Halloween 2015

 We got a bit of a late start on everything for Halloween because of everything that has happened this week.

We finally carved our pumpkins on Halloween and then went trick or treating in Grandma and Grandpa Cannon's neighborhood.

Our little Bumblebee and Optimus Prime all ready to get some treats!

 Grandma and Grandpa were in Dallas visiting Clark and Megan to help get ready for the new baby. But we still went to their street and my old street to go trick or treating like we do every year.

There was a U game that night so many people left bowls of candy on their front porches since they weren't home. Since we got a late start I don't know if the candy was gone because we were after the big rush of kids, or if the teenagers had taken all of it. But the boys still made a pretty good haul, so it worked out well.

Tanner wasn't afraid of the scary masks this year! Yay!

Our Sweet Boy Ashton

 Our 12 year old nephew (actually Kollin's cousin's son, but we have always called them aunt, uncle, nephew and niece), Ashton, was hit by a utility truck on his way to his school bus stop on the morning of October 23rd. The details are still a little jumbled but from what I understand is that he was thrown 50 feet. When the truck finally came to a stop it had stopped on his foot. His mom, Aunt Tiff, saw the entire thing happen. She actually saw it coming and was trying to honk at him and wave at him to not cross the street yet. But he thought she was just waving bye to him.

He was life flighted to Primary Children's where he was put into a medically induced coma. He had a fractured pelvis, fractured facial bones and broken skull that started at the base in the back to just over the top of his head. He had good brain activity and they were keeping a close eye on him to make sure it stayed that way.

His injuries should not have been life threatening.

We went to go visit him on Sunday and he had been doing SO well. Tiff even thanked us for Tanner. She said if it wasn't for what we went through with Tanner and his heart, she would have never got to medical school to be a nurse because she wanted to work in the NICU. She would not have known how to save her son.  From what we heard he was also doing great on Monday and were talking about waking him up on Tuesday. But on Tuesday morning I got a phone call from Aunt Linda that he had started to have some heart irregularities and his brain was starting to die. Shortly after that our sweet Ash passed away.

During the week we spent a lot of time at their home trying to help comfort and spend time with family. On Thursday Tiff asked me if I would be ok to go and dress Ash and do his hair for her along with her sister-in-law Holly. I told her I was honored and would loved to do this for her and him.

On Friday Holly and I went to the mortuary to do this final

act of love for Ashton. It was a very tender and special experience for both of us. I had never done anything like that before and I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was a very sweet time. We made sure his hair was just right and the cosmetics they used looked just how Tiff wanted them. I really hope she was happy with everything.

On Saturday, Halloween, was the funeral. Kollin and Troy were asked to be pallbearers and Tiff had asked them and Tanner and Chase to wear their kilts. Everyone was also asked to wear U of U shirts for Ash. Even the people from the mortuary wore them.

The funeral was very sweet. Unfortunately I wasn't able to hear most of it because Chase was being pretty unruly and I had retreated to the nursery to keep him entertained. But from what Kollin said it was a very nice service.

Some memories that Tiff asked me to write that was read at the funeral.

At the cemetery his grave site was dedicated by Uncle Duane and everything was very short and sweet.

It was a very nice day although it was definitely the worst day of Tiff and Seatle's lives. We were honored to be a part of it.

Fly high Little Man!

The white heart on the far right are the flowers we got for him. I had to do a heart.

This was Ash's last English assignment. His teach had printed it up and framed it for the family.

Back in September 2014 when we all went to California for cousin Malinda's wedding. Ashe was always so sweet and fun with Tanner even with their 8 year age difference.

Tanner went Bonk

The boys and I went to the gym so I could go running today. I dropped them off at the day care and went up to the track. I didn't even get 3 minutes into my run when I could have sworn I heard my name over the PA system. I could barely hear it since I was listening to music on my head phones. I thought I heard something along the lines of "Allison Stark" and "day care."

 

So I left the track and walked right over to the day care. My mind was racing as to what could have been wrong, but it never crossed my mind that someone was actually hurt. I got in there and the 3 daycare ladies were all around Tanner sitting in a rocking chair with a paper towel on his head and blood all over his face. They moved the paper towel to reveal this big cut on his head!

They said that they didn't even see what happened because everything was supposedly fine. From what they could get out of Tanner is he was pushing a big toy car around and ran right into the corner of the table. The reason they didn't even know it happened was because he never cried. He just went over to a corner of the room and sat down. When one of the women went to investigate why it got so quiet all of the sudden she thought he had a bloody nose. But when she got closer is when she saw he actually had a cut.

I told them it is completely normal for Tanner to run away and hide. I said if he ever stumbles or hurts himself at home he gets really embarrassed  and does not like to be the center of attention. So when people ask him if he is ok he yells at us to not look at him or talk to him. So since it happened at day care, he went and hid because he's not as familiar with them as he is with family and didn't want to bring unwanted attention to himself.

After I got there a few more people showed up. A life guard from the pool came over and did some basic first aid so it would stop bleeding and got it bandaged. And another lady came who I am assuming was probably someone over the entire fitness center to fill out an accident report. She asked me if I was ok since I was just sitting there being quiet letting the life guard do his thing. I told her this was nothing after what we had been through with Tanner's heart and with Chase's penny! It was pretty funny and probably strange for her to see a parent so calm I guess.

Everyone kept apologizing and I kept reassuring them that everything was ok and that it happens. That I am not one of those crazy parents that is going to sue you because my child hurt himself on their property. 4 year olds get hurt. Totally normal in my book! I understand they felt terrible and it was very nice and professional how they handled the entire incident.

We went back the next day so I could actually finish my workout that I missed out on and Tanner was just fine to go back.

 

On to the stitches!

Tanner never started crying until I told him that we had to go see the doctor to see if he needed stitches or not. With his obvious fear of doctors, he was pretty scared and was the first time he shed a tear.

I was able to get an appointment at our pediatrician's office right away and we saw the same Dr that helped us when Tanner was very sick back in March as well as who helped us with Chase and the penny incident! It's pretty funny that it is always Dr Crowell that sees us for injuries or illness when he isn't even our regular doctor.

Dr Crowell thought it would be best to either glue the cut or stitch it. He said it was such a beautiful and straight cut that gluing it would go really well. The only issues is with Tanner's age he may pick at it and pop it open, and also gluing wounds shut tend to leave worse scars. So I opted for 3 stitches so he wouldn't be able to pick it open and it would scar better since it's on his face.

They gave him the shot to numb him up and that was the only other time he cried. I know from experience that those shots sting, and I felt so bad to put him through that.

While Dr Crowell was doing the stitches Tanner was doing so well! Until he saw the thread, which kind of made him freak out and squirm a little bit. Little weirdo. He squirmed so much the middle stitch had to be redone but other than that he was great!

He sure is such a brave kid and tough as nails!

IHH Birthday Party and Pumpkin Patch

We went to this year's IHH Birthday Party which was at Petersen Family Farm.

We climbed all over some tractors, played in the corn pit, picked out our pumpkins for Halloween, went through a mini corn maze, chased chickens, went down a huge slide and crawled through a tunnel under the slide and got thoroughly covered in hay. The boys wore their Halloween costumes and they both had so much fun!

 

Thank you for the fun night IHH! 

Tanner's First Day of Pre-School (second year)!

 

It's that time of year again!

 

Tanner has been talking about going to school all summer and he was so excited to go back today.

 

 

I can't believe how much he's changed since last year!

 

 

He didn't even want to stop for a picture. He did so well dropping him off. He got his name tag and went right to his table to start school.

 

When I picked him up his teacher said he did so well and you can definitely tell it's been a year from how he did at school before. Not that he didn't do well, but we had some problems dropping him off and me leaving him there. So far so good this year!

 

Keep it up buddy! It's going to be a fun year for you!

18 Months Old

A. Year. And. A. Half.

Dood.

 

I'm not sure where the time is going, but I'm good with it. You are getting so fun! You and Tanner are finally playing together so well. You keep each other entertained for some very good lengths of time, which is great for Mom and Dad since we can get little breathers here and there! You love your big brother and are not shy about tackling or just pouncing on him. He loves you and knows the right way to play with you so you don't get hurt (that often). It is very fun having a house full of rough and tumble boys!

 

You are still as busy as ever. We pretty much just keep the doors to different rooms in the house shut at all times and block certain things that you like to climb on. You are also starting to learn your limits, so we're not as worried about you hurting yourself as much anymore. So you also have a lot of free reign in the house to explore and climb.

 



You still aren't saying much, but there are a few new words. You will say "dat" and point when you want to point anything out to us. From a plane up in the air, birds, food, drinks... anything really. Just the other day you finally said "ball" for the first time (at least that I noticed)! You don't really say "mama" anymore. You have moved on to just "MOM!" And it is always a yell. And it is towards anyone, not just me. You will also add "MEEE" at the end sometimes, but it is more like "MOM....MEEE." It's pretty funny, and makes me laugh each morning when that is the first thing I hear from you alerting me you are awake and want out of your crib. Also today while we were playing with trains I was saying "choo choo" and you were trying to repeat me but it wasn't coming out anything like "choo choo." I can't even remember what you were saying but will have to update this when you say it again so we can remember!

 

You still communicate very well other ways though. If you want something you are getting very good at taking my hand and leading me to show me what you want, instead of just yelling MOM at me and expecting me to know what you want like you used to do. You also know what we are talking about when we ask you if you want something or where something is. You will bring me your sippy cup or shoes when I ask you were they are. You will also smile or giggle when I am finally able to guess what it is you want during those times you don't want to take me to where you want something. I will ask specifically what you want (drink, grapes, sammich, book...etc...) and you get happy when I get it right. So that tells me you know what different things are called, you're just not choosing to say the word yourself yet. Which is ok!

 

We have officially stopped nursing. It was a week or so after you turned 17 months. We needed to figure out something different for you since nursing was the only way you would willingly go to sleep. I am going to miss that bond and special relationship we had. But I am also so proud that we made it so far! You now take a sippy cup to bed (which we need to start weaning you of that now) which is much easier.

 

Weighing you at home today since your Dr appointment isn't until next week gave me some happy results. On the home scale you weighed 21.8 pounds! Such a great improvement from when you were 15 months. I'm sure it was that dang penny in your throat that caused you to stall in growing, and I'm also pretty sure the pediasure is helping you bulk back up. You love that stuff! You finally have a little more of a belly and chubbiness to your face.

 

You are still in a size 3 diaper. Wearing between 12 and 18 month shirts and 12 month pants. The pants are a little big around your waist, but you are so tall (taller than Tanner even was at 21 months!) you need the extra length in the legs. You have also moved up to size 5 shoes.

 

Weight: 21.2 pounds (yay!)

Height: 32.1 inches

 

This stage is so fun with you, and love seeing you develop and happy!

 

xoxo

MOM...MEEE and Da

 

Chase's First Haircut

Well, we finally did it! I didn't want to. I wanted to just let his hair grow and see what it would look like longer.

 

But. It was constantly getting in his eyes and so many people kept calling him "such a cute little girl." It never bothered me, but Kollin got annoyed by it. So I finally agreed to cut it.

 

We were so worried how he would handle getting it cut for the first time. Tanner did not like it at all, so we had some fear going into it.

 

But he did so good! He never squirmed or cried! He even smiled at some points. Such a huge relief and surprise!

 

I didn't want to lose all of the length, so we kept it kind of long. Just trimmed up and so much cleaner looking.

 

Chase's Hospital Adventure

We have had quite the adventure over the last couple of days.

 

First, the back story:

Ever since Chase was a newborn he has always had raspy, wheezy breathing. I had asked my parents and his Dr about it but of course he wouldn't be doing it at the time they were looking at him. So we were told he may just grow out of it. He did stop the wheezing between 8 or 9 months old or so.

Then he got a little sick around when he turned a year old

and ever since then he has had this gurgley breathing. It sounded like he had mucus in his throat and was just too young to know how to cough up. At first it was not all the time, it did not bother him, he was still happy, played and ate well. So we didn't think much of it.

I was trying to figure out a pattern on when it would happen to see what may be causing it. If he was aspirating food or drink, if he had asthma, if he had any food or seasonal allergies.... But I could never figure out a pattern.

Over the last month or so he had developed a little cough that wouldn't go away. About 2 or 3 weeks ago the cough started to get worse. When we went to NC last week everything got much worse. I don't know if it was just a coincidence or if it was the elevation or humidity. But the gurgley breathing was all the time, not just sometimes. His hacking cough got so bad sometimes he couldn't catch his breath between coughing attacks. He was just not happy either and was not wanting to eat much. So we knew that whatever was going on with him was definitely starting to bother him.

Dad and Gwen were finally able to see what I had been

talking about and they both checked him out. Dad was thinking a possible dairy allergy or sinus infection. Gwen was thinking a foreign body in his throat. So I called and made appointments with his Dr and the ENT to get him checked out as soon as we got back to Utah.

 

Tuesday:

He got a little better as soon as we got back to Utah and was doing well on Sunday, but then on Monday he got much worse. So Tuesday morning I called the Dr to see if I could bump up his appointment to that day and not when it was originally scheduled for Wednesday.

Luckily we were able to get in. The Dr tried two different

breathing treatments with no improvement so we were then sent to Riverton Hospital to get a chest x-ray. After the first x-ray picture was taken and it popped up on the screen we all knew what was going on. There was very obviously a coin or something like it tuck in his esophagus! They took another image from the side and you could see it was in his esophagus with a lot of swelling around it, so it was starting to cut off his trachea. That explained why his breathing had slowly gotten worse.

We were immediately sent to Primary Children's

ER (since the Dr couldn't get us checked straight into the OR). Everyone that I spoke to were very surprised to hear that the coin could have been in there for possibly 4 months since that is when the gurgley breathing started. But they understood after I explained that his breathing has always been weird, so it was kind of normal to us. Somewhere around this time both my dad and Gwen showed up when I wasn't even expecting them! It was so nice to have them there so I wasn't alone. I had told Kollin not to leave work until we knew what he plan was.  The ENT's came in and said after measuring the coin on the x-ray that it was a quarter!

The ENT's started going over with me what they were going to do to get this out of him. They wanted to do exactly what I was expecting them to do and that was to sedate him and scope it out. They would put a tube down his throat and send a small camera with pinchers at the end down the tube and grab the coin. Very straight forward. The only issue was the amount of swelling that was around it, and how much damage that would cause taking it out. At first they were planning on doing the surgery as soon as he had been NPO (no food or drink) for 6 hours so they could safely sedate him, which was only a few more hours away. And then we could most likely go home the same day!

While we were waiting they came back and said the ENT that was going to do the surgery had an idea that could make things easier. He wanted to give him some doses of steroids to try to make some of the swelling  go down and make it easier to get the coin out. Which meant we now had to stay overnight while they did he steroid treatments and surgery would be in the morning. So it was an amazing idea, but just wasn't fun to think we had to stay the night.

We were moved to the RTU (Rapid Treatment Unit) and settled in for the night. Since surgery was now not until tomorrow we were given the OK to feed him. But that didn't last long because he was so upset while the nurses were getting hi settled he threw up everywhere. So the decided to keep him NPO to stay on the safe side. He was such a sad little guy.

Kollin and Tanner were finally able to come up and see us. Chase snuggled

right into Kollin when he saw him (I think he was mad at me for not being able to save him from everything going on). He was  worn out and tired he started to fall asleep. So I took Tanner for walk and when we got back Chase was completely out. Tanner was really sad when he had to leave Chase and me and go home. But I told him he could have a sleepover in Mommy and Daddy's bed with Daddy and that he was going to play with Cooper tomorrow. So that cheered him up. Chase slept for couple hours but woke up after my dad gave him a blessing. He is such a light sleeper that just feeling my dad's fingertips on his head stirred him enough to wake up.

I eventually got him back to sleep and he only woke up one other time during the night. It was nice that he was able to get some sleep although I didn't sleep that great.

 

Wednesday:

Bright and early in the morning (about 6:15) the ENT team came in to tell me what time surgery was going to be (7:30 or 8) and what they've decided to do. They were still planning to do the scope, but the Dr wanted to check hi trachea as well to see if there was any damage because of the swelling.

As soon as they left I called Kollin and told him to get

going to get Tanner dropped off and up to the hospital since the surgery was going to be so soon. We didn't have to wait long until they came to get Chase ready to go to the OR. The next thing I knew we were being walked to the OR. We went into a waiting room and I spoke with the anesthesiologist and Dr Meier, who was the ENT doing the surgery. I had met him before when Tanner liked to put things up his nose, so it was nice to be familiar with him already.

They went over the surgery and the risks and then

it was time to had Chase to the anesthesiologist. Kollin still hadn't made it yet, so I was all alone when this happened. I was so worried my PTSD from Tanner would kick in and I would make Chase more scared, but I was very happy that I didn't.

As they walked away, with Chase screaming and crying

for me of course, I went to check into the waiting room then went find Kollin downstairs. We went outside for a minute and headed back up to the waiting room. As we were walking down the hall Dr Meir was already in the waiting room looking for us! The surgery was done and everything went smoothly. He said there was some irritation, but hardly any damage so recovery shouldn't be too difficult. Then he gave us the cup the coin was in, and it was just a PENNY! We couldn't believe it.

Then we went back into the waiting room

to wait for them to tell us when we could see Chase. A while later we were taken to the recovery unit and finally got to see him. He was till out cold and was taking a while to wake up. Which was expected, because Kollin and Tanner take a long time to wake up from anesthesia.

Once he was awake we went back to our room

to recover more and work on feeding him so we could be discharged. We were given a popsicle and jello. He loved the popsicle and he almost finished the entire thing. He also kept trying to get to our breakfast which was bacon, eggs and biscuits and gravy. We knew it was the bacon he wanted, but couldn't give it to him because he is now on a soft diet for a week or so. He was mad.

When the nurse came in to check on him she was

surprised to see him walking around and being completely awake. Since he was doing we she rushed the discharge papers and we were out there!

 

We aew now home and a day later and he is doing great. He's a little clingier than usual, but not bad at all. They best thing so far is that he is wanting to eat! He has finished anything I have fed him today when he has only eaten maybe half of things for the past while. So happy and excited to have my happy, hopefully not as high maintenance boy back!