Spencer’s Birthday Party/Weekend at Nana’s

Yes, more birthday celebrating for Spencer. The weekend after our day at Hershey we went down to my parent’s house to have a little birthday party for Spencer.

It’s always fun at Nana’s house! I worked on a furniture refinishing project (more on that later), we played with toys, and I sorted TONS and TONS of Legos. Nathan has really gotten into Legos since his birthday and my mom has kept lots of them from when my brother and I were kids. We found sooooo many Hogwarts legos! Nathan insisted I try to make the Hogwarts Express, which then caused me to start sorting all the legos by color so that I could find the pieces that I needed. It took forever, but was so satisfying when I was done ;) There was swimming outside and riding trikes, making pina coladas and getting ready for Spencer’s party!

We did a racecar themed party this year. It was really fun to put together, but the bummer was that none of our invited guests were able to come! It was a combination of getting the info out too late and the regular summer busy-ness that it just didn’t work out for anyone that day. But we had a good time together as a family and we ate like kings from all the food we’d prepared :)

I made a cake for the occasion – I’ve been having so much fun getting back into making cakes again :)

Spencer was soooo excited for his cake! I made a chocolate cake with peanut butter mousse and he loved it!

I think he liked it ;)

We had the kiddie pool and the water table out and Spencer got to open the last few presents we’d saved for the party.

I think he had a great time! And I had so much fun celebrating my crazy little man!

24 Months!

I know, I know, it’s almost AUGUST but hey, at least it’s STILL July, right? I’m going to take what I can get at this point ;) But our little crazy is TWO now! And it’s full of laughs and excitement as always!
*Has gotten very expressive (see pictures ;) ) and loves to make funny faces like his big brother.

*Listens to NO ONE. He marches to the beat of his own drum, that one.

*Has officially moved into big brother’s room and while it took a few days for everyone to get used to it, he really likes sharing a room with Nathan, as evidenced by he fact that he had a meltdown over sleeping in a different room than Nathan when they went to stay with Nana for a week, which meant they had to move his crib over to Nathan’s room at Nana’s house.

*His vocabulary continues to expand exponentially. It’s amazing to hear him pick up on new words and ideas so quickly.  He sentences are getting longer and more precise. He talks a lo about cows. We're no really sure where that came from (maybe all our trips to chick fil a?) but he seems to see cows everywhere and tells us about cows all the time ;)

*Still loves all things cars, trucks, and trains. He has taken to lining all the hot wheels cars/and similar under the table. Heaven help us if anyone (Nathan) messes up his neat rows of parked cars!

*Still a pretty particular eater, but has gotten better recently.

*OBESSED with the Moana soundtrack. His favorites are You’re Welcome and Shiny. We listen to the soundtrack on repeat all. the. time. He knows quite a few of the words too, it's fun to listen to him try to sing along.

*Pretty sure he thinks he’s the boss. Poor boy’s world is going to be turned upside down when baby sister gets here… ;)
*Still keep us laughing and we think he’s basically the cutest little guy :) Love you little man!

23 Months!

I am sooooo late this month – it’s been a little crazy since last week but I’ve only got one more monthly update for Spencer after this so I really wanted to get this one in before his birthday!!

*His vocabulary has EXPLODED in the last month! I want to say that by age 2 kids are supposed to know about 50 words. I’m pretty sure Spencer’s in the 75-100 word range. He also parrots a lot of what we say so even though he might not know what the word means, he tries to say a lot of new things. He is also stringing words together even more. He can say “I don’t know” and “I did it!” and “I got it!”. And Nathan taught him “Movie today?”. ;)

*Has become decidedly possessive of things, whether or not they are really his. This causes a lot of arguing between him and Nathan – like when Spencer sits on Nathan’s chair at the dinner table and tells Nathan “MY chair”. This happens with a lot of toys too.

*As most of you know, he broke his first bones last month (the 2 bones in his right forearm). He was in a cast for 3 weeks, and it didn’t slow him down one bit! When he got it taken off, the doctor said he wasn’t quite 100% better, but that it could also take a year for x-rays to show up normal again. As the doctor watched Spencer climb/crawl all over every surface in the exam room, he said he was sending us home with a little arm brace for him, to prevent further injury. He’s supposed to wear it for 4 weeks. We thought that was a really good idea. But it’s velcro, so we only managed to keep it on him for about two days before he realized he could take it right off and now it doesn’t stay on longer that about 2 seconds. ;) But his arm doesn’t seem to bother him and he’s taken quite a few tumbles since then and so far he’s fine. (Let’s hope it stays that way!!!)

*Has started making really awesome faces. Like his older brother, he is very expressive.

*As adventurous and crazy as he is, he is surprisingly timid in the water, apart from the bathtub. While he is crazy splash boy in the tub, he doesn’t really like getting in the water at the beach or at the pool.

*Still doesn’t have any canine teeth, but has several molars now. I’m really ready to be done with the teething.

 

*Has become quite the instigator of scuffles between him and Nathan. It’s about 50-50 now on who starts the problems – and he definitely fights back when Nathan tries to throw his weight around.

*But while they certainly get after each other, Spencer absolutely loves his big brother and can finally (sort of) say Nathan’s name and it’s really sweet to hear them talking to each other and to hear Spencer saying “Hi Nay Nen!”.

*This kid is SUCH a character. He is always cracking us up and keeps us on our toes ALL THE TIME. We just love you little man!

The First Break

Well, it has happened. We’ve experienced our first broken bone since having kids. Spencer broke his right forearm on Monday night. We always knew it would be Spencer who broke a bone first, we just didn’t think it would happen so soon!

We had the sister missionaries over for dinner that night and right as they were leaving, the boys were being their normal crazy selves when Spencer climbed up the back of our upholstered chair in the living room, sat on the back, lost his balance, and fell backwards off the chair. John could see immediately that his arm was broken. I’m so grateful it happened when John was home, I don’t know if I would have realized right away it was broken. As soon as John told me, we got him some tylenol (of course, he kind of choked on it as I gave it to him, as he was screaming in pain, but I wanted to get some pain meds in him as soon as possible). We spend the next 30-45 minutes running around trying to make arrangements for Nathan because I wanted both John and I to be with Spencer while we got him taken care of. We were able to take Nathan over to his friend’s house to stay while we took Spencer to the urgent care. We grabbed a few things for Nathan, like his pillow and blanket, to take with him, and quickly stuffed a bag with things for Spencer. Mostly comfort items and some snacks and water. Trying to calm Spencer down at the very beginning was the hardest for me. He was completely inconsolable, screaming and saying “my arm! my arm!”. I hated that I couldn’t make it go away :( It was also a struggle to get him to not move his arm, John and I had to alternate holding him because he kept switching who he wanted comfort from, while the other one ran around getting the bags together.

We got Nathan dropped off at his friend’s and then we took Spencer over to the urgent care just a few minutes away. We were able to get him seen pretty quickly. In a stroke of what I think was inspired genius, I had grabbed my iPad with the Cars movie on it and by the time we were waiting at the urgent care, the tylenol had kicked in, Spencer had calmed down and was content to watch the movie while we waited to be seen and while they looked at his arm. It was a very efficient distraction! At the urgent care we had x-rays done, which showed us that he had broken both bones in his forearm (the radius and the ulna). They splinted and wrapped his arm and then told us that we needed to get to an ER to set the arm and get a cast on him. (The reason being that little kids are more likely to fall on the injury and make it worse) They gave us a phone number and an address of where to go. We called ahead and I’m really glad we did because it was closed! So we went over to another hospital.

And there we waited FIVE HOURS. Spencer was in much better spirits by then. And getting antsy. He was running up and down the hallways in the waiting area, spinning in circles, walking backwards, and John and I are freaking out all the while, trying to make sure he doesn’t fall on his arm. He got bored with Cars on the iPad after the first full run through…

They took his vitals in triage around 11pm but we weren’t seen until after 2 in the morning. And THAT’S when they tell us that they won’t put a cast on him because they give it about 48hours for the swelling to go down. I was way too exhausted and drained to be too angry about it at the time, but now I’m EXTREMELY GRUMPY about how the urgent care people told us to get the cast in the first place (if we hadn’t gone to the ER we would have been home by 9:30-10!!!), and then how we waited FIVE HOURS for them to do basically nothing. And we’ll still get billed for it (if anyone can give me any insight on how to fight that when the bill comes, PLEASE talk to me). They looked at the x-rays, told us they aren’t going to put the cast on, and gave me a phone number for an orthopedics office. Gee, thanks.

We finally rolled out of there after 3am to pick up Nathan. We got home and into bed around 4 in the morning. Thankfully, Nathan had fallen asleep while at his friend’s so he at least got a better night than the rest of us. Spencer was still up at 7:30 that morning, crazy kid. John stayed home to work, and that was amazingly helpful. Nathan had preschool, so it was nice to have a few hours to try to rest with just Spencer. I don’t know how well it worked, but he got to watch Mater Tales and I tried to rest on the couch with my squirmy boy.

This pretty much sums up Tuesday ;)
 

It was a very long day, but I think we all coped pretty well considering the circumstances.

On Wednesday I got to have another helper, as John had to get back to work – my brother has been visiting my parents while his wife is touring with the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble so he drove up for the day to help me out and it was sooooooo wonderful to have some company and an extra pair of hands, and someone to hang out with Nathan because Spencer had his appointment with orthopedics that morning to finally get that cast on. Thankfully, they did not have to set it and they estimate that he will only need the cast for 3 weeks. Yay!

It was funny they tried asking him what his favorite color was (he can’t even say most colors) when they were ready to put the cast on. I told them blue was the only color he could say, so that’s what we went with. We’ve been calling it his ‘blue arm’. You know how you’re not supposed to get the cast wet? On the way home I see Spencer licking and trying to chew on his cast on the way home…oh boy…

I don’t think it bothers him, though he will ask us to ‘open it’ (take it off) when he gets frustrated that he can’t use that arm/hand for different things. But overall, it hasn’t slowed him down one bit! John and I were discussing earlier how grateful we were that it wasn’t his leg that he broke. He gets pretty mad when he can’t use that arm, I can’t even imagine the frustration he’d experience if he couldn’t walk!

My sweet brother brought us a little care package with some treats and some new toy cars for the boys and they loved hanging out with Uncle Jason that day

Watching Mater Tales (yes, again, it’s Spencer’s favorite) with Jason

We’ve received so much help and support this week and I’m so grateful to everyone that has helped and offered to help! Hopefully we won’t have to do this again anytime soon, whew!

22 Months!

Whew! Now that I’ve posted all of Nathan’s birthday fun I can get to my next monthly post for Spencer. I can’t believe how fast the time is going by – only 2 months to his 2nd birthday! Eek!

*His vocabulary continues to explode and he’s really starting to put words together. Being a total copycat seems to help expand his vocabulary. Nathan has taught him ‘movie’ and “Elsa” and “llama llama time to share” (though it comes out as ‘llamamama SHARE’). I think some of my favorite things to hear him are ‘strawberries’ and ‘help!’. I think ‘help’ is funny because it’s usually him saying it when he wants me to do something he’s totally able to do on his own.

*He has finally cut more teeth! I felt so bad because a couple of top molars totally came through before we realized he was teething. I think he has about 4 molars now. And no canines. Weird.

*He’s got some awesome dance moves and can jump getting both feet off the ground, which is definitely a favorite activity.

*He is a total copycat. He mostly copies Nathan but will imitate mom and dad occasionally. One of my favorite examples was when we were all walking down a sidewalk and Nathan was running ahead and tripped and fell in the grass (he didn’t hurt himself, whew!), and Spencer, following, ran over and just fell over in the same spot that Nathan did. Nathan noticed and it became a game of them falling over in the grass. Being a copycat can be a good thing – he’s usually really good about folding his arms when we say prayers because everyone else is doing it.

*Has SUCH a sweet tooth! The words ‘brownies’, ‘cookies’, and ‘donuts’ are prominent additions to his vocabulary ;)

*Can be such a stinker sometimes! He thinks it’s so fun to antagonize Nathan when things are getting too quiet around here and will run up and snatch something Nathan was playing with and run off as fast as he can. This usually ends in tears of at least one of them. *sigh*

*Still very affectionate, which I totally love. He gives the best snuggles and loves and it’s awesome.

*Makes really awesome facial expressions and his antics still keep us laughing!!

Love you little man!!