a little nerve racking. The doctors came back and told us they they were finished and a little while later we heard his screams (which was probably one of the worst parts). They finally brought him out to us screaming the whole time and he wouldn't calm down until everything was off of him, the medical tape covering his iv puncture and the bracelet from his ankle. He cried himself to sleep while in my arms, then slept a bit more on the drive home. He stayed awake the rest of the day and then fell asleep on the couch at 5:30 and slept until 6 the next morning. So it all went well and he was back to himself the next day (besides the three times a day we had to put eye drops in his eyes- he hated that part). His eyes were blood red for about a week and it looked a little creepy, but they finally started to fade and are all back to normal now. :)